From Terminal Diagnosis to Life on His Terms (Terry Tucker PT!)

Terry Tucker is a former NCAA Division I college basketball player, a girls’ high school basketball coach, and a stage IV cancer warrior who has been battling an ultra-rare form of melanoma for over 13 years. Despite being told he had two years to live, Terry has transformed his journey into one of inspiration, hope, and strength—sharing his story to help others face adversity with purpose and courage. He is also the author of Sustainable Excellence: Ten Principles to Leading Your Uncommon and Extraordinary Life.

Segment Summary:
In this powerful opening segment, Terry shares the moment his life changed forever—the shocking cancer diagnosis that came from a friend and doctor, and the emotional toll of hearing he had a rare, terminal disease with no known cure. But instead of succumbing to fear or despair, Terry reveals how he mentally reframed his prognosis, drawing on his background as an athlete and coach to stay focused, goal-driven, and mentally strong.

From hearing, “You have two years to live,” to deciding to rewrite his own story, Terry’s perspective on purpose, mindset, and what truly drives survival is both humbling and incredibly motivating.

Key Topics:

• The unexpected discovery of a rare melanoma on the bottom of his foot
• What it was like to be diagnosed by a friend—and the weight of that conversation
• The mental shift from “death sentence” to “life sentence”
• How athletic discipline and personal values shaped his fight
• The importance of long-term goals and emotional motivation in healing
• Why mindset matters more than medical odds

Guest Contact & Resources:
📘 Sustainable Excellence: Ten Principles to Leading Your Uncommon and Extraordinary Life – available wherever books are sold
🌐 MotivationalCheck.com – Terry’s blog, resources, and speaking info
📣 Follow Terry on Instagram: @terry.tucker.1

Let me know if you'd like this adapted for a full episode, or if you’d like a thumbnail or caption to go with this one. Terry's story is incredibly powerful—we can make this hit hard in all the right ways.

Find out more about Kali and the show HERE: https://humanityoffame.com/

Transcript

0:00

Terry's story is one of strength, resilience, and overcoming life's toughest challenges by overcoming adversity and using life's challenges as stepping stones for growth. You had been battling terminal cancer for 13 years. Can you take us back to the moment you first received your diagnosis? Sure, so I was a girls high school basketball coach in Texas. I had a callus break open on the of my left foot right below my third toe and initially didn't think much of it because as a coach you're on your feet a lot. And after a few weeks of it not healing, I made an appointment and went to see a podiatrist, a foot doctor friend of mine, and he took an x-ray and he said, Terry, I think you have a little cyst in there and I can cut it out. And he did, and he showed it to me. It was just a little gelatin sack 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. And then two weeks later, I get the call from him that certainly changed my life. And as I mentioned, he was a friend of mine and the more difficulty he was having explaining to me what was going on, the more frightened I was becoming. Until finally, he just laid it out for me. He said, 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 said, because your cancer is so uncommon, I recommend you go to MD Anderson Cancer Center and get treated. And that started my odyssey through this disease. Wow. And to receive that information, who's not only a doctor, but also a friend, I can't even imagine the state of mind he was in, you know, having to deliver that news to you. Yeah. I mean, he didn't exactly just come right out with it. He was kind of beaten around the bush, like I said, which made me more nervous. It's like, why isn't he just telling me everything's okay? Right. So. Right. At that time, you were a coach of a girls basketball team. As a former NCAA Division I college basketball player, you faced high pressure situations before. How did those experiences shape your approach for fighting this disease? Cancer? I think my whole life really had been a lead up to, okay, Terry, you've got this terminal illness. And the other thing that I left out from my first answer was when I was diagnosed at MD Anderson, they told me I'd be dead in two years. They said, we have nothing to offer. We have surgery. If it's somewhere we can cut it out, we'll cut it out. Otherwise we have nothing to offer you. And I thought, well, you've given me a death sentence. Maybe I can try to turn that death sentence into a life sentence. And, you know, I've always wanted my life to be based on the decisions that I made, not on the ones I didn't or that somebody else made for me. And so, and this is going to sound kind of funny, but this is kind of how I looked at it. Doctors are kind of like bookies in Vegas. They look at you and say, you know, based on your age, based on your overall level of health and based on your stage of cancer, you're going to live X. But what doctors don't know, and I think this is kind of what, you know, this goes back to what I was prepped for in my life. What doctors don't know is you want to see your child graduate from high school. You want to see them graduate from college. You want to walk them down the aisle. You want to play with your grandkids and having something to look forward to having some goal out there that you're trying to obtain is incredibly powerful in helping your mind to override all the apathy and distress that your body is facing. Absolutely.