Unlocking True Resilience with Tom LeNoble

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Timestamps:
00:00 – Cold Open & Intro
06:21 – What Resilience Really Means: Beyond Just Getting Back Up
06:53 – Resilience as a Muscle: Building Strength Through Challenges
08:27 – Overcoming the Fear of the Unknown and Staying Present
10:56 – “Terrible Gifts”: Turning Life’s Pain Into Purpose
19:31 – Leadership & Resilience: How Great Leaders Use Their Own Struggles
23:18 – The Role of Resilience in Leadership and Business Success
31:32 – AI and Technology: How Embracing Change Makes Us Stronger
35:43 – Tom’s Book: Business Suits, Hospital Gowns, and High Heels
37:06 – Reinventing Yourself: Turning Adversity Into Opportunity
43:59 – Final Thoughts: How to Use Resilience to Create Your Best Life

Tom LeNoble (00:02.00)
I personally think we sorely need, again, more in-person. This kind of where we’re in boxes has got many benefits to us. We’re able to talk with you and I. We’re having a conversation today we probably would have never met.

But I was in a marriage that ended and it was very, very difficult. It was a very hard thing to go through. However, I see today that what I learned from that is.

Skot Waldron (00:32.00)
When I’m not hosting Unlocked, I’m speaking at events all over the world. I’m helping leaders and I’m helping teams communicate better. I’m helping them build trust faster and actually enjoy working together. I’ve spoken for companies like The Home Depot. I’ve spoken at national architectural firms. I’ve spoken for pharmaceutical company offsites. I’ve spoken at associations, you name it.

With 99% of attendees of all those events, over 1800 people have reviewed me at this point. 99% of them saying they got some value. That’s pretty awesome. Even the caterers have thanked me. And if they are thanking me and they’ve heard a lot of talks and they’re busy doing their jobs, that’s saying something. If you’re an event planner looking for a speaker who’s really easy to work with, trust me, I want to be the last thing you’re worried about on event day. I’m going to take care of you. And who actually delivers value for your audience that they are going to use on Monday morning when they return to the office, then let’s talk.

We have talked about resiliency on this show before. It’s been a long, long while. But when I heard Tom, when he reached out to me and asked to share his thoughts on my show, you know, I went out and looked at some stuff and looked at some past interviews he had done and oh my goodness, y’all. I was like, this Tom has to be on my show because of the way he talks about resiliency, his background, his stories, his ability to understand it from not from just a corporate standpoint, the way we talk about it, but from a life standpoint, from a human standpoint of the things that we go through in life. It was so real. I’m so grateful that Tom was on the show today and you’re going to get to hear all of that stuff. And it was so good, so good talking to him.

So, Tom LeNoble has led in boardrooms and fought for his life in hospital rooms, surviving multiple life-threatening illnesses. From blazing trails at Facebook. He was one of the first employees there. Walmart.com, Palm (HP), and MCI (Verizon) to now guiding global changemakers as CEO of the Academy for Coaching Excellence and a leadership coach at Santa Clara University’s Miller Center for Global Impact. Tom helps others navigate adversity with courage and clarity. And he’s going to do that for you right now. Here we go.

Tom, I am so excited to talk to you today. And I think my audience is really excited to listen to you today. So, let’s do it.

Tom LeNoble (03:22.00)
Skot, it’s great to be with you. I’ve really been looking forward to it.

Skot Waldron (03:25.00)
Very cool. Can you, I want to start off with a little story. I’m trying to do this more now on my show. But I want to tie people into this story of you and what’s going on and how we can set this whole topic up for resilience.

Tom LeNoble (03:44.00)
You know, I’ve had to deal with resilience a lot in my life before I even knew what resilience was. If you read the book, you’ll find I grew up in the shack. We actually called it the shack, and no hot water and no refrigerator and life certainly changed. But I remember waking up one day around five and realizing in my little five-year-old brain, this is not what this is supposed to look like after I went to school at an early age. But in my adult life, I’ll share with you.

You know, when a doctor tells you for the third time that you have six months to live and you chuckle, well, let me tell you secret. If you want to get some doctors upset or concerned is when they tell you you’ve got six months to live, and you give them a laugh. But I already knew something different because I’ve had two life threatening illnesses. The first one I was told was terminal and I’ve lived with metastatic cancer the last 13 years, soon to be 14. And as you can see, I’m still here. And that has required a lot of not only risk, but resilience and reinvention, because I’ve taken a lot of risks, done a lot of things when I’ve been told there were no options, there was nothing to do or been instructed to do something that I didn’t feel was right for me, and resilience to get through that in a variety of ways. And then looking at how one reinvents themselves.

For me, resilience isn’t just about getting up after we fall down. It’s how do we grow from it? What do we do with that experience?

Skot Waldron (05:18.00)
That’s a really good point. I mean, we talk about bouncing back all the time and being resilient from coming back and coming back and coming back. I had one, a gentleman on my show one time who’s talking about the fact that, you know, we’re standing in a boxing ring, and we get knocked down and we get back up and we get knocked down. We get back up, we get knocked down and people, you know, we celebrate that as resilience sometimes. But the idea is he was like, stop getting up, like for a second. Like, why did you get knocked down in the first place? And let’s figure that out so that we don’t get keep getting knocked down for that same thing over and over again and learn from the experience and grow from it. So, I thought it was interesting the way he…

Tom LeNoble (06:06.00)
Absolutely. You know, I find in my practice with so many people, it amazes me sometimes, but I think it’s just how we’re wired sometimes is how many people live in the past. It’s as if there’s going to be a do-over or like where our phones where we watch a video and there’s that little circle that says, time, that you can go back 10 seconds. That’s not life.

So, get here in the present, learn what you can. But I love this boxing analogy, even though I’m not a big boxing fan, but I’d like to think that the greats not only got back up, but when the match was over, they strategize with themselves and their trainers on what happened, looking at it, understanding it, of what they could learn and grow from it so they don’t get knocked down so many times.

Skot Waldron (06:53.00)
Exactly. I mean, we talk about resilience as either something, I mean, I think some people talk about is either something you have or you don’t. But from your lived experience, what do you think actually builds resilience? And then what do you think quietly destroys it?

Tom LeNoble (07:11.00)
Yeah, I love this question because I look at resilience as a muscle. Just like you exercise your bicep or triceps to show your guns, if you exercise the resilience muscle, it serves you better and better, faster and stronger because you build on it and you learn on it and it’s more available to you. So, I think that that’s how I view resilience, is how we use it to our advantage and build it up. So that, when things come along in life. And the reason I say this is often I find that people forget the evidence. And what I mean by that is what we’re presented with, and especially if it’s really difficult, you know there’s, we lose someone, there’s a breakup, we lose our pet, we lose our job, whatever it is, whatever we’re challenged with.

It’s like it’s a new event that we have to overcome, and we forget the evidence we have of the things we’ve already done in our life that got us to where we are. And sometimes just taking a moment and allowing yourself to, I like to call it puff up a little bit on what you’ve accomplished before and what you’ve already gotten through is a great springboard into whatever you’re facing today.

Skot Waldron (08:27.00)
So, what do you think people are focusing on too much of instead of those things?

Tom LeNoble (08:34.00)
Yeah, I think they end up focusing too much on the fear of the unknown, of how the outcome might be, what it might look like to others, that I’m not strong enough. Somebody told me I couldn’t do it. Somebody told me I shouldn’t do it. Or sometimes we give our power owe to others.

My oncologist calls me a clinical trial of one, which is certainly not the definition, but it cracks me up because they tell me things all the time that I should do and I sort of take it in and I make a decision on what’s going to happen. So, I think that’s part of this is how do we in these instances where we’re required to step up and be resilient, how are we fully present and looking at it with clear eyes and being in control of our destiny, certainly learning from others, taking in for information, but how do we remain in charge and not give it away?

Skot Waldron (09:32.00)
And you talk about resiliency being our greatest currency, the thing that we should value the most. How is that had taken meaning in your own life?

Tom LeNoble (09:48.00)
Well, if you think about it, you can have a job and lose it. You can have a great title and lose it. The stock market can crash. You can have a disaster and, God forbid, lose your home or something worse. But resilience is your greatest currency because it can’t be taken away from you. You can only build it and use it and continue to make it stronger. It’s not susceptible to those other, we’ll just call them currencies of life.

Skot Waldron (10:23.00)
That’s interesting. It can’t be taken away from you. This is true. This is true. I think that I never really thought about it that way. And as we go through life and things happen to us, it’s kind of easy to kind of wallow in it. Do you ever find people that just want to wallow in it that don’t want to bounce back?

Tom LeNoble (10:48.00)
People love to wallow. I have this strategy because I am guilty of the wallow. You know, I get a bad lab result or God forbid it’s time to do, I mean, I’ve had enough radiation, Skot, that I could be your nightlight. I’ve had so much that I glow in the dark, put me in the corner and I’ll illuminate your room at night. You know it’s this kind of thing where we’re doing this and we’re not realizing what our power is in it and how we cannot do this.

So, what I do is, I get that. I look at my phone at the time. I say, Tom, 35, 40 minutes, go for it. Scream at God, stomp your feet, cry, whatever you want to do, and then get on with it because being there isn’t going to move you forward. And I know everyone can’t do this, but let’s face it, whatever you’re being faced with, there’s only one option, however long you want to wallow, is what are you going to do with it?

Here’s what I call these things in life. And I’ll also give you an example of someone that I just love that mirrors what I’m going to say. I call them terrible gifts. What’s a terrible gift? Something happens in our life. It will if it hasn’t. We lose somebody we love. We lose a relationship. We lose a job. We get sick. We lose a pet. They’re terrible. It’s a terrible experience. What I have found is whether it’s a month, a year, five years, some gift comes from it if we’re willing to see it, if we’re willing to embrace it.

I know this woman, she was a star athlete. She went in the hospital for a very simple procedure, got MRSA, lost her leg. There she is with a cane in a wheelchair. Life has changed.

What can we do with that? We could wallow in that forever. But here’s what she did. She didn’t like the canes, and the walking sticks she found. She made one in her own oven in her kitchen out of acrylic, fashioned the handle around a wine bottle. Today, that woman has an international company making these gorgeous canes and walking sticks for people so they can be proud of what they’re having to use or feel better about having to use that, we’ll call it aid to help them move.

This is a terrible gift. How we take these terrible things that happen in life and what do we do with them because it happened.

Skot Waldron (13:22.00)
What’s your terrible gift? I mean, obviously, cancer is pretty terrible. My mother had Hodgkin’s lymphoma during COVID, and that was pretty rough. But I’m interested how you perceive that.

Tom LeNoble (13:38.00)
Well, we know, certainly illness has been a terrible gift for me. My life has turned far more. I am more focused on service to others today. I always was a bit, but that is my mission. Everything I do feeds my philanthropy and I have things that I support. So, to me, the terrible gift of illness is who I became out of illness, how I empower others who are going through illness and the ability for me to inspire others to see possibilities when there seems to be none.

I think that another way is that, you know, I could look at a terrible gift, and I usually don’t talk about this. But I was in a marriage that ended and it was very, very difficult. It was a very hard thing to go through. However, I see today that what I learned from that is we can’t always have what we love, just like a diabetic can’t have sugar because they may love it. An alcoholic may not have alcohol because they love it. Whatever that might be that you use a metaphor is the same. That there’s things in our lives that we can’t love. But what happens after that is, look what I’ve done after that with my life of using that terrible gift as a springboard in how I serve others.

Skot Waldron (15:09.00)
That’s powerful. I think when I think about my own life and the things that I’ve experienced and I almost, I don’t know what this is. I don’t know if my terrible gift is the fact that I’ve never really had, I mean, I don’t know, I’m going to say this, but anything that terrible happened to me. I mean, I got in a car crash when I was 16 and everybody thought I was going to die. I don’t necessarily even remember that because I was out, right? I had amnesia and short-term amnesia and I didn’t remember it. So, was that terrible? I don’t know. Like for me, it probably wasn’t. For everybody else, it probably was. But there’s other things I just feel super spoiled in life and blessed, whatever, if you want to call it that.

And I feel like I’ve been missing, because I have people in my life that have had death or sickness or extreme job loss or poverty or something like that or abuse in their life. I have just been, I’ve just not had any of that. And so, I’m always anticipating the day, Tom, when I have that happen to me and how I’m going to handle it. I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. My dad was diagnosed with dementia a year and a half ago and it’s rough. They lived three doors up from us. So, you know, I help out a lot, but that’s rough. So, I’ve started to mourn that and it’s rough.

Tom LeNoble (16:50.00)
Yes. And what has that given you that you’re being of service to your father?

Skot Waldron (16:56.00)
It’s giving me an appreciation for, I will say this, and I don’t know, my first thing is to say it’s given me an appreciation for my mom and her ability to care and to be the person she is and just to celebrate her from going through cancer and going through COVID same time and still being a top salesperson in her office for her real estate and now caring for my dad as much as she does. I see the toll it’s taken on her. And so, it’s given me a big perspective. I always kind of knew she was that, but it’s really given me a huge perspective.

Tom LeNoble (17:44.00)
Well, it could be said that that’s your terrible gift, but I will share this with you. I went through this with my father. And as I look back on it, the gift of being there for him and helping him, him getting dementia and ultimately the equivalent of Alzheimer’s was terrible. And it was not, the end was not the best, although the actual end was magical. It’s in my book. And I encourage people to read that. The death of my brother, my mother, and my father, I was present for somewhat of a death doula to them. But I would share with you that you may not realize that you’ve gotten that gift. But I’m going to assure you, Skot, there’ll be one day when you look back on this and you’ll remember this conversation and you will think about that this potentially was a terrible gift.

The other thing is sometimes terrible gifts are given to others. What you just said about your car accident at 16 while you don’t remember it, the fact that you just spoke to the fact that people didn’t think you would be here and you are here, not only are you here, you’re contributing in many ways, is a gift to others. So, you know, I talk to people and when somebody tells me their life is cruising along like this, that reminds me sort of a flat heartbeat.

I think life is sort of a series. And for me, what people perceive as downs is for me are where we have opportunities to learn and grow. And the ups are where we get to use that and express what we’ve learned, knowing that life is probably going to give us another opportunity to learn and grow again.

Skot Waldron (18:25.00)
That is how life works, Tom. That is how it works. We talk about comebacks. We love comeback stories and this idea of comebacks and what happens and how they overcame adversity. But rarely do we talk about, I think, the cost of recovery, the cost of that comeback. And I want to shift to a leader perspective now. And I want to ask you, what does resilience asked from people that most leaders don’t really prepare for.

Tom LeNoble (20:03.00)
You know, I have even trademarked Resileader, which is combining resilience and leadership. And I coach on that. I speak on it. So, it’s a great question for me. I think in today’s world, leaders are challenged to be more than just a manager, more than just a someone who gives orders.

Today and in the diverse workforce, we have the most diverse workforce we’ve ever had. We have Zoomers in the workforce and we still have Baby Boomers in the workforce, which is unheard of, the span of 20s to even 70s of people working together. And the challenges that that bring in, people are demanding more of people to be more of coaches, more of how do they get things done through others. And when things happen that don’t appear to be really good or be challenging or things are happening, how do we use that to inspire people to do better and to do greater?

So, to me, resilience for leadership is how do we take the things again that we’ve learned? How do we use them? How have we grown from them? How do we share them and help people through their experiences by the resilience we’ve expressed in either motivating them individually, motivating them as teams, motivating them as groups, and being part of something, being a partner in that management and leadership versus what used to be certainly in my generation earlier when I was in where there was somebody at the top telling you what to do versus working as a group.

You know, when I was at Facebook in the early days, I interviewed with Mark Zuckerberg when he was 19 and I went to work at Facebook in their early days when they were still in colleges. I was in the first 75 employees. When I went there, everyone there was in their 20s. They all deferred law school, business school, medical school because Facebook was in colleges. It was their dream job. I was old enough to be everyone’s father. And I could have gone into that environment with my corporate background and been very, very much a person that it was more directive of do this, do that. What I quickly learned was more about this generation, which I’ve had a good fortune of working with many generations, including the Zoomers today. But what I learned especially was even though labeled as lazy and bunch of tattoos, don’t dress well, only wear sandals. That wasn’t my experience.

In fact, what I learned quickly was the group I worked with was brilliant and that they as a group, as a generation rather, like to work in groups, they like to solve problems. So, I learned quickly that by giving them the problem and asking them to come back with me with the resolution, not only did I fully engage them in it, not only were they part of it, but I was open myself to learning something from it.

That’s what a resilient leader is today, being willing to learn from others, being willing to be wrong, being willing to admit their mistakes, as well as being the person that’s guiding, leading, and mentoring and inspiring.

Skot Waldron (23:31.00)
So, the first thing I would say is I look at that as humility. How do you think those play off of each other?

Tom LeNoble (23:40.00)
Well, I think, you know, humility to me is, for me anyway, is more about not thinking you’ve got all the answers or that you can’t have something to learn. I think that for me with resilience, it’s how you’re using what you’ve either been through and experienced from that vein to use it. So, they could be very tied to each other, certainly.

But I think there’s a nuance there that if we got a dictionary out, we could probably find it more easily. But I think there’s room for both because let’s face it, especially today, we can all have a little bit more humility and realize that we don’t have all the answers and that other people might know a little better and that people are going through a lot today in this crazy world we’re living in.

Skot Waldron (24:33.00)
Especially when we start talking about those generational differences and the ability to learn from each other. I speak on this quite a bit too and just having generational empathy and just really trying to build bridges and understanding between what we can all give each other. Cause there’s gifts on both sides.

Tom LeNoble (24:53.00)
Absolutely. I used to even give a keynote back because when I was at Facebook with the, I called them the kids at the time, I was called the adult in the room. It was kind of funny. But what I realized is, each generation gets these labels. They’re lazy, they’re not applying themselves, they need to find direction and then they get attached to whether they’ve got what they’re wearing or how they’re thinking. To me, when I look at it, what a new generation is doing is bring societal shifts into place of what they’re thinking about and what’s happening and embracing them. Our job isn’t to say you should apply yourself, you should be doing better. It’s listening and mentoring and give them space to grow.

I know I work with Zoomers a lot and I just love it because they are doing things that we’ve talked about for years. We like to label it work-life balance. They’re demanding it. We’d like to hide our mental health and just hope we had a benefit for it. They’re bringing it into focus. We used to talk about how remote work was cherished and stuff. Now it’s really more of a thought of who cares if the work gets done. And that time off how important it is versus what I used to do was make a long weekend out of a business trip and call it a vacation, which is not a real vacation.

So, what I have learned and what I see is that each generation gets these same labels. Some of them are even more similar. And what we could do as opposed to that is be open to the fact that there’s something here to learn. I read an article the other day and there’s this big study being done about how Zoomers aren’t talking. They literally aren’t talking. They’re online all the time and as a result of COVID they were not able to be out in public with each other as more communicative during that time and what that was going to impact that was going to have. And so, I was asked to comment on it. My comment was, start talking. So, start talking to them, start talking, engage in conversation, model what that looks like instead of just calling out as a problem. What are the benefits to having those conversations?

I personally think we sorely need, again, more in-person. This kind of where we’re in boxes has got many benefits to us. We’re able to talk with you and I. We’re having a conversation today we probably would have never met. And from around the world, we’re able in the coaching academy to coach people and have students from around the world because we do it online now instead of face to face. I think it’s a time not to get rid of that, to enjoy all of that and to know what the benefits have been and even expand them.

There’s room for us remembering that there’s something really valuable about us being present with one another that this doesn’t take the place of. And I think that that study is a perfect example of get with some Zoomers and start talking and open up the door and maybe while you’re doing it, do a little listening too.

Skot Waldron (27:57.00)
That would be helpful. If we could just practice listening a little bit more, that would be really helpful. I totally agree, totally agree. We like to talk a lot. We like to be heard, but it goes the other way as well. So really good thoughts there.

Let me ask you about this. So, we were talking about when a “crisis” hits, resiliency after the fact. But what is something that you would like, I mean, just a leadership behavior that you would want people to change before a crisis hits?

Tom LeNoble (28:36.00)
You know, I think first of all is to realize life is going to bring you a crisis. So that’s part of life is you’re going to have a crisis or two. If you’re not, I’m wondering what you’re doing and how you’re living. So, or whether you’re even telling the truth. I think once again, I spoke to it is like this living in the past, be prepared to not go back to a normal structure of behavior of not remembering the evidence of what you’ve been through before. Also remembering that these things crisis happens, things pass. Some of the things that we label as the most disastrous crises in our life, even set that expectations for them never come to pass that we worry about and that we think about.

I have this thing in my practice that sort of mirrors this a bit called the Haystack method. And I believe people have their own answers. So, sort of like the needle in the haystack when people are going through a crisis or a challenge, they’re trying to find that answer. I think they know it. My job in that situation is to hold the space to clear the hay out of the way so they can find the needle to find that answer. So, to remember that in your inner crisis when it’s coming or when you think it might be coming. First of all, don’t fear it, don’t start before it gets here. That’s a waste of your energy and time. But when it arrives, remember the evidence of what you’ve done before. Remember that you do know your answers and the less you can engage in the fear and the panic and the, oh my God of it, the faster you’re going to be able to think of how to do with it.

And finally, I would say to remember to breathe. When these things happen to us, we don’t realize it, but our breathing becomes very shallow or we even stop breathing. And there’s a really funny thing about these brains of ours, they like oxygen to work. And sometimes just a simple, not a gasp, just a simple breath or two can shift the perspective of what a crisis looks like.

Skot Waldron (30:43.00)
Isn’t that interesting that we just, if we just take a moment because we’re so in react, we’re in such a reactive state all the time, thanks to email and our phones dinging at us and like, we are programmed to just react to whatever happens in our lives. And we are less and less, I think, responding to things. We are always reacting to things. And I hear this from the leaders I work with, that they’re just, that’s what’s leading to the stress and the burnout and the what, you know.

And AI, I don’t think is making it that much easier. I think it’s just making it faster to react to things, more convenient, maybe to react to things. But you can ask people. So, since the integration of AI in your life, have you become less busy? All of a sudden?

Tom LeNoble (31:39.00)
No.

Skot Waldron (31:40.00)
No.

Tom LeNoble (31:41.00)
In fact, on my podcast, I interview founders and CEOs in tech and executive directors of nonprofits, but probably 85% of these CEOs and founders are working in AI. And it has been fascinating to me from the medical field to psychology to something that seems so simple, but if you’ve ever called for a permit to work on your house and the myriad of things you go through where this company has taken that and turned it into like literally a click and you’ve got it done is fascinating to me from there’s so many applications I’ve learned about it.

And then, you know, I think there’s this whole idea of AI taking jobs, which I think there’s some truth to it. But I talked to people that are talking to me about saying we’re going to have a shortage of people to fill positions. I think I look back in my life, I was there. I’m dating myself now. I was there for the first fax. And we all stood back and looked at that fax machine that went from DC and arrived, I think it was Atlanta, and thought it was magic. I was there when we took people’s paper away from them and put computers on their desks and everybody thought all of their jobs were going to end. And then we remember email came along. And we thought, oh my God, this is going to make us so efficient, we’re all going to lose our job. And now we just would love to get rid of that inbox. And then the internet came along and there was this whole idea that we were going to all lose everything because the internet was going to take the place of everyone. And all it did was create new opportunities and look at what’s happened with that. And now comes along AI, I think these technologies build on one another and grow. And I happen to believe that those of us that don’t embrace AI will be left behind in the future.

So, my idea of AI is versus avoiding it, fearing it is to embrace it at some level. And I will say this; it’s made me more efficient. So, where I use it is if I want to do research, I can find something that faster. If I want to edit something, I can use it for that. It has not taken the place of my creativity. It doesn’t, I believe, take the place of human touch. It doesn’t take the place of leadership, at least yet. So, I think there’s so many things about that.

So, I think we’re in that space of the unknown about what’s going to happen. What I believe, and we’ll see what happens. I’ve had these things that I’ve seen before. Like I read an article yesterday that Google has now made a change in their plan, and they’re hiring people with high school diplomas when they recruited me many years ago twice, they were only recruiting people with PhDs, which I don’t have. And I made a prediction then one day this company will be recruiting people without degrees. I love it when things like that happen. I think if you watch technology, these new things come. Let’s just take software. And what happens is eventually there’s the main players; all the people get gobbled up or they fall by the wayside. And we’re going to see some of that happen in the future with AI.

Skot Waldron (34:55.00)
I’m going to transition, watch this transition. You ready, Tom? So, this is a lot of your business suit world. You’ve brought in so much expertise and so much knowledge from everything you’ve gained from your experience and all the things in life. We’ve talked about your hospital gown world, right?

But talk to me about the high heel world. I’m going off your title, your book title here, right? Business suits, hospital gowns and high heels. I want to know where the title came from and how you arrived there. I mean, I actually, I love the cover. I’m a designer at heart. I started my career in graphic design and brand strategy. And, you know, I love your title and your book cover.

Tom LeNoble (35:39.00)
Thank you. I’m going to answer that question this way. All three of those characters are in the book cover are me. Those are all three real pictures. Here’s what my purpose of this book, My Life in Business Suits, Hospital Gowns, and High Heels is all about. Who we are today is the some parts of everything we’ve been.

And there are parts typically usually in our lives that may seem outrageous, that we may even have some shame for, that maybe we want to keep private, that we just think somebody may not understand. But indeed, you would not be who you are today without all of those parts. So, when you read the book, you’ll learn about the high heels, and you’ll find out how the high heels influenced who I am today. I’m a very, very private man and just spilled all my secrets. And I have to tell you, it’s one of the most liberating things I’ve ever done.

Skot Waldron (36:42.00)
Wow. Okay. Why do you think you kept everything. So, I’m inquiring now. I’m not trying to enter this in a coaching session, but I’m, it’s more informative for me. What kept you so quiet about those things before and what kind of caused you to say, you know what? I’m laying it out all in this book, like now. What were the difference.

Tom LeNoble (37:06.00)
I think that I have grown into seeing the benefit of all those parts of my life and how they were a trajectory of molding me into who I am and how I express myself today, which really is about service to others. But let’s be real. If people knew I had two life threatening illnesses as they were hiring me, in some of these roles that I worked in, they wouldn’t have hired me. If they had known anything about high heels, you can guarantee they wouldn’t have hired me.

So, I think while I’m saying what I just said about this book, there are times in our lives that things we may have done that it might be smart not to broadcast them. At the same time in my life today, I am very engaged. I’m doing more than I ever thought possible at my age. I like to say I retired being retired to be inspired. And part of that is sharing with others that no matter what’s happened, no matter what’s happened in your life, who you are today, all of that was part of you getting here, what you learned, what you experienced, perhaps resilience, got you here today and where you are and where you can reinvent yourself to keep going.

Skot Waldron (38:33.00)
What do you hope the reader gets out of your book?

Tom LeNoble (38:37.00)
I hope that they see that no matter the challenge in life, no matter what seems impossible, there’s something that can happen next and that you can survive it, you can keep going, and that you can use risk and resilience to reinvent yourself no matter what gets thrown in your way.

Skot Waldron (38:58.00)
Well said. It’s almost like you practice saying that, Tom. That was brilliant. The way you said it. It was really well said. Okay, I’m going to do a couple little lightning round questions for you real quick, okay? Sometimes my lightning round turns into like, not a lightning round, because I get so curious, but sometimes it’s fine. Sometimes I let it be a lightning round, okay? So, the lie about strength.

So, you’re going to finish this sentence, okay, Tom. The lie about strength I believed for so long was what?

Tom LeNoble (39:34.00)
The lie about strength that I believed so long was that other people were stronger than me.

Skot Waldron (39:41.00)
Adversity, here’s one, adversity doesn’t change people, it blank.

Tom LeNoble (39:46.00)
Adversity doesn’t change people. It is how you grow.

Skot Waldron (39:52.00)
Leadership becomes dangerous when blank.

Tom LeNoble (39:55.00)
Leadership becomes dangerous when you’re willing only to be a leader and not a learner.

Skot Waldron (40:03.00)
What really saved me wasn’t grit per se, it was blank.

Tom LeNoble (40:10.00)
What really saved me wasn’t grit, but it was the fact that I believed I could.

Skot Waldron (40:17.00)
Do you think, in your opinion, working with as many people as you’ve worked with and encountered as many people as you have in your life, that people lack that belief?

Tom LeNoble (40:27.00)
I think we often forget the power we have in our own minds and our ability to make the right decisions for ourselves and giving away those decisions to others.

Skot Waldron (40:41.00)
What’s the danger there?

Tom LeNoble (40:43.00)
You don’t listen to your own, we’ll call it gut intuition, and what you know is best for you.

Skot Waldron (40:52.00)
Amen. Yeah, I think we have learned to take advice from way too many people. I understand we need to process; understand we need to bounce ideas and gather insights and maybe things we haven’t thought of. I think people are an amazing resource, the trusted advisors that we have in our lives. I think it’s when we lend that out to too many untrusted advisors that it becomes cloudy.

And we don’t learn to embrace the advisor that we are to ourselves and we kind of forget that.

Tom LeNoble (41:28.00)
Happens so frequently with illness and in the medical world where especially older generations, maybe even younger, perceive doctors as having all the answers and that we don’t have a role in it. You know, I was told one time your cancer came back, it’s in five locations, we can’t do anything for you. If I had bought into that and believed that, a good 12 years ago, you and I wouldn’t be having this conversation.

Instead, I chuckled and got to work doing some research and finding what options were. What I’ve learned from illness is serious illness, life-threatening illness, is if you can keep yourself alive, something else is coming. And I don’t want to belittle illness for a moment. It is difficult. There have been some moments in my life where I was, I had to tie a knot in the string to hold on. But boy, am I glad I knew how and had the wherewithal to tie that knot.

Skot Waldron (42:31.258)
Tom, I’m sure you’ve been a blessing in a lot of people’s lives. I don’t know for sure because I just met you, but you know, I can imagine just from your experience, I can hear your heart and your sincerity and your desire for other people and to being for others. And again, I don’t know if you’ve always been that way, but I think there’s always been an element of that in you. I could just tell from just talking to you. Hearing your energy through the screen is something I don’t take for granted and I appreciate you being on the show, man.

Tom LeNoble (43:04.00)
Thank you, Skot. It’s been great being with you today.

Skot Waldron (43:08.00)
How can people, if they want to talk to you more, find out more about the book, speaking opportunities etc., what do they do?

Tom LeNoble (43:15.00)
You can go to my website, www.tomlenoble.com. I’m on LinkedIn, I’m on Instagram, I’m on Facebook. I’m doing a series right now called Morning Ground. It’s about a minute every morning of me and a little video. I encourage people to check it out. And of course, you could get the book and you’ll learn lots. You know, I hear all the time, “I can’t put this book down.” I laughed, I cried, I did both at once.

And it’s been really exciting. And then I’m at resilience at TomLenoble.com. It’s easy to reach out to me.

Skot Waldron (43:49.00)
There you go. Tom, keep blessing the people in your life, man. Thank you.

Tom LeNoble (43: 53.00)
Thank you so much. It was great being with you, Skot.

Skot Waldron (43:59.00)
Too many of us give over our power. We give over our power to others and their thoughts and their judgments and their, I guess, suggestions about things. And we embody a lot of that power ourselves that we should not be giving it away. There are times when we need to get advisement. There are times when we need to have suggestions and we can bounce ideas. I get that.

But I believe so much in what Tom was talking about is that the power is within us for most of us. We have lived with ourselves our whole lives. I know y’all, it is like your mind is blown right now because you just realized it. But when you realize that you have so much to give yourself that don’t underestimate that power.

This idea of a terrible gift, I want us, I’m going to try this. Next time something happens, I am going to reframe it as a terrible gift. What am I getting from this? What am I able to learn? And this whole thing, and I love this too, if you could give yourself permission to be angry, to be frustrated, to be sad, to be depressed, to be whatever that thing is at the moment that you need to feel.

Now, depression is a bigger deal. I get that. But if there’s some moment of sadness in your life, decide when you’re going to be done. I think that is a real empowering moment to say, “hey, I’m going to give myself five minutes.” I’ve heard this before, right? Five-minute rule. I’m going to be pissed off for five minutes. And then I’m going to decide to move on. And that’s okay. 30 minutes, Tom was talking about, you know, 35 minutes. He gives himself 35 minutes and then he moves on. And just give yourself that time frame. I think it helps us flip something in our mindset about when we want to start moving forward with what we need to move forward with. And that’s a really, really important moment in our life and a lesson that we can all learn.

This resilience muscle, it can’t be taken away. It can’t be. And I really loved that he reframed it for me in that light. Everybody go out, grab Tom’s book. He is a number one bestselling author for a reason. So, thanks for Tom for being on the show and thanks y’all for showing up.

If you want to find out more information about me or check out the show notes where there’s going to be more information and links to the things referenced in this episode, visit skotwaldron.com. And lastly, I’m asking for a little bit of love, just a little bit. So please take a moment, follow, rate the show. The algorithm is like that; it helps me get the word out. I really appreciate it.

Thank you. And until next time, stay Unlocked.