Hope. Courage. Love with Patrick Touhey - REIA 497

Welcome to Streams to Impact, the podcast where busy professionals are empowered to develop multiple streams of passive income built on solid, secure, hands-off commercial real estate investments. This show is not just about wealth development. Every episode, we dive deep into inspiring conversations with professionals who are living life to its fullest while making significant and meaningful impacts on a world in great need. Engage with us each week and discover how you can thrive and flourish abundantly in all areas of your life. Now here is your host, Dr. Allen.

Hello, enlightened investors, and welcome back to Streams to Impact. I am thrilled to share my passion for empowering professionals and entrepreneurs to unlock their full potential, both personally, professionally, and financially. And through the podcast Dreams to Impact, we engage with diverse professional and entrepreneur audiences to highlight the power of intrinsic motivation, encouraging individuals to push beyond their limits and pursue excellence in every facet of life. And that is why I am exceptionally excited today to introduce our guest, who is a dynamic leader with a wealth of experience across sports, business, and personal development. He is the award-winning author of Create Forever Teammates: How Connections and Relationships Are Winning Steps in Life and Sports, where he highlights the crucial role that relationships play in achieving success both in life and sports. He has coached multiple teams to state championships, but more importantly, he's shaped athletes into strong leaders who excel on and off the court. His impact extends beyond the athletic world. He is also a savvy entrepreneur, having built and sold a multimillion-dollar business, and currently he serves as the Senior Vice President of a credit union specialty lines insurance program, where he's gained deep insights into corporate operations and leadership. With his broad expertise and dedication to helping others unlock their full potential, I am delighted to introduce Patrick Tuohy to you today, and he will surely inspire us to reach new heights, challenge ourselves, And cultivate excellence in every aspect of our lives. So welcome, Patrick. I have been looking forward to this interview for several months now, so I am so happy that you have finally been able to be with us today. So Patrick, take us into the show and share with us some of your beginnings. I know you started life in a very abusive and rough environment. So take us through that and share with us some of the skill sets that, that you employed that eventually turned your life around.

Yeah, thanks, Alan, and it's really great to be with you today, and thank you for such a wonderful introduction, and looking forward to speaking or talking to your audience. Yeah, the beginnings of my life were very difficult. It involved abuse, as you say, and my father was an alcoholic, unemployable alcoholic, and we lived in object poverty. There were 10 siblings in the Touhy family, and to try to feed 10 mouths in the situation we were in was extremely difficult. We moved from house to house, apartment to apartment, you know, before being evicted. And I speak in a way that, you know, my story is not unique. There are many who have experienced similar or even maybe more significant difficult times than I have. So I don't pretend that, you know, that I have some unique special story that others may not be experiencing or have experienced. But Suffice it to say, you know, that was the environment that I grew up in. And it's difficult, Allen, to imagine and dream about where I might end up later in my life as I became an adult and what potentially I could do to become someone who truly was comfortable with themselves, who loved themselves, who was confident in themselves, who believed in themselves, who— Who had self-compassion and things of that nature. Because when you're growing up in that kind of environment, there's so much negativity. There's so much judgment around being a failure or not being enough or not having the intellectual capacity or skill requirements to be successful in life. It's drummed in. Time and time again. And as a result of that, to try to imagine me being able to stop the cycle was a daunting task and one that I was not prepared to do until much later in life. And the statistics around abuse and poverty, as far as Not repeating the cycle are extremely low.

Mm-hmm.

And it's by, you know, the grace of God, as far as I believe, that I was able to find the constitution, determination, and perseverance to change my life and to undo the cycle. If I may, a quick story. I think I was probably around 8 years old, and I was walking down my steps after waking up in the morning. And as I turned the corner, I saw my father, you know, laying on the couch after a night of drinking. And the thought went through my mind was, how could a father With 10 children, you know, do that to us. And I said to myself at that moment, I am never going to live like this when I get older, that I am going to change my life. Now, the road to get there was quite daunting, but I do believe that that moment was one of the moments that I came to realize I was willing to do something to change it. And so to answer your question, Allen, you know, it took a lot of work. I became an alcoholic myself. And I was around 25 years old. One of the first steps I took, courageous steps I took, to self-improvement and to get to a better place was walk into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. And once I took that journey, it asked me to do a lot of self-reflection, self-inventory, a strong look at my shortcomings, and all of those things to become aware of all those sabotaging behaviors and actions I was taking to not allow myself to fulfill my dream. And it was hard to look at some of those. It was, some of it was quite ugly in respect to my behavior and my actions, but it was the beginning of a journey of self-reflection and learning how to own what I was responsible for, to be able to forgive myself, to forgive others, to make amends. And to continue down a journey of self-improvement. And what it did was it gave me a confidence that I didn't have before. It gave me a rekindled belief and hope that if I stayed sober, that potentially I could become this person that I had hoped for and achieve the dreams that I was after. And You know, there's so much tied to poverty that needs to be worked on, not just my alcoholism, but my own personal struggles around self-worth and this panic and anxiety disorder that I had developed that I had to work through because of the alcoholism, and the alcohol helped to deal with it, but eventually it backfired and only became worse. And so I also had to pursue a journey of healing my panic and anxiety disorder and challenging myself to do things that were very scary, challenging myself to trust that I could develop the tools to be able to not be afraid to stretch myself. Not be afraid to fail, not be afraid to be disappointed, not be afraid to look at things that I would run away from immediately and at least attempt to be willing to challenge myself to take action to turn those things around. And those were very courageous things that took a lot of support, Allen. in order to work my way through. And I'm very thankful for all the support and the therapy and all of the things that I had to do. And I used to be very shameful about all those things, Allen. I felt defective. I felt that, you know, I was not worthy, as I mentioned before. But the courage to make a change— I think of my father today.

Allen.

And I have nothing but empathy and forgiveness for my father, and he's been gone for a long time. But what I know about my father is, whatever the reason— it was a different time also— but he just didn't have whatever— I call it the grace of God— to, to make the courageous changes that needed to be made, because it's hard work. But he was a sick man. His past was an ugly past. And so, I am just nothing but grateful that I've been able to do what I've done, to take the steps that I needed to take. And I just, you know, one of the hardest parts of my journey that was a turnaround was you'd mentioned I built a multimillion-dollar business, and I did. And what drove me to do that, Alan, Was fear of poverty.

Mm-hmm.

So you can imagine building a business, and fear can be a great motivator, but when it's constant and it comes from a place of avoiding poverty, it comes with stress and pressure and a lot of other things that don't necessarily allow someone to enjoy the journey along the way. And I can tell you that in many moments, the journey of building that business was not as enjoyable as it would have been had I had the resources I have today. And the way to kind of capsulate that whole experience, you know, when I sold the business, I was ecstatic, right? I thought to myself, I made it. I remember looking up to the skies and telling my father, I did this, you know, I did this. And I was happy for all of about a week, Allen. And my entire self-worth was tied to that business.

Mm-hmm.

Because the message I gave myself was, if I could just be successful in business, then I can love myself, then I will be okay, then I will be of something, I will be worthy. If I can just attain that, all of this emptiness, all of this pain I felt internally, this hole I was trying to fill with success, and with every success, it would be I had to do something else, and I had to do something else, and it was just never enough because the fulfillment around doing it all was from a place of pain, was from a place of trying to get to some contentment about myself. And I went into a deep depression for 6 months. And I was really in a bad place. And I'll share with your audience that to be extremely vulnerable, I remember waking up, it was 4 in the morning and I had a major panic attack and I was exhausted and tired and And just felt as though I was going to just give up. And I remember reaching over to my wife and thinking, can she help me in some way? Like, and really there's not much she could do to bring me relief.

Mm-hmm.

And so I decided to get up. I went to the medicine cabinet and I Took all the prescription drugs I had had— Xanax, sleeping pills, Lexapro— took them all, put them in a bag, went down to my car, and my plan was I would drive to a remote location. Here I was, a multimillionaire, a 4,000-square-foot home, 2 beautiful adult children. From the outside looking in, People would say, wow, what a perfect life Patrick has. What a wonderful life he must have. And, you know, people talk about the imposter syndrome, you know, out in the community, out in my work career. You know, I put on a great face, Allen. I put on a great face. And here I was pulling out of my driveway and going to end my life. And as I got down to the end of the driveway, I looked up at the house and I said, I just— can you, Patrick, really do this to your children and your wife?

Mm-hmm.

And I'm thankful that that was enough to bring me back into the house. I sat downstairs waiting for my wife to wake up and told her that I needed to go into the hospital. That I am afraid that I'll take my life if I don't. And so that courageous step began to wake me up to the fact that contentment, peace, being okay in adversity, being optimistic, being hopeful is all about an inside job. It's not about material achievements. Patrick, your emptiness is around not doing the work you needed to do and continue to do internally to get to a place that you truly do love yourself. And I was determined with whatever I had to do. I was willing to do whatever it takes to get to that point, Allen. So I went on a journey of self-improvement around one goal and one goal only. How does Patrick Tuohy begin to truly love himself? What does that require? And what actions do I need to take? And there were several things that I did. And I can tell you today that I love my— I do love myself unconditionally. Life is not perfect by any means. It has its challenges. It has its very difficult moments, but I handle those and respond to those in a very different way than I did in the past, Allen. I have such a tremendous amount of self-compassion, such a tremendous amount of self-empathy, and it has changed how I pursue many things, including any entrepreneurial Journey that I take.

Mm-hmm.

And the resources and the skill sets I have to be able to do those and not do them in a way to prove anything about my self-worth, to prove that if I do these, then I'm okay. It's truly from a point and a perspective of being adventurous, curious, excited and a whole dynamic of other things that are not about who I am inside. And it makes the journey that much more fun, and I'm grateful that I was able to get to that point.

My—

I'll end with this, and I hope this doesn't sound— because I I'm very humble that I am where I am today. I'm extremely lucky. But I will say this, that I am extremely proud that I have broken the cycle, that my children never saw their father as a drunkard. And when I say drunkard, I mean an alcoholic. I have nothing against drinking. I'm talking about an abusive alcoholic. I did not ever once allow my children to have to experience that. My children wanted for nothing. They didn't have to worry about whether there was going to be a meal today, whether the heat was going to be on. Boiling water on a stove in order to take a warm bath. All of the things, the embarrassment of our home, collecting wood to burn. Time and time again, things that were extremely shameful that they did not have to experience. Poverty Is so devastating. And I'm proud, Allen, that I, at 8 years old, said I am not going to live that way and I will not repeat this, that I was able to achieve it.

Well, Patrick, what a touching story, and we've known each other for a while here, so I have heard your story before, but each time I hear it, it just is just so touching, and I see that little 8-year-old extraordinarily vulnerable soul. Trying to make sense of an insensible, incomprehensible situation. And as you mentioned, the odds of turning that around are extraordinary, and tremendous amount of research regarding adverse child experiences and And we know that not only is it difficult for individuals to turn those situations around, that it has tremendous impact upon their physical health, that children growing up in experiences like you have have much shorter life expectancies. They're much more vulnerable to cardiac cardiovascular disease. and cancer and all kinds of other debilitating situations. So it's— it is miraculous that you have been able to really turn that around. You certainly are the exception to the rule. And you shared a lot of things. One thing you didn't share with our audience is that not only were you witnessing your father As an alcoholic and many, many times just totally and completely dead drunk. You didn't mention that— I don't know if he was physically abusive, but he was extraordinarily verbally abusive, and he told you on repeated occasions that you were worthless and would never amount to anything.

Yeah, he was very damaging. In that regard, and he was physically abusive. And so there was, you know, that part of it too. And so that was very hard to, you know, deal with as a boy. And, you know, they use the term walking around on eggshells. My father could explode at any moment at something extremely just ordinary that—

Mm-hmm.

You would at times look at him and say, what is going on, you know, in his mind?

Mm-hmm.

And so it was extremely volatile, and you did walk around on eggshells. And, you know, one of the tools I learned early that I saw as a shortcoming, but I've learned to be— learned to know that It was extremely creative of me and very intelligent on my part was I manipulated things to try to get my father to not want to physically attack me so that I could save myself from those experiences.

Mm-hmm.

And, and so I was really very good at that. I'll give you one example. My father loved sports, and one of the things he enjoyed most was playing tennis. And every Saturday and Sunday, he would want to play at 6 o'clock in the morning because it was very popular back then. So we had to get there early to get courts. And he would ask all of us who would play with him. I said, I always said, I'll play with you, Dad. I'll play with you.

Mm-hmm.

Not because I wanted to play with my father, Allen. Not because I was jumping in his car from a place of excitement and love and a moment to be with your dad to, you know, build a closer relationship and some intimacy. I got in the car with the thought of, if I do this, maybe, just maybe, he'll show me some favor.

Mm-hmm.

That was the motive.

Mm-hmm.

And I did that every weekend. But I will tell you that the pain to get up, knowing I was doing it from a place of surviving, Not from a place of excitement, was manipulative. But I do believe it saved me from some beatings. So that's just an example of the survival. And today I really embrace myself and say, Patrick, what a great—

Yeah.

What a great strategy. I'm so proud of you that you were able to think through that in a way to save some of, of that abuse. And so without getting too dark, you had to survive, Allen. You had to learn how to survive.

And I, I think, Patrick, I would, I would reframe that from manipulative To— because, well, I don't think a child of 8 years old— I mean, a lot of people may disagree with me, but I don't think a child of 8 years old in your situation has the capacity for manipulation.

Right, yeah.

I think it, as you stated, it was an intelligent action that was there to help you as a child to survive. So I'd encourage you to change that.

Thanks, Alan.

To reframe that.

Thanks, bud. I will do that. Yeah.

So there's a lot of other things I want to go into here, but let's take just a moment. I want you to share with us about your book and about the company that you are forming and developing. So if you could just take a moment to share. with us those things.

Yeah, thank you. So I did author a book, as Allen mentioned, and I thought about the book or the beginnings of the writings of the book based on my coaching career and also based on my corporate career around things I was observing that I thought were being stepped over that were very vital and very important to create an environment, whether it be on the football field, the basketball court, the tennis court, what have you, or in the corporate offices that would bring some intentional passion, purpose, joy, an intimacy. a connection that actually creates this vibrancy and excitement about being in the atmosphere that you're in. And what I was observing, Alan, and what I saw was there was such a laser focus on extrinsic outcomes, you know, hitting certain marks, achieving certain skill sets. And really a laser focus on what are the foundational actions or education or things of that nature that need to be acquired or committed to, to become a master at your skill so that you can produce the outcomes that a corporation wants, that a coach wants, that a school wants. And in the pursuit of mastering that, I observed in some cases a deep apathy, a deep burden and drudgery of going through those things every day to achieve those outcomes. And I thought to myself, it's similar to what I experienced, not the same, but similar to what I experienced in my own pursuit in building my own company. That although tremendously successful, is there a deeper purpose? Is there a deeper experience I can have That is more meaningful, that has more stickiness to it, if I could use that word, that really makes me excited about showing up every day. And I determined that it was because of the lack of intrinsic development. And what do I mean by that? Intrinsic is about love. Compassion, vulnerability, empathy, trust, selflessness, intimacy. Into me see. Do we need to take time away because we've become, I believe, such an individualistic society, and it's becoming more and more challenging with the technology that we now have today? Do we need to take a step back and introduce a deeper understanding, a deeper level, and most importantly, actionable steps that begin to connect people at an intimate level with all of those intrinsic goals as the map to getting to a place that by working through that not only will allow for obtaining extrinsic outcomes, it will explode in respect to what happens on the outcome side because of this connection and vibrancy that people have for each other, that they're now going to work, they're now going to the court, they're now going to the field Because they can't wait to be with their teammates, with their coworkers. That there's an intimate level of understanding of each other, of connection to each other in all our differences and all of our, what I would say, diversities and things of that nature that we are truly connected to actionable ways in which to develop and build these intrinsic goals. And Allen, every time I do a workshop with athletic teams or with corporations, The employees or the players are starving for this kind of direction, this kind of implementation, this kind of work. I will ask the question, are what you're experiencing mostly from a place of drudgery and burden or from a place of excitement, joy, and happiness? And 70 to 80% of the time, the people in the room, 70 to 80% of those people raise their hand and say it's from a place of drudgery. I know that feeling. I know what that feels like.

Mm-hmm.

And I also have become very grateful for my story, for my experiences, Allen, because when I'm working with these people, I have a deep sense of empathy, a deep sense of care, a deep sense of compassion, because I know what those things feel like. I've experienced them, you know, at a very extreme level. And so this ability to be able to truly stand in front of them— what I get a lot from the people I work with is, boy, Patrick, you're so relatable. You know, you truly understand. You get where I'm coming from. And when you're in those rooms, Allen, I'll share a quick story with you. I was working with an athletic team, and I was willing— I'm willing to be very vulnerable in my workshops. And I did share with them that same story I shared with you earlier. These men, these college men. And I knew a percentage of them men, of those men were blown away that I would share something so sensitive.

Mm-hmm.

There was a percentage of men in those room who couldn't take their eyes off me and were attached to every word. There was a percentage of those men who had their head down because maybe they could identify. And when you have one person, if we could be a fly on the wall and hear what comes out of these players' mouths, some of these, these, these workers' mouths around they themselves feeling suicidal, eating disorders, sex addiction, gambling addiction, a whole bunch of things that from the outside looking in, Patrick Tuohy, from the outside looking in, you have a perfect life. You know, this word intimacy Into me, see. When we have a group of people who are at that level of intimacy, there's a connection that's unwavering, Allen, and there's a vibrancy and a passion and purpose. That's what's much different than outcomes, and it makes it more joyful and rewarding. So that's why I wrote the book. That's the work that I do. And in my own leadership, I make sure to introduce these tenets that I've written about, the exercises that are in the book. There's many more that I do to be able to build an environment around connections and relationships that are vibrant, powerful in every aspect, in our happiness, in our excitement, in our sorrows, in our difficult moments. In respecting each and every one of us and who we are. Not having to be best friends and go out to dinner and to the movies, but also coming into the job with a— from a place of truly being connected. That the intrinsic development is as important as the extrinsic development, and when both of those are in line, So Patrick's book is Create Forever Teammates: How Connections and Relationships Are Winning Steps in Life and Sports.

And you can tell from our conversation that the book is packed with everything that supports the importance of relationships and how that gives us the ability to win in this life with love and compassion. So Patrick, what— I guess the best way to connect with you is probably your website. What is that?

Yes, my website is www.eliteperformancetooie, all one word. The tooie is T-O-O hyphen E, so that's elite performance T-O-O-E.com is my website.

And we will have all of that information in the show notes, and I'm— your book, I expect, is available on Amazon and through other local bookstores, which I encourage you to, to go to your local bookstore.

Absolutely.

Yes. So, Patrick, I would just love to go on talking with you all day long here. You do inspire connection, that is to be certain. But I'd like to close here. You had mentioned, and I don't want to take away anything from your personal accomplishments and your— the work that you have done on yourself here, but you had mentioned in your conversation the importance of support. And so I'd like you to close here with the story of your older brother, which your experience with him is what really changed your perspective on coaching and relationship building. So if you could share that, I think that's an excellent way to close here today.

Yeah, thanks for bringing that up, Allen. So Yeah, the work I do today is all because of my brother Kevin. And when I was coaching, I was one of those coaches that really just cared about the outcomes. And it was very evident that the teams that I developed, and especially this one team, Was extremely talented in respect to the skill development, and we were going to win a lot of games. And we had a game against a team that was one of the better teams in the state, and I was so ecstatic after we won. And I went into the locker room and I thought the girls would be jumping around. This is a varsity girls basketball team. would be jumping around excited as all get-out. And what I observed was a bunch of girls sitting on the bench untying their sneakers, you know, getting ready to leave for the evening. And I thought, how sad.

Yeah.

And what's going on, Patrick? What are you doing wrong? And my brother Kevin did this work for quite some time before that moment, and the thought went to my mind is I've got to I've got to have my brother Kevin out here. And so I did hire him. He came out and worked with this team and the transformational change to them and especially to me as a coach was profound. And it's around these same tenets that I mentioned earlier, Alan. And so I went on to do some work jointly with Kevin, nothing significant. Every once in a while he'd ask me to come in and do a session around a topic, and I would, and I loved every minute of it, and I was totally transformed as a coach and as a person.

Can I stop you here just for one moment? One thing I want you to touch on here was when, um, when, uh, Kevin was coming out to first work with you, he was explaining to you what you were going to do, and he told you explicitly that this was not going You could not take time.

Right.

He said you could not add this to the time of their practice.

He did. He said, "Hey Patrick, my session is going to be two hours." I said, "No problem. We'll just add that to the practice, so we'll have a four-hour day. Not a big deal." Oh no no no no no no no no no! You're adding nothing to practice, or I'm not going to do this. So I said, okay, Kev, I'll trust it. Now, this is really hard for me, but I will trust it. And sure enough, you know, I held to it. It wasn't easy, Allen. And however, you know, I wanted my kids to experience it differently. So I did agree to it and he came out and we didn't add on to it. Yeah.

Yeah.

And fast forward, my brother Kevin died of stage 4 lung cancer. And when he was diagnosed, they had given him 3 months. He did last 2 years. And interestingly enough, he didn't die from the cancer. Oral chemo he was taking ultimately destroyed his digestive tract.

Hmm.

And my brother Timothy, my twin brother Timothy called me because I live in Michigan. I'm the only family member that moved away from the East Coast in New Jersey. And he said, you better get out here. Kevin's not going to last very long. So I flew out and I had a moment with Kevin alone, and I described in my book these clear blue eyes that he had and this very peaceful, calm presence that to me was extremely divine. He had no agenda. He had no motive other than from a place of pure love. I knew that as I was kneeling next to him in the chair that he was in, his recliner. And there's 2 things I want to share. One is he looked me in the eyes and he said, Patrick, you're enough. You're a beautiful soul, Patrick. Allen, when that's being communicated from someone in a place like that, it has a profound attachment. I felt it deep in my soul that my brother Kevin was in a different place communicating that to me and that he hoped that that was powerful enough. To break through all of the negativity, all of the abuse, all of the searching. I can never thank my brother enough for that moment. And then he asked me, would I please continue with his legacy? And I promised him that I would. And that was the beginning of Patrick starting Elite Performance. Tooey, T-O-O, also with my KT in the middle of the heart of my logo, always reminding myself. That I owe this beautiful journey, this business, to my brother Kevin.

Patrick, what a powerful, powerful episode. I knew it was going to be outstanding, so I am so glad that you could be with us today. Viewers and listeners, I know you have found today to be a very touching episode as well. Reach out to Patrick. Connect with him. He's a very connectable individual there. Thanks for being with us. If you would, please like, share, and subscribe, and we'd be most appreciative if you could leave us a rating and a review. Until next time, live abundantly in all areas of your life, and we'll see you in the next episode.

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