Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - How to Become a Disciplined, Highly Successful Entrepreneur - 007

Episode Date: August 9, 2017

Discipline is a skill that even the best of us need to continuously practice. In the case of entrepreneurs, setting a high standard for yourself is crucial if you want to grow your business. Bedros Keuilian and Craig Ballantyne, two successful entrepreneurs, talk about how disciplining yourself to pursue your vision will make all the difference between success and failure.   Here’s what you’ll discover:   1:50 How Bedros’ morning check-list routine impacts his ability to dominate the day 4:40 Why you need to keep a healthy mind and body as an entrepreneur in order to stay focused on your mission 6:50 How having high expectations of yourself will discipline you to become a great leader, and encourage your team members to strive for greatness 9:15 The truth behind how Bedros keeps his energy high during multiple daily podcasts 13:45 How practicing moderation in your personal life will create structure and freedom to do the things you enjoy

I have very high expectations of myself. I have very high standards of myself. And because of that, I have very high expectations and standards for my team. But the reality is that I can't just go and tell them what I expect them to do. I have to actually lead from the front. Hey, this is Craig Balentine. Welcome back to another episode. And this one's really, really special because we're going to help you set the foundation for your success.

So I'm here with Badros Koolian. Welcome. Hey, Craigie. Hey, friends. Hello. We are going to have an amazing discussion about what makes a successful and highly disciplined entrepreneur because there are really there are two types of entrepreneurs out there and really two types of people in life. First of all, the reactive folks that struggle. When you're

reactive, you're just not going to be as successful as possible. And then there are the proactive successful people. So Bedros, let's talk about you because you have become a highly disciplined entrepreneur. You have great systems in place. What's the first one that you use first thing in the morning with the snooze button? Yeah. Well, the very first thing I do is I don't hit the snooze button and in fact those of you that have an iPhone can actually turn the snooze feature off and the reason for that is is I figured out long ago that the subconscious mind controls many of our actions and our belief systems you know that you know that you know I always talk about this stuff and if the

subconscious mind controls your belief systems and one of the first messages in the morning that you're sending to your subconscious mind when you hit that snooze button is that 10 minutes of interrupted sleep holds greater value to you than getting up and living your purpose your passion your gift that you're given and And, well, if that's the case, I look at it as every day, we have two sets of dominoes set up. And one is the set of the stack of dominoes of success, and one is the stack of dominoes of failure. When you hit that snoo button, you're literally knocking down that first domino failure,

and it's a chain reaction the rest of the day. You're chasing your day instead of dominating your day, and we don't want that. All right. And then so I love what you do next. You take the phone, you turn it off, you put it face down, very symbolic, and then you move into dominating your day. Is it at the kitchen table or on the couch, or where are you doing this? Yeah, it's on the couch.

So after I go through my, I'll drink my protein shake, and I'll drink my 16 ounces of water, play with the dog, go through my gratitude list. And I very quickly grab my laptop, grab another cup of water and coffee, and I go to my couch. And I do this, not only is it symbolic that I'm basically buckling down,

I always look at it like a checklist. Like a fighter pilot goes into a fighter jet. They go through a routine of checklist before they're giving clearance for takeoff, right? And I truly take myself seriously what I do for a living, and every entrepreneur should, and I liken it to,

do you want to be a crop duster or do you want to be a fighter jet if you want to be a fighter jet you're going to go through your morning checklist part of my morning checklist is to take my phone put it on silent turn it upside down and push it away from me why yes I'm structured I'm disciplined and thank you to you for that however I'm also human and I'm susceptible to temptation and if the phone is turned right side up and if all I'm thinking I happen to see a text message pop up I might be tempted to grab that and this is where most people realize but it's only a text message it's only a Facebook notification. What they don't realize is mentally when you're shifting gears and then coming back to something else, there's that time that's required to actually make the shift. You can't just

go from checking your text back to writing your copy or working on that book or whatever the magical thing is you're working on. And so I make sure that temptation is pushed far away for the next two and a half hours, my magic time, and I go through my list and crush it. All right, so boom, I love it. You've really got this dialed in now. You are taking the symbolic measures. And now, I want to go back to something you mentioned. You said you only have about three things on your to-do list. This is really important because I'm sure you tackle the big ones first, but so many people have like 19 things on their to-do list and that just derails them. So talk about what you do and how you get things done so you can knock off your to-do list before noon. Yeah. So the professional entrepreneurs should not have 19 things on their list. Look, I can't imagine Warren Buffett or Richard Branson having 19 things on the list when they wake up.

If you've got that many things on your list, odds are you need someone. that you can pay $20 an hour or less to to do majority of those 19 things. The things on my list are the things that I'm capable of doing. They're within my zone of genius, and no one else is more qualified to do it than me. And these are things that move the big levers. So if you're doing little things that move the little levers, you've got to outsource that to someone that you can pay $20 an hour to or less. And that really is one of the defining factors of a professional entrepreneur

and an amateur entrepreneur. Yeah, and what we're talking about here is highly disciplined, and highly successful entrepreneurs, because a highly disciplined entrepreneur can do those 19 things, but doesn't mean they're going to be successful. So it's also the strategic part of going and knowing what to do. So now we're going to shift gears a little bit and talk about how you keep that all-day energy, great health, great mental energy, great physical energy, because you do a workout once you've gotten those big things done. It's almost like a reward, but it's also really important for you to be that high-performance fighter jet as well. Talk about that.

Yeah, so we all know if you're going to be an entrepreneur, you have to be an entrepreneur. to keep your body in shape, mind in shape, health in shape. That's just the reality. The wage workers who clock in and clock out and no offense to them whatsoever, they are like the backbone of all of our businesses. They don't necessarily have to stay razor sharp. The rest of us have to. And for that to happen, I want to make sure that when I wake up, I eat right. I'm eating five, six small meals a day. And when I wasn't, I was starting to get fat. I was starting to feel lethargic. My metabolism was crashing. And now as I'm working, I don't feel authentic when I'm on stage, my suits are getting tight on me, all those things matter to an entrepreneur.

And so one, keep your mind healthy, keep your body healthy, eat right. So I do all those things. I stay hydrated. After I'm done with my magic time on the couch, you're right, my reward, before I go to the headquarters and work with my staff, is to go to the gym. Now I don't, I've already closed all the loops off my list of my three to five things to do, and I have 45 minutes to an hour to just crush a really good workout. And that is a great source of stress relief, it gives me some more thinking time. There's something called bilateral stimulation where you're stimulating both sides of your brain. Think about this. Have you ever had it where you're on a jog or you're on a bike or you're swimming? Anything that you're doing repetitively, when you're

working out, your body actually wants that repetition and it creates bilateral stimulation and creativity starts to flow. Creativity doesn't flow when you're sitting at the desk, ready to take notes for yourself. Creativity flows when you're doing something active and it's repetition-based. And so this gives me an opportunity not only to get a good workout in to get some stress relief, but also creative juices start flowing about the things that I just dominated off my list. And when I go into the headquarters, I'm in a better mood. I have more creativity flowing and I can work with my staff to move the business forward. Did you just ask me if I ever go for a jog?

Yeah, well, you went on a jog with me once. I do know that. That's right. Many years ago. Many years ago. When I was training for a marathon. Which should be on your not-to-do list. Not-to-do list. Right, absolutely.

So, hey, you just mentioned something I want to go into next. which was how you bring great energy to leading your team. So you've gotten through the heavy lifting for your own work in the sales department. Now you go in and you do the great work of leading your team. I've seen this in person. So how does everything you've done lead up to having that great energy going in and being the best leader you can be? That's a good question.

I have very high expectations of myself. I have very high standards of myself. And because of that, I have very high expectations and standards for my team. but the reality is that I can't just go and tell them what I expect them to do, and I have to actually lead from the front. All right, so you bring that amazing energy to your team. They see you as a high performer. They want to step it up.

Is there anything else that you can say about being a highly disciplined entrepreneur that motivates and inspires your team to better themselves? Yeah, absolutely. You've got to keep your team on board with your vision. Now, imagine if I walked in and I said, hey, guys, you know, we're all about Fit Body Boot Camp, and I'm talking about Fit Body Boot Camp for months and months and all of a sudden I walk in one day and I talk about how we're starting an ice cream franchise or how we're going to go into direct mail media. All of a sudden they see you as a flighty leader and no one is going

to follow a flighty leader. No one's going to follow an undisciplined leader. So if you have a team problem, odds are you have a self problem. And so this is something that we have to address. If you can't fix, if you've already done the work on yourself and you've set the expectations for your team and they're not reaching snuff, fire the people you need to fire and bring on board people who as Jim Collins says in his book Good to Great belong on your bus. Right, right seats in the right people on the right seats on the right bus. And if you've done that, now it's time to keep them on the vision because they're human too. They can get, they can get distracted. And so every Monday morning, I write an email to our team. It doesn't matter where I am

in the world, where I'm traveling, what the time is, I make sure before 8 a.m. Pacific time, when they get in there, that email is sitting in their inbox and it's the Monday morning email. and it talks, it's designed to do three things. Develop them personally, develop them professionally, and then reinforce the vision that I have for our organization. We've got a big team, 30 plus, and we're constantly growing, and I want to make sure that they are personally developing, professionally developing, and they are in tune with what the vision is

so that there is no guesswork or assumptions made. Right, and so they know where the bus is going. Exactly right. All right, perfect. And then, so I know that you often finish your days with podcasts. You mean, you're continuing to bring the energy nine hours later on a podcast that you're doing at three o'clock in the afternoon. How do you do that? How do you become that entertaining, leader, visionary in the shows and just really, is it through your passion that you just get so excited?

These people are interviewing me on the stuff that basically my life's work? Sure. I mean, it is part of it is that it's my passion, it's my purpose. And so anyone asking me interviewing me to share my passion with their followers and their list, I'm all four. But I'll tell you the truth that probably most people won't talk about. This is an exercise that was built through repetition as well. When I used to do one or two podcasts a day, I would just get fatigued and tired, right? The second one always had low energy than the first one.

These days, I get interviewed on three or four podcasts a day sometimes, and I bring the energy to every single one. The reason is through repetition, I begin to build my adversity quotient and my emotional quotient, so I'm not as stressed out, I'm not as overwhelmed, I know how to throttle my energy. And if you are able to do something for a long enough period of time, you get good at it. And so this goes back to the discipline of sticking to it. Most people don't stick to things long enough to become an expert to become the the man or woman who's known for something.

They keep shifting gears. And if I can just touch on something real quick, Craig on our show here, is that I used to go to events and I used to just, it would kill me when people go, hey, Baderus, nice to see you. So what are you doing these days? Because most entrepreneurs know that other entrepreneurs are flighty. They start something and then they shift now I'm doing this, now I'm in this industry, now I started doing that.

Oh, I wrote a book, I stopped writing a book, I'm making a feature film documentary. I looked at it as when people ask me, hey, what are you doing these days? I interpreted that as, well, you're probably as lazy and unorganized as I am, so you're probably doing something new, so let's have small thoughts about it. What shiny object are you chasing? Yes, exactly. And I always tell them in a firm way, I'm still growing Fit Body Boot Camp and my coaching programs.

Those are the two things that I'm highly focused on, and there's nothing else I'm going to work on until I reach my goal with those two things. And now nobody asks you because they see you everywhere. That's it. Right. You stuck to it. Yeah. Amazing.

All right. And so, you know, one thing you brought up there was, you know, you used to struggle when it was one or two. Now you've desensitized yourself. You've put yourself out there. You've left your comfort zone. It's so important. And so what's the power of discipline in leaving the comfort zone, which everybody says, but

hardly anybody does. And I know you do it. The power of discipline is that you do what you must do, but to be. in line with your vision and your purpose. It's as simple as that for me. And so I may wake up on days and look, I'm human, you're human. We wake up on days and we might have woken up on the wrong side of the bed or I don't have the energy.

But I know that I'm put on this planet because I have a purpose and a gift. And no matter what, I'm disciplined enough to put one foot in front of the other, even on the bad days, even on the off days, even on the days where things don't go right. As our friend Alan Cosgrove says, he only has good days and great days. He has no bad days because he survived stage four cancer. And so even on the good days, I put one foot in front of the other because discipline forces me to because I've got an obligation to share my passion with the world. Yes, and then my favorite part of the day, you have been so disciplined, so structured over the course of the day that you have earned your freedom at night to go home and be present with your family. And you have the discipline not to be checking the phone and you have the discipline to be present with them and to give your children the attention they need.

How is this the most important part of your day? Well, I think that's a place that as a father, I have the greatest amount of leadership requirement, right? I mean, I'm raising two little kids. My son must be a modern day night. My daughter must be an independent, free-willed young lady. And I want to make sure that I give them all of my time, all of my attention, that they feel that they have a voice and that they're not competing against my iPhone or my iPad. And that goes from my entire family. And so the phone gets put away, gets put on silent, and now I'm fully present.

But you could only be fully present if the day's true. started the night before with making that list, not hitting to snooze that morning, going through your morning routine and ritual, and dominating your day so that you can check, check, check everything off and be fully present with your family. And then how do you avoid the thing that gets so many entrepreneurs? It's almost like, you know, they've been nine out of ten, and then that last thing, that last tenth thing, they go back on social media at night. And the next thing, you know, it ruins their next day because they stay up late.

And then they go, Craig, oh, man, you know, I'm doing so well. but I keep getting off track with the Facebook and the Netflix in and all that stuff at night. How do you do it right? Because I know you enjoy a little bit of Netflix at night with your wife and a little bit of hot tub. But how do you keep that all within that discipline entrepreneur's fear? Like everything else, I've designed moderation. You know that I could eat like a goat when we go out. And I used to.

I would eat so much that would be bloated. I would feel uncomfortable. And I couldn't enjoy the delicious steak anymore because the thought of the steak that I just ate would make me nauseous. These days, I've chosen to do everything in moderation. This goes for my evening entertainment. Everybody watching this should not go on Facebook or social media, period, once they're home. The reason for that is there's no good information you're going to get from Facebook that's going to make you feel good and make you feel edified. It's just simply not there.

Most people are always showboating and talking about the politics and all this stuff. You're getting fired up right before you go to sleep. That's probably not the best thing to happen. But where overconsumption of content is concerned, well, it's right back to discipline and right back to your eating habits, working out habits. I've decided to only watch one episode of whatever I'm watching, and it's usually from 9.30 to 10 o'clock or 10, 15, that I'm in the hot tub for 15 minutes after that, and then I go to bed. Now, do I want to watch a second episode of Game of Thrones or Ballers? Those are the two shows I'm in right now? Yeah, I do. But I just know tomorrow, part of my reward system is that in the evening I get to watch another episode. episode and then do the hot tub routine again. And it's about creating these things of structure

that you've taught me that helped me win the freedom and the lifestyle that I have. Absolutely, perfect. Brilliant. And so you have from the very first minute you wake up, the very first second that you wake up, you have pushed the domino down on the success path and look at how many dominoes you've just totally dominated over the course of the day with this discipline of a highly successful entrepreneur. Any other words to our listeners, to our viewers right now about how to take these lessons, apply them to their lives so that they can go from that reactive and struggling mode to just totally kick and butt, proactive, super successful, and that super achiever they desire to be it. Yeah, some final words are that most entrepreneurs, all entrepreneurs do not have room to

be reactive, period. You just do not have the luxury to be reactive. In fact, I say all entrepreneurs, in fact all humans on this planet should be control freaks and I know the word control freak has gotten a bad connotation to it but I look at myself as a control king and when you think about the word control freak or control king I mean don't I want to control my health don't I want to control my wealth don't I want to control my relationships don't I want to control what time I go to sleep what time I wake up if I have good sleep don't I want to control if my kids like me love me if they if they if they feel validated by me I want to control over every

single thing and so the more things you can control the better the outcome will be, period. Where that's concerned, we're human, you have some bad days as well. And so when you have bad days, the good news is that since you're so structured and disciplined, you're going to have more good days than bad days. And so when there's a chink in the chain or a bad day happens, you're just thankful that, you know what, tomorrow is likely going to be a structured day and you roll with the punches and there you go. Because a disciplined entrepreneur, they get back on track, right? That's it. Absolutely. That was a great show. Thanks so much, brother. Thank you.