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Adapting With Motivational Check LLC CEO Terry Tucker · OneLegUpAlex Media

0:02
Here's your host, Alex Garrett. Well, I am very excited because normally
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I'm the one that has one leg up. But I've got someone else who
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in his email to me when he talked about being on the show, Terry
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Tucker Jay College Division one basketball player swat hostage Negotiatam'll get into that. But
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also someone who's had a twelve year cancer battle, survived, did lose his
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leg, had to adapt and Terry Mike, goodness, I think you've done
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a damn good job of that. So thanks for joining. Well, Alex,
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thanks for having me on. I'm really looking forward to talking with you
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today. And where were you before your cancer diagnosed? I want to start
0:39
there. Yeah, sure, So I grew up on the South side of
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Chicago. I am the oldest of three boys. You can't tell this from
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my voice or look at me, but I'm six foot eight inches tall and
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actually went to college at the Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina on a basketball
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scholarship. I've got another brother who's six foot seven who pitched for the University
0:59
of Notre Dame Iam. Another brother who's six foot six who was drafted by
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the Cleveland Cavaliers in the National Basketball Association, and then my dad was six
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foot five. So we used to joke that if you sat behind our family
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in church growing up, not a prayer's chance you were going to see anything
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that was going on, you know, in front of the church. But
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I was very lucky. I was the first person in my family to graduate
1:21
from college. When I graduated, I moved home to find a job.
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I'm really going to date myself now, but this was long before the Internet
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was available to help people find employment. I found that first job in the
1:33
corporate headquarters of Wendy's International, the Hamburger chain, in their marketing department.
1:40
That was the good news. The bad news was I lived with my parents
1:42
for the next three and f years as I helped my mother care for my
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father and my grandmother, who were both dying of different forms of cancer.
1:51
After that, I switched to hospital administration. I actually went to work for
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the hospital that cared for my father and my grandmother. Then I made a
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major pivot in my life because I'm a police officer and as you mentioned,
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was on the SWAT team as a negotiator, started a school security consulting business.
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After that, coach girls high school basketball. When we lived in Texas.
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But for the last twelve years now, I've been battling this rare form
2:15
of cancer, this rare form of melanoma, having lost a leg and dealing
2:20
with this cancer and then seeing the loved ones pass away. My dep paths
2:23
away prossly last year. So I feel that pain. But doesn't it enrage
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you even more? When Kate Middleton's joked on for about three months, where
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the hell is she? Then when she comes up the diagnosis, all these
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elites are eating their own words. It's sickening to me. It's like,
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let the woman be dealing with this in peace, right, Yeah? Yeah,
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I mean we all have our own journey. And I guess when you're
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a public figure and you sort of give up the you know, the privacy,
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the intimacy of having a disease like cancer or any any kind of an
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illness, and I guess you can either say, you know what, I'm
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going to embrace it and I'm going to live it and I'm gonna try to
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educate people and help people have better lives, or you know, you kind
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of sort of sit in the basement with it and you know, it's it's
3:07
quiet, and it's dark and it's ugly and we don't want to talk about
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it. I've just been for twelve years. You know what I am what
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I am, and if you don't like it, that's your problem, that's
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not mine. And I try to use my ugliness, my stinky, my
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smoking, you know, life to say, Okay, hey, you can
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live a great life having one leg or not having a leg, or whatever
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you end up doing. It's all up here. I mean, our whole
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life is played up between our ears. And if you understand that, life
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can be amazing. When you were with Wendy's, did you know Dave by
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chance? Would you? Would you work with them at all? Or?
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I mean Dave was kind of you know, the front man, the spokesperson.
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He was on commercials and things like that. But I did know him.
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He was around the office and you know, in your five year anniversary
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or three year anniversary to come around and give you a pin and stuff like
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that. But he wasn't as the younger generation. We're talking about Dave Thomas
4:03
for those who don't know what we're talking about right now, right Yeah,
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A great guy, just a super guy, A man who was adopted at
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birth and spent a lot of his charitable time with adoption agencies and promoting adoption
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and things like that. So somebody who took his riches and made something really
4:21
good out of it. And I think Wendy's was his daughter. I believe,
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I'm not mistaken. I think there Melinda Lou was her name, but
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nobody could say Melinda Lou, so everybody called her Wendy, and that's that's
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where the name came from. So you're dealing with this cancer as we speak,
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But how are you? Are you still able to maintain your job's high
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school basketball coach and dare I say a squad Houston negotiating, No, I
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haven't. I you know, I really have not worked since I developed cancer.
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It's just been one treatment modality and amputation. And I'm still I still
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have tumors in my lungs. I just finished a round of treatment last week.
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So it's a it's just a constant in battle. And so my job
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now is this is to be on podcasts with nice people like you, and
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to write and to just try to get a message out that you can live
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very fully with this kind of disease. Earlier, in an earlier episode of
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One Leg Up, I talked with Marion Welleck, who had had crippling anxiety
5:20
after losing his multimillion dollar business and whatnot. Have you had that anxiety where
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you can even and depression where you can't even get up in the morning,
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or do you still manage to get out there? Are there tough days?
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Are there good days? Bad days? What's the days life? Yes,
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that's a question. There's all of that. When I was diagnosed, I
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have a rare form of melanoma that appeared on the bottom of my foot.
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And when I was diagnosed in twenty twelve, they told me that if I
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got a miracle, I might live five years, but more than likely I'll
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be dead in two years. And I thought, well, you know,
5:56
you gave me a death sentence, maybe I can turn that into a life
5:59
sent And so one of the drugs that they put me on was a drug
6:02
called interferon, where I took a weekly injection of the drug and it was
6:09
a nasty drug for me. It gave me severe flu like symptoms for two
6:13
to three days every week after each injection. And I took those weekly injections
6:18
for almost five years. So imagine having a really bad case of the flu
6:24
every week for five years and that wasn't a cure. That was just as
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my doctor used to say, we're trying to kick the can down the road.
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And during that time I really had some difficult times. I was so
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sick of being sick and I literally prayed to die. It was like,
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come on, God, I'm not living. I'm just not dying. And
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I really believe there's sort of those two camps. You know, you're living,
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you're growing, you're developing, or you're not. And I wasn't.
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I mean, if you would have asked me my goals back then, I
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would have said, literally, it's to see if I wake up tomorrow morning.
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That was my goal. I just got to get through today. And
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so yes, I went through all that that ugliness, that darkness, and
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I didn't die. But I do believe I have a very strong faith that
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God gave me the courage, that strength, the discipline to continue to go
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on, and now twelve years later, I'm still here. The pay for
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mentality I feel that, you know, I feel like because I was born
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with one, just one leg, I have the obligation almost to pass on
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the opportunity to give hope to those who have had amputations. Listen to stories
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like yours and give those that may not be ready to adjust to life without
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a leg or a limb or even in a wheelchair. I'm not ready to
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adjust, but here you are saying you can adjust, right, that's the
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story here. Yeah, And I'm not gonna paint a panacea. I mean,
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you know this sucks, but you have to embrace the suck. I
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do not like the cards that I've been dealt, but I have to play
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those cards to the best of my ability. And this is going to sound
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really weird or one of these statements. I've learned a lot of things,
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but two things I've learned earned is I don't really think you know yourself until
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you've been tested by some form of adversity in your life. And I know
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you have Alex. And the other thing is, and this is the weird
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part, I honestly believe cancer has made me a better human being. It's
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made me better because you know, I was an active person my whole life.
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I played college basketball, I was on a swat team, I was
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a police officer. And so how do you balance the fact that that's what
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you were with what you are now? You have one leg, You're in
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a wheelchair. You're still being treated for active cancer. And my response to
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that is, when you can't do what you're good at, you do what's
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important. You figure out what's important in your life and you do that,
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And that's what I think I've been doing. It certainly sounds like that's what
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you've been doing with your life as well. When the doctors invite you on
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certain things, you sort of like say, no, I can do it.
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Meaning if they advise you to not maybe get bed rest or something like
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that, you're like, no, I'm not gonna get that better, So
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I'm gonna go out there and do it right. You sort of maybe not
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buck the orders, but you try and amend it for your own wellbeing as
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well. Yeah, I mean, my wife and I were just talking about
9:05
that last night, that you know, cancer is not a one size fits
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all. You know that that if I have this kind of cancer, well,
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then the other person will have the same kind of cancer and the same
9:15
kind of experiences. That's absolutely not the case. I've seen so many people
9:20
that have gotten cancer and just turn their entire life over to someone in a
9:24
white coat with initials after their name and don't want to participate in their own
9:28
healthcare, don't want to be involved in it. I've always wanted my life
9:33
to be shaped by the decisions that I made, not by the decisions that
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I didn't make or that someone else made for me. So I take a
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very active role. I always ask my doctors why why are we doing this?
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Is there a better way? And if you want to do something to
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me, you need to explain it to in a way that I can understand
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it. I don't need medical ease. I'm not that smart. I can't
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understand that. Pardon me, lame exactly. Absolutely help me to understand how
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we're doing this. And if I can understand it and it makes sense to
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me, then absolutely we'll go ahead and do that. And I am lucky.
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I am a I'm at the University of Colorado Hospital, so I have
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access to an oncology pharmacist and things like that. And I'll give you an
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example. One time, I was reading an article about these doctors in Portugal
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that we're using dha, which is a fatty fish oil that you can buy
10:26
over the counter. They're supposed to be very good for your heart health,
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and the doctors found that cancer cells. DHA acted like a Trojan horse that
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they took up the cancer or the DHA and it killed them. And so
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I immediately went to my pharmacist and I said, I want to take DHA
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and she said, well, hang on a second, let me research it
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and i'll get back to you. And she came back to me she said,
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he we don't want you to take it because you had a blood clot
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in your lung in twenty seventeen. You're on a blood thinner and DHA will
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further thin your blood. We're concerned about bleeding episodes. Okay, that made
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sense to me. I mean, I can understand why you don't want me
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to take it, and so I didn't. But that's the thing that I
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want to do. I want to read about things. I want to educate
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myself and then go to you as the medical professional and say can we do
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this? Does this make sense? And we've had several episodes of that where
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they've said, sure, go ahead and do that whatever it ended up being.
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And it just makes me feel like I'm involved or engaged in my own
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healthcare. You're also the founder of Motivational check LC. I want to get
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to that throughout the conversation. But do you like reminiscing about your college days
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as a ballplayer, Does I give you a certain like? Man, I
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wish I was still there kind of feeling. What's that like when you talk
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about it? It was a lot of fun. I was very lucky,
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very fortunate. You know. I played high school basketball in Chicago and we
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had a ton of great players. I played in the same conference in high
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school with a person by the name of Isaiah Thomas who would go on to
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play at Indiana for Bobby Knight, win a National Chefchampionship, and play a
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couple of years or many years for the Detroit Pistons and win a couple of
12:05
NBA championships as well. So yeah, I was very lucky to play against
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the teams played against. Michael Jordan. My youngest brother coached Michael Jordan's two
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sons in high school. So I love basketball. I love talking about it.
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I don't live in those days anymore, but I certainly enjoy talking about
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them. Well, then let's talk about the bracket real quick. Is is
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you just busting like everybody else's or what she got going for you? This
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I was just looking at this morning. So out of the sixteen teams,
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we're down to sixteen. I still have twelve teams that are in it.
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We too, I got twelve, you got twelve. Two. We're doing
12:39
good. That we're doing good. Well. I'm always like, all right,
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the final four. You know, all these brackets say if you have
12:43
a perfect private FID, get rewarded. I say, get those who have
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the perfect final four picks. Those are the guys that gets reward because that's
12:52
a very tough feat to pick final four in this tournament every year. That's
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a rewarding of itself, isn't it. Yes, who do you have?
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I have been the final four? All right? Well Atlantis, I got
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yu Kon, I got North Carolina. That's normal. But on the other
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side, I got Marquette for Tennessee. Now that's kind of a wild card.
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But I like what Marquette did this year, and I'm sure you followed
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it being in that you know area and whatnot. Marquette and UH and Tennessee
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both solid teams this year. We'll see what happens though, as we've seen
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every year, though, a knockoff's bound to having at some point, So
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we'll see what happens. I know, I know, who do you have
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winning at all, then Yukon's going to defend back to back titles. So
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that's how I got it. Okay, how about you, So I've got
13:37
you kind of North Carolina as well. I have Houston and Purdue on the
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other side with What's funny is this produce had such bad luck in these tournaments.
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I'm like, no, way, it doesn't happen again. But maybe
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maybe they shake out of it. Look pretty strong this weekend, so I
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really yeah, they put them like one hundred and six points and I'm like,
13:56
okay, they're playing well. As as a coach, this is very
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interesting. So you were also a coach, right, so you've been able
14:03
to coach. What's that like to you to build up that character for kids
14:07
that are playing ball right now or did when you were coaching back there.
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Yeah, So it's interesting and I think God works in a mysterious ways.
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So, like I said, I have two brothers, I have no sisters.
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I played high school basketball at an all boys Catholic high school and when
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I went to the Citadel it's co ed now, but it was all male.
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So when my wife and I had our daughter, I remember we went
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to the obgyn and the doctor's like, do you want to know the sex
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of the baby? And we said sure, and he said you should buy
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pink and I said, oh no, no, no, no, you
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need to keep it in there till it's done. I have absolutely no idea
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what to do with a daughter, but my daughter and I are incredibly close.
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She got my heighth She actually went to the United States Air Force Academy
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to play basketball, and so I coached her high school team. So I
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had no experience about with coaching girls. And I'll give you that. I'll
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give you a story. So We're in the middle of a game and I
15:03
turned to the bench and I point to one of the girls and I'm like,
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go in for so and so, and she shakes her head yes,
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and I'm like, okay. So I'm back watching the game and out of
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the corner of my eye can see the scorers table and there's nobody there.
15:16
So I turned back around to her and I'm like, get in the game
15:18
for so and so. Again she shakes her head yes, and again I
15:22
start watching the game and out of the corner of my eye, I cannot
15:24
see anybody at the scores team. Then I look at her and I point
15:28
at her again. I'm like, get in the game now. She's shaking
15:31
me off, like a major league pitcher who doesn't like the sign that the
15:33
catcher is called. You know, it's like no, no, I'm like,
15:37
what you're going to going together? I'm like, came here and so
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literally we had a counseling session on the court as the game is going on.
15:46
I'm like, why don't you want to play? And the tears start
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coming down her eyes, down her cheeks. She's like, Coach, I'm
15:52
afraid I might make a mistake and my friends in the stands will criticize me,
15:58
We'll make fun of me. And I said, what about your responsibility
16:00
to your teammates. You come out here every day, you work hard in
16:03
practice to make yourself and your teammates better. What about that responsibility. I
16:08
finally got her to go in the game, but I thought, are you
16:11
serious? I mean, as a kid, as a male, as a
16:15
boy, you couldn't wait to get in the game. It didn't matter how
16:18
overmatched you were, how terrible you were. I want to play in the
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game, but for girls, it's just a different mentality and that so I
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love doing it. I'm still very close with several of my players and stuff
16:30
like that. So it was a great experience for me and I love I
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love shaping, molding, developing in those kids in the knowing that they could
16:37
do more than sometimes what society limits them in terms of what they can do.
16:44
All Right, So you're a sportsman. I could tell you're a college
16:45
basketball fan. Would you agree that Kayling Clark and even on the WNBA side,
16:51
Sabrina I and ESCO are doing more for female sports? Be gud what
16:55
I'm saying this than Taylor Swift is dating Travis Kelcey. I'm just saying Kailing
16:59
Clark is contributed the women's sports in a way we haven't seen in quite a
17:02
long time, right, I would agree. I mean, Caitlin Tark is
17:06
probably the most famous person on the planet right now. I mean, everybody
17:11
knows who she is, and and the fact that she goes out and competes,
17:14
and you know, she's just tough, and you'd like to see that.
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You like to see kids that, you know what, it doesn't matter,
17:22
just get out there and make it happen. Figure out a way to
17:23
make this work. And that's a lesson that carries over into life. So
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much of sports, you know, how to be a good teammate, how
17:30
to win, how to lose, how to prepare, discipline thing. All
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those things carry over into life, and yet you've got so many whether it's
17:41
people in the athletic departments or parents that are you know, Oh, you
17:45
can't talk to my kid. It's like, let me talk to your kid
17:48
that way. Let me yell at your kid. I used to tell my
17:49
parents at their parent meeting, Look, if you don't come to my job
17:53
and tell me how to do my work, I won't come to your job
17:56
and tell you how to be a doctor or a lawyer or a bad or
18:00
whatever you end up being. I know these kids, I see them to
18:03
practice every day, and I used to tell them, parents, you are
18:07
welcome at any practice that we have. You are welcome to see what I
18:11
see on a daily basis. And I love the quote by Gina Oriama,
18:15
the University of Connecticut women's basketball coach. He said, I will treat you
18:19
fairly, but I won't treat you equally. And that's absolutely true. If
18:25
you've got a kid that's a great shooter and a kid that's not. The
18:27
kid that's a great shooter is gonna take many more of the shots than the
18:30
other kid. So you're not gonna treat people fairly, but you're gonna treat
18:36
or you're not gonna treat them equally, but you're gonna treat them fairly.
18:41
I'm my guests here that you take this into your LLC Motivational Check these kind
18:45
of lessons that you've learned in the coaching world, in the basketball world.
18:48
So tell us how you've applied that to your role as a CEO. Yeah,
18:52
I mean really, it's funny. Really, what Motivational Check is is
18:57
a business arm for me to speak to go out and speak to businesses and
19:03
high schools and kids and things like that. And I remember I started this
19:06
just as COVID hit and I was like, oh my gosh, you know,
19:10
everything shut down. There was nothing happening, either in person or virtually,
19:15
And like so many other businesses, I had to figure out a way,
19:18
a different way to way to spin a new business model. And somebody
19:23
reached out to me, Alex and they were like, Hey, would you
19:26
like to be a guest on my podcast? And this is the honest truth.
19:30
I said, sure, what's a podcast? And they explained it to
19:33
me and I'm like, okay, I'll do it. I was a little
19:37
nervous. Let me rephrase that I was very nervous. I was very anxious.
19:41
I had posted notes all around the camera, and he would ask me
19:45
a question and I would lean in and I would kind of read the post
19:48
it notes. I was terrible. I was horrible. I provided no value
19:51
to the audience. But then I thought, you know, I kind of
19:53
liked this format. And I said, you know, the first time I
19:57
drove a car, was I any good at it? No? First time
20:00
I cooked the meal, was I any good? Edit? No, I
20:03
think I burned the water. You know, the first time I studied algebra,
20:07
was it any good at it? No? But you want to be
20:10
good at it, so you make mistakes and you learn from those mistakes.
20:14
And I was telling my publisher, I said, you know, I listened
20:17
to every podcast I've ever been on because I want to provide that value.
20:22
I want the host to feel that I provided something that their audience got something
20:26
positive out of it. So do I can I have a better story?
20:30
How many times do I say um or huh or whatever? So this is,
20:33
you know, this has kind of been something that I've never started out
20:37
to. You know, beyond seven hundred podcasts. But it was just a
20:41
way to deliver a message in a format that allows me to do it based
20:45
on the limitations I have with my health. Well, I was gonna say,
20:49
it feels like though you're overcoming those limitations. That's that's so awesome.
20:53
But I got to ask you about the book because it's called Sustainable Excellence Ten
20:57
Principles to Leading your Uncome an Extraordinary life. Now, is someone who's been
21:03
dealt these cards and lost a leg, do you feel like everything is extraordinary
21:07
in the sense of, all right, I woke up today, We're gonna
21:10
make this a great day, no matter what I'm going through. I think
21:12
we're all born to live an extraordinary and an uncommon life. That, you
21:18
know, the fact that we settle for something less than that kind of bothers
21:22
me, you know, I mean, I feel I have an uncommon and
21:25
extraordinary life. I'm sixty four years old, I'm still maddling cancer, I
21:29
have no leg. I had my footy amputating before my leg, So,
21:32
you know, I really think that this is this is something I want to
21:36
get out there. There's a there's an entrepreneur by the name of Ed Milett,
21:41
and he talks about the four types of people. I love that he's
21:44
got some great guests every week. If he is amazing, he's definitely a
21:48
show worth listening to. I totally agree with you, but I liked this
21:52
for you know, the four types of people you will sort of meet in
21:55
the world. He said. The first type are the unmotivated, and he
21:57
said that's the vast majority of people you will encounter. He said, the
22:02
second group are the motivated. He said, it's kind of a carrot and
22:04
stick approach to life. If I do this, I will get that.
22:08
It's a life simply based on motivation. It's kind of low level, but
22:12
it works for a lot of people. And then the next group he talks
22:15
about are the inspirational people. The word inspiration coming from two words in spirit.
22:22
So if you're an inspirational person, you move people with your energy.
22:26
And then the last group he talks about are the aspirational people, where people
22:32
aspire to be like you. And sometimes if depending on the audience, I'll
22:37
tell that story. I show the hands how many people are unmotivated. Nobody
22:41
raises their hand, nobody puts their hand up and says that. But if
22:45
you believe mind it. That's the vast majority of people that are out there
22:48
in the world. So it's a difference between how you really see yourself and
22:53
how you really are and that so hey, there are times I'm not motivated,
22:57
don't. I mean, I don't want anybody to think than I am.
23:00
But you can always find that motivation, that discipline, those good habits
23:06
to make your life better. Amen to that, Terry. This is a
23:11
great conversation so far. And I have to ask you though, because you
23:17
mentioned in a wheelchair. Did prosthetics ever come to mind? Was that ever
23:19
a solution on the table? What was that? What's that process? I
23:23
do? I have a prosthetic. My goal was to use the prosthetic to
23:29
walk my daughter down the aisle, and I did that. I did that
23:33
two years ago. My problem is for those who don't know, I mean,
23:37
people think, well, you just put your prosthetic on, and you
23:38
go, well, you don't, I have an above the knee amputation.
23:42
You put on a liner. The liner is not breatheable. You put on
23:45
what they call socks, and I know you know exactly what I'm talking about,
23:49
Alex. You put on these socks so that you fit into the socket
23:53
that your prosthetic is attached to. But over the day, as you walk,
23:57
you're stump shrinks, and so you have to take off your pants,
24:03
take off your prosthetic, put on more socks, and then literally when I
24:07
would go to physical therapy, I would come home and get in the bathtub
24:11
to remove that liner because it would be just filled with sweat, filled with
24:15
you know, all this this water that I'd accumulated while while working. So
24:21
it's it's very labor intensive for me, and it's also hard for me to
24:23
walk when I'm battling, you know, when I'm going through I go through
24:27
an entire week of treatment Monday through Friday, and it really just beats the
24:33
heck out of me. So it's just easier, you know, here I
24:36
am talking about you know, butterface to move forward. But it's easier for
24:38
me to be in a wheelchair right now. Well, I was going to
24:41
say, a lot of people ask me, you know, why don't you
24:44
have a prosthetic, And I've been able to where is it, I've been
24:48
able to roll a blade. So this has really been the difference backer in
24:51
my life. Yeah, and to me when people ask me that it sort
24:56
of like discounts the fact that they don't see the rollerblade. To me,
24:59
it's like, well, I'm moving around just fine. And I feel like
25:02
you have about tim approach, like all right, you're gonna ask me a
25:03
prosthetic, but don't you see I'm doing fine as I am right now,
25:07
right, I mean, that's the whole point. Yeah, yeah, and
25:10
I feel I mean I have this like, you know, sort of out
25:12
of this world prosthetic. It has a gyroscope in the cap that knows whether
25:17
I'm in front of it or behind it. It has a microprocessor in the
25:22
knee that you plug in at night to recharge, and you know, I
25:26
can program it on my phone to play golf. I don't play golf.
25:30
I'm terrible at golf, but you know, to ride a bike and things
25:33
like that. So it's an amazing invention, and I sort of sometimes feel
25:37
guilty that I haven't and I don't use it nearly as much as I as
25:41
I think I should. Well, that that's interesting. I've always wondered,
25:45
now with the brain powered kind of prosthetics, if that would work for me.
25:48
But when I skate and I are just getting along fine, you know,
25:52
there you go all right, sw SWAT negotiators. Now before cancer,
25:57
was your life ever in danger with that being as Whatt negotiated? Oh yeah,
26:02
lots of times, you know. I mean, you're you're negotiating with
26:06
people that, let's be honest, are more than likely having the worst day
26:10
of their life. And so you know when you when your house or your
26:14
apartment is surrounded by the police and you're talking to me, Yeah, I
26:18
mean, I don't think I was in danger nearly as much as as the
26:21
tactical people who were surrounding the house. I have a very good friend of
26:25
mine who somebody took a shot out the window and it hit off his helmet,
26:29
you know, and so it actually hit him and fortunately he was a
26:32
had a ballistic helmet on that he was able to not have a penetrating wound
26:36
or anything like that. So yeah, it's it's a dangerous situation. You
26:40
don't you don't usually call out SWAT unless it's it's something really really bad.
26:47
So any any stories, any crazy stories that maybe you're gonna find in the
26:49
book? I mean, did you talk about that in your book a little
26:52
bit? So I I'll give you two stories, excuse me. One was
26:57
was atypical, did not happen way at all, And the other one is
27:02
kind of a not necessarily a typical one, but way one way. So
27:07
this one I was working that night. We were not a full time swat
27:10
team. This was the Cincinnati, Ohio Police Department, and so we carry
27:14
again, I'm going to date myself pager's so if pager goes off, I'm
27:18
working that night. It was a sergeant. So I get to the scene
27:21
pretty quickly because I'm in a marked car and I was able to go lights
27:23
and sirens, and I get there and I'm talking to the uniform guys.
27:27
I'm like, what's the deal. It's like, well, he's barricaded himself
27:30
in the house with his wife as a hostage and a gun and he's drunk.
27:34
I'm like, okay, if you have him on the phone, It's
27:37
like, yes, we do, so let me talk to him. So
27:38
I talked to him, and usually it's hours into the conversation before you start
27:44
talking about solutions to the problem, to coming out, to letting the hostage
27:48
go. But I just had a feeling with this guy, and I said
27:51
to him, what would it take for you to let your wife go?
27:53
And for you to come out, and there was this long pause, and
27:57
he said, give me a beer. And I was like, if I
28:02
gave you a beer, do I have your word that you would let your
28:04
wife go and you would come out peacefully. He said, do I have
28:07
your word? I could drink it. So I said, absolutely, you
28:11
have my word. I said, do I have your word? You will
28:14
come out if I get you a beer. He said yes. So I
28:17
gave five dollars to one of the uniform guys. I said, get out
28:18
to the store, buy a beer. The tactical team put it on the
28:22
front porch and I called him back and I said, your beer's on the
28:25
front porch, but you don't get it until your wife comes out and you
28:27
come out with your hands up. You don't bring the gun out. He
28:30
said again, do I have your word? I can drink it. I
28:33
said, you have my word, you can drink it. All of a
28:36
sudden, the front door comes open. Here comes to his wife. Here
28:38
he comes with his hands up. We handcuff him, let him drink his
28:41
beer, and off to jail he goes. And the point in that story
28:47
is that we never lied to people. People would say to us all the
28:51
time, hey, I'll come out, but you got to promise me I'm
28:52
not going to go to jail, and we would have to say I'm sorry,
28:56
when you do come out, you are going to go to jail,
28:57
but we would have to deflect the conversation with something more palatable. And the
29:03
reason we never lied to people is because you know, Alex, a year
29:06
from now, two years from now, three years from now, we could
29:08
very well be back negotiating with these same people. If they felt you lied
29:14
to them, there was no way you were going to be able to be
29:15
the primary negotiator. This was all about what any relationship is about. Trust,
29:22
it's developing trust, and we did that through empathy. It was help
29:26
me understand where you're coming from, not necessarily agree with it. I mean,
29:30
if I was negotiating with a guy who just murdered three people, I
29:33
wasn't gonna say, oh, yeah, I totally understand why you did what.
29:37
Nope, it's just but help me to understand what you did, because
29:40
empathy builds trust, and trust leads to changing behavior. So that was one
29:45
story, and then this one was more typical. This was a person who
29:48
wanted to commit suicide to end their life, and so about seven o'clock at
29:52
night. They slit their wrist and that didn't work. And then they thought
29:57
it made sense to turn the gas on in their oven and stick their head
30:02
in the oven. Well, that didn't work either, and so then they
30:06
called a relative and said, look, I got a gun. Now I'm
30:07
gonna kill myself. The relative called the police. We get there. I'm
30:11
talking to him and it's probably three o'clock in the morning, now four o'clock
30:17
in the morning, and I think he was just exhausted, you know,
30:19
I mean, so much emotional energy, and so I you know, he's
30:23
like, Terry, I really want to come out. I said, you
30:26
want to come out? I said, come out, and I'll come down
30:29
to the scene and we'll talk man to man, we'll talk face to face.
30:32
And he's like, I'd really like that. I said, but put
30:36
the gun down, but take the phone with you and do what the officers
30:38
tell you when you come outside. He hung up the phone, which is
30:41
not uncommon. We're conditioned that when a conversation's over to hang up the phone.
30:45
About thirty seconds later, one of the tactical officers comes on the radio
30:49
and says, we heard a gunshot and I thought, oh my god,
30:52
you didn't he did it. He shot himself in the head, but he
30:56
shot himself at such an angle that the bullet went in underneath the skin,
31:00
right around this temple area, went around his scalp, and came out the
31:06
other side. I mean a very bloody womb because it was a head wound,
31:10
but in terms of severity, it never penetrated his skull and never got
31:14
to his brain. And I'm like, this was God's way of saying,
31:17
you know what, You've tried three times tonight, it's not your time.
31:21
You're not coming right now. And we ended up getting him, taking him
31:26
to the hospital, getting him checked out. I mean, wasn't, like
31:29
I said, wasn't a very serious injury with suicidal Attempso do they get arrested
31:33
also or how does that work because that's more of an emotional thing. I
31:36
don't know if that's an arrestable offense or is it because of the gun possession.
31:40
Well, yeah, it's really up to the district attorney whether they want
31:45
to charge them or not. There are certain things they can charge them with,
31:48
but for us, it's about getting them help. I mean, he
31:51
went to the hospital, he got put on a seventy two hour psychold for
31:53
what he did and things like that. It's not about locking people up,
31:57
you know, throwing away the key. It's what help do you need?
32:00
What can we do to make sure this doesn't happen again? So we took
32:06
him to the hospital and I don't know, honestly, I don't even know
32:08
if it got charged at some point, but I mean, I'm trying to
32:14
remember what it is. It's kind of like the cause of mass hysteria because
32:16
when we do a swat call up, I mean, we shut roads down,
32:20
we evacuate people, we take phone lines down, we do all kinds
32:23
of things that really kind of mess with normal people's day to day operations.
32:29
What do you mean I can't go to work? Well, sorry, the
32:30
road's closed. You can't go to work. So you know you mentioned being
32:35
where you mentioned this because I'm just thinking, now, a lot of people
32:39
get incovenced by the littlest thing, and here you are dealing with this cancer
32:45
that's you dealt with for twelve years. Does it piss you off that people
32:49
sort of almost want to take their life for maybe even the littlest thing.
32:52
Does that bother you in not just the emotional and police law enforcement experience,
32:57
but just like what you're going through now. So there's a Usain Bolt is
33:00
probably one of the fastest men in the world. He's bet one all kinds
33:04
of Olympic medals. He has a great quote he said, I worked eight
33:08
years to run nine seconds, and people quit. People give up on themselves
33:15
and their dreams after two months. That's what pisses me off. When when
33:20
you look at you know people want and we've done that. We're an instant
33:23
gratification society. You know, I can run down to the store and I
33:27
can get a meal immediately. You know, I can go to Wendy's and
33:29
get a meal immediately. We want instant gratification. We don't want the work,
33:34
we don't want the struggle. And what people don't understand is that it's
33:37
not the destination that makes you a better person. It's not the pot of
33:42
gold at the end of the rainbow. It's everything you do from now to
33:46
the point where you get there, where you get the satisfaction, where you
33:50
get the enjoyment, where you where you meet the people that make your life
33:55
worthwhile. It's not that destination. And everybody thinks we're going to I'm gonna
34:00
be happy when I get there, and I kind of look at life like
34:04
this, Alex. So many people seem to be to feel that they're born
34:08
empty and that when they get out of school and they get into life,
34:13
whatever that looks like for them, that then their job is to fill up
34:15
their empty self. You know, I'm gonna get a good job, make
34:19
a lot of money, you know, live in the nicest house, drive
34:22
the nicest car, the greatest family, have the latest technological equipment, and
34:25
that by getting all this stuff that somehow they're going to feel fulfilled and loved.
34:31
And what I found is it's just the opposite. We're not born empty.
34:37
We're born full. We're born with everything we need to be successful already
34:43
inside of us. It's just a matter of pulling that out and use it
34:46
to using it to our benefit. So our job should not be to fill
34:51
ourselves up. Our job should be to empty ourselves out with our unique gifts
34:55
and talents, certainly for the betterment of ourselves, also for the betterment of
35:00
our family, our friends, our community, and our country. And I
35:05
think when you change that paradigm, you change that narrative into it's not what
35:09
I can get. It's what I can give. All of a sudden,
35:13
your life takes on a whole new, a whole different kind of meaning.
35:16
Wow, that is a lot to unpack. And I'm gonna have to listen
35:20
back to this episode for that coming, because that's just you know, I
35:22
feel like sometimes I empty myself out and then there's always like what about the
35:27
mean time that we're all looking for? Right, And I'm sure you feel
35:30
like you need that mean time to recover and whatnot. But then you're a
35:32
family guy, so you have to give back to your family. So I
35:36
guess there's a balance you got to strike, right, I mean there is,
35:38
and and for me, it's it really is about people. I mean
35:44
people have asked me on Pockets, you know, how do you want to
35:45
be remembered. I'm like, well, number one, I'm not going to
35:47
be remembered. You know, ten minutes after I'm putting the ground, it's
35:51
going to be over. And I don't mean that to sound melodramatic, but
35:54
what I really want to be remembered for is somebody that connected, is somebody
35:59
that that had relationships with other human beings. One of my nurses who treats
36:05
me in the Infusion Center is a former hospice nurse and she recommended a book
36:08
to me called Imagine Heaven, And it's a book about near death experience.
36:14
It's people that have experienced things and what I found interesting in I found a
36:17
lot of things interesting. But one of the things I found interesting is that
36:21
no matter who you were, whoever you saw when you had your near death
36:24
experience, whether it was Jesus or God or an angel or a saint or
36:29
a relative or a friend, the one question that always seemed to be answered
36:34
is how do you treat my children? In other words, how do we
36:37
treat each other? How are we impacting the lives of other people? That
36:42
seemed to be the overarching thing. It was kind of like God saying,
36:45
you know, I mean, you know, it's Holy Week, so lent.
36:49
You know. It's like, what's the most important commandment? Love your
36:51
God and have no other gods? And what's the second, Love your neighbor
36:53
as yourself. You know, how do you treat people? How do you
36:58
treat your neighbors? And things like that. That's what I want my life
37:00
to be about, to have those connections, to have those relationships with other
37:05
human beings and hopefully positively make a difference in their lives. Well, the
37:10
love that neighbor thing has been dealing talk about a lot with this immigration crisis.
37:14
It's a very complicated one. But when I hear that, I think
37:16
of the immigration crisis and what we do, and I don't know, in
37:21
motivational check do you deal with those real life issues like what's going on in
37:24
the world, the current events if you will. I mean sometimes we do.
37:29
Sometimes when I open it up for questions, people will want to know,
37:31
you know, my perspective on that, And I mean there's a lot
37:35
of things I'm like, Look, I'm not qualified to talk about that.
37:37
I don't know enough about that. I know just enough to be dangerous.
37:40
So I don't want to put myself out there as an expert for things.
37:45
But one thing I found interesting, the more I grow, the more I
37:50
learn, the more I develop. And I am a big proponent of being
37:53
a lifelong learner of die learning as a human being. And one of the
38:00
things that I find is that the more I learn, you would think,
38:04
the more answers to the questions I would have. But what I find is
38:08
I have more questions, and then I've got to go try to learn the
38:12
answers to those questions, which then lead to more questions, which then lead
38:15
to additional questions and things like that. So it's a never ending cycle which
38:19
I enjoy. I love. My wife and I are both avid readers,
38:22
and I take master classes online, you know, from our daughter gave us
38:25
that as a gift. So I always want to learn about people. Why
38:30
did you make your decisions that way? What are you thinking? And things
38:32
like that because it helps me. And the other thing that helps me is
38:36
right, you know, like people ask me a question about some A lot
38:38
of times, I'll go back home and I'll write about it. It's like
38:42
because it helps me to sort of solidify my thoughts. Well, I don't
38:45
really know about the immigration crisis. I know what I hear on TV,
38:49
or I know what I hear on social media, but I don't know if
38:52
that's the truth. So what can I research? Where can I get information?
38:55
And how do I feel about this? What are my thoughts on that
39:00
kind of thing? So, you know, we do track all real life
39:05
things, especially you know, I talk a lot about my illness, but
39:07
the things I've learned can be applied to you know, people that are starting
39:12
companies or people that are trying to make decisions about having families or well,
39:15
whatever it is in your life, it's not just pertinent to having a disease.
39:20
Well, I'm gonna have people contact you because you've got a lot to
39:23
offer, and so how can people'll reach you? Terry? So, I
39:27
have a blog sort of slash website called motivational Check. Every day I put
39:31
up a thought for the day, and a lot of times with that thought
39:34
comes a question about maybe how you can apply it in your life, of
39:37
recommendations for books to read, videos to watch, and you can lend me
39:40
a message. That's all at motivationalcheck dot com. You can also send me
39:45
an email at motivational Check. I'm old school at aol dot com. I
39:51
see today is the importance of napping during the week work day. So there
39:54
I wrote that. Yeah, it was like, you know, does that
39:57
make sense? You know, being doing siestas and stuff like that, It's
40:00
like, yeah, maybe we should well one last thing. God's role in
40:06
your recovery and you're dealing with all of this, How important is he to
40:10
you? It sounds like he's very important in your life. He's incredibly important,
40:15
And I'll tell you a story. I remember after I had my leg
40:17
amputato and I found out I had these tumors in my lungs. My doctor
40:22
showed me my cat scan, my CT scan, and I have no medical
40:25
background. I don't know how to read a cat scan, but you can
40:28
kind of look at it and be like, well, I sure doesn't look
40:30
like it belongs there. You know, these big tumors in my lungs.
40:32
I had flew it all around the plural spaces. I was toughing up green,
40:37
bloody phlegm. And I remember looking at my doctor and saying, how
40:42
was I alive? And Alex, I will never forget this till the day
40:45
I die. I can still see him. He put his head down,
40:49
he shook his head no, and then he looked up at me and he
40:52
said, I don't know, because you shouldn't have been. So that said
40:55
to me, you know when I die, how I die, where I
40:59
die, way up of my pay grade. I don't spend nearly any time
41:02
worried about dying. Spend more time worrying about what's the purpose? What did
41:07
you put me here to do? God? And obviously you're not done with
41:10
me yet, So I'll keep doing it as long as you want me to,
41:14
as long as you'll let me to. Well, you say you're not
41:17
made an impact, I think you made an impact on this podcast. So
41:20
Terry would love to have your back. You know, maybe once tournament's done,
41:24
the hour brackets, spare it out. I like it, everything like
41:27
that. Would love to have you back for a little more, a lot
41:29
of conversation. And one thing I know you did Wendy's marketing. I gotta
41:32
say they have a dollar you know, dollar Burger now for the tournament.
41:37
I don't even know about that or not, but there you go. I
41:39
have seen that. Yeah, I mean, everybody's doing promos for the tournament.
41:43
It's just such a it's such a big deal and it just draws everybody
41:45
in. They will do that. From a marketing perspective, how the tournament
41:50
was marketed? What you thought? I mean, look, the Super Bowl
41:52
thirty million dollars a commercial. Wasn't that crazy? No? I mean I
41:55
remember when it was, you know, it was a million dollars for a
41:59
commercial, and now it's thirty million dollars. That's that's amazing. I don't
42:01
know if you ever worked on one for any of these big sporting events.
42:05
But maybe you did. I don't know. They will unpack that next episode.
42:08
Sounds good. All right, that's been Terry Tucker Motival motivational check dot
42:15
com. We'll have that link in the description below. Thanks again, Terry.
42:19
Thank you Alex saying you're talking with you.