October 5, 2024 • 32 mins
We were all born to matter and have gifts to share with the world. That's Tom Doherty's life mission.
Listen to Isabel navigate through Tom's Beautiful Mess called life. Tom's incredible story stems from challenges and chaos of childhood as he was raised by two teenage parents, challenges and chaos from childhood. As well, how he found himself as "the fixer" and National Director for Facebook is Silicon Valley.
Power Takeaways on this episode of Beautiful Mess:
- When you grow up in an environment where you don't know where you're going to be from one day to the next, you're resilient.
- What it meant to become a father.
- How we show up for our children..."I spend time with them and I love them...it's that simple".
- They used to call me "the cleaner" ...I would fly in and fix accounts and fly out again.
- The reality of "empty nest syndrome".
- Leading teams through the pandemic..."pivot or perish".
- Tom's message is #born2matter
...and so so much more!!!!
Connect with Tom on LinkedIn:
Does Tom's story resonate with you? Tell us how in the comments. We'd love to hear from you.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome to Beautiful Mass, the podcast thatexplores life's messiness. My name is Isabel
Pollan and I am so excited to have you here.Together in this community, let's find strength,
let's find joy and let's embrace the beautifulmass that is life. So thank you for being here,
(00:21):
please subscribe and enjoy this next episode ofBeautiful Mass, Untangled Together. Tom Dozie,
an amazing, amazing man who I had the greatpleasure of meeting two years ago, I think now. I
mean, I don't really know where to start with Tom,so I'm going to say that he has added huge value to my
(00:51):
life in terms of his insights, his experience, hisheart and his ability to make everybody he speaks
to and meets light up. And that's exactly what youdid for me, Tom, when we met. So I'd like you now to
tell our listeners a little bit about you and I'vegiven people the opportunity to talk about
(01:13):
whichever part of their life and work they want to.Well, thank you for having me, Isabel. You know how
much I appreciate you and enjoy everything thatyou say and do and put out there in the world. For me,
I look at my life in chapters and I look at them inversions. So I like to say I'm celebrating chapter
five, version four, right? I'm 54 years old. So Ithink it gives you a good chance to look at the
(01:38):
different decades in a different perspective. Myfirst two decades on the planet were very
different than the most recent decades. I grew upwith two teenage parents who were quite
challenged. So as you can imagine, most of thosefirst two decades were spent in chaos. I found out
(02:00):
basically when I was eight or nine that I couldchange that momentum and put my own control over
there because I felt like I was in the wrong movie. Ijust decided that I was going to go ahead and start
getting up early for school, putting out my ownclothes, making my own lunch and kind of taking
control of the ability to be able to change what wasgoing on around the chaos. I found it very funny in
(02:26):
my teen years. My mother used to joke with me andsay, you know, God, will you stop with that Tony
Robbins crap? Like, I don't want to hear that. Andthat was kind of my MO and my mode at that time. So I
was very mature as a kid because I had to grow up andfigure it out. I had children young. I had children
(02:47):
when I was 22 years old. And literally the greatestday of my life was when my son was born. I knew at that
moment when they put Matt in my hands, like for thefirst time I realized I would die for another human
being. I remember holding on to him and the doctorcoming up and tapping me on the shoulder and
(03:07):
they're like, Mr. Dardi, can you give the baby tothe mom? Can to the mom? I'm like, who? No, no, no,
this is my baby. It was very funny. But filling apurpose for me raising, you know, three young men
as a single dad in their teenage years was quitechallenging, but at the same time, wonderful in so
(03:34):
many aspects, being able to give them all thesupport that I never got was a gift. Yes. Amazing.
Where in the world were you born? I was born inSomerville, Massachusetts, just north of
Boston. It's about two miles outside of Boston.Right. And then you brought up your son. So you have
(03:56):
three boys. That's incredible. I like to saythey're all grown and off the payroll now. 31, 29
and about to be 25. My youngest son bought a house at22 and he invited his oldest brother to live with
him and he pays him rent. So it's great. It's a greatscheme of work. And they both work at the same
(04:18):
company and they are both thriving and doingreally well. My middle boy, he lives in Brighton,
Massachusetts. He owns his own constructioncompany and still plays rugby for a rugby team in
New England. He's a veteran that just lost in thenational semifinals. Even though Devon's 29,
(04:39):
he's still living that rugby life, which is with agroup of guys in the house with rugby guys. Not my
thing. More power to him. Oh, how incredible. Idon't know where to start. I think I'm going to zoom
in on what you said because as you know, we have aneight year old, just eight. So it's a very, very, I
(05:06):
mean, we're noticing in her we're observing a realmilestone. It's a real moment of where am I, who am
I? And yes, what do I want to do to control thisenvironment? Or what can I do to control this
environment and my independence within it? Couldyou talk to us a little bit about that moment for you
(05:28):
that you mentioned, which is so beautifullyexpressed. How did you start to implement that
control? What sorts of things did you do to feelmore in control? Well, I feel like it's a blessing
and a curse, right? Because when your environmentis out of control, you focus on what you can
control. The problem is it makes you good atmanaging chaos. Right. So, right. I think, I think
(05:53):
why I've been so successful career wise is beingable to manage your way through the chaos and be
able to simplify things. I've always had like thislogical, methodical framework of being able to do
things. And if you can take it in its simplicity, ifyou could think about two parents that can't
manage, you know, a household, the alcohol, thedrug use, food shopping, laundry. So what do you
(06:21):
do? You get up early in the morning beforeeverybody's up. What do you do? You clean
everything up, right? So everything gets cleanedup. Then you focus on doing the laundry. Then you
focus on going food shopping. I remember one time Iwent food shopping and I used to write a list, you
know, think about eight, nine years old going tothe supermarket by myself with the list, checking
(06:45):
the eggs. I used to pull out each egg because mygrandmother taught me that you need to look at each
egg to make sure they're not broken. Right. And Iwent to go visit my grandmother one weekend and she
said, hey, Miss Twingali called me and she said,you saw you in the supermarket checking eggs and in
doing the shopping. What do you do? I go and foodshopping. And I said, oh, well, you know, I go food
(07:10):
shopping like, you know, I try to help mom out and gotake that off her plate. And then, you know, I heard
the phone call to my mother. What is Tommy doinggoing food shopping eight years old? You know, but
again, I think it's getting back to what what can Icontrol in this situation? And getting out early
was a big thing. I was always that kid that wasoutside early in the morning, waiting for other
(07:34):
kids to come outside. Yeah. So I would shoot hoops.I would throw a ball against a wall. I would just be
waiting, you know, I think that again, those shapeyou in different ways. I also had this, I became up
with this spidey sense over what was right and whatwas wrong. I will tell you, Isabel, I would come
(07:55):
home and I would know whether to go into the house ornot. We lived in the third floor in the projects,
right? So if you can think like these big brickbuildings and government housing, right? It was
the worst stuff going on within those walls,right? From the front door, I could sense what was
going on on the third floor and I wouldn't go in thehouse. I would just turn around and go back out and I
(08:20):
would just try to come back later when eitherpeople were passed out or people weren't home or
whatever. Wow. And your grandmother, it soundslike had quite an influence. Both of my
grandmothers were instrumental in my childhood.They were they were funny. They were very
different. Dad's mom, she was my party grandma.She was like fun. She would always encourage me to
(08:48):
try different things. You know, she was how to justa different wayward view of the world. And my other
grandmother was very strict. No swearing, nodrinking, lots of manners, politeness. And she
was a pediatric trauma nurse at Boston CityHospital. And that was her. So she was very, very
(09:11):
just different, two different sides of the coin.But such a benefit to have both views over managing
life and how to move forward. I think one of thechallenging things I really got close to my
father's mother, my party grandma, I ended upmoving in with her at one point when I was a teenager
(09:31):
because I did originally go to my strictgrandmother and admitted to her what was going on
at home. And she to my surprise, my massivesurprise, she was in complete denial. She told me
that I was lying. I was making things up and thatthis wasn't true. And she said, I got a call, your
(09:54):
mother to come get you. I said, oh, my God, whateveryou do, don't call. Don't call mom. Don't tell her.
That's exactly what happened. And comment back inthose days, right? Families did not talk about
these things. The school did not get involved inthese things. It was like, this is a home problem.
(10:15):
It stays at home. We just manage it, right? Sowhenever I told my grandmother what was going on,
my mother flipped a lid. Just flipped a lid. It wasthe worst car ride home ever. Oh, my God. It's just
so many conversations here, Tom. And we have only ashort amount of time. So I'm going to keep going,
(10:38):
keep going to the next. First of all, thank you forsharing that. Sure. And I mean, I'm at the eldest of
seven. So from a big plan and a million miles awayfrom that upbringing, in terms of what the
(10:59):
environment of the home was like, I can totallyrelate to the chaos. And I can totally relate to
that, that almost real trust in people that showyou that support. And when you tell them the truth
and you're brave enough to tell them the truth, theshock that comes when they respond in that way. And
(11:22):
then you mentioned going to your other granny orgrandmother. Sorry, granny is a very British
word. I don't know if you agree with me. You saidover there. And but for your teen years, and I'd
like to then jump to what you told us at the start,which is about your boys and how bringing them up as
teenagers was such a gift. What what is it? Do youthink that was the gift? Tell us more about the
(11:44):
gift. The beautiful, the beautiful mess, I think,is right at the kernel of that statement. Yeah, I
think it's it was very interesting. People wouldcompliment me all the time about the boys. Your
boys are so well mannered. They're so wellbehaved. They're good at school. They're good at
sports. They're good at this. They're good atthat. Tell me your secret. Maybe like, there's no
(12:07):
secret. I spend time with them and I love them. Imean, that's that's what I think the secret is is
and then giving the space also to do their ownthing. It's funny. We when they came to stay with
me, my first month was a little challengingbecause I had been managing only one or two boys and
(12:29):
then you have three boys and it's a littledifferent. And I came up with themes for dinner,
made it easier for me. So I used to make a big, bigdinner on Sunday. It was like family dinner that
led to leftover Monday. And then I had TacoTuesday, which meant we were having something
Mexican. Wednesday was Prince Spaghetti Day inBoston, which is an Italian day. And then came up
(12:56):
with Thursday night with steak night. And thenFriday and Saturday night was wild card nights.
Right. That meant dad's not cooking. There'll befood in the house, but dad's not cooking Friday or
Saturday night. And I find it funny. I justrecently went to go see my youngest son and on his
fridge is exactly that menu. Oh, that'swonderful. But that's the beautiful mess of
(13:23):
putting together those schedules and beinginvolved in sports in school and setting up, I
don't know, I guess a framework for them and beinginvolved. So I did a lot of Spartan races. I did
charity races. And I got the boys involved in thoseat early ages. Yes. So I wanted them to see not
(13:46):
everybody is as lucky as we are or you are. There arepeople out there that get sick or people that get
hurt to no fault of their own. How do we help thesepeople? So I do feel like that that gave them
empathy and involvement from a very early age tocare for others and for other people. Yes,
(14:07):
absolutely. And that resonates again as a parentand then we'll move on to a different area of your
life. But as a parent, it resonates deeply. Theyabsolutely follow your lead in that respect. And
you also have to get them, you actively have to getthem involved because there's not always going to
(14:28):
be that compliance. Right. Oh yeah. I will tellyou, I think a common theme of most kids, right? You
have a plan, you tell them what they're going to,what we're going to do for the day and they're like,
I don't want to do that. I don't want to go there. Itdoesn't matter. You're going. And then of course
you go and they, they involve in whatever it is theyengage at the end of the day. It's always the same
(14:52):
thing. Oh my God, this was the best day ever. Right.Yeah, that's so, so true. So, so true. So, so let's
fast forward a little bit to then your boys growingup, grown up, not quite off the payroll maybe, but
(15:12):
grown up more grown up and you entering into theworld of work. Can you tell us a little bit about
that chapter of your life? How you, how you wentinto the world of work and what that looked like?
Oh, I started work really early. I'm actually onthe payroll at 12 years old at a drug store. I paid
Social Security taxes when I was 12 years old,which seems crazy to me. But yeah, I started off,
(15:39):
you know, I did t-shirts selling, I did paper boystuff, I worked at the drug store, and I didn't have
enough money to go to college. Nobody in our familyhad gotten to college. I went right to work out of
high school. I went to work for a local picture andframework company, and I basically got like a one
(16:00):
on one in business. I worked in every department,but I ran in office services. So I learned the mail
and the logistics piece. I learned the receptionside. I learned the billing and statement side. I
learned the trucking side. So I had this great baseof knowledge. And then I got recruited by Pitney
Bose to go into this outsourcing project. And fromthere, what my career just kind of took off every
(16:27):
year, I got promoted into another location oranother vertical. And I eventually landed with
one particular manager and he said to me, you'retoo smart not to go to school. He's like, you're
going to go to the campus in downtown Boston atNortheastern, and you're going to go at lunchtime
or you're going to go on the weekends. And I'm like,I can't afford that. I'm playing semi pro
(16:50):
football. Like, I didn't care about going toschool. But my boss was pretty intimidating. And
he made me go to this interview at NortheasternUniversity. I didn't have the money to go to
school. Like you had to pay up front. And Ralphactually paid my first semester. The company had a
reimbursement program. So he told me, you need tomake sure you get a B or better and pay me back. And
(17:16):
that's exactly what I did. But I took a businessmanagement class. I got an A in the class really
liked it. I took business management one, two andthree. And then I decided, oh, I'll add in an
English class. I took this English class was likefive times the amount of work in the business
class. So boring and just so much work. And I gotlike a B minus. I was pissed that I didn't get an A,
(17:39):
you know, I said, why am I taking English? Why am Itaking any of these other courses? I'm just going
to focus on the business stuff. So from there, Itook organizational behavior, I took leadership
courses. And then my career just kept taking off. Ialso decided that I was open to relocation. The
company came to me at the time. I had a young family.I had been running HP and from an enterprise side.
(18:06):
And they came to me and they said, Hey, what do youthink about relocating to Seattle and opening up a
new office? And I was like, Oh, no, how does thatwork? They're like, we'll pay you and we'll help
you move and we'll help you find housing and we'lldo all the stuff. I'm like, wow, what a great deal.
All of my friends and family thought I was nuts.They were like, what are you doing moving 3000
(18:30):
miles away? You're going to start this new thing.And I was like, if it doesn't work out, just come
back. What's the big deal? I didn't think it wasthat much of a risk. And thankfully, that landed
the mother of all deals. I worked at Microsoft fortwo years. I ran the Microsoft campus. I wasn't
going to get that experience in Boston. The careercontinued to take over from enterprise work. I did
(18:55):
a lot of regional work. I had a reputation in theindustry for they used to call me the cleaner. So I
used to go in and fix accounts. They would fly me in.They would say, tell us what's wrong, kind of
figure out what's going on. And then we would turnthings around. That was my life for a while.
Incredible. And I'm also curious during that timewith the boys, how old were they when you moved to
(19:18):
Seattle? Oh, they were little, little. Right.Right. I wouldn't even remember it. Maddie was
three. Devon was one. Wow. For them, it was like ablip in time. Right, right, right. But but quite
something to uproot your family when they are thatsmall and amazing that you could. But I think
again, thinking back to your your beginnings andthe resilience that you built without even
(19:41):
knowing it, just that ability to go. It's anopportunity. It sounds exciting. It's new. And
I've been asked to do it. And to go with that is it canonly serve you, right? Yeah, I think when you grow
up in an environment where you don't going to youdon't know where you're going to be from one day to
the next, you're resilient. You figure it out. Andthat's pretty much what I've done that whole time.
(20:07):
And now again, that also can be dangerous becauseyou can figure out a way every time how to get out of
something. You know, there's this my mindimmediately when something happens, I've got
five alternatives in my head. Right, right. Whichis not always good. I totally get that. But I'd like
(20:34):
now to lead you towards the maybe the fourthchapter. And so you were the cleaner, you were
being flown into these organizations. What thenhappened when you moved into that fourth chapter
for you? What was the what was the beautiful messpart of it? If you like, I'll tell you what threw me
(20:55):
for a loop and I didn't expect was empty nestsyndrome is a real thing. I didn't see that coming.
And of course, I think it was compounded because Imade the decision to move to California at that
time. So the first two weeks were great. I was like,well, I don't have to pick anybody up. I don't have
to make any dinner. I don't have to do anything. Idon't have to go all this meetings. I have to do all
(21:18):
the stuff, right? Right. And then after two weeks,I was walking home from the beach in Del Mar. And I
had this moment where I said, Oh my God, no one needsme anymore. Right. And that was like really,
really painstaking. And it took me almost twoyears to come out of it because I didn't know who I
(21:40):
was anymore. For 25 years, my whole life hadrevolved around this ecosystem. It was gone. And
yeah, it was it was quite hard to take. I ended upgoing. I went to Thailand. I went learned, I became
Tefal certified speaking English. I became Tefalcertified to be able to teach English as a second
(22:02):
language. And I went spent three months teachingand volunteering in the middle of nowhere in
Thailand. And I had the most incredibleexperience with kids, right? It was children
being I would basically go to I would work out in themorning. I would go to school and teach during the
day. After school, I would play sports with theteenage kids, which is very funny because Thai
(22:28):
kids trash talking you in bad English is veryfunny. And then at night, I would go around town,
you know, you're the only white guy within, youknow, 50 mile radius, everybody knows that you're
teacher Tom. So all the Thai people are sowonderful and welcoming the food, the gifts, the
(22:50):
engagement just incredible, you know, wow. Oh,wow. I had I had honestly, I will be honest, I had
forgotten about that until you mentioned it. But Iknow we've spoken about it in the past. What an
incredible experience. I have never been toThailand, which is ridiculous. It is what way at
the top of my bucket list. And, and yes, I canabsolutely imagine how that must have been almost
(23:16):
like therapy in a way to come to a place of yourchoice to have that new experience to involve
children in that way. I mean, when you talk aboutemptiness syndrome being a real thing, I know our
listeners, I know they will relate to that. And I'meven thinking of it. I mean, my daughter's only
eight, and I'm already thinking about the stuff Imiss every time I curse Lego or the next pile of
(23:38):
stuff. I go, well, actually, I need to really payattention to the fact that one day I'm really going
to miss that. I think it's it's super importantthat people are prepared and that they do have like
even though I did have my own life, my own hobbiesand my own stuff, they were just so interwoven as
that family network. You know, like I used to do mySaturday workouts, Mikey used to get up with me
(24:04):
early in the morning, we would go up to MonotomyPark together with a 50 pound sandbag. And we would
basically run this course through Monotomy Park.And then we would do rounds of pushups and squats
and jumping jacks. And then we would switch whotook the 50 pound bag. And we would do all this
stuff, we'd try to do it like four to five times,right? And then we'd come back and we'd be covered
(24:26):
in dirt, like sweaty. And like someone one of theirbrothers would be rolling out of bed, and they'd be
like, what are you guys doing? What's going on?Like, yeah, yeah, we already worked out, you can go
back to bed. That's wonderful. Yeah, I mean, Icould just visualize it as you're speaking about
it. We would have dinner together. That was onething too. One thing I thought that was very
(24:49):
important. Yeah, I had dinner together as afamily. And there were no phones, no devices
allowed at the table. And we would haveconversations, we would discuss about our days,
what was happening, what was going on. I would sayprobably depending on the weather, eight times
out of 10, we would go out front and we would throwthe football around for at least 15 to 20 minutes.
(25:11):
And like that was kind of like a regular thing. Andwhat struck me was we would have other kids come to
our house for dinner or regular things and kids Acouldn't believe they couldn't bring their phone
to the table. And then B, they were struck that wewould have dinner together five nights a week,
which I found very sad. You would hear these otherkids say, I haven't had dinner with my parents in
(25:33):
years, not days, not weeks, years. I haven't haddinner with my parents. Right. And it's the one
consistent message that came out of the pandemicis how much families loved. Yes, by force of
something that none of us ever want to see again. Weall loved that enforced that imposed family time
(25:55):
and it makes a huge difference. Once you'd gone toThailand and you'd had that incredible
experience, then what happened next? I came backfrom Thailand and figured, oh boy, I better get a
real job because I've been doing some consultingwork. And lo and behold, not long after that, I got a
call asking me if I wanted to be the nationaldirector for Facebook out in San Francisco. And
(26:20):
originally I didn't want to move to San Francisco.I told him I wouldn't leave San Diego. And my
friend, who I've been very close to for many years,he was my boss at one point, he said to me, look, I
need a favor. Can you at least go up and interviewfor the position, keep an open mind, and just we
(26:40):
need to show Facebook that we have some talentbecause we're worried that they're not going to
sign the contract. So you want me to take your freetrip to San Francisco? Sure. I came up here, I
interviewed for folks that haven't been to theFacebook campus at that time before the pandemic,
it was Disneyland for adults. The food, I'd neverseen anything like it, the foods, the
(27:02):
restaurants, they had their own Uber service, youknow, like everything you could want is on the
campus. And it was an incredible feeling of energyand youth intelligence and you just feel it. Had so
much power. And I had a great interview with ourclient contact, I fell in love with him, and then I
flew home. When I landed back in San Diego, I had afull relocation offer, a sign on bonus, all my time
(27:28):
back with the company, everything you could askfor. This is probably the right thing to do. Two
weeks later, I was in San Francisco. Incredible.Incredible. And you were there for how long? I had
been in Del Mar for two years, and then I came to theFacebook campus, we did great. I've made it two
years, I'd got them through the pandemic. And thenI got approached by another former staff member
(27:54):
and asked me if I would do the same thing for Ciscoglobally. I went ahead and took that role and moved
on to Cisco. A little different mode thanFacebook. Right. It's like old tech versus new
tech. Yes, yes, yes. But great experience, greatpeople. But six months into that role, I got
(28:16):
everything kind of straightened out and good. AndI just said, this can't be it. And I also felt like I
felt like I was burning out a bit from leading twonational global teams through the pandemic is
very hard on leaders, or at least it was for me. Myfocus is not only my staff, but also their
(28:38):
families. And I think what gets lost sometimes inCOVID, people don't realize how volatile things
were. I was trying to keep people employed. I wastrying to keep people safe. I was trying to still
service the customer and do different things,right? There are a lot of plates to spin on that, and
nobody knew what to do. So I literally was pullingout my playbook. I've been through several, one of
(29:01):
the things we do is about disaster recovery whenyou're in outsourcing, right? So I had been
through SARS and Bird Blue. I had been through9-11. I had been through the Boston Marathon
bombing. I took little pieces of that and puttogether programs to be able to lead us through the
pandemic for both of those teams. I came up with ameme and a quote from the very first month, I think
(29:25):
we were in the pandemic, and it was pivot or perish.I told our team that things are not going to be the
same. Things have changed, and we're going to haveto do things we never did before, and we're going to
have to totally rethink the operation. And itbecame our mantra. Like it became, I still have
people today who will still reach out to me pivot orperish, which I think is important, you know?
(29:49):
Well, absolutely. And it speaks back to thebeginning of your story again. That's exactly
what you did, right? Thank you again for sharingthat chapter as well. And I'd love to know now, can
you share with our listeners before we do the finalpiece? Where can we find you now? Where's the best
place for people that are listening to go? I want tospeak to this man, or I want to find out more about
(30:14):
Tom Doherty. Whether can they find information?Well, you can certainly find me on LinkedIn under
Tom Doherty. There's a hashtag that I'm known foras well, which is the hashtag Born to Matter, which
is B-O-R-N, the number two, M-A-T-T-E-R. If youuse that hashtag, you'll find a lot of my posts,
(30:35):
whether it be on Instagram or on LinkedIn. Thankyou, Tom, so much. And I'd like to ask you this. I've
asked every guest this question based on a seriesof videos that I did once on LinkedIn as well. And
it's a 10-second offer for the listeners. So 10seconds of anything that you want to offer the
(30:58):
people listening today. So I believe in thathashtag Born to Matter because we were all born to
matter and have gifts to share with the world. Ifthere's anything I want you to take out of this
conversation, you matter and you were born toshare your gifts. Beautiful. I don't know really
(31:18):
how to say thank you enough. This has been so, soincredible in terms of the amount of gifts and
really just lived experience to enable us to feellike we matter listening to you. So thank you very,
very much indeed, Tom. We must just mentionactually that I met you through the Outlier
(31:43):
Project, which is an amazing community of peopleand it worked not for Scott McGregor and his team,
Kathy Love, etc., etc. We would never have met, Idon't think, well, we might have done, but very
unlikely to have met in the way that we have. I don'tthink so. The Outlier Project has totally changed
my life. You're looking at almost three years thatI've been in the Outlier Project and I've met so
(32:07):
many incredible people. I've read so manyincredible books. I've learned so much from so
many different people. And again, like you said, Idon't think I would have had the gift or the
pleasure of meeting you if it wasn't for theOutlier Project. So grateful for Scott and Kathy
for that. Thank you so much. Take care of yourselfand looking forward to sharing this with the
(32:29):
world. Thank you so much for listening. Thank youfor being here, for being a part of this beautiful
MESS community. Please like and subscribe to thepodcast and share it with anyone that you think
would enjoy your benefit from theseconversations. Take care of yourself. See you
soon.
Welcome to Beautiful Mass, the podcast thatexplores life's messiness. My name is Isabel
Pollan and I am so excited to have you here.Together in this community, let's find strength,
let's find joy and let's embrace the beautifulmass that is life. So thank you for being here,
(00:21):
please subscribe and enjoy this next episode ofBeautiful Mass, Untangled Together. Tom Dozie,
an amazing, amazing man who I had the greatpleasure of meeting two years ago, I think now. I
mean, I don't really know where to start with Tom,so I'm going to say that he has added huge value to my
(00:51):
life in terms of his insights, his experience, hisheart and his ability to make everybody he speaks
to and meets light up. And that's exactly what youdid for me, Tom, when we met. So I'd like you now to
tell our listeners a little bit about you and I'vegiven people the opportunity to talk about
(01:13):
whichever part of their life and work they want to.Well, thank you for having me, Isabel. You know how
much I appreciate you and enjoy everything thatyou say and do and put out there in the world. For me,
I look at my life in chapters and I look at them inversions. So I like to say I'm celebrating chapter
five, version four, right? I'm 54 years old. So Ithink it gives you a good chance to look at the
(01:38):
different decades in a different perspective. Myfirst two decades on the planet were very
different than the most recent decades. I grew upwith two teenage parents who were quite
challenged. So as you can imagine, most of thosefirst two decades were spent in chaos. I found out
(02:00):
basically when I was eight or nine that I couldchange that momentum and put my own control over
there because I felt like I was in the wrong movie. Ijust decided that I was going to go ahead and start
getting up early for school, putting out my ownclothes, making my own lunch and kind of taking
control of the ability to be able to change what wasgoing on around the chaos. I found it very funny in
(02:26):
my teen years. My mother used to joke with me andsay, you know, God, will you stop with that Tony
Robbins crap? Like, I don't want to hear that. Andthat was kind of my MO and my mode at that time. So I
was very mature as a kid because I had to grow up andfigure it out. I had children young. I had children
(02:47):
when I was 22 years old. And literally the greatestday of my life was when my son was born. I knew at that
moment when they put Matt in my hands, like for thefirst time I realized I would die for another human
being. I remember holding on to him and the doctorcoming up and tapping me on the shoulder and
(03:07):
they're like, Mr. Dardi, can you give the baby tothe mom? Can to the mom? I'm like, who? No, no, no,
this is my baby. It was very funny. But filling apurpose for me raising, you know, three young men
as a single dad in their teenage years was quitechallenging, but at the same time, wonderful in so
(03:34):
many aspects, being able to give them all thesupport that I never got was a gift. Yes. Amazing.
Where in the world were you born? I was born inSomerville, Massachusetts, just north of
Boston. It's about two miles outside of Boston.Right. And then you brought up your son. So you have
(03:56):
three boys. That's incredible. I like to saythey're all grown and off the payroll now. 31, 29
and about to be 25. My youngest son bought a house at22 and he invited his oldest brother to live with
him and he pays him rent. So it's great. It's a greatscheme of work. And they both work at the same
(04:18):
company and they are both thriving and doingreally well. My middle boy, he lives in Brighton,
Massachusetts. He owns his own constructioncompany and still plays rugby for a rugby team in
New England. He's a veteran that just lost in thenational semifinals. Even though Devon's 29,
(04:39):
he's still living that rugby life, which is with agroup of guys in the house with rugby guys. Not my
thing. More power to him. Oh, how incredible. Idon't know where to start. I think I'm going to zoom
in on what you said because as you know, we have aneight year old, just eight. So it's a very, very, I
(05:06):
mean, we're noticing in her we're observing a realmilestone. It's a real moment of where am I, who am
I? And yes, what do I want to do to control thisenvironment? Or what can I do to control this
environment and my independence within it? Couldyou talk to us a little bit about that moment for you
(05:28):
that you mentioned, which is so beautifullyexpressed. How did you start to implement that
control? What sorts of things did you do to feelmore in control? Well, I feel like it's a blessing
and a curse, right? Because when your environmentis out of control, you focus on what you can
control. The problem is it makes you good atmanaging chaos. Right. So, right. I think, I think
(05:53):
why I've been so successful career wise is beingable to manage your way through the chaos and be
able to simplify things. I've always had like thislogical, methodical framework of being able to do
things. And if you can take it in its simplicity, ifyou could think about two parents that can't
manage, you know, a household, the alcohol, thedrug use, food shopping, laundry. So what do you
(06:21):
do? You get up early in the morning beforeeverybody's up. What do you do? You clean
everything up, right? So everything gets cleanedup. Then you focus on doing the laundry. Then you
focus on going food shopping. I remember one time Iwent food shopping and I used to write a list, you
know, think about eight, nine years old going tothe supermarket by myself with the list, checking
(06:45):
the eggs. I used to pull out each egg because mygrandmother taught me that you need to look at each
egg to make sure they're not broken. Right. And Iwent to go visit my grandmother one weekend and she
said, hey, Miss Twingali called me and she said,you saw you in the supermarket checking eggs and in
doing the shopping. What do you do? I go and foodshopping. And I said, oh, well, you know, I go food
(07:10):
shopping like, you know, I try to help mom out and gotake that off her plate. And then, you know, I heard
the phone call to my mother. What is Tommy doinggoing food shopping eight years old? You know, but
again, I think it's getting back to what what can Icontrol in this situation? And getting out early
was a big thing. I was always that kid that wasoutside early in the morning, waiting for other
(07:34):
kids to come outside. Yeah. So I would shoot hoops.I would throw a ball against a wall. I would just be
waiting, you know, I think that again, those shapeyou in different ways. I also had this, I became up
with this spidey sense over what was right and whatwas wrong. I will tell you, Isabel, I would come
(07:55):
home and I would know whether to go into the house ornot. We lived in the third floor in the projects,
right? So if you can think like these big brickbuildings and government housing, right? It was
the worst stuff going on within those walls,right? From the front door, I could sense what was
going on on the third floor and I wouldn't go in thehouse. I would just turn around and go back out and I
(08:20):
would just try to come back later when eitherpeople were passed out or people weren't home or
whatever. Wow. And your grandmother, it soundslike had quite an influence. Both of my
grandmothers were instrumental in my childhood.They were they were funny. They were very
different. Dad's mom, she was my party grandma.She was like fun. She would always encourage me to
(08:48):
try different things. You know, she was how to justa different wayward view of the world. And my other
grandmother was very strict. No swearing, nodrinking, lots of manners, politeness. And she
was a pediatric trauma nurse at Boston CityHospital. And that was her. So she was very, very
(09:11):
just different, two different sides of the coin.But such a benefit to have both views over managing
life and how to move forward. I think one of thechallenging things I really got close to my
father's mother, my party grandma, I ended upmoving in with her at one point when I was a teenager
(09:31):
because I did originally go to my strictgrandmother and admitted to her what was going on
at home. And she to my surprise, my massivesurprise, she was in complete denial. She told me
that I was lying. I was making things up and thatthis wasn't true. And she said, I got a call, your
(09:54):
mother to come get you. I said, oh, my God, whateveryou do, don't call. Don't call mom. Don't tell her.
That's exactly what happened. And comment back inthose days, right? Families did not talk about
these things. The school did not get involved inthese things. It was like, this is a home problem.
(10:15):
It stays at home. We just manage it, right? Sowhenever I told my grandmother what was going on,
my mother flipped a lid. Just flipped a lid. It wasthe worst car ride home ever. Oh, my God. It's just
so many conversations here, Tom. And we have only ashort amount of time. So I'm going to keep going,
(10:38):
keep going to the next. First of all, thank you forsharing that. Sure. And I mean, I'm at the eldest of
seven. So from a big plan and a million miles awayfrom that upbringing, in terms of what the
(10:59):
environment of the home was like, I can totallyrelate to the chaos. And I can totally relate to
that, that almost real trust in people that showyou that support. And when you tell them the truth
and you're brave enough to tell them the truth, theshock that comes when they respond in that way. And
(11:22):
then you mentioned going to your other granny orgrandmother. Sorry, granny is a very British
word. I don't know if you agree with me. You saidover there. And but for your teen years, and I'd
like to then jump to what you told us at the start,which is about your boys and how bringing them up as
teenagers was such a gift. What what is it? Do youthink that was the gift? Tell us more about the
(11:44):
gift. The beautiful, the beautiful mess, I think,is right at the kernel of that statement. Yeah, I
think it's it was very interesting. People wouldcompliment me all the time about the boys. Your
boys are so well mannered. They're so wellbehaved. They're good at school. They're good at
sports. They're good at this. They're good atthat. Tell me your secret. Maybe like, there's no
(12:07):
secret. I spend time with them and I love them. Imean, that's that's what I think the secret is is
and then giving the space also to do their ownthing. It's funny. We when they came to stay with
me, my first month was a little challengingbecause I had been managing only one or two boys and
(12:29):
then you have three boys and it's a littledifferent. And I came up with themes for dinner,
made it easier for me. So I used to make a big, bigdinner on Sunday. It was like family dinner that
led to leftover Monday. And then I had TacoTuesday, which meant we were having something
Mexican. Wednesday was Prince Spaghetti Day inBoston, which is an Italian day. And then came up
(12:56):
with Thursday night with steak night. And thenFriday and Saturday night was wild card nights.
Right. That meant dad's not cooking. There'll befood in the house, but dad's not cooking Friday or
Saturday night. And I find it funny. I justrecently went to go see my youngest son and on his
fridge is exactly that menu. Oh, that'swonderful. But that's the beautiful mess of
(13:23):
putting together those schedules and beinginvolved in sports in school and setting up, I
don't know, I guess a framework for them and beinginvolved. So I did a lot of Spartan races. I did
charity races. And I got the boys involved in thoseat early ages. Yes. So I wanted them to see not
(13:46):
everybody is as lucky as we are or you are. There arepeople out there that get sick or people that get
hurt to no fault of their own. How do we help thesepeople? So I do feel like that that gave them
empathy and involvement from a very early age tocare for others and for other people. Yes,
(14:07):
absolutely. And that resonates again as a parentand then we'll move on to a different area of your
life. But as a parent, it resonates deeply. Theyabsolutely follow your lead in that respect. And
you also have to get them, you actively have to getthem involved because there's not always going to
(14:28):
be that compliance. Right. Oh yeah. I will tellyou, I think a common theme of most kids, right? You
have a plan, you tell them what they're going to,what we're going to do for the day and they're like,
I don't want to do that. I don't want to go there. Itdoesn't matter. You're going. And then of course
you go and they, they involve in whatever it is theyengage at the end of the day. It's always the same
(14:52):
thing. Oh my God, this was the best day ever. Right.Yeah, that's so, so true. So, so true. So, so let's
fast forward a little bit to then your boys growingup, grown up, not quite off the payroll maybe, but
(15:12):
grown up more grown up and you entering into theworld of work. Can you tell us a little bit about
that chapter of your life? How you, how you wentinto the world of work and what that looked like?
Oh, I started work really early. I'm actually onthe payroll at 12 years old at a drug store. I paid
Social Security taxes when I was 12 years old,which seems crazy to me. But yeah, I started off,
(15:39):
you know, I did t-shirts selling, I did paper boystuff, I worked at the drug store, and I didn't have
enough money to go to college. Nobody in our familyhad gotten to college. I went right to work out of
high school. I went to work for a local picture andframework company, and I basically got like a one
(16:00):
on one in business. I worked in every department,but I ran in office services. So I learned the mail
and the logistics piece. I learned the receptionside. I learned the billing and statement side. I
learned the trucking side. So I had this great baseof knowledge. And then I got recruited by Pitney
Bose to go into this outsourcing project. And fromthere, what my career just kind of took off every
(16:27):
year, I got promoted into another location oranother vertical. And I eventually landed with
one particular manager and he said to me, you'retoo smart not to go to school. He's like, you're
going to go to the campus in downtown Boston atNortheastern, and you're going to go at lunchtime
or you're going to go on the weekends. And I'm like,I can't afford that. I'm playing semi pro
(16:50):
football. Like, I didn't care about going toschool. But my boss was pretty intimidating. And
he made me go to this interview at NortheasternUniversity. I didn't have the money to go to
school. Like you had to pay up front. And Ralphactually paid my first semester. The company had a
reimbursement program. So he told me, you need tomake sure you get a B or better and pay me back. And
(17:16):
that's exactly what I did. But I took a businessmanagement class. I got an A in the class really
liked it. I took business management one, two andthree. And then I decided, oh, I'll add in an
English class. I took this English class was likefive times the amount of work in the business
class. So boring and just so much work. And I gotlike a B minus. I was pissed that I didn't get an A,
(17:39):
you know, I said, why am I taking English? Why am Itaking any of these other courses? I'm just going
to focus on the business stuff. So from there, Itook organizational behavior, I took leadership
courses. And then my career just kept taking off. Ialso decided that I was open to relocation. The
company came to me at the time. I had a young family.I had been running HP and from an enterprise side.
(18:06):
And they came to me and they said, Hey, what do youthink about relocating to Seattle and opening up a
new office? And I was like, Oh, no, how does thatwork? They're like, we'll pay you and we'll help
you move and we'll help you find housing and we'lldo all the stuff. I'm like, wow, what a great deal.
All of my friends and family thought I was nuts.They were like, what are you doing moving 3000
(18:30):
miles away? You're going to start this new thing.And I was like, if it doesn't work out, just come
back. What's the big deal? I didn't think it wasthat much of a risk. And thankfully, that landed
the mother of all deals. I worked at Microsoft fortwo years. I ran the Microsoft campus. I wasn't
going to get that experience in Boston. The careercontinued to take over from enterprise work. I did
(18:55):
a lot of regional work. I had a reputation in theindustry for they used to call me the cleaner. So I
used to go in and fix accounts. They would fly me in.They would say, tell us what's wrong, kind of
figure out what's going on. And then we would turnthings around. That was my life for a while.
Incredible. And I'm also curious during that timewith the boys, how old were they when you moved to
(19:18):
Seattle? Oh, they were little, little. Right.Right. I wouldn't even remember it. Maddie was
three. Devon was one. Wow. For them, it was like ablip in time. Right, right, right. But but quite
something to uproot your family when they are thatsmall and amazing that you could. But I think
again, thinking back to your your beginnings andthe resilience that you built without even
(19:41):
knowing it, just that ability to go. It's anopportunity. It sounds exciting. It's new. And
I've been asked to do it. And to go with that is it canonly serve you, right? Yeah, I think when you grow
up in an environment where you don't going to youdon't know where you're going to be from one day to
the next, you're resilient. You figure it out. Andthat's pretty much what I've done that whole time.
(20:07):
And now again, that also can be dangerous becauseyou can figure out a way every time how to get out of
something. You know, there's this my mindimmediately when something happens, I've got
five alternatives in my head. Right, right. Whichis not always good. I totally get that. But I'd like
(20:34):
now to lead you towards the maybe the fourthchapter. And so you were the cleaner, you were
being flown into these organizations. What thenhappened when you moved into that fourth chapter
for you? What was the what was the beautiful messpart of it? If you like, I'll tell you what threw me
(20:55):
for a loop and I didn't expect was empty nestsyndrome is a real thing. I didn't see that coming.
And of course, I think it was compounded because Imade the decision to move to California at that
time. So the first two weeks were great. I was like,well, I don't have to pick anybody up. I don't have
to make any dinner. I don't have to do anything. Idon't have to go all this meetings. I have to do all
(21:18):
the stuff, right? Right. And then after two weeks,I was walking home from the beach in Del Mar. And I
had this moment where I said, Oh my God, no one needsme anymore. Right. And that was like really,
really painstaking. And it took me almost twoyears to come out of it because I didn't know who I
(21:40):
was anymore. For 25 years, my whole life hadrevolved around this ecosystem. It was gone. And
yeah, it was it was quite hard to take. I ended upgoing. I went to Thailand. I went learned, I became
Tefal certified speaking English. I became Tefalcertified to be able to teach English as a second
(22:02):
language. And I went spent three months teachingand volunteering in the middle of nowhere in
Thailand. And I had the most incredibleexperience with kids, right? It was children
being I would basically go to I would work out in themorning. I would go to school and teach during the
day. After school, I would play sports with theteenage kids, which is very funny because Thai
(22:28):
kids trash talking you in bad English is veryfunny. And then at night, I would go around town,
you know, you're the only white guy within, youknow, 50 mile radius, everybody knows that you're
teacher Tom. So all the Thai people are sowonderful and welcoming the food, the gifts, the
(22:50):
engagement just incredible, you know, wow. Oh,wow. I had I had honestly, I will be honest, I had
forgotten about that until you mentioned it. But Iknow we've spoken about it in the past. What an
incredible experience. I have never been toThailand, which is ridiculous. It is what way at
the top of my bucket list. And, and yes, I canabsolutely imagine how that must have been almost
(23:16):
like therapy in a way to come to a place of yourchoice to have that new experience to involve
children in that way. I mean, when you talk aboutemptiness syndrome being a real thing, I know our
listeners, I know they will relate to that. And I'meven thinking of it. I mean, my daughter's only
eight, and I'm already thinking about the stuff Imiss every time I curse Lego or the next pile of
(23:38):
stuff. I go, well, actually, I need to really payattention to the fact that one day I'm really going
to miss that. I think it's it's super importantthat people are prepared and that they do have like
even though I did have my own life, my own hobbiesand my own stuff, they were just so interwoven as
that family network. You know, like I used to do mySaturday workouts, Mikey used to get up with me
(24:04):
early in the morning, we would go up to MonotomyPark together with a 50 pound sandbag. And we would
basically run this course through Monotomy Park.And then we would do rounds of pushups and squats
and jumping jacks. And then we would switch whotook the 50 pound bag. And we would do all this
stuff, we'd try to do it like four to five times,right? And then we'd come back and we'd be covered
(24:26):
in dirt, like sweaty. And like someone one of theirbrothers would be rolling out of bed, and they'd be
like, what are you guys doing? What's going on?Like, yeah, yeah, we already worked out, you can go
back to bed. That's wonderful. Yeah, I mean, Icould just visualize it as you're speaking about
it. We would have dinner together. That was onething too. One thing I thought that was very
(24:49):
important. Yeah, I had dinner together as afamily. And there were no phones, no devices
allowed at the table. And we would haveconversations, we would discuss about our days,
what was happening, what was going on. I would sayprobably depending on the weather, eight times
out of 10, we would go out front and we would throwthe football around for at least 15 to 20 minutes.
(25:11):
And like that was kind of like a regular thing. Andwhat struck me was we would have other kids come to
our house for dinner or regular things and kids Acouldn't believe they couldn't bring their phone
to the table. And then B, they were struck that wewould have dinner together five nights a week,
which I found very sad. You would hear these otherkids say, I haven't had dinner with my parents in
(25:33):
years, not days, not weeks, years. I haven't haddinner with my parents. Right. And it's the one
consistent message that came out of the pandemicis how much families loved. Yes, by force of
something that none of us ever want to see again. Weall loved that enforced that imposed family time
(25:55):
and it makes a huge difference. Once you'd gone toThailand and you'd had that incredible
experience, then what happened next? I came backfrom Thailand and figured, oh boy, I better get a
real job because I've been doing some consultingwork. And lo and behold, not long after that, I got a
call asking me if I wanted to be the nationaldirector for Facebook out in San Francisco. And
(26:20):
originally I didn't want to move to San Francisco.I told him I wouldn't leave San Diego. And my
friend, who I've been very close to for many years,he was my boss at one point, he said to me, look, I
need a favor. Can you at least go up and interviewfor the position, keep an open mind, and just we
(26:40):
need to show Facebook that we have some talentbecause we're worried that they're not going to
sign the contract. So you want me to take your freetrip to San Francisco? Sure. I came up here, I
interviewed for folks that haven't been to theFacebook campus at that time before the pandemic,
it was Disneyland for adults. The food, I'd neverseen anything like it, the foods, the
(27:02):
restaurants, they had their own Uber service, youknow, like everything you could want is on the
campus. And it was an incredible feeling of energyand youth intelligence and you just feel it. Had so
much power. And I had a great interview with ourclient contact, I fell in love with him, and then I
flew home. When I landed back in San Diego, I had afull relocation offer, a sign on bonus, all my time
(27:28):
back with the company, everything you could askfor. This is probably the right thing to do. Two
weeks later, I was in San Francisco. Incredible.Incredible. And you were there for how long? I had
been in Del Mar for two years, and then I came to theFacebook campus, we did great. I've made it two
years, I'd got them through the pandemic. And thenI got approached by another former staff member
(27:54):
and asked me if I would do the same thing for Ciscoglobally. I went ahead and took that role and moved
on to Cisco. A little different mode thanFacebook. Right. It's like old tech versus new
tech. Yes, yes, yes. But great experience, greatpeople. But six months into that role, I got
(28:16):
everything kind of straightened out and good. AndI just said, this can't be it. And I also felt like I
felt like I was burning out a bit from leading twonational global teams through the pandemic is
very hard on leaders, or at least it was for me. Myfocus is not only my staff, but also their
(28:38):
families. And I think what gets lost sometimes inCOVID, people don't realize how volatile things
were. I was trying to keep people employed. I wastrying to keep people safe. I was trying to still
service the customer and do different things,right? There are a lot of plates to spin on that, and
nobody knew what to do. So I literally was pullingout my playbook. I've been through several, one of
(29:01):
the things we do is about disaster recovery whenyou're in outsourcing, right? So I had been
through SARS and Bird Blue. I had been through9-11. I had been through the Boston Marathon
bombing. I took little pieces of that and puttogether programs to be able to lead us through the
pandemic for both of those teams. I came up with ameme and a quote from the very first month, I think
(29:25):
we were in the pandemic, and it was pivot or perish.I told our team that things are not going to be the
same. Things have changed, and we're going to haveto do things we never did before, and we're going to
have to totally rethink the operation. And itbecame our mantra. Like it became, I still have
people today who will still reach out to me pivot orperish, which I think is important, you know?
(29:49):
Well, absolutely. And it speaks back to thebeginning of your story again. That's exactly
what you did, right? Thank you again for sharingthat chapter as well. And I'd love to know now, can
you share with our listeners before we do the finalpiece? Where can we find you now? Where's the best
place for people that are listening to go? I want tospeak to this man, or I want to find out more about
(30:14):
Tom Doherty. Whether can they find information?Well, you can certainly find me on LinkedIn under
Tom Doherty. There's a hashtag that I'm known foras well, which is the hashtag Born to Matter, which
is B-O-R-N, the number two, M-A-T-T-E-R. If youuse that hashtag, you'll find a lot of my posts,
(30:35):
whether it be on Instagram or on LinkedIn. Thankyou, Tom, so much. And I'd like to ask you this. I've
asked every guest this question based on a seriesof videos that I did once on LinkedIn as well. And
it's a 10-second offer for the listeners. So 10seconds of anything that you want to offer the
(30:58):
people listening today. So I believe in thathashtag Born to Matter because we were all born to
matter and have gifts to share with the world. Ifthere's anything I want you to take out of this
conversation, you matter and you were born toshare your gifts. Beautiful. I don't know really
(31:18):
how to say thank you enough. This has been so, soincredible in terms of the amount of gifts and
really just lived experience to enable us to feellike we matter listening to you. So thank you very,
very much indeed, Tom. We must just mentionactually that I met you through the Outlier
(31:43):
Project, which is an amazing community of peopleand it worked not for Scott McGregor and his team,
Kathy Love, etc., etc. We would never have met, Idon't think, well, we might have done, but very
unlikely to have met in the way that we have. I don'tthink so. The Outlier Project has totally changed
my life. You're looking at almost three years thatI've been in the Outlier Project and I've met so
(32:07):
many incredible people. I've read so manyincredible books. I've learned so much from so
many different people. And again, like you said, Idon't think I would have had the gift or the
pleasure of meeting you if it wasn't for theOutlier Project. So grateful for Scott and Kathy
for that. Thank you so much. Take care of yourselfand looking forward to sharing this with the
(32:29):
world. Thank you so much for listening. Thank youfor being here, for being a part of this beautiful
MESS community. Please like and subscribe to thepodcast and share it with anyone that you think
would enjoy your benefit from theseconversations. Take care of yourself. See you
soon.
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