In this episode we spoke with Terry Tucker about the topic of Coping with Pain. Terry has been an NCAA Division I college basketball player, a Citadel cadet, a marketing executive, a hospital administrator, an undercover narcotics investigator, a SWAT Team Hostage Negotiator, a high school basketball coach, a business owner, a motivational speaker, and most recently: a cancer warrior.
In addition, he is the author of Sustainable Excellence: Ten Principles To Leading Your Uncommon And Extraordinary Life. In 2019, Terry started the website “Motivational Check” to help others find and lead their uncommon and extraordinary lives (www.motivationalcheck.com).
You can follow Terry’s journey on LinkedIn and Facebook.
Some of the major themes that were discussed during the episode were the topics of pain, negative thoughts, getting out of your comfort zone and living fulfilling lives.
According to Terry, pain can be something different for everyone. For example, it can be cancer pain, chronic or terminal illness, a failed test at school, a breakup or not getting the promotion you think you deserve. Therefore, pain is inevitable. However, he stresses that even though pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. Suffering is what you do with the pain. We can either wallow in it and feel sorry for ourselves or we can use it to make us stronger and more determined individuals. We can do and go through so much more than we ever thought we could and get out of that situation and keep moving forward.
“Pain in our lives is inevitable. We are all going to experience pain.” -Terry Tucker
Terry also discusses the topic of negativity and negative thoughts in specific. He gives his own personal experiences about having negative thoughts and having to change those into something positive. He talks about this as “flipping the switch”: when you get a negative thought, you need to flip the switch into something positive. This way you will get to a point in your life where you start to experience good things and good things will start happening to you. If you look for something bad, you are more likely to see something bad.
“When you get that negative thought you’ve got to flip that switch and change that narrative into something positive.” -Terry Tucker
Furthermore, Terry Suggests that we should do one thing every day that makes us nervous or makes us go outside of our comfort zones. This allows us to overcome small things daily and eventually overcome something bigger, which helps us to handle things and tackle issues in general. Doing scary or uncomfortable things is going to do nothing but help you.
“You should do one thing every day that makes you nervous.” -Terry Tucker
Terry also highlights how important it is to think about the end of our lives. Find the reason you were put on this earth and live that reason. Take responsibility for your own happiness instead of looking for something to blame. The world does not owe you anything so if you want something in life, you need to figure out how to get it and then go after it. At the end of your life, you are not going to regret the things you did but the things you didn’t do.
“The important thing is, everybody dies. But not everybody really lives.” -Terry Tucker
If you are interested in hearing more about this topic, you can listen to this week’s episode on your preferred podcast platform, as well as via this link.
We wish you a joyful weekend!
