Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - 203. Become The Unbeatable Man | EP. 0203

Episode Date: August 18, 2026

During the Great Depression, men ate the leather off their shoes and stood in line at the docks for hours just for a shot at a 15-hour workday and they pushed through all of it without quitting, because quitting wasn't an option. That superpower has a name: grit, the one trait psychologist Angela Duckworth found in every high achiever from special operations to elite entrepreneurs. And if you think it's factory-installed in successful men, it's not... this dumb guy figured it out on the way from Section 8 housing and food stamps to a $200 million net worth. In this episode I'm breaking down the three components of grit, passion, perseverance, and obsession, and showing you how to become what I call a cockweed: impossible to kill, grows through concrete, and stays locked in no matter how long it takes.

And I believe that there was a time during the Great Depression, World War I, World War II, when people, men especially, had this magical superpower of persevering, pushing through, going through hardships with a smile, not quitting when it got hard. And that's because they had no other alternative. And by the way, if you think this superpower is something that you were born with, you think it's something that's factory installed in successful men, men who are high achievers, I'm here to tell you it's not. because this dumb guy figured it out.

Welcome to the Bedroats Coolian show. There used to be a time where men were unstoppable. Think about the Great Depression, that they would line up on the docks for hours, hoping that they would be one of three people out of hundreds to get chosen for work that day. And that day's work was not union-based, eight hours, two 15-minute breaks, and a lunch.

That was work for 15-to-18-hour days. with very trivial pay. Let's unpack what happened to men from those times to when we're living today. Because I really believe that masculinity, the core of masculinity, is something very special. And what it is, it's this fire and this spirit to want to pursue what most people would say is the impossible. What most people would say is difficult. What most people might even say is unhealthy.

Now, there's a psychologist out there, guys, and her name is Angela Duckworth. And she has been studying during her entire thesis on achievement, success, and what it takes to become a high achiever. And I believe that there was a time during the Great Depression, World War I, World War II, when people, men especially, had this magical superpower of persevering, pushing through, going through hardships with a smile, not quitting when it got hard. And that's because they had no other alternative. See, today you've got so many other alternatives that it's easy to come up with an idea, put some posts on social media.

And if it doesn't gain traction immediately, you quit, pivot and go to the next thing. But each time you quit pivot and go to the next thing, it's like you're starting all over again, isn't it? So each time you're hitting that restart button over and over and over. over again while time is going by. A year, two years, three years ago, by and you realize I'm still working this career that I hate. I've tried eight different entrepreneurial paths. None of them have panned out and worked out for me. It must be the economy. It must be competition. It must be that social media is too congested. So I guess it's not my fault. When in reality,

it is, and there's a superpower that's missing, the superpower that Angela Duckworth has figured out. And by the way, if you think this superpower is something that you are born with, you think it's something that's factory installed and successful men, men who are high achievers, I'm here to tell you it's not. Because this dumb guy figured it out. And I figured it out out of necessity. And you can too. And I'm going to teach that to you. So if you're wondering what is this superpower that men had back in the day where they were able to persevere, push through, work long hours, stand in lines, take losses after losses. failures after failures and still get up and perform and produce the desired outcome, what is it?

It's grit. And that's exactly what Dr. Angela Duckworth has been studying. Grit. She says the number one defining factor, the number one commonality, the thing that all successful people in sports, in military special operations, and high-level entrepreneurs, all these successful and high achievers have one thing in common, and that is grit. And so when you look at what grit consists of, she breaks grit down into these two things. But through my own personal experience, I'm going to add a third thing to it.

Because not only have I pulled myself out of living in Section 8 housing as a young boy, when we came to the United States, didn't speak English, didn't understand the culture, we were broke, we were poor, food stamps, section 8 housing, growing up fat out of shape, unmotivated, no discipline, no structure in my life. and then becoming this guy by choice, not by genetic potential, but by choice, who has created financial freedom for himself, a net worth of $200 million and growing and the ability to help people and causes that I believe in. I don't say any of this to impress you.

I say this to impress upon you guys that you can make this choice as well. And grit is broken down into what I think is three different components. all of them are things that you can develop and acquire if you don't have it factory installed. So Dr. Duckworth breaks it down into these two things. She says, you know, all you need is passion and perseverance. Passion because if you have passion towards something, you like it, you wake up looking forward to doing it, then when it gets hard, you will still continue to pursue that passion. If you don't have passion for something, when things get hard, you're going to stop chasing it.

You're going to look for opportunities. You're going to look for greener pastures. But really, the grass is greener where you water it, not necessarily on the other side of the fence, right? And so when passion is concerned, it's not just about what do I like doing. You might be passionate about sports. You might be passionate about fitness. You might be passionate about food. you might be passionate about entrepreneurship.

That's cool. But you might also have a negative passion. And sometimes negative passions are far more powerful than a positive passion, right? So the examples of, let's say, sports or food or entrepreneurship, all these things, or cars. Cool, man, if you have a passion for any of these things, you're like, man, I could talk about sports and food and cars and, you know, entrepreneurship all day long. Awesome. You might start a YouTube channel. Then you might start helping people pick out cars.

or figure out what recipes to cook and how to make delicious foods or develop a business and scale it, right? Those are all great passions that you have a liking for, right? Or maybe you're, you're into sports and so you're like, man, I'm going to start a YouTube show in a social media account. And then eventually create a community where I help people and I take their favorite sports teams and I branded across all these different chachis and I sell it to them. Cool, man. That's awesome that you're into sports and you're passionate about it. But there's also a negative passion. And you see, I grew up with negative passion.

Because when you're poor, when you're broke, when you're being kicked out of Section 8 housing because your mom and dad can't even afford to pay for that. And you realize that money seems to be a really massive problem in our life as immigrants to this country. You realize, I need to be the solution. I'm going to grow up to be the solution. I created a passion towards never being broke again. I created a passion towards never being evicted again.

I created a passion to never having to worry about money. See, that's a negative passion. And that's okay. A negative thing can be a passion, right? You know, someone that, let's say, who has survived being a bully, actually, my good friend, Tony Blower comes to mind. And, you know, this guy's been on the cover of Black Belt magazine several times. He has taught the spear system to Navy SEALs, which is a hand-to-hand combat.

of system for Navy Seals. Back in the day, he was teaching them this, like before we even knew about Navy Seals and all the special operation stuff they were doing, Tony Blower, this guy was teaching them, right? And so when you think about all the different martial arts that Tony Blower has studied and all the different ways that he has studied the fear response and how to weaponize your fear response, like God forbid you're going to get attacked in a parking lot or a dark alley, he teaches how to weaponize that not to go into fight or flight, but to go into action, to go into action. I should say not to go into fighter or fight or freeze, but to go into fight, right?

To fight for your life if you have to. And, you know, I've had the good fortune to run many different Operation Black Sight classes with Tony Blower watching him teach. And the thing that he teaches over and over again is that he grew up insecure. He grew up getting bullied. He grew up being pushed around. He grew up scared, right? He grew up with a lot of negativity around violence and fear.

And fear would control him as a young boy. And he made it his passion to never allow fear to control him, to never allow bullies to take advantage of him, to help others that have experienced what he has. And so he took something negative and made it his passion by freeing himself from it and saying, I'm going to be one of the best martial artists on the planet. And I'm not only going to teach striking and combatives,

but I'm going to teach the mental component of combatives, right? How to weaponize your fear so that you don't go into flight or freeze, but you actually have the capacity to fight for your life if you have to. And so there's a great example of negative passion. For me, my negative passion was I was tired of being broke as a kid, right? Hearing my dad always say around the house that we run out of money before we run out of month, that getting evicted and trying to figure out a new place to live, within days, right? It wasn't like today where there's all these different laws where you have to

get a 30-day notice for eviction and then you could stay longer and the sheriffs have to come and kick you out so you still have the place for another six months. Back in the 80s, you're out of there. You're out of there. And it was so unpredictable. There was so much uncertainty in my life around housing and money, security and safety that I knew that money was the vehicle for this. And that became my passion, that I will produce so much money that I will create safety and security and dependability and predictability around all of the things that my family needs. What an awesome thing to do. So that became my passion and you could do that too, right?

But then there's a perseverance. The grit component is not only made of passion, but also perseverance to be able to push through hardship. And yes, it's easy to figure out what your passion is. whether it's a positive passion or a negative passion. It's not so easy to figure out how to build perseverance to be able to take a loss and get back up and do it again. To wake up and not feel like it, but get out of bed and do it anyways.

To be able to struggle and take defeat after defeat after defeat, loss after loss, failure after failure, and still get after it. To know that competition is steep, to know that the economy is stacked against you, and three employees quit and you're still going to get up and do the damn thing, right? That is perseverance. Well, how is that built? That is developed like a muscle. See, perseverance is not something that hard people and mentally tough people are born with.

Yeah, okay. Are there some handful of people that might have this organic factory installed level of perseverance and mental toughness? Sure. I'll give them that. That's a small percentage of it. people. The rest of us have to develop perseverance like we would develop a muscle. Think what happens when you go into the gym and you work out consistently every day and you eat high protein,

moderate carbs and low fat. And you do this for a few weeks, you see no results other than soreness and stiffness. And you still look like a fat tub of goo. However, you do it for a few more months and you see that your strength has increased. Your cardiovascular output has increased. Your stamina has increased. My God, you might even have a little bit of confidence, right? And you may have lost a few pounds, but nothing massively visually transformational. You do it for a year or two or three plus. What ends up happening? Holy shit, you've got striations in your muscles. You're significantly stronger. You're not curling 15 pound dumbbells anymore. You're curling the 45s. You're taking the 55s for a ride, right?

Your dumbbell pressing hundies. You're squatting two and three plates for reps clean, ass to the bucket. And you've got hamstrings that are separated from your quads. Your IT bands look like a tight leather belt that's pulled across a side of your thighs. I could attest to that. I have that. And it's a damn good feeling. But it took years of building.

and eating clean and literally chisling off the fat. And going into the gym when I didn't feel like it, didn't want to, had injuries, didn't sleep well, it's cold outside. I don't want to go. It's just not the right time for me. And I went anyway. And when I did, my body transferred and transformed

from a fat gelatinous kid all throughout elementary school, junior high and high school, to a lean and athletic young man. And at 52 years old today, I'm proud to say that I'm strong. I'm muscular. I have endurance. I'm lean.

I have abs. And I can keep up with my kids and all the young dudes that I roll with and do jujitsu with. Barring this torn tricep that I have right now that I'm nursing. But that's a byproduct of jujitsu. What do you do?

But I share this with you because you build your muscles over time and progressive overload and constantly showing up when you don't want to. Everyone can understand that. You burn fat and you build muscle over time with progressive overload and showing up when you don't want to. Perseverance. The emotional mental muscles are built the same way.

Your ability to endure hardship, adversity, failures, setbacks, and losses and keep showing up. You just keep showing up. and you just keep making more attempts. Yes, it's embarrassing. Yes, it doesn't feel good. Yes, it gets you to, well, have second thoughts, right? It gets you to debate whether I should be doing this or not. So you have one bad workout or you injure yourself in the gym.

You let yourself heal or you work around other muscle groups while you're letting that one heal. You still keep going. You still plan on going back in the gym when your body. is healed up from whatever injury you had if you pull or tear a muscle, right? But oftentimes where business is concerned, success is concerned, financial growth is concerned. Most dudes, they fail once or twice and they go, ah, guess it's not for me? And they give up. And they succumb to mediocrity. They succumb to being broke. They succumb to living in debt. They succumb to giving their family, your family, a lower quality of life.

And then you carry this energy of desperation and anxiety and defeat around your family. And they can see that you're silently suffering and they feel horrible that they can't do anything about it. This is what happens when you as a man quit because you had a failure, a loss, a setback, a challenge, a hardship or adversity. All of those things I just listed off are the weights, the resistance against your mental and emotional muscles to build the muscles of perseverance,

the ability to push through hard things. It's funny that you don't give up in the gym. You go pretty consistently, even when you get injured. Yet you give up in life. When the stakes are higher and more people are counting on you, your kids, your family. If you're already an entrepreneur, the people who work for you,

your customers and clients are counting on you, and you've accepted and succumb to mediocrity? No, man. We've got to go back to having that 1915 grit, that 1936 World War II fucking grit, where you feel like you're in a trench, You're eating fucking shit out of tin cans. People left and right of you are dying, but you're like, I still have breath in my lungs.

I'm going to keep fighting. And if you operate that way in today's modern times, and you say, so what if people think I'm crazy? So what if people think I'm a failure? So what if people think I'm nuts because I keep failing and I keep losing and I keep getting up? Because each time you fail and lose and get up, unbeknownst to you, you are building perseverance muscles my friend. Hey guys, quick interruption to the Veddios Koolian show. Listen, if you're like me

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we will invite you to the Fit Body Boot Camp family. Now back to the show. And remember what Dr. Duckworth said. Grit is a byproduct when passion and perseverance, the ability to push through in the face of adversity and what you don't like it and to stay consistent for long enough to win, when those two things come together, you're guaranteed to win. Now, I'm going to pull one more thing on top of that. And this thing is something that I was diagnosed with as a kid. See, the Anaheim Union High School District said that I was having a hard time keeping up with my grades when we came to America.

Once I learned a language after a couple of years, there really should have been no reason for me to not be a great student. Yet the Anaheim Union High School District was really fed up and frustrated with me. And so they had some psychologist put me through some questions. I remember these questions that were asking and the studies that they did and they deduced that I have ADD and OCD. And they put me on Ritalin. Attention deficit disorder. He just has a hard time paying attention.

And he's got OCD when he locks on to something else that's not his schoolwork. we can't get them to unlock. So let's take that second one, that OCD, right? Obsessive, compulsive disorder. Take that obsessiveness. Most people look at those things as a negative. I don't. I don't.

Guess what? Because if you have a passion towards something and you can develop perseverance and push through no matter what, knowing that every adversity setback and failure and loss is just resistance to build that mental, emotional perseverance muscle, then if you can just get obsessed, see, most of you can get obsessed. You lock on to something and you go down the rabbit hole of research secretly, not letting your family know what that research is. It could be cars, it could be workouts, it could be crypto, it could be what's happened in Iran, the fucking straight

of Hormuz. Is it open yet? Or gas prices going to go up? How about your income just needs to go up? And if your income went up, gas prices would be a non-factor. That's the reality. So if you just started to take that obsession that you have over all this other bullshit things that you can't control and you put that obsession on top of perseverance and passion, now you have supersized grit into a superpower. That is when you are your grittiest. That is when you are your toughest.

That is that when you just persevere through everything and you become a cockweed. The fuck is. weed, you might ask. I'm going to tell you. So back in the day when I ran the seven figure formula mastermind, where I had 200 gym members in this mastermind. And we would do these masterminds in Miami and San Diego and Las Vegas. And that would help all of my coaching clients who were gym owners develop seven figure

gyms, seven figure personal training studios, right? This is before I created FitBody Boot Camp. And one day I realized that all the marketing and lead generation and systems and leadership and operational stuff that I'm teaching is good, but there's a component missing. Back then, I probably didn't verbalize it as clearly as I am doing here, that they need grit, they need perseverance, they need to get obsessed over this and lock on. They need other people to go, oh, dude, what you're doing there is unhealthy. I can't even look.

It's so, it's so offensiveful. And you go, that's because you're average. You don't understand. And so I explained to them in the best way I could. And I used the word cockweed. I said, listen, I don't know about you guys. But whatever I set my mind to, I end up achieving. I'm like a cockroach.

And back then, the Disney cartoon Wally had come out. I think it was a Pixar thing maybe. I think Disney owns Pixar. I don't know, let me know in the comments. Does Disney own Pixar still? Was Wally even a Disney or Pixar thing? or was it a completely different movie? But I remember Wally.

Remember Wally? It was that cute little fucking robot. It was like the only thing alive on Earth other than his little friend, the cockroach, right? Because the world had gotten this shit. It was like this basically, like this nuclear destruction and the world was just piled up with garbage. Humans could not exist on it.

There was just no way to sustain life and food and water. And Wally was the only thing organizing all the junk on the planet with his pet cockroach. Wally being a robot, but the cockroach being a living organism. And what have we heard about cockroaches? They say that, man, a cockroach can survive anything, man. They could survive in the cold, in the heat, and elevation at sea level.

The cockroach is resilient. The cockroach can figure it the fuck out, right? I was like, guys, I'm like that fucking cockroach in Wally. You can't kill me. I can figure it out. The economy can change. The environment can change. The goal can change.

The destination can change. The time to get the results. change you could tell me pedros you know we started this journey we told you was going to be a year ha we lied to you motherfucker it's going to be 10 years i go all right i'm locking in fact just the other day i was working out with my son andrew i was like son why don't you lead the workout this is i don't know whatever a few days ago a few weeks ago and i go lead the workout and because i've got this torn trisip that i'm working with i can't do presses right so it was like machine flies to cable flies to to dumbbell flies, like literally a trice set.

And I didn't know how many sets we were going to do. And my son, he has that little obsessive, compulsive component that I do. And since he decided to lead the workout, I didn't ask him how many sets we're doing. We got to set four of three exercises. We're not stopping. Set five. We're not stopping. Set six.

We're not stopping. Set seven. We're not stopping. And I looked at him and he just smiled at me. in other words that smile said dad we got more sets to go he didn't even have to say a word he just looked at me and smiled gave me that little you know the purple emoji the little devilhead that you send to your girl when you're trying to get laid that he gave me that look like i caught you dad i'm going to smoke you doing three types of flies back to back for an uncomfortable number of sets

cool he didn't say a word but i looked back and i said son I am locked in. And I told myself, because this was like a 8 p.m. workout, I go, I know I've got a Zoom tomorrow morning at 7 a.m.

So as long as we're done by 6 a.m. I could shower and get in front of my laptop for the Zoom. I locked in, assuming that we were just going to go all night. Now, I knew there's a high probability. We're not going to go all night. But I locked in like a fucking cockroach

that we're going to go all night doing this tri-set of machines. fly cable fly to dumbbell fly and after about i don't know 18 to 20 sets i can tell you this we broke down more muscle than we built but he was in a mental place that he just needed us to go through that and by god that's my boy and i'm going with him and i share this with you because to me it wasn't like well son how many more sets do we have it was unknown to me see when someone says bedros we're going to start a business and in a year we're going to sell it and then halfway through they go hey man, it's going to take us 10 years.

All right, cool. I'm locked in. I'm locked in for 20. So if we get it done in 10 years, it's a fucking gravy bonus. And that's what a cockroach does. And that's what I was explaining to my members of the seven-figure formula mastermind.

And if you start living like a cockroach, you persevere, push through everything. And then like a weed, because you're like, Bezos, you said, cockweed, right? And then you start operating like a weed. Think about a garden weed. This garden weed can grow out of asphalt,

out of concrete. It can grow out of a side of a telephone. pole I've seen a garden weed growing out of the snow on the side of a highway going up to big bear right in the snow if I can go to home depot or in Lowe's you can buy whatever garden spray you want to try and kill the weed you'll temporary put it put it out of its misery it will come back that weed will come back stronger more resilient and be like what's up motherfucker you just wasted money in Lowe's and Home Depot if I spray you down with this shit you'll die but not the weed. And so mentally you have to become a cockweed. Do you understand to persevere, to push through

because passion alone is not enough. I don't care if it's negative passion to get away from something, right? Because remember, Tony Robbins always talks about there's a carrot and there's a stick. More people think that the carrot is what is going to motivate you. Not necessarily. The carrot is just like the positive reward that, you know, I want that thing, the Lamborghini. I want that Lamborghini. I want that nice mansion. So I'm going to work hard and to reward myself with it.

Okay, great. That's a carrot. The stick is the pain. The pain of being broke. The pain of being laughed at. The pain of being called a foreigner. The pain of being kicked out. The pain of not having enough money

to pay the electric bill. The pain of being in debt constantly. The pain of the bill collectors. The pain, the pain, the pain is so great that it'll motivate you in ways that the carrot never will. The stick will motivate you in ways that the carrot never will. So you get that passion. You supercharge it with cockweed perseverance, where you are undestructible.

And then you unleash your obsession. You're an obsessed motherfucker. You obsess over the stupidest things that you have no control over and that do not produce a positive financial outcome in your life. Yet you won't get obsessed over these things that you can actually control and drive leads and add value and create content. make sales and hire sales team and grow and scale and make millions and change the fucking generational path that your entire bloodline is on. You start obsessing over that with perseverance and passion and brother, you've got grit like it was a great depression.

Those motherfuckers were eating their shoes. You know that, right? Go Google it. People were taking their leather off of their shoes. Don't do that today because they're eating rubber. They were taking the leather off the bottoms of their shoes, cleaning it, soaking it and water and vinegar to break it down because it still had some kind of edible protein value because it's leather after all it's cow skin or horse skin and they were eating their fucking

shoes they would wait in line at the docks during the great depression hundreds of men just for two of them to get a mediocre job for the next 15 to 20 hours coal miners working nights under the earth filling their lungs up with black sut so they can put food on the table. You know what their passion was to be able to feed their family? You know what the perseverance was? I ain't dead so I can still keep going. There was no social media and so no one's going to laugh at them.

And even if someone around them laughed at them, fuck you. I'm doing something to feed my family, no matter how embarrassing and how belittling it might be right now. And then the obsession to just not quit, to lock on, because people will call it unhealthy. People say you are not well. People will say that you are not balanced. Guess what? People that have grit, the most successful and high achieving people are not balanced. They have a work-life mix anyway. And so if you can develop that level of grit, you, my friend, will win. Everything in life today, though, is designed to see you fail. Everything in life is designed to

keep you comfortable, to keep you content, to keep you complacent. Social media will numb you, will give you a false sense of productivity. It will eat up two and a half to three hours of your time every day. That is what the average American spends on social media. And oh, by the way, the vices that exist from weed to alcohol, to pornography, vaping, all these things to numb you to help you escape and avoid the realities that you need to persevere and pursue a passion and obsessively stick to it, it numbs all those feelings. Get off the vices. Get off the devices. Get to work as those the Great Depression because there is a debt wall coming in about two and a half years. And banks will start repossessing homes again. Cars being repossessed are already through the

roof. Japan's yen is lowest it's ever been in the last 40 years. China is financially struggling on their stock market. We're seeing how the technological bubble is about to burst where AI is concerned. And with homes about to get reforeclosed by banks in the next two and a half years as we hit that debt ceiling, we are headed towards another great depression. you would be smart in manning up and doing what a fucking man does. Sack up, get to work today.

Start building today, build momentum, get speed, stack money. So that when it comes, not if it comes, it's coming. Because we printed so much money in 2020 and 2021, all that money has to be sucked back in. All your assets, at least for those of you that are living out of your means, are going to be sucked back in. And when it is, if you start stacking dough today,

you get to position yourself to take advantage of all those homes that will be short sold. Exactly like I did just after the 2008 housing market crash, I worked my tits off to be able to buy rental properties and assets that help me catapult

into the next level of millions in my life. And I want to see you win as well. Now, if you got any value from this episode, and you're watching this on YouTube. Understand that you're part of the 74% who are watching and who are not subscribed. It would mean the world to me if you would subscribe,

leave a comment, and like this episode so more men who need to wake up and get to work on their lives can see this message. 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.