The work nobody sees: building income, faith, and a legacy
Toby Viegas on the back-end grind of a clothing brand, running two barbershops, a nonprofit, and why gratitude turned stress into fuel.
Toby Viegas starts a typical morning the way most people end theirs: 45 minutes of worship, prayer, and scripture with coffee. Then he teaches math, runs athletics at Sweetwater High, manages two barbershop locations, runs a faith-based clothing label (Unassailable Company), and helps a growing nonprofit (It Ends With Us).
That list reads like a résumé, but the point he kept coming back to on the Maven Workshop is this: people see the end product—the hoodie on the website, the full chairs at the shop, the donation event—but they rarely see the miles of small, tedious work that made it possible.
The hidden work behind a brand and a barbershop
Toby names the specifics so the invisible becomes tangible: designing, communicating with manufacturers, selecting materials, packing, photographing, pricing, posting, and following up when a photo shoot is delayed five days. For the barbershop it’s schedules, sink repairs, and coordinating nine barbers. For the clothing brand it’s waiting on manufacturers whose turnaround times lengthened because they can’t find staff either.
“These are the things people don’t see,” Toby says. “When you start to accomplish those things, those are the things that actually make you more proud.”
He also explains how broader labor trends touch individual businesses. Fewer committed job applicants—he pointed to the rise in job openings alongside high unemployment filings—means smaller pools of reliable hires. Result: longer lead times, more breakdowns to manage, and a higher expectation that owners must still carry the day-to-day.
Gratitude as strategy (not just attitude)
Toby describes gratitude as a practical engine for consistency. He’d asked God for one thing early on: an opportunity. When it arrived, his response was not entitlement but relentless effort.
“All I ever asked God for was an opportunity. ... Because of that gratitude, you need to give it a hundred and ten percent.” — Toby Viegas
That gratitude changed how he treated stress. After Nipsey Hussle’s death, Toby took one line from Nipsey that stuck: when stress hits, remember this is what you asked for. “This is what hard work feels like,” Toby says. “If it was easy, everybody else would do it.”
That shift explains how he balances so many roles and still thinks about legacy: life insurance, trust plans, and systems so the businesses can keep running if he’s not there.
Concrete structures he uses to get it done
Toby’s routines are specific and repeatable.
Wake early. Worship and Scripture first, then the day’s calendar.
Time-block everything on phone calendars and to‑do lists.
Sleep 5.5–6.5 hours and take a 20-minute nap when possible.
Delegate where possible and build procedures (he uses the same manufacturers across ventures to keep quality consistent).
He also treats community partnerships as pipeline building: starting January, Premium Blends will launch an apprenticeship at Sweetwater High—a two-month program to teach students how to cut hair, manage inventory, and learn the certificates and licenses needed to open a shop. That program came from his relationship with the district and from teaching inside it; it’s an example of how his roles feed each other.
Where the drive comes from: family, faith, and a checklist of needs
Toby’s origin story is not a craft narrative about a single epiphany; it’s a steady accumulation of responsibility. His parents crossed the border so his siblings could be born in the U.S. His father became the breadwinner until he went to prison for 16 years when Toby was eleven. His mother—who had limited schooling and spoke little English—kept the family afloat using welfare and community resources.
That background shaped two practical commitments:
Provide for family. At 17, Toby’s first paycheck went to rent. Later, his master’s diploma went into his mother’s hands.
Build multiple income sources. He studied entrepreneurs and leaders—Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, Nipsey Hussle—and intentionally built overlapping streams: teaching, barbershops, clothing, nonprofit work, and now conversations about real estate.
He put it plainly: find your why. For him it was making his mom proud—so his why was both the deepest joy and the deepest fear that kept him from giving up.
Programs, numbers, and places to follow
Unassailable Company (faith-based streetwear): uses higher-end prints (puff, gold foil), and sells through unassailableco.com.
Premium Blends barbershops: two locations, currently nine barbers; apprenticeship with Sweetwater High starts in January.
It Ends With Us (nonprofit): official EIN, six months old, already donated 300 backpacks with supplies plus hoodies and food; targeted work with single mothers and local elementary schools.
Toby’s day job: math teacher and athletic coordinator at Sweetwater High School.
These are not abstractions. The apprenticeship start date (January), the 300 backpacks donated, and the current staff size at Premium Blends are small, verifiable details that show scale and trajectory.
Two hard truths that landed in the room
Hiring reliable people is harder now. Toby traces the problem from stimulus and unemployment supports to a choked applicant pool and downstream delays in manufacturing. That shortage is not theoretical; he sees it in his shop, his manufacturer timelines, and his local taco joint that must close on its busiest day for lack of staff.
Faith without action is just hope. Toby ties Proverbs and James to a practical formula: know your why, deepen your faith, and then do the work. He calls YouTube and Google “University” — practical skills are accessible, but they require the discipline to apply what you learn.
A final, sharpened takeaway
If you want to start something and don’t know where to begin: pick a why you’d die to make true, build faith that will hold for years not days, and schedule your work into your life so it happens whether you feel like it or not.
Toby’s life is a long sequence of small, mundane choices—showing up early, packing shirts, answering texts at night—that accumulate into safety for his family and capacity to give back. He thinks of success not as flash but as a settled victory: life insurance, trusts, and systems so the work continues.
Listen to the full conversation if you want the stories that don’t fit here: the middle‑school watch flips, the bow‑tie YouTube tutorial, and the moment he handed his master’s diploma to his mother. If you keep one sentence from this issue, make it this: the work that looks like stress is usually the thing you asked for — and gratitude makes you do it anyway.