Tony Whatley / Founder of 365 Driven

The Side Hustle Millionaire: Strategies for Success with Tony Whatley

Tony Whatley is a 20+ year serial entrepreneur, business coach, best-selling author, podcast host, and speaker.

He is Co-Founder of LS1Tech, an online automotive performance community which grew into the largest of its kind. This website grew to over 300,000 registered members and 150 advertising accounts, and was later sold for millions, in only 5 years. Amazingly… it was just his part-time business!

Tony shares his mindset and business strategies within his Amazon #1 best-selling book, Side Hustle Millionaire, and teaches people how to startup, scale, and exit their companies with his podcast and coaching brand, 365 Driven.
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In this transformative episode of the HeadSmack Podcast, host Paul Povolni chats with Tony Whatley, a serial entrepreneur, speaker, and author of the best-selling book "Side Hustle Millionaire." Tony shares his journey from starting automotive websites as a side gig while working in engineering to becoming a business mogul. He details the pivotal moments that pushed him to pivot his career towards what truly drives him – empowering others through entrepreneurship. Tony’s story is a powerful reminder of how side hustles can evolve into life-changing ventures.

Key Takeaways:

1. Start Small, Scale Big: Tony emphasizes starting side businesses while keeping your day job to mitigate risks and prove your business model.
2. Impact Over Income: He discusses shifting focus from earning potential to creating impact, advising entrepreneurs to pursue passion-driven businesses.
3. Creating Systems: Tony highlights the importance of building systems and processes that allow a business to operate independently of its founder, increasing its sale value.
4. Community and Networking: He values building a community and networking through events and retreats, which provide not just learning but also mental support for entrepreneurs.
5. Learning and Adapting: Continuous learning and adapting to new tools and technologies is crucial, as Tony relates his own experience with mastering web design and digital marketing.

Link: 365Driven.com

Paul Povolni, the founder of Voppa Creative, has been a creative leader for over 30 years, with clients around the world. He’s led teams in creating award-winning branding and design as well as equipping his clients to lead with Clarity, Creativity and Culture.

Headsmack Website

Transcript

Paul Povolni (02:31.954)
Hey there, this is Paul Povolni and welcome to the HeadSmack podcast. Today with me, I have Tony Watley. He's a 20 year serial entrepreneur, business coach, bestselling author, podcast host and speaker. Tony shares his mindset and business strategies within his number one Amazon bestselling bookside hustle millionaire. He teaches people how to start up, scale and exit their companies with his podcast and coaching brand 365 driven. Tony, welcome.

Tony Whatley (02:59.53)
Hey Paul, thank you for the invite man. It's good to catch up with you on this digital platform that we do nowadays.

Paul Povolni (03:05.946)
Yeah, we've been connected for quite a while. We've never actually had a chance to have a.

face-to-face conversation, so I'm looking forward to our time together today. Love what you're doing. Pretty excited to hear your story, hear about those moments that change your life and kind of that origin story of where you started from. So for those that don't know you, let's kind of start as early as you want to start with your journey to what you're doing now. So share a little bit about your origin story.

Tony Whatley (03:39.83)
Yeah, I would say I grew up lower middle class in a suburb of Houston, Texas, which I still reside in the Houston area. And I got to see my parents work extremely hard. My dad was a U S Marine Vietnam vet. And

My mom was a Japanese immigrant that worked in the public school systems, serving food to kids in the cafeteria. And so I learned the value of hard work and doing what it takes to get what I want. And I was very resourceful as a kid. I was the one that was knocking doors to wash cars, walk dogs, mow yards, rake leaves, whatever I could to make some money, to be able to buy video games or skateboards or BMX bikes, things I was interested in that time. And.

I don't really thought about that as entrepreneurship, but you know, we say that's the kid hustle, right? And that kind of led into me understanding that I wanted to have a higher earning potential in life and we all had that dream back in the 1980s to go try to make a six figure income and they say, go be a doctor, a lawyer or an engineer. And I've always been a car fanatic and I love building and taking things apart. So I decided that maybe mechanical engineering was the way I would go for that.

Paul Povolni (04:22.966)
Right, right.

Tony Whatley (04:45.866)
So I put myself through school as a welder, a pipe fitter, a construction laborer. And I was also waiting tables on the weekends when those jobs were done. And I went to school at night and it took me about seven years, but I did get the engineering degree and I worked in oil and gas for over 20 years with that degree as project management.

later on working for top 10 companies in the world, Chevron, things like that. And I was managing hundreds of millions of dollars in these projects and had really large teams, but it really didn't scratch the itch for me on the automotive thing and the passion I have for cars. And that's why in 2001, I started my first automotive online business was scaled to seven figures and I sold that for a few million in 2007. And that's the kind of the business kind of started with that 2001 business.

Paul Povolni (05:34.09)
That's amazing. And so with the business that you started, it was a side hustle, wasn't it? It was kind of what led you to this whole side hustle millionaire mindset. And so, you know, when it comes to the side hustle, is that something that is something people need to pursue, is worth pursuing, is difficult to pursue? Like, why should I do it and how am I equipped to do something like that?

Tony Whatley (06:04.11)
I think it's definitely worthwhile if you have that entrepreneurial spirit. I think that I was always an intrapreneur is what we call that. Some of that has the creativity. We're always looking for efficiencies. We're always looking to improve the company that we work for. And a lot of times when you're at that kind of mindset and you're always trying to improve things and make things more efficient, make more profits, save more money, you'll find that you're met with some resistance, especially in that middle management ranks and higher, because they're kind of accustomed to the. This is the way we've always done it. So we shouldn't change it. We know.

Paul Povolni (06:33.662)
Right, right.

Tony Whatley (06:34.064)
fix what's not broken and they just kind of stick with the old regime. And I was always challenging the status quo to try to think, make things better. But I realized that.

I really just needed a creative outlet and go to be able to do something on my own and make some decisions on my own. And that's really one of the reasons I started that business. And the other thing was that I was really curious about websites at that time. Cause in the late nineties, I was kind of new to the internet. I was looking at these different web pages and I've always been a creative type person, I love to do art and drawing and building things and said,

How do I make things that show up on the screen? How do I make a webpage? How do I even do graphic design? I don't know these tools. They're relatively new. And so I would go to the bookstore and I would buy books on how to do Photoshop and actual photography and digital marketing, and I would just read these things and I would practice and I'd build these little beginner level websites and that was really my first side hustles. I was building websites for car parts manufacturers and stuff like that. And at that time I did not have the community built. This was in the later nineties. And so.

I got this skill that I taught myself on how to build simple web pages, one to three page websites, more information type stuff. Back then, we weren't really integrating cart systems or purchase on through websites. It came maybe four or five years later that happened. And so there's more information style and aesthetics and buttons that you could click to take you to different pages. And so that was the first side hustle.

Paul Povolni (07:48.109)
Right, right, right.

Paul Povolni (08:02.342)
Yeah, I remember that was quite a reminder. I remember learning Photoshop from a book. It seems so foreign today to think about learning software from a book. It's like, wait a second, that just doesn't compute because now things change so rapidly, putting it into a book, software would just wouldn't make sense. So that's a great reminder. I forgot that that's the way I learned Photoshop and Quark and Freehand.

Macromedia freehand and things like that. And so, you know, when it comes, yeah, yeah.

Tony Whatley (08:35.394)
It was all books. That's all we had. There was no YouTube, there was no social media. It was all books. And I actually still have that book. Yeah, that original book for I taught myself Photoshop, I actually still have that book. And I pull it out once in a while when you see somebody make a post on Facebook that says, which book impacted your life the most? And they're trying to be philosophical or.

Paul Povolni (08:41.822)
And if it was online, you couldn't find it. Oh, wow.

Tony Whatley (08:57.558)
put some real deep book out there. I'll take a picture of this book from the late 90s. And I was like, this book changed my life the most, made me millions of dollars. And everybody's like, what is that book? I haven't read that book yet.

Paul Povolni (09:05.174)
Oh man, that's awesome. Oh wow, that is so cool. And so, you know, when you're working in the corporate realm and so what was the trigger moment, the moment that head smack moment for you that said, this is not what I wanna do. Like was there a particular instance? Was there a wake up call? What turned you into what you've become now?

Tony Whatley (09:30.634)
I think the head smack moment in that, in that context, working in corporate and building companies, it was only about two years into building companies while I was working in engineering job that I actually started to earn more money from my side businesses than I was from my salary. And so initially at that time I was probably making between 90 to a hundred thousand dollars salary and I've crossed the $10,000 a month profit mark about year two into my first side business.

And so when you start thinking about that, most people hear the word side hustle. That's the title of my book, right? They think that side business means side money. And that's like, it's a concept that they can't really think about. I can't understand that you can actually earn more working less time because it's just this fallacy. People make believe. And

You start thinking about, okay, my full-time job is the engineering job because it's taking my full time. But my side business was actually my full-time income. If you put it in priorities. And so I kind of had that head smack moment as like, there's no limit to this. And eventually I was making about $400,000 a year on that side business, profit, not sales, like those net. And I was still earning my engineering career because I had what we now understand a sunk cost fallacy. If people aren't familiar with that is.

A sunk cost is something that you've already invested money and time into, which you will never get back. So think about the college degree. You spend years of your time, thousands or tens of thousands of dollars to get this degree and it's a cost. Both those time and the money are something you will never get back. You can't go refund your college degree and get it back. So it's gone. It's a sunk cost.

But unfortunately, most people have made that kind of investment, whether it's certifications or the career path they're on.

Tony Whatley (11:15.126)
They think like, why would I waste 10 years of my experience? Why would I waste 20 years of experience? And they're thinking of that sunk cost. Or so they're making decisions today based on things that they can't change anyways. And so that one of the head smack moments is realizing that I really could walk away from this career. I really could go do something and pursue something. I have a lot more passion for. That was a means to an end. I got the engineering to go get six figures. I got that started understanding a lot of things with big business, but

The reality, Paul, is that everybody's got big dreams. And it's unfortunate that most people put their dreams on hold or they never pursue those dreams because they're afraid of having to get a new job. That's, that's the biggest risk you take by starting a business.

or a side business is that maybe you have to go get another job if it doesn't work out. That's something we do anyways, as employees, when there's layoffs or industry downturns or the economy goes down, you have to go get a new job. Many of us, everybody listening or watching this, you probably had to apply several jobs in your life. And somehow you're letting that thing be so scary that it's keeping you from pursuing what you really want to do.

Paul Povolni (12:24.786)
Well, that is so good. That is so good. Cause it is that, that fear, uh, the, the insecurity of stepping out. And that's why I love your message of started off as a side hustle, you know, pursue that thing that's on your bucket list that you've always wanted to do and give it a shot. And you found that, uh, through that, you're actually were ended up making more money from it. And it gave you that, uh, security to step out and become the person you want it to be now is entrepreneurship for everybody.

Is that something that everybody should pursue?

Tony Whatley (12:58.186)
No, I don't think it's for everybody. You have to have a strong level of discipline. You have to have some grit about you that you're not going to just give up. I think too many people like the word entrepreneur and it's kind of sensationalized nowadays and a lot of celebrity status. People have risen through entrepreneurship where that wasn't a thing 20 years ago. And people want the fame. They want the notoriety. They want the lavish lifestyle that they see portrayed on Instagram. And.

things like that, but that's not the reality. The most business owners don't live that kind of lifestyles. The ones that have done really a lot of good things. And I don't think everybody's cut out for that. I think a lot of times people don't realize that there's a lot of hard work that you don't see in the late hours and the early days and compounding and trying to figure out how much to cram into your schedule to get the result.

be able to live the lifestyle and the things like that I get to enjoy now. It took 20 years of understanding how to do that and understanding what my priorities really are and how to keep things on track and then also not being willing to quit because when I see somebody's trying something new, whether that's going on a weight loss journey, starting a business, launching a podcast, creating a YouTube channel, whatever that's outside of your norm that you know that has

unlimited potential on the backend. If you can live through this and improve as you go and be consistent about creating that stuff, you have really unlimited potential in the backend and opportunities, but most people get really bored two to three months into anything new because it's not their lifestyle yet, they don't have the discipline.

And they're not really getting the results they feel entitled to because they think it's going to be much easier than it is. And so they quit or they pivot or they change business directions or they get a new business card or they do something different. And so they have that cycle that they never break because they've never seen something through at least one year.

Paul Povolni (14:49.895)
Right.

Well, and I think there is a distinct difference between wanting to be an entrepreneur and what that in your mind might be. And actually, some people just want to be a business owner. And they don't realize that entrepreneurship and being a business owner are two very different disciplines as well, which is different to just working for somebody. And so I think some people get confused. They actually wanted to be a business owner and they didn't want to be an entrepreneur

It's a different kind of work ethic. It's a different kind of commitment. And so how do you see that distinction?

Tony Whatley (15:28.03)
I don't see a distinction between those two terms. I think that we used to call everybody business owner 20 years ago. And in fact, I remember being a teenager and in my early twenties, when you would meet somebody in public, I grew up in a small town, you meet somebody in public and they tell you a business owner, you almost kind of felt sorry for them because maybe they weren't really hireable and they didn't really work well with a boss or supervisor. And.

Maybe they had that Maverick type, you know, personality and you kind of felt sorry for them because a lot of them weren't rich, they were actually making less than a lot of employees at the same age level, right? So.

And it wasn't until the internet started to take off that we started to sensationalize entrepreneurs. And we started calling them entrepreneurs instead of business owners, because to me, they're all the same, but I think that you can also be an operator inside your business, which is a self-employed job that's self-employed or a business owner or an entrepreneur. To me, those are the same things. That's someone that actually owns a business that they don't really have to show up at and they have employees. They've got a team, they've got processes, automations.

And they can enjoy it as an owner or as an investor versus being in the business. Because the reality of this is I help a lot of people sell businesses nowadays, that 80% of companies out there aren't worth anything on the seller's market. So you couldn't even sell your business, even if it made you a good living. The thing is, is that you're still operating the business. You're still in the business. That's essentially a job. You're self-employed and those who can afford to buy businesses are not looking for a job, they're looking for an investment that they can buy. And it's cash flowing,

positive cash for them. So they're not interested in buying jobs. So the sooner you are to get yourself out of that and becoming an actual business owner, the more valuable your company becomes.

Paul Povolni (17:14.25)
So what are some ways that a person can prepare for that time of exit, for that time when they wanna transition into selling the business? What are some steps that they can take?

Tony Whatley (17:25.462)
First thing I would do is create systems and processes that are defined and nowadays it's very easy. You can use chat GPT to write standard operating procedures and refine those and edit those. And you can have a full set of a suite of systems and processes drafted for you within a couple hours. And you can have your key people and your employees to go through and edit those things and make them look accurate to the business model that you have.

So that helps you training new people. Or if you wanted to build different locations of your business, you have these training manuals that they already have. So it replicates a lot of guidelines and guardrails that you've created for your business that here's how we operate. That answers, that's also very useful when you're a new employee, you want that kind of information, that way you're not asking a bunch of questions and feeling like, I don't know what I'm doing, right? It's a confidence thing.

And so as you start to do that, you start to hire people that are hopefully better than you than in certain areas, if you've got the scarcity mindset as an owner, you're not going to hire people better than you. There's a popular phrase that we hear in leadership that says, grade B leaders hire C's and D's because of their ego and they want to be perceived as the guy that knows everything and top of the heap and they don't want to hire anybody as smart or smarter than them, where a grade A leaders hire A's, they only want the highest performers around them.

They understand that they have blind spots and weaknesses. So they're looking for people who can fill those gaps with more talent and more decision-making than they have. So that's a kind of a philosophy and you hear people go, Oh, job security. And I don't want to hire these people because job security. And that's a scarcity mindset. If you have that kind of stuff, it's probably you're not very successful. You're never going to get ahead and you're never going to surround yourself with people that actually have all the answers and better decisions than you. So, you know, you're probably stuck. So how do you get out of that? Hire better people than you.

Paul Povolni (19:00.951)
Wow.

Tony Whatley (19:13.432)
Pay them what they're worth so they stick around and have some loyalty if the company's gonna grow though It'll match the salary eventually and then you know start figuring out how to get yourself as an owner out of the daily day Operations, you know, you can still be like a board of directors and oversight on things but if you're the one that having to make all the decisions and do all the pull all the levers and push all the buttons and Answer all the calls then the company's not worth anything to a buyer

Paul Povolni (19:30.238)
Right.

Paul Povolni (19:40.818)
Right. And so yeah, if a company is built around you and your personality and your skillset and your day to day involvement, then yeah, it doesn't become very sellable. You can have the best SOPs and best systems in place and all of that stuff. But if everything is just about you and you have hired in a way that you're, you're the final decision maker, you're the nobody else can make a decision. Or if you give them an opportunity to make a decision, they still got to run it by you. You know?

And so they never feel like they have any level of control or leadership. And so it makes that exit a lot more difficult when you're ready to sell, when somebody wants to buy your business. If you're not coming with it, then it's not worth anything.

Tony Whatley (20:25.622)
That's right. And then there's nothing wrong with the personal brand business. You can become extremely wealthy.

being an operator, but just don't ever think about selling it. I mean, a perfect example, we're on a podcast. The number one podcaster is Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan is the business of Joe Rogan and he just signed a $250 million deal with Spotify and so you can become extremely wealthy with personal brand and having the big name and doing that thing, but it's just a, it's, it's a temporary thing until you decide you don't want to do it anymore, but hopefully you make enough that you don't have to worry about working until you're 75 years old.

So you can do it both ways. Just don't have any delusions that you're going to be able to build this company that pays you a good income that you think you're going to be able to sell it someday if you're the one still operating, because that's not the reality.

Paul Povolni (21:16.57)
Right, right. Just know what you're creating and be fine with that and understand the endgame. And as you shared, yeah, building a personal brand, that's what it is. It's a personal brand. You're not going to be able to sell your personal brand, but building a business is very different. And with what you do with 365 Driven, entrepreneurship, and the reason I distinguish it from business owners, entrepreneurship is there's a lot more of a mindset,

Tony Whatley (21:18.818)
That's right.

Paul Povolni (21:46.844)
of trying, being willing to take risks, being willing to try new things, being willing to pivot. Whereas business owner likes the little more steadiness of unpredictability for the most part. I think there's a slight, at least in my mind, I know you feel different about that. But when it comes to entrepreneurship, it can be a lonely business. And I know with what you do with 365 is help those create a community. You've got communities, you do in-person workshops,

like that. Talk about that entrepreneurship and the how to stay driven. How do you stay 365 driven?

Tony Whatley (22:25.13)
Yeah. You know, I think that you mentioned that phrase about business being lonely. We hear that a lot, right? We probably said it before, but to me, if I have a choice, I think I'd rather do things lonely. So I remember working in corporate and having to pretend to like people that I didn't really like at the office. Having a boss that was just imposing on you or micromanaging and you had to pretend and you had to play the office politics and

Paul Povolni (22:38.87)
I'm going to go ahead and turn it off.

Tony Whatley (22:52.586)
Guys, I would choose lonely 99 times out of 100 if I can know, if I know I can trust my abilities to get things done. So doing it lonely is not a bad thing if you're, if you're okay in that kind of mode, now I would also add that you're probably never going to be truly lonely in business if you have customers.

Because if you're dealing with clients and interacting with people on a daily basis, yeah, they're not sitting in your office, but you're still interacting with other humans, it's not really that lonely. Maybe if you were just writing books and you're an author and you're isolation, that might be pretty lonely. Right? When you go into those writing modes or content creation modes, could be alone. You may not interact with people for a while, but other than that, now don't, don't let the fear of being lonely kind of dissuade you from creating that business. I think that it's a blessing, you know, be able to do what I want and work from home.

Question you had on the loneliness part, I guess, what was the other end of that question?

Paul Povolni (23:48.638)
Well, how do you stay 365 driven? I know that's kind of what you do. You provide that community, you provide the in-person workshops, things like that. And how does somebody stay driven in what they're doing? What are some things that they could implement in their life to do that?

Tony Whatley (23:51.118)
Okay. Yeah.

Tony Whatley (24:03.746)
So there's a reason I called it 365 driven versus 365 motivated. Because I think too many people, especially new to the space, new to entrepreneurship, they think they have to be motivated to do things all the time. They feel like.

Well, let me just go on Instagram and look for motivational memes. I mean, let me go listen to motivational podcasts and let me go listen to motivational speakers and I need to feel inspired and I need to surround myself with people who are going to uplift me and make me want to do things and I'm going to hire a coach that's going to keep me accountable. Like all these are good things, but the difference between highly successful people and average people is that successful people don't require motivation because they're driven by results. We only want the results.

Paul Povolni (24:36.357)
Mmm, wow.

Tony Whatley (24:46.614)
Well, that's going to the gym half the time I go to the gym. I don't feel like going, but I know that I've never left that gym a single time in my life having regretted being there that day. And so I know that I may not feel like it right now, but as soon as I get there and I warm up and I start doing some sets and I'm there for an hour and I leave, I'll be glad that I was there and I'll feel much better when I'm leaving. So I kind of game of fi my mindset to the future.

When you have businesses like this, you start to create your quarterly goals or annual goals, you're looking at projections. And when you feel like you don't feel like doing something, it's probably because you're maybe operating because you're too much focused on cash instead of what you should be following your purpose. I think too many people jump into business. They ask you, and what industry should I get in? What's the next trending business model? Like those people are just money hungry. They're just pursuing money at all costs.

Paul Povolni (25:37.414)
Right.

Tony Whatley (25:40.214)
That's most people in our twenties and thirties. You start to realize in your forties retrospect, you could have done things better. You could have pursued things with more passion. Wasted a lot of time doing the wrong things. So if you're focused purely on maximizing your income, you're going to make more sacrifices to your happiness because a lot of times you're going to be promoting products or services you don't even believe in because it pays you well. Or you're going to work for companies that pay you just enough to keep you around because you tolerate it. And so you don't feel like doing things.

Most business owners that do things that they truly love look forward to every morning when they get up and are like, man, I can't wait to get to do this today. I get to do this, I choose to do this.

I'm honored to be able to go do this kind of thing. So if you're a business owner, you're watching this, or you're listening to this and you're like, well, I wish I felt like that about my business. The hard question should be, are you in the right business? Are you in it for the right reasons? And if not, that could be an indicator of burnout, or maybe you just got misled going down a path, pursuing money. And now you've got enough money, but you're still doing it because that sunk cost fallacy instead of trying to do something different.

So to me, value of happiness, sanity, and free time have a lot more value to me than just pursuing money. And I think you just have to understand that I just want the result, dude. I don't care if I'm motivated or not. I'm going to go do the work.

Paul Povolni (27:00.138)
So, you know, and you brought up an interesting point about, you know, current culture and happens with a lot of new entrepreneurs of, you know, trend chasing, you know, one day they're AI expert, next day they're a crypto expert and, you know, they're just constantly pursuing the money. And then at the end of the day, it's like, I feel empty. I feel, you know, I can't imagine that that's fulfilling. And so, you know, finding the thing that drives you

is valuable. Finding the thing that will wake you up in the morning and move you towards action I think is valuable. What are some ways that if somebody is trying to figure out, well I don't know what my passion is, I don't know what drives me, what are some things that they could do that would help them discover that?

Tony Whatley (27:50.338)
You know, a simple question would be when you were five years old and someone asked you, what do you want to be when you grow up? What was your answer? Nobody says engineer.

Nobody says lawyer. Nobody says like all these high paying things. They might say doctor, cause that's kind of a hero type. Right. There's certain people say fireman. I used to say race car driver, stunt man, jet fighter pilot. So I've always been like the adrenaline guy. I was like, like action and doing things, putting myself in harm is fine. I like that kind of stuff.

Paul Povolni (28:12.082)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (28:16.778)
Yeah.

Tony Whatley (28:21.686)
But yeah, I race cars now and I build things and probably will pursue a pilot's license when I feel like going to do that is just something I've always been interested in. So, you know, I've also been a.

Paul Povolni (28:31.582)
And you've just taken up skateboarding too.

Tony Whatley (28:33.834)
Yeah, I like doing scary stuff. I 50 years old, I decided to go teach myself skateboarding again after 35 years off of it. And now I'm a year into it and I'm doing really well. So the, um, you know, the purpose question to me is everybody's got a different purpose and everybody's got different characteristics or gifts within them. And so one of the ones that kept surfacing with me is I remember probably being in high school thinking I wanted to be a teacher because I like to teach people things. I like to transform and help people. I've always been that way. My mom was the exact same.

way. And so I also looked at the salary of school teachers at the time. It's like, that's going to be a struggle. It's like, I don't want to live my parents lifestyle. I don't want to go through that. And so that's why I went engineering. So was engineering the right move financially? Yes. But maybe it didn't satisfy like the teaching part. So you'll find yourself, even when I was in engineering and in project management, I was still mentoring people. I was still teaching people. I was still gravitating towards the tendencies that I had already within me.

So always going to be a teacher and now I'm a coach and helping business owners and, and all that. I'm still a teacher. So that, that compelling drive to help people, whether that's mental or physical or whatever, you know, you may have like these characteristics, pay attention to those things and don't be so quick to assign those, the job titles that aligned exactly with that thing, because that characteristic can be

translated across a whole lot of different career paths, but you can still be a teacher and do all kinds of things and teach.

Paul Povolni (30:05.094)
Right, so what wakes you up in the morning? What drives you the most every single day?

Tony Whatley (30:09.982)
I think it's just, to me, it's the gift of a day, just being able to wake up and enjoy a life that I've created. And I think that, you know, after having a near death experience, racing cars in 2015, I realized that we're all on borrowed time. We don't understand when our last day is. I thought I was going to die in that car accident. And so.

Everything's guaranteed. No, no, there's no guarantee with any day. I think, you know, I could drop dead right now talking to you. There's no day that's guaranteed, but I think too many people live with fear and they bury their purpose under that fear because they're worried about judgment and criticism and what are people going to think or what are my neighbors going to think, what are my friends going to think if I have to downsize my life to go pursue my real dream, they're going to judge me, Oh, he's, he's selling his car. He's got to go get a smaller house. Oh, things must be really bad.

because they're so afraid of doing that. They would never be able to do that. Then a couple of years later, you turn things around and you're happier, you're earning more because you're following alignment with your purpose. And they're gonna be the ones that kind of just fade away into the darkness and don't be a part of your life anymore. And that's okay, because you outgrew that level.

Paul Povolni (30:58.612)
Right.

Paul Povolni (31:15.358)
Right, well, and that's what I love about your side hustle millionaire concept and your book is that, you know, the idea of, you know, pursuing stuff while you're still kind of in that thing that you might not love is taking time to pursue some of those things and seeing if the market actually wants it. You know, I think taking a risk on something, you know, that you don't even know if it's going to work and go an all in. I think there's a certain level of risk.

and it's gonna be tough, it's gonna be a little crazy for you, but doing it as a side hustle while you're still in some sort of a full-time position that you might not love, I think there's value in that.

Tony Whatley (31:58.046)
Yeah, I think that it's irresponsible if you've got bills and obligations to quit your job and burn the boats and go all in until you've proven the business model and you've proven that there's a product market fit that will be able to compensate you to be able to be able to cover your bills and help your family and your friends. And so I think that too many people, like I said, I think going back to the early part of the conversation, a lot of times people start a side business as a hobby and they don't really take it serious.

Tony Whatley (32:30.521)
If that's what you want, okay, but realize that there's no limitations to your earning potential just because you're creating something in the side. Chances are that's probably something you're passionate about and you can actually earn more and still keep your job if you just manage the time properly. And so, you know, if there was a period of 10 years, I was still working and making multiple six figures salary in my career.

And I was still earning multiple six figures in my side business. And so I think that people just need to understand that if you're going to half ass things, you should expect half ass results. If you treat it like a legit business from day one and do the right things and hire people to teach you the right things, to avoid the pitfalls, you're going to get professional results. And then that thing has a better opportunity to grow. Cause I think a lot of people just cut corners, they do things half ass and they're competing against other companies that are already existing out there. They're doing things legitimately.

You look professional, better quality. And the market of buyers does not care if you're a day one entrepreneur or a day 10 year entrepreneur. They're gonna buy the things they perceive at the best value, the best price, whatever the way they're shopping. So they're not gonna cut you any slack for being new and having a crappy website and all these different things. Like spend the money, do things the right way, especially if you have a job and can pay for those things.

Paul Povolni (33:47.332)
Right.

Well, I think that's why your book is called Side Hustle Millionaire, not Side Job, you know, because I think there is a certain level of hustle that you've got to put into it. If you're going to make it work, you can't go in there and just hittle around with it. Give it a really good shot before you give up on it, which leads me to, you know, you're also a coach. You also do these retreats and workshops, you know, for the entrepreneur, for the person that has launched out into a business.

You know, they're going to hit some tough spots. They're going to hit some spots that, and people often joke about, you know, on every Friday or every Monday, you know, you're an entrepreneur or self-employed, you want to quit, you know, you want to just go work wherever because you're just done. How do you know when to press through and when to stop?

you know, what makes it worthwhile? What makes it something that you need to just keep going or you need to just say, do you know what, you've given it your best shot, stop.

Tony Whatley (34:49.846)
I mean, I think there's a reason that.

50% of businesses go out of business by year two. There's a reason for that. And I think most of the time is because people create a business that didn't have any opportunity for growth. They chose a wrong product, a wrong business model, a dead end, something that maybe that's trending down. Maybe something that requires a lot more employees and overhead costs to be able to scale effectively. So there's you have to be really honest. Like, what do I want to achieve with this business? Is it something that I just want to build?

table after work every day for forever and just make side money. If that's what you want, be realistic about that because it's not going to scale. It takes a lot of your time. I can have unhappy customers to deal with, right? I've done that. I've made car parts and stuff like that. Now if you build a business that is paying you in advance, like advertising company or some kind of a forum like I created where people were paying me 12 months in advance for a lower discount price to get their ads posted in my community.

Now I have a cashflow that's really positive like months ahead. And so I have a very valuable company. So when somebody came to acquire a private equity company, bought it.

I had commitments and I had automatic recurring revenue coming in and I had 300,000 registered members and email addresses to a very specific targeted niche in the industry, which they had a note on it had a lot of value. And so a lot of traffic, we had about 100,000 users per day, unique users per day would visit the website. So imagine like me building a brick and mortar on Main Street, small town USA. Could you imagine 100,000 people walking in the front door every single day? Because that's what I was having.

Tony Whatley (36:29.368)
value built in a company that didn't need an address, didn't need all these overhead costs and utilities and stuff like that, other than server bills and security and license and a couple of team members to manage that kind of stuff. And so there's endless amounts of business models that you can get into, but you had to be realistic about what your earning potential is. And so a lot of times people realize like, this is hard work and I'm not going to make any money doing this or I'm not making money, this like, it's just not going anywhere. So they quit.

Number one things I see that's a pretty big mistake nowadays is when people say, I want to launch an apparel brand. I want to sell t-shirts. I'm like, no, no. That's, that's a terrible business model because one, it's a low cost entry, which means millions of people could do the same thing. There's no barrier to entry. It's a very low priced item. So you may make three or $4 per shirt. You would have to sell.

Paul Povolni (37:18.838)
Right, right.

Tony Whatley (37:26.294)
thousands of shirts to make any kind of notable amount of money per month. And if you don't already have a big audience, who's going to buy those shirts because people don't buy the clothes that

of the clothing they buy it because of the movement that you've created things that they align with like people wear things based on their identity they want to feel like they're a part of something bigger than they are and that's human nature but if you don't have that community if you don't have that movement already created you shouldn't be trying to sell t-shirts because nobody cares about cool design or cool artwork because they can go find that on the internet for five dollars and make their own shirts nowadays

Paul Povolni (37:42.57)
Right, the affiliation, yeah.

Tony Whatley (38:04.618)
So to me, if you're going to sell something, there's, there's one main rule that I always think about if you're going to sell something, go sell the most expensive thing that you're qualified to sell because commissions on much more expensive things, earn you a lot more money, the same amount of effort, but you got to become qualified and become an expert in that thing. Whether that's cars or real estate or selling companies like I do. Like these are very expensive things that I sell. I earn a lot of commission from those.

So don't be wasting time selling little widgets for $10, $20. Go sell things that are thousands of dollars. You'll make way more money. Same sales effort, sales, sales training, and you'll have, you don't have to sell nearly as many to make the same money.

Paul Povolni (38:51.094)
Man, that is so good. I'm gonna get a little button that I press that has like a head smack, whoosh, little sound effect, cause that was so good. You know, yeah, don't sell the little things for little profit, find the big things with bigger profit. And sometimes it's the same amount of effort to do both. I absolutely love that. So what are some side hustles that you find are working with the people you're coaching, with the podcast audience,

they're doing, what are some things that you're finding that are really effective right now?

Tony Whatley (39:25.834)
I think if I was looking to get into something to create a side hustle now, I would lean back onto learning technical things like the newest apps. Like you talked about, we taught ourselves Photoshop and things by reading books back then, right? The same process still exists. So you see new platforms like school and go high level. And you also understand like.

creating content, editing videos, editing podcasts, editing YouTube videos, making thumbnails, like these are all technical type skills that most people don't have, but there's a lot of people out there seeking to hire people to do these. So I would probably go create an agency type business model. It would be a creative business model where I'm actually creating things for people who are paying me. And I'm looking at, I'm looking at people.

who are high earners that don't have the time to do that, but they've got the money part figured out so they're not struggling to pay you and they realize the value that you're bringing because you're going to help them build their business or their personal brand or their podcast or their YouTube channel, right? All these things are things of personal branding. So I would go find people that are wealthy that want to create their impact and influence.

They don't have a big name yet, but they want that. They're just going to pay you. And if you had three or four or five of those, because clients, you could easily make six figures, easily make six figures a year doing things like creating reels and creating graphic designs for them and just being the creator. You can be the creative agency for them.

Paul Povolni (40:35.186)
Right, they have more money than time. Right.

Paul Povolni (40:55.966)
That's awesome. Well, and it is. There are people out there with more money than time, and they're looking for people to solve that problem. They wanna buy your time, because they have the money for it, but they don't have time to do it themselves, and they realize that it's something that needs to be done, but they just don't have the ability. So tell us a little bit more about your retreats, and a little bit more about what you do in those.

Tony Whatley (41:18.986)
Yeah, we, we do these different events and bucket list places around the world. We've done some really cool States. We've done Portugal, Mexico, our next one's in Costa Rica. And the difference between my business events versus others is we try to minimize the conference room time. So we'll have a four to five day long event.

We only have one day of speaking and it's maxed out at six hours total. Because I realized by attending these events and speaking at all these different events that it's kind of like a fire hose drinking out of a fire hose when you're in a conference room and you're there for 12 hour days and it's multiple days and people just like worn out and the third day the room's half empty because people are just exhausted from socializing late at night and having to get up and see this thing. So it's not really fair to the attendees or the speakers, especially if they're holding it in a cool city, but they don't even feature

city. Like you never leave the hotel or the conference room. Like who cares what city it's in, right? So we build more of a vacation destination type thing. We always have some kind of a physical challenge that creates bonding and camaraderie and

Paul Povolni (42:14.375)
Right, right.

Tony Whatley (42:23.246)
Speakers I invite, I make sure that their character aligns and they hang out with us and participate in all these activities. And so everybody gets a lot of FaceTime and get to hang out with the different speakers. And so to give you guys an example, we've hiked to the river trail and Zion national park. We've whitewater rafted in Montana. We've also rented out a car racing school for an entire day. And all the attendees got to do a full day of race car driving school.

We've hiked and saw the Chichen Itza pyramid and the Mayan pyramids and things like that. And Costa Rica, we're going to do some kind of a hike in a river, see some amazing waterfall. It's really famous down there. So we have a physical aspect and we want to have the bonding and we always plan for the socializing aspect. We share all the meals together. We take them on little excursions and tours and get them out of their comfort zone. And the best part about that is it's still a business trip and people can still ride it off.

Paul Povolni (43:20.31)
Nice. I love that. I love that. Well, and one of the reasons that I started this podcast is I believe that one good idea That you take action on can change your life Do you have any stories from your coaching your events your podcasts people that have listened to your podcast? You've had some amazing guests on there Do you have any stories that you've heard of people that have had those? Transformative moments from something that they've experienced in what you do with 365 driven

Tony Whatley (43:50.69)
Yeah, I would say that there's been several dozens of people inside my 365 driven society that have changed their entire courage, putting themselves out there because I leave that bar. My example actually made a post on Facebook two days ago about how I never wanted to be a public speaker. And, and I told you that the near death experience changed that for me. I didn't realize like I was just hiding. I didn't want to.

put myself out there, I would make all the excuses like, Oh, I'm already successful. I don't need to do that. Or I've got a family and a business. I don't have time to do that. And I used all the common excuses. Everybody uses to not do that kind of stuff. But what the reality was is I knew that I was just hiding. I didn't want to do that because I'm comfortable and I didn't have that skillset and I didn't want to look like an amateur and all the, all the things that we do to keep from hiding. Right. So

We do these video challenges once in a while where we're like, Hey, we're going to do two weeks. You're going to make a video on social media every single day. And a lot of people are scared to do that still today. It's unfortunate.

But by going through these challenges and holding a group accountability and people are supporting each other. They find that within that two weeks, it really wasn't as scary as they thought. They start to actually see results and are like, wow, this wasn't so bad. Like, why didn't I start years ago? And then that kind of springboards them into becoming more comfortable, creating content and doing things and becoming who they truly are in front of the camera. And it really does change people's lives when they go through something like that. It changed mine. It changes everybody that's gone through it. It's changed their life.

Paul Povolni (45:15.51)
Well, and I think that's the key there is just give it a shot. You know, just try it. You know, just be bold enough to step into something, you know, even if you have fear and pushing past that fear and saying, I'm going to try it. It's something that I've wanted to do. Let me at least give it a shot. And I think when they do that, they find that, you know, that wasn't as difficult or, oh my goodness, that was so satisfying. I didn't think I'd love that as much.

I love that. And so it is that taking that bold action, you know, even in fear, even in being unsure, even in feeling like you're going to flop. Because I think, you know, I think John Maxwell has a book about failing forward. You know, that failure is an education. It's not necessarily the end. It's not a stop. And, you know, learning from those experiences. You know, they say experience is the best teacher, but it's not just experience. It's actually evaluated experience.

experience that is the best teacher is, you know, look at what happened, look at where you failed, look at, you know, where you succeeded and learn from that and move forward. And so by you providing those experiences, I think is what helps people get past those fears and keeps them moving in the right direction.

Tony Whatley (46:29.386)
Absolutely.

That's it. Just being in a supportive group that everybody's kind of pushing each other and holding each other accountable. It goes a long way.

Paul Povolni (46:41.622)
So what was, as we wrap this up, what was one of the biggest head smacks, or what was one of the biggest moments that now that you look back, you've started, you're a serial entrepreneur, you've started a lot of things, you're involved with a lot of things, you're impacting a lot of lives. What's one of the biggest head smack moments that you feel you have had that really radically changed and made, changed you and made you into the person you are today?

Tony Whatley (47:08.146)
I think it's the.

Going back to the accident, that was very pivotal for me. A lot of my, what I do today is based on that accident. And I'll give you the, the shorter version, the most impactful part of that story is that after I got out of the car and I'm sitting in the back of the ambulance and I'm the doors of the ambulance are still open, I'm looking at the wreckage and I hit a concrete wall at over 130 miles per hour and so wheels off the car, the cars smashed all in the front. I'm looking at that car and I'm thinking to myself a few questions. And the first question is this. What if I would.

died right there and you kind of sit with that one and then the next question that kind of popped up logically was why am I still here? And then the third question which is the one that impacts the most people is if I would have died right there how would I have been remembered?

And the way we do that, we start to compare ourselves with people in our circle or proximity that recently passed that we were similar to. And we're like, I was kind of like so-and-so and he passed away last year. Like, what did people say?

And I had an answer. Most of you will have an answer very quickly if you do that quick assessment. And mine was nice, rich guy, cool cars, gone too soon. Because those are the comments that I remember that my friend, nice guy, and he's so nice and he was very successful, rich guy, man. Oh, he had some really cool cars, awesome cars, and he's gone too soon. And everybody gets the gone tune soon until you're like 60, right? Anyone under 60, it's gone too soon. And so.

Paul Povolni (48:37.599)
Yeah, right, right.

Tony Whatley (48:40.714)
What was missing was the word impact or he changed my life. And yes, you will, everyone here listening, watching will have impact, positive impact from the people in their close proximity, whether that's your family, your employees, like people within your, your small gravitational pull will have positive impact. I'm not discounting that, but what's missing is your potential impact because you were scared to put yourself out there. You're scared.

be seen or write that book or spread your message or spread things on a wider scale. See, we all have greater potential to greatly impact this world, but we hide that purpose below our fears. And so if you were to really be honest with yourself right now and say, if I were to die today, how would I be remembered? And be really honest with yourself. And I hope it's something that makes you realize like,

I'm missing some, actually I could do a lot more. I could do a lot more than this. Because when you start to think you got plenty of time to do something, that's when you get caught off guard.

Paul Povolni (49:44.314)
Man, that is so good. That is so good. So what's left on your bucket list? Do you have anything left? You took up skateboarding, which blows my mind. That's amazing. What's left on your bucket list? What do you still wanna do?

Tony Whatley (49:56.814)
You know what, I did a year of improv comedy school and some sketch comedy school. And I think that I will do some more standups and open mics and stuff like that. I do it in my content. I like to have fun in my content, but it's a challenge. It's another form of public speaking just to go do some improv or stand up. I've done it a couple of times, but I don't do it nearly enough. But yeah, that's always kind of a blast. I've always had fun doing that kind of stuff.

Paul Povolni (50:23.818)
That's amazing. That's amazing. All right. So how do people get a hold of you?

Tony Whatley (50:28.426)
Yeah, easy. My website is 365driven.com and you'll find my social media as the books, the podcast, everything on that and keep it easy. One place to go 365driven.com.

Paul Povolni (50:41.13)
So be sure to check that out, 365driven.com. Check out the podcast, buy the book number one Amazon bestseller, and be a part of Tony's world. You'll be definitely impacted and you'll find a lot of drive in what you're doing as an entrepreneur, as a business owner. And so I encourage you to do that. Thank you Tony so much for being on today. I appreciate it. So many good things, such a great conversation. Enjoyed it thoroughly. If you've enjoyed this as well,

to leave some comments, leave some likes if you're watching it on YouTube. Be sure to like comment and subscribe to it as well. And then if you see this on social media, be sure to share it and connect to Tony and his world. I think you'll definitely be impacted and it will be a super high value to you. Thank you very much, Tony. Have a great day. Take care.

Tony Whatley (51:29.462)
Thank you.