Conquering Fear: Lessons of Courage and Resilience from Cancer Survivor Terry Tucker

Parker Condit: 0:00

Hi everyone, welcome to Exploring Health Macro to Micro. I'm your host, parker Condit, so on this show I interview health and wellness experts and by the end of each episode you'll have concrete, tangible advice that you can start implementing today on how to live a healthier life, either for yourself or for your loved ones. And that's the micro side of the show. The macro side of the show is discussing and having conversations around larger systemic issues that contribute to health outcomes here in the US. But today's show takes a slightly different approach to the same goal. So, instead of speaking with a healthcare executive or a medical doctor, endurance coach or nurse practitioner or anyone else like that, I'm actually speaking with a patient today who has a pretty remarkable story. So my guest today is Terry Tucker. In 2012, terry was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. Through a series of surgeries he added, the cancerous tumors removed and he was put on weekly injections of interferon. However, the interferon led to drastic weight loss, flu like symptoms, constant nausea, fatigue, chills and body aches, and this went on continuously for almost five straight years. So I hesitate to even share any more because I know my reading of an intro doesn't do his story justice. If there's one common theme that shows up throughout this episode, I would say the idea of courage comes up repeatedly. Terry also speaks about his youth and how playing sports and his upbringing instill a certain level of discipline which has served him throughout his life. So some parts of this conversation get a little bit philosophical. But I think sharing stories like this are important because they highlight the humanity that's needed for any real change to occur in our healthcare system. So if I'm going to try to get people to have a deeper appreciation for their own health and driving change in our healthcare system, I don't see a way forward without speaking with more patients. So I'll probably have more patient focused episodes moving forward. But for today I hope you just enjoy this conversation with my guest, terry Tucker. Terry, I appreciate you being here. Let's just start off with the, the four truths that you sort of developed, and I think that's going to dovetail nicely into sort of your background, which is very interesting. I think our guests can be very interested in that.

Terry Tucker: 2:11

Sure, so well. First of all, parker, thanks for having me on. I'm really looking forward to talking with you. Yeah, the four truths are kind of what I've developed, certainly over my last 11 years dealing with cancer, and they're just one sense I haven't been posted out here in my office so I see them multiple times during the day. They constantly get reinforced in my brain. First one is, excuse me, control your mind, or your mind is going to control you. The second one is embrace the pain and difficulty that we all experience in life and use that pain and difficulty to make you stronger and more resilient. The third one I look at kind of as 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 kind of look at the four truths as sort of the I guess, the bedrock of my soul. I just think they're kind of a good place to try to build a quality life off of.

Parker Condit: 3:17

Yeah, it's funny you'd say that. So there seem to be so many parallels between that and a lot of religions and sort of spirituality. So it's sort of like these fundamental truths that just keep kind of keep showing up over and over again throughout life, and so I love that you've really harnessed that for yourself. But you sort of alluded to your background and that you're a cancer survivor. Can you sort of go back into a bit of your background, I think, starting maybe with your professional background, which has been quite eclectic up until this point? I think that'd be great just to give people context on where you're coming from.

Terry Tucker: 3:53

Sure. So I went to college on a basketball scholarship. You can't tell this from Lucky Emby, but I'm six foot eight inches tall and I went to the Citadel in Charleston, south Carolina, and played basketball. When I graduated, I moved home to find a job. I was the first person in my family to graduate from college and I'm all set to make my mark on the world with my newly obtained business administration degree and look back now and realize how little I knew about business just because I had a degree. Fortunately, I was able to find that first job in the corporate headquarters in the market of Wendy's International, the Hamburger chain. That was the good news. The bad news was I lived with my parents for the next three and a half years as I held my mother care for my father and my grandmother, who were both dying of different forms of cancer. Professionally, as I said, started out at Wendy's, and then I shifted to hospital administration. And then I made the major pivot in my life and became a police officer, and part of what I did in my law enforcement career was I was a SWAT team hostage negotiator. After law enforcement, I started a school security consulting business, coach Girl's High School basketball, became an author in 2020. Started a motivational speaking business in 2019, kind of like we were talking before we jumped on right in the middle of the pandemic. But for the last 11 years I've been dealing with battling a rare form of cancer, a rare form of melanoma that, when I was initially diagnosed, was, as they told me, pretty much a death sentence. Didn't have anything that they could offer me except for surgery at the time.

Parker Condit: 5:30

Yeah, there's a lot I want to dig into there, but one very not related offshoot the fact that you worked in marketing at Wendy's. Have you seen what they're doing now? Wendy's is one of the funniest accounts on Twitter. They're usually just trolling other fast food restaurants.

Terry Tucker: 5:46

I have not. I'm going to have to check it out.

Parker Condit: 5:48

It's remarkable what they're doing. So, yeah, it's worth looking that up. It's very funny I wrote thank you and the fact that such a big corporation is doing that. They have a great Twitter account, so I'd like to say that you planted the seed, however, many years ago, long time ago. So, going back to your parents, do you think kind of dealing with your parents, kind of succumbing to cancer? Did that help you when you sort of encountered your journey and that you'd already tertiaryly experienced it through your family?

Terry Tucker: 6:20

I think so. My dad was diagnosed with end stage breast cancer back in the 1980s and they really didn't know how to treat a man with breast cancer back and they pretty much told him to go home and die. And he lived another three and a half years and he was in real estate that actually worked up till two weeks before he died. And I just remembered that you have to have a purpose. When something big like that hits you, yeah, you can sit around and say, oh gee, whoa is me, and look, I've got this terrible disease and things like that. Or you can engage your body and your mind in things that you enjoy, that are important to you. And so I sort of tucked that in the back of my brain and said, well, you know, when it's my time in the barrel, that I need to have a purpose in life. I need to have something that I can cling to other than, yeah, you're, you're, you're sick and you're probably going to die. So, yeah, I think certainly, you know, my parents taught my brothers and all. I have no sisters. I have two brothers, we're all athletes, and I think my parents taught us the value of family, of loving each other, of caring for each other, of supporting each other. And so you know, when my dad got sick and then you know my grandmother actually got sick first, and then my dad and they were literally side by side, you know, one was in one bedroom, one was in the other, both died of different forms of cancer. It was like, yeah, you know, you put your life on old because your parents put their their life into you, into in you. So you know now it's, if it would have taken 30 years to tell my grandmother and my father finally passed, then it would have been 30 years well spent, because it's family next to faith. I think family is the most important thing that we all have.

Parker Condit: 8:08

Yeah, we're definitely going to get to the faith and family and the connection piece in a bit. But do you, are your brothers also quite resilient? Because, like you, clearly have some level of resilience that is like above the normal threshold, I believe so do your. Do your brothers also have that? Because it seems almost like your parents have instilled something in you where fundamentally it's just part of who you are.

Terry Tucker: 8:31

I think so yeah, I mean I've got. My youngest brother was a pitcher for the University of Notre Dame in baseball before towards rotator cup. My middle brother was drafted by the Cleveland Cavaliers and the National Basketball Association. So we were, all you know, high level athletes, college or, in my brother's case, professional athletes. So you know, there's there's a certain mentality. I mean it's one thing to play in grade school, it's another thing to play in high school, but to get to that next level, to play in college, you know, was just you had to, you had to be mentally resilient, because it certainly wasn't like it is today, where everybody's going after the money and things like that. But you know, you're, I went to a military college, so it was military. So I'm balancing academics, I'm balancing division one, college basketball, and I'm balancing the military. So yeah, you, you just figure it out pretty quickly.

Parker Condit: 9:23

Or you're definitely going to say I could imagine yeah, so I ended up playing division three. And the jump between? I had a few friends in high school guys I played with in high school they ended up playing division one. The jump between the two is enormous and it's totally underappreciated. It's kind of remarkable that all three of you played at such a high level.

Terry Tucker: 9:42

We were very lucky. I mean my dad, you know, was constantly and you know, my brothers and I talked about it. If we knew today, you know, if we knew the things that we know today about training and rest and and weightlifting and nutrition back, you know, when we were growing up in the 70s and the 80s, it's been so much better athletes than then. Then you know, then we work. Because we didn't, we didn't have a straight-think conditioning coach. It was like, okay, we're gonna lift Tuesday, thursday and Saturday. Okay, go, look, go to the way room and lift. There was no program, there was no, you're gonna do this, you're gonna do that, we just go in and left. And the things we know today. Boy, if we would have had those back in the 80s, man, I'd have been an all American.

Parker Condit: 10:27

Now it's such a good point. Like when I became a personal trainer, I started thinking back like that's not why I did it, but I started, you know, for years and I was like I started thinking. I was like, oh, this would have really helped when I was an athlete. And I think back to when I was in like eighth grade. I think that's when I started to strength training. I was doing like heavy sets of squats, like five by five, like the night before games. Couldn't figure it out why I was dragging the next day. You know like we just didn't know, we're just flying blind back then. But yeah, it's definitely funny to see like what the availability of information is now to kind of what, what people just sort of figured out back then.

Terry Tucker: 11:03

Oh, absolutely. I, my wife and I, have one child, a daughter in. Fortunately, or unfortunately, she got my height and she's six foot two and actually played at the United States Air Force Academy. And you know just the, you know, not just for the athletes but for everybody at, you know, the service academies, physical fitness is an incredibly important part of what what they do, and so just the things that she was able to take advantage of to just get her in shape, not just for basketball but, you know, for life in general, was was amazing. I, you know I was kind of envious, it's like. You know, can I condemn? Do that with you too?

Parker Condit: 11:39

Yes, have you found a lot of like? You've pulled a lot of good lessons or principles out of just having sort of the structure of like an athletic upbringing. Have you found that beneficial throughout your life?

Terry Tucker: 11:51

Oh, absolutely. I mean I think I don't know Several years ago there was an NCAA National Collegiate Athletic Association commercial about how people who play sports in college at any level, are just better, usually better employees, because they they understand that. You know, I've got to balance academics, I've got to balance my basketball. For me it was the military, it's insane. For our daughter, I mean there was, there was required study tables. Where we're on the road, you know we're playing UNLV and it's like okay, no, we got two hours from here to here, we're going to study, we're all going to get together, we're going to study, things like that. So the academic part of it, you know, I mean I played at a low level at the Vision One School, the Citadel. I mean Southern Conference, I mean it's not the Big Ten or the SEC or the ACC or anything like that, but it was still. You know, we're traveling and we're getting home one o'clock in the morning and yeah, you're going to be in class at eight o'clock tomorrow morning and stuff like there's no, you're sleeping in, or anything like that. So, yeah, you figure out what's important in life, you figure out how you're going to organize yourself and then hopefully you apply that and get the job done.

Parker Condit: 13:01

Yeah, terry, I'm not gonna let you diminish it. Division one is division one, thank you, and it's division one is an incredibly high level. Can you explain sort of the transition from hospital administration to becoming a police officer and sort of what, what sort of life circumstances, drove you to make that change?

Terry Tucker: 13:21

Yeah, there is a backstory, and so my, my grandfather, my dad's father, was a Chicago police officer from 1924 to 1954. So he was in Chicago during prohibition, when alcohol was outlawed in the United States during the Great Depression, late 1920s, early 1933. When the gang's out-coupone and those guys were were shooting up the town and he was actually shot in the line of duty with his own gun. It was not a serious injury was shot in the ankle, taking a homicide suspect back to the lockup when he was a detective. And so when I expressed an interest in going into law enforcement, my dad had all this recall. My dad was at infinite the time that his father was shot, but he remembered the stories my grandmother told of that. Knock on the door of Mrs Tucker Frederick's son, come with us, your husband's been shot. So when I expressed an interest in going into law enforcement, my dad was absolutely not. You're going to college, you're gonna major in business, you're gonna get out, get a great job, get married, have 2.4 kids that live happily ever after. That's what my father wanted me to do and, as I mentioned, when I graduated from college I had a choice. He was dying of cancer. I could have said sorry, dad, you know what? No, you're dying, but I'm gonna go blaze my own trim and do my own thing, or, out of love and respect for you, I will do what you want me to do. So the first two jobs were in business, because that's what my dad wanted me to do and I sort of joke I did what every good son did, waited till my father passed away, and then I followed my own dreams and I was a 37 year old rookie police officer, which, by most accounts, is pretty late to be getting into that line of work.

Parker Condit: 14:56

There's not an age cut off.

Terry Tucker: 15:00

No, I mean there was a 52 year old individual who had been an accountant for a number of years, was looking for a second career. There was in my police academy class. So no, there was not a cut off.

Parker Condit: 15:11

Very interesting. So was that sort of always in the back of your mind, that sort of public servant and police track?

Terry Tucker: 15:17

Yeah, it was something I wanted to do. You know, we one of the times we talked about purpose of life. You know, we've got to have a purpose and I think that's kind of a misnomer. I think it's not purpose singular, it's purpose is plural. At least it has been for me. You know, when I was young, it was my purpose I felt was sports, athletics, playing basketball, and then eventually found my purpose, as you know quote unquote an adult and being in law enforcement, even though I had other jobs. And now, you know, having dealing with cancer for 11 years, well, honestly, probably coming to the end of my life, my purpose has changed again to be more about putting goodness, positivity, motivation, love back into the world, with whatever time I have left. So I guess I would encourage people, you know, don't feel that. And I guess let me say one more thing about that We'd like to think that our purpose is our job or our occupation or what we do for a living, but that doesn't necessarily have to be the case. I mean, your job could be over here, it's what you do, to pay the bills, but your purpose is over here. It's, you know, to be an entrepreneur to, you know right to pay to whatever it is you feel you do. And I always tell, especially young people when I speak to them 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, things 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.

Parker Condit: 16:48

Yeah that's great. I think you glossed over something, or like you said it, and it's probably one of those common things that you say, but I think I want to reiterate it or highlight the fact that at 37 you changed careers in a pretty drastic way, and I think so. I'm 34, so I have conversations with sort of my friends and just colleagues around my age all the time and a lot of people think you know, beyond 30, they're like that's kind of it. They're like I'm locked in now, like this is my decade. They're like I figured it out in my 20s, I've got my 30s to make money, and you know. And they think it's sort of over at 30. So like can you sort of dig into your mindset a little bit at 37, why you were maybe not so confident to be able to switch careers, but whatever gave you the drive to just be like I'm going to do it.

Terry Tucker: 17:37

Well, I'll tell you this much I took a whole lot more tile at all in the police academy than my younger counterparts, so that was absolutely the case. It was just my. I knew it was my purpose and I, even when I was working at Wendy's, even when I was working in hospital administration, it was always there. I never let that dream die. I never said, okay, I'm just going to settle. And I've seen so many people in my life and I'm sure you have too, parker that you know they just they get to a point and they just they sort of just sit down and quit and give up. It's like, okay, I'm where I am, man, not really my purpose, but I just don't want to put in the energy, I just don't want to put in the effort to finding that purpose and living it. And I remember Victor Franco, who was a concentration camp survivor during World War II, wrote man of Search for Meany, and he had a line he said you have a moral responsibility to find your purpose in life and to live it. So I guess I just I never let the dream die. It was always there. It was always in the back of my mind. I liked watching cop shows. I liked reading books about law enforcement and investigative techniques and things like that. So it was really, you know, it was just a matter of time. I thought before I was going to get there, yeah, I was 37 years old but you know, I was still in pretty good shape. I was still, you know, an athlete and still doing doing exercise and eat and write and things like that. So it wasn't as much of a stretch as it probably would have been for somebody, you know, approaching 40. I'm kind of out of shape and don't have great habits in my life, so I had those good habits. So it was. It was difficult, but it wasn't as difficult as it probably could have been and I had the support. You know, I had the support of my wife when I initially started. We were living in California and I had a. There was a circular that came in the mail and I never read these things. I always, you know, put them in the recycling. But I was just leaping through it at lunch one day and it was like take this course at Santa Barbara City College and you can apply to be a police officer at any agency in the state. And you know, my wife had married me when I was a student, tied, you know, eight to five, monday through Friday, and I you know you can imagine that conversation at dinner it's like, hey, hon, see this thing here, I'd really, I'd really like to do this. And she was like think, go ahead and do it, take the class and apply and see if you get in. And I got out with Santa Barbara and I would work all week in my regular job and then I come home Friday night, put on my uniform, go to roll call and work all night as a police officer and my wife would say you would come home Saturday morning exhausted, but with this huge grin on your face. She was like I knew that's what you were supposed to do. So when our daughter was born and we moved to Cincinnati, you know, I looked at her and I said you know, the bug has been bitten. I've been bitten by this bug, I want to do this full time. And she absolutely supported me in doing that.

Parker Condit: 20:34

That's great, exhausted but invigorated, yes, yeah. So I think that's sort of enthusiasm and you alluded to it earlier little pings of fear. It can be very good signs of something that you should maybe do to try to overcome something that is maybe in your path of life.

Terry Tucker: 20:51

Absolutely.

Parker Condit: 20:53

How old were you when you were diagnosed with cancer?

Terry Tucker: 20:56

51.

Parker Condit: 20:58

51. Okay, how can you kind of walk me through what the moments were like after you found out? Because, like I talked about this with you on our pre-call, like you can employ empathy and try to put yourself in that situation to prepare for and I think a lot of people do that for for death, and try to understand, like what this big, huge event is going to be, but I feel like, being there actually in the moment, no amount of preparation, no amount of empathy can really prepare you for that.

Terry Tucker: 21:27

You're right. I mean, was I prepared? I mean I had, you know, my father, my grandmother died. I mean, I had friends die of cancer and things like that, and it was like, oh sure, I'm prepared. I was not prepared at all. You know, here I am, I was a girl's high school basketball coach and I had a school security consulting business that I was also doing, and I had a callus break open on the bottom of my foot, right below my third toe, and initially didn't think much of it because I thought, well, you know, I'm a coach, I'm on my feet a lot. But after a few weeks of it not healing I went to see a man appointment went see a pediatrist, 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 up. And he did. And he showed it to me just a little gelatin sack with some white fan in it, Dark spots, no blood, nothing. That gave either one of us concern, fortunately or unfortunately, he sent it off to pathology to have it looked at. And then two weeks later I get the call from him 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. And so finally, he just laid it out for me, and I think when he said this, this really kind of hit me right between the eyes. He said, terry, I've been a doctor for 25 years. I have never seen the form of cancer that you have. You have this incredibly rare form of melanoma that appears on the bottom of the feet and the palms of the hands. And I know I went through all the stages that we would associate with grief initially. First it was denial. I mean, it was like wait a minute. My dad had cancer. I had a physical every year. I was eating right, I was exercising. I can't possibly have cancer, yeah right.

Parker Condit: 23:05

It's just a callus right? Yeah, it's a callus how can I possibly have cancer?

Terry Tucker: 23:09

How can I possibly have cancer? And they can get mad. It's like, how can I possibly have cancer? I've done all these things right in my life. And then our daughter was in high school. At the time it was a bargaining with God. It's like, look, just let me live long enough to see our daughter graduate from high school. And then I absolutely got down, got depressed, and then I just got to a point where this sucks, but I'm going to have to embrace the suck, for lack of a better term. I do not like these cards that I have been dealt, but I am going to have to play them to the very best of my ability. And I made a decision very early on that I was never going to take out my misfortune on a doctor, a nurse, a therapist, a technician, anybody that was trying to help me. And I'll give you a quick story. I was last time I was in treatment a couple weeks ago for the tumors I have in my lugs. I have to give blood first and I was early. I was there with the receptionist and she said to me she said you always come in here and you're positive and you're nice and you ask me about my weekend and things like that. Well, yeah, why wouldn't I do that? And she said you'd be surprised the number of people that come in here and are mean and are almost cruel. I asked her. I said do you understand why those people do that? And she was very young and she's like well, no, I said because they're scared, because they're anxious, because they're worried, because they know that, whatever this blood test says, you know they may die or things like that. I said it's not you. I said you have a tremendous opportunity to turn that around on. That may just be, no matter how cool they are to you, you can be kind and you can be helpful to them. Because you've got to understand it's not you, they're not, they're just projecting it onto you. It's they don't think you're a bad person. And so she didn't. You know she didn't get that, I mean. I think I opened her eyes a little bit to say yeah, I guess maybe I never thought about it from their point of view. You know, when you're young, it's all about you, and so thinking about things from other people's point of view Tends to change your perspective.

Parker Condit: 25:18

Thanks, yeah, that's exactly where I wanted to go. Next, and before I get to that question, I appreciate you sharing this. I can imagine it's tough to kind of relive those moments, so I do appreciate you sharing that with us. Facing outward like taking your focus away from yourself and facing it outward is that one of your better tools and sort of strategies? Because that way you can sort of focus your energy on the people around you, the people that are trying to help you. Was that one of those major things that helped you get through it, and was it a shift that you had to make?

Terry Tucker: 25:52

It, it, it, it, was it a shift I had to make? That's a good question. I you know, I guess. I guess let me back up for a minute. I mean I don't want anybody listening to us think that. You know. I mean you're like, I have you now. There's no S on my chest, I do not have a cape and fly around with magical powers I have. I still have bad days, I still get down, I still cry, I still feel sorry for myself. But I think you hit the nail on the head with exactly what you said. What you're doing, that you're looking inward, it's all about you and how lousy I feel and things like that. And I find a way to at least for me to get out of that is to go find somebody to help, go find somebody to have a conversation with, and I'm at the hospital every three weeks for an entire week. So there's plenty of people that I can can interact with and you know, hey, how's it going today? Do you want to have a cup of coffee? You want to sit around and talk, and things like that. You should be kind of tell the people that are. You know they're just, they're so in their head, they're so worried about what's going to happen. And now let's talk about each other. You know, tell me about you, what's going on, and things like that. So for me, all of a sudden, now I'm not focused on me, I'm focused on somebody else. And now you. It's just like somebody threw a switch. And now you're, I don't feel as bad, I feel good, I'm interacting with another person, and you can tell that, especially if they're in that you know I'm living in my head right now and that's not a good place to be, that now they're not living in their head as much anymore and something. So I don't know if it was so much of a, you know, of a switch for me, but it certainly was. I've always, you know, cared about people and wanted to be service oriented, but it was just a matter of what I get in those ugly places. I can't stay there. I got. I got to go find somebody to help, because you know that's when the demons of doubt sort of creep in and you know it's not a good place to be alone with yourself when that happens.

Parker Condit: 27:43

Yeah, I think probably having those conversations with the people that you see who are in their head, it must be such a relief for them to just have somebody to talk to about that and just get out of, like you said, get out of that just inward me focused mentality. It must be such a relief for them. So I'm sure that's a very nice service that you don't necessarily advertise that you're providing, but it's just this very mutually beneficial thing that you two can go through. I think as you were speaking towards the end there, I started thinking maybe shift was not the right term, but maybe because you mentioned that you still you still get down, maybe your ability to make that transition is faster now, like you recognize you're getting down and you know the tools to utilize to like get yourself out of that state. Is that fair?

Terry Tucker: 28:33

Yeah, I think that is, and I think a lot of that has to do with, I guess, for lack of better, sort of callusing your mind, sort of doing hard things, doing difficult things. I always recommended people. I try to do this every day of my life. Do one thing every day that stares you, that makes you nervous, that makes you uncomfortable, that's potentially embarrassing. Doesn't have to be a big thing. But if you do those little things every day to get in that habit, when the big disasters of life hit us and they hit all of us we lose somebody who's close to us, we get let go from our job, find out we have a chronic or a terminal illness you'll be so much more resilient to handle that pain when it presents itself.

Parker Condit: 29:17

Yeah, you're just building the reps, building the practice where it's just, it's ingrained in you. At that point it's not like, oh, I need to go search for these tools, it's already within you. That's real smart. Can you talk about your support system, Cause obviously, like, I can't imagine somebody getting through this without some very like a very robust support system. So can you kind of talk about what you had in place and then I think you probably have some pretty profound thoughts on, like how people should think of support systems in their life as well.

Terry Tucker: 29:48

I do. You're absolutely right there's. I would be dead many times over if it hadn't been for my wife, my daughter, the doctors, nurses that take care of me, and stuff like that I kind of call. I talk about my three Fs and that's faith, family and friends, and I have a very strong faith in God and it. You know it's funny, when I got cancer, when I got cancer, it really kind of resonated. But I've seen people do this, you know they start down the road toward a goal and they butt up against the impediments, something gets in their way and they can't get over it, around it, through it, and so they quit, they give up. We just don't give up. Now. We gotta blame someone. You know, we gotta find somebody to blame and you know you blame your parents, you blame your boss, you blame your station in life. Very few people take personal responsibility for their own success and happiness. So I, you know I get cancer and immediately people are like, well, who do you blame? I don't blame anybody. Because I got cancer. I've had all 88 genes that doctors either know of or suspect cause every form of cancer that we know tested, and I have no mutations in any of my genes, which certainly begs the question how or why did I get this disease? Nobody's been able to answer that question. Don't spend a lot of time thinking about it. But then when people find out I had a faith, life it was well. You must blame God because you have cancer, and I used to joke with them. I'm like, no, I don't think. God got up on a Tuesday morning, checked his to-do list and said, hey, terry, you got cancer today. I did. I dare not think that in the least. But I'm absolutely 100% certain that he has given me the strength, the resolve to continue to move forward during some incredibly ugly times. So that's a faith. Part of it, the family part of it, it's my wife and daughter, and I'll give you really a kind of a story that kind of illustrates this. I had just had my leg amputated and I had two words, still had two words in my lungs, and my doctor wanted to put me on chemotherapy and I was eight years into this fight and I looked at him and I said, is it, is it gonna save my life? It's like, yeah, probably not, but it might buy you some more time. And I was like, well, one, I'm not afraid to die. And two, I'm not sure I want to go through all that ugliness if the outcome is gonna be the exact same whether I take the chemotherapy or not. But let me go home and talk to my family. So I go home and get in the kitchen and I start saying what's going on? And my daughter's immediately like all right, we need a family meeting. I'm like family meeting, there's three of us. It's not like we got an order or something like that.

Parker Condit: 32:18

Do we have a?

Terry Tucker: 32:18

quorum. Yeah, exactly. And so we sit around the kitchen table and individually talk about my wife, daughter and I, how we feel about me having chemotherapy, and then, when we're down with them, my daughter's like all right, let's think about I want people want dad to have chemotherapy, and my wife and daughter raised her hand like wait a minute, am I having it out of voted?

Parker Condit: 32:37

Sorry, Terry, you lost this one.

Terry Tucker: 32:40

We're something I don't want to do, but I remembered back when I was in the police academy and our defensive tactics instructor used to have a spring of photograph of the people we love the most to clients, 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 than you will fight for yourself. And so I ended up taking chemotherapy, not because I wanted to, but because I love my family more than I love myself. And in hindsight it was a bridge drug that got me to the clinical trial drug that I'm on now. So it was the right thing to do. And then, finally, friends, there were people when I got cancer who I thought absolutely positively, 100%. They will be in that foxhole with me, I can rely on them, I can depend on them. And a lot of the not a lot, but a number of those people weren't there. We're like ooh, you're 51 years old, I'm not that far away from you age. Watch, can't deal with this, can't watch you go through this. Then there were other people who I never thought would step up, I never thought would be there for me, who have been there for me for the last 11 years. So, having a support system, you do nothing in life by yourself. I don't care. You're a tennis player, you're a golf player? No, there's a team involved in all of you. And I'll end with this One of the things that I've learned probably the most important thing I've learned from being an athlete, from playing team sports and for me it was sports, it could be whatever team you're on Is the importance of being part of something that's bigger than yourself. 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. And, if you think about it, the biggest team game that we all play is this game of life.

Parker Condit: 34:32

Yeah, it's a very collective thing. Going back to your friends, do you think for the friends who unfortunately weren't there for you, do you think it was just too close to them, like it was just the fear, was too much for them to get any closer?

Terry Tucker: 34:47

Oh, absolutely they were. You know, you're living your life, you're a dad, you're a coach, you're working, you're doing whatever you're doing. That bang, you get hit right between the eyes with this You're probably gonna die in two years. They're like oh no, no, no, no, no. They absolutely could not deal with the fact that I had cancer and so I mean there's nothing I can do about that. That's something they're gonna have to figure out on their own. And some of them have kind of come back a little more into my life, sort of in and out kind of thing. But well, I can't rely on those people. I don't know if you're gonna be there for me or not. There are people that I know I can rely on, and those are usually my go-to people when you know having a bad day.

Parker Condit: 35:32

So what is it about those people that you maybe didn't expect them to be, the ones who were there for you, but they were. Was it just a sense of courage that they had that they could step up? Because I'm just trying to tease out, like, if other people are in this situation where they have a friend, in that situation, like, can you identify any traits about them where you can sort of help people make that leap to be the friend for the person who needs it?

Terry Tucker: 35:59

Yeah, and I guess I can sort of answer that in a story. I was diagnosed when I lived in Texas and I had a very good friend of mine who was like 95 years old at the time. He'd been in World War II and I had had my first surgery. They took out the tuber on the bottom of my foot and the lymph nodes that were draining that area to be tested, and so I didn't have to spend the night in the hospital. I was able to go later and I'd been home about 15 minutes in my cell phone and this guy's name was Bud and he said Terry, can I come over? For? He said, I know you just got off the mask. Can I come over for a few minutes? I said, sure, bud. So you know, 15, 20 minutes later, here's Bud standing in our living room with a fully cooked chicken and a pan of cream cheese danish that he had bought at Costco. Now Bud was you know. He did ask you know, and I know I've done this in my life. I even write about it in my book. You know, what do we always say? You know, with somebody's going in for surgery, even if somebody's going in for something you know, great, like they're having a baby or something like that. What do we always say? Hey, you need anything, give me a call. And I think that is the biggest cop-out in the world. That's basically. You know. That's basically sitting on the sidelines of pretending you're playing in the game. If you want to help somebody, if you have the courage to do that and I think that's what these people have done they don't ask, they just get involved. You know, the same things I need to have done at my house cut the grass, take the garbage out, go to the grocery store, walk the dog. You know you're doing the same thing at your house, so why don't you stop by my house and do that? Don't ask me, because I don't have time to figure out how you can help me. Understand that I've got to do the same things you've got to do and just do something here. I went to the store. Here's some groceries for you. You know, hey, I'm going to walk your dog this afternoon it was more or whatever you did, just get involved. Don't take yourself off the hook by saying, hey, you need anything, give me a call, I don't have time to give you a call.

Parker Condit: 37:55

It also puts the onus on you, and you're already dealing with enough.

Terry Tucker: 37:59

It's true.

Parker Condit: 38:01

No, I think that's a great piece of advice. I really appreciate you sharing that. Just to do it and not that is kind of a cop out, the get me a call if you need anything, Right, God? I'm sure I've said that before, so far I am, so it's a self-reflective moment. No, it's great. These are the teachable moments, though, right. So I want to ask you one more question, sort of on this track, and then I want to move to sort of what you're doing now with your company. But a lot of the conversations I have on this show is kind of highlighting issues in the healthcare industry and, hopefully, speaking with interesting people who are trying to innovate around that and just make people better advocates for themselves as patients. Can you describe, like, how is your experience through all of this navigating the healthcare industry? Because it's not an easy system to navigate. It's very tricky here in the US. So just how is your experience running through all of that?

Terry Tucker: 38:55

Yeah, it's been difficult and then it's been amazing. Like I said, when I was first diagnosed I was told that I would probably be dead in two years. If I got a miracle, maybe I'd make it to five, but they did nothing to offer me other than surgery. If it's someplace where we can cut it out, we'll go cut it out, but other than that we have nothing for you. Now, 11 years later, mentioned, I'm on a clinical trial drug and that drug does nothing to the cancer. It's not like chemo, where it goes in and kills the cancer. It's a drug that basically strips the enzyme, the protein, off of the cancer so that my own immune system can say oh, wait a minute, that doesn't belong here. It's like a cold or a flu virus and attack. So it's my body helping me, as opposed to getting me chemotherapy which kills all fast growing cells. That's why you lose your hair, that's why you have diarrhea and throw up and all that kind of stuff. So and that's 11 year window between when I was diagnosed and what I have now. So that has been amazing in terms of the fact that I am still here because of that. But it's really the and the doctors and nurses have been great. It's the billing part of it. It drives us. My wife and I got a bill literally for a blood draw from three years ago. It's like here you owe us this month and we do a high deductible. So usually by middle of the year we have met our deductible and everything else should be covered. So we went back to them and said, no, this happened in November. We had met our deductible. All they came back with is and said no, you haven't. What do you mean? No, I haven't. It's like well, we're not gonna go research, we're not gonna figure it out, we're not gonna spend three hours on the phone with your insurance company until they finally get somebody that can say oh yeah, you didn't be your deductible and stuff like that. And it was such a small amount that we were like out of equity, we'll just pay it and that's. I hate that. That's not right. I mean the amount of money that we have given in health insurance, I mean that the insurance company's given and that we pay just out of our own pocket, has been ridiculous. So I love the doctors, I love the nurses, I love the care I get. But I'll end with this and I'm not gonna tell you where I'm treated. But I've had doctors, I've had physicians, assistants, I've had nurses say to me that we are, we're sort of boxed in with every patient. You got 20 minutes, get that patient in, get them out and move on to the next patient. Well, what if I need 30 patients? Nope, here's the problem. They're operating on a business model. They're not operating on a patient-central-centered model where we care about the patient. Do you really, or am I just a dollar sign to you? And that's really what I feel is the most frustrating part about this. And they're always, you know, go paperless. It's like no, I want EOBs for every single thing that happens to me, because I wanna be able to cross-reference all this stuff and doing it on a computer, trying to find the right pay. It's just easier to do it and, thank God, I've got a smart wife. Like I said, haven't been for a long time.

Parker Condit: 42:15

You brought up a lot of really good points in there, one of which is that it's so unfortunate that a lot of people just succumb to the idea of defeat when it comes to fighting hospital bills or anything like that. And luckily it was a small enough amount where you're like I think for my own piece of mind it might just be easier to pay it, but that's not an acceptable thing, especially when it's the biggest expense in this country. So a lot of times that bill is not a small enough bill where you can just let it go and then you need to fight with these multi-billion dollar organizations Not a fun thing. And then the other thing you brought up, I think, which is always worth highlighting, is that the people who are treating you unless it's like a primary care practice where that doctor also owns the practice but those independents are so rare at this point for the most part, like those people, are not thrilled with the situation they're in and, like you said, they're very boxed in and it's just the infrastructure of the industry that they're operating in that they are sort of stuck with this very limited patient care because of how much paperwork and administrative touch points there are beyond the care, when that should be the focus.

Terry Tucker: 43:22

So oh, absolutely. And the other thing that I have found to be very difficult I was with my oncologist was an award-winning melanoma especially won all kinds of awards. I'd been with him for 10 years and he left. He retired. He left my orthopedic surgeon that amputated my leg he left, he didn't retire. He left the pain doctor that I was seeing he left, didn't retire. And that's what's frustrating. It's like you've got quality people delivering immense and including an award-winning doctor who's bringing awards to your hospital that you can tout and use in advertising and things like that, and they're leaving. They're not just retiring. I get retirement, they're like, no, I'm going somewhere else, I can't deal with this anymore. And that's frustrating because I'm in a really good place that I get taken care of.

Parker Condit: 44:19

Yeah, now, from all the conversations I have, it doesn't really matter. I'd like to be clear the quality of the hospital certainly does matter, but it's not like this is only happening in rural, underfunded hospitals, like this happens everywhere. Yes, unfortunately.

Terry Tucker: 44:35

Yeah, I mean I was treated at MD Anderson Cancer Center when I was in Texas, so probably the premier cancer hospital in the world and same issues with them. I have a good friend who was a former doctor with them as well.

Parker Condit: 44:48

Yeah, the issues amongst health care in this country are ubiquitous across the country, unfortunately.

Terry Tucker: 44:53

Plenty to do on that front.

Parker Condit: 44:55

But can you share what you're doing with your company and just how you're helping other people in the world now?

Terry Tucker: 45:03

Yeah, I mean initially I started a motivational speaking business and then COVID hit and, like so many other organizations companies I had to figure a way to deliver the service. I mean, nobody was doing anything virtually a war in person during COVID and somebody had reached out to me and said, would you like to be a guest on my podcast? And I said, sure, what's a podcast? I mean literally, well, we kind of talk about it and then we put it on social media. I'm like, ok, I'm old, social media, what are we talking here? And stuff like that. And so I said, yes, I'll do it. And I remember I was so scared, I was so nervous, I literally had posted notes all around the camera and he would ask me a question that I would kind of lead in to read one of the pluses it was. I was horrible, I was terrified and I was like, ok, I'm going to do it. I've probably done. I'm probably getting close to 700 podcasts all around the world when I started this and met some amazing people. I've had some great experiences with that. And so it's how do you get your message? How do you say this is my story? I don't have all the answers, but maybe there's something in here that can help you, and that's really been what it's been about. I started a membership company. Our membership component of it didn't go well. It didn't work out. I didn't have the time to do it. I mean, I'm treated every three weeks for an entire week at the hospital. I am it's my dad used to say I'm off the air. You know I don't have the ability to do anything there. But you know, then I wrote the book and you know I'll tell you right now don't write a book to make money or to get famous, because it's not going to happen for most people. Again, it was can I make a difference through this book? And so now the things are opening up. I'm back, giving talks to people virtually and in person and things like that, and my goal, my purpose right now, as I mentioned earlier, is really just to tell my story and put as much goodness, positivity, motivation, love back into the world as I possibly can with whatever time that I have left. So that's kind of my company now. It's really just, as I always say, shoot my mouth off about something that near and dear to my heart.

Parker Condit: 47:22

Now it sounds. You have such a remarkable story and it sounds like you're doing good work and you know I can't imagine people listening to you for any amount of time and not being moved in a positive direction. Can you share a little bit more about your book? I'm sure it's A Labor of Love. I've talked to many people who wrote books and they have similar sentiments, so you've put a lot of work into it. Can you share some about that? And we're definitely going to link to it in the show notes as well.

Terry Tucker: 47:46

Sure. So the book is called Sustainable Excellence Ten Principles to Leading your Uncommon and Extraordinary Life, and it was really a book that was born out of two conversations. One was with a former player that I had coached in high school, who had moved to Colorado with her fiancee, close to where my wife and I live, and the four of us had dinner one night and I remember saying to her after dinner you know, I'm really excited that you're living close and I can watch you find and live your purpose. You get real quiet for a while and she looked at me and she said well, coach, what do you think my purpose is? I said I have absolutely no idea what your purpose is, but that's what your life should be about Finding the reason you were put on the face of this earth, using your unique gifts and talents, and living that reason. So that was one conversation. And then I had a young man in college who reached out to me on social media and he asked me what I thought were the most important things that he should learn not to just be successful in his job or in business, but to be successful in life. And, parker, I didn't want to give him, like you know, get up early, work hard, help out. I didn't want to give him, give him, I wanted to see if I could go. So I spent some time, took some notes and kind of had these 10 thoughts, these 10 ideas, these 10 principles, and so I sent them to him. And then I kind of stepped back and I was like you know a life story that fits underneath that principle, where I know somebody whose life emulates this principle. So, literally during the three to four month period that I was healing after I had my leg amputated, I sat down at the computer every day and I built stories and they're real stories about real people underneath each of the principles, and that's how sustainable excellence came to be. Do you have a favorite principle? I do, and it's and I'm not proud that I have this principle. I you know, and you make a great point. You know, as an author, you know when people reach out, they want to, they want to talk about the book. There's always one principle. Each chapter is a principle and they're not in any particular order. Number one, is it more important than number seven? But there's always one principle that resonates with the reader, and the one that, even though I wrote all 10 of them. The one that resonates with me resonates with me because I've done this, probably more than I care to admit my life, and in the check chapters titled this, most people think with their fears and their insecurities instead of using their minds. You know, and I know I've done that. I know I've wanted to do something or start something's like, oh wait a minute, maybe I don't have all the information or maybe I'm not smart enough, or what will people say about me if I fail? That's thinking with our fears and our insecurities. That's not thinking with our minds. And you know I've always said the road to success is paved with failure. Nobody's ever been successful in life is going to tell you that they never failed, that you know they never had a setback, so you know it was. I've done that in my life and that's probably why it's my favorite purpose.

Parker Condit: 50:40

Now. I love that. It's very much about being like in the present moment. I think a lot of your fears can be born out of past experiences and maybe unnecessary projections to the future. So, yeah, I'm very much into mindfulness and meditation. So that's. It's just one of those overlaps and I'm really appreciative of you sharing that. That's a great thing to keep in mind as well. Yeah, that's a great one. Another thing that you mentioned, which I noticed a few years ago for anyone who's young, who's listening to this, if you're in college, you can just get away with so much as a college student. If you just reach out to people, say I'm in college, people will just give you stuff for free, as if you're not going to be their competition in a few years. It's remarkable what you can get away with as a college student. So just email everyone and ask them for, like, their best advice. For the most part, you're going to get it.

Terry Tucker: 51:32

You really are, and it's amazing how many people are willing to talk to. I remember when I was working at Wendy's, ted Turner started TBS and owned the Atlanta Braves and that he came for one day to the corporate office and of course everybody with the speculation was he was going to buy windings and he was just there to take a look around. He never bought windings, but he was standing in the lobby and I had gone to school. His son and I graduated together. I didn't really know his son, but I graduated and he's standing there and I'm like, should I go talk to him? Should I say hello, should I say? And I'm like, what the heck, why not? I went up and talked to him. His driver had gone to get the car and he talked to me for like 45 minutes just standing. You know, what do you like about Wendy's? Tell me, you know, what did you think about the Citadel? And I'm like this guy is like a billionaire. I'm like a trainee, I am, like you know, way down on the food chain here, but just a very gracious person with his time. And I always remembered that. And I'll tell you one more quick story. I was recruited by Mike Shazesky, coach K, who coached Duke for a number of years when he was at West Point, actually came to Chicago, sat with my parents and I had set a come play for me at West Point and I was the idiot that said no, I don't think I want to do that. And he would have gone to Duke my junior year at West Point. But fast forward. Our daughter's three years old. I'm a policeman, I'm working nights Duke's playing Connecticut for the national championship and I recorded it at the time. I was going to watch it later and our daughter, like I said, was three. After dinner one night and when I had an off night, she and I went down and we watched the game. Duke loses at the very end, during the one shining moment montage, shazesky and one of his players, william Avery, has his big hood For the next two weeks. Every night after dinner, our daughter's like dad, can we go watch the hug? Dad, can we go watch the hug? I'm like the hug, what are you talking about? And it was that hug between Shazesky and William Avery that resonated with her. You know I was a three year old job and so I sat down. I wrote Shazesky a letter. I said you don't remember me, you recruited me, et cetera, et cetera. But I want to tell you a story about my daughter and your relationship with William Set it off. Two weeks later I ended up getting a handwritten letter from him basically saying you know, I get real close to my players, thank you for telling me that story, et cetera. That to me was one of the classiest things. I think that you know he didn't have to write that letter to me, but he did and I still have that letter in a six to five.

Parker Condit: 54:10

No, it's amazing. It just goes to show that it's. If you think you should reach out to somebody, you probably should. Yeah, you're in exactly the same position if they don't respond, and a lot of times they do. A lot of times it's people you have no business reaching out to. But that's how. That's how fortuitous things happen. I do want to be respectful of your time, so I have a few more questions, but I'm going to get you out of here on time. You have this big emphasis on like, community and support, but also on individual responsibility, and I'm not sure how much time you spend on social media, but they're. It's easy for these camps or these tribes to sort of pop up and it's very easy for people to land on. I'm just in the individual responsibility side of things. I don't need anyone else, I'm going to do it myself. So, like, how do you strike the balance or how do you talk to people about the balance between the two of them? Because obviously too much of one, not enough of the other, isn't going to be great. They can't really stand without each other in a really meaningful way. So I'm curious how you balance those two things.

Terry Tucker: 55:13

Yeah, I think that's an important question. None of us, as I said earlier, none of us become successful in a vacuum without other people helping us, and I think that's incredibly important to understand that that you need people and you need people but don't use people, don't say, okay, I'm going to take what I can from you and then I'm going to get a jump on, I'm going to move up and then I'm going to forget about you. Excuse me, I can't stand it when people use other people for their own gain. But at the end of the day, it really comes down to you, to your character, to your humility. I remember I was interviewing for a marketing job and I was meeting with the senior vice president and we met for 90 minutes for this job interview and it was marketing position. We spent the entire hour and a half talking about my life, from the time, basically, I was born until I graduated from college. Not one business question, not one marketing question. And I said to him afterwards I have to ask. I said your style of interviewing was rather interesting. I thought it was kind of goofy, but I didn't use that word and I said I got to ask you why do you do that. Why do you say that? Why did you ask me those questions? He said well, here's the deal. I got plenty of people around me that'll tell me whether you're good at marketing or you're a good fit for our team. He said I got plenty of people to tell me that I want to hire people of good character. And he said I believe your character is developed in the first 20 years of your life, and so that's why I asked you what was it like growing up with your brothers and playing basketball and having knee surgery? And what was high school like? Well, did you have a girlfriend? And what was college like? I wanted to know that, because that was going to tell me a lot about your character. And something else he said was he said character is caught, it's not taught. You're not going to read a book or take a class to say, oh, I got a great character. Now You're going to observe other people and say why I really like the way that lady handled that situation. Or, boy, that guy really belittled that person and I don't want to do it. So you learn these things early. And his point was you can change your character as you move through life and as you're an adult, but the bulk of your character is going to be developed before or as you get out of college, in 20, 21 years old and stuff like that. And I never thought about that. I never thought about how do we develop, how do you get things like that? So I think character is an incredibly. You've got to be comfortable with you. You've got to be comfortable in your own skin and being able to say to yourself yeah, that's not going to happen, I'm not going to do that, I'm not going to put that person down, I'm not going to get involved with that person, and I've come to this point in my life. I think there's that old saying about walk the walk and talk the talk. I really don't care what you say until I see how you put that into action. If you're telling me what a great guy you are or a great person you are and how you've done all this stuff, but you go out and treat the janitor or the person behind the counter like a pain in the butt, I don't really want to have anything to do with you and I'm just old enough to this point where I want to be around people that make me better. I want to be around people that make me smarter, that love me, that care about me and that, most importantly, are willing to risk the relationship because they love me enough to tell me the truth, and I don't think there are enough of those people in the world. If you've got one of those people in your life, or multiple people, hang on to them, and I know you're going to be mad when they say see, terry, you're really screwing off here, you shouldn't be doing this. What do we say? No, no, no, no, you can't wait for me, you're not my friend. No, those are the people that are your friends. So find those people, put them in your life, but then understand that you ultimately, at the end of the day, are responsible for your own decisions.

Parker Condit: 59:19

That's great. I think a lot of the messages, at least that I'm kind of pulling out of this, are that courage seems to be a very common theme, the courage to be a truthful friend and to have your actions match your words One of the things I say quite a bit. Words are pretty easy, right, I can say that I'm a unicorn, right, but can I prove to you that I am a mythical creature with a horn coming out of my head? My actions are going to be hard to match that. Yeah, yeah, actions are, actions are where it's at. So one last thing, just to wrap things up here. I just want to get your closing thoughts, anything else you want to share before we wrap up. I think you've dropped a ton of gems and I again I'll thank you again before we leave, but this has been a really great conversation for me. So thank you, but any closing thoughts before we go.

Terry Tucker: 1:00:10

Yeah, let me tell you another story. I had a nurse recently ask me what it was like to have my foot amputated in 2018, my leg amputated in 2020. And I told her she absolutely has not been easy. When you're six foot eight, learning to walk again, falling from this height not a good thing. You get hurt when that happens. You got to be careful. What I told her was cancer can take all my physical faculties, but cancer can't touch my mind, it can't touch my heart and it can't touch my soul. And that's who I am, that's who you are, parker, that's who everybody who's listening to us is. And we spend a ton of time. I mean, you know this as a personal trainer. We spend a ton of time working on this. You know we're going to work out, I'm going to eat right, I'm going to get plenty of rest and going to reduce stress. I'm going to do all that stuff, and I'm not telling you not to do that. I'm absolutely telling you you should do that. But what I am suggesting is maybe, every day, spend a little more time working on who you really are. This body is just a vessel, a house to house who we are. Spend time working on your heart, your mind and your soul. Eventually this, you're going to die and this body is going to decay. Your heart, your mind and your soul those things are eternal and I don't think we spend nearly as much time working on it.

Parker Condit: 1:01:24

What can I possibly add to that? That seems like the best way to attend things and wrap things up. So, terry, again thank you so much for being here. This is, without even knowing it, this is exactly the conversation I need to have. So for me personally, this has been very helpful, everyone listening. I hope you got as much out of it as I did. And again, terry, thank you so much.

Terry Tucker: 1:01:44

Well, thanks for having me on, Parker. I enjoyed talking with you.

Parker Condit: 1:01:49

Well, to those of you still here, that's all for today's show. I want to thank you so much for listening. I really hope you enjoyed today's conversation. If you want to learn more about today's guests, please visit our website exploringhealthpodcastcom. There you can find show notes for today's episode, links to the guests and our full episode archives. If you enjoyed today's show and you want to hear more, make sure to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. I really appreciate each and every one of you listening Until next time.