Tony Daloisio opens Act 1 with his story of life with “Mother Mary”, his brilliant and extraordinarily troubled mother. Tony’s mother was an “obsessive, compulsive, neurotic” parent who “ruled with an iron fist,” who did everything in her power to control her environment, including her children. Tony goes on to describe the energy of his extended family as “dangerous.”
As a relatively young teen, Tony realized that he was actually his own person. Often forced by his mother to sit for hours at a time during which she wrote and would later take swats at him, he began to fight back by putting his hands up to block his mother’s physical blows. “I never hit back,” says Tony, but he sent a clear message that he was no longer going to allow the physical abuse.
Citing Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning,” Tony points to the importance of choice and the recognition that a big part of creating his own path came down to the choices he had the power to make.
Tony shares the lessons learned through his own traumas, and we touch on how trauma lives in the body. We wrap our first Act riffing on stimulus, response, and the importance of self-observation, self-awareness, finally bringing it home with wisdom about the values-driven choices that become available when one develops conscious, self-reflective practices.
Dr. Tony Daloisio was trained as an organizational psychologist and has practiced in that field for over thirty years, serving hundreds if not thousands of businesses, not-for-profit organizations, schools, hospitals, NGOs, and government agencies/military operations. His work with them has incorporated strategic planning and implementation, change management, team development, executive coaching, and executive education. He has been a professor in the MBA program at Georgia Tech’s Scheller College of Business, teaching leadership and organizational change. In the early parts of his career, which began in education, he was an inner-city high school principal where he advocated for disadvantaged youth. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut in the field of Organizational Psychology and Counseling Psychology, where he received a fellowship for his research in leadership style and taught graduate courses in psychology.
In the early 2000s he forged a partnership with the late Dr. Stephen R. Covey, author of the blockbuster New York Times bestseller The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and then his son, Stephen M. R. Covey to develop the consulting practice Principle Centered Leadership and teach The 7 Habits course around the world.
He founded and has been the CEO of Charter Oak Consulting group for thirty years. The company was listed as one of Inc. Magazine’s fastest-growing companies and has been awarded numerous citations for best-in-class consulting projects in various industries.
In 2017 he co-authored a highly acclaimed business book with Kendall Lyman entitled, Change the Way You Change.
Tony lives in Washington Depot, Connecticut, and Atlanta, Georgia, with his wife, Teresa Hargrave. He is the proud father of Tim Daloisio and Morgan Daloisio and grandfather to Ryan, Julia, Addie, and James. He is enjoying his consulting practice with schools, NGOs, business startups, and a variety of mission-driven companies. He has a love of the outdoors, hiking, biking, and his favorite, golf. With the publishing of this book, The Journeyman Life, he will be conducting training programs for men to lead groups of men interested in applying the ideas and tools from the book.
www.thejourneymanlife.com
www.changethewayyouchange.com
www.cocg.com