Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - 124. How to make Adversity Your Advantage

Episode Date: February 11, 2025

Your Hidden Superpower Is Waiting – Will You Use It or Waste It?Most people go through life completely unaware of the superpower they already have. They let adversity break them instead of using it to build something greater.I get it—I came to this country as a broke immigrant kid, bullied for being different, rejected for opportunities, and forced to figure things out the hard way. But instead of playing the victim, I used resilience and resourcefulness to build my own kingdom.In today’s episode of The Bedros Keuilian Show, I’m breaking down why adversity is your greatest advantage—if you know how to use it. You have two choices: let life keep you down, or turn your struggles into strength and dominate.Average is the enemy. You’re built for more. Let’s get to work.REGISTER FOR THE LEGACY TRIBEGet the Life, Money, Meaning & Impact You Deservehttps://bedroskeuilian.com/legacytribeJOIN MY FREE 6-WEEK CHALLENGE:Transform into a Purpose-Driven Manhttps://bedroskeuilian.com/challengeTHE SQUIRE PROGRAM: A rite of Passage for Your Son as He Becomes a ManA Father and Son Experience That Will Be Remembered FOREVERhttps://squireprogram.com/registerTruLean Supplements | https://www.trulean.com/pages/bedrosGet 50% Off Trulean Subscribe & Save BundleUse Code: BEDROS Few Will Hunt Apparel | https://fewwillhunt.com/Get 20% Off Your Entire OrderUse Code: BEDROSOPEN A FIT BODY LOCATIONA High-Profit, Scalable Gym Franchise Opportunity Driven By Impacthttps://sales.fbbcfranchise.com/get-started?utm_source=bedrosPODCAST EPISODES:https://bedroskeuilian.com/podcast/STAY CONNECTED:Website | https://bedroskeuilian.com/Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/bedroskeuilian/LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/bedroskeuilianTwitter | https://twitter.com/bedroskeuilian

You're either going to sulk and give up and choose to stay average, or you're going to get angry. Use this anger as fuel, and you're going to go f*** then. If I can't be the prince in your kingdom, I will go build my own kingdom and be the fucking. Welcome to the Bedroes Coolie and Show. Back when Q was rolling with Lorenzo and a Benzo, I was banging with a gang of instrumental. Most people are sitting on a superpower. They could massively change and transform their lives, and they don't even know it. Guys, welcome to the Bedroskulian show.

I'm Bedroskulian. And today's episode is about the hidden superpower that you have that you don't even know about that is sitting there ready to get deployed so that you can change and transform your life, your business, the trajectory of your bloodline. But until you realize what this is and how to use it, you ain't going to get anything out of it. So let's dive into this. All right. So what is the thing that I'm telling you about?

Well, first I'm going to kick it off with a story. because as an immigrant to this country, when I was six years old, we came to the United States, my family and I, my dad was a member of the Communist Party, right? He was a Soviet Communist Party member, not by choice. I get DMs and shit from people like, why was your dad a Communist Party member? You know, he had to become one by choice.

They ask you, yes, I know you read your history books, and they do ask you and say, we would like to bestow you with the honor of become a common. becoming a Communist Party member. Would you like that? Technically, he could have said no. But if you say no, you get shipped off to Siberia, especially back then in the 70s, never to be seen again, right?

So while it is a asking, just like, you know, these countries that have fair elections, but then the corrupt president who's always been reigning, always seems to win by 100% approval rate, well, do you really think that, they have fair elections and there's a, you know, an opposition to this current president and that opposition's actually going to win? No, that ain't going to happen. But they make it seem like it's fair and 100% of the people voted for the current corrupt politician, right? Which we can understand

what that's like since good old Sleepy Joe is no longer in office. And I'm sure that he got more votes than Obama did back in the day because I think Obama was one of our most awesome and greatest presidents yet Joe Biden getting more votes to become president than Obama. If that ain't a big red flag that something corrupt happened, I don't know what is. But that's not what we're here to talk about. So with that said, my dad was a member of the Communist Party. He decided that this is not what we want to do. And we are going to escape and go. to the United States because he loves the American way. My dad is 91 years old right now. He lives in Anaheim doing good for as good as a 91 year old can, right? And many of you know,

you've been watching my show, listening to my show. My mom died last year of dementia, Alzheimer's. And so my dad lives alone. I pay for a Armenian caretaker to be with him every day and take good care of him and me and my siblings go and visit often and so it's it's the best that he could have but he brought us to the united states for a life of opportunity and freedom and to live without oppression right especially when i was six years old in 1980 this is what i heard from my dad now you can imagine then you come to the united states and we came broke like you don't leave the soviet union during the time of communism with the money that you have like so we had to leave everything behind we came here broke with nothing, just like two suitcases of clothes. And so we ended up living in Section 8

housing, even before that, we ended up living in, my dad had a friend of a friend who had never even met, who had agreed through this mutual friend that we could stay in his apartment for 30 days. So imagine a family of five of us staying for 30 days and in this guy's apartment. And he was after 30 days, like, you guys got it, you're on your own. So we had 30 days to get as much. much of our paperwork and immigration stuff in order as possible. And then, of course, you know, apply for food stamp, apply for Section 8 housing, which is government-assisted housing, and then, you know, make our way in life. And so by day two, my dad was, you know, delivering newspapers in the middle of the night. By day three, he was also pumping gas at a gas station.

And my older brother, older sister, they were both working their nuts off at weird little jobs getting money under the table because we had to find a way to get by. Of course, me being the six-year-old being the smallest and living in Section 8 housing all day long other than going to school, I'd get beat up in school and picked on. I'd get beat up in school and picked on at the apartment complex because it was just like crappy complex. And whether crappy or not, I imagine when you're the foreigner kid with a bowl haircut and you look funny and you and you act funny and you you don't speak English because I didn't speak English. I didn't understand the culture and my mom cut my own hair and my parents just put clothes on me that they found somewhere, right? And so it was

ill-fitting clothes. And so you could imagine, you know, little Baderos running around at the old one of the apartments was called Shade Tree Apartments. That's where I probably got the most beatdowns from the local gangbangers who just decided to use me as a human punching bag. But looking back now, I realized I built a lot of resiliency from that adversity that I faced. I built a lot of resourcefulness, like how to talk my way out of a fight, right? Which means I also know how to talk my way into opportunities, right? And resiliency allows me to be able to deal with shit and come back stronger and not necessarily accept failure or defeat. Resiliency allows me to bounce back. And of course, resourcefulness allows me to have the gift of gab and to figure out a way

when I don't have the resources, I get resourceful. Those are both muscles that I develop because of the adversity that I dealt with as a young immigrant foreigner to this country. And so you could see where I'm going here with the superpower, right? Like today I use resiliency and resourcefulness as a superpower in my companies to grow. I had to get very resilient and resourceful in 2020 during the pandemic when literally my franchise, Fit Body Boot Camp was under attack. Like gyms and restaurants were under attack. Like we were losing locations left and right.

And so we had to get very resilient and very resourceful. and figure out a way to start bouncing back. And we were able to do that and we're back on track and we're crushing it. But if I didn't have those skills that I developed back then, it would have been a very different story for me and my companies in that 2020 pandemic era. So yet another story. You know, you all know that I worked at Disneyland. And when I worked at Disneyland, this is all, this is so funny too because it's,

it's through conversations with former coworkers, like in recent times. that I realize that, oh, we were facing some prejudice at Disneyland when I worked there. Now I'm not saying Disneyland is a racist or prejudice place. Like I, and I'm pretty certain that during my tenure there, because I worked at Disneyland in my early 20s, like from like 21 to 25, 26 years old. And in my early 20s, when I worked at Disney, I was actually even younger, like 19 to 25. And when I worked at Disneyland, I worked with a few other dudes. And I was a busboy at Carnation Cafe restaurant, right?

So I was a busboy, busser, clean off tables, take them to the back, wash him, throughout the trash and garbage, make sure that the kitchen has the plates and all the shit they need to pans and stuff that they need. But I worked with a bunch of cool dudes. I worked with Chanta. Chanta is dark-skinned, Loeatian from Laos. I work with Caesar. He's Mexican. I work with Miguel. He's Mexican.

I work with art. He's Mexican. Some of the hardest workers. But all of us had something in common. We were all kind of darker skin, darker hair, darker complexion. We weren't necessarily the Prince Charming looking type, if you know what I'm saying. And I share this with you because this is only in hindsight. I never realized while working there that there might have been some prejudice.

or this could be a coincidence, right? But there's still a lesson in here for you that you're going to take away and apply to your life that massively can impact the trajectory of where you're headed, right? Because the lesson is this, that you will face adversity. You will face prejudice. Some of you of different ethnicities, whether you're black or Asian or Mexican or whatever, will deal with racism. You absolutely will.

You will. and you could either succumb to it, be angry, be frustrated, feel like the man is holding you down and not giving you the opportunity that you deserve, or you could push through by using adversity as your advantage as a superpower. And I'm going to explain to you how you're going to do that. But there I was at Disneyland with Caesar, Chanta, Miguel, art. Like, I mean, I was working with some bad ass dudes, all of us, foreigners. right and every time I would apply and some of my homies there who were busboys and I mean we worked fast

we decided not to take breaks if you know the restaurant was super busy because we didn't want to you know get get get stuck with a whole bunch of plates and glasses and cups that the kitchen needed to be able to serve the restaurant I mean when that main street electrical parade would go by in the late 90s, it Disneyland became this crazy ass, like Main Street especially became this crazy ass, massively packed 50,000 people on Main Street USA. Carnation Cafe where I worked was right on Main Street USA. And so it became like the busiest restaurant on the planet two times a day because the parade went by once and then twice, right?

And so we would skip our breaks. We would do whatever it took, man. We found a way to keep those tables clean and keep the bus tubs full and keep the plates and dishes and pots and pans rotating. And some of the guys I listed off, Chanta Art, Miguel Caesar, myself, like, we were like the dream team of busers. And then some of us ultimately ended up going into the kitchen as fry cooks and dinner cooks. Some of us ended up doing some called maintenance, which is you're stocking these giant walking refrigerators and freezes. with freezers with like yogurt and dairy and butter and food and vegetables and meat. But if you notice, we all worked backstage.

That's terminology. Disney terminology is different. Backstage versus on stage, right? Backstage, very obvious. You're keeping the show going and Disney had a thing where it's like the show must always go on. And the customers were known as guests. We were known as cast members. so you could see that Disneyland was a experience, was a show.

It was entertainment. And we were backstage, which meant some of the less foreign people, those who didn't look like immigrants, those who looked more like Disney's Prince Charming, worked on stage. They were the hosts, and they were the servers, and they got to interact. with the guests.

And so when I applied, or when a lot of my homies there applied to become a host or to work the fountain, which is like the bar where they would make ice cream sundaes and stuff, but you're guest facing or to be a server because I wanted to make some fucking tips. I want to make some tips as a server. And I think I could be a good server. If I can clean up tables, lightning quick,

I could certainly serve people lightning quick, right? So I wanted to make some fucking tips. But every time me and my homies, would apply to be a host, a server, or work the fountain, basically front of the house or on stage, we were denied. And every now and again, when a good looking who happened to be, you know, blonde hair, blue-eyed, white, light complexion guy would come in as a bus sir, bus boy, it didn't take long for him to get upgraded to a host or a server or to work the fountain. I'm sure it was coincidence. But it's only.

in hindsight. Now, was there a little prejudice? Maybe. Because I also realized the ladies that were the girls that were working front of the house at Carnation Cafe, God damn it, they look like, all of them look like little princesses. Fucking Snow White. Cinderella, Beauty from Beauty and the Beast. Fucking us busboys, we look like fucking Shrek.

Working in our swamp. Layton's back there laughing. But whenever a Prince Charming-looking motherfucker came through, man, you know, dude's 5-11, 6'5'1, 6'2, has that beautiful fucking I just left Santa Monica or Newport Beach. Skin's glowing, beautiful green, blue eyes. I could see the reflection of myself in his eyes. When I gaze at it, that motherfucker became a server. I remember his name.

Mike. I remember the other guy, Dennis and Scott. Doesn't quite sound like Chanta and Caesar and Miguel, does it? Mike, Dennis, and Scott, all good dudes, by the way. Don't think I have a bone to pick with them. I don't. They're good dudes. I do have a bone to pick with my fucking leads and the managers,

other than Big Doug, who I've told you guys about, who obviously kept denying me and my homies from work in front of the house and kept us locked up in the front of the house. and kept us locked up in the fucking swamp like Shrek. But what we realize is if we can't be the prince in the magic kingdom, look at this. Like Disneyland is the magic kingdom. And if I can't be the prince like Mike and Dennis and Scott to work front of the house, to be a server, a host, interact with the guests, how you're doing, where you're from.

Oh, you're from Japan. You want to take a picture, picture. Because that's what they would say. I don't know, is that a racist thing? Ed? It may be. But the Japanese people, when I would, the only time I'd be on fucking, I'd be on stage is when I'm crossing Main Street to go to locker rooms to change. And, you know, one of the Disney standards that they teach us is, hey, man, when someone stops you and they want to take, they want you to take a picture, you got to take a picture. And all the people from Japan, they would hold the camera up. And it wasn't an iPhone back then. It was a fucking. camera. And they would be like, picture, picture. And I'm like, I got you. Give me your camera. And I knew what they were going to do. Those of you listening on podcast right now, on the audio, I'm putting my piece signed up and smiling. Because they would make that Asian peace sign face with the Cinderella's castle behind them. And I'd snap the pictures. I knew all the

fucking angles. I'm like, scoot over. Scoot over. That's it right there. I got the castle perfectly frame, bitch. Snap the picture, hand to the camera, and off I'd go, disappearing to the swamp. My guys, quick interruption to the Bedrose Coolean show. I took some time to go to the local juice stores here in town and I bought all these different ginger, turmeric, and wellness shots. Now they range anywhere from $3.69, all the way to $4.5. And to be honest with you, they all suck.

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Magic Kingdom, man. And Disney at the time, maybe whatever, man. You know, like I said, all the girls look like the princesses, all the guys look like the prince. And then the ugly girls, by the way, you all know who you guys were working at the fucking blue ribbon bakery and the fucking Gibson girl, ice cream parlor and Coke Corner fucking putting hot dogs and the fucking hot dog buns. You guys know who you are. Make no mistake about it. When I worked at those locations, I was in the back with you guys. But they were the ones cleaning the fucking pans. They were fucking stuffing a hot dog and a bun and then putting the entire bund hot dog into this fucking tin foil bag and then closing it up. Imagine making thousands of those

per shift so that the pretty boys and girls work in front of the counter who look like fucking Prince Charming and Cinderella could sell the hot dogs so you can deep throat that hot dog right into your mouth. And so a little prejudice was experienced, possibly by myself and Miguel and Chanta and art. But what we did was if we can't be the prince in Disney's kingdom at the magic kingdom, I can be the fucking king of my own kingdom. Do you get what I'm saying here? This is the fucking shit I'm saying.

And as I'm telling you the story, I can feel myself getting sweaty. I can feel myself getting a little worked up. But anytime you face adversity, denial, rejection, a setback. a cut down. You're either going to sulk and give up and choose to stay average, or you're going to get angry. You're going to use this anger as fuel, and you're going to go, fuck it then. If I can't be the prince in your kingdom, I will go build my own kingdom and be the

fucking king. Do you get what I'm saying here? This is what I'm saying. You use adversity as a fucking superpower to reframe it. and what you're really doing is you're showing yourself that you are a king and you can build your kingdom and that kingdom can show up in many ways a business a relationship a fit body a strong mind emotional mental toughness and resilience do you know how fucking good it feels to be me right now god damn it just took a long time for me to blossom to be this handsome motherfucker that you see

who also knows how to fucking create some dough. But back then, I was a bus boy and a fried cook and a dinner cook and I worked maintenance. And I've told you guys about the time that I knocked

over a pallet fell into the jungle cruise river because the jungle cruise boats parked right behind Carnation Cafe at night. One other time of course as a bus boy bus boy

I see back then they didn't have girls weren't busing yet so we were known as busboys I heard to the grapevine that now they're busers there's busers like there used to be stewardesses on airplanes and now they're all flat attendants I was a bus boy but now because the girls can bus too I love that equality's good

here girl start fucking cleaning shit up just like I did Pick that fucking half-eaten burger up, put it in the bus tub. That kid who fucking made all that fucking ketchup and mustard artwork on the table, you wipe it up too. And carry that bus tub on your shoulder and go to the next table, do the same thing. And hit five more tables. You come back to the bus room, to the DMO room, dish machine operating room with just the equivalent of two fucking tables worth of shit in your bus tub. You're going back.

You're going back. That's how we fucking rolled. But I imagine the bussers today are savages like that. Because that's what's required of a bus boy in my time and a busser today. But I shared this with you because one time I worked with some lame-ass bus boys. I won't mention their names. They were just slow and they were just fucking, I think they were probably fucking high or something. I don't know, man.

But I remember it was like two in the morning. Summertime, Disneyland's open until midnight. And usually by 1.15, we're out of the restaurant. We've cleaned it and we're out. Man, it's 2 in the fucking morning. And I'm working the DMO. I'm the dish machine operator. And you wear this thing called the condom,

which is a full body fucking thick. All right, it's not that thick. But it's maybe like a quarter inch thick rubber apron and these giant gloves that go to your biceps that are thick and rubber. Because that fucking hot water that comes out of the spray and the hot steam that comes out of the dish machine is like magma fucking scalds you so when you're spraying the fucking plates down for a little fucking johnny's hot dog fragment to fall off that plate like you're getting splashback right there was a couple dmo operators that would also wear the fucking construction goggles

to keep the fucking hot dog juice and shit going in their eyes i of course didn't um i probably should have but i remember sticking my head out wearing the fucking condom on my body and looking to see at 2 in the morning, how many more tables needed to be bused? Man, I saw like 20 more tables still needed to be bust. I was like, we're not getting out of here till 4 in the morning. And this motherfucker has plans tonight. It was a Friday night.

And I had plans. Don't ask me what kind of plans I had after 1.30 in the morning. But I had plans, Leighton. And so I got a few bus tubs myself. And I started busing those tables. And I went out the back door and I dumped everything. from the kitchen and from those tables into the jungle cruise river.

Little did I know that those jungle cruise boats, I don't know if you all know this or not, but they're on a fucking track. It's not like the guy who's fucking telling you the story and pointing at the hippopotamus and shooting at the fucking alligator. You think he's also doing all that, telling you the fucking stories and navigating this fucking boat?

Of course not. It's on a track. And I should have known that. And I didn't. And I dumped everything from two bus tubs. into the Jungle Cruise River. Of course, the next morning when I come back to work, I think I got into work at 9 a.m.

There was fucking divers with full dive suit, air tanks and everything coming out of that Jungle Cruise River where the boats were parked. Apparently when they tried to get the first boat out to turn the attraction on and get the party going the next day, the fucking boat got derailed. Now, all the other boats got stuck behind it and these divers are coming in.

out with fucking pots and pans and ladles and forks and spoons and knives and shit all the stuff that i dumped in there the night before just so i can get out because i had plans for the record my plans didn't pan out that night but that's a different story so i went home and ate a bowl of frosted flakes and went to bed because that's what i did but all this to tell you that when you are dealing with adversity and adversity can show up in any way man you could be rejected you could be judged. You could be told you're you're fucking not good enough that you failed. You're never going to make it. Could be racism, prejudice. Who gives a fuck? Turn it all into super power. Do you understand? You got to reframe it all and you go like this. You go, look, I'm going to keep a chip on my shoulder for you.

Of course, you don't tell them this. You just fucking do this. I'm going to keep a chip on my shoulder. I'm going to keep firing my belly. I'm going to have rage in my eyes. And I'm going to be a fucking king and the kingdom that I build because I obviously don't belong in this fucking mediocre kingdom that you have. See, if you look at it that way, you use the anger as fuel and you fuel the kingdom and you take all the fucking goodness that you make from that kingdom, the money, the wealth, the opportunities that you've gotten, you take all that and you end up creating so much fucking good for the world and for yourself and the people that you love.

Or you can sulk. You can be a victim and you could just say, well, I guess I'm meant to be average. And we know that average is the enemy. Guys, if you got any value out of this episode, you're watching this on YouTube. 74% of you are not subscribed. Please be sure to subscribe so the algorithms can help this video get more eyeballs on it. So we can change and transform the lives of more men and women worldwide.

And also 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 story. switch. I'll see you next time.