In this Business Blast Podcast episode, host Tyler Wagner interviews 22‑year‑old multi‑talented entrepreneur Athan Thilakathu (Athanasios Felactu), who works as a DJ, personal trainer, and content creator. Athan shares a personal motocross story that illustrates the need to give 100 % effort to succeed. He emphasizes the importance of focused time allocation, warning against spreading oneself too thin or falling into "shiny‑object syndrome." Consistency and a willingness to fail are presented as core business principles, with Athan urging listeners to act rather than over‑think. When asked for advice to his younger self, he stresses picking one or two pursuits and committing fully. He links happiness to productivity and the feeling of progress, arguing that task completion fuels satisfaction. Athan recommends Gary Vaynerchuk’s Crush It (audiobook) as a valuable read and shares his favorite quote from the film Vanilla Sky: “Every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around.” Finally, he directs listeners to his Instagram handle (@athenosteosphilactoo) as the primary way to connect with him.
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¡Hola!
¿Cómo estás? All right everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner. Today I have Athan Thilakathu with us, and at 22 years of age, he is an entrepreneur, DJ, personal trainer, and content creator. With a passion for inspiring others to take themselves to the next level, pushing the term "you versus you," believing that you are your own worst enemy on your road to success. So welcome to the show, man.
Thank you, thank you, Tyler, so much for having me.
Of course, I'm grateful to have you on. So the first one I got for you is, what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
So I'd say my best story personally is back a couple years ago, I used to race motocross. And in that sport, it's a very you versus you type of sport. It's a very mental sport. You are going against many people, but point being is, is if you're not going to exert your absolute 100%, you simply have no chance of winning. So I think what I took from that sport in general was if you're not giving your 100%, you're simply not going to have a chance to succeed. So I think that's very applicable throughout life, is if you're just not going to exert 100% of yourself in, I mean, anything you do, don't expect to see success in the things that you're doing.
Mm-hmm, absolutely. And next one I got for you is, what is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?
I mean, my expertise, I mean, something that spans across anything that I've done and do to this day is just keep trying. I mean, pick something. I believe that your efforts better spent in one thing rather than a couple things. So for example, I mean, among DJing and personal training, I can balance those because I have DJing on the weekends and personal training during the week. So I think that the most valuable piece of information going into anything that you want to be an expert in is just timing. So just make sure you separate your time right, make sure you're allocating your time correctly so you're not trying to spread yourself too thin.
And then I could tie in, but what's your best piece of overall business advice? So not necessarily industry-specific. I would say consistency.
Just consistency. Don't be scared to fail. I think that's a big thing for a lot of people is just overthinking things and just spending more time thinking about something than actually going out there and doing it. I think it's a lot easier for people to think about how they could fail instead of just going out and doing until they fail.
Yep, I couldn't agree more, man. I think that's what stops a lot of people is they continuously debate in their mind. They're so indecisive. The best ways that I've accomplished things is really just going out and doing it and actually failing, just literally failing almost not on purpose but allowing myself to just continuously fail. Then eventually through all the failure, success spits out the other end. Right. You got to go through that. The only way to do that is not through contemplation in the mind consistently. It's consistent constantly just doing things and taking action and learning from them. So, okay, so next one I got for you is, if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
Ah, that's a good one for me because I struggled with that a lot, and to this day I still kind of do, is just picking one thing, like I said earlier, to put your energy into and just having faith in the process. I think it's very easy even for people to not only get started, that's one hurdle, but to stay with it is a whole nother hurdle. For example, I mean, I dabbled in so many things growing up. I did like Twitch streaming for a time. I did like so many sports, so many different sports just 'cause I did like snowboarding for a time just 'cause I'm very good at envisioning myself places. But I never put in the energy to stick with it to see what would happen. You see what I'm saying?
Yeah.
So I think it's very easy for somebody to start something but not stick with it long enough to get a result. So if I could go back and tell myself something, it would probably be just pick 1 or 2 things and put all your energy into those instead of spreading yourself too thin. Because I think you're better off putting a big percentage of yourself in 2 things rather than, or even 1 thing, rather than a couple percents of yourself across 5 or 4 things.
Absolutely, man. I think that's actually one of the biggest problems for entrepreneurs. I call it shiny object syndrome.
Yeah, literally. Literally, that's the best way to put it.
Yeah, because it's like you start something, everything's always very exciting when it's new, and then after 3, 6 months, you're like, Okay, but that's like if you continue to take it for years, that's when it can really become something really big and successful.
That's the hardest part.
Yeah, no, I couldn't agree more. That's— it really is. So I appreciate you bringing that up. The next one is kind of going a little bit down a different path. We'll get deep real quick. In your opinion, what is the key to happiness?
Oh, the happiness question. Happiness, man. I would say, I mean, that's a very personal question, obviously. But I would say the overall happiness I personally believe comes from productivity. I think on a very low-level human basis, humans are very satisfied by progress. And I think that can keep it very general also is, as long as you feel you're progressing, whatever it is you're doing, as long as you're accomplishing tasks, because I believe as human beings, we're very task-oriented. So as long as you're accomplishing tasks and you feel within yourself that you're progressing and you're not being a stationary object, like within the world, within yourself, I think there lies some type of happiness, at least in the slightest bit, from what I've seen just like through clients and like through myself and just like personal experience. And I think that's the first step, at least, to finding happiness.
And then what is the best book that you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from that?
Hmm, that's a difficult one too. I would say, I mean, most recently I was catching up. I saw on your Instagram you're familiar with Gary Vee.
Oh yeah, yep.
Yeah, so I just recently— I've been listening to his podcast forever, but I just recently listened to the audiobook of Crush It. Yeah, and that was a very good thing for me. I mean, that was the first audiobook I did, so just with that whole experience and the personal identification that you can like relate to in that book, it's very relatable, at least for me. So I thought that was a very good read.
Absolutely, and I recommend— I'm a huge Gary fan. I recommend like all his books are great and Audible, dude. Like I'm an Audible fiend. Like I do like 2-3 hours audiobook a day. So I would definitely— I mean, you seem like somebody that would also— you'll get into it. That's your first Audible, trust me, there's many more to come.
That was always the thing is I've always loved— I love the idea of books, but I can never sit down and read it, but I'll listen to hours of music.
Totally, same here. Same here, dude, and you can multitask. That was the thing, when I first started out in entrepreneurship 6 years ago, I would actually take the time and read a lot of paperback books, but as your business grows and life happens, I mean, you start to get a lot busier, so it's like I could carve out the time, but it is difficult for me, and maybe ADD or whatever you want to call it, for me to sit down and just read a book. But when I'm running on the treadmill or on a walk, that's very easy for me to listen. So next one for you is, what's your favorite quote and why?
My favorite quote is from the movie Vanilla Sky. And it's, "Every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around." That's because I think it's very powerful, at least to me, because I think it goes for anybody. I mean, it's never too late to change yourself. Change your life, change your lifestyle, change the things you're doing. I mean, no matter at what age you're at, it's never too late. Every minute is another chance to turn it all around. So that'd be my favorite quote, definitely.
Yeah, man. Love it, dude. Thank you so much for coming on the show. The last one I got for you is, where can our listeners best find you online?
I'm most reachable, I'd say, on Instagram. I have websites for all my businesses, but Instagram is kind of my social hub. So that's Instagram. /athenosteosphilactoo. I'm sure Tyler will have it linked below. Yeah. Because it is a mouthful.
Just a little bit.
That's where everybody can find me.
Perfect, brother. Thank you again for coming on. Really appreciate it.
Of course. Thank you so much. It's good to see somebody out here doing the podcast game on the smaller scale.
Yeah.
I'm such a fan of it. I've been a fan of podcasts myself and wanted to do one, but Thank you once again for having me, and we'll be in touch.
Of course, man. Well, we'll help you out. We'll get you on the podcast, man, for sure.
Right, right. Thank you.
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