NCAA Basketball. SWAT Team. Cancer Warrior: Never Quit with Terry Tucker

I'm gonna have to fight.

I'm gonna have to, I don't like the cards that I've been dealt, but I'm gonna have to play these cards to the best of my ability.

SPEAKER_01: Welcome to Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

I'm your host, Kevin Lowe, and I'm excited to welcome you inside.

This is the kind of place where your glass will never be anything other than half full because we choose to focus on the positive side of life.

Now, this doesn't mean that we shy away from the real talk.

No, not a chance.

Matter of fact, we explore all aspects of life.

From the good, the bad, and the ugly.

But all of that is done with one purpose.

One purpose.

To inspire you to never give up on life, even when it makes seem like life has given up on you.

Now I get it.

Life is hard.

So starting today, we've got grit, grace, and inspiration.

What's going on, and welcome to a very special episode of the podcast.

This is episode 122, but it is the official launch of Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

I'm thrilled to have you here today.

My name, of course, is Kevin Lowe, your host.

And wow, we've come a long way.

For the old timers in the crowd, well, you used to know this as the lowdown with Kevin Lowe, but now grit grace and inspiration.

Today I decided to kick things off in a big way by bringing on a guest who, in my opinion, is larger than life.

And who also literally sums up what this hardhouse is all about.

Grace and inspiration.

They're getting down in life.

They're going through the hardest stuff.

They're fighting.

With everything they've got and determined to never give up.

But they're doing it with grace.

And better bet, they're inspiring people along the way.

The guest that I'm talking about today is none other than Terry Tucker.

Terry reached out to me about being on my podcast after hearing me guesting on another podcast.

And he started following my show and realized, hey, he's like, I think I might, you know, be able to add some value to your audience.

Would you be interested in, you know, hearing my story and having me on your show?

I of course said, Yeah, I'd love to.

As soon as I read more about him, met with Terry, and what ended up happening is an interview with a guy who, as I said, is literally larger than life.

He is not exempt from life's challenges.

Matter of fact, the guy is right dead in the middle of challenges all the time.

But he's never given up.

Because one thing that Terry has realized is you can't lose if you don't give up.

You keep fighting, you keep pushing forward, you keep doing what you gotta do, and you win the race.

Now Terry's past is really interesting from playing NCAA college basketball to going on to having multiple careers, including a time that's been in the swatch.

But a big part of the story that we talk about today is Terry's is about with cancer.

He was diagnosed with a rare form of melanoma.

And to say that it's impacted his life would be an understatement.

But like I said, this guy is incredible.

He's a fighter.

He is a survivor.

And I'd say he's a thriver.

During his 10-year bow with cancer, Terry developed fourth truth that he uses in addition to his faith to guide every decision he makes in life.

Those four truths that Terry has developed include control your mind, or it will control you.

Embrace the pain and discomfort that we all experience in life and use it to make you a stronger and more determined individual.

What you leave behind is what you weave into the hearts of others.

And as long as you never quit, you can never be defeated.

As I said, Terry Tucker is an incredible guy with an empowering story that I can only hope is gonna leave an impact on your life.

And so with that, let's kick off episode 122, the official start of Grit Grace and Inspiration with the inspiring, empowering, motivating man himself, Terry Tucker.

Terry Tucker, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you, Kevin.

SPEAKER_01: I'm looking forward to talking with you.

Yeah, well, me too.

Well, Terry, man, you're a guy who's who's done a whole lot of things.

And in just reading through your bio, I'm like, oh my gosh, this guy, he's done it all.

But when I look at your story though, and I think to myself, it's not so much a story of a guy who's done it all.

It's a story of a guy who's learned to adapt and mold into me his new new settings and in new chapters of life, which I totally love and resonate with.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I look at my resumes sometimes and figure out one of these days I gotta figure out what I'm gonna do when I grow up, you know.

SPEAKER_01: Exactly, exactly.

Well, cool.

Well, well, Terry, I would love for us to just kind of go back in time, starting back at the beginning.

Give give me some context of how you came to start playing basketball.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I I grew up on the south side of Chicago.

I am the oldest of three boys.

You you can't tell this from my voice, but I'm I'm six foot eight inches tall, and I played college basketball at the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina.

I have a brother who's six foot seven, who was a pitcher on the University of Notre Dame's baseball team.

Another brother who's six foot six, who was drafted by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the National Basketball Association, and then my dad was six foot five.

So I sort of joked that if you sat behind our family in church growing up, there wasn't a prayer's chance you were going to see anything that was going on, you know, in front of us.

But our our five's eight inch mother was always the boss.

She was also always running out to the store to buy more milk or you know, meat or whatever that.

I mean, having three growing boys was was amazing.

But I was lucky, I started playing basketball.

Actually, we were living in Columbus, Ohio.

We spent most of our time in Chicago, but for a few years we were living in Columbus, Ohio.

And I just happened to get on the same uh, you know, like grade school team with the son of the assistant coach at Ohio State University.

And it opened up a whole world for me.

I got to go to the basketball camps.

I remember I was walking into this little cracker box gym that we played in that doubled as a lunchroom and an auditorium and everything else behind Coach Burkholder and the tallest man I'd ever seen in my life.

His name was Luke Whittier.

He was over seven feet tall, and he had a duck to get into the door to the gym.

And I just remember thinking, oh my gosh, you know, and here's it, he's being recruited.

And this, I mean, I was like nine years old.

I didn't understand any of this, but it just ignited something in me that was like, I love basketball, I love playing it, I love the team aspect of it, and I want to do more of it.

So that's kind of how the my whole basketball situation started.

SPEAKER_01: Wow, wow, wow, wow.

Well, I mean, dude, talk about a family of pure giants.

My goodness.

Are you and your brothers pretty close in age?

SPEAKER_00: I'm the oldest.

My middle brother, we're 13 months apart, so we're kind of as they call them Irish twins.

And then my youngest brother, the one who pitched at Notre Dame, is is six years younger than I am.

So, you know, it was always when we were playing basketball, it was me and my middle brother against my dad and my younger brother, you know.

SPEAKER_01: So Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That is so cool.

So now, obviously, basketball really took off for you to then go into to start playing in in college.

SPEAKER_00: It did.

I was I was very lucky.

I I had had three knee surgeries in high school, but was was good enough.

I mean, I I was I played in Chicago, I played against some really good players, Isaiah Thomas, who went on to play at Indiana and then played for the, he won a national championship actually in Indiana and then went on to the NBA to play for the the Pistons and won a couple NBA championships.

He was in the same conference as I was and that.

And so I got to play against a lot of people in high school and was originally going to sign a letter of intent to play at the University of Toledo.

It was close enough to Chicago where my family could come and see me play, but they offered me a scholarship on a on a I had an official visit with them, offered me a scholarship.

I verbally accepted, but this was a time before you could actually sign the contract, agreeing to that.

And then a couple weeks later, they called me and said, We're not so sure we have a scholarship for you.

We'll get back to you.

And, you know, I'm a kid.

And I'm like, oh, okay.

And then two weeks later they called me back and said, Yeah, we have a scholarship.

And I remember my dad kind of pulling me aside, and he was like, Do you want to play for somebody that offers you something and then takes it away from you and then offers you again?

You know, what kind of character do those people have?

What kind of integrity do those people have?

And like I said, I'm a kid.

I, you know, you know, character, integrity.

What are you talking about?

I don't know what those things mean.

But he he planted the seed that was like, you know, I don't want to play for somebody that, you know, I understand that athletics, especially in college, it's, you know, it's a quid pro quo kind of thing.

You give me an education, I give you my talents on the basketball court.

And so my second choice was to go to the Citadel.

And I was, you know, God works in mysterious ways.

And I really think that I was blessed.

I played for a man by the name of Les Robinson, who is the only person, as far as I know, who was the Division I basketball coach at three different schools and also the athletic director at three Division I schools and just a super guy.

And I was very fortunate to go to the Citadel and kind of grow up.

I needed to grow up at that point in my life.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, definitely, definitely.

Well, that that's really, really, really awesome.

And don't you just love it the way that life works out with the choices we make, you know, good or bad, but how they then just can really, you know, impact our life going forward.

And and at the time of making those decisions, we we have no idea how it's going to affect us, you know?

So that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're absolutely right.

I mean, you know, you you're kind of going through life.

It's not sort of until you get sort of some hindsight on it when you realize, oh, that was sort of a life-defining moment.

And I'm I'm I'm glad I learned something from that.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.

So now, what was your goal while in college playing basketball?

I mean, were you focused on your studies, getting your degree?

Or at that point, were you thinking about going pro with basketball?

What was going on in your mind then?

SPEAKER_00: I really wasn't thinking about going pro.

I mean, I'd had three knee surgeries in high school.

I actually had a fourth one right before my senior year in college.

And I was lucky.

I actually had, you know, Coach K, Mike Shizeski, sit on my couch when I was in high school and say, hey, come play for me at West Point, at Army.

And I turned him down because I really was, I mean, he was a super guy.

And I mean, you could just tell he was going to be a person of character.

And I turned him down just because I didn't think my knee could handle, you know, the rigors of being in the army.

And so I ended up going to the Citadel, which was and still is a military college.

So, you know, I had, I had the sort of the basketball situation, I had the academic situation, and then I had the military situation.

So it was really trying to balance all three of those.

You know, I was the first person in my family to graduate from college.

My mom never attended college.

My dad attended, but did not graduate.

So it, you know, there was no doubt in our family growing up, as far as our parents were concerned, that, you know, all three of our boys are definitely going to go to college.

And it was just assumed that you were going to graduate.

There was no you're going to go.

Yeah, he was like, you're going to graduate.

So yeah.

So academics was a big thing.

I'll be honest with you.

I was not, I was not a good student.

You know, I think I graduated with a 2.2 grade point average.

But it was one of those things where, again, I was a kid, I didn't know what to major in.

You know, my dad was like, well, major in business.

And if I had to do it over again, I don't think I would have majored in business.

I think I would have majored in something else that was more interesting to me, English or political science or something like that.

But, you know, you do what your parents tell you to do because you figure they've got your best interest in mind.

And mine did.

I had great parents.

You know, they wanted what was best for me, but I majored in business because my dad told me to.

And it in all honesty, it didn't thrill me.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.

Well, I mean, I can tell you from the from the perspective of the whole college thing, it's really tough if you think about it.

I mean, we expect that kids 18 years old, okay, you're adults.

You're graduating high school, you're adults.

Well, in reality, you're still really a kid.

And so now to make a decision, especially if you're not somebody who, you know, some kids are lucky, they they know for the time they're they're little.

Oh, this is what I'm gonna do when I grow up, and they they continue on with that passion.

But for the majority of us, we enter college and it is, it's kind of like, oh my gosh, this decision is supposed to impact me for the rest of my life.

Well, I don't even know what I want to do, you know?

SPEAKER_00: So yeah, you're absolutely right.

And and and that's I think why today you see a lot of younger people, they'll take a gap year, you know, or they'll take a year off and and and do something that they enjoy.

Or, you know, people take five or six years to graduate because they continue to sort of tweak their major, you know.

Well, yeah, I tried this, I don't like that.

I'm gonna change to something else.

So, yeah, kids today are a little bit more willing to, well, I'm not just gonna stick with this.

I mean, when I'm old, so for me, it was like you started majoring in business, you're gonna finish majoring in business.

SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.

So, where did life lead you after college?

SPEAKER_00: My parents were back living in Columbus, Ohio.

And so I moved home to find a job.

Again, I'm gonna date myself a little bit.

This was long before the internet was available to help, you know, people find jobs.

So I was very actually very lucky.

I got a job as the field marketing trainee in the corporate headquarters of Wendy's International, which was in Dublin, Ohio, just outside of Columbus.

That was the good part.

The bad part was I ended up living with my parents for the next three and a half years as I helped my mother care for my father and my grandmother, who were both dying of different forms of cancer.

So, you know, yes, I had a job, but you know, I was still living at home, sleeping in the same bed I'd slept in in high school and all that kind of stuff.

And, you know, really wanted to kind of sow my oats.

You know, it's like, come on, I'm gonna get out and make my mark on the world.

But with my father and grandmother dying, my mom needed the help.

And like I said, I had great parents and and they loved us and cared for us and supported us.

And so when it came time to take care of my dad, there was there was no question that that's absolutely what I was gonna do.

And it didn't matter how long it, you know, it was gonna take to do that.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, well, I I love that.

And in the in to me, that goes back to something that that is a strong part of my life and my belief that family is first, always.

Yeah.

And and I and I see that, and I think, I mean, when when you look back on it, you know, from this perspective now, what kind of a gift in a sense that that you had that ability to be there for your mom and to be there for your dad and grandmother, you know?

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was it was a blessing.

It, I mean, it was it was terrible.

I mean, you know, they're they're literally side by side in two different bedrooms, both dying of of different forms of cancer.

I mean, my grandmother was old.

I mean, she was in her 80s when she died.

My dad died in his early 50s.

So, you know, it was really a struggle.

And I'm sitting here thinking, you know, I want to sow my wild oats, I want to get out there, I want to make my mark on the world.

But I'm, you know, in reality, I should have been thinking, my mom is watching her mother and her husband die at the same time.

I mean, how horrible must have that been, you know, for her mental situation, you know, for her mindset.

What must she have been thinking that, you know, it's it's bad enough.

You expect your parents to die, but you certainly don't expect your mom and your husband to be dying at the same time.

No, no, definitely not.

SPEAKER_01: And I mean, and isn't that hasn't that become even more of a story ever since COVID where you've heard of those type of scenarios more and more?

And and to be honest, the the thought of that is just unbearable.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.

It was, I mean, they died, I I want to say they died within about 13, 12, 13 months of each other.

Uh, you know, so we're you know, we're burying one and then the other one's declining even more, and now we're burying the other one.

I I it was a very difficult time.

I don't remember much about my job at Wendy's.

My job at Wendy's was more of a you know a place marker, you know, just something for me to do to, you know, to have a job.

But I mean, I would literally get up every morning, go into my parents' bedroom, and empty my father's journal from the night before.

And, you know, I would come home at lunch, help my mom dress my father, put him in the car, take him to his job, get him out, get him into his office, drive back to my job, and then, you know, at five o'clock, I would leave work, go pick him up, take him home, get him into bed for the night.

And, you know, that was five days a week.

And he worked up till about two weeks before he died, and he lived for three and a half years after basically a terminal diagnosis.

Wow, wow, wow, wow.

What did your father do for work?

He was in real estate.

Okay.

And and loved that.

And, you know, that's one thing I learned watching him.

You know, he had end stage breast cancer back in the 1980s, which at that point in time, they really there weren't a lot of men with breast cancer.

It's it's more prevalent today and and they know how to treat it.

And so they were literally throwing stuff against the wall to see what would stick.

It's like, well, let's try this and see if it works.

And I remembered watching him, and I'm like, if he hadn't had a purpose, as I said, you know, he was in real estate, if he hadn't had something to do that was fulfilling for him, I think he would have died much sooner.

But, you know, I mean, sitting around, laying around in bed all day, thinking about, you know, how bad things are for you is going to cause you, you know, to deteriorate.

But for him, it was like, if I can get up, if I can get up with the help of my family and go to work, then I have a purpose and I feel better.

And and so, you know, like I said, I took that away in the back of my mind.

And when I got cancer, it was like, okay, I've got to have a purpose now.

SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely.

So after your father, your grandmother passed away, was it hard for you to then go on with life to leave your mom?

What was that like after they both passed away?

SPEAKER_00: It was not easy.

I, you know, I I had several of my neighbors who were older who said, you know, Terry, you've got to live your life.

You know, your mom's fine.

She's, you know, health-wise, she's fine.

Financially, she's fine.

You know, she has friends, you know, it was a very close neighborhood.

You know, my neighbors always looked in on her and stuff like that.

But you've got to live your life now.

And I ended up buying a house.

I mean, that's, I guess, the one thing about having a job and living at home.

I was able to bank a lot of money, you know, yeah, enough to make a down payment on a house, but it was in like the next suburb.

So, you know, I would still come over on the weekends and cut her grass and, you know, shovel her driveway in the snow and all that kind of stuff.

But yeah, it was definitely uh, okay, now after three and a half years, now I've got to try to re-engage with life.

And that was a little bit difficult to do.

I I had a a failed marriage that, you know, I think I I can attribute a lot to just I wasn't in the right frame of mind.

And then eventually I met my current wife, and things kind of clicked.

And you know, life life got better in that.

And my and my mom is is still alive, still going strong.

She's 86 years old and uh lives with my brother now in Chicago, but it is, you know, we're we're still a family.

We're still together.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's phenomenal.

That is just amazing.

So now, obviously, you didn't stay at Wendy's the rest of your life.

So, where did life take you after that career?

SPEAKER_00: So I spent about three and a half years at Wendy's and eventually took a job in healthcare administration at the literally the hospital where my grandmother and my father both died.

I figured, well, I'm here all the time.

I might as well, you know, get paid to do this.

So and I met my wife there.

I met my wife was in in the is still is in the financial services industry, but I we met while I was in hospital administration, got married, moved to Santa Barbara, California.

And my my passion, my my purpose, my why, whatever you want to call it, I always felt was law enforcement.

My my grandfather, my my dad's father, was a Chicago police officer from 1924 to 1954.

So he was in Chicago during prohibition when alcohol was outlawed in the United States during the Great Depression, the late 1920s, early 1930s, and when the gangsters, you know, Al Capone and those guys were kind of shooting up the town.

And he was actually shot in the line of duty with his own gun.

It was not a serious injury, it was shot in the ankle.

But my dad always remembered the stories that my grandmother told.

My dad was an infant at the time, of the knock on the door of Mrs.

Tucker, grab your son, come with us.

Your husband's been shot.

So when I expressed an interest in going into law enforcement, my dad was, oh, absolutely not.

You're gonna go to college, you're gonna major in business, you know, you're gonna get out, get a great job, get married, have 2.4 kids, and live happily ever after.

But that's the life my father wanted me to live, not the life that I felt I was born to live.

So I sort of joke, I did what every good son did.

I waited until my father passed away, and then I followed my dreams.

And so I did.

I was a 37-year-old rookie police officer with the Cincinnati Police Department.

SPEAKER_01: Wow, wow, wow, wow.

So, I mean, you had to be quite the police officer, six foot eight.

I mean, uh, you weren't doing any hiding or anything.

SPEAKER_00: You know, it's funny.

I I wasn't, but one of uh, you know, the jobs within the police department, I mean, I started out like every other officer, you know, in a in a marked car, in uniform, answering radio runs and things like that.

And then eventually, and I know you're gonna laugh at this, Kevin.

I and so so get ready.

You know, this is gonna be a big hearty laugh.

I was an undercover narcotics cop.

And, you know, people are like, you were six foot eight.

How could you possibly have that?

You know, and the thing about it is, is I never changed my appearance.

I never grew my hair long, I never grew a beard, I never did any of that.

Because what motivates illicit drugs, what motivates that industry, and it certainly is an industry, is greed.

And as long as you have money, you can find somebody to sell you drugs.

And that's what I did.

And, you know, I was eventually able to find people that, hey, you know, I need a 20, 20 rock, sell me the drug.

Okay, now you're going to jail stuff.

So I I did that for about three and a half years.

I liked doing more, you know, kind of sitting on places and watching and then doing search warrants and you know, getting SWAT to kick in the door and that kind of stuff.

So yeah, it was a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, wow, wow.

So, how long did you serve as a police officer then?

Almost 10 years.

Wow.

That's really amazing.

Really, really amazing.

And and I mean, it's it's not an easy profession, not on you or family.

So, I mean, I definitely applaud you on that.

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was, you know, you can imagine, you know, my wife had married me.

Uh, you know, we met, we got married.

I was a, you know, suit and tie, eight to five, Monday through Friday, hospital administrator.

And then we moved to California, and I saw an advertisement that had come in the mail for Santa Barbara City College that said, if you take this course and complete it, you can apply to be a reserve police officer with any agency within the state of California.

So you can imagine that night at dinner, you know, and I'm like, uh, hey, hun, what do you think about me, you know, do like you said, you know, I'm working nights, I'm, you know, I'm working holidays, I'm I'm, you know, getting shot at, I'm doing all these things.

And my wife was incredibly supportive of me fulfilling or trying to fulfill my dream.

And then when our daughter was born, we moved to Cincinnati and I did it full time in Cincinnati.

So it was a lot of fun.

But my wife has always been the primary breadwinner.

And when she lost her job in Cincinnati, then I needed to support her.

And we moved to Texas and I got out of law enforcement and started my own security consulting business.

SPEAKER_01: Okay.

Okay.

So tell me about that.

What is what is a securities consulting business?

SPEAKER_00: So it was uh I was working with private independent schools around the United States to assess their physical security, you know, uh in terms of, you know, people getting into the access to the school that could potentially harm their staff or their students.

I was writing policies and procedures that coincided with safety and security.

I was teaching staff and and you know, teachers and stuff like that, coaches about security and things like that.

And so it was a lot of fun.

I was I was doing some traveling.

I've always enjoyed writing and things like that.

So I was able, you know, to write these reports for these schools and things like that.

So it was it was a lot of fun for me.

And I was also, so that's the nice thing about having your own business.

Our daughter was in high school, and our daughter, fortunately or unfortunately, got my height and was is today six foot two.

And so, and she also had an NBA three-point shot.

So I I mean, I I coached her girls' high school basketball team, sort of, you know, I could put my business on hold during the basketball season and then kind of ramp it up in the offseason and and and do what I enjoyed there.

So I kind of had the best of both worlds in in that regard.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, that's awesome.

And and what a what a cool way that that life, again, talking about these these principles of life, has this way of taking us around like kind of full circle, going from player now coach with your daughter.

That's that's pretty awesome.

SPEAKER_00: It really was.

And and you know, I it was so funny because I, you know, like I said, I didn't grow up with any sisters, I just had brothers.

And then I went to a Catholic all-boys high school in Chicago, and then I went to the Citadel, which was an all-male military college.

So when my wife got pregnant, you know, we go to the doctor, and the doctor's like, Do you want to know what the sex of the baby is?

And she's like, Yeah, sure.

She's like, Well, you should buy pink.

And I was like, Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.

You need to keep it in there until it's done.

I have no idea what to do with a girl, you know.

SPEAKER_01: So that is hysterical.

Now, what what year was was that going on like that?

You had the security consulting business.

SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna say I had it for almost nine years, uh like 2005, 2006, up until about 2015, 16.

Although I towards at the end, I I was I was had cancer pretty bad, so I was not spending a lot of time on the business, but somewhere in that time frame.

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_01: Well, I just I I couldn't just help but you know, think of how you know that that subject matter, here it is, you know, 2022.

And that's such a big topic today about school safety and how can we make schools safer and and and you know, with the you know, just tragic accidents that we've had.

SPEAKER_00: It it is.

It's it's I mean, anytime somebody dies, you know, even in when I was in law enforcement, you know, I I buried a lot of, not not a lot, but you know, I buried enough officers and and and anytime uh especially a young person dies, whether you know it's a it's a gang-related thing, whether it's a drug-related thing, whether it's just uh, you know, they have an automobile accident and you know, through no fault of their own.

It's always, it's always tragic.

And it certainly made me appreciate my family more.

You know, I cops have a tendency to, hey, let's go out to the bar after the shift.

And for me, it was always, no, I want to go home.

I I want to be with the people that that I love, that I care about, that support me and spend time with them.

I'm away from them enough as it is, especially uh one of the other jobs I did is I was a SWAT team hostage negotiator.

So I would get called out, you know, at all different times of the day and you know, middle of the night and stuff like that.

So I didn't want to spend a lot of time.

I I like the people I worked with, but the people I loved are the people I wanted to spend my time with.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

So now you you've made mention of it a few times.

Talk to me about cancer, how that we we we already know that it obviously impacted your childhood, you know, young adult years, you know, with your father, your grandmother.

But then you've had your own run with cancer.

SPEAKER_00: I have.

Started back in 2012 when I was a girls' high school basketball coach, 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 not healing, I made an appointment to go see a podiatrist, a foot doctor friend of mine.

And he took an x-ray and he said, Terry, I think you have a little 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 to have it looked at.

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.

Until finally he just laid it out for me.

He said, Tara, I've been a doctor for 25 years.

I have never seen the form of cancer that you have.

You have a rare form of melanoma that appears on the bottom of the feet or the palms of the hands.

And because you have this extremely rare cancer, he recommended I go to MD Anderson Cancer Center, which is probably, if not the best, certainly one of the best cancer hospitals in the world and be treated.

And so I did.

I had the bottom of my foot cut out where the tumor was.

I had all the lymph nodes in my groin removed.

And then when I healed, my oncologist put me on a weekly injection of a drug called interferon to help keep the disease from coming back.

The side effects of interferon were that I had severe flu-like symptoms for two to three days every week after each injection.

And I took those weekly interferon injections for almost five years.

So imagine having the flu every week for five years.

And that was not a cure.

That was, as my oncologist used to say, we're trying to kick the can down the road and buy you more time for additional therapies to become available.

In 2017, after being on the interferon for five years, I ended up in the intensive care unit due to the toxicity of the drug because I had a body temperature of 108 degrees, which is usually not compatible with being alive.

I was lucky the ER that I went to, the emergency room, they were a level one trauma center.

So they were able to kind of stabilize me and get me to the ICU.

I had to stop taking the interferon, and almost immediately after stopping the drug, the cancer came back in the exact same spot on my foot where it had presented five years earlier.

That necessitated the amputation of my left foot in 2018.

The cancer worked its way up my leg into my shin in 2019, requiring two more surgeries.

And then in 2020, an undiagnosed tumor kind of in my ankle area grew large enough that it fractured my tibia, my shin bone.

And my only recourse, right in the middle of the pandemic, was to have my left leg amputated above the knee.

And I also found out I had tumors in my lungs, which I am still being treated for.

And I know that sounds like a really ugly and dark journey, and it certainly has been, don't get me wrong, but I'll say this much cancer has made me a better human being.

SPEAKER_01: How can can you explain that for me?

Because I mean, yeah, when when we listen to the story, and it's just I listen to you and I listen to the battle, and especially when you you're talking about that special medicine you're taking, that how do you sit so much of the time?

And and coming from the perspective of myself who has my own medical issues that has me not feeling good, certainly nothing to the extent of flu-like symptoms, but just not feeling good.

And I I know how that can wear on you and how in the world did you do it?

SPEAKER_00: In all honesty, one day at a time, one hour at a time, one minute at a time.

I mean, when I was on Interferon, Kevin, honest to God, I would I prayed to die.

I was so sick of being sick that I was just like, all right, God, I'm done.

I mean, take me, take me out of this.

But he didn't.

What he did for me is give me the strength to go on.

And for me, it was okay, I got to win the day.

But sometimes winning the day was, I just gotta win this five minutes.

I got to get out of bed and make it to the couch.

That was winning the day.

I mean, that's how pathetic, you know.

I mean, you don't feel you're contributing, you know, cancer, and and I'm, you know, I know you have your medical issues as well.

I think medical issues in general a lot of times tend to isolate us.

They isolate us from our friends, they isolate us from our family, and sometimes they even isolate us from ourselves.

I felt that.

And I felt even with people, I felt alone.

I felt like, you know, I was sort of an island.

And, you know, I needed to strengthen my mind.

I needed to use this ugliness to make me stronger, to make me more resilient.

Because I was not giving up.

I was not, I mean, yes, I wanted to die, and yes, I prayed to die, but when that didn't happen, it was not like, well, I'm just giving up.

It's like, well, okay, that's not gonna happen.

So you know what?

I'm gonna have to fight.

I'm gonna have to, I don't like the cards that I've been dealt, but I'm gonna have to play these cards to the best of my ability.

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, absolutely.

I love that.

Now, so what was the the turning point?

I mean, we we know that that you had to, you know, stop taking the medicine.

You're in the ICU, you've led to then having to have your leg amputated above the knee.

Does that stop it?

Is it still in you?

Yes, it's still in me.

SPEAKER_00: When I found out I had the tumors, or when I found out I was gonna have my leg amputated, the same scan showed these tumors in my lungs.

And so the immediate thing they needed to deal with was my leg.

I mean, my leg was broken.

I'd been walking around on a broken leg for a couple weeks before they realized what was going on.

I, you know, I still remember the day.

I mean, it's been over two years since I've had my leg amputated.

But like I said, it was right in the middle of COVID.

And my wife, I had a great doctor.

My doctor was like, look, we should keep you in the hospital for a week after this, but we're gonna do a couple things that are gonna be different.

Number one, I'm part of the University of Colorado hospital systems.

That's where I get my treatment now.

And he said, we're gonna go to one of our outlying hospitals that does not take COVID patients.

And he said, like, you know, you should be in the hospital for a week to work with occupational therapy and physical therapy.

We're gonna keep you in here for 48 hours.

He said, So we're gonna do some things that are different.

My wife literally dropped me off at the hospital the morning I was having my leg amputated.

She could not be with me.

I could have nobody with me.

I was put in a wheelchair, I was wheeled back to the pre-op area, which is really nothing more than a bunch of cubicles, you know, where different patients waiting for different surgeries wait.

I was the only person there.

There was nobody else.

I mean, there was nobody else having surgery that day.

My doctor had to get special permission just to perform the surgery.

And so, you know, here I am waiting in this dead quiet room, huge room with all these partitions, and there's nobody there but the nurse that's taking care of me.

You know, it was, you know, my wife was like, what do I do?

I'm like, I don't know what to tell you.

Just sit in the parking lot and wait till the doctor calls you.

Now, I was having my leg amputated, so it wasn't like a 20-minute surgery, you know, and my wife literally waited in the parking lot of the hospital until my doctor called her and said, Hey, you know, he's out, he's, you know, everything went fine, but and and then drove home.

It's like, I can't be with him.

I can't be in the room with him.

And then I spent 48 hours of intensive therapy with a physical therapist and an occupational therapist learning how to walk in a wheelchair, you know, walk on a walker and walk with crutches and all that stuff.

And they were incredibly frustrated because they were like, we need more time.

I'm like, I know you need more time, but you only have 48 hours.

Teach me everything you can in 48 hours.

SPEAKER_01: Wow, wow, wow, wow.

Man, so, so tough.

Just the mental toughness and you know, kind of going back to that of, you know, literally, just this mental toughness to literally just survive the day.

And, you know, a mental toughness both on your part as well as as well as your wife, because I mean that had to just be heart-wrenching for her to know she's dropping off her husband, can't be there with you, you know, during just a life-changing situation.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was.

I like I said, I you know, when I tell people that story, they're like, no, that's not how it works.

I mean, you have somebody with you, and you know, there's all people around.

And like, no, you're you're you're alone, you're isolated.

You know, again, going back to what we were talking about a minute ago, you know, COVID isolated me, you know, forced me to be isolated.

And I I guess that was good, but at the same time, I mean, to know that you're laying there and it's like they're gonna wheel you into this operating room and you're gonna be the only surgery that day.

And you, you know, all the things that went through it, like when you wake up, you're not gonna have a leg.

It's like, okay, well, I don't know what this is gonna be like, but by God, I'm gonna figure it out and we're gonna keep trying to move forward.

SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, absolutely.

So that was in 2020.

So, I mean, it's not been that long.

How has that journey been?

Have you have you gone the route of having a prosthetic?

How has that journey been?

SPEAKER_00: I have.

I I do have a prosthetic.

Actually, our our daughter got married last October.

I was able to use that prosthetic to walk her down the aisle.

But what I've learned now is, you know, everybody thinks, oh, you just put your prosthetic on and you walk around.

Well, no, it's really not that easy.

I mean, you you you put a liner on before you put your prosthetic on.

The liner, it does not allow your skin to breathe or anything like that.

And then you put what they call socks, you know, they kind of look like sweat socks, you know, athletic socks, overneath the liner to basically take up enough room within your stump or within your prosthetic, you know, so that you've got a secure and a snug fit.

Well, because this process or this liner, it doesn't breathe, so you sweat in it.

And as a result, your your stump gets smaller.

So now you have to take your prosthetic off, you have to add more socks to it, you have to put it back on, and then you can use it again.

And Kevin, there were days where I would take my prosthetic off and take the liner off in the bathtub because I had so much sweat inside that liner because there's nowhere for it to go.

You know, I mean, and and people think, well, you just put your prosthetic on and you walk around.

It's it's a major issue to put the prosthetic on.

I have it, I am more comfortable in all honesty, in my wheelchair right now.

I will probably get back to the point where I will use the prosthetic again.

But my goal was always, I want to do this so that I can walk my daughter down the aisle.

And kind of once, once my goal was met, I I really kind of dropped the ball and probably should have continued to work with the physical therapist.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.

But you know, you know what though, it goes back to something that is good as the prosthetics are, as good as all of technology is, it's never as good as what God gave us in the first place.

You know?

Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: The fact you can't feel it, the fact that you, you know, my my physical therapist used to say you need to trust it.

And I look at it like, I was like Cop.

I don't trust anything.

SPEAKER_01: You know, yeah, absolutely.

So, so talk to me about when during all of this, because I don't know how you had time for any of it, you wrote a book.

SPEAKER_00: I did.

I wrote a book.

People were making the suggestion.

It's like you should write a book, you should write a book.

And I was really kind of putting it off.

Like I'm not a writer.

I, you know, I haven't, I don't write books.

I, you know, more and more people started to suggest it.

And and I kind of think that, you know, there's sort of that old joke that goes, when we talk to God, it's called prayer.

When God talks to us, it's called schizophrenia.

So not because, you know, God has never spoken to me.

Don't get me wrong.

But I think what God does is he puts people in our path that make suggestions to us.

And then more people get in our path and make the same suggestion.

And if you're smart, you kind of buck up and be like, hmm, maybe I ought to pay attention to this.

Maybe this is God's way of saying, you know, hey, dummy, I'm telling you to write a book.

You ought to write a book, okay?

You know, and that's kind of the way I felt.

And so literally, I had, let me back up a little bit.

The book was really kind of born out of two conversations that I had.

One was with a former basketball player that I had coached who had moved to Colorado, where my wife and I live, and she'd moved with her fiance.

And the four of us had dinner one night.

And 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.

And she got real quiet for a while.

And then she kind of looked at me and she was like, Well, coach, what do you think my purpose is?

I said, I have no idea what your purpose is, but that's what your life should be about.

Finding the reason you were put on the face of this earth and then living that reason.

So that was one conversation.

And then I had a young man reach out to me on social media in college and he asked me, you know, what do you think are the most important things I should know to not just be successful in my job or in business, but to be successful in life.

And I didn't want to give him the, you know, get up early, work hard, help others kind of thing.

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 spent some time and, you know, eventually I had these 10 ideas, these 10 thoughts, these 10 principles.

And so I sent them to him.

And then I kind of stepped back and I was like, well, I got a life story that fits underneath this principle, or I know somebody's life who emulates that principle.

So literally during the three-month period while I was healing, after having my leg amputated, and before I started chemotherapy for the tumors in my lungs, I sat down at the computer every day and I built stories, and they're real stories about real people underneath each of the 10 principles.

And that's how the book Sustainable Excellence, The Ten Principles to Leading Your Uncommon and Extraordinary Life came to be.

SPEAKER_01: Wow, wow, wow, wow.

I love it.

Would you mind sharing?

Do you can you recite it off the top of your head, what these 10 principles are?

Off the top of my head?

SPEAKER_00: No, I'm old.

I told you I can't.

Sure.

So I'll give you the principle.

And each chapter is a principle, and then you know, the stories that go along with it.

So principle number one is enjoy your life.

Principle number two is the one that resonates the most with me.

And I think it does because I've done this so many times in my life.

Principle number two is most people think with their fears and their insecurities instead of using their minds.

Principle number three is you were born to live an uncommon and extraordinary life.

Principle four is always remain curious and ask questions.

Principle number five is you are the person that you're looking to become.

Principle number six, put your God and your family before everything else.

Principle number seven, be part of something that's bigger than yourself.

Principle number eight, and I always, especially when people in business, they always give me a hard time about this one.

Principle number eight, fail often, especially when you're young.

Principle number nine, listen more than you talk.

And that's a chapter more about my time as a SWAT negotiator.

And then principle number 10, love is the most important word in any language.

SPEAKER_01: Wow, wow, wow, wow.

How powerful.

Just literally just hearing the headlines, the 10 principles.

What a powerful book that must be.

SPEAKER_00: You know, I've been very fortunate.

You know, you write a book and then you're like, is it any good?

I mean, you you're like, I don't know.

I mean, I think it is.

And, you know, people always ask me, how'd you write a book?

I'm like, I had two rules.

I said the first rule was I will write a minimum of one page every day.

And then number two was, I will not edit anything until I have the first draft done.

So there were days I would sit down at the computer, you know, and as I said, Kevin, I'm not, I'm not a writer.

You know, I mean there were days I'd sit down at the computer and I would write absolute garbage.

But then tomorrow, the next day, I would write something that was good.

And then maybe I'd write more garbage, and then I'd write something that was good.

So by not editing it, you know, until I had the first draft done, then I would go back and be like, okay, this is garbage.

That's out, that's out, that's out, that's out.

And then it's kind of interesting how I got the book published.

It's not self-published, it's published through a publishing company, which is usually, I mean, if you're a nobody author, that was awful hard to do.

But I had here in Colorado, there was a gentleman who was a in the administrative staff of the Dayton Police Department.

We ended up meeting, having breakfast one morning, and I was telling him about the book.

And he he said, Look, I got this friend of mine, and and this is such an interesting story, I think it's an interesting story.

This friend of mine was uh was an undercover narcotics investigator, just like I was, eventually rose through the ranks and was a police chief of a town in Louisiana.

And one day, one of his buddies said, Hey, would you mind coming out to California and putting on a presentation for authors that want to understand police tactics so they can incorporate them in their books and sound like they know what they're talking about?

And he's like, Yeah, sure, you know, free trip to California, I'd be happy to do that.

He goes out there, he puts on this presentation, he ends up meeting his wife, who is a like a 40-time best, you know, like New York Times bestselling fiction author.

He gets out of law enforcement, they get married, and they started a not-for-profit publishing company.

So I get hooked up with him, he reads the manuscript, and he's like, Yeah, I want to, you know, we want to publish this.

And so I had access to editors, I had access to, you know, cover designers, I had access, you know, to layout people and stuff like that.

So I was really fortunate that I got hooked up with him.

And, you know, the book ended up, I think, a whole lot better working with people that knew what they were doing than some idiot like me who was like, I don't know, I'll just self-publish.

I don't know how to do this and see how it goes.

SPEAKER_01: Wow, wow, wow.

Again, again, the way the craziness of life, of how all the puzzle pieces fit together, you know, and and how because of one little action that one person took, it leads to this, leads to this, and then impacts other people.

How amazing is that?

It is, it is.

We're we're we're all connected in some way, you know.

Absolutely, absolutely.

Well, I mean, I just have to say, because I know for the people listening to this podcast who know me the best, I know that they are are sitting there the whole time, probably already texting me, saying, Kevin, if that's not another reminder that it's time for you to write your book, I don't know what is.

And so and that's what I absolutely loved what you said about you know, God putting people, you know, in our path and and and you know, and I'm starting to think as you're talking, I'm thinking, God, is every interview I do with somebody who's written their book a wink saying, Kevin, you can do it too, you know?

So I I think, I think, I think you might be the inspiration for me to quit procrastinating and start doing it.

SPEAKER_00: I hope you do.

And and like I said, you know, just make make a simple goal.

I will write one page a day, a minimum.

You know, some days, like I said, I I would write 10, 15 pages, but then there were those days where I wrote one page and I knew that was pretty much garbage.

And I knew that was never gonna make it in the book, but tomorrow was a different day, and I I tried to do better the next day, you know.

So you can do this, Kevin.

If that's something you want to do, you absolutely can do this.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.

Well, well, awesome, awesome.

Well, where can everybody find your book?

Find out more about you.

Um, I have just totally loved talking with you, Terry.

You are you're so positive.

Your story is so inspiring, inspiring in so many different ways.

And and and before I know I asked you a question, now I'm jabbering on and on, but I I just have to say what what I love about your story is this idea that we don't have to be afraid to make a change.

That one decision we make, that's fine.

Do it until it's no longer serving you, or life takes you in a different direction and do something else and excel at that and keep just progressing through life.

And that's what I look at your story and I think it's just so awesome to be reminded of that.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think that goes back to, you know, like I said, when we were talking about the chapters in the book, the one that resonates with me, most people think with their fears and their insecurities instead of using their minds.

And I always tell, especially when I speak to groups, especially if it's a young, younger group, that 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 do them.

But what do we do?

You know, we're like, hey, I want to do this.

And they're like, oh, wait a minute.

Maybe I'm not smart enough, or, you know, maybe I don't know anything about this industry, or, you know, what are people going to say about me if I fail?

And I always go back to the Nelson Mandela quote.

Nelson Mandela was the president of South Africa and was a political prisoner for a number of years.

He used to say, I never lose.

I either learn or I win.

So, you know, if you've got something you want to do, go ahead and do it.

Don't, don't wait for people, don't care about what other people say about you.

Don't think you're not smart enough.

Believe me, I'm one of the dumbest people in the world.

And if I can write a book and I can start a company, anybody listening to me can do that.

SPEAKER_01: Well, I love it.

I love it.

And what a powerful quote of that of, you know, it's it's you you're learning or you're winning.

Yeah.

You know, that's just awesome.

So now I will I will repeat the question before I jabber it on and on.

What is the name of your book?

Where can everybody find your book and learn more about you?

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the book is called Sustainable Excellence: The 10 Principles to Leading Your Uncommon and Extraordinary Life.

You can get an ebook copy, a hard copy, a paperback, any place you can get a book online Amazon, BarnesandNoble.com, Apple iBooks.

I've just started a membership called Sustainable Excellence Membership.

If you go to Sustainable Excellence Membership.com and give me your email address, you can download a copy of the book for free.

So if you don't want to spend the money, please feel free to go ahead and do that.

And you can reach out to me on my blog.

I I have uh I put up every day a thought for the day, and with that comes a you know a question about maybe how you could apply that in your life.

On Mondays, I put up the Monday morning motivational message, and you can find all that at motivationalcheck.com.

SPEAKER_01: Fantastic.

Well, I will be positive that all of those links just mentioned and information are all in the episode show notes.

So for you interested in diving deeper into this absolutely awesome guy, be sure to check out the episode show notes so you can have easy access to it all.

Terry, man, you inspire me, you pump me up.

And dude, thank you for being on the podcast.

SPEAKER_00: Well, thanks for having me on, Kevin.

You know, I always say it's nice people like you that allow me to come on and hopefully between our conversation, we make a positive difference in somebody's life.

And if we do, today's been a good day.

SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.

Well, Terry, that is the whole principle of this podcast is to hopefully leave some type of impact on somebody somewhere in the world who hears something said that will make their day today a little bit better than it was yesterday.

And uh that's the whole principle here.

So, Terry, again, thank you.

And for you listening to this podcast, I thank you.

And I hope that you have enjoyed today's conversation with another just absolutely phenomenal guest.

And I send you out into the world a little bit more inspired, empowered to remember that this life is worth living.

So get out and live.

Hey, real quick before you go, I have one last thought to leave you with.

I of course hope that you've enjoyed today's episode, but more importantly, I want to remind you that I never want you to listen to an episode of this podcast to hear something that I have to say or that my guest has to share and think, wow, I wish I could be like them.

I wish I could overcome my own challenges and do the great things that they are doing, but I just can't.

Well, friend, that's where you're wrong.

You are capable, you are able, and you darn sure are deserving of having all that you can imagine in this life.

There's nothing special about me or any guests I have on this podcast.

We are all just normal people trying to make it in this life.

And so I encourage you to take a look at yourself in the mirror and remind yourself that you know what?

I can do it too.

Now, of course, if you would like help along that way, reach out to me.

Whether that's as a listener of this podcast, a friend, or if you'd like to work with me as a coach.

My contact information is inside of every episode's show notes, just like this one.

So go down, check out my contact information, and reach out to me today.

With that said, I encourage you to take on the day every day with great grits and inspiration.