THE ED MYLETT SHOW - Bedros Keuilian - Started from the Bottom

Episode Date: February 27, 2018

This week Ed has legendary immigrant business owner and empire builder Bedros Keuilian on the show. Bedros is the CEO and founder of Fit Body Boot Camp as well as a a best-selling author, speaker and business consultant. His family migrated to America when he was six years old with less than $200 to their name. Bedros shares how he learned to be extremely resourceful and resilient through the adversities that his family faced. This episode takes you through a real life RAGS TO RICHES story that sheds light on the mental strength it takes to turn your hardships into catalysts of growth.

This is the Ed Milett Show. Welcome back to Max Out with Ed Milett. I am very, very excited about today's program because I've got a legend with me here in the fitness industry and in the personal coaching industry as well. And that's Pedro's Cullian, so Pedro's thank you. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you for having me. I'm so glad that we finally connected

and that we're doing this because this is one of the, just so you know, great American success success stories immigrant business success stories but any type of American business success story but one of the great minds in business too those you that want to grow your brand grow your company this is one of the great minds in the world that can help you do that and we're going to get in that brain of yours today so I'm looking forward to this do it very much ironically everybody I should tell you it's such a small world that Pedro's building

is next door to the building that I spent five years building my company. In fact, from his office, you can look into my old office, and my mom and dad actually can look in his building from where they live here. So it's a very small world. He ain't that a small world, though. It's crazy, right? It's crazy. And I'm very comfortable here as a result of that.

You can be comfortable. Good. And you know what? I feel there's some kind of a magical success influence because you were right here within the hundred yards of our building before I ever got here. I used to come over here and sprinkle the dust on the building before you got here. I knew it. I did.

That's why things are... I should get some percentage of the building. You should, you should, on at least, at least 10% of the building. Yeah, but at least this part of the building or something. And by the way, what an impressive operation everybody. If you want to build a culture that grows a company, and this is the epitome of a great culture, a great environment run by a great leader, you can feel it when you walk around this place.

So, thanks, man. So impressive. The things you say are powerful, but the example of what you've put together both in your company outside of here and in this building is so, so impressive, bro. That means a lot, man. Especially coming from you, sir. Really, really, really true. So, let's start out a little bit.

I always like to get a little background, because it's kind of like you're in the fitness industry. He's the founder of Fit Body Bootcamp. Did I say that right? Yes, sir. And I say that right because out of respect, it's such becomes such a huge and explosive brand. It's probably the fastest growing fitness franchise in the United States.

Yes, yeah. In fact, it is. We hit the Inc. 5,000 list twice twice and we just hit the entrepreneur 500 fastest going franchise last month and we're number 350. Wow. And we've only been around since 2012 as a franchise. That's a That's a congratulations. And that's amazing. In your business, anybody would love to have somebody scaling happen like that in their business. And that that level of scale is painful when you grow to 619 locations, what seems like virtually overnight, we're in four countries now. But the learning experience that you get, it's almost like time collapse.

What I would have learned over 20 years, I had to learn over six, seven years, you compressed the time frames down. So speaking of other countries, I want to go back a little bit because you didn't start in this country. No. Right? And so it's one of the fascinating things about your story to me. I'm a former communist. That's unbelievable, right? True story.

So where are your former communists? That's a great way to start. Former communist now serial capitalist, I suppose. Isn't it? Yeah. So where do you come from and tell me a little bit about how you grew up? Yeah, where I come from is Armenia, which at the time was a part of the Soviet Union. In 1980, my dad decided that he's going to bribe the Soviet consul and we're going to

escape into Italy. And then from Italy, where he bribes them? Yes, yeah. Do the stories amazing. I actually learned about it four years ago. I go, Dad, why did youribes them? Yes, yeah. Dude, the story is amazing. I just, I actually learned about it four years ago. I go, Dad, why did you bribe them? He goes, well, there's no other way to get out of a communist country, especially if you're going to go to a westernized country like the United States, right?

And so, and the reason he was bribing the communist consult was because in 1981, my brother was going to turn 20 years old and he would have had to join the Soviet Army. And if we know history, we know that the Soviet Union was fighting Afghanistan at the time. And Soviet soldiers were dying left and right. They were losing, just like we've had a hard time. Exactly, we've had it right. Yeah.

And so my brother was going to go into the Red Army and likely lose his life. And my dad was hell bent on not only having my brother not go, but also giving us freedom. My dad was hell bent on not only having my brother not go but also giving us freedom. My dad was one of those guys in Armenia. He secretly wore Ray bands, George Ash jeans, Adidas shoes. Yeah, he bought it from the black market.

You weren't allowed to have like American apparel. Did he have some affinity for the United States as a result of like it's culture or whatever the vision of what it was? He loved the beach boys and Elvis and he was like this westernized communist. Now, people go, then why was he a communist? Because, because, you weren't into it though. You're born into it,

and they ask you, hey, do you want to be a member of the Communist Party? If he, yeah, they ask you, but if you say no, you end up in Siberia, right? So he has to say yes in order to support his family, but the whole time he secretly, you know, putting together money, and the whole time he's secretly putting together money

and at the time it was 25,000 rubles to bribe a member of the consult to let us escape into Italy, which at the time was Communist sympathizers, so it's easier to escape into a sympathizing country. Didn't Reagan have something that if you went there, was there a asylum of some reason? Yes. If you're from a Communist country and as long as you can make it here, we will bring you in. Right. Exactly. Thank you. You're one of the few people that remember that history part of his story. I

wish more people remembered it based on some of the things we see. Oh, but anyway, thank you. And I wish we could somehow magically bring Reagan back. But that's a whole other. So yeah. Yeah. But but anyway, so and my dad always wants me to state this point. He gives any time you're being interviewed on TV, a magazine podcast, whatever. He doesn't know what a podcast is, but it's just a good idea. Right. He says, you make sure you tell everyone that we entered the United States legally. And so we went into the American consult in Italy and after two and a half weeks, got the paperwork in order to come into the United States. Your brother's 20, how old are you? Six. I'm the oops baby. So my brother's

20, my sister's 22. Okay. I'm six years old because I recently found out that I was also the oops baby Okay, I'm the baby that was never supposed to be yeah, and so I tell my parents. You know practice and safe sex Yeah, that's all different. Sorry. Yeah awkward topic right yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, especially when they're in their 80s But yeah, that's where the art is But lo and behold we come to the United States and we are immigrants were foreigners my dad has only about a Lo and behold, we come to the United States and we are immigrants. We're foreigners. My dad has only about $185, $86 in his pocket. We're living in some, he just knows one guy through a friend who has a two bedroom apartment

and the second bedroom is empty. So a family of five is staying in this guy's bedroom. Oh my god. In Santa Ana, right? And he says, you got one month, then you have to go. And so on day two of being in the United States States in Santa Ana, my dad had a paper out. By day three, he had a paper out and was pumping gas. By day four, paper out pumping gas and working at a pizza area.

He got my brother a job at the pizza area. By two weeks, brother, sister, mom, everyone's got multiple jobs, immediate act. Yeah. I was the breadwinner. Oh, are you the breadwinner? I was a breadwinner because my dad discovered That it behind grocery stores are giant dumpsters and then these dumpsters Our food that's expired or maybe has a little bit of mold and got thrown away

But it's still edible if you pick off the mold and so my dad realized it we're scraping together All this money to get ourselves an apartment and so we can't buy food with the money We have to move out of the sky's apartment in a month. And so what he decided to do is he'd take me to the back of these grocery stores, Alpha Beta, I don't know if you remember the Alpha Beta restaurant. So it was one here in Diamond Bar, that's one. Right, so there was one in Santa Anaheim and we go to Santa Anaheim. He pushed me into the dumpsters and to me it was like a treasure hunt. A six-year-old kid, hey dad, what do you think of this? Yeah, that bread's good. Milk. He'd open it, smell it because it's expired so the store can't sell it. But it doesn't smell sour. That's good. We have milk. We had eggs. We had

vegetables, man. We had it all. Wow. And I was the breadwinner and I look at it that way now. Back then, I just looked at it as, you know, like, I can't believe we're having to go into a dumpster for food. And I looked at it as a treasure hunt. But like, oh, this is embarrassing. You know, I'm starting to go to school learning the language. We didn't speak English That's crazy. We didn't understand the culture Yeah, what was that like? You're a little boy going to school where you don't even speak the language and you're in a dumpster the night before Fish and for dinner. No, you know, and people didn't know my name was Badros because in the dumpsters We found the Herman Munster shirt remember her of the course of the musters

Yeah, and so one of the clothes that fit me was the Herman Munster shirt. Remember, Herman of the musters? And so one of the clothes that fit me was this Herman Munster sweatshirt. It was a little tight, but it fit me. I was a chubby little Armenian. And people start calling me Herman. Yeah, yeah. So I went to three elementary schools, two junior highs, two high schools. But in the three elementary schools, people called me Herman.

You have got to be kidding me. I'm not. Here's a funny thing. When I went to the second elementary school, but it's not. I introduced myself to kids me Herman. You have got to be kidding me. I'm not. Here's a funny thing. When I went to the second elementary school, but it's not. I introduced myself to kids as Herman. That's not. And it's not. That's not.

That's all I knew. Remember how we were talking earlier, right? And you were known as Little Ed Who Shy. Yes. I was Herman. And that's the script I read off of. And I had that epiphany as we were talking in the other room. Oh my god.

And so that was me, man. I was the foreign kid. And people go, well, how do you do this? I mean, we ran out of money before we ran out of month sometimes. And when that happens, mom and dad have to pick between, do we have lights or do we have gas? Terrible.

We can't have both. And there was back then, there was apartments that said, no kids, no pets. Now they don't have no kid apartments. And so I would have to get snuck into different apartments. And when the landlord would see me or another tenant would see me and tell the landlord, we'd get evicted the next day. There was no 30 day notice like there is today. You got evicted in the 80s and off to a new city we go, a new school, I'm the foreign kid again who doesn't speak English. And but I realize now that that adversity of being the foreign

kid and not knowing how long I'm to be there at that school. If I met you, it became so good at building rapport and building friends because I didn't know how long we're going to be friends at. We might get evicted again. On my parents' side, we were moving to a new town. It's a new school. And so that skill I use today, the build rapport and network.

But back then, I looked at it as a disadvantage. It's one of my superpowers today. That's unreal. Yeah, so one of the, I'm just processing this, so you went from an immigrant, young boy, diving in dumpsters to all of this at some point in your life because I think people use, I think oftentimes people will use their past to dictate their future terms.

And you and I have talked a lot about how life happens for us, not to us. And that's powerful. So it shaped you obviously by building this skill, right? Like this build rapport. How else did that upbringing though shape you? What else did it do to you? You talk a little bit about, I've heard you talk about like immigrant mentality as it appeals to business.

Does you think part of that was even happening at that time? What is that? I was getting a PhD in immigrant edge in this immigrant mentality. So, for example, the ability to build a rapport quickly, because I didn't know how long I was going to be in the school. And if I wanted to get along with kids, I had to make friends quickly, right? And so I did that.

And of course, then we'd move on, then I'd have to build friends again. Well, today in business, I can build a rapport pretty quickly. You do it amazingly well. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Another immigrant edge or immigrant mentality that I picked up was being resourceful.

So in 1983, so by this point, I was eight and a half, nine years old, and one of the crappy apartments that we lived in, I got Lice as a kid. And you can imagine I'm scratching my head and I'm crying to my mom. And she goes, well, looks like you got Lice, kid. But again, we have only so much money coming in.

We've just been in the country for a couple years. And so we can't go by lice treatment, like maybe someone else's parents can't. So my mom had my dad siphon out gasoline from our old Ford LTD. Oh my god. It was like this brown Ford LTD. He got two cups of gasoline. She made me double over in the grassy part of the apartment complex. She had closed her eyes, double over, don't stand up. And she watched my hair with gasoline to kill the lice. Now I remember seeing little feet all around

the other kids were coming by and watching. They're probably thinking, this lady's about to light this foreign kid on fire. Right. But my mom, who didn't have any money to buy the lice treatment, got resourceful. Wow. And and siphoned out gasoline had my dad siphoned out gasoline and washed my hair so today when I run into obstacles is an entrepreneur when I have coaching clients who run into obstacles I go right you don't have the resource you don't have the money you don't have the connection to Ed my my let but how is gonna get resourceful right how is gonna get resourceful to get the out of thing that we want because if we can't connect with Ed or Andy or Grant Cardone or Tony

Whoever the person is. Everyone always says I don't have X to therefore I can't achieve outcome. Yes Forget if X didn't exist what other resource or resourcefulness can you tap into and that is the immigrant Entry mentality that I think more people need to give up so quickly Well, you know of all the podcasts I've done, by the way, of all of the podcasts I've done, that words never come up. And it's so true because the lack of it's so apparent to me, you probably get this too, but I'm constantly on social meeting and you ask some questions, some of them are great

questions, but so many of them come from a scarcity or a space of not being resourceful. Like I don't have this, I don't have that. And you're so right. Can now someone who's not an immigrant developed that edge or is that just something you get as an immigrant? No, no, I was telling you earlier before we started filming, one of my most requested talks when I speak is the immigrant edge talk because I've got this unique perspective that I can install into the audience.

So you don't have to have come from a communist country and I mean we've had the KGB come into our house because they suspected my dad Was up for something and they lined us up in Armenia along the hallway and they were looking my dad was a tailor and he would he would make suits on the side And and he would sell them to people is that how we accumulated this money? Yes, it addition to his job. He would make yes, and that's resourcefulness. Yeah, that is resourcefulness exactly That's the immigrant edge mentality had. So I learned very quickly that, you know, so anyway, the KGB would come in, we'd all line up against the wall. That's just how it is.

And they're looking in the house, looking for chalk, a meter stick, because you know, they've got to be metric system. Yeah, needle thread. Anything to evidence that you're making suits. And he would hide stuff so well in our tiny little apartment in Armenia. They never found anything. He made enough money to pay off the communists and for us to come out here. And my dad, like he

is a true American and see we have to become citizens. Yeah. Right. Everyone else is born into a citizen. And so part of that immigrant edge mentality is while you were born as a citizen, I had to learn about what I know what the stars and stripes actually mean, right? Yes. And when you know that that red stands for the blood loss, right? And when my dad says, you make sure you tell everybody that we enter this country legally, and the reason is he believes that when I believe the same, when you enter this country legally,

you value it more, you respect it more, and therefore you're going to be in service of others. I understand it's the greatest country in the world and people will come to it any way possible. But those, when you earn a dollar, you'll value it more than when you're enter it. Now I understand it's the greatest country in the world and people will come to it any way possible. But those, you know, when you earn a dollar, you'll value it more than when you're given a dollar. That's true. I can tell you that most of my, not all, because I have friends who have had generations of families that have lived here.

They've had family members serve in the military. They're unbelievable patriots, right? But I got to tell you the majority of my friends, and you said, who's some of the greatest patriots? You know, it's my immigrant friends. Because there's an appreciation for it because of where they had to come from to get here. And so it's a contrast that I'm able to show people

that without them having to go and live in a communist country and eat out of dumpsters. And thankfully, maybe I've got the gift of gab or storytelling, like you said earlier, where I can draw the picture while I'm out for people to go, I get it now. You're one of the best communicators I've ever seen. Think.

And I bet you part of that is that you had to literally work on linguistics and work on your language and articulation. And I told you when we were in the hallway earlier, I considered you to be a world class communicator. It's a very rare skill that someone can both think and articulate simultaneously. You do it magnificently well.

And when I introduced you, I said that you were one of the great American business stories and people are now hearing why. I mean, to come from where you came from. To end up finding yourself in a dumpster, having gasoline poured on your head, and there's a whole lot more of these stories that we could get into a lot of them as well. But to come from that place to rise up to build this empire that you've built, and what I love about you is you feel like you haven't built anything yet.

You feel like you're just in the beginning. And I have, if I could buy a stock and something, I'd be buying a stock in you in this brand here, because I want to tell you, I know where this is going. You can just see it. The writing is on the wall literally about where your company is going. But if you don't mind talking about it, there is one other benefit that you've sort of recently tapped into that I want people to hear about this because I like to do a business show, but I also like to do a life show. And everybody that's listening to this, many people can relate to what I would call dysfunction in their lives.

Mine was alcoholism in my family, but you know, most people looking to think other families are perfect. Other people's lives are perfect. So you don't only had to overcome the fact that you were an immigrant and that your parents had to go through all these sacrifices. But something's recently popped up too that you escaped when you left there as well. Yeah. And what you're sharing, tell them a little bit about that if you don't mind. Well, so I'll preface it by telling you this, that there's a great book out there called The Body Keeps the Score.

And The Body Keeps the Score is really about those who have suffered through trauma, emotional trauma, a father who's an alcoholic, right? In my case, I was molested between the ages of four and six on a consistent basis by two older boys in Armenia. When we escaped for our freedom, well, my father and mother don't realize as they saved me from that molestation. And for a young boy to experience that,

you can imagine the chip, an anger and rage, shame and confusion that left in my heart. And while you're trying to deal with it, cope with it the best you can, a lot of it came out in violence and unfortunately car jackings and I was involved in a police helicopter chase and I was not the guy in the police helicopter. I was the guy in the getaway car. And it's not something I'm proud of. And so, but there's the only way you can process through that kind of trauma.

Yeah. It's through violence, unfortunately. Or you're going to become a predator yourself. And I knew long ago, I would listen, you ever listened to Dr. Laura show when it was on all the radio. I did. Dr. Laura was my first, and I don't care what people think about Dr. Laura. She's conservative. She's do this. Right. When I didn't have a true North, and I was just raging bull, and you didn't want to get in my way because I would crush you She's like this man. You would not want to get in his way But I just want to hug and love people. I know you do. You're like no, it's true. You're very light We're talking about earlier and but I would I somehow stumbled on KFI 640 some AM radio channel

I'm listening to Dr. Laura and she goes you have two chances at a father and you have two chances at a father and a son relationship. One, when you're a child and one, when you're the father. Right? And I was like, holy smokes. I started listening to this woman more. And she helped me stop raging out so much and becoming so violent and help me understand the inner thoughts and the inner talks that I would have with myself.

They were so negative and so violent, right? So anyway, all that said, I would have with myself, they were so negative and so violent, right? So anyway, all that said, I remember thinking to myself, like why didn't my mom and dad help me when that was happening? Well, the realities didn't know that I was being molested. They were too busy trying to get together money to come to this country, right? And so the rage I had towards my parents,

towards the Babu Shka's, the older grandmas who live in communities like that in Armenia, they're always home looking over their balcony, these gossipy. Like, they're gossiping about all this stuff, but where were they to save me? That's a lot of rage, man. A young man has. Now, all of a sudden, you're in your 20s, and you're strong, you're lifting weights. You start doing damage. It's gonna be released.

Yeah, yeah, and I'm so like, that's one of my biggest regrets, man. So today, I feel I need to live 10 lifetimes and be in service for 10 lifetimes to make up for that shit, you know, to make up for that. I think you're doing it. Well, I'll keep doing it. But, but that's who I was. And so, ironically, we were talking about Tony Robbins. And so, Joe Polish had this event a few months back called a Genius Network event, and he

asked me to speak at it. It was I want you to talk about entrepreneurial leadership. And Tony Robbins was on stage right before me. Tony got off, I got on stage, it was Tony and Dean Gracio, CB being interviewed by Joe, and then me and Craig Balantine got on stage. And my job was to talk about entrepreneurial leadership. I said, Joe, we've got, you've got millionaires

and billionaires in this room. They don't need to learn how to be leaders. They can hire leaders. Let's talk about what really matters. And right there, from straight stage, I went off script script and I just said, look, odds are one and three of you have had some kind of emotional or physical abuse. And one and four of you have had sexual abuse. Let's talk about that. And I grew. Yeah. I saw grown men squirming in their seats, looking at the exit. And by the time I flew home that night, I had six emails from some of the guys in there,

like, Pedro, where do I go from here? Right? Like, I believe that most of us who create wealth and money do it to create insulation and isolation from some kind of trauma. Gosh, that's so valid. And if you could just process through that trauma, like I did three and a half years ago, I finally worked with the therapist. I worked with the therapist.

Dude, it was affecting my my marriage, my finances, my mindset. I would build, build a business, and then I would intentionally sabotage so that my back is against the wall because that's the script I live on. You were so marked on your identity from it, right? Yeah, I always needed to have my back against the wall and come out fighting. And so I put myself in that position. Today, I'm building on top of no wonder why Anke and entrepreneur's name goes in the last three years.

Like, I think Kevin, my therapist, for helping me process through this, to get over the rage, the shame, the confusion. And as I described it to you, and he described it to me, he said, imagine if you're standing in a pool and you're holding this beach ball down. Yes.

Underwater. Yes. And it goes, that's your trauma. What an unbelievable. And at some point a fly is going to land on your nose, or you're going to have an itch or a scratch. And when you try and do that, the ball is going to pop out. Mm.

And Lord help you if you are in my way when that ball pops. Wow. He goes, what if we can just release the air out of that? Oh, I love it. And we spent 16 months processing through what happened to me. And I got to tell you that it was the most fulfilling thing to get in touch with that little boy who was me and to be able to write a letter to myself when this was what Kevin had me do, write a letter to myself. Between the ages of four and six, I was molested by two older boys, but today, dot, dot, dot.

So he gave me that first sentence. I wrote 18 pages to that little boy. I said, today you're this, and here's who you're gonna become. And then here's how your life's gonna end. Like, I wrote, I know the whole story. I know how this ends. You should see your face change when you just told me that. You should see your face change.

I'm gonna do this most right now. I'll see you on you this, because I've never really shared this on anyone's podcast. The fact that I actually wrote that, and I know how my journey ends. I'm gonna do the most right now. Yeah, I'll do this because I've never really shared this on anyone's podcast. The fact that I actually wrote that and I know how my journey ends. I'm the author. Oh, I'm not controlled by what happened to me anymore. Oh, I want that for everybody, man. That's a lot, brother.

Like, thank you. I want to acknowledge that, man. Like, you're such a big, strong physical specimens. Or for you to be that vulnerable is, that's a wow, dude. Thank you for sharing that. I really, really, really appreciate that. And I know that I know that so many people listening to this appreciate it. I had Louis Howes on my program.

He shared a story somewhat similar, different but similar, and just the floods of people that reached out to me saying, it just freed them to know that they, you giving them permission to go get help or to get a picture. It's so taboo, right? It's like, you must be broken if you're going to work with a therapist and gosh, you're a business leader. You're on this big brand called the Fitbody Bootcamp.

You don't need a therapist. No, I need a therapist most. You need a therapist most. Wow. It's like having a human pit crew who can help get your head and your heart on the same page. You're one of the, it's funny, you're one of the warmest people when you first meet you. It's one of the first things I noticed about you, even your face and just your light, right? But you were sharing with me that had I met you prior to this experience,

that was not the case, right? There's been this literally like a physical, spiritual, emotional transformation. Yeah, Yeah, absolutely. I didn't know what else to call it, so I called it my monster. And I remember this is embarrassing to say, but I'm going to be fully transparent. It's not only I know how to be. Two years into being married, kind of hope my wife did for her watches or podcasts. If we ever got for dinner, this never in this conversation. We'll go on after dinner.

Two years into being married, I got in a fight with my wife. Like most couples do, we're just arguing over something. I don't even know what. And I put my fist through the wall, and I said, don't let the monster come out because if it does, you're on to. And I said, I've got $10,000 in the bank account. That's all we have.

Take that, take this house that we just bought, which we couldn't even afford. We bought a tiny little house in Chino Hills at the time. And I go, I'm outta here. Like, that's how I coped with things because you're, everyone's my mortal enemy because what was supposed to be a right of passage for a little boy looking up to,

by the way, that's what Kevin explained to me, he goes, Knights have squires because all men look up to their fathers, their older brothers, to older boys in the community as a right of passage into manhood. And these two older boys took advantage of that and hurt you. And so this is how I was now going to repay the world through anger and rage.

Like, I will do everything for you, but the moment you crossed me, it was over. And that's not how it's supposed to be, man, because one day you're going to be late to lunch. That doesn't mean I need to like annihilate me, right? Yeah, right. There was a car accident, something happened. I learned how to be human now yeah isn't it amazing that perhaps of this whole empire you've built That it's funny how we can be used for good in the world right?

It's interesting that it may be that of all the unbelievable by the way Pedro's coach is some of the most successful people you all listen to their podcasts he coaches them and so it's interesting He's gonna be coaching me today when we stop. I'm here to get advice from him too. And it's interesting that of all the good you've done in that regard that maybe even beyond all of that, that what we're talking about right now could be the greatest good you do for people

just in sharing this piece of your story, man. I mean, it's unbelievable what you're doing. And let's try to shift to business. Sure. Because it seems secondary after that conversation. But let's talk a little bit about because it's all your service to people, right? Thank you so much for that. So in business, though, I feel like even prior to you going to therapy, though, you feel to

me like someone who's really worked on themselves. And so I think if I were betting, you had I met you even the three or four years ago before this, I still would have met one heck of a high-ire identity guy who'd worked on himself who had kind of this mark on his identity Yes, right. I don't think I don't think that you's a really good way to define it. Okay. Yes. It's what exactly Okay, that's what it seems like to me So talk a little bit about even you're you're a journey because I know guys like you, right? I have lots of friends several who grew up as immigrants, really rough backgrounds. Santa Ana for those of you that don't know, the parts of Santa Ana,

it's a wonderful place. Parts of Santa Ana are that Pedro says from, is not white-picked fences and, you know, rosy, you know, perfect families all around him. The good news is we did eventually move to Anaheim, which was a lot nicer. That is that, that is that, that is that, right? But so you had that environment you grew up in, learning the language, immigrant mentality, it's probably a stricter upbringing in your household as other people, some cultural differences to, lots of friends like, if you grow up in Southern California,

you have friends like that, right? And so I'm curious, was part of you becoming you like a ferocious dedication to personal development, self-improvement, like talk a little bit about that piece of your life and how important it has or has not been for you. Yeah, well, as we were talking about earlier in the other room, one of my personal, I was a personal trainer, right,

after high school I decided to become a personal trainer. And one of my personal training clients, his name is Jim Franco, we're still dear friends to the state. One day I asked him, I said, Jim, I'm a personal trainer and a fry cook and a bouncer at a gay bar. And the reason I was at a gay bar because they paid $4 more per hour and I needed the money. Okay. As it turns out, the reason they paid a lot more is because skinheads would come every weekend to gay bash and it was our job. Wonderful,

right? They didn't take it that before they hire you. No, no. So the good news is that by this point, I've gotten so many fights that you're equipped. I was equipped to fight, but I was starting to learn that, I don't think I want to fight anymore because Jim Franco gave me a cassette tape from Tom Hopkins. Me too, I love Tom Hopkins. And he goes, listen to this Tom Hopkins cassette tape so you can learn to sell, so you can get rid of your side jobs.

And Tom Hopkins leads to Brian Tracy, Brian Tracy to Zig Zigler, then to Dan Kennedy and Jay Abraham and Tony Robbins. Before you know it, I'm learning sales and marketing and personal development and influence. And so I was building this side of my life really well. I was doing everything I could where personal development was concerned to become a better entrepreneur. Yes.

I chose to put that, what happened to that little boy, into a box and put it far away. Yeah. And I still tell this day I still have the gift of compartmentalizing, which is probably it is another strength. It is another strength. Yeah. Yeah. It is another strength, but I use it for good. I mean, you know, someone crosses me. I don't just put him in a box and put it away. These days, I like to communicate, hey, Ed, why were you late? What can we do about it, et cetera, right? See, nice to meet you. Yeah, for the record, you weren't late. It was the hype of that.

Yeah, that was early. But anyway, all that said, I was very fortunate that Jim Franco helped me become a better entrepreneur soon. I didn't have my side jobs. And before you know it, I had five personal training gyms, and I was successful with those. And at a time, this company came through and bought out my five gyms, and it was the first time I'd sold something for six figures.

Okay. It's like holy cow, like you can build and sell a business. Like I didn't even know that. I thought businesses just being self-employed, owning a job. And so I started coaching a consulting person with trainers. Okay. And I really loved coaching and consulting trainers

because I can teach them and give them the shortcuts that I never had. And so I would hear these trainers, man, I'm making now $8,000, $9,000, $12,000, $15,000 a month on reoccurring income. Because most personal trainers sell five, 10 sessions at a time, then we've got to come and resell you. My whole thing was we're going to put you on EFT,

Electronic Fund Transfer and Build the reoccurring revenue. So before long, I've got 43,000 customers over a 10-year period. Oh my gosh. Yeah, who buy my courses, come to my workshops and live events, etc. And in 2010, 11, it came up with the idea of FitBody Bootcamp and franchised it by 2012. And so I was able to go to all these customers and say, hey, look, I've created this franchise brand.

Do you want to be a part of it? So it's everything about fitness, but all the systems are built in. And boom, it took off. Now, there was a lot of work involved, and I had to evolve into become a leader to be able to build a team around me. Yes.

And that was a work in progress. But holy smokes. How many of them are there? 612. 619. Fitbit of Cicam. It's worldwide. Yeah. Yeah. You're growing. I mean, them are there? 612. 619. Fitbite to be secure. So Camus worldwide. Yeah. Yeah. Growing. I mean all the time you tell me every other month and here you've got 20 to 40 people coming in here that you go to train. Yeah, we're adding an average of 15 to 20 locations per month.

Unreal. Yeah. I mean, unreal. And those of you that are in the fitness industry if you want to build any sort of fitness practice, this is the Mac Daddy right here. This is the guy either getting involved with the FitBody boot camp or just getting coached on how to grow your practice, right? You've been all this content, all this material. This is the guy. But let's talk about all entrepreneurs for a second. So you built this environment here, right? You're the leader here.

What's unique when I walk around here is what I would consider to be the energy level. There's a positive energy in here. There seems to be a mutual inspiration or affection that you have for them and that they have for you in creating a culture. So all of these entrepreneurs, by the way, most people that are listening to think their entrepreneurs are actually still only self-employed. True. So talk a little bit about the difference between those two things.

How do I go for being self-employed to an entrepreneur and how do you as a leader create this culture here? What are some of the principles? When someone is self-employed, you basically own a job, right? Which is great because no one's going to fire you. The problem is you're on 24 hours a day and if you really do the math, you're making way less than minimum wage. Yeah.

But now you've got the seed of building a business and becoming an entrepreneur. From an entrepreneur, you can replicate and multiply to becoming an empire builder, right? That's kind of the three phases that I look at. You're self-employed, you're an entrepreneur, and then you're an empire builder. And so people always ask just like, well, God, the culture of the morale in here is so amazing. So it makes it so magical.

A lot of it has to do with clarity of vision and clarity of path. As the leader, our job is not to just be the kind of leader that says, do it or else. That is called the have to leadership. Your employees feel like they have to do it or else the leader is gonna punish me. I wanna be a want to leader, right? What's the difference? How does that work?

The want to leader says to their team, you see the difference, I said employees, and now team. You're gonna do it, right? Everybody is your team, by the one and only leader. I just happen to be the team leader, they're my team. See employees clock in a little late, clock out a little early, do the bare minimum

to maintain employment. They're not going to take my vision and bring it to 2500 locations like I want, by a certain date. So whereas the team members, we have a unified goal and an outcome to win. So they know what our vision is. They're clear on our vision, on our path, on our deadline,

which the leader has to set. You have to be a leader that leads from the front, the servant leader. Like I told you about, well, about a quarter of our team members, go and see my therapist. Sometimes I pay for them to go see him, right? Because if they have hangups and they feel safe to come to me and say, hey, B, I've got this issue.

I don't know who else to talk to. Hey, man, can I pay it? You can go see my therapist for a few sessions. I know I can't help you, but maybe Kevin can. That's wonderful, right? And then they start paying for it themselves, because if you value it, you should pay for it. So I certainly encourage them to value themselves.

But it's clarity of vision, clarity of path, a deadline on when you want that vision to come true, build a team and set high expectations. Like, we're filming in this room, but just earlier, we were filming in another room. They had everything all set up, where we had minimum wait time and transition time. This was all done ahead of time,

where we could just make everything flow quickly. A team does that, employees would not have done that. Something would have gone wrong, and the camera, and the thing, and the flex capacitor. That doesn't happen here. Everything is predictable. And the attention to detail here is magnificent. And so culture is built as a byproduct of a leader who

leads from the front, a servant leader who says, look, I'm here for you. What can I do to help? Here's rope. You can build a ladder or you can hang yourself with it. But I'm always giving opportunities. And I want that, because no one gave me an opportunity, man.

Like I had to claw for every opportunity, whether it is in land or wherever I worked, I was always like the one like, we're not gonna put your front of the house, you're gonna be a fry cook forever. You're gonna be a bus boy and then a fry cook. You're not going in front of the house because I had an opinion, right?

And I was like, you know what, I want your opinions, I want your feedback. As this founder and CEO, doesn't mean I know all the answers. My job is to make decisions. I don't know if they're the right decisions. Give me some ideas to make decisions on. So the culture improves when I say, guys, give me feedback.

If the feedback doesn't work out, that doesn't make it bad. I make mistakes. You guys are allowed to fail in here as well. And so they go, holy shit man, he's okay with us failing. I remove the bumpers, it's like bowling. I remove the bumpers. If we fall in the gutters a little bit, that's okay. That's okay.

And that creates a culture of, they're in it. They're part of a team. They show up early. They leave late. And as a byproduct, they bleed for us and our brand. And I bleed for them and the brand that we're building. And it's a win-win all the way around. Yeah.

Your guys like Ed and Drew here, Drew and we were sitting even on the wrong side in the other studio, switched things like Ed and Drew care, like they genuinely care. I interviewed a guy a few weeks ago and I'm not even going to put the podcast up. I won't say who he was, but the reason I was going to put him out is because his whole philosophy on leadership literally said to me in the interview, don't get too close to your people. They get too close to you that they're going to take advantage of you.

He must have had some experience that told him this, right? He took a wrong meaning from an experience and I couldn't disagree with that more. I don't think you can get too close to people. I think that's wonderful to build relationships. And you've even been talking about and I do it too. You work out with these guys, right? You're on the road, you're close. They're almost, they're like family almost. Yeah, sometimes to see them more than family. Yeah, that's wonderful. That's part of your environment here. So step back a second. We don't have too much time, but I want to pull out of this brain of yours a little bit. So there's entrepreneurs.

There's really, you know, there's lots of different people that follow my content, but there's a lot of fitness people. But there's also just a lot of entrepreneurs too. There's a lot of young people too, young entrepreneurs. So if I was a young entrepreneur and I'm starting in a business, whatever, I've found my passion, I've kind of found my purpose, I want to do it. And I got to get one of these coaching calls with you or one of these mentoring environments with you. Give me a little snippet of what you calls with you or one of these mentoring environments with you.

Give me a little snippet of what you would be telling me as an entrepreneur. Hey, listen, these are a couple things that are non-negotiable. If you're going to be successful, these couple things must be present in your life or in your business. What would they be? First of all, the acid test that I put them through, I go, if the thing that you're passionate about, if I took it away, if I took away the money that you can make from it, just, I fed you, and I made sure you had a roof over your head

and your bills were paid for it. Would you do it for free? If the answer is no, then I go, this is not your passion and purpose in life. Let's go find something else. If they say yes, I would still do it for free as long as my bill isn't overhead with recovered. See, I would be a personal trainer head.

I would do this for free, man. The fact that I make money, helping people with our franchise, I'm the ultimate personal trainer because of our franchise. I get to reach millions of people every morning. Right? I would do this for free, but so I serve. And as we talked about earlier, and the fact that I can build wealth while serving,

happy benefit. And so that's the first asset test I ask people. So if they say yes, I would do this for free. This is my passion, this is my purpose. Great. Those who say, I don't know what my passion in purpose is. I mean, you know what? Don't look for it. It's not hidden. Develop it. Develop it. Okay. You my friend. You weren't good in math. You told me earlier. You weren't good in math. It's not like you had some kind of financial certificate or degree. You're gonna go play baseball. You got injured, right?

Yes. They put you into or you took a job a part-time job and you weren't even that good at it. You said in the beginning, but you stuck to it and you developed your purpose. Most people think that their purpose and passion is out there and they haven't found it like it's lost. It's not lost. It's not a thing that's lost. You have to develop it. Wonderful. I developed my purpose for personal training, for fitness, for health because I was a fat

kid and I wanted to ask Nakaya out to the prom. So I spent all of senior year working at the prom So I spent all of senior year working at school. Yes. Okay. So all of this is because of Nakaya and the prom. Nakaya is the foundation of my empire. True story. True story.

Now I lost 32 pounds this summer before senior year and I changed my life, my confidence, everything. Never mind how I looked. Everyone was like, wow, look at you, but I'm like making eye contact contact shake in hands totally different. Did you get her to the front? No, sir I did not have the confidence to ask for the problem I didn't go to the problem, but I said I want to be a personal trainer and not a smog technician My dad wanted me to be a smog technician. Yeah, yeah So that changed my entire trajectory in life

Wow, so now I took that personal training thing and I just developed it and developed it until I became the best in the world at it. Right? Everybody needs to develop their purpose. You need to go with this thing that I'm doing. When I do this for free, if someone else paid my bills, if the answer is yes, then that's your purpose. And then the other thing is, give it the 10 year run.

Give it the 10 year run. Thank you. People are so obsessed with, I need the outcome today what is the fastest I don't know the fastest way but I know the surest way because every single person overestimates what they can achieve in a year and they underestimate what they can achieve in a decade agree let's do a decade and I think Tony Robbins I heard him say that yeah I think Tony Robbins said that he did give it a freaking decade you're right and watch what happens yeah but maybe it's social media maybe it's the time we live in, but everyone wants it tomorrow.

And I can't produce that as a coach. Couple of things from that, just lessons that I took from it too. So Nakaia is the catalyst. It's interesting because that was your first pursuit. You didn't get Nakaia, but it ended up turning into something else. A lot of times what happens for people is their first pursuit, they chase it. If they don't get the first thing they're pursuing, they don't know that that was only the first part of the journey to their real greatness and they stop when they don't get the first thing, right?

Nakaia was the catalyst, but that wasn't your end destination. That was a high school prom. And someday, whatever you're chasing right now, the thing that you might have just missed is the high school prom of your life. It's a rearview mirror story. There's decades of great things that are going to happen because of this pursuit if you give it the decade. I totally give it the decade.

I support that big time, man. Like I love that. And the other piece of it that I thought was profound too, is about service, right? Like this seems to be like a current, like a recurring theme with you. Do you think your purpose is in somehow serving people, like if you're to dig out your purpose that you're going to develop, usually involve serving other people. Would you agree with that? Absolutely. And what other industry would you be willing to wake up at 4 a.m. to meet someone cranky at 5 a.m. in the gym with their morning breath, to put them through a workout and make them sweat and make

them soar, even though they don't want to be there. Only people that would do that are personal trainers and we are the most servant people on the planet yeah because we're willing to do that and so yeah I it's I believe services in my DNA shame on me for living with all that rage not dealing with it sooner but I also no one ever approached me and said I think young man something's wrong with you the court system just kept shuffling me around yeah but no one ever said I think there's something wrong with you what's going on here's a therapist even of all your mentors because you've had great mentors in your life me around. But no one ever said, I think there's something wrong with you. What's going on, here's a therapist. Even of all your mentors, because you've had great mentors in your life, they didn't see

this side of you, you could keep it sort of construed. I was good, man. I was good at camouflaging you, because I was so embarrassed by it. And you were also producing some external results, too, right? Yeah. You can be, that's the one thing we all, sometimes we deny issues we have because we're functional. You know, at least we appear to be functional. So just because certain areas of your life are flourishing doesn't mean there isn't some

mark that you need to be dealing with, right? That it could be still affecting. Absolutely. So we only have a few more minutes left. Like, this is like gold and I don't want it to stop. So I want to just go through a couple more things because I promise everybody I'll pull some things out of your brain so I want to continue to do that. I told you earlier that you're a world class communicator.

And at first when I was driving here to because I've watched your videos, I listened to you talk and I appreciate great communicators because I'd like to think I'm working on being one myself, right? And so you're a great one, but you're being very modest. Well, I like you. I hate you here in the sound of my own voice, probably. I like, well, watch this back and there'll be a million things I wish I said or did differently. But then that's always the case with me. But say it's interesting that struck me.

I'm like, well, he's in the fitness business. I wonder why that was so important. And then I started to think about it. Is there really any business where that's not critical? So talk a little bit about, I'm sure even with your FitBody Bootcamp franchisees, the ability to communicate with people to persuade, to influence people to do things for their own betterment.

How important has that been in your journey? And do you think it is for entrepreneurs? I think there's some guys think, well, I'm a tech entrepreneur, so this doesn't matter. You're still gonna have to market something or hire people or persuade them to join your firm. How important is persuasion, articulation, communication? It's a lost art these days, unfortunately, because we text so much.

I saw a study of video, the professor took two students from the same class, college students, put them back to back in the chair, without their cell phone, and they said, communicate. And it was very awkward and clunky. Hi, how are you doing? What are you doing? Okay, handed them their cell phones,

they're still back to back. And you could see their screens, and they started to communicate, Ed. So with emojis, exclamation points. So verbal communication, physical communication, the art of getting your message across and influencing others and painting the word picture so that they can be all in on your vision.

Yes. It's a lost art. Yes. Now English is a second language to me. I had to learn this language first, then I had to learn how to communicate with it second. Everything I've wanted in life, whether it's building this franchise,

networking with amazing people like you, has been an outcome of communication. I communicate through video, through podcasts, through blog posts, through Facebook lives. You name it, we communicate. And if we can't articulate well and draw the word picture for others to get on board with our message. That's what we're doing. We're drawing a word picture.

If I say, imagine if you're sitting in a room, it looks like a library, it looks very old-time library. With a beautiful oil painting, you can have an amazing dog across from you, which right across the way. There's my dog. You start. The man has an oil painting in his office. So I look, I love this picture. There's pictures of his family in here somewhere, I'm sure. But the main picture in this office

that I'm staring at is of your dog on the walk. Yeah. That's with a crown on, is it her? Is it her? Is it her or he? It the wall here. That's with a crown on, is it her? Is it her or he? It's a her. Yeah, we're staring at cookie. She's watched this entire interview. But imagine if we weren't in this room,

and I said, Ed, imagine if, and I started to draw this word picture to you, you would picture this room. And we need to get better at that level of communication to draw word pictures because when people can see it in their mind's eye, they now commit to it mentally and emotionally and are willing to buy into your vision, your agenda, whatever your thing is. So without communication, I believe that we are lost as leaders, as entrepreneurs, as teachers, as politicians.

With communication, we can lead the masses, hopefully to a better place. Well, so good, man. Like, one of the things I notice about you in your ability By the way, I love that word pictures Analogy I'm gonna steal that from you Maybe other thing that you do really well. I want people to hear this because they're experiencing it But I want you to know what you're experiencing you can't transfer energy through text or email You can transfer information. You can't transfer energy. You can't transfer word pictures

So one of the things you do in an exemplary way is you transfer energy. The way you communicate makes me feel something, right? Like strength, intensity, passion, empathy, whatever it is. Great communicators can transfer energy to people. You can't transfer to me something that which you're not already experiencing yourself. You can't give me what you don't have. The reason you're such a gifted communicator is you're experiencing these things yourself. You've already won. You've already been successful. We already feel these things. So then I know by the way, I know people will probably,

you know, leave comments and messages, but what if I don't have the gift that he has? I just want to reinforce to others that English was a second language to me, and this is a learned behavior. I should say something about that too, because I'm using the word giftedness. And so here's what I think.

I think that everybody can get to a point of being super great communicators. I also think someone like you was, you were born probably with the ability to have this and you refined it and refined it and refined it. I think all humans have the ability to give energy. Some are better at doing with the spoken word. Some are better at doing with a look. Some are better at doing with a touch. We all have the capacity to transfer energy to one another.

I just think one of yours is with the spoken word. I just think you're excellent. I think everybody can develop that skill. So I'm glad that you mentioned that too. So we're coming to the end. I don't want it to be. By the way, we're going to have Baydrous. I don't need that.

I'm having such a great time. Well, I'm learning, too, man. And having a great time. We're going to have Baydrous back on in September because he's going to have a book coming out. And I want you all to be aware of that. But before we go, like, what is on the horizon for you? So you've built this Fitbody book camp

that I know you've got a big aspirations for, but you've also got these other entities you're involved with with coaching and business. What are you focused on right now? What's your future plans for you? Yeah, so my future plans is they're very focused. And when I look at it all, it's the big blanket of service. And people ask

me, why are you writing a book about entrepreneurial leadership? Do you plan on coaching other entrepreneurs in the future? Probably not. We're building a pretty massive franchise here to 2,500 locations, and that takes a lot of horsepower. But I want to put out a book that I would have wanted a decade ago. That tells me this is exactly how it is. To be a leader, you have to be a servant leader, you have to be the the want to leader, not a half to leader, not a half to make people do this, but people want to do this for me. You have to build a team and not employees, you have to set high expectations, all these things. And so really it's the growth

of our FitBot of Bootcamp franchise because I'm so desperate into helping people who are overweight out of shape and don't know what to do in the gym. People ask people, then why do you coach and consult other gym owners who are not fit by the group of employers? I go, isn't that your competition? It's still part of your mission, though. It's part of my mission. Do you know my competition is, my competition is McDonald's, it's Starbucks, my competition

is the Snickers bar, my competition is the Cheetos, it's the bags of things that say gluten-free, and therefore people inhale those calories, they can gluten free, somehow it means fat free, carpe free, calorie free. And so my competition is the food conglomerates where I'm stuffing disease down people's throats. And not personal trainers are on their own brands or FitBody Boot Camps competing. There are more overweight and out of shape people than any coach or trainer could ever touch. And I pray for the day that people are in such great and amazing shape mentally, physically, emotionally that there'll be no need for me to coach and

consult the fitness industry. I can go on my merry way and coach and consult others in another industry. But until then, I will help anyone in this industry because this is my purpose. I love that. Rookquick before we finish, by the way. What time you get up in the morning? With my 4.30 and 5. 4.35. I want everybody to hear that because you know what's really this is all built from? Freakin' crazy hard work. Freakin' bananas hard work, right? And like there's this new world, you talked about Tom Hopkins and then Brian Tracy and Zig Zigler and Tony Robbins, right? And then I feel like today, I don't know if you

feel this way, but now the new space, there's Grant Cardone, there's myself, there's you, there's Andy Fercilla, there's Stilltoni's at it, there's Gary Vee, there's some people in this space now. Information is so accessible today, right? The things that you need to learn, it's really the separator's work ethic, at least at the end of the day for me. Don't you feel that way? That's it, it's action, take imperfect action, but holy hell, take action.

Yeah, that's what I know. We came in here, I'm like, this dude's a horse. This is a brother. This guy is a get after it, get up early, crush it, type leader. That's really at the end of the day on top of all your vision, your ability to articulate. You could have all the visions in the world, right? All the personal development in the world, all the ability to communicate in the world. But the fact is, you've just busted your ass. Have you not? Ways up and bleed for a decade and you will have whatever

you want. I love it. That's such a great place to finish, man. Where do they find you so they can get more of this gold from you? Best place to find me is on Instagram, social media, Facebook, and of course, my blog, bedroscoolion.com. Okay, find this man. I know you can feel the value. Brother, from the bottom of my heart,

thank you for opening, being so open, thank you for sharing, thanks for the gold, thanks for the personal stories, the vulnerability. Europe, this man's a big spirit. If you were in his presence just so you know, you're a big spirit, you're a force for good in the world, bro. That means a lot.

That means a lot. You are, man. And I know this is just the beginning for you. We're gonna look back on this interview someday and go, man, that was a catalyst to a great friendship for you and I. So, so grateful for you, brother. Thank you.

Thank you. Okay, everybody, max out your lives and make sure that you rank and review the podcast whenever platform you're watching the song. God