Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - 185. 5 Factors Holding People Back From Building an Empire

Episode Date: April 20, 2021

We all know that a negative belief system can hold us back in life, but there are many other things to consider. Our past experiences, culture, and even family can shape how we show up to the world around us. The world is complicated and messy, but if you truly want to transform the world, it's up to you to do the required work. In today's Empire episode, Craig Ballantyne and Bedros Keuilian address five factors holding people back from building an empire and what they've learned along the way. This is a powerful episode you don’t want to miss.  “It really comes down to doing the necessary work. It’s how I got over my trauma. It’s how everyone gets over their trauma. If you ignore it and avoid it for so long, it will manifest and come up in another area of your life.” -Bedros Keuilian Show Highlights: 1:00 Difficult Conversations 5:44 Inner Demons 14:16 Procrastination  17:50 Lack of Network 21:22 Lack of Vision  Connect with Bedros Keuilian:   Instagram https://www.instagram.com/bedroskeuilian/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/bedroskeuilian/ Youtube https://www.youtube.com/user/KeuilianInc Twitter https://twitter.com/bedroskeuilian LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/bedroskeuilian/ Buy Man Up and get Bedros' High-Performance Leadership Course for FREE: https://manup.com/ Subscribe to My Channel for weekly videos: http://www.youtube.com/bedroskeuilian/?sub_confirmation=1

You can make a few hundred thousand dollars a year as a dreamer. Like, man, I'm just, I'm a dreamer, I'm just going to hustle and do it. You might have an employer or two, and that's great. But if you want to build a really big empire, you want to build something that's going to be like transformational in an industry, this thing has to be a specific vision. So it's what do you want specifically, when do you want it by? And then why do you want it? Everybody wants to be successful. Everybody wants to have millions of dollars, right?

Making the millies be? Making the millies. All right. Everybody wants to have a strong marriage. Everybody wants to be ripped, but there's something holding them back. B, we're going to talk about the five factors holding people back from building an empire. Sound good? This is a very great episode, man.

I think it's going to change some lives. Let's do it. All right. Number one is yours, difficult conversations, man. You've been talking about that a lot lately. Yep. What the heck? How is that holding people back?

And how does one have a difficult conversation? Yeah, so great question. So when you talk about difficult conversations, it's typically there's. something that you have to talk to about someone. Either maybe, hell, maybe it's trying to get some closure on an issue, right? Because unless you get closure, you're not going to get past this thing and it's created a limiting belief system for yourself. Or maybe it's a difficult conversation of, hey, look, I've outgrown you and we need to part ways

because you are now an anchor in my life. Whatever the different conversation is, there's somebody typically that is not necessarily holding you back, because you're the only one holding yourself back, is what I found. But what really is needed on your part is this sense of closure and it comes in a form of conversation. And most of us are conditioned to avoid and ignore and put off and procrastinate. We're tough conversations are concerned because, well, it never feels good. And you kind of feel bad for hurting someone's feelings. But those difficult conversations are what usually create breakthroughs.

So I'll give you a great. Yeah, I was going to say. Yeah. Give me an example. I'll give me a great example. So every Tuesday, Tuesdays, because today's a Tuesday's a Tuesday, we have the level 10 meetings upstairs for our company, FitBody. And Level 10 meeting is part of the EOS system.

Exactly. If you want to learn about the EOS system, you want to scare your business to like eight figures, nine figures, ten figures beyond, you're going to put EOS into your business. And one of those things, by the way, it's from the book, Traction by Gino Wickman. And it's entrepreneurial operating system.

Yeah. And a level 10 meeting is 90 minutes long. And at the end of every level 10 meeting, one of the things you do is you go through, everyone in the leadership team, you rate the meeting. Yeah. And we're from a one to a 10. And so anytime there's confrontation and hard conversations to be had when someone needs to call someone out because, hey, you didn't finish your rock on time.

And therefore that stopped me from finishing my rock. And therefore, we didn't meet the deliverables. Yep. When those uneasy conversations come up, people typically end up rating it like an eight or an eight and a half. I end up always rating it a 10. Huh. Because I've learned that the clarity in my business always comes out of confrontation and conversations. And so I'm looking for these tough conversations to happen instead of just everyone giving themselves platitudes and pads on the backs.

And so my job literally is the visionary of the company is to just kind of try and stir up the tough conversations. And when they have it, everyone walks away better. There's no weird resentment. There is no passive aggressive energy between departments. Hell, we've had departments, like have passive-aggressive energy, let alone, like, the leaders from those departments. And so if I can stimulate those tough conversations because I typically know what's going on on both sides of the fence, then I walk out of their rating at a 10, and I've conditioned my team now that, hey, guys, we want this confrontation to happen because when we have the difficult conversations, we have clarity and we can move on. And so it works in business. It works in your personal life.

Well, all right. So let's go back in time. When were you on the receiving end of a difficult conversation that changed your life? maybe from Jim Franco or... Or Craig Valentine. How about this one? And I don't know if it was in Vegas or it might have happened after one of our Vegas mastermind. Sure.

But I remember specifically asking you, and I talk about it in my book, but I remember specifically asking you like, dude, how do you get so much done? And your whole thing was pretty much like, man, here we are in Vegas with our clients. And B, you're out, like, gambling with them and having a good time with them and partying with them. So I sleep in in the mornings before our mastermind starts. You would get up and you would work and send out your email broadcast and put up your blog post. This is pre-social media. Obviously, I'm dating us. Because I would know that because I'd go online and I would see that, shoot, I got Craig's broadcast.

I could see his blog post up and I'm just now brushing my teeth getting ready for the morning. Right. You would try and do the work late at night. Yes. And therefore, so now I've hung out and I'm doing it late at night, which forces me to sleep in in the morning. and let's face it, your work done late at night when you're fatigued, tired, and your brain's racing, it's not going to be your best work.

And so it was a difficult conversation that we had. I don't know if it was like a come-to-Jesus conversation, but I remember you were like, hey, man, this is what you need to do. It wasn't like, hey, let me advise you. It was like, this is what you need to do if you want to get to that next phase of life. And I needed that. Sure.

And I think because we have a deep friendship and respect for each other, I felt very open to receiving that. And I hope that even if I didn't feel open, that you would have given me that anyway. Yeah. Because it was needed. Yeah. And you've given it to me a couple times, too, and it's been super helpful. All right.

So the second thing that's holding people back, and we've all got them, is inner demons. Everybody's got their inner demons. You know, I grew up with an alcoholic father, left me with some inner demons. You had troubles back home, inner demons. Yeah. So everybody's got them. How do some people get over them? And, you know, for the other people that don't, what does that look like in terms of it holding

them back? Well, I mean, I've had the good fortune of knowing you for, you know, a dozen years now and to see how you've evolved and gotten over it. You know, what's work for you in terms of, like, process? Well, so first of all, having a good model of who I wanted to become. I was just, I was mentioning, I was on the Brad Lee podcast today. And he asked me who the greatest coach was. And we talked about Brennan Bersharam.

We talked about Tony Robbins, and he goes, but who's been the best coach for you? And I said, well, it's been Bedros because, you know, I hang around him because he's, he's my role model. He's got a great marriage. He's got a great family. He's a good man. He's got a great business. And he's got the stuff that I want to have.

And so by spending the time with, here's the model. Most people don't have a good model. And, you know, it goes all the way back to, you know, there's a lot of, you know, kids with no father at home right now, which is probably the reason that there's a lot of problems that young men have and that you're trying to fix with the project and with the Squire program. And so by spending time with you and seeing this is how a good man acts, this is what a good man does. I'm like, okay, that was one part of it.

And then I was telling Brad that every time I did something wrong, I would get the Armenian death stare. And I'm like, I don't want that feeling of getting the Armenian death stare when I did something wrong. It was out of love. Yeah, you know, the tough love, right? And so it's like, oh, and so it's having accountability of somebody I deeply did not want to disappoint. And then, you know, traditional therapies and writing my books was also really, really helpful. And then just committing to getting better every single time I had the chance. Like that one year I came to FBS with the goal

of hugging 100 people. Right. Right. And today, if you do that, you spread corona. Yeah, right, right. Well, I went from good to best. bad, bad, good. And so I remember hugging Dan Richie and him, and him, him going, like, what the heck, bro? What, what is going on here? Because Dan is from, you know, Indianapolis, where I don't think he gets hugged a lot. And then getting hug from me. I do want to say something, though, you set that goal at that FBS to hug 100 people. That's the same guy that I believe at the previous FBS. When you'd get into the elevator, our friends need to know this. Like, you would face the back of the elevator. And you would face the back of the elevator. And you would,

you would like look into the corner. You remember that, right? Yeah. And so like look at the transformation you've made in your life. Like it's it really, but and it boils down to everything you said like writing your book, doing the therapy, you know, hanging around with people that you want to model your life after. Having a dog. Having a dog, right? I mean, unbelievable transformation from having a dog. And it really boils down to doing the work. Sure. Doing the necessary work. And that's how I got over my trauma. That's how you get over your trauma. That's how everybody gets over their trauma. Because you can ignore it and avoid it for so long. It will manifest and come up in another area of your life.

And it's showed up to me with me with anxiety attacks, with addictions, with vices, with outbursts of rage. And it's like, all right, do I want to keep doing more of these or am I going to finally do the work? And you just do the work and then you realized it, okay, I'm a better human for it. So when you run the project and you help guys through this, are there like stages of overcoming the demons? Is there a particular exercise that really helps them during the project when they're

fatigued from going through the physical exertion. Yeah. So as you know, many people think that the project is about just 75 hours beating these guys up by taking them through beach torture and log PT and all the stuff that the Navy SEAL and the Marine put them through. Those are our two head instructors. But really, it's to fatigue them and to bring down the resistance and to make them feel as a team because all the stuff they need to do as a team because in about 33 hours from the time they start, I'm about to sit them down and have them go through an exercise. part one and part two called the Hunt and Destroy. And you're about to share in front of strangers

the most traumatic thing that's ever happened to in your life. Wow. And so page one of the Hunt and Destroy exercise and the battle books that we give them is, page one of that section is, the most traumatic thing that's ever happened to my life is, and you start writing that down. And then so I go through, you know, as a boy between ages of four and six,

I was molested by two older boys routinely in a carport, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I share what happened to me. And then next sentence, this event caused me to feel this way about myself. And I read my sentences, that I'm worthless, that I don't deserve love, that I'm disposable. I have rage, shame, confusion. And so we really start, and who is going to want to do that just coming into a workshop fresh, right? Ten minutes ago, you were at your Marriott Hotel. Now you just are around all these men you don't know.

and like, all right, guys, we're going through this thing. Right. So by beating them up for the first 33 hours of the 75 hours and getting them to work together, problem solve, communicate, lead each other, they realize, all right, I'm not going to get to the next hour without these guys. Very quickly, a bond in a brotherhood is built. And as we fatigue, we suspend disbelief. And as we get tired, we begin to reduce resistance.

And so then we sit them down. And, of course, I show vulnerability because I put myself through that exercise. And then I go, now it's your turn to right guys. And then as we go through, so part one is at hour number 33, and it lasts about three to four hours. And then part two of hunting. So we hunt and destroy, we hunt the toxic cognitions that are limiting their belief systems and their growth. And then part two happens at hour number 46, 47, where we now identify their superpowers. So again, the worst thing that ever happened to me in my life is, and they fill it in.

Because of that, I felt this way. They filled it in. And because of that, I've gained these superpowers. And for me, I have a high level of compassion, empathy, and generosity. Because I want to help and serve others who have been hurt and tortured, et cetera. And one of the greatest compliments you've given me is when you said, Hey, B, you're like that guy from the Green Mile who just sucks up everybody's pain and trauma and torture. And I believe that's a gift that I've gotten because of a gift that I've gotten because of the green mile.

what's happened to me. And so while I don't think anyone should be able to have to carry that weight, I believe it's my purpose to carry that weight for others because of what's happened to me. So, like, think about that. My traumatic situation that happened to me has given me that superpower. And so these guys walk out of there feeling like, man, this is a scary thing that I've never talked about and that I didn't want people to know because it's embarrassing. What will they think of me? It's so belittling. They were like, I just shared this with like 20 other men. And no one laughed at me. They all have problems.

Turns out we're all normal. And the human condition is that we're going to get fucked up and we're going to deal with some shit. And so off we go beating them up and we don't treat them any different because we heard that you ran over a family of five because you fell asleep at the steering wheel or, you know, Uncle Bob diddled you in a certain way. What other fuck happened, right? And they're like, all right, these men still treat me like a man, except I've talked about it and I'm over it. And the work still continues in their life after the 75 hours. but we unearthed the trauma and dealt with it and realized there's a superpower that came with the super shitty experience. That is insanely powerful.

And so for people that have the inner demons, like what you said, okay, you find the inner demon, you realize like you had a superpower that allowed you to overcome it. And so with my father being alcoholic, there's no control, right? And so what did I do became super controlled? And so obviously you can, you know, the pendulum can swing too far. Sure. But if you harness that into a superpower, you can go in out and. And look at the number of books you've written on that topic of controlling your date, controlling your thoughts, controlling your week.

And it's helped me and it's helped literally tens of thousands of people. Thank God your dad was that way. Sure. Right? I mean, that's the only thing we could say. That's all you can do. Love it, love it. Okay.

Number three, procrastination. Procrastination. And you, I mean, one of the things you said there before is like, you know, you're talking about that green mile thing. And I said that because when I started coaching and I realized, you know, I didn't have as many people as coaching clients as you did, especially over the years. And I was like, you know, you're getting all this information from him. You're like, taken on there were problems. I'm like, oh, my God, this is what he was experiencing for the past seven years that I knew him. This is insane.

And so obviously one of the thing, you know, you've seen everybody's problems, but you probably. saw over and over and over again, procrastination from perfectly capable people. Yeah. Why do they do it? Yeah, it's funny. What I saw was a pattern of procrastination. And it's neat when you, 1800 coaching clients, right? Wow.

And after having gone through 1800 coaching clients, you start seeing patterns in people. And one of the patterns of procrastination was concerned is the fear of what might happen, not what's going to happen. We begin, our reptilian mind begins to go. if this goes wrong and that fails, I might lose all my money. And then, as Kevin, my therapist would say, follow that golden thread. Well, one, if I lose all my money, I might have to move out of my house. It's my spouse might divorce me. And God, it's embarrassing if people find out that I wasn't able to succeed at this thing that I talked about it. And so we then procrastinate and never pull the

trigger because we are afraid of the negative outcome. The human brain, the reptilian brain, never goes, and because I might win and things will turn out and I'll be able to help a million people. We always, and the example I give people is pretend to be normal for a minute, meaning not like an evolved human that you are right now. But a normal person ever sitting here, if Craig Ballantyne's having a cocktail party and he's invited Michelle to the cocktail party and Michelle knows that it's supposed to be at 8 p.m. It's 9.10 and Michelle's still not there. What's running through your mind right now? Where is she? Where is she, right? And look how you said. Like, oh my God. Where is she?

she? Well, why wouldn't you be like, man, I bet she stopped at the liquor store, got a scratch her, won a million dollars, and it's celebrating right now and is on the way here. The mind goes to, where is she? I hope she didn't get in a car accident, and she's probably dead in the gutter. Where is she? Our reptilian mind goes to fear and not necessarily to fortune. And so because of that procrastination, I found, through the patterns that I've seen in people, is they have this unreasonable fear of what might happen, and so they procrastinate never getting there so they never have to experience what might happen. Yeah. And what I've found over the years is that people have a remarkably productive way of procrastinating. And so I talk about the

morning routine. People have these morning routines. And you might have one of these morning routines that is a perverse form of procrastination. And you get up and you do yoga and meditation and journaling, interpretive dance. You do all of these things. I love it. I cute it up. I do these videos every day. You know, and they just do 19 things before they actually get to work. And I just didn't have time to do that sales letter. I didn't have time to have that difficult conversation. I just, you know, was able to procrastinate on it. But I did journal for 10 pages.

Yeah, right. And I had three types of journaling. I did free-form journaling. I did gratitude journaling. And then I did morning pages journaling. So I checked off. By the way, your Instagram thing this morning about the Miami mornings. Yeah.

And you come off from like, did you just, were you living in the lifeguard tower? Okay. Yeah. We were doing a photo shoot there. I love that. All right. Fourth thing is network. Yeah.

People's lack of a network is holding them back. And, I mean, that's an easier excuse than ever for people today. It's not an actual good excuse, but it's an easier excuse than ever. Like, I can't meet any good people. I don't know any good people, blah, blah, blah. So, man, how powerful. and important is a network. No, you and I know that many of our best connections we've met in opportunities where

we were able to network. And that's at masterminds, either that we ran or that we were speaking at or were a part of events that we go to. And so it's like, well, look, your network really is going to help you leapfrog in life. And whatever area in life you want, money. I know the empire is about, you know, building money and creating wealth and doing a lot of good with it. But, hey, man, you want to have a better, like, fitness life or marriage. marriage life, network with people who are great in those categories of life.

And so find out what retreats they're running and pay to go to it. To me, it's a no-brainer. I will always pay to time collapse. And so I will pay for access, whether it's masterminds, mentoring, coaching, seminars, etc. And it becomes a no-brainer. And, you know, I'm sure you have some other ways as well. But to me, networking is just pay for access and get the results. I think the biggest mistake that people make with the networking is they think that

pays off immediately. Right. You know, so for example, like, I was on Bradley's podcast today. When when did we meet Bradley at Joe Polish's thing? Like three or four years ago, I think I talked to Bradley for like two minutes. Yeah. And then a couple weeks ago, we get an invite to go on his podcast. And I don't know why, but he remembers meeting me and somehow he got my book. I think maybe I sent it to him or Joe Pauli sent it to him. And sure enough, pays off three years later, I go on his podcast. His podcast is really popular now. So, So it'll pay off. I'll meet some new people from that.

Well, I was in Miami last month at an event from Joel and Dan Fleischman. And I met, have you met Chris Winfield and Jen Gottlieb? No. They're in, they're friends of Vinny D's and obviously Joel and Dan Fleischman. And then I was in the gym at the Wynn, and they're in there this like yesterday morning. And so I was talking to them. And they were at Bradley's and then they were there for war room. And it's just, you know, having all of these people.

just so powerful. And you can go and meet them virtually. I did a lot of networking as an introvert behind my computer, having a podcast, having an email newsletter. I could interview people, promote other people's products. There's no excuses for it. And you know, to that point, dude, like when we talked about networking, you're right. Like three, four years ago, we meet Bradley at Joe Polish's thing. Fast forward. He's like, hey, man, come get on my podcast. And yesterday you were on his podcast in Vegas. Now, that podcast airs the same in the next two, three weeks. And over the next four, five, six months to a year, thousands of people hear it. And you might gain a coaching client or two out of it. You might end up getting a business partner out of it. You might get some, a connection

that leads to another thing. And so networking is the long game. You're absolutely right. And when people see that, think that like, well, I'm going to pay and then meet Dan Fleischman or Craig Ballantyne and then we're going to somehow make money together the next month, you're going to be sorely disappointed. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Speaking of the long game, number five, people don't have a vision. And so lack of a vision just holds them back because that means they don't know what to do next. They kind of wander aimlessly in life.

They don't have any focus. They never achieve anything. And when they start to achieve something, then they go off on a detour and destroy the thing. So how important has a vision been to you? And when somebody comes see and says they want to be successful and they don't have any details or next steps, how do you get them on the right track?

Yeah. Well, to me, it's everything. because you can make a few hundred thousand dollars a year as a dreamer. Like, man, I'm just, I'm a dreamer, I'm just going to hustle and do it. You might have an employer or two, and that's great. But if you want to build a really big empire, you want to build something that's going to be like transformational in an industry, whether it's, you know, Fit Body Boot Camp or Trulene or what we're doing with a project, then this thing has to be a specific vision.

And when we put in a vision for Fit Body Boot Camp, and that vision can change. Remember, look, we just went through COVID. And COVID for the year 2020 was not constantly. to any fitness business at all on the planet. And Fit Body Boot Camp being franchises, we certainly lost our share of locations. So you can change your vision. But our vision, it was 2,500 locations by the year 2025,

and then here's why. So it's what do you want specifically? When do you want it by? And then why do you want it? It's not just because I want to make a lot of money, but because we want to impact 10 million people every morning through fitness, nutrition, and a positive mental attitude.

And so if me and my entire team are in line with that vision. We know what we want, 2,500 locations by the year 2025, for the specific reason. And we're all bought into it. We're going to work the daily goals to get there, hit our daily KPIs, key performance indicators. If you don't have a vision,

if you're just like, I want a lot of locations as soon as possible, okay, that's different to Ed and that's different to Michelle, that's different to Joan. And so no one's ever going to know. But with that, that clarity of vision, when shit gets hard and shit will get hard, you're not going to be locked on to anything solid. And it's going to be easy for you to just be a rudder-lish.

ship down the river of having the current taking you. Yeah, absolutely. And with a vision is, most people think the most important stuff is what you say that you're going to accomplish. But the power of the vision is actually the exclusion of all the other stuff. It's like, listen, I'm building fit body boot camp. Hey, do you want to come partner on this music program? Well, no, man, it's not getting me closer to my vision. It's the North Star. It keeps you on that straight line of success. And you can have a vision for your business. You can have a vision for your business. and have a vision for your personal life. I had a vision I wrote about in Perfect Day Formula

that I was going to meet the love of my life by 2020, and it kept me on track, and I met Michelle, and sure enough, by putting the vision out there, it got me on the straight line of success. So having that vision, overcoming procrastination, having the difficult conversations, growing your network, and turning your inner demons into the superpower.

You fix those five things. You'll stop holding yourself back, build an empire. Simple as that. Hey, listen, we want you to leave us a five-star review on iTunes and also be sure to take a screenshot of this particular episode right here and tag Craig, tag myself. And as always, don't forget to tell your mama.