Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - 005. How To Build A Better You

Episode Date: November 1, 2022

Here’s a question for you to ponder Are you SUFFERING? Or are you just uncomfortable? I believe that when you’re able to pinpoint and distinguish this in your life, Things will get a whole lot easier for you. In todays episode I’m going to break down what I believe is holding you back from reaching your HIGHEST POTENTIAL

So I will take the hurt of stepping out of my comfort zone, but I will remove resistance of fear, uncertainty, and doubt so that it's only discomfort and not suffering. Welcome to the Bedros Koolian show. Back when Q was rolling with Lorenzo and a Benzo, I was banging with a gang of instrumental. What's happening, friends? I'm Bedros Kulian, and you are watching and listening to the Bedros Kulian show. Today we're going to talk about suffering. And is it really necessary for growth and personal development? And so before we start, I want to thank you all for being advocates of the Bedros Koolin show. It is growing very quickly.

And it's because you continue to share the episodes. You continue to leave reviews. And you continue to get involved and engaged. With that said, is suffering really necessary for development and growth? Now, I can tell you guys this, that I've been guilty of saying that, suffering introduces a man to his highest self. And in fact, I put on events like the project, and I have an annual event every December called Suckfest. And I talk about this experience called the Masogi, which is an experience that comes from the Japanese culture. And in the

Masogi culture, the whole idea there with the Masogi is to put yourself under pressure, to put yourself under stress for a long period of time to provide. prepare yourself for the upcoming year. It's something that they do towards the end of the year, November, December, preparing for the upcoming year to be even more prosperous. One example of Masogi that I remember reading about is, you know, dude would stand under the waterfall, like a raging waterfall in the cold for four hours. And he would just go to this place.

Now, is that suffering or is that discomfort? is the project, the 75-hour experience that we do for men, is that suffering or is that discomfort? Is suckfest, this, you know, ridiculous experience that I go through every December, similar to a Musogi, is that suffering or discomfort? And what's the difference? And that's what I want to unpack today because it is important to know that life is hard for two reasons, right? people always say, well, man, life is hard. And I always used to tell them that, well, life is hard because you're not suffering. You're not putting yourself through adversity.

You're not putting yourself through discomfort. And when you're not putting yourself and testing yourself through adversity, suffering, and discomfort, then you find yourself in a place of mental and emotional weakness, let alone physical weakness. But maybe I was wrong. And so I want to talk about this because there's a saying and it goes like this. life is hard for two reasons. It's hard because you're living in your comfort zone. It's also hard because you're trying to live outside of your comfort zone, right? And so, you know, if we know that life is hard

because you're living in your comfort zone and it's hard when you're trying to live outside of your comfort zone and kind of stretch your opportunities, stretch your horizons, try new things, then maybe if life is all about being hard, we have to choose our hard. Do you want the hard of regret when you're older and you're on your deathbed and regretting the opportunities you didn't take, the risks you didn't take, the experiences you didn't have? Or do you want the hard of each time you took those risks and opportunities and had those experiences? Yeah, they were overwhelming.

Yeah, they were hard. Yeah, it freaked you out. but it ended up making you a better human, right? And so, you know, when we talk about suffering introduces a man to his highest self, well, you can really take suffering and just leave discomfort. If you take away suffering and leave discomfort, you realize that the only difference between discomfort and suffering, as my good friend Todd Telkemp says, is resistance.

And we're going to talk about that here for a moment. So, you know, Todd was here a few weeks ago. at HQ. He's a project graduate and also a amazing entrepreneur. And we were talking and he's like, dude, I haven't doing a lot of thinking. I'm like, well, do tell. And Todd is one of these cats who, he kind of knows how to think at a deep level, meaning he won't analyze something just on the superficial surface level. He will peel away the different layers and get to the core of a topic. And so he goes, well, you know, I think about the project. And when I went through the project and we're crawling through the pit and then you guys

take us to the beach and now we're battling the waves during surf torture and then we're pulling the truck. Then we're doing the ice bath. Then we're doing the hike under load carrying logs and stuff. He goes, I remember in my class there was guys who were suffering. And then there was guys like me and others who were just experiencing discomfort. And he goes, I'm convinced that a lot of the guys that ring the bell and quit. were suffering. Now, some of the guys that graduated, he said, were also suffering. He goes,

but the guys that got the most out of the project in terms of the learning experience, in terms of the aha moments, in terms of the epiphanies, the understandings, the connecting with their higher self, those were the guys who reframed the suffering into discomfort. And you're probably wondering what I mean by that. And I'm going to explain that to you in just a moment here. But before I do, I want to let you know that Todd was right. If you take away the resistance from suffering, you were left with discomfort. And the way Todd explained it to me a couple weeks ago was this. He said, look, man, resistance is what makes suffering suffering.

And I said, well, tell me about the resistance. He goes, well, resistance will show up as fear. Resistance will show up as inner negative conversation. resistance will show up as a, well, the last time I tried doing something physically hard, I failed at it or I got injured. And he goes, when I think about it, if we're trying to do something hard so that we can get the growth experience from it, he goes, suffering, creating growth is not a one-to-one relationship. He goes, it's almost like a five or ten-to-one relationship.

I said, explain to me more, Todd. Well, he went on to say that suffering is, 10x to 1x of growth. And when I look at it that way, I realize, well, shoot, man, I don't necessarily want to suffer. I want growth. If I'm only going to get 1x of growth when I do something difficult, do I want to suffer or do I want to be in discomfort? Well, all suffering really is is discomfort with amplified by resistance equals suffering. And so if we could just do something that makes us uncomfortable and we could strip away the resistance of fear of the negative conversation of having that inner critic talking to about the limiting beliefs like hey you can't do this the last time

you tried this you failed then all of a sudden you take away the fear factor of suffering and now you get a one-to-one ratio see when it's discomfort and growth it's a one-to-one ratio now listen I would be the first to tell you that if I could suffer at a 10x and therefore get 10x the resulting growth, I'm for that. And maybe you would feel the same way. But I think we could both agree that I'm not interested in suffering 10x just to get a 1x increase in growth. I'd rather do a one-to-one ratio of discomfort to growth.

And when you look at it that way, you can't help. have to start thinking about guys like David Goggins. And so while we're all out there talking about suffering is the way and suffering introduces a man to his highest self, I think suffering is a sexy word. Let's face it, where David Goggins is throwing that out and I'm throwing that out and all these other people are throwing that out who are asking you to do hard shit. We use suffering as the way. Really, you don't have to suffer. And when you look at David Goggins and you follow him on social media, you realize that, all right, man, like, he's not necessarily suffering. He's in discomfort. He's learned how to remove the resistance of fear and negative self-talk and self-doubt

and limiting beliefs and the inner critic. And he's learned how to not correlate past negative experiences with this current present experience. And he's removed the resistance. And by removing the resistance, the discomfort now is only discomfort. It is no longer suffering for him. And that's what we want for you. And Todd Telcamp was right as he went through the project class. And as I think back to all the project classes that we've had so far, the guys that have the greatest epiphanies and takeaways and their in their relationships and their business and how they show up and their blind spots with their ego and their finances and their faith and confidence. all the guys that have had the biggest takeaways from the project went through the project

in a state of discomfort, not suffering. And then the guys that graduated the project who suffered, they still got takeaways, but nowhere near as much as the guys who were experiencing the project as discomfort. Because the guys that saw every evolution through the lens of fear and what if this is the one that breaks me. What if this is the one where I ring the bell? This one's really going to hurt. This one's going to be painful. See, those things are resistance, right? So think about this. Your job in life, my job in life, is to step out of our comfort zone. It is to step out of our comfort zone because we know that staying in our comfort zone is going to hurt. It's going to create a lot

of regret. It's going to create a lot of missed experiences, a lot of missed opportunities, a lot of missed love, a lot of missed financial benefits. But you also know that stepping outside of your comfort zone is scary. But when we begin to look at it through the lens of resistance of, man, what if I try this new business and it fails? What if I get into this new relationship and then marry him or her and then end up in a divorce? What if we have kids and I screw up my kids? See, when you look at it through the lens of resistance, which is fear and doubt and uncertainty, right? Negative self-talk. Then you begin to

struggle with that decision. Do I really want to quit my job and start the business? Do I really want to take it to the next level and marry her? Do I really want to have kids? Do I really want to learn this new skill? Well, likely not, not if it's going to feel like suffering. But if it's just like, hey, you know what? Listen, I live by myself. I'm single. I'm in a place of comfort. I know that living with someone else as I get married is going to be probably a little uncomfortable at first. But then we'll create a rhythm and we'll find our new comfort and therefore expand our comfort zone. And through that process of discomfort, we will have increased impersonal growth and development, well, that's a fucking good thing, isn't it?

And that's what we're after, friends. That is what we're after. So remember this, the equation that Todd Telcamp shared with me, which is discomfort plus resistance equals suffering. And suffering and growth are not a one-to-one mathematical relationship. See, I told you, Todd thinks it's such a fucking deep level. And thank God I had this conversation with him and was able to transfer this message to you, right? But I want you to understand that you don't have to suffer to experience growth, that you can actually have discomfort minus the fears and the negative self-talk and all the other elements of resistance that what happened in the past or what might happen in the future. See, resistance happens when you start thinking about what could go wrong

down the line or what has gone wrong in the past. That's resistance. And then your mind, begins to manufacture the story of how it might be embarrassing, how you might get injured, how you might lose money, how you might lose reputation, how you might fail at it. And then all of a sudden you're like, oh, shit, I'm suffering. And let me tell you, like, you don't want to suffer through life. You want to have systematically designed discomfort that has a one-to-one relationship in terms of one serving of discomfort equals one serving of growth. versus 10 servings of suffering, because suffering is that, it's 10x, 10 servings of suffering

if you make it through and if you get around to doing it because you've built it up so much in your fucking head might create one serving of growth, right? So you understand the difference. Our job, your job, my job is to remove resistance and turn suffering into discomfort and therefore lean into discomfort, have a one-to-one growth-releaf, relationship with discomfort, which is actually why I also do these six-week challenges. Now, if you've been following me for long enough on social media, or you've been on my email list, then you know that I do six-week challenges two to three times a year. Challenges could be

anything. And for example, I've done rock climbing. I've taken on a six-week challenge surfing, jujitsu, MMA, a marathon challenge. In fact, my first six-week challenge back in 2010 was a full marathon. See, I had convinced myself up to that point that I am designed to lift weights. I had convinced myself that God has built me to lift weights. I can bench, I can deadlift, I can squat, I can add on a lot of muscle, I'm six foot, 230 pounds, like I am designed to move weight. I am not made to move distance. And I had put myself in that. box. And I remember reading a book saying that, you know, that which you think about most is what you manifest. And so I kept thinking about how I'm not a runner. I'm not good at running. I'd never

be good at running. Running's not my thing. Well, I'd convinced myself that running's just not my thing, that I'm not good at it. So it made sense that I would have to take on this challenge. And so rather than just saying, well, one day I'm going to run a marathon, I committed to a particular marathon that happened to be six weeks out. It was the San Diego rock and roll marathon. And I committed to that marathon because it was the like next marathon locally that was coming up, right? Because I live in Southern California. And, uh, I register for it. And then I hire a running coach. Now keep in mind, building all the way up to this point, I probably had never run more than half a mile. When I say run, I'm talking like a light trot, not even a jog, right?

Like a trot walk, like a half a mile. And so I was pretty scared. I remember, I remember thinking that this is going to be embarrassing if I get to the starting line of this marathon six weeks from now and then end up quitting three, four, five miles in because I go into a body cramp or my legs cramp, or my legs cramp or I just physically don't have the cardiovascular endurance to do it, right? Well, guess what?

I hired a running coach. And this running coach built me out a six-week training program. And then I built out a nutrition program to support my training so that I could have better recovery, right? Remember, my background is personal training, coaching, nutrition. And so this was in my wheelhouse, but I didn't know how to build a running program. So I hired a running coach and I said, hey, build me out a running program that ends with me running a marathon at the end of six weeks. Oh, by the way, I've registered for the San Diego Rock and Roll Marathon. And so the running coach built that out for me.

And the very first, the very first one, like training session was you're going to walk, jog a mile, right? Simple as that. You're going to walk, jog a mile. Nothing more than that. And then literally the next day, you're going to walk, jog two miles. And then you're going to take a day off to recover. And then the next day, you're going to walk jog two miles. And then the day after that, you're going to walk jog three miles.

And then take a day off. And then the next day after that, you're going to jog a mile, walk half a mile. and jog another mile. And you can see how it's stacked up. And before you know, at about four or five weeks in, I'm like running eight miles straight. And I'm like in disbelief. I'm in disbelief because I had created the story in my head

that I am not a runner. The running is suffering. That it's painful. That I'm not going to be good at it. That it's going to be embarrassing when people see me fail at it. And now I'm running from Chino Hills through Diamond Bar and back into Chino and then back to Chino, hills again. Like, I'm going through three cities on my feet. Like, my feet are moving me. I was blown

away. I'm going to be very honest with you because I was like, I probably pit off more than I can chew. By week number, by week number five, I'd put in 13 miles, two sessions of 13 miles. And my running coach had told me that if you can run 13 miles, you can do 26.2, which is a full marathon, right? Now, I still don't understand how. running, being able to run 13 miles means that you can run 26.2, but it worked. And so there is something beautiful about like trusting your coach, having faith in your coach, right? The right coach, you can have faith in them because they can see around corners. They've been there. They've done that. And you haven't. So you're operating off of doubt. They're operating off of certainty.

And so there you have it. All of a sudden, the San Diego, Negro rock and roll marathon comes at 6 a.m. I'm standing at the starting lines and bam, I do this thing. And now because I had prepped and trained for six weeks, while it was painful, it wasn't suffering. I was absolutely in a state of discomfort from like mile three all the way to mile 26.2. But never once was I in a state of suffering. Now, truth be told, There was two times that I could remember, once at mile number 17, and once at mile number like 20 or 21, that I was like, my legs are cramping so hard that I'm probably going to go like lock up and I'm going to fall over. But even then, I was in a state of discomfort. I was fully aware what was going on.

And because I was in a state of discomfort, like once I got past 13 miles, every quarter mile, if you've ever done a marathon, you know that they have these mile markers. right and like every quarter mile or half mile they have a marker and I was like holy shit 13.5 14 miles 14.5 15 miles 15. 15.5 16 miles and I'm in disbelief that my legs my body my feet are moving me at this distance now I went from 230 pounds to about 215 pounds in terms of losing weight I lost about 15 pounds so I could be lighter in carrying that weight across the finish line Like I was smart enough to know that there's no point trying to hold on to a crap ton of muscle if you're going to run a marathon because it's going to be even more painful. But there was no suffering.

See, when you're prepared, when you've trained for something, you now know what's in store. Suffering is a byproduct of the unknown. And that's why we will project out into the future and go, what if? Right. So imagine like if you're like, hey, I'm just going to go. I've never run a marathon. I'm going to go register for a marathon and start, you know, not train for it. And when the gun goes off, I'm going to start running.

Well, you're probably going to be suffering. One, because you're deconditioned to it, right? And so you're not going to learn any big lessons about yourself. Because suffering does introduce a man or discomfort does introduce a man or a woman to their highest self. I call it the other room. Like in your head and everybody's head, like there's this other place that you can go to. You may have been there before. And this other room, this other place, you get to meet your other self.

Napoleon Hill, in his book Outwitting the Devil, calls it the Other Self. And in fact, in the power of myth, Joseph Campbell calls it your higher self. Whether you call your other self or your higher self, you have to access this room, this space in your head that I always picture like there's this. black wall, you could see a faint cutout of where I think this is a door, but there's no doorknob, there's no keyhole, you're pushing on it, you're trying to get your nails in that little crack to pull the door open or push it open and you can't. But when you get to that place of discomfort where you just kind of click in at the project we call it where the switch flips.

Like during the project at some point, sometime after number 26 or 27 hours, these guys who are going to stay, we know who the winners are going to be in terms of graduating the project. Because they switch to flip. You could see it in their eyes that they've got this like fire in their eyes. All of a sudden, the fear has gone away. The uncertainty has gone away. The doubt in self has gone away. They don't care what evolution instructor Ray or instructor Steve bring in terms of how punishing it's going to be for them physically, mentally, emotionally. You could see that they are going to take on whatever the next evolution is.

They're going to push through the discomfort. They're going to learn the lessons and experiences from that evolution and move on to the next one and the next one and the next one until hour 75 is over and instructor Ray secure. hears the class by ringing the bell. That switching, the flipping of that switch is what you need. And preparation gets you there because you become familiar with the process, right? So preparation is key, but also self-awareness is key. Because if you are feeling like this is scary, I have doubt, I have uncertainty, what if I can't, and you're living in the past, meaning I've tried something like

this before and it hasn't worked and in fact I got injured, I got hurt, it was embarrassing, or you're living in the future and doing the what if game. What if I get hurt? What if I get embarrassed? What if I don't finish? What if my reputation is damaged? What if I don't make it? But what if you do?

See, that's the resistance that we have to remove. And so as I did the six week challenge, the marathon challenge, I realized that holy crap, there's a lot more life that I can do, but I had been throttling myself. I had built this glass ceiling for myself that was limiting my growth. And that if I could break through this glass ceiling in terms of running, why can I break through the glass ceiling in terms of how much money I can make? And I kid you not, I started making more money the years following that marathon. I started making more money.

I got an even better shape. my relationship with my wife improved even more. I was a better father. I was a better leader, better communicator because the truth of the matter is, and we've talked about this before on the show, how you do anything is how you do everything. And if you're willing to step out of your comfort zone,

it is going to be scary and it's going to hurt. But you don't need to suffer. And you know that staying in your comfort zone is going to hurt because the hurt of regret, the hurt of missing out, the hurt of not experiencing what you should in life. So I will take the hurt of stepping out of my comfort zone, but I will remove resistance of fear, uncertainty, and doubt so that it's only discomfort and not suffering. And so since then, I've done so many different challenges. And I want to share that with you because you're in a position now

where you could put yourself through different challenges. Like, look, I told myself, I'm going to go hire an MMA coach. And I hired Aaron Weatherspoon. At the time, he was the welterweight king of the cage champion. And for six weeks straight, just like the marathon, we trained for six weeks, got in the octagon and fought. And he wopped my ass. But all of a sudden, I knew what to expect. I knew what a movie tight clinch was.

I knew the combination of punches he was going to throw. When we would take it to the ground, I had a full. feeling of what he was attempting to do, whether it was an arm bar or whether it was to get my back. And so while I had a feeling and understanding of what was going on, I didn't have the competency to counter it because obviously he's a great, great MMA fighter. But the resistance was removed. And then I went on to do six weeks of jujitsu training, right? Worked with coach Pete, third-degree black belt, and for six weeks, three times a week. And then at the end, he brought in a brown belt to roll with me, best of three rounds. And it was an awesome

experience because just like rolling or, I guess, fighting in that octagon with Aaron Weatherspoon, while I did not have the skill sets required to beat this brown belt, I didn't have this fear of suffering, I knew it was going to be very uncomfortable. There was plenty of discomfort during the six weeks of training with Coach Pete. While I'm 2.30 and he's 175 pounds, because he's so good at what he does in terms of jujitsu, he just would wrap me up in a ball until I tapped out. But all of a sudden, the fear was gone and the discomfort was there to create growth. and every single time, whether it was the marathon challenge,

whether it was the MMA challenge, the Jiu-Jitsu challenge, the surfing challenge. I was afraid of heights. And so I hired a rock climbing coach. And I would go to Joshua Tree and he taught me how to belay myself and he would belay me. And I went from climbing 40, 50 feet

to over 150 feet rock face while belayed. And I knew. exactly how to use my feet and my hands and not be afraid of the height. And I would trust the equipment. And I would trust my partner, him down there who's belaying me, right? He's just kind of gathering up the slack as I keep going up. And it was such a cool feeling, man, that at the end of six weeks, you have built some level of competency that then bleeds into other areas of your life.

Because if you could be cool, way up there on a rock face when you're afraid of heights, You'll be just as cool when it seems like your business is falling apart around you during, you know, a pandemic. And you're like, I got this. That's the same level of coolness. Like whatever mental muscles you tap into on that rock face when you're afraid of heights, but now you're 120 feet up in the air. And you're like, I've got another 30 feet to go before I can start repelling down.

It's that same mindset that takes you through the pandemic. It's that same mindset that helps you problem solve without losing your shit in what could have been a major argument with your spouse. So don't underestimate taking on physical challenges. Don't underestimate being in discomfort. Know that resistance added to discomfort equals suffering, and that's not a good one-on-one exchange. We just want discomfort and growth because that is a one-on-one exchange. Now, I'd like to offer you guys the opportunity to do my very first challenge, your ability to do a marathon.

If you've never done a marathon before, here's your chance to do a marathon. And I'm going to give you the exact training program that I went through, the exact nutrition and recovery program that I used. And in fact, I'm going to give you a whole bunch of coaching audio and videos along with it. And all I ask, and it's absolutely free. It costs you guys nothing. You guys know that I don't sell anything on this podcast.

I just want to see humanity grow and you elevate to your highest self. And now that you know doing something uncomfortable, putting yourself in a state of discomfort will create massive growth, I want to be the one that ushers you into this first opportunity of discomfort. So if you go to bedrosecoollion.com forward slash challenge, bedrosecoolion.com forward slash challenge, you could just download my entire tree. training program for six weeks, my entire nutrition and recovery program for six weeks, and you can access the six-weekly coaching, motivation, and mentoring audio messages and video

messages that I have for you. The only catch is the moment you go to the website to enter your email address so that I can email you the six-week coaching program, right? The challenge, the marathon training program. I ask that you go online and register for a marathon that's at least six-week. weeks out. Because if you don't, the resistance is going to set in. That resistance is going to be like, well, okay, now that I've got the marathon training program, I can, now I know what I need to do for 26.2 miles, I'll start training first and then register for a marathon later. And then you'll fall into the

trap of tomorrow, where tomorrow becomes next week, next week becomes next month, next month becomes next year. And now a year or two have gone by and you have yet to put yourself to that marathon challenge, which means that you didn't experience the growth. And in fact, you broke a promise to yourself. Remember, you're promising yourself that I will do this thing if I download this free training that Bedros has given me. So I'll, I ask of you, because I'm not asking for any money whatsoever, is it when you go to bedroskoolion.com forward slash challenge, that you download the entire

training and nutrition and recovery protocol. And that very same day, find a marathon. in your state. That's the beautiful thing about a marathon. You don't have to do it with anyone else if you don't want to. There's several happening in every state. And if there's not one in your state that's happening in the next six or eight or ten weeks, then there's probably one in your neighboring state. So you're just going to drive to your neighboring state six or eight weeks from now and then do that marathon. And you've got the training program right there. So I really want to thank you for listening to this episode because it was really cool to be able to use Todd Telcamps,

kind of description of unpacking suffering and realizing that true growth comes from discomfort and not through suffering and that suffering is just discomfort plus resistance. And if we can remove the resistance, then we've got discomfort, which is a one-to-one exchange with growth. And you're going to go to bedrosecolean.com forward slash challenge and download the marathon training program that I have for you, absolutely free. You're going to use the program. You're going to share it on social media so that others can.

can keep you accountable as well. And I can't wait to hear and see you cross that finish line. Thank you so much, friends, for watching and listening to this episode of the Bedros Kulian show. As always, you are part of the amazing tribe of humans leveling up to your highest level.

Talk soon, friends. What's the difference between me and you? Back when Q was rolling with Lorenzo and a Benzo, I was banging with a gang of instrumental.