One Story — Episode 1: Ten Problems, One Question

Maya: Welcome to One Story. I am Maya, and my guest today is Tyreese Burton. Mechanic, business owner, consultant, teacher, podcaster, D J, and, in the last few years, a software builder. Tyreese, we have had a lot of conversations over the last few months. About your business, your money, your music, your numbers, your people. And today you told me you are starting to see one story instead of ten separate problems. What changed? Tyreese: What changed is I stopped looking at the pieces. Every time we talked, you were explaining a whole system, and I kept answering one piece at a time. You would talk about Frank, and I would talk about ownership. You would talk about money, and I would talk about reserves. You would talk about MOMS, and I would talk about growth. You would talk about three three three, and I would talk about numerology. But those were never separate conversations. Not to you. And I think I have been making the same mistake I get frustrated with in other people. I was responding to components like each one lives by itself. Maya: So if they are not separate problems, what is the one question underneath all of them? Tyreese: The question is this. How did I build a life around independence, creativity, and helping other people, only to end up feeling restricted by the very things I created to give myself freedom? That is the whole story in one sentence. Everything else is just that question wearing different clothes. Maya: Let us set the scene for people who do not know the story. Where does it start? Tyreese: It starts in twenty thirteen. I started MOMS because I wanted to build a large mobile oil change company. I was a mechanic with ambition, plain and simple. But running that business forced me to learn a whole lot more than automotive service. I had to learn marketing. Customer acquisition. Technology. Scheduling. Business relationships. Finance. Systems. Over time, I became somebody who could build the systems that support a business, not just perform the service the business sells. And somewhere in that evolution, my interests grew past MOMS. I became a consultant. A teacher. A podcaster. A creator. And eventually, a software builder. Those were not distractions from the business. They were extensions of the person I became by building it. Maya: And the business changed too, did it not? Tyreese: It did. MOMS did not turn into a big organization with employees and a fleet of vans. It became a business I understand so well that I can operate it at my own pace. A vehicle for financial independence, instead of endless expansion. And that matters, because the person who started MOMS and the person running MOMS today do not necessarily want the same things. Maya: Then came the last three years. You have described anxiety, depression, isolation, financial pressure, and losing your enthusiasm. But you have also been careful about what you actually lost. Tyreese: Yeah, and that distinction is everything. I did not lose my knowledge. I did not lose all my customers. I did not lose the ability to solve problems. What I lost was some of the energy, and some of the desire, to keep using those abilities. That is a completely different problem. A man who lost his skills needs training. A man who lost his desire needs a reason. And when Frank came into the picture, he was not investing in somebody starting from nothing. He was putting capital into an established business, owned by a man trying to regain financial stability and personal momentum. The van helped. The inventory helped. The cash reserves helped. But the relationship also brought expectations and restrictions that fight against how I have learned to live and work. I wanted financial breathing room. What I experienced was accountability to somebody else's expectations. That is a major distinction. Maya: When I look at your life right now, I see four things happening at the same time, and they collide. Let me lay them out. One. You have more capability than you have ever had. Two. You have less personal freedom than you remember having. Three. Your business has actually improved in real ways. And four. Your desire to participate in life is coming back. Does that match how it feels from the inside? Tyreese: It matches exactly. Capability? I can service vehicles, build software, create marketing systems, teach, develop business concepts, and solve technical problems I used to have to hire somebody else to solve. That is more than I have ever had. But my money, my decisions, my energy, my attention, they feel constrained. And here is the part that messes with your head. The business genuinely improved. Higher prices. Roughly three thousand dollars a month in revenue. More fleet relationships. Bulk inventory. A replacement van. Five thousand dollars in the bank. On paper, that is progress. It just has not turned into the personal flexibility I expected. And at the same time, I can feel the desire coming back. Making music. Creating content. Teaching. Going places. Being around people. Rediscovering the satisfaction I used to get from all of it. So you have got a man who knows how to make things happen, questioning whether he wants to spend his remaining energy making those particular things happen. Maya: There is one more piece. You told me about a conversation with a friend, where you were teaching him that people do not need the same outcomes, and people do not have the same strengths. And then you caught yourself. Tyreese: I caught myself doing the exact opposite with my own life. I was measuring myself against the outcome I originally imagined for MOMS. A much bigger company. That dream was based on who I was when I started, thirteen years ago. I have spent thirteen years changing. Why would my definition of success have to stay frozen where I left it? And the comparison I made to Bezos and Musk, that was never really about becoming a billionaire. It was about retaining the ability to rebuild. I have proven to myself, over and over, that I can find a way forward. But I have also learned that having the ability to rebuild does not mean you have an unlimited emotional appetite for rebuilding. That distinction matters more than people think. Maya: Let us close the loop on three three three, and mudita, because I think people will misunderstand those if we skip them. Tyreese: I would not present numerology as proof that the universe assigned me a role. That is not what it is. I understand why I read three three three as a reminder of something I already recognize in myself. I enjoy understanding things. Explaining things. Creating things. And watching other people benefit. That is the thread that connects the Free Consultant, my podcast, D J O Really, and every piece of software I have built. The medium changes. The motivation underneath stays the same. And mudita adds to it. My satisfaction does not have to come only from what I accumulate for myself. Sometimes it comes from what I make possible for somebody else. That is a meaningful way to live, as long as I am not sacrificing my own well being to do it. Maya: So here is the conclusion I am arriving at, and you tell me if I have it right. Your central problem is not that you have not figured out how to become successful. It is that you are reassessing what you actually want your success to provide. Tyreese: That is it. For a long time I treated everything like an obligation. MOMS needs to grow. Frank needs to be satisfied. The bank balance needs to increase. The apps need customers. I need to get my old momentum back. But underneath all of that, what I actually want is simple. Enough financial stability that money is not dominating my attention. Autonomy over my work. Room to create, to teach, to enjoy people, to experience life again. I want to be able to stop at Harbor Freight and buy something useful without having to defend the decision. I want to do two oil changes, make ten pieces of content, and spend the rest of the afternoon doing something else that interests me. And when the business grows on its own, I want to benefit from that growth without automatically turning it into more obligations. That is not a lack of ambition. That is a different purpose for ambition. I am trying to build a life that does not require me to constantly prove I am building something. Maya: One last observation, and then I will let you have the final word. You keep saying you are slowly getting your groove back. And in the same breath, you describe yourself as a man who naturally operates at one point five speed. What if the difficulty is not that you are moving too slowly? What if you have just gotten used to judging yourself by how much you produce, even when what you are trying to recover is your enjoyment of living? Tyreese: That might be the truest thing said in this whole conversation. The business, the technology, the music, the coaching, the relationships, they are all parts of the same life. And maybe that is the larger perspective we have been missing. MOMS was supposed to serve my life. My life was never supposed to exist solely to serve MOMS. The financial details still matter. The tensions with Frank still need addressing. But they sit underneath that bigger question. They are not the definition of my entire existence. Maya: That is episode one. One story. In the episodes ahead, we are going to walk through it piece by piece. The mechanic who started MOMS in twenty thirteen. The business that changed its owner. The last three years, told honestly. Frank, and the money. The old dream, and the man who outgrew it. Three three three, and mudita. And finally, the life that MOMS was always supposed to serve. I am Maya, this is Tyreese Burton, and this is One Story. We will see you in episode two.