Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - 139. 10 Hard Truths about Business

Episode Date: May 27, 2025

You don’t need another shortcut, you need to face the truth.Most entrepreneurs are stuck because they’re chasing hacks, hoping for easy wins, and avoiding the real work it takes to build something great. That’s why so many end up broke, burned out, or spinning their wheels for years with nothing to show for it.In this episode of The Bedros Keuilian Show, I’m breaking down the 10 hard truths every business owner needs to hear. These are the lessons that took me from barely scraping by to running multiple 8-figure companies; the mindset shifts, the realities, and the uncomfortable facts that separate the winners from the wannabes.No fluff. No sugarcoating. Just the cold, honest truth about what it actually takes to win in business.If you’re ready to stop playing small, level up your leadership, and commit to the long game, this episode is your wake-up call.BEDROS KEUILIAN LIVE 2025 | MAY 31, 2025 in Anaheim, CAhttps://live.bedroskeuilian.com/2025REGISTER 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

And the way we win is not by dipping our face in Saratoga water. The way we win is not by doing interpretive dance. The way we win is not by journaling every morning. And it's certainly not by doing sound bowls. The way we win is by doing the work on the thing that needs to be worked on that produces money and gets people the solution that they're looking for in their life. Welcome to the Bedroft's Koolian show. Back when Q was rolling with Lorenzo and a Benzo, I was banging with a gang and instrumental. If I can go back 30 years and give myself advice,

as an entrepreneur, the best advice I can give is what I'm about to share with you here. Guys, welcome to the Bedrose Coolean show. Today's episode is all about the 10 hard truths about business. And I've been an entrepreneur for 30 years now. I've been in business. I've created over seven companies. I've sold two of them. I'm in process of selling another and making over $200 million a year across all of my businesses and brands. I can tell you with irrefutable doubt, the 10 hard truths I'm going to share with you here are going to give you a massive advantage. if you're a business person or entrepreneur. So lock in and let's get started.

Now, before we dive into that, let me give you a little caveat. From time to time, you will find people who will blow their business up within a year or two. Those people typically have entered a niche space doing something very unique where no one else is doing. In other words, there's not a lot of competition and is very unique and special

and is a very specialized skill or service. Those are the outliers. For the rest of us, everything I share with you here is what is going to work. This way you will have a far greater advantage than I did and that many other entrepreneurs did because what took me, let's say, 30 years to get to where I am,

might only take you 20 years or 15 years if you stick to these 10 hard truths. So let's dive into it. First thing you need to understand is time under tension rule. The rule of time under tension. What that means is you have to commit to it for the long haul, right? And you can't just assume that you're going to get there in the first year or two. Now I get it.

We're planning and when we're planning on the back of a napkin or drawing on a marker board, you have this great idea of a product or service that's going to change and transform people's lives and there's a hungry and starving market for it and you know there's a need for it and you're excited and passionate about this product or service. So you think that if I follow the plan that I've laid out on the marker board or on the back of the napkin, everything's going to get done exactly as I've planned. The reality is the moment you start doing the work, you realize there's a lot of things that get in the way, right? And those things end up compounding time. You only get better as an entrepreneur under time. Entrepreneurs are

a lot like wine. And I haven't drank over two years, but I can tell you this. They say wine gets better over time. Well, entrepreneurs get better over time. You get better at decision making. You get better instincts, you get better at your gut decisions, you get better at hiring, you get better at marketing, you get better at understanding your customers and clients' needs and wants, and the better that you get, the more effective you become, right? So understand that time under tension is important. So if you're one of those entrepreneurs where you kind of go into business, you start something, you haven't seen results in the first year or six months, and then you pivot to the next thing, haven't seen results that you want in the first year or six months, and then pivot again, you're constantly

restarting. Time under tension matters most. Thing number two is pain produces progress. Obviously, the thing we're looking for as entrepreneurs is to progress along and make money and serve people and impact lives. And so as entrepreneurs, whether it's marketing, whether it's sales, whether it's operations, whether it's leadership, whether it's communication, whether it's vision casting, any of that stuff, right? All of those things are places that you can have pain, right? Maybe you're running a marketing campaign and then all of a sudden meta decides that they're going to slap you and take down your ads and stop your lead flow. Like that is a painful thing. But understand that pain produces progress.

And so the frustrations you feel, the failures that you have and the problems that you experience are part of that pain. The best analogy and example I can give you as someone who's been lifting for 40 years now is this, that you go into the gym and you work out, right? Let's say you're having big chest day. If you're having a big chest day, then you are going to probably do some presses, flat presses, incline presses, maybe some flies, maybe some dips. And you're probably going to be hurting throughout that workout, right? Like that lactic acid builds up and the muscles start burning. But then the next two or three days, you have that delayed onset muscle soreness.

Now your muscles are tight. You're hurting. You're sore for another few days. That pain produces progress, assuming that you're getting the rest and you're feeding yourself the protein and amino acids that you need, and then, of course, that you're getting back in there and training again. Each time you train, you'll add just a little bit more, a little bit more muscle to your chest, and that is the progression that you experience.

But without the pain during the workout and without the pain post-workout, you're never going to experience the progress of muscular growth. Same thing applies in business. Without frustration, failures, and problems, you will not develop the mental and emotional muscles you need to carry through to the next level of success in business. Hard truth number three, your beliefs are your ceiling. And that is a fact. And whatever belief systems you have, they determine the ceiling of success that you will

have. I wish I knew this when I was younger as an entrepreneur because I would have done a lot more work on myself. Sometimes we think that the business plan is all we need when in reality the businessman has to be dialed in as well. The business plan could be very solid, could be very structured, and could be very sound. But the businessman could carry belief system issues, self-worth issues, identity issues. And if you have not upgraded your identity to become the next best version of yourself,

overcome your limiting beliefs, overcome traumas, overcome frustrations that you have, overcome anger issues, overcome the fact that you're a foreigner like I am or an immigrant or your blue collar and we grew up in a household where we never talked about money. Whatever those limiting beliefs are, you've got to break through those limiting beliefs if the goal is for you to be successful. Now, if you want to continue to suffer because you know this for a fact, 85% of businesses, of entrepreneurs out there are breaking even or always in debt. So think about that.

If you want to be part of that sea of entrepreneurs, 85% who are either barely getting by or losing money every month, then do not upgrade your identity. Do not fix your belief system. But I'm telling you right now, your belief system is the ceiling to success. The sooner you can begin to upgrade your beliefs and upgrade your identity, the faster you begin to upgrade your business. Hard truth number four, information is cheap. Execution is rare.

Let's face it, in this day and time, guys, we live in a world of where you get access to social media. You get access to the best coaches, consultants, experts, people who are doing it in the industry and the space that you want to do it, right? You've got access via YouTube. You've got access via podcasts. You've got access via books. You've got access to information more than ever. Like if you wanted to learn how to run Facebook ads, you can go to YouTube, lock in for three, four hours and develop the skill sets to be damn near a world class marketer, right, in terms of running ads. If you want it to be a better copyrighter, better salesperson, you want it to be a better leader, you can understand the concepts, you can get the information pretty easily. In fact,

information these days are either free or next to free, which is why I say information is cheap. It's the execution. More than ever, y'all are not out there executing because gathering information gives you hope, gets you excited, and it makes you want to post on social media that I'm doing on doing something big, something big's about to happen and I'm about to, you know, break out with a new business and you might even show that you're working on something in terms of a picture or an image on social media, and that gives you that dopamine hit. However, without execution, you're not going to get the desired outcome, right? So understand that, that information is cheap, execution is rare more than ever. And if you want to be successful, focus more. I'd rather you

know less, focus on learning one thing and then execute the fuck out of it. And if you can and you can lock you will get better results than the guy or gal who's constantly in information gathering mode. Hard truth number five. You will be judged no matter what. I'm telling you right now, you will be judged no matter what. You will be judged as greedy when you're successful as an entrepreneur. You will be judged as unbalanced when you're an entrepreneur. You will be judged as they'll say you think you're better than everyone else.

But if you do nothing and you stay average, you will be judged for, being lazy. You will be judged for not providing for your family. You will be judged for not giving it all in terms of your passion and your purpose. And they'll say, man, he's just wasting his life. Right. So either way in life, you're going to be judged. So if we know we're going to be judged, you might as well start doing the work. So go out and win. You've got to stop caring about other people's opinions. One thing I can tell you right now, the people who don't like you, if you waste any time on the people who don't like you. If you waste any time on the people who hate you, you're making a big mistake. There's no way you're going to be able to put enough effort and

energy in and getting them to like you. Because these motherfuckers don't even like themselves. The people that don't like you and hate you and don't want to see you win, they don't even like themselves. They hate themselves truthfully. Deep down inside, they're miserable human beings. They're out there judging you. It's because they judge themselves. So they're going to judge you whether you succeed. They're going to judge you whether you fail. So who gives a crap, go out there and win. Number six, hard truth number six, success requires obsession. I know it's all about balance and wake up in the morning and get a bowl of water and put some Saratoga, Teratoga. Ed, what's it called? That water, that Ashton Hall dips is Saratoga? Thank you,

Layton. You get that blue bottle of Saratoga and you pour it in a, in your mom's baking dish, throw some ice cubes in there and then you put your face in it and then you do a sound bowl and then you try and stuff your whole body into that bowl afterwards and take a nice bath and then maybe you do some interpretive dance and then from there you go on to journaling about your life's goals missions and issues and you kill a lot of time right you kill a lot of time that way but I'm telling you this you're trying to get balance and you're not going to find balance from there balanced people do not succeed. If you want to win and dominate in business, you are going to have to stay obsessed. You're going to have to wake up and have a very structured routine that sets you up to win.

And the way we win is not by dipping our face in Saratoga water. The way we win is not by do an interpretive dance. The way we win is not by journaling every morning. And it's certainly not by doing sound bowls. The way we win is by doing the work on the thing that needs to be worked on that produces money and gets people the solution that they're looking for in their life, right? And so if you are not going to be obsessed on doing that work for a prolonged period of time every day, eight, nine, 10, 12 hours, I'm telling you right now, entrepreneurship is not going to be your bag. If you're looking for balance, there is no room for entrepreneurship in terms of, there's no room

for balance in terms of entrepreneurship. Now, I will tell you this, as your business grows and matures and you bring on more people, you use the money that you make to hire people who are going to manage and lead your business to allow you to pull back and get out of the weeds and get into the cloud so that you could be the visionary, the place where I am now for my businesses, guess what? You have a lot more balance. But until you actually get obsessed, lock in for a few years, do the work that produces the revenue so that you can use that money to buy back your time, you're never going to have balance. So don't even think about it. Lock in and get obsessed.

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Hard truth number seven. Leadership determines your limits, right? In business, leadership determines your limits. And so what I mean by this is great leaders, they're great at casting a vision. They're very clear on the vision that they want in their life. They're very clear on the type of people that they want to hire. They're very clear on how to delegate. They know how to delegate and put work on other people.

And then they're very good at inspecting that work and making sure the work is done as expected. Right. So if you lack leadership in terms of vision, hiring, delegation, inspection, communication, then your business will only grow to the limit of your leadership. In fact, John Maxwell once said, leadership is the lid. Leadership is the lid. Like imagine your business is a pot and there's food cooking in it. And the height of that pot might be determined,

or at least the amount of food that can go on is determined by the lid that is on that pot. And so if leadership is the lid, you've got to upgrade your leadership. I know it's not sexy. We want to be better at creating our product or service. We want to be better at marketing our product or service. We want to be better at selling our product or service because all those things matter. I get it. It absolutely does.

However, without leadership, you're not going to get to the next level. You're just going to be constantly creating content, selling products, marketing and driving leads, but you'll be a one or two person team. Once you develop the ability to lead, you will hire much more qualified people. Skills that you suck at, there are people out there who you can pay who can execute on the things that you suck at, far better than you, like 5, 10, 15x better than you. But you're going to have to generate revenue in order to hire these people and get them to execute so that you can buy back your time, right?

So that is important to understand that if you can't lead the right people, you will never be in a position to take your business to the next level. You'll always kind of be stuck at that same level. So if that sounds familiar to you, and many of my coaching clients, by the way, many of my domination of your coaching clients who start with me, they're kind of stuck. They're stuck at making maybe 300,000, 500,000, maybe a million, million and a half a year. And they're like, I can't get to that next level. While we do work on more marketing systems, better sales processes, better follow up,

obviously customer client retention, getting more leads and referrals. We spend a lot of time on leadership. Like, what is your vision for the business? The one year, three, your five year tenure, right? A leader knows their vision. A leader knows how to delegate. leader knows how to hire the right people. Leader knows when to fire the people.

Because by the way, if you don't fire the people that don't belong in your organization, I'm speaking to those of you right now that you know there's someone or maybe a couple people in your organization that you need to part ways with. And if you're not parting ways with them, what you're telling the rest of your better team members is that you tolerate mediocrity. And therefore, the collective standard begins to fall once you tolerate mediocrity. So if you're like, well, I feel bad for that guy or I'm going to give them another chance or I'm going to let them linger around a little bit longer or they're not really doing

that much damage even though they're not producing to their to the capacity that I expect. If you're letting people linger into your organizations, you are showing and telling everybody with irrefutable proof that you tolerate mediocrity and therefore the collective effort will begin to go down. So that's like shitty leaders end up literally ruining businesses that have like eight figure nine figure potential. All right. Number eight, hard truth, number eight, decisiveness trumps doubt.

What I found is the time that you come up with an idea or a decision to the time you execute, the shorter that time is, what I found is you will end up succeeding more. Now, notice I didn't say you have to make the right decisions every time. I'm saying you come up with what you think is the right move and then you execute. The time between figuring out what the move is and the time you execute, the more you can time collapse that, that means the more decisive you become, the more successful you become as an entrepreneur. Because hopefully you've got enough information to make that right decision and execute before the other guy, right? Your competitors. But let's say that you made the wrong

decision and you started executing on a bad decision. Guess what? No big deal. Because now as soon as you find the right course, again, you time collapsed, the time between the, you found out the right answer and execution, and you pivot, right? I can't tell you how many times I've made bad decisions in business. I know many great entrepreneurs who run multiple, you know, nine figure businesses. One of my coaching clients has a billion dollar a year business. He's literally making random bad decisions, but he's moving so quick that he can pivot and execute and reclaim the losses fast

because there's a window of opportunity. for entrepreneurs. You have to understand that there's a window of opportunity. And if you're not decisive, if you take too long to fact find and to gather information and you have all this doubt within you, because what if I make the wrong decision or in the past I've made wrong decisions or I don't know what the right decision is. So until I know 100% certainty what the right decision is, I'm not going to make this decision. The opportunity window has shut. And once the opportunity window shuts or someone else takes advantage of that opportunity window that you had, you now have lost your chance of getting to that next level, right? So understand that.

Decisiveness trumps doubt every single time. Number nine, hard truth. Number nine, results are the only thing that matter. And a generation of millennials and Gen Ziers and whoever, and there are plenty of hardworking millennials and Gen Ziers. But I'm telling you right now, there's a new generation out there who thinks that as long as I'm putting effort and I'm part of the planning process and look how much time I've put in, that matters, right? No, it doesn't. Results are all that matter. If I'm delegating something to team members, doesn't matter if it's a CEO, FitBody Bootcamp, Bryce Henson, or the VP of Shruling Jeff Rosenquest, if I'm delegating and then we assign a deadline to it, they can't just keep pushing that deadline back. I need the results to happen. If the

results don't happen, and they're like, well, I put a lot of effort in and I did a lot of planning, and I'm doing a lot of time on nights and weekends. Well, that's great. But where are the results? So understand as an entrepreneur for business owners, the biggest hard truth that you could ever hear from me is results are the only things that matter. Results from you that you produce as the founder, visionary, and leader.

Results from your team members, your employees. Those are the only things that matter. And finally, number 10, hard truth number 10, which is it will take at least a decade. I know social media and gurus out there want to sell you the vision, that you'll achieve all your goals within the next six, 12, 13, 18 months. But the reality is, if you have big goals, if you have big dreams, if you're truly passionate about achieving this desired outcome that you want,

that's beyond just, hey, at least I don't have a job. I replace the job. I'm making $200,000 a year. Yeah, we can get you there in like 90 days, right? In 90 days, we can produce, as long as you have an expertise or a skill that's high value and that people want, we can get you to produce $200,000 for a year. we'll get you on track to that in 90 days. I can teach you that with my eyes closed.

But I'm talking the person who wants to make multiple seven figures, eight figures, build a nine figure business, have an exit, right? That person, you're committing for a decade. You got to lock in for a decade. And so, you know, it's easy to plan something out and to visualize what it will look like when you're there. It's another thing when it's just you early in the mornings, late in the evenings,

on the weekends, grinding it out, doing the work, and realizing tomorrow you're gonna get up and do it again. And next week, you're gonna do it again. And next month, you're gonna do it again. And as the year concludes, you're gonna keep going because it's gonna take at least a decade for you to build a business that's got the systems, the processes, the multiple income streams, the people,

the layers of management and leadership, and the brand equity, where you can actually step back and let this machine run, where you've actually created generational freedom for yourself, right? right, generational wealth for your family and for your kids' kids. If that is the goal, which is the goal that I have for myself, then it's going to be at least a decade of commitment. And I share this with you because if any of these, you're like,

man, I did not want to hear this. Maybe you're better off going and working for someone else. Maybe you're better off just going and creating a side hustle that hopefully will replace your income, but will never give you the time freedom. because remember, if you're creating a side hustle where you're making $150,000, $200,000 a year, and it's just you, you're probably trading your time for dollars. So you don't have a lot of time freedom. You certainly don't have a lot of life balance.

Life balance is a byproduct of creating a business big enough, profitable enough to hire people who can help you buy back your time so that you can have the life experiences that you want, the balance that you want and still dive back into business with a normal schedule, right, and be able to do those things. for that to happen, you've got to be obsessed, you got to lock in, and you got to stay committed for at least a decade. Guys and gals, if you like this episode, you're watching this on YouTube.

I want you to understand that 74% of you are not subscribed. You're watching this, but you are not subscribed. If you got value from this episode, please do me a favor and subscribe and give me a thumbs up, letting the algorithms know that you see value in this so that we can reach more people and help them win their financial freedom and life freedom. And if you're watching this or listening to this across the different podcast platforms, Thank you so much. A review would go a long ways and I appreciate every single one of you. Now, last thing I want to say before I wrap this up is this, that every single one of you need to

understand where I talked about, there's this, I guess if there was an 11th point, the 11th point would be this, that every single one of you have some kind of story that lives within your mind. And that story has created. more limiting beliefs in you. And the sad thing is that story is a false reality. Meaning if you've experienced trauma in your life, you've been abused physically, sexually, mentally, if you come from a divorced family, if you come from a background where money wasn't talked about, right?

You will tell yourself this negative story and you will carry it into your business. One of the greatest things I can tell you. And this may not be a big, you know, entrepreneurial. hack, but this is a huge life hack. It is to heal through your traumas. Those traumas that are limiting you back and killing your human experience and really putting you in a place where you see a little bit of progress and then you slide back in debt, you see a little bit of progress, slide back in debt and you're always on this hamster wheel of stress, anxiety, fear, and doubt, if you heal through the traumas and the setbacks that you've had and rewrite your story

and you become the hero in it, you'll see that the sky is the limit. Guys, thank you so much for watching and listening to this episode of the Bedros-Culian show. Always remember this, that average is the enemy, 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. 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.