November 27, 2023 • 46 mins
Join us as we sit down with successful entrepreneur Tony R Kitchens who unveils his inspiring journey from the south side of Chicago to amassing a business empire. With valuable wisdom drawn from his experiences, Tony discusses his evolution as an entrepreneur, his unyielding belief in the power of listening and learning, and his endeavors to guide others towards realizing their dreams. He shares insightful perspectives from his book, 'The Gift of Pain', stressing the importance of embracing pain and fear as catalysts for achieving our dreams and goals.
Immerse yourself in the exploration of pain as an unexpected gift and its transformative power in personal growth. Drawing from Tony's book, 'The Gift of Pain', we shed light on how pain, often perceived negatively, can usher in unforeseen blessings and opportunities. The interplay of fear and pain is scrutinized, revealing how the avoidance of pain can result in regret and missed opportunities.
We also explore the often overlooked impact of self-talk and how it can inhibit us from taking action. Discover how challenging negative self-talk and pushing past fear can open up beautiful experiences. With Tony's personal insights and our discussion about stepping out of comfort zones, continuous learning, and the significance of having a mentor, we inspire you to overcome fear and relentlessly pursue your dreams. Lastly, Tony emphasizes the value of continuous learning and taking risks in order to turn dreams into reality. So tune in, challenge your perspective, and get ready to turn your dreams into reality.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/night-beat-media-living-the-dream--2752105/support.
Immerse yourself in the exploration of pain as an unexpected gift and its transformative power in personal growth. Drawing from Tony's book, 'The Gift of Pain', we shed light on how pain, often perceived negatively, can usher in unforeseen blessings and opportunities. The interplay of fear and pain is scrutinized, revealing how the avoidance of pain can result in regret and missed opportunities.
We also explore the often overlooked impact of self-talk and how it can inhibit us from taking action. Discover how challenging negative self-talk and pushing past fear can open up beautiful experiences. With Tony's personal insights and our discussion about stepping out of comfort zones, continuous learning, and the significance of having a mentor, we inspire you to overcome fear and relentlessly pursue your dreams. Lastly, Tony emphasizes the value of continuous learning and taking risks in order to turn dreams into reality. So tune in, challenge your perspective, and get ready to turn your dreams into reality.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/night-beat-media-living-the-dream--2752105/support.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:03):
Welcome to night Beat Media's Living theDream podcast with your host Gregory Tucker,
where we discussed the entrepreneur's journey ofturning a dream into reality, showing you
how to learn, overcome, andacquire strategic action steps. If you're ready
to turn your dream into a reality, then get ready to take action.
(00:27):
Here's your host, Gregory Tucker.This young man grew up on the South
Side of Chicago, considered an averageboy, his father only having a third
grade education. Well, this youngboy build a business that masked over one
(00:55):
hundred million dollars before the age offive. This occurred prior to the Internet,
prior to YouTube, before cable wasblanketing the airwaves. His name is
Tony our Kitchens. I can't tellhis story. That's why you're here to
(01:22):
hear his story. And with thatsaid, Tony, tell us about yourself.
Hello, Gregory, thanks for havingme. I really appreciate being on
your show and I'm looking forward totalking to the audience and sharing experiences with
him, and hopefully in the conversationthat you and I have, they'll learn
(01:42):
a lot more about me, andnot just me as a person, but
my story and how it connects tothem. I've been an entrepreneur for thirty
two years, but my best andmost important role in title is dad.
I love hearing that word and husband. Those are the two most important things
to me by far, absolutely byfar. But with that being said,
(02:06):
I have run five different businesses inmy life, had a lot of ups
and a lot of downs. Butat this point in my life, I'm
really focused in on providing wisdom andguidance and knowledge for those people who are
looking to move beyond their current circumstancestoward their dreams and their goals. And
I accomplished that through a book thatI have the Gift of Pain. I
(02:29):
also do one to one strategy sessionswith people and businesses, and I just
try to use those opportunities to reallyget people to think differently and change their
perspective on pain and fear. Andthat's what I'm doing today. Station in
Germany for a while, and theother one was stateside, But even then,
(02:53):
early on, I knew I wantedto be in business and I wanted
to be in the army. Otherthan that didn't know. And it come
to find out when my junior yearof high school came about, the Army
had this program called split training,and I actually enlisted. I went to
basic training between my junior and senioryear in high school when all of my
(03:15):
friends are out partying. As soonas we got out of school, I
was on a plane to Fort Lennardwood, Missouri for basic training. And then
I served in a National Guardian unitin the Army. And then after I
graduated from high school, that nextsummer, I went and finished my what's
(03:38):
called aiit Advanced Individual Training in FortDix, New Jersey. So as I
look back, and it's interesting thatyou mentioned that, great because I look
back the family members what I sawI became. I became a soldier because
I saw my cousins do that.I became an entrepreneur because I saw my
(03:58):
uncle do it. And there wasnothing on TV that I was really interested
in it as a kid except cartoons. The programming was limited channels two,
five, seven, nine, andthirty two. That was it, right.
There was no Internet, there wasno we didn't have one hundred TV
channels. So I didn't see anythingon TV that sparked interest in terms of
(04:19):
something that I would look forward todoing. It just wasn't there. As
a matter of fact, we didn'twatch much TV. TV was the thing,
Greg. If you remember when yougot on punishment, you couldn't watch
it, right, and you hadto stay in the house. So imagine
being in the house no TV.You couldn't go outside. That was life
(04:40):
for us as young people, right. So we had to find other ways
to be creative, to occupy ourtime. But I did, looking back
on it now, I became exactlywhat I saw, what my environment was.
It was a soldier, which Isaid, have passion for today and
as an entrepreneur. One of thethings is I was reading your book that
(05:02):
really stood out to me, andthat was listen and don't speak, because
you listen, you learn. Whenyou talk, you know, game's over.
Almost one hundred percent true. Theinteresting thing about that, though,
(05:26):
is my parents never made us bequiet. And what I mean by that
is there was a It was customin households when you were young for the
young kids to be seen and notheard. That's what you always would hear.
But my parents were kind of theopposite. My older sister, my
younger sister. When we had company, neighbors or people from church, or
(05:48):
whoever came by, we were allowedto sit at the table with my parents
and talk. And their position was, as far as I can remember,
going all the way back. Ifmy kids can't go, if they can't
be there, and then we're notgoing. If they can't be in a
conversation, we're not going to bein the conversation. And I really appreciated
(06:10):
that. And we treat our sonthe same way. Well, he'll be
twenty years old next month, butthe point is is it's the same thing.
How were we going to learn ifmy parents would not include us in
these conversations and let us be allowedto expose us to my uncle and what
he was doing, and my cousinsand all the stories that they had.
(06:31):
And I really appreciate that, andit's something that's invaluable. But to your
point, I didn't have anything totalk about, so I listened. I
listened to my cousins. I couldn'tshare any war stories with them. I
couldn't share any business stories with myuncles. I just sat there and just
with wide eyes, just an openmouth, just an amazement. And he
(06:56):
wasn't looking back. He wasn't doinganything extraordinary today looking back, but at
that point, as a young boy, it was extraordinary. I didn't know
anybody that flew to Germany and wasin Italy a lot in Spain that was
unheard of. And I would justlistening to how he would talk about the
people and the wine and you know, all of the things the experiences he
(07:17):
had, and I just wanted thatfor myself and for my family. Okay,
and some of the other things thatyou mentioned, and that is that
when you didn't connect yourself far aswith a title, Because when you first
(07:42):
came on, when I asked yougo ahead and tell me about yourself,
you didn't start out with, oh, well I got this PhD, I
did all of these companies, Iwas a CEO, and you came up
with the elements and that was I'ma husband, I'm a father, and
(08:11):
you're just a good man trying tohelp others along the way. So I
really enjoyed, and that's something that'srefreshing to hear. So often we kind
of get caught up in the titlesand the years right there, Absolutely,
(08:33):
and I think greg in all honestythat just comes from what we become along
the journey in our lives and thethings that we see, the things that
we experience, the ups and thedowns. When my son was fifteen years
old. This was back in twentyfifteen. We decided that we wanted to
(08:56):
just go on road trips. Wewanted for him to see how other people
lived, to interact with other people, different nationalities and races and everything.
So what we did was in twentysixteen we started doing road trips, my
wife and my son and myself,and we would literally take the entire summer
off from We would leave in June, we typically late May, and we
(09:22):
would get on the road and wewould be gone for four or five weeks.
And over the course of four summers, we traveled to forty eight states,
so all of the states except Alaskaand Hawaii, and many of them
we went to two, three,four or five times during that time period.
And then we flew to about eightdifferent countries also during those four years.
(09:43):
And the reason we did that wasbecause we wanted our sun to see
the world, to see that asbig as our surroundings feel like to us,
we're just a small player in thegrand scheme of things. No matter
how successful we are as a family, it doesn't really matter when you look
(10:05):
at the entire world and see howother people live way better than we did.
In some way worse than we did. And that perspective that not just
what my son learned. It alsorefocused my wife and myself to see that
no matter how successful we were,we had so much more work to do
(10:28):
to impact the lives of others,and we have empathy for others, and
that's the important thing. When peopleget stuck on titles and they just want
to talk about all the successes theyhave, that's good because that also inspires
and motivates people, and I wouldencourage them to do so at a certain
point. With success, though,you remember the bruises more than you remember
(10:52):
the successes. Because I always tellpeople your greatest lessons come in failures.
They come when you get beat up, they come when you get knocked down,
they come during challenges, they comethrough difficult times. That's where your
lessons come in. I've never learnedanything by being ultra successful, except time
(11:16):
moves really fast. When you're successful, when things are going well, time
moves by at the speed of light, literally where you don't even remember some
of those times. Imagine going outin expressway, driving in the car going
one hundred and twenty miles an hour. You can't see the off ramps,
you can't see cars around you.You're focused on stand between those two dotted
(11:39):
lines once you're left one to yourright. You're just focused on standing on
track. And that's what life islike when things are going extremely well.
And how can you observe life?How can you pay attention to anybody or
anything around You can't because you justhave your hands on that steering wheel,
trying to maintain control as much controlas we believe we have. But when
(12:03):
you go through difficult times, Greg, life slows down to a halt.
It literally moves at a snail's pace. And then what happens is life gets
quiet because you don't want to bearound a bunch of people. You don't
have the energy to be in frontof a whole bunch of people in situations.
(12:26):
And then you allow yourself to bequiet enough to listen to who you
really are. And when you whenyou're quiet and you hear that voice,
that's when you connect with who youreally are, and that's when you really
find your true self. That's whereyou find a determination. That's when you
say to yourself, I'm in thiswhole, it's eight feet deep. How
(12:52):
do I get out? There's noladder here, and you have to really
think, and you have to reallyremember every time you were in a hole
four and how you got out inthe past, and can you get out
using those same methods today. SoI've learned way more being quiet then I
(13:13):
have in the highs of my success. But again, when you mentioned titles,
does it really matter at the endof the day what the title is
because most of us are going tochange careers several times in our lives,
and if we identify just with atitle, then that's what people see and
hear when they see us. Butthat's not how I want to represent myself.
(13:35):
So, Greg, if we're walkingdown the street, you and I
and we're drinking some coffee, andwe run into a group of guys,
and I want them to see meand you for who we are. We're
just men on a journey. We'retrying to do the best that we can
do for ourselves and our family.That's it. But if I walk up
and say I'm doctor Tony or I'mprofessor, this shield because then people treat
(14:01):
you a certain way, maybe don'twant to engage with you too much because
they feel like maybe you're wiser thanthey are. And now they're reserved,
they're not going to be them truth, their true selves. So if we
take all of those macs and uniformsoff, and it's just Greg and it's
just Tony, let's just talk,let's just have a conversation, and that's
(14:24):
where you find the real value inrelationships. But if you start out with
the shield up front, you're notgoing to be able to establish those relationships
or it's going to take a longtime to do so. Oh yes,
definitely. Now that segues into yourbook the gift of pain, and that
(14:46):
is considering what you can become becauseof your pain, because so often,
you know, let's face, painis uncomfortable and at one point, our
bodies try to avoid far as anysigns of discomfort and we tend to look,
(15:16):
Okay, do I really want toendure this pain? Now you say
it's a gift? Could you elaborateon that? And so, as far
as pain is concerned, here's thething that I would say, and I
would qualify this by saying that there'scertain types of pain that you'll never be
(15:37):
able to see reason or a giftor blessing from it. The cry of
a mom that just lost a child. There's certain types of pain that nobody
can probably recover from, but theycan figure out how to manage. What
I'm referring to is is in lifeto face certain challenges, whatever that may
(16:02):
be. Maybe it's a relationship thatwe thought was going to last and it
didn't. Maybe it's a business thatfailed and we thought it was going to
last forever. Or maybe it's acareer. Maybe it's a job that you
really love and they outsourced or theydownsized, or maybe it is the loss
of a loved one, a parent. But here's the thing that I would
say, in every situation I facedin my life. When I sat down
(16:30):
and started just really writing, itwas really more of a diary. It
was a journal for me because Iwas going through a tough time and I
was trying to figure out how todeal with this. And what I did
was I just wanted to write downand remember all of the time that I
faced challenges and going back to aprevious point, life had been going so
fast for me that I didn't havetime really to sit down and think about
(16:56):
any of the challenges, the traumathat I dealt with over the years,
A lot of stuff and not thatmy life was bad. I'm not saying
that, but again, when yourunning a company, you got a lot
of employees. When my parents passedthe next day, you got bills,
you got employees. As soon asthe funeral's over, everybody's expecting you to
(17:18):
continue to do what you do becauseyou got payroll to make, because you
have people's lives who have rent andmortgages and car notes and tuitions to pay.
So you can't stand still and mourn. You just physically can't do it.
So what I learned when I waswriting, I looked at all of
these experiences that I had, andI just remember thinking to myself that,
(17:44):
wow, there's a little bit fromeach of them that was going to help
me out during this time, andthat was a blessing in itself. I
looked at the fact that after mydad died, for example, and my
cousins from Georgia came up. Mycousin Chris came up and on my dad's
side, and every since then,Chris and I speak every Sunday and we
(18:07):
sit on the phone Greg and we'lllaugh for two hours. And now do
we live in Georgia, we getto see each other. We've traveled the
world together. We continue to travel, We're going to be traveled in the
future together. But that's a blessingthat came from Chris coming to my dad's
funeral. That's a blessing. Therelationship that me and my cousin have is
(18:30):
just it's an unshakeable relationship that Ireally really appreciate. That's a gift.
It was painful for me to losemy dad, of course, but that's
just one example. There are otherexamples. When my business closed. I
closed one of my businesses in twentynineteen. It was a horrible time,
absolutely horrible time. I didn't knowwhat I was going to do with anything
(18:52):
in life. There were so manythings happening at that period of time.
Then COVID hit, Then my sonwould going to school, to college,
and just trying to figure out whatlife looked like now as opposed to what
it used to look like. Butwhat I realized maybe a year or two
after closing a business, well soonerthan that, it was a gift.
(19:15):
It was a blessing. And thereason why was because as I looked down
that road that I was going down, it wasn't going to lead to anything
that was going to be beneficial tome or my family. It was very
stressful, and I didn't realize howstressful it was having that corporation until I
(19:36):
had to close it to afterwards.And I really believed if I would have
stayed and had that corporation, Iprobably would have had a heart attack just
looking back at the amount of stressthat was released afterwards. But in the
process, I didn't feel that way. It was just normal. This twenty
four hour weight that's on your shoulders, it was just normal for twenty nine
(20:00):
years. But the reality is isyou and I are here on the podcast.
We're talking telling other people what it'slike to look at pain and look
at it as a gift. Downthe road, I wouldn't have had time
or opportunity to be on this podcast. That's a gift. There are a
(20:22):
thousand things that I can list,but I think what I would tell the
audience is this, you won't seethe gifts or the blessings the next day.
It may not be for six months, or it may not be a
year two years from the time theevent or those situations happen. But if
we're able to look at things inour lives and not say why me,
(20:45):
but say what did I learn fromthat? What can I take from those
situations? And then you apply thatto today, and you apply that to
the future, and you realize thatyou got strength from that, You were
able to develop more skills that youneed to deal with bigger challenges that you're
facing today and in the future.And that's really what the gift of pain
(21:10):
is. And the other thing thatI would say about that fear walks hand
in hand with pain. And Gregthink about this, and we allowed ourselves
to run away from fear and toavoid pain at all costs. Ultimately,
at the end of our lives whenwe look back, are we going to
(21:30):
have regret or are we going tosay, yeah, you know, I
avoided that stuff and I stayed ina safe place. I would much rather
come to the end of my lifeknowing that I just gave it all.
I gave every piece of energy,every piece of grit and determination I had
(21:56):
in my body to move forward inspite of fear or in spite of potential
pain that it can cause. Forexample, starting a business is a scary
thing for people. It is becauseyou're literally jumping off of a cliff.
In essence, you have no supportsystem, that's going to pay you every
two weeks twice a month. It'snot there. You have to create it
(22:19):
for yourself. And that's a scarythought. But here's the thing. That
fear that you're looking at starting abusiness, or that avoidance of pain of
not being able to maybe drive thecar that you want to drive today and
maybe you won't be able to getthat for two years, That pain of
feeling like you're going to be withoutthe fear of missing out the rewards that
(22:45):
you will get after that, afterovercoming a fear, after moving past this
idea that the rest of your lifeis going to be painful, what you're
going to become in the process issomething that you would have never experienced if
you would have shied away from thosechallenges in life, if you would have
ran the opposite way to the safecorner and just stayed there to avoid the
(23:08):
rain, so to speak. ButI'm at the grocery store. Is interest.
When I walk outside and it's raining, I see all of these people
lined up in the grocery store afraidto get wet, And I just walked
to the car greg and get inand by the time they leave the grocery
store, I'm at home and I'vemade dinner already. In other words,
(23:30):
life is going to continue whether you'reon the sideline or not. Right,
It's okay to get a little bitwet. It's just water. That's what
I learned in life, that thepain and fear, they're going to be
there no matter what, no matterwhat. And it's painful at two o'clock
in the morning when you're waking uptrying to figure out how to pay bills.
(23:52):
But I would rather wake up attwo o'clock in the morning with excitement
and energy knowing that tomorrow I cancontrol a lot of my destiny because I'm
going to put in one hundred andfifteen percent more work than I did yesterday
as an entrepreneur. Now you say, also, nothing happens to you,
(24:14):
it happens for you. Absolutely,I honestly believe that. And the things
that have happened in my life,I didn't necessarily bring those things on.
And some of them may I mayhave. We create situations that may be
challenging for us, and that's justpart of life. But I look at
(24:37):
everything as a test, greg everysingle thing that I face as a test.
And the thing that I once Ideal with what that reality is.
My next move is to say,I'm going to get an A plus on
this test, and I allow myselfto sit in whatever the situation is for
a period of time, for aday maybe two days tops, just to
really feel it and just as ahuman and say, you know what this
(25:00):
is. This is bad, itdoesn't feel good. What am I going
to do? So I allow myselfas a human to sit in that and
just to feel those feelings that Ihave, right, I allow myself to
do that. But then no matterwhat that's that next night or two days
later, that feeling that I haveliterally there's a light switch that goes on,
(25:27):
and what I feel is this energy. It's literally like a burning desire
for me to get out of thatsituation and never get back in that situation.
And then I'm going to get upand do everything I have to do
to make sure that I don't havethe fear of things like that or make
(25:48):
sure that whatever pain I felt,I don't feel that specific pain again.
And that's what all of us havethe ability to do if we desire.
It seems like sometimes people talk themselvesto have that self talk, and they
(26:10):
talk themselves out of doing stuff likethe analogy you used, and that is
people don't want to go outside.There're stuck in the grocery store thinking,
I'm going to wait to go tomy car when it stops raining, not
when it slacks up, but ithas to stop right there. Yeah,
(26:36):
that's we as humans, we dotalk ourselves out of it. And what
I've learned is the longer you whenyou're faced with a situation you need to
make a decision, the longer ittakes you to make a decision, you're
allowing your mind to point out everysingle thing that can go wrong. Everything.
(26:56):
So as you're standing there, you'refacing a situation and you want to
walk on the right. What dowomen think, Oh my god, my
hair is going now, I'm gonnahave to go back and get my hair
done again. That's one hundred dollars, right, Or the guys that think
I don't want to get wet.You know, I don't want to go
have to change my clothes, andthis, that and the other. My
phone might get wet. Your mindis preparing you for every worst possible scenario
(27:19):
that you can ever think of.But in that moment, I just go
out and do it. I'm walkingto the car. That's it. I
see these situations. It's a challenge. You just walk, and what you'll
realize is as soon as you startmoving, as soon as you start taking
action, that voice will either goaway altogether or it'll get so quiet that
(27:44):
you don't even really hear it anymore. And that's the thing about life is
Yeah, we talk ourselves out ofstuff, for sure. I give one
example in the book my family.We're bolters, and when people will come
to Puerto Rico, where we lived, we would take them out in a
boat. That was something we enjoydoing. And every single time we would
(28:06):
try to take them out to thislittle island Viekis or Coulebra or one of
the islands, and we just wantedto get in the water and snorkel with
them. And they would stand theregreg they would suit up, they would
put their life vest on, andthey would stand there on the swim platform
on the edge of the boat inthe back, and they would ask a
thousand questions, how deep is thewater? Eighteen feet? Are there sharks
(28:30):
in the water, probably this iswhere they live? Are the other the
fish bite? I don't know,never been bit by fish? Am I
going to drown? I hope not, but if you do, we'll have
a nice ceremony for you. Allof these questions, right, But here's
the thing. What I would typicallydo is is I would stand there and
(28:52):
I would say, let me justadjust your life best and I would tug
on the straps and make sure thatit's tight, and I would just look
at them in their eyes and justpush them off the boat into eighteen twenty
feet thirty feet of water and theywould panic for about ten seconds and I
would just stand and look at him. I would look down at them because
(29:15):
they can't drown. It's physically impossible. They got the light vest on.
They can't drown. So I'm justlooking at them. And then at a
certain point I would just point tomy eyes and say, look in my
eyes. Let's just have a conversation. How are you doing? And sooner
or later they would calm down.And then here's the beautiful part of this.
(29:37):
Greg I couldn't get him out thewater. Oh so he's overcoming that
fear. And once they saw thatit's a zig Zigler hadn't seen what is
that fear? Far stavidence appearing real. But once they make that jump and
they see it wasn't his after all. Yeah, and here's how life works.
(30:06):
They would have a mask on andI would jump in the water after
that. Once I got everybody inthe water, I would get in the
water with them and I would justtake and we would just swim over to
a little coral reef and they didn'thave to go underwater, but I would
just say, just put your headin the water. And they would literally
just put their face in the waterjust enough for the goggles to clear the
(30:27):
surface so that they can see underwater, and they would immediately snap their head
back up. Oh my god,it's nemo. They're fish. Look at
this, Look at the colors andthe level of excitement. Then here's the
thing. When they went back home, Greg, and once we talked after
that, they never forgot how beautiful, how beautiful under the water looks.
(30:52):
They never imagined that it was sobeautiful. Because here's the thing. You
can't see how beautiful is unless yougo under the surface. The ocean looks
completely different once you break that planeand go under. And isn't that again
what life is. Life is waymore beautiful when you can move past fear
(31:14):
and stop avoiding pain and really goafter your goals and your dreams. Life
is way more more enjoyable than Iever thought that it was going to be.
We've traveled with the world. We'veseen some amazing places, and we
would sit there, Greg and wewould just kind of pinch ourselves when we're
sitting in Kenya in Africa, sittingin a dirt amongst the Massai community,
(31:41):
these warriors who used to fight withlions with spears, and we would sit
there and I would think to myself, this little boy from Chicago who had
big dreams, but I didn't imaginethis in my dreams, and just sit
there and you just pinch it.Imagine if I never had taken that leap
(32:02):
off that boat as I pushed peopleand taking that leap of faith and started
a business to be able to havethe means and the resources to travel the
world and have these amazing experiences.And again, what are we missing out
on in life by being afraid totake a chance, be afraid to step
(32:23):
out and move beyond our fear.And that's the lessons that I think that
I want all of us to learnand me to continue to learn, is
life is so much more beautiful onthe other side, when you can get
past fear and pain. I havea little sticker that's in my on my
(32:45):
desk and it says, don't letyour biggest enemy be the one between your
ears one hundred percent trough. Sothe next thing is how or do you
have any suggestions one, how cansomeone step outside your comfort zone? What
(33:13):
does it begin with first to makethat change. There's always a reason why
people step outside of the comfort zone, and then there's a reason why they
stay in their comfort zones. Soif I'm giving advice to someone, this
is what I would say. What'sreally really important for you in your life?
What's the most important thing for you? Because a lot of times as
(33:37):
adults, people stop dreaming, andmaybe that's not the approach that you want
to take and say what's your bestwhat's your biggest dream? They say,
Oh, I'm living my dream rightnow, I'm doing Okay, I don't
need anything else. Okay, that'sgreat. Well let's rephrase it. What's
the most important thing to you today? And people may say it's my kids,
making sure they're safe and secure whereverthat is, providing a solid household
(34:01):
for my family, whatever that is, And the thing that I would say
is, if that's the most importantthing for you today and you have this
little thing a fear stopping you fromeither maintaining that or enhancing that, are
you willing to to just not beat a place where you say you really
(34:25):
want to be. And that's thewhy, it's why we do what we
do. But the thing that Iwould say is, if you're really afraid
to jump in the water, ifyou're really afraid to take that leap,
find someone that's going to hold yourhand. In business, we call them
mentors. Same thing in life.Maybe it's a business coach, maybe it's
(34:45):
a consultant. Find someone who willhold your hand when you jump in the
water. I have to jump inthe water a lot of times with people
holding their hand, and that's okay, That's absolutely okay, because it gave
them the confidence to know that they'renot by themselves, they're not going to
go under. Same thing in life, and a mentor is someone who has
(35:07):
experienced doing something that you're looking todo. By definition is a very simple
definition. Same thing in business.So if you're looking to start a business,
find someone who's already in business andsay I need a little bit of
support. I don't need you tocreate a business plan or to be my
(35:29):
chief executive officer or chief operating officer. Just give me some perspective. What
am I getting into? That's whatI would look at. And it's the
same thing in life. It's whocan be your mentor in life. I
used to ask questions. I wasin this business group years ago and it
was mostly men, about four orfive women who are in the group.
(35:51):
But I was always asked these oldermen two questions. One is, give
me some advice as a dad,give me some just some solid advice.
And in two, what thing do? What would you change in your life
that you, looking back, wouldwant to do differently? And I would
always ask those two questions of them. And what I was really doing is
(36:15):
these people. These were people thatI knew intimately and people that I didn't,
but we were all part of thesame business organization. It was seventy
three of us total, and Ididn't care that I didn't know them very
well because I knew they would definitelyrespond. But the thing I was really
doing, Greg, if you lookat it, was I was getting advice
(36:37):
and guidance and wisdom from these peoplebecause I was on a journey and I
was treating them as mentors, eventhough they didn't know it. We didn't
have this formal relationship, but Iwas trying to learn from them because they
were at a place that I waslooking to go. And I think that's
a lost art today is everybody believesthey know everything and they stop learning,
(37:01):
They stop asking for advice, theystop asking for perspective and guidance, because
we want to know everything ourselves andit's weak if we reach out and ask
someone for an opinion. You don'thave to take everything they say word for
word. But it's extremely important totalk to people who have experience. And
(37:22):
that's probably some of the best adviceI can give to people if they're looking
to jump out there and really notknow how to conquer fear. That is
so valuable. What you just saidright there is because life is a lifelong
learning. You're going to continuously learn, and if you don't, then that's
(37:46):
when you stay stuck. Right there, So I know you are a very
busy man, and you've taken thisopportunity or you've given us the opportunity far
as to come on and share someof your wisdom. So for people who
(38:08):
are looking far as to get yourbook. Let's see here, we're going
to show some information on where theycan get a copy of your book,
because I would have to say,and it's not just because you're here on
the show, but I'm going tosay, because this is something that's extremely
(38:35):
valuable. And you know, Iread but the first time I just kind
of read through it and I pickedup some nuggets. But I want to
go back and dive deeper into itbecause each time that you look through it,
you find something new. And itis like you said, and that
(38:59):
is at the end of someone's life, they're not looking at, oh,
this is what I did do.The biggest thing is they say, regret,
regret, I did not do thesethings right there. So let me
(39:19):
bring out your book right here,and that is for people to get more
information or get in contact with you. We have your YouTube channel up there
LinkedIn and then your website also andone thing I would like to do a
(39:42):
plug and that is for your YouTubechannel, and that's I'm gonna hit that
one more time in order to bringthat back on there again because it kind
of went quick. And that isagain we want to look at at Tony
(40:02):
kitchens, and as I had toldyou, I get up in the morning
because before we begin our day,I think it's important that we kind of
arm ourselves because we can easily getstuck in that rut or are picking up
all the other things that negative,negative things that are constantly going on.
(40:27):
But this way, right here,we're able to get something that's going to
keep us informed. If you cantell them where can they pick up the
book? Yeah, thank you Gregoryfor that nice review. I appreciated.
You can find the book at giftofpainbookdot com or you can visit my website
(40:50):
at Tonyarkitchens dot com and there's alink to it at the upper right hand
corner under the word shop. Socialmedia contacts and links are at the bottom
of the web page. Okay,And one of the things that we're not
trying to pitch anything, but ifsomeone's looking far as for coaching and they
want to die deeper and they're readyto make the commitment, they can go
(41:14):
to your website also and find moreinformation right there. So that way if
they need to have more that oneon one right there. Yes, and
yes, Gregory, I do oneon one sessions with individuals and business owners,
and those are really valuable sessions wherewe dig into issues that people want
(41:37):
to overcome. This is not psychologyor psychiatry. This is more of moving
beyond circumstances today to toward goals anddreams that people have really good sessions.
I really enjoy them. Okay,And is there anything else you would like
(41:57):
the audience to takeaway? Yeah?I think In closing, I would first
thank you Greg for this opportunity tospend time with you and your audience.
As far as the audience is concerned, here's the thing that I would say
is success by all of the measurementsthat you can possibly think of, it's
(42:20):
really not a destination. I knowthat we've heard that before. All of
us have heard that, But ifyou really think about what that means,
it's the journey it is. Ifyou're a longer journey, you're going to
develop resilience, you're going to develophumility, empathy, you're going to develop
a characteristic for longevity. You're goingto develop so many more things along the
(42:44):
journey as we go through life.And that's the beauty of it. But
if you're in life and you don'thave any direction and you're just kind of
sitting still. Then you're not reallyon a journey. You're waking up every
day and just reacting to what happens. You're reacting to what happens on the
news, You're reacting to what happensat work. You're just trying to get
(43:07):
through your day so that you canget home and turn down at night and
start all over again, waiting forthe weekend to get here. But there's
way more to life than that.There's way more being able to travel the
world and meet other people. Youwill be amazed at how much you're connected
(43:30):
to other people around the world,and how many similarities you have, and
how many things you have in common. So I would definitely tell people travel
that's extremely important because it gives youperspective that you wouldn't have. And the
second thing is continue to learn.I try to read as much as I
can. I used to read onebook a week, and not just little
(43:52):
books, but big books, ninehundred page books. In certain situations,
I don't have as much time todo that anymore, but I still get
through ten twelve books a year,and I'm always amazed at how much I
continue to learn, because it showsme how much I didn't know the year
before. So I can encourage peoplecontinue your education, revisit your dreams and
(44:15):
your goals. If you don't don'thave any, start some today and then
get around people who are doing things. Get around people that you can ask
who are at the places that you'retrying to get to, and they will
help you. They will hold yourhand as you make that jump into the
water, they'll hold your hand asyou walk through life. And that's probably
(44:37):
some of the most valuable information Ican impart on your audience today. All
right, well, thank you andfor all of you, you know,
I hope you took some notes.And again remember this, small things make
(44:57):
big things happen. So every beginning, everything has a beginning, And as
Tony mentioned, you know, sometimesyou just got to jump in the water,
and once you put your face underneaththat water, you'll see that it's
beautiful right there, and it's notas scary as it's all been made out
(45:21):
to be in your mind. Again, thank you, Tony, and you
have a great evening. So listeningto those stories, I'm hoping that you'll
be inspired to take action and turnthat big dream that you're having into a
reality. Now one of our dreamsis to expand this platform here and we
(45:49):
can do that with your help.That is, hit the like button,
leave a comment, and share itwith a friend. The thing is,
sometimes you just have to leap,or, as Tony put it, jump
off into the deep end. It'sa lot less scary than what it's made
(46:15):
out to be. You'll never knowuntil you take that chance. Thanks for
listening to night Beat Media's Living theDream. If you enjoyed this podcast,
please leave a comment or hit followand subscribe on our link so you can
stay up to date on new episodesuntil next time. When writing the story
(46:38):
of your life, be sure you'reholding the pen.
Welcome to night Beat Media's Living theDream podcast with your host Gregory Tucker,
where we discussed the entrepreneur's journey ofturning a dream into reality, showing you
how to learn, overcome, andacquire strategic action steps. If you're ready
to turn your dream into a reality, then get ready to take action.
(00:27):
Here's your host, Gregory Tucker.This young man grew up on the South
Side of Chicago, considered an averageboy, his father only having a third
grade education. Well, this youngboy build a business that masked over one
(00:55):
hundred million dollars before the age offive. This occurred prior to the Internet,
prior to YouTube, before cable wasblanketing the airwaves. His name is
Tony our Kitchens. I can't tellhis story. That's why you're here to
(01:22):
hear his story. And with thatsaid, Tony, tell us about yourself.
Hello, Gregory, thanks for havingme. I really appreciate being on
your show and I'm looking forward totalking to the audience and sharing experiences with
him, and hopefully in the conversationthat you and I have, they'll learn
(01:42):
a lot more about me, andnot just me as a person, but
my story and how it connects tothem. I've been an entrepreneur for thirty
two years, but my best andmost important role in title is dad.
I love hearing that word and husband. Those are the two most important things
to me by far, absolutely byfar. But with that being said,
(02:06):
I have run five different businesses inmy life, had a lot of ups
and a lot of downs. Butat this point in my life, I'm
really focused in on providing wisdom andguidance and knowledge for those people who are
looking to move beyond their current circumstancestoward their dreams and their goals. And
I accomplished that through a book thatI have the Gift of Pain. I
(02:29):
also do one to one strategy sessionswith people and businesses, and I just
try to use those opportunities to reallyget people to think differently and change their
perspective on pain and fear. Andthat's what I'm doing today. Station in
Germany for a while, and theother one was stateside, But even then,
(02:53):
early on, I knew I wantedto be in business and I wanted
to be in the army. Otherthan that didn't know. And it come
to find out when my junior yearof high school came about, the Army
had this program called split training,and I actually enlisted. I went to
basic training between my junior and senioryear in high school when all of my
(03:15):
friends are out partying. As soonas we got out of school, I
was on a plane to Fort Lennardwood, Missouri for basic training. And then
I served in a National Guardian unitin the Army. And then after I
graduated from high school, that nextsummer, I went and finished my what's
(03:38):
called aiit Advanced Individual Training in FortDix, New Jersey. So as I
look back, and it's interesting thatyou mentioned that, great because I look
back the family members what I sawI became. I became a soldier because
I saw my cousins do that.I became an entrepreneur because I saw my
(03:58):
uncle do it. And there wasnothing on TV that I was really interested
in it as a kid except cartoons. The programming was limited channels two,
five, seven, nine, andthirty two. That was it, right.
There was no Internet, there wasno we didn't have one hundred TV
channels. So I didn't see anythingon TV that sparked interest in terms of
(04:19):
something that I would look forward todoing. It just wasn't there. As
a matter of fact, we didn'twatch much TV. TV was the thing,
Greg. If you remember when yougot on punishment, you couldn't watch
it, right, and you hadto stay in the house. So imagine
being in the house no TV.You couldn't go outside. That was life
(04:40):
for us as young people, right. So we had to find other ways
to be creative, to occupy ourtime. But I did, looking back
on it now, I became exactlywhat I saw, what my environment was.
It was a soldier, which Isaid, have passion for today and
as an entrepreneur. One of thethings is I was reading your book that
(05:02):
really stood out to me, andthat was listen and don't speak, because
you listen, you learn. Whenyou talk, you know, game's over.
Almost one hundred percent true. Theinteresting thing about that, though,
(05:26):
is my parents never made us bequiet. And what I mean by that
is there was a It was customin households when you were young for the
young kids to be seen and notheard. That's what you always would hear.
But my parents were kind of theopposite. My older sister, my
younger sister. When we had company, neighbors or people from church, or
(05:48):
whoever came by, we were allowedto sit at the table with my parents
and talk. And their position was, as far as I can remember,
going all the way back. Ifmy kids can't go, if they can't
be there, and then we're notgoing. If they can't be in a
conversation, we're not going to bein the conversation. And I really appreciated
(06:10):
that. And we treat our sonthe same way. Well, he'll be
twenty years old next month, butthe point is is it's the same thing.
How were we going to learn ifmy parents would not include us in
these conversations and let us be allowedto expose us to my uncle and what
he was doing, and my cousinsand all the stories that they had.
(06:31):
And I really appreciate that, andit's something that's invaluable. But to your
point, I didn't have anything totalk about, so I listened. I
listened to my cousins. I couldn'tshare any war stories with them. I
couldn't share any business stories with myuncles. I just sat there and just
with wide eyes, just an openmouth, just an amazement. And he
(06:56):
wasn't looking back. He wasn't doinganything extraordinary today looking back, but at
that point, as a young boy, it was extraordinary. I didn't know
anybody that flew to Germany and wasin Italy a lot in Spain that was
unheard of. And I would justlistening to how he would talk about the
people and the wine and you know, all of the things the experiences he
(07:17):
had, and I just wanted thatfor myself and for my family. Okay,
and some of the other things thatyou mentioned, and that is that
when you didn't connect yourself far aswith a title, Because when you first
(07:42):
came on, when I asked yougo ahead and tell me about yourself,
you didn't start out with, oh, well I got this PhD, I
did all of these companies, Iwas a CEO, and you came up
with the elements and that was I'ma husband, I'm a father, and
(08:11):
you're just a good man trying tohelp others along the way. So I
really enjoyed, and that's something that'srefreshing to hear. So often we kind
of get caught up in the titlesand the years right there, Absolutely,
(08:33):
and I think greg in all honestythat just comes from what we become along
the journey in our lives and thethings that we see, the things that
we experience, the ups and thedowns. When my son was fifteen years
old. This was back in twentyfifteen. We decided that we wanted to
(08:56):
just go on road trips. Wewanted for him to see how other people
lived, to interact with other people, different nationalities and races and everything.
So what we did was in twentysixteen we started doing road trips, my
wife and my son and myself,and we would literally take the entire summer
off from We would leave in June, we typically late May, and we
(09:22):
would get on the road and wewould be gone for four or five weeks.
And over the course of four summers, we traveled to forty eight states,
so all of the states except Alaskaand Hawaii, and many of them
we went to two, three,four or five times during that time period.
And then we flew to about eightdifferent countries also during those four years.
(09:43):
And the reason we did that wasbecause we wanted our sun to see
the world, to see that asbig as our surroundings feel like to us,
we're just a small player in thegrand scheme of things. No matter
how successful we are as a family, it doesn't really matter when you look
(10:05):
at the entire world and see howother people live way better than we did.
In some way worse than we did. And that perspective that not just
what my son learned. It alsorefocused my wife and myself to see that
no matter how successful we were,we had so much more work to do
(10:28):
to impact the lives of others,and we have empathy for others, and
that's the important thing. When peopleget stuck on titles and they just want
to talk about all the successes theyhave, that's good because that also inspires
and motivates people, and I wouldencourage them to do so at a certain
point. With success, though,you remember the bruises more than you remember
(10:52):
the successes. Because I always tellpeople your greatest lessons come in failures.
They come when you get beat up, they come when you get knocked down,
they come during challenges, they comethrough difficult times. That's where your
lessons come in. I've never learnedanything by being ultra successful, except time
(11:16):
moves really fast. When you're successful, when things are going well, time
moves by at the speed of light, literally where you don't even remember some
of those times. Imagine going outin expressway, driving in the car going
one hundred and twenty miles an hour. You can't see the off ramps,
you can't see cars around you.You're focused on stand between those two dotted
(11:39):
lines once you're left one to yourright. You're just focused on standing on
track. And that's what life islike when things are going extremely well.
And how can you observe life?How can you pay attention to anybody or
anything around You can't because you justhave your hands on that steering wheel,
trying to maintain control as much controlas we believe we have. But when
(12:03):
you go through difficult times, Greg, life slows down to a halt.
It literally moves at a snail's pace. And then what happens is life gets
quiet because you don't want to bearound a bunch of people. You don't
have the energy to be in frontof a whole bunch of people in situations.
(12:26):
And then you allow yourself to bequiet enough to listen to who you
really are. And when you whenyou're quiet and you hear that voice,
that's when you connect with who youreally are, and that's when you really
find your true self. That's whereyou find a determination. That's when you
say to yourself, I'm in thiswhole, it's eight feet deep. How
(12:52):
do I get out? There's noladder here, and you have to really
think, and you have to reallyremember every time you were in a hole
four and how you got out inthe past, and can you get out
using those same methods today. SoI've learned way more being quiet then I
(13:13):
have in the highs of my success. But again, when you mentioned titles,
does it really matter at the endof the day what the title is
because most of us are going tochange careers several times in our lives,
and if we identify just with atitle, then that's what people see and
hear when they see us. Butthat's not how I want to represent myself.
(13:35):
So, Greg, if we're walkingdown the street, you and I
and we're drinking some coffee, andwe run into a group of guys,
and I want them to see meand you for who we are. We're
just men on a journey. We'retrying to do the best that we can
do for ourselves and our family.That's it. But if I walk up
and say I'm doctor Tony or I'mprofessor, this shield because then people treat
(14:01):
you a certain way, maybe don'twant to engage with you too much because
they feel like maybe you're wiser thanthey are. And now they're reserved,
they're not going to be them truth, their true selves. So if we
take all of those macs and uniformsoff, and it's just Greg and it's
just Tony, let's just talk,let's just have a conversation, and that's
(14:24):
where you find the real value inrelationships. But if you start out with
the shield up front, you're notgoing to be able to establish those relationships
or it's going to take a longtime to do so. Oh yes,
definitely. Now that segues into yourbook the gift of pain, and that
(14:46):
is considering what you can become becauseof your pain, because so often,
you know, let's face, painis uncomfortable and at one point, our
bodies try to avoid far as anysigns of discomfort and we tend to look,
(15:16):
Okay, do I really want toendure this pain? Now you say
it's a gift? Could you elaborateon that? And so, as far
as pain is concerned, here's thething that I would say, and I
would qualify this by saying that there'scertain types of pain that you'll never be
(15:37):
able to see reason or a giftor blessing from it. The cry of
a mom that just lost a child. There's certain types of pain that nobody
can probably recover from, but theycan figure out how to manage. What
I'm referring to is is in lifeto face certain challenges, whatever that may
(16:02):
be. Maybe it's a relationship thatwe thought was going to last and it
didn't. Maybe it's a business thatfailed and we thought it was going to
last forever. Or maybe it's acareer. Maybe it's a job that you
really love and they outsourced or theydownsized, or maybe it is the loss
of a loved one, a parent. But here's the thing that I would
say, in every situation I facedin my life. When I sat down
(16:30):
and started just really writing, itwas really more of a diary. It
was a journal for me because Iwas going through a tough time and I
was trying to figure out how todeal with this. And what I did
was I just wanted to write downand remember all of the time that I
faced challenges and going back to aprevious point, life had been going so
fast for me that I didn't havetime really to sit down and think about
(16:56):
any of the challenges, the traumathat I dealt with over the years,
A lot of stuff and not thatmy life was bad. I'm not saying
that, but again, when yourunning a company, you got a lot
of employees. When my parents passedthe next day, you got bills,
you got employees. As soon asthe funeral's over, everybody's expecting you to
(17:18):
continue to do what you do becauseyou got payroll to make, because you
have people's lives who have rent andmortgages and car notes and tuitions to pay.
So you can't stand still and mourn. You just physically can't do it.
So what I learned when I waswriting, I looked at all of
these experiences that I had, andI just remember thinking to myself that,
(17:44):
wow, there's a little bit fromeach of them that was going to help
me out during this time, andthat was a blessing in itself. I
looked at the fact that after mydad died, for example, and my
cousins from Georgia came up. Mycousin Chris came up and on my dad's
side, and every since then,Chris and I speak every Sunday and we
(18:07):
sit on the phone Greg and we'lllaugh for two hours. And now do
we live in Georgia, we getto see each other. We've traveled the
world together. We continue to travel, We're going to be traveled in the
future together. But that's a blessingthat came from Chris coming to my dad's
funeral. That's a blessing. Therelationship that me and my cousin have is
(18:30):
just it's an unshakeable relationship that Ireally really appreciate. That's a gift.
It was painful for me to losemy dad, of course, but that's
just one example. There are otherexamples. When my business closed. I
closed one of my businesses in twentynineteen. It was a horrible time,
absolutely horrible time. I didn't knowwhat I was going to do with anything
(18:52):
in life. There were so manythings happening at that period of time.
Then COVID hit, Then my sonwould going to school, to college,
and just trying to figure out whatlife looked like now as opposed to what
it used to look like. Butwhat I realized maybe a year or two
after closing a business, well soonerthan that, it was a gift.
(19:15):
It was a blessing. And thereason why was because as I looked down
that road that I was going down, it wasn't going to lead to anything
that was going to be beneficial tome or my family. It was very
stressful, and I didn't realize howstressful it was having that corporation until I
(19:36):
had to close it to afterwards.And I really believed if I would have
stayed and had that corporation, Iprobably would have had a heart attack just
looking back at the amount of stressthat was released afterwards. But in the
process, I didn't feel that way. It was just normal. This twenty
four hour weight that's on your shoulders, it was just normal for twenty nine
(20:00):
years. But the reality is isyou and I are here on the podcast.
We're talking telling other people what it'slike to look at pain and look
at it as a gift. Downthe road, I wouldn't have had time
or opportunity to be on this podcast. That's a gift. There are a
(20:22):
thousand things that I can list,but I think what I would tell the
audience is this, you won't seethe gifts or the blessings the next day.
It may not be for six months, or it may not be a
year two years from the time theevent or those situations happen. But if
we're able to look at things inour lives and not say why me,
(20:45):
but say what did I learn fromthat? What can I take from those
situations? And then you apply thatto today, and you apply that to
the future, and you realize thatyou got strength from that, You were
able to develop more skills that youneed to deal with bigger challenges that you're
facing today and in the future.And that's really what the gift of pain
(21:10):
is. And the other thing thatI would say about that fear walks hand
in hand with pain. And Gregthink about this, and we allowed ourselves
to run away from fear and toavoid pain at all costs. Ultimately,
at the end of our lives whenwe look back, are we going to
(21:30):
have regret or are we going tosay, yeah, you know, I
avoided that stuff and I stayed ina safe place. I would much rather
come to the end of my lifeknowing that I just gave it all.
I gave every piece of energy,every piece of grit and determination I had
(21:56):
in my body to move forward inspite of fear or in spite of potential
pain that it can cause. Forexample, starting a business is a scary
thing for people. It is becauseyou're literally jumping off of a cliff.
In essence, you have no supportsystem, that's going to pay you every
two weeks twice a month. It'snot there. You have to create it
(22:19):
for yourself. And that's a scarythought. But here's the thing. That
fear that you're looking at starting abusiness, or that avoidance of pain of
not being able to maybe drive thecar that you want to drive today and
maybe you won't be able to getthat for two years, That pain of
feeling like you're going to be withoutthe fear of missing out the rewards that
(22:45):
you will get after that, afterovercoming a fear, after moving past this
idea that the rest of your lifeis going to be painful, what you're
going to become in the process issomething that you would have never experienced if
you would have shied away from thosechallenges in life, if you would have
ran the opposite way to the safecorner and just stayed there to avoid the
(23:08):
rain, so to speak. ButI'm at the grocery store. Is interest.
When I walk outside and it's raining, I see all of these people
lined up in the grocery store afraidto get wet, And I just walked
to the car greg and get inand by the time they leave the grocery
store, I'm at home and I'vemade dinner already. In other words,
(23:30):
life is going to continue whether you'reon the sideline or not. Right,
It's okay to get a little bitwet. It's just water. That's what
I learned in life, that thepain and fear, they're going to be
there no matter what, no matterwhat. And it's painful at two o'clock
in the morning when you're waking uptrying to figure out how to pay bills.
(23:52):
But I would rather wake up attwo o'clock in the morning with excitement
and energy knowing that tomorrow I cancontrol a lot of my destiny because I'm
going to put in one hundred andfifteen percent more work than I did yesterday
as an entrepreneur. Now you say, also, nothing happens to you,
(24:14):
it happens for you. Absolutely,I honestly believe that. And the things
that have happened in my life,I didn't necessarily bring those things on.
And some of them may I mayhave. We create situations that may be
challenging for us, and that's justpart of life. But I look at
(24:37):
everything as a test, greg everysingle thing that I face as a test.
And the thing that I once Ideal with what that reality is.
My next move is to say,I'm going to get an A plus on
this test, and I allow myselfto sit in whatever the situation is for
a period of time, for aday maybe two days tops, just to
really feel it and just as ahuman and say, you know what this
(25:00):
is. This is bad, itdoesn't feel good. What am I going
to do? So I allow myselfas a human to sit in that and
just to feel those feelings that Ihave, right, I allow myself to
do that. But then no matterwhat that's that next night or two days
later, that feeling that I haveliterally there's a light switch that goes on,
(25:27):
and what I feel is this energy. It's literally like a burning desire
for me to get out of thatsituation and never get back in that situation.
And then I'm going to get upand do everything I have to do
to make sure that I don't havethe fear of things like that or make
(25:48):
sure that whatever pain I felt,I don't feel that specific pain again.
And that's what all of us havethe ability to do if we desire.
It seems like sometimes people talk themselvesto have that self talk, and they
(26:10):
talk themselves out of doing stuff likethe analogy you used, and that is
people don't want to go outside.There're stuck in the grocery store thinking,
I'm going to wait to go tomy car when it stops raining, not
when it slacks up, but ithas to stop right there. Yeah,
(26:36):
that's we as humans, we dotalk ourselves out of it. And what
I've learned is the longer you whenyou're faced with a situation you need to
make a decision, the longer ittakes you to make a decision, you're
allowing your mind to point out everysingle thing that can go wrong. Everything.
(26:56):
So as you're standing there, you'refacing a situation and you want to
walk on the right. What dowomen think, Oh my god, my
hair is going now, I'm gonnahave to go back and get my hair
done again. That's one hundred dollars, right, Or the guys that think
I don't want to get wet.You know, I don't want to go
have to change my clothes, andthis, that and the other. My
phone might get wet. Your mindis preparing you for every worst possible scenario
(27:19):
that you can ever think of.But in that moment, I just go
out and do it. I'm walkingto the car. That's it. I
see these situations. It's a challenge. You just walk, and what you'll
realize is as soon as you startmoving, as soon as you start taking
action, that voice will either goaway altogether or it'll get so quiet that
(27:44):
you don't even really hear it anymore. And that's the thing about life is
Yeah, we talk ourselves out ofstuff, for sure. I give one
example in the book my family.We're bolters, and when people will come
to Puerto Rico, where we lived, we would take them out in a
boat. That was something we enjoydoing. And every single time we would
(28:06):
try to take them out to thislittle island Viekis or Coulebra or one of
the islands, and we just wantedto get in the water and snorkel with
them. And they would stand theregreg they would suit up, they would
put their life vest on, andthey would stand there on the swim platform
on the edge of the boat inthe back, and they would ask a
thousand questions, how deep is thewater? Eighteen feet? Are there sharks
(28:30):
in the water, probably this iswhere they live? Are the other the
fish bite? I don't know,never been bit by fish? Am I
going to drown? I hope not, but if you do, we'll have
a nice ceremony for you. Allof these questions, right, But here's
the thing. What I would typicallydo is is I would stand there and
(28:52):
I would say, let me justadjust your life best and I would tug
on the straps and make sure thatit's tight, and I would just look
at them in their eyes and justpush them off the boat into eighteen twenty
feet thirty feet of water and theywould panic for about ten seconds and I
would just stand and look at him. I would look down at them because
(29:15):
they can't drown. It's physically impossible. They got the light vest on.
They can't drown. So I'm justlooking at them. And then at a
certain point I would just point tomy eyes and say, look in my
eyes. Let's just have a conversation. How are you doing? And sooner
or later they would calm down.And then here's the beautiful part of this.
(29:37):
Greg I couldn't get him out thewater. Oh so he's overcoming that
fear. And once they saw thatit's a zig Zigler hadn't seen what is
that fear? Far stavidence appearing real. But once they make that jump and
they see it wasn't his after all. Yeah, and here's how life works.
(30:06):
They would have a mask on andI would jump in the water after
that. Once I got everybody inthe water, I would get in the
water with them and I would justtake and we would just swim over to
a little coral reef and they didn'thave to go underwater, but I would
just say, just put your headin the water. And they would literally
just put their face in the waterjust enough for the goggles to clear the
(30:27):
surface so that they can see underwater, and they would immediately snap their head
back up. Oh my god,it's nemo. They're fish. Look at
this, Look at the colors andthe level of excitement. Then here's the
thing. When they went back home, Greg, and once we talked after
that, they never forgot how beautiful, how beautiful under the water looks.
(30:52):
They never imagined that it was sobeautiful. Because here's the thing. You
can't see how beautiful is unless yougo under the surface. The ocean looks
completely different once you break that planeand go under. And isn't that again
what life is. Life is waymore beautiful when you can move past fear
(31:14):
and stop avoiding pain and really goafter your goals and your dreams. Life
is way more more enjoyable than Iever thought that it was going to be.
We've traveled with the world. We'veseen some amazing places, and we
would sit there, Greg and wewould just kind of pinch ourselves when we're
sitting in Kenya in Africa, sittingin a dirt amongst the Massai community,
(31:41):
these warriors who used to fight withlions with spears, and we would sit
there and I would think to myself, this little boy from Chicago who had
big dreams, but I didn't imaginethis in my dreams, and just sit
there and you just pinch it.Imagine if I never had taken that leap
(32:02):
off that boat as I pushed peopleand taking that leap of faith and started
a business to be able to havethe means and the resources to travel the
world and have these amazing experiences.And again, what are we missing out
on in life by being afraid totake a chance, be afraid to step
(32:23):
out and move beyond our fear.And that's the lessons that I think that
I want all of us to learnand me to continue to learn, is
life is so much more beautiful onthe other side, when you can get
past fear and pain. I havea little sticker that's in my on my
(32:45):
desk and it says, don't letyour biggest enemy be the one between your
ears one hundred percent trough. Sothe next thing is how or do you
have any suggestions one, how cansomeone step outside your comfort zone? What
(33:13):
does it begin with first to makethat change. There's always a reason why
people step outside of the comfort zone, and then there's a reason why they
stay in their comfort zones. Soif I'm giving advice to someone, this
is what I would say. What'sreally really important for you in your life?
What's the most important thing for you? Because a lot of times as
(33:37):
adults, people stop dreaming, andmaybe that's not the approach that you want
to take and say what's your bestwhat's your biggest dream? They say,
Oh, I'm living my dream rightnow, I'm doing Okay, I don't
need anything else. Okay, that'sgreat. Well let's rephrase it. What's
the most important thing to you today? And people may say it's my kids,
making sure they're safe and secure whereverthat is, providing a solid household
(34:01):
for my family, whatever that is, And the thing that I would say
is, if that's the most importantthing for you today and you have this
little thing a fear stopping you fromeither maintaining that or enhancing that, are
you willing to to just not beat a place where you say you really
(34:25):
want to be. And that's thewhy, it's why we do what we
do. But the thing that Iwould say is, if you're really afraid
to jump in the water, ifyou're really afraid to take that leap,
find someone that's going to hold yourhand. In business, we call them
mentors. Same thing in life.Maybe it's a business coach, maybe it's
(34:45):
a consultant. Find someone who willhold your hand when you jump in the
water. I have to jump inthe water a lot of times with people
holding their hand, and that's okay, That's absolutely okay, because it gave
them the confidence to know that they'renot by themselves, they're not going to
go under. Same thing in life, and a mentor is someone who has
(35:07):
experienced doing something that you're looking todo. By definition is a very simple
definition. Same thing in business.So if you're looking to start a business,
find someone who's already in business andsay I need a little bit of
support. I don't need you tocreate a business plan or to be my
(35:29):
chief executive officer or chief operating officer. Just give me some perspective. What
am I getting into? That's whatI would look at. And it's the
same thing in life. It's whocan be your mentor in life. I
used to ask questions. I wasin this business group years ago and it
was mostly men, about four orfive women who are in the group.
(35:51):
But I was always asked these oldermen two questions. One is, give
me some advice as a dad,give me some just some solid advice.
And in two, what thing do? What would you change in your life
that you, looking back, wouldwant to do differently? And I would
always ask those two questions of them. And what I was really doing is
(36:15):
these people. These were people thatI knew intimately and people that I didn't,
but we were all part of thesame business organization. It was seventy
three of us total, and Ididn't care that I didn't know them very
well because I knew they would definitelyrespond. But the thing I was really
doing, Greg, if you lookat it, was I was getting advice
(36:37):
and guidance and wisdom from these peoplebecause I was on a journey and I
was treating them as mentors, eventhough they didn't know it. We didn't
have this formal relationship, but Iwas trying to learn from them because they
were at a place that I waslooking to go. And I think that's
a lost art today is everybody believesthey know everything and they stop learning,
(37:01):
They stop asking for advice, theystop asking for perspective and guidance, because
we want to know everything ourselves andit's weak if we reach out and ask
someone for an opinion. You don'thave to take everything they say word for
word. But it's extremely important totalk to people who have experience. And
(37:22):
that's probably some of the best adviceI can give to people if they're looking
to jump out there and really notknow how to conquer fear. That is
so valuable. What you just saidright there is because life is a lifelong
learning. You're going to continuously learn, and if you don't, then that's
(37:46):
when you stay stuck. Right there, So I know you are a very
busy man, and you've taken thisopportunity or you've given us the opportunity far
as to come on and share someof your wisdom. So for people who
(38:08):
are looking far as to get yourbook. Let's see here, we're going
to show some information on where theycan get a copy of your book,
because I would have to say,and it's not just because you're here on
the show, but I'm going tosay, because this is something that's extremely
(38:35):
valuable. And you know, Iread but the first time I just kind
of read through it and I pickedup some nuggets. But I want to
go back and dive deeper into itbecause each time that you look through it,
you find something new. And itis like you said, and that
(38:59):
is at the end of someone's life, they're not looking at, oh,
this is what I did do.The biggest thing is they say, regret,
regret, I did not do thesethings right there. So let me
(39:19):
bring out your book right here,and that is for people to get more
information or get in contact with you. We have your YouTube channel up there
LinkedIn and then your website also andone thing I would like to do a
(39:42):
plug and that is for your YouTubechannel, and that's I'm gonna hit that
one more time in order to bringthat back on there again because it kind
of went quick. And that isagain we want to look at at Tony
(40:02):
kitchens, and as I had toldyou, I get up in the morning
because before we begin our day,I think it's important that we kind of
arm ourselves because we can easily getstuck in that rut or are picking up
all the other things that negative,negative things that are constantly going on.
(40:27):
But this way, right here,we're able to get something that's going to
keep us informed. If you cantell them where can they pick up the
book? Yeah, thank you Gregoryfor that nice review. I appreciated.
You can find the book at giftofpainbookdot com or you can visit my website
(40:50):
at Tonyarkitchens dot com and there's alink to it at the upper right hand
corner under the word shop. Socialmedia contacts and links are at the bottom
of the web page. Okay,And one of the things that we're not
trying to pitch anything, but ifsomeone's looking far as for coaching and they
want to die deeper and they're readyto make the commitment, they can go
(41:14):
to your website also and find moreinformation right there. So that way if
they need to have more that oneon one right there. Yes, and
yes, Gregory, I do oneon one sessions with individuals and business owners,
and those are really valuable sessions wherewe dig into issues that people want
(41:37):
to overcome. This is not psychologyor psychiatry. This is more of moving
beyond circumstances today to toward goals anddreams that people have really good sessions.
I really enjoy them. Okay,And is there anything else you would like
(41:57):
the audience to takeaway? Yeah?I think In closing, I would first
thank you Greg for this opportunity tospend time with you and your audience.
As far as the audience is concerned, here's the thing that I would say
is success by all of the measurementsthat you can possibly think of, it's
(42:20):
really not a destination. I knowthat we've heard that before. All of
us have heard that, But ifyou really think about what that means,
it's the journey it is. Ifyou're a longer journey, you're going to
develop resilience, you're going to develophumility, empathy, you're going to develop
a characteristic for longevity. You're goingto develop so many more things along the
(42:44):
journey as we go through life.And that's the beauty of it. But
if you're in life and you don'thave any direction and you're just kind of
sitting still. Then you're not reallyon a journey. You're waking up every
day and just reacting to what happens. You're reacting to what happens on the
news, You're reacting to what happensat work. You're just trying to get
(43:07):
through your day so that you canget home and turn down at night and
start all over again, waiting forthe weekend to get here. But there's
way more to life than that.There's way more being able to travel the
world and meet other people. Youwill be amazed at how much you're connected
(43:30):
to other people around the world,and how many similarities you have, and
how many things you have in common. So I would definitely tell people travel
that's extremely important because it gives youperspective that you wouldn't have. And the
second thing is continue to learn.I try to read as much as I
can. I used to read onebook a week, and not just little
(43:52):
books, but big books, ninehundred page books. In certain situations,
I don't have as much time todo that anymore, but I still get
through ten twelve books a year,and I'm always amazed at how much I
continue to learn, because it showsme how much I didn't know the year
before. So I can encourage peoplecontinue your education, revisit your dreams and
(44:15):
your goals. If you don't don'thave any, start some today and then
get around people who are doing things. Get around people that you can ask
who are at the places that you'retrying to get to, and they will
help you. They will hold yourhand as you make that jump into the
water, they'll hold your hand asyou walk through life. And that's probably
(44:37):
some of the most valuable information Ican impart on your audience today. All
right, well, thank you andfor all of you, you know,
I hope you took some notes.And again remember this, small things make
(44:57):
big things happen. So every beginning, everything has a beginning, And as
Tony mentioned, you know, sometimesyou just got to jump in the water,
and once you put your face underneaththat water, you'll see that it's
beautiful right there, and it's notas scary as it's all been made out
(45:21):
to be in your mind. Again, thank you, Tony, and you
have a great evening. So listeningto those stories, I'm hoping that you'll
be inspired to take action and turnthat big dream that you're having into a
reality. Now one of our dreamsis to expand this platform here and we
(45:49):
can do that with your help.That is, hit the like button,
leave a comment, and share itwith a friend. The thing is,
sometimes you just have to leap,or, as Tony put it, jump
off into the deep end. It'sa lot less scary than what it's made
(46:15):
out to be. You'll never knowuntil you take that chance. Thanks for
listening to night Beat Media's Living theDream. If you enjoyed this podcast,
please leave a comment or hit followand subscribe on our link so you can
stay up to date on new episodesuntil next time. When writing the story
(46:38):
of your life, be sure you'reholding the pen.
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