Discovering Life's Four Truths: A Deep Dive into Resilience and Motivation

Ever wondered how Stoic virtues can shape an extraordinary life? Join us as we dissect the timeless principles of wisdom, temperance, justice, and courage, all while tackling the modern-day challenges of loneliness and unworthiness many men face. Our guest, Terry Tucker, shares his remarkable journey from receiving a grim cancer diagnosis to transforming his life through faith and resilience. His story is not just about surviving but thriving, offering invaluable lessons on how to turn adversities into affirmations of life.

Discover the "four truths" essential for building a quality life: mastering your mind, embracing pain to build resilience, leaving a lasting legacy, and practising relentless perseverance. Terry and I delve into his book, "Sustainable Excellence: 10 Principles for Leading Your Uncommon and Extraordinary Life," highlighting how to break free from comfort zones and avoid complacency. Learn from Ed Milet's model of the four types of people and understand why continuous growth is pivotal for personal and professional success.

My journey adds another layer of inspiration, as I recount my leap from a business career to fulfilling my dream of becoming a police officer at 37. This episode underlines the significance of taking risks and embracing imperfections, featuring insights from influential figures like Nelson Mandela, John Wooden, and James Kerr. We wrap up by emphasizing the importance of character, humility, and teamwork, drawing parallels with historical friendships like that of Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp. For those eager to connect and grow, Terry offers resources through his blog and website, Motivational Check, encouraging listeners to join a community dedicated to personal development.

Key moments in this episode:
03:24 Terry's Cancer Journey: Turning a Death Sentence into a Life Sentence

07:02 Lessons from John Wooden: The Importance of Love and Life Beyond Basketball

14:10 Terry's Four Truths: Foundations for a Quality Life

16:31 Sustaining Excellence: Beyond the Pinnacle

21:06 Enjoy Your Life: Finding Fulfillment from Within

25:22 Balancing Family and Personal Dreams

27:20 Joining the SWAT Team

28:38 The Art of Hostage Negotiation

32:31 Embracing Failure and Taking Risks

36:12 Influential Books and Mentors

40:52 The Importance of Family Support

43:15 Living a Purposeful Life

How to reach Terry:
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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

You know, if we strive to live an extraordinary life, what are the necessary things we need to do to achieve this lofty goal? Well, for starters, we have to set guideposts, such as principles or virtues. You know, the Stoics live by a set of four virtues wisdom, temperance, justice and courage and that's a great foundation for us to truly start with. But to truly live an extraordinary life, we need to be able to answer three questions what is excellence, how do we achieve it and once we achieve it, how do we sustain it? Well, that's exactly what we're going to explore in today's episode with my guest.

Speaker 1: 0:35

Now, before we get into that, you know, being a man today has never been more challenging, and so, for some of us, this pain can be very real. It's a pain of loneliness, and it's a pain of unworthiness, and it's masked by our anger and our resentment, and it's all because we're uncertain and afraid to take that next step. So if you're tired and fed up with where your life is at, then I'm going to encourage you to start your hero's quest. It's where you get an opportunity to become more, accomplish more and live more than ever before. Just go to membersnet and start your quest today, and with that, let's get on with today's episode.

Speaker 2: 1:12

The average man today is sleepwalking through life, many never reaching their true potential, let alone ever crossing the finish line to living a purposeful life. Yet the hunger still exists, albeit buried amidst his cluttered mind, misguided beliefs and values that no longer serve him. It's time to align yourself for greatness. It's time to become a revolutionary man. Stay strong, my brother.

Speaker 1: 1:42

Welcome everyone to the Revolutionary man podcast. I'm the founder of the Awakened man Movement and your host, alan DeMonso. When you think about excellence, what does that mean to you and how do you know? When you have experienced excellence, you know. When I think of excellence, I think of sports. Michael Jordan, wayne Gretzky and Tiger Woods these gentlemen were the epitome of excellence. Now, what about your life? Does excellence reside only within the sports genre? Of course not. There are numerous examples of people who are excellent in their respective fields, and today, my guest is one of those individuals. So allow me to introduce my guest. Terry Tucker is a sought-after speaker who believes in the power of a story to motivate, inspire and help others lead their common and extraordinary lives, and by combining his 11-year cancer journey with his diverse business, athletic coaching and hostage negotiating expertise, he delivers compelling yet relatable presentations for conferences, online events, panels, meetings, seminars and for us as well. Welcome to the show, terry. How are things, brother Things?

Speaker 3: 2:51

are great. Alan, Thanks for having me on. I'm really looking forward to talking with you today.

Speaker 1: 2:55

Yeah, absolutely, I am too. I really loved your story and in our word journey here with the Awakened man, especially on this podcast. It all about for my guests sharing their hero's quest or their hero's journey, and while I've shared bits and pieces of us, I'd really like you to dive into an aspect or two of and tell us about a time when you knew you had a crisis. Maybe it was a crisis of faith. What did you do about that, and how has that experience shaped you into the man that you are today? Yeah, I mean, there's so many opportunities for me.

Speaker 3: 3:25

I'll start with probably the most recent one, which occurred back in 2012. I was a girls high school basketball coach in Texas, here in the United States, and I had a callus break open on the bottom of my foot and initially didn't think much of it.

Speaker 3: 3:41

I was a coach, so you're on your feet a lot. But after a few weeks of it not healing I made an appointment and went to see a podiatrist a foot doctor friend of mine and he took an x-ray and he said, terry, I think you have a cyst in there and I can cut it out. And he did and he showed it to me. It was just a little gelatin sack with some white fat in it, no dark spots, no blood, nothing that gave either one of us concern. But fortunately, or unfortunately, he sent it off to pathology to have it looked at and then two weeks later I received that call. I think that we all dread in our lives and, as I mentioned, he was a friend of mine and the more difficulty he was having explaining to me what was going on, the more frightened I was becoming until finally he just laid it out for me. He said, terry, I've been a doctor for 25 years and I have never seen the form of cancer that you have. You have an incredibly rare form of melanoma and I think probably most of your listeners would think of melanoma as too much exposure to the sun affects the melon, the pigment in our skin. My cancer has nothing to do with sun exposure. It's just a rare form that appears on the bottom of the feet and the palms of the hands.

Speaker 3: 4:57

And in 2012, I was told that if I got a miracle, I might live five years, but more than likely I would be dead in two.

Speaker 3: 5:07

So at 51 years of age, I was given a death sentence and thought, well, maybe I can turn that death sentence into a life sentence, and I've been incredibly fortunate over these last 11 and a half years now had plenty of opportunities to die, but it really it's not my time yet. I don't think God's done with me. Faith has been a big part of my journey and I've tried to lean on that. I know I've leaned on it very, very much during this journey. And so here we are, 11 and a half years later. I'm on a clinical trial drug that does nothing to my cancer. But the way cancer proliferates in the body is it secretes an enzyme or a protein that hides it from your own immune system, and this drug removes that protein, that enzyme, so that my own immune system, just like if you got a cold or a flu, could attack the disease. And I've been stable with tumors in my lungs for the last three years now.

Speaker 1: 6:09

Man. That's an incredible story and I know that there was a in reading your story. It has been an incredible journey over several years. You know. Ultimately, you know getting to this point of you know now it's like I said, it's 11 years since that diagnosis and you're out on the speaking tour now and you're doing a bunch of great work out there. I just want to say to you, terry, that I see you, I hear you and I honour your presence here with us today. Thank you so much for sharing that story and that piece of your life with us. You talked about being a coach and a basketball coach. You also played in NCAA Division I I should say ball, obviously a pretty decent player. You're playing at that kind of level, but you had a couple of coaches that really resonated with you, and you know, one of them was John Wooden.

Speaker 1: 6:53

And so tell us about what John, how John inspired you and what you have done and used his lessons in teaching others and yourself especially.

Speaker 3: 7:02

Yeah, when I was growing up, john Wooden was kind of the the Cadillac of college basketball coaches. He was the winningest coach at the time. But the really the thing that gravitated me towards Coach Wooden was not so much the basketball but really how he viewed life and what he wanted from his players. He developed what's called the pyramid of success, and it's several building blocks that build on top of each other to form a pyramid.

Speaker 3: 7:36

And I remember I was in eighth grade and we had our grade school basketball banquet at a small, used to be Pony Express stop in Ohio and I was in sort of the gift shop before the banquet started and there was a carousel there and it had books on it and there was a book called Call Me they Call Me Coach by Wooden. And I remember going to my mom and dad saying, hey, will you buy this book for me please? You know, I just was reading the inside of it and I thought, man, this is great. I could not put that book down. And so I sort of without being sacrilegious, became a disciple of Wooden. I read everything there was to read. I watched every game UCLA played. I did everything.

Speaker 3: 8:24

And I'll tell you kind of a quick story. I was sitting one day, wooden was being interviewed by a reporter and the reporter asked him what's the one thing you want your players to understand about basketball the game, life, whatever. And I'm sitting there with a pad of paper.

Speaker 3: 8:43

I'm like, come on, give me some good X's and O's, something I can use to play basketball when I go out with my friends. And he said the one thing I want my players to understand is the importance of love. And I was immediately no, no, no, no, come on, give me something good. And what I didn't realize, when I wasn't mature enough or emotionally immature enough to understand, was what he went on to say I want my players certainly to love the game and love what they're doing, but I want them to love themselves, I want them to love their teammates, I want them to love their family, because for Wooden, it was more about what those players did after the game of basketball what kind of fathers they were, what kind of husbands they were, what kind of leaders they were in their communities. That's, as far as he was concerned, how you defined success.

Speaker 1: 9:37

Man. I love that and John is one of my mentors. I would say, and we just went and we do. Last month we did for our lesson plan was we call it sharpening the saw and I pull on john wooden and john maxwell, two different kind of leaders but both very powerful, influential in my life, and I totally agree that, john. You know wooden's work is really about being the best men that they could be. He was interested in coaching and raising men than he was about raising a basketball player and looking after the all the other things, and I think that's why it was why his work is so timeless and I think why it's so important for even today that why we need to look at it and the world needs more people to really leaders like that, to really lead that way, as opposed to all about the X's and O's and the wins and the losses, but really developing people. So tell me a little bit about your work, that you're doing and how you're using that as a framework to help raise others up and become better individuals.

Speaker 3: 10:38

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 10:39

I guess I sort of have to go back to when I graduated from college.

Speaker 3: 10:42

When I did that, my father and my grandmother were both dying of different forms of cancer and my dad had end stage breast cancer back in the 1980s and at that time they really didn't know how to treat a man with breast cancer. So they pretty much told him to go home and die. And he lived another three and a half years and I believe he did because he had a purpose. He had something to do other than lay around and think how horrible his situation was. His job was in real estate and he loved being in real estate and he actually worked up till two weeks before he died.

Speaker 3: 11:21

And when he died I remember sort of tucking that in the back of my mind and saying you know, when it's my turn, sort of in the barrel with life that I need to have a purpose, I need to have something that's bigger than me, and so I have had my foot amputated in 2018, had my leg amputated in 2020. I have these tumors which I'm being treated for every three weeks at the hospital. So I'm a little limited in terms of mobility and what I can do. So it was what skills do I have that I can do something with my life and help other people. And, alan, one of the biggest things that I learned from team sports and for me it was sports. I think it can be whatever team you're on, and we're all on a team of some kind was the importance of being part of something that's bigger than yourself. You know, you realize on a team that if you don't do your job, not only do you let yourself down, but you let your teammates down, your coaches down, your fans down, your parents down, et cetera, and, if you think about it, the biggest team game that we all play is this game of life.

Speaker 3: 12:33

So I have taken my interests. I've taken my aptitudes, my skills. I developed a website. I wrote a book in 2020. I put up thoughts for the day every day. I am a guest on. I've probably been on well over 600 podcasts all over the world just talking about the things that I've learned through my cancer journey and my life as well, with the caveat that I don't have all the answers. I'm still trying to figure this out, but what I like to do is say look, I've been through some things. I think I can walk the walk and talk the talk, and I'd like to share those with other people in the hope that maybe it could help them as well.

Speaker 1: 13:19

Yeah, absolutely, terry. I totally love that. And what I really appreciate about the story about your father their grandfather was, you know, with the cancer, and that he had purpose, something more to live for for his life than not, and I think that carries us through so many things in lives that if we just had that opportunity to find that and live that. And the other part I noted here is you talked about there being. You know, it's not really a guru program that we live. Right, they're always learning, but we, some of us, are just a little bit further down the path. We've seen a couple of things and maybe somebody else hasn't seen, and it's for us, as part of that hero's journey, to now give back to others and to do that. And one of the things that I liked about your work is you lean on this framework and it's actually your foundation of all your work, and you call them your four truths. So tell us a little bit about what these four truths are and how are they implemented.

Speaker 3: 14:14

Sure, so I have them here on a Post-it note in my office, and so I see them multiple times during the day, and so they constantly get reinforced in my mind, and they're just one sentence each, so I'll give them to you. So the first one is control your mind, or your mind is going to control you. The second one is embrace the pain and the difficulty that we all experience in life and use that pain and difficulty to make you a stronger and more resilient individual.

Speaker 3: 14:48

The third one I look at more as I guess a legacy type of truth, and it's this what you leave behind is what you weave in the hearts of other people. And then the fourth one, I think, is pretty self-explanatory as long as you don't quit, you can never be defeated. And I refer to these four truths sort of as the bedrock of my soul. I think they're just a good place to try to start to build a quality life off of.

Speaker 1: 15:19

I love how you've added more to it than just you know. Control your mind. And what else did you have there? Embrace the pain. I just love how you really rounded that framework out for us to all think about how we can show up differently in life. And so what a great set of four truths that all of us can definitely employ. And you mentioned about a book. I want to spend some time talking about your book. It's called Sustainable Excellence 10 Principles for Leading your Uncommon and Extraordinary Life, and in the intro I talked about being able to answer three questions what is excellence, how do you achieve it and how do you sustain it? How do we sustain that? So tell us how you've answered those questions in your life.

Speaker 3: 16:01

Yeah, I always get that. It's like you know how do you define excellence and my response is I don't know.

Speaker 2: 16:07

You know what do you mean. You don't know. You wrote a book. How?

Speaker 3: 16:08

could you not know what excellence is? And I've come to the conclusion that excellence is kind of like beauty it's in the eye of the beholder. You know, alan, you and I might look at a sports team or you know a play or something like that, and you might say, man, they are excellent, I think they're good, but I don't think they're excellent. I think we all have our own journey of determining what excellence looks like, so I don't know the answer to what excellence is. Now, in terms of sustaining it.

Speaker 3: 16:37

I have a little bit more to say about that, and I mean, what do people do? I mean they work incredibly hard at something that they feel is their purpose, something they feel God put them on this earth to do, because they have unique gifts and talents that help them to do that, and they get to the top of the mountain, they make it to the pinnacle of whatever business or sport or whatever they do. And then what do most people do? They kind of kick back, put their feet up on the desk, pour themselves a drink and be like, hey, I've arrived. And then what happens? Six months from now, a year from now, boom, somebody passes them up and it's like wait a minute.

Speaker 2: 17:15

What?

Speaker 3: 17:15

happened? What happened is you didn you sustain excellence is you find different ways to market your services. You find different avenues to market those services too. You find different products or services to deliver to your audience, and I don't think people realize that. If you want to be where you are, that's fine. If you're comfortable staying there, that's great. But people are kind of like trees You're either living or you're dying. And if you're not growing, if you're not expanding, if you're not stepping outside those comfort zones, then you're dying, then you're not going anywhere, and so many people are in that category.

Speaker 3: 17:59

There's a, an entrepreneur by the name of Ed Milet, real interesting guy. But one of the things he talks about are the four types of people in the world, and the first group he talks about are the unmotivated, and he says that's the vast majority of people that you will come in contact in your life. And then he says the second group are the motivated. It's kind of a carrot and stick approach to life. If I do this, I will get that. It's a life strictly based on motivation. It's kind of low level but it works for a lot of people to live a motivated life. And then the third group he talks about are the inspirational people, the word inspiration coming from two words in spirit. If you're an inspirational person, you move people with your energy. And then the last group he talks about are the aspirational people, where people aspire to be like you, and sometimes when I'm doing a presentation, I'll ask people I show hands.

Speaker 3: 19:01

How many people are unmotivated?

Speaker 2: 19:03

And nobody raises their hand.

Speaker 3: 19:05

Nobody feels they're unmotivated. But if you believe Milet's model, the vast majority of people are, and I really do think they are. I think people just kind of muddle through life. I think people stop learning, stop growing. They're like I'm good here, I'm comfortable. But if you're comfortable, you're not growing. So I would encourage your audiences listen to us tonight If you feel, hey, I'm just comfortable, things are good. Step outside those comfort zones, do something uncomfortable. That way you've got a chance of being excellent and then at some point down the road of sustaining that excellence.

Speaker 1: 19:42

Yeah, I completely agree with that, and I love that framework from Ed as well. You know, the idea it makes me think of what a couple of things that previous mentors that I had in my life one was. He would say that beware of the lollipop of mediocrity one lick and you suck forever. And that always resonated with me, because it's so easy for us to just feel like we've arrived, you know, I've okay, done my work, and so now I'm going to take my foot off the gas, and while that may be okay for a little bit of time, the challenge with it is, when we get so complacent, more parts of our life become complacent. It's not just about that one thing, and so I like that.

Speaker 1: 20:21

There's that framework, and the aspire piece is something that we spend a lot of time working at here with the Awakened man. It's really about who do we aspire to become, because to me it's never a destination. It's about the journey along the way to becoming that, because we're always evolving, we're always unfolding a new reality for ourselves. So thank you very much for sharing those two frameworks. I love that. Sure, you know, in your book you have 10 principles that form really the bedrock of these unshakable beliefs that you talk about, and I would like to explore a few of them, and so the very first one I gave was enjoy your life. It sounds cliche, but really what you're getting at is something quite a bit deeper. It's really about that Mark Twain quote that really sets the stage for this. So tell us a little bit more about this principle and how I started with that one.

Speaker 3: 21:06

Yeah, I enjoy your life. So many people, I mean, we make life so much harder than it needs to be. I mean we think let me put it this way Most people that I've come across feel that they are born empty and that once they get out of school and they kind of get into life, whatever that looks like for them, that then their job is to fill themselves up.

Speaker 3: 21:36

You, know, I've got to get a great education, I've got to have a great job, make a lot of money, drive the nicest car, live in the nicest house and have the latest iPhone and the latest gadgets and have the best family. And, alan, what I've come to understand is that's not the case at all. We're not born empty. We're all born full with everything we need to be successful, however you determine that word. However, we need to be successful in our lives. We just need to find what that is inside of us, pull it out and use it for our benefit. So, instead of thinking that you're born empty and you need to fill yourself up which my experience with people has been there's always one more thing that'll make me happy.

Speaker 3: 22:19

There's always one more thing that if I get it, I'll be fulfilled. And those people aren't fulfilled. They're miserable. You know, they may have what you and I have would call those are successful people, but they're not happy. They're not, they're miserable people. What it is is not filling yourself up. What your life should be about is emptying yourself out with your unique gifts and talents, certainly for the betterment of yourself, but also for the betterment of your family, of your friends, of your community, of your country.

Speaker 3: 22:50

And I'll end this with this story. I think most of us, or most of your listeners, probably know who Fred McFeely Rogers is. Mr Rogers, on his television show Mr Rogers' Neighborhood educated so many young people growing up on public television, including me. When Fred Rogers died in 2003, his family was going through his effects and they found his wallet, and inside his wallet was a scrap piece, piece of paper on which Mr Rogers had written four simple words Life is for service. If you look at your life as not what you can get but what you can give, then I promise you, I promise you you're going to have an amazing, wonderful, happy life.

Speaker 1: 23:43

I'd love that I'd never heard that story about Mr Rogers. What a great, what a great way to put that framework together. On that as well Live life is for service and absolutely I think all of us find and figure out eventually what our calling is, and for me, being a servant leader has been that calling for the longest time and it was just finding the right avenue, and so I appreciate that that you shared that story and really grateful for it. You know principle five is about. You know you are the person you are looking to become, and so what it reminds me is really about goal setting. So we tend to get focused really on the outcome, but not necessarily the moment. At least, that's what I think you're getting at with this principle. So how does this principle show up for you and how are you using it with others?

Speaker 3: 24:28

Yeah, so there's a little bit of a backstory to my life. I started out my first two jobs out of college were in business, but my grandfather was a Chicago police officer from 1924 to 1954. And he was actually shot in the line of duty with his own gun. It was not a serious injury, he was shot in the ankle. But my dad, who was an infant at the time, always remembered the stories that my grandmother told of that knock on the door of Mrs Tucker, grab your son, come with us. Your husband's been shot.

Speaker 3: 24:59

And so when I expressed an interest in going into law enforcement, my dad was absolutely not. You're going to college, you're going to major in business, you're going to get out, get a great job, get married, have 2.4 kids and live happily ever after. But that's the life my father wanted me to live. That's not what I felt my purpose was. So I had probably one of the first major decisions of my life as an adult when I graduated from college. As I mentioned, my father and my grandmother were both dying of different forms of cancer. I could have said hey, dad, sorry, I know you don't want me to do this and I know you're dying, but I'm going to go blaze my own trail, or, out of love and respect for you, I will do what you want me to do. So, understanding the backstory, my resume makes a little bit more sense now and I sort of joke.

Speaker 3: 25:43

I did what every good son did. I waited till my father passed away and sort of followed my own dreams. But I was a 37 year old rookie police officer, which by most accounts is pretty late to be getting into that line of work. But one of the things that I am proudest of about myself is that I never let that dream die. I never gave up. I never settled like I'm good here, I'm making good money, I don't have you know. No, this is what I think I'm supposed to do.

Speaker 3: 26:13

And really what that chapter is about is that I always felt I was a police officer, even though I wasn't. You know, I hadn't gotten to that point. I was in business, I was doing that thing, but it was always there, it was always down the road. It was always the goal, the dream, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and I never let it die. And I learned a great deal being in business, but it wasn't what I felt was my purpose. It wasn't like I couldn't get. You know, I can't wait to get up in the morning and go to the office. I didn't really I'm not going to say I didn't care, I wanted to do my best, but it wasn't until I became a police officer that it was. This is what I'm supposed to do, and so that really is more about I knew I was a police officer. It just took me a number of years, maybe well over a decade to get to the person that I knew, that I always was.

Speaker 1: 27:07

Yeah, absolutely For sure and absolutely. You know, out of love and respect for our fathers, we do tend to make those decisions. And then we get an opportunity at some point in our lives to be able to live, to live our purpose and live through it. And now you weren't just a police officer, but you were on a special tactical group, you know, a SWAT group, and you did hostage negotiations. So like was that part of your, your dream as well. And how did you fall into that role?

Speaker 3: 27:33

Yeah, I think in most of my life I've always wanted to be either the best or associated with the best, and on most law enforcement departments the men and women who are on the SWAT team are usually the best officers. They get the best training and the best equipment. So I wanted to be part of that in some way, and I really had no interest in, you know, sort of laying out in the bushes, you know, when it was 20 below zero, surrounding a house, and I thought what's a better way to do that? Well, I can be a negotiator, and that was a joke.

Speaker 3: 28:08

If that's what I would have needed to do, I would have done it, but it was just an opportunity and I had to do a physical fitness assessment, I had to meet with the psychologist, I had to take psychological tests, I had to meet with the command staff and then I had to meet with the team and it wasn't all or nothing. Everybody gave you a thumbs up or you didn't make it, and I was fortunate enough to get a thumbs up, and I was a little bit older.

Speaker 3: 28:35

I thought I knew what I was doing. And, alan, I'll never forget this. The very first. The way we would train is we would work with the psychologist, we would do scenarios and then we would debrief and you know, the psychologist might say, well, did you ever think that person was schizophrenic and off their medicine? Oh no, that never occurred. So you know, we would sort of learn on the job, so to speak. And I'll never forget. First time I went through a scenario, very simple hostage taker with a hostage barricaded behind a door. I spent the entire time talking to the hostage, you know, and afterwards they were like you do realize, we're supposed to negotiate with the person who has the hostage. And I was like, yeah, I guess I got a lot to learn here.

Speaker 1: 29:14

What a way to learn, though. Exactly Talk about the ultimate team sport, though right, everybody had to be on board with having you in that role, because that role was so critical, because truly is ultimately life and death for someone. It is, and that's a skill, and so, yeah, go right ahead.

Speaker 3: 29:34

I was just going to say that there was a movie back, I think, in the late 1990s called the Negotiator and it was Samuel L Jackson, who was almost just like Superman.

Speaker 1: 29:44

This one man, you know, negotiation team and people always ask me I saw that movie, Is that the way it is?

Speaker 3: 29:51

No, that's absolutely not the way it is. I mean, yes, there is a primary negotiator that would be the person talking to the individual, but then sitting right next to you is another negotiator that's just listening. They have headphones on and they're listening to what's being said both ways. And then there are three or four, maybe even five more people out doing what I used to call working the crowd, because there were a lot of times, alan, we would show up and it's like, okay, this guy's barricaded with a gun, he's taking pot shots out the window. Do we know anything about him? Nope. Do we know why we're here? Nope. Do we know why he's doing this? Nope. So we had no idea. And so you might, as the primary, get a note from your secondary that says don't talk about his mother, because the people in the crowd found out that they talked to a relative and said he had a huge fight with his mother and he grabbed a gun and he barricaded himself in the house.

Speaker 3: 30:43

And the last thing I'll talk about this it has to do with how we communicate with each other, and not just as negotiators, but you and I and your spouse, your children and things like that, and it was a formula that they gave me, and it was 73855. 7% of how we communicate with each other are the words that we use. And think about that. How many times do we agonize over I got to say the right thing. It's only 7% of how we communicate. 38% of how we communicate is the tone of voice that we use with those words, and then 55% of how we communicate with each other is our body language and facial expressions. So, as negotiators, we weren't with the person who was barricaded, who had the gun, so we didn't have that 55%. I could say something to you if you were the barricaded person and I didn't see. You kind of roll your eyes.

Speaker 2: 31:41

Oh what an?

Speaker 3: 31:41

idiot. I can't believe he said that, and that was the hard thing about it, because we certainly had to figure things out based on what people were saying, but we also had to figure it out based on what they weren't saying and why they were saying yeah, absolutely, really the teaching you, the skill of listening, you know, and really and really understanding how to do that, and I like that idea, as well as the communication aspect of what that role really was all about.

Speaker 1: 32:09

And let's face it, in our marriages we could do with some negotiating skills at times, because we're not, as men, we're not necessarily that great at expressing what we need to express and we're not that's necessarily that great at picking up the clues that are right in front of us. And so what a great way to learn. You know how to, how to communicate. You know, I think, about your principle eight. There is one that I wish I would have learned 25 years ago and then and had, and that was about failing. Often, especially when you're young, you know being able to fail off and you seem to have a lot of runway in front of you. So how do you coach someone on this principle, especially if they're going to be caught in this cycle of fear, worry and doubt?

Speaker 3: 32:52

Yeah, I think we all have that from time. You know, if you're a human being, you're going to doubt yourself. I don't care how important, influential, successful you are in life, From time to time you are going to doubt yourself. So how?

Speaker 2: 33:05

do you?

Speaker 3: 33:06

deal with that? How do you get past that? You jump in. So there's a woman by the name of Sarah Blakely, and Sarah Blakely is the founder of a company called Spanx, which is a woman's undergarment. Don't ask me how I know that it's a woman undergarment company. It's been around for 20 years. She's married to a man by the name of Jesse Itzler and Itzler used to be he may still be part owner of the Atlanta Hawks and the National Basketball Association and he's a very successful man and I heard him talking one time and Sarah Blakely started Spanx with $5,000 and one prototype and he made the comment he said if she would have waited until every duck was in a row, he said I guarantee you somebody would have jumped in, done that before her and somebody else. We would be saying started, quote, unquote Spanx. And I think that's what we and somebody else we would be saying started, quote, unquote Spanx. And I think that's what we do.

Speaker 3: 34:08

Everything's got to be perfect, everything's got to be lined up. There is no perfect. There's no perfect in this world. There's no perfect job. There's no perfect marriage, there's no perfect kids. There's no perfect. So figure out what you need and then jump in. Jump in with both feet and if you make a mistake, it's okay. I love the quote from Nelson Mandela, the former president of South Africa, who said I never lose. I either learn or I win. So if you can take mistakes and use those to make you better, to make you stronger and move forward with it. It's kind of like the second principle in there about how we think. Most people think with their fears and their insecurities instead of using their minds. I know I've done that. I know I've done that in my life. Oh, I'd like to maybe start this company or get involved with this individual. Oh, wait a minute, maybe I'm not smart enough. Maybe I don't have enough information. What will people say about me if I?

Speaker 1: 35:08

fail.

Speaker 3: 35:09

That's thinking with our fears and our insecurities, that's not thinking with our with our minds. And especially when I talk to young people, I always tell them if there's something in your heart, something in your soul that you believe you're supposed to do, but it scares you, go ahead and do it, because at the end of your life, the things that you're going to regret are not going to be the things you did. They're going to be those things you didn't do, and by then it's going to be too late to go back and do them.

Speaker 1: 35:39

Yeah, I remember that Absolutely. Like I said, I wish someone would have, you know, really sat me down and had me understand that idea of you know, failing often and just moving forward and not thinking from a fear base, because we tend to do that, and even even to this day, I think that's still pretty prevalent for many of us. As we consider all of these things, this, I'd say, it's like awfulizing our life and really none of it ever comes to fruition. It's just about taking that one step forward and then making a life that, a life that's worth living. And when I think back on my life, I think of some of the books that I've read that really had an impact on me, and one of them was Aug Mandino's University of Success. It's a book that's still on my stand here. It's something that I refer to back over and over again. But when I was thinking about that, I was thinking well, what book or books have you had that had a similar impact on your life and how they shaped your message and the messages you have today?

Speaker 3: 36:35

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 36:36

I think, the one I mentioned earlier about John Wooden. They call me coach. You know he talks about his life, his relationship with his parents and things like that and how you know everybody thinks of John Wooden in UCLA. He was one phone call away from being the basketball coach at the University of Minnesota, so life kind of is tricky like that. That's a huge book. I love personally reading biographies and autobiographies. I love to know why people did what they did. What makes people tick things like that. I think that was another appeal to being a hostage negotiator, of trying to understand people, not necessarily agree with them. That was what we used to call tactical empathy Help me to understand where you're coming from. Not necessarily agree with you, but help me to understand it.

Speaker 3: 37:23

That builds trust and the other book and I think I have it right here and I've read this several times and I absolutely love it. It's called Legacy. It's written by a man by the name of James Kerr and Kerr embedded with the New Zealand National Rugby Team, which, by most accounts, is the most successful sports franchise in any sport in any country of all times, and it's just how you know. I think back on my own life when I would go to a job interview. It would be like, well, I better have an answer to every question that they ask me, or I'm not going to get the job. And the way the team is called the All Blacks because their uniforms are all black. But when they're bringing a coach on, when they're bringing a player on, they look for two things. Number one is character and the other thing is humility.

Speaker 3: 38:18

And I remember one time I was looking at I was interviewing for a marketing job and I met with the vice president of this company and we spent an hour and a half, 90 minutes and the entire time the only thing he wanted to hear about was what was it like growing up? What was it like with your brothers? What was it like playing sports? What was it like having a knee surgery. What was your college experience like? And never asked me one question about marketing or business or my philosophy or anything. And I said to him afterwards I said I've got to ask you, why did you focus so much on roughly the first 20 years of my life? And he said I've got plenty of people around me that'll tell me whether you're a good fit for our group or you know what you're talking about in marketing.

Speaker 3: 39:03

He said I want to hire people of good character. And he said I believe character is developed in the first 20 years of your life. And I heard a great quote that said character is caught, it's not taught. So you're not going to read a book and all of a sudden have great character. You're going to have to watch people and say, well, I really liked the way she handled that, or boy, I didn't like the way he handled that situation. And that's how you grow in character. So the all blacks talk about character and the other thing they talk about is humility, that they don't expect you as an individual to have all the answers, but they do expect you to work within the framework of the team to come up with those answers. And I love that it was like I don't have to know everything. I just have to know enough to work within this team framework to get the job done.

Speaker 3: 39:56

And then there are things about how leaders, the captains, clean the locker rooms after the games and things like that. It's an excellent book, mine's scored with notes and highlights and all that kind of stuff and I can't think you probably didn't want an answer that long, but legacy is absolutely an amazing book.

Speaker 1: 40:15

No, absolutely. I love that answer on that book. I always interested to find out what people are reading and where they find their inspiration and how that, how that really motivates them, and I hadn't heard of that book legacy. It's definitely one I'm going to put on our list for our book of the month because it sounds really intriguing. I think it would hit home for a lot of folks. Oh, yeah, yeah, you know. You know, over the course of the years, obviously, and you know you've had you've mentioned john wooden a couple times, but I'd like you to think back now. Maybe, if somebody different you may be, a different mentor that you've had in your life, what would be the best piece of advice that you received from them and how has that served you today?

Speaker 3: 41:00

I think the best mentors that I had in my life were my parents. You can't tell this from looking at me, but I'm six foot eight inches tall and you mentioned I played NCAA Division I basketball. I have a brother who's six foot seven who was a pitcher on the University of Notre Dame's baseball team, and then I have another brother who's six foot six who was drafted by the Cleveland Cavaliers and the National Basketball Association, and then my dad was six foot five. So we used to joke that if you sat behind our family in church growing up not a prayer's chance you were going to see anything that was going on, you know, at the front of the church. But my parents, you know, they taught us the value of family. They taught us the value of loving for each other, of caring for each other, of supporting each other, and they used to do what I call divide and conquer parenting, where, you know, I'd have a game on a Tuesday night at six o'clock at one place and my brother would have a practice at the exact same time at another place, you know, and dad would go with me to the game and mom would go with my brother to the practice and they taught us. They taught us the value of family.

Speaker 3: 41:55

And I'll fast forward to. My dad was dying of cancer and my brother, my youngest brother, was in high school and he had a basketball game and I had a job. I was, I was working and and I no-transcript just being a jerk, but he taught me again, you know, in my, in my 20s. Hey, it's about family, you know, it's about faith, family and friends, and you know, we know what our faith is. But this is our family. Your brother needs you at that game. You're going to the game. I went to the game, found another time to go work out.

Speaker 3: 42:55

So yeah my mom and dad were great about being role models for us as kids.

Speaker 1: 43:02

Outstanding Love, that Faith, family and friends for sure. Such a powerful message there. You know, terry, of everything that we spoke about today, and maybe there was something we didn't get a chance to touch on. What would be the one takeaway you'd like our listeners to have from our conversation?

Speaker 3: 43:15

I'm trying to decide which story I want to tell you. I'll tell you this one. So when I was young I loved Westerns. You know my mom and dad used to let me stay up. I'm really going to date myself now by telling you that Stay up and watch Gunsmoke and Bonanza. And my favorite was Wild Wild West 1993, the movie Tombstone came out.

Speaker 3: 43:36

You probably saw it. It was a huge blockbuster. It starred Val Kilmer as a man by the name of John Doc Holliday and Kurt Russell as a man by the name of Wyatt Earp. Now, for those who don't know a little bit about history, doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp were two living, breathing human beings who walked on the face of the earth. They're not made up characters for the movie. Doc was called Doc because he was a dentist by trade, but pretty much Doc Holliday was a gunslinger and a car shark and Wyatt Earp had been some form of a lawman his entire life. And somehow these two men from entirely opposite backgrounds formed this very close friendship. And at the end of the movie, doc Holliday is dying at a sanitarium in Glenwood Springs, colorado, which is about three hours from where I live. The real Doc Holliday died at that sanitarium and he's buried in the Glenwood Springs Cemetery.

Speaker 3: 44:28

And Wyatt, at this point in his life, is destitute. He has no money, has no job, has no prospects for a job. So every day comes to play cards with Doc and the two men pass the time that way. And at the end of the movie they're talking about what they want out of life. And Doc says you know, when I was younger I was in love with my cousin, but she joined the convent over the affair, but she's all I ever wanted. And then he looks at Wyatt and he says what about you, wyatt? What do you want? And Wyatt kind of nonchalantly says I just want to lead a normal life. And Doc looks at him and says there's no normal, there's just life. And get on with living yours. Alan, you and I probably know people there's probably people out there listening to us. They're sort of sitting back and saying well, when this happens, I'll have a normal life, or when this transpires, I'll have a successful life.

Speaker 3: 45:17

Or when this occurs, I'll have a significant life. What I'd like to leave your listeners with is this Don't wait. Don't wait for life to come to you. Get out there, find the reason you were put on the face of this earth. Use your unique gifts and talents and live that reason, Because if you do, at the end of your life I'm going to promise you two things Number one, you're going to be a whole lot happier. And number two, you're going to have a whole lot more peace in your heart.

Speaker 1: 45:46

Oh man, just love that, love that story about Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday, and I really enjoyed that movie. Thank you so much for taking that and that message to help wrap up today's episode. I just want to say once again, terry, thank you for spending time with us today, and I think you've really been able to show us that they're what it means to truly live an extraordinary life. And because we focus on men's work here, I'm going to ask where, if men were interested in participating in any of your work or getting a hold of you and spending time with you, what would be the best way for them to do that?

Speaker 3: 46:13

Yeah, I have a blog, sort of slash website. It's called Motivational Check. I put up a thought for the day. Every day I have recommendations for books to read, videos to watch. You can leave me a message. That's all at motivationalcheckcom.

Speaker 1: 46:27

Absolutely. I'm going to make sure that's in the show notes, as well as all the socials. Wherever you're hanging out, people are going to get a chance to reach out to you. Terry, thank you so much for being on the show. I really loved our conversation today.

Speaker 3: 46:38

Well, Alan, thanks for having me on.

Speaker 2: 46:43

I enjoyed it as well. Thank you for listening to the Revolutionary man podcast. Are you ready to own your destiny, to become more the man you are destined to be? Join the brotherhood that is the Awakened man at theawakenedmannet and start forging a new destiny today.