Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - 014. How To Outwork Everyone!

Episode Date: January 3, 2023

Even after all these years of building multiple successful 7 & 8 figure companies I still work like my back is against the wall. And I'm going to show you how you can achieve the same immigrant edge mindset so that you can outwork and outperform your competition. If you're ready to overcome any adversity that comes your way this year while outshining the competition you’ll want to listen to this episode.

You must operate like your back is against the wall, the immigrant mentality. And the way you do that is by having that no choice, to feel like you have no choice, but to have this high level of work ethic. Welcome to the Bedroft's Koolian show. Back when Q was rolling with Lorenzo and a Benzo, I was banging with a gang of instrumental. Man, my dad had the craziest work schedule when we first came to the United States. So for those of you that don't know, we escaped the Soviet Union. Union, Armenia, when I was six years old. We got here July 16, 1980. And like, we were broke,

man. We had, my dad probably had 150 or 200 bucks from what I remember for a family of five, right? I was six years old. My older brother was 19. And then my older sister was 22 years old. I'm the oops baby, hence the big gap between me and my siblings. And so it's me, my mom, my dad. and my older brother and older sister, and we're living in Section 8 housing, and my dad's schedule was bananas. Like within the first week, he had three jobs. His first job was from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m.,

and he had a paper route. So this guy in a van, and this white box van would pick him up, and then, you know, they'd slide that side door open because I would ask my dad, like, what do you do? Like, that time of the night. And he would throw newspapers

and on people's lawns and, you know, front stoops from two to six in the morning. And keep in mind, my dad wasn't like a spring chicken, man. My dad was 45 years old when we came to the United States. And so, like, he's in his mid-40s, and he's got a paper route out of a van that someone else was driving, and he's, like, shooting these newspapers on people's front lawns from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. And then from 7 a.m. to 12 noon, he would work at ARCO pumping gas.

Now, when I say ARCO, I don't want you to picture like the modern clean ARCOs that you guys know today that are like really light, lit up and bright. And they have like the whole AMPM convenience store. I want you to picture like the kind that you might still see in the hood these days where where it's like a little concrete cinder block box probably twice. size of an old phone booth that he would just stand in there and it had like cigarettes and lighters and maybe like like little bags of plantress peanuts that were for sale and it was like bulletproof glass and you know he would he would stand in there from 7 a.m. to 12 noon and he was the gas selling guy this is before you're using credit cards at pumps and so he would walk up to that box that booth you go, hey, man, I want $60 on pump number four, and off you go.

And then he would work from 1 p.m. to 8 p.m. at this pizzeria, where actually he and my sister worked at. So my sister was a waitress at this pizzeria, and my dad was a busboy at the pizzeria. And he worked there from 1 to 8 p.m. And then he'd come home and go to sleep, wake up, and, and, at two in the morning to start passing out newspapers again, and he would just rinse and repeat. I mean, that man had work ethic. That man's got the immigrant edge. And that immigrant edge is something that I want to talk to you guys about today because there is this powerful, powerful force that I believe immigrants have. And imagine if you could tap into it. Imagine if you could

harness some of that energy and that work ethic and that ability to just keep going, matter what. And so I want to be able to share some of that with you because me being an immigrant, seeing my dad worked the way he did is also why I worked the way I do. I've got tremendous work ethic. I just also understand that work ethic alone is not enough that you could just kill yourself by grinding, as Tim Grover says so eloquently, what happens if you take anything and you just keep grinding it and grinding it and grinding it? It turns into powder, right? Well, then if you know that anything that you grind over and over again is going to turn into powder, that might be you. And so you can't just grind it out. At some point, you got to start using

leverage. And I started using leverage and I started to create multiple income streams. And so my work ethic plus leveraging credit and employees and leadership teams and great marketing and salesmanship, the ability to speak from stage and now to speak on social media and articulate a message through a podcast or YouTube, et cetera, has allowed me to create wealth. So it's a very, very powerful thing, but it all starts with the work ethic of a immigrant. And so I want to talk to you guys about that mindset. And so when I was talking to my mom and dad a couple weeks ago, I go visit them every couple weeks in Anaheim where they live. I was like, guys, like, what made you work so hard when we first got here? Like, I was six years old. So to me, it was, okay, we're in a new place. I don't

speak English. I don't understand the culture. Like, I'm trying to make new friends in this, like, shithole apartment complex because we lived in all these Section 8 housing complexes, which were government-assisted. So they weren't the nicest complexes and had a lot of cockroach problems and fleas and fleas and lice. But nevertheless, you know, you make friends. And so they were like, well, look, when you come here and you're broke and you don't have these resources, you have to work hard because you have no choice.

Like, you literally have no choice. Like once we're out of that $150 that we showed up with, how are we going to buy food? How are we going to pay for water? How are we going to have the utilities, like electricity and gas? And what about the rent?

Because, yeah, you're living in Section 8 housing. That doesn't mean that rent is free. Rent is subsidized. So we still have to pay for rent, right? And so I was like, all right, I get it. And then my dad said something really powerful. He says, plus, I felt like I was late to the game. Like, here I am, 45 years old.

broke in a new country. I felt like I was starting at such a deficit that I had so much catching up to do to be able to make money and live this American dream that I've heard about that I was willing to risk my life for and escape communism to come here. So I worked because I just felt like I was so far behind and I was like, holy shit. Like those two things alone, those two things alone, like when you have no choice. Now we literally had no choice, right? Because it wasn't like my mom and dad had a great career where they were getting paid $70,000 a year with full benefits and vacation pay and pension plans. Like they literally were working a newspaper route and then pumping gas and then working at a pizzeria. And most of that was like if you probably pieced it all

together even back then, maybe maybe they were making 15 to 20 grand a year. Like my dad was making 15 to 20 grand a year with those three jobs a day. that he had. And so it wasn't a lot of money at all. But I share that with you because when you operate from this place where like your back is against a wall, you could do amazing things. Now, here's the good news for you all. You don't have to have your back against the wall. You really don't. You can just put yourself mentally there, right? And I'll give you a great example of this. And this might be a really dark thing. And Ed and Leighton, I don't know if you guys have done this or not, but you guys both have kids. And so maybe you can relate to this. But way back,

in the day, when I would do a heavy set of squats, truth be told, I still do it today. It's just this mind game that I play with myself. I would do a heavy set of squats or a heavy set of deadlift or something, whatever this heavy set is going to be. And I'm like, all right, man, I need to do like five reps, five clean reps here, no matter what. I would have this little conversation in my head as I'm wrapping my knees. I always start with my left knee first and then my right knee and then I you know get under that cinch up my belt get under the bar get a perfect grip elbows down and then unrack the bar step back and I'm going to do my five reps well in my head what I would say to myself is that and this is even before I had any kids before I was married

and I do it today that I'm going to finish this and I'm going to make it look easy these five reps are going to be super clean and if and if I don't demand my future kids are going to get kidnapped, that my future kids might get murdered. And I know that's a dark way to look at it, but I put my back against the wall metaphorically, and I would make it look easy. I would make that weight look easy. I would move it easily. And I would do five reps. And I'd be like, shit, I could probably do six or seven still. And that mindset is still the mindset that I use. Like, I literally wake up every day and I just think to myself, this game that I play, that someone, somewhere in a basement has this marker board that says how at the very top of their

marker board it says how to put bedros Kulian out of business for good right so I'm thinking there's like someone out there this evil doer who wants to put me out of business they want to crush fit body boot camp they want to destroy truly supplements they want to they want to see modern day night project fail squire fail my coaching business fail like all these investments that I have fail someone wakes up with this intent to put me out of fucking business and I go to battle every single day with that mindset. And when I go to battle with that mindset that someone is trying to put me out of business, even though I'm fucking wealthy and have properties and a ranch and in cars and fly private and do all these fucking things that I do, I still operate with that

immigrant edge mentality. And so I'm asking you, what is it going to take for you to operate from that place. You don't have to go to another country, broke, and start in a Section 8 housing complex to put your back against a wall. You could literally play that game like I just gave you two great examples, one in the gym and one in business. And when you play that game with yourself, and you're like, fuck this. I get myself all worked up. I get myself so worked up that someone's trying to put me on a business. I really believe this is why we survived and thrived out of the pandemic is because when that fucking pandemic hit and when I saw our Fit Body Boot Camp location shutting down, I was like, you know what? Fuck this. Fuck this. The fucking corona is not the

virus. I am the fucking virus. I will put corona out of business. I will put this fucking virus out of business. I will kill the virus. I will be the virus against the virus. And that is how you have to operate. And I remember slamming my fist at one of our leadership meetings about three months into the pandemic. And my leadership team is like, what the fuck? You're the the virus and you're going to put the virus out of business. You are the virus that's going to kill the virus. Like, what the fuck are you talking about? And then boom, it clicked. They got it. That we need to go to battle against the virus. We can't just operate as business as usual. And that is a problem with most of you out there today. You operate as business as usual as though

you are guaranteed to have good times. You are guaranteed that all marketing platforms will always be available, that you are guaranteed the cost of living will never go up, that you are guaranteed. And now for years, I've told you guys that winter is coming, motherfuckers, winter is coming. As Tony Robbins says, prepare for winter. Well, winter has come. Winter has come with that pandemic. Winter has come with that inflation. Winter has come with the recession and the depression that we're headed into.

And you must operate like your back is against the wall, the immigrant mentality. And the way you do that is by having that no choice, to feel like you have no choice, but to have this high level of work ethic, right? And then to feel like you're running late. So many of you give yourself too much credit. You let yourself off the hook by saying, I still have time. I need to have some balance. I can figure it out over time.

I don't need to be in a rush. No, be in a rush. Like set more pressure on yourself. Like feel like you're running late to the party. Feel like you're the last one. And you're like you're that fucking third monkey that's going to make it onto Noah's Ark. Like you need to fight like you're that third monkey that's going to make it onto Noah's arc. And if you're like, what the fuck is he talking about? Remember, Noah was like taking two

animals at a time, a male and a female. So if there's a third monkey coming on board, Noah's going to be like, get the fuck off. That monkey's going to bite Noah's face and get on that arc and like start reproducing like a motherfucker. Like if you are willing to fight like that, like that you are running late, that you have no choice, your back is against the wall, you will always succeed in any endeavor. That is the immigrant mentality. I'm trying to show you how we made it, how we made it in the country where we didn't understand the language, we didn't understand the culture, we were broke, we were poor, we were constantly told to go back to your own fucking country, you foreigners.

Like, I can't tell you how many times I've heard that. Like, I would see my brother get beat up by local kids who just didn't like the fact that we're foreigners. And then the local gangbangers started to fight me to the point where I had to start carrying a flathead screwdriver and to threaten them with the flathead screwdriver because it was me against a group of them and I didn't know what else to do

and my dad's like, here's a flathead screwdriver, here's what you're going to do, you're going to stab them over and over again. And once you stab the biggest guy, every single one of them would run away. He would say if a group of guys come and start a problem with you, you stab the biggest guy,

you step up to the biggest guy and start stabbing them until they all run away. And that's how it works. And then all of a sudden you get a reputation. But are you willing to fight like that? And I'm not saying you ought to go get a flathead screwdriver and start stabbing people.

But what I am telling you, though, is are you willing to have that level of work ethic? Because if you are, then the other piece that you need that an immigrant has is this ability to have resourcefulness, right? I can't tell you how many times I saw my parents have this amazing level of resourcefulness. So one of the times, we lived in four different, four different government-assisted homes, right, or apartments. And when you're living in government-assisted apartments, like I said, they're not clean. They're not the clean nuts. The landlord just keep it, whatever, dirty. They keep, like, bare minimum standards, right?

I remember one of them had a pool. Shade tree apartments had a pool. The pool was so fucking murky, bro. It looked like a swamp. It was like a fucking swamp. And it's like any minute. And I was like, a fucking alligator going to come out of there because, and then we would just go swimming there.

Like, and then I remember my eyes would be all bloodshot and I would have pink eye. And my mom would try to figure out how to fix pink eye using Armenian remedies because we weren't about to go and buy anything from the drug store. We didn't have any money. But in that same apartment complex, shade tree, apartments, I got lice. And of course, we were so broke, my parents couldn't even afford lice treatment. So my mom had my dad pump gasoline out, like siphoned gasoline out from a parked car and like in a jar. And then she washed my hair with gasoline to kill the lice. And it was

cheaper because it was free than lice treatment from the drugstore. Now, that is resourcefulness. Like, that is the level that you have to work. Like, when the absence of resources, you have to get resourceful. That is the immigrant mindset. That is the immigrant edge. That is how I live. That is how I operate. That is how I grew up.

Like, damn, Beatrice, that's savage. No, it's just a new way of thinking. It's a new way of surviving. And if you show up with a level 10 mindset like that, then any work that's even a level 6, 7, 8, 9 is easy. Like, easy. So another great example. of resourcefulness on the side of my parents on these beautiful immigrant parents that I have.

My dad had figured out that the grocery stores had these huge dumpsters behind them. And in these dumpsters, they would throw out food that had gotten bad, like either gotten rotten or that had expired, but weren't necessarily bad yet. Some bread might have mold on it or the cheese might have mold on it. But he would pick me up because I was the smallest one in the family and he put me into the dumpster. and I would fish out bags of bread, like loaves of bread and packets of cheese and milk that had expired but hadn't gone bad yet and my mom would pick off the mold from the bread and the cheese

and she'd fry it up and we'd eat it. But it's, hey, man, it's free food. It's resourcefulness. It's finding heads of lettuce that are all rotten, but you peel enough of those heads of lettuce the leaves away. There's a tiny little fresh little lettuce under there and you get enough of those heads of rotten lettuce.

You can make a little salad for your immigrant family, right? Like that's how you guys need to fucking operate. Like the American dream, is alive and well. You could have anything you want. In fact, the barrier to the American dream is lower than ever because you've got the internet. So you've got global reach now. You've got social media platforms where if you make high how to, how to videos, how to make money, how to sell real estate, how to tie your shoes, how to dye your clothes, how to, like whatever is how to give yourself a fucking haircut, right? You can make any kind of how to do. There's like how to play

the drums, how to play the fucking piano, how to play the guitar. how to skate. You can make how-to-anything videos on social media. And social media will start showing that to people that are interested. Those people start following you. Then you create a coaching program or a course and you sell it to them. And you create a website on fucking WordPress that's free. And then use PayPal that's free.

That they charge what, one and a half, two percent of the money that comes through that they process for you? Like the bear to the American dream is lower than ever. The effort for the American dream, most of y'all have gotten soft. There is the problem. People have gotten so soft, y'all have gotten so used to comfort and convenience

that the idea of acting like, living like, you have no choice but to make an obscene amount of money. You have no choice but to work 18-hour days. So you don't have to work 18-hour days your whole life. You put in a year or two of solid-focused 18-hour days and you will catapult yourself a decade ahead of your competition. But no one's willing to do that because of the comfort and convenience

and the low expectations that you have. And you're like, well, what do you mean about comfort and convenience, Pedro? Let me tell you. Comfort and convenience by way of everything is at your fingertips. Like you can go shopping by taking your iPhone and like, all right, well, I'm going to order food now. Okay. And now my food's on its way.

Oh, look, grubhub. Oh, look, DoorDash. Oh, look. I ordered burrito from the burrito joint. Oh, it's down the street. There it comes. Oh, it stopped into the red light. Like, do you really want your life that fucking comfortable?

You lazy fuck? You've gotten too soft. Like, get in your car or walk to the fucking burrito joint. Do the modern day version of hunting, right? Do the modern day version of hunting. Fucking jocco's out there with a bow and arrow fucking smashing, fucking, I don't know, moose with a bow and arrow. Cameron Haynes out there doing the same thing.

Like, all these dudes are doing the same thing. They're fucking hunting like old school primitive style. Fucking, that looks so awesome to me. I can't wait to one day do that. But can you at least take your ass shopping and put in some effort? Or are you so committed to the comfort and convenience where you just want to sit on your couch and watch your food show up and not see any sunlight, not deal with any adversity, not have to communicate with people, not have to problem solve at a four-way stop sign?

And so you start becoming this gelatinous mass where someone can't differentiate your brain from your body because it's all just as blobby mass. Like, damn, be, you're being fucking hard on us. I am because no one else is willing to be. It's because I love you because I give a shit about you because I want to see you grow and thrive and we are headed into a massive recession

that's going to be compounded by a depression. Inflation is through the roof. Like right here in Chino Hills, gas is $7 a gallon for premium. And you're like, oh, you should leave California. You, I'm not leaving California. $7 or $17 a gallon. It doesn't affect me because I work like a fucking immigrant. I have so much money.

I treat California like it's Florida. I fucking enjoy California like it's Texas. Right? I'm not worried about that money. I'm worried about you and your work ethic. Like instead of constantly running away from the cities and running to like cheaper parts of the world to live and constantly tightening the belt,

have you thought about just making more money and living where the fuck you want to live because you only have one run at life? Have you thought about that? You only have one turn on this fucking planet. And if California, this beautiful state where there's no humidity, it's beautiful weather year round, you can literally surf and snowboard, and I've done both. In one day, I've surfed and snowboarded on the same day.

You've got mountains. It's not flat like a fucking pancake like these other states are. You've got beautiful mountains, topography, and all this shit. You think I'm going to leave here because of the 8% luxury tax that I pay? Fuck you. You think, no, I'm going to make more money and enjoy the state. because I've got one run at life, and I want my family to enjoy the best state out there. And I share this with you because I want you to enjoy the best of life.

And I don't care what state that's going to be in, but I don't want you to ever compromise your quality of life or what you're going to eat or where you are going to stay with your family on vacation or how you're going to travel to that destination. I don't want you to ever compromise any of that stuff because you failed to work like an immigrant. You must adopt that immigrant mindset of working. like you have no choice, feeling like you're late and behind schedule, and then being resourceful in the absence of resources, like figuring it out, F-I-O.

And if you are willing to figure it out and do those things, then abandon comfort and convenience. Like choose to do the hard things. Like literally choose the staircase over the escalator, right? Park at the farthest fucking parking lot when you're walking to your office. Just do the hardest things, always, always. even in your office. You're like, I'm going to take the elevator to go down. No, take the staircase.

Take the staircase. Like, if you do that, you start creating a pattern of badassery. And badassery creates a lot of financial freedom. And financial freedom allows you to make a lot of money and do a lot of good with it. And I don't know about you. I don't know about you, but I love doing a lot of good with my money.

I love helping Shrine of Children's Hospital, Toys for Tots, Compassion International. I love every December when we shut down the local target. here in Chino Hills on a Saturday morning and we buy a quarter million dollars with the toys for Toys for Tots. We've donated multiple seven figures to Shriner's Children's Hospital where these kids whose families can't afford medical surgeries and procedures, the Shriners Hospital does it for them for free. It's because of people like us that are funding them, right?

And so you can become part of a global solution, man, make a lot of money and do a lot of good with it. But it starts with this immigrant mindset. And I wanted to share my dad's schedule with you so that you understand. like what real work ethic looks like. And real work ethic that my dad has, that I have, compounded by today's ability

to use leverage and scale, is you become unstoppable. And if you go back a couple episodes and learn about wealth creation and not just making a lot of money, trading time for dollars, but actual wealth creation, you become like this nuclear bomb

of financial freedom. But it all starts with the ability, to have this immigrant edge mentality that nothing, nothing will make you live below the means that you don't want to live. Setting higher standards, not compromising

about how you spend your money and how you spend your time with the people that you love. And that's what I love best about, you know, the biggest lesson that my dad taught me was this like immigrant edge work ethic to be able to achieve the ultimate American dream. And that brings us to the end of this episode, my friends. And so I want to remind you that average is the enemy,

that you have a responsibility to be successful and that change could happen in an instant the moment you decide to flip the switch. Much love to you all. See you next time. 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.