Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - 194. The Gateway Drug To Highest Levels Of Confidence!

Episode Date: September 1, 2021

Craig Ballantyne is back! Canada let one loose and Craig joins us right here at HQ in the studio, and they talk about the underlying aspect of holistic success, fitness. Coming from 2 former fitness trainers turned serial entrepreneurs, they discuss what has brought them the highest returns on investment through sweat equity, clean eating, and their personal fitness. BISCUITS AND GRAVY! 0:00 - Intro 0:57 - FITNESS! The gateway drug! 03:49 - The false covers of confidence 5:06 - Structure, discipline and consistency, building your confidence and credibility to build your goals! 8:40 - The level headedness that keeps you on track 10:49 - Persistence, and the 4 money making skills 14:30 - Have a vision, carry a why! 17:17 - How to properly use fitness for entrepreneurial success Connect with Craig Ballantyne :    https://www.craigballantyne.com/ https://twitter.com/craigballantyne/ https://www.instagram.com/realcraigballantyne/ 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:

If you just worked out and actually were proud of your body at its purest form naked in the mirror, right? You would have the highest level of confidence that no Rolex, that no filler, that no Jordans, nothing that no Ferrari can buy because you're really, when you're driving in the Ferrari, you're literally borrowing the credibility of that car. So let's be politically incorrect. And let me ask you this question. Have you ever seen a really fat, sloppy, out of shape dude with a smoking hot model? Probably not. And the reason is those two dots will never connect. And so today we're going to talk about fitness, the gateway drug, with none other than my co-host, Craig Ballantyne, who was able to sneak across the border and come back into the United States.

What's up, bro? That's right. I told Sleepy Joe, look. Ice cream over there, man. And then you'd cross the border. I just ran behind them. So, guys, Craig and I before you. the cameras started rolling here. He's like, yeah, I'm just like 10 minutes away from the American

border. He lives in BC, Canada, properly pronounced. And he's like, the only problem is they take the border very seriously on like the southern border. Up there, yeah, yeah, because the Canadians are the real threat. We are. We are. We pushing that fitness on the gateway drug. It definitely is, though, because, I mean, you talk to anybody who's, you know, young skinny guy. most of us looked up to Arnold, old Arnold, you know, back in the day Arnold. Before he said, screw your freedom. Right. Schmucks.

And so, man, I mean, we had no confidence. We didn't know what we're doing. And you go in there and just going into the gym, gave you confidence. And then putting on some muscle and, you know, you lost some weight in the gym. And it's just, it's totally transformational. And then when you fast forward to what, you know, I did for so long was a transformation. contest, I realized, you know, men and women, you can't have a physical transformation without having a complete mental transformation. Like that person who was 50 pounds heavier, it's not the same

person who's 50 pounds later. There's touch such a totally different person and you change those lives and it really does lead to the greater confidence, which then transfers over to business and family and all that sort of stuff. All of it because what I found and, you know, it's funny. we talked about this, like you and I come from the fitness industry, right? Like fitness transformed both of our lives. They were just like the skinny dude who put on muscle. And I was the fat kid who needed to want it to get stronger and more confident. I wasn't necessarily looking for confidence.

I just knew that if I worked out, I would get respect in school. And even that is like, as young boys, all young boys know that. Like if I work out, I'll get respect. And if I get respect, I'll feel better about myself. I feel better about myself. then I'll start carrying myself differently, and that bleeds into, again, other areas of life. Well, you know what's really cool is that women have discovered this as well. Because, I mean, there was a girl at the gym the other day.

She's like 22 or 23 doing like very athletic warm up, squatting 2.25 or 245. I'm like, wow. And you can see the confidence that she had by being in the gym with that. Yeah, yeah. And again, we need to be politically completely incorrect here in order to do this right. So if you want to cancel the show, go ahead and cancel us and fuck you if you do. Here's the deal. Guys will wear watches and fancy shoes.

Like you'd create this false bravado if you're either fat or skinny fat because you don't have the confidence. And women will get all decked out with the injection. of the Botox and the what's the other thing, the fillers and the makeup and all this. But it's like, if you just worked out and actually were proud of your body at its purest form naked in the mirror, right, you would have the highest level of confidence that no Rolex, that no filler, that no Jordans, nothing that no Ferrari can buy. Because you're really, when you're driving in the Ferrari, you're, literally borrowing the credibility of that car.

When you're wearing, you know, whatever those high heels are that have their red bottoms, Louis Vuittons, Louis Vuittons, high heels, you're borrowing the credibility of how they make you feel. What if you actually had the confidence and credibility because you just look so fucking good naked, right? Yeah, I'll tell you what, those things are no good when you're on naked and afraid. So it definitely gives you the confidence. Now, I think another thing that it added for me was the structure and the discipline and the routine because, and that does tie in the confidence because if you tell yourself, hey, I'm going to go to the gym three times per week and then you go to the gym three times per week. You're going to build that confidence. But having the, you know, like when you're in high school, you got a lot of other competing like, oh, man, you can go out and do this with your friends.

You could go out and skip your workout because of this. You got an after school job and so on and so forth. I went to school during the day, obviously. Then I went and worked two or three hours at my part-time job. Then I came home, had dinner. Then I went to the gym five days a week as soon as I hit like 16 or 17. And that just gave me the structure that, you know, when I went to college, I was actually able to still fit in my workouts. And most people often kind of let that go to the side.

But that has just helped me as an entrepreneur as well. Yeah. To that point, I mean, talk about that, right? Whether you're going to the gym three, four, five days a week, when you first start out and they're like, all right, I'm going to transform my body. Right. And this is why we're calling this, you know, fitness, the gateway drug. I'm going to transform my body. I need to finally lose these 30, 40, 50, 100 pounds, whatever it is that you need to do.

You have to go a certain amount of days per week and you have to put in a certain amount of effort. So let's talk about that. Just that fact of structure and effort consistently is what you need in business as well. Right? the ability, and the other thing is, we don't get immediate satisfaction and gratification in the gym. The weight loss and muscle building happens slowly, which translates into starting a business as well, which translates into a relationship as well. Show me two people that have gotten to a relationship and have been like, oh man, that's my

kindred spirit. We totally get each other. We don't have any conflict and disagreements. And I love everything she does and she loves everything. That never happens. It takes time and routine for us to begin to go, okay, we've, got this thing, this relationship, consistency. And so all the things that it takes to build muscle and burn fat and maintain it are the same element, structure, discipline, routine, delayed gratification

to build a multimillion dollar business, to be able to raise kids. Because, hey, go ahead, tell your kids once to brush your teeth and then never tell them again, they're going to have rotten teeth. You've got to be consistent with how you discipline them. You've got to be consistent with how you mentor them. You've got to be consistent with the example that you lead with. And so all those things come from fitness. And the moment you start stacking those wins in the gym, you gain the confidence and credibility to be able to stack them in every other area of your life, right? Yeah, absolutely. And so, you know, to that point, when you're an entrepreneur, you're going to have the good days. And when you go to the gym, you're going to have Mondays

where you're like, all pumped to go do bench press. And then you're going to have the bad days as an entrepreneur where something didn't go right. And then you're going to have those days where it's like, oh, man, I got I got to train legs and I got to train legs with Michael Hearn today. And it's going to be like the toughest workout in the world. You got to have the consistency to show up every single day on the bad days as an entrepreneur. And you get that from showing up on days where you're, you know, maybe you're sore from your regular job and you got to go in and still train. I remember when I was in high school, like, I worked manual labor job during the day and I played a lot of soccer. and some, I was always sore.

But if this was the day to go to the gym and this was a workout, I would go and do the workout. And that just built up that level-headedness that you need as an entrepreneur. I think what you see, you'll probably agree, is that in beginner entrepreneurs, the highs are like, people like are way too high when they have a high. And when they hit a low, they put themselves on this emotional roller coaster and make it 10 times worse. And if they don't have something background of being able to go through tough times, which the training in the gym does give you, gives you that level-headedness and it keeps you on an even keel so that the good times are like, yeah, okay, that's good, but let's not get caught up on it. And the bad days, you're like, okay, listen, it's bad. It's just one day. We'll come back and be stronger and more.

So I think having that consistency as well, like mentally and emotionally is something that's important. Huge. is the ultimate training ground because then you get, you hit plateaus, either in strength or your weight loss. And when you hit a plateau, you're like, all right, well, I want to quit the gym. I'm not getting results. I want to quit the gym. If you choose not to quit the gym, or maybe it's running, maybe it's doing calisnex, whatever

your workouts would say and you're clean eating. And that's the other piece of it, right? To get the results, it's not just that one hour in the gym or working out. To really get the results, you have to put in the effort of eating clean most of the time. because you can't out-trained a bad diet. No. You have to work out like a savage in the gym and not just goof around on your iPhone.

And then you have to get that recovery, the hydration, the recovery and all those things. All of those things carry over into, and now imagine doing all those things. So I'm working out hard. I'm eating right. I'm getting sleep. I'm getting hydration.

But God damn it, Craig. I'm plateaued. I'm not putting on muscle. I'm not burning any fat. And what does coach say? Stick to it. Your body's going to break that plateau. Same thing applies in your business.

How often do you see entrepreneurs, new ones especially, who go, man, I've been grinding away. I'm posting. I'm running ads. I'm doing the funnels. I'm trying to get better at my leadership. But I'm just not making any more money. I'm not making any more traction. Well, if you're able to stick to it in your fitness, you'll be able to stick to it during those times in your business where the results aren't evident, but they're building up below the surface.

So this weekend, I was at a mastermind. And Todd Lamb was there. And Todd Lamb came to one of our mastermind events. 2015 or 16. And I was talking to him. He's like incredibly successful today. And he goes, you know, I came to those events. And he was a cop at the time.

I remember. And he was like, you know, a few grand. It costs a lot of money. And, but you know what? B said something to me at that event. He said, just stick with it. Be persistent. And he had a business partner, a girl at the time.

And she just couldn't stick with it. And now she's still in the gym working 10 or 12 hours a day. and he's out working a couple hours a day and flying his helicopter, you know, around. He recently sent me a picture or a video of his speedboat on some Lake and Canada because he's Canadian, right? Yeah. I'm so proud of that guy. But that's exactly it.

Him and his business partner started at the same time. I'd forgotten about that. I forget her name, not that we needed. Yeah. Yeah. And so it's the same in the gym. Two guys go out in the gym on January 1st. And you come back in November

and the one guy's still there and the other guy's 30 pounds heavier and overweight because he didn't stick with it. And the other guy, like, you don't even recognize him because he persisted. Or she or he persisted through that tough time at the start. Now, the one thing with the gym, it does give you that little bit of, first of all, gives you that endorphins and you feel good and stuff like that. And it gives you the pump. The pump, right?

Like, the pump, right? bench press when I was 16 at the YMCA in Stratford, Ontario, Canada. And then my friend who I was with. Who's the kid who works out there? The famous kid who works out there? Beaver. Beaver. That's right.

I saw Beaver and his dad there one time. It cracks me up that Bieber works out at that gym. Beaver was doing pull-up shirtless. It was a Sunday morning at 8 o'clock. There's Bieber, his dad, me, and then 12 senior citizens in the YMCA in Stratford. Yeah, that was funny. But I remember after that first chest workout, but maybe we had, I don't even know if we had any weight on the bar,

it's probably just the bar. And then after my friend who I was with, who was like that much more experience, like we were going to McDonald's or something, I could barely put my hands up to the car wheel and drive. And, but, you know, like you're like, yeah, man, I got a pump and feeling good. So that is the one thing that when you do start the workouts, even though you can't see the changes in your body,

you get that pump that gets you to come back. And so you're always looking for that business, too, at the start. And the thing is, way too many people drop out. And this is similar to fitness. It's they bounce from program to program to program. Oh, I've been on this program for three weeks. And I was a real estate agent for three weeks. And then I was...

Then I had OnlyFans. Yeah. I mean, that's literally what I see. Real estate, and then I did OnlyFans. And then I scrubbed my OnlyFans, and I'm back to real estate because the market's hot right now. Oh, man. Yeah. It's just the bouncing around.

around. Like, I was, I was an entrepreneur in four niche markets in 12 months. It's just not going to happen. It's that persistence. And, you know, I was just, I did podcast with Bryce before this. We're talking about the four high-income skills. You got to have the high-income skills of sales, face-to-face, nose to nose, toes-to-to-to-to-co-copy-writing, speaking, and leadership. And you have those four high-income skills. And it's just like the basics in working out. I mean, you can go and do arms every day, but you look like a goofball. Yeah. And you can ignore your legs, but you look like a goofball.

You've got to get the basics down to build that physique and really put yourself through the tougher workouts that get you to come back. Now, it's one other thing that is beneficial both in business and fitness, and that is having a vision. Because everybody really goes to the gym with a strong vision in their head of what they want to look like. And for a lot of people, I know from my transformation contest that I ran back in the day, we would read, they did a little essay after 12 weeks and they've lost some weight and they had to write a 300-word essay. And the interesting thing is 80% of people would drop out of our transformation contest. We were paying them good money. You know, if they won the contest, it didn't cost anything to be in the contest.

And they were doing something they wanted to achieve. And still 80% of people dropped up. usually after a couple of weeks. And what we found was the people who stuck with it, you know, the single moms with three or four kids who were able to lose 30 pounds, or the dads with, you know, a couple of kids and two full-time jobs and that sort of stuff,

they were able to stick with it because the vision that they had. Now, some of them had a vision because they were terrified of what would happen if they stayed in that old position, you know, like they wouldn't be able to see their kids graduate high school or something, their doctors said something. But it was that big why. that allowed them to transform. And having that vision, whether you want to be the next, you know,

Ronnie or Arnold or whatever, got so many young men into the gym and kept them consistent. And oftentimes that's actually what's kind of missing in the business world because people go in just thinking, I want to make more money, but it's not a strong enough vision or it's not a big enough why. But you have to have that because there's going to be days. And I literally know somebody who actually literally, had this happen to them.

I used to say this, and I read about this person. There's going to be days when your spouse leaves you, when your dog gets run over, and you get physically punched in the stomach or kicked in the nuts or something. A country music song. Yeah. You're going to have those days.

And if you don't have those days, or if you don't wake up on those days and go, I'm going to go to work right now, then you won't be able to have the good days where you win. You have to be committed to the vision and, you know, the vision that you've had for FitBody Boot Camp, you know, obviously kept you going through some tough times at the start and through COVID.

Hell, even last year, even COVID. I mean, I was so locked on to my vision of getting to 2,500 locations. I'm like, we're not going to lose. There are a fitness franchise. We're just not. We may slide back, but we're not going to lose if I could do anything about it. And because I'm so clear about what the impact will look like when we have 2,500 locations. And I think that's so important.

that you brought that up, man, the vision of what you want the outcome to be. Yeah. And so, you know, so let's break it down here. So let's unpack everything that somebody needs to do in order to use fitness as a gateway drug for entrepreneurial success. So they do need to have that vision. Like, it's, it's not just one thing to say, I'm going to go and start a business or, you know, I want money from the business. There has to be a whole lot more to it. And having that vision, what's it going to do for your family? What's the vision? of your business in a few years from now so that you get that mentally clear picture

because if you don't have that mentally clear picture, then you can't really go and get the right program from the coach to get started on that. Well, hell, you and I, as trainers, 20 years ago, you know, working with clients directly, you know, a client would come up to us a prospective client, hey, you know, are you a personal trainer? Yes, I think I want to sign up.

Well, what do you want to achieve? I want to lose, I want to get in shape or I want to lose some weight. and for us to be able to help them get there, we would have to peel the onion. What does getting shape look like? Exactly what size would you be? How would your shape be?

What areas do you want to transform the most? And the more I can get them to peel the onion and be very clear on how that body would look. And sometimes I would say, is there a celebrity who's like, you can bring me a picture of who you want to look like? And like, oh my gosh, there is. And they would cut it out out of People magazine and bring it.

Got it. And they thought it was for me. Like, listen, at the end of the end of the, the day, I know how to get you in shape. I need you to go, this is who I want. And now that I know it's Rees Witherspoon or whoever, I can keep bringing that up every time they have a, yeah, but I had too much wine and cheese this weekend, or I don't feel like working out this morning, so let's take it easy. It's like, no, we're going to go after it because Reese Witherspoon would go after it, wouldn't she? And so that vision is fucking so important, man. Yeah. So you take that vision,

now you can put together the blueprint for them. Yes. The blueprint for them. And so if, you know, if you're not familiar with fitness, then you've got to go and get a personal trainer. I've got personal trainers. I hire one now just because I need help with the old men injuries that have caught up to me. And that's not my area of expertise. And then I've got the plan. I've got the vision, the accountability, the accountability you need in your business.

You need to be, and this is a great time to talk about, you know, being the average of the five people you spend the most time with. If you're the strongest person in your job, gym, you're never going to get stronger. So if you want to be fit, you need to hang around people that are fit, that are consistently practicing the habits that get them there. So if you hang around people that, you know, booze it up all weekend and eat the biscuits while watching the football game, like your video the other day, that's what's going to happen to you. So you have to go and add new friends. They're going to hold you accountable to it in addition to your

personal train. Can I tell you what led to that video, by the way? So the video that Craig's talking about, guys, if you go onto my Instagram and you go back, I think by the time this video comes out, maybe a week and a half, two weeks, you'll see a video of me shirtless. He's talking about that video. So I just finished my leg workout. And when I work trained legs, I wear chucks, right? Because I'm flat-footed and then chucks feel great during leg day. I forgot to bring my running shoes. And lately I've been running, kind of jogging five miles. So I go to Ayala Park across the street from BK Strength, and I ran in my chucks and my knees were hurting. But I'm like, God damn it, you're going to run your five miles like you always do.

So I was in so much discomfort after that. That was just angry. And I'm thinking like, there's someone right now, because it was a Friday. I'm like, there's someone right now getting ready to watch some kind of like Super Bowl.

Or where the fuck? I don't know anything about sports. Is Super Bowl every weekend? Every weekend. So they're about to sit down and watch Super Bowl this weekend and eat fucking biscuits and gravy while I'm like crushing my fucking knees.

Like my cartilage is powderized. Do you know what I mean? This Super Bowl, sponsored by Popeyes. Yeah. Yeah. So it pissed me off. And I was like, this is time for a video.

Time for a video. That's how they came to do. Yes, absolutely. Biscuits and Gravy. So, you know, if you're hanging around the people who are having the biscuits and gravy, you're going to eat the Biscuit and gravy too. So be around people that are fit. If you want to start a business, be around successful entrepreneurs who have great morals and ethics,

who give back to the community. If you don't spend time with those people and you only spend time with people who are making less money than you, you're never going to have the fire inside of you to go to the next level. You've got to be around those people. So when you have your community, you have your, you have your, you have your, coach and your program and your vision. Then actually one other thing that we haven't touched on yet is that you have to have the not-to-do list and eliminate the things that can destroy you.

And that's so true in fitness because if you're going from somebody who sits on the couch all the time, watch us TV and eats a lot of junk, if you have a lot of junk in the house, you might now switch it up where you go to the gym a couple times per week, but your body's not going to transform because at the end of the day, diet's more important than exercise. And I was making YouTube videos on this back in 2007 when I, you've never seen this one, it's worth watching, where I ran on a treadmill as hard as I could. My friend Brad Pilon ate 1,200 calories of pizza and soda beside me, took him four minutes to do it, and I burned 48 calories or 64 calories running in four minutes. And it just goes to show you that diet truly is more

important than exercise. And diet's very important for the entrepreneur, too. If you're eating junk and you're foggy-headed and slow all day long, you're not going to be a high performer. So you have to make sure that you have that as well. But on the flip side for the entrepreneur, if there's whatever temptations are that hold you back in the morning from GSD on your MIT ASAP, get stuff done on your most important task ASAP, if you're watching YouTube motivational, I've got to get pumped up before I work. You've got to get pumped up before you work. There's not much hope for. There's not much hope for. for it or you scroll on Facebook or you're doing all these 19 things before breakfast before you do the hardest thing that moves your business ahead you got to eliminate those things

and get down to business that's for sure yeah there are a lot of distractions that we will tend to you know how many times do you know these days I don't the only times I get to work out in public gyms now is when I'm traveling and I'll see you can tell someone's brand new and they've got the platform shoes you know for squatting from Adidas or Nike They've got that thick leather belt, but they're shaped like a pair. And I'm not like dissent on them. I'm just saying like, you don't need platform shoes. You don't power lifting shoes.

You don't need that belt. You don't need the knee sleeves. They got everything that they've seen on Instagram that their heroes are wearing, but they don't have the discipline that that hero carries. And so if you just show up, like get rid of all that stuff and just literally spend the money on prep meals. Yeah. Because that's where the real transformation is going to come. Shout out to ICON meals, Todd Abrams.

Todd Abrams, ICONMEALs. IconMeals.com. Truly, great, great dude, great product. And by the way, be sure to tag ICON meals when you're tagging on this video and sharing it in your stories. We want to give Todd some love. Great dude. Anything else we need to share about how fitness is a gateway drug. No, man.

And it gets you laid. And it gets you laid. It gets you married. It gets you laid. And it gets you like really hot, smoking, beautiful men or women. Whatever you want in your life, don't judge. You'll get the more beautiful smoking hot version of that rather than the fat, sloppy, lethargic version. Because you'll be the beautiful version of you.

Beautiful smoking hot version of yourself. Yeah, absolutely. And by the way, if you're smoking hot and beautiful, you want to send a naked photo to Craig, go ahead and DM him all your naked photos, not me. Okay. This is going to be great. Don't delete this, Ed. Leave that in there. And, other than that...

That was so awesome. You will be a great entrepreneur if you get yourself in shape. Absolutely. All right, guys, thank you for watching or listening to this episode. Be sure to give us a five-star review on iTunes. And as always, take a screenshot, tag myself, tag Craig, tag icon meals on this particular one. And don't forget to tell your mama. We'll see you later.