Announcer: The views and opinions expressed in to the point are those of the hosted, the program and its guests.

They do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of WGTE Public Media.

Doni: What did you want to be when you grew up?

The heavyweight champion of the world, the wealthiest person on the planet?

Or maybe the president of the United States?

Did you think you might graduate from Yale with honors or get a law degree from Harvard?

But what if you grew up in a house with 13 others in one of the toughest neighborhoods in the city?

A house where the roof leaked and roaches crackled under your feet.

What would keep your dreams alive?

How would you find the grit and determination to push back against the odds and make your life the one of your dreams?

Tom Seeman, a successful businessman and philanthropist, has lived that life.

We're talking to him today about what it takes to keep moving forward when the world keeps pushing you back.

I'm Doni Miller, and this is To The Point.

Connect with us on our social media pages.

You can email me at doni _miller@wgte.org.

And as you know, for this episode and other additional extras, please go to wgte.org/to the point.

I am so excited today to have with us Tom Seeman.

He is a professional businessman, a philanthropist, and has a story of achievement and overcoming.

That's wonderful to hear and inspiring to hear.

And thank you for spending time with us this morning.

Well, thank.

Tom: You for having me here, Doni.

Thank you.

Doni: I do.

You ever pinch yourself?

Do you ever get up and just say how how is this real?

How did I graduate from Harvard Law?

How did I graduate from Yale?

How did I make it out of the place that I grew up in?

Tom: Yeah, I feel, honestly, gratitude every day.

I always remember where I came from, and I realize when I'm living my life on a daily basis where I don't have to worry about, say, money the way you know, when your poor money is on your mind all the time as you're growing up, especially as you become an adult.

And now I've reached a point where I don't have the kinds of concerns that I used to have.

I definitely try to stay in touch with it, but I live a life where I'm probably a little bit out of touch with it, but I feel gratitude every day about it and it keeps me frankly, very happy.

Doni: So let's do a little level setting here for okay, so everybody understands what your background is.

One of 13 kids or one of.

Tom: 12.

Doni: Kids, Family of 14.

Yes, that right.

Family of 14 grew up in a really difficult, challenging neighborhood.

Right.

Tom: Right.

So I started my life in Ravine Park Village, which is the projects on the east side of Toledo.

And then at the age of seven, when I was seven, we moved to the projects on Bronson Street in North Toledo.

And so, yeah, it was it was a rough situation.

I you know, I had a difficult father, had a fantastic mother, which I'm sure we'll talk about more, just a wonderful mother who I think led us all and kept us all on the right path.

But, you know, had some times where at one point in my life I was turning a little bit, maybe in a way I probably shouldn't be.

And then I had some events that happened that turned me in the right direction.

But I'd say mostly, you know, my life.

I realized, thinking about it over time, that, you know, my life is sort of a collection of small kindnesses done for me that eventually added up to a life, you know.

So along the way, first in the community itself, you know, we first arrived on Bronson Street.

You know, it's primarily an African American neighborhood.

We were white.

You know, I frankly took a few punches along the way early on.

But then you gradually get accepted into the community and you're part of the community and people are doing, you know, small things for you along the way that you don't recognize maybe at the time and maybe when the person's doing them, they don't think this is going to change someone's life.

But when you add them all up, all these kindness is done in the community and then gradually outside of the community.

As I got outside of the community, you know, I realized my life is just this this amazing list of small kindnesses done for me.

Doni: It's still had to be there.

An awful lot about your choices.

Tom: Yeah.

I mean, I was I was a very determined young man.

I was very hard working and very focused.

You know, when I was young, I did have confidence and I had this list of things that I wanted to be when I grew up.

And they were sort of outrageous.

You know, I was I was fascinated by Muhammad Ali.

So on my list was heavyweight champion of the world.

Even though I didn't box, I just thought I could say that I could be this right, I could be the president.

Doni: And it have to do with losing the popsicle, Right.

Tom: You know about the story about the pirates.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Doni: So I read the book.

Tom: Yeah.

So.

Yeah, yeah.

There's a scene where I. Yeah, I have a popsicle, but we.

We rarely had sweets.

My mother was very controlling about, about what we would eat, which was fantastic.

Looking back, just an amazing with no junk food or anything.

But she would get from the second store there was in those days there were stores where you could buy, you know, packages that had been damaged and things there was a corner store where they would have old bread and damaged packaging and bent cans of food, and my mother would go there.

And so she would pick up things for us once in a while.

And she picked up some popsicles and some sort of damaged packaging or whatever.

And I was eating the popsicle and yeah, a boy who was kind of one of the rough boys of the neighborhood knocked it out of my hand and ground it into the ground with his foot, you know, just this mean.

Yeah.

So maybe that helped me determine that I wanted to be the heavyweight champion of the world.

But also on my list was president of the United States.

You know, and the richest man in the world.

So I could buy all the popsicles I wanted.

And these were sort of outrageous, you know, outrageous ideas.

But that's how I thought when I was a child, I was always thinking about the big questions, you know, what do I want to be?

Even, you know, why am I here?

You know, what does God want for me?

All these sorts of big questions, even as a young child.

Doni: You know, I read something when I was preparing to talk to you.

Someone said that your story was the best example of how to overcome, how to liberate yourself from inherited limitations.

Right.

How did you really do that when you're, you know, in the in the intro we talked about, I mentioned walking across a room with roaches crackling under your feet story.

Tom: That's when we first arrived at Bronson Street.

That's where my mother my mother gradually eradicated them through her cleanliness.

But when we first got there, the house was infested with roaches.

Yes.

Doni: So how did you manage to see that bigger vision?

How did you manage to think that you could be president of the United States with all of that going on around you?

Tom: I mean, in some ways, I think I was an odd boy.

You know, I had some oddities to me and that I was so focused.

I would, you know, walk the streets at night with, you know, sometimes carrying a stick in Iraq, just thinking.

And when it was storming and raining, I liked it even better.

I liked being alone with myself and walking and just thinking.

And I think, you know, I also probably sought approval a lot.

I think so in school, I always performed really well.

I mean, I was gifted with a good brain, I have to say that, you know, So I did have that advantage.

So I performed well in school.

And I think part of that was seeking approval.

You know, I always wanted to be the teacher's pet or I always wanted to get the air.

I always wanted to have the best when we were assigned a project, I always wanted to, you know, do the best project.

I would always go that extra mile.

And that's very reflective of my mother, who always went the extra mile and what she did.

And examples of that would be, you know, first you could, you know, you could buy store bought cookies.

Second, you could just throw some dough of chocolate chip cookie on a pan and put it in.

And when my mother made cookies, you know, she had to make dozens of cookies, which were consumed immediately by the 12 of us.

Right.

So all these we would just take them and they would be her artwork would be gone in a moment.

But instead of just doing that, she would make fancy cookies.

She would make little apricot cookies where she would have to each cookie, she would fold the dough with her thumb and finger, or she would make pinwheel cookies where she would have to roll out dough and roll them and then cut them.

There's a sort of certain commitment to doing that, right?

Why would she go that extra mile every time?

And I think I observed that and picked.

Doni: That's going to ask, was that your inspiration?

Tom: I you know.

Doni: What kept you moving?

Tom: I mean, I don't know of course, I think I was driven inside also.

I think I was uniquely driven, frankly.

But yes, I think that my mother, her her tremendous hard work, you'd come home from school and my mother wouldn't just be have the window out cleaning the window, but she would have a screwdriver with a rag wrapped around it, cleaning.

Doni: The.

Tom: Cleaning, cleaning the dirt out of the whatever it would be called the thing, the rail, where the, you know, thing would go back in.

So just always going the extra mile and, you know, showing her love for us through her hard work.

It was, I'm sure, very inspirational that I realize it when I was a child that this was actually happening.

No, but looking back, you recognize all those things.

Doni: So you've got this amazing mom.

You have a dad that is challenging.

Your relationship with him is challenging.

Yes.

That didn't slow you down.

Tom: That's an interesting question.

You know, looking back on it, you can see it as mostly a negative.

So my father was an alcoholic and he was also a mean person.

I think separate from his alcoholism, he was always a mean person and in fact, tried to inhibit some of my success along the way.

Doni: But I think that he wouldn't sign your, your financial aid papers.

Tom: You have to got it to go to Yale.

Yeah, he would.

And he stood in my way along the way.

So he would make me for thinking I was fancy or had success when I came back from Yale, for example, these sorts of things.

But I think in many ways, you know, he inspired me to be you know, there's a point where I say in the fourth grade, we were asked to tell the teacher a great thing that each of our parents had given us, and each of the children would stand up in the class and they would say, you know, really flowery things, almost unrealistic things.

And when it came my turn, I said, my mother something, you know, General, my mother, the greatest thing is that she's always there for me or something.

And the greatest thing my father gave me as an example of what I don't want to be.

So already in the fourth grade, I'm determining that he's this this negative example, this opposite example, which in some ways probably helped me.

And in another way maybe he helped me as he probably toughened me up.

Right?

He toughened me up for what the world was going to do to me.

You know, you take punches along the way.

We all have had failures or negative things that have happened to us or unjust things.

That's one of the things I have the most difficulty dealing with is unjust things.

But because of my upbringing and my father, I'm I'm really very good at letting those things go and moving forward in life.

So in many ways, my father served me well.

I think now now that wouldn't be true of everybody.

Some people would be crushed down by that, but somehow I wasn't.

Doni: What I want.

I want to talk about your comment.

I want to talk about your comment regarding injustice in just a moment.

But I also want to find out from you, given this environment that you grew up in, what gave you the tenacity to apply to Brown and Yale and Harvard when the world around you really wasn't very right?

Tom: Yeah, well, as I said earlier, there were a lot of kindnesses done to me.

I had some breaks along the way, and one of the big turning points in my life was when I was in the eighth grade.

The siblings before me and my family had all gone to public high schools.

My three sisters had gone to Woodward because we lived in that neighborhood and my brother went to make number and I had determined that I was going to go to a Catholic high school because I thought, you know, I was aspirational my whole life from a young age, as we as we learned from my aspirations to be the heavyweight champion of the world.

And so I determined that I wanted to go to Catholic school and I figured out all on my own that if because I had a paper route with the blade, I had jobs that I would work.

And if I made this amount of money that I could afford to go to Central Catholic, which was the least expensive Catholic school at that time.

Doni: Hold that thought.

I'm going to ask you to hold that thought.

Okay.

Don't forget where you are.

We're going to go away for just a minute.

Okay.

We're going to come back and pick up.

Okay.

I think they're very good to go.

Away for just a moment for please stay with us.

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And for this episode and other additional extras, please go to wgte.org/to the point.

We have with us, Mr. Tom Seeman, who is again a successful businessman.

You're a philanthropist.

You are someone who has defied every single challenge that's been placed in front of you from growing up in public housing to beating the odds and getting into Yale undergrad.

Pretty amazing story.

So we were talking about when we went to break your going to Central Catholic or you're applying to science.

Tom: Right?

Right.

So so at that point, you had to take the Catholic school admissions test.

And I took the test and there were boxes to check on which schools you wanted to receive your results.

And so I checked Central Catholic, and then I saw the other schools, and Saint Francis was among them.

And I knew that it was a college prep school.

I definitely wanted to go to college.

And I knew about Saint Francis because we played.

I went to Saint Vincent de Paul as as a as a as a child.

My mother had gotten us the ability, frankly, to go there for free.

That's how we could afford it, because you couldn't even pay $100 a year.

I think it was I think it was $100 a year per student.

No way could she afford to pay that.

So the parish let us go there for free in return for our work, frankly.

So we were working at a very young age at the parish as janitors, but in any event, but then I saw the Saint Francis box and we played our grade school football games at the fields next to Saint Francis.

So I knew what it was and I just checked the box, not thinking much about it, because that would be where I would love to go.

And weeks later I was called down to the principal's office and I thought I had done something wrong.

And when I went into the principal's office, there was a priest there, Father McMenamin, from Saint Francis.

And he said, Tom, tell me about why you sent your results to Central Catholic.

And I said, Well, Father, it's because I could afford Central, you know, and I and I can't afford Saint Francis.

So I'm sorry.

I check that box.

And he said, No, What if I told you you've come to Saint Francis for free?

So Saint Francis gave me a full scholarship to attend, and it was a very big I'm actually getting a little emotional about it.

It was a very big turning point in my life.

And why?

Because it was a whole different environment.

Suddenly, right?

I was hanging around with guys in the street in my neighborhood, starting to do a little bit of bad things.

And when I went to Saint Francis, I was, because of my test result, I was placed into the highest class, the highest homeroom, and I was hanging around with the nerds.

I was also a football player so I could choose the groups.

I would hang around with.

And I started hanging around with these five guys from that upper class and we would sit around at lunch talking about things that, you know, my family, my friends didn't talk about, you know, politics, religion, history, fascinating things and conversations that I was very interested in having.

So it was a turning point in my life.

And I think you asked me how I thought I could apply to Yale.

That happened during the spring.

Doni: This process didn't didn't that exposure to the folks at sea, Francis, make it difficult for you when you went home and in your neighborhood?

Tom: You know.

Doni: Why?

Tom: Why I graduate.

So I went.

I went back and I was hanging around with my friends in my neighborhood.

When I was coming home from Saint Francis, I gradually realized that I was going to start spending less time with those friends in the neighborhood because of the conversations we were having and the things that were important to them versus what was happening over at Saint Francis.

I somehow saw that and there was no I mean, Saint Francis, it's funny, was known in our neighborhood as the sissy school because you wore a coat and tie.

So I'm walking down Bronson Street from the Stickney bus every night, late at night, wearing a coat and tie.

But by then, you know, we were staples of our neighborhood, right?

We were fully accepted in neighborhoods.

So I don't think that there was anybody looking at me saying, Let's go get him now that he's going to Saint Francis.

No.

Doni: So when I listen to your story and I think about the thousands and thousands of people in Toledo that lived that count, that live that life that you managed to move away from, one of the things that I hear you saying is that your environment makes a difference.

What you're exposed to makes a difference.

Tom: Yes.

So I think that when I think about what allowed me to become what I was, I was I was a seeker of experiences.

I always wanted to have different experiences.

And I think that one of the things that helps children in those environments is exposure.

So you can't know what to dream for unless you've seen it, unless you've been exposed to it.

I think in today's world you're more exposed to it through the Internet and on television more.

But back then you didn't have these exposure.

So some of the exposures that were given to me, for example, you know, the guy across the street, Mr. Noble, an African-American man who had two daughters, took three of us, white, white kids fishing, you know, on Lake Erie.

You know, this kind of a funny scene back in the seventies today, it would be fine.

But back then, it was probably a little unusual to have this black man with these three white boys fishing in Lake Erie.

Really cute.

And then a person at Saint Vincent gave a donation to Saint Vincent to send two boys to summer camp for two weeks up in camp store.

And my brother and I were chosen.

So we went to summer camp for two weeks and things like that.

Things that the art museum gave me free art lessons on, you know, on Saturday mornings, which was a whole nother exposure to a museum and different kinds of people.

The woman teaching us was a very different kind of person than I was used to interacting with.

So I think these exposures started to broaden my aperture of what was possible in the world and what was out there.

And I think that's one of the keys to helping young people in these environments.

And one of the reasons I serve on the board of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Boston, which is, you know, about 11 Club.

So it's quite a large organization to try to help these people in these kinds of neighborhoods get these exposures.

Doni: So if you saw I saw a picture of you standing in front of a house that you used to live in.

Which one was that?

Was that in Ravine.

Tom: Ravine Park?

Doni: That was in Ravine Park?

Yeah.

What did you feel when you were standing in front of that house?

You were standing up very tall and very straight.

And it's you remember what you felt standing in front of that house.

Tom: I think that it once again goes back to the gratitude, the feeling of I don't have a lot of these worries and concerns and stresses.

I mean, stressful existence is also right.

Things are always around Every corner at home was stressful with my father.

You know, I think you know about the scene where my father pulled a loaded gun on me and my brother.

You know, these kinds of things don't happen in the other areas where people are living.

So.

And now I live in those areas, right.

Where those those stresses we have other stresses, but nothing like the the the just the I don't know what you would call them, but they're very base stresses, you know, on life needing money, needing food, needing safety, you know.

Doni: So what would you say to if you could get those, those guys that you hung around with that weren't quite as successful as you've turned out to be, and you could get those kids in the neighborhood who live in those in that neighborhood now who are facing the same kinds of issues.

Now that you were facing then, what would you say to them about liberating themselves from and looking following their dreams?

Tom: Right.

I mean, I think that you have to be very disciplined for yourself.

You know, you have to be a very reliable person.

You know, I find that there's a certain I've maybe it's a learned thing where a lot of those children become less reliable.

They become less committed to things, maybe.

But self-discipline and I think reliability are very key to success.

I would ask their parents to please try to get them.

Exposure is, as I just mentioned a few minutes ago, so that they know what's outside and they're not just living in that cocoon of that kind of neighborhood, which tends to lead you, I think, down a more narrow path of possibilities.

Doni: Yeah, love and support are important.

Tom: Absolutely.

Yes.

I mean, if you can choose to have a loving, fantastic parent like my mother, please do that.

Of course, I was just lucky to have that.

If I hadn't had my mother, I'm quite sure I wouldn't have had the trajectory that I've had in my life.

Doni: Yeah, we, we I want people to know that your mom is still around.

She has living in the area.

She is.

She is 92.

Tom: She's 92 years old.

Very healthy.

Sorry.

Yesterday.

I'll see you again on Friday night for dinner.

Just, you know, fantastic that she's still around.

My father died many, many years ago, so I think my mother has a much more stress free life in the last decades of her life, which pleases all of her 12 children very much, all of whom are still around.

Doni: My goodness.

Tom: So, yeah, So it's it's a great outcome in the end.

Yes.

Doni: Have you ever told her how important she was to all of this in your life?

Tom: Yes, I do.

And actually just did yesterday.

Again, you know, was telling her some of the memories that even she had probably not realized how important those things were to us.

You know, the thing she would so she would.

So Easter dresses for my sisters because we couldn't buy them.

You know, she was a she was a very good seamstress.

She, as I said, would make those special meals.

She would always have things prepared for us.

She would, you know, do huge loads of wash every day without a dryer.

So she would have to hang them outside even in the winter when they would freeze solid and then she would bring them back in to this small house and saw them and hang them again.

And her hands would crack, you know, with with and bleed from this just, you know, just her commitment.

Just her commitment.

Doni: Wow.

Just her commitment to 12 kids.

Yes.

Children.

Was that was that same do you think your your peers, your siblings felt that same sort of support?

Tom: Absolutely.

Yeah.

We've we've all we talk about it all the time.

Every Thanksgiving, we all come back to Toledo and share a Thanksgiving together.

So I'm very fortunate to be from a family that actually gets along really well.

You know, there's no animosities or people who won't speak to other people.

All 12 of us come together with my mother.

And I think we were smart when we were first starting to get married, that we decided that we would choose Thanksgiving for our family and give Christmas to the other, to the you know, to the other families, to the in-law family or whatever.

So we're able to pull everybody together every year relatively easily because it's become sort of a tradition.

Doni: I have one other question to ask.

We have just a few minutes left.

You've written a book, Animals I want to see.

I've read it the it is an inspiring read about your journey.

What is the one thing that you would want people to take away from that book?

Tom: At the end, I said when I was writing this book, I realized this litany of kindnesses that were done for me along the way and so at the end of the book, I say that a while ago I determined to try to do a kindness every day for someone, ideally a stranger, but for someone.

And it's not something I invented that's existed for a long time.

But if you actually exercise this discipline in your life, it not only, of course, contributes a small kindness to someone else's life, which may add up, as it did in my life, to something special, but it actually also makes you happier.

Doni: It does.

It does that.

You know, that's my intention to.

It's really so glad to hear you share that.

I agree with you.

Small kindnesses to other folks, especially strangers, make all the difference in the world.

Thank you, Tom, for being with us today.

Tom: Well, thank you for having me.

Doni: Appreciate it.

I appreciate it.

And we appreciate you being with us as well.

And we will see you next time.

On to the Point.

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They do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of WGTE Public media.

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Thank you.