Tony Kitchens gives us The Gift of Pain and reasons why we should ask for more

Dex: 0:05

Hey, welcome to another episode of In the Black. This is Your Boy Dex, and I keep having the best of luck when it comes to the new year. I've just been reached out to, and I've found some amazing guests for the rest of this year. The calendar's pretty full, so you guys are gonna get a lot more consistent posts from me. Today I have somebody who I, honestly, I, every time I look at his bio, I don't know where to start. I don't know where, because if I were to end again, we would end up talking all year just about his bio and going on with that. But I have a lot of questions. I have a lot of, I'm expecting a lot of really good answers, basically, and I'm in awe right now, to be quite honest with you. One of the things that you need to know about this particular guest, before I say his name and everything, he tends to go with the philosophy of at what point in your life did you stop dreaming? Are you living the life today? You imagined when you were young? And I know what a lot of us we're not always there and with a lot of my audience, we're not always organized, which is fine. This is what we're here for. We're here for support, we're here for inspiration. We're here for frameworks, and we are definitely here to listen less to me and listen more to Mr. Tony Kitchens. Tony say what's up to everybody?

Tony Kitchens: 1:40

Hello, Dex. Thanks for having me and happy 2023 to all of the listeners, and I wish that they have the best year they've ever had this year. It's going to be an amazing time.

Dex: 1:51

I cannot agree with you more. I cannot agree with you more. We're out of the I shouldn't say out of the pandemic, but we're past that, that craziness, that chaos. We're into a whole new level of chaos and craziness, and I'm feeling a lot of positivity for a lot of people this year, especially for young entrepreneurs. Yeah, absolutely. A lot of young entrepreneurs that have come out of the great resignation, I guess is what it is so many people end up having to do side hustles and do their thing, and they realize that they've worked just as hard for someone else as they could themselves. And that's who I'm speaking to today. You have to tell us a little bit about your background, because I definitely want to get to your book, the Gift of Pain, which sounds like something one of my public school bullies would've said to me right before they pushed me in the head. But But let's get into your background. Tell me about you

Tony Kitchens: 2:52

Absolutely. I was born in Chicago, south side of Chicago, and I've had an amazing life starting out with just being an average kid, played baseball, the local baseball team. Parents were just middle income parents. And our family was, we were no richer or no poor than the other people in our neighborhood. And as a kid, you don't really have perspective about what your financial, socioeconomic status is. just know what you know. And there were neighbors who had better looking cars than we had than their neighbors who, who didn't. And as I look back, I didn't realize that. As I look back today, I didn't realize that we were just average citizens, right? We were just average income people. Because I, there was a lot of love there for my parents and we did a lot of stuff and not even realizing back then it was free because as kids you don't pay for anything, right? But we went to zoos, we went to museums, we went to parks and all of that good stuff. And I mentioned all of that to say that no matter how your life starts, whatever position you're in, you can pull something from that and you can appreciate who you are today based on where you started. And my life has just been filled with a lot of love and accomplishments because of how I was reared as a child and my parents who didn't have much. Gave me something that's extremely important, which is love. And the other thing that they did, Dex, I'll tell you this is probably one of the secrets to my success, is they never put a box around me because of our circumstances. They never told me I couldn't do something because we didn't have enough money to do it, or they didn't tell me that I couldn't become anything in life that I wanted to become because of the circumstances. And that allowed me to not have limitations when I was young. And even to this day, there's nothing that I can't do if I put my mind to it. And that's where it comes from.

Dex: 5:17

You gotta start somewhere. And that is definitely it. You start in the mind, you gotta get that mindset right. I second that, I identify with everything that you said because growing up both my parents were in the military and we were like middle class. We weren't any better than anyone else. We my parents worked hard, they spent a lot of time with us. Again, tons of museums, tons of zoos, and going out to parks and things like that and those activities it's I'm just lending on to what you said, but it builds a lot of support and love comes in so many ways and support and emotional growth is a lot. And when you're starting with that you can build from there. So yeah,

Tony Kitchens: 6:01

Absolutely. Yeah. And I know that's not everybody's story, that there are people who had difficult childhoods and are people who had very easy childhoods we choose what we bring with us into our current lives. That's a choice that we make because we're adults at this point, and if we choose to focus on the things that didn't go well, then that's what we're going to have more of. And I just choose to look at it and say, my parents did the best that they could with what they had, and I just honor and appreciate them. They're not here anymore with me, but I honor and appreciate the fact that they did whatever they can do to push us further than they than the things that they achieved in life. And I'll never forget that.

Dex: 6:52

Yeah. Yeah. Now I'm feeling like a lot of guilt, and I gotta get my dad something more than a tie for a father's day. But so yeah, go ahead and expect at least a Starbucks gift certificate pop. But

Tony Kitchens: 7:12

Dex, you mentioned that you have three kids. And look at it this way, especially for your Is you are doing the best that you can do today. And what I mean by that is there's always room for improvement. However, your parenting skills, especially from your first child, you get that from how you were reared, how you were parented, right? And the way that you were talked to and the way that you were treated. And that's the only knowledge that you have about being a parent. And the second child is a little bit easier. Third child is a little bit easier. However, 15, 20 years or 30 years from now, your children are gonna look back and they say, and someone's going to ask them, how was your childhood? And they're gonna say, Wow. My dad did the best that he knew how to do at that point. But what you do today, here's the thing. What you do today will determine how they answer that question in 20 years. And if there's something in your life that you felt your parents didn't give you, whether they didn't have it to give you emotionally or they didn't know how to give it to you today, you have the opportunity to look at that and say,

Dex: 8:29

but.

Tony Kitchens: 8:29

make sure my kids got the attention that they needed and deserve today, because I didn't feel like I got that when I was a child. So even though we had that experience, you had those experiences as a child. Look who you are today, right? You're a husband with three kids and. That's an example that came from your parents and they did the best that they knew how to do with the tools that they had. And we have to honor them because one day they're not going to be here to help us along our journey as we continue to live. And we're going to wish just to have one more conversation with them. Hey dad I'm going through this right now with the kids. They're a little bit older. What would you do? And they're here and you have to really appreciate that today because one day they won't be here. So no matter what the past is, we have the choice and the opportunity to decide how we're going to move forward. So you have an amazing opportunity that your kids have grandparents today that they can learn from, and you can still learn how to be a better dad from them.

Dex: 9:43

Oh, there's zero question about that. I'm dreading the day that my parents move on because I probably call my mom once a week to get parenting advice or tell her about something crazy or silly that in one of the boys did. And it's I can never pull enough advice from them and just their level of patience versus I I'm, I look back at my childhood, I'm like, why did they not give me up for adoption? I'm not saying I was the worst kid, but just the level of just silliness. I'm Thanks mom and dad, I appreciate you, but I don't know if I. Had the same amount of patience. And so I guess I have to pass that on to my voice. Just be as patient as I can. Although I feel like headlock should be legal, but that's just my opinion. I want to get into the business of things. You started up a tech company at one point. You went from $0, as you say in your bio to a hundred million dollars in sales, which is a very I can't even fathom the level of effort and structure and consistency and talent and drive that it takes to get that far. You, you gotta tell us about that.

Tony Kitchens: 11:14

Yeah. And the thing is, I started that business when I was 21 years old

Dex: 11:19

Oh, see, now you're just showing off, man. You're just showing off, bro.

Tony Kitchens: 11:22

no . So here's the thing, Dex is when your back is against the wall you have nothing else to do, but to move forward. If you're laying down in life, you have nowhere else to go but up. And I was just at a point, I was in college down at Southern Illinois University in, in, in Illinois. And I loved business. The idea, yeah. In Carbondale. Absolutely.

Dex: 11:49

Okay. Sidebar. My sister is a track coach over there.

Tony Kitchens: 11:54

Oh my goodness. Yep. I was there. The Saluki Yep.

Dex: 12:00

Small world. Small world. Go ahead.

Tony Kitchens: 12:02

It's, yeah. And I was there and I was, I loved business from the time I was a young boy didn't know much about entrepreneurship, but my uncle was a business owner and he lived in Puerto Rico. And when he would come visit us, I would just sit there at the table. Again, here's going back to childhood. I would sit at the table and listen to him and my dad and my mom talk, and they weren't in business, but they, he would tell them these stories about how he would have to travel to Spain and different parts of the world to do business. And I was just fascinated with what his lifestyle was. And this is pre-internet, of course, and so you couldn't go online and research anything. But I, that, that's, that conversation, those conversations gave me this spark, this little burning flame inside of me. I want to know more about entrepreneurship. I wanna understand what that is. I wanna understand what business is. By the time I got to college, because I was in the Army Reserve and in the Army Guard National Guard as well. And when I got to college down at Cardale, I immediately started working in the computing affairs department, which was basically their help desk. And I'll tell you I felted miserably at college because I worked more than I actually went to class. And I was just stuck on learning everything I could about technology and business. And I would just, anybody who had a test, an exam or had to study and they couldn't work, I would gladly take their position. And what happened was after two and a half years, I left s I u, went back to Chicago, back to my parents' basement on south side of Chicago where I was born. And I started looking for internships because my mom said, Hey, Gotta do something. And I started looking for internships and she said, just volunteer. Find a good place and volunteer because that'll get you in the door. And that's what I did. And during that internship at a very small tech firm, I was, I had the opportunity to work on a project with ibm, right? And long story short, those guys saw a lot of potential in me. And I wind up getting hired by them at ibm. And while I was there, I started my business and I had no idea how successful it would be because when you are working on a goal, if your head is typically down and you're just really focused on the day-to-day, and there was a lot of studying involved all of my friends that I went to high school with and I grew up with, they were going out and partying and hanging out, and I couldn't do it. I could not do it because I was determined to make sure I started and grew this business and it was a lot of hard work decks, like you said, and the hard work, being, studying, reading everything that I could, cold calling, reaching out to people. Cause again, there was no internet as we know of today. We had yellow paste books if you just had to look up business names and lot of rejections. But I eventually got some clients and it grew and every dollar that I got from that business, I reinvested it. Reinvested it, and reinvested it. And it was, as I look back, Dex, the thing is very hard to imagine how far you can go. You have an idea, but work ethic is extremely important. Having a vision, a dream is extremely important and sacrifice is extremely important. So while my friends were out doing what they were doing, I I was isolated and it was a lonely time, but I was working towards something and I wasn't working to make a hundred million. That's a byproduct of time and effort and sacrifice. It's a very simple formula, right? If you want peaches and lemons to grow on trees, they have to be planted in a place where they're going to get good sunlight, good nutrition from the earth and get good water. And business is no different. It requires all of those things. And before we looked up I had hundreds of employees over a period of time and. We were cranking out a lot of services and solutions and it was just a very fast moving time. Though I think that's important for your audience to know when you're having any level of success, time moves so quickly, it moves so fast that if you can imagine driving out express for a hundred miles an hour, you can only focus on the road. Cause if you look to your left or to your right to enjoy the scenery, so to speak, you're gonna crash. You're gonna crash. So operating at that level takes an extreme amount of focus, extreme amount of discipline, and those aren't necessarily things that you or I or your listeners are born with. We, as we go through life, we're, there're going to come a time, there's going to come a time when we have to develop those skills out of necessity. And that's what we have to do. And once we develop those skills, they never go away. It's like riding a bike. You never lose 'em. You just practice 'em more and more every single day.

Dex: 17:57

That is it right there. That is it. I some takeaways in what you said, I, and this is something I try and reiterate to a lot of people, is focus less on the goal and more on the process and the consistency and the learning. And you did all that. You focused on consistency staying at it, going with it, doing your thing. Then you also focused on the learning aspect, just soaking it all in. Even with the rejections, you went ahead and just kept going and now you're sitting on what is going to eventually be the best business podcast. And I, and I look back and I, it's, I, it just hits home for me with with a lot of a lot of what I've been trying to push this narrative of. Just staying with it and working on the small things putting out the small fires not worrying about the goal. Worry about today, not tomorrow. Yeah.

Tony Kitchens: 19:06

And Dex this you hit on something's extremely important and I think that the audience really needs to hear this for me or anybody else who's had any level of success, whatever that looks like, being a parent. A successful spouse, successful employee, or successful business person. Here's the reality society, which we view through the lens of social media, right? Not to name all of the platforms, but we all know what platforms there are out there.

Dex: 19:38

Yeah,

Tony Kitchens: 19:39

Everything seems so easy. Everything seems it. It seems like everybody at the age of 2025 is going to have a huge house and flashy cars and they're flying private planes and things of that nature. But here's the reality here. Here's what I know for sure is I've had a lot of toys in my life, right? As a business owner, I was able and fortunate enough Through hard work, I was able to make enough money that I was able to purchase a couple of toys. And the thing that I would tell you is this is, you don't buy 'em for other people. You don't buy 'em for the attention that they may provide. It's something that you, it's something that when you were a child I had posters of cars on my wall as a kid and I was eventually able to buy those vehicles. So this was, these were things, these were goals and dreams that I had as a kid, right? And when you get the means, and you have the means to be able to now buy the things that you dreamed about, then that's what you do. But here's the thing, what we see on social media is so far from reality. The reality of success. And I remember there were times when I had a nice car in my garage. The name of the car doesn't really matter, but I just remember it was covered and it was you had to have it plugged in because those cars, they, the batteries drain real fast. But I just remembered Dex that I would literally, I was so focused on the work that I would forget that I even had the car and I would walk past it and wouldn't even think about it. And I would pull it out maybe once every month and just go for a drive when I actually remember I had it. And what I mean by that is, is you're not building a business for things. You're not reaching your goals and dreams to accumulate things. And so you're absolutely correct that it takes time to build a business. It takes time to be successful as a parent, and it requires a lot of work and sacrifice. Nothing easy out here.

Dex: 22:14

Yeah.

Tony Kitchens: 22:15

unfortunately, that's what a lot of us see on social media every single day is we see 25, 30 year old people with a $5 million mansion. That is so far from reality,

Dex: 22:29

Yeah.

Tony Kitchens: 22:30

so far from reality. It takes hard work. It is difficult. It's an extremely lonely trail to be on as an entrepreneur. And what I mean by that is, is you have the responsibility to make payroll on the 15th and 30th of every month. When a, an employee comes to the office and everybody is clapping and cheering for them, and, okay, what's happening? Oh, my wife is pregnant. You're excited for them. But then there's also this realization that now there's another person in this world that you're ultimately responsible for. Because if you don't do what you have to do as a business owner, that employee won't get their paycheck. And if they don't get their paycheck, how are they going to take care of their kids? How are they going to make their mortgage and rent payments? And there's a responsibility that comes with being a business owner, and there are days you don't want to get out of bed. There are days that you can't go to sleep at night. There are days you wake up at two o'clock, three o'clock in the morning trying to figure out how to collect the receivables that you're owed as a company because you have to make payroll in the next day or two. It's lonely because most people don't understand or have not been in that position, and they may look at a toy that you have and say, oh, life must be good for you. But what they don't see is that it's a 24 hour a day job, and it's very difficult. And it's one of those things you have to love what you do, otherwise you're going to give up, you're going to quit. And I think one of the takeaways for the audience today is understand that wherever you are in life today, you may be dealing with difficulties and you may look at your current situation and say, why is it that someone younger than I am is more successful than me from what I see on Instagram? Why is that? What am I doing wrong? Why aren't I on vacation?

Dex: 24:38

it's not even, it's, that illusion is so crazy to me because so many people don't understand that. It really is just an illusion. You look at it on your phone, this small screen, you're getting a small purview of really what's going on. So many of those people, they either rent some of those vehicles or they rent those mansions. Or it was given to them. They've had some sort of backing either through their parents or some other means. It's never, all I did was work hard. It's never, all I did was work hard for a lot of them.

Tony Kitchens: 25:12

yeah.

Dex: 25:13

yeah,

Tony Kitchens: 25:13

Yeah.

Dex: 25:15

it's it's so funny that you mentioned that and I I just wanted to put my perspective on what you said. It's not a 24 hour job, it's a 24 hour life because you're literally living a whole new lifestyle, a whole new, you're now dedicating your life towards not just building your business, but building you because. Just like when you were in college you, the, you learn less about what it is that they're teaching you in college and more about yourself. And what you learned about yourself is the books you wanted to read, the things you were into, and you ended up taking that knowledge and building yourself up around that instead of focusing on the degree, which is great. Degrees are cool and it's a great way to measure how much you've learned and who you are. And it certifies that you've accomplished something, but it's not the end all be all. And I think with the days of the internet with this information age that we're in, a lot of people are they're second guessing going to college. They're even the ones who did go to college. I know of maybe three people out of 700 that I went to film school with that are actually working in film. It's that's just off the top of my head. I know there might be more, but so many of them just, they've gone onto different things and it's fine to go onto those different things. But in college, the one thing that I learned most about was myself. I learned what I liked and who I was and what I needed to do to better discipline myself. And I hope a lot of other people take that advice and go with that, that learn about yourself. Because no matter where you go, there you are. But

Tony Kitchens: 27:03

Absolutely.

Dex: 27:04

I I wanted to kind of change gears a little bit. You, so you had the technology company, and now you do business consulting, business coaching. Is this.

Tony Kitchens: 27:18

Yeah. So in 2019 I had to close the company and for full sake of disclosure, it wasn't by it was ultimately my choice, but we were just faced with the situation where we could not continue to operate. Political and business landscape changed so much that year, very quickly that I had to stop the bleeding, so I had to close the company down. It was a very difficult time emotionally for me, emotionally and financially. And I have, I recovered from that. The, I'm not sure at this particular point because it's one of those things where in life when things occur, Sometimes all you can do is just move forward and know that you're taking steps to move forward, but you haven't healed from those. So have I healed from that? I'm not sure, to be honest with you. It, but that was a very traumatic time for me and moving past there. I had, that was right before Covid and Covid was really a, an opportunity for me, although it was a tragic time for a lot of people who lost loved ones, but it was an opportunity for me for the first time to sit in silence and not be able to do anything right? Like all of us, we were on lockdown.

Dex: 28:44

Yeah.

Tony Kitchens: 28:45

during that time I was, I would wake up in the morning. I didn't have my company anymore, but I was still in this. Fog of that, and then you couldn't go anywhere. So I just sat out back behind my house, sat out, and I had time to think and really reflect on life and what life meant to me and all of the things I had done over the years and what brought me joy. And the one thing that came to mind Dex was I now have an opportunity to decide what I want to do moving forward. Even if I didn't have the blueprint to do it, I had the opportunity now, because when you go through challenging times in life, it slows down to a grinding halt and things get quiet. Unlike when things are going well, they move extremely fast. So now life was slow, life was quiet, and I had to figure out and really deep dig, dig deep inside and ask myself, what is it that makes me smile? What is it that really gives me some type of fulfillment? I thought about it and I just went back immediately to all times people asked me for advice and guidance over the years, for whatever reason, from a business standpoint, personal standpoint. And I didn't have the opportunity because I was so busy to really go down that road. But I would as best I could, and I just want to take this point of my life, take what I learned over all of these. Years at this particular point as an entrepreneur and share that information and share that with people who are looking to better their lives or better their businesses. And I do life and business strategy sessions. As a matter of fact, I had one yesterday and it was about a five hour session and we literally just beat the whiteboard up talking about the goals and objectives and things that this wanted to do. And I remember after the session was over, I called my wife and I said, I absolutely love this. I love it. And here's the reason why Dex is because the first part of our lives as humans, we spend it learning, just like you said, in college or people who haven't gone to college. But we spend the first half of our lives learning about. Life and jobs and businesses and things that we want to do. And then there's a certain point that we hit. I'm 51, there's a, which I'm still very young, but there's a certain that we decide that we want to teach. Maybe if you're a wisdom, right? And I'm at that point in my life, everything I've learned and I wanna share it with people. And I do that in a few different ways. I do public speaking, which I love to do probably more than any one-on-one with people and companies to come up with strategies that they want and they, to move forward from where they are in life, to the life that they want to live. And strategies for business owners and entrepreneurs and companies. Who are at a certain place today and trying to get to a different place, and I'll tell you professionally, it's more satisfying than when I was making a million and half dollars a month for my tech company,

Dex: 32:48

Yeah.

Tony Kitchens: 32:48

you can imagine that. Because at a certain point, just a process and at a certain point, yeah, you're so far removed from the feeling people get when you deliver that service because it's all mechanical at that point, so to speak, that when I can look in people's faces from a stage or in a conference room today and we're having a session or a Zoom call and see the immediate reaction and see the immediate breakthroughs that people have, it's much more rewarding than receiving those deposits in a bank account. It's way more rewarding.

Dex: 33:25

I don't doubt that I would have to get to the point of making a million dollars a month before I could fully embrace what you're saying. Until then I, I'm gonna lean towards the deposits for right now, but I will definitely keep that one in my back pocket for when I do make a million dollars a month. How's that?

Tony Kitchens: 33:45

Yeah, and you

Dex: 33:46

I no. I I just, but it's that personal satisfaction is a lot of it. And we've we, especially as Westerners, we measure it in so many different ways and yeah. When you do something like having to change course in life yeah make you self-reflective. It sounds, actually, and I want you to address this, it sounds like you were forced into this meditation, self-reflective period of your life, and then once you got out of that you were reinvigorated. Correct. That, correct me if I'm wrong on that.

Tony Kitchens: 34:23

Yeah. Here's the thing and I'll expand on this notion, this idea that when things are going well, it moves really quickly. And when you talked about the gift of pain, part of my book when I sat there, this was during Covid as well. When I sat there, one of the things that I did was I said I need to sit down and just kinda write. And I, I didn't have the intention at that point to write a book, but I had time and I put out a laptop deck and I just sit there and started typing. And I didn't want to type. And I didn't want to focus on the things that I had accomplished because again, those are just measuring sticks. I wanted to look at the situations in life that I was

Dex: 35:13

I'm

Tony Kitchens: 35:14

that point,

Dex: 35:14

you were

Tony Kitchens: 35:15

and I just wanted to, yeah, what I was saying was,

Dex: 35:20

Okay.

Tony Kitchens: 35:21

No.

Dex: 35:21

Okay. Go ahead. I'm sorry.

Tony Kitchens: 35:24

Okay, no problem. And during this time, I sat down with a laptop and I just wanted to look back at all of the difficult times that I experienced and how I got through those. Because in the moment I was trying to get through a difficult time and I just started kinda writing them out and it turned into a book. But the reflective part came in when I had to look back and see what tools I had accumulated over the years, what skills I'd accumulated over the years, the other difficult times that I'd experienced over the years, and what did I, what could I pull from the past to use today in that moment to deal with that very difficult time. And again, this notion that life is slow when you're dealing with challenges, it is, you have the time to reflect. And what happened was, I thought about the other most difficult times when my mom passed and I actually held her hand when, as she passed from cancer when my dad passed. And life was moving so fast during those times because I had payroll to meet. I had huge responsibilities and I couldn't mourn, I couldn't grieve. And this was the first time that I recognized. That I couldn't grieve my, the loss of my dad, which was back in 2006, my mom's passing in 2015, going through Hurricane Maria. When we lived in Puerto Rico in 2017, our house was devastated. The eye of the storm literally went over our home and the same storm to 4,000 people died in, and all of those things, Dex, those were very traumatic, but in the moment, I had to keep moving forward because I had so many responsibilities. You don't have time to sit there and reflect on this stuff, but now here it is. During Covid, my company was closed down, the world was shut down. All of it just came rushing forward. And it wasn't that I was trying to suppress any of those things, but I now had to have, I now had the time for my mind to visit those things and to realize that I had not mourned any. Any amount of time because my responsibility was as was to my business and to provide for my family, and everybody was associated with my company. And it was reflective out of necessity. It was a time in life where I had no choice but to sit still. And here's the thing. I wouldn't change it for the world. I would not change that period of time for the world. I wouldn't change the fact that the company had to close everything I had to go through related to that legal challenges and the financial challenges. I don't have any regrets because if it wasn't for that, you and I wouldn't be talking today. And if it wasn't for that, somebody in your audience wouldn't be able to relate to the story that you and I are sharing today, which is when times get extremely difficult. This is how you get through it. You realize that pain is temporarily, that fear is usually something that is built up in your head that's presenting what the future is going to look like, and it's presenting it in the worst possible manner. And 99% of the time, those fears never become reality. And I can attest to that because when I have to close my company, I can't tell you the level of, not just fear, but the level of, I can't describe how your mind works and presents these, this apocalyptic visions of what life is going to be like.

Dex: 39:30

Anxiety.

Tony Kitchens: 39:30

it was a little difficult. Yeah, it was difficult, but it was nothing like the visions that come into your head. So for the listeners today, for your audience today, I think the lesson from that is, is don't let the fear overcome you, overtake you. It's going to come to your head. It's going to come and try to make a home there, but don't allow it to stay. Don't allow it to stay and anything that you're going through, a difficult time, which we all go through, most of it is by no fault of our own. But some of it is, some of it's, we created situations that, that present difficulties. But here's the thing, they don't last forever. And you gotta remember, there's going to be a, an other side to that when that time is over. And when that time is over and you get through that difficult situation, you are going to be a different person that you than you were before it started. And during that tough time, during those tough times, you have to work on yourself. You have to dig into yourself. You have to learn more about yourself. You have to study more and read and be more reflective because as soon as that tough time is over, whether it's a week, a month, or a year, the world has continued to move during that time and you should have been doing some work on yourself so that when those difficult times are over, you'll be in a position where you can run for it instead of walking forward. So when Covid was over, I had a book, I had a new business started. I was doing the things that I wanted to do and loved to do, but it was because I put the work in when the whole role was in this very difficult time for the time to be over, to start doing the work. We had to work. So I was taking. I joined Toastmasters, international Covid. I was delivering speeches via Zoom with Covid when Covid was happening. I wrote a book, all of that, while the whole world was shut down because I knew one day was going to be over. I knew that pain was gonna be over one day, and what was I going to have to show for it at that point? And that's what all of us have to do. That's what the listeners have to do, is understand that you get through difficult times and they come to all of us. All of us. They reign on the just, we can't. But it's what you do on that. It's who you and what character you developed during difficult times that's going to make you a winner, a success, a better person.

Dex: 42:37

I concur, . That is . That is powerful, man. That is some powerful stuff right there. It's, it lends into people need to hear this, man. People need support. They need inspiration, they need a lot, and they go to different places for these things. And just for those people that are looking for that type of support, and this is something I've never completely understood. So I'm glad I when I sent you those questions, I'm glad I came up with this one. What are the differences between a business consultant, a business coach, a preacher, and a life coach?

Tony Kitchens: 43:17

Excellent question. And here's the thing. A coach, a real coach, a certified coach, will never, ever tell you what to do. They don't tell you what to do. It's different than you see an NFL or NBA where coach, what to do this and do that. A life or business coach will never tend to do because a coach is trained. I've gone through training certified courses and your job is to ask questions and not just canned questions, not these generic questions, but it's a conversation with the audience. It's a conversation with that person or that group, and you're asking questions and you're responding as well to the answers that person is providing and what you're really doing. The magic of coaching, the beauty of it is that person who's sitting on the other side of that chair, the other side of that seat, who's being coached. They are forced to think about the questions that you're asking, and they come up with the responses and the action plan that's going to take them to get where they're trying to go. So a real certified coach is going to help you bring out the action actions and the ideas about what you already have and what you already know. So that's what a coach does. A mentor or a consultant is a person who comes in and talks to an individual, to a group of people and they provide street strategic direction. They give direction. A mentor is saying, Hey, I've been to this place that you're trying to get to. I've been on the path that you are on, that you are on today. and I've driven from Florida to Seattle. And let me tell you this, stay on this road. Stay at these hotels along the journey. There's a speed trap over here when you get to Colorado and when you get to Seattle, make sure you take a coat because it's always cold there, right? So a mentor is a person who's been where you're trying to go, and what they do is they guide you along your journey. They give you strategic direction and tell you what to do. As far as a preacher's concerned, a preacher I'll tell you this, preachers teachers are people who have studied a lot and typically have studied other people who have done, and a lot of it is theory, and they're there for. Particular purpose. And they're there for particular groups of people. And what I mean by that is that there are people in the world who get a lot of information from teachers, and I get a lot of information from preachers. In my particular case, I've always gravitated toward the people who have actually done, as opposed to the people who have read about somebody doing, get me to the person who has failed and got back up. And I will spend all of my time with them because they're going to tell me face-to-face the realities of what it feels like. That sting when you fall and that high when you get back up. And so I've always tried to go to the source. I've gravitated in my life to reading biographies and autobiographies. I want to know what these people are thinking. Along their journey to success. I want to know how these people overcame incredible odds to achieve their goals and their dreams, and I gravitate toward that group of people. So between a coach, a pastor, a teacher, a mentor in my life, I've leaned more toward the mentors than any of them. And even to this day, Dex, I have mentors and I continually seek out mentors. I want to be around the people who have traveled the road that I'm on today. I want to be around exceptional fathers so that I can become even an even better father, even though my son is 19 years old, right? want to be in a, in around the best speakers in the world because they've gone and have been where I'm looking to go. I'm looking for the practical experience that people have had and I want to be in their presence to soak up and learn anything that I can learn.

Dex: 48:20

That is it right there, man. Yeah. I just it goes back to your childhood, that mentality of drive, of learning, of being there, consistency I'm just seeing these themes over and over again. It's And it's funny cuz for the longest time I thought a business coach was just a mentor that got paid , but Now you have clients now and, but what kind of clients do you have? Are you just dealing with sea level? executives or are you dealing with mom and pop rib shacks or somewhere in between? Who needs your services the most?

Tony Kitchens: 49:06

It's a combination of individuals. Let's take the profile of an individual. Let's say it's a person who's looking to go into business. They have an idea, they want to go into business, and they just don't know where to start. So I do consulting with people along those lines, which is really coming up with the strategy. But the important thing is it's not the strategy to open a grocery store. It's not about opening a particular type of business. It's about the mindset and it's about going through everything it takes to be an entrepreneur. and we go through that session and we go through multiple sessions. So that's a profile of an individual or it's an individual who has a desire to move beyond their current circumstances today. And for example, that could be someone who's in their forties or fifties and they're transitioning from what they used to do. And now life is a lot different. And they're trying to figure out what the rest of their life looks like the second half of their life. And I've been there and we can come up with strategies to deal with that because that's a very difficult time for people going from what you used to know to something you don't know. So those are typically the profiles of individuals. With corporations, it's not much different except the corporations are typically aligned with business goals. Meaning that it's a strategy moving from maybe one location and now you want to have two or three locations, or maybe it's scaling. Maybe you're doing a million dollars a year and you growth to $5 million a year, or you're $200,000 a year revenue and you wanna get to a million. It's the processes and the procedures. It's what does that take from you as an individual? What sacrifices do you have to make today that you weren't willing to make yesterday? So I work with individuals and businesses, entrepreneurs that fit into those categories.

Dex: 51:21

That is awesome. That is it's, I'm gonna ask you a little later about how you do that exactly. But I wanted to address something before I forget about it. Toastmasters, because you speak incredibly well, and I got this feeling that you were doing that even before Toastmasters. Tell me about how you got into that and why.

Tony Kitchens: 51:44

Absolutely. Toastmaster is an amazing organization. I'm still a member today. And the reason I got into it was because like anything in life there, there is a formal way to learn how to do something. And there's an informal way, right? took golf lessons years ago. The mistake that I made was I took golf lessons maybe a year after I started golfing and I had all of these bad habits, , right? And when I took the lessons, I realized, oh my goodness, I should have did this first, right? But look, that we're guys, we're entrepreneurs. We don't read instructions on manuals. We just put the cribs. Hopefully the baby doesn't fall through the bottom of it. And that's how we go through life. But with Toastmasters, I knew there was a formal way of speaking and I wanted to really understand what that was. I think one of the best things with Toastmasters for me was every time he had a meeting, which was every other week for our particular club, I was able to write a speech and deliver a speech a three to five minute speech, or a five to seven minute speech, then sometimes a 15 to 30 minute speech. And that process, that practice, that hard work and delivering that speech, that's what I was looking for. And I learned so much because you get gr, you get graded and evaluated by your peers. I think probably one of the biggest things I learned from Toastmasters is how to avoid crutches. For example, most people today use the word, so they use ah, And those are all crutch words and I try to not use those words because what that does is when you're using those words, especially from a speaking standpoint, that typically means that you have a blank in your mind and you're trying to fill it. And the only way you fill it with is with this sound, which is typically and it's your mind trying to process something, but your body is filling that void with the sound, if that makes sense. So if you ask me a tough question, I can, what I have the ability to do today is just pause, sit in, silence for a second, let my mind process what my response is going to be, and then open my mouth to say it. And what you recognize. One of the things the Toastmasters was again, that same thing. If you ask me a tough question, your mind will. Pause and try to think about what it is that you want, what you, how you wanna reply. But at the same time, your body instinctively makes a sound. Because silence is uncomfortable for people. But Toastmasters was a really good, it came at a good point in my life. I still enjoy Toastmasters and it doesn't teach you everything, but it allows you to practice consistently giving speeches in front of a crowd.

Dex: 54:51

And now I know why I was nervous about doing this interview because I know how often I say I edit these so I know exactly how guilty I am of this and yeah, I that's the beauty of it. I can get away with editing, but yes I can have a stutter. when I don't want to have a stutter. So there's that

Tony Kitchens: 55:20

Yep.

Dex: 55:20

in in your consulting, you do a webinar series live with a lot of people, which is great. That's a great way to reach people and the efficiency of it all. Therapists are doing that now through Zoom and various other meetings meeting platforms. Tell me about that series and how you help people. Walk me through that process.

Tony Kitchens: 55:47

Yeah, it's a great question and here it is there are two ways, two, two ways that I help people. One is by providing free content, and I do that through YouTube channel, just talking about various topics, short videos. I do that through a webinar series, which can be found on my website. And then there are paid ways that I help people where I'm compensated, which is going to be the life and business consulting or strategy sessions and speaking. And what I find is there's a, there's something, I wanna provide something for everyone who's looking for assistance, who's looking for a little bit of guidance. And again, it's through the webinars, which are free about particular subjects, the content on YouTube, which is free, so they can get a taste of that. But the webinar allows you to present it in a way where it's visual and oral. And the responses I've gotten so far from the people who've attended the webinar has been exceptional. And that's not a, an accolade for me. What that means is all of the things that I've learned in life and now I'm sharing with people, it proves that they have also had similar challenges in life and they can relate to the content. And that is very satisfying for me. It's very satisfying to know that the things that I've gone through in life and I'm sharing with people now, that it's providing some help for them. It's providing some security knowing that they're not dealing with it by themselves. And that's a great thing. So I'm going to continue to do the free webinars and they're there live on my site. And I have another one that's going come out in the next couple of weeks. And that one is entitled the premise of that one is that you've achieved every goal that you want to achieve in life. When will you be happy? And that's a very interesting topic for a lot of us. But it's given that free content to people, and I love doing.

Dex: 58:02

I I really want gather back to your book and I feel like you've of answered some of these questions along the way, and if you feel like you've answered them, just skip over it. But one thing that really hit me, and this is going to hit a lot of other people because I shared it with a few people and they were just like, yeah. From your book, the Gift of Pain you, I'm gonna quote your book real quick. you wrote, we shy away from risk and gravitate towards the stability of working for others and enjoying life through the glamorous photos and captions. Others post on social media. Now, you've addressed the social media aspect of this, but talk about how we as people, we gravitate towards that safety and stability of working for other people and why maybe we should get away from.

Tony Kitchens: 58:59

One of the most terrifying things that I can tell you from being on the other side as an entrepreneur about my previous life when I was working for someone is that when you're an entrepreneur, making payroll is one of the scariest times in business. And the people who feel secure because they get a check every two weeks, if they really knew what it took for them to get paid, they probably would have some very upset stomachs. Very often. And this is something that through my years of business, I've become friends with a lot of CEOs and entrepreneurs. Just running into 'em over time and connecting with 'em purpose, on purpose and just trying to be in that circle of other people who understood what I was dealing with and that I can learn from. And there's no certainty in making payroll every two weeks, but when you're an employee and you work at the local store, you work at a local business, a small owned business, you plan on your paychecks, or I'll get paid on the 15th, and then on the 30th I'll make the car payment. And then next month on the 15th, I'll have enough money to do X, Y, Z. And when you're that business owner, that small business, or even a medium sized businesses, what you know that the employees don't know is that your company may be owed money. By clients, right? Meaning like in our case some of our clients were government agencies and they didn't always pay in 30 days for whatever reason. They may take 90 days, 120 days to pay. So while we're waiting on that money to come in, it's a race to the clock. It's is that money going to come in before it's time for us to make payroll? And it's a scary thing because the money is there, the revenue is there, the income is there, but it's always a matter of time. And one of the things that I learned with being an entrepreneur is at the least, at the very least, you see what's happening behind the scenes so that you can hopefully prevent anything bad from happening. So as an entrepreneur, we're the ones scrambling, trying to make sure that payroll is paid every couple of weeks. As an employee, you're just assuming that you're going to get paid every two weeks. What did we learn from Covid? All of us, all of the people listening to your podcast, what do we learn that restaurants have on average 14 days of reserves. Meaning that if a customer or a customer stop coming in today, within 14 days, that restaurant will run out of money. And I'm not talking about the local taco shop down the street. I'm talking about big chains that we saw, right? What do we learn about major corporations? They ran out of money in 30 days, 45 days. I think the other important piece in entrepreneurship, not just from the, what I wrote about in the book is that what all of us saw during Covid was that it doesn't matter how much money these corporations make. Most businesses, small and large, don't just have millions and millions of dollars just sitting in a bank account waiting to pay bills. That's not a reality. That's just not a reality. Over all the years of making money, it's cyclical. It's certain times of the year, your company makes a lot of money, and you can put that money in the bank, but then there are times when customers are paying slow and now that reserve that you had built up, dwindles down until it could be rebuilt again, and hopefully when it's dwindled down, you're waiting on receivables to come in. You don't have these major expenses or major surprises or emergency that come up. one of the things that we learned about Covid, and that's one of the things as an entrepreneur that I would much rather be on the end where I can go out and make a change today. To figure out a way to make more money than being the person that works at a company who assumes that they're going to get a paycheck every couple of weeks and they can't affect change of what's happening within that business to guarantee they're going to get a paycheck. And that's a scary thing. It's a very scary thing, right? It's almost like driving on expressway and all of your windows are painted black and only the driver can see, but you're sitting in the back seat, you know the car is moving, you're just hoping that you're on the road. That's an employee. The driver is the entrepreneur who sees the road. They see the hazards coming, and they're trying everything they can to do to prevent running into these hazards. And I would prefer in my life to be in that driver's seat because I want to see what's coming. I don't want to be in the backseat with black windows that I can't see out of hoping that the driver is going to avoid those pitfalls. I want to be the one that's responsible for avoiding these pitfalls and getting off at the right exits. I think between entrepreneur, entrepreneurship and being an employee, that's probably the easiest way to describe it, is knowing what's coming and being able to make a change or being on the other end of that, which is just waiting for things to happen, and I would prefer to take charge of my life and my responsibilities.

Dex: 1:05:14

That is it right there, man. That is it. I know somebody in the back wasn't listening. I know they weren't listening. So instead of having this man repeat, I'm gonna make y'all buy his book. All right. The Gift of Pain by Mr. Tony Kitchens. You guys really need to read this thing. It's, it is a breakthrough moment. It is something that you need to read. It's something that you. And if you can read, you can always go to his webinars because he's dropping knowledge on you. He's definitely dropping some knowledge on you. If people had just one takeaway they weren't listening to this entire hour, they weren't completely paying attention, sum it up for them all please.

Tony Kitchens: 1:06:01

Absolutely. Thank you for that Dex. The thing that I would say is we are all responsible for the life that we want to live, and one of the most important things is. That I've learned and continue to learn today, and I think everybody can relate to this, is we have dreams and we have goals. We had 'em since we were kids and some of 'em we've established a little bit later in life and we know that feeling we have. When we think about that goal, that dream, it's a great feeling and we can see it, we can visualize it. Oh man, I can't wait to go on that vacation. I can't wait to meet the person of my dreams. I can't wait to start that business and buy the house that I want or drive the vehicle that I want. We can see those goals and dreams, but what happens is then we look online at our bank accounts and we don't see how we're going to get those things, how we're going to do those things. Because of our circumstance today. We look at our surroundings and say, I live in an average neighborhood. Who am I to think that I'm going to be able to. Go start a business and make a hundred thousand dollars a month, who am I to think that's even possible? And that's what typically happens in life is we, look, we have dreams, but the next thing we do is we look at our circumstances today and we can't see how to get from point A to point B or F or G, let alone to get to point B because we just don't see the path. Here's the thing that I know for sure though, is I don't know. I didn't know how I was going to get to a hundred million in revenue over those years, and to be honest with you, it wasn't even a goal. I just wanted to be the best tech company that, that I could be, that I could have. I just wanted to do this. I just wanted to be that entrepreneur. And I didn't know what path it was going to take to get to that place. The one thing that I know about success decks is that you have to be willing and open to having a different vehicle to get to the destination that you're trying to get to. And what do I mean by that? That means that your current job that you have today may not be the job that you're going to have that's going to get you to be able to go on that vacation that you want to go on. It may not be the job that's going, that is going to propel you to entrepreneurship. But if we're so stuck on that one job and the limitations around it, then we won't achieve our goals. If I had to get from Georgia to Chicago and I got on the road on a road trip, My vehicle broke down. Do I cancel my trip altogether? No. I go rent another car. If no rental cars are available, I'll catch a bus. If the buses aren't available, I'll catch a flight. You see the pattern? We focus when we focus on the vehicle as opposed to the destination. Then we say, oh, my vehicle broke down. I'm not going to make this trip. Your goal was not to drive. Your goal was to get to that destination. A lot of what we do is, again, we focus on that vehicle. My current job won't allow me to do A, B, C. I wanna start a business. I don't have enough money in the bank today. Your goal is not the bank. Today. Your goal is to start a business. There are thousand ways that you can start a business without basing on what you have in the bank today. So the lesson for the audience today, the lesson that I continue to learn is focus on the goal. Understand that the vehicle to get you from here to that point is probably going to be much different than what you have today. The vehicle you have today, it's probably going to be much different. But if you're so stuck on this, it has to be this way, then you're probably never going to get to your goal. In my case today, for example, the things that I'm working on today, I know that I'm going to touch a lot of people in life because that's my goal with the stories that I'm sharing with people and things of that nature. But if I'm stuck to say I'm only going to deliver a speeches through a Toastmasters platform, I'm limiting my ability to reach my goal, right? Because what happens when. That doesn't work. Do I just give up on that dream? No, because that's just one vehicle. That's all it is, and that's what we have to do in life. That's what your audience has to take away is whatever your circumstances are today, they're there. They're, you are in ELs. Those circumstances for a reason, not necessarily because of your doing, but maybe. So what you have to realize is you are where you are today, but you can change that for tomorrow. The key is to revisit your goals, revisit your dreams. Don't let those things die because they'll haunt you forever. You'll always wonder, what if why? What would've happened if I would've tried, and I don't look at my circumstances today to determine where I want to go. My circumstances are what they are today. Every day that you wake up, Dex is another opportunity for you to take three or five steps toward your goals today. At the beginning of the day, what could I do today? Three steps toward being a better father. Three steps toward learning about how to start a business, three steps of how to be better on the job that I'm at today, right? Three steps to figure out how to get in better shape physically. Let me just go take a walk for 30 minutes. I don't have time. It's 24 hours in a day. Do it after work. Do it before work. Do it during your lunch break. There's no excuse, but don't let your current situation or circumstance prevent you from dreaming and having goals. That's the nature of the book, the gift of. Which is I've taken all of these difficult times in my life and achieved a tremendous amount of success in spite of those things in pain. The reason why was a gift. It's one of the cleanest burning fuels that you'll ever have as an individual. It's pain and all of those difficult times that your audience members have faced who are facing today. Here's the thing that I promise you, I absolutely promise you, is one day you're gonna look at, you're gonna look back at today, you're gonna look back at those situations and you're going to notice that you changed. You're gonna notice that you're tougher. You're gonna notice that you've learned more because of that situation. You wanna learn that you were able to love people more because you were hurt, and that's a gift. You may not see that gift today while you're in that pain, but if you're able to get past it, which you are able to, At one point, you're gonna look back and say, that was a blessing, that was a gift. Some of my greatest gifts came from the difficult times. Again when my mom had cancer and she passed away, I was there. I held her hand. And Dex, think about this. What greatest gift, what? What greatest gift could I have given in that moment? This was the person who gave me life. I came through her. She was the first person to see me, first person to touch me, to hold my hand, and I was able to give her a gift at the end of her life to hold her hand as she made her transition. As tough as that is, and most people probably will never go through that was one of the greatest gifts of my life. To return that one favor to my mom, that's a gift. It's difficult, but it's a gift. And to see that transition I don't have fear of death because of that, right? Me losing my business, me having to shut my company down was one of the greatest gifts that I've ever received from that standpoint. Why? Because I probably would've not made it out alive over a number of years because the number of people that I've known that just literally died of heart attack at their desk they worked so much because of the stress, and I was able to, in the midst of a train wreck, which was me at the end of the life of my business, I survived that train wreck. I was able to walk away with it without any of the possessions that I took along on that train. I was able to walk away from that train wreck. And here we are today, Dex you and I talking about life and sharing this story with our audience. That's a gift. It's a gift for me and anybody who's listening and who says, you know what? Wow, my circumstances aren't that bad. Wow, you mean to tell me that somebody else can make it through all of that. And here I am Dex 110 million in revenue that I've made over the years before the age of 50 before the age of 49, being able to buy anything I wanted to buy, traveled the world, literally been all over the world. But here's the thing, I can tell you, I would not go back to that life that it took to get to that place because of the sacrifices that I had to make to get there. I don't have regrets because I've become such a great person, a better version of myself today because of those experiences. But here's the thing. I'm sitting here a as a person who. Most people will look at it, say, wow, that's a great success. I don't know that I can ever accomplish that level of success. And here's the thing about us Dex. I'm just an average guy. I'm a 51 year old guy, lives in Georgia, and I love my pickup truck. I love to go shooting, right? I'm just an average guy. And I go to Public's grocery store and I go shopping and I make dinner for my wife and son,

Dex: 1:17:15

I

Tony Kitchens: 1:17:16

I absolutely love it.

Dex: 1:17:17

I make

Tony Kitchens: 1:17:17

So what makes us different? What makes us difference? I made a lot of money in my life. There is no magic. When you make a lot of money, there is no magic. You don't become this mythical creature that doesn't make go get groceries. You still use the washroom every day like everybody else does, right? You still have to stop at red lights. You still have to pay bills when they come in. You still have to serve on jury duty. You don't become this mythical thing that you see on social media where you just now don't have to deal with any of the realities of life. It's not true. It's totally false. So with the audience, your audience is no different than me. No different. What's no difference whatsoever? The thing that I would say is if they have a dream and they have a goal, work toward those dreams and those goals don't allow fear to stop. You don't allow what other people may think to stop you. Go take three steps every single day toward those goals. That's it. If you wanna become a better father, Dex, call your father up.

Dex: 1:18:29

Yeah.

Tony Kitchens: 1:18:30

Cause he's going to give you a blueprint. That's success. That's success. That's what this life is about. It's about us sharing with other human beings, how we are able to navigate through life so that it makes their life a little bit easier. And that's all we're doing today. That's it. It's very simple.

Dex: 1:18:50

I do have one regret though. , I, I regret not having the ability to ask you all the questions that I know my audience wants me to ask. So I'm gonna have to leave it up to them. How do they get ahold of you? Talk about you've mentioned your webinar series. Tell us your website socials, give us all your info.

Tony Kitchens: 1:19:15

Yeah, absolutely. The best way to reach me is through my website, tony our kitchens.com, tony r kitchens.com. And from there, my social links are at the bottom, the footer of the page, and I am open to calls. do answer my phone, right? And I do respond to emails. I do respond to text messages. I'm a human being just like all of us. And if there's some out there who's looking to change their life or to start out in business or to grow their businesses, I'm willing to share what I know in free platforms and in investments that people can make in themselves. I'm always available.

Dex: 1:19:58

And I will have all the information in the show notes as always. I, man, I am so blown away by this conversation that we've had today. I I've been very fortunate in the fact that each one of these episodes is getting better and better and better. And right now you are currently the best episode I've had, and

Tony Kitchens: 1:20:22

thank you.

Dex: 1:20:23

I can't thank you enough, man. I cannot thank you enough. So everybody out there get the book. It's The Gift of Pain by Mr. Tony, our kitchens. He is, I will have a link again in the show notes. This is, this has been incredibly enlightening. I just want to also mention to everyone out there. If you go to in the black podcast.com check out some of the other episodes. The best way to support the show is to share it with a friend. There's also a link for Buy Me a Coffee, check out our sponsors. Again, visit the show notes, share with a friend follow, subscribe, and review the show. If what I'm doing, let me know. If you don't like what I'm doing, let me know. I want to, I wanna be able to answer all the questions that you guys are looking for. And so for my guest, Tony Kitchens, I am Dex. This is in The Black. And please check us out on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcast, and don't forget to share it with a friend. Tony, thanks again.

Tony Kitchens: 1:21:27

Thank you, Dexon. Good luck to all of your listeners. I hope that you all have the best year you've ever had this year.

Dex: 1:21:33

That's awesome. You guys have a great day.