Determined Society with Shawn French | Adversity & Mindset - Conquering Your Inner Critic: Achieving Unstoppable Confidence with Bedros Keuilian

Episode Date: June 19, 2023

Do you have an inner critic that causes you to doubt yourself or think you are incapable of doing hard things? So many of us do, but the key is to not let that critic sit in the driver’s seat of your life. Learn how to get your inner advocate in control and achieve unstoppable confidence in this must-listen episode with Bedros Keuilian. In this episode of The Determined Society, Bedros Keuilian shares his inspiring story of escaping communism, pursuing the American dream, and what it means to have an “immigrant edge.” He talks about the impact of having both a poor dad and a rich dad, and how his dad's work ethic and gratitude influenced him. Bedros Keuilian is an American Entrepreneur and a believer in the American Dream. He is a serial entrepreneur and investor in over a dozen industry-leading brands and businesses. He’s the founder of Fit Body Boot Camp, three times listed in Inc Magazine as well as Entrepreneur Magazine’s 100 fastest-growing franchise brands in the world. Bedros is the author of the Wall Street Journal’s Best Selling book Man Up – How To Cut The BS and Dominate In Business and In Life. Shawn and Bedros have an engaging conversation about the decline of masculinity, the rise of feminism, and the consequences that has had on modern-day men. Bedros is passionate about helping men embrace their masculinity and understand that there is nothing “toxic” about it. Bedros explains the importance of doing hard things and finding purpose in life to avoid anxiety, depression, and unfulfillment. Tune in for more! Key highlights: The immigrant edge Rich dad vs. poor dad: what Bedros learned from each What Bedros would say to people that want a coach How adversity shapes strong men Giving men permission to be masculine Bedros’ experience of a panic attack and what he learned about how to avoid anxiety and depression The importance of finding purpose and doing the hard stuff Inner critic vs. inner advocate Why we shouldn’t have unconditional love for ourselves Why we need to give the best version of ourselves to those closest to us Connect with Bedros Keuilian: Instagram: @bedroskeuilian Website: bedroskeuilian.com Connect with Shawn French: Instagram: @theshawnfrench Website: theshawnfrench.com Facebook group: The Determined Society Twitter: @theshawnmfrench YouTube: The Shawn French Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

People get really scared to do hard shit because it hurts. And they feel like their comfort zone is where they need to be. When we get too comfortable, when things are too convenient, if we don't lean into doing hard stuff and putting ourselves through adversity and testing our abilities, we begin to dig holes in our life through food, alcohol, drugs, gambling, pornography, infidelity, binge watching television, video games, you name it. You know deep down inside what you need to do every morning. Every single morning.

We might hit the snooze button, ignore the gym, make some bullshit excuse why we're not. I'm going to clean today, but our conscience knows like, dude, that was a L. That was not a W today. What's up, guys? Welcome back to another episode of the amazing podcast of Determined Society. As you can see, we're in a different venue today, but I'm going to bring you much more value in an amazing conversation from an American entrepreneur, a man who escaped communism way back in 1980 and came to America with his family and made the most out of pursuing

the immigrant dream and the immigrant edge. This gentleman has built multiple businesses and is now helping others build seven and eight figure businesses. He is a Wall Street best author. He is just a man that is a servant to other men and wanting more for other people. I have with me today, Badros Kooley, and welcome to the show, buddy. Thanks, man. Appreciate it.

Sean. Thanks for coming out, man. Really appreciate it. Man, listen, this is awesome. It's a great experience. It's great to actually interview somebody in person. Right. You know, it's like we had this off-the-air conversation.

And normally it's this weird virtual bullshit. Now we're here in the room talking stories about you being tracked by air tags and all this different shit. Right. Versus being on some kind of digital Zoom type thing where you're having that awkward conversation and you don't know when to click the red button to say goodbye, but you don't want to say it too early. But what if you kind of click it too soon? And then he was halfway through a sentence. See, that doesn't happen in person. Doesn't happen in person.

There's no, there's no moments of you say, you say goodbye. No, you hang up. Yeah. Right. Right. There's no, there's no weird dance at the end of the way. You get what I'm saying. So yeah, no, absolutely, man. Being, being in person is a much different energy. And I know the audience is going to get a ton out of today. And, you know, I've always been fascinated how open you are about the immigrant edge. You know, I'm fully immersed in that because the story of you guys coming over in 1980 when your dad had $150 to $200 in his pocket and a family of what. what, five, right? And not knowing where the next paycheck or how to feed the family, and then immediately, like you said, has three jobs the next day. And you witness this man, work three jobs from 2 a.m. all the way to 8 p.m. Talk to me a little bit about the impact that made on you as a young boy and going into a man. Yeah, you know what? I always say that I've got,

you know, just like Robert Kiyosaki, rich dad and poor dad. And certainly my dad was financially poor, but experience rich. And then my rich dad, Jim Franco, who was one of my personal training clients, many years later came into my life in my early 20s. He was truly my rich dad. He taught me multiple income streams. He taught me entrepreneurship, leadership. He taught me that when you solve a problem, the more sophisticated the problem that you solve, the more money you can make. But my dad taught me work ethic, that you can come into a foreign country without speaking the language, understanding the culture, and within days have multiple jobs to be able to, you know, take care of your family. They weren't the most glamorous jobs. All of them were under the table, getting paid

well below minimum wage. However, he was delivering newspapers at 2 in the morning. Then he'd go work at a gas station pumping gas, and then he would go and work at a pizzeria. And that was his day. And then soon my brother and sister each got a job. I was only six years old when we got here, So I was the baby of the family. But seeing my dad's work ethic, I think, like Ed Milet says, a lot of things are taught, but I think the most important things are caught, as he says. And I was able to catch work ethic. I was able to catch gratitude.

I was able to catch enthusiasm. Like, he was always happy to go to work. He was always said, you know, having work is a blessing. You know, in Armenia it translates a lot better. But he said, having work to do is a blessing. He was always grateful for the work that he had. And it wasn't anything glamorous. And the work ethic he had was just instilled in me.

So as I grew up and my rich dad, Jim Franco, started to kind of show me the way, it was like putting a supercharger on a car that's just bound to break records. You know, that's an amazing story because you're tying, you know, poor dad and rich dad together. A lot of people have that poor dad, that dad that is going to show them how to work. My dad was that way. My dad was hustling from sun up to sundown. I didn't know when he was coming home. You know, traffic in Silicon Valley in the San Francisco Bay Area was big. But the dude was always working.

He was doing side jobs on the weekend. So I learned really quickly what it was to work my ass off. And if I wanted to be anything in baseball, then I had to put in the work constantly. So you'd find me in the garage hitting off a tee into my hands blood. There was no reason to be confused why I played in the SEC for baseball. It's because I was doing the fucking work. Yeah, he put in the garage. work. Where the breakdown happens a lot of time in America is they don't have that rich dad. So like

Jim Franco, if I'm not mistaken, that's the gentleman that came to you, like you said in your 20s, and he was the guy that helped you build your business. Your dream was to own a studio, a gym. Yeah. Right. And he was the gentleman that showed the faith in you. And really, he was a personal training client, right? I was working in a big box gym. And in fact, I was working very much like my dad. I learned the work ethic from my dad. So I was working in a big box gym as a personal trainer. And then I was working at Disneyland as a bus boy and a fry cook at Carnation Cafe restaurant right there on Main Street, USA. And then at some point, I ended up getting a third job working as a bouncer at a gay bar.

Which is my favorite story, by the way. Which is how Ed and I met. That's the joke there. Is it a joke? Yes. Okay, got it. He did talk to me in the bathroom, though. You're trying to shake my hand and I was like, okay,

yeah, you're confident with yourself. It was an elbow bump. It's like, what's up, man, nice to meet you. What's up, bro? Let's stop. But truly, you know, I was working as a bouncer at a gay bar as well. And one day when I showed up very tired to the personal training session that Jim Franco had purchased from me,

again, I was just working as a trainer in a big LA fitness. He goes, hey, why are you tired? And he was in his 60s. I was probably 21, 22 years old. He goes, why are you so tired in the mornings on Mondays? I go, Jim, I work at this nightclub on Sunday nights. and it doesn't get out till like 2, 2, 30 in the morning. And then your training session is like 5.30, 6 o'clock in the morning.

I didn't get a lot of sleep, man. Yeah. And he goes, well, you know, you're such a great trainer. I go, I know I am. I don't understand why I have to have two other side jobs to make ends meet. All I want to do is do full-time training. And the greatest insult that he gave me, which I later realized that was his way of coaching me, was the reason you're broke is because you don't know how to sell,

you're an order taker. And I was like, oof, what do you mean? He goes, you're a great trainer, but you don't have clients because you don't know how to sell. When it comes to what your family eats and drinks, you know your choices matter. You're the expert because you know what fits your life. And getting it right starts with good information. That's why America's beverage companies are sharing more information about our ingredients at good to know facts.org. No spin, no judgments, just the the facts straight from the experts for more than 140 beverage ingredients. Visit good to know facts.org. You're just an order taker. And I go, what do you mean, man? I sold you six months of personal

training three times a week and I was like really letting them have it, right? And he goes, no, you didn't. You just took my order. I knew I came in here for three times a week of personal training that I was going to do for six months, learned how to work out well, da-da-da, and then do it on my own and you just filled out the paperwork. You're no different than a waiter or waitress at a restaurant. And that was insulting, but that was very well received because no one had cared enough for me to let something land that well. It landed with me. And so I challenged him. I said, well, how do I become a better closer? The next day he shows up with three different books from three different sales trainers, Tom Hopkins, Brian Tracy, Zig Ziglar. But before that, you know,

while it's easy to say, well, you know, hey, Bezos, you had a rich dad to mentor you and to give you advice, and then you had your poor dad to learn the work ethic from. Yes, then there was no social media. That was probably late 90s going into early 2000s. No social media. Today, everyone has multiple rich dads, in fact. Sure. Through YouTube, through Instagram, through TikTok, through Facebook, you could be following some of the greatest. entrepreneurs on the planet, people that are doing specifically what you want to be doing, and they're putting their content out there for free, they're coaching you, they're educating you, they're paying it forward. In fact, we have access to more rich dads than we know what to do with.

The problem is we also have so much distraction that we look beyond the rich dads and get caught up in the booty pictures and in the bullshit social media content that serve no value to us. and instead end up staying in the same place year after year, still hoping that some kind of motivational talk from Tony Robbins or something will spark us into launching a business finally, when in reality find the one or two online coaches who are good at what they do, get the free mentoring from them through social media, apply to your life when you make enough money,

go pay them money to get coaching from them. Yeah, that's a really good point because there's a lot of distraction out there. There's a lot of fucking noise, right? And I think what happens is people nowadays on social media, because it's so saturated, they want to leave their nine to five, they want to get out of corporate America as quickly as possible. And I get that because, you know, you and I have spoken. That's exactly what I want to do as well. And they could make poor decisions based on who they give their money to right away. Because you said a really key thing there. And I want to really dive into it. Take whatever they're giving as far as their content, apply it to your life. Make more money so you can pay them money. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I've had more people tell me that they've watched my YouTube videos of my Empire podcast show and gotten themselves to making six figures a year and then been able to then join a coaching program.

Yeah. Or to be able to invest in other ways in themselves. The free content's out there. The work is not free. It's not free. You know, it's a lot like David Meltzer said on my show a couple weeks ago. He's been giving away free trainings for 30 years. And you can get as much out of this free training as you can, you know, out of a paid program.

The only difference is the access, the relationship capital, et cetera. But I feel like we have it twisted and fucked up, right? They want, right? Most people want to be able to, they feel like, okay, I got to go pay this person right now. Like, I'm going to go pay this person $100,000, you know, and I don't have a proof of concept. I don't have a business and whatnot. What would you say to those people that I want to want to jump. into bed with a dude like you or another big-named coach.

First thing I would tell them is figure out what you want. The coach's job is to help you get to an outcome. It's not their job to figure out what your thing should be. That's why the first thing I asked you before the camera started to roll was, hey, so what do you want to do when you leave your 9 to 5? And you're like, oh, I want to do this thing. I'm like, oh, cool. So you want to be a coach, you've got the thing, you can put your finger on it.

Now imagine if I can help you time collapse. Imagine if I can make introductions, if I can help open doors, if I can tell you, avoid this, don't do that. more of this, this will get you there faster. But when someone comes to me and says, hey, I've got the money, but I don't know what I want to do. I go, go away, figure out what you want to do. Because I do that, I do that for my son and daughter.

You're not my son and daughter. Exactly, right. Therefore, I'm not. You know what I mean? But people want to absolve any kind of decision making off of them and put it on someone else. To deflect. Yeah. And the coach's job is not to do that.

Now, the coach that takes the money and says they can help you do that. I don't know if they're good at what they do, but that's a conversation for another day. because anyone can go buy a blue checkmark, go buy a few thousand fake followers, and click that little toggle that says entrepreneur or public figure and call themselves a coach. Where's the track record? Where's the slew of coaching clients who have given testimonials? That's how you know that guy is worth their money. It's a real shit. It's funny. You make me laugh on the blue checkmark. I mean, God dang, there's people out there trying to sell that shit. I didn't even know you could buy it. I had to write a fucking book and become a bestseller to get mine. I didn't realize I could buy it. I wouldn't have written a guy. damn book. It would have saved you a lot of fucking time. But you wouldn't impact a bunch of people. Right. Right. I say that facetiously in case people can't get... Of course. Yeah. I don't want you

guys to think he's looking for shortcuts. This man does not take shortcuts. You do a lot of amazing things just for individuals. And, you know, people see, you know, the Instagram stuff, like all the cool people that you're involved with. But like, dude, you provide so much value for men. The biggest thing, and I remember this, Larry Hagner, who I know well, him and his son with your Squire program. Then you have the... Great human. Yeah, he's a great dude. Why don't you talk to my listeners a little bit about what those projects are and how they serve people in their lives?

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I think we can all agree that World War I, we sent a lot of men to war. World War II, we sent a lot of men to war. Those men all came back, those who lived and built industries and infrastructures. Jordan Peterson says it well, and we've got to give credit where credit is due. He said, who is going to climb the power line? during the storms, who was going to go into the sewers and have rats crawling on them while making sure that we have flowing sewers.

Who is going to dig underground and make sure all the plumbing and piping works to be able to run the infrastructure that we call cities? It is men. And so men have gone to war. Those that have lived have come back and served their communities in another way. And today we found ourselves, and post 2001, went back to war again, right? So we see men constantly going to battle and then coming back and building. Going to battle and then coming back in building.

But something happened just around 2010, 2011, where all of a sudden, men were just like became disposable. Men became an afterthought. Men became on sitcoms, the dopey guy who couldn't even tie his shoes, let alone find his way out the front door. Like Chandler for Friends. Right. Exactly.

Exactly. And so soon. And I don't know if it was a big. It was byproduct of the rise, the greater rise of feminism, I do believe that the opposition, and there is an opposition at work to divide us, to separate us, because if there was another war that was going to take place a war against your freedom this time, locally, not overseas, who is going to stand up against the opposition? Probably the men.

So if we can declaw and defame the men, make the men feel like their need. for aggression, their need to build, their need for courage and strength, all of that is toxic and shame them for that and hit them on the wee-wee for that. Each time they want to show masculinity and name it toxic, then soon you begin to declaw and defaying men, those that are going to stand in the gap when the opposition begins the takeover. And so I think it was well planned out, whether it's through feminism or whatever. And so how do you do that? Maybe through pandemics, maybe through division, maybe through divisiveness, maybe through politics, through all of it. And so my calling I found over the last six, seven years where I thought I was supposed to be this

great big entrepreneur and helped the world through all my products and services and our franchise and our supplement companies, software, whatever, turns out I was wrong. All of the hundreds of millions of dollars that I make are to continue to fight against the opposition and to become a voice for men, to give men permission to become masculine, to stay masculine, to explore their masculinity, to realize that they are of massive value, that they are not to be shamed and they are not to be seen as broken, that they are not to be embarrassed of their strength and courage and their desire to test the strength of another man. Recently I saw a post on Instagram. A gentleman I follow, I forget his name now. I love giving people credit for what they wrote,

but it was him on the Jiu-Jitsu mats, and he had the guy by the collar, and he said, you meet a man, not in person, you meet the true man on the mats. And if you've ever rolled with someone in Jiu-Jitsu, you know that as soon as you put your hands on someone, whether you grab their lapel or you grab,

you get their pants, their sleeve, and you begin to feel their strength, and they feel yours, you get to see what that man is about. Whatever happened to that man? Do you have a son? I happen with a nine-year-old boy. Okay. I'm sure you wrestle with it.

with them, you roughhouse. Fuck yeah, man. Like, he loves that. He needs that. Like, my son needed that from me, and he was testing me, and I was testing him. And you look at John Eldridge's book, Wild at Heart, he talks about that,

that it is our job as fathers to instill masculinity for them to become courageous and confident, to become savages and servants. But all that's died, and all that has died because also divorce is at a much higher rate than ever before. I believe that, yeah, okay, it's 50% divorce rate,

which means there are a lot of young men who don't have the fathers in their life as they should. And those fathers don't even know how to role model masculinity, don't know how to become to be a modern-day knight. The reason knights had squires was to be able to take those squires, those young men, and raise them into gentlemen, courageous, chivalrous young men who can also stand in the gap against good and evil. And that's all stopped. Like tribes for thousands of years had a right of passage. for their boys, that gave you a seat at the table with the men to be able to defend and protect

the tribe and the community. All that has gone, and I believe it has all gone through divorce by decision, by managing thought patterns through social media, television, movies, etc. So then what do we have left? We have few voices like me who are willing to say, hey, you know what? It's actually okay to be a man. You can test your strength. You can be courageous. There is no such thing as toxic masculinity. There's such thing as nice guys, nice guys who are passive-aggressive who will, and those are the most dangerous types of men, right? Once again, Jordan Peterson talks about that because they're nice guys.

They don't have strength. They don't have courage. They don't have honor. And because of that, those are the backstabbers. Those are the scariest ones. I think passive-aggressive people in general, scare the absolute fuck out of me. Absolutely. They come when you don't see them.

Bingo. And, you know, an interesting point that you made about, you know, the divisive. the government and everything. Like social media has made it so easy for them to take their strings and do this. Yeah. Light the match and walk the fuck away and watch everybody fight against each other and make it easier for that toxic masculinity to be labeled and nobody fighting back. Bingo.

And what has been one of the things, I don't even know if that's a question, to be quite honest with you, but something happens to a man when they go to war, right? Whether it's in a real war, they come back and they said they built. And they go to the Squire program with their sons, they come back and they build or the MDK project, come back and build. There is a chamber in your mind when you meet your higher self, right, that turns you in, that's like the fission point where the nuclear bomb goes off and you're a different man. Can you talk to my listeners about that one moment for you and what it felt like?

Yeah, that one moment for me was a very specific Monday morning of a flipping of a switch. it was 2013 or 2014 and I write about it in my book Man Up and I say that you know I so it's like my house and then there's the pool deck and then beyond the pool deck is a is a multi-car garage and above the garage is our guest house and I play the drums and so I have my drums in the guest house Sunday night I went and played the drums but because I'm flat-footed it's easier for me to play barefoot so I had taken my shoes off left him at the guest house came back in Monday morning, I'm looking for my tennis shoes and I can't find it. So I'm like, that's right.

They're in the guest house. So grab all my shit, you know, stressed out, hurry to get out the door, go up there, grab my shoes. As I bend over to grab my tennis shoes, like all of a sudden, my heart starts racing. I just break out in the sweat. Both arms are tingling. I go tunnel vision and I can hear the heartbeat in my ear like real quick. D-D-D-D-D-D-D-D.

I'm like, what the hell is going on? Now I'm getting light-headed. I'm like, holy smokes. I'm 38 years old. and I'm having a heart attack. And I realized in that moment, like, holy smokes, if I die right now, my wife's not going to know that I'm up here. My kids are already on their way to school.

Like, they're going to find me in the morning, you know, or in the evening bloated and just stiff as a board. And what even ran through my mind, Sean, was the fact that I broke a promise to my wife till death due his part because I thought death would be way in the 80s and 90s. And then, of course, that I felt like, who's going to walk Chloe down the aisle? Who's going to teach Andrew to be in modern day night? Like, those are all the things that I wanted. And here I am at 38 dying.

I thought I was having a heart attack, man. And so I go, all right, if I just stumbled down the staircase, somehow die on the pool deck, they'll find me sooner and it won't be so. Isn't it weird how they... This is a better place to fucking die on the pool deck. It's where your kids can never go swimming in that pool again. But anyway, exactly. I was like, okay, I don't want to traumatize them by them finding dad all bloated and

stiff, right? So if they can find me sooner, hopefully I'll have some resemblance of a human. It's a good plan. Human. Yeah, yeah. But it is also trippy that I accepted death so easily, too. Yeah. I always think about that. There's something behind that. Long story short, I realized, okay, as I walked down the staircase, trying to just gather myself, I don't know if it was a fresh air or what, but all the symptoms went away. The next day I was at the doctor's office because I told my wife about it, and she's like, we're going to the doctor. And he's like, dude, that was an anxiety attack. What you had is an anxiety attack. Are you stressed?

And before I can say yes, she's like, yes, he's stressed. He's taking NyQuil every night and Vicodin to fall asleep. Handfuls of Adderall in the morning to wake back up. The guy's a fucking mess. You know, like, our finances are all fucked. Da-da-da-da. I'm like, holy shit. Yeah, everything she said, Doc.

Yeah, yeah. Right? So he puts me on Xanax. But that, to me, was the flipping of a switch. Of course, Xanax, after four days of Xanax use, I was like, I'm not doing this. It made me numb. It made me unmotivated, no sense of urgency. So I said, hey, Doc, what do I do instead of Xanax?

He goes, talk therapy. I'm like, fine. So I started working with the therapist 15 months later, really learned how to overcome all the traumas that I had gone through. I was molested as a kid, kept it inside, told to go back to your own country and beat up by all these kids when I came out to the United States because I'm the foreigner. And we lived in Section 8 housing, a lot of gangs and stuff and a lot of fights I got into. And you keep all that internalized and you think, like, I'm over it.

it's not going to cause any disaster in my life. But you're walking around with all this baggage and you're reacting to people in a way that, because you can't trust them, you don't feel safe, you don't feel lovable, you feel broken, you have shame, you have rage, you have confusion. And I was trying to be married, be a dad, start businesses, have employees and business partner. That wasn't going to work. So it all came crumbling down. That day of the anxiety attack was the flipping of a switch.

I knew that, okay, now I'm allowed to live. things will change. I didn't know how, but that was the flipping of the switch. And at the project, at the Squire program, we help men and sons realize that you can flip the switch and become your higher self. And it is going to take work to become your higher self. But if you don't do that, what is the alternative? Constant anxiety, depression, shame, and guilt. And here's why your conscience, everybody's conscience knows. Like, you know deep down inside what you need to do every morning. Every single morning.

We might hit the snooze button. We might ignore the gym. We might make some bullshit excuse why we're not going to eat clean today. But our conscience knows like, dude, that was an L. That was not a W today. And so with that in mind,

if your conscience knows, how is your conscience going to remind you that, hey, Sean, you know, you didn't lift your higher potential. It is going to remind you by knocking on your door through stress, anxiety,

depression, shame, and guilt, all low vibrational frequencies. Right? Our job is not to try and see how do we manage our anxieties and depression, it is to go, hey, consciousness, you know what? Duly noted, I will start working out, eating right, being congruent with the man I want to be. So you have to do hard shit to become a hard man because men are designed to do hard

stuff. And when you do soft stuff, like pull out your phone, order a jolly burger with extra onions, and then watch it come to you. And you realize it's stuck at the intersection and you get frustrated. It's two minutes away. Like, what the hell, bro? Like, that is what men have been reduced down to. It was like they get frustrated and angry at their phones because their jollyburger is an extra mile away. Instead, do hard shit. Be a part of a brotherhood or a tribe of like-minded people who want to self-actualize, develop self-mastery. And when you do, you will find purpose. And through purpose, you will avoid anxiety, depression, shame, and guilt. And that is what we do with the project by helping men overcome all the limiting beliefs and the traumas that they've

dealt with in life, helping them break through the glass ceilings, and rediscovering their higher self. I love that because on that path and finding your higher self, you know who really benefits? The wives, the children's, the children that you have, because I can tell you, you know, there's been many times where I haven't been incongruent with what I'm saying I'm going to do. Human being, right? And those are the moments that I get frustrated at myself, which cause that anxiety. Right. And then your fucking kids come up to you at that point of anxiety and you ignore them or you snap at them.

Right. And you know, they didn't ask to be here, man. They need a dad that is fucking strong, right? Yeah. They never get the best of us when we are all worked up and anxious and depressed and all highly wound up. And so like you said, the people that get the best of us, when they get the best of us, is when we have found purpose and are doing. what we're called to do. How do you do that? You do the hard shit. Yeah. Yeah. I think people and you can, you know, I love to hear your feedback on it, but people get really scared to do hard shit because it

hurts and they feel like their comfort zone is where they need to be. Why do you think people are so enlisted and staying comfortable on a day-to-day basis? And I think this speaks specifically to men, by the way, although women are not absolved of doing hard stuff, because you look at an Africa still, women would take those giant buckets and they walk miles to get water and carry that water back all while having a baby attached to their chest breastfeeding, right? And the men are supposed to be digging wells and hunting for food and building shelter, etc. It is in our DNA to do hard stuff. Like, it's so funny, right? Because I've got this German Shepherd dog. She's part German Shepherd, part Mastiff. Her name is Cookie. When we rescued her,

And I think I'm going to be able to answer your question this way. When we rescued her, she was eight months old and about 90 pounds. And she was pulling my wife around, my kids around, me around, like she was strong. And so we hired this dog trainer. The lady comes in, works with Cookie for about two, three weeks, teaches her to heal and sit and stay and roll over, shake hands, twirl, all this bullshit. But then she pulls me aside, she goes, hand you to talk to you. Come here.

I'm like, yes, man, what's up? She said, well, your dog here, she's part German Shepherd, and therefore as German shepherds, she needs to have a sense of purpose. So she needs to feel like she's guarding your kids and shepherding your kids and protecting your home. Okay. And she needs a routine, a routine that she can, that will keep her engaged. So maybe every morning at the same time, you can throw the ball 10 to 15 times with her and she can play catch. Because if you don't do that, she's just going to go and seek out comfort sitting on your couch or wherever every morning, but then start to get anxious and depressed. She goes, then, do you know what happens when she's anxious and depressed? I'm like,

no idea. She'll bite. She goes, you see that beautiful rose garden you have? Yeah. She started digging holes in your backyard. I go, how come? She goes, well, in the absence of having purpose and a routine, she will give herself some level, some sense of purpose and routine, which is to dig holes and fuck up your backyard, right? Like, holy smokes. So she will resort to comfort because we're not doing anything to give her what she needs. But then she will start digging holes to basically have a sense of purpose and service and routine. Well, don't we do the same? When we are in a state of comfort, because it is naturally we're all drawn to comfort. Like I imagine if the caveman all of a sudden had running water and fire was always available at a turn of a knob and somehow he grunted

and a big hunk of meat was thrown into his cave, well, he wouldn't have to go out and fight the saber-toothed tiger to get water and then to go collect wood in the rain and then to hit rocks together for two hours to get spark and then to be able to hunt a dinosaur or whatever the fuck it is that they hunted and some dudes of the tribe got killed so that a few of the other families can have food that's what they had to do that was the day-to-day living but if he had all of that available to him he'd just sit there in his cave be happy for a period of time short period of time and then soon start wondering, how can I sabotage my life? What could I do to ruin things, just like a dog? So humans today, when we get too comfortable, when things are too convenient,

if we don't lean into doing hard stuff and putting ourselves through adversity and testing our abilities, we begin to dig holes in our life through food, alcohol, drugs, gambling, pornography, infidelity, binge watching television, video games, you name it. We're no different than that dog. Sure. Yes, it is very comfortable to me in an air-conditioned room with lights and everything. But I know that if I stay in this room and do nothing hard, like right now on this foot, I've got a toenail that is so dark, purple, and black, it's about to fall off. And then four of the toes on this side have all this, like, crusty skin on it. And it's all from two weeks ago when we did suckfest, and we stayed up 24 hours. And in the final 12 hours from sundown to sun up, we hiked 31 miles. That was not fun. It was cold. It hurt. But in the absence of that, what am I going to do? Be a fat fuck that's going to self-sabotage, right? And so you have to be able to push aside comfort and convenience.

Do hard stuff. Test yourself daily in the gym, work out, run, do something awesome. At least on the weekends, do something even longer, more awesome. Or once a month, do something silly. And then once a year, go out of hand. Go bananas and do suckfest or, you know, I call it suckfest. But we do it every December. But now you know, like, man, I earned my comfort.

I earned my convenience. And so it ain't like I ain't ordering burritos and burgers off a phone. Right. But I'm earning it. It's a reward for busting my balls and getting calluses and not because I got Cheeto dust in my belly button playing video games. And I'm upset that my Jolly Burger hasn't shown up yet. Jolly Burger.

Is that a real thing? It's not. Someone should create that. Eds on it. Ed's on it. He's got it. You're not training for marathons and your tucks anymore, are you? No, bro. No. But I hated marathon, that marathon so much. Once a year, I do a marathon now,

right, by doing that hike. I actually have a bone to pick with you. Do tell. Because fuck, I'm on your website and I'm like, all right, cool, 26.2 marathon challenge. I'm like, bro, this guy is going to do, you know, a six-week mental fucking toughness course. I'm like, I'm all in on this shit. So I'm all in on this shit. It wasn't even the free part that got me. It's like, okay, like, what is this? So I dial in on it. I put it. I put it. I put it. I'm all in on it. I put my information in and then there's a video of you telling me I have to fucking run a marathon now that sucks doesn't it you know today was day one and so I ran for 30 minutes wait no shit I fucking did it I ran for 30 minutes bro for real absolutely for you I did for you I did

uh 30 minutes are you following that training program yes I did 30 minute I did the intermediate I did a 30 minute jog yeah my headphones were dead from the from the flight I'm cussing you the whole time because I'm bored of shit why am I doing this I'm like what the fuck am I doing like you won't know but then I'm like you know what One foot in front of the other, I get to do this. I get to go through this shit right now. And eventually, I will run that marathon. And it's funny because I've always said this my whole life,

one of the biggest things I wanted to do was run the marathon. I had never ran a marathon. And then I stumble into that shit. And so here we are. You know, I'm starting it. Bro, you made such a strong point. And in case your audience missed it, I want to bring it back. You said, why am I doing this?

He won't know, right? But you'd then finish doing it because your conscience would know. And you would feel incongruent with the version of the man you want to be, the husband, the father, the entrepreneur, the leader. And that's why you did it. And I remember while training for that doggone marathon in 2010, bro, I hated running. I used so much sestan and testosterone and ecopois and all that. I use so much shit from Mexico. We would go into Tijuana, Mexico, going to those pharmacies, the animal pharmacies, and say,

Yeah, my pig is sick and I need to make them big and muscular. They would give us boxes of cestinon, which is like four testosterone blends mixed together. And I would inject and just lift. I was like 20 pounds bigger than I am now. But I share this with you because I told myself, I'm designed to lift weights and not run. And I started to believe that. Yeah, a lot of people believe that shit. I can't run.

Right. It's really I don't want to run. I have this narrative in my mind that either I placed on myself or somebody else gave me the opportunity to say it's okay. Right. Right. So, and that's the thing with the audience. And you asked me before the show, what kind of value can you give my audience and shit like that? You know, it's the ability to move and do when nobody is fucking watching.

You know, a lot of people ask me, you know, there's a lot of, very few people that know where I'm at right now. And it's like, oh, bro, that's fucking luck, man. You're lucky. Nah, man. Like, I believe everything in life. You put it in the work. And the people that are meant to be on that journey, you find a way to infuse you. find a way to infuse yourself into the orbit of that individual.

But let me be very clear with everybody. This show started out, nobody knew what the fuck it was. It was just me talking on the air. Now sit here with you in person. This shit is not comfortable. It was not comfortable for me to walk into this building today. Sure. Right?

But I knew it was the thing. It was that inflection point of, okay, this is a barrier. This is, as you would say, you're a critic. right and your advocate fucking fighting right now right right so for those of my listeners I don't know about the advocate and the critic and the critic chat with them about that really sure sure so so all of us have have these two two voices in our heads and I and I want to draw a picture so let's use a metaphor you're driving a car it's just you and then someone's writing shotgun that's someone that's writing the shotgun for most people like 95% of people that voice is

writing shotgun is your inner critic. The voice that says you can't, you're not good enough, you were never smart enough, you weren't tall enough, you don't have the genetics, what makes you think you can, you didn't go to college, you didn't, you weren't, whatever, you don't have the opportunities. The judgmental voice. At the project, we call that voice the inner bitch, right? And we say, look, at some point, you're going to flip the switch during the 75 hours of the project, and when you do, you're going to have taken that inner bitch out of the passengers, seat and brought out your inner beast and put them in there. Your inner beast is your advocate, your inner advocate that says, bro, you could do it. You've got everything that it takes. You

got bloody hands because you swung that bat so many times. Now you're just in a different industry, but swing that bat. You got this. I support you. I believe in you and I'm here to catch you if you fall. We tend to take that inner advocate and we zip tie his arms, gag him, and then put him in the trunk. And all you hear is this muttering of what you think might be I believe in you. You're awesome. You're great, but you can't even tell because he's gagged and zip tight and he's in the trunk. And then we sit the critic in the passenger seat riding shotgun with us,

telling us how we're incapable, unable, we're losers, we're not lovable. We're broken. You can't. You'll get judged. What if you get rejected? Now, when I tell people that, they're like, so all I got to do is pull over and kick the critic out, huh? No, no, life's not like that. That would be fucking sweet, right?

God didn't build us for that. Could you imagine how we would literally be. Godlike if we no longer had the critic to deal with. Right. We need the critic in the car with us at all times. It is the only way we will value the advocate. It is the only way we can develop enough strength. You know, people go to the gym, they build their muscles,

they forget that there are mental muscles, emotional muscles, muscles of resiliency that they need to build. Well, you will not be resilient if all you have is an advocate in the car. So we just need to move the advocate to the front seat and allow them to speak and then duct tape and zip tie the critic and leave them in the trunk so that we always know that the kryptonite. Could you imagine if Superman was no longer allergic to kryptonite? He wouldn't, we wouldn't be interested in him. In fact, the whole story of Superman, they later, decades later, they introduced kryptonite because people stopped reading the comic

books. They're like, okay, bad die comes, Superman kills him again. There's no weakness. He's got no weakness. But then when they introduced kryptonite, now Superman was interesting, right? Yeah. Our kryptonite is the critic. It needs to be in the trunk. Some days it might come to the seat but it should never make it in the passenger seat because that seat is specifically there for the advocate I love that shit so much man and it's so funny because and I want the listeners to really the people that are watching this is that inner critic or that bitch voice inner bitch is it just gonna get in the back

seat hogtied or the trunk because you say so you have to put in the fucking the best way to silence that critic is do the damn shit Like you say, lean into the hard things. First thing in the morning, hit the gym. You know, accidentally sign up for a fucking marathon challenge. Like, do something completely crazy to a point where you're pushing yourself every single day to give yourself the evidence that you're deserving of having the advocate riding shotgun. Bingo.

Give yourself the evidence that you're deserving of having the advocate drive shotgun. Because, like I said, you can't just kick that thing out. And if people want to know, how do I hog-tie the... the critic and get the advocate in the front seat. It is through the work. It is like, how do I build jacked arms? Well, go to the gym every day and lift and then eat the kind of proteins you need to eat and low fat and low carbs to show the leanness and you will have jacked arms. Like there's a formula to everything and hardship, adversity, suffering, like controlled suffering, not suffering like someone's choking you out. But suffering by doing hard stuff allows you to go

to that higher place and you start developing control over the inner conversation. And that's what we need. People feel like, I have no control over the voices within me. My inner voices are always negative. In fact, what do they say? 85% of the conversation that you have with yourself is negative. And we have somewhere between 40,000 to 70,000 conversations in our head. And if 85% of those are negative, what if you could do hard shit and begin to control the conversations? Most of the time, not all the time, Sean, but most of the time I only have one conversation in my head. And that is, I love myself. I love myself. That has become my mantra. that is the thing that I say before I go up on stage,

I will stand in the corner, jump up and down. I love myself, I love myself, I love myself. And I say it's so much, and I absolutely believe that. But I've done the work to reinforce that. If I was a fat fuck who hadn't achieved anything and hadn't done any self-work to achieve mastery, then when I said, I love myself, the critic would be like, no, you don't.

You're a funny. You're lying to yours. Yeah, you're a phony. You're an imposter at that point. Yeah, it's funny because I think when I was 38, I dealt with something similar to you. I was 264 pounds. I don't even know how my wife fell in love with me,

to be quite honest with you, because she's an absolute 12. And I was this 264 pound fucking fat ass. And I had that moment. That moment where I sat there and said, I'm not shit because I'm not even trying to silence the voices in my head. So I started putting in the work.

She bet me I couldn't work out for 30 days straight. So I did it. And I said, ha, fucking did it. And she goes, shit, that was for you. Do it again. I was like, fuck, this is going to be my wife. This is somebody who supports me, who drives me every single day. So I think that to your point when you're sitting there, you're jumping out up and down before you get on stage, or I'm sitting there in the Uber, you know, while the Chinese driver and he's talking to me.

I don't know what the fuck he's saying. The phone, the Uber app is coming at me in Cantonese. I don't know what's going on, which is fine. But he's asking me, where are you going? I'm like, I don't know. It's right there on the thing. If I knew, I'd be driving it. Follow the fucking blue outline.

Yeah. Right. But the point is, and I'm sitting there, I got this, I got this. I got this. I love myself. Yeah. But it's because I have put in the work in this specific field to be in the room. Yeah.

And you just, guys, you just have to do enough work with yourself to get in the room and show that you do. love yourself because there's too many people out there right now. So you should love yourself anyway. Right. You know, the body positivity or like, hey, you're great the way you are. The moment someone tells me, Sean, you're great the way you are. Fuck you get out of my life. Right. I don't have unconditional love for myself. No. The love I have for myself is very conditional. Based on the work that I do, the promises that I keep, the man that I show up to to my wife and to my kids, to my team, those are the conditions that I'm allowed to love myself. And people are like,

whoa, you're being hard on yourself. Good. More people should be hard on themselves. Set unreasonable expectations. Meet those expectations and go beyond them. We've set such low expectations that we swim in that sea of mediocrity. And then we go, well, you know, I've got unconditional love for myself and I'm not going to be hard on my, really, really be a little hard on yourself and see what happens. Life actually gets better. I wonder when that started, right? Because it's like to me, like I, you know, and again, to be fair, you know, my wife just say, hey, you're too hard on yourself. I hear you. I just don't subscribe to it. Right. Right. It's what drives me. And it could be my Achilles heel at times. Sure. But you know what?

I'm willing to take that fucking gamble. Yeah. So I keep, I keep going with that, that hard hammer on myself. Yeah. You know, what would you say to the listeners that are just, you know, shying away from that hard hammer on life on their own selves. Well, you know, what I would tell them is something that I've heard Ed Milet say. So let's give credit to Ed where he says, he says, if you believe in God, then imagine that God has already created an image of you, the perfect version of you that's already up there in heaven. And so imagine when you die and then you go up to heaven and you're standing at the pearly gates and God says, hey, I want you to meet Bedros and I'm like, I don't recognize that guy. That is not, I don't feel like I'm looking in the mirror.

You know, I am not that guy. That would be the greatest pain of, like I feel this weirdness right now in my gut like, oh my God, I don't want that regret on my deathbed. Yeah. And so I would tell your listeners, like imagine that. Could you imagine meeting the perfect version of yourself up there and then realizing you are so not like that person? What a great sense of lifelong regret. I think that's what hell is. I think that would meet my personal hell.

And my audience has heard me say that before. I wasn't aware that was Ed Milet, but I'll do respect to Uncle Ed, because that is a powerful point. My biggest fear in life is getting to heaven and not knowing who I am. That scares me. Yeah. Right? And you know, that part's scary. That's my personal hell. But I think hell on earth would be my children and my wife never meeting the man I'm supposed to be. Right. Right. Don't I owe it to them? Don't you owe it to your family?

I think if life was a series of bullseys, a bullseye and then all the rings, right? Like a target? Like the center of that bullseye. I always tell the guys at the project. I go, look, you didn't pick your parents. You didn't pick your kids. You didn't pick your siblings. Because you didn't even pick your kids. Like you had your kids. hopefully they're awesome. The only person you picked was your spouse, right? So wouldn't you want to give the best version of yourself to the person, the only person you picked? And then the next ring, the very first ring, your kids, and then you got your outer friends, and then you got your business, et cetera. But man, how funny that most of us will give the best of us of what we have to those outer rings and only give the crumbs, the frustrated, upset, passive, aggressive diversion to our wife and kids. It's so timely you speak about that because in 2022 I found myself giving my wife the crumbs. She's like, you know, you give so much to everybody else,

your clients, your guests on your show, you give your show so much love and want to give your show the best of you. But what about your wife? What about your kids? And so it was to me, there was a bunch of learning lessons in 2022 on that. And in 2023, agree you know we've already been on one January 1 took her to the fucking melting pot had an amazing date I I dated my wife and it felt amazing yeah and we have another date schedule with sitter so my point is when you say that the outer ring is like that one person that's the person that should get the best of you agreed because you chose that person so we're gonna land the plane here brother

but you know for for my audience that wants to learn more about you and be involved and some of the things that you get you have going on and including being trick-fucked into a marathon where can they find you well the best place to find me is on instagram at bedrose cooion or just bedrose cooion dot com yeah awesome and obviously i'll have that and show notes for them to pick up but uh i really appreciate you brother and you know i look forward to many more interactions and i have a new friendship with you and once again thanks to give on the show likewise appreciate it for you.