VIP Café Show – Youngstown, Ohio – Local Guests with Amazing Impact to Our Community

E64 The VIP Café Show with Tom Orlando: From Prison to Purpose

• Debbie Larson and Greg Smith • Season 4 • Episode 64

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The moment Tom Orlando's life changed forever sits at the heart of this powerful conversation. A promising football player whose career was cut short by injury, Tom found success as a business owner, growing his motorcycle dealership into the top 1% nationwide. But beneath the surface success lurked habits that would lead to devastating consequences.

When a night of drinking ended in a fatal car accident that killed his friend Frank, Tom faced the unimaginable – standing before his friend's family in court as "just the guy that killed their son," before serving five years in prison for manslaughter. Rather than surrendering to despair, Tom discovered Stephen Covey's "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" and convinced prison authorities to let him teach these principles to fellow inmates.

Tom shares the raw emotional weight of his experience with remarkable vulnerability, from the "empty chair" at his friend's family holiday gatherings to the blood-spattered newspaper when another inmate was stabbed beside him in the prison library. Through it all, Tom developed a philosophy that leadership isn't about titles but about "being in charge of the people that do the job and being responsible for those people."

Now working as a leadership expert and recovery coach, Tom's most rewarding moment came years after his release, when a former inmate approached him on a train platform to share how Tom's prison teachings had transformed his life. This powerful testament affirms Tom's belief that everyone has "a God-shaped hole" they attempt to fill, and his mission to help others find healthy ways to fill that void.

Connect with Tom on LinkedIn or visit TheTomOrlando.com to learn how his extraordinary journey of redemption can help transform your organization or personal life.

Speaker 1:

Hey, hey, hey. It's a VIP Cafe show coming to you from the Havana house in Boardman, Ohio, and I'm here with my excellent co-hosting crime, Debbie Larson.

Speaker 2:

Co-hosting crime. I love it.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

I am honored to have the title. Yes, Speaking of crime. Have you ever done crime, real crime?

Speaker 1:

Me. Yes, according to the Chief Justice, every American would be thrown in prison for a felony if they enforce the books as they are.

Speaker 2:

Oh my, that's crazy. Thankfully, we're all sitting here. Free land of the free home of the brave, yes, but speaking of that, you guys are going to. You're going to love our guest today.

Speaker 1:

Yes, are you ready to induce?

Speaker 2:

already.

Speaker 1:

You know what I'm chomping at the bit because this is going to be such a great conversation, let's get into the juicy stuff Ready.

Speaker 2:

Okay, all right, I would like to introduce you to Tom Orlando and Madison, his wife. Tom actually is a leadership expert and a recovery coach, and his journey actually ended up landed him in prison for five years, and now he is. This guy is so interesting to talk to you, I'm not even going to waste the time trying to like sum it up. I think we should just get right into it. So welcome, tom and Madison.

Speaker 3:

Thank you, it's a pleasure.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, thank you. Okay, so you are a leadership expert now. You've done things nationwide that people would know about. But let's get started with you. I'm going to, I'm going to ask a great question you as a child, right? So talk to us a little bit about what life was like for you growing up, and then we'll get into where life took you, et cetera. Sure.

Speaker 3:

Grew up in Jersey, okay, okay and Italians. All four grandparents came from Italy.

Speaker 2:

Oh, wow.

Speaker 3:

All right.

Speaker 2:

Wait a minute. Why are you not wearing like gold chains around your neck? I'm kidding, he used to I used to.

Speaker 3:

Did he really I used to, I used to. Did he really I used to have three chains? There was a gold horn, a cross and a Superman S? No way. Those were the three chains that I had.

Speaker 2:

You can't make that stuff up. Oh no, no, all right, okay.

Speaker 3:

So great parents. They loved me Pretty blessed life and I always had this calling for business life and I always had this calling for business. I, when I was a kid, I had every stand I sold stuff I did from the time I was a teenager.

Speaker 2:

I was an entrepreneur, yeah.

Speaker 3:

And then I became a. I was waiting tables as a kid. Wow, as soon as I could, as soon as I could work, I started waiting tables. You know, I played football. Football was my life. I thought I was going to, I thought I was going to be a pro. Really, I had my life planned out. I played varsity football as a freshman, okay, and I just, and I was smart. I always knew I was smart and I thought I'd be a lawyer, okay. So I felt that, because I had the ability to convince people, oh, which made you a great entrepreneur.

Speaker 2:

Yes, okay.

Speaker 3:

So I thought that what I would do is I would play football, I would make it to the pros and while I was in college, I would take pre-law and then, once I got out of football, I would go into sports law.

Speaker 2:

Wow, that sounds like a good path.

Speaker 3:

That was my path. That's pretty detailed I love it. I had it like dialed in and figured out.

Speaker 2:

I bet your parents were so proud of you Like. You're like a young star, ready to go out into the world, yeah.

Speaker 3:

And then I hanging out with seniors. When you're freshmen it's not really healthy. So I would start hanging out with them and I would start. I would go out drinking with them when I was like I would go out drinking with them.

Speaker 2:

Oh wow, when I was like 13, 14.

Speaker 3:

Wow, and so I developed bad habits at that time and so I would drink and I would. We would drink until we got drunk and throw up and carry on and do stupid things, but then then we'd be over, the next day would be over, and but I shouldn't have been hanging out with those kids at that age. That's where I developed bad habits. Okay, and then what happened was when I was playing football. I did make it to the New Jersey All-Stars. I got a full scholarship to Iowa State Wow. And that was from a small high school. We had 35 people on our JVN varsity. Wow. I never got off the field. I played offense defense, punt, return and kick. I didn't play kick return. It's the only time I got a breather.

Speaker 2:

Wow.

Speaker 3:

And I was the biggest kid in my school. So I played the line but I was really a linebacker. But I couldn't play the linebacker because we needed to minimize my size on the line. But I got the scholarship and then I got offered to play in the New Jersey All-Stars, which was in the Meadowlands Giant Stadium, and my coach told me not to go. He said listen, don't go to that game, you don't need it because you got the scholarship. Go there. And I said no, my family's going to be able to see me all my cousins, my aunts, my uncles. So I played the New Jersey All-Stars and I got hit with a fluke play. They ran a double trap on me and I busted both my knees.

Speaker 2:

No, oh, life-changing moment Right there, just like that.

Speaker 3:

It was over. They took away my scholarship. It was done. Popped one knee out of socket, the other one ripped all the ligaments and tendons and the out of socket, the other one ripped all the ligaments and tendons. And it was, scholarship was over, yeah. So I was pretty angry at that point in my life. Then I floundered around, I went to community college and I took a pre-law class there and I said I don't want to do this.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, just trying to put the pieces back together, so I just focused on waiting tables and then actually I became a bouncer. Did you really? Which a bouncer? Did you really?

Speaker 3:

which a bouncer down the jersey shore. That was like the perfect job for me an italian bouncer yeah there you go yeah, and alcohol oh no, yeah, I got to drink for free I got to go out and I got into fights which helped with my anger issues oh yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

at the time I thought it did, it did Just feeding into it.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and then I didn't really do much. I just waited tables and bounced and when I would date, my girlfriend's parents would say he seems like a nice guy, but is he ever going to get a real job? Oh, and this went on for years and then I answered an ad and got a job as a business broker.

Speaker 2:

Really Just from an ad.

Speaker 3:

You know what happened. First I skipped a point. When I was waiting tables there was a gentleman named Ron Bird and he owned Chicago Research and Trading CRT, which controlled like 30% of the gold on the futures market. And he I made it to the maitre d' of his restaurant, okay, and he said you're a pretty smart kid and you present yourself well. You want to come work on the floor of the stock exchange? And I said sure, and so he took me in there and he put me under his wing and started teaching me to be a broker Wow, and to trade on the floor. And it scared me. There was a lot of drugs at that time, it was the eighties cocaine.

Speaker 3:

And I just thought I'm going to die here. This is not a good atmosphere for me, wow. And I said, listen, I don't want to do this, but can I have the offer in writing so I could use it to leverage something? He said, sure, so he gave me the offer in writing. So then I went to another stock brokerage and I thought I'd go to work there, and then I eventually got the job as a business broker, which is where you get a commercial real estate license and you get buyers and sellers of businesses together.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and they teach you how to value a business and how to sell it. Yeah, so I started doing that and I was 24. Wow, so at 24, I would call, call businesses on the phone and I'd get through the owner. And so at 24 years old, I'd walk into a business and talk to somebody in 50 years old running this business for 20 years, and I'm trying to tell him how much his business is worth and how to sell it.

Speaker 3:

And I did pretty good and eventually I made it to one of the top agents in the United States for the company and I had a Kawasaki dealership for sale. And I talked to my mom and dad my dad drove a truck for 20 years. My mom ran an Ethan Allen furniture store and I said, why don't we just buy this dealership and you guys can go work in there and I'll help you run it? And so that's what we did.

Speaker 2:

Really A family thing yeah.

Speaker 3:

That's beautiful when your family backs you up. That's great's great.

Speaker 2:

I thought it was a good idea, oh no, okay, it wasn't Zonkey, that's a pretty big company.

Speaker 3:

What happened was my mom and dad did not like it.

Speaker 2:

Oh no.

Speaker 3:

And I realized soon that just because I knew how to sell businesses didn't mean I know how to run one.

Speaker 3:

Oh no, so I had to quit my job and go work there full time, which wasn't my plan, because I loved my job, I loved my boss, I loved what I did and it broke my heart. But I went into the dealership and after about six months I said you know what I really like this? Oh, okay, and I turned out to be really good at it. I tell people, when you see a five-year-old play Beethoven.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 3:

There's no rhyme or reason. That was me with the motorcycle business. I didn't have a lot of education, I didn't know anybody that ran businesses like that size and within two years we were in the top 1% of the United States.

Speaker 2:

Come on, yeah, wow, so this is still in Jersey at this point. Still in Jersey.

Speaker 3:

So you know you have dealers in California, texas, florida, so this little dealership in New Jersey had no right being in the top 1%.

Speaker 2:

Wow.

Speaker 3:

But we did, and we did that, for they give you like a Super Bowl ring. They call it Ichiban, it means number one in Japanese. Okay, and I got that ring seven years.

Speaker 2:

Oh my goodness, yeah, okay. So what is it? Ichiban?

Speaker 3:

Ichiban. Ichiban Ichiban means number one in Japanese.

Speaker 2:

I'm going to make a t-shirt that says Ichiban. What do you?

Speaker 3:

account.

Speaker 1:

You've been around, you've seen other dealerships. You walk in a dealership I'm sure you have leadership bias now where you can walk in and you can go. Okay, this is what they're not doing. This is what. What is it that you did or that made you the difference? What is the thing that you notice? With your leadership that took the dealership.

Speaker 3:

Number one was at that time in my life in my twenties. I was extremely aggressive. Oh, I didn't ever think I could fail, that was number one. So I always saw us succeeding. Okay, think I could fail? That was number one, so I always saw us succeeding. But I was always really good at leading people. Getting people to a good leader runs up the hill and they run up behind him voluntarily. Bad leaders push everybody else up the hill, but if you have the ability to earn trust and get people to join you, then that's what leadership is. Leadership is not a title. It's not being in charge of the job. It's being in charge of the people that do the job and being responsible for those people.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. Do you find that a lot of leaders that you now are able to coach and lead are? Do they lack? Do you see leaders lack that leaders or companies lack that confidence that they will succeed that you were talking about?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, because that's why there's a need for what I do.

Speaker 2:

Because they might be good at what they their craft is, but not good at leadership.

Speaker 3:

Most people when they're in business. My experience is they made money somewhere else or they got money from somewhere and they bought this business. Oh, okay, that's number one. Number two is they work their way up through it, which means they know how to do it. And just because you know how to do it does not mean that you have leadership skills to grow other leaders. Yeah, if anything, it combats that, because if you're the person that did the job and now you're in charge, now you have other people and you want to, you can do the job better than them.

Speaker 2:

Oh, okay, yeah.

Speaker 3:

So you want to, you want to keep stepping in and doing the job and it's not that's no longer your job. Your job now is to grow those people and to inspire those people to be better so they can do their job correctly.

Speaker 2:

That's good. That's good. Okay. So now you were talk to us like fast forward as to what landed you in the most unexpected place in your life but where you began to have like a shift in your life. So, at the Kawasaki dealership, were you still doing a lot of drinking and partying?

Speaker 3:

The Kawasaki store turned into Honda and Suzuki and became like an auto mall. We had everything under one roof. Okay, what happened was I actually pretty much stopped drinking.

Speaker 3:

Oh, okay, but not because I thought I should stop drinking. It's because drinking the way I did wasn't conducive to life. I remember when we did a lot of advertising Okay, so the reps from the cable news company, from the cable companies and all these people with radio stations, they always wanted to take me to lunch and we used to call them liquid lunches. Right, they want to take me out drinking.

Speaker 2:

And.

Speaker 3:

I would always say I mean, I don't drink. I'm not going to drink in the afternoon, because the reason I didn't want to drink in the afternoon was because I couldn't drink the way I want to drink.

Speaker 2:

Oh, so you had enough. Okay, you had enough self-control.

Speaker 3:

It wasn't under the self-control, it just didn't interest me. Oh yeah, okay.

Speaker 2:

I had no interest in it.

Speaker 3:

The only reason I wanted to drink was to get drunk, like I did when I was a kid, and carry on. So I didn't do that often, but when I did it, what happened was my life at that time. I'm in my early 30s, I'm married, not to Madison, I'm married to my first wife, I have a daughter and life looks really good on the outside.

Speaker 3:

It was like me I looked good on the outside, I wasn't good inside, I wasn't solid inside and my business wasn't solid. All right, and we had a barbecue. One of my employees had a barbecue and I went to the barbecue without my wife because we had an argument that day and we got there and it was a bunch of people and it started pouring rain. So a barbecue when it pouring rain is not a lot of fun.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

So everybody decided, hey, let's get Dave drunk, cause when Dave gets drunk he's fun. So we all started to try and get Dave drunk, doing shots and things like that. And that was the last thing I remembered from that day, really. I woke up in a hospital gurney a little after midnight and my wife was standing next to me and she didn't go to the barbecue. She said you were in a car accident and I said I don't really remember. I remember and she said Frank was with you and Frank Levante was at the barbecue, but he didn't go with me For some reason. Him and I decided to get into a car together. We were both really our alcohol level's really high.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

And then she told me that Frank died. Wow. The only memory I have is of that moment was I remember feeling like my entire body just melted through the gurney, when all the life just drained out of me?

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

And they had me on suicide watch for a while, when the police officer was in the room with me all the time and they didn't want to leave me alone and I didn't necessarily want to kill myself, but I really didn't feel I deserved to live and I didn't know how to live with what I did. Yeah, so that's the turning point. That's when life just changes and you just from there on it, was just trying to figure out what do I do? How do I not just pay respects to my friend, because it's not even how you do that yeah it's just.

Speaker 3:

At some point I realized I can't make a better past, so I have to make a better future and try to figure out what the heck, that looks like so what was when you ended so obviously that decision ended up ended you in prison.

Speaker 2:

What was your mind frame when you were standing in the courtroom and got, and they passed that judgment down?

Speaker 3:

It's important to understand that it took a year and a half for that to happen. Okay, so there's a year and a half that transpires between there and during that year and a half. So first of all they had they wanted to. They charged me with aggravated manslaughter because of the level of our alcohol Got it. And they don't have vehicular manslaughter in Jersey, they only have manslaughter, so aggravated manslaughter is 30 years.

Speaker 2:

Oh my goodness. So for a year and a half you were like living with Facing 30 years. Oh my goodness.

Speaker 3:

And in 30 years? If they put me away for 30 years, by the time I got out my parents would be dead.

Speaker 3:

My wife wouldn't be my wife anymore, my daughter would be grown and probably have a kid of her own, because she was three at the time and there was about 40 or 50 employees that made a living in my business that I felt responsible for. They were married, they had kids, and what's going to happen to all these people? So during that time I decided I shouldn't drink anymore. I didn't think I had a drinking problem, but I figured I shouldn't drink, so I went to my first AA meeting and that really clicked for me.

Speaker 3:

I liked it. I felt, oh my God, I can relate to these people. So that's where I got into recovery. So that helped me with my drinking.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

I haven't drank. Since it's 30 years I haven't drank, and during that time so you would just be getting out like now, yeah. If you had done the 30 years, if I had did the 30 years? That's crazy. I never Like now. If you had done the 30 years, if I had did the 30 years, I'd never thought about that until you just said that. Oh my God.

Speaker 2:

Oh man.

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So during that time I found the book the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Dr Steve Covey.

Speaker 2:

Okay, during this year and a half, during that year and a half.

Speaker 3:

I read the book and it changed my life. It was like it was life changing. Yeah, part of the principle of the seven habits is the best way to learn something is to teach it. Okay, so I taught it right away. I taught it to my my my Kawasaki rep, I taught it to my Suzuki rep, I taught it to my Honda rep, I taught it to my staff, okay, and it started clicking for me in my life. So that helped me with putting my life together outside of drinking. Got it? Aa helped me with putting my life together with drinking, okay, yep, so I had those two working for me. And then, during this time, a bone. I wasn't injured from my car accident, okay. But during this time it turned out that I had a bone spur from the accident which started to puncture my spinal cord, oh my. So I wound up partially paralyzed and I went to all these different doctors and nobody could fix me. And then, finally, this one doctor said he could fix me and he did.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

And so I was fixed before I went to prison. Okay, during this time the one doctor said I can fix you, but you're going to have to be in one of those halos for a year.

Speaker 2:

Oh my, during this time the one doctor said I can fix you, but you're going to have to be in one of those halos for a year.

Speaker 3:

And I just remember I looked at them and I said dude, I'm going to prison.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I'm pretty sure I shouldn't have one of those halos because I would just be like a pinata for these guys.

Speaker 3:

So I was really blessed. I found a doctor that fixed me and I got myself in shape before I went away. I never knew anybody that had ever been to prison Wow. So, I watched the Shawshank Redemption about 12 times.

Speaker 2:

It was just oh man.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah. And I used to go to AA meetings in really bad parts of town so I could meet people that had been to prison, wow, and I could talk to them about what is it? What do I have to know? And so I researched everything. I found there was 20,000 beds in New Jersey prisons 25,000 beds and there's like about 500 or 800 beds in therapeutic communities where people are trying to get better with recovery. Okay, so I figured out how you get in there and how you got to work toward that. Plus, I knew that I needed to be like the guy in Shawshank. I needed to clean the warden's office.

Speaker 1:

Somehow. Okay, you're right, take a plastic bag with you and a poster.

Speaker 2:

Take a plastic bag with you and a poster.

Speaker 3:

So getting fast forward. You go through that year and a half of all this and then they finally reduced my sentence to 10 years at the very end, and I went to court with my dad and my wife at the time, okay, and my friend's family was there. You know, and when you become friends with somebody in your 30s, you don't necessarily meet their parents yeah, so their parents did not know me. They didn't know anything about me. I was just the guy that killed their son me. I was just the guy that killed their son man wow, and sometimes I can talk about this stuff.

Speaker 3:

Sometimes I can't. I remember I got sentenced, they put me in shackles and you got to realize as a manslaughter okay, not aggravated manslaughter, but manslaughter. You're still a violent crime. That's an a304 in New Jersey, and so you get segregated. So you're the guys in the orange jumpsuits. Wow. So I only got to be with the guys in the orange jumpsuits for the entire five and a half years. Wow I was not allowed around the other inmates. Wow, they were afraid I might kill some poor drug dealer or something.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

So everybody that was in my cell for five and a half years was there because they killed somebody or beat them or something bad. Yeah, wow, people I associated with for five and till they send you somewhere. And I remember my first night in prison.

Speaker 3:

All I could think about, was they let me. I went in just after Christmas just after New Year's actually and I was thinking about how blessed I was that I got to be home for the holidays, and then it just made me think about what my friend's family's house must have been like. Oh man because, on a holiday, when all your family gets together, everybody sits in the same chair.

Speaker 3:

Every year, your grandfather sits there, okay your grandmother sits here, yeah your parent sits here, so I just realized that there was a chair for frank and it was empty, and it was empty, yeah that was one of the first poems I wrote about the empty chair. Wow, this is all part of trying to heal that, because go ahead no, I was just gonna ask what?

Speaker 1:

who do you do this for? You're very generous with your life, very generous Generosity of scars is what we call it Sharing your vulnerability with people so they can see themselves in you and heal and not go through what you went through. But who do you do this? For? What is the motivation? Be able to? But who do you?

Speaker 3:

do this? For why? What is the motivation? Obviously, I do it for my friend Frank, because I don't feel that his life should be in vain, although I don't know if this makes up for it in any way.

Speaker 1:

Never, can no.

Speaker 3:

We can never do enough for what we receive in life. It's impossible. I still remember the letter that his sister wrote to the parole board about why she felt I shouldn't get paroled. Oh man, I can still see it and I couldn't argue with it. She said it's X number of years later.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

I've had my first daughter, and my daughter's never going to know her uncle, and that's the truth.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

And there's nothing I can do to undo that. But what I do, I try to help, as you said, to help other people to not make the mistake. When I was in prison actually right after the car accident I knew I had to do something with my life. Like after I got past the suicides thing I called one of my best friends, david, and I said David, you need to do me a favor. I said somewhere they have my car, I don't know where. You need to reach out to the police, find out where my car is and go take pictures of it. That's because someday I want to talk to kids about drinking and driving and I want those pictures.

Speaker 2:

Wow Before I went away.

Speaker 3:

I reached out to MAD Mothers Against Drunk Driving, okay, and the lady felt like when they finally got somebody to talk to me, she said listen. She said she called me sweetie. She said listen, sweetie, you sound like a nice kid, but you realize you're the enemy. Wow I really don't want to hear your story that's unfortunate, I know it is but, that was it was painful.

Speaker 3:

That was painful, oh so while I was in prison, I got to clean the warden's office. That took me about a year and a half. Wow which is pretty cool because that's usually a job that's reserved for a guy in his 80s named Pop.

Speaker 1:

So I got to do that, which gave me a little bit of movement in there.

Speaker 3:

Okay, and actually at the time, once everybody, because I have no problem with people knowing my story.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

And once the guards got to know me, I became their therapy coach Because those guards they had worse drug problems and alcohol problems than most of the inmates.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, they were pretty wrecked Most of the guards that I knew, and so they would come to me and confide in me and talk to me.

Speaker 3:

And I would sit there and have like therapy sessions with these guys and so I would talk them through their things in life and then they would help me with like movement and things like that inside. And I got the warden to allow me to teach the seven habits to inmates, which at first the inmates did not like some of the inmates because they were like, listen, I don't want to have to take this class and I don't want to look bad if I don't take your class.

Speaker 2:

And I said I don't know what to tell you you don't have to take it but I'm doing it.

Speaker 3:

I'm pretty lucky it's three and I'm 240. If I'm in good shape, at least I look like I can take care of myself, and I've learned in prison that most of the really bad things in there happen because of drugs or gambling.

Speaker 1:

Oh.

Speaker 3:

And I'm a bad loser, so I don't gamble. Okay, and I wasn't doing any drugs, so it wasn't that hard to stay away from the trouble, yeah, okay, but the trouble happened all around me. I was in the library one day and I was reading a newspaper.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

And all of a sudden there was red dots on my newspaper. Oh, because the guy next to me got stabbed in the neck. Oh, and when things like that happen, they immediately arrest everybody. Yeah, and in there you're guilty until proven innocent. So you find a way to get away and to be able to not get in trouble for this, oh man. Yeah, I saw some pretty scary stuff in there.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, cause it was violent people. Oh my goodness, yeah, wow.

Speaker 3:

I got to. I got them to let me teach the seven habits. I got to I actually we gave a certificate out and I signed the certificate, which I thought was pretty cool, right, and? But my wife Madison started to tell you a story earlier about this, which I thought was pretty neat. This has got to be one of the best memories I have in my life. Right, I taught the seven habits. In there I found that I was going home, so I taught Bill Fennerty how to teach the seven habits because he was doing it with me and I said listen you got to keep doing this.

Speaker 3:

So Bill Fennerty took it over and I left, and then I went to the halfway house and I was in the halfway house for way too long years in the halfway house. I should have been out of the halfway house in six months but I was in there for years, years in the halfway house.

Speaker 3:

I should have been out of the halfway house in six months, but I was in there for years. Okay, they would let me leave during the day and I would get. I would take a cab. It was a bad part of Newark. It was such a bad part of Newark. The cab wouldn't take me back.

Speaker 3:

Wow, the cab stopped two blocks away from the halfway house and let me out, and I had to walk the last two blocks. Wow. So I would leave that place, get to a train, take the train to another town. Then I'd work in a gym during the day, okay, and then I'd go back to the halfway house and bring myself back in.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

And guys and there was a nightmare. Guys had guns, all kinds of stuff.

Speaker 2:

In the halfway house. In the halfway house, oh yeah, it was a horrible place oh.

Speaker 3:

No, they were half guns, but I was on the platform waiting for a train, yeah, and now, at this point, I'm out of prison, right, I got blonde hair, I'm a white guy. I'm in a bad section of town.

Speaker 2:

I don't look like. I look like a cop.

Speaker 3:

It's anything. And this young black kid comes up to me and he says are you, tom Orlando? And I said yeah.

Speaker 2:

He said said you taught me the seven habits. No way, yeah, come on.

Speaker 3:

I was like I don't remember you and he said yeah, you weren't there the whole time he goes.

Speaker 2:

I really learned it from bill fennerty no way, yeah, oh, I just got used.

Speaker 3:

Oh, yeah, so the kid got on the train with me and we rode for I don't know how many stops together and he was telling me about how he turned his life around. He told me all about the bad things he had done. Yeah, he told me all about how bad his life was. Okay, he told me all the things he was doing now.

Speaker 3:

And when he was talking to me, the end in mind and putting first things first and trying to be more proactive than reactive, and that was one of the most rewarding moments of my life.

Speaker 2:

Oh man.

Speaker 1:

How do people get in touch with you? How do they want to reach out? They want to hire you, they want your expertise.

Speaker 3:

So I am in the process because this is all just new to me.

Speaker 2:

I just left the motorcycle dealership, I just left the motorcycle world because that's where I've been doing all this stuff, and I just bought the domain of the Tom Orlando. Oh nice, yeah, that'll be active in about a week.

Speaker 3:

Okay, so they can just go to thetomerlandocom and they'll find me. Okay, and that's where I will. I'll be doing leadership management training still Okay, and I started doing. I will. I'll be doing leadership management training still Okay, and I started doing recovery coaching. So I'm helping people, that's so important.

Speaker 3:

You know what it is? A lot of people once you stop, okay, drinking or doing drugs and I'm a firm believer. I think everybody in life at some point is addicted to something. We're all, we all are dependent on someone or something to be okay. So when you remove that thing, there's this hole and there's this saying that says there's a God shaped hole in every man that he tries to fill with all types of matter.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's good.

Speaker 3:

So I try to help people fill that hole somehow with whatever they find. When I work with people and they're like adamant about not wanting to talk about any religion or God, I'm like, okay, so just use an acronym Good Orderly Direction, that's your acronym, because it's principles. Covey wrote a book one time. Yeah, because Covey used to mentor me directly, which is pretty cool.

Speaker 2:

I feel pretty blessed.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, he put me in his book Living the Seven Habits, on page 24, the prisoner's story.

Speaker 2:

That's me. Oh, that's cool.

Speaker 3:

And when he was mentoring me, when he first started working with me, he said listen, just so you know I'm Mormon. Does that bother you? I said I don't care. And then we had talks about God and Christ and stuff and he told me at the time he said I wrote a book called Christ-Centered Living and it didn't sell well, right. So he said, about two years later I was talking to my publisher and I changed the name. I changed it to Principle-Centered Living.

Speaker 3:

And you know how you do a word search and you can just flip the name. So everywhere in the book where it said Christ, it just changed it to principles and the book sold millions of copies.

Speaker 2:

You're kidding, yeah, you're kidding what? Yeah, man, that's crazy how people will turn away from something. Yeah, they're afraid of their self. Yes, yes, oh. And you guys just heard Madison, his wife, I've been talking the whole time.

Speaker 1:

Hey you had a and I know that's yeah, that's totally fine yeah. I was going to tell him, I said the secret of great speakers being able to tell stories. I think he's going to be good.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I know.

Speaker 1:

I'm telling you, if you could go.

Speaker 2:

He could go so many. Even just this conversation, I feel like there's five different keynote speeches.

Speaker 1:

There's another secret I'll share with you, and I don't know if you know this or not, but people don't come and hear you speak. They come to see themselves in what you say.

Speaker 3:

Yes, absolutely, he knows it 100%.

Speaker 1:

I know that I'm completely useless Go ahead.

Speaker 2:

You're the mirror. No, speaking of. You're the mirror, no, speaking of contact information, though, can we just shout out madison, and what you do as well, and how people could get a hold of you, because she actually this is such a great couple, like they are a match made by god for sure, because each one of them have a such a powerful, unique story, and then how they came together. But madison has such a big heart for people and she does massage and a lot of body healing and stuff.

Speaker 1:

You know what we should do, what we should bring them back, and then we'll feature her. Oh yeah, we'll have to have that for sure, that would be Okay.

Speaker 3:

Then we'll wait for your so okay.

Speaker 2:

Yes, all right. So today then it's the TomOrlandocom, but give it a week about, a week About a week, about a week, it should be up and running.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, yeah, well, let's do it.

Speaker 2:

You are on LinkedIn, though.

Speaker 3:

I am on LinkedIn yeah, he's on LinkedIn. Yeah, they can find me, Tom Orlando, at LinkedIn, tom.

Speaker 2:

Orlando. Okay, tall, six foot, what?

Speaker 3:

Six foot, you'll know it's him.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you'll know it's him.

Speaker 2:

We'll try it again Okay, rapid, all right. This is time for rapid fire, which we pop questions out at you and you just answer quick. Okay, quick answers, okay. So shout out a mentor, who you have not mentioned yet, that has been influential in your life.

Speaker 3:

My wife.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I love that. I don't think we should ask any more questions.

Speaker 2:

I think I know the answer to this East or west for vacation. If you had to go east, or west.

Speaker 3:

Oh, I got to go east.

Speaker 2:

You got to. I know the answer to this East or west for vacation. If you had to go east, or west.

Speaker 3:

Oh, I gotta go east. I know the answer to that Unless I'm home, then there is no east. I gotta go west.

Speaker 2:

Alright, favorite New Jersey food, because New Jersey is known for their New Jersey pizza. Okay, alright, you have anything, greg Coke or Pepsi.

Speaker 3:

There's no such thing as Pepsi.

Speaker 1:

It's all Coke. Favorite place to eat in town. Favorite place in this area.

Speaker 3:

Abuela Plaza. Oh yes, Abuela Plaza.

Speaker 1:

Okay. That's a good one Is it plug for oh, their butter cake.

Speaker 2:

Oh my God, the butter cake.

Speaker 1:

My wife's favorite.

Speaker 3:

Also, we just had dinner at the Rumpelstiltskin, which is pretty awesome in Salem. Also, we just had dinner at the Rumpelstiltskin, which is pretty awesome in Salem.

Speaker 2:

Yes, you've got to do that? I definitely will cover that, and have you been there yet, because you're a Salem guy?

Speaker 1:

The. Rumpelstiltskin, they could tell you about it, but on social media it looks really cool. You have to have the lemon meringue cheesecake. It is fire.

Speaker 3:

It is so good. I preferred the homemade chocolate chip cookies with milk?

Speaker 2:

Oh, come on, they bring you milk. Oh, come on, they do.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I'm going to. It was so good. Now that we've got everybody hungry, we're going to sign off. Thank you very much and thank you for being here.

Speaker 3:

Thank you so much.