Sabrina Chevannes: Hi everyone, and welcome to this week’s episode of No Bullshit Talks. I am so pleased to be joined here today by Terry Tucker, who is the author of “Sustainable Excellence”. So, welcome.

Terry Tucker: Thanks, Sabrina. I’m looking forward to talking with you.

Sabrina Chevannes: So, “Sustainable Excellence” is your book. Tell everyone who’s listening what it’s about and what inspired you to write it?

Terry Tucker: So the book was really born out of two conversations that I had. One was when I used to be a high school girls’ basketball coach, and one of my former players had moved to the area in the United States where my wife and I live with her fiancé. One night, the four of us had dinner together, and after dinner, I remember saying to her, “You know, I’m really excited that you’re living close and I can watch you find and live your purpose.”

And she got real quiet for a while. Then she kind of looked at me and said, “Well, Coach, what do you think my purpose is?”

I said, “I have 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 and then living that reason.”

So that was one conversation.

Then I had a young man in college reach out to me on social media and ask me what I thought were the most important things he should learn to not just be successful in his job or in business, but to be successful in life.

And I didn’t want to give him that “get up early, work hard, help others” kind of stuff. Not that that’s not important. It is incredibly important. But I wanted to see if I could go deeper with him.

So I spent some time and I was writing notes, and I had these ten thoughts, these ten ideas, these ten principles. Then I sent them to him, and I kind of stepped back and I was like, “Well, I’ve got a life story that fits underneath this principle,” or “I know somebody whose life emulates that principle.”

Terry Tucker: So, I’ve been battling cancer for the last ten years, and I had my leg amputated in April of 2020. Then I started chemotherapy for the tumors in my lungs in June of 2020.

So, during that three-month period or so where I was healing, I sat down at the computer every day, and I built stories. They’re real stories about real people underneath the principles.

And that’s how “Sustainable Excellence: The Ten Principles to Leading Your Uncommon and Extraordinary Life” came to be.

Sabrina Chevannes: That’s incredible, and I just admire such strength in people like yourself. You’re battling one of the most difficult things ever. You’re trying to deal with cancer, you’ve had your leg amputated, and instead of wallowing in self-pity, you decide to write a book and try to inspire other people.

That’s incredible.

So, I mean, how do you find the mental strength to do something like that while you’re going through such a traumatic thing? You must have had some sort of overwhelming emotion.

That makes me feel first like talk me through that journey of how you went from the shock and the distress and all that stuff, and how it led to finding that because I think that’s what a lot of people would love to do that to be able to handle it in such a positive way that you’re doing.

You’ve taken a traumatic event and turned it into something inspirational for all. I mean, not a lot of people can do that.

So walk me through how you’ve managed to turn your life around like that.

Terry Tucker: I guess I would disagree with you. I think everybody can do it. Now, it’s a matter of do you want to do it, and do you have the mindset to do it?

I guess I’ll back up a little bit.

I have a rare form of melanoma, and at the time I was diagnosed, as I mentioned, I was a girls’ high school basketball coach.

I had a callus break open on the bottom of my foot, right below my third toe. Initially, I didn’t think much of it because, as a coach, you’re on your feet a lot.

But after a few weeks of it not healing, I made an appointment and went to see a podiatrist, a foot doctor friend of mine.

He took an X-ray and said, “Terry, I think you have a little cyst in there, and I can cut it out.”

And he did. He showed it to me. It was just a little gelatin sac with some white fat in it. No dark spots, no blood, nothing that gave either one of us concern.

But fortunately or unfortunately, he sent it off to pathology to have it looked at.

Then two weeks later, I received a call from him. As I mentioned, he was a friend of mine, and the more difficulty he was having explaining what was going on, the more frightened I was becoming.

So finally, he just laid it out for me. He said, “Terry, I’ve been a doctor for 25 years. I have never seen this form of cancer. You have a rare form of melanoma that appears on the bottom of the feet or the palms of the hands.”

And because my cancer was so incredibly rare, he recommended that I go to MD Anderson Cancer Center, which here in the United States is probably the premier cancer hospital.

And so I did, and that started the odyssey of surgeries and drugs and all kinds of things like that.

And right now, I’m on a clinical trial drug that most likely will not save my life, but may save the life of somebody down the road.

And I think you kind of mentioned it earlier. Yes, there are days when I get down. There are days I cry. There are days I feel sorry for myself.

But on those days, two things come to mind.

Terry Tucker: One is a story, and I’ll share that story with you.

Hang with me on this because the story is about rats.

Yeah, I’m going to tell a story about rats.

So back in the 1950s, there was a professor here in the United States at Johns Hopkins University who did a very simple experiment with rats.

He took rats and put them in a tank of water that was over their heads. Basically, he wanted to see how long the rats could tread water before they would sink and drown.

And the average rat treaded water for about 15 minutes.

Just as the rats were getting ready to die and go under, he reached in and grabbed them, pulled them out, dried them off, and let them rest for a while.

Then he put the exact same rats back in that exact same tank of water.

And the second time around, those rats treaded water on average for 60 hours.

Now think about that.

The first time, 15 minutes. That’s all they could do. “I’m just not going to be successful. I’m going to die. I am going to drown.”

Fifteen minutes.

The second time around, 60 hours.

Which said to me two things.

Number one, the importance of hope in our lives.

We have to believe that maybe not today, maybe not next month, maybe even not next year, but sometime down the road our life is going to get better based on the things that are going on in our lives.

And secondly, just how much more our physical bodies can handle than we ever thought they possibly could.

So whenever I get into those ugly places, I remember that story.

And the other thing I do is, if you think about it, when we’re down, we’re depressed, we’re feeling sorry for ourselves, we’re looking inward. We’re focused on us.

And I find a pretty simple way to get out of that is to focus outward.

Find somebody else who’s having a bad day or just needs a pat on the back, or somebody to say hello to them, or something like that.

I mean, I go to the hospital every three weeks for treatment, so I can always find those people but I find when I’m now focusing on helping somebody else, I’m not thinking about me. I’m thinking about somebody else.

And that kind of makes things a whole lot better.

Sabrina Chevannes:That’s beautiful.Again, you’ve just taken a bad situation in such a way that you can help other people as well.

I absolutely love that.
And I am totally going to use that story next time I’m working out and thinking, “This is too tough.”

I’m going to be like, “If rats can do it.”

Otherwise I’m worse than a rat like this is a good motivation for myself so I think that’s a great motivation so thank you for that but I also want to talk about because you know you’ve had an interesting creative high school basketball coach but you’ve also been a swat negotiator, right? and I just feel like obviously all this movie is coming to my head obviously the negotiator great movie.

Sabrina Chevannes:
I just think that looks like the coolest job in the world.

But in reality, is it the coolest job, or is it probably the most stressful job, knowing that you’ve got to deal with a really high-pressure situation and that one wrong word that you say could trigger them and tell I want to know what it’s actually like because basically some movies obviously

Terry Tucker:
Yeah. I mean, you know the Samuel L. Jackson movie where he was the negotiator and he was like a one-man Superman who did everything?

People always ask me, “Is that the way it’s like?”

No, that’s not the way it works. I hate the burst or bubble the way it works is this: we operate as a team.

So yes, there’s one person that’s negotiating with whoever we’re negotiating with, but there’s also another negotiator sitting right next to that person, listening to everything that’s going on.

Then there may be two or three or four other negotiators that are doing what I call work in the crowd. You know, why are we here?

Maybe it’s a gentleman who’s barricaded himself or something like that and you know
they talk to his mother or they talk to a neighbor they talk you know “Why are we here? Tell me about him,” and stuff like that.

And if you’re negotiating, you may get a note from the person sitting right next to you that says, “Don’t talk about his mother,” because maybe he had a fight with his mother and that’s what triggered all this to start with.

So you may get a note that says, “Don’t talk about his mother.” Now, that’s in a perfect world.

A lot of times, we don’t know why we’re there. We don’t know why this individual has done what we’ve done.

And I think you mentioned it just a minute ago. Are you going to say something that’s going to trigger him?

Now, I guess to sort of step back, people always say, especially if somebody is suicidal, you know they are like “Well, I don’t want to say anything to them because I might put the thought of killing themselves into their mind.”

That’s a fallacy.
That’s wrong.
That’s absolutely not the case.

If somebody is going to kill themselves, or wants to, or is thinking about it, and you notice that, say something.

Say something.
I mean, because we did.

We would say to the person, “Hey, are you looking to harm yourself? Are you going to shoot yourself?”

We would come right out and put it right in their face.

Because if they’re going to do that, you may have opened the door for them to help them.

Like, “Oh my God, somebody cares. Yes, I’ll unload on you.”

And if they’re not going to do it, they’re going to look at you and say something like, “No, you idiot, I’m not. What are you talking about? You’re a moron.”

Believe me.
And so, sometimes as negotiators, you have to go down that route.

You have to go down a rabbit hole.

You have to think, “Well, I don’t know. Let’s pick a rabbit hole and figure it out.”

And if you’re wrong, they’re going to let you know.

They’re going to yell at you or scream at you or tell you you’re an idiot or something like that.

Then you’ve got to regroup, and you’ve got to ask another question to try to figure things out.

And there were several times I would be negotiating with somebody, and I’d be talking about something over here for like two hours.

Terry Tucker:
When the real problem was over here and we hadn’t even gotten to that yet. So it’s a matter of time, and that’s why it becomes exhausting because what we would do is we would let the person talk. Let me explain it this way. This is probably easier.

We’ve all been to the park, you know, or to our friend’s house and played on a teeter-totter or a seesaw when we were growing up. Think about this: the bad guy, when we first start negotiating with them, their emotional side is way up in the air and their rational side, their rational brain, is way down on the ground.

Over time, by talking and getting them to talk, they burn off a lot of that emotional energy so that the teeter-totter can come to equilibrium and that hopefully, over more time, their rational side will be up in the air and their emotional side will be down on the ground.

When you’re emotional, you don’t make good decisions for yourself. When you’re rational, you make much better decisions. So, starting out a negotiation with somebody who’s all amped up, or maybe they’re high or whatever, and saying, “Hey, put the gun down and come out,” that’s not the time to say that not you’re not going to be productive doing that.

So we would ask them questions, get them to talk, and then the other problem we had, the reason it was so exhausting, and you mentioned that a minute ago, is because we would pair it back to them what they had said to us, but then we would attach an emotion to it, and you had to get the emotion right.

So if somebody’s just livid and they’re yelling and screaming and stuff like that, and you say something like, “Blah blah blah blah blah, I heard you say this. You seem to be a little upset.” Well, you totally missed the emotion. They’re pissed as hell. That’s really what they are.

And if you don’t get that emotion right, then you’re not building that trust. That’s why it’s exhausting because you’ve got to get down in the mud with them. You’ve got to get down in the weeds and really kind of connect and build that trust. Because if you can build that trust, then you can potentially get that person to come out safely.

Sabrina Chevannes:
It’s so crazy thinking about how many elements there are to what you do, right? It’s not just about words. Like I said, it’s the research your team are doing to find out the trigger points.

And I love the point about talking and getting the emotion out of them. So that’s a lot like therapy, right?

Terry Tucker:
That’s exactly what we’re doing

Sabrina Chevannes:
That’s why I feel like when you’re talking to them, basically you’re doing therapy, some kind of therapy in a way, when you’re talking to them.

And he said that by talking through these emotions, they become a lot more rational. And I guess that’s why when people do have these negative thoughts, it’s always so important to vocalize them to people because the more you talk about them, and like I said, just hearing someone else repeat it back to you maybe also makes you hear it in a different light and think, “Is that what I just said? That’s kind of crazy,” or something. You might even hear it in a different light and make you think about things in a different way. So I find that incredible

Another thing I thought was interesting when you said it was about the fallacy and the myth of telling someone with suicidal thoughts and bringing it up, because I made a post on Instagram a few months ago, a very risqué post, and part of me has elements of deep regrets about it. But as I said, people don’t think rationally when they’re emotional.

Sabrina Chevannes:
And I just had a friend unfortunately take their own life, and they’re not the first person I know to have done it. And it’s quite hard. And, you know, it’s also interesting if you know multiple people have done it because then you start to think, you know, am I a common denominator here? Have I done something to stop them? Like am I just an awful friend or an awful person that I can see the signs or I did see the signs and I ignored them or didn’t do enough, and you naturally blame yourself for all of these things.

And I wrote a post which was quite—it was supposed to shock and just, I wanted people who felt these emotions to basically reach out to people. And I was trying to do some pro bono work for another mental health charity at the time, and the same sort of suicide prevention thing. And the initial words that suicide is easy is obviously a very risky thing to say.

But why then followed it up with that, you know, to people who said there were lots of people out there, you are thinking about it, and if you know someone with those negative thoughts, please do reach out to them and show that you are there for them and you could be there for them and talk to them no matter what it is because a lot of people can be helped. A lot of people want to be helped is the main thing. They actually really, really want to be helped, but if they feel like there’s no help from anywhere then it takes a quick decision and then it’s over.

And that’s what I meant by that. I said, you know it’s the actual act and it’s sudden and it’s scary to think they’re there one minute and they’re not there the next. But I got a lot of obviously negativity for that, and obviously it was probably just a bit—it wasn’t wrong intention, people knew that, but a lot of people said, see I think there’s a lot of people on Instagram, it’s very bizarre, who are in it to kind of seek this sort of attention.

But I got a lot of people commenting saying, “Your post is making me want to talk myself,” and I was like, wow, I hope that isn’t the case because obviously if you read the message and I recommended several charities are doing this sort of thing. And so many were saying, “Oh thank you, it’s easy, I’m going to go do it now,” lots of people who said stuff like that.

And I got really worried and part of me wanted to take it down, and then I spoke to another charity and they said, no no, leave it, the sentiment is quite nice. And someone else said the same thing—that if someone is thinking about it, something like that is not going to push them over the edge or trigger them at all, and those people are trolls. And actually when you look at the accounts, they are that.

I don’t really understand the premise behind it, why they’re going around putting these posts on people’s things. But it’s quite interesting to hear that because, you know, I guess those negative emotions, you think bringing them up might may trigger it but actually from what everything’s the opposite—they actually want to talk about it and they actually almost want to be talked out of it and they kind of wonder. So it’s really interesting to hear you say that.

And I’d love to obviously hear again how that kind of works and what sort of people you’ve been called to the scene of and why they’re in that sort of situation, why do they need a hostage negotiator and all that kind of stuff. How does that work?

Terry Tucker:
Yeah, I mean it varies. I mean we trained with—we had a psychologist that would work with us when we trained. We trained every month as a team, you know, we would just run through different scenarios, we’d make stuff up, and you know, okay, did you think about this, or maybe this person is exhibiting this behavior or that mental illness.

I mean we were not experts at mental illness, but we were also the person, you know, like on the other side of this wall is a guy with a gun, you know, and like most psychologists are like, oh heck no, I’m not doing that. No, I mean you’re the cop, you go do it.

And we were very well trained. And I’ll say this to kind of follow up on what you said—about 90% of the time we were successful in making this come to a peaceful resolution where the person came out, the hostages came out, whatever it was, and nobody got hurt.

Where 10% of the time the person ended up taking their own life. And I don’t want you or your audience to think that I’m callous, but I never lost any sleep over that. And the reason I didn’t was because the bottom line at the end of the day, it’s their decision how this ends. It’s not my decision.

I’m doing everything I can to try to get you out safely so that your mother can hug you, or your wife or kids can love you or whatever it ends up being, but at the end of the day it’s your decision on how this is going to end.

And like I said, 10% of the time the person ended up killing himself. Yeah, tragic, absolutely, but it was their decision to do that. And if you think about what you’re asking us to do as negotiators, whatever it is—whether literally it is somebody had a fight with their mother, or I’ll give you two stories here in a minute—but you know something that we were called into may have been festering for 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years.

And on this particular day, at this particular time, it all came to a head. And now the police are here and now I’m trying to deal with it. I don’t have the benefit of those 40 years or those 10 years to try to understand where you’re coming from. I’ve got to try to figure that out in a couple hours or four hours or five hours or whatever it is.

So we did the best we could with what we had. But it was not something that, you know, it was always tragic when somebody ended their life. And like I said, we focus on the 90% that, hey, we got them out successfully.

And people always say, hey you talked that person out, great job. What we really did is listen the person out. You know, we listened to what they were saying and we paired it back to them and we attached that emotion.

So let me give you two stories—one kind of funny, one kind of tragic. The funny one is I happened to be working that we were not a full-time SWAT team.

Terry Tucker:
And then this is a while ago, we carried pagers. And so when the pager went off, we went to the scene of whatever was happening. And I get there, I was working that night, so I was in a marked car. I get there and I’m talking to the officers at the scene. I’m like, what’s the deal?

He’s drunk. He’s barricaded himself in his house with his wife and a gun. Like, okay, do you have him on the phone? Like yeah, we have him on the phone. So I start talking to him.

And as I said earlier, you know, the first two, three hours, you don’t talk to the person about coming out. You don’t, you know, their emotions are too raw. You know, you need to get that teeter-totter to equilibrium.

But I was talking to this guy and after about 10 minutes I just thought, I’m going to throw the book out here. I’m going to take a chance. I said to him, what would it take for you to come out?

And there was like silence on the other end of the phone and then he says to me, give me a beer.

Seriously, honestly. I said, if I gave you a beer, do I have your word that you would let your wife go, you would put the gun down, and you would come out?

He said, do I have your word I could drink it?
I said, you have my word, you can drink.

He said, then I’ll let my wife go.
So I gave some money to one of the officers to go down to the store, buy beer. The tactical team put the beer on the front porch.

I called back and I said, hey, your beer is on the front porch, but you don’t get it until your wife comes out, put the gun down, and you come out with your hands up.

He’s like, do I still have your word I can drink it?
I said, you have my word.

All of a sudden the front door flies open. Here comes his wife. Here he comes with his hands up. We handcuff him, let him drink his beer, and off to jail he goes.

Sabrina Chevannes:
So does his wife not let him drink beer or something? Is that what the issue was?

Terry Tucker: I don’t know they had a fight he was obviously
severely intoxicated. And they must have had a fight and he was like, you know, the heck with you, I’m barricading myself. I’ve got a gun now. I’m going to shoot you. It was all that. He was drunk. I mean that was it.

Sabrina Chevannes: And all He wanted was a beer.
This is the weirdest negotiation with that today like okay anything

Terry Tucker:
That was way out in left field that was not usually the way they went but that was another thing, we never gave anybody anything without getting something in return. So it was like, you know, people would say give me a pack of cigarettes it’s like what are you gonna give me you know I mean you’re gonna I mean sometimes you know give me a cigarette give me a bullet you know so there was always, you know, it’s got to be able to trust you. You can, I gave you the cigarette, you’ve got to be able to trust me. I gave you a cigarette I’ve got to be able to trust you that you did you know you gave me the bullet or you gave me the magazine out of your gun or you gave me one of the hostages or whatever it is so we never did that.

Now the second story is a little bit more tragic, but it’s still kind of funny.

So this gentleman wanted to commit suicide. So he slit his wrists initially and that didn’t work. And for some reason he thought it would be a good idea to turn the gas on his oven and stick his head in the oven. Like that was somehow going to kill him. And it didn’t.

So he ends up calling a family member and says, you know, I want to kill myself and I’ve got a gun now. And the family member was smart enough to call the police.

And we get there and surround the house. And I’m talking to him. And I mean this thing probably started at 9:00 at night, it’s now 4 o’clock in the morning.

So I’m talking to him and I said, you know, what can we do to resolve this?

He said, you know, I’m really tired. I’d like to come out. I’m like great.

I said, if you come out, I said I’ll come down to the scene and we can talk face to face because we were talking over phone.

And he’s like, I’d like that. I said, okay. Put the gun down and come out. And then when you come outside, do what the tactical teams, the other officers, tell you to do.

I said, they’re going to handcuff you. I said, but do what they ask you to do and I’ll come down and we’ll talk some more.

Oh great, I’d like that. I said, but don’t hang the phone up, bring the phone with you.

So he hangs the phone up, which we don’t think a lot of because we’re conditioned to do that when a call is over, we hang up the phone, whether it’s a cell phone or regular phone.

And then all of a sudden probably 15–20 seconds later, one of the tactical officers comes on the radio and says, we heard a gunshot. And I thought, you’ve got to be kidding me.

He did shoot himself in the head, but he shot himself at such an angle that the bullet went in right underneath his temple, went around his skull, and came out the other side, never penetrating.

It was the angle that he shot. So the bullet didn’t go in, it went around and came out the other side. It was real bloody and we obviously got him to the hospital and stuff like that, but the bullet never penetrated his skull and never got to his brain.

So here’s a guy who wanted to kill himself three different times, three different ways, and he didn’t he wasn’t successful, which kind of said to me, God was like, we don’t want you here today sorry you’re staying there so but yeah

Terry Tucker: I mean kind of tragic in a way.

But the other thing that we never did to people is we never lied to them.
So people would say to us, “Okay, I will come out, but you have to promise me when I come out I am not going to go to jail.”

And we would have to say, “Well, when you come out, you are going to go to jail,” but we would deflect the conversation then to something more positive.

And the reason we never lied to people is not that we were just great people, but because there was a good chance a year from now or two years from now, or three years from now, and this actually happened, we would be right back negotiating with that person again.

And if they felt we lied and they lost trust, exactly trust, the whole thing us whole overreaching part of this is trust you hit the nail right on the head and if they don’t trust us then you’re going to have to bring another negotiator in to talk to them.

Sabrina Chevannes: And that they’re going to be like oh you work with that guy he lied to me last time. Why should I trust you?

Terry Tucker: Exactly.

Sabrina Chevannes: And it’s just the same thing that’s crazy and but it just shows it does show you though and I am just sitting here thinking about how all this remarkably relates to business.

And obviously I am an entrepreneur and I am thinking all these things like it totally does.

And trust is a biggest thing for me. If I don’t trust someone, I don’t want to do business with them.

But also, you know, the fact that I cannot believe it, you know, you would actually be talking to that same person again a few years later.

But I think the same in business. It is like it is such a small world.

Even with recruiting candidates and the way that they have been lied to or they talk disrespectfully to you, I am like, well that is very silly because a few years time our paths are going to somehow cross again. You never know.

Or like you have a client and if I had a client and I got really annoyed with them and I was really, really rude to them, and I thought, screw them, I do not want their account anyway.

But then that person goes to work with another company later on down the line, and they remember me. They are never going to hire us again.

And then it is just a reminder not to lie or be rude to someone.

That is why I think honesty is pretty much always the best policy.

But you are right, you do not have to be cold hard truth like saying, “Sorry, you are going to be in jail, you are going to rot in there for the rest of your life.”

So there is a point coming out anyway, so that is where you are going straight going.

Because if they are not going to care about it, it does not matter.

So you are right, you do not have to be nice, but you can just be selective with what you tell them and still be honest because you never lied to them at least. That is that sort of element of trust there. You can reframe the conversation to highlight the positive stuff.

Terry Tucker: You can. And let me give you one more thing on that. One of the things I learned well two things that I learned as a negotiator was one the importance of listening to understand versus listening to respond.

We are all great at thinking, “Hurry up Sabrina, say what you are going to say because I want to get my two cents in.”
That is listening to respond as opposed to oh Sabrina i understand what you’re saying I may agree with you I may not agree with you but help me to understand
where you are coming from.

Now all of a sudden we are developing a relationship. We are developing trust. We are connecting as human beings, not just “I want to sell you something.”

And if you think about it in business, the best salespeople are not the best talkers, they are the best listeners.

You as the client, “Oh I heard you say this, here is how our product can help you with that.”

And the other thing that I learned as a negotiator, and this is incredibly hard for human beings to do, is the importance of using silence to your benefit.

Terry Tucker: So a lot of times like I said we’d ask somebody an open-ended question and they talked for a while and then they stop talking. Well we don’t like that as a human being. We want to fill that void of silence but you had to just shut up and not say anything.

Sabrina Chevannes: Because I will tell you more and they keep talking talking.

Terry Tucker: Yeah. And you can use that as business as well. Let people talk and then they stop talking and you don’t say anything. You just sit and they start talking again and they’ll give you more information.

Sabrina Chevannes: That’s it. And amazing coaching thing people talk about as well. Like I know that’s a coaching technique and I read a book recently about it where, you know, talking to example staff members. And if you do it the more coaching way then you get more out of them.

So that’s exactly the listening thing. So you ask them a question and very open-ended question. And most time will just give you, you know, a couple of sentences answer. But then like you said humans, they’re like awkward and it’s a fill it with something. So next question. But then if you just sit there and wait for them to keep talking, they’ll say more and more and eventually the real answers come out, right.

And the real view to their problems and you actually then start to find out issues that they may have that they’ve never really wanted to say. So it totally does relate to business. I think it’s incredible how much combination there is between a business and a spot negotiations here but you guys have some remarkable skills. But it also reminds me of a book. Have you ever heard of the book Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss?

Terry Tucker: No.

Sabrina Chevannes: You’ve got to check it out because it’s one of my favorite books ever were business books for sure, Chris Voss was an FBI.

Terry Tucker: Oh yeah, yeah, I’m sorry. Totally Yes, I have. Yes.

Sabrina Chevannes: Oh this guy. And I think he’s also a master course, you know the Masterclass series. I think he’s also on one of those. I need to watch that actually. But I read that book and I was fascinated because again I like how you have build it with stories and they’re relatable and exciting but they were connected. And his whole premise of the book is that with Never Split the Difference is that say if we’re doing business and I’m saying my fees are 10 grand and you’re like actually I could do five. Then I’ll say okay so how about we meet in the middle, say seven and a half.

He’s like nah don’t do that. You don’t do that. You stick to your thing. There’s all these different stories about client relationships, getting promotions at jobs and all that kind of stuff. And it’s about how you should never split the difference. And he talks about the negotiation techniques that he would use in his job to be able to get what he wants in business. So that’s what I’m picking up when you’re telling me these stories.

Terry Tucker: It’s funny because I was on a podcast with a gentleman who had interviewed him on his podcast, Chris Voss. And then he wanted to have me on because Chris is an FBI so he’s a federal agent. And actually our police department, our negotiating team had trained with the FBI hostage negotiating team as well. So we got some great training, great information from them. But then he wanted to have me on, like okay how do you do this on an everyday thing where you’re going after a homicide suspect or like I said some guy barricades himself in his house because he’s drunk and stuff.

The FBI’s not going to deal with that. They deal with the big stuff, the high level stuff, the federal crimes and stuff like that. But a lot of the same things we talked about apply to business, apply to negotiating on a federal level, negotiating on a local level. So the deal is we’re all connected as human beings. And that’s why it’s not that much different because whether you’re a salesperson in business or whether I’m a police officer negotiating with somebody who’s taken a hostage, it’s still a relationship.

It’s a relationship based on trust, based on listening, based on trying to get the best out of whatever. Whether I get the sale for you or whether I get this person out safely, it’s a connection between human beings. And if you reduce it to that, it makes a lot more sense. Other than “oh you were a negotiator, that’s cool.” Most people don’t live next to a hostage negotiator and stuff like that, but it’s still relationships. It’s relationships between a husband and a wife, between a parent and a child, between a boss and a subordinate. It’s the same. It’s a relationship and if we can multiply and cultivate those relationships, we’re going to be successful in life.

Sabrina Chevannes: Yeah I absolutely agree and that’s what I think when I’m doing my stuff in business because I’m very good at sales. I think sales is a dirty word, it’s like cringe. It doesn’t suit me. But I just listen like you say. If someone comes to you and says these are my issues, these are the problems we’re having, I’m like okay what about this well what can we do to help you. It’s just a conversation and just ideas. If I’m listening to their pain points and offering solutions, they’re like great that’s exactly what we need you know and that’s it just listen to what they need and be able to help and then they want to work with us it’s as simple as that there’s no sale in it really it’s just how can we help you which I love and I stand by it is all about relationship and they trust us because then I will show them how it’s done and I can prove to them how it’s done and then after that it’s you know maybe that’s a contractual thing afterwards but it’s really about how can we help you and how can I prove that you know we’re trustworthy and I think every relationship is based on that so I totally agree with that.

But I’ve got to ask, have you used your negotiation skills in personal life to your advantage? Because I feel like there’s some sneaky skills you’ve got there. I was like I bet you’ve manipulated your family into getting what you want with your skills.

Terry Tucker: I won’t answer that other than to say, what do you think?

Sabrina Chevannes: Oh dear. But they must know. They must like I feel like if I was suddenly like giving it or you know and I was like hang on a minute Terry’s out again is he playing mind games what’s he done he somehow managed to persuade me to something I don’t want to do you know.

Terry Tucker: But if you think about it, when I was operating as a negotiator, it wasn’t emotional for me. You know I was trying to help another person. If your kids are doing something wrong it’s emotional, you get mad, you know and so now all of a sudden you bring another dynamic into it. Regardless of how good your skills are, you’re pissed off right now and it’s like you know oh shoot I probably should have used some of my negotiating techniques but I was mad as a dad or you know something like that.

So you try to remain neutral, kind of like Switzerland. I’m neutral in this negotiation, I want to help you, I want to do what I’m trained to do. But with your kids or your family or your friends, the emotion part of it now all of a sudden that’s a much bigger piece and it’s harder to use your negotiating skills in that regard. You have to try to take the emotion out of it.

Sabrina Chevannes: But how do you do this I feel like that’s a really good thing as well when it comes to business so I know that I definitely still get emotional with certain things or you get an email comfort and you’re really pissed off and you like kind of reply to it I feel like I’m trying to sort of that if I do get an email that comes through or something and it annoys me so much I try to I’m trying not to say I’m gonna wait for 24 hours park it and come back to it and not let an emotional response to it because when I look back at it wouldn’t have been that you know how do you I mean like you said emotions are the dangerous things really they really do cloud your judgment like you saying seesaw thing’s a great analogy right so when you’re emotional like you’re rational you know you’re not very much tall so how do you balance that emotions are you saying you know because you’re dealing with your kids and it’s different but I guess in a business situation everyone’s going to have emotions so you’re going to have natural reactions but how did you like sort of remove the emotions because there must have been times in your job I know that you don’t know the person and but there must have been times when someone said something really awful ah this guy’s scam he sounded like a complete jerk he was like why am I wasting like my time and energy on this guy like you probably had a couple of situations like you’re talking dad a serial killer or something like but you have to take those emotions out in order to do your job properly like how do you handle that sort of thing how do you kind of suppress your emotions?

Terry Tucker: Yeah. I mean I think that happened not just you know with police officers the negotiators but police officers in general I mean you’d be taken off the air if I told you all the names I’ve been called you know as a police officer but again it’s kind of like I mean think about social media and all the people that go on social media and you know say hey Sabrina you know your hair is ugly or I don’t like that dress you’re wearing or I don’t know I’m just being you know but they say that and it’s like that only hurts that only resonates if you accept that you know if you say oh I really care that person doesn’t like my hair or doesn’t like what I’m wearing. Why would you care? I mean if some idiot is telling you you know that why would you care so and I think what I try to do is ask this one question why why am I upset what is that email saying that is making me upset why am I upset about it and then try to figure out you know a way to craft a response to it where I can win and you can win I mean everybody wants to save face everybody wants their you know wants to have a win-win situations that’s not always possible I get that but at the same time you know try to understand why you’re mad why is that emotion being elicited by what this email says to you or by what that person says on social media or whatever it’s like why you know and for me on social media and especially for younger people, why do you care? why do you care if that person says I didn’t like what you wore today or you’re ugly or you’re not smart or you’re stupid. You don’t know me, you know I mean just because you know like who what made you the boss of me you know I mean you hear kids say that all the time you’re not the boss of me you know why do you care so ask yourself why you feel the way you do why that whatever happened elicited that emotion and then kind of backtrack from that okay why I’m upset with that well maybe I’m not going to get the account what would be the worst thing that could happen with that.

Well maybe I’m not going to get my bonus from that okay am I still gonna be able to feed my family and pay the rent like you know yeah I still am okay so in the scheme of things if you break things down into their simplest form it’s kind of the old joke how do you eat the elephant one bite at a time you know and again kind of in business you know I want to be better at sales well Oh My God that’s a huge goal to have what if you said I want to get one percent better at sales everyday at the end of 30 days I’m 30 percent better at sales at the end of a quarter I’m almost 100 percent better at sales than I was when I started now one percent better every day is a whole lot more manageable and able to you know something that you can wrap your hands around as opposed to I want to get better at sales oh my gosh that’s too broad again how do you eat the elephant one bite at a time.

Sabrina Chevannes: I love it it’s like the increment the whole incremental change and I don’t you know if I was going to quote another book that I thought was great is the atomic habits won by James Clear and so same sort of principle right and it’s like that little tiny baby steps at a time and you’ll start to see said that one percent thing is something that people don’t realize and you know it’s after a certain amount of time you do something everyday for a year how much better are you at what you’re doing if you’re doing like one percent every time and it’s kind of crazy.

Terry Tucker: Think about that I mean I don’t know if you have the same you know nursery rhymes and things like that but there’s the old story about the tortoise and the hair you know they start on a race and you know and the hairs boom I’m gone you know I’m fast I want it I want it now I want it immediately and the tortoise just methodically

Sabrina Chevannes: takes slow and steady wins the race.

Terry Tucker: Exactly and that’s what you know we’re so I got to do this and I got to do this now again why do you really need to do it now or do you want to do it now.

Sabrina Chevannes: Yeah I do there’s a distinct difference and I was gonna ask you like because it sounds like a lot of this stuff might be in your book so what how much of that because it’s by sustainable accident that’s obviously what it is how much of this stuff is in your book what are we learning from it?

Terry Tucker: Yeah, some of it is I mean people always ask me it’s like you know you wrote this book sustainable excellence well what is excellence and my response is always I don’t know like wait a minute you idiot you wrote this book what do you mean you don’t know what excellence is and I talk about that in the introduction to the book that you know you and I may look at I don’t know you know we may watch a movie and you say oh my God that’s the best movie I ever you know I’ve ever seen in my life and I may say yeah it was good but I didn’t think it was that great you know we watch a sports team you know those are that’s the greatest sports team play yeah they good but I don’t think and I think that’s what excellence is about, excellence is kind of like beauty it’s in the eye of the beholder you know where you would look at something and you say that person or that group is excellent I may say yeah they’re good but I don’t think they are excellent so beauty is sort of like excellence in the eye of the beholder and then sustainable how do you once you get excellence how do you sustain it and if you think about all the people that work their butts off as entrepreneurs or you know or even you know in the c-suites of companies that you know look I’ve taken this company and now all of a sudden we’ve reached the pinnacle we’re top of the mountain and what do people usually do they kind of kick back put their feet up on the desk for themselves a cold one and be like yeah I’ve arrived and then what happens six months later a year later somebody surpasses them somebody you know goes above and beyond because people are smart they’re going to figure out how you did what you did and they’re going to improve upon that if you want to sustain excellence that’s what you’ve got to do you’ve got to change you’ve got to grow you’ve got to modify you’ve got to find ways to get better you can’t just sit there and say well I’ve made it to the top I’m always going be at the top you’re not people are going to pass you up.

Sabrina Chevannes: And it’s not just people it’s like big organizations and now like technology and everything and that’s the same thing you just stated the story of like so many failing businesses who were the the you know pioneers in their industry and they just kind of stayed put right and all these other people like I said people are going to see success and be like I want a bit of that but I’m gonna do that but I’m gonna do it better and then it’s just that growing thing and obviously if you’ve got a couple of players in an industry that’s when you get fantastic progress in that industry because they’re competing with each other but then if you have someone who’s only just one person is kind of striving for excellence and the other people aren’t kind of catching them up that’s how things stagnate right and you just kind of not really kind of push yourselves which I think is quite interesting.

Terry Tucker: Yeah. And you know, my company’s called Motivational Check-In, and motivation’s great. But motivation is something that comes from you. I mean, I can’t motivate you. I mean, I can give you things, I can make suggestions, I can do things, but the motivation has to come from you.

The way you sustain that motivation is with good habits. You know, you put habits in place that are not destructive. You don’t smoke, you don’t abuse alcohol, you don’t eat fatty foods, you exercise, you meditate, you journal, you do whatever.

Well, I mean, you’ve got a choice. You can pick which one you want to do, but you’ve got to put in the good habits to sustain the motivation that you have. And then all of a sudden, now I want it. You know, I want to get up in the morning and I want to go do this because it’s fun and I’m seeing some success and I feel better and I’m growing and things like that.

So yeah, I mean, think about all the people that do the same thing every day. They get up at the same time, they brush their teeth, they take a shower, they eat breakfast, they get dressed, they go to work the same route, they do the same thing at work, they come home the same route, they eat dinner, they sit in front of the television, and they go to bed.

That’s their life.

I’m like, I’d blow my brains out if that was my life. I would be like…

But we get comfortable, and you don’t grow when you’re comfortable. And I always recommend to people, and I try to do this every day of my life, do one thing every day that makes you nervous, that scares you, that makes you uncomfortable, that’s potentially embarrassing.

It doesn’t have to be a big thing, but if you do those small things every single day, when the big things in life hit us, and they hit all of us, we lose somebody who’s close to us, we get let go from our job, we find out we have some kind of chronic or terminal illness, you’ll be so much more resilient to handle those things when they present themselves.

But we don’t like things that make us uncomfortable. The problem is, that’s the only way you’re going to grow.

Sabrina Chevannes:
Hmm. And you just reminded me about Baz Luhrmann’s “Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen).” If you remember the song, that must have been 20 or 22 years ago. But Baz Luhrmann’s Sunscreen, and he said, “Do one thing every day that scares you.” That was one of the lyrics in the song, and it just reminded me of that.

And I think every day is obviously quite a commitment, and that’s obviously how you make habits, good habits. Like I said, if it’s exercise and not eating fatty foods and all that kind of stuff, it does take time before it becomes habitual.

But one thing every day that scares you is quite a lot. But it doesn’t mean you have to go bungee jumping or do something extreme. You could just be sending someone you don’t know a message. That’s kind of a bit scary, right?

And reaching out to someone because everyone hates rejection, the fear of rejection. So it’s like you don’t want to send them a message in case they don’t reply or they say no. That’s a bit scary, so that would count.

So what would be your typical things that you would do on a day-to-day basis that kind of pushes you and challenges you?

Terry Tucker: Get up an hour early.

The other day, I hate going to the dentist. The other day, I picked up the phone and made my six-month appointment to go to the dentist.

“Oh, that’s no big deal.”

Well, it is when you hate the dentist.

I mean, do things like that. I have an amputated leg. Walking with my prosthetic leg is hard. It’s difficult. It’s a pain in the butt, to be perfectly honest with you. But on those days when I don’t feel like doing it, do something like that.

There’s a million things you could do. Like you said, pick up the phone and call somebody that you think is interesting.

“Hey, you know, I really thought this guy was interesting. I’d like to talk to him. Do you want to have lunch? Do you want to have a cup of coffee?”

I always tell people, pick somebody that you admire in your company or something like that.

“Hey, I know you don’t know me. We don’t work in the same field, but could we have a cup of coffee? Could I take you to lunch or something like that?”

But what if they say no?

Well, what if hey don’t? If they say no, you go find somebody else tomorrow to have lunch with.

I mean, those are uncomfortable things. But if you do those uncomfortable things, you’ll be so much more resilient in your life when the big things, the things that scare us, the things that we don’t want to happen but we know are going to happen, when those things happen, you’ll be much more resilient to handle them and they won’t destroy you.

So many people get destroyed because they’re like, “Oh my God, I can’t handle this.”

I promise you, everybody has a breaking point. Everybody has a point where they can’t go on. But I know this for a fact: that breaking point is so much further down the road than you ever thought it would be.

We have a group of soldiers in the military called the Navy SEALs. You may or may not have heard of them. They’re kind of like the SAS of Great Britain of the UK.

These guys have what they call their 40% Rule.

Basically, these are some of the toughest people in the world, and what they say is, if you’re done, if you’re at the end of your rope, if you can’t go on, you’re only at 40% of your maximum and you still have another 60% left in reserve to give to yourself.

So the next time you don’t think you can get off the couch and go to the gym, the next time you don’t think you can stay late at the office and finish that report, the next time you don’t want to do whatever it is, remember you have 60% left in reserve to give to yourself.

Sabrina Chevannes:I can’t even believe that, thinking about it.

I guess everyone’s different in where their breaking point is, like you said, but 40%?

And I definitely know who the Navy SEALs are. I mean, I listen to some amazing podcasts with some ex-Navy SEALs because, boy, are they inspirational.

And some of the most mentally tough people I’ve ever come across, hearing their stories. Again, just so inspiring from a leadership perspective as well, by the things that they’ve had to do. It’s incredible listening to them.

So I’m well aware of the Navy SEALs, and obviously there’s a lot in Hollywood movies as well.

But yeah, people don’t see… I see them as mentally incredible people. But 40%? And the things that they have to go through, the things that they have to do, I just can’t even fathom being in a situation like that.

And they find the strength to continue. And not just continue for themselves, they help their comrades, and they all get through it together. Somehow they manage to survive these things, and it’s remarkable.

And it does show, like I said right at the very beginning, I think you were saying about how your body is way stronger than you think it is.

And I think that’s also to do with the fact that it’s not all in the body, it’s all in the mind. So your body strength could be stronger than it is, but your mind can make it weaker because your mind’s telling you these negative things.

Like you said, it’s all about mindset. So if you strengthen your mind, you can strengthen your body at the same time.

Terry Tucker:
You’re right.

There was a basketball coach here in the United States when I was growing up at Indiana University, probably one of the most successful college coaches.

And he used to have a saying that went like this:
“Mental is to physical as four is to one.”

So here’s this great coach teaching premier athletes to use their bodies to be great basketball players.

But what he was really saying with that quote is that your mind, or your mindset, is four times more important than anything your physical body is going to do.

Sabrina Chevannes:
Yeah, and I can’t even imagine that.

Again, I think about this in the basketball with the shot clock, and they’re taking that shot right before it expires. How are you able to do this? The mindset and the confidence that you can grab that ball and think, “I’m going to make the shot.”

And you take it. I’m gonna take it.

Whereas if you don’t have that mindset, you’re going to look for the pass, and that pass could be intercepted. You might waste another second. You might miss the shot clock.

If you just have the confidence to go for it, that’s the difference between a win and a loss.

And it’s kind of crazy how there’s such big stakes in a couple of seconds or that mindset shift.

Sabrina Chevannes:
And it’s empowering, isn’t he, yes, I love it.

I’ve so enjoyed our conversation today. I think it’s been incredible. I think your stories have been motivating. You’ve been inspiring, and your journey and everything that’s happened.

And I’m sure that there’s going to be a lot of people who want to have a chat with you and find out more information.

So what’s the best way that they can get in touch with you?

Terry Tucker:
So I have a blog. Every day I put up a thought for the day, and with that thought comes a question about maybe how you could apply that thought in your life.

I have recommendations on my blog for books, for videos to watch. My LinkedIn and my social media accounts are on there as well.

It’s called Motivational Check.com

Also, I’ve just started a membership. It’s SustainableExcellenceMembership.com.

If you go to SustainableExcellenceMembership.com, you can download a free copy of my book on there.

So if you want to check out the book, you can also get the book on Amazon and pretty much anywhere you can get a book online. You can get Sustainable Excellence.

Sabrina Chevannes:
Perfect. I’m going to put all those links in the show notes, so I’m sure lots of people will want to check it out.

But it’s been amazing having you here today, Terry, and thank you so much for sharing all the stories.

Terry Tucker:
Well, thanks for having me on, Sabrina.

I always say it’s nice people like you that allow me to come on and have a conversation with you. And hopefully, between that conversation, if we make a difference in somebody’s life, today’s been a good day.

Sabrina Chevannes:
I love it.
I’ve got the same sort of mentality, so I absolutely love it.

And thank you everyone who’s been listening today, and I’ll see you guys next week for another episode of No Bullsh*t Talks.