Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - 189. Why Your Business Will Expose Every Flaw You've Never Fixed

Episode Date: May 12, 2026

42% OFF - Get your Digital Man Up book + Audiobook + 2 Exclusive MASTERCLASSES https://bit.ly/manuptribeTruLean Supplements | https://bit.ly/trulean-bedrosGet 50% Off Trulean Subscribe & Save BundleUse Code: BEDROS Why Your Business Will Expose Every Flaw You've Never Fixed | Ep. 0189Most entrepreneurs chase the business plan and ignore the most important variable in the equation: themselves. In this episode, we break down why entrepreneurship is the ultimate magnifying glass, exposing every unhealed fear, insecurity, and self-doubt you have been carrying since childhood. Drawing from a mastermind with legends like Tony Robbins, Dean Graziosi, and Dan Sullivan, I share the hard lesson I learned too late: your business will only grow as far as you do. From near-bankruptcy and panic attacks to coaching a solar company founder from $5M to $9.2M in revenue, this episode gives you the raw truth about what it actually takes to break through the glass ceiling and stop self-sabotaging your own success.

The business plan is only as good as the businessman. You see, all your other fears, insecurities, abandonment issues, self-doubt, all these things come to light as you start making more money, as you start losing money, as people start quitting on you, as people start running your reputation through the mud because you will have competition that starts talking crap on you. How are you going to handle that? The only time you must not fail is the last time you try.

If you're an entrepreneur, you can probably relate to this. Welcome to the Bedroft's Coolian show. New levels, new devils. Guys, there are many different levels to everything in life. And business is no exception. Guys, welcome to the Bedros, Coolian show. Today's episode is all about the new level that you can hit in business if you follow the strategy that I'm about to lay out for you.

Now, I'm going to tee this up first with a lesson that I learned about 15 to 17 years ago at a mastermind that I was in with Joe Polish. And Joe Polish was running this mastermind out there in Tempe, Arizona. If you don't know who Joe Polish is, look him up. He's an awesome human being. He owned this brand called Piranha Marketing. And he's brought some of the most incredible people together, like Tony Robbins and Dan Sullivan. and you name the person, Joe Polish knows.

He's like the super connector, even till this day. So anyways, about 16, 17 years ago, I had joined Joe Polish's mastermind. I wanted to learn direct response marketing even better. I wanted to know exactly how to make a right offer. And of course, how to move people up the ascension ladder. And so when I joined this mastermind, I went out to the first mastermind meeting out there in Tempe, Arizona. It was a hot summer day. And when you're in Arizona, it's like,

118, 19 degrees of dry heat. And I know what you Arizona people say, well, it's dry heat. It doesn't matter. When it's that hot, it is freaking deadly. So there we are at Joe Polish's office. And we're in this mastermind. And unbeknownst to me, I'm in a room full of legends. You got Brandon Bouchard in there. You've got Dean Graciosi in there. You've got Wyatt Woodsmall in there. Wyatt Woodsmall at the time was the guy that wrote the opening monologue for Tony Robbins. And Wyatt Woodsmall is a NLP expert, neuro-linguistic programming expert, and he had written the monologue for Tony Robbins and the insight that he gave me on the human behavior and how humans think.

And so, you got Dan Sullivan in that mastermind, right? It's from strategic coach. Dan Sullivan, like great author, amazing human being and a great strategist. And so I'm like the youngest guy in the group. and I'm looking at Dean Graciosi and I'm like, holy crap, I recognize this guy from the TV infomercials where he sells that book where you can buy homes with no money down. And Brandon Bouchard, I'm like, man, I see this guy on YouTube, you know,

YouTube had just popped off. And I realized I'm in a room full of legends and I'm the baby in the room. And I'm there looking for tools, tactics, and strategies to grow my coaching business. At the time I was really coaching gym owners because I had built and sold my five personal training gyms in San Diego, California, and I was getting into coaching and consulting for gym owners who wanted to do the same,

who wanted to build multiple locations and scale those multiple locations and then ultimately sell them or turn them into a franchise or whatever. I'd figured out what my superpower was, which was entrepreneurship, and I wanted to help other fitness business owners. And so I'm there and I'm trying to take away all these nuggets from these guys and I keep hearing back again about this term, the business plan is only as good as the businessman. And I don't remember who said that.

I don't know if it was Dan Sullivan or if it was Joe Polish, but I kept hearing that over and over again, that the business plan is only as good as the businessman. And that lesson, I have to admit, kind of fell on deaf ears for me. I just figured like, hey, listen, just give me the business plan. Show me how to build an audience, an email list, how I can use my blog because back then in that time blogs were super popular I wanted to build an

email list make an offer for a free thing move them up into a course and then of course a send people up into a coaching program a mastermind that I had and I grew that mastermind with the help of that group to 185 gym owners who were paying me $1,500 a month some 15, 16, 17 years ago and I'm massively grateful for every single person in there Dean Graciosi and Dan Sullivan and Brandon Bouchard and of course, you know, Joe Polish, Wyatt Woodsmall. And there was so many other people, maybe five or ten other people. At the time, that mastermind was pretty small. Today, it's a very big mastermind. And I've had the good opportunity to speak at it now. And, you know, to speak at Joe Polish's annual Genius Network event. In fact, I followed at Joe Polish's Genius Network event,

about five years after that mastermind that I'm telling you this story about. You know, he had 300 people in the audience. And I followed. followed Tony Robbins and I was nervous as can be. You can imagine you're back there getting miced up in the back of the room and you're seeing Tony Robbins on stage and this big audience in front of you and you're like, holy shit, how do I follow Tony Robbins? Anyways, I did the best I could and I was so hyped up listening and watching Tony Robbins do his thing that I couldn't stand still and the audio video guy who was trying to mic me up kept yanking on my shoulder to try and get me to stand still. But that's a story for another day. But I got up there and I crushed it.

it and that was one of my first big talks that I ever did before I ever became a paid keynote speaker. So I share that with you because, man, I'm telling you, you know, when you're in the groups like that, you end up gritting opportunities that you didn't even realize are going to help catapult you into new directions in life. But I share this with you because if you're an entrepreneur, you can probably relate to this. Guys, quick interruption to the Bedrose Koolian show. I want to tell you about the man-up bundle that I have for you for $29 and 100% of it goes to Shriners Children's Hospital where we're going to do a lot of good and you're going to going to build an awesome business and have a great life because of it. You not only get the

digital version of my international bestselling book, Man Up, you also get the audiobook version of it and two very exclusive masterclass recordings that I did just earlier this month that is focused specifically on scaling your business and having breakthroughs. Scale strategies masterclass is all about how to scale your business and marketing, sales, systems, automation, and leadership. And the breakthrough blueprint masterclass is all about breaking through your limiting beliefs, breaking through uncertainties and breaking through to get to the next level of happiness and success in business and life. Best of all, you get all of this for 29 bucks because you watch and listen to the Bedros

Kulian show. And I'm donating 100% of that money to Shrinas Children's Hospital where they do a lot of good and give a lot of surgeries and medical services to kids whose families can't afford that. So go to manup tribe.com and get the Bedroskulian manup bundle before it all sells out. Peace. You can relate to this really well. that, you know, the first things you want to learn are the first things that I was looking to learn. And if I can go back and slap my younger self, that 15, 16, 17 year old younger self

and say, hey, man, understand what it takes to be a strong, capable business man so that you can execute the business plan. Because the business plan they gave me was solid, right? Like, I was being coached up by legends, right? Obviously, the first thing they said is make sure your product and your service is great. It's exceptional. It's excellent. Okay, got it. You know, you know this. Make a compelling and irresistible offer that they can't say no to, and they help me craft my irresistible offer at the time. And then figure out strategies for lead generation,

how to attract high-intent leads who have a desire for your product and need the solution because they have the problem, right? Okay, check. Create a sales system that converts leads into paying clients and customers. Create an ascension ladder that moves these people up in a ascension ladder where they can get more value, services, and solutions from you in it for additional money. And that helps you increase the lifetime value.

And man, I was taking notes and, and, you know, developing strategies and creating funnels and super excited for all of that, right? I learned copyrighting in that group. So much education I got as a young entrepreneur in my 30s from that group. But what went right over my head as I was developing the business plan was how to become the businessman. Years later, I end up writing my book, Man Up. And in it, I talk about that massive panic attack I had.

And my book came out in 2018. So I feel had I learned the lesson of becoming a strong and formidable business man so that I could execute the business plan that I gained from that mastermind, I would have never experienced the massive fails that I had in business, the near bankruptcies that I almost experienced, that being in such massive debt, multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt that was absolutely crippling, that led to a panic attack that felt like a heart attack. Now, all of that ended up making it in my book, but man, I could have written that book

through the lens of, here is what I've learned in life to not have as many big failures and to have constant wins and successes as an entrepreneur. But instead, that book was a byproduct of, here's what I've learned to succeed, And here's what I've learned from my failures. And while the book became a bestseller, and I'm grateful for that, the life lessons and the pressure on myself and my income and my family was ridiculous. And you should know that the businessman and the business plan work hand in hand, guys.

There is no two ways around it. And you should also know this, those of you that are in business. And it doesn't matter if you're new in business or you're in that mid-level or you're at that higher level of business where there's new levels and new devils, entrepreneurship will expose every flaw within you that you haven't fixed. Guys, quick interruption to the Bedros-Coolin show,

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Every trait, every trauma that you haven't solved and exposed, it will expose for you. And it will bring to light. It will bring to light your feelings of rejection when you first end up getting let down by an employee who decides to quit without any warning. It will bring up insecurities in you when you reach new levels of growth. and leadership. It will expose fears in you when you run campaigns and you lose money instead of make money and you don't know how you're going to pay your next bill for your rent or your mortgage or your pay off your credit card in time without getting the bill collectors calling you.

It will expose abandonment issues. It will expose self-doubt issues. It will expose leadership issues. It will expose decisiveness issues. It will expose communication issues. It will expose communication issues, it will show you how emotionally fragile you are in the areas of mental toughness that you have yet to build. That is what entrepreneurship does. It is a massive magnifying glass that exposes every flaw and every unheeled variation of you ever since you were a child because it will give you so much adversity. It will give you so many challenges. It will give you one setback after another and after another. And this is what Joe Polish and those guys that that mastermind meant when they said

to fix yourself as a businessman so that you can execute the business plan. See, I didn't do that. I had never done the self-work. And because I hadn't done the self-work, or at least what little self-work I'd done, I thought was enough. I just thought like an arrogant young prick that if I could just get the plan to get the leads, convert them into clients, start making money, and solve my money problems that all my other problems would go away.

Untrue. You see, all your other fears, insecurities, abandonment issues, self-doubt, leadership issues, all these things come to light as you start making more money, as you start losing money, as people start quitting on you, as people start running your reputation through the mud, because you will have competition that starts talking crap on you. That's just how it is. How are you going to handle that? Are you going to crumble and go under the covers and cry?

Or are you going to be resilient and thrive? And that's really the big message here, because everyone knows that there's a business plan. And you can find so many business plans and strategies on YouTube, on podcasts, in free courses, and paid courses, and coaching programs. But I can tell you this. My coaching clients today in the domination year program

and the scale syndicate program, the ones who thrive the most, who see exponential growth in their companies and their personal brands and who don't end up hitting that glass ceiling and end up actually breaking through it, instead of hitting the glass ceiling and self-sabotaging, the ones that break through and continue going are the ones who not only execute on the business plan, but have also become the businessman that that business needs. Or the businesswoman, because about half of my domination of your coaching clients are women, and there are some awesome savages who have great businesses and brands and they're scaling them big.

And so I want to talk to you about that, the businessman or the businesswoman who needs to learn how to execute the business plan. Because if not, you're going to end up growing, self-sabotaging, hitting the glass ceiling, having doubts, insecurities, and then bringing yourself back down to where you were. And then spikes and valleys, spikes and valleys. And you see that in so many people's lives. You see it show up in relationships. It shows up in your health.

like when you're trying to lose weight and get fit, you get so close to your goal, but because you haven't done the identity work, the shadow work, the healing work, what happens? You end up actually not achieving your goal right before achieving your goal. You end up self-sabotaging, getting sick, getting injured, something happens almost psychosomatically.

And boom, you're right back to where you started, aren't you? And so this happens in business all the time. And you feel like you're stuck. I can't seem to break through. I'm always in the same place. Yet life is getting more expensive, marketing is getting more expensive, payroll is getting more expensive, but my business revenue is the same. Which really means, by the way, if your business revenue is the same, that means that you're actually making less money year after year because everything else, marketing costs, sales commissions, operational costs, payroll, cost of goods, everything is going up. But yet if you're making the same, that means your personal take home is lower, isn't it?

And I share that with you because if you were not reinforcing, rebuilding, and reestablishing a new identity, and you can, by the way, this is why you hear when people say, like, I reinvented myself. You can reinvent yourself into a much better version than you are now. Like, I get it. Mom and Dad gave you all these issues in life and things happened in school and you were called names. And your brain doesn't connect the dots that those issues, you know, could somehow negatively impact the growth of this business. And because of that, your family is suffering. Because of that, your employees are suffering.

Because of that, they're not getting the raises in time. You're not getting their paycheck in time and they're quitting on you. Because of that, your competition is getting a leg up on you. And so the moment you realize that the businessman and the business plan must collectively improve so that you can break through, see the big results and continue to dominate in your space, that is when you start working. winning. And so what are the areas that you need to do the inner work on, right? Because the inner work reflects the outer outcome. First of all, you got to learn to stack wins on a consistent basis.

Those wins just aren't in business. The wins have to show up in your personal life. Because your level of confidence is tied to your level of competence, right? In other words, you will only work and be as competent as your level of confidence will allow you to. Well, the only way you're going to build confidence as if you keep the micro promises to yourself. Those micro promises are to wake up on time and not hit the snooze button to get that workout in if you said you're going to get the morning workout in, to eat right all day and eat clean because you should see yourself as an athlete and your sport is entrepreneurship, right?

I can tell you this, as FitBody Boot Camp grew to seven figures, eight figures, and then now a nine figure company, and I've got big leadership team and I got lots of staff and we've got moving parts. We've got hundreds of franchise locations across the U.S. and Canada. Let me tell you, I had to grow as an individual to continue to be able to lead my international brand, right? Same thing happened with Trulene supplements. I'm like, I've never been in a supplement space. You launch a new supplement line or a new apparel line or you launch any kind of coaching business or whatever it is. Anytime you do something new, you start feeling resistance. The resistance is your old stories, your old identity, rearing its ugly head and saying,

whoa, I'm experiencing self-doubt, whoa, I'm experiencing fear, insecurities. There might be a chance of rejection. What if this fails? And all the little what if monsters begin to whisper. But if you can start stacking little wins in your life, the wins that help you build your confidence, your competency, your credit score with yourself, by the way. If you want to know, like, how do I win and build my. confidence. Well, you start stacking those little Ws, just like you think it's a non-issue when

you stack little Ls throughout the day. Like when your alarm goes off because you said you're going to wake up at a certain time and attack your day and then you hit the snooze button. And then when you finally get up out of bed, instead of drinking water and maybe doing some journaling and meditation, what do you do? You go on social media, you start scrolling and wasting time, right? Brain rotting yourself. And you start feeling shitty about yourself because you know you have a responsibility to your business, and you know you had the intentions of stacking these little wins. Get up, don't hit the snooze button, drink water, do your journaling, do your meditation. In my case, send out three gratitude text messages.

Listen to my Jack Johnson music while I'm in the shower, and then boom, get on my couch, start doing my work, my magic time work for about two hours. Then I head to the gym and I get a workout in and I get my wind there. Then I shower up and come to HQ where I start stacking more wins there. And at the end of the day, I'm like, dude, I did everything I said I was going to do. And I stack one day with another day and seven more days becomes a week and then a month and then a year. And that starts building high levels of competency.

And your own personal credit score, your reputation with yourself begins to go higher. And you begin to develop more trust with yourself. And if you can trust yourself, do you know that when shit goes wrong, I could stay calm, I could stay cool, I can stay confident because I'm a person that stack. small, medium, and big size wins, I can attack anything I want. Soon you realize you could deal with the suck factor of entrepreneurship a lot better. Because in entrepreneurship, you know how it is. You don't just get one problem a day.

When it rains, it pours. You get multiple problems that come to you. And those multiple problems show up in many different ways. You don't get to choose how big they are. You don't get to choose what time they show up, and you don't get to choose how many problems show up. All you know is that you have to develop. your confidence, you have to start stacking wins, and you have to be able to eat more shit

than you did yesterday. Deal with the suck factor, because it will suck. And as you start making more money and you start getting a leadership team in place and you get better systems and processes in place, you get to win time freedom. And all of a sudden, you're no longer looking down and in, you're looking up and out, right? A leader should be looking out in the clouds. What is the future of my business bring to me? Versus in the weeds, doing the work, suffering, life and realizing, shit, I could have been working for someone else right now, making more money with a 401k, a retirement in health care, and some paid vacation days. But instead, I'm working 24-7, 365 for chicken feed, and I don't even have the security

that I thought I would have as an entrepreneur. And you're in a three years, five years, 10 years. Why is that? Because you haven't done the work. So before entrepreneurship, my friend, relieves and reveals your insecurities and all these things and brings them to the surface only then to cause you to sabotage, burnout, and set yourself back. Why don't you take the lesson that I didn't take when I was in Joe Polish's mastermind group back then and actually start working on yourself.

Think about this. I once told one of my coaching clients, he had a $5 million a year solar installation. company. And he goes, I think I can build this to 15 million. I was like, we sure can. I think in the next two years, we can build this to $15 million. And I asked them, I said, hey, it was this first half day coaching session. My coaching clients get two half day sessions with me in person and then monthly coaching calls and then access to all my events. And I said, why don't you get on the marker board here in this, in this conference room we're in, and write down what the $15 million dollar founder and CEO of a solar company looks like.

And he goes, oh, he starts writing down. A better marketer generates more leads. A better leader, better communication, better sales skills, has a bigger team, better management, has more structured payroll. I was like, cool, those are all the skills. But what is the CEO founder of a $15 million solar company look like versus the $5 million version that you are today? And this guy was out of shape, disheveled, overweight, unorganized.

Admittedly, he even said, he always shows up late to meetings, and he could sense that his team resents him. He's not the most organized, structured, and systematized person. And he knows that his team is bothered by that. And he knows that's limiting his growth. So I said, well, what does the $15 million CEO look like? Write that down. And he wasn't able to articulate. I said, do you think he's lean or is he pudgy?

like you. He said, well, I think he's lean. I said, great. Write that down. He's lean. What do you think he eats in the morning? He said, what do you eat? He says, why I skipped breakfast? I said, let me guess. Then by lunch, you're eating a massive lunch that's full of fat and carbs. And then by two o'clock, you're starting to fall asleep and you can't think clearly because of the insulin spike. He's like, I didn't know that's what's taking place in my body. But yeah, that's exactly what happens. Great. Well, don't you think that the $15 million founder is not only lean, but to stay lean, he's working out regularly and he's eating clean by tracking his macros he goes yeah i go write that down i go what time do you do you go to sleep he goes ah around midnight sometimes 12 30 what time do you wake up

at seven wow do you feel like you're behind when you wake up at seven yeah do you feel fully rested no well that's because you're sleeping so late you're fucking with your circadian rhythm buddy don't you think that 15 million dollar CEO would probably go to bed at a decent time maybe goes to bed at 930 10 o'clock wakes up at 5.30 where now he can attack the day instead of feeling like he's behind the eight ball at 7 a.m. When you wake up to a whole bunch of emails, missed calls and text messages, he goes, yes, that's exactly what happens. I'm like, look, man, I'm not in Nostradamus. I'm not looking in a crystal ball and being able to tell like what happens to you. I've just seen a trend with many of my coaching clients who first start off like you. They have these big aspirational goals to get to $15, $20, $30 million in revenue for their business.

but they don't realize that the businessman needs to grow with the business plan. And you could see the light bulb turn on. And to his credit, within the next five months, he had gotten more structure. He had an organized morning routine, working out, eating right, going to bed earlier. Was he perfect? No. But was he starting to stack those wins, feeling better about himself, building his confidence, his ability to eat more shit, developing more resilience?

Absolutely. And guess what happens? all of a sudden the business goes to $7 million, $8 million. By the end of the year, we close off, his 12-month coaching, we closed off at $9.2 million. By the end of the second year, he was starting to kiss $15 million, exactly what we were shooting for. And he continued to evolve and get better.

And even crazier, he started to impact the vice president of his company in a positive way and his wife. Because during his second half day session, he's like, dude, a lot of my team members now are getting in better shape. they're showing up with better attitudes, greater work ethic, more resilience. Now my wife is working out, eating right, attacking her goals. It's brought us closer. And when you really look at success in life and business, it's not just about money.

It's about the meaning. It's about the relationships. It's about the connections and the experiences. It's about the fulfillment that you have. And a better version of you will always have a better life. but the fat, tired, lazy, incongruent version of you will always end up feeling regret and guilt. And a leader who's feeling regret and guilt is never going to be able to take the business to its fullest potential. You know that, right?

So I hope you got a ton of value from this episode. I hope you understand the value of building the business man as you build the business plan. And when you do that, you will hit your business goals. You won't have these big fluctuations in growth and valleys. and best of all, you'll be able to hold your sanity together and not have a massive panic attack like I did that brought me literally to my knees. Guys, I want you to join the Domination Download newsletter.

It's absolutely free, by the way. Go to bedrose-coolion.com and right there at the top of the page, you can join the Domination Download newsletter where every Sunday I send you a newsletter, email, cost you nothing with actual tactics and strategies that we're using in my businesses, and I'm using in my personal life

so that I can have greater wins, make more money, and have more meaning. And I want you to have the same. So go to bedroscooling.com for that. And above all, remember this, that averages 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.