Ep588: Tony Whatley – Just Walk Away

Andrew Stotz 00:02
Hello fellow risk takers and welcome to My Worst Investment Ever, stories of loss to keep you winning. In our community, we know that to win in investing, you must take risks, but to win big, you've got to reduce it. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm on a mission to help 1 million people reduce risk in their lives. And that mission has led me to create the Become a Better Investor Community. In the community, you get access to our global asset allocation strategies and stock portfolios, our investment research, weekly live sessions and the risk reduction lessons I've learned from more than 500 guests go to my worst investment ever.com right now to claim your exclusive podcast listener lifetime discount. Fellow risk takers this is your worst podcast host, Andrew Stotz, from A. Stotz Academy, and I'm here with featured guests, Tony Watley. Tony, are you ready to join the mission?

Tony Whatley 00:56
I'm happy to share the worst investment I've ever made.

Andrew Stotz 01:01
Yeah, thank you. Yes. Like yes, of all things. You've asked me to come on the show and share the worst. But by sharing the worst, we're gonna see your best, I'm sure. Let me introduce you to the audience. Tony is an entrepreneur, business mentor, Best Selling Author, podcast host, and speaker. There are four words that he often refers to wealth, health, mindset, and relationships, which I'm sure we're going to learn more about. He is best known as co-founder of LS one tech and online automotive community that grew into the largest of its kind. The website grew to over 300,000 registered members and was later sold for millions and only five years. Amazingly, it was just his part-time business. Tony shares his mindset and business strategies within his book, side, hustle millionaire. He also teaches entrepreneurs how to start scale and sell their businesses within his podcast and consulting brand 365 driven. Tony, take a minute and tell us about the unique value that you bring to this wonderful world.

Tony Whatley 02:09
I didn't really understand what my unique value was until in my 40s, I'll be 50 in a couple of months for context there. But no, I think that I've always been very driven, I've always had a lot of discipline have always tried to be the best of the things I do, I jump into things. And I try to study and become just proficient at a level that I would accept for myself. And that's not always a competition against everybody else. It's really a competition against myself, and trying to better myself. And the value that I finally discovered in 2017, when I started this brand was that most people for the last 20 years of my life have been asking me for business advice. How do you start this? How do you grow this because I've started many companies. Some of the companies that like the one you mentioned, I had 12 Different former staff members of mine, that I helped launch their businesses. And those have grown to seven and eight figure businesses. So I've literally created multimillionaires from people that used to work for me. And they were always telling me like you should be doing this publicly, you should be teaching people this stuff. And to be honest, I was just really a private person, I had a very comfortable life good level of income, I was really good at being the MVP behind a logo. Instead of stepping into the spotlight and just putting myself out there. I had a lot of insecurities around being on camera, I didn't like the recorded voice and just had stage fright kind of situation. And I just, I'm used all these convenient excuses not to do what I'm doing. But then I was in a racing car accident in 2015. And that really started to shift my focus on I could have died that night. And I didn't die. So why am I still here. And then I started to realize that time is something that can be taken away from us in an instant. And so I started to thinking about how do I put my purpose above my fear. And that's what the brand is. And everything I do now is to help people with their confidence in their business and doing truly what I was meant to do. And it took me a long time to figure that out.

Andrew Stotz 04:09
It's such a powerful lesson, it takes time to learn that, you know, like we don't learn those things when we're young. And I was just thinking about, you know, you said that, you know, time can be taken from us. And I was thinking about a friend of mine who's a really lovely guy and like a lot of energy and all kinds of stuff. And he and I both like motorcycles. I stopped riding a while ago just because I'm into reducing risk, as you probably know from the podcast name. And basically, he got on his motorcycle and went up for a weekend and never came back. You know, he had an accident that was so bad that his life was over almost instantly. And you just think Yeah, so for everybody listening out there. You know, the point is it said, you've got a limited amount of time. We never know when it's going to end and now is the time to make your impact. You know, there's something that you said Tony on a recent episode of yours. We're talking about you, and you wanted an ordinary life? You know, and I was listening to that thing. Okay, that's interesting. And you were talking about, you know, ordinary, extraordinary, that type of thing. Maybe you could just tell us kind of the way you think about what life you won.

Tony Whatley 05:19
Yeah, I think that I've always tried to live an interesting life. And I started thinking about some people think, well, that's extraordinary. And that word, always look at the words and the meanings of the words, whether it's the Latin meetings or things like this, but two words extra ordinary. And I was kind of joking on that episode, because I think Extra Large just means a larger, large extra, this is always extra, whatever the word, the suffix word is. So when you think about the word extra ordinary, doesn't that just mean extra plain or extra average? or extra boring? I mean, it's, it's funny how we use words, and we combine them are they supposed to mean something better than they truly are? We like the meanings. So I said, Maybe we should be really striving to be on ordinary things that are truly different, the opposite of ordinary. And that's where I kind of came up with that.

Andrew Stotz 06:11
Great one. I love it. Yeah, I remember when I was younger, I really did feel like I didn't want to live an ordinary life. Part of the reason I moved to Thailand was just because I felt like, look, even if I'm doing the same job, I was working in a warehouse in a factory in, in Los Angeles, for Pepsi, I was rising up in the company. But even if I came to a warehouse of Pepsi, in Thailand, which I had an opportunity to do after I moved here, and into manufacturing and all that, still, every single day I walk out of that factory, I'm in Thailand, and all of a sudden, it is no longer an ordinary life. And so I just part of what drove me to come here. A lot of people see that I was successful in the financial world in Thailand. But the reality is, I didn't come here for that I came to live in an ordinary life.

Tony Whatley 07:02
Yeah, that's a great example. I would do the same thing. And you know, the thing is that I basically live to careers for a period of 20 years where I was equally driven in my oil and gas engineering profession. And I was on the executive path and I was a multiple six figure earner salary wise and I was doing really good, good trajectory wise. And in the meantime, my passion for cars is what led me to build these different businesses and the automotive performance space. And those are what made me a multimillionaire, but I did this the whole time while I was working because it was equally driven for different reasons. And people could see hence in my lifestyle, you know, people I'd work with or get to know people and they come to the house and they see you like, man, they sure do pay you a lot at the job site. And then most people didn't realize that yeah, multiple six figure salary was actually my part time income. If you think of it that way. Even that was my full time investment. It was my part time income. And so I even had it where I didn't want to commingle those two groups of the network's I even had two different LinkedIn accounts. So you have a really good active LinkedIn account. And I used to have one I said Tony whitely, hyphen cars, and Tony Watley, hyphen oil. And so I've just kept those completely different lives apart, not because there was a conflict of interest because I just felt like, Hey, I have my network here. And I have a network there and they don't really need to know each other.

Andrew Stotz 08:25
It's interesting, because yeah, one of the challenges I face is I'm involved in so many different things that my brand can be a lot of different things. And so if you get caught up in that you end up being you know, nothing for anyone so I think that's a great lesson. Well, now it's time to share your worst investment ever and since no one goes into their worst investment thinking it will be tell us a bit about the circumstances leading up to and then tell us your story.

Tony Whatley 08:55
Well, you touched on the four key words that I based my show on which is health, wealth, mindset and relationships and it just so happens to be that one of my Burt worst investments was in the relationships section. Now I can understand there's a lot of listeners out there that go through some tough relationships and maybe divorces and things like that. It's pretty common nowadays, but this is my story. This happened really started around 1999 And to give you a context there I was two years out of college I was working an entry level engineering job low with low level salary. And to me that everything was looking brighter in my life like I've finally finished school I put myself through school working construction and waiting tables and things like that so I finally graduated got this big boy job you know that I use my degree and I decided to move closer to downtown Houston and just do what single dudes dude and like go party and like just kind of you know, live the the youth of my 20s which I didn't get to enjoy while I was in engineering school. And on the course of that I met a woman and we had At a unplanned pregnancy, okay, and so me growing up in a household, we tried to do the right thing, and she was kind of the same way in her background, we just tried to make it work, we weren't really never in a relationship or a loving relationship, we would just hang out a lot and party a lot. And, you know, she got pregnant, and we decided we're gonna just keep the child and raise the child and, and so I wanted to do the right thing, of course, and this lot, a lot of this pressure comes from society where you worry about, especially as a man, like, you know, you're gonna be a deadbeat dad, and things like that, if you don't, you know, get in with move in with this woman and marry them and do the right thing. So, you know, I had an apartment lease, I couldn't break. So I basically just had to pay the both rents, and I moved in with her. And quickly, we really realized that it really just wasn't meant to be relationship wise, there was the connection just wasn't there. And there was a lot of pressure from both of our families. And, you know, there was a lot of disrespect I was receiving from that household, which I wasn't used to, I grew up with a very loving set of parents who are 50 plus years married and just didn't see people interact that way. So truly wasn't someone I should have been with. And I just stuck it out. Because I didn't want to disappoint my parents, I didn't want to disappoint my friends, or have this label stigma around it. And what happened is that investing this time and going into these things, I started to spiral down, I started to become a very, very bad version of myself where I was in a depressive state looking back retrospectively, I understood that I was in a depression state, because I felt that a leading up to that point in my life was doing great, and everything was starting to improve. And the light was shining brighter than it kind of got them to really hard because something occurred that was beyond my control, which I didn't understand, right? For those that are curious about how you get pregnant, like why didn't you use birth control? Well, she was actually on birth control. But she also had her wisdom teeth removed during that period. And what we didn't understand it was antibiotics, neutralize birth control. And so she literally got pregnant when the birth control was no longer effective. And that week after she had her teeth pulled and so, you know, we're both kind of surprised by that. And I know a lot of people still don't know that. I mean, you go get a antibiotics, you're basically, you know, available to get pregnant, and you just don't understand that. And so, and it was tough. And there was times where I would basically wake up in the parking lot of my job, and I was unemployed for about six months, there was an industry downturn that happened right during that period, and oil. And so I was unemployed for six months living off of credit cards, paying for two rents, and just waiting tables and working as a mechanic on the weekends just trying to just try to stay above water. And we're way below water at this point. And, you know, I just remember just going through the motions on a daily basis, and not understanding a lot of details, I don't have a lot of memories, I think I've blocked a lot of those things out. But I do remember waking up to an alarm clock every day and hating my life and feeling like it was out of control and wondering what I did wrong. And next thing you know, I'm waking up in the parking lot at work, basically not remembering driving there. And this kind of continued on for months, this depressive cycle, and my friends didn't want to hang around with me. And I really didn't want to be around other people. And my health started to fade. And I started just letting myself go, I wasn't eating enough and things like that. So eventually, arguments just escalated. And my son was born in January of 2000. And I hung around for about another six months. And it was just it was painful. Because you know, I would come home from work and just net depressive cycle. And she would just say, Here's your son, I'm going to go out and party with my friends. And I didn't hold that against her initially, because she had been pregnant for nine months. And I was like she couldn't go do those things, things that we used to enjoy together, right. So I let her do that. And it just became a more toxic household environment. And she wouldn't support any of the things I was doing. I was teaching myself how to build businesses. I was teaching myself coding and photography and things because I wanted to build that online community that you mentioned. And, and she would make fun of that. She would say, Hey, that's a stupid idea. And guy is talking about cars on the internet. That's a waste of time, she would just say stuff like that. And so I knew like this is not the right person I should be with and finally one of the ask as arguments escalated to the point where she told me that you know, when she came back home from the weekend with her parents that she wanted me out. So I took that as a sign I said, Okay, so I packed up what little I had, and I went and found an apartment much closer to where I was working and basically got the cheapest place I could afford and I just restarted my life and I'll tell you that that was the hardest decision I ever made. Because when you have a son or a child and you're wondering who's going to be their stepfather or step you know, Mother, if you're a listing and who's gonna raise her influence my son because I didn't know if I trusted her judgment at the time and I was going through my own things, and will he still be a part of my life? And like, man, there's a lot of gravity questions. I think way too many people stay in terrible relationships for the sake of their children. And I think that's honorable. But what I've learned from that experience is that that's terrible for the children, because the children grow up watching the parents interact. And if it's a toxic relationship, they're going to learn that that's how relationships are, and they're going to grow up, unfortunately, probably have equally toxic relationships because of the example that you sit while they're learning in their formative years. And so I decided, you know, I'm going to be an active Dad, I'm going to be involved in his life. And he's 22 now, and we're, we're great terms, and I was the weekend dad, and he can confide in me, and we have this very high level of communication and trust now, and I love him and and it's like, the worst situation, life turned out to be one of the best things that ever happened to me, but also leaving that household that could really start to focus on the businesses again, and not have anybody like just in my ear telling me that I was doing wasted my time. And as you as you mentioned in the intro, that business ended up becoming the multimillion dollar business.

Andrew Stotz 16:14
So how would you summarize the lessons that you learned from this experience?

Tony Whatley 16:20
I would say if you're in a bad relationship, and you'll know because your gut tells you, and if someone's just pouring negativity, or bringing out the worst in you on a daily basis, nobody deserves to live like that. You deserve better understand what your self worth is, don't worry about the judgment, because all the fears that I had about my friends and my family judging me for leaving someone that was willing, the young, when the young child, it was actually the opposite was true. My friends were like, Thank God, he leave you left, because we can see how she was just ruining you. And even my parents who are very non judgmental. They finally said something after I had left there, like we weren't, we weren't ever gonna say anything to influence, like your relationship, we know you're trying to work it out. But we are so glad that you're no longer with that woman. And so sometimes the worst things that you fear that keep you in those situations are actually the opposite of the truth.

Andrew Stotz 17:13
Right? So many different things that come to mind. In my case, the first thing I think of Will Rogers, I think it was that said, if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging, oh, man. And I think that's, you know, step number one, stop escalating your problems. The second thing is that what most people don't realize is that it's a little bit like a caged animal, behind glass walls. And then you drop the glass walls, and they won't walk past that area, because normally they would walk into that glass wall. I think that humans were a lot like that. And so one day, you just get up the guts to say, I'm walking out, and I'm taking a different direction. And then you kick yourself saying, Why did I wait so long? So I think the second thing, you know, the first thing, if you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. Second thing is, you can, you know, just walk away is my second kind of takeaway, because it just gets worse. You know, it just gets worse. And I think the third thing that you I wrote down when I listen to you is be a role model to your kids. Yes. And that's I think a big message I get from what you're saying is that by standing up to the situation, getting out of a bad situation, you're setting a great example, because as you said, many people stay in that situation, thinking that they're benefiting their kids. But I think you're a much bigger benefits your kids by being a role model about the way that you allow other people to treat you the way you treat other people, then that helps your child to then learn and be the type of person that doesn't make that, you know, move. Like we did. Yeah, those are some of the things I took away anything else that you would add?

Tony Whatley 19:11
No, I agree with those three assessments. I did feel trapped in that situation. I really did. And I remember, I remember driving to go just look for an apartment. When I finally made the decision. I packed up my little suitcase. I remember just driving a couple miles outside of that, where we were at and feeling like all this weight had lifted off my shoulders. And I felt like I started to see color again, like it felt like it was living in black and white up into that point. And I really remember that overwhelming feeling of just I made a decision. I'm going to live with it. I'm going to make it the best I can, right. And it really did change my entire life and I would not be where I am today. If I would have stayed with her. I guarantee that and my son and I's relationship probably wouldn't be nearly as good had I stayed in that relationship and you know the you the things that we learned about just walking away strong, it's the hardest decision you'll make. But it's also probably the best decision most people will make.

Andrew Stotz 20:10
It also reminds me in my first relationship, I started kind of late, my first girlfriend was at the age of I was 20, I think I was living in Ohio, I went to California, and I was a counselor at my godfathers camp. And in Los Angeles, and I met this amazingly beautiful LA woman. And we just got to know each other over camp time and all this, and we kind of fell in love. And what I remember is that her family was very different from my mind, I think was like you just said, pretty loving, you know, treated in a nice way. But her father and her family was super rich. And her father, I remember her telling a story of how her family went out for dinner, and her father got mad and walked out in downtown LA, got in the car and drove home. Just left that whole family there, you know, and then they had to figure out how to get home and all that with the mom and the kids and, and I could see the way that they treated each other. And then I remember asking a friend of mine, I said to him, you know, we haven't seen each other for a while, but I just need to know, was I the type of person that fought all the time. He's like, never. And I was like, Okay, thanks. It really woke me up. And that's when I started to realize, but it took a lot to get out of it. Because I still it was hard. And we moved up to to Oakland, she was studying in Berkeley, I didn't have any money, I was just living, we were living together. And we were trying to make it work and just couldn't, just couldn't make it work. And the only choice eventually was we had to break up and there was in Ohio boy in Oakland, California, no education, trying to not pay back my student loans by trying to stay in some community college, work in a few different jobs, you know, just to make ends meet, and keeping it all in all in. And then my best friend came to pick me up a couple of months later and to move down to LA. At that time in. When we got in the car, we packed up the little U-haul and got in the car started driving. And as I saw the city disappear, I just started bawling. And it was probably a half an hour of tears. As I realized, you know, I'm free, but also all the pain of you know, all of that. So you remind me that that stage in my life and all that I learned from it, you know? So let me ask you based upon what you learned from this story, and what you continue to learn, what one action would you recommend our listeners take to avoid suffering the same fate? Besides of course, the antibiotic story that you told us? That's something I didn't know. But besides that, how would you advise people that are going into relationships and all that? And, you know, what would you say? What would be one piece of advice?

Tony Whatley 23:00
I would say that going into relationship even if that's a, a couple's thing, or even a business partnership, understanding that it's essentially an emotional marriage, right? We probably have business partners that weren't always up to par, things like that, we, we tend to join things when we want our friends involved or so right. Maybe you want to go date someone that really started out as a friend of yours. And maybe the relationship or the chemistry just wasn't always there. But you try to make it work because they're good human and their best available resource that you have, and you try to force the issue and no relationships are perfect. No, relationships are easy, but what's lacking, and most of the ones that are failing is proper communication. And letting people know how you feel and how you react to things. And, you know, once you have the communication established, and you can be very vulnerable in those moments and tell people like this is how I feel this is what I would like to see your this is what you're doing that's affecting me and, and they're not emotionally reacting, they're actually giving you proper responses to try to work things out. That's the way you want to be. And now I've been with my wife over 20 years now. And you know, it's a much different relationship. I mean, her parents were very much like mine. I mean, we're celebrating her parents 50th anniversary this weekend. And my parents have done that a couple years ago. So we both grew up in households where there was a mutual respect and people were willing to work things out instead of just escalate things and make this animosity that you see a lot of times in relationships. So you're not think that if you're going to get in a relationship with somebody, ask yourself real simple questions. Is this person bringing me energy? Or is this someone just robbing me energy? And this could also be the way you assess that your friends are the people that you surround yourself with? Are they the ones that are taking your energy on a daily basis? Are they bringing you energy and you want to find people that bring energy but you also have to be the person that brings energy for them and supports them. You can't just do a one way thing because we see a lot of friendships like that. So If you want an easy assessment, when that individual calls you on your cell phone and you see their name on the screen, do you say, Hey, I can't wait to have this conversation? Or do you want now. And that'll tell you everything you need to know about that person, whether they're a friend or a lover, or someone that you want to start a business with?

Andrew Stotz 25:18
Yep. Great advice. So what's the resource that you'd recommend for our listeners,

Tony Whatley 25:24
I would say that if you're already listening to podcasts, I invite you to come listen to my show. It's a lot of successful, amazing people doing some incredible things in the world. And it's called 365 driven. And that's a not really a hustle and grind name. It's about just improving on a daily basis, you know, and what we talked about the health, wealth, mindset and relationships, I just tried to bring people with a lot of different advice and strategies and tips on how to improve our lives and on a daily basis, because I think that so many people are focused on one of those areas in life, they may be very healthy, but they're broke, or they're very successful, but they're unhealthy, or their relationships struggle, because they're working 16 hour days, and they think that that's what you're supposed to do. So I want a balanced success. Life, I understand that balance is defined by many different people in many different ways. But it's pretty clearly obvious when someone's lacking in one of those categories. So I really wanted to escalate everybody's awareness and each of those so that they have a more fulfilled and happy life, I love people to go out and get money and become as prosperous and wealthy as they can be, but not at the sacrifice of their happiness and fulfillment. Because I think that if you pursue the happiness and fulfillment, the riches will come if you're really creating enough value in this world.

Andrew Stotz 26:39
So ladies and gentlemen, I'll have a link to that in the show notes. But you can just type in 365, the digits 365 driven, excellent podcast. Last question. What's your number one goal for the next 12 months?

Tony Whatley 26:53
My next 12 months, I'm really focused on writing my second book, more of a fillip philosophical entrepreneurship, but a lot of the hardships and the awareness things that I've been going through for the last 10 years, I've been writing these little blog posts and things like that. So I'm basically grouping this thought process and the things I've experienced, whether that's relationships, or friendships or business or realizations, and I'm really pursuing something like a philosophical guide to living and excelling and, and things like that. So it's probably 80% finished and will be published later this year.

Andrew Stotz 27:29
Exciting. Well, let's get the link to that when you get it done. And I'll have it in the show notes, listeners, there you have it another story of loss to keep you winning. If you haven't yet joined the become a better investor community, just go to my worst investment ever.com Right now, to claim your lifetime discount exclusive for podcast listeners. As we conclude, Tony, I want to thank you again, for joining our mission. And on behalf of a Stotz Academy, I hereby award you alumni status for turning your worst investment ever into your best teaching moment. Do you have any parting words for the audience?

Tony Whatley 28:07
Yeah, Andrew, thank you for the opportunity to come on the show and connect with your audience always appreciate these, you know, it's it's a it's an honor. And, you know, for the people out there that maybe are going through some hard things in their life, I just like to give them some advice, I would like to say, hey, just realize that you've survived every adversity moment you've ever had in your life. And that whatever your situation is, right now, it's only temporary. So no matter how bad you think it is, start to focus on the things that are actually within your control, and release, release the stress and the anxiety around things that are beyond your control, because those are going to happen either way. So I think that nowadays stress is an option, but really be focused on fixing what you can actually control and let the other stuff just happen as it does.

Andrew Stotz 28:53
Great advice. And this show is all about authenticity. And I think, Tony, you've been a great role model in that in sharing a vulnerable story that taught us all a great lesson. And that's a wrap on another great story to help us create, grow and protect our wealth and our health fellow risk takers. Let's celebrate that today. We added one more person, Tony to our mission to help 1 million people reduce risk in their lives. This is your worst podcast host, Andrew Stotz, and I'll see you on the upside.