The School of Greatness - 694 How to Kick Ass in Business and Life with Bedros Keuilian

Episode Date: September 17, 2018

“INCOME WILL ALWAYS CHASE IMPACT.”- BEDROS Bedros Keuilian is founder and CEO of Fit Body Boot Camp, one of the nation’s fastest-growing franchises. Bedros is also an investor in over a dozen companies ranging from subscription software platforms, digital ad agencies as well as mastermind and coaching services. He’s a best-selling author who has helped thousands of entrepreneurs scale their businesses. In this episode, Bedros shares that he used to be so focused on business that he had become someone he no longer recognized. It took years of self-work to get back on track. It’s amazing to see the shifts that Bedros has made in his life. So get ready to learn how Bedros refocused his energy and “manned up” on Episode 694. Some Questions I Ask: Why is “Man Up” an appropriate title for right now? (6:12) What was holding you back from “manning up?” (8:51) How do we know how to lead if we don’t know what we don’t know? (17:44) How do you find the best people to work for you? (33:00) What’s the question you wish people would ask you more often? (40:08) In This Episode You Will Learn: How to curate a High-Performance Team (10:41) The difference between a mission and a vision (16:55) How the word HALT can help you manage anxiety (23:01) The three beachballs of dealing with abuse (26:30) How the “crabs in a bucket” mentality is holding you back (38:55)

This is episode number 694, How to Kick Ass in Business and Life with Bedros Koulian. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Steve Jobs said that great things in business are never done by one person. They are done by a team of people. And I would even go on and say that they were done by a great team of people,

and that it's the people you surround yourself. It's the energy they possess. It's the resourcefulness that they bring to the table, which either moves forward a vision or holds it back and makes you drag people forward. Today, we've got a powerful episode with my good friend, Bedros Koulian, who's the founder and CEO of the Fit Body Bootcamp, one of the nation's fastest growing franchises. He's also the host of the podcast, Empire. Bedros is one of the fitness industry's most trusted consultants. His fitness business products and coaching has helped personal trainers, gym owners, and bootcamp owners around the world make more money,, gym owners, and boot camp owners around the world make more money, attract more clients, and get a bigger impact on their clients.

And he's actually someone who's coached and mentored me with my mastermind. I thought about developing this mastermind a few years back because so many people were looking to hire me for one-on-one coaching. And as I was charging $5,000, $10,000, $15,000 an hour for coaching, I realized that I was missing an opportunity to serve more people at a higher level, maximize my time, and ultimately earn more for my time as well. And he helped coach me in launching greatnessmastermind.com, which is for seven-figure earners looking to make a bigger impact in the world with their message. You can check it out at greatnessmastermind.com to learn more. And in this episode, we break down about his new book, Man Up, and talk about the difference

between mission and vision. Also, his powerful story of being molested when he was young and how he was able to actually overcome it. And when he finally did start talking about it and going through therapy, how it transformed his life forever. We dive in about that. Also how to build an all-star team with a want to attitude and so much more. This is a powerful episode. Make sure to share with your friends, lewishouse.com slash six, nine, four. And I'm so excited about this one. So without further ado, let me introduce to you the one and only Bedros Koulian. Welcome everyone back to the School of Greatness podcast. We've got Bedros

in the house. My man, good to see you. Thank you for having me, Lewis. Man, it has helped me with so many things in my life I appreciate you being here the last time you're on we were talking about the power of masterminds Yes, and that blew up for people it opened up so many people's eyes on how they could really Scale their business around their expertise as opposed to doing one-on-one coaching. They could do the same coaching to many Charge more add more benefits. Greater value. Greater value. You helped me launch my mastermind, The Greatness Mastermind, which has been a game changer for not only me but everyone in it.

Everyone I see in the mastermind is constantly blowing up. You've seen a lot of these people. They blow up. Such great people, too. I had the good fortune to speak at one of them. You attract the most amazing, impact-driven people, man. Good people. Well, when you speak into purpose on your mission and your vision, you attract people that have a similar vision or mission.

But we're here talking about how you've built business in general. You've got one of the biggest and fastest-growing franchises in the world. Is that right? Yes. Yep. Currently. Called the Fit Body Boot Camp. Currently, it might be even bigger sooner, right?

Yeah, if it by the boot camp and you've been a very successful Entrepreneur in the fitness, let's say entrepreneurship space for over a decade doing a lot of different things your own masterminds to franchises to Personal coaching and training in the very very beginning and things like that and you've helped thousands of entrepreneurs at your live events and your masterminds scale and grow their businesses. Typically in the entrepreneur slash fitness, health, and wellness space, it's kind of the main niche, we would say, that you teach. But you teach a lot of business people. But you have a book out called Man Up, which make sure you guys pick it up right now, Man Up. And this is principles on business and life on how to cut the BS and kick ass in those areas.

So we've got to address the elephant in the room first. The title. The title, Man Up. Because some people may say, well, that's against what we should be saying right now. Sure. Because that's what puts people's masks on, right? That's what puts the mask on and allows us to disconnect. So why Man Up as a title? Yeah, what are your thoughts?

Very, very good question. And being a fan of your book, The Mask of Masculinity, and having read that and realizing actually all the masks that I had on. Me too. Which was probably a whole other podcast, yeah. And you and I kind of have a similar journey there. But man up really was started off as a mantra to myself. Like anytime I was afraid and reluctant to do something, I was like, hey, Bedros, it's time to man up. But truly where man up comes from is human up, human up, right? And here's where this kind of logic

to me made sense because I was a hypocrite. I was a hypocrite and I needed to constantly tell myself to man up, to human up, to my fullest potential. How were you a hypocrite? I was running the fitness industry. I'm the guy that people turn to who have gyms and boot camps and I created this, one of the world's biggest fitness franchises, right? And masterminds. Yeah, I was telling you outside when I was making videos to promote my masterminds and franchise, it was from the neck up because from all the stress, I'd gained so much fat, right? So I was a hypocrite. I'm the leader in the fitness industry where entrepreneurs are concerned, but yet I'm 38 pounds overweight. I was taking NyQuil and Vicodin to go to sleep in 2012, 2013 to fall asleep. And then I would take Adderall and pre-workout to kill the

fuzzy headedness in the morning. Yeah. Because I was a hypocrite leader. I was a ineffective leader. And I remember thinking to myself, man, this is strange. You've got a car that's dirty. I had like burrito. I'm being very honest with you. Like this is a CEO. Yeah. CEO of Fit Body Bootcamp had like Taco Bell and McDonald's wrappers and Starbucks empty cups in the back of my car in 2011, 2012, 2013. I was over fat, overweight, unhealthy, had a very adversarial relationship with my wife, to be very frank with you. And I realized, wait a minute, as humans, aren't we top of the food chain?

I think we are. As humans, we are top of the food chain? I think we are. As humans, we are top of the food chain. Yet I was living well below my potential in so many categories, in love, in impact, in money, in self-growth, self-discipline, health. And so I was like, man, it's time to human up. It's time to man up. And so every time I would need to pull the trigger on something and there was resistance and reluctance, those five words, it's time to man up. It's time to man up. And so every time I would need to pull the trigger on something and there was resistance and reluctance, those five words, it's time to man up. And then I would do it. And so to me, human up is something, it's not gender specific. It's not about, let's go get

a spear and drive it through someone's heart. It's just, let's human up. Let's grow. Let's grow. Let's grow is what it means. Stop making making excuses take control of your situation and rise to your potential What was the thing holding you back from? humaning up or growing or Being less of a hypocrite. Yeah, good question leadership. I realized that as my business grew that I didn't know how to Communicate well and lead my team. Well, in other words when you're a one man or one woman show, you're able to take your drive and determination and run the ads and create the product and be your own customer support person. Be on the phone and sell. Be on the phone and sell. But then business does so good,

you start hiring people. And maybe your first couple people, they're so tightly in your inner circle that they feed off your energy and they work, work, work. But as I had about seven, eight, nine employees all of a sudden, I realized they're not quite doing what I want. I don't think they understand what my vision is. And I realized I was unclear on my vision. I didn't know how to communicate and give them feedback and correction.

So then I got adversarial with them. It was passive aggressive with them. Then they would- Set a dam, yeah. Yeah. I mean, there was so much water under the bridge that it was easier to just to fire them or watch them quit and leave than try and work with them and correct them. So I realized

if I want this Fit Body Bootcamp brand to really grow to its fullest potential, if I say I'm the guy who's a fitness professional, I want to impact the world through health and fitness, I got to step into my leadership shoes and not just be a hypocrite and try and bark out orders, but be out of shape. Take NyQuil and Vicodin to go to sleep. Have a challenging relationship with my spouse. And, you know, always wonder where the next client's going to come from. Because truth be told, we were losing franchisees more than we were gaining in 2012, 13, and part of 2014. Wow.

Yeah. And so when did you make this shift recently from losing the weight and doing all these things? The shift really started in late 2014 when I hired Joan, my assistant. And so I always say I had employees. Now I have a high performance team and that's pillar number six in the book. Yeah. Yeah. Pillar number six is build a high-performance team. And that high-performance team in work, they help you take the money needle and the impact needle to its fullest potential. In your personal life, a high-performance team is your network of people around you who support you and root your dreams forward instead of tell you, are you sure, Lewis? Maybe you can't do it after all.

Right? instead of tell you, are you sure, Lewis? Maybe you can't do it after all, right? And so what I realized very quickly is that I had employees. And they clocked in a little late, left a little early, and did the bare minimum to maintain employment. A high-performance team is a group of individuals that are driven, believe in a vision, or are in it to win.

How do you hire a high-performance team? You don't hire them. You develop them. And I didn't know that. I was looking to hire high-performance people. And you'll find optimistic, urgency-driven, type A people who are enthusiastic versus pessimistic, right? But then you put them in an environment that's negative, and they're either going to come down to the lowest denominator and start being pessimistic and have no urgency and no attention to detail, or they're going to quit and leave. And those were one of the two things that would happen.

Man, this hired this person. He was a hotshot. I remember one guy, his name was Nick. And I tell the story about Nick in the book. He was a hotshot dude. All of a sudden, all star. Yeah. He showed up early, worked hard. Like he could almost predict what our needs were as a company. Amazing. And execute, yeah. But then Nick started to slack off, show off late, had started developing some kind of resentment towards me and me towards him. And before you know it, he put in his resignation and left. Here's proof that he was a hot shot. He moved to Hawaii, opened up his own business, and it's thriving.

And I'm one of his biggest fans right now. And we talked to this day because I had to reach out and say, you know what, I was a horrible leader. and I'm glad you left because you had a bigger purpose Wow he could have been someone big in my organization so when I hired Joan in 2014 mid 2014 as my assistant I was like oh my gosh here's someone with so much potential go-getter positive attitude can do and I realized you know what I'm the one that brings them down. Yeah.

So I need to step up into my leadership role to keep Joan. The only reason I started actually working on myself, my mindset again, my health, my communication, clarity of vision, decisiveness, was because I wanted to keep Joan and not lose her because there was some sense of stability. Now it was like two against seven. It was supposed to be one against seven. Yeah, yeah.

Now it's two against seven. I knew if I could just keep doing this, I can turn the tides. Wow. And over the next four years, that's what happened. I turned the tides and I'm going to have a team of 42, just fighter jets, no crop dusters. Wow. Yeah. So you hire for a certain potential that could be all-star.

Yes. You never know until they really show up and how they perform. But you can see the potential when you hire them. And then you train and develop. Train and develop. As long as the environment is at an all-star level, they're typically going to rise to that occasion or something hearing. Yes.

Or they're going to leave. Yeah. And I had both happen. I'd either fire them or they would come down to the lowest denominator of low energy, or they would leave. Right. So how do you start to lead yourself then? And how do you know what to look for when you think, well, everything's working out. I'm making money.

I'm growing this. I've got a lot of friends. How do you know what you should be fixing? Really good question. The way you know what you should be fixing, where you lead yourself, and that's pillar number one in the book, is simply by having clarity of vision, which is leadership pillar number two. I didn't have clarity of vision. Lewis, in 2011, 2012, if you asked me, Bedros, how many fit body locations do you want? I would say a lot. And if you said by when, I would say as soon as possible. So now- Not a clear vision.

That's not a clear vision. That's as fuzzy as it gets. And so as I got clear on my vision, I realized, gosh, I want 2,500 locations by the year 2023 so that we can impact 5 million lives a day. Wow. Those are the metrics. Because of what, 100 people a day come through or what? If each location had 500 clients and each client impacted two people in their lives, which is the metrics that we have right now, and we had 2,500 locations, that's 5 million people a day that we would be impacting through health and fitness. When the chips are down, everything all allows for, I'm a personal trainer at heart. So I still go after impact first, income second. As it turns out, if you just focus on impact, the income chases it.

Income will always chase impact. On the flip side, you're trying to make income, you'll never reach your fullest potential because you don't know what that is. And you'll feel empty a lot. I know so many people, Tim Sykes is a buddy of mine who's a good example. He was making so much money trading stocks, penny stocks, right? And he felt empty inside. He was making millions, you know, successful, all these things. But then when he got into the how can I give back with charity, how can I use my money for good?

And now he's building a whole foundation and giving back to multiple charities all around the world. He wants to do that full time. Just the impact, essentially. And I think that's when we need to really realize something. A lot of us chase something early on that we think we want. We talk about that in Masking Masculinity. I'm sure you talk about it in Man Up as well. We chase something we think we need, but what we really need to be focusing on is the impact. And the other thing, we'll chase it, like you said. Yeah. And here's the other benefit of that, too, is that if I tell my team, guys, we're going to build a $100 million company.

Go. Make me a lot of money. OK. Well, what's in it for me? The human soul needs some kind of significance. Like once it's been proven over and over again, and IBM did a study in the mid-90s, that when a person's financial needs are met to just housing and self-care, et cetera, their greater need is recognition, significance, right?

And so that's impact. And so it's easier to get a team excited behind a goal of, imagine this, when we have 2,500 locations by the year 2023, every morning we'll be helping 5 million people worldwide through health, fitness, and a positive mindset because Fit Body Bootcamp focuses on all three, right? And so they can get on board with that, like the number of people that they're impacting, whether you're a web developer, a camera guy, a traffic buyer. But hey, guys, help me make more money. How does that change anything in my life? Right. Right. And so if you want to build a high performance team, they have to get behind a mission. And that mission has to be part of your vision.

And the vision must have a deadline. Otherwise, it's just a dream. What's the difference between mission and vision? The mission is the things you do every single day to get to the vision. So the vision is 2,500 locations by the year 2023. That means every month we need to sell 34 locations, a Fit Body Bootcamp, right? So our mission every day is to get 38 EOIs and applications. The actionable steps every day is the mission.

The vision is the overall dream. Exactly. Is that what I'm hearing? Exactly. So you look at, at war every day, our military goes out and does a mission to kill or capture a bad guy. And they do these missions over and over again. And then to rebuild schools in the parts of the world

that we're at war with and to help out and serve and teach, give freedom and language. Those are all different missions that's happening through our military so that we can accomplish our big vision of creating an ally instead of an enemy. But how do we know how to lead ourselves if we don't know what we don't know?

That's where we have to do a lot of the soul searching, right? If you already think like, well, I'm doing fine. My business is good. I'm pretty good in shape. I know a lot of information. Why fix me? Why change? Why evolve?

When I already have all the answers, if that's the mentality. If you already don't know what you don't know. Well, that's a broken mindset, though. Would you agree? Absolutely you don't know. Well, that's a broken mindset, though. Would you agree? Absolutely. I mean, to me, that's a fixed mindset. Absolutely. And the growth mindset says, you know, I'm doing good.

I'm in pretty good shape. I'm making good money. But is there a mentor who can help me really raise the stakes, increase the expectations, maybe show me another potential of opportunity? And I think that's where mentors come in from. And I think that's really what you've mastered. You've mentored so many people in raising the bar, getting clear on their vision, and knowing that they have higher expectations. They should have set higher expectations.

Yeah. But if we're closed-minded, fixed-minded. It's hard to. Yeah, it's like, I'm good. So what were the things that you started to do? You said you fixed your leadership. You started developing on. Yeah.

You were filming videos from the neck up as opposed to full body shots. You were wearing baggy clothes to hide things. So was health number one first? You said, okay, I got to start stripping the weight. Or was it more of an emotional baggage you were holding on to? Or more relationship with your wife? Or just like, here's a list of everything I'm doing wrong

that I need to fix. Now let's start going at it. Like, what's the process? Good question. So with that first pillar of self-discipline, it would have been great if I had worked on the emotional stuff first. Probably the relationship second. Health third. But I went for the easiest thing.

And guess what? Most people are going to go for that. Like, go for the easy win first. Like, if life is just not working for you, you, don't go and make a million dollars. If right now you're eating out of dumpsters, forget about the million bucks. Let's just see if you can go buy a Happy Meal from McDonald's. Get an easy win. Get a small win first.

The easiest win for me, coming from fitness, being a personal trainer, was, all right, fatty, stop eating that garbage. Get into the gym and work out. Five days consistently. And when I work out, I make sure I leave it on the floor because there's working out in the gym and then there's wasting time in the gym, right? Yeah, on your phone and just jogging on a treadmill

for a little bit. Yeah, yeah. So it started with my health first just because I was the lowest hanging fruit that I could do without losing my mind. I was in a really bad place in 2011 12 part of 13. You looked like a Dark man. Yeah, it looks like a light man now. Yeah. Yeah, I've definitely evolved Yeah, and it's funny. Everybody says that right and you experience that firsthand and so then next came the

Hey, let me start working on my relationship. Let me start dating my wife again. Let me start nurturing and deepening the roots. I look at a relationship like a tree. It might look like a healthy tree, but if the soil wasn't tilled and fertilized and watered, the roots aren't deep. And the first time a little bit of breeze kicks in, this what looked like a beautiful tree. And we've seen so many beautiful relationships

from the outside fall apart quickly because the roots haven't gone deep. But that was the work I did in the gym. I'm like, OK, I'm putting the time in the gym. Why am I not putting the time? Why am I not opening the car door for my wife like I used to? I went back to dating and sending cute little text messages. All the things that I used to do that deepened the roots that now had created shallow roots

and one little stiff wind blew and it would blow all over. And so that was the second thing. Then, of course, that allowed me to address the big animal in the room, which was to work emotionally. And like you, I was molested for me between the ages of four and six in Armenia. When my father decided we're going to escape a communist country and come to the United States, he was bringing us here to freedom and opportunity. What he doesn't realize is he saved me from constant molestation. Yeah. And I was molested by two older boys consistently over time.

And that leaves a lot of scars. That creates a lot of rage and anger and distrust. To me, guys were an adversary. Might go into business with you, but you're at arm's length. And we're competing too. Yeah, yeah. And I realized that, all right, at the time I was 38 years old,

maybe that's not serving me well. And so I was actually working with a therapist to work through my anxieties. I was having anxieties in that time. In that time, in four weeks, his name is Kevin, and he's in Brea, Dr. Kevin Downing, for anyone who wants to go to him in Brea, California. Kevin Downing, he says,

"'Bedros, anxiety is anticipation of future pain." Okay, which told me what? "'I'm anticipating another fallout "'with my business partner, "'cause we're not getting along,' "'or he's saying things online about our franchise "'that's untrue, saying each location can do a million dollars. Back then, we didn't have locations that did a million dollars.

We do today. We didn't have it then. And so people would call us out, like, hey, show me the location, right? That's not the moral cloth I'm cut from. I just say what we do. And so I was anticipating future pain. So he said, just deal with the stuff that's

going to give you pain. So I had a talk with him, and I talk about that in the book. And I said, hey, we have to part ways. You can buy me out. I'll buy you out. But one of us have to leave Fit Body Boot Camp. And it turned out that I ended up buying him out. And I took over the helm of Fit Body Boot Camp. And in those four weeks, he taught me anxiety is anticipation of future pain. And these four letters, HALT, hungry, angry, lonely, tired. When you're hungry, angry, lonely, tired, you're going to have another anxiety attack. If you're an alcoholic, you're likely to go hit the bottle again. If you're a drug addict, you're likely to hit the

drugs or a sex addict, likely to go find a prostitute. So control your hungry, angry, lonely, tired. Make sure those cups are full and not empty. So in four weeks, I said, Kevin, thank you so much. I haven't had an anxiety attack for four weeks. Peace out. He goes, listen, before you leave, is there anything else, Bedros, you want to talk about? Nope. Good. Anything from childhood, Bedros? Nope.

No. Well, you know, some stuff happened, but, you know. Oh, no, I said, my dad used to beat me, but, you know, being a communist parent, that's pretty normal. I was never put on restrictions, but my dad would beat me a lot, right? But that was like all Armenian kids got beaten, all communists. I go, but compared to what happened to me before that, it's nothing. And he goes, wait, what happened to you that's worse than the beatings that your dad would give you? Dude, I fell apart and started crying.

Wow. And for the next 20 minutes, I'm looking out his window, and he's here, and I'm looking out his window. And I later found out there's a term for that, which I'll share with you. And he goes, what happened? He's trying to talk me through this. He goes, is it okay if I ask questions? And I can't even articulate. I'm just shaking my head. Yes, you can ask questions. He goes, were you beaten by someone else? No, I can't even talk. So I'm just looking out the window saying no. Were you raped? No. Were you molested? Yes. And I started crying even harder. Was it by a babysitter or something? No. Was it by boys?

Yes. And he's walking me through it. And then I finally muster up enough energy to go, but Kevin, what happened to that little boy I've dealt with? It's fine. Like, I've gone past it. He said, what happened to who? I go, what happened to that little boy I've dealt with? He goes, can you say what happened to me?

Ooh. I started crying again. Gosh. Right? He goes, Bedros, can I tell you what that is? That's called disassociation. What you've done is taken the first step towards creating a multiple personality. That's what disassociation is.

Wow. That little boy is separate from me. So we spent the next 16 months working on the rage, the shame, and the confusion. Kevin identified those three things over the 16 months that we had to work on. I was ashamed of what happened. I didn't want anybody to know because am I gay? Is this why that I invite this? I don't think I'm gay. And then he would ask me questions like, well, do you look at gay porn sites? No, Kevin, I don't. Bedros, you're not gay. That happened because little boys look up to older boys as a rite of passage, and those

older boys took advantage of you. Now, that sounds like common sense, but my simple mind didn't understand that. It was just, what happened to me? Why did I encourage it? Is it because I'm gay? Right? And so it was the shame of, I don't want anyone to know. It was the rage of, how did this happen to me?

Like, I can't believe this. Like, this will never happen to me again. I'm going to be big and strong and powerful. If you ever read the book, The Body Keeps the Score, great book. Talks about guys who have been raped and molested, whatever, going to hardcore competitions, start using steroids. I use steroids to get big and strong. Money is power, right? And so, yeah, I all wrapped it up with like, I just want to be big and strong. And I want to be powerful and wealth. But truly, it was isolation and insulation. Yeah, protection. So it was shame, rage, and confusion.

And the confusion was, you know, did I do something to make this happen? Like, is this something that I said to these boys? And I tried to go back to think of them in that time. But I don't remember. And so now I'm confused. And so maybe I actually initiated it. I didn't. And he helped.

And the way he described it, he says, you got three beach balls, shame, rage, and confusion. And you're in the pool, and you're holding one of those down. Sooner or later, you're going to have an itch, and it's going to pop out. And when it does, that's your anger. Ah, right? And that would blow up. And so we dealt with that for 16 months. And that was the

first time I was able to talk about it. And it's just a blip on my timeline. It doesn't define me. It's just a blip on my timeline. Right. When was the 16 months up? Almost two years ago. Yeah. When did we talk? Was it about a year and a half ago? About a year and a half ago. Yeah. Maybe two years ago almost. Yeah. Right around there. So that the time, I probably just finished working with Kevin. And I still like connect with him like once a month. I'll go see him. But it was weekly.

Every Monday, 6 p.m. And the reason I chose Mondays was because those were my hardest days at work. I was so exhausted. I figured. That's when HALT was in. Yes. I'm most likely to HALT, right? So why not go see your therapist when you're most likely to HALT?

Wow, that's amazing. And what has happened over the last year and a half since you started essentially leading yourself and fixing the leaks, like you talk about in your book? What's happened in the last year and a half since dealing with the most important thing, which is, I think, the emotional side of our own personal life? Yeah. Well, my business has grown by 10x, literally 10x. In two years? In two years. You came to our corporate office. You saw that when you came, we had just purchased that probably six months earlier. I bought a big

16,000 square foot office with our own filming studio and everything. We were renting a small little place because we couldn't afford anything better. Our sales have gone through the roof. Our revenue has gone through the roof. We've raised our prices and keep raising our prices. And it's all because it's a better product, not because I have the confidence to raise my prices or my marketing evolved in any way. Everything was the same. I just improved the product. I felt more confident and authentic.

You know when you're hiding a secret and you don't want anyone else to know? Well, when you're marketing, speaking from stage, coaching people, leading new franchisees into signing a lease and opening up their doors, but you're hiding a secret. You feel inauthentic like an imposter. It's that bag of bricks that I was carrying with me that I could finally put down because Kevin helped me put that down. And then part of it was, again, there was a shame, rage,

and confusion. So there was some level of self-sabotage. I'm convinced of that. I was also self-sabotaging. So now convinced of that. I was also self-sabotaging. So now the growth has happened in business. The growth has happened in my personal life with my wife and my kids. My kids now run to me. You have two kids? Two kids, Andrew and Chloe. And when I come in through the back door, they run to me.

Before, dude, it was crazy. They would see who opened the back door. Hey, Dad. And then that was it. No way. They were scared of you, probably. Yeah. Yeah, they were walking on eggshells because I had a grimace on my face, right?

I just carried this heavy weight. Yeah. I can't tell you how much the personal work, the self-discipline work from the mindset to the deep down, diving deep in your soul and fixing yourself. And by the way, no one leaves this planet unscathed. No one comes in unscathed. The stats are something like one out of four people have been molested or raped. One out of three have had some kind of trauma. It doesn't matter what the trauma is, like beatings, molestation, rape. Something, emotional abuse,

verbal abuse, something. You got to deal with that stuff. If you don't, you're looking at life through those twisted filters and everybody's enemy, and everyone's a suspect. And the fight or flight portion of your brain is just on fire. You know, the challenging thing is, you know, we've talked about this a bunch from just what's happened in the world over the last year, right? All the different trauma that's happening from men causing the sexual violence, the domestic violence, the killings, the racial violence, everything that's happening, a lot of this is stemming from men who feel caged in their emotions. And when we feel like our emotions are free, then we become very powerful men in a different type of way. Not a harmful way, but a loving way where people run to you like your kids as opposed to hiding from

you or afraid of you. And I think that's what we get to do as all humans, but especially as men who feel like we're not able to express our emotions or talk about those things. You're a great example of this. I feel like I'm a decent example of this as well of like, okay, when we open up about these things, it doesn't have to be to the world. You don't have to come on a podcast and talk about this, but when we deal with it, and we can have open conversations with our spouses or our boyfriend and girlfriends or whoever it may be, and it not have control over us and it not consume our thoughts, that's when we can really lead and have a powerful vision and lead forward in our life. Whether you're looking to build a business or just looking to live a great life,

you can have a clear vision then as opposed to constantly in anxiety like you talked about. And you can't build a great business without a clear vision and a clear path. And you can't have a clear vision when you're living in anxiety all the time. Exactly. It is unfocused and foggy at best. That's it. Unfocused and foggy at best. So you have these three parts. First, leading yourself. essentially dealing with all the types of weights that you've been carrying your whole life. Otherwise, you're a hypocrite leader. If you're going to tell people, I want you to do X, but you're not doing X, right? I want you to be disciplined and show up on time, but you're not showing up on time. I want you to think fast, be a problem solver, but you're not a problem solver because you're foggy, you're slow. In my

case, you're on Vicodin and NyQuil, right? How can I expect that of them? And so there was a gentleman, I forget his name right now. I'll think of his name as we talk. He talks about you could either be a want-to leader or a have-to leader. And the difference is a want-to leader is a leader who leads from the front because he's done the work first. And his team says, I want to do this for him. I don't want to let him down, so I want to do this for him. A have-to leader is, uh-oh, I have to do this,

otherwise he's going to chastise me. I used to be the have-to leader where if you didn't do it, I'm chastising you, firing you, or you're pretty much dead to me where I'm just icing you out. In my own office, man, it was a small office. I was icing people out. And part of it was a poor communication. Part of it was I had this chip on my shoulder.

There's a conglomer Part of it was I had this chip on my shoulder. Right? I mean, there's a conglomerate of things that caused that. But it all starts with the self. And I've become a, and I love this, and I love saying this around my guys here, because they'd rather get written up and I not find out. They'd rather the two VPs, one of the VPs write them up and I not find out, just for some goofball mistake they made, rather than get written up and me find out. Because they don't want to let me down.

Wow. Does that make sense? Yeah. Or me find out, but not get written up. Sure. They don't want to let me down. I've had so many team members say that. So how do you build your team?

How do you find people and, I guess, facilitate an energy so that they want to be, what is it called, a want-to? A want-to leader instead of a have-to or a want-to team member. Want-to team member. How do you train that or create that? Inspire it, let's say. Yeah, yeah. So really, it starts off with you got to have high morale because everyone's like, how do I build great culture in my business?

They come to our place. How do I build this culture? Don't worry about culture right now. Where's the morale? Is there any great morale? What do you guys do for fun? For fun, well, I don't know, a couple people take lunches together, and they walk around outside.

I'll randomly call up a lunch truck, and hey, guys, a lunch truck has pulled up. We're all going to have lunch together in the learning center downstairs, where I got this goofy little game we play. I don't even know how I started it. I'll just gather all 40-some-odd people together, and I'll whistle a little piece of a song. I happen to be an expert whistler. First person to name the song and the title wins this $10 gift card to Starbucks.

Nothing big, but for a moment everyone's like, oh, oh that song, they'll name the title, but not the song, not the artist, and da da da, and someone knows it and then we just had a moment of fun together. Connection, yeah. Yeah, right? I'll have barbecues at my house and we have

an epic Christmas party and it's the morale. When the morale is good, culture is organically developed. I don't know how to build culture. I know how to keep morale high. And I know that if there's one person who's got low morale, if I don't part ways with him or have him step up to his better potential and improve his morale, then everyone goes, oh-oh, B now accepts a lower, he tolerates lower expectation. Let's all bring it down. Does that make sense? One person can bring a whole thing down. And I was that guy where it's like, oh, he's not causing that many problems. He'll snap out of it. We address everything very quickly these days.

So how do you get the morale of one person to get higher if they're not willing to go to that level? I'll give you an example. I pulled one guy in. We'll just call him Joe. Hey, Joe, can I take you out for coffee? And this is something else I learned. Before, it was sit across from me at my desk. Well, all of a sudden, I'm in the power position, and you're like, am I getting chastised? Hey, Joe, can I take you out for coffee? We went out for coffee to the local Starbucks. I've been out for coffee with both of these guys here, actually, in fact, just for fun. It's not always like, hey, let's talk about your morale. Just to talk about life, right? But that's what I love. I create an environment now where they feel like, hey,

B, can we go talk about my life's journey? Can you give me some guidance? Like, wow, you want that from me? That means you trust me so much, right? But in Joe's particular case, hey, Joe, let's go get coffee. We went to Starbucks, and I said, hey, look, I can tell your energy's off. I can tell you're kind of just schlepping around here at the HQ and you're doing the bare minimum to maintain employment I just want to know you don't have to tell me if anything's going on in your life if you don't want to but is there anything I could do to help you step into the Joe that we knew because you'll see people do this and

their work energy yeah over time and he was very honest with me he was like man I do have some problems at home but I don't want to talk to you about it. But those problems are not going to end anytime soon. I just kind of made my assumptions of what it could be. He never did tell me. And he says, but I'm going to try and step it up. I said, Joe, I really need you to step it up because if you don't, we're going to have to part ways. But if there's anything that you want to talk to me about, and if you want to bounce things off me, let me know. Deal? Great. Took our coffees, went back to HQ. He thought about it overnight. Apparently, the next morning, he went to one of our VPs and said, you know what? Actually, I don't know. He just didn't have the horsepower then to step it

up. Says I quit. But I want that. Our job as leaders is to have a very definitive outcome. I need you to go this way or that way. but you can't ride the fence of mediocrity. Because then he could be doing that for six months, driving you nuts, keeping you resentful or some weird tension. Absolutely. Now I'm snapping at him or all of a sudden, again, people around him, well, if B accepts that from him, I can lower the bar.

Why am I working so hard, right? Yeah, yeah. Wow, powerful. Well, the book is out right now. You guys can get it. It's Man Up, which is really human up. How to Cut the BS and Kick Ass in Business and Life. Three powerful sections about leading yourself and optimizing yourself first if you want to be a better leader or better teammate. Then getting clear on your vision and path. And building an all-star team

and how to really manage building an all-star team and how to really manage building an all-star team and elevate the team. Powerful stuff, man. Is there any final thoughts you want to share about this or anything else? One little story I'd like to share with you where you said all-star team. And so often we talk about an all-star team relating to our business. But in the book, I talk about you have your inside team and your outside team. Your inside team are the team members who help you build your business team your inside team are the team members who help You build your business your outside team are friends and spouse and family right aunts uncles mom and dad brother sister And it's that outside team that has a lot of influence on the outcome of your business and of your life

And I'll give you a great example I in 2005 My wife and I had just gotten married. We were made for two years Thank God her grandparents bought us tickets to an Alaskan cruise. The whole family was going on a cruise. They're like, hey, you guys are newlyweds. Come with us. We'll buy the tickets. We couldn't afford it.

We had just barely bought a small little house in Chino Hills. And we're in Kitchikan, Alaska. We're walking along the rocks and we see this gentleman casting a net and pulling in some crabs and then putting them in like a five gallon, will look like a paint bucket, right? With the lid off. There was this much water in it, five or six little crabs. And I was just fascinated because I've never gone crab fishing. So I just kept watching. And as I'm watching him, I see one of these crabs crawling on top of all the other crabs. And then he starts kind of reaching for the rim of the bucket. And Lewis, he starts hoisting himself up and just trying to be a good Samaritan. I said, sir,

your crab's about to make a run for it. You ought to consider putting that lid on top. He didn't even turn around to talk. He just, to look at me, he goes, watch what happens next. And he just kept casting his net. As this little ambitious crab went to lift himself up, all the other crabs at the bottom of the bucket reached up, grabbed it by its hind legs, and pulled it right down. And he said, crabs are self-policing. Now, in this moment, I'm hitting my wife. I'm like, Di, did you see that?

Did you see that? I've got crabs in my life. I'm trying to escape and build a better life, a better business. I have greater vision, more hope and dreams. And I got friends and family around me who are just pulling me down and giving me doubt and fear and don't believe in me. And I realized very quickly your outside team determines your big outcome. And my outside team always instilled fear and doubt, not because they didn't want the best for me. In fact, they wanted me to play it safe. They wanted me to not take risks. They wanted me to not get hurt. But part of being an entrepreneur, part of being a change maker is you have to develop thick skin. You do have to take your licks. You do have to fall and

get back up. And so I very quickly started to eliminate the toxic people around me, the negative people around me. And where friends and close family were concerned, I edited my relationship, another skill I learned from Kevin, which means I don't share my dreams with them. I just keep the topic superficial and thereby not allowing them to transfer their negative feelings on me. But, man, I got to tell you, if people can cut out the negative crabs out of their life,

that one thing would make such an impact in their performance. That's true. It's all about your inner circle. Is there any question you wish people would ask you more about? I think people should ask me less about how to build a social media following. One, I don't have the biggest social media following, right? But because it's growing quickly right now, I think they need to ask me how to build income and impact. Those two things are

tied together because I see so many people so focused on building social media followings. Why don't people obsess over that so much, you think? They want approval. They want recognition. They want validation from others. It's somehow, if I have a bigger social media following, I'll have recognition. Ironically, a gal, I won't mention her name, sent me an Instagram DM. She says, I have 1.3 million followers. I'm broke probably. I've got $1,000 in my bank account, Bedros. What do I do?

Right? She's an influencer. And she spent so much time trying to get likes and comments, et cetera. Nothing wrong with that. But turn it into money and turn the money into meaning. And so I wish more people would ask me about money and meaning or income and impact versus how do I build a following and a brand. That stuff comes later. Like make money so you can have meaning.

Because in life, and we talked about this offline before the cameras went on, we're like that Australian shepherd. If the shepherd has no animals to herd, it gets depressed, it starts getting anxiety, and it starts, in the absence of herding anything, it starts digging holes everywhere. It gets antsy. We as humans, if we don't have purpose, and if we're not serving,

we begin to dig holes in our life and cause problems that weren't there, have anxiety and depression that shouldn't be there. And if you can make money, if you can focus on making money and then having some significance and meaning with that money, you've now developed service and purpose. And it turns out that's kind of coded into our DNA and we need that. We're always looking for meaning. Yes. And we don't have meaning. It's like, what's the point of being here? That's the point. We get very depressed.

We get anxious, all those things and do a lot of bad things. Yeah. I think that's what happens with a lot of young kids. For me as a young kid, when I felt like I didn't have meaning in school, I was like, what am I doing? Why am I even here? And some kids will go down the wrong path and then they find that coach or mentor that's like, let me shape you and mold you.

Let's give you a challenge. Let's give you a project. Let's give you a sport, an instrument and start mastering something. Then they find that meaning. And then when they lose the identity because they get injured from a sport, then they have to find that meaning. And then when they lose the identity because they get injured from a sport, then they have to find new meaning.

Talking about my life. Right. Anyways, a whole other interview there. A couple of final questions for you. Make sure you guys get the book, Man Up. It's out right now. You can get it at bookstores, Amazon. If you go to, what's your website?

Bedroskulian.com or manup.com. Manup.com. Ooh, that's a good name right there. Follow Bedros on Instagram is where you're probably at the most right now. Yeah. Is it at Bedros or is it Bedroskulian? At Bedroskulian. Gotcha.

I asked you this last time, but I'll ask you the three truths question again to see if it changes. Sure. If there were three things you would share with the world and this is all they would have to remember you by, what would be your three truths or three lessons that you would share? Oh, man. Oh, man. I'm sure they've changed because I've changed as an individual. Number one, well, we kind of talked about it here. Number one, chase the purpose and service. Chase the purpose and service. The money and everything else will come as a byproduct and you'll have a happier life. Number two, leave a legacy. Leave a legacy behind. Like, this isn't something I talk about publicly much, but every year we donate to Shriners Children's Hospitals.

By the way, Justin Timberlake is the number one donator to Shriners. Wow. And my whole life's purpose where Shriners is concerned is to die having out-donated Justin Timberlake. Wow. So we've donated. We've got awards upon awards. So you just keep donating money and they keep sending you awards

So we have 97 kids adopted through compassion international. We've got quarter million dollars donated every year to toys for tots right the Marine Corps toys for tots and leave a legacy like if you don't have kids of your own find kids because This isn't me being pessimistic as me being me being a realist. Some adults are hard to mold and change, but you can take young generation and mold them, change them, influence them. And for me, it's legacy. So we got purpose and service, leave a legacy behind. And then of course, always be authentic. And I share that with my kids, Andrew and Chloe, like be authentic,

be you. Don't try and conform. Right. Because it's so difficult. That's a moving target. But I know how to be me really well. That's good. Yeah. Well, those are great truths.

And I acknowledge you for showing up more like you in the last two years than ever before. I knew you before. I think I've known you for about six or seven years. And it's incredible to see the shifts that you've made in yourself even while you're at the let's say top financially you're growing a business you decided to dive in and work on the emotional side of things and relationships and the health and that's what really matters the most in my mind the business is going to be great and it's going to grow and you're gonna make tons of money but the end of the day that doesn't matter unless you're

working on you and your relationships and the people that matter the most. So thank you for being the example. And I acknowledge you for all the work you're doing. Man up. Make sure you guys get a copy. Support our friend Bedros. Get a couple copies for your friends as well. Final question. What's your definition of greatness? Oh man. Oh man. My definition of greatness would be to go to my deathbed and realize that I haven't peaked yet. Here's why. I'll tell you a quick story if I can. Tony Soprano in The Sopranos, there's a scene where he says, remember when is the lowest form of conversations that any two people can have. Hey, remember when I made that touchdown? Remember when I could bench X amount of pounds?

Remember when I had a million dollar company? Right, I never want to peak. So my mentality over the last five years has been, never peak, the best is yet to come. So my definition of greatness is, can I keep evolving and recreating myself and becoming the best version of myself, but never peak until the day I die?

Like I want to take my last breath and go, this was the peak and go. Wow, that's greatness to me. Bedros Kulian. Thanks for that. Thank you, man. It was great. There you have it, my friends. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, share it with your friends, tag me and at Bedros over on Instagram. Let us know what you enjoyed the most about this. Let Bedress know what you enjoyed as well.

lewishouse.com slash 694. Put that link on your Instagram stories, over on Twitter, on Facebook. Share it with your friends and tag me because I try to connect with as many people on social media as possible throughout the day. As Albert Einstein once said, try not to become a man of success,

rather become a man of value and become a human of value. When we add more value to other people around us, we start to generate accomplishments. We start to generate success and results in our life. The money will come when you lead with value. I hope you guys enjoyed this one. Thank you so very much. And you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. សូវាប់ពីបានប់ពីបានប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពីប់ពី