Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - Self Education - 147

Episode Date: May 4, 2020

I dropped out of college years ago… Most would have thought that I was setting myself up for failure. However, I took full advantage of this one thing - self-education - to develop money-making skills. You can too. It only takes courage and consistency.  Here’s what you’ll discover: 09:03 - Why Knowledge itself isn’t enough  15:35 - The PRACTICAL skills that can make you wealthy     “The idea of learning fitness and the body from someone who was overweight did not make sense” “If there was one thing you need to do, to make more money , live at your fullest potential, and embrace your purpose… it is to self educate”  “While self education is priceless, meaning it can literally be free, in podcasts, social media, etc - It has the power to make you millions of dollars”   - Bedros Keuilian   --   Follow me on Instagram: @bedroskeuilian   Buy Man Up and get Bedros’ High Performance Leadership Course for FREE: https://manup.com/ Subscribe to My Channel for weekly videos: http://www.youtube.com/bedroskeuilian/?sub_confirmation=1

It seems like the more access we have to self-education, the less self-education happens. Hey, welcome to The Empire Show. My name is Bedros Kulian, and this is a solo episode, just myself and DJ E. Rock, Ed, behind the camera. Well, because we are all on quarantine, and I wanted to keep pumping out content for you that's going to help you navigate not only through this virus period, but above and beyond that. with the economic crash that we're experiencing. So listen, there's something really important that you need to know. And that thing is this. Like this is like the one thing that's going to change your life. That might sound like a bold promise right now, but bear with me, I'll tell you.

So let me tell you a little story first. When I graduated high school, I knew that I wanted to be a personal trainer. And I knew I wanted to be a personal trainer because, well, up until 11th grade, I was a fat kid. You know, when you come from a foreign country, you know, we escaped Armenia, communist country, and I was six years old when we came here and God bless my mom. You know, she did the best she could, but, you know, we were living on a budget. We were living in Section 8 housing.

Oftentimes, especially in the first couple of years, my dad would find food and dumpsters behind grocery stores. This was food, you know, bread and cheese and stuff that had, you know, milk that had expired, but hadn't gone bad, so we would fish out, you know, food. from dumpsters and eat it. So we didn't really have the option of eating wean, chicken, and lots of veggies. We just eat whatever processed food is thrown away that's expired, but still edible, right? And of course, my mom doing her best she can, everything was fried and cooked with lots

of fat, tad flavor. And no one encouraged me to work out and go on to any sports teams. And so I grew up as a kid who was overweight, out of shape, low confidence, low self-esteem, and by the time I got to 11th grade, I was about 35 pounds over fat. Like, I mean, I had love handles hanging over. I had little boy titties. And I was embarrassed. You know, I had no confidence.

And, say, I knew I wanted to, I wanted to go to prom the next year, right? Senior year, next year, I wanted to go to prom. There was this girl named Nakaya that I wanted to ask out to the prom. and well, I knew my odds would be better if I was in better shape. You know, I mean, logic tells a young boy that if you're in better shape, the girl's going to say yes. And so in 11th grade, I made the commitment that I needed to get in shape. Now, here's the problem that I had. I had no idea how to work out and eat right.

And so I found myself kind of wondering, all right, I know I need to lose weight during the summer break here so I can come back senior year in better shape and, you know, make fun. friends with Nakaya and then ask her out to the prom at the end of the year, but how? How do I do this? Well, as it turns out, my science partner, my high school science partner in 11th grade, he was on the high school football team, and he was one hell of an athlete. And this guy, it's funny, he talked to me in class. He talked to me in class, like we had a friendship in class, but outside of class, like I couldn't maintain a friendship with him. Like, he just wouldn't want to talk to me.

And, you know, he was, he's a jock, and he would hang out with the jocks during lunch breaks and stuff. And I was like the fat, kind of awkward foreigner. And I would just kind of walk around the quad, really didn't belong with the band geeks, didn't belong with the cheer people, didn't belong with the jocks, didn't belong, not even with the gothic people who were weird and creepy. I didn't fucking fit in with them, right? The nerd certainly didn't want me.

Like, my grades were horrible, just awful. Like, 1.9, 1.7 is what I remember. my GPA throughout all of my education, elementary school, junior high high school, right? Like 2.0 was like an A plus for me. Like if I saw 2.0, I was celebrating. That's how bad my grades were. And I'm not exaggerating. That's factual. So I share that stuff with you because Dave, who was at that jock, who was on the high school football team in science class, I was like, dude, I need to work out. I need to learn to eat. I want to lose weight. I want to ask Lechai to the prom. And he's like, dude, I'll help you.

So he actually took me to the high school weight room. After school, he took me to the high school weight room where he and all the other jocks worked out. And holy hell, I was so intimidated. My guy was freaked out. And, well, I worked out with him and learned to squat and bench and deadlift and started losing weight. And that summer, I talked my parents into buying him. like this used gym equipment that somebody was selling at a garage sale. And I put in my parents' backyard and I worked out all summer and red muscle and fitness magazine.

And that was my guidance where nutrition was concerned. And, you know, the big thing I learned was cut your sugars and carbs and increase your protein. I was like, holy crap. You mean, I shouldn't be eating all this like fried food and sugars and carbs, all the tasty stuff? I didn't know that, right? Come, come senior year, I'm like 35, 36 pounds lighter, leaner, right? As a young man, you have all that testosterone in you, so your body sees results pretty quickly. And, man, I got to tell you, I felt good about myself.

I was confident, self-esteem, self-image, rocking. I was like, I want to be a personal trainer. Like, when I leave high school, I'm going to go to college. I'm going to be a personal trainer. That's the only thing I wanted to do. Believe it or not, I was going to be a smog technician. I was going to be the guy because I like cars. I still love cars.

I have several cars. But I wanted to be that guy that was going to be working in an automotive garage and you would bring your car to, and I would sit the probe in the tailpipe and punch it up on the computer and let you know if your car would pass the smog emissions test. And if it did, well, then you can get your car registered and drive it around town, right? Because I just love working with cars.

But after getting in shape, I was like, man, after high school, I am going to be a personal trainer and help more people achieve the fitness and fat loss results. By the way, those of you wondering, like, hey, man, so what happened? Did you ask Nakaya to the prom senior year? No. No. While I had gained confidence, self-image, self-esteem, everything was skyrocketing, and I loved how my body looked. I just didn't have the balls to ask Nakia to the prom.

So I never went to the prom. And that's that. But the desire to go to the prom with Nakaya changed my trajectory. on life. And I share this with you because after high school, I decided to go to Fullerton Junior College. And my goal was to, you know, learn exercise science and physiology. I figured if I come out with an exercise science and physiology degree, my master plan was really to do two years at Fullerton Junior College, get all my undergrad stuff, you know, take some exercise science physiology classes there, and then transfer to a four-year university. For some reason, I thought a kid that

hates school and gets 1.7 to 1.9 GPA could somehow magically do better in college and university. I was wrong. 38 days into Fullerton Junior College, I dropped out. I dropped out for one reason. One, I just knew I wasn't meant to be there. Like, I was not meant to be in a college university type environment. Two, I could tell that the teachers who were professing were not people who were practicing what they professed. Like I knew that these people were like, there were shams. There were frauds.

And it didn't sit well with me. I just didn't like the idea of learning from someone's teaching me fitness and how the body functions, but they've got a gut and they're breathing heavily when they go to pick up the chalk from the ground. Like that, that didn't sit well with me. So 38 days into my junior college education, I dropped out.

I was like, you know what? Fuck this. I'm going to go get my certification as a personal trainer. And that was the beginning of my self-education. I got certified through the American Council on Exercise, and if you want to know the truth, it was the fourth time that I took the test that I passed. And so after that, I was like,

I'm just going to read everything about exercise, science, physiology, coaching, influence. Because think about it. Like you can learn how the body works and how nutrition works to burn fat,

build muscle, how what exercises builds what muscle groups. But if you can't motivate inspire people, if you can't communicate a message with them, you're not going to be able

to get them into your gym or into your personal training program, right? And I, of course, wanted to be a personal trainer. So I knew that, you know, I need to learn that stuff. And thankfully,

as I became a personal trainer, and worked at a big box gym. I actually worked at LA Fitness in La Habra, California. A client of mine, one of my first clients, his name is Jim Franco. I talk about him often, and I talk about him in my book, Man Up. He became my mentor.

In between workout sessions, he would mentor me on business, on sales, on objection conquering, on following up with my leads, on communication, on influence, mindset,

And all of a sudden I realized, holy cow, just knowing how the body works and how nutrition works doesn't make me a great personal trainer. If I want to have a lot of clients to be able to train with the skill sets that I have, I need to learn all these other skills that support being a personal trainer. And that's when the real self-education began. I learned from cassette tapes, books that I bought, and Brian Tracy, Tom Hopkins, Zig Zigler, Dan Kennedy, Tony Robbins, Jay Abraham, like, those are all cassette tapes and DVDs that I bought and learn from and just listen to them over and over again. From salesmanship to marketing, to influence, to persuasion, to communication, to body language, to tonality, to how to use my hands when I communicate, to how to have that half-cock smile on my face when I talk. And today, I still use those skills on stage to communicate here on this podcast to communicate, on social media.

media to communicate. But that that leap into self-education has made me more money than any kind of college education I would have gotten. And I'm here to tell you that if there's one thing you could do to constantly make more money, become the best version of yourself, to reach your fullest potential, to identify and evolve and embrace the purpose, that the reason you're put on this planet, it is to self-educate. Like, I read, and you should be reading about stoicism, about marketing, sales, persuasion, influence. I learned from books like cult control written by Dantelian Jones.

I don't even know if it's out anymore. You guys are going to go and search for it and it's probably not going to be out. This motherfucker taught people how to start a cult. Literally, the book is called cult control by Dantelian Jones. And it was packed with misspellings. And as far as I know, like when I was reading that book, you know, called Cult Control, I remember one time I was reading it on an airplane, the lady looks at me. And she's like, what the hell are you reading?

I'm like, ma'am, I'm not going to start a cult, but I do want to know how to influence people because anybody that can take a group of people and get them to drink poison Kool-Late and kill themselves is obviously a master communicator and a phenomenal person of influence. Now they might be evil, and I choose not to be evil, but what if I can get people to drink the Kool-Aid of making money? What if I can influence masses to be optimistic, to be growth-minded? What if I can control a cult that way? And so self-education has paid off dividends for me, and today, guys and gals, you have more

opportunity for self-education from YouTube videos to online courses. getting mentors and masterminds and coaching programs, books, audio books, you have so much access to self-education. The sad reality is, it seems like the more access we have to self-education, the less self-education happens. And I don't know if that's because there's also so much entertainment being pumped out at us through Netflix and Hulu and Amazon and Instagram and TikTok and Facebook. I get it.

It outweighs. Like the entertainment stuff outweighs the self-education stuff. And just like a kid, if you put a candy bar in front of a kid and a stock of broccoli, the kid's going to choose the candy bar. Most adults will choose binge watching Netflix and Hulu and Amazon and screen sucking on fucking IG and Facebook. then listening to a podcast like this, that's self-education, that's free, then investing in a mentor or a coach or a mastermind,

then getting an audiobook or two or three or ten, then reading a book, five pages every night, five pages every morning, then going through YouTube videos, then follow-along courses, going to seminars. Those are all self-education. I find it fascinating that humans will come out of universities with education that is absolutely useless. with a degree that 83% of the time they will not use the education from their degree and their vocation.

That's a fact. That's a fact. 83% of the time you come out with the degree that you will not use in the vocation and the career that you're in. People will go into debt with school loans for shit education from people who profess but have never practiced. But they are reluctant to invest in a mentor or a coach or free education. found on YouTube because the alternate is more available and more delicious in the acute moment. What I mean by that is, look, you can watch that cat video or that chick twerking or that dude taking off a shirt and that's more entertaining in the acute moment, like in the here and now,

but in the long game of life, in the infinite game of life, self-education, learning hard skills, marketing, sales, influence, persuasion, problem solving, emotional discipline. Wow. Leadership, decisiveness, stoicism, the art of copywriting. Those are the skills. set that give you the right to print money. So if there's any one message I want you to take away from this podcast, it is that self-education

while sometimes it is literally priceless, meaning it costs nothing because there's so much of it free, just like this podcast, just like on YouTube, just like on the right Instagram and social media channels, you can find great self-education for free. While it's priceless, it will literally make you millions. But for most people, what's lacking is the singularity of focus, the discipline to consume, and the consistency to stick to it over the long haul. And finally, the balls to take action with the information they've learned to apply and generate money for themselves. So I hope this has helped you.

I hope you understand the value of self-education. I know it will change your life, but at the end of the day, you're either going to eat the Snickers bar of Netflix and Hulu and Amazon, or you're going to eat that stock of broccoli of audiobooks, real books, mentors, coaches, and self-education. I hope you make the right choice. And please do me a favor. Share this episode.

Take a screenshot. Share it on your social media. Tag me and tag a few people who need to see it. And give us a five-star rating on the iTunes, on Stitcher. make sure to leave a comment on YouTube and I'll catch you later.