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Against All Odds Podcast, The Less than 1% Chance with Maria Aponte
Maria highlights stories of people that have been the "less than 1% chance" and have come out of their situations thriving and seeing life as happening FOR them and not TO them! Inspiring and empowering stories that will show you that against all odds you can make it through anything!
Against All Odds Podcast, The Less than 1% Chance with Maria Aponte
Risk, Resilience, And The Art Of Reinvention with Tom LeNoble
What would you do after hearing “six months to live” not once, but three times? Our guest, executive leader and resilience coach Tom Lenoble, shares how he navigated life‑threatening illness while climbing through Palm, Walmart, and Facebook—and why he believes risk, resilience, and reinvention are muscles you can train. We dive into his powerful idea of terrible gifts, the hard experiences you would never choose that can still deliver meaning, creativity, and service if you’re willing to look for the seed within the storm.
Tom opens the door on career pivots and purpose, from a friends unexpected call that led to interviewing with 19‑year‑old Mark Zuckerberg to the scale lessons of Walmart where someone can monitor every store refrigerator nationwide. He contrasts the precision of large organizations with the scrappy freedom of startups and argues that the right answer to growth is often “yes.” Along the way, we explore what a philanthropic mindset looks like beyond money—time, talent, and presence—and why a sincere smile can be as transformative as a large check.
Grounded in practical habits, Tom’s approach is accessible: morning gratitude for simply waking up, evening reflections that honor both the good and the tough, daily walks in nature without headphones to reset your senses, and the discipline to be your own advocate when a system says “not possible.” We also talk about parenting resilience through simple rituals, reframing to‑do lists as get‑to‑do lists, and the courage to integrate every part of your story. His new book, My Life in Business Suits, Hospital Gowns, and High Heels, weaves memoir with actionable insights to help you lead, heal, and create from the whole of your life.
If this conversation sparks a shift, share it with someone who needs hope today. Subscribe for more stories that turn adversity into fuel, and leave a review to tell us the one risk you’ll take this week.
You can find Tom:
Instagram: @lenoble.tom
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/tomlenoble
Website: www.tomlenoble.com
Book: My Life in Business Suits, Hospital Gowns and High Heels
Love Your Life
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Follow Maria on YouTube HERE
Welcome back to the Against All Odds, the Less than 1% Chance podcast with your host, Marina Ponte, where we will hear stories of incredible people thriving against all odds. And my hope is that we can all see how life is really happening for us, even when we are the less than 1% chance.
SPEAKER_02:Hey, hey, welcome back to Against All Odds, the Less than 1% Chance podcast with your host, Maureen Aponte. I am so excited. This is season three. And my very first guest is named Tom Lenoble. So Tom Lenoble is an executive leader, international speaker, resilience coach, and philanthropist. His career spans from Fortune 500 giants, including MCI. Oh my gosh, I remember that. Walmart.com, Palm, Facebook Metam, as well as high growth startups. As a CEO of the Academy for Coaching Excellence and Leadership coach with the Miller Center in Santa Clara University. He trains and mentors leaders and entrepreneurs worldwide. A sought-after speaker and forthcoming author. I believe that's next week as of this recording. I'm so excited. Author of My Life in Business Suits, Hospital Gowns, and High Heels. Tom shares transformative insights on leadership, empowerment, risk, resilience, and reinvention. Having survived two life-threatening illnesses and three separate diagnoses of six months to live. He lives by his conviction. I'm still here. So welcome. I'm so excited to speak with you, Tom. Welcome to Against All Odds.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you, Maria. I'm thrilled to be here and I'm honored to be the first guest on your third season. Congratulations.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you. Thank you. I'm so, so excited. So tell me a little bit about how you use risk and resilience and reinvention in life to reach your goals. And give me a little bit of the background of how that even became a thing for you.
SPEAKER_00:Well, you know, risk, resilience, and reinvention are really important because we can use those in life. I know I've had two. You shared with your viewers that I've had two life-threatening illnesses, which is true. One of them I was told was terminal. And I've lived with metastatic cancer the last 13 years. And I was sick throughout the whole career you just shared with people. And yes, six months to live three times. Well, that requires you to take a few risks and use some resilience as well as reinvent yourself. And I look at risk and resilience very much like a muscle, just like your tricept or bicep that we exercise so they get stronger. The more we use risk and resilience, the stronger they become. And risk is about not really taking uncalculated things that we're going to get in danger, but taking the risk to do some of the things that we always wanted to do. Some of the things that we're afraid to do, we have fear, or maybe somebody will judge us for, or it's just too outrageous to really take a risk and try it and to stick with it, not just to when it gets difficult to retreat. And resilience for me is more than just getting up when you fall down. It's really how did you grow? What did you learn from it? And reinvention is something we get to do all the time. How do we reinvent ourselves when these things happen in life? You know, I hear people tell me their life is going like this and everything's just great. Well, that kind of reminds me of like a flat line on a monitor, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. You're not living.
SPEAKER_00:No, I see life as a sort of a series of ups and downs. And the perceived downs are the opportunities we get to learn and grow. And the ups are times we get to express what we've learned and grow knowing the downsides will come again.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. I have had to live with the understanding that life is always happening for me and not to me. And that's what I have to remind myself in those lows, because I've had many. I've had cancer four times. So I understand, I know. And you really have to kind of dig into okay, I understand that this is happening. However, where can I find the things that will help me feel the gratitude even in the low spots and help me reinvent myself? So I literally live by your mottos because it's been that constantly my entire life, which is kind of why my podcast is called what it is, because I've beaten the odds time and time again. And I know that there's people like yourself that have gone through difficult things. And I think that the passion project that that this is for me is because I know that it was all it wasn't just a thing that I needed to experience. I experienced it because when I share it, others can see that anything that they go through. And when my guests share their stories, the listeners can hear their own stories within your story and understand that oh, there's a different way of looking at this, there's a different perspective that we can have rather than you know, the normal woe is me that we kind of default to. It's really taking Yes.
SPEAKER_00:Well, they see possibilities. I'll tell you about what I call it. I call these things in our life terrible gifts.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Here's why. There are terrible things that happen in our life. We lose someone, we lose a pet, we lose a job, we get sick, on and on and on. Well, what I think happens when you're open to it is a month, a year, sometimes 10 years, there's a gift from something like that. And it's a terrible gift because we'd never sign up for it. But nonetheless, there's a gift that comes that allows you to reinvent yourself, allows you to see the possibility, allows you to take what some people would call taking lemons and creating lemonade. You know, I talked with a woman the other day and she lost her leg to MERSUP. Strange thing, went in for a normal operation and got this horrible infection. And after going through, of course, a period of what does this mean? She needed a cane or a walking stick and she just didn't like anything she found. And so in her own oven, in her own kitchen, she created her own acrylic walking stick. She wrapped the end around a wine bottle to make the handle. Well, today this woman has a worldwide business of these beautiful walking sticks and canes that people buy and love. Well, that is one of these ways that we have a terrible gift, right? We take something we would never choose to have happen, and what do we do with it, right? We can either choose to let it take us down, or what I see many people do, live in the past. And I have to remind people, my clients often, you know, there are no do-overs. So if you can learn something from it, do that. But to hang out there, you're missing out what's going on here today, which is where the magic is.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, absolutely. And I think that I've lived in multiple spots in my life. I've experienced so when I was 16, I experienced sexual assault. And for many years, I held on to that. And by no means do I condone what happened. Am I okay with what happened? No. However, I don't think that I would be the person that I am today if I wouldn't have experienced the things that I experienced, because from that came a sexually transmitted disease that created cancer in my body. And I continuously had that four times in my life. And so it was just like these events that happen back to back that I could have continued to be like, oh my God, this again live in the past. And I chose not to, I chose to reinvent myself and chose to speak up about my story rather than keep it to myself because I think that when we keep it to ourselves, it kind of hides in our body. So when there's dis-ease in your body, it creates disease, right?
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02:So I feel like that was something that I was holding on to for so long that it created a disease. And so I had the opportunity to reinvent myself as well. So I wholeheartedly believe everything that you're talking about.
SPEAKER_00:Maria, you got a terrible gift. It's something you would have never chosen to go through in your life ever. But not only have you received gifts from it in reinventing yourself, but right now in talking about it, you're shifting someone else's life. Yes. You're creating hope and possibility in someone that unfortunately has been through something similar, and they see there's a glimmer, a hope, whatever they can muster up of something on the other side. That's a terrible gift.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I agree. I love that. I love that so much. I think that's a great way of putting it. So your thought process of every storm runs out of rain. Give me some information on that because that sounds it's my favorite quote of Maya Angelou.
SPEAKER_00:Every storm runs out of rain because here's what I know to be true. No matter what storm is going on in your life, just like the storm that might happen outside your home, the sun is still shining behind the storm. The storm is going to run out of rain, the clouds are going to part, the sun will shine again. And it can be harrowing, it can be one of the worst things you go through. But here's what I also know to be true: those storms of life create fertile soil, just like the storms that pass by outside and wet the earth and create fertile soil there. And the real question is what are you gonna plant?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, absolutely. And it's like every thought is like your mind is your a garden, and every single thought, are you going to plant flowers or you're gonna plant weeds? And it's that's so beautiful. I love it so much. So give us a little bit of your background. How did you get to where you were? How what did you do in your career that got you to where you are now?
SPEAKER_00:Well, you know, if you look, if you read my book, you're gonna learn a lot about how it all happened. Can't wait. I'm gonna share you at the up front as it starts out in my little house that I grew in that we actually called the shack. We didn't have hot water, we didn't have a real refrigerator, we had an icebox, and things went on from there. But my life trajectory gave me the real opportunity after some difficult times and some really interesting times as a younger person. And I started latching on to knowing there was something I needed to do, something I wanted to do better in my life. And so I had this great corporate career. And you shared where some of the places I worked. One of my favorite stories is when I was sitting at my desk at Palm, I was home from travel, which was rare, and I was sitting in my office, and I got this phone call from a recruiter from a little company called Facebook. Well, Facebook was in colleges at the time, and I had no idea what it was. So I thanked them, told them I was working my dream job, and hung up the phone. And a friend called and said, I referred you to Facebook and you didn't even talk to them. And I said, What is Facebook? Long story short, and it's a good story. I interviewed with Mark Zuckerberg when he was 19.
SPEAKER_02:Oh my God.
SPEAKER_00:A great story of me going in a suit to an office. I ended up going to work there because I was so intrigued with the product and the willingness of a generation to share information, unlike mine. Well, when I arrived there, everyone was old enough to be my child, or I guess better said, I was old enough to be their parent. And what an environment that was, and what a wonderful time and exercise of learning and growing. I had the good fortune of working with many generations before, and I still do, but it was a great experience. At any rate, and then I did a whole lot more, and I fell in love, got married, traveled the world, and I knew I had more to share. I knew there was something about life's wisdom that I needed to bring forward, which is why I'm doing what I'm doing now, and how I wrote the book. So I had this great career, learned a tremendous amount. Like when you work at Walmart, let me tell you, you learn so many things. Let me give you an example.
SPEAKER_02:Tell me.
SPEAKER_00:I was sitting one time in a break room waiting to speak with the president of financial services about a project we were working on. And a woman walked in the break room and I said, Hi, I'm Tom. I'm from Walmart.com. What's your name? And she said, My name's Monica. I said, Well, Monica, what do you do? And she says, I monitor the refrigerators. Well, I looked around the break room, saw two refrigerators, and I'm thinking, okay. And she started laughing. She goes, I know what you're thinking. She said, Tom, from my desk, I monitor every refrigerator and freezer in every Walmart store in the country. I know if there's something wrong before they do in the store.
SPEAKER_02:Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00:Mind-boggling, right? Or sitting in a meeting and having them report how many strawberries they sold around the country. Well, I think about going to buy my little cartner, maybe a flat in season, right? Well, they talk about the millions of dollars they just made off of selling strawberries in one week. The scale and how they manage that efficiency, mind-boggling. Boy, did I learn so much, right? Conversely, you work at a startup when it's just getting started. How fascinating is it that you get to roll up your sleeves, you learn and get to do everything. It's the greatest experience. In fact, I'm often asked, Tom, which do you like better? You work for the biggest, do you work for the smallest? Which was best? My answer is yes.
SPEAKER_02:All the above.
SPEAKER_00:All of the above. I learned so much from both of them. But that learnings and those learnings from that career you were sharing is what allows me to do today, along with a lot that I've learned about just life in general and dealing with my health and illness and some just what we all experience, some those terrible gifts that come along in life. And here we are today. And I get to use all this with my clients and speak about it and work with a lot of nonprofits as well as in the corporate setting. It's it's just, I'm so fortunate.
SPEAKER_02:That is amazing. And I absolutely love those kind of stories because it so I've gone skydiving, right? And I was trying talking to my friend a few weeks ago, and he's like, I'm turning 35. And I was like, dude, you need to do it, just do it. And he was like, Oh, I don't know. And I tried to find the like that moment, that little feeling that I could describe to him. And it was not even when you are like free-falling, but the moment that parachute goes up and you see how actually tiny you are in this massive universe, it's mind boggling, and it's so beautiful, and it shows you that like even from that little tiny speck that you are, you can make such a difference. And oh nonetheless, he's gonna go skydiving. So I'm so excited.
SPEAKER_00:You're gonna give us all to go. You know, we're all want to go, right?
SPEAKER_02:So it's just one of the most exhilarating experiences. I went after I found out I had cancer the third time, and I was just like, you know what? If I'm gonna go, I'm gonna do everything that I want to do. And so it was that moment of just switching that instead of the, oh my gosh, what am I gonna do? I'm a single mom of three kids. You know, they're still in formative years. And what am I gonna do? What if I'm not here? And rather than that, I was like, all right, let's start living rather than just sitting in this not fun space.
SPEAKER_00:You know, here's what you're saying, and what people really want to hear, and I hope your viewers are listening, is so many of us wait until something like this happens in our life to realize I'm gonna do whatever it is I want to do. I'm gonna do these things. And what I think we both can share is knowing how that happens, is don't wait. Don't wait, do the things that you want to do, go do them now because the fact is, we've all woke up this morning. Some people didn't.
SPEAKER_02:What a blessing.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, some people didn't. And so today is the day it's like I love this saying that I hear from somebody that I like very much, somebody that's a leader, and they talk about my to-do list. Well, they reframe that it's not my to-do list, it's my get-to-do list.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Not everybody gets to do a get-to-do list, right?
SPEAKER_02:Yes, absolutely. I love that. And it's making that shift of life happening for me or to me. It's like, is that to-do list gonna be for me? Like, I'm choosing to see life from a grateful place and from I woke up this morning. What a blessing! Let's go.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, and you know, I think we don't think about it, especially as when we're younger, of every day we're aging. And believe me, when you get older, you think about it a little bit more. But the proverbial light is coming, and it may be a lot farther away when we're young, but it's still coming, and you see it a little more closely as time goes on. But this one life that we get, this one wonderful life that for as far as we know, the great mystery, we can have all our belief and faith in many things, but it's the greatest mystery is what happens when we make our transition. But what I do know is this time is short relatively to everything else that's going on. That I remember thinking, I can remember my parents telling me in their 60s that how fast time was going. And I was like, I, you know, you're just old. Well, you know, I look at that now, and when I hear young people saying time's going really fast, so this awareness that this time that we have is finite. And do all these things, you know, I get to talk to people, it's great, and CEOs that are looking at what they want to do next in life. And one of my first questions I asked them was, Well, what is it that you always wanted to do? And it's interesting, I would say, nine times out of ten, the things that they really wanted to do, there's some reason why they think they can't and shouldn't. You know, the coulda, woulda, shouldas of life. Someone told me I could never do that, or what will they think if I do that? Or I should be doing something different than that. Well, if that's truly what you want to do, there's so many people we could talk about. I'm one of them, that when you start doing what you really wanted to do in life, it doesn't discount what you've done because your life, part of everything you've done, is the summation of who you are today. And without those things, you wouldn't be who you are today. But starting today, look at how you can do those things that you really want to do in life and go for them because that light's coming.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Ah, absolutely, absolutely agreeing. I love that so much. So, how can you use the philanthropic mindset, which is about more than just your checkbook?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I'm a philanthropist, and I've been fortunate that I'm able to do it. And I my passion is underserved communities, it's youth in the arts, first gen students, relevant women issues today, and other things that I have a passion about. And what I learned along the journey was whenever I shared that I was a philanthropist, or somebody found out, they would say to me, Tom, you know, I love that. And when I have money, I want to be a philanthropist. Well, here's the truth. It's what drove me to start talking about the philanthropic mindset.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:What we all need to understand are open to is that your smile, a hello, you never know how it's going to change someone's day or life, is a philanthropic action. Right. We talk about time, talent, and treasure. Using your talent doesn't have to be you're a great singer or you pay a musical instrument. It could be that you just make good deviled eggs. Yeah. Your time that you give to people and how you use that time and your treasure, of course. And I remind the nonprofits that I work with all the time: the thousand dollar check you get is no different than four quarters that somebody gives you. It comes from the same spirit, it comes from someone's wealth, it comes from the same intention. Now, you may feel you can do more with a thousand dollars, but never forget where it came from. So that's why I feel passionate about the philanthropic mindset because all of us can be a philanthropist and express it in a way that's not just about money, having your name on a building or going to a gala.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I love that so much. As you can tell, my my favorite color is purple, my hair is purple, everything. I usually have a purple shirt on. I have purple pants today, so you can't really see it in the video. However, like my office at work is all decorated in purple something. And so the energy that I bring, and I feel like purple is my favorite because it's like calming and it's beautiful, and to me, it just puts me in a good space. So I always am wearing something purple no matter what. And so one of the ladies at work always sees me walking down the hallway and she's like, There's my purple energy girl. That makes me feel so happy because I know that my purple energy just means that I am giving all of the goodness and all of the smiles and all of the good energy that I have to others for absolutely no cost to me. I'm just simply like radiating it. And I think that I love that because sometimes it does become like we think we can only give when we have to give. And I think that it's so much more when you give of yourself, when you give your time, when you give your energy to anything. I think that's the kind of the mindset that you're you're you're using your philanthropic mindset.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, I love it. As your philanthropy, because purple, study the color purple in some places, it means something very healing, yes, it means something very calming, and some even people believe there's a presence that comes with purple. And so, whether you believe that or not, I do purple is your thing, and it's your philanthropic mindset of how you express your philanthropy.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I had a lady tell me one time that I have very healing hands, and I was like, Oh, that's very interesting. But if you think about it, I'll hug my kids and that intention of like, I just want the best for you, and I want ever you to be happy and healthy, and all of that. Like, I do. I think we when we give that type of energy, we do have healing in ourselves to give to others. And I just yeah, I love that so much.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, the best.
SPEAKER_02:So I want to hear about your book. So it does come out. What date exactly? Because it might be around the time that this is launching.
SPEAKER_00:It comes out next week on November 4th. So by now, or when you see this, it's probably already out and hopefully doing very well. This is it. And I can't tell you what it's like to get your book that you've worked on for so long delivered to you. The publisher sent it to me, and it's so great to have it in my hand. And there's so many activities going on. And I'll tell you what the book's about. It's a memoir that kind of crosses over into self-help. And what it does is it takes the stories of my life, the business suits, the hospital gowns, and high heels, or better said, in control, being controlled, and out of control. And it takes them, it helps us see that the who we are today, the life we've lived, is the sum parts of all your parts of life. And some of us think the parts of our life maybe should be private, or they're a little outrageous, or maybe we even have shame for them, or that you know, somebody's just not going to understand. Well, the fact is, who you are today is the sum of all those parts. In fact, one of those things, if you hadn't had that happen or done them, would disrupt who you are today. In fact, you might not be who you are today. So that's what the book gives to the reader with some actionable things after every chapter. And it starts out in Little Jacksonville Beach, Florida, and what we call the shack. And it ends up with a health challenge and a lot of stories in between that um I'm hoping that everyone loves. And I'm sure there are so far, it's got great feedback and there's lots going on this week. I'm all over the place, but it's all over, it's exciting. It's already on Amazon and it'll launch.
SPEAKER_02:I'm gonna go and order it. I'm so excited. I love reading. I usually, if I'm busy working, I can still have a book in my ear and just I love it. And it's, you know, I could go from fantasy to self-help and all in between with no problem. I just I love learning and I love what our mind does when we're either reading with our eyeballs or listening to books because we're told that after some time our imagination isn't valid or isn't something that you should rely on. And I think that should be the complete opposite. And I feel like reading opens that up and just allows everything to just I agree.
SPEAKER_00:You're gonna get all that in one book, by the way.
SPEAKER_02:I'm so excited.
SPEAKER_00:Ebook, paperback, hardback, and just for you, Maria, an audible book. So you'll be able to listen to it through your headphones. But uh everything you said in this book.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, I love it so much. That is so exciting. I am that is one of my get-to-do list uh things that I want to do as well. I feel like my journey has been against all odds, and I feel purposeful with it. I was supposed to be a twin and my mom had a miscarriage, and I stayed, which is not a normal thing that happens. Usually, you know, the woman's body will expel everything that's there. I fought, I guess, hard for that not to happen, and I'm still here. And I think that, you know, that there's a meaning behind that that is powerful. And I feel like the same thing, you know, with your story that you know, with health challenges, you kind of go through those kind of things that I'm still here. I have so much more purpose um than just still being here. I think that it opens up the doors to that thought process.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I encourage you to write your book. In fact, I encourage your viewers, if you've got a book in you, I'll tell you it is a cathartic experience. Yeah. In fact, when I wrote the book, I put it in a closet. It was such a moving experience for me. I was like, oh, I'm done with this. I got what I needed. And then a few years later, I decided I either need to finish this book or trash it because it really needed to be edited. And it's a really amazing experience. But the best part about it is that you get to share something that can be of service to others about the experience you had. And I just love to hear you say, I'm still here. That's my motto in life, and I love hearing you use those same words because let's face it, all of us have. Been through something and we're still here. And we all face these challenges in life. And every storm runs out of rain. You can get to the other side of them and use it for something good. I found that most often being of service to others, you know, it's just so true. You get so much in return without even realizing it. And it's not like a tit for tat thing. You do something, you get something back. It's not about that. It's about just coming from this place of service and of gratitude that we are here in this magical place in this magical life, and that we're able to experience some of the things that we do, the terrible gifts and those beautiful ones that are wrapped in hand to us.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, I love that so much. So, what limiting beliefs, I guess you could say, or roadblocks did you have to overcome in order to get to where you are today?
SPEAKER_00:Well, you know, one of the limiting beliefs that happened, and I've maybe you experienced it on this journey, is you'll hear that everything from we can't do anything for you, or that's not possible, or there's nothing, you can't get that medication, whatever. And I guess it's something in my personality. When I hear those words, I'm kind of like, yeah, watch this.
SPEAKER_02:Watch me.
SPEAKER_00:And I've learned that we just have to be our own advocate. You know, there's I was taught as a kid that, you know, you put other things before you. And I think the reality, at least in my what I've learned in this life, is for us to be available for others, for us to be available even for our faith or belief, whatever that might be, we have to have ourselves. We have to, you're going to be with yourself from your first breath through your last breath. And being our own advocate, taking our own action, and when we hear something is not possible, not just taking it for granted that it's not possible, but looking a little further because I'm here to tell you that out of what's impossible is a lot of possible.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, absolutely. I could not agree more. I definitely feel all of that way down in my soul because it it's literally been my life. So I love that. So, what daily habits or rituals would you say helped you get to the level of success and continue to reach your potential?
SPEAKER_00:Well, you know, some of the things that I do for myself, one is spending time in nature. I walk every day, I get out of nature, and I don't listen to music. I try and use all my senses to experience what I'm doing. It's for me an amazing way to kind of get the cobwebs out, to declutter and get the brain back in surf. Plus, it's let's face it, it's healthy for you. The other thing that I do is every night before I go to bed, I express gratitude. I even talk to people that I know it sounds crazy, but I talk to people that aren't here anymore and check in and share with them what's gone on. And every morning when I wake up, the first thing I do is I say thank you that I woke up today. I never forget some people don't. And I get to have another day to be able to do what I'm doing. And one of the biggest lessons is to remember there are no do-overs. So many of us live in the past, so many of us have things that happen to us, and we act as if we're going to change them. There are no do-overs. Learn from them, yes, but be here now. If we get too far in the future, other than the things we have to do, of making sure there's food in the refrigerator and the lights are on and those kinds of things. Right here is where the magic is. And right here is the only thing that's certain.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I agree. So 100% agree. When my kids were little, before I dropped them off at school, I was a single mom for a very long time. So it was just me and my three kids. I would tell them, before I drop you off, give me three things that you're grateful for. Tell me something wonderful will happen to me today, four times because there's four of us. It was a ritual. We did it every day. And I would just say, tell me you're wonderfuls. And they would express these things. And so when I would pick them up at the end of the day, I would say, tell me something good that happened today, and tell me something that was tougher. Because I wanted to always have them acknowledge that there's tough things that happen, but there's always something good to come out of it on out of every single day, you know. And I had to learn that for myself so that I could then, you know, teach that to them. But it was starting your day with gratitude and kind of ending your day like reflecting on that. So I love that's you know what you do.
SPEAKER_00:You know, they're gonna know this forever. You know, you'll get through the teenage, maybe you have already, but the teenage years that we all went through that are a little tumultuous. But I have my youngest is 17, so yeah, they're gonna remember this later in life because what you're doing is you're truly doing what I call true parenting because life isn't all roses and rainbows. There's the difficult parts of life, but we can add balance to it because we can look forward to things that are gonna happen and we can learn to take the things that weren't so great and try and find a way to learn from them and move on. It's so important in this life because we're you're going to have challenges. It's what life is about. Life is here, I believe, to teach us and to let us learn. And everything from what we came here to do to how we reach our goals and dreams once we figure it out, and then realize that we can even change them and do something different if we want. But I love that you're doing that with them because it really sets something for them. And I guarantee you, the energy they take from that into the school. And when they talk about it, which I know they do, other people are talking about it. And some of those kids go home and say, you know, this kid comes and they talk about the what they talked about and what's going to happen today, and they have this process, and somebody's going to hear that. Not everybody, but somebody will. And yeah, only do one thing at a time. We can only change one person, and one person isn't enough if we can influence them.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely. I uh yeah, I tried to teach them, I think, from my own. I was always very upfront with everything that I went through and very open with them. I do not believe in secrets and I believe in talking about the things that we're going through and so forth. And one of the things that I wanted them to really take away from all of, you know, as they're growing up, is that we need to put our oxygen mask on first. I couldn't be the mom that I was to you if I didn't take care of me first. And it's kind of being selfishly selfless because it sounds very selfish that you're putting you first, but I'm gonna be here for you.
SPEAKER_00:You know, I'd like to reframe that a little bit because we could call it being selfish, but we're really not being selfish. We're doing something that we're just taking care of the self. Yes. And we know that when we take care of the self, we're better equipped to care for others and to be there for others. So I wouldn't call it selfish so much as just you're taking care of the self, which allows you to take care of others. So it's just part of what you do.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, absolutely. So hope that those are the things that they take away from you know, growing up in my household.
SPEAKER_00:They do, they do, I assure you.
SPEAKER_02:Well, Tom, this has been amazing. I am so incredibly grateful for our conversation today. I'm so excited for your book to come out. I will go pre-order because I definitely feel like that is a story that I definitely don't want to miss. And so I will put all of the information, your social media and the links to your book and everything in the show notes. So, listeners, please go look out for that. And Tom, seriously, this has been amazing. It has been such a pleasure chatting with you today. And yeah, I'm so excited for you.
SPEAKER_00:Maria, it was delighted to be with you and your viewers. It was not only enjoyable, we talked about meaningful things and we shared some things that hopefully others will get something out of. And thank you so much for having me on.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, absolutely. So, listeners, thank you so much for joining us today. I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. Peace out, guys. Love your life. Bye bye.
