The Mind Over Matter Blueprint: Terry Tucker on Beating the Odds

Terry Tucker has faced 13 years of cancer, multiple amputations, and ongoing treatment—but his message is one of resilience, purpose, and control. In this raw and honest conversation, Nikki and Terry unpack the mental side of surviving hardship, why pain can be a teacher, and how the right mindset can turn any struggle into strength.

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Speaker 2: [00:00:00] Nikki, thanks for having me on. I'm really looking forward to talking with you. I am Terry Tucker. I live in Denver, Colorado, and I, for the last 12 years have been battling a rare, and what I was told terminal form. Of cancer form of melanoma that appeared on the bottom of my foot.

So in 2012, I have this callous break open. I go to see a podiatrist. He cuts it out and he says, Terry, you're good. Everything's fine. No problems whatsoever. Sends it off to pathology to have it looked at. And then he calls me two weeks later and says, Terry, I've been a doctor for 25 years.

And I have never seen the form of cancer that you have. You have an incredibly rare form of melanoma that appears on the bottom of the feet or the palms of the hands, and he recommended I go to MD Anderson Cancer Center, one of the best, I think, cancer hospitals, certainly in the United States, maybe in the world.

And I did, and they cut the tumor outta my foot. They cut all [00:01:00] the lymph nodes outta my groin, and then they told me I'd be dead in two years. And I have been fighting this disease for the last 13 years now, considering I've had my foot amputated in 2018, my leg amputated in 2020, right in the middle of the COVID Pandemic, and I've also got tumors in my lungs, which I'm currently being treated for.

So I've learned a lot about the mental side of having a physical disease, and I'm looking forward to talking with you about that as we go through this time.

Speaker: I am so sorry that you've got that shoved at you because nobody wants that. But you are not the typical person. There are a lot of people who have any type of cancer or that kind of diagnosis who no longer have a smile on their face, who are no longer interested in talking with people.

And so I commend you on that.

Speaker 2: Thank you. Yeah I think [00:02:00] you're right. I think cancer, if you have cancer long, and I think eventually it isolates you from your friends and then your family and if you have it long enough, even from yourself, from the person that you think you are or that you really are.

So I think it's real important to, to stay positive as much as you can. Don't get me wrong, I have those days where I get down, I cry, I feel sorry for myself, but that's a choice whether to stay there or whether to try to come out the other side of it.

Speaker: Yeah, that's the choice for everybody with anything happening.

Even the normal people have the choice of, coming through day to day and staying normal or getting a mental illness from whatever's happening. And the people with mental illnesses can't just sit where they're at. They have to keep moving forward. So I believe that you're doing a good thing.

And I appreciate you coming on my podcast.

Speaker 2: I appreciate you having me.

Speaker: I have an episode [00:03:00] that was previously out on my podcast where I talked with somebody who played basketball internationally, cannot remember names, and I'm very sorry for that 'cause. I should remember names, but there's no Rolodex in my head, like everybody else seems to have.

But he was told that he had a. Form of brain cancer that turned out to not be brain cancer after 10 years.

So that, I think both of you are doing great things. Not that I'm sitting here, pat you on the back just for living your life. 'cause I know some parts are the hard a lot of parts are probably hard. There's full credit given where it's due, right? You're doing great to just be sitting where you are.

So one of the things that see, he said was it was all in his mindset as to how he got past, got through the diagnosis and [00:04:00] doing all the things for that. And but you have the, fours.

Speaker 2: For truths.

Speaker: For truths of resistance. Resilience. Resilience. What do you think the differences are between what you are saying and what he said? I don't know that you know what he said, but between it being your, just your mindset or is it the four things and not just the one?

Speaker 2: I think mindset is incredibly important. I'll give you the four truths here in a minute, but I used to say that all four of the truths were equally important.

And the older I got, the more I experienced, the more I read and learned. I don't think that's the case. I do think the mind, how the mind works or how you think are, is incredibly important and it controls the body. But before I get to the fortress, lemme give you two things that I've learned through this journey from cancer.

Number one, I don't think you truly know yourself. Until you've been tested by some form of adversity in your life. It doesn't [00:05:00] have to be cancer, it could be any kind of other adversity that you experience in your life, but I really don't think you know yourself. If everything is easy in your life, it's one of those difficult times in our life happen that we really are medalist tested to see what kind of person we are.

And secondly, and this is probably gonna sound I guess over the top for maybe some of your listeners, is cancer has made me. A better human being. I've been asked if I could live my life over again without 13 years of cancer, without having my foot and my leg amputated without these tumors in my lungs, would I do it?

And honestly, Nikki, I don't think I would. Cancer has made me focus on what's important. When I was told I'd be dead in two years, the first thing I thought about was you gave me a death sentence. How can I try to turn that death sentence? Into a life sentence. And over those years I've come up with, as we were talking about my four truths, and I'll give 'em to you.

They're just on a post-it note here in my office. So I see them multiple times during [00:06:00] the day and they constantly get reinforced in my mind. So the first one, as we were just talking about is control your mind or your mind is going to control you. The second one is embrace the pain and the difficulty that we all experience in life.

And use that pain and difficulty to make you a stronger and more resilient individual. The third one is more I look at a legacy type of truth, and it's this, what you leave behind is what you leave in the hearts of other people. And then the last one I think is pretty self-explanatory. As long as you don't quit, you can never be defeated.

And I call these four trues, the bedrock of my soul. I just think they're a good place to start to try to build a quality life from.

Speaker: I have this kind of thing, like I have to battle on my mind every [00:07:00] day because I have, mental health problems. I am not the samet person in the room pretty much ever, but it's fine. So I have to fight my mind so that I get to choose what I do instead of it choosing what I do because what it chooses to do.

Usually leads to things that we don't want to be in. And as long as you don't quit, you can never be defeated there. As long as I say no, as long as I have that wall between me and the big S word, that'll never happen. I can't, like that is one wall I cannot weep because. That's the one keeping me in.

I have to stay, I have to keep fighting.

Speaker 2: Yeah. I think we all do but so many people don't. And I've seen that, I've seen it, especially in all these years dealing with cancer. I've always felt that I wanted my life to be [00:08:00] based on the decisions that I made, not on the ones I didn't, or that somebody else made for me.

And this is gonna sound funny, when the doctor said you're gonna be dead in two years, I look at doctors like bookies in Vegas, that are handicapping a race or a sporting event or something like that. They look at you based on your age, on your overall health and the stage of your cancer, and they say, based on that you will live x.

But what doctors don't know and what doctors don't take into account because they can't, they don't know that you want to live long enough to see your child graduate from high school, to see your child graduate from college, to walk your child down the aisle when he or she gets married, to play with your grandkids and having something to look forward to, having something positive out there, that whether it's a goal or whether it's just an event or whatever it ends up being, I think is incredibly powerful.

Now, having said that, I will also say this. I know people who a doctor has [00:09:00] said to them, Hey, you'll be dead in two years. And Nikki, literally on the date of that two year anniversary, the person dies. I don't want to give somebody that much power or control over my life and the things in my life.

I certainly wanna work with my doctor to be as optimally healthy as I can. But at the same time, I just don't want to take what somebody says, who wears a white coat and has up a bunch of initials after their name, that's gospel, that's the way it's going to be. I wanna work together in a partnership that gets me to where I want to be.

And if that person can't be with me in that partnership, then I think I need to find somebody else to look for that can help me.

Speaker 3: Yes.

Speaker: I'm looking up the name of this song. Okay, so there is [00:10:00] a song. Do you listen to country music?

Speaker 2: Occasionally not that often.

Speaker: Okay. In 2004, because it's in front of me Tim McGraw did a song that's live like You Were Dying. Perfect. Have you ever heard that song? Yep.

Speaker 2: Yep.

Speaker: My mom, who obviously I didn't get along with very well, got a inoperable tumor and like right here in her brain. And she had cysts that would pop up on her optic nurse and would cause her to not be able to see her until they went in and got them off. She had something like three or four brain surgeries. She clawed through living longer, I think, than anybody expected her to.

But that was one of her favorite songs the whole time was that she wanted, not that she did, was like, she wanted to do those things in a, I want [00:11:00] to, kick this thing's butt type deal. But she was absolutely terrified of heights and bridges, so you would not have gotten her skydiving. Or Rocky Mountain climbing or any of that kind of thing.

So it was more sentimental type thing for her than this is the goals. And I have heard of people who have taken that kind of thing where they're like, oh, I've been told I'm gonna die in six months to a year. I'm just gonna go do what I want. The money I have in savings, I don't really care.

I'm gonna die, let's not care. And so they'll go do skydiving and balloons and stuff like that. I think that takes way more kahunas than it does to just, live with cancer the next however long you have it and fight it. Because Sky anything for me is an absolute one. I can't get on a step [00:12:00] stool.

Without feeling like I'm too high off the ground, everyone's skydiving. Absolutely not be okay. But so have you done anything like that or do you know anybody who's done some stuff like that?

Speaker 2: It's interesting. I'm a very private person. I don't like to share my details.

I don't like to share, much about myself, and you and I were talking. When we were, before we jumped on the recording about how important it is to be authentic, to be genuine, to share the real you not the fake you that everybody sees but the real you. And when? 2020, when 2000, late 2019, just as COVID was ramping up, I'd started a speaking business to talk about what I'd learned through my cancer journey.

And then COVID hit and everything shut down. Everything, either virtual or in person was like, we're not doing anything. And a friend of mine reached out to me on social media and said, Hey, would you [00:13:00] like to be a guest on my podcast? And I said, sure. What's a podcast? I had absolutely no idea. I did real, I had absolutely no idea what a podcast was.

And he explained it to me and I said, okay, I'll try it. Again, you want me to share. I'm like, I'm not a share. I'm not that kind of guy. But Nikki, my first podcast, I was horrible. I had posted notes all around the camera and he'd ask me a question and I'd lean in and I'd read one of the post notes.

I provided no value whatsoever to the audience. But after I finished it, I was like, yeah I was terrible. But then I thought the first time I drove a car, I wasn't any good at it. The first time I cooked a meal, I think I burned the water. You can't burn the water. But anyway, the first time I did algebra, I wasn't any good at it, but I liked it.

So it was, how can I get good at it? And I learned that if you want to be a good guest on a podcast, you have to show it warts and all. You have to tell your story. You have to get [00:14:00] it out there. So I may not have gone skydiving or anything like that, but I certainly got outside my comfort zone of sharing things that I don't usually share with people that I don't want to share with people with the understanding that I think the benefit of that.

Is one. It gives you credibility. If you can walk the walk and talk the talk, you have credibility. And secondly, I think you and I are kindred spirits in the same way you do this because you're trying to help people. You did do this because you're trying to make a difference, a positive difference in people's lives.

And that's why I felt okay. I know you're not comfortable with this, but get out there and share your story, warts and all, with the understanding that people would be like, yeah, I've had that too. Or I've had something similar to that, so I really haven't gone skydiving. I think my brain, probably would tell me not to do that.

But at the same time, I have done things that have made me uncomfortable, and while I think that's good, it also helps me to grow as a human being.

Speaker: I think that a lot of [00:15:00] people get too comfortable with being comfortable.

Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely.

Speaker: They're like, oh, I do the same thing. Look and people might point their finger at me and go, but you only leave the house two days a week.

How are you not comfortable in your own home? Certainly I'm comfortable in my own home, but I'm doing a podcast right now and I can tell you that the anxiety in my stomach is real. Okay. This is not something I'm super comfortable doing, even if I've been doing it for eight, 10 months.

I don't know how much longer till it's a year. I think it's July I started. So it's always, there's different people. I don't know the person now. I have to try to get them to talk. Some people are harder than others to get them to talk. But I am not comfortable. I'm still putting myself in a lot of different situations where I'm very uncomfortable.

But yes, I do it from my home because I don't own a car [00:16:00] and my friend is away doing stuff during the week. So I have my two days that I go outta the hospital and I stay home. But that doesn't mean that I'm sitting on the couch, i'm eating ice cream, I'm working, I'm doing things. I'm never comfortable until I'm like, okay, I'm done for the day, and I go take a breath and I need go play a game or something.

But 90% of my day, I am not comfortable even if I am staying at home. And that's a line, I think a lot of people are like if you don't leave home, you have to be comfortable. No, you can still do things at home that make you uncomfortable. There are plenty of different things in this world. What is it?

The Horatio thing? There are more things in heaven and hell and words can something, but the fact that I remembered a Horatio thing at all is [00:17:00] amazing.

Speaker 2: I think you're right though. If. The only way you're gonna grow, and we know this and this. This kind of goes back to the second point of embracing pain. The only way we're gonna grow, the only way we're gonna get better, the only way we're gonna improve is if we step outside those comfort zones and do things that make us uncomfortable. One of the jobs I had in my life as I was a girl's high school basketball coach when we lived in Texas, and I used to use the line you just used on my girls all the time. You need to become comfortable with being uncomfortable. And we like comfort. It's our mammalian brain saying, Hey, just relax.

Everything's fine. Don't do anything out of the ordinary. But the only way we grow, the only way we get better, the only way we improve is if we do those uncomfortable things. And I will recommend to your audience, and I do this every day of my life, do at least one thing every day that scares you, that makes you nervous, that makes you uncomfortable, that is potentially embarrassing.

It doesn't have to be a big thing. But if you do those [00:18:00] small things every day, when the big disasters in life hit us and they hit all of us. We lose somebody who's close to us. We unexpectedly get let go from our job. Like me, we find out we have a chronic or a terminal illness. You will be so much more resilient to handle those things when they present themselves.

Speaker: And I also advise on that. So I have psoriasis. I have had psoriasis since I was five years old. At one point I was the youngest person in Washington State to go through light treatments. Yeah. Because I had psoriasis over 90% of my body and they didn't have half treat. 98% of the treatments they have now they did not have in the eighties.

And if you are a parent of a child who has a chronic or life-threatening illness, actually be the one that supports them and lets them know that [00:19:00] there are disadvantages. Wherever you go, whoever you are, it doesn't matter, right? Mine, for the longest time, I would have kids come up to me in the grocery store and say, Ew, what is that?

That is absolutely the worst thing on the planet to happen. I'm telling you now, always. And so it, I was always uncomfortable you can't hide it. It's over 90% of your body. You can't hide that. And so be an advocate for a child, teach your child. But yes, while people may say, Ew, what is that? Or. Why?

Why do you think you're sick today? You look perfectly normal. That sentence has going, maybe want to throat punch more people than go to church on Sunday. Okay.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah. I have chronic pain. [00:20:00] I have fibromyalgia. Okay. So like my body has its pain receptor should be turned all the way up to eight every single day of the week. If I did what doctors and every and normal people out there expect every day would just curl up in bed and cry and scream and that kind of thing.

'cause I'm in a lot of pain. I would get absolutely nothing done. I wouldn't have a podcast, I wouldn't have a job. I would just be curled up in a ball crying all the time, and I can't do that. You have to keep moving. And so you do. And then people are like, oh, but people, what do you mean your head hurts worse today than it usually does.

I mean that it is a headache every day, but today. It is sliding closer to a migraine, so I do want to go climb into that cave and shut everything and everyone up, and then they're like, but you don't look like it.[00:21:00]

You don't look like an idiot either. So we were both confused.

Speaker 2: I can appreciate what you're saying because people look at me now, and you see me from here up.

But you don't see that I don't have a left leg. You don't see that I'm in a wheelchair. You don't see the tumors in my lungs. And you made a really good point just a minute ago, and 'cause really what you're talking about is see me as a human being, don't see me as my disease.

I have, cancer or arthritis or, whatever, whatever you've got.

And I think it's important and social media is great in a lot of ways, but I also think social media lets us stay on the surface. Everything's fine, everything's wonderful. Look at me, I'm great.

But there's a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago who does this experiment with his students, and the idea is you go out and you get on a bus and in three questions you go deep [00:22:00] with another human being. So you sit out next to somebody on a bus and Hey, how you doing?

I'm fine. How are you? Question one, question two, and I'm just making this up. What do you do for a living? Oh, I'm a doctor. Okay. Question three. Have you always wanted to be a doctor? It doesn't matter what they say. They could say, no, I grew up on a farm and I wanted to be a veterinarian, but X, y, and Z happened.

Or, my mother was a doctor but died of breast cancer when she was 40, and I'm honoring her memory by becoming a doctor. Whatever they say now they're opening up their soul. They're telling you their why, their purpose, their mission in life, and we don't do that with people enough. We don't go deep with them.

About why you do what you do, what's your mission? Why are you here? What's the purpose that you're on the face of this Earth at this time? Why? There's a reason. I believe I would imagine you believe as well, we're not here just on happenstance that we're here at this time for a reason. God put us here to do something and I, I [00:23:00] think Nikki, at least I've experienced so many people, never even.

Look for what that thing is supposed to be, why they're here, let alone find it and actually live it.

Speaker: Yeah. It's so true. Some people, as soon as they touch adversity, curl up into themselves and give up and for a time, like I did that because. My childhood, early twenties, all that super dark time for me. Very dark, lots of crap going on, not too much good happening, right? And so you, after so many hits, you tend to go, okay, now I want to a break.

And I don't think it's really, I want to take a break. If your body says lay down, or we're gonna make you a deal. There's no choice in it. You're doing this for [00:24:00] this. And I did. I went into a fog for a bunch of years because my mental health was just completely shattered. There was no, I thought at the time there was no coming back from it.

And just because I've gotten my mind back doesn't mean that the thing that shattered my brain doesn't still hurt. It just means. I have gotten to a point where I can breathe again and I can do things to make sure that my life is okay, but that does not always mean that everything's copacetic and I am the number one rock star and do whatever, because some days I can't.

I've barely moved because of the amount of pain I in, but that I still do the things that I have to do. So for a time, sometimes taking that break is absolutely what has to happen. But there are other [00:25:00] people who like the barest minimum of adversity, oh, my rent is due. I don't know how to do that.

And all of a sudden they crawl back inside themselves and they can't handle it. First of all, your parents have done some bad things to you. And I don't mean like abusive or whatever mainly, but if your parents haven't taught you how to live on your own, then they have put a curse on you because now it's gonna take you that much more to figure it out.

But adversity comes and everybody reacts to anything differently. I can stub my toe today and I will cuss a loose three. Because holy crap, does that hurt where somebody else who doesn't have the curse word knowledge that I have might just go ow. And I cannot fathom just saying, [00:26:00] ow, if I stub my toes, it's just not in my house.

So we all have that. It's learning where you are now and where you want to be later. Because if you shrivel up at the slightest thing down, you really want to stay there forever. Or do you want, how did you do that?

Speaker 2: How did you do that? How did you figure out that I've gotta push through adversity.

What? What did you do to get you to that point?

Speaker: It had stacked up so high, the poop was getting high. Okay? And finally you look at your life and you go, this isn't, this, isn't it? This isn't where I wanna be. This isn't how I want my brain to be working. I can't stay where this narcissist has me anymore. I fully see them for who they are now.

It just you get to a point where your brain clicks [00:27:00] over and you go, oh wow. You know how the eye dockers, they use those big eye things. Yeah. And they do that stupid, is this one better or is this one better?

But then they finally get to one where it's like, this one is massively blurry, can't see it all.

And they flip it to the next one. And you're like, huh, that's so much better. I can see amazing. It happens somewhere in there. I don't ever know when it's gonna happen, but it does that. And sometimes your life does that. Sometimes your life is all blurry and there's less negative things happening.

You're living with a narcissist who is a pain in the neck and then you're, it flips focus and now you're like, oh hell no. What am I doing here? Why am I allowing this to happen? How did this happen? 'cause like five seconds ago you were perfectly okay with all of this. Because it [00:28:00] was normal, right?

It gets to a point where that kind of abuse gets to be a normal, and you're like, oh, this is normal. And then one day your brain ticks and goes, no, the fuck it's not. Shut up. Why are you stupid? Get out of here. And then I got out. Was it easy? No. Was there a screaming match at one o'clock in the morning?

Yes. Did I walk away with almost nothing? Yes.

But I knew I couldn't stay anymore. Once that happened, there was no, oh, but don't forgive me tomorrow and let me back. No, you kicked me out at two o'clock in the morning. I think I'm pretty much done with this place. And then you move on. And I met the calmest person in the world, me not being anywhere near calm, and she just calms everything around me and it helps.

So I have my own calm [00:29:00] stick.

Speaker 2: I'm sure it took a lot of courage to walk away from that.

Speaker: Yeah. I can't get buses or it's extremely hard for me to be on buses because of things that have happened in the past when I was on a bus. But I did that five 'cause I went from Washington to Maryland, which is a.

Five and a half day trip by bus on the phone with a friend the entire time sobbing. Because I didn't want to be on the bus. I was terrified that somebody was gonna sit next to me and something was gonna happen again. And so I was just absolutely ached me and not erect a wreck the entire time. And it took.

Everything. And then I got to the building in DC where you're supposed to leave, and I couldn't find the exit, so I seriously walked up to a [00:30:00] security guard crying because I couldn't figure out how to leave this building. And I'd been stuck for like 10 minutes and he just went, is this that way?

And I went, whatever. And I went. I was done. I like it all. Came to that. And then it was all I had and it took me a couple days to breathe. But I met Kim, I think the third or fourth day I was there because things happened. And but your life can change. It doesn't have to be as dramatic as me traveling across country to get to somewhere safer.

Go to your family. If your family is the one doing it, go to friends. Remember the blood of the covenant, wait a minute, sorry, I'm saying this wrong. Blood is thicker than water is said wrong. They don't say the full quote. A lot of the times [00:31:00] people are started to because they realize people are stupid, but it's the less thicker than water.

Or something like that. But it has to do with the womb, the water of the womb and whatever it, anyway, it means the family you make, whether that includes blood relations or not, is the family that counts. So your friends and stuff like that they are the people that you're supposed to be looking to as family.

If you get kicked out of your family for whatever reason. Go find friends,

reach out to people. Don't do it alone because that's just scarier. Create a family. Create a group of people who are there for each other, because that counts way more to me than somebody telling me that [00:32:00] I just have to keep the peace.

Because I will tell you now, I won't have anybody saying it to me in the future because the first time somebody says that to me now is pretty much the first time they get to leave my life. I'm not keeping anybody's peace. I'm not doing it for anybody, family or not. That's not how, is not how it works.

You have to actually like your family in order for that to work. And so I have a family that I have created from friends and stuff, and real family minimally, but those people I trust to have my back. Anybody else? No.

Speaker 2: That's pretty cool.

Speaker: But adversity comes, it's going to come even, the normal [00:33:00] people, I don't even know quite who normal people are, but everybody talks about normal people, so we're gonna keep saying normal people, but normal people face adversity too. The difference between somebody who is quote normal and somebody who has a mental illness is sometimes that person with a mental illness has been hit with that baseball battle of adversity.

A lot, and that normal person is just maybe got one or two wax in them and they think, oh yeah, life is easy. And then they look at that person with mental health or an invisible illness and they go, you're fine. You look perfectly normal. There's nothing wrong with you. Keep going.

 Everybody comes into adversity. It's just how much by the time I was five I'd already been abused a couple times, so life was throwing rocks. And I [00:34:00] dodged a couple and I didn't dodge a couple others. So there's that. Yeah.

Speaker 2: Yeah. That's pretty, pretty tough to deal with and not everybody makes it through, and especially for, even people who I think have your best interest in mind. A lot of times tend to impose themselves on you with this is what you should do, or this is where you should go to school. Or This is what you work you should do, or whatever.

And you're like, I don't want to do that. I want to do this. This is my purpose over here. No, you need to do this. And it's hard when you're in a family, and especially when somebody's. Trying to make you do something. Not because you know they're mean, but because they love you, because they want something, but that they believe is better for you than either what they had or that what you're interested in doing.

And, there's that old it's not really a saying but it's, you are a product of the five [00:35:00] people you hang around with the most. So if you hang around with smart people, you're gonna be smarter. If you hang around with people that read a lot, you're gonna read a lot and know more. If you hang around people that are wealthy and well off, you're probably gonna be well off.

But the opposite of that is true. If you hang around people that it's all about them, then it's gonna end up being all about you. If you hang around people that it, have a lot of drama in their life, then you're gonna have a lot of drama in your life. So be careful the people you hang around with, and I know that's easier said than done, especially if those people are family.

Blood relatives as opposed to just friends. You can always get rid of friends and say, I, yeah, I'm not taking your call. I don't want to go out with you. I don't want to do anything. But when it's family and sometimes you don't have a choice, especially when you're younger, you know what you've gotta try to limit as much of the negativity with those people and somewhere try to find people that are much better than you.

I'll end with this. I've always felt it's more important. Who you [00:36:00] work with and who you work for, then it actually is the work that you do. Find people that care about you. Find people that are willing to invest in you, find people that want to see you succeed. Hit your wagon to those people and climb your mountains together.

Speaker: And the people who want you to, succeed and all that, just because they want you to do that thing. That doesn't mean they get the proceeds because they wanted you to do the thing. I have an amazingly stupid family and if I make $5 more than somebody else, they want to say that they can have some of that.

Because you're making more, you can help you have it. No, I don't. You're not getting my money. You can say no, because I have the family. I have because I've had to cut almost all of them [00:37:00] off because of who they are, what they've done, all of that kind of thing. I talked to one sister and I have.

Two others. My mom had four girls. I talked to one sister. The other two I won't talk to. I can't talk to a pathological liar. There's no reason to. Nothing that comes out of their mouth is gonna do me any good. The other one thought, my mom farted rainbows and butterflies and sunshine and holy crap.

Don't tell her she did it. Because you can't talk about dead people like that.

She did not like the comment I gave her, which was then go tell the people who are talking about Hitler. They have to stop because if we can't talk about dead people, we can't talk about Hitler no more. He just did not like that at [00:38:00] all. Cutting people out of your life. It sometimes becomes necessary.

And I'm gonna tell you, when I cut my mom off the last time, it was not easy. It was not easy. But she had done something unforgivable and I just could not anymore. I couldn't have her in my life anymore, so I cut her off Now. She died a year later without us ever having talked again. That put some stuff on me because, I wanted to be a good daughter.

I wanted to love, I did love her. I didn't particularly like her. I didn't like the decisions she made. I didn't like some of the choices. I didn't like any of it, and so it became necessary for us to split, but I still loved her. It's hard. I didn't, I'm not gonna lie. It's hard to cut somebody off [00:39:00] because they come back with the puppy dog eyes.

But I'm your sister. You love me, don't you? Yes, I do. And I love myself enough to know that you're toxic and I can't deal with you.

Go away. If you protect my peace, maybe I can come back later, but right now. You have some work to do on yourself. And it doesn't, just because you have to cut somebody off today doesn't mean you have to have them cut off for the rest of your life. Unless they're a pathological liar. Please don't that to a liar a lot.

Oh, but I changed. I'm better now. No wires, especially pathological ones, do not change. They're still lying, so that's important.

Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. [00:40:00]

Speaker: It's not easy. I cannot pretend it's not. It's not easy, but every day you have a choice. Do I want to live in terror, anxiety? Waiting for the next thing to happen. That's what it was with my mom. It was, oh, today's calm day. That's good. When's her next bad day gonna be?

When is she gonna start freaking out again? Pick and choose your battles, and you can slowly fade outta somebody's life. You don't have to do it abruptly and give them the answer as to why you're leaving. You can just say nothing and just stop calling them. If they text you, maybe do a short answer instead of a long one that you might have done previously.

Slowly ease it out so that they just don't see you anymore. [00:41:00] Sometimes they don't deserve to know why.

I don't think we talked about all of the things that we talked about today though, we said them as the personal goal mark can be brought into the business world and be plainly put together there. You need resilience and all of those steps in the things you do for work as well.

So take those steps. Takes advice given only thing I would change is maybe you can't cut out your boss. That doesn't go over very well when people start thinking that you're ignoring them. Maybe not them, but anybody else is there.

Speaker 2: Yeah. And find people that want you to succeed. If you're in a toxic environment. Find another environment to be in. It might mean you have to change jobs. And I know that's not easy, depending on what kind of means you have to do that, but it's hard to be productive and [00:42:00] successful in a toxic environment where people don't want you to succeed.

Speaker: Yes, very much so I thank you for coming on my podcast today. I believe we talked through all four of your steps Very well. Do you think so?

Speaker 2: I do. I do. And I really appreciate you having me on, Nikki. This has been a lot of fun.