Tom Geigner Shares Earned Wisdom: Golden Rules and Being Your Own Person

Every individual has a story that teaches valuable lessons. Tom Geigner shares his "earned wisdom," revealing insights from his experiences. Join us as we explore the lessons he shares.

It's incredible to think how much we can learn from each other when we do two simple things: ask and listen.

Tell us a little about yourself, including your experience in education/lifelong learning and anything else you’d like to share.

I grew up in the city of Chicago in a neighborhood called Englewood. I was raised from birth to seventeen years old in the same house my mother grew up in from the age of five. My father grew up down the street also, from about the age of five. It was primarily an Irish, German neighborhood blocked in by railroad tracks on two sides. By the time I was thirteen, the neighborhood changed quickly and along with that came a lot of racial troubles. When I turned seventeen, my parents sold our house and this move left me very upset and bitter to leave the neighborhood that held so much history for generations of my family. 

I was raised as a Catholic. Being born in 1958, the Catholic Church was still very strict with masses being said in all Latin and women still wearing head coverings. My neighborhood and church were built in the early 1900 - 1920s so there was an atmosphere of the 30s, 40s and 50s in that area as I grew up. In our front yard, there was a Victory Garden, designated with a large concrete “V”,  planted with flowers around a flagpole. There were remnants of many other concrete “V” Victory Gardens throughout the neighborhood, some holding WWII statues and one even held a large bust of Abraham Lincoln. There were several little stores that had been built before “supermarkets” that sold milk, bread, lunch meat, candy and other essentials scattered throughout our neighborhood.

World War II was a big part of my growing up years with almost all of my family on both sides serving during the war. My mother was a Marine and my father was a paratrooper whose little brother was killed on D-Day. These events had a long lasting effect on me, in the form of respect for hard work and love of country. One week after high school graduation, I started out as a meat cutter for a large Chicago area grocery chain, then spent the rest of my working career as a laborer, truck driver, construction worker and lots of other jobs along this same vein. I moved to northern Wisconsin in 1992 and have never thought about moving back to Chicago.

What have you learned from someone you know that has made you a better person?

As a very young man, I learned a golden rule from my father that I have tried to apply throughout my life : “Words are not just words, words are what men live by.” Also, when I was about eight, I was walking with my maternal grandmother toward our home when a violent domestic argument broke out on a neighbor’s front lawn. I was staring, very shocked and my grandmother took my hand to keep walking and said to me, “Don’t believe anything you hear and only half of what you see. You don’t have any idea what started that”. This taught me that if I am not there to see the entirety of something, I should not rush to judgment.

What “earned wisdom” do you have that others can benefit from?

When I was about thirty years old, I finally came to the realization that if someone does something to you, it has nothing to do with their race, creed or color but rather a flaw in their character or the persecutions that they have been subjected to by our society’s caste system over the years.

What personal or professional development book (or both) would you recommend? Why?

I recommend “The Warmth of Other Suns”  and “Caste”, both by Isabel Wilkerson, because they teach you to accept and respect people who may be different from you and they highlight the long struggles with prejudice that many groups have suffered.

I also recommend any books by Mitch Albom for their ability to explore a deeper meaning of spirituality and strengthen your everyday faith.

What is your favorite song on your morning commute to work? (or in general, if you’re retired)

I have many, but I would have to say my number one is Stevie Wonder’s “A Place in the Sun”, interpreted in a spiritual way.

Feel free to add anything else that you think would be helpful to others.

In general, I would say not to just do something because somebody else or even everybody else does it. Do something because you really want to or believe in it. Be your own person. Lead, don’t follow blindly.

Maybe you’re interested in sharing some of your “earned wisdom.” If so, let’s get in touch. I look forward to sharing your story with the Why Edify community.

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