In this powerful episode of Spark and Ignite Your Marketing, Beverly Cornell sits down with Terry Tucker, a motivational speaker, author, and cancer warrior who has transformed unimaginable adversity into a journey of purpose and inspiration. Diagnosed with terminal cancer over a decade ago, Terry’s life took an unexpected turn that led him from corporate America to becoming a beacon of hope for others.
Terry shares his extraordinary journey from corporate marketer to Division I basketball player to SWAT hostage negotiator, and how each experience shaped his perspective on life and leadership. Through his stories, Terry reminds us that life’s challenges can either break us or build us, and it’s the grit we cultivate that defines our path.
Here are three key takeaways from the episode:
- Grit is Essential for Entrepreneurial Success: Terry Tucker emphasizes that challenges and setbacks are inevitable in both life and business. However, cultivating grit—the ability to persevere through adversity—can turn these challenges into opportunities for growth and success.
- Authenticity and Storytelling Drive Connection: Terry highlights the power of authentic storytelling in business. Sharing personal stories, even the difficult ones, helps build trust, connect with your audience, and differentiate your brand in a crowded marketplace.
- Purpose Fuels Resilience in Business: Terry’s journey illustrates that finding a deeper purpose can be a powerful motivator in entrepreneurship. Aligning your business goals with your personal mission not only helps you overcome obstacles but also creates a lasting impact on others.
Follow Terry Tucker:
Daily Motivational Thoughts I Blog – Motivational Check
LinkedIn – Terry Tucker
Watch on YouTube
Transcript:
Beverly:
Did you know that 85 percent of people believe that listening to motivational speakers can significantly boost their mindset and their drive. Welcome to another inspiring episode of Spark and Ignite Your Marketing. I’m your host, Beverly Cornell. And today we are so excited to introduce you to Terry. Tucker, an exceptional motivational speaker, author, and international podcast guest. Terry has faced a 12 year battle with terminal cancer and draws from his vast professional experience to inspire others. He is the author of Sustainable Excellence, 10 Principles to Leading Your Uncommon and Extraordinary Life, and a featured author in Perspectives on Cancer, Stories of Healing and resilience. Terry, it’s wonderful to have you here today.
Terry :
Thanks for having me.
Beverly:
Share a little bit about, but before we get started here, I want to hear like how, obviously you get a diagnosis and it changes everything, but how do you go from corporate to this the career you’ve created for yourself based on this Very impactful experience you have.
Terry :
Yeah. If you look at my resume, it looks like a Super Bowl went off in the room. It’s just really all over the place. You are a product of your experiences. And, I played division one college basketball. My first job out of college was in the corporate headquarters of Wendy’s international, the hamburger chain in their marketing department, which was the heyday of fast food and things like that. So I got to learn a whole lot of things before I switched. I made a big pivot when I was 37 years old and became a police officer. And part of what I did during that was. I was a SWAT hostage negotiator, so most of my life had been physical. I’ve been doing physical things, and then I get this very rare form of cancer that has seen my foot amputated in 2018, my leg amputated in 2020, and I have tumors in my lung. So how do you justify those things? And I think the way you do that. Is when you can’t do what you’re good at, you do what’s important in life. And that’s really what I feel I’m doing now. Playing basketball, it was great. I had a lot of fun, but was it really important in terms of, the scheme of life, not really. So I think the things I’m doing now are much more, at least I hope, important, impactful, helpful to other people.
Beverly:
Talk about the journey. As a motivational speaker and what have been some of the experiences along the way that have informed and I’m assuming made you even better than you were before all of those things happened.
Terry :
I hope so. I try to learn from everything. Making mistakes and learning from those mistakes and getting better, when I first started my, I did my first podcast. I was. I was horrible. I was terrible. I provided no value whatsoever. And when you realize that most people listen to podcasts to become educated, to become smarter, so being on podcasts gave me an opportunity To hone my message. I once heard somebody say, never make a point without telling a story and never tell a story without making a point. And I do that, Beverly, if I told you something, you might remember it. But if I told you something and then told you a story around it, there’s a much greater chance that You would remember that. So it became for me finding good stories and then trying to figure out a way to make those stories fit for whatever the podcast was, what was it? A marketing podcast? Was it a cancer podcast? Was it an entrepreneurial pocket? What was it and how can I use those stories? To bring a message to people that they will remember. I’ve grown as a human being. But I also think at this point in my life, My purpose is to put more goodness, positivity, motivation, love back into the world and help people just to make their lives a little bit better.
Beverly:
Storytelling is, I think good storytelling is what makes, it’s a secret ingredient in good marketing. If you can tell a good story that resonates and that’s where the authenticity lives is in your stories. That’s what connects. That’s where people remember, like you said, Terry, that if that’s the thing they remember about you, that’s the thing that connects them. That’s the thing that makes them trust and want to do business with you. So is there anything about your industry particularly like being a motivational speaker? I feel like a lot of people have stories. We all are overcoming things, and we’re all trying to be resilient, and we’re all Is there things in your industry that maybe are a little frustrating for you as a motivational speaker?
Terry :
Yeah, I’m at a disadvantage because when I show up, if you saw me in person, I’m six foot eight inches tall. So I used to just walk into a room and command the room.
Now
Terry :
I’m in a wheelchair. And I don’t have a left leg and it’s amazing how much that affects people and I find one of the things that helps me with that helps me to overcome that is, is self deprecating humor. I’m constantly making fun of myself. We’re constantly making fun of situations. I was doing a,
I was doing a
Terry :
keynote with the South Carolina Bankers Association at their annual convention. And I said something about my cancer journey, and it was like somebody sucked the air right out of the room. It was like, you couldn’t hear a pin drop. And I stopped my talk and I’m like I guess that wasn’t something I should have said. And it just broke the ice with people. So when I speak, it’s not, some guy just walks in and talks. It’s a guy in a wheelchair without a leg. Makes people uncomfortable. I remember when I had my foot amputated, I was, I’m going to use the word walking out of the hospital. It’s more like hobbling in this sort of cast. And there was a woman at the entrance and she was just, you’ve had those people in your life that just are staring almost like right through you. And I thought, okay, I’ve got to do something here. And so I walked up and as I got right next to her, I looked at her and I said, ah, don’t worry, it’ll grow back. And I just kept walking. And I turned around and looked over my shoulder and she had this look on her face like. Is this guy like a salamander or something like that? It was just, you have to use what, what works for you. And humor works for me. I love telling jokes and things like that. And I think that just puts people at ease for me, given my situation that I’m a little bit, I’ll use the word different when I come in to make a speech.
Beverly:
My husband’s active duty military and we have several friends who have unfortunately lost a leg in combat or with IED explosions and things like that. And so my kids have been exposed to people who have lost a limb and their first encounters and what that looks like. And we have to, Let them know this is, they can walk. One of our dear friends went back into active duty service. Like he was able to do that with an prosthetic leg. And so like he would play, come down and play basketball. He played basketball as well with the kids and was very good. And I think it showed them a whole different level of ability. in that. And I think super inspiring to them. They had lots of questions like what happened and how did that happen? And how do you get a prosthetic leg? And some of those kinds of things. But that awareness as children, I think isn’t, is powerful so that you don’t have those uncomfortable moments as an adult that has never experienced seeing somebody who has lost a limb in some way, shape, or form. So I love that you have that, such a positive spirit about it because it could be quite the opposite in your scenario.
Terry :
It can be. And, I think one of the things, and this goes back to, being an entrepreneur and dealing with people and things like that is you have to present your authentic self. When as a host and as a guest, on a podcast that if you’re not fully engaged, people realize that people understand it. And the other thing I think is people. Understand that we are humans, that we make mistakes, that we’re fallible, that things happen and that’s okay. The people that show up and it’s everything’s perfect. Everything’s great. Nothing goes wrong. You’re yeah, I’m not learning anything from you. I want to know what mistakes you made. I want to know what things happened along the route. that you learned from and what you learned and how you incorporated them. So I think that authenticity that whether you’re an entrepreneur, whether you’re starting your own business, whether you’re doing a podcast as a guest or host. You have to be authentic. It’s here I am warts and all, you may agree with stuff that I say you may not, but this is me. And hopefully people will learn from the things that we’ve experienced.
Beverly:
Being really honest and genuine is I think the route for sure. So who are your clients and what problems do you solve for them? I always talk to, I asked that question for my entrepreneurs, but as a motivational speaker, I got to leave. It’s a little bit different.
Terry :
It is. And I’ll talk to anybody. I, unfortunately, having told you what I’ve been through, I, traveling is incredibly difficult for me. And that’s why I enjoy podcasting as a guest, because, I can talk to somebody in China or Taiwan or India or New Zealand and have the experience without having to try, to get there and that. So that part is me. I talked to corporate clients. I talked to, to, medical clients. We have, I live in Denver. We have a hospital, Craig hospital that basically deals with people with spinal cord and brain injuries and things like that. I’ve talked to their organization. I talked to, I love talking to young people and especially. Having a background in athletics and sports and that teams and things like that. So I, I’m not real picky on who I talk to. I think I have a story. I think I have a message that took a long time for me to realize. I was really, writing a book, speaking like no, not nobody cares about my story. People want to understand what you’ve been through so that they can apply that. We’re all different. But that they can apply some of the things that you’ve learned along your journey into their business, into their life, their professional life, their personal life, whatever that ends up being.
Beverly:
I imagine, and maybe I’m going to make some assumptions here, but I imagine being diagnosed with cancer, terminal cancer, losing the limb, losing the leg, that’s all loss. And when you talk about loss, there’s. There’s like the five stages of grief. How do you go from being angry and sad to, I want to help others?
Terry :
I think you go through those and I did when I was first diagnosed back in 2012, I was told I’d be dead in 10 years or in two years, they didn’t have anything for me. And I said, okay, you gave me a death sentence.
How
Terry :
can I try to turn that death sentence into a life sentence? And I absolutely experienced those stages of, first it was, denial. I can’t possibly have cancer. I’ve done everything right in my life. And then there was the anger. I’ve You know, I can’t possibly have cancer. I’ve done everything right in my life. And then there was a bargaining with God. Our daughter was in high school at the time. And it was like, God, just let me live long enough to see her graduate from high school. And then I absolutely got down, got depressed, felt sorry for myself. And then I got to a point where it was like this sucks. But I’m going to have to embrace the suck. I’m going to have to play this hand, these cards to the best of my ability. And I turned it into something positive and I am the biggest wimp in the world. So if I can do it, anybody who I deal with, I talk with, I have an experience with, I was telling them, you can do it too. I promise you, you can do it. Cause pain is inevitable in our lives. Suffering is optional. Suffering is what you do with that pain. Do you use it to make you stronger and more resilient or do you wallow in it and feel sorry for yourself and want others to feel sorry for you?
Beverly:
I don’t think grief is linear and I don’t think grief stops. I think we learn to live with the grief, whatever that looks like for people. How do you inspire yourself? how do you feed your soul? How do you keep yourself motivated?
Terry :
Yeah. So I use what I call my three F’s, which are faith, family, and friends. I have a very strong faith in God. And it’s funny. I, I’m supposed to be dead 10 years ago, but yet I’m still here. And I remember when I had these tumors in my lungs, had my leg amputated. My doctor showed me my cat skin and I have no medical background. I don’t know how to read a cat skin, but you can look at it and be like, Oh, that doesn’t look like it’s supposed to be there. I had these big tumors in my lungs that fluid all around the plural spaces. And I remember looking at my oncologist and saying, how was I alive? And Beverly, I will never forget this. He put his head down, he shook his head. No. And then he looked up at me and he said, I don’t know because you shouldn’t have been. Which said to me, God’s not done with me yet. When I die, where I die, how I die way above my pay grade. So don’t spend a lot of time worrying about the dying part, spending more time focusing on the living part. And then, my family, it’s my wife and daughter and I, and when I had my leg amputated, my doctor wanted to start me on chemotherapy. And I said to him, is it going to save my life?
He’s nah,
Terry :
probably not, but it might buy you some more time. And I said if the outcome is going to be the same, I don’t think I want to do this. But I’ll go home and ask my family. We’ll talk about it. So I go home and I start telling my wife and daughter what’s going on. And my daughter’s immediately, all right, we need a family meeting, like family meeting, there’s three of us. It’s not like we’ve got a board here or something like that, and so we sit around the kitchen table and individually talk about how everybody feels about me having chemotherapy. And then my daughter’s like, all right, let’s take a vote. How many people want dad to have chemotherapy? And my wife and daughter raised their hand. I’m like, wait a minute. Am I getting out voted? Okay. for something that I don’t want to do. But I remembered when I was in the police academy, our defensive tactics instructor used to have us bring a photograph of the people we loved the most, the class. And as we were learning different techniques to defend ourselves, we were to look at that photograph because he reasoned you will fight harder for the people you love. Then you will fight for yourself. So I took chemo, not because I wanted to, but because my wife and daughter wanted me to, and it ended up being the bridge that got me to the drug I’m on now. So it was the right thing to do. And then finally my friends. And Beverly, I don’t know how about how you are, but there were people in my life that I was a hundred percent sure that if something tragic like cancer happened, that they would be there. They would never leave that when I was diagnosed at 51, we’re like, Terry, I can’t deal with this. I can’t deal with knowing that you’re dying. And then there were people who I never expected to be there, who have never left me in the 12 years that I’ve been doing this. So faith, family, and friends is really what kind of energizes my soul.
Beverly:
I think as an entrepreneur, those are all important things too. I think you need your faith that this is what you’re supposed to be doing and where you’re supposed to go and that you’re in the right place to help the right people. I think your family needs to be supportive and you need to have the right reasons for doing what you’re doing. And I think family or friends, you need people who you can. Sometimes complain to, sometimes celebrate with, whatever that looks like in your journey as a human or as an entrepreneur, you need those things to have a really well rounded Life that matters. At the end of the day,
Terry :
you do you win with people. You, you don’t win by yourself. You don’t do anything, in the abstract. You look at golf or tennis players and you’re like, okay, entrepreneurs in their own way. But there’s people, all kinds of people behind the scenes helping them do the things they do. It’s the same thing as an entrepreneur. You’re going to fail, you’re going to make mistakes. I’ll tell you a quick story. Jesse Itzler used to be part owner of the Atlanta Hawks and the National Basketball Association. And his wife is Sarah Blakely, who started the company Spanx, a woman’s undergarment company. And he tells the story. He said she started that company with one prototype. And 5, 000 and the point he was making was if she would have waited until she understood, the marketing, the finance, the distribution, the HR and all that stuff, he said, I guarantee you somebody else would have come up with that idea and run with it. And the point of what he’s trying to say is wherever you are, just start, you’re an entrepreneur. I want to start this business, just start, figure it out. As you go along, understand that, getting to the top of the mountain or the end of the rainbow is great, but life is all the stuff in between, all the things you learn, all the things you overcome, all the adversity that you face. All the people, the ups and downs, that’s where life is all about. Everybody thinks life starts when I get to the end of the rainbow. It doesn’t. It starts along the journey to get to the end of the rainbow.
Beverly:
It’s the little tiny moments actually that matter far more than the big moments. So those are great. Don’t get me wrong. I like the big moments, but it is, it’s the people, it’s the experiences, it’s Even, it’s little things like being able to take my child to do, to try new things and experience it with them I think it just gives me a different perspective entirely. The people who are supposed to be there for you will be there for you. And I’m glad that you have people who surprised you and have been on your journey with you, no matter what you’re going through. Because it’s not always pretty.
Terry :
They used to have a phrase called momentum or which is remember death, remember that you’re going to die because, and it was a daily thing for them. It wasn’t like, Western culture where we don’t talk about death. No, it helped them to live more fully. And I think that’s important as an entrepreneur. And I’ll just leave you with this, you talked before about how, you’ve got to have people in your corner as an entrepreneur. You’ve got to have people that are supporting you and helping you along the way. You also have to realize, and I think you realize this as somebody who’s a parent, if you have a child. 80 percent of the time that you will spend with your child in their entire life and your entire life is over by the time they’re 18 years old. And 90 percent by the time they’re 21 years old. So understand you’ve got to balance that. Okay. I need the business needs my attention, but so does my child. So understand in life, what’s important to you and where you want to put that emphasis.
Beverly:
With my team. I just recently did an exercise where I made them write their And I have a very young team. And I said, now, who do you need to become and what do you need to do differently intentionally to become the person who’s in your eulogy? And you have you can create the life that you want. You have so much power in this business. This business can serve your life. This business can do so much for you. But you have to be very intentional with your time and where you spend your energy and all the things to make that particular legacy yours. The eulogy. And very powerful training opportunity for them, but it is, that’s something that’s very near and dear to my heart, Terry, that you’re talking about, because I live my life with intention and experiencing life. And I love what I do. I love my work. I love talking to people like you on my podcast. I’m so freaking inspired. And excited and all the things that people can bring to you. But I did this intentionally. I created a podcast to connect with people who would inspire me, to grow my network in a way that was very strategic and with the kinds of people I wanted to have surround me, and that is something that. Anybody has the power to do as part of their business. Who is in your corner and how do you be more strategic and intentional about that? Because at the day, it is your business, your life, your choices, your people that matter. And choosing that, I love the idea that you had a picture of your wife and child. My husband’s active duty military and he’s been in some pretty scary situations. And it’s exactly the same thing. He fights for us. Because he’ll fight a whole lot harder to get home than he would if it was just him. And the same kind of thing. So what are you fighting for in your business, in your life? And how do you make that happen for you? And you don’t have, you can say, okay, this is what happened before, but now’s the time to make a difference. Like it doesn’t matter when you make these choices. Just make the choices. Be intentional. You can be 51. You can be 22. You can be. 77 and make these choices and have the life that you want. So all awesome things, Terry. Give me an example of someone you, connected with that it really helped them with their life, where they were at, how your story resonated with them very powerfully.
Terry :
Yeah, one of the nurses that takes care of me or that was taking care of me young nurse at the time, about 25, but was learning how to do things on the unit where I was taken care of. And about six months later, she was taking care of me by herself. And she came into my room and she said, Tara, I’ve got a story I want to tell you, but I’m a little uncomfortable telling it to you. And I didn’t know how to respond to that. I was like I hope you decide you want to tell that story to me. So in and out for the next couple hours, and then finally comes in, sits down. She’s like, all right, here’s the story. She said, when I first met you, I was going to get out of nursing. I had a very good friend of mine die. I was in a very dark place. I talked to my family. I was going to quit nursing. I was going to go to work for Amazon. And she said, and then I met you and she said, and I see what you go through, how I have a really bad reaction to my medication. Yeah. And I see everything you went through. And then I went back in the file and I read your history of what you’ve been through cancer. And she said, when I finished reading your story, I knew I was where I was supposed to be. Now, Beverly, if she would have never told me that story, I would have had no idea that my life had a positive impact on her. I guarantee who’s ever listening to us right now. There’s somebody out there. You may know them. You may not know them. They may be, the neighbor down the street or you don’t really know, or something like that is watching how you handle your adversity, the difficulty you experienced in your life. And we’ll give almost everything they have just to walk five minutes in your shoes. So don’t ever think that what you’re going through, or you’re, I’m just some common guy out there that, is just muddling through life. Somebody is watching how you handle the difficulties in your life. And is amazed at that and would give almost everything they have just to walk five minutes in your shoes.
Beverly:
And as entrepreneurs, we’re surrounded by people all the time. There’s our customers, there are team members, there’s opportunities left and right to be a person who is admired in some way or has some effect on somebody. That is, I think, our legacy is how we connect and. Inspire others if we can. I think there’s so much to it, but sharing the story itself, Terry, is the hard part. That’s the vulnerable part, because it’s not always pretty and it can get actually ugly and hard and a lot of people don’t like the hard part. They like to see the coming through, but not the actual, like the grit part that was really hard to get over. But yeah, you’re right. Like those are the moments. Does that matter? I said on my last podcast, I think it was a podcast before. And I’ll repeat it to my listeners, but if there is someone who has inspired you and you have not told them, take a moment to please call them, write them, tell them, because it can make the difference for that person. They may be struggling and need the affirmation that they are making a difference in some way, shape, or form, and it could be the difference for them. It could inspire them. It could help push them past an obstacle. And help them create something even more extraordinary, whatever that looks like for them. Don’t be stingy or greedy with your don’t be secretive about the fact that somebody has positively impacted your life in some way, shape or form. Those moments are really powerful. I have a lightning round, Terry. I
Terry :
love lightning rounds, they’re great.
Beverly:
I would imagine that being a motivational speaker and being that friends are so important to you, how have you created and maintained lasting connections on your journey?
Terry :
So this is one of my nurses who used to be a hospice nurse. And for those of your audience who don’t understand about hospice care, it’s people who take care of others at the end of their life. And she gave me this book to read. It was, it’s called imagine heaven. And it’s about people who had near death experiences, a lot of interesting things in the book. But one of the big things I pulled out of it was, No matter who the person having that near death experience saw, whether it was, Jesus or an angel or a saint or their family member or friend, whoever it is, almost everybody got asked one question. And that question was, how do you treat my people? Which if, I’ll stay away from the Bible and a situation of it, but basically how do we treat each other? How do we treat, we’re all God’s children. How do we treat each other? And I’ve been asked many times, how do you want to be remembered? What I want today is just what you talked about that connection, that relationship with other human beings. I think if COVID taught us anything, it’s how much we need each other. We’re not good when we’re separate. We’re not good when we’re by ourselves. During COVID, alcoholism rates went up, drug abuse rates went up, domestic violence rates went up. It’s that relationship we have with each other. And especially as you’re an entrepreneur, you can not do it by yourself. You need other people, whether it’s your family, your friends, it’s suppliers, whoever it ends up being in your life. You need those people develop those relationships, be genuine, be a person of service. And I can promise you, the world is your oyster. You can do anything you want.
Beverly:
If Motivational Check, which is the name of your company, had a voice, what word or emotion do you think would most strongly resonate from its core?
Terry :
Grit.
Beverly:
Do you think grit can be taught?
Terry :
Yes. I think grit is taught. I don’t excuse me. I think grit is caught. Not taught.
Beverly:
Oh, interesting.
Terry :
Let me, so you’re going to watch somebody who’s, and you’re going to be like, Oh, I really liked the way she handled it. I really liked the way she dealt with that. And then you’re going to watch somebody else and it’s going to be like no, I don’t think he did a very good job on that. Or I don’t think he’s real resilient or whatever that you’re not going to read a book and say, Hey, I’m a person of grit.
No,
Terry :
you’re going to, you’re going to experience life, watch how people handle certain things. And I think grit is one of those things that you can see people who have it. You can also see people who don’t have it.
Beverly:
So dive into all the wisdom from business and basketball and sports and the hospital and all the moments. What is one book or podcast or entrepreneur? That has left an indelible mark on your journey.
Terry :
So this book called Legacy, it’s written by a man by the name of James Kerr, and he 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 the stuff that goes on that he talks about in there, I know in my life, as I’ve interviewed for jobs, you’re like, okay, I’ve got to do all the research. I’ve got to have an answer to every single question. And the New Zealand national rugby team is called the all blacks because their uniforms are all black. And when they’re bringing a player or a coach onto the team, certainly capability, your ability to play rugby or to coach rugby is important. What they understand is that they don’t expect you to have all the answers. But what they expect you to do is to work within the team to come up with the answers and again, going back to be an entrepreneur, you’ve got a team, whoever that team is, you may be a single person entrepreneur, but there’s a team around you understand that those teams. They have answers and you need to ask questions and you need to ask the right questions and you need to engage. But it was a book I couldn’t put down. It’s it’s about sports, but it’s so much applies to being an entrepreneur and to being just great information. About living a great life.
Beverly:
What is one unconventional tool or app that has become your secret weapon?
Terry :
I would say it’s prayer. I spend about an hour and a half every day in prayer. I’ve met so many people along my journey, with cancer or business or things like that, that I pray for those people. I, they asked me to, and I asked them to pray for me as well. And that, so prayer, I think is an incredibly underrated attribute that we can all use to, bring in a force that’s much bigger. And, has a much more world view of things than possibly we have.
Beverly:
How do you keep your entrepreneurial spirit alive? And what do you feed it?
Terry :
I feed it with connection like you, I guest on podcasts for the same reason that you host. Because I get to meet people, I get to understand what makes them tick. One I read a tremendous amount and what I usually read are biographies or autobiographies because I like to understand what makes people tick. Why did they do what they did at that particular moment in time and things like that, and, just try to get inside of people’s heads.
Beverly:
So how do you maintain a sense of purpose and clarity? Amongst the chaos that we exist in this world.
Terry :
Time is incredibly important to me. I’m not supposed to be here right now. So I am, I’m very cautious of how I use my time. I think for entrepreneurs, it’s important. To learn a two letter word. And that word is no, you have to say no to people, you want to help, you want to get involved, but there’s only, you’ve got to prioritize your time. There’s only 24 hours in a day. You have to learn how to say no to people or at least say not now. Maybe in a year or maybe in two years or something like that, but, and you don’t have to do it in, I’m a jerk way. You can just say, look, I’m sorry. I don’t, I just don’t have the time right now. Thank you very much for asking me, but I’m going to have to say no. We all want to say, yes, I want to get involved in everything. And then you realize. I’m not giving anything my undivided attention and I’m not good at any one thing. So understand that you need to say no from time to time.
Beverly:
This is such a powerful concept, I think, especially for entrepreneurs. And recently for myself, after 12 years of having a business of saying yes. And then being completely stressed out and honestly not doing very good of a job at anything because I was so spread thin. I was, I was successful, but I wasn’t. loving it and I wasn’t as good as I could have been. And then taking taking the time to say what do I really want to say yes to? What lights my fire? What is the thing that I’m really passionate about and I am amazing at? What is my gift? Really, truly my gift? And how can I share that more better? And more efficiently, but yet also in a way that is authentic to everybody in the situation myself and to my customer and my client and my team and all the people that are involved in the business in some way, shape, or form. And once I made that choice, once I decided. The business, I was an unplanned entrepreneur, Terry. So I didn’t have a big business plan and I essentially started my business to take my show on the road because I had married an active duty army fella and our lives was very transient and mobile every three years we had to move and I knew that it was really hard to keep a career if I did not create my own career. And I wasn’t like this diehard entrepreneur. I had to learn a lot of things the hard way and make a lot of mistakes. And. If my business grew through word of mouth and because of that, I said yes to a lot of things. I didn’t really, I didn’t really feel good, but I wanted to help people. Like you said, you want to help everybody. And I got to a place where I was essentially burnt out. And then I started resenting my clients. And that’s not a good place to be ever. And I took the time and I said, this is what matters. And now with that, Instead of waking up at 3 a. m. and being stressed out, I wake up at 3 a. m. and I’m so excited about what’s going to happen. It changes everything for you. And I don’t have a problem now saying no because I just know that’s not how I’ll ever want to feel again. But it’s good for my team, it’s good for everybody to have some boundaries. And like you said, time is not infinite. It is very precious, and where we spend our time matters. So one kind of fun question if Motivational Chuck was an animal, what animal would it be and why?
Terry :
I hope to God it would be a lion that would just, I, I, you asked me about what I thought was the one word that would describe motivational check. I’d said grip. And I think, that’s what lions do. Lions won’t eat another kill of something else. Lions won’t eat dead animals. They will hunt and eat the animals that they kill. They won’t eat somebody else’s. So I like that. We’re, we’re I’m going to do this for me and my family and my friends and my community and things like that.
Beverly:
Your pride. Yeah,
Terry :
my pride, exactly. I’m going to take care of that.
Beverly:
And
Terry :
so I would hope it would be a lion.
Beverly:
So fun. And that’s the end of the lightning round, but I want to take a minute and look backward to look forward. So looking back, is there a piece of advice that when you were 18 years old, before you played basketball, before you worked for Wendy’s, before you were diagnosed with terminal cancer, what piece of advice would you give yourself 18 year old Terry that could have saved you a lot of heartache and headache along the way.
Terry :
So there’s a very famous writer by the name of Ernest Hemingway, who wrote a lot of interesting things, but he wrote a book called Farewell to Arms, which is about his experience as an ambulance driver during world war one. And there’s a line in that book and I share this line and I use this line in my own life and the line is this. Life breaks everyone and afterward, many are stronger at the broken places. Understand that I don’t care who you are, life is going to break you. It’s going to beat you to your knees. Somebody’s going to die that’s close to you. You’re going to unexpectedly lose your job or your business. You find out you have a chronic or a terminal illness and life will beat you to your knees. But if you can respond, if you can recover, if you can be more resilient, just if you break your arm, they put it in a cast, the arm heals, where that break was will be stronger than the rest of the arm. That applies to you as a human being too. I wish I would have known that. I wish it would apply that when I was 18 years old.
Beverly:
What practical advice would you give to somebody who’s starting a business or is in a business and maybe feels a little uninspired that they could do today that could help them? Maybe feel a little bit better about things.
Terry :
A lot of times when people, we go through our lives, we put these arbitrary sort of markers out there that, okay, by the time we’re 25 years old, I want to have my own business where we make it, half a million dollars a year. And by the time I’m 32, I want to be in a relationship and I want to have a kid. And those arbitrary markers come and we’re like, okay, I’m not there. I’m not where I’m supposed to be. And we get down and oh, it’s never going to happen. I think if you look at life more in terms of decades, so when you’re in your twenties, do everything that interests you, or even things that don’t interest you. Find out, oh, I didn’t really that. Or I really love doing that. Make mistakes, mess things up. Do all that in your twenties. And then in your thirties. Find those two or three things that you can dig into that you know you’ve learned in your twenties and then in your forties when you’re older, you have more experience. You’re more established. You understand how kind of life works. Find that one thing and dig into that. And then in your fifties and your sixties. You can reap the benefits of what you did in your twenties, thirties and forties. And so I think if you look at life in terms of decades, instead of single events, I’ve got to be, by 25, I got to be the why 25? Why did you decide that? I don’t know. I just picked it. And so many, especially younger people do that. And then get down and feel depressed. And it’s Oh, it’s not going the way. Look at your life in decades. Make it look at the bigger picture of your life instead of those narrow, small, individual events.
Beverly:
Good advice. Before we go, Terry, where can our listeners learn more about what you do and your latest projects in your book?
Terry :
So I’m a blog slash website called motivational check every day. I put up a thought for the day with that thought usually comes a question about how you can apply it in your life. Recommendations for books to read, videos to watch. You can leave me a message. That’s all at MotivationalCheck. com.
Beverly:
Wonderful. We’ll put that link in the show notes as well. So for those that are listening and want to check it out, you can. Thank you so much, Terry, for sharing your wealth of knowledge and your experience today with us.
Terry :
Beverly, thanks for having me on. I really enjoyed talking with you.
Beverly:
I thoroughly enjoyed it and find it very inspiring and the great tips and strategies to enhance mindset and even your drive and your grit. So to our listeners, I hope you found this episode as enlightening as I did. Remember to implement the insights into your small business and don’t hesitate to reach out to Terry or myself if you have any questions or need assistance. We are here and we love talking to our listeners and people who need a little bit of help. Stay tuned for more inspiring conversations and actionable tips to ignite your entrepreneurial journey and blaze your marketing on future episodes of the Sparking at Your Marketing Podcast. And until next time. Keep sparking and igniting.
P.S. Ready to spark your unique opportunities and ignite your marketing? Here are three ways to work with us.
1. 📞 Schedule a Complimentary 15-minute Call and let’s delve into your goals and answer any questions you may have.
2. 📘 Read Beverly’s book Marketing for Entrepreneurs a quick guide filled with actionable steps to help make your brand and business shine even brighter. 🎙️ Listen to Beverly’s Marketing Podcast where she interviews entrepreneurs to get inspired and gain new business and marketing insights.
3. 🎓 Learn more about marketing and Enroll in Our Marketing Courses designed to bring clarity to your business efforts. They’re easy-to-understand and self-paced, perfect for busy entrepreneurs like you.
