Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - 117. THIS will give you an unfair advantage in life

Episode Date: December 24, 2024

In this episode of the Bedros Keuilian Show, I reveal the brutally honest truth about what it really takes to bounce back from life’s toughest challenges. Resilience isn’t factory-installed—it���s a skill, a muscle you can build. I’ll share the mindset shifts and daily habits that create an unfair advantage in life, helping you turn adversity into growth and setbacks into success. Whether it’s overcoming financial loss, personal tragedy, or failure, these principles will prepare you to dominate in business, relationships, and life itself. REGISTER FOR THE LEGACY TRIBE Get the Life, Money, Meaning & Impact You Deserve https://bedroskeuilian.com/legacytribe JOIN MY FREE 6-WEEK CHALLENGE: Transform into a Purpose-Driven Man https://bedroskeuilian.com/challenge TruLean Supplements | https://www.trulean.com/pages/bedros Get 50% Off Trulean Subscribe & Save Bundle Use Code: BEDROS Few Will Hunt Apparel | https://fewwillhunt.com/ Get 20% Off Your Entire Order Use Code: BEDROS OPEN A FIT BODY LOCATION A High-Profit, Scalable Gym Franchise Opportunity Driven By Impact https://sales.fbbcfranchise.com/get-started?utm_source=bedros PODCAST EPISODES: https://bedroskeuilian.com/podcast/ STAY CONNECTED: Website | https://bedroskeuilian.com/ Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/bedroskeuilian/ LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/bedroskeuilian Twitter | https://twitter.com/bedroskeuilian

The only people that don't have problems, the only people that don't need to develop resiliency are dead people. Welcome to the Bedros Koolian show. Back when Q was rolling with Lorenzo and a Benzo, I was banging with a gang of instrumental. Hey, life isn't fair. It never has been. And in fact, if you're looking for the unfair advantage in life when you're facing adversity and hardship, what I'm about to share with you here might give you exactly what you're looking for. Guys, welcome to the Bedros Kulian show.

my name is bedros Kulian and today I've got a great episode teed up for you and it is all about the unfair advantage what I consider to be a superpower where success is concerned where happiness is concerned where achieving your life goals are concerned and at the end of the day you're on this planet to be successful happy and achieve your life goals however we also know that life has its inevitable ups and downs right we know this and if we know that to be true then we know that when we are faced with hardship when we are faced with difficult adversities. Imagine if you could recover from those hardships and stresses faster and get over those negative experiences sooner, right? In other words, have a high level of bounce back ability, as I call it. Not quite sure if that's a word,

but I think it should be. And so if you want to be able to bounce back from adversity, then, well, guess what? This is something that's going to be very relevant to you. What is this thing that I'm talking about that's such a superpower and that will help you achieve your life? streams and goals and ambitions, well, it is resilience, guys. And we're going to talk about resilience because it's not factory installed in anybody. It is a trait like a muscle. It is developed. And I want to give you the secret to developing resilience, your ability to bounce back from hardships, adversity, and negative experiences because the inevitable does happen. And so, you know, I asked a friend the other day, I said, you know, how important do you think

resilience is. And he said, well, I think it's pretty important, but, you know, I'm not quite sure how to develop it. I said, well, what if I said that it's actually pretty easy to develop? It's like three to four things you can do to develop resilience. And like a muscle, if you keep doing those three to four things, you will keep that resilience for when you need it. Because think about this, if you've ever experienced a breakup in life, maybe a divorce, injury, financial setback, maybe you've had a death of a loved one that you care for. Maybe you've just been fired from a job, right? Or you've failed in business.

Look at all the things. Like if I asked my audience out there on the podcasts and the YouTube platforms, did you have you ever experienced divorce, injury, financial setback, a breakup, a death of a loved one or some kind of a failure in business? The answer would probably, yeah, I've probably achieved one or experienced one or at least more of those things. And my dear friend Jason Redmond, retired Navy SEALs, has this great saying. He says, there will be a life ambush for the average American at least four to six times throughout their life.

A life ambush, right? A life ambush is you're going through life and you are doing the things you need to be doing to get by, serve your family, make money, you know, just live. And then something disastrous happens. Something unfair happens. And the reason I started this by saying life is unfair and it's always been unfair and it never will be fair is because oftentimes when a disaster, hardship, adversity happens, we tend to think that why is this happening to me, right? When in reality, it's not happening to you.

It is just the cost of being alive. The cost of being alive means you will deal with hardships and adversities. Now, how you bounce back from them, your ability to recover. from them. That is the determining factor whether you will experience happiness, joy, bliss, success, and the desired outcomes that you're looking for, or you will end up feeling like a victim and end up being sad and depressed throughout your life, right? And so I wanted to share with this with you because resilient people do recover faster and they get back to the fight sooner. Whatever the fight is, the fight to get back in shape, the fight to have a wonderful

relationship, the fight to grow your business, the fight to live a purpose-driven life, whatever it is, but the hardships do come, right? I mean, let me just tell you personal story. A personal story is, and many of you heard this, but I know we get a ton of new subscribers every single day, so it's worth me sharing this. But in the year of 2023, last year, right? Maybe by the time you're listening to this, it's early 2025, but in 2023, in May, I tore my tricept. I was boxing and I tore my tricep, just a freak accident. And then my mom for the previous five years was struggling and dealing with dementia,

Alzheimer's disease. And in July of 2023, that same year that I tore my tricept, I tore it in May. In July, we put my mom on hospice, in home hospice. That was in July. In September, my mom passed away. In October, my son's best friend passed away at 18. years old. They were best friends since they were little puppies. They were to elementary school together. And, you know, four months after that, I get a hernia. I'm doing jujitsu and I get a

hernia. Now, look at that window of time, about a 12-month period and I literally had to deal with five different hardships, adversities, and struggles, right? And as you're listening to this, I'm in recovery from my hernia two weeks now. And I share this with you because it's not like I'm built different or anyone who is able to showcase resiliency is built different. We're not. I will tell you what is different about us so that you can develop these three to four different traits in you because the inevitable hardships are going to happen. And when they do, it is mandatory that you are able to flex your resiliency muscles because when you do, you will bounce back faster. and get after life sooner.

If you sit there and play the victim and feel like sucky things are happening to you and you take it as a sign of disapproval from God or the creator or the universe, then you will feel just a longer amount of hopelessness and helplessness. And this is the unfortunate thing because when I look at the most successful entrepreneurs,

when I look at the most successful athletes, when I look at the most successful relationships, they all have one thing in common. The individual in it is resilient. They have a high propensity to bounce back from hardships and adversities and get back to doing the thing they were doing, right? Let me tell you, it ain't easy bouncing back

from a torn tricep and then your mom passing away and then your son's best friend passing away and having to console my son and figuring out why that happened and how that happened and then getting a hernia. And between that, by the way, as an entrepreneur, I had a whole bunch of other mini disasters that happened between all those bigger disasters that happened to me. However, I realized that this is life. The only people that

don't have problems, the only people that don't need to develop resiliency are dead people. Because dead people have no problems. However, they also have no life. They also have no path in life. They also have no sense of purpose. They have no sense of happiness. They are dead. And if you are not dead, congratulations. God, your creator, has given you problems, adversities, and hardships so that you can develop that muscle. Understand that it is not factory installed. Resilience is not factory installed. You might think it is because all of a sudden you see David Goggins, you know, running around on social media and being the hard ass that he is. And you're like, fuck, man, if I had just a drop of his resilience, I'd be badass. Well, if you've ever read his books,

wonderful books, by the way. Highly recommend you get both of David Goggins books. He talks about all the hardships that he's had to deal with in life, both as a child and as an adult where he was fat, he was unhappy. He was basically disrespecting his body. And one day, he decided that I'm going to be different, right? This could be that one day for you. That's all it is.

It's that one day. You know, when I say change can take place in an instant, it's because when you You are fed up enough of suffering, struggling, being helpless and hopeless, and feeling like a victim, you decide that one day and today is that day I'm going to do something about it. And when you do, all of a sudden, resilience begins to build. Now, I'm going to tell you exactly how you can develop and build your resilience muscles. But I need you to understand something. We all know what IQ is, right?

IQ is intelligence quotient. And if you have a high level of IQ, hey, that's great. You're smart. you're intelligent. You can work through mathematical problems or engineering problems pretty well. And if you have a high EQ, emotional quotient, that's cool too. That means you are more emotionally tuned into yourself and to others. What people don't really talk much about is aQ, adversity quotient, which means how much adversity and hardship can you deal with, can you handle, overcome, and get back up? In other words, a person that has a high level of IQ,

right, adversity quotient, has a greater amount of bounce back ability in their life. And if you think about that, if you can bounce back from the hardships, then all of a sudden you're in a position to go and dominate life again. So what are the things that we need to develop so that we can have a higher level of resiliency in our life? Allow me to get a little shot of my truly.

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Just take one packet, pour it in four ounces of water, and shoot it, and you're good to go. Best of all, $1.69 per packet instead of twice the price of those other inferior one. I want you to get 50% off your first 30-day supply. So go to trulean.com, use my name Bedrosse, and you can get 50% off plus free shipping, a 30-day money-back guarantee, and $1 gets donated to Shriner. Children's Hospital. Best of all, if you like the Trulene Wellness Shots, and I know you will, like thousands of other people who are part of the Trulene tribe, every month will send you a new supply at 20% off free shipping. So go to truleen.com, use my name Bedros and get your 50% discount

code before it goes away. Back to the show. Depression is hopelessness and helplessness. Resilience is the opposite, knowing that you have what it takes to bounce back and overcome. I'll say that again, and this is right out of 2005. study, a research study that said depression is hopelessness and helplessness and resilience is the opposite. So that if we know that if we are depressed, it's because we feel hopeless and helpless. And the way out of that state of depression is to be able to develop resilience because we know then resiliency gives us a choice.

What do we know about resiliency then? Well, we know that the type of people who are most resilient, and by the way, they're not born this way. This is not like they are factory installed habits or personality types. Resiliency is a trait. And you can develop traits like the trait of being lazy or the trait of living in urgency. The trait of being a problem solver or a trait of pointing to problems and dwelling on them and sitting on them. Right. And so we know, number one, that the most resilient people are people who are proactive. In other words, they are problem solvers. To them, they understand that everything is solvable.

So that's a mindset shift, right? The mindset that, man, something happened. This sucks. So-and-so died. I got divorced. They broke up with me. I got fired. I lost X amount of dollars.

My business failed. I got injured. This sucks. I'll never be whole again. That is hopelessness and helplessness. That is the sad and pathetic, depressed person. The resilient person says, you know what? I'm going to be proactive.

in this and I'm going to understand the fact that this is solvable and that everything has a solution to it and it is my job to be a problem solver. That is a really good thing to know about yourself. The second thing is to embrace and expose yourself to discomfort regularly, right? Because if you can expose and embrace yourself to discomfort regularly and the discomfort can show up in many ways, by the way, it could literally just be every morning, like my son Andrew, every morning since I could remember since I told him about, you know, ice baths and cold water, he just takes a cold shower. Every morning he takes a cold shower. And then at night when we're hanging out together, if we go in the hot tub together before we get out of the pool or out of the hot tub, we'll both

jump in the cold pool. And these days in Southern California, it's actually pretty cool. Like that water temperature is kind of in the mid-50s. And so when you're going from a 104-degree hot tub to a 53, 54 degree pool, it is pretty cold and we stay in there for a couple minutes and then we come out. It is this constant and consistent exposure to hardship, right? Working out consistently is hard. Eating a clean diet is hard. It is hard to wake up an hour earlier than everyone else in your family. It is hard to do a gratitude journal, a meditation every morning. These are things that you're like, see, notice I'm not saying, go out there and do a thousand burpees every day, right? It is just putting yourself in a state of discomfort.

Getting out of a state of easy living will expose you to discomfort. Discomfort begins to dial up your thermostat for resiliency, how much hardship you can deal with. Right. One thing I'm doing right now, I'm in the process of writing my next book. And in the process of writing my next book, I've made it a condition. of my morning routine that I will write 1,500 words every single morning in my book. Now, is it hard? Absolutely.

Because some mornings I feel like I've got writers block. Other mornings I feel like I'm absolutely like just flowing great information. Other mornings, I write 1,500 words and then I'm absolutely unhappy with it. And I go, you know what? I'll let this one sit. I'll deal with it tomorrow. But those 1,500 words get written no matter what. By doing that consistently and holding myself accountable to 1,500 words,

over X amount of time that I have a deal with my publisher, that by this date, the manuscript will be turned into my publisher, I am building resilience, right? Of course, there's things like suckfest that I do and the Masogi, right? I constantly challenge myself. And by the way, you should consider doing hard things, right? Every weekend, just do something hard. Like on Sundays especially, I love training legs

and then going on a long hike, you know, six hills, and then going back to my truck, hitting those same six hills, It's about a four-hour experience. And when you're training legs and then you're doing a long hike, you really realize, man, this sucks. However, I'm doing it every week. And guess what? Every year I get older, my body wants to break down more.

I don't feel like doing it when it's cold, but I do it anyway. This doesn't make me special. All this does is I force myself to do the things that I don't want to do because I'm self- motivated and disciplined. Self-motivation and discipline leads to a high level of resiliency because the disciplined man does things because it is on his schedule to do. The man who's looking for inspiration on the other hand does it only when he feels like it, right? So then if I see myself as a disciplined man, then I'm going to do it no matter how I feel. And by doing the hard things, no matter how I feel, begins to increase my adversity quotient, my resiliency.

The third thing is that the most resilient people see adversity and hardship as opportunity. In other words, they are growth-minded. So you could either be closed-minded where, okay, something bad happened. This is aside from God or the universe that I'm not supposed to be down this path. Or, hey, something bad happened. There's an opportunity here for me to solve a problem, for me to test my problem, solving skills and for me to be growth-minded and see if I can learn something in the process of solving this problem and getting back on my feet and getting after it, right? And so if you can do those

three things, then you are good to go. But if you can't do those three things, then you're always going to find yourself sitting on the ex, as Jason Redmond says, the ex of ambush, and it only hurts more. It only sucks more. You go deeper and deeper into despair, hopelessness and helplessness, right? And so resilient people know that shit will happen to them. That doesn't mean that they are somehow cursed or that they, for some reason, deserve a unhappy life. They just know that when shit is happening to me, it is because there's a testing that's taking place. And if I could push myself and solve this problem, I may qualify for the next level of happiness. You've heard me talk about the episode where I talk about the bear and the dragon, right?

the bear is external resistance and the dragon is internal resistance, right? And sometimes the universe, God, your creator gives you external resistance, hardship to test yourself to see if you're ready for the next level of success that you will be gifted, the next level of happiness, the next level of purpose, meaning significance. Everything comes to us after we pass the test, not before. And so please understand that resilient people know that shit happens. And when shit happens, it's an opportunity for growth and it's an opportunity to take the test and pass it so that we can be accepting of the goodness that's going to come our way. They don't think like, why me?

They don't waste their time and energy, you know, dwelling on why this happened to them because they are locked on to this whole locus of control. Look, something happened and I've got to take an internal locus of control. What can I control? If I can control this, I will overcome it. If I can't control this, then I will not think about it. Why think about stuff that you can't control, right? So the people who are most resilient also have a high level of locus of control. And that locus of control is internal locus of control.

External locus of control is, well, this has to be good for me to be happy. she has to be good to me for me to be happy. I have to be good in business for me to be happy. I always, you know, my workouts have to be a 10 out of 10 for me to be happy. Like, listen, I'm in the process of recovering from a hernia. You can imagine my workouts are nowhere near as intense as they once were. But I know over the next several weeks, I will build up my strength. I will build up my endurance.

I will build up my mental and physical fortitude. and I will be back in the gym harder than ever, six, seven weeks from now. And I will be back on the jujitsu mats and getting back after it. And of course, it sucks. It's a mental trip on me that I can't do the things that I want to do. And I've been working out for so long that when I can't work out, it begins to have a negative mental toll on me. And so I use this negative mental toll that I'm experiencing and going,

All right, you could be happy when you're working out. You're on the jujitsu mats. You're lean and jacked. Can you be happy and show gratitude when you're not working out? Can you be happy and show gratitude when you're not rolling on the mats? Can you dialing your diet even more so that you can maintain your leanness? Right? So it gives me an opportunity.

You see how the adversity of the surgery from the hernia gave me the opportunity to test my mental toughness even more, to test my discipline on nutrition even more, to find newer and better ways to work out. If you saw the weights that I'm using right now, seated, using five pound dumbbells, just trying to get blood flow. But guess what? I'm okay with that because I know that as I keep taking action, positive mental latitude, eating a high protein diet, getting sunlight, letting my body heal, I will be back in the gym back on the mats at full capacity in a matter of weeks. That is resiliency. And you can develop that

by one, doing hard things, two, knowing that everything that happens to you is a problem that can be solved. It is a problem that can be solved. It sucks. It doesn't feel good, but it is a problem that can be solved. You have to expose and embrace hardship and put yourself through hardship and tough things on a regular basis and you have to see adversity as an opportunity for growth, right? You have to be growth minded. And if you can do all these things, then all of a sudden you magically have this internal locus of control. You go, hey, man, these are the things that I can control and so I'm going to control them. The things that are outside of my control, I'm not going to dwell on them. I'm not going to think about them and I'm not going to use them to feel bad and hopeless

and helpless about myself, right? And so if you are willing to do this, my friend, and build your develop, and develop your resiliency muscle, you will have a better life. You will be more successful in your relationships, in your business, in your health, in your mindset. You will just be a formidable force knowing that the adversities of hardships in life will come no matter what, but you have what it takes to bounce back. Now, if you want to test yourself against something really cool to help build yourself not only mental toughness, but resiliency, I want you to do my six-week marathon challenge.

Now, you might know that I've done all these different six-week challenges, and I continue to do six-week challenges. My most recent six-week challenge was playing chess. I learned to play chess in six weeks. Am I great at it? No, I'm good. I'm getting better every day. However, I share this with you because most of my challenges are physical, right? And they're physical.

And my first one was that marathon. I decided that I'm going to run the San Diego Marathon. I gave myself six weeks to get in the best condition I can be as a runner, because obviously lifting weights. is my jam. And so I hired a running coach and then I trained exactly to how the running coach gave me the program in terms of the training and the recovery, et cetera. And then guess with that six weeks later what I did? The San Diego Marathon. Ran it. Was it painful? Yes. Did I finish it? Absolutely. Did I enjoy it? Yeah. I did. Not maybe in the moment. There were little brief moments of happiness during the marathon. But I was like, holy shit, dude, you're about to run 26.2 miles. And as I got close to

that finish line. And as I cross that finish line, there was this overwhelming sense of like, holy fuck, dude, you could do whatever you put your mind to. And I want you to experience that. And that turned up the resiliency dial. That turned up my ability to deal with adversity more, my adversity quotient. So I want you to go to bedroseculein.com forward slash challenge. Get the challenge, a six week marathon challenge. It's absolutely free for you. The entire training program is free. The entire nutrition and recovery program is free. And I give you six weeks of mindset and motivation week for week so that you can stay on track and do that marathon. If you don't want to sign up for a marathon because you don't want to spend money on a marathon,

no worries. Get in your car, drive 13.1 miles one way and then 13.1 miles the other way. And there's your 26.2. There's your marathon. So it will cost you exactly $0 and $0 to do the six-week marathon challenge. The best of all, you will build high levels of resiliency. You will find ways to solve the problems. of not getting after it,

because if you know that on this date, I'm gonna go run this marathon no matter what, you will find ways to get over the cold. You will find ways to get over the rain and the snow. You will find ways to, I didn't sleep well, but I'm gonna go train anyway, because that's what it takes, it's problem solving. And when you're able to solve these problems,

you become more resilient and more resourceful and more relentless human. And the resilient, resourceful, and relentless human is unsolved. is unstoppable. Guys and gals, if you got any value from this episode, I would love for you to subscribe if you're watching this on YouTube and please leave a comment and like. And of course, if you're across any of the social or the podcast platforms, I should say, like Spotify and iTunes, your review and a comment would mean a lot. Thank you so much for watching this episode.

And remember this, that average is the enemy, that success is your responsibility and change can take place in an instant if you are willing to flip the switch. I'll see you next time.