Terry Tucker has been an NCAA Division I college basketball player, a Citadel cadet, a marketing executive, a hospital administrator, an undercover narcotics investigator, a SWAT Team Hostage Negotiator, a high school basketball coach, a business owner, a motivational speaker, an author, and most recently, a cancer warrior. 

He is the author of, Sustainable Excellence, Ten Principles To Living Your Uncommon and Extraordinary Life. Terry and his wife have lived all over the United States and currently reside in Colorado with their daughter and Wheaten Terrier, Maggie. In 2019, Terry started the website, Motivational Check to help others find and lead their uncommon and extraordinary lives.

The right habits puts you in control of your health,

relationships, mindset, and more. But most people lack the

tools to stick with those habits long enough to see results that

is about to change. Welcome to the unshakable habits podcast

with your host, habit change specialist and speaker Stephen

Box. Join us each week as experts share their stories,

experiences and insights and give you the tools to build

unshakable habits so you can live life on your terms. It's

time to take your habits from unsustainable to unshakable.

Welcome to the unshakable habits Podcast. I am

your host, Stephen Box, and I am joined today by Terry Tucker,

Terry. Thanks for joining me, man.

Thanks, Steven. I'm looking forward to talking

to you today.

Absolutely. Terry is the founder of motivational

check. And he's also also the author of sustainable

excellence. So we're gonna be hearing a lot about his story

today. But before we jump into your story, Terry, I do want to

remind the audience about the unshakable framework that we

want to view the stories through. And the reason we have

this framework is, I want people to be able to take your story.

And I want them to be able to apply the lessons that you've

learned to their own life, so they can create unshakable

habits for themselves. So step one of the framework is you need

to have a vision, that's different than a goal. A goal is

something very specific. A vision isn't quite as specific.

But it literally outlines what you want life to look like in

the future, it helps you see what future you is going to look

like. In order to achieve that vision, you're going to have to

develop some skills, or you're going to have to tap into some

skills that you already have that you may not be using. And

then finally, in order to develop those skills, you're

going to need to take some regular action, if you actually

want to develop those. So as you're listening to Terry story

today, look for those moments where he had that vision, look

for the skills he had to utilize or attain and look at the

actions he had to take with consistency in order to maintain

or build those skills. So Terry, you have lived quite the

exciting life. So tell me a little bit about about your

past.

Yeah, one of these days, I'm going to figure out

what I'm gonna do when I grow up. So I was born and raised in

Chicago, I am the oldest of three boys. You cannot tell this

from my voice, but I'm six foot eight inches tall, and played

college basketball at the Citadel in Charleston, South

Carolina. Despite having three knee surgeries in high school. I

also have a brother who's six foot seven that was a pitcher

for Notre Dame. And then my middle brother was six foot six

and was drafted by the Cleveland Cavaliers and the National

Basketball Association. So sports or athletics. Growing up

was really kind of the focus the focal point of our family. After

I graduated from the synodal, I moved home to find a job. I was

the first person in my family to graduate from college and I was

kind of all set to make my mark on the world with my newly

obtained Business Administration degree. Fortunately, I was able

to find that first job in the corporate headquarters of

Wendy's International, the hamburger chain, but

unfortunately, I ended up living with my parents for the next

three and a half years as I helped my mom care for my father

and my grandmother who were both dying of different forms of

cancer. In my professional career, as I mentioned, I was a

marketing executive. I was a hospital administrator. I was a

customer service manager. I was a police officer. And while I

was the police officer, I worked undercover narcotics and I was a

SWAT team hostage negotiator. Then I was a school su school

security consultant, a high school basketball coach, a

motivational speaker. Last year I became an author. And then for

the last nine years or so I've been a cancer warrior. And then

finally, for the last 27 years, my wife and I have been married

and we have one child, a daughter is a graduate of the

United States Air Force Academy, and is an officer in the newly

created United States space force. So that's kind of me in a

nutshell.

Nice. that's a that's a lot of things going on

right there. And one thing that I don't know how many people

might have caught it, because actually the first time you use

the term for me, I actually missed what you meant by it, you

said that you're a cancer warrior. And I've just kind of

assumed that that meant that you had it, that you beat cancer.

But you corrected me and said, No, I actually still have

cancer. And really, that's what you wanted to come onto the show

today to talk to people about is because you've been dealing with

this diagnosis for the last eight years, yet, you have made

a decision that you're going to wake up and you're going to have

a positive attitude and a positive outlook on life,

because you have the ability to make that choice. I think a lot

of people might kind of be like, wow, how do you how do you do

that? Like, how do you take news like that and make that

decision?

Yeah, that's, you know, that's sort of the million

dollar question. And I guess it would help if I kind of, sort of

laid out the the progression of my cancer. I'll do this real

briefly. 2012, I was diagnosed with this rare form of melanoma

that appeared on the bottom of my left foot, I have actually a

callus break open right below my third toe. But at the time, I

was a girls high school basketball coach. So I was on my

feet a lot and didn't give it a lot of thought. So when that

didn't heal, I went to a podiatrist, friend of mine, a

foot doctor. And you know, he did that, let's put some pads in

your shoes and that stuff. And when that didn't work, he took

an X ray and said, You know, I think you've got a system here.

And I can cut it out. And he did, and he cut it out. And he

sent it off to pathology. Two weeks later, I get the call from

him. And as I said, he'd been a friend of mine. And the more

difficulty he was having, telling me what was going on,

obviously, the more frightened I was becoming until he just kind

of laid it out. And he said, Terry, I've been a practicing

physician for 25 years, and I have never seen this form of

cancer, you have this very rare form of melanoma that appears on

the bottom of the feet or the palms of the hands, I would

suggest you go to MD Anderson was probably one of the best

cancer hospitals. It certainly in the United States, if not the

world and be treated. And so I did. So I had a surgery to

remove the tumor in the bottom of my foot and all my lymph

nodes removed in my left groin. And then after that, once I

healed I was put on a drug called interferon, which

basically gave me severe flu like symptoms for two to three

days every week after each injection of the drug. And I

took that drug for almost five years. So imagine having the flu

every week for five years. And then once the drug was stopped

2017, the disease came back 2018, my left foot was

amputated. Disease came back again in 2019. Where and I had I

had to have two surgeries to remove it from my shin. And then

last year, an undiagnosed tumor in my ankle grew large enough

that it broke my my shin bone, my tibia, and I had to have my

left leg amputated right in the middle of the pandemic. It was

actually last April. And it was also discovered that I had

tumors in both of my lungs. So that's kind of been my

progression through cancer, there's really never been a

break. You know, it's just one thing after another that I've

had to deal with, but but as you said, it's my choice to be

positive and to keep moving forward.

Yeah, one thing that strikes me, I was doing an

interview with somebody else the other day. And they were saying

how, when we look at our attitude, when we look at things

that we decide upon, it's not just a matter of a surface level

decision, right? It's not just surface level, I'm going to be

happy. That's it. It has to be something you truly believe like

your subconscious has to believe that you can be happy. Your

subconscious has to believe that you deserve to be happy, if

you're going to truly be happy. And I think when we look at a

lot of the things that you've been doing in your life, you

know, mean, playing college sports is a lot of pressure. You

know, being a hostage negotiator that's a lot of pressure. Being

undercover. I'm sure that's I've never been undercover, but I

imagine that a lot of pressure to be under. And so you've had

this all these experiences that have really prepared you for

this because you've learned how to choose your attitude over

time you really learned on a subconscious level how to

control those emotions and be and be comfortable with it. And

I point that out because I think people, a lot of times, they get

caught up in this idea of it's a surface level happiness, right

of Oh, if I just tell myself, I'm going to be happy, then I'm

gonna be happy. And anybody who's been listening to you, for

the last 10 minutes or so here knows gets by the sound of your

voice, you're not somebody who's just faking it, like you really

like in your soul, believe that you have this choice to be

happy, and you choose it and you do it because we can feel your

enthusiasm, your energy, it just it comes through. You know,

we're not, we're not in the same state here even and but I can

just feel your energy coming through the screen.

Yeah, I mean, everybody's going to have pain

in their life. And it doesn't have to be as you know, severe

as mine is as dealing with probably a terminal cancer. I

mean, it could be, you know, you flunked a test at school today,

or you broke up with your boyfriend or your girlfriend, or

you had a fender bender on the way to work, or whatever it is,

we're all going to experience pain, so to speak in our lives.

Yeah, suffering. On the other hand, that's optional. Pain is

inevitable. Suffering is optional, you can choose to sit

in that ugliness and that muck in that garbage. Or you can turn

or you can choose to use that to make you a stronger and more

determined individual. And, and I don't want your on your

audience to sit here and think that you know, that I've got an

S on my chest, and I wear a cape. I don't, I have bad days,

I had days where I cry, I have days, you know, where I'm just

depleted mentally, physically and emotionally. I have all

those days. I just choose not to stay there for very long. I

choose to use all that garbage to make me stronger, to make me

tougher to make me more determined, and to move forward.

So So don't think that, you know, I've got the market

cornered on any of this stuff. I don't I'm just like, every other

human being out there. I there's nothing that makes me. I mean,

I've certainly had some things in my life that if that have

toughened me and things like that, but yeah, I don't want

anybody to think that Oh, yeah, you can do this. There's no way

I could do it. You absolutely can do this.

Yep. Yeah. And I love that's one of the things

when I talked to you before that I've loved about your story is

the fact that you're not trying to put yourself out there. It's

like, Oh, look at me, I'm this like, amazing person that I'm

dealing with this. And, you know, I'm still happy, you know,

you're not taking this like, hey, if I can be happy, why

can't you kind of attitude, you're taking more of a, hey,

look, even with what I have going on, I'm able to be happy.

And I know you can be happy to no matter what's going on in

your life. And I just I love that message. Because so often

we get into this comparison game with other people right?

Now, we do and and that's, I mean, especially for

young people, you know, you, you know, well, I want to be like

hammer I want you know, and I think that's kind of where that

whole the whole bullying thing comes is. But you know,

especially with kids in school, it's like, you know, oh, Johnny

said, you know, my ears are big. Well, I got news for you. When I

was 1313 years old, I was six foot five, I had a size 14 shoe,

skinny foot, and my ears were the size of Dumbo my head had

not caught up with my ears. But whatever people said about my

only hurt if I own that, if I took that inside and said, Yeah,

I really care with the care less what those people think. I mean,

at the end of your life, I can be judged by what anybody else

says or thinks or does, you're going to be judged by what you

say what you think and what you do in your life. So the heck

with everybody and I'm not telling you to, you know, you

should never get involved with people. But what I'm saying is,

is that when people come at you with all this negative garbage,

just let it hit you and bounce off because the only way that

works is if you own it and internalize it. If you just let

it go, then you keep moving forward and and they're going to

be left in your dust. Yep.

Yeah, it's one of those things where if you allow

those things to soak in, and you believe things about them,

that's that's when you're going to limit yourself. You have to

believe in yourself deep down. And here's the thing when people

pick on you and I got picked on when I was little I was I was

always super short. I had the opposite promise you I was a

super short kid. And so you know people were like, Look, he's

like four foot tall just pick on him. I hit my growth spurt in

the summer between ninth and 10th grade and I still only got

257 and that was like a five inch Grossberg over the summer

and I still I'm still waiting on my second Grossberg nice. I'm 42

I'm

close with everything right?

Yeah, I'm 42. I'm running out of time, but I'm

holding out hope here. So, you know, it's funny because I could

have listened to everything that people said about me. And

there's some things that and looking back in my life I did,

you know, I played sports a lot when I was younger, but I never

applied myself enough to possibly go play collegiate

sports, or to one day make it to the NBA or the NFL. Why? Because

I believed that a five foot seven kid couldn't possibly do

those things. Because outside of us, but well, who else? They

were short wasn't doing anything like that. But you look at the

NFL. Now, there's tons of these little slot wide receivers are

like 5758. Like, that could have been me, I could have been one

of the early ones if I had only listened to myself instead of

other people. And so I can relate to that message that

you're sending there. Because the only thing that stopped me

it wasn't what those people said, is what I did with it.

Now, who knows, maybe I really wasn't good enough to make it.

But that doesn't. That's not the point. The point is, I had never

really would know, because I didn't take the chance.

Right. Right. And you know, and it's funny,

because when you were saying that I was thinking back to sort

of my my childhood and, and yes, I played college basketball, and

yes, I was a law enforcement, things like that. But for me it

it really started even before that, and I think I mentioned

this, I had three knee surgeries in high school. And my first

two, were before arthroscopic surgery was available. So I have

the large zipper scar kind of on the outside of my knee. And, and

after my second surgery, my doctor who was the team doctor

for DePaul University, a great guy, he said, Terry, I think

your basketball playing days are over because he removed 25

pieces of my bone, some of them his largest pieces of rice. And

he was like, I don't think basketball, you know, you may

not want normally again. But I was like, you know, wait a

minute. Now, again, I was probably 15 years old. And the

only success I had in life up to that point had been basketball.

So I wasn't willing to give that up. But that's also the first

time where I realize, and I have these four truths. And we'll

probably get into them both. But the first one is, you need to

control your mind or your mind will control you. And that's the

first time that I remember my mind or my brain kind of saying,

you know, hey, Terry, you know, you've had these surgeries, yay,

probably a step slower. And college coaches probably aren't

going to recruit you. But I had to change that narrative. I had

to say, you know, no, I'm still playing at an elite level. And I

still have coaches that are calling me and they're sending

me you know, mail and things like that. So no, that's not

true. I'm not going to listen to that garbage, I'm going to

change that narrative to something positive. No, you

still are playing an elite level, coaches are still

recruiting you. So it's what you put in there, or it's what you

allow to be put in there. And your brain does not like you

know, we all know this, our brains are hard wired to avoid

pain and discomfort and to seek pleasure. So to the brain, the

status quo is good. You start messing with the status quo.

That's when your brain starts putting in all this garbage

about No, don't do that. No, don't do that. No, don't do

that. And I've always tell young people specially if you've got a

passion in your heart for something that you want 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 that you did, they're going to be the things

that you didn't do. And at the end of your life, it's too late

to go back and do those things.

Yep. You know, it's interesting, because you talked

about the brain loves the status quo, right. And I, I want to

maybe dive into that a little bit, because this is something I

think a lot of people don't know. Your brain basically has

one job is to keep you alive. Your brain does not care about

optimal performance. Your brain does not care about six pack

abs. Your brain does not care about you wanting to take

vacation, your vacation, or your brain only knows survival. And

the easiest way for your brain to ensure survival is when

things are predictable, because then your brain knows how to

deal with them. unpredictability is not your friend when it comes

to survival. But the thing is, our brain takes any

unpredictability as a sign of danger, whether it is or not.

Which is why those Come up, which is why those fears start

to come up. Because it's literally our brain trying to

keep us alive. We have to override that irrational brain

with our logical brain and say, No, this is okay. This is a good

discomfort to have. I'm okay here, I'm not doing something

that's going to go and get me killed. Only when you can

consciously become aware that that's happening. Can you do

anything about it?

You know, and I learned that so kind of hit me

right in the face when I was a hostage negotiator because I

always, when people asked me what that was, like, I try to

describe it as it was, it was like being on a teeter totter or

a seesaw, whatever you call it at the park. And when we started

negotiating with somebody, the way that worked is their, their

emotional side was way up in the air, and their rational side was

down on the ground. So what we needed to do is to at least get

that teeter totter or that seesaw to equilibrium. And we

did that through open ended questions, letting them burn off

a lot of that emotional energy. So that hopefully at some point

in time, their rational brain would be up in the air. Now,

when the rational brains in charge, you can start talking

about putting the gun down, letting the hostage go, you

coming out and things like that. But you couldn't do that when

the emotional brain was in charge when the emotional brands

and you're absolutely not you that you don't even bring up,

hey, what can we do to get you out or things like that. So you

just have to burn off a lot of that energy. And then when the

rational brain is in charge, that's when productivity can

happen. But the thing about, you know, what you were just saying

is, yeah, we all like the status quo, or the brain likes the

status quo. But the only way you're going to grow is to get

out of that comfort zone, the only way you're going to move

forward in your life to improve your skills to do anything like

that. I mean, it'd be like, if you got up one morning and said,

I think I'm gonna go skydiving, your brain would be like, Oh,

hang on a second. Wait a minute, you know, it's screaming, you

shouldn't do that the plane might crash your parachute may

not? Oh, that's what you talked about. As if that's not your

rational brain. That's your irrational brain put all this

stuff in your in your head to keep you from going skydiving?

Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting, when, you know, I

mentioned earlier, you've kind of been through all these

situations that have prepared you for what you're dealing with

now, and why you're able mentally to be where you are. So

you mentioned the hostage negotiation. and talk to us a

little bit about some of the skills that you had to develop

that you feel hard have helped you now. And I just want to

caveat this by saying, I'm not suggesting that everyone should

go out and become a hostage negotiator to develop these

skills. But there probably are other ways you can develop some

of these same skills without putting people's lives in

danger.

Good point, thank you, thank you for qualifying

that. You know, it was interesting, because as a police

officer, you know, 99%, of what we did was with a person face to

face. So if I was, you know, sent to a call to investigate

you, and I noticed that you were maybe balling up your fists, or

that you were kind of looking around and stuff like that, I

could see that. And I could use that visual clue and say, Well,

maybe he wants to fight me by balling up his fists, or maybe

looking around as he's thinking about running. And I could do

stuff to mitigate that I could set you down, I could handcuff

you, I could put you in the back of my car, depending on what the

run was and why I was there and what I was legally allowed to

do. But when we were negotiating, that person wasn't

with us. They were not physically in front of us, you

know, and there was no, there was no zoom call or anything

like that. I mean, you're basically on the telephone with

a person. So you're having trying, you're you're able to,

or you're trying to figure out what's going on based on what

the person is saying. What they weren't saying, and how they

were saying, and and I guess I should throw some stuff in it.

Because, you know, whenever I talk about negotiating,

everybody's seen the the Samuel L. Jackson movie, The

negotiator, you know, and they're like, Is that the way it

is? No, that is absolutely not the way it is. There's not one

guy who's doing all this stuff. When I was negotiating with

somebody when I was talking to him, I had another negotiator

sitting right next to me, passing me notes, like, you

know, here say this, or, you know, what, don't ask him about

his mother, because he's mad at us, you know, something like

that. And then there was even another group of people two or

three other people that were out gleaning intelligence they might

have been talking to to the person's mother or their spouse

or something like that, you know, what, why is this and what

kind of gun does he have and gleaning all this information so

so This was a group effort. And and I guess the thing that one

of the things I learned there is being part of something that's

bigger than you, you know that this was that me, you know, look

at me, the hero going out and doing this. This was us after

months of training, working with a psychologist running through

different scenarios, you know, picking each other's brains, we

debrief after every call, you know, what went right, what went

wrong? What can we do better? How can so, you know, there's,

and I think you can always do that in life, you know, what if

you're, yeah, I went on a job interview, how did that go? What

went right? What went wrong? You know, what can I do better? How

can you learn? How can you improve? So I mean, for us, it

was kind of a, an art or a nuance of, what's this person

saying? And is that really the way to go? And the biggest part

of this was trust. We never lied to people. And people always

would say, you know, what, all come out, but I don't want to go

to jail. And we would just say to them, well, I'm sorry. But

when you come out, you are going to jail. And then you you just

put that off the table and focus then on why we're here when you

know, what is the issue here, and stuff like that, and try to

downplay that. But we never lied to people. Because a year from

now, two years from now, we may be back negotiating with the

exact same person. And we never want them to say, hey, you lied

to me, you know, so I want to talk to you that that was not

something. So trust was an incredibly important part of all

this. And so one of the one of those skills is trust, and not

just trusting, you know, your teammates, but trusting

yourself, you had to realize, you know, you couldn't panic,

you couldn't, you know, freeze up and not talk to them, you had

to do this. So you had to realize that one, you had great

training. And two, you've been asked to do something. I mean,

let's face it, if you're talking to me, you're probably having

the worst day of your life. And maybe I'm here trying to

mitigate a problem. That's 1020 3040 years in the making.

And 90% of the time, we were successful at bringing the

person out, or bringing the hostage out, without anybody

getting hurt and everything, everything being great, but 10%

of the time, and it was mostly the hostage taker, they decided

to end their life. And I don't mean this to sound callous, but

I never lost any sleep over that. Because like I said, I

knew I was there doing the very best I could with good people

and good training and a knowledge of what was going on.

But it wasn't realistic to say I Terry fix this problem in four

hours that has been going on for 40 years. So I didn't make the

decision and my life. You did. And so I just I gave you every

opportunity to come out, I give you every opportunity to save

you. And it was certainly a tragedy Don't get me wrong. I

mean, that was a human being somebody somewhere, loved them

cared about them. But it was their decision to kind of decide

that now it's time to go. And I'm going to do that to myself.

So in listening to that, I kind of came up with a

checklist here of some of the skills that I heard you saying

and some of the things that I heard you saying, and I kind of

run through these. And if any of this doesn't sound right to you,

please feel free to jump in and correct me. So the first thing

is, you need a support system. In order to get good at anything

I know, especially as guys, we have a very bad habit of I can

do it. I don't need anybody else. I can do this all by

myself. And the reality is, very rarely can we ever do anything

completely by ourselves. Sometimes you might be able to,

but it doesn't happen very often. Another thing that you

pointed out is, as part of that support system is recognizing

that some body elves have other skills or other perspectives

that you do not have. And it's not about you trying to develop

every skill. Sometimes it's just about surrounding yourself with

people who have the skills that you need. Now the thing is you

talked about seeking out feedback. And what I refer to

this, usually as with my clients is outcome based decision

making. We're reviewing the outcomes. It's not really about

the outcome. But it's more about did we get the outcome we

wanted? And then that's kind of going through that checklist.

What went right went wrong, what could we do better? Even the

things that went well, could we have done them even better, and

you're reviewing those things and it's not just you in your

own head. You're working with your entire team to get that

feedback, because by everybody chipping in you get a more

honest assessment. Then this was man, I hope everybody wrote this

down when you said it. Do not lie to yourself. Because you,

you talked about not lying to the person that you're

negotiating with, that when you set it, what popped in my mind

was all the people over the years that I've had come to me

and say, Yeah, I wish I could do this. But I've failed so many

times, I've broken so many promises to myself, I've tried

to do that, and I keep falling off the bandwagon. They lie to

themselves. And when you make things too difficult, right, we

don't keep it simple. And we make things too difficult. Like

you said, it would be extremely difficult for you to break down

40 years worth of frustration and four hours. So you didn't

try to you try to diffuse what was going on in front of you

without getting super deep into the way you're trying to solve

all this person's problem in four hours, you're trying to

solve the immediate problem. And I think there's a great lesson

in that. Because when we keep things simple, we're more likely

to stick with it. When we make things complicated, we're more

likely to set herself up for failure. And then we end up

lying to ourselves unintentionally. But

nonetheless, me too blind to ourselves. And then later on,

like being in a bad relationship, we constantly

remind ourselves of that time we lie to ourselves, right? We're

in a bad relationship with ourselves.

And then finally, it's kind of wrapped up on this idea that you

know, what, sometimes things didn't work out. And although it

was tragic, you were okay with that. Because for you, it wasn't

really about the outcome. It was about doing the job the right

way, it was about going through the steps. And like you said, if

you went through the steps the right way, 90% of the time,

you're able to get everybody out, everybody was alive. And as

long as even with that, in that 10%, I imagine your primary

outcome objective was to at least get the hostages out. And

if the, you know, I'm sure the only time you might have lost a

little slivers, if you actually lost a half inch, then it takes

on a little bit different, you know, situation than if it's

just the hostage taker who takes their life. But 90% of the time,

there it was, I'm not really worried about the outcome per

se. I'm worried about doing the process, because the moment you

become focused on the outcome, that's when things can go really

wrong. You know, you used this example, that in the beginning

of your story there about the seesaw, and saying, this

person's emotionally high, right now, you cannot go into that

situation, and start talking to that person about, hey, put the

gun down, come out, all that kind of stuff. They're not ready

for that. And I kind of see that as someone who gets focused on

the outcome. That's what they would do. They would go out

there and immediately, okay, let's get this gun away from

him. Let's get him out here. Let's get to silver with right.

But you understood there's a process, we have to go through

this process if we actually want to get where we want to get, and

then to get the outcomes not guaranteed. But let's just hope

we can get there.

Well, it's funny you say that, you know, when

when I first got with the team, you know, my first scenario was,

you know, there was a hostage and a hostage taker in a room.

I'm negotiating through a door, so I can't say anything. And the

hostage is just helping me Hey, you know, screaming and all that

stuff. And I am totally focused on us. It's okay, we'll get you

out, you know, and they're like, no, forget about the hostage.

Concentrate on the hostage taker, let them scream, holler,

do whatever that but focus on why you're why you're there. And

yes, while you're there is to try to get the hostage out. But

you do that by focusing on the reason that the hostage is there

in the first place. So you know, and when you said that I just

had a laugh. It's like, yeah, first time totally missed the

boat on that one. Yeah. So but I had to learn, you know, I had no

experience in that. And that's, that's part of doing the job.

And then in the training we had,

and you just hit on it. We talked, we're talking a

little bit before we started the interview today about sometimes

the objective is just to dress up, right? And you just kind of

hit on that, that the reality is when you start something new,

you probably will suck. And then the goal is to suck a little bit

less each day, and then eventually get to the point that

you're not stuck anymore. And those are good days.

Yeah, I mean, think about it and like you

said, you know, do this in small ways, small steps, baby steps.

Um, uh, I mean, think about whatever you're trying to get

better at. If you got 1% better, every single day, at the end of

a month, you'd be 30% better than when you started. I mean, I

I'd be happy to be 30% better at something after 30 days, you

know, so break that down. I mean, you and I know this and

we're old enough to when you see a problem, and you've got this

huge surmountable problem in front of you, you can't possibly

solve that. But if you break that problem down into small

chunks, then you're it's much easier to solve the big problem,

if you break it down into much smaller problems.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, just to kind of put it in a

different context for people to make it maybe even easier to

understand for them. Let's just say that you, you come to me and

you go, Hey, I want to lose 50 pounds. Okay, well, why do you

want to lose 50 pounds? What? What is the person who's going

to weigh 50 pounds less look like? What kinds of things are

they doing in their life? Because when people, when people

start thinking about fat, and they start thinking about

connectivities are going to do when they start to think about

how the weights holding them back, it now becomes easier to

start not just seeing yourself as someone who wants to lose 50

pounds. But as someone who wants to eat healthier, or someone who

wants to exercise someone who wants to do all those things.

It's not until you understand that, that you didn't even know

what skills to start to develop. Because now Okay, you know what

I need to learn to cook. Right? I need to learn how to exercise.

Okay, well, now, I know what skill I need to develop, how do

I go about doing that? Okay, maybe I can sign up for a

cooking class or whatever, right? And so when you take it

and put it in little tiny chunks, it becomes easier to

understand what the next step is, when you're just like, I

need to lose 50 pounds. That's, that's a big ask. Like, that

takes some serious commitment, because that's not something you

do in a weekend. Unless you have like, have a light bulb or

something like that. I mean, I guess if you pay enough money,

you can do that in a weekend. But it's not. It's not really

what we free here. Right. So Terry, I appreciate you coming

on to sharing the the story today, man, if you don't mind,

tell us a little bit about motivational check and as well

as your book.

Yeah, motivational check is a website that I

started back in 19. I put up a New Thought for the Day, every

day I put up the Monday morning motivational message. I put

videos up stories up things like that, but I realized people are

busy. So there, it's just short kind of short stories, short

videos, getting get a little hit of inspiration or motivation,

and then get on with your day. Sustainable excellence is a book

that I wrote, came out last year, literally I wrote it I had

my foot in or my leg amputated in April of last year. And I

started chemotherapy for the tumors in my lungs in June. And

in that three month period, I literally sat down at the

computer, I had these these 10 principles that a young man,

young college student had connected with me on LinkedIn

and kind of wanted to know, what I thought were the the things he

should learn to not only be successful in his job or in

business, but in life, and I didn't want to give him the you

know, work hard, get up early, you know, help others. Not that

those are important. Those are incredibly important. But I but

I wanted to give him something that I think you mentioned this

earlier, something that would resonate in his soul, something

that would really have meaning to him. And so I took some time

I wrote some notes. And eventually I had these, these 10

principles, and I sent them to him. And then I kind of step

back and I was like, well, I've got a life story that fits

underneath this principle. I know somebody whose life

emulates this principle. And so literally during that three

month time that I was healing before I started chemo, I sat

down at the computer and sort of started building these stories

underneath the principles and eventually had sustainable

excellence the 10 principles to leaving your uncommon and

extraordinary life. And it's, you know, it's been a lot of fun

for me, I went a book came out, I was like, you know, I gotta

sell books, I got to sell books, I got to sell books, and I had a

best selling author over in the UK, who I connected with. Kind

of said to me, no, you're missing the point. Your job is

to help people not to sell books. If you help people, your

books will sell themselves. And I was really kind of glad he he

said that to me because I didn't write the book to make money or

to be famous or anything like that. I wrote the book to help

people and you know, I had an 87 year old man one time cannot

connect with me. He said I bought your book, I read it. He

said if I would have had those principles when I was young, he

said my life would have been a whole lot better. So that made

me kind of feel good. Maybe feel like some unsolicited gentleman

somewhere, read my book and it had an impact on his life. So

That's kind of sustainable excellence. It's available on

Amazon. It's available on Barnes and noble.com. And it's

available on Apple iBooks. Basically anywhere online, you

can get a book, you can get sustainable excellence.

Yeah. And I was actually taking a look at it on

Amazon. You know, Amazon gives you a nice little sneak peek

inside thing, and it has the the table contents on there. And I

was just kind of reading through what the ethical principles

were. And the one that I think immediately popped out to me

that really caught my attention was, you are already the person

that you want to become?

Yeah, I think they read, you know, different ones.

They're not in any order or not, you know, 10 is not more

important than one or anything like that. And, I mean, that's

the one that resonates for you, the one that resonates for me,

which is the one where, you know, most people think with

their fears and their insecurities instead of using

their minds. And I think it resonates for me, for me,

because I've done that, you know, I there's things I've

wanted to do, but it scared me, right? You know, I wasn't sure

of myself. So I didn't do it. And that's why I kind of go back

to what I said earlier, you know, if there's something in

your heart, if there's a passion that you have, and it's burning

in your soul, and it scares you, go ahead and do it. You know,

and and there's another one in there about failing, you know,

the importance of failing and failing often, especially when

you're young, because that's the only way you grow. And you know,

people always say, Well, you know, well, you win, or you

lose, it's like, well, yeah, maybe, but I think you win, or

you learn. And as long as you learn, even if you lose, I don't

think you lose, you know, if you could take something that you

learn, you know, you start a business and it fails, and you

learn something, well, can you start another business based on

what you learn? And if you can, then you didn't really learn you

actually kind of one. So there's, it's just all kind of

how you look at it and how you let your brain process that

information.

Yeah, I once had a coach who told me that he would

never take business advice from someone who's only had one

successful company. And when I asked him, Why not, he said,

because anybody can get lucky once. If you can do more than

once, that shows me that you truly do understand the process.

And more than likely, that person might have had two

successes, they probably had 30 failures, right? So it's not

really about, oh, I only want to follow people who have only has

success is about following people who have had repeated

success. And oftentimes, the only way we ever get to a point

where we can repeat a success is through multiple failure. Yeah,

I mean, like you guys really learn.

Yeah, I mean, you go back to the old Edison

example, you know, I didn't fail, you know, I just learned

99 or 9000 different ways not to make a light bulb. Well, then

then on that 10,001, I learned how to make the light bulb so

fear to fail, no way you would have made the light bulb.

Yep. So, you know, it's just a really great lesson.

So I hope people will go and check out the book. I'm gonna

actually go pick it up. I see. I don't know if he'll still be

some hesitant to say this, but it is actually on sale right now

on the Kindle version on Amazon. So

if you're gonna love my publisher,

yes, that's at least at least go check it out.

See if it's still on sale when this episode actually airs. If

so, you can get on a discount, but if not, it's still worth it.

spend the money. It's fine. I hear I hear I do appreciate you.

You coming on today. Do you have any parting words or thoughts

that you want to leave us with anything we didn't get to talk

about today?

Let me leave you with one story. I've always been

a big fan of westerns growing up. My mom and dad used to let

me stay up and watch wild wild west and Gunsmoke and all that

kind of stuff. But in 1993 the movie tombstone came out and it

was huge movie. Val Kilmer played a man by the name of john

Doc Holliday and Kurt Russell played a man by the name of

Wyatt are now Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp were two living

breathing human beings that actually walked on the face of

the earth they're not made up characters for the movie. And

doc was called doc because he was a dentist by trade, but he

was pretty much a card shark and and a gunslinger and why it was

a law man his entire life. So these two men who couldn't have

come from more divergent backgrounds formed this really

great friendship. And at the end of the movie, there's a scene

where doc is dying at a sanitarium in Glenwood Springs,

Colorado and the real duck holiday died at that sanitarium

it's about three hours from my house and he's buried in the

Glenwood Springs cemetery and and why at this point in his

life, is destitute. He has no money he has no job has no

prospects per job. So every day comes to play cards with doctor

to pass the time, and the two men are talking about what they

want out of life. And doc says that when he was you Gandhi was

in love with his cousin, but she joined a convent over the

affair, but she's all that he ever wanted. And he looks at

why. And he says, What about you? What, what do you want, and

why it looks at him and says, I just want to lead a normal life.

And doc looks back at him and says, There's no normal, there's

just life and get on with living yours. You know, we're all kind

of waiting for that one thing. You know what if I if this

happens, then I'll go do this. Or if that happens, I'll go do

that. You know, I'll have a normal life. If this. There's no

normal. Don't wait for that thing to him. Get out there and

live your life, make your mistakes, do dumb and crazy

things, learn from them, and continue to move forward.

Because at the end of your life, if you spend all that time

waiting, you're just gonna be sitting there holding a bunch of

air because your life's never gonna happen. Get out there and

make that life happen.

Love it, man. Love it. As long as you don't do

something, they end up on the other side of a hostage

negotiation and you're not the negotiator, then you haven't

missed up too bad.

Good point.

You can bet you still got time to bounce back

and absolutely. What's your if anybody wants to get in touch

with you? How would they do that?

So my email is motivational check@aol.com. But

if you go to motivational check, com my website, you can leave me

a message there. You can access my social media sites, you can

access the book and all that kind of stuff. So motivational

check. COMM is probably the easiest way to get in touch with

me.

All right. Well, on that note, thank you again for

coming on to the show today. I hope you will all come back and

join us next week for another episode of The unshakable habits

podcast. And in the meantime, I just want to remind you that as

Terry said, there is no normal, there's only life, go out there

and live it and be unshakable.

Thanks for listening to the unshakable habits podcast.

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