Tom takes his audiences from laughter to tears and back to laughter again in his moving story of coping with his mental illness and the suicides of his brother and sister.

 

"Tom delivers a powerful inspirational story of learning how to live with joy and meaning despite having two” incurable diseases,” bipolar disorder and Trigeminal neuralgia (a painful nerve disease affecting the right side of his head)."
Carol Lynn Stewart, Ph.D.
University of California-Berkeley

 

Tom Roberts is an actor and a former broadcast journalist who speaks about the often under-reported, untreated and deadly mental health crisis in the United States. His keynote, "Chewing through the Straps—Living with Mental Illness” is an often humorous look at his own illness, but also a moving narrative of how he found spiritual healing, especially after the suicides of his younger brother and sister.
 
Tom is author of Attention! A Field Manual for Public Speakers. His new book, Ballistic on the Beltway: Taming the Internal "Terrorist," will be released in November 2007. It focuses on the lessons we learn from road rage, which is a symptom of mounting stress at home and at work.

 

“A magnificent storyteller”
JoAnn Dahlkoetter, PhD
Sports Psychologist,
Stanford University Sports Advisory Board

 

“Tom Roberts is the perfect emcee or master of ceremonies. His contagious wit from the heart quickly creates an attentive community that can be touched deeply together one moment about something that matters and laughing the next.”
Pat McHenry Sullivan,
Author of Work with Meaning, Work with Joy!

 

Tom lives in the San Francisco Bay Area where he teaches presentation skills to corporate executives, delivers keynote speeches on mental health, does commercial voice-overs and occasional motion picture and television projects.