Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - 010. How To Find Purpose And Fulfillment

Episode Date: December 6, 2022

What's the point of success if you hate the person looking back at you in the mirror? Today we'll be discussing why most people, even those who society deems “successful”, are suffering in silence.

Reason your fire is gone is because you are living someone else's dreams or number two, you have accepted average or mediocre as your standard. Welcome to the Bedroft's Coolie and show. Back when Q was rolling with Lorenzo and a Benzo, I was banging with a gang of instrumental. Most people live lives of quiet desperation. In fact, most men especially live lives of quiet desperation, struggling, feeling unfulfilled. suffering and silence. And what I really want to talk about today, guys, on this short, but probably one of the most important episodes of the Bedros Kulian show is how most people

are committing slow suicide. I know it sounds a little exaggerated. What do you mean, Bedros people are committing slow suicide, but I'm convinced that probably 90, 95 percent of society are committing slow suicide. And let me explain to you what I mean. And this is one of those episodes, if you've got a friend that's suffering, if you've got a place that's just a person that's in a dark place, they're in a funk, they can't seem to get over their depression, their anxiety, they're overwhelmed, this is going to be the episode that you're going to want to forward to them. It's short, it's to the point, and I believe this to be true after working with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people on helping them find their life of fulfillment.

The reason I say that most people are committing slow suicide is because, most people have set low standards for themselves. See, there used to be a time that there was a reward for winning, that we would be competitive in life, that we wouldn't want to just be like the Joneses, that we wanted to win against the Joneses. See, inside of every man and woman is a fire, and this fire burns very bright. And if you look at it this way, that your fire might burn just as bright as mine, but it burns at a different color, then you have to do what's right for you. You have to follow your

own radiance in life. And when people tend to start living other people's dreams out, when you grow up and you become a doctor, a lawyer, an accountant, because, well, that's what we do in my culture. That's what we do when we want to be successful. Because my parents came from India and they said I should be doctors. My parents came from China and they said I should be an accountant. Like, I can't tell you how often I hear this from young people in their late 20s who have graduated with the degree. They're in financial debt. They have a decent education. They have the opportunity to make decent money, but they are massively depressed and suffering.

And I'm telling you this because it is slow suicide. And in fact, I shared this in an earlier episode. According to People Magazine, there was a study done where 86% of people are unfulfilled. feel unfulfilled. In fact, 60% of people that have a career feel unfulfilled in their workplace. Why is that? Because you are not living your radiance. You are not listening to your radiance. You are living someone else's dreams that they have for you. What you might be doing is running someone else's playbook for your life. And if you're running someone else's playbook for your life, then you are going to feel incongruent with your radiance. If your fire is burning orange, but someone says,

go do this blue thing, while you are doing something, it is not the thing that's going to give you a sense of fulfillment and passion. And therefore, you are dying a slow death. You are committing suicide at the slowest rate possible because every year that your life goes by, you tell yourself, man, I've got this great education, I've got this great job, it's got a 401k, or even I started this business. I know people that became entrepreneurs because they were led down a specific, path by a loved one who meant well for them because they said, you know what, you should be a fill in

the blank or you should start a fill in the blank business. And they did. And guess what happens next? They realize this isn't the career that I want. This isn't the business that I want. And now I'm making good money. There's a term for it. The golden handcuffs to feel handcuffed to money. I'm making good money because this is my education or this is what I'm good at. But this is not fulfilling. And I don't have any sense of significance while I'm doing it. That is committing slow suicide. So I'm here to tell you that people commit slow suicide for one of two reasons in life. Number one, you are living someone else's life, goals, and dreams. Maybe your parents mean well, maybe your culture means well that you should be an accountant,

a lawyer, a doctor, because that's what people from India and Pakistan and China do. Well, guess what? Is that what you want to do? I don't know about you, but I wouldn't want to be around sick people all day long. And I'm grateful there's doctors who are healers and their whole past. and fulfillment comes from being around sick people and healing. That wouldn't work for me, man. I'm overly empathetic.

I'm overly compassionate. And I will just start taking on everyone's pain and suffering. And I will find myself in the deepest, darkest, depression. That would never work for me. I remember many, many years ago in my teens, when my dad said, hey, you can take over this tailor shop. Remember, we came from Armenia, we escaped communism. I was six years old.

I grew up in my dad's tailor shop that he started this little tailor shop in Anaheim. And by the time I turned 18 or 19 years old, my dad's like, hey, guess what? When I retire, you can take over my tailor shop. And this could be your business. And I knew early on, well, I didn't know what I wanted to do in life. I knew that I was going to be an entrepreneur, but I was not going to be a tailor. I was not going to have an alteration store. I was not going to be running a little shop in Anaheim, California.

hemming people's fucking pants and fixing their zippers. I love and appreciate my mom and dad for what they did with that little tailor shop, but I knew that wasn't for me. And if I had accepted that as an easy path or to show respect to my mom and dad, I would have started the first step in committing slow suicide for myself by living my parents' dreams. Now, I know they meant well because their whole thing was, dude, we did the hard work for you. We started this business. We made it successful.

we make a good living, you can be your own boss. While I didn't know what I wanted to do, I knew that I didn't want to work in a tailor shop and own a tailor shop and do that the rest of my life. And so when I declined, I remember how let down my dad felt. I remember how disappointed my dad was. But I also remember what a relief I felt. I was like, even though I said no to owning my dad's tailor shop

and taking over his business, which was guaranteed income, and pretty decent income, I knew that I would be unhappy and unfulfilled and my fire would slowly start to snuff out. And sadly, most of you out there just have just barely glowing ambers of spark left. Your fire is gone. And the reason your fire is gone is because you are living someone else's dreams or number two, you have accepted average or mediocre as your standard. See, because gone are the days of being competitive.

Gone are the days of being hard on yourself. Gone out are the days of setting higher standards of expectations where you can set higher standards of expectations, go out and chase your dreams and achieve those outcomes and live a life of fulfillment. 90% of fulfillment comes from the work I do to achieve the outcome. Let me say that again, guys. 90% of the fulfillment and the significance that I feel is from the work I do while trying to achieve the outcome, right?

So I remember when we first started a FitBody Boot Camp, when I wanted to have 500 Fit Body Boot Camp locations worldwide, the work that I was doing to get location one, and then to sell location two, and then franchise location three, and then franchise location number four, that was just as fulfilling, actually more fulfilling than when we sold our 500th franchise

some six, seven, eight years ago. And I share that with you because once you start setting higher standards of expectations and you're like, holy shit, my goals are so big. My goals are so lofty that I'm going to have to work through weekends and I'm going to have to not go to birthday parties and weddings. I'm going to have to skip funerals. I'm going to have to take Friday nights and work on this passion project because it is so fulfilling. Let me tell you, you'll never have to work a day in your life. There's so much truth to that quote, when they say, when you find what you're meant to do, you'll never have to work a day in your life. And,

Many of you know what you need to do, but you take the safe route. You take the route of being average and mediocre because, well, hey, look, I look to my left, I look to my right. They live in a similar house, a 2,000 square foot house. They have two cars, a little tiny garage. You know, your neighbor sneezes and farts. You can hear them sneezing and farting because your fucking walls aren't even insulated well because their houses are made of fucking cookie cutter dough, right?

And I share this with you. I'm not trying to shit on you. I've lived right here in Butterfield Ranch, the first home that my wife, I bought, the fucking homes were so close. The walls were so thin. There was no fucking insulation that the fucking neighbor Steve would sneeze. And I could hear him fucking sneezing. Now I live on a fucking one and a half acre property with no neighbors around.

And that's how I like it because I earned that life. But I share that with you because I stopped looking to my left and right and comparing myself to the people around me. Instead, I started to compare myself to what I felt my potential. was. And I knew my potential was someone that could earn nine figures and donate money to help charities and causes that I believe in. Because if you're just living in a two or three thousand square foot house or a fucking apartment and you're just getting by and you're making good money but not great money, but everybody else around you was making good money and not great money.

So it's not that bad. You've accepted mediocre. You've accepted mediocrisy. You've accepted being average. you are swimming in the sea of average. But then you wonder to yourself like, man, I bet my church could use more money to do good with it. I bet that charity could use more money to do a lot of good with that money. I used to be that guy. And when I decided that I'm going to be that guy

that makes a lot of money so I can donate to Shriners Children's Hospital so that I can, every year, I can shut down the target here in Chino Hills every year for Christmas. And me and my team go in there and we spend a quarter million dollars in buying Christmas gifts for kids whose families can afford Christmas gifts for them.

Like that's a good feeling, right, to do that. And then to donate all these toys to Toys for Tots every year. And then to be able to adopt kids through Compassion International so that those kids have clean clothes and school paper and pens and pencils and food available to them and water available to them that's clean so that they can have some kind of better chance at life in the third world country that they live in. Now we've got 97 kids adopted through compassionate or all by choosing a higher standard of expectation.

I'm not sharing any of this with you toot my own horn. I rarely talk about Shrine of Children's Hospital, Compassion International, or Toys for Tots. I share this with you here and now to let you know that that is very near and dear to me. There's a massive sense of fulfillment and significance that I feel that I have when I'm able to not only give my family a great life and financial security, but I'm able to also donate to kid-based causes, right? If you think about all three of those charities,

Shriners, Compassion International, and Toys for Tots, they all serve kids in some capacity. And if you know anything about my story, you know that I come from child abuse. I come from fucking sexual abuse as a kid, right? I was molested by two older boys when I was a kid and that I come to this country and I'm just bullied and beat up until I can learn to fight and defend myself.

And so as a child, of abuse and being fucking beat up growing up, one of the most fulfilling and healing things I can do is help other kids who need my money to produce an outcome for them that their families can't produce. Imagine what a great feeling that is. And it's all because I chose to not accept mediocrity and average.

It wasn't just like, oh, they have a Honda Civic, so I'll go buy myself a whatever, a fucking nicer version of, of a Honda Civic and therefore I do better than my neighbors. See, that's how most of you will end up sizing yourself up. That's not setting high standards of expectations. That's just trying to one up the fucking neighbor, you know, like, oh, my neighbor has concrete in their garage. And so I'm going to fucking put, what's that fucking thing called where they put that fucking the tiles or they put that fucking gloss on the floor, you know what I'm talking about in their garage and they go to Home Depot.

I was like, oh, great, you spent 900 bucks and you fucking got some paint and you painted your two fucking car garage and now you think you're a fucking baller. What if you actually said higher standards for yourself and you actually set those standards and you hold yourself accountable to it? Now you're not going to be committing slow suicide. Now you're going to be so excited to working towards your goals. All you're going to be excited about is waking up and constantly working towards your fucking goals in life. And the moment you start working towards your passion, your purpose on this planet, your greater potential, you stop looking left and right. You stop looking left and right. and comparing yourself to the fucking average humans to the civilians of the world,

and you start comparing yourself to the savages of the world, right? That's what you should do. Like, who's way above you? Who's way above you? That you could be like, I'm going to fucking do what they're doing. But in my industry, I'm going to do it my way with my level of financial freedom, with my level of impact for the charities and the causes that I believe in. I'm telling you, if you continue on this path where you're either living someone else,

dream or you're just getting by in your business or your work without because you're trying to play it safe playing it safe is committing slow suicide living someone else's dreams and visions for yourself is committing slow suicide the moment you decide to take some risks some calculated risks for yourself and the moment you decide to to write the story instead of working off their playbook you write the story in your playbook of how you're looking life should look and then execute on that playbook, man, you will live a life of so much fulfillment, significance, happiness that the idea of slow suicide will never cross your mind. And so I hope this was a wake-up call for many of you listening to this.

If you're like, well, thankfully, I never had to think about suicide. I'm here to tell you, that's great, man. You didn't have to think about suicide in your life. That's great. But many of you are committing slow suicide by just letting your fucking passions and your purpose and all those fucking ambitions that you have sit on the sidelines because you're playing it safe or you're fucking living out someone else's dream. So be sure to share this episode with everyone who you feel can benefit from it. As always, I would be massively grateful for you

if you would leave us a five-star review on all the different podcast platforms. Give us a thumbs up. Subscribe if you're on YouTube. And as always, don't forget to tell your mama. Much love, guys. so I was banging with a gang of instrument.