Live Your Powerful Life Of Hope With Tom Kress
Download MP3It often arises from a deep understanding of or even a yearning, right, for betterment, especially in times of sadness and unfulfillment and sometimes despair, sometimes all we're left with is hope and that's not how that.
Paul Nottoli:Oh, and welcome to the believe the hope podcast. I am here with Tom Kress, the CEO and owner and coach of High Esteem Coaching and Speaking. Faced with many difficulties and challenges when he was growing up, he created a life of dysfunction in Tom. So he was always feeling less and not good enough and tremendous amount of self judgment. For years, Tom was going through the motions, mostly disengaging from life, working jobs that were only unfulfilling in many many ways.
Paul Nottoli:Finally, he became fed up not realizing the dreams and feeling unaccomplished. He always had the feeling he could do more and be more. 15 years ago, he became a certified life coach and 9 years ago, he began public speaking career. Since then, his dreams have flourished because he has changed his focus. He focuses on what he can do versus what he cannot.
Paul Nottoli:The major message of his mission through coaching and speaking is guiding folks to live their powerful life. As a survivor, he has spoken to almost 500 schools and 100 and thousands of students on sexual abuse awareness and prevention over 304 students to come forward about their abuse. Tom feels having the ability and skills to work and live in a purpose is a tremendous gift. His goals every day is to pay it forward. Life in any circumstances is amazing when you live in your power.
Paul Nottoli:So thank you for coming on, Tom. Thank you for sharing your message. I know some of your message and what you preach about is a tough topic to discuss. Many of those people are, especially young, if they've been abused, are probably lacking hope or lacking direction because of that type of abuse. So I appreciate your insight and your, your story and, what you're doing for not only our community locally, because I know you've We've known each other for about 14 years here locally, but also just, getting this message out to a bigger audience and, to share that there is hope on the other side and that there is power with them.
Tom Kress:Absolutely, Paul. I I appreciate you having me on. I mean, this is this is really an honor. I love what you're doing. I love what you do on a daily basis.
Tom Kress:I am a personal, you know, client of yours who has, to be able to touch his toes for 30 years of not being able to touch my toes. So Yeah. A shameless plug to, my good friend, Paul, and his business, Pound. Yeah. As a as a survivor of sexual abuse, there was a time where I felt nearly hopeless, and that is no place for anyone to be.
Tom Kress:Mhmm. So so fortunately, I have been able to learn a lot to be able to pay that forward.
Paul Nottoli:With that question, everyone has a little bit of definition of what hope means to them or how they found that hope. What does that mean to you personally?
Tom Kress:Well, to me, personally, hope is a it's a universal human experience. Right? And it can provide strength and resilience in the face of challenges. Right? It's also a coping mechanism for some people because mostly all they do is, you know, rely on hope and and that, you know, drags them through whatever they're going through.
Tom Kress:But it can also be a powerful force that can help people cope and deal with the difficult situations that they may be in and help them eventually achieve their goals. But it often arises from a deep understanding of or even a yearning, right, for betterment. And even though, you know, some of it may come from a need or a desire. Right? Especially in times of sadness and unfulfillment and sometimes despair, sometimes all we're left with is hope, and that's not how bad that.
Tom Kress:Mhmm.
Paul Nottoli:I kinda come with the the my definition of hope is that it gives people permission. It gives people mission to fight, you know, another day. It gives permission to step into something that they're feeling like they're called to, but they're maybe scared or dragging their feet or whatnot as well. Absolutely. When you were feeling hopeless because of that abuse, how did you how did you find the hope to keep going?
Paul Nottoli:Because if you said hope was the only thing you had left, but you were feeling basically hopeless or that apathy sets in, which is not the which is the worst place to be when you when you just don't care about anything. Where where did you find that that hope to keep to keep fighting and keep changing?
Tom Kress:That's that's a really, really good question. And and, I have to say that you don't really know that you're leaning or or just holding on to that hope. Sometimes you don't know you are. You're just as I said earlier, you're being dragged through it because you do have a sense of hope. You live with a sense of hope.
Tom Kress:And I know not everyone does, but, hope for me for a very significant time in my life, I felt was all I had. You know? I was stuck because my my story in a short form is I was sexually abused for 10 years and, of course, threatened and and all of that, so I kept it a secret. Then, of course, I believed, like, every victim believes that it's their fault, and I began to believe it was my fault. So this became a secret I kept with me for well over 25 years until I told my wife who was the first person I ever told.
Tom Kress:And when you're stuck with all of that, sometimes hope is all you got. And hope was basically, I feel was still there because I had amazing parents
Paul Nottoli:Mhmm.
Tom Kress:And siblings. And I come from a family of 9 children. I'm the 3rd of 9 children. And, I had continual hope that I could be one day, I could be like any one of them because I looked up to all of them. Right?
Tom Kress:And, so that hope carried me through a lot of days, weeks, and years. And, my dad was an amazing man. He worked hard. He played hard. He taught me so much, and he still does today.
Tom Kress:Fortunately, he's still with us for a he's 85 years old. And I love my mom so much, but we didn't have a a great relationship mainly because I was holding on to that secret. So I never told her what happened to me. She didn't know because I know in my heart that if she did, if she did know what had happened to me, our relationship would have been different. So I didn't give that to her.
Tom Kress:I didn't give that opportunity for her to help me the way I know she would've. Mhmm. And then she died at a pretty young age, 64 years old. So, so hope is what carried me through all of that, and then it carried carried me through my time in the Navy. Had a nice short little Navy career, and it was an honor to serve my country, but I was hope that led me back home because I was the 1st person essentially, the 1st person to leave home and go do something like that.
Tom Kress:Right? So I needed hope, and I was still that was a big part of who I was. And then hope led me to the point where I felt I won at life by marrying the wonderful woman that I did. And, my wife, Jill, has has been an amazing, leader for me to learn how I can become who I was meant to be.
Paul Nottoli:Yeah. Community relationships definitely play a role in just having someone believe in you, whether they know your trauma or not or your what you're struggling with, just knowing that they are always gonna have your back. And I know Jill personally. She's she's pretty cool. She's a pretty cool lady.
Paul Nottoli:She's a really awesome human being. Yep. When you're talking to students, coaching clients, that may be in the situation where you're in, where they don't have a lot of hope, how what advice are you giving or what are you helping the questions that you're asking to help them find that hope or to find that meaning or find that community to help bring them forward.
Tom Kress:Yeah. So And this is this is what was hard for a very long time was not knowing. Right? Because we're not really taught how to deal with our stuff. I was gonna swear.
Tom Kress:I don't know if I was swearing.
Paul Nottoli:Whatever. I don't it doesn't matter. But people might not like it. It's as a the conversations are meant to be. You know, we're talking about some heavy stuff, and we're trying to
Tom Kress:Yeah.
Paul Nottoli:We're try I'm trying to help people relate to a lot of situations and different avenues in life and talk to a lot of different people that have different experiences. So every emotions or whatever you feel like you need to to share, please do. So, anyway, sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you, but
Tom Kress:go ahead. That's fine. I I completely, appreciate setting boundaries like that. Yeah. So that's awesome.
Tom Kress:There's a hummingbird right outside my window when I Is that? So when I'm dealing with clients and and I'm speaking to all the students that I speak to, I know because of the work I did 15 years ago to become a life coach, I had to in order for me to to be able to work with anyone else, I had to get work done for me. Right? And that was hard. I'm not gonna blow smoke up anyone's butt.
Tom Kress:It's hard to deal with past pain and trauma. But if you don't, it will affect you the rest of your life. Right? So we need to. And but a lot of us aren't taught to.
Tom Kress:Right? So fortunately, I've been taught, and now I'm paying it forward through what I do. And how I cultivate that sense of hope and that sense of being. I'll probably give you a a kind of a rundown of basically how to go through it, even though I didn't go through it in that sense, but I've learned that that's that's really the way to go. And the first one is, first and foremost, we have to engage in self care.
Tom Kress:We have to take care of ourselves. Right? And then the next one is to practice gratitude. Right? Be thankful for what you have and and what you've been able to achieve or or experience.
Tom Kress:And then surround yourself with positive influences, whether it be, you know, music or or art or but most importantly, I'm talking about people. Right? Positive influences in your life make a difference. So find someone you connect with and learn from them. And then we get into the other ones of setting realistic goals and and visualizing positive outcomes, and then, you know, you wanna seek meaning and purpose.
Tom Kress:And through all of that, you know, and I can break a lot of that down for you if you want, but, I mean, those that's essentially how we go about doing it, but that's where are we learning that? Right? Those aren't classes in schools. Right? So people have to go either to therapy or or hire a life coach like me to learn how to go through those processes to find who you were meant to be in every moment.
Tom Kress:So Mhmm. So through all of that, we're able to work and gain, most importantly, a thing called acceptance. I believe this is one of the most important qualities any person could have is acceptance. And, I have this wonderful family friend who her name is Patty McDonald, and me, Patty, if ever you watch this, hi, Patty, that she gave me this picture, and it says joy moves at the speed of acceptance. And when you accept, this is the crucial part of acceptance.
Tom Kress:When you accept things that have happened to you, you accept people as they are. That helps you move forward with more hope and more drive. Right? So, it's really, really powerful to accept, but it takes a lot to learn it, a lot, but it's worth it. So worth
Paul Nottoli:And those were good those are all good points, and it was gonna bring up a question because we can have the hope, we can have the understanding to keep going, but we can have all this knowledge. But if we're not taking action in any way, shape, or form, none of this you don't ever move forward. You don't have that acceptance to move forward. You don't have the the the fight to take action and move forward because, ideas, thoughts, motivation, that's all that's all waning because you can have motivated motivation, and you have a flat tire on the way to work, and that takes all your that just you're going through a lot that can derail your whole day or whole week, and then that motivation leaves. And so if you're but if you're taking those consistent actions like you were saying, you're laying out those those processes in the the community and the support group, you have all those pillars that you can lean on.
Paul Nottoli:So if one of them is crumbling or you're not quite building up to the one pillar, you have these other ones kinda holding you up that always can that always move you forward and keep you keep you taking action because, yeah, you can have all these thoughts and ideas and hope and to hang on, but, at some point, you have to make a decision to take action on something to to move forward.
Tom Kress:No question about that, Paul. I mean, it's if and this is another thing I teach, whether it be individual clients or groups or what have you. Asking for help. For a long, long time, people used to judge us if we ask for help. Right?
Tom Kress:And there's something wrong with you if you ask for help, and that is so not the truth. The truth is the more we we weren't meant to go through this life alone anyway. So why try and go through stuff all by yourself? Ask for help. And that's why for me, engaging in self care, part of that engaging in self care is is at the very least ask don't hesitate to ask a friend or a family member or a professional.
Tom Kress:If you're struggling, it works. It makes it different, but it all starts with you making that making that choice to talk to someone finally. If I finally did and look what happened to me. My whole life changed when I finally talked about my abuse. Right?
Tom Kress:Mhmm. It's it's an incredible thing. And the biggest part of my mission is to help people learn how to ask for help.
Paul Nottoli:Someone that's a chronic, type a, I gotta just dig down and do it myself. I'm a chronic not asking for help, and I've been working on that, trying to get better at that because I know every time I've asked for help or reached out, you'd be surprised how people actually want to help you or looking out for you. Yeah. But they just don't know because you actually you haven't told them, that there's that you need help or that there's a lot of people smarter than you on a lot of things or have the experience that you're looking for. My coaches always say find them.
Paul Nottoli:If you're trying to get somewhere, find the coach that's been through it all and done like, gone through your your your ask everything you're going for and ask the questions for help of how to because they're gonna tell you exactly the way versus you just trying to, almost muscle your way to to do that. So thank you for that because I I mean, as someone that's a chronic non asker for help, I, I'm I'm trying to work on that. It does help. The more I the more I give up control, Yeah. Just everything.
Paul Nottoli:I find it does it does better.
Tom Kress:Paul, it's Paul, it's really a societal thing. We're all suffering from a societal construct that doesn't work. Right? The fact that we're trying to go through life in our struggles alone, that that's something that doesn't work. As a matter of fact, what's the greatest lie man tells himself?
Tom Kress:I'm fine. Mhmm. It's the greatest lie we tell ourselves. I'm fine. When down deep, you're hurting for whatever reason, grief, you know, pain, sickness, whatever it is, we're lying when when we tell people, I'm fine.
Tom Kress:But, you know, it's the construct that's been taught to us for so many years, and I wanna break that cycle. My goal is to break that cycle. The cycle of silence around abuse, the cycle of silence around, you know, thinking about suicide. I also speak on suicide awareness and prevention. I mean, these are things that we need to break the cycle of because there's too much silence around it, and there needs to be more talk about it.
Tom Kress:Because that talk, that shedding light on it, that brings hope for that one individual who thought they were a little
Paul Nottoli:Touched on this a little bit, but what other things do you think individuals or communities can help inspire more more hope into their communities, into the world?
Tom Kress:Well, I really believe that volunteerism, you know, that community group, just just go out and join 1, and do something in the in the community that helps the community. It can be something as small as, you know, picking up litter. Something as small as that. Because what's really cool about getting out into the community is number 1, you're out and about. And that does stood on your whole full body health.
Tom Kress:Right? Your physical, your mental, emotional, all of that spiritual. And also at the same time, you're finding out who you are in those scenarios. Right? You're finding out more about who you are and what what kind of things you're attracted to.
Tom Kress:It's hard to do that behind the screen and a and a keyboard. Right? You you can hardly learn anything without a real sense of experience. And that's what that's what we need more of. I mean, you can learn a lot on YouTube.
Tom Kress:I get it. But but having those experiences is what really gives us sustenance to go forward with more hope, with more gratitude. I mean, just with a whole lot more sense of being. It's really cool.
Paul Nottoli:Last question is more of letting you freestyle. Is there's any any message that you would like to share that you haven't, haven't shared yet?
Tom Kress:Yeah. Yeah. There's a been a lot of and this has a lot to do with, how when people are asking for help, telling you that something's wrong, the first thing you wanna do is you wanna acknowledge and validate that person, that they're in that head space, whatever it is. Because laughing at them, of course, is awful. Judging them in any way is awful, and almost as bad as telling them what you did to get out of it.
Tom Kress:No. Everyone goes through everything differently. Right? So, it's almost as bad as judgment to tell someone what to do. What we wanna do is provide opportunity for people to learn how to be with their feelings, that their feelings are real.
Tom Kress:Every single one of them, their feelings are real, and how you can learn to be with them, and try your best to understand why they're there at all. And this is this is what brings hope, is is, people not feeling like they're being pushed away or dismissed or not hurt. Right? And if you can accept how you feel, you start to learn how to accept how you feel, that brings hope. But again, as I said earlier, who teaches that stuff?
Tom Kress:And, fortunately, I know some coaches who do that, and I do it myself. And there's a lot of self help opportunity. But for the most part, if you can find a therapist or find a coach or find a counselor, just get the help. You're not alone. You're not alone.
Tom Kress:Awesome.
Paul Nottoli:Yeah. Under having understanding and, listening and just letting them,
Tom Kress:yeah, share
Paul Nottoli:that expression.
Tom Kress:One more thing, Paul.
Paul Nottoli:Yeah.
Tom Kress:Sorry. Sorry. One more thing is I wanted to make sure I said this today. There's a lot of time when we are working on ourselves and we're we're trying to follow that hope and we're trying to move forward with all the things that are we're struggling with. If you're if you have chosen some way to help yourself and you have setbacks along the way, please know that if you I heard this quote from, from the, founder of the coaching school I went to.
Tom Kress:He said it 15 years ago, you know, I have never forgotten it, and it works so well that if you're working on a certain program that's you're trying to move forward with, trust the process. When he said that, I said, okay, there's a process in place. Even though you may have setbacks, keep trusting the process and keep moving forward. If you want anything to bring you hope, that's it. Trust the process.
Tom Kress:And if you're working on, you know, all those different things that help you move forward, trust that. You'll have setbacks, but please know you're working on it. You're right where you're supposed to be.
Paul Nottoli:I often say that to a lot of my clients that have been as you know, I work with a lot of people that have been in a lot of pain and haven't got results other places. And so I just let them know they're in the right place and just trust the process, and we're gonna we're gonna work our ass off for you, and we have your back and just and there's gonna be ups and downs just like anything because healing's not necessarily linear all the time. But, yeah, trust the process.
Tom Kress:That's awesome.
Paul Nottoli:How can people connect with you more and get to know more about what you do and everything like that?
Tom Kress:Well, the easiest way is through a phone call. You can put it up on the screen. Phone call or text, 312-735-6694, or through my email at tom@highesteneprotein.com. And, and we can start working, and it'd be for you to be the person you were meant to be. That's what you're hoping for.
Tom Kress:Nice. High esteem is h I
Paul Nottoli:Like high, like waving. S.
Tom Kress:High. Yeah. H I e s t e e coaching.com. Coaching.com. Awesome.
Paul Nottoli:So if you're watching the video, you can see that on the screen and, be able to reach out to to Tom further. So thank you so much, Tom, for your insight. Thank you so much for sharing, your mission, talking about a topic, like I said, that's a little bit more heavy than most topics, but needs to be discussed because they are hurt people in the world. And the more hurt people just hurt more people, and I think you see that a lot on social media and all that other stuff right now, especially during an election year. You see a lot of it even more, it seems like.
Paul Nottoli:It seems like it comes out of work your board of work even more. But yeah. So thank you for for what you're doing. Thank you for empowering hope in the community, in your, in your students and your and your clients, and just being a, a better light into the world. So appreciate your time today.
Tom Kress:Thank you, Paul. So, I appreciate being here and, any opportunity I can further the message, I'll always take it. So I appreciate that, Paul.
Paul Nottoli:Thank you. Yeah. This is the the podcast is just the the the, the conduit, the to facilitate the message, but I wanna make this an actual movement to because the more hope and positivity spread into the world, we can we can take away that darkness or not all of it, but we can we can knock it a lot of it down. So it'll help a lot of people.
Tom Kress:Helps, Paul. Every little bit helps. Right?
Paul Nottoli:Yep. So thank you so much, Tom. Appreciate it. And until next time
Tom Kress:friend. Take care.
Paul Nottoli:Till next time, we'll give you another episode of Believe the Hope podcast. Awesome.
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