In this episode of Listening with Leaders, host Doug Noll interviews former CEO Tom Gegax, whose journey spans a corporate rise, personal crises, and a profound transformation. Gegax recounts his early career at Shell Oil, the founding and rapid growth of Tires Plus into a 150‑store, $500 million business across eight states, and the arrogance that marked his leadership style. A convergence of three major setbacks—radiation‑induced throat cancer, a divorce, and a failing business—forced him into therapy, spiritual practice, and a mentorship with Deepak Chopra, leading to a radical shift toward empathy, emotional awareness, and healthier habits. The conversation highlights the importance of listening to emotions rather than words, critiques modern corporate America’s excessive CEO pay ratios, low charitable giving, and declining employee happiness, and proposes appreciative inquiry and self‑coaching as tools for emerging leaders. Gegax also promotes his documentary “Confessions of a CEO,” detailing its release on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, and Google Play, and shares where listeners can find him online. Throughout, Noll references studies on empathy’s critical role in leadership and promotes his upcoming book “Empathy Leadership,” underscoring active listening techniques and their historical roots. The episode ends with calls to action for listeners to watch the film, share the podcast, and connect with the hosts on social media.
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Welcome to Listening with Leaders. I'm Doug Noll, lawyer turned peacemaker. I teach executive leaders how to listen to emotions rather than words so that they can become the leaders everyone wants to follow. And I teach those same leaders how to be authentically present, available, and connected to their families despite being insanely busy. I have learned that we are 98% emotional and only 2% rational. Learning how to listen to emotions is, in my experience, the foundational skill of life. Stick around to the end of the show and I'll reveal how you can be on our next guest in 15 to 20 minutes. So let's get started.
All right, friends, today is a very different podcast than what you usually hear with Listening with Leaders. As all of you know who listen to this podcast, typically I interview CEOs and senior executives and we talk about what has made them successful. Well, today we have one of the most successful CEOs in the United States, but it's a very different story. And he's got a film documentary out called Confessions of a CEO that we'll talk about a little bit. His name is Tom— this is Tom Gigax who you're seeing with me. I want to also say that, and we're going to be talking about this, but Tom was diagnosed with a cancer in his throat 20 years ago, 25 35 years ago? 35 years ago. In those days, they treated by surgery and radiation. But the problem is, and this is a problem that Tom has to deal with today, is that radiation has completely atrophied many of his muscles in his larynx, his pharyngeal nerves, his pharyngeal muscles, everything that controls everything in his throat has degraded. And so he has a speaking voice. That is different, and he's understandable, but it's going to be different. And so I ask you to pay close attention and listen carefully because what he has to say in the story he has is absolutely amazing. But you are going to have to listen to his voice because it is quite different. Tom, I am so honored to have you on the show. Welcome.
Thank you, Doug. I appreciate that, and I appreciate you having me on with my voice disability. And 35 years ago I had it. For 25 years there was no effect on my voice. But radiation is the gift that keeps on giving. 10 years is not much. Yeah, great to be on.
You're welcome. So let me just summarize and then we can kind of dive in because there's one— we both, we you have shared, even though we've never met before today, we both have, from what I can tell, a very, uh, very similar shared experiences. So in a nutshell, you grew up in Indiana, North Vernon, Indiana, ended up marrying a college sweetheart, kind of a shotgun wedding situation. As soon as you were done with college, you went to work for Shell Oil, did the corporate life for a while, found out that it was a life that lacked total integrity and honesty. You in fact were screwed by your superiors. With a partner, founded a company called Tires Plus, which ended up being one of the largest independent tire distributors in the middle part of the United States. I don't know, 5 states, 6, 8, something like that.
8 states.
8 states.
Largest independent tire chain. 150 stores.
150 stores.
Our revenue And the name's value was half of a million million, so $500 million.
Wow.
So, but what's really remarkable is that you took your persona that you developed in corporate, which wasn't a very good persona, and started and used that persona as a CEO in your business, TRIVIZ Plus, and things were not going well. You were growing, but things were not going well. And you brought in a consultant and the consultant did what consultants do and turned to you and said, "Tom, you're the problem." So what I wanna know is, and what I think is the most fascinating part of your story is give us a little bit of a background of who you were as a corporate man and the problem and what was going on inside of you internally that caused you to be arrogant. And then tell us, I wanna hear your story about the transformation that turned you into you are today. And you have done some amazing things, and we're going to get into that in more detail, but let's just start right there. What, what were you before, and what caused the shift, the radical shift, to becoming a completely different kind of human being?
Well, when I entered corporate America after graduating from Indiana University— and by the way, we're the number one football team in the United States after beating Ohio State. And I was pretty innocent coming into corporate America, but there everything was about drinking and taking advantage of this person or that person. I didn't like the ethics, but I thought, well, I can play the game in corporate America, but It ended up getting so bad that I said, "I can't do it." So I left them and started my own company. And my intent was to take the best, the corporate world, and the best, the nonprofit world. But I really got into ego as we became more and more successful. And I was mean to our teammates. If I saw someone smiling, I'd go to their boss and say, "Hey, Joe's smiling a bit too much. I don't think he's working hard enough." Wow.
Sort of the non-empathic leader.
Oh man, really, really bad. So that as we grew, we weren't growing in a healthy way and it got more and more stressful. So as you say, I found Eddie insulting and he said problems you. But where I really had, you know, I had to change, I went through a three-ring wake-up call. Our divorce, cancer, and our business was failing. Even though it was growing, it was failing.
The business was failing?
Yeah.
So you had cancer, a growing business that was failing, and divorce, and a divorce.
So all three of them, it took all three to put me on the mat. And I said, okay, I gotta go into therapy. And after a few sessions, I'll be okay.
Right, 3 sessions, uh-huh.
I'll find out what everybody else is doing wrong.
That arrogance was in there really hard, wasn't it?
Oh my God. And I'm a first child, male, CEO. That's a pretty controlling human being. So I then went through a few years of a major transformation. Therapy. Spiritual growth really made any spiritual traffic. Deepak Chopra—
I was going to say—
mentored me at that time. And I changed how I ate. I was already exercising, so I had that, but I wasn't eating right. And I didn't have a spiritual mate, and I had no emotional awareness.
No competency.
Yeah, better word. Yeah.
So what brought you to the mat was the fact that you were growing this business and it was failing. You had the cancer, which has obviously deeply affected your life. And you get a divorce. How do you meet— you met Deepak Chopra before he was anybody. How do you— and I think if I recall from watching the documentary, you ended up on his board of directors and was critical in making him into the incredible person he is today worldwide. How did you meet Deepak?
When you start getting into what I got into, therapy, Spiritual Awareness and Diet, you end up hearing speakers that are coming in. And I heard Deepak was coming in and he wasn't known nationally.
Right.
But I thought, hey, he sounds very interesting. So He consulted me, taught me meditation, and really helped me. And then, yeah, 7 or 8 years later, I ended up helping him. I was on his small board of directors. Right. And really made a difference in helping his organization. I brought business principles into his organization, and he was a doctor. He had no idea, right, how to run a business. Yeah, well, that's another—
that's another parallel in our lives. I, I started meditating in college I learned Transcendental Meditation, and then, so my spiritual journey really started then. And then in the '90s, I learned how to be an energy healer. And that came from my martial arts training, interestingly enough. I started martial arts training in the '80s and became a second-degree black belt in the style that I was studying, and then my teacher told me to start studying Tai Chi as a martial art. And in Tai Chi, there are two paradoxes. One is the softer you are, the stronger you are, and the other is the more vulnerable you are, the more powerful you are. And they resonate, don't they? And here I am, a trial lawyer, secondary black belt, big physical man, and these things did not compute for me until they did. And that led me— and the Tai Chi training led me into energy and subtle energy, and that led me into being trained as an energy healer, which then led me into the practice of Ahadic Yoga, which was a a discipline started by a man in the Philippines by the name of Cho Kok Sui. So my spiritual path kind of evolved like yours did. And of course today, I mean, this is— it informs me and is as much a part of me as all of my education. And I think the same is true for you. That's really amazing. And so as you started to shift and you started to really start to grow, which is what I think happened, what did people start seeing in you And how did they start reacting to the new Tom Gigax, the guy who was coming out of the chrysalis, which is what was happening?
I'll never forget. Gwen Hymer, the wife of one of our teammates, at a company picnic after I had had 2 or 3 years of becoming a different person, she looked at me quizzically and said, You really knew Caramel on us now, like you didn't before.
Right, you didn't before, but you do now.
But you do now. And she was amazed. And I thought, Tom, you made it happen. Because you can't come in and announce, okay, I'm going to now treat everybody.
No, that does not work.
Emanate, right, probably from you.
So I could speak to you for hours, and we don't have hours, unfortunately. But, you know, I— in your documentary called Confessions of a CEO, I don't know, is that going to be released publicly?
Oh yeah, it was, it was in theaters in January.
Oh, okay.
Then February 11th, it debuted on Amazon Prime.
Oh, okay.
Apple TV, Google Play.
Oh wow, great.
And then, uh, so you can, people can, I think, isn't there a website?
ConfessionsOfACEO.com, isn't that your website for it?
Yeah.
ConfessionsOfACEO.com. So people, if you're listening, everybody, it's a 90-minute documentary. You may not always agree with all the politics, but it's really worth watching., to show Tom's journey?
I'm— well, let me tell them the easy way. Most people have Amazon Prime Video.
Oh sure.
By the way, we're 5 stars on that, 100% Rotten Tomatoes.
Wow. So you got to be, you got to be really proud of that film.
I really am. Yeah, it's a docu-drama. It's not No, it is not, right?
It's very— it, it captured me, and to capture me for 90 minutes says a lot.
But everyone has M&M's Prime. Just search P.E.O. Okay, and it'll come up. We are the very first film that comes up.
Okay.
They don't have to go through confession. Okay, just CEO, Amazon Prime CEO, the trailer, and if they're interested after that, then they can watch. Okay, it's about a lot more than my journey, right? But corporate America, right?
It's a call out for change. Yeah, yeah, and a lot of different, a lot of different levels. And that's what— that was my next question. A lot of people that listen to this show are, they're not necessarily in corporate America. There are a lot of entrepreneurs and people with, you know, CEOs and C-level people, but of mid-sized businesses, which I think you pointed out in the film, constitute 99.9% of all businesses in the United States. For people, I'm wondering if there's advice that you have based on everything that you've experienced in your life that you can give to younger leaders to help them grow into the kind of person that you have become, maybe without going through all the pain.
Yeah, but you're right there that your viewers should look at their own dashboard. Are there any warning signs in their career, in their marriage, in their health, things that they can address before they hit rock bottom? Right. I did. And I'm talking about ways they can be more healthy leaders. But first, it's about self-coaching themselves where they, they're able to get more healthy emotionally, spiritually. When I'm talking about spiritual, that may be religion, that may not be religion. It's just about a universal Spirituality, where the Force can be with you. But part of that, I'm going to say 2 minutes on corporate America. They have, in the 50 years I was in the business world, really gone the wrong direction. Their pay versus the average worker in their company. In my— when I started out, it was 20 times the average worker. And that's great. They do deserve a lot more. But today it's 350 to 1. They need 350 times the income, not the entry-level worker, the average worker. But that to me is not right. It's not caring. Secondly, they— in the— when I started out 50 years ago, they gave 2% of their earnings to charity. Today it's 0.8%. They can't even give 1% away to community and causes.
And let's not talk about how the tax code has been lobbied to death so that they don't pay taxes.
Yeah, it is. And they're Employee happiness ratio, their customer service index, those have all gone down. So I am challenging corporate America to be better. This is not a Michael Moore shaming them. And as a matter of fact, We talk about the good they do. They provide a lot of jobs. They drive innovation. So they do some very good things. But that to me is offset by some very bad things. And they need to be more public in ratio of their CEO pay, of their giving, of their customer service index, of their employee happiness index. So they need to be— if those had to be public, then they would act differently.
There you go. I think you're going to like my next book called Empathy Leadership. And I teach you how to actually lead with empathy using neuroscience. And maybe that'll be another catalyst to help people, leaders, do exactly what you're talking about.
I love the word empathy. My dad told me as a young boy, the most important word In the English language is empathy.
Thank you.
I applaud you.
What's really interesting is a study came out in 2018 that said that empathy is the most critical leadership skill and is determinative of leadership success. And then a study came out in 2024 that said 72% of all leaders will not use empathy because they're afraid it makes them look weak. That is really sick.
Yeah, it really is.
It really is. So I'm trying to— I want to change that, change those percentages, and I want people to understand that empathy is your primary leadership skill. It does not make you weak, it makes you strong, and a whole bunch of other myths that I'm busting up in the book. You've inspired me even further. If people want to find you, where can they find you besides watching the film?
Well, I mean, I'm on Wikipedia. I'm, uh, and LinkedIn.
You are on LinkedIn?
LinkedIn.
Okay, so people can find you on LinkedIn.
Facebook. Yeah, right. Great. If they want to communicate with me after they watch the film, LinkedIn would be a great way to do it. One, I didn't answer your question. What can leaders do?
Yes.
New leaders. Well, A, inside your company, if you're working for a big company, you can challenge your leadership in a very gentle way. It's called appreciative inquiry.
Yep, I'm aware of it.
You never tell them what they need to do.
That's right.
Hey, Mr. Doug, do you think that by doing that, it's in alignment with our mission?
That's right.
And you don't do it in a prosecutorial style. It's in a curiosity, learning it to the truth. And if that doesn't work, then it's about looking for somewhere else, either a company that is more caring and socially responsible, or starting your own company.
There you go. And I would say this show is called Listening with Leaders. And I would say take the time to learn how to listen, and it's not listening to words. Learn how to listen to emotions, because we are 95% driven by emotion, and most leaders only lead 5% of the brain when you should be leading 95% of the brain.
You're so right. And the most important thing for me, I read about active listening.
Active listening.
T-I-V-E listening. Right. Stephen Covey kind of borrowed that from someone and he kind of got the credit, but a man named CJ Henry is the guy who really came up with that, and it is powerful. Active Listening by CJ Henry. Check that out, and it really tells you how to really listen.
You'll, uh, you'll be interested to know that I have a whole chapter in my new book around the history of active listening and where it came from. It came from Carl Rogers in the 1950s., but I also criticize it because the way that it's taught today isn't effective. And that's why people don't use active listing is because the way that it's taught in corporate training, it doesn't work. But there is another set of skills that I do teach that does work, and in the book I explain all about it.
Great, I look forward to your book.
Yeah, thank you, Tom. Well, Tom, it's been a real honor talking with you, and, Everybody go, go watch the film Confessions of a CEO. Get it on Amazon Prime. It's worth 90 minutes of your time to watch the film. It's incredibly inspiring. Tom, thank you so much. I really appreciate your time today.
Thank you, Doug. You were an incredible interview.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.
Bye. Doug Noll here. Thank you so much for listening to Listening with Leaders. If you are a successful executive leader who would like to be on this program, please visit podcast.dougnull.com/podcast. If you got something out of this interview, would you please share this episode on social media? Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend or post it on the socials. If you know someone that would be a great Guests, tag them on the social media to let them know about the show and include the hashtag #ListeningWithLeaders. I love seeing your posts and guest suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content. To make sure you don't miss any episodes, go ahead and subscribe. Your thumbs up ratings and reviews go a long way to help promote the show and mean a lot to me and my team.
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