Latest / UNMASKED with Wesley Farnsworth / EP 62 - He Was Told He Had 2 Years to Live | Terry Tucker

Transcript

EP 62 - He Was Told He Had 2 Years to Live | Terry Tucker · UNMASKED with Wesley Farnsworth

0:02
What does it take to live an uncommon life when pain,
0:06
pressure, and setbacks refuse to let up?
0:11
Today on Unmasked, we're going to sit down with a leader whose
0:13
life has been shaped by cancer, crisis and calling, and who's
0:19
learned that resilience isn't about avoiding hardship, but
0:22
about choosing not to quit when it shows up.
0:32
Welcome to Unmasked, where we take off the filters and get
0:34
real about faith, failure, and finding freedom.
0:37
I'm your host, Wesley Farnsworth, a dad, veteran,
0:41
author, and a man who's learned that God does his best work in
0:44
the middle of our mess. Each episode we have honest
0:47
conversations with people who have walked through addiction,
0:50
pain, or doubt, and with leaders, pastors, and everyday
0:54
believers who are learning to live and lead authentically.
0:58
So take a breath, pull up a chair, and let's get real.
1:02
This is unmasked. Today's guest is Terry Tucker
1:13
and author, speaker, and founder of Motivational Check LLC.
1:19
Someone who believes deeply in the power of story to motivate,
1:23
challenge and bring lasting value to others.
1:26
With a Bachelor of Science and Business Administration from The
1:29
Citadel and a Master's degree from Boston University, he
1:36
brings both intellectual rigor and real world wisdom into every
1:40
conversation about leadership, mindset and purpose.
1:44
What sets his voice apart though is lived experience over 13 year
1:49
over a 13 year cancer journey combined with careers spanning
1:53
the NCAA, Division One athletics, marketing, healthcare
1:57
administration, law enforcement, as SWAT, hostage negotiator,
2:02
entrepreneurship and coaching. He has learned the resilience
2:06
from every angle. He is the author of Sustainable
2:10
Excellence, The 10 Principles of to Leading Your Uncommon and
2:13
Extraordinary Life, as well as a future contributor to
2:18
Perspectives on Cancer. His message is clear and hard
2:22
earned. You don't become extraordinary
2:25
by avoiding pain, you become extraordinary by how you respond
2:29
to it. Terry, thank you so much for
2:31
joining us today on Unmasked and being willing to Share your
2:35
story with us all. Wesley, thanks for having me on.
2:38
I'm really looking forward to talking with you today.
2:41
You know what, when you agreed to come on the show I got, I got
2:44
a little bit excited because I think I think your story is
2:47
going to be a good one and I'm really excited to hear it.
2:49
So I'm just going to give the floor over to you and let you
2:53
share what you what brought you with us today.
2:59
Sure. So I I was born on the South
3:01
Side of Chicago. I'm the oldest of three boys.
3:03
You can't tell this from looking at me or from my voice, but I'm
3:07
6 foot 8 inches tall and actually went to college on a
3:10
basketball scholarship. I've got a brother who's 6 foot
3:14
seven who was a pitcher for the University of Notre Dame's
3:17
baseball team, another brother who's 6 foot six who was drafted
3:20
by the Cleveland Cavaliers in the National Basketball
3:24
Association. And then my dad was 65.
3:26
So we used to joke that if you sat behind our family in church
3:29
growing up, not a prayers chance you were going to see anything
3:32
that was going on, you know, at the front of the church.
3:34
But our 5 foot, 8 inch mother was always the boss.
3:38
So when I graduated from college, I moved home to find a
3:42
job. I was actually the first person
3:44
in my family to graduate from college.
3:47
Fortunately, I found that first job in the corporate
3:49
headquarters of Wendy's International, the hamburger
3:52
chain and their marketing department.
3:54
That was the good news. The bad news was I lived with my
3:57
parents for the next 3 1/2 years as I help my mother care for my
4:01
father and my grandmother, who were both dying of different
4:04
forms of cancer. After Wendy's actually went to
4:07
work for the hospital that cared for my father and my
4:10
grandmother, because I did. I thought they did such a great
4:13
job that I wanted to be part of that.
4:16
And then, as you mentioned it, at 37, I made the major pivot in
4:19
my life and became a police officer.
4:22
It was always my dream. Part of what I did was I was on
4:24
the SWAT team as a hostage negotiator.
4:27
After that, started a school security consulting business,
4:31
coach girls high school basketball.
4:34
For the last almost 14 years now, I've been battling a rare
4:37
form of cancer. And then I guess just finally,
4:40
my wife and I have been married for 32 years.
4:43
We have one child. A daughter is a graduate of the
4:45
United States Air Force Academy and is an officer in the new
4:48
branch of the military at the Space Force.
4:55
You've definitely been through and experienced a lot, I think
4:58
some of which most people would only, you know, dream about
5:02
doing. I mean, talk us through your
5:05
kind of how you got to where you are.
5:08
I mean, you, you've, you, you kind of did your your high level
5:13
of you know what you've been through.
5:15
But when you think about living unmasked, you know, it's all
5:18
about the journey, the hard stuff that we've gone through
5:22
and how our faith has helped us. So talk to us a little bit about
5:26
the challenges that you faced in your life and how your faith has
5:30
helped you through those challenges.
5:33
Sure. So I, I think one of the biggest
5:36
adult decisions and it, and it was an adult decision, but it
5:39
was certainly done in faith, was what I was going to do when I
5:43
graduated from college. I wanted to follow in my
5:47
paternal grandfather's footsteps.
5:49
He was a Chicago police officer from 1924 to 1954.
5:54
And in 1933, he was shot in the line of duty.
5:58
My dad was one year old at the time, but he remembered growing
6:02
up, all the stories my grandmother told him that knock
6:04
on the door of Mrs. Tucker, grab your son, come with us, your
6:07
husband's been shot. So when I expressed an interest
6:10
in, in going into that line of work, my dad was absolutely not.
6:14
You're going to college, you're going to major in business,
6:16
you're going to get out, get a great job, get married, have 2.4
6:19
kids and live happily ever after.
6:21
But that's the life my father wanted me to live.
6:24
That's not the life I felt I was supposed to live, that God was
6:28
calling me to live. So I had a choice.
6:30
I my dad, as I mentioned, was dying of cancer when I graduate
6:34
from college. I could have said, hey, dad,
6:35
yeah, no, you're dying. Sorry.
6:37
I'm going to go blaze my own trail, do my own thing or out of
6:41
love and respect for you, I will do what you want me to do.
6:45
So understanding that back story, my resume kind of looks
6:51
there's kind of an understanding there.
6:53
My first two jobs were in business because that's what my
6:55
dad wanted me to do. And I sort of joke I I did what
6:58
every good son did, waited till my father passed away and and I
7:02
followed my own dreams. But honestly, Wesley, the thing
7:06
I'm most proud of in my life is that God never let that dream
7:11
die in me. God never said, you know, hey,
7:14
you know, your hospital administrator, you're making
7:16
decent money, just stay where you are.
7:18
It was, no, I'm going to pull you away from, you know, the
7:22
suit and tie, 8:00 to 5:00, Monday through Friday, and I'm
7:25
going to put you where I need you, where I want you.
7:29
And that was always on my heart, you know, that was always, I
7:31
knew I was going to do it. I just didn't know when I was
7:34
going to do it. You know, I think a lot of
7:36
times, you know, we think about we're going to do things on our
7:39
time And we realized that, no, we're going to do things on
7:42
God's time. A lot of times that's not that's
7:45
not the same time. And that.
7:46
And so at 37 years old, I became a rookie police officer.
7:51
And I'll tell you this, I took a whole lot more Tylenol in the
7:54
police Academy than my younger counterparts and stuff like
7:57
that. But it was just something I knew
8:01
God wanted me to do And and that that was the first time that I
8:05
really felt called, you know, to you're I, I need you to do this.
8:13
And I wanted to do it. It wasn't like I was scared or
8:17
anything like that. It was I know that that's what
8:19
you want me to do. That's what I am going to do.
8:22
And it was more like, when do you want me to do this?
8:24
I'd like to do this. Nope, not now.
8:26
Wait, wait. And Wesley, I am not a patient
8:31
person. I am not somebody that, you
8:33
know, just OK, God, whenever it's like, no, God, come on,
8:36
let's go, let's go, let's go. But that was I was so glad at 37
8:42
to graduate from the police Academy because I knew that's
8:44
what I was supposed to do with my life.
8:46
And that started a very kind of conversational point with God of
8:53
talking to him about, you know, what do you want me to do?
8:56
Where do you want me to go? How am I supposed to serve you
8:59
without really knowing I had something on my heart?
9:02
But it's like, why aren't you letting me do this?
9:05
It's like, I am. I just, you just got to wait.
9:08
And maybe it was God's way of teaching me patience.
9:14
He definitely has a way of teaching us things and sometimes
9:19
it's always in a way or sometimes it's done in a way
9:23
that we don't like. But at the same time it's in a
9:27
way that in the end makes us better.
9:32
But in the moment it's it's very difficult for us to come to
9:40
terms with or gives us a hard pill to swallow, if you will.
9:45
Yeah, it it, it really does. And and then, you know, we Fast
9:48
forward, I'm 51 years old, I'm coaching girls, high school
9:52
basketball and I have a callus break open on the bottom of my
9:55
left foot. And I don't think of it really.
9:58
Don't you know, you're, you're a coach, you're on your feet a
10:00
lot. So I don't really pay much
10:01
attention to it. But after a couple weeks of it
10:03
not healing, make an appointment to go see a podiatrist, a foot
10:08
doctor friend of mine. And he takes an X-ray and he
10:10
says, Terry, I think you have a cyst in there and I can cut it
10:12
out. And he does.
10:14
And he shows it to me, just a little gelatin sack with some
10:16
white fat in it. No dark spots, no blood, nothing
10:20
that gives either one of us concern.
10:22
But fortunately or unfortunately, he sends it off
10:25
to pathology. And then two year or two weeks
10:29
later, I get the phone call from him that we all dread.
10:33
And as I said, he's a friend of mine.
10:35
And the more difficulty he's having explained to me what's
10:38
going on, the more frightened I am becoming until finally, he
10:43
says he just lays it out for me. Wesley's like Tara, been a
10:46
doctor for 25 years. I have never seen the form of
10:50
cancer that you have. You have an incredibly rare form
10:53
of Melanoma. Most people think of Melanoma is
10:56
too much exposure to the sun, effects of melon, the pigment in
11:00
our skin. I have a rare form that appears
11:03
on the bottom of the feet, the palms of the hands or the nail
11:06
beds that has nothing to do with sun exposure.
11:10
And because my cancer was so rare, he recommended I go to MD
11:13
Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and be treated.
11:16
And I did. And they excised the bottom of
11:19
my foot. They took out all the lymph
11:20
nodes in my groin. And then they looked at me and
11:23
said, you more than likely will be dead in two years because we
11:26
have absolutely nothing to offer you.
11:29
And it was like, OK, I've been given a death sentence.
11:34
How do I learn or how do I train or what do I do to turn that
11:39
death sentence into a life sentence?
11:41
And that was another come to Jesus sort, sort of discussion
11:49
of am, am I going to die? And, and there was, there was a
11:53
lot of I, I guess I went through all the stages that we would
11:58
associate with grief. You know, first of all, it was
12:00
denial. I, I can't possibly have cancer.
12:02
I've done everything right. And then there was anger.
12:06
I can't possibly do have cancer. I've done everything right in my
12:09
life. And then there was kind of a
12:11
bargaining with God. Our daughter was in high school
12:14
at the time, a very formative time in her life.
12:17
It's like, look, God, just let me live long enough to be there
12:19
for her until she gets out of high school.
12:23
And then there was absolutely a downtime of depressed that, you
12:27
know, I felt sorry for myself. And then I came out the other
12:32
end and was basically, this sucks, but I'm going to have to
12:36
embrace the suck. I I don't like the cards that
12:39
I've been dealt. I I want to fold.
12:41
I want to reshuffle those cards and see if I can come up with a,
12:44
a better hand. But at some point in time, you
12:47
need to play the hand that was dealt you.
12:50
And it was there were a lot of nights of, of God.
12:53
What do you want me to do? What, what, what's going on
12:55
here? Is this, I'm just going to die
12:58
or is this something bigger than me?
13:02
And honestly, Wesley, for the last 14 years, this is
13:05
absolutely been something that's bigger than me.
13:09
Yeah. Well, I love that.
13:12
I love that they basically said you had two years to live and
13:15
now you're sitting here 13 years later.
13:18
And that's just, there's just something so powerful when you
13:22
think about that and the things that you've been through.
13:25
And I'm sure the doctors are like, I have, we have no idea
13:28
what's going on. Like they just can't explain it,
13:31
but you can. You can, you can tell them
13:33
exactly why you're still sitting here, and that's awesome.
13:38
Yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry.
13:40
No, go ahead. I was going to say, you know,
13:43
these, these doctors that they're like, you know, in 2012
13:46
when I was diagnosed, we have nothing but surgery for you.
13:49
I mean, if it's somewhere we can cut it out, we'll cut it out.
13:51
Otherwise we have nothing. And now it'll be 14 years in
13:56
April and the, the, the development of drugs of, of
14:04
surgeries of things now for this form of Melanoma.
14:09
And I've been kind of on the forefront of a lot of it.
14:11
I've been the Guinea pig for, you know, we're going to try
14:14
this and, and see if it works. I, you know, I always say that
14:18
this is, this is bigger than me and you need to find meaning in
14:22
your misery. We're all, I don't believe any
14:24
of us suffers in vain. There's something we're supposed
14:27
to learn, something we're supposed to understand through
14:30
whatever we're going through. And one of the biggest
14:33
questions, and this is going to sound real elementary, one of
14:36
the biggest questions that I asked myself and I think a lot
14:39
of people ask themselves when you are told you've been given a
14:42
death sentence is do you want to live?
14:45
You know, and, and that's of course I want to live, but a lot
14:48
of people don't. A lot of people like, I don't
14:50
want to go through the pain, the ugliness.
14:53
I mean, I've had my foot amputated.
14:55
I've had my, I had my leg amputated above the knee during
14:59
the COVID pandemic. Was told I would be in the
15:02
hospital for 10 to 14 days to learn how to function without a
15:06
leg and was sent home 48 hours after the surgery because of
15:10
COVID. And my wife and I were like,
15:13
what? You know, but it's like, all
15:16
right, God, you obviously want to, we'll figure it out.
15:19
What do you want us to do? How?
15:21
And God sent people into our life that helped us, that they
15:25
got us through that. And you, you know, I've been
15:29
through this, but I've never been through this alone.
15:31
There's always been somebody there.
15:33
And I should have died so many times during during that 14
15:37
years. And so many of the people I was
15:40
with have died. And it's like, OK, God, I have a
15:44
friend in Washington state, and we always talk about God's not
15:47
done with me yet. You know, when I die, where I
15:49
die, how I die way above my pay grade, you know, don't spend a
15:52
lot of time worrying about the dying.
15:54
Spend more time focused on the living, on what God wants us to
15:59
do while we're here. Wow, I'm just trying to wrap my
16:08
brain around everything. I mean, just the story that you
16:12
just shared, you know, from being the Guinea pig for
16:16
everything cancer related to being told you had two years to
16:21
live, now you're almost 14 years to being told, you know, you're
16:25
going to be in hospital for 14 days after having your leg
16:27
amputated, basically. And being home, set home for 8
16:31
hours later and having to figure it out on your own.
16:34
I mean, that's just, that's just insane when you really think
16:38
about it. I mean, the the journey that you
16:42
have been through has just taught you so much and has
16:47
really shaped your identity. What has your journey taught you
16:53
about your identity and who we are, apart from roles and
16:59
productivity and physical ability?
17:02
That's a great question. I'll tell you this.
17:07
I don't look at myself as a cancer patient and, and I I
17:12
think I get labeled a lot and I'll, I'll kind of get give you
17:17
that. You know, I was 6 foot 8, still
17:19
am 6 foot 8200 and 30 lbs. When I would walk into a room,
17:22
everybody would stare. Everybody would, would look, now
17:27
I'm in a wheelchair and I don't have a left leg.
17:30
So when I roll into a room, the same thing happens.
17:32
People look at you and, and they, they want to what, what,
17:37
what's going on with that? And Wesley there, there's a,
17:41
there's a professor at the University of Chicago, a
17:43
psychology professor who does this experiment with his
17:46
students. And the idea is you go out and
17:48
get on a bus and then three questions.
17:51
You go deep with somebody, you go deep with another human
17:54
being. And I'm just going to make this
17:56
up, you know, to get on a bus. First question.
17:57
Hey, how you doing? I'm fine.
17:59
How are you? Second question, what do you do
18:01
for a living? Oh, I'm a doctor.
18:03
Third question, have you always wanted to be a doctor?
18:07
Wesley Doesn't matter what they tell you.
18:09
I could say no. I grew up on a farm and I wanted
18:11
to be a veterinarian, but XY and Z happened in my life.
18:14
Or my mom was a doctor but died of breast cancer when she was
18:17
40. And so I'm honoring her memory
18:19
by becoming a doctor. Whatever they tell you, they're
18:22
telling you their, their purpose, their mission, their
18:25
why in life. And we don't go deep with people
18:29
anymore. Social media allows us to stay
18:31
on the surface. Like you said, that's unmasked.
18:33
That's your podcast. We're we're unmasking.
18:36
Oh, everything's great. Everything's fine.
18:37
Everything's wonderful. It's not always wonderful.
18:40
It's not always great. One of the things that I was
18:45
given, I was put on a drug therapy when I was initially
18:49
diagnosed and my, my ecologist said this isn't going to cure
18:53
you. All we're doing is trying to
18:54
keep the can down the road to try to buy you more time.
18:57
And it was a drug called interferon.
18:59
And I took a weekly interferon injection on Saturday.
19:04
And for the next 3 1/2 days, I had a terrible case of the flu.
19:08
I, I mean, figure your worst case of the flu.
19:11
And that's how I felt. And I took those weekly
19:14
injections for almost five years.
19:16
So imagine having a terrible case with flu every week for
19:22
five years and knowing this wasn't a cure.
19:25
And Wesley, there were there were times I was so sick of
19:28
being sick that I prayed to die. It was like, come on, God, just
19:32
Take Me Out of this. I am contributing 0 nothing
19:36
zilch to my family. Just Take Me Out of this.
19:39
Let my family get on with their life.
19:42
But he didn't, he didn't Take Me Out of it, but he did give me
19:46
the strength to get up every morning.
19:49
And sometimes a good day was literally, I'm just going to get
19:51
out of bed and I'm going to make it to the couch.
19:53
That's that was that was a good day.
19:55
That was a win for me. That's how lousy I felt.
19:59
If you would ask me at that point in my life, what are your
20:01
goals like? Goals.
20:03
I just hope I wake up tomorrow morning.
20:05
You know, that was literally that was my goal.
20:07
If I wake up tomorrow morning, I figure out what I'm going to do.
20:10
And that, and it was, I think it was God saying, you know,
20:16
what's, what's the, you know, Saint Paul talking about, you
20:19
know, I have a thorn in my, you know, in my, in my hand.
20:24
And God, you know, get rid of it.
20:27
No, my grace is sufficient for you to handle this.
20:31
And I think that was God's way of starting this journey of you
20:35
need to rely on me. This, this isn't about you and
20:40
Wesley. I've been asked a lot of times
20:41
on podcasts if I could live my life over again without cancer,
20:47
would I do it? And in all honesty, I don't
20:50
think I would because cancer has made me a better human being.
20:55
It's allowed me to connect with other human beings.
20:58
And you know, I can sit in the waiting room waiting to go back
21:01
for infusion therapy and see somebody, you know, kind of with
21:05
that deer in the headlights look.
21:07
It's the first time they're, they're scared, they're nervous,
21:09
they're worried. And I, I don't know what that
21:11
looks like because I, I did it when I was there initially.
21:15
And I just wheel over in my wheelchair and say, hi, I'm
21:18
Terry. What's your name?
21:20
And all of a sudden the person is seen as a person, as a human
21:25
being, not as a cancer patient, not as an infusion patient, but
21:28
as a human. And I tell, look, I've been
21:30
coming here for 4 1/2 years. These are the greatest nurses.
21:33
They're going to take care of you.
21:34
Everything is going to be OK. And, and I may never see that
21:37
person again. But just having that connection,
21:40
just another human being to another human being, that
21:43
that's, that's what's important to me right now.
21:46
Wesley, it's 100 years from now, nobody's going to remember I was
21:48
even here. But today I want those deep
21:52
connections with other human beings.
21:54
I I want to get to the soul level with another human being.
21:59
I love that because I one of the things that I often say and,
22:02
and, and when I'm talking to people and they're like, I don't
22:04
understand why I'm going to do this, You know, I don't
22:07
understand why this has to be a part of my story.
22:10
And I tell them, I'm like, you know, you're going through this
22:14
because down the road it's going to allow you to connect with
22:18
that one person that feels like they're alone and nobody
22:22
understands. And that's why we live unmasked
22:25
is because when we live unmasked and we're willing to come up to
22:27
these people and say, hey, I've been where you are.
22:31
And you're willing to wheel over in your case and say, hey, I'm
22:34
Terry, what's your name? And just connect with them as a
22:37
person and let them know that they're not alone now.
22:41
Now they know that there's somebody else in their corner
22:43
that has been there. And it gives them hope.
22:46
And that's what this is all about is living on masks and
22:49
helping other people have hope that they're not alone and that
22:52
they're they are not the only one to go through this journey.
22:59
So, you know, Terry, when you think about all the things that
23:03
you've been through, you've had this amazing career.
23:06
I've listed off a whole list of things that you've done in your
23:09
career time. How did cancer reshape the way
23:15
that you define success, especially compared to how you
23:19
defined it earlier in your career?
23:22
And then you're even your athletic life.
23:25
Sure. So the the greatest definition
23:27
of success that I've ever heard in my life came from a
23:31
basketball coach when I was growing up.
23:33
He was John Wooden, the basketball coach at UCLA, who
23:37
won an incredible amount of championships, won seven NCAA
23:41
championships in a row, and coach Wooden, one of the most
23:46
successful coaches of all times. And if you listen to this
23:49
definition, then I'm going to give you a success.
23:53
Nowhere in there does he talk about winning.
23:58
And here's here's the definition.
24:01
Success is Peace of Mind, which is a direct result of self
24:06
satisfaction in knowing that you did the best to become the best
24:12
that you're capable of becoming. And one of the things Coach
24:15
Wooden did before he got into college sports and athletics was
24:19
he was an English teacher in in Indiana.
24:21
And he used to tell the story about if somebody worked
24:24
incredibly hard, did everything they could and got AC in
24:28
English, were they successful? And he would say, yeah, I think
24:33
they were versus somebody who didn't work hard at all, was
24:37
never challenged and got an A in that English class.
24:41
Were they successful? And he would say, I don't think
24:44
they were because they never pushed themselves.
24:46
They never did everything they could to become the best that
24:50
they were capable of becoming. And I think that's, you know,
24:54
that has stayed with me. I, I, you know, I was following
24:57
John Wooden when I was 1213 years old and things like that.
25:00
That has always been my go to definition of success.
25:03
Did I leave it all out on the court?
25:05
Did I leave it all, you know, as a police officer, you know, did
25:09
I do everything I could to help that person or, or make that
25:12
arrest or do that investigation or whatever?
25:14
And did I give it everything I had?
25:17
And if the answer was yes, then I was successful.
25:20
And we tend to say, you know, I've got to win.
25:22
Well, what is winning look like? Because to you it may be on the
25:27
scoreboard, you know, I have more points than their team.
25:30
So I'm a winner, I'm successful. But if you didn't try very hard,
25:34
if you didn't give it your all, I don't think you are
25:37
successful. And I think that's something as
25:40
I've certainly when I was in athletics, when I was in college
25:44
playing basketball, high school playing basketball, when I
25:46
coached my teens, when I, when I was in high school, but even in
25:51
cancer, did I give it all? Did I do everything I could
25:54
today and lay exhausted on that bed, you know, after treatment
25:59
or after surgery or after? Did I give it everything I had?
26:03
And was like, one of the things I, I made a, a very conscious
26:07
decision is when I got sick, I, I said, look, I'm never going to
26:13
blame or take it out on a nurse or a doctor or a therapist or
26:17
somebody who's trying to help me.
26:20
And I'll end with this story. For 4 1/2 years, I was getting a
26:25
clinical trial drug and I was doing it every three weeks.
26:29
And, and on Monday, the first thing I had to do is be in the
26:31
lab to get a blood draw before I, I could get the medication.
26:35
So I was at the lab at 6:00 in the morning, was there as the
26:38
woman, the receptionist open the doors and I would always ask
26:42
her, how was your weekend? How's your family?
26:44
She had a side business. How's your hot side business
26:46
going, stuff like that. And she said to me one day, she
26:49
said, you know, you're always kind to me.
26:51
You're always nice to me. You're always asking me about
26:54
myself and my family. And I said to her, well, thank
26:58
you. I said, but isn't everybody nice
27:01
to you? She said, no.
27:03
She said people are mean, they're rude.
27:05
They're, you know, they talk down to me and I, I tried to get
27:09
her to look at the difference between perception and
27:14
perspective. I said perception is your
27:17
background, your education, the way you grew up, your family
27:21
dynamics, all that kind of it's, it's, it's everything that
27:24
you've been through in your life.
27:25
The problem is it's only germane to you because only you have had
27:29
that exact experience. Perspective is putting yourself
27:35
in the shoes of another person. So I said to her, look, you have
27:39
a tremendous opportunity. People are coming up here and
27:42
they're scared because this blood test may tell them they're
27:46
going to have to have chemotherapy or they're going to
27:47
have to have surgery, or maybe they're going into Hospice
27:50
because there's nothing else that can be done for that.
27:52
You have a tremendous opportunity by putting the
27:55
perspective of that person on you and being kind, being
28:00
smiling at them, being nice, no matter how much they treat you
28:03
poorly. And you could tell the light
28:06
bulb came out and, and you know, over the next couple months, she
28:09
was like, I, I love what you told me because now I try to be
28:13
kind to every human being that they come, no matter how they
28:17
treat me, even if they're mad at me, they're yelling at me,
28:19
whatever. I always try to be kind to them.
28:21
But I always looked at life and those people from my perception
28:26
instead of their perspective. You know, there's something so
28:31
powerful in that because when people are there and they're
28:35
yelling at you, they're not yelling at you because you do.
28:38
They're scared. You know, they're going through
28:41
things. And this is just how it's
28:42
manifesting. And it's very easy for us to
28:45
take everything personal. And so I love that perspective
28:48
that you shared. You know, you said control your
28:52
mind or it will control you. What did that lesson cost you to
28:55
learn, especially during your cancer journey?
29:00
So I was actually kind of lucky to learn that lesson early.
29:04
I, I have three knee surgeries in high school and one actually
29:10
kind of kept me out for almost an entire year.
29:11
I missed an entire year of playing basketball.
29:14
And when I went back playing basketball, I remember my, my
29:17
mind, my brain was putting all kinds of negative thoughts into
29:21
my mind. You know, things like, hey,
29:22
you're probably a step slower since your surgeries and college
29:25
coaches aren't going to be interested in recruiting you.
29:28
And I remember thinking, wait a minute, I'm still playing at an
29:31
elite level and coaches are still reaching out about the
29:34
possibility of playing for their college or university.
29:37
I learned that I had to change the narrative.
29:40
I had to change the, the paradigm that was going on in my
29:44
mind. And I'll, I'll give you a kind
29:46
of an interesting story. I, I was very lucky actually to,
29:51
to hear this. So when I was at The Citadel,
29:54
which is a military college, my sophomore year, the president of
29:58
the of the college was a man by the name of James Stockdale.
30:02
Now, I don't know if that name rings a bell, but Stockdale had
30:05
been the highest ranking prisoner of war in the Hanoi
30:09
Hilton, the prisoner of war camp during the Vietnam conflict.
30:13
He was shot down doing a bombing run over Vietnam.
30:17
And he actually won the Medal of Honor for prisoner organization
30:22
and resistance in that during during his almost eight years in
30:25
captivity and not I didn't spend a lot of time around him.
30:28
He was the president of college. I was just a cadet, but I
30:31
remember being at a gathering where somebody asked him who
30:34
were the people that survived that brutality, that torture,
30:39
that that ugliness. And he said, let me tell you,
30:42
the people who didn't survive, he said it wasn't the big,
30:46
strong, tough guys who thought that they could handle any kind
30:50
of abuse or torture. And then the next thing he said
30:53
really, really surprised me. He said the other group that
30:58
didn't survive were the Optimists.
31:02
He said these were the people that thought they would be
31:04
rescued or let go by Thanksgiving, Christmas or
31:07
Easter. And he said when those holidays
31:09
would come and go and they wouldn't be rescued.
31:12
He said those people died of a broken heart.
31:15
He said the people who survived were the people who understood
31:19
what they could control, which according to stock, that was
31:22
basically the breathing in our lungs and the thoughts in our
31:25
minds and controlled them. He said everything else is
31:29
outside your paradigm. Everything else is outside your
31:31
purview. And I, I learned this technique
31:34
from my dad. My dad used to tell us if
31:36
something's bothering you, take out a piece of paper and write
31:40
down every single thing that's bothering you, everything that's
31:43
in your mind. And he said, then when you've
31:45
got everything out on paper, go through and cross out everything
31:50
that you specifically have no control over.
31:53
Whatever's left on that piece of paper is something you can work
31:57
on. So I think honestly, West of
31:59
where we get in trouble is we try to control all these things
32:03
in our lives that we have no control over.
32:06
And, and we get, you know, we, we get down, we get depressed.
32:09
Oh, I can't, well, you can't control that.
32:12
I mean, if, if, if a guy like Stockdale, you know, can say,
32:15
hey, it, it's only the things that you can control that you
32:19
need to control. I, I, you know, I mean, that guy
32:23
went through hell literally for eight years.
32:26
And I'm, I'm going to, I'm looking for a quote here.
32:29
And I found it. This is called the Stockdale
32:31
paradox. And it goes like this.
32:34
You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the
32:39
end, which you can never afford to lose with the discipline to
32:45
confront the most brutal facts of your current reality.
32:50
And I, I, I love that. I mean, it's like you can never
32:53
lose faith. You can, you know, faith in
32:55
yourself, faith in your your peers, faith in your creator
32:59
with the understanding of these are the facts.
33:01
And this is what we're facing. You can never putting those two
33:05
together. You can never lose faith.
33:07
And I, I've done that my entire life.
33:09
God, you know what? I'm going to go through surgery
33:11
and take off my leg. You got this because I, I don't
33:15
got this. I, I, I don't, I don't got this
33:18
because literally the day I had that surgery, COVID was going
33:22
on. My wife dropped me off at the
33:24
hospital. She couldn't come in with me.
33:27
I was in this cavernous pre op room that's designed to be
33:32
prepping all kinds of people for surgery.
33:34
And I was the only person in that room, me, the nurse and the
33:38
anesthesiology resident. I was scared to death.
33:41
And if I could have run out of there, I would have.
33:44
But I had a broken leg. And it was like, all right, God,
33:46
you got this. Because I don't got it.
33:49
And that's what controlling your mind is about.
33:54
It's all about that mindset and, and, and, and allowing the shift
33:57
to to to take place. What was the first mindset shift
34:03
that you remember that you had to make when cancer stopped
34:07
being a battle and really became a long term reality?
34:14
That I was somehow in control of this.
34:17
You know, I, I told you before, I'm, I'm not a patient
34:20
individual, you know, and I mean to have gone through 14 years
34:25
almost now of, of this with the understanding that so many times
34:31
I have been put low, put down like, you know what, I, I guess,
34:38
you know, I just told you about having my leg.
34:39
I, I can't, I can't control this.
34:43
I, I, I'm, I'm scared to death. When I was doing my clinical
34:46
trial, I would every three weeks, I would go to the
34:48
hospital Monday through Friday and I would be treated with this
34:53
drug that kept my tumors stable but gave me terrible side
34:56
effects. I shook violently, I threw up.
34:58
I had a fever, I sweated, I had a headache.
35:02
And I remember one of the nurses said, you know, we love you so
35:06
much because you come back everyday knowing that you're
35:08
going to have to go through this, this pain.
35:11
And I'm like, I, I, I'm not doing this.
35:14
I mean, I am physically doing it, but I'm not doing this by
35:17
myself. And let me, let me give you a
35:21
story. Anybody who's listening to us
35:24
out there that thinks your pain, thinks what your adversity that
35:27
you're going through now doesn't matter that that nobody's nobody
35:30
cares. There was a nurse who was about
35:33
25 years old already a nurse, but learning how to do things on
35:36
the unit where I was being treated, the infusion center
35:39
unit. But six months later, she's
35:42
taking care of me by herself. And she comes in and she says,
35:45
Terry, I've got a story I want to tell you, but I don't know
35:47
how to tell it to you. I mean, Wesley, what do you say
35:50
to somebody who says that to you?
35:51
You know, it's like I said, OK, well, I I hope you decide you
35:56
want to tell it to me. I said, because I, I think I
35:59
would enjoy hearing. So she's in and out for the next
36:01
couple hours and then finally comes in, sits down.
36:03
She said, all right, here's the story.
36:05
She said, when I first met you, I was going to get out of
36:09
nursing. She said, I had a very good
36:11
friend of mine die. I was in a really dark place.
36:15
I, I talked to my family. I was going to quit nursing.
36:21
I was going to go to work for Amazon.
36:23
And she said, And then I met you and I see how you come every day
36:28
and you go through this terrible reaction to your medication, but
36:31
you come back every single day. It never beats you.
36:34
And she said, then I went back in your file when I was taking
36:36
care of you and I read everything you've been through.
36:38
You had your foot empty, your leg empty.
36:40
You went through that interferon therapy and all that kind of
36:43
stuff. She said.
36:44
When I finished reading your story, I knew I was where I was
36:49
supposed to be. Now, if she would have never
36:52
told me that story, I would have had no idea that just by the way
36:56
I showed up, I mean, I wasn't doing it.
36:58
I was just doing my thing. Just by the way I showed up, I
37:01
had made a positive difference in that individual.
37:04
So anybody who's listening to us that thinks, and you know what,
37:07
this doesn't matter. I promise you, there is
37:10
somebody, maybe more than one person, that's watching how you
37:14
handle your adversity in life and would give almost everything
37:18
they have just to walk 5 minutes in your shoes.
37:21
So don't ever think that what you're going through doesn't
37:24
matter. Again.
37:25
Find the meaning in your misery. There's a reason you're going
37:28
through what you're going through.
37:31
Amen. I love that.
37:35
You know what, I want to talk to the listeners here real quick.
37:38
You know, Terry has shared some really deep stuff already and I
37:42
don't know about you, but as I've been just listening to him
37:45
talk, it's stirred up some known things in my life and, and some
37:49
thoughts of, of people that I think could really benefit from
37:53
hearing this episode. So if that's you and you're
37:56
listening to this and you're like, man, this person needs to
38:01
hear this. Would you take just a quick
38:03
second and share this episode with them?
38:05
Because I truly believe they came to mind for a reason.
38:10
So take a moment and just share the episode and then come back.
38:13
Because I have a feeling Terry's going to lay some more knowledge
38:16
on us that you're not going to want to miss because we're not
38:19
done yet. You know, Terry, you have been
38:23
through a lot, a lot of pain and discomfort.
38:27
And when you think about those types of things, they're themes
38:32
in your life, but you don't shy away from them.
38:35
So how do you help people distinguish between pain that's
38:39
shaping and pain that's simply wearing them down?
38:46
That's another great question. I think it's how you use the
38:52
pain. Do you use it to make you
38:54
stronger and more resilient? Do you, I mean, our, our
38:59
mammalian brains are designed to keep us safe, to keep us alive.
39:03
And so anytime there's pain, anytime there's difficulty,
39:06
anytime there's something dangerous, your brain is always
39:09
telling you get away from it, get back off from it.
39:11
Don't, don't engage in it. But why?
39:14
So we know this. We know the only way we're going
39:17
to grow, the only way, the only way we're going to get better,
39:20
the only way we're going to improve it is if we step outside
39:24
those comfort zones that we have and we do things that make us
39:28
uncomfortable. I will offer this to your
39:30
audience because I do this every single day of my life.
39:33
Every day, do at least one thing that scares you, that makes you
39:38
nervous, that makes you uncomfortable, that's
39:40
potentially embarrassing. It doesn't have to be a big
39:44
thing. Maybe you take a cold shower,
39:45
maybe you go work out when you don't want to, Whatever you
39:48
don't want to do, do those things.
39:52
Because when the big disasters in life hit us and they hit all
39:56
of us, you know, we lose somebody who's close to us.
39:58
We unexpectedly get let go from our jobs, like me.
40:01
We find out we have a chronic or a terminal illness.
40:04
You will be so much more resilient to handle those things
40:09
than people who never step outside their comfort zones.
40:13
And I'll end with this there there's a entrepreneur by the
40:16
name of Ed Mylan, 2023 USA TODAY named him Entrepreneur of the
40:20
year. And the first time I heard this,
40:22
I was like, I'm not sure I agree with this.
40:24
I got to I got to think about he talks about the four types of
40:28
people in the world. And like I said, when I first
40:31
heard this, I was like, let me let me think about this.
40:34
He said the first type person are the unmotivated and we all
40:38
know these people that they complain, they whine there
40:41
nothing's ever right. There's always a problem that
40:43
they never accept, whether it's hardship, whether it's
40:47
difficult, even positive things, they're always complaining about
40:50
something. He said that's the vast majority
40:52
of people you will encounter in your life.
40:55
The second group he talks about are the motivated and he talks
40:59
about it this being a carrot and stick approach to life.
41:02
If I do this, I will get that, he says.
41:05
It's rather low level, but it it works for a lot of people have a
41:09
very happy and successful life. The third group he talks about
41:14
are the inspirational people. The word inspiration coming from
41:18
2 words in spirit. So if you're an inspirational
41:23
person, you move people with your energy.
41:27
And then the last group he talks about are the aspirational
41:31
people, where people aspire to be like you.
41:35
And sometimes if I'm giving a talk and depending on the group,
41:37
especially with young people, I was, I'll tell that story.
41:40
All right, show of hands. How many people are unmotivated?
41:42
Nobody ever raises their hand. Nobody ever puts their hand up
41:45
and said, yeah, that's me, I'm one of the unmotivated.
41:48
But if you believe Mylan, that's the vast majority of people you
41:52
won't encounter in your life. And I go back to Coach Wooden
41:55
again, who gave me the definition of success.
41:58
He talked about don't whine, don't complain.
42:00
You know, you want to be part of a team.
42:04
We all need to be part of a team.
42:06
We're so much Better Together than we are separate.
42:10
And again, I bring God into that as well.
42:13
It's you know, you, you put enough people together.
42:16
What is it? What did Jesus say is 2 of you
42:18
gathered in my name there I will be.
42:20
So you and somebody else, you and five other people, you and
42:23
whatever, find good people to hang around with, God will be
42:26
there with you. You know, people have a way of
42:34
there's, there's a lot of different scenes out there about
42:38
a lot of different things. You know, we, we, we say sayings
42:41
all the time and a lot of times we mean the best things by them
42:44
or they mean them, you know, but there's they don't always hold
42:48
up when rubber meets the road. And so as I'm sitting here
42:53
listening to you to you share, I'm curious, what is some things
42:59
that people say about resilience that sound great, but they don't
43:06
actually hold up when life gets brutally hard?
43:11
That's a that's a great question.
43:13
I, I mean, I, I, I've heard people that are like, you know,
43:17
I've, I've got this, you know, I've got this, I'm under, it's
43:22
under control. And, and you can just tell by
43:24
the way they say it or the look in their eyes or the look on
43:27
their face, you don't got this. You don't got this at all.
43:31
I, I mean, you're, you're trying to, you're relying on your
43:35
strength alone. And again, this is bigger than
43:42
us. And every night I, I, I say
43:46
before I fall asleep, I say kind of my version of the Our Father.
43:50
And you know, our Father art in heaven.
43:52
Dad, you know, hallowed be thy name.
43:56
You know, holy, blessed and sacred is your name.
43:58
Your Kingdom come. You sent your Son down here with
44:03
us to conquer sin and death, to bring people together, to bring
44:07
your people to yourself. Our Father art in heaven
44:10
hallowed, and thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, Thy will be
44:15
done. What does that mean?
44:16
God put each of us here for a reason, and that reason is
44:22
different for all of us. But how many people actually
44:26
look for that reason and once they find it, then live that
44:30
reason? So many people spend their
44:32
entire life just muddling through life without ever
44:36
understanding or contemplating what it means to be great at
44:40
something purposeful in our lives.
44:44
And so I think we, we have this thing that like I can handle,
44:47
I'm tough, I'm, I'm strong, I'm all this kind of stuff.
44:51
We are made great in our weakness.
44:53
And I think when we, we understand that and we don't try
44:58
to be, you know, again, we take off the mask.
45:01
I'm this bravado that I'm putting out there.
45:04
Look how strong, look how tough. I can handle this.
45:10
I really can't by myself. I need God's help.
45:14
I need other people's help. I, you know, bringing that
45:17
together. And I, I think that's one of the
45:19
biggest things that I hear that, you know, so many times and I
45:22
think a lot of times it's, it's around me.
45:24
People see me and they're like, oh, I got this, I got this.
45:27
And it's like, you don't understand, this isn't just me.
45:30
This is something bigger than me and you're trying to do it by
45:34
yourself. So I would say that's probably
45:36
one of the biggest things that I hear that I see about
45:39
resilience. I love that you're not, you're
45:43
not taking the credit. It's not me, it's him.
45:47
It's all him. You know, it's all God because
45:48
it's, you can't do it. You can't do it alone.
45:51
I mean, you yourself had said when you were going through this
45:55
season where every weekend you had the flu because of the shot
45:58
that you were taking and you were like, God, I'm done.
46:01
Like just take me. I'm done with this.
46:04
But you stayed in the fight and he, he, he gave you the strength
46:08
that was needed to continue. For the people out there that
46:13
are listening, that are there, they feel stuck.
46:16
They feel defeated, not because they quit, but because they're
46:21
exhausted. You know, I'm sure you've been
46:24
there. What does perseverance actually
46:26
look like in a healthy way? Yeah, I like I said, sometimes
46:32
perseverance is a good day was I can get to the bed, from the bed
46:37
to the sofa. That that's that was a win.
46:40
Yeah. It's no big deal.
46:41
Like when you found as lousy as I did.
46:43
Yeah. Yeah, that was a big deal, you
46:45
know, and things like that. So I guess I would say be kind
46:51
to yourself. But I would also say this, my
46:55
wife works with a young man who is a former Navy SEAL, some of
47:00
the toughest individuals in the world.
47:03
And he's kind enough that on my off weeks of treatment, he calls
47:06
me just to check out mommy. Hey, how you doing?
47:08
And we talk a lot about that SEAL mentality that, you know,
47:12
that they beat you down to where you you have nothing left.
47:16
And the Seals talk about their 40% rule, which basically says
47:21
if you're done, if you're at the end of your rope, if you can't
47:24
go on, you're only at 40% of your maximum and you still have
47:29
another 60% left in reserve for yourself.
47:33
So in those times when you think I, I, I'm done, I, I'm so
47:37
depleted, I can't, I can't go on.
47:39
And I've been there. I've been depleted mentally,
47:41
physically, emotionally, spiritually, I, I am done.
47:44
I can't go on. I always think about that.
47:47
I think about, no, I'm not, I'm not even half at what I can
47:52
still give to myself. And I had a, had a blood clot in
47:57
my lung and flew it around the sack of my heart one time.
48:00
And I remember I, I was, I was in that state.
48:03
I was so done. And I, my wife was, I was in the
48:06
ER. My wife was sitting right here.
48:08
And I turned to where I had tears running and I said, just
48:11
let me go. Let, let me, let me go, which
48:13
was a horrible thing to say to her because she didn't have the
48:16
power to dispatch me, you know, even if I wanted to, But it was,
48:20
I was, I was done. And I remember just closing my
48:23
eyes and thinking about that 40% rule.
48:26
It's like, no, you have more to give.
48:30
You have more things to do because otherwise God would have
48:35
taken you by now. And so I, I just, you know, I, I
48:39
just look at that. I've been there.
48:40
I get it. But we know this from, you know
48:44
this from marathon runners, at some point a marathon runner
48:47
will hit what they call the wall.
48:48
They will, they will be like, I'm done.
48:50
There's no more glucose in my body.
48:52
I can't, I can't keep going. But if you can put 1 foot, just
48:55
put 1 foot in front of the other, keep going 1 foot in
48:59
front of the other. We know this from marathon
49:01
runners. You will push through that wall,
49:05
come out the other side, get your second wind and be able to
49:10
finish the race. That's that's life.
49:13
That's the way it is when you are at your lowest, that's when
49:17
God is at his greatest and he will get you to put 1 foot in
49:22
front of the other. He will get you to the finish
49:24
line if you allow him to. But you can't quit.
49:26
You can't give up. You, you, you can't say you know
49:29
what you can say. I'm done, I'm depleted, I got
49:32
nothing. I, I get there, been there, but
49:34
rely on something that's bigger than you.
49:36
I keep coming back to that. It's, it's always something
49:38
that's bigger and then you, if you think you're going to do it
49:41
by yourself, you're going to have a really hard time with it.
49:45
Yeah, it's just like I said in the introduction for the show,
49:47
you know, and I say it every, every, every episode, God does
49:51
his best work in the middle of our mess because that's when we
49:55
have to say, OK, I can't do this anymore.
49:57
And we have to truly rely on him because we finally, it's finally
50:02
gotten through to us to hey, we're not the ones in control.
50:07
And you have to rely on him. You know, you, you have lived
50:12
through some high stakes environments.
50:16
You know, you've lived everything from SWAT
50:18
negotiations to hospital administration to you name it.
50:22
It feels like you've done it. So how has pressure revealed
50:26
character in your own life? Yeah, I think when we're under
50:31
pressure, you're who you are really comes out.
50:33
How you, how you treat people, how you show up really does
50:41
manifest itself under pressure. And I I think pressure can go
50:46
two ways. You can be a jerk, you know, I'm
50:48
a really nice guy. But when things are under you're
50:50
under pressure in business or, or health or whatever like that,
50:54
your real side comes out. The other thing is you can say
50:58
about pressure is what does, what does pressure do?
51:02
Pressure makes diamonds, you know, tremendous pressure makes
51:06
diamonds and diamonds shine. Same thing can happen to you.
51:11
There's AII love to read. I spent a lot of time reading
51:14
and when I was in high school, I read Farewell to Arms, which is
51:17
a book written by Ernest Hemingway.
51:19
And it's it's a fiction book, but it's a kind of a semi
51:22
autobiographical account of Hemingway's time as an ambulance
51:26
driver for the Italian army during World War One.
51:29
And there's, there's a line in that book, Wesley, that I
51:32
absolutely love that I think illustrates this point.
51:35
And the line is this life breaks everyone.
51:40
And afterward, many are stronger at the broken places.
51:46
So that pressure can make you a better human being.
51:50
It would be just like if you broke your arm, you know, a
51:52
doctor would set the arm, put it in a cast.
51:54
When that arm heals, the area at the break will be stronger than
51:59
the rest of the arm. That's that's a metaphor for
52:03
life. If you can take the pressure, if
52:05
you can take the difficulty, the ugliness, the adversity and use
52:10
it, you can come out the other end a more resilient individual,
52:17
a more humble individual, a more loving individual, a more caring
52:21
individual. It will make you a better person
52:25
if you allow that pressure to do that.
52:33
You know, when you think about helping people and coming out
52:39
the other side and being that that diamond, how do you help
52:43
people lead well at home or work when they're personally
52:47
exhausted or hurting and you may be feeling the same way?
52:54
Yeah, that's a, that's a great question.
52:56
I don't know if I've got a great answer for it.
52:58
You know, honestly, I, I, I think, you know, cuz we all get,
53:02
we all have those down days and, and I and I do, I, I mean, I
53:05
don't want your audience. I mean, you're looking at me
53:07
now. There's no S on my chest.
53:08
You do not have a Cape and fly around with magical powers.
53:11
I have bad days. I cry, I get down, I feel sorry
53:14
for myself. But when I'm doing that, I'm
53:17
finding I'm, I'm looking inwards, you know, woe is me.
53:21
Look at me. I'm, I'm, I'm having a bad day
53:23
for me. I find a very easy way to get
53:26
out of that is to go help another human being.
53:32
You're probably old enough to remember Fred Rogers.
53:34
Mr. Rogers from Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, who educated so
53:38
many young people on public television, including myself
53:41
when I was growing up. Fred Rogers died in 2003, and
53:46
his family was going through his effects and they found his
53:49
wallet. And inside his wallet was a
53:52
scrap piece of paper on which Mr. Rogers had written 4 simple
53:56
words. Life is for service O When I
54:02
find, you know, I'm down, I'm depressed, I'm exhausted.
54:04
I can't, I don't think I can go on.
54:06
I'm looking inward. I'm, I'm thinking how bad things
54:08
are and I find a way to get out of that is just pick up the
54:11
phone and call somebody I know who has cancer or is having a
54:14
bad time. Or if I'm, you know, in a
54:16
waiting room, go wheel over to somebody and introduce myself
54:20
who looks like they're having now all of a sudden, I'm not
54:23
focused on me. I'm not focused inward.
54:25
I'm focused outside. I'm trying to make a difference
54:28
in another human being's life. And for me, I think it's a real
54:31
simple way to just say, OK, I'm not focused on me.
54:34
I'm focused on somebody else now.
54:36
I'm trying to make a difference in their life.
54:38
And that that makes me feel better.
54:41
That makes me want to be a better human being.
54:45
That makes me want to share. Hey, you know, God is working
54:49
through me, whether I say that or whether I just model it.
54:53
And I think modeling is a is a very important part too.
54:55
How, how do you act in the tough times?
54:58
How do you act when the chips are down?
55:00
You know, are you down, depressed and can't handle it?
55:03
Or you like, you know what? I'm going to rely on God.
55:06
I'm not sure how this is going to turn out, but I'm going to do
55:07
the best I can. And again, going back to that
55:10
definition of success, am I laying on the ground totally
55:14
spent knowing that I did the very best that I could possibly
55:17
do for myself, for another human being, for my creator?
55:21
If the answer to that is yes, I think you're trying to handle it
55:24
that way. You know, when you think about
55:29
everything you've been through and, and the, the journey that
55:33
you've been on and the way that you've helped people and all
55:36
that, you, you can't help but kind of start thinking legacy,
55:40
right? And so when you think about
55:42
legacy, what is the legacy that you are most intentional about
55:47
building right now as a leader, a parent, and even a mentor?
55:53
Yeah, that. I mean, that should be what it's
55:58
all about. What are you, what are you
56:00
leaving behind? One of the, you know, one of the
56:03
four truths is what you leave behind is what you weave in the
56:06
hearts of other people. What, what are you weaving in
56:10
other people's hearts? What difference are you making?
56:13
What values are you putting out there and, and watching people
56:18
either take them or, or not take them.
56:21
And and, you know, I can only live by example.
56:26
And when I had my leg amputated and I found out, I also found
56:29
out I had tumors in my lungs. I went with my wife to the
56:32
Mortuary, to the cemetery and to the church.
56:35
And I planned my funeral. And because I come on podcasts
56:39
like yours or I give talks in person, I actually got some
56:42
brush back from people who were like, well, you know, planning
56:45
your funeral. Don't you think that's kind of
56:47
defeatist? And I was like, well, last time
56:50
I checked, to think we're all going to die.
56:52
Don't think anybody's working on a cure for life right now, you
56:55
know, And I remember I heard the Native American Blackfoot
57:00
proverb years ago that that I absolutely loved.
57:03
And it goes like this. When you were born, you cried
57:07
and the world rejoiced. Live your life in such a way so
57:13
that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.
57:19
That's what I want. That's what I'm looking for.
57:22
You know, at the end when, when this is all said and done, I did
57:25
the very best. I laid it all on the line.
57:27
I gave it. I gave you everything that I had
57:31
physically, emotionally, spiritually, whatever you want
57:34
to say. And hopefully when I die, you
57:38
know, I'll hear well done, good and faithful servant.
57:40
I hope that's what I hear because I've always said,
57:43
Wesley, I've done more living in the 14 years I've been dying of
57:48
cancer than I've done in my entire life.
57:51
And I had a pretty good life before I got sick.
57:57
How is your faith, how is your faith been transformed through
58:05
all of this? You mentioned, you know, not
58:07
being able to do it on your own and and having to truly lean on
58:11
him, but I can can't help but imagine that through all of
58:17
this, you've had to, I experienced maybe even some hard
58:20
truths and faith transformation. Talk us through kind of briefly
58:26
that faith transformation that has taken place over this last
58:29
14 years and maybe where you were precancer and to where you
58:35
are today because of cancer. Yeah, I mean, cancer is
58:40
certainly deep in my faith. I mean, I have, I'm a cradle
58:43
Catholic. I, you know, I was an altar boy
58:45
when I was growing up. I mean, went to church all the
58:49
time. And I remember when I had my
58:53
knee surgeries, my mom, you know, I, I was my second knee
58:57
surgery. They took out 25 pieces of my
58:59
bone, told me I wouldn't play basketball anymore.
59:02
I might not walk normally again. They put me in a cast from my
59:04
hip to my ankle for the entire summer.
59:07
And right before school started, they cut the cast off.
59:10
And every Sunday, my mother used to hand the keys of the car to
59:13
my dad. We would all pile into the
59:15
Mercury marquee brome that we had.
59:18
I used to say if we had a turret, it could double as a
59:21
tank if this thing was huge. And my brothers and I would
59:24
would get in the car with my parents and we would go to
59:29
Columbus Hospital, which was a hospital that was founded by
59:34
Saint Francis Xavier Cabrini, the first American citizen to be
59:38
canonized to St. in the Catholic Church.
59:40
And while my brothers and dad and I would look at that kind of
59:44
had a shrine there for this was her room.
59:47
These are her clothes and stuff like that.
59:48
My mom would be talking to the nun that ran the gift shop.
59:51
And she was, she was a very portly woman, had a very thick
59:57
Italian accent. But Wesley, we never left there
1:00:00
without a brown bag full of prayer cards, metals, holy water
1:00:05
and things like that. I swear at one time we had
1:00:07
enough holy water. We could have filled the bathtub
1:00:09
and baptize everybody in the city of Chicago.
1:00:12
I mean, really it was. But every night and every
1:00:16
morning I would put that holy water on my knee and and say a
1:00:22
prayer and. Eventually I got back on the
1:00:26
basketball court and eventually I got a scholarship to play in
1:00:28
college. I believed in God, but not the
1:00:33
way I believe in him now because I've literally been at death's
1:00:37
doorstep so many times. Some of my own like, yeah,
1:00:41
please take me, Get Me Out of here.
1:00:43
I'm I'm good, let's go. And some not of my own doing
1:00:47
that. I didn't want to die.
1:00:49
And my faith is so much deeper. You know, the world is crazy.
1:00:55
There's so much going on. There's social media, there's a
1:00:58
lot of noise. And I think that faith got
1:01:01
deepened in those hospital rooms at night where it was quiet and
1:01:06
I was hurting and I had nothing to do but pray.
1:01:12
And so that that definitely is deep in my faith.
1:01:18
Wow, Terry, I have one more question for you, but before I
1:01:23
ask it, I want to give you a chance here to be able to talk
1:01:26
to the listeners and you know, if they're out there and they're
1:01:29
man, Terry, I want to hear more of your story because I we're
1:01:33
only an hour podcast and you can really just scratch the surface.
1:01:38
So where can they here find you online?
1:01:41
Where can they hear more of your story and where can they find
1:01:44
your book? Yeah, so the easiest place I, I
1:01:48
mean, the books I've written to, they're, they're available
1:01:51
anywhere you get a book online. Easiest way is to go to Amazon
1:01:54
and get them. I have a, A blog, a website
1:01:58
called Motivational Check. You can reach out to me there at
1:02:01
motivationalcheck.com. I love hearing from people.
1:02:04
I love engaging in, you know, back and forth talking with
1:02:07
people and that. So please, if if you got
1:02:09
something out of this episode with
1:02:10
wesleyandipleasereachoutandleavemeacomment@motivationalcheck.com. Perfect.
1:02:17
And I'll leave those links down in the show notes for those that
1:02:21
are looking for for it. So you know, Terry, one of the
1:02:24
things that I love to do on this show is I love to leave my
1:02:29
listeners with a action step, something that they can think,
1:02:34
kind of chew on over over the next week or so.
1:02:37
Something that they can maybe do right now to move forward in
1:02:41
their own journey of being unmasked.
1:02:43
And so if somebody out there today is listening and they feel
1:02:47
worn down, they feel discouraged, maybe they feel
1:02:51
quietly defeated, what's one question that you would
1:02:54
encourage them to ask themselves right now, this week, to begin
1:02:59
moving forward again? This is going to be kind of
1:03:05
simple. It's like what if?
1:03:10
What if I could start that business that you know, has been
1:03:14
beating me? What if I could go for
1:03:18
treatment, you know, even though I I feel sick and tired and and
1:03:22
beaten and broken? What if I could make another
1:03:27
overture to be a friend to that person?
1:03:31
You know what? I think we get to a point where
1:03:32
I I can't do any more. I'm done.
1:03:37
What if, what if you try? What if that person responded to
1:03:42
you? What if you got better because
1:03:44
the treatment? What if that business started?
1:03:46
What would that look like in your life?
1:03:49
So I guess I would say, what if, what, what if you kept going?
1:03:53
What if you tried again tomorrow?
1:03:57
And you know, so many people just quit and they quit when
1:04:00
they're so close. If you just have a little bit of
1:04:03
grit, just a little in your life, go back and go back to the
1:04:08
four or the four types of people in the world.
1:04:10
Most people are unmotivated. You got a little bit of grip.
1:04:14
Think where you can go with that, whether it's physical,
1:04:16
mental, emotional. You want to start a business,
1:04:18
you want to ask somebody out, you want to get married, you
1:04:20
want to have whatever that is. What if?
1:04:23
What would that look like? I guess that's a question I
1:04:26
would ask. What if?
1:04:29
What if? What if?
1:04:31
Well, Terry, thanks for joining us today on Unmasked and sharing
1:04:34
your story with us and being so vulnerable.
1:04:38
We really appreciate it. Wesley, thanks for having me on.
1:04:41
I really enjoyed talking with you.
1:04:49
Well, thanks for joining me today on Unmasked, and again,
1:04:51
huge thanks to Terry for being so open and honest with us today
1:04:55
and sharing his story. If something in this episode
1:04:58
spoke to you, don't let it stop with you.
1:05:00
Share it with the one person that got put on your heart while
1:05:02
you were listening, because you never know whose breakthrough
1:05:05
might start with just that simple message from you.
1:05:08
If you want more encouragement, you want to work with me
1:05:10
one-on-one, or you're interested in having me speak at your
1:05:13
church or event, you can find everythingyouneed@wesleyfernsworth.com
1:05:18
and make sure you join the Unmasked community by connecting
1:05:20
with me on social media so that we can keep walking this journey
1:05:23
together. Until next time, remember that
1:05:27
grace is greater than your past, and freedom begins the moment
1:05:30
that you choose to live unmasked.
1:05:33
God bless you.