Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - 045. This ONE TRAIT Predicts SUCCESS

Episode Date: August 8, 2023

In this episode, I break down the one simple trait that we ALL possess, but only a few choose to develop. This trait is the dividing line between those who live an average mediocre life and those who live a purpose-driven life. And when you develop this one trait you will transform your life. JOIN MY FREE 6-WEEK CHALLENGE: ⁠https://bedroskeuilian.com/challenge

Whether it's adversity, whether it's suffering, whether it's pain, if you choose to run towards it, who you become on the other side of it is a newer, higher, more transcendent version of you. Welcome to the Bedroes Coolian Show. Back when Q was rolling with Lorenzo and a Benzo, I was banging with a gang of instrumental. Hey friends, welcome to the Bedroes Coolian show. We've got another great episode on the docket for you guys today. And I want to talk to you guys about the one thing, the one trait. that is going to predict success.

And in fact, this one thing is something very easy that you can do, but for some people, it is not as simple as it sounds. And I'm going to break it down for you so that it becomes simple, so that success can be predictable in your life as well. All right, guys, let's get started with the show, the one trait that predicts success. What do you think that one trait is? Well, let's dive into this by telling you a little story.

I don't know if you guys ever watched Bill Nye, the science guy, but sometime around, I don't know, I'd say maybe 12, 13 years ago. I remember watching Bill Nye an episode or two of Bill Nye, the science guy, and he was talking about how water boils, right? Like, obviously water starts off as kind of room temperature when it comes out of the faucet, and then you put it in a pot and you put it over fire, and water starts boiling.

And that temperature at which water boils at sea level, I remember that because apparently altitude determines what degree of heat water will boil at. But at sea level, water boils at 211 degree, said Bill Nye, the science guy. I'm like, cool. But at 12 degrees, that water becomes steam. And he talked about how, you know, hey, you can boil water and make tea with it. and you can cook an egg in it, make hard-boiled egg. You can boil a potato, right?

But he said when that 211-degree water turns to 12-degree degrees and becomes steam, now with that steam, you can power a locomotive. With that steam, you can power a nuclear power plant. That steam has a very different use than boiling water. And the only difference was one degree. 211 degrees, water boils, 12 degrees, water turns into steam. And it can power a nuclear power plant that can then generate electricity for a city.

And so I got to thinking that really isn't that what life is about? Like that one more degree? And, you know, when I'm on stage, I always talk about resiliency. I talk about resourcefulness. And I talk about being relentless in your pursuit of your goals. Like one of my keynote talks that I do from, stage. I'm a paid speaker is the three R's, resiliency, resourcefulness, and being relentless in your pursuit of your life's goals. Well, that relentless piece is where this one degree of

change comes in because if you are willing to kick that lever one more degree in your life, you're going to achieve things that most others won't. And I want to talk to you about that one more degree, that one more attempt at a sales call, that one more attempt at a set or a rep in the gym, that one more plate that you're going to put on when you're working out, that one more mile that you're going to run, that one more date night that you're going to have, right? That one more time you're going to say, I love you,

that one more time when you fell on your ass and you're going to get back up, that one more time that you're going to make an attempt at your life's ambitions. That is the separator between average people and savage people. And that one degree of change is all it takes. See, a lot of people think that there's a massive difference between really successful and well-off, famous athletic people and the rest of them. There's not. It's that one degree.

Like the guy who's fit versus the guy who's fat, the guy who's fit does that one thing that the fat guy doesn't. He gets out of bed when his alarm goes off. He doesn't eat a ding-dong with cream cheese on it. He actually drinks his protein shake and then goes to the gym, whereas fat guy decides that he's going to eat a ding-dong with cream cheese on it and then chase it down with a creamy coffee. Right? and avoid a workout at all costs because a workout is painful. Whereas that guy who's going to go to the gym knows that that pain that he's going to put his body through, that pain is a privilege that his body is going to adopt and get leaner,

tighter, stronger, more defined and more athletic. It is that one degree of decision, that one little shift in things you do. And in fact, I often talk about how suffering introduces a man to his highest self, right? And people always tell me, well, why is suffering so good? Like, you know, I don't want to suffer. Listen, I'm not talking about like someone, I don't know, like sawing your arm off. That's suffering too, right? I'm talking about intentionally doing things that put you into a place of adversity,

pain and suffering. Say a Spartan race. Say a mud run. say a marathon like you guys all can go to bedroskulein.com forward slash challenge and download my free marathon training guide in six weeks you can train for and run a marathon just like i did i used to tell myself that i'm i'm designed to lift weights that running is not something i do and i kind of bought into that bullshit story that i told myself right when in reality the human body the human psychology is so adaptable, man, that you could do anything and become anyone that you want,

but it takes that degree of change and effort to do it. And I decided that I was going to hire marathon running coach and train for six weeks and then run that marathon, the San Diego Rock and Roll Marathon. And I did, and it blew away so many limiting beliefs that I carried with me. And so if you guys want to do that marathon challenge, it's free, it's available to you guys, and it comes with a nutrition plan for recovery. It comes with six weeks of motivational videos and audios for me. And of course, it's the same training guide that my marathon running coach built out for me that you can use to train and run, train for and run a marathon, bedroskoolion.com forward slash challenge. But I share that with you because there is a high level of suffering

when you are training for a marathon, especially in six weeks. Can you do it? Yes. Is it going to suck? Absolutely. And you have to embrace that suck. And there's a difference between the person who races to suck versus the person who is constantly trying to run away from discomfort, suckiness, pain, adversity, right? And in fact, back in 1939, Napoleon Hill, when he wrote his book, Think and Grow Rich, in that book he talks about, on the other side of pain, you meet your highest self. On the other side of pain, you meet your higher self. How powerful is that? Like this man knew it back in 1939, he saw it and then he wrote about it in one of the most popular books on the planet, think and grow rich. Whether it's adversity, whether it's suffering, whether it's pain,

if you choose to run towards it, who you become on the other side of it is a newer, higher, more transcendent version of you, right? But most people want to do what? They see pain, they see suffering, they see potential for adversity, they see risk, and they begin to run away, they retreat, they go towards comfort, complacency, they go towards not feeling discomfort. And what that does is conditions you to be soft mentally and physically and emotionally. It doesn't put you in a place of experiencing growth. Now, sure, I get it. when we were cavemen, we certainly wanted to run away from any risk.

We didn't want to experience any disaster. And so it is factory installed in you as a human to seek out comfort, to seek out complacency, consistency, right? But here's what happened. The cavemen had factory installed adversity also in their life. Because to actually get to eat, you and your tribe of dudes have to sharpen up. your spears and come up with an elaborate plan to trap the saber-tooth tiger, attack it, and kill it.

And there's a good amount of pain and suffering that comes with preparing for, chasing down, and ultimately killing, and then dragging this saber-tooth tiger to your caves because you're probably going to get hurt in the process. Like, there's suffering involved with that. When you're dealing with the elements before we had all these comfort and conveniences of life. You're having to deal with cold and rain and ice and droughts. To get water, they probably had to walk miles and fill up a little stump that they carved out with water as a bucket and bring back to their cave only to be attacked by other tribes.

Like suffering was built in to the caveman's life. And so he had the opportunity to constantly improve and become a better version of himself. This is why we evolved, didn't we? Look at the creature comforts that we have, but we are still that same caveman. The difference is now we have all these comforts, we have all these conveniences, and we no longer have the adversity, the suffering, the pain that comes with life. We don't. Now, what you do is you manufacture it because your body still wants it, which is so fucking silly, right? All of you that are like, I'm always depressed, I'm always anxious, I'm always on edge.

Well, guess what? Life is pretty damn good compared to the caveman I just described, right? And as good as life is, and you have access to the world because you have this goddamn phone in your hand. Like, you literally have access to the world. Like, there was kings and queens that were carried around like fucking Cleopatra on the shoulders of men that had less access than you do. Right? Their bathrooms even were buckets that had chamber pots. they didn't have an iPhone they could access the world to yet you find a reason to be anxious and

depressed and that's because the human psyche wants comfort and complacency and convenience but it also demands suffering pain and adversity and so now that it is not available to us the suffering pain and adversity in our normal day-to-day life because everything is so convenient hell i mean you could start your car from your house. You could set your alarm in your house temperature before you get home and have the just the right temperature for your cozy little ass to be in, right? And you've gotten so comfortable that you'll order your jolly burger, extra onions, double cheese, hold the sauce with a diet Coke because you're on a diet, but extra crispy French fries. And then you'll watch that motherfucker come down to you through.

Grubhub or some kind of food delivery app and you get frustrated to the idea that my food is three minutes late and here I am in my fucking loose PJs and my slip on crocs with Cheeto dust and my belly button from lunch waiting for my Jolly Burger to arrive like that's how comfortable life has gotten so what are you doing then to actually achieve some level of hardship so that you could overcome it and meet the higher version of yourself, the version of yourself that can deal with some adversity, that can deal with uncertainty, that can deal with hardship, right? And I'll give you a great example.

Like, I'm always looking for opportunities to introduce hardship into my life, whether it's physical, mental, emotional, right? Like, I want some hardship. So, like, everyone's, it's all played out. Everyone's going to do an ice baths left and right. Everyone's doing ice baths. And cool. That's hard.

It's difficult. It doesn't feel good. Like your body does not want to go in like fucking 39 degree water. I get it. Right. But you do it because you know, yes, there's physical and like actual medicinal benefits of doing an ice bath. But there's also the fact that for three, four minutes, you're just going to suck it up, buttercup and be in this uncomfortable state and try and get control of the conversation in your mind and the panicking

and the screaming and the yelling that's all happening internal, and to be able to calm your mind, become present, and focus on something great that's happening that you actually physically chose to go in this ice bath, right? And then you get to post about it on social media, of course, because if you don't post about it, it didn't happen. But think about this.

I'm always looking for things to do. And Steve Eckhart, one of our co-founders of the project, and I were talking about this. When we run the project three times a year and we're awake for about 75 hours straight, just like the candidates going through it, it is hardship on us. It is tough on us. Yes, they just have to go through the project and all the evolutions. We are going through those experiences with them. No, we're not going in the ocean and battling the waves. And no, we're not carrying the weights, although half the time we end up carrying some of the weights for them because

dudes get injured, dudes get hurt. We end up carrying logs, carrying backpacks, carrying sledgehammers. but we also have to be alert. We also have to be fully focused, make sure no one is getting hurt. We have teaching blocks where we have to teach, even though we haven't slept for 30, 40 hours, right? And while one guy's teaching, maybe I might go get a 30, 40 minute nap,

if I'm lucky, but it is distracted nap. But I'm telling you this because that hardship for 75 hours, three times a year, really helps me meet my higher self. Can I control my anger? Can I control my emotions? Can I articulate a message and teach? like I could teach from stage when I'm tired, when I'm exhausted, when I haven't eaten.

And so I look forward for those opportunities. In fact, every December I do something called suckfest, right? I started this about five years ago and now it's become a thing where from sundown to sun up, I will hike 30 to 40 miles throughout the night. Literally from sundown to sun up. And now like the group has gotten like to 50 some odd people. hiking through the hills of Chino Hills here. So you've been awake for 24 hours.

And the last like 12, 13 hours of the day that you've been awake, you're hiking, just going constantly in a massive 8 to 10 mile loop. And you could stop anytime you want. You can quit and give up and get in your car. I'm not going to laugh at anyone that does that. But I just keep going. And guess what? Anyone that's ever gone with us doesn't stop.

Doesn't quit. They just keep going. Yeah, they might go to slower pace. Yeah, we might have to take a little breaks here and there, but we just keep going. And when we see the sun peek up over those hills, it's such a gratifying feeling to know that we did something in cold weather while staying awake for 24 hours and having our feet take us 30 to 40 miles. We did something by choice that was hard and difficult and we got to meet.

the next best version of ourself. Because when that inner dialogue begins, I want to quit, this is enough, I'm tired, I'm cold, I'm exhausted, this hurts, I've got blisters, right? Like we get blisters like the size of silver dollars, man, on the bottoms of our feet, on our toes, but we just keep going. And it is in that pain that we go towards

that we get to meet the higher version of ourselves. When the negotiation begins of why I should quit, why I should give up, why I should stop, the inner advocate comes out and says, keep going, be the role model, be the example, be harder than everybody else. And that is what I want for you. And so whether it's Napoleon Hill, whether it's me, you know the answer is hardship, intentionally developed hardship manufactured into your life so that you can have a better, easier life.

because when you live an easy life, your life is really hard. When you do hard things, your life becomes easy. That's just how it is. Maybe the creator has a sense of humor after all. That when we do hard things, we have an easy life. When we do easy things, when we always choose easy, we have that hard life. I believe the creator, the universe God has a great sense of humor. And so what that means, though, is you're able to develop a higher level of adversity

quotient. You've heard of IQ and EQ, right? Intelligence quotient and emotional quotient. You probably haven't heard of aQ. Adversity quotient. And adversity quotient is how much adversity can you handle and still keep making good decisions. Still keep putting one foot in front of the other. Still keep leading people that you're meant to lead. And if you can crank up that thermostat by intentionally doing hard things, running towards pain, doing that one more set, one more rep, one more step, one more sales call, one more knock on the door, one more thing, one more degree than everybody else. All it takes is that one extra degree consistently compounded over time, you become a savage of a human.

This is self-development at a high level, right? See, this will create success in every category of life. if you will develop the skill of going from 211 degrees to 212. I believe most of humanity just wants to boil. They just want to stay at 211 degrees and boil. And they feel like, hey, I'm doing something. I'm making money. I'm providing for my family.

Yeah, I'm a little behind on bills. Yeah, I'm stressed and anxious. Yeah, I'm depressed. Yeah, I'm overwhelmed. But isn't that how everybody else is? I've got all these bills, all this debt. Oh, my God, there's a pandemic. What do I do?

I'm helpless. I'm a victim. That's most everybody at 211 degrees. at 212 degrees, one more degree of shift, you become steam. You get to power a locomotive. You get to power a nuclear power plant. You get to do the things that others don't. And if you have to look, you have to look at it that way.

Like, it's not that fuck, man, I have to walk through the night. I have to be awake 75 hours. I have to go work out. I get to. Right now, I'm actually nursing a torn tricept. About three weeks ago, I tore my tricep. If you follow me on Instagram or YouTube, in fact, then you know that I posted pictures of how black and blue my arm was.

I'm going to go see an orthopedic surgeon soon and see what we need to do, either surgery or stem cells or whatever, right? But guess what? I'm still working around my injuries. I'm still staying fit, lean, and jacked. I'm training legs more than ever. I'm doing all types of flies for chest and shoulders

because I can't do any kind of pressing that involves my tricep. But I constantly continue to do hard shit because if I don't, I will begin to slide into this mentally weak, emotionally crippled human. And there's no room for that in my life. I have people to lead, organizations to lead, I have shit to do, I've got a family I love. I am a man on a mission and it's going to take more than a torn tricept. But I also realize now that I'm injured, how fortunate I was that I got to work out twice a day.

because now I have to modify workouts, and it's a little hit on the ego. I'm not going to lie. I gave myself a day of feeling sorry for myself the day after I tore my tricept. But guess what? I continue to plow forward doing hard shit as hard as I can with a torn tricep until I recover from it. But I will not stop training because I've torn my tricep. I can still train back.

I can still do bicep curls. I can still do modified chest and shoulders. I train legs two to three times a week and my legs have grown bigger than ever. I love it. But I'm here to tell you that most people will slide towards bubble wrapping themselves the moment to have an injury, the moment something goes wrong, the moment they sense fear or adversity or pain, they retreat. You have to run towards it.

You become a different person on the other side of it. And I want to beat that into your head as much as I can because it is that one degree that separates winners from losers. It is that one degree that separates the successful from the failures. It is that one degree consistently done, compounded over years, that will build a legacy, that will build a reputation that will proceed you

before you walk into room or onto a stage or whatever. And I hope that you are committed to doing that one extra degree. Because if you do, and you compounded over time. It has to be compounded. You can't do like a 90 day sprint of I'm going to make the extra calls. I'm going to do the extra sets. I'm going to be more consistent and focused here and there.

And then after 90 days, you go back to being a fuck up, right? That's not going to work. This has to be a lifestyle change. Like there has to be the thing that creates the shift and then leaves the fucking lever broken where you can't shift back into loser mode. Find what that thing is. Like in my life, it was when I was eight years old, we had just moved to the United States two years earlier.

My dad had multiple jobs. My brother, older brother had multiple jobs. My older sister had multiple jobs. And I was, at the time I was eight years old, just two years into this country, we're living in Section 8 housing. We're, you know, literally food stamps. We are finding food and dumpsters that grocery stores have thrown out because it's food that's expired but hasn't really gone bad yet.

or maybe there's just a little bit of mold on it, that my mom would pick off and we'd eat. Like, we had it pretty bad, right? And so my sister had a couple of jobs, and one of those jobs that she had, she worked at a pizzeria. And the guy who ran that pizzeria, who owned that pizzeria,

was very insulting towards her. He was very sexually, I guess, suggestive and made my sister feel uncomfortable, and she would come home crying. And she would tell my dad, I don't want to work there anymore. And my dad reluctantly was like, we need all the money we can have

so we can move out of the Section 8 housing and find a place where there's no gangs, where there's no robberies, where there's no killings. And so my sister had to work there, and I would see her cry every night to my dad wanting to quit that job. And I felt helpless.

At eight years old, you feel helpless. Like, I want to make money. I want to be able to take away her fears and pain, but what can I do? and in that moment I remembered one of those days I went up to her and I said hey sis when I'm older I'm gonna make so much money that you're never gonna have to work for this guy again

now I realize now that I wasn't able to solve her problem then in that moment right and that's really what her problem was is in that moment she was in pain she didn't want to work there and it was very uncomfortable and that fucker made it very uncomfortable for my sister but all I could do was say that in the future, when I have more control, when I have more power,

when I'm older, I'm going to do that. And today, for like almost now going on two decades now, my sister works for me and she works from home. And she just does whatever I need her to do, which is virtually nothing other than looking after my mom and dad who lived two miles away from her. And I love that I was able to keep that promise. but that was the event

that helped me find that next degree, that next shift, that next lever, and then I broke that fucking lever off. You know, on the show, I always talk about when you are ready to flip the switch, you want to flip the switch and break that fucker off so you could never go back to the 1.0 version of yourself. So I hope, I hope, I pray that I have been able to speak into you,

influence you, persuade you, so that you can find that next degree. So you can find that fucking next lever and gear in your life and then break the shifter off so you can never downshift again. I haven't. I will continue to work.

I will continue to be generous with my money. I will continue to look after my family and myself and my team and my community. Like I will be the one. As Ed Milet says, I will be the one in my life. And there's nothing, nothing making me unique by the way you could be the one in your generation in your family's

trajectory to be able to change everything but it starts with one finding that defining moment and two realizing that it just takes one degree of effort compounded over time that separates you from all the fucking losers in the world so guys thank you so much for watching and listening to this episode of the bed rose coolian show Remember that averages the enemy. Success is your responsibility and change can take place in an instant when you decide to flip the switch. I'll see you guys 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.