Discover the transformative power of emotional control with the wisdom of Tony Whatley, a mastermind in entrepreneurship and personal development. As a renowned business coach and health enthusiast, Tony brings a treasure trove of insights into mastering your emotions to propel you to new heights in life and career. Our candid conversations weave through the intricate connection between mental composure, long-term decision-making, and self-improvement, offering you strategies to harness your inner strength for unparalleled success.
Feel the tension in competitive sports and the boardroom melt away as we share tales of mental fortitude from judo mats to billiard tables. Through personal anecdotes and Tony's expert guidance, we shed light on the psychological maneuvers essential for outperforming rivals and the importance of stepping outside comfort zones. Every story underscores the impact of mentorship and the pivotal role of mindset in leveling up your game, providing you with actionable lessons to chart your path to excellence.
Wrap up the episode with a deep dive into the symbiosis between self-care, fitness, and productivity. Learn how simplicity in goal-setting can lead to profound happiness, and why maintaining physical health is a linchpin for mental clarity and sustained peak performance. As we explore the crucial practice of carving out time for personal growth, you'll leave this episode equipped with the tools and the resolve to craft a life brimming with fulfillment and achievement.
Discover the transformative power of emotional control with the wisdom of Tony Whatley, a mastermind in entrepreneurship and personal development. As a renowned business coach and health enthusiast, Tony brings a treasure trove of insights into mastering your emotions to propel you to new heights in life and career. Our candid conversations weave through the intricate connection between mental composure, long-term decision-making, and self-improvement, offering you strategies to harness your inner strength for unparalleled success.
Feel the tension in competitive sports and the boardroom melt away as we share tales of mental fortitude from judo mats to billiard tables. Through personal anecdotes and Tony's expert guidance, we shed light on the psychological maneuvers essential for outperforming rivals and the importance of stepping outside comfort zones. Every story underscores the impact of mentorship and the pivotal role of mindset in leveling up your game, providing you with actionable lessons to chart your path to excellence.
Wrap up the episode with a deep dive into the symbiosis between self-care, fitness, and productivity. Learn how simplicity in goal-setting can lead to profound happiness, and why maintaining physical health is a linchpin for mental clarity and sustained peak performance. As we explore the crucial practice of carving out time for personal growth, you'll leave this episode equipped with the tools and the resolve to craft a life brimming with fulfillment and achievement.
And I don't think that you can out-practice your mindset because, like we just talked about, some of these people had exceptional mechanics. They've done the reps, they've done the practice. You know they could play a perfect game if they had the mindset to match their mechanics.
Ty Backer:And we were back. Welcome back, everybody. Thank you for tuning in on this wonderful afternoon, 12 pm Eastern Standard Time. We just recently changed our time a few weeks ago to you know, capture a different audience to put our content out there. For those of you that may be on your lunch break or whatever, but don't forget to check us out on Spotify, google, apple Play on the replay, and also don't forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel, of course, our Facebook as well. So, tony Wotley, we have another special guest today, someone that I hold near and dear to my heart business coach, health nut podcaster, author, speaker, entrepreneur, car fanatic, founder of Deviate Motors and, of course, last but not least, founder of the LS1 Tech. My man, how the hell are you?
Tony Whatley:Hey, man, good to have you know. Thanks for this opportunity there. I gotta say something about that commercial, though, man. I don't know if playing guitars on the roof is OSHA approved just putting that out there.
Ty Backer:Okay Well, maybe we should get Tim Brown to put a harness on. Maybe it won't look so bad.
Tony Whatley:Or he's got a parachute. You know something?
Ty Backer:Something, anything, some guide rails or something. Thanks for pointing that out so Vic, take care of that right away. Before we get in trouble. But no, all good stuff, man. So, Tony, it's an honor and a privilege to have you on the show. Like I said earlier, I wasn't exaggerating. You know, you're a friend, mentor, you know a coach, you're my coach, you're my business life coach. We talk about just about damn near anything and the importance of that for me has been pretty deep on many levels of entrepreneurship, personal stuff, and I just want to give you a big shout out for being there and listening to my crazy ass stuff and helping me stay on track.
Tony Whatley:Well, hey, it takes a little bit of crazy to hear crazy and understand crazy. So we're on that same page there and I appreciate the kind words and you know that's something I guess you know. I believe I was your first business coach and you didn't know what the hell you were getting into when you signed up for that, so that might be an interesting story there.
Ty Backer:Yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah, I had no idea what I was getting myself involved with. I knew that if this was going to work, that I was going to need to be transparent and vulnerable, which I've always had. You know issues with trust and being vulnerable, especially with another man. But it has paid dividends for me to be able to open up to you and be vulnerable. And we're just beginning. This is just the beginning.
Ty Backer:You know we're just getting started and you know thus far, I mean with what? Maybe six months now, we're already making leaps and bounds in the conversations that we have, and I don't want to just probably say this what attracted me to you the most was your demeanor. Right, you're not real high, strong. You do get jacked up when you need to get jacked up, but you can compose yourself very well and in a professional manner, and I needed someone. I was seeking someone that could help compliment me and reel me in and bring me in. And you're calm, cool, collective, like you're cool hand Luke, right, that's just my my, you know, purvy of you is that you're just this. Non, you know, don't get excited very easily over stuff, and I do, so I need that at times. The K-tides really not that important, or neither are you. You're really not that important. So, just, you know, take a step back, relax and we'll figure this out together.
Ty Backer:And it's kind of like you've been a sponsor to me as well, and many facets. And then those of you that might know what a sponsor is, tony is like my business slash personal sponsor and has helped me and guided me and still is and continue and will continue to guide me through and help navigate through, you know, whether it's uncertainty and economic things or areas of business and professional stuff that I haven't gone to yet. But going back to, what you know attracted me to you was is that you've been places that I haven't been yet. Right, and those that you've surrounded yourself with, and yourself personally, is like that's where I want to be, that's who I want to be. You are the some that I want to be. You know what I mean. So that's that's why I've opened this door of vulnerability. You know, to, to, to, to expand my mind mentally, physically and spiritually on levels that I didn't even know that existed. Because, let's face it, we hear it all the time. We don't know what we don't know. That's right, you're that for me.
Tony Whatley:I appreciate those words. It's it means a lot coming from you. And, yeah, I guess we got to know each other almost a year now and as we met at a revolt conference with with Hunter, and always think about that day because there's a room full of strangers I didn't know anybody there but Hunter. You were the one of the only ones in the entire room, I don't know, it was like 120 people or something. It was a pretty big turnout and I just remember you came up and introduced yourself and willing to have a conversation with somebody that I didn't dress like you guys. I just showed up, I was wearing my own gear and thought I was kind of an unusual duck, I guess, but she started a conversation with me. I was like you know, I'm here for this and I'm actually one of the speakers and they're like oh, cool, like I didn't know that, so you know.
Tony Whatley:So I think that most people hear the word business coach and they think it's going to be a bunch of boring conversation about PNLs and balance sheets. And you know somebody like, oh, you should do this and you should cut this cost and very strategic stuff. That's kind of the typical business coach, but I would say I'm more of a higher performance coach. I definitely have the business background, but we did a lot of our conversations with executives are not just what's going on in their business. We always want to address what is the thing that's coming up at night, what's the main challenge that you're facing at any given moment, and that's subject to change at all the time. And so I know that from doing this for so long that if there's something that's creating anxiety or fear or a challenge inside your life, you're not going to hear the PNL talk, you're not going to hear the strategic mergers and acquisition conversation, because whatever we are faced with on a daily basis is what's really taking a lot of our attention. And you talked about the calm and the cool and the collected.
Tony Whatley:That's something that I've worked on extremely hard for my entire adult life was being an emotional control. You know, the thing is that we feel these emotions. I feel anger, I feel envy and I feel joy and things like that. But the problem with most people is they react to things. It's a knee jerk reaction. They have a stimulus sets them off, they feel an emotion about something and then they react. The proper way to do that is have that moment of milliseconds of really self-awareness between the stimulus and your response.
Tony Whatley:People who are emotionally mature and emotionally in control learn how to respond. It's not a reaction. You can feel that, you feel that, that anger, you can feel those kind of things, but what's the proper way to respond? And that's when you start to get into self-awareness and you start to work on these kind of things and you go man, I got a bad temper, like, oh, my mom, and people blame it on their parents and stuff like that. Oh, my dad had a bad temper, that's why I have one. No, you choose to have a bad temper. My dad had an awful temper, but he's not like that anymore. So he chose not to be like that anymore. Just like you can choose or anybody that's watching can choose to your entire emotional control, your behaviors, your reactions are gone. Replace with responses.
Ty Backer:Yeah, no, that's good, that's good. And what made me think of that or what? When you were talking, I was thinking there for a second. You know how many times I put myself into you know a jackpot due to making long-term decisions based upon short-term emotions, right, and and not not necessarily having a very fit decision-making muscle at that time. You know and how many jackpots that's gotten me into.
Ty Backer:And sometimes I personally need more than like 30 seconds to take 10 deep breaths before I react, right, because we all know reacting is Is not the the way to go about it, but to respond to something and with with a, you know, level head and where I can think clearly. And you know I'm guilty of that so much and again that, going back to, what's kind of Gravitated me towards your demeanor was was a lot of that, and and your personality, of course, in your achievements and and not just financial achievements, but your, your family success and things that you've done, like that has also attracted me to you and how you take care of your body right, and I think that's that has galvanized our relationship, because the more that I get to know you as a human being and Individual and an entrepreneur, you know the things that you do, or have sacrificed, not doing, I guess, to improve the quality of your life and your health. You know, mentally and physically, internally and externally, it's pretty cool. So you know, and then we can dive into that later. But, you know, making, you know, decisions with a level head, that's.
Ty Backer:That's very difficult at times, especially when we're we're prone to take things personally, right? Yeah, I always feel like a person says something, especially when it comes to business things and and when I get it, you know, where it gets foggy for me is, like you know, this isn't personally what he's saying or they're not going to use our Services, or or whatever the case might be, he typically isn't a personal decision, it's something that is is a business decision, and I've struggled with that For many years and I even say it's like you know, I don't believe in like it's, it's strictly business, it's nothing personal, it's just business. Because I I'm one of those people that feel, like you know, everything's personally, like I, we personally hired you because I liked you, you know. So it's kind of hard to Differentiate the two. So so tell us a little bit about your experience with, like you know, yeah, it's business, nothing personal.
Tony Whatley:I think that you know one of the best ways. We'll start with the really basic stuff here. So I think if you want to work on emotional control, you don't have to go as far as doing martial arts and things like that. That's where I learned it as a kid, because If you lose your composure in the ring you're gonna get your ass beat. So it's people that have never been trained. They're the ones that try to be all scary and yell and do all these Dramatics, but the professionals don't act like that.
Tony Whatley:You see those kind of things like even at the UFC or MMA, when people are walking into the ring, the walk-on music's playing and the pyrotechnics are going off and they're they're, they're all Dramatic and they're putting on the entertainment aspect, because they're entertainers at the same time as being fighters. And they even get in the ring and they're flexing a little bit and peacocking and you know so show boating, and so everybody kind of looks at that part. But what most people don't pay attention is that when it goes ding, ding and the round starts, those two guys in the ring go ice cold and they're really focused. There's no emotion, they're just really focused on offense and defensive moves, and so you know a good example of that like spy movies you don't see spy guys running around like making a bunch of noise and yelling and scaring people. They're just kind of creeping around, small, like looking like they blend in with everybody. They take somebody out and they're just kind of like fix their tire and they keep walking right. So you know, the best way to get a lot of reps at this is if anybody is watching this, that has road rage.
Tony Whatley:That's the most common form of emotional. You know, losing yourself control and think about this. Somebody cuts you off and you're honking the horn and you're you're shouting obscenities at a windshield. They can't hear you anyways. So everybody in the car with you, or even yourself, you're the ones that's hearing these negative words. That person that cuts you off could be just having a good old time. They could be singing their favorite song, just not I care in the world. And yeah, they didn't see you in the mirror and they got over and they're having the best time of their life and they ruined your day for the day. You know when I was working in corporate and oil and gas and people would come in. I've worked in downtown Houston and people would come in like, oh, traffic was just awful and blah and that would set the tone for their entire day. So they're letting people that are doing things that are beyond their control ruin their entire day where, if they would just go, hey, I need to work on my emotional control and not let those people that are oblivious because they didn't see me obviously cut me off, ruin my day, like how I let other people that I can't control ruin my day, so that, and I would say, the next thing that people work on is the keyboards.
Tony Whatley:When someone says something negative to you online or things like that, like, how do we react off? When we feel pain, we want to dish it out and like return pain, right, that's our reaction. But you should also use that as an opportunity to go. You know what? Maybe I disarmed this person because maybe they're going through some things and when people criticize or being haters and things like that, it's usually a more of an illustrative thing that's going on with something within their life. They're at a low point or something that's bothering them, or they're just envious of you or just whatever. There's something going on in their life that they feel like they want to criticize or, you know, do things to kind of take you down a notch, and so I actually feel empathy for those people. I feel sorry for those people, you know, and it's a mindset shift, like they're not attacking me, they're really attacking themselves. They're just trying to use me as like the target. Nobody likes to be the target, so a lot of times I'll just disarm them with humor or I'll just turn it back on them and have fun with it and be like oh, that's interesting comment, thank you for sharing. I just be like funny with it, you know, and so Take those as opportunities, especially on social media.
Tony Whatley:The other people are watching the interaction, because if somebody comes in your post and they're talking trash and having you know a bad day If you engage in that, that's what they want. They want that argument, they're looking for that. But if you were to go ahead thank you for the comment, appreciate you sharing you basically just armed them and they're like not getting that fight. It probably sets them off a little bit more, but you don't care because, again, you don't control them and if they keep doing it, just remove them from your friends list and stuff like that. So these are just little exercises on emotional control that happen to us on an almost daily basis, right? So if we can master the little things that happen over and over and over, your self-awareness starts to increase, you start to get more comfortable with responding versus reacting, and and soon enough you're like hey, the person cut me off. Yeah, okay, yeah, they're dumbass, but okay, I'm not gonna let it bother me. I got stuff to do today.
Ty Backer:Yeah, so much good stuff in there, tony, there was a lot, of, a lot of good things to going back to. You know someone cutting you off and we've often used this analogy you know of I got a brand new truck, somebody almost cut me off and my first instinct or feeling that I get is fear, right. But then 2.3 seconds later, it's rage and it's like, okay, where did that rage come from? It was like because it scared the shit out of me, right? And I think, knowing that. So there's that aspect of things of why am I, why am I acting so poorly Right now. It's because, oh, my god, they were.
Ty Backer:I was afraid that they were going to hit my car and knowing that and being self-aware, right, that you touched on there a little bit. Um, knowing that about myself, that, okay, when it comes to certain things, I, I scare easily and I need to prepare myself better for situations and maybe drive more defensively and not Offensively, whatever the case might be, right. So you got that you have. You have that, that part of it, and knowing that, and then the other part that you know that, when you were talking about control, right, like now.
Ty Backer:Now, who's in control of your life? Are you allowing these people like now you fully lost control of your, of your life and you're allowing these outside Circumstances or people, places, things or situations to control you. So now you're no longer in control of you anymore Because you're allowing these outside elements to affect how you're handling the rest of your day, which really kind of sucks for those that may have to work around you or significant others, because of something that happened at 6 am this morning. Here it is 6 pm. I'm drained, I have an emotional hangover. I can't even remember what happened at 6 am. I just know I'm a miserable prick at this point in time. You know what I mean. But being self-aware you know of, you know your internal and your external, you know being, I think, plays a lot into that. So can you give us some examples of, of things that that you have done in the past to help work on?
Tony Whatley:You know self-awareness, self-control and and probably a lot of it fear and self-doubt is Probably sprinkled in there too for us to react and opposed to responding you know, for me, I think that it came my always down to anything that's in competition, right, most of the people that watch this show, they're into personal development, they're alpha dudes primarily. We're competitive in sports and all kinds of things. So early on it was martial arts. I think that I I'd you know how it was more emotional before that and especially the first few weeks when he joined something. I was in judo. I just remember getting tossed like over and over and over and the Sensei wouldn't teach us how to do any strikes or kicks. We're just basically being tackling dummies. For the first few weeks I remember you know as young I came home to my mom and I was like this sucks, like all they're doing is throwing me to the ground and I'm not even learning how to punch or kick. And you know, and she's like that's part of the process, like you have to learn to fall before you can do everything else. You have to learn how to take a fall. They're teaching you how to roll out of the fall. They're teaching you how to react to those things versus. You know, you know it's just all a process here and and I remember you know it's a lot like wrestling when you're in judo or Brazilian jiu-jitsu is actually built off of judo it's when you're wrapped up and you're being pinned. But if you were like to go having a panic attack and try to like fight for the death and like get out of that, like you're probably gonna lose your composure, you're gonna get gassed, you're gonna get, you know, submitted. So you always have to have your mind like very clear. When you're in that situation, especially when you're rolling is like okay, where are their limbs? How are they trying to take advantage of my limbs? How am I gonna get submitted here and you're trying to control their wrists and their, their legs and all these different things. You can't do that when you're emotionally like having a panic attack or you're trying to in that fight or flight mode. So that's one thing.
Tony Whatley:I would say another one that for me, was in my 20s, when I was in college. I was a competitive nine ball billiards champion in college and so In order to get to that level of competing in pool, you got to realize a pool is probably 50 to 60 percent mental. You I've seen so many people that had exceptional mechanics. They knew that, the angles, they knew all the shots, they knew how to play all the shapes and they studied all the books and they would do the reps. So they had all the mechanics down.
Tony Whatley:But when we get into competition, somebody would rattle their head by just saying something or oh yeah, that was a pretty bad shot there. You just get in their head like that was a term, like they're getting in your head and I've seen these people with exceptional grade a mechanics Just completely self-implode and basically start playing somebody three levels. They're playing like somebody three levels below them and their skill set. And so you know, very fortunate in my 20s to go through that, because, especially when is a young man playing pool?
Tony Whatley:A lot of the guys that I was playing with were guys like my age now they're like 50s and 60s that were like these amazing players who knew all the mental games. You knew how to get you off your game and screw with you and make you just implode. And so I remember falling for those traps early on and be, oh, I'm gonna show this guy and I'm gonna beat this guy, I'm gonna gamble and win his money, and you learn a lot of expensive lessons going through something like that until you realize like I'm hardened by this stuff. So these these comments and their behaviors, just like people that play poker really well, they can do, they can tell, they can see what people are doing and they don't let them make illogical decisions based on their emotions. And so Anything that's competitive, where, especially if you're one-on-one against somebody, that's a mindset game, and I think a lot of times people just don't put themselves in those kind of situations enough To be able to master that kind of mindset control.
Ty Backer:I love that analogy pool playing because I too was an avid pool player back in my younger days and you're right, it is definitely mental. I remember a component of ours of mine. I would, we would travel around and I was in a couple leagues and stuff like that when I was younger. And there was this guy and I know he for a fact that he was a better pool player than me. His mechanics were better, he was smoother at it, he knew more English, he he I could tell he had more foresight, like you, almost. Like he was a a master chest player. Like he knew his 12 next moves right and I can see the next three or four Right. But like I just felt like he could read the table a lot better than I could and, like I said, his mechanics.
Ty Backer:But his issue was is that I could get in his head I? I always grew up around older people and I was always the youngest ringleader out of all of them. But but like, like you had mentioned, they were older people and this guy should have smoked me every time. But man, he would choke and then I would choke but then he would choke again, and especially nine ball. Like you can't choke twice. No, you're sitting down for a while at the high levels.
Ty Backer:Yeah, absolutely, and anybody that knows anything about pool. But the one thing and this is kind of off topic, but since we're speaking on the topic of pool the one thing that I noticed was and this goes back to being the sum of those that you surround yourself with, okay, so we hung out at a particular pool hall and there was a certain level of of Pool that people were playing there, and then, when we would travel outside of our pool hall or outside of town or go into another state, it really started to open our eyes that we were only as good as the best person that was in the for sure, for sure. You know what I mean. So we had to step outside of our comfort zone in order for us and and the felt was different, the tables were bigger, the Pocky levels are different, it plays different, the balls are different, right, like I had no idea that there was such thing.
Ty Backer:Because a Bar room has felt yeah for for its top. When you go into, like a legit nine foot pool table pool hall it's what's called a Samona. Felt yeah is what it's called in. The ball responds differently. Oh for sure you know more. More response to it when, once you get the hang of shooting on a nine foot table opposed to an eight foot table, I think it is or seven foot table, that's in, and our bar rooms will be seven, the big ones will be nine. Yeah, right, so there's, there's different facets to it, but life is the same, right? So if I just stay stuck and and not go outside of my comfort zone and shoot, better pool players, I will not become a bad pool player.
Tony Whatley:Yeah, you'll be the big fish in a little pond. I mean, every every pool hall in America has the guy. Every one of those, yeah, and Some of those, the guys match up at different tournaments around the state or regional states and they figure out who the real guy is, and she's, like you said, the one that travels a lot, and that's what my roommate back then. We would travel a lot, go to the different tournaments and play everybody that we could, and so that's that's very important for sure, for sure.
Ty Backer:And plus that messes with your, with your mindset too. When you're traveling for the first time, you may have better mechanics or better foresight on the pool table, then those people you might be competing with, but you get in your head, your mindset, your yourself, doubt, the fear that we talked about a little bit earlier starts to set in and Low self-esteem and those things. Because I've been in situ. I used to throw a lot of darts too and I was pretty good at that. I grows actually was my babysitter when I would get off the school bus, my family in the bar, so I would go in there and play darts or pool until 9, 30 at night, told the children I leave and I would go upstairs do my homework and go to bed. So I had a diss.
Ty Backer:I had an advantage over most people, especially growing up as a, as a kid, that now there was a good side to that, in a bad side. They're growing up in a bar room and I found the dark side and that's a. That's a different podcast for for a different time. But um, dart, same thing.
Ty Backer:We would travel a lot for darts and I didn't really start to step my game up until I got around a different group, different mindset of people that were just like banging, you know, triple, double red eyes, yeah and bam, like I didn't even know that existed, that you and. And then the type of tools Like the darts were thinner, the flight spine like they had flight tip protectors and things like I didn't even know that stuff existed Until we stepped outside and started just around ourselves, around a different group of people at a different level that we didn't even know existed. And going back into, you know we don't know what we don't know until we step outside our comfort zone and and and make yourself vulnerable and expose yourself to different Things like that, yeah you know, and I don't think that you can out practice your mindset Because, like we just talked about, some of these people had exceptional mechanics.
Tony Whatley:They've done the reps, they've done the practice. You know they could play a perfect game if they had the mindset to match their mechanics. And so it's good to do those reps and you should be doing those if you want to be exceptional or master anything but then you also have to build the confidence at the same time and be able to believe in yourself that you're talking about these dark players. I can just hit bulls nonstop. They already know they're gonna throw the bull when they walk up there that level of confidence and they also have the mechanics to match. They're like bull, bull, bull 2020, 20 triple's, like they know exactly where the things gonna go Because they've done the reps and they trust themselves.
Tony Whatley:The problem with a lot of these people that never make it to that level is they they do the mechanics and when there's no competition, there's no, there's no pressure situation they're gonna be really exceptional. Like if they're just videoing themselves playing pool, they could probably run out several racks in a row, but they get them in competition and it's like a whole different story and and we knew that, we knew who was like a really good player and who was a good tournament player. They're not always the same people, yeah for sure. For sure.
Ty Backer:Now good point. Good point Because some people can, can take the pressure and some people can't take pressure. And the other thing is too, it's like home to home home field advantage, right, I don't like just like in any sports. It's like the chances of the Steelers winning at home is is better than it would be them on the road, and it's the same thing. I think it's mindset and it's the comfortability, like I'm at home, this is our house, we own this house. So if you can go into those somebody else's home field With that same mindset or mentality, or maybe even a notch up, you'll probably succeed and your mechanics will be there and, who knows, you may end up doing something that you never even knew. And I think that's what happened for me when I stepped outside my conference room. Like that, I think I discovered another notch, another level that I didn't know existed, that I had in. Let's talk about that a little bit, tony, like how would one go about to find that other level that they didn't know existed?
Tony Whatley:You know, this is all just based on age, wisdom and experience. There's no way around that. It's you mentioned it earlier we don't know what we don't know. And it takes a mentor or somebody that's got unbiased opinion of things that maybe they're watching. They see your blind spots and they just make you aware of those and you're like, oh shit, like I didn't know. I was doing that A lot of times. For example, people will come to me and wanna do social media content, figure out how to make their personal brand stronger and things like that, and they'll send me a couple links and I go watch their content and they're doing their best they can. I'm not gonna be a hypocrite, because we all started again like it's sucking at something and we had to get better at it. But then I'll point out like you could do this better. The lighting over here is kinda messed up and you reposition your head on the camera the way it's over here, and they're like, wow, I never even thought about that Because they didn't know, they didn't know better.
Tony Whatley:And the problem I think with most people in the world that lack accountability is they use that. I didn't know, I didn't know. They use that all the time that's like their go-to excuse, and what happens is eventually they do find out, because somebody gives them that advice or gives them the guidance, and they still use that same excuse Well, I didn't know, I didn't know, I didn't know. And so you and I both know this that not knowing means you're ignorant, and that's nothing wrong with being ignorant, ignorant, defined as just the lack of knowledge, like you don't know. But once you know and you still keep doing stuff, now you're stupid. That's a different word. And so we have a lot of people out there running around doing stupid things, knowing better but pleading in ignorance. And it's not the case. So how do we get to the next level? Well, you mentioned one of it just being around other people that are operating at that next level. You're gonna start to see how they think, you're gonna see how they act, how they respond, the actions that they take that you are not, and you'll start to emulate them if you're smart enough, because every challenge or every goal that we have in our life, millions of other people before us in history have already had those exact same challenges, have had those exact same goals, and there's literally roadmaps that get us any goal that we want. But we have to be realistic, not delusional, and go, hey, am I willing to sacrifice this to get that, am I willing to put those hours in to get that? And if the answer is no, then you should have a different goal perhaps. Otherwise you're just gonna have a whole life of letting yourself down. So get to the levels that you want, but don't just chase things because you think that that's going to define you, or look for external validations to define your success.
Tony Whatley:I think, with business owners especially, one of the biggest fallacies that I see people do is just chasing revenue. They wanna have a seven figure of this, I want an eight figure of that, I want a 50 million of this, I want a hundred million of this. None of that shit matters. That's like revenue feed your ego, but profit feed your family. And too many people think that if I have a $10 million revenue company, then somehow a better entrepreneur than someone's got a $5 million revenue company. That's not true.
Tony Whatley:Let's look at your net profits. That guy with a $5 million company may actually be netting more, because you and I both know there's $10 million companies that lose money every year. So does that even matter? So in the internet space and podcast space and success space, and whenever I see people bragging about the revenue as part of their marketing, that's a big red flag to me, because real businessmen will talk about net profit. Hey, how much are you bringing home? How much are you taking home? That's what the real thing is, and how much time are you investing in order to do that? How much time away from your family are you sacrificing in order to achieve that? Is it worth it to you? And so you'll find sometimes these goals that you think that you want are not really the things that satisfy, are gonna bring you happiness or fulfillment.
Ty Backer:No, such a great topic. Such a great topic because I admit I was guilty early on too in business that I was chasing the revenue, not necessarily the net profit, and didn't even understand cogs or gross, the difference between gross or net. But that's where you have to live in the net. He knows is how I look at things. I kind of look at the P&L upside down. You know what I mean, Like what created this? How did I come up with this down here?
Tony Whatley:Not maximize the bottom line. That's what.
Ty Backer:I'm interested in. Yeah, exactly, exactly. No, that's such a great topic that a lot of people I think, especially in the roofing industry, unfortunately. I mean there's all well in business in general. I think what most 80% of businesses go out of business in the first 10 years. You know what I mean. And then I think or maybe is it the first five?
Tony Whatley:years, it's actually five. 50% are out of business by year two. 80% are by year five.
Ty Backer:Yeah. So I mean that's huge. I mean think about that, I mean, and then I think most that's telling you right there that most businesses, even if it's somebody that you know that's near and dear to your heart, it's probably on the verge of going out of business. There's not too many out there that are actually thriving or can make it past the 10 year mark. But change gears here a little bit. I guess let's talk about building a strong work life balance or, like I like to say, work life blend. Being someone who focuses on personal growth, how can individuals achieve a healthy work life blend, not just for business owners, but entrepreneurs, business owners but high performing people in any industry that they're in, but, more importantly, like not to get burnout, Like if that made any sense. I'm stumbling over.
Tony Whatley:This is a really important question. So at the end of this past year, my wife and I we took off almost three weeks. We spent all the time in Europe and I really unplugged. I didn't take calls, I didn't take meetings, I didn't do marketing and it was all planned ahead of time, and so I had a lot of time to spend with my family and reflect and kind of plan for the 24 season.
Tony Whatley:And the topic that always comes up, especially as a coach, is how do I set goals? How do I set goals for 24? How do we make this the best year ever? All these New Year's resolutions and things like that, which I think everybody should have, because I don't wanna discourage anybody from setting goals. But in that period of couple of weeks I started to think about how do I set goals? How do I, especially in the last, let's say, five years, because I think we always evolve and I started looking back and I determined that me personally, the way I set goals.
Tony Whatley:It boiled down to one question that I had to answer for myself, and usually you think it's gonna be super complicated. Oh, I got financial goals, I got fitness goals, I got business goals, I got family goals. It seems complicated, but that's how I started out this kind of assessment and I started whittling it down like no. What is the real question? How does that boil down to this? Minimal things I can focus on as possible, and the question is am I happy and am I fulfilled? That's the only question I have to answer at the end of a year. Am I happy and fulfilled at the end of this year, when I understood that that's the only question that really matters? Now you can start to realize well, in order for me to become happy and fulfilled at the end of this year 24, what is the bare minimum that I need to accomplish or achieve in order to have that met? Where I can go hey, I'm happy and fulfilled You'll find that it's a lot less chaotic and a lot less expensive or a lot less resource intensive to be able to achieve that.
Tony Whatley:On a personal level, you and I are very critical of ourselves, just like most people are, and we're really hard on ourselves. We set these lofty goals because we want to go crush some new revenue record and do this, and that we get to the end of the year and we came up short. I failed this year, I'm just wasn't a good year. But if they were to look at their minimum goals of what would it take for you to be happy and fulfilled, you might find that it would just meant, hey, spending more time with your friends and the family and people that mattered to you. Or maybe it was following up with some old relationships with friends that you hadn't really reached out to you in a while and bringing those back into the circle. You'll find that there's a lot of things that really check our box to make us truly happy and fulfilled. Maybe it's coming in a place of service or helping other people or doing a nonprofit or whatever it is that makes you personally happy or fulfilled. That should be the goal. And now everything else above that, all the financial stuff, all the other things. Consider that bonus round. That's bonus, like I want to be happy and fulfilled as the bare minimum. Everything else is extra.
Tony Whatley:And here's where the mindset shift comes in. When we set these lofty goals outside of doing like the normal way people do it and we can track or measuring things as we go, we can see if we're going to hit that goal. A lot of times, when you know you're not going to hit that goal, a lot of people lift off the gas. They start to get discouraged, which creates a lack of momentum. It starts to drop, there are self-worth issues and insecurity start to attack them because I called this out and I told my team I was going to do this and we're not going to do it. And so they really self-sabotage themselves mentally because they're not going to achieve that goal. Or if they don't achieve that goal, they're like oh, it was a failure this year, I didn't do this thing. It's so hard on themselves. They're setting themselves up for failure going into the next year because they don't have that momentum going into the next year.
Tony Whatley:But if you were to do it the way I talked about, set the bare minimum to create your fulfillment and happiness, and if you operate with all these other things that we should aspire to, to be bonus, that's a different mindset. Now like, hey, I've already done the things that make me happy and fulfilled for this year. We're in bonus round. Baby, let's go get this stuff. Like, we can achieve some of this stuff.
Tony Whatley:It's not based on like if I don't do this, I'm a failure, if I don't do this, I'm not successful. If I don't do this, people are going to judge me. Like no, it's bonus round. Think of like video games. Like when you got in bonus rounds, especially back when we were kids. We were putting quarters and shit right. You got a bonus round. Like you played your ass off and you're all excited and you're like competitive and you're trying to maximize that bonus round. Like why can't we be like that with our work, instead of going oh boohoo, I don't think I'm going to make it, so it's been a tough year. And like you're not helping yourself by doing that.
Ty Backer:No, I like that. I like that a lot, tony. You actually shared that with me in one of our calls. So there's a golden nugget for everybody out there that I actually had to get to pay for, that everybody gets to listen to for free right now I'm just kidding, because you give so much more value than that, but I actually have been more aware of those bonus rounds that you talked about. Like OK, then I'm going to use this as an example.
Ty Backer:You know, we set out. We set out on our goals for the year and, like you said, it's not very extravagant and I shared my theory with you as well. It's like this year. I'm not going to pile a bunch of more goals on top of it. My goal is to actually remove some of this shit and becoming more self aware. You know whether it's people, places, things like that I can only spend so much time around this person because they suck my energy, but they need to be in my life or remove certain situations that I really no longer have to do. That Somebody else can do, because it's whatever the case might be.
Ty Backer:But we were invited to April Hall's SRC show and I looked at that as a bonus. Like this was bonus, like we didn't set out to do that necessarily, but we were asked and we had the opportunity to do it and the time to fit it in there. So it was like we get to do this, we don't have to do this, we are actually able to do this, we were invited to do this and this is bonus that Tony talks about. So much is that this is bonus and it was great because we didn't set out necessarily. We didn't know what shows we were going to do, but we were. We got the phone calls like hey, we would love you to come to our show behind the tool. Well, it is awesome, and we would like you to speak on stage. It's like dude, bonus, bonus, win, win, win. And another yeah, like let's go. You know, so the work that we put in last year right, doing what we didn't really see the you know the bonuses from doing what we did last year right away, but it was. It was almost like a delayed gratification. We put into work and that's a whole other topic of delayed gratification, or instant gratification as well too, because sometimes we just got to keep putting in the work. They may not see the results right away. You know what I mean, but it's that delayed gratification that we got to experience this year. That became bonus for this year, because our expectations weren't that we were going to travel every other week to go do shows. It was like we're going to back that off again.
Ty Backer:Going back to what are we removing? That's either a time suck or a money suck, or what can we carve out to make things a little more simpler on ourselves? Because you touched on this earlier like God, we're our own worst critics and we put the expectations for ourselves is so high and when we don't meet that expectation, we lose that momentum, whether it's going into the week, the day, the quarter or into that year. We can self sabotage ourselves because the expectations that we set for ourselves is so unrealistic and so unattainable, which isn't a bad thing either Don't don't kid yourself, or for yourself, you should have that big, hairy, audacious goal. Everyone should have a B-hag, you know, but but I think we do too many B-hags or we throw too much on our plate where we should learn how to delegate better.
Ty Backer:What are we removing Right for, for positiveness in our life, and what can we add once we get that trash can cleaned out? What can we now be strategic and very intentional about putting in the people, you know, the situations, the things that I enjoy and, like you said, most importantly, how do I make myself feel fulfilled today? Yeah, what am I going to do? What changes am I going to be make in my life today to make myself feel more fulfilled, and when? When you do that? It might sound selfish, but if I'm not taking care of myself mentally, physically, spiritually or emotionally we can't take care of anything else. No, either. So that's what it's really about. It starts right here.
Tony Whatley:For sure. You should take care of yourself. You should be your number one priority, because you can't pour from an empty cup and you know we even. You know, take the flights to say, put your air mask on before helping other people.
Tony Whatley:It's you have to be the best version of yourself in order to be able to give extra right. Absolutely Nobody wants you as a lower performer, a hollow shell of yourself, that you just give it all out and you can't replenish Right. And you talk about this like how do we get time? Okay, I have this love and hate thing with technology and I appreciate that it creates more time. The only reason we use technology or anything, is that it saves us time. That's what we want. Time is the most valuable asset we have. It can't be replaced.
Tony Whatley:The problem with people in the last 20 years is that they free themselves up with time from this technology, but then they compress that time by adding more shit to do. And so now we're walking around and we have way more tasks than somebody in the 1980s did because they didn't have all this technology to compress times and all these different things. And so, unfortunately, our societies use time to compress and then backfill that free time with more shit to do, which creates way more stress, way more anxiety, way more opportunities to fail. And so if you were to use these opportunities to create time for yourself, why wouldn't you backfill that with something that you love to do or you have a lot of joy with. Maybe that's carving in an hour for yourself a day to go to the gym.
Tony Whatley:Finally, instead of making excuses, right Taking care of yourself. Maybe it's having lunch with your spouse. Start learning how to use technology to create that time, but then maybe use that time to go travel. Or maybe use that time to spend time with the kids and go to the game. Finally, that's the thing that brings you peace. That's what people are looking for 100%, 100%.
Ty Backer:And you talked about fitness there, working out and stuff like that and you being a health nut that you are, let's talk about that a little bit fitness and its impact on success. How has maintaining a regular workout routine contributed to your personal and professional success?
Tony Whatley:Most people will fall off the wagon at some point in their life and their fitness journey. I was an athlete when I was young and I sold my first company. I was 34, had a few million in the bank, kind of got lazy. And between 35 and 39, I kind of had the man boobs coming in and the gut was sticking out pretty far. And I remember really, really like it was like yesterday.
Tony Whatley:I'm 51 now, so it's been a while, but I still remember walking up a moving escalator like a two-story, like one of those long escalators. It was moving. I was running late for a meeting. I had to walk up it to beat the elevator. I got to the top of a moving escalator and I was huffing and puffing. I was like this shit's got to stop. This is not good at all. I just walked up a moving escalator and I can't even catch my breath. And so at 39, I decided okay, I'm about to be 40. I need to get back in shape and I already knew how to do all the workouts and stuff like that.
Tony Whatley:It was just lack of discipline. And here's the thing is that in my 30s I had aches and pains, so I had football injuries and martial arts injuries and so it was like shoulder, knee and lower back Very common shit. A lot of roofers probably have that all the time and I use those as really convenient excuses. So my wife would always go to the gym and she'd say, hey, I'm going to the gym, you want to go? She never gripe at me. She'd always invite me and always declined and for like four years I just like, oh, I know shoulder hurts or I'm too tired or I got stuff to do. I just made every excuse in the book and what I was really doing is I was hiding from my wife From my earlier in life potential. Because most people unfortunately peak in high school and college when they're athletes and they think, oh, you know, those were the good old days and I was Letterman and I could have went pro and all the bullshit stories right, and so they know, especially when you get in your 30s, that I am physically weaker than I was in my 20s. And I don't want to be embarrassed when I go to the bench press and I try to do what I used to do and it falls on my chest and I can't get it off and that'd be just really embarrassing situation. So men are like weird, like men are worried about what other people in the gym are going to think about them. And you know, I'm fat and I don't want to go back because I feel fat. Like I had all those thoughts in my mind, right. And so I just at some point I was like, you know, I just don't want to be like this way anymore. Because I felt in my mind I was still an athlete. But then I would look in the mirror and I didn't see what I thought. I felt so I was looking at pudgy guy who's soft and weak, even though I felt in my mind I was still that athlete in my 20s. And so I had to get right with myself and start to realize like no, I need to go become that version of me that I still feel like I am inside. And so that's when I started being more committed to doing that.
Tony Whatley:Yeah, the first two months sucks. You're sore. You're sore in all kinds of places in your body that you didn't be forgot about. And once you make it past that first two months, it starts to become a routine. And then here's what people don't realize because they quit too soon, is that your body starts to crave those workouts Once you get into that cycle and you start out maybe going two times a week just to get started, and then eventually that becomes three days and I go six days a week is what I planned. So most of the time I go seven and people just quit because they don't get to that point where their body craves that workout, where you skip a day and your body's like what the hell man Like we got to go do this thing? Just like dogs, dogs like to be walked. We're animals too. We like to be walked. And so once you start to get in through that and you start to get disciplined and you start eating health here it comes in.
Tony Whatley:And so, yeah, it's been I guess 12 years now consistently working out and I'm physically stronger now than I've ever been in my life. I mean, just yesterday I deadlifted another 500 pound deadlift at the top of my workout reps. So I did all my reps, kept stacking weight, did my peak and then I worked my way back down. I don't have any aches and pains anymore. I don't have any joint issues. I've never had surgery. I don't do TRT or any of those supplements. I just eat healthy and I work out and I lift heavy, and by doing that I've become physically stronger than I've ever been, even in my 20s. So you can't have these excuses. You just got to think about it. I just need to go put in the work.
Ty Backer:Right on. What's the connection between physical fitness and mental clarity and productivity?
Tony Whatley:You just feel more confident when you are in shape. You feel better, your clothes fit better. You carry yourself a little bit different, especially as we're older. Let's say, guys, if you're in your 20s and you're watching this in your shape, who gives a shit? You should be in shape in your 20s. You can't throw a cat or something. You always hit a 20-year-old that's in shape. If you got abs in your 20s, cool story, bro, we all did.
Tony Whatley:Right Now, from your 30s and you're in shape, you're kind of unique. You kind of stand out a little bit because people kind of let themselves go. In their 30s they start having kids and making a bunch of excuses. 40s, if you're in shape, you actually stand out quite a bit. There's not that many 40-year-old men or women who are actually physically fit. That's unusual. You'll see them at the gym but not in society. Right. 50s, even more so.
Tony Whatley:Out in public I see a lot of people that are my age or older or even younger and they're not even close. You start to realize okay, this is a good way to make me stand out. When I see someone, how they take care of themselves, it shows me a level of their discipline and also self-worth issues. Some people will go well, that's vanity. You're just trying to look good to make other people.
Tony Whatley:Yeah, you should, because we do get judged by our covers. A whole like don't judge a book by its cover. That's bullshit. Everybody gets judged. You can pretend that it doesn't happen or you can actually do something about it. Think about that work we do. Entrepreneurship is very competitive. It takes a lot of energy, mental energy too. If you're not optimal in condition to be able to handle that level of energy and treat this like a sport, which it is like. Entrepreneurship is a sport to us. You and I love this game. This is our game. If you're not showing up at your best level to perform that game, then why are you even playing? You're half-assin at that point.
Ty Backer:I love that. That's so good Because you're right entrepreneurs, high-performing leaders, ceos, cfos and just to make something clear here yes, tony and I are both business owners and entrepreneurs, but this mostly I'd say 90% of what we're talking about right now applies to anybody.
Tony Whatley:Any level.
Ty Backer:Any age, and that's what's so cool about this. You don't have to be an entrepreneur to want to take care of your body. Because, again going back to, if you're not taking care of yourself, you can't take care of your family or those around you, your coworkers or the people that are under you or beside you. It's the importance of self-reflection. Just about every night when I lay in bed, I reflect my day, I review my day. What did I handle good? What did I not handle so good? What did I handle so poorly?
Ty Backer:I was talking to you a little bit earlier about this. There was one little thing that I shouldn't have said to somebody. But again I had the opportunity to see them again today. I was like, hey, man, that was kind of shitty, a little shinardy there. That didn't really mean to come out and that's not what I meant at all. They were like no, no, no, it wasn't no thing to them, but it was to me. That's just self-awareness. But I guess the question is, especially when it comes to working out, coming up with an effective strategy for staying motivated and resilient during, especially during difficult times or when I just don't feel like working out. What's your strategy that keeps pushing you at this point. You're 12 years later and you're into it. How.
Tony Whatley:It's another mindset shift. Let's say that you're a business owner. We'll use you example. Okay, do you have certain clients that you would say are already like your top clients? Yeah, if they scheduled a meeting with you, would you show up? Absolutely, would you be late.
Ty Backer:I try like hell not to be.
Tony Whatley:So why do we put other people that we value, that we find important, that we would always show up and we would never be late, but we won't do that for ourselves. So the gem time or any kind of personal development time, whether that's coaching or meditating or whatever you think that you need on a personal level you need to start thinking about that, as that is a very important meeting with somebody who is the most important person in your life. And if you start thinking that this is an important meeting with myself, I'm not going to let you distract me, I'm not going to change my plans because I've got a very important meeting with myself, and you can actually use that excuse. If people are like, hey, can we have a meeting on two o'clock tomorrow? And you're like, sorry, brother, I've got a very important meeting, but maybe 3.30, we can do that.
Tony Whatley:They don't need to know who the meeting is with. It's with you. The most important person that should be is you. Most people will say, oh, my kids are more important, my wife's more important. I know it's you. You need to take care of you first and then you can take care of everybody else. And so that mindset shift is like this is my time and I'm going to guard this time, and there better be a damn damn good reason for me to miss a very important meeting with the most important person in my life.
Ty Backer:And that's you. I love that. I love that analogy and, honestly, if you're not taking care of yourself first, now you're just playing the martyr. You're typically probably the person saying, yeah, I'm looking out after everybody else and I just don't have time. It's like, okay, so now you're playing the martyr. And I liked your analogy there.
Ty Backer:What had motivated me, or continues to keep motivating me and I'm going to use this as an example? Janna, who's on here right now. He's my best friend and we travel a lot and we enjoy our time together and every now and then we'll go out on the boat and anchor the boat and jump in the water, and the last time we didn't get to do that very often this year, I think we got out on the boat maybe once the entire summer, which is that needs to change to different topic for a different time but we got in the water and the current was really strong, really strong, but you know. So we had to hold on to the boat and I could see that her little legs were going under the boat, like it was sucking her under the boat, and what occurred to me was is am I strong enough to pull her out if she hit the fan, what? I be strong enough to lift the boat, the boat yank her out of there, and I question that. So now when I'm in there doing bench presses and I'm doing the curls and I'm getting it you know just getting it and then sweat's coming down, I'm thinking to myself I need to be, I need to put myself, my family, I need to end my family in a position where I'm not saying I need to be an incredible Hulk, but am I in a physical, fit, mental and physical state where I can protect my family if something would go down?
Ty Backer:Or am I that fat, gelatinous, big, titty, big belly guy that we talk about with Cheeto Dust as, as Pedro talks about Cheeto Dust and my belly button sitting on the couch all day? Or am I the guy getting it in the gym? Not just for me, it is for me, yes, but it goes back to I need to take care of my well-being, right, my physical fitness, my mental fitness and no matter what that that that means if I have to seek outside help a physical trainer, a mental therapist, whatever the case might be that means that I am responsible. No one else is responsible for that. But if I want to suit up and show up and perform at the highest level possible.
Ty Backer:Whether I'm an athlete or an entrepreneur, you know, which is really no difference at the end of the day an entrepreneur or professional athlete, right, we need to train the same way, have the same mindset. For sure. I want to make sure, if shit hits the fan whether we were getting robbed, whether there's a situation where we're, you know, a great event turned into a tragic incident, like am I prepared mentally and physically to overcome that objective or that adversity? At that moment, it's almost like we're preparing ourselves for the worst but taking care of our bodies at the same time.
Tony Whatley:Yeah, yeah. The hero mentality Are you? Are you willing to step up to be the hero when it's when it's called upon?
Ty Backer:Yeah Right, whether that's a good thing or bad thing, but that I want. I want to quit, not do those last two struggle Like I. I envision Janna getting sucked under that boat and it's like I get one more, like one more, one more one more.
Tony Whatley:If I still got gas in the tank and I'm doing that specific workout, I will do extra reps until I can't.
Ty Backer:Absolutely, until it burns so hard or you're going to injure yourself.
Tony Whatley:I still feel those you know, and that's a good workout, yeah.
Ty Backer:Absolutely Good, good, fricking podcast. So, tony, before we get off here, that's such good stuff, man. Your knowledge is awesome, man. So if, if you guys just are now tuning in, man, please hit us back on a replay and get yourself a pen and pad, because you're going to want to take notes, because Tony just dropped a golden goose eggs all over the floor up in here. So well, but, Tony, before we get off here, man, like, give us some, give us our viewers and myself some advice on you know what? What should we be listening to? What book should we be reading? Yeah, where are you at right now? Or what should you? What would you recommend?
Tony Whatley:So my website is 365 drivencom and if you go to that website you'll see the tabs. There's one tab called resources and if you click on that you'll find an Amazon page that I've basically put all the books I read in order of impact to me personal level. Number one book on there is obviously the one I wrote, because it did change my life. The next book is how to win friends and influence other people by Del Carnegie, and that's a classic book from, I think, the 1940s, but to me I think that's mandatory reading for everybody. They should teach that book in school to be real, and so there's probably hundreds of books on there, but that's a good way to kind of get some ideas of the things that are read and how they impacted me.
Tony Whatley:Podcast 365, drivencom that's you know. It's a top 1% rated show. We've been doing it for over five years now and I've had a lot of the bigger names out there and we'll definitely have you on there as a guest on a future episode as well. But it's health, wealth, mindset and relationships. I find people that are exemplifying excellence in each of those categories and I bring them on the show and dig out the information, for those are about an hour. You know each episode and does really well and I enjoy doing that, and so you know, if you guys have any questions or want to reach out to me, I'm very accessible. You can always hit me up on Facebook or Instagram and I'd be happy to have any questions or comments with you.
Ty Backer:Awesome, awesome. And what was your website? Again, 365 drivencom, 365 drivencom. There you have it. So thank you for coming on the show, tony. It's always a pleasure. I enjoy our conversations and I'll look forward to our conversation tomorrow. All right, and thank you for everyone for tuning in. Don't forget to like, love, subscribe, share the shit out of this to your friends that you feel it might get something out of. So you guys, have a great afternoon and stay tuned to next week. We have another great cast, so thanks for watching.