Adversity to Leadership | How Bedros Keuilian Built Determination

26:31Yeah. It's interesting because you said, do you remember when, like, did it ever stop? I mean, it's still there. It's still happening. And, you know, but, but again, you know what? That's, that's the world we're living in, right, man? And we don't have to subscribe to that. We can be original and we can do our own thing. And that's the thing that I really love about, you know, knowing you for these years and seeing you on socials. You're always going off of what you believe. You know, you're not ever piggybacking off of anybody. I do my best not to do that either. I won't copy content or strategies from, you know, the massive shows.

27:04We don't run the same play. But yet I see everybody, everybody. Again, a lot of people. You speak in absolutes. Yeah, I know. Isn't that bad shit? And then you go back. Then I go back. And then you correct yourself. See, that's, you know, awareness. Awareness, right? You know, they're doing the same slide posts in the same format as another popular podcast. Like, look, guys, it's not the format. It's what that person built. It doesn't matter. They could put out an emoji with a turd on it and their picture on it with whatever writing they want. It would still run. You see my point? It's different, man.

27:41But, you know, the leadership qualities that you gained as a young child, coming over from Armenia with your parents and contributing to the household, man, you've built some amazing things. $200 million empire, 800 locations, fastest growing fitness franchise in America, Fit Body Boot Camp, shout out to that, right? Yep. But at 38. Yeah. You had everything, right? You're successful, you're crushing it. But at 38, you had what you thought was going to be a heart attack. And it wasn't. It was the first of very many anxiety attacks. Take me back to that 38-year-old man on the floor in that room.

28:22Yeah, yeah. So I'll set the scene for your audience. And in my book, Man Up, the title of that chapter is called The Morning of My Heart Attack. And it's because in that moment, I really thought I was having a heart attack. So Sunday night. So I told you, I'm down the driveway. It's a, what do they call it? A detached building. It's a six-car garage above the six-car garage. Yeah, we get it, dude. Your house is freaking big. It is very big. Love it. It's beautiful. It's luscious. Yeah. It's like this amazing resort. And I work my nuts off. And so I will brag about it. You deserve it. You deserve it.

28:54Absolutely. But this guest house up top. And in the bedroom of the guest house, my son and I have all of our musical instruments. And I grew up playing the drums. and so Sunday night I was playing the drums and I went across the pool deck and I took my shoes off in the guest house and I played the drums barefoot. When I went back into the main house later that night I left my shoes up there. It's important to tell you this because Monday morning it's go time. Can't find your shoes. Got to build that empire. Can't find your shoes. Where are my shoes? Oh my God they're upstairs. So I go across the pool deck ready to go to work in my socks.

29:31Go across the the pool deck, bend over, grab my shoes, and as I, before I even come up, I literally dropped my knees, and I'm hyperventilating, and I hear the thug-lug, thug-lug, thug-lug, thug-lug, thug-lug in my ears as though my heart is beating really fast, and then my throat gets tight, and I'm sweating, and then both arms are tingling, and I remember from like a first aid class that I took in 19-fucking-32, that you, one of your arms tingle when you're having a heart attack, right? Yeah, yeah, I think. So I'm like, this must be a really fucking and big heart attack because both are tingling, right?

30:03You're an overachiever. And in that moment, bro, I'm thinking like, this is so sad. I'm going to die. My family's going to find me here in the guest house in the evening because they're going to be like, dad never came back from work. Turns out he never left. He died in the guest house. And I remember feeling sad because, not because I was what I thought I was dying. I remember feeling sad. Who's going to walk Chloe down the aisle? She was a tiny little puppy then when I was 38. I'm 51 now. And who's going to teach Andrew to be a modern day knight, right? Like, that's my responsibility. and I failed my family.

30:33And so in that moment, I'm like, well, I can't die in the guest house. Like they can't find me all fat and bloated and that'll be traumatic for my family. So I was like, I'm gonna go down the staircase and maybe I'll die on the pool deck and they'll see me in the next hour or so. Like that's the weird shit that runs through my head. As I was, I don't know if it was the fresh air or the movement, but I somehow managed to go down the staircase and all of a sudden all those symptoms slowly went away. I'm like, well, I think I just dodged a heart attack. Wow. And so I went to work because like literally at this point we're in debt.

31:04We've maxed out credit cards, took a home equity line of credit. Right. All of it. And so it's not like I'm the version of myself now financially. What do they call it? Asset rich, cash poor. I was asset rich, very cash poor. And so went to the doctor the next day and the doctor's like, well, did we check you? No heart attack. Your heart's fine. How's your stress levels? I'm like, horrible. Right. Horrible. I'm taking Adderall in the morning. I'm taking Vicodin at night to fall asleep. I just let it rip. I'm a very honest and direct person in that way. And he goes, well, you're gonna have more of these unless you can do something about it.

31:38So he puts me on Xanax, right? Four or five days on Xanax. And turns out, after having that big anxiety attack, I realized I was having like micro panic attacks, months building up to this. I just thought, it's just pressure, it's just pressure. Again, the whole reframing thing, right? Like a couple of Advils are good for your headache. A whole handful of Advil, you're gonna burn a hole in your stomach. Exactly. So I could reframe the hell out of anything. But at some point, you can't reframe to the point of denial. And so I would reframe and be like, oh, I just feel the pressure. That's all this is, this is just work pressure.

32:11Bro, I was having micro anxiety attacks and didn't even realize it until the macro anxiety attack hit. And so in that moment I realized, oh shit, I've been having these for a while. This was just a big one. So he puts me on Xanax, four or five days. And I felt no stress, no anxiety after that. But in those four or five days, I felt no desire, no urgency, no agency to get up and work, to produce, to be creative. So I'm like, hey doc, this isn't working. What other medication do you have for me, right? And he goes, they're all gonna make you some sort of the same way. They're gonna make you feel dull, right?

32:42He goes, have you tried talk therapy? I'm like, talk therapy? He goes, yeah, a good psychologist can give you tools to work on your anxiety. I'm like, that's for broken people, man. He goes, you should actually try it. So fine, I found a therapist, Kevin Vanning. Yeah, yeah. And so what I thought was gonna be four weeks of working with Kevin, because he goes, hey, it'll be four weeks, I'll give you all these tools to deal with your anxiety. Something your audience should know, HALT, hungry, angry, lonely, tired. When you are feeling HALT, hungry, angry, lonely, tired, the alcoholic will go back to alcohol or has a higher chance of going back to alcohol.

33:15The drug addict will go back to drugs. The workaholic will go back to an anxiety attack. So just address your HALT, right? And the other thing he taught me was, action alleviates anxiety. so you're feeling a little tension and anxious about something, it's probably something, a conversation you need to have, a thing you need to do that you're not doing, you're kicking the can down the road, and action will alleviate that, right? And then he taught me that anxiety is anticipation of future pain. And so if you know there's this bill you've got to pay and you're like, oh, I'm not going to pay it right now, I'd rather spend money on whatever, you know the bill collectors are going to contact you.

33:50You're going to be anxious about that, right? It's inevitable. And so action will alleviate that. And so he taught me those three lessons. Majority of my anxiety went away. On the fourth session of my time with Kevin, he's like, I'm signing the credit card slip. And he goes, is there anything else you want to talk about? Maybe your childhood, your parents, everyone's parents fucked them up in some way. Absolutely. And I'm like, oh, Kevin, mom and dad were former communists, but we came to this country, they were really heavy handed, you know, very physically abusive. I didn't even know what physical abuse was.

34:26I would, true story, when one of the Section 8 housings we lived in, in Anaheim, so this is when we moved from Santa Ana, which is right here, to Anaheim, a nicer Section 8 housing complex. I had a friend, my first American friend named Scott. American, I say, I should say my first white friend. Most of my friends in Santa Ana were Mexican. My first white friend, Scott. And one day I knock on Scott's door. Hey, Scott, can you come out and play? He's like, no, man, I'm on restriction. The fuck is restriction, right? At this point, I'm like 10, 11 years old. I'm like, what's restriction? He goes, I got in trouble.

34:59I can't watch TV and I can't come out and play with you guys for two weeks. I'm like, oh my God, that's horrible. That's horrible. And then innocently, I was like, like, what happened? He goes, ah, whatever it was. He left the stove on. I know it had to do with the stove or the burner. And he almost burned the apartment down. Yeah. I'm like, can your mom or your dad like slap you a couple of times? He goes, that's called abuse. Like, oh shit. I'd rather get slapped around for something and then go out and play, than deal with your consequences of two weeks of sitting in solitary confinement, man.

35:31Right? And so that was my first, like, wow, these Americans live very differently. They really punish their kids. You know, so I'm telling Kevin this. He goes, wait a minute, physical abuse was not punishment to you? I'm like, nah. I got to go out and play all my friends. Only problem was, when you're on restrictions, that means I can't play with your toys. and being a foreigner and broke, I got no toys. So if you guys are on restriction, I'm fucked. I got to play with dirt until you bring out your GI Joes, you bring out your He-Man and you bring out your skateboard. And so anyways, all that to say, I'm like Kevin, the physical beatings I got from my dad were nothing compared to what happened to me as a kid.

36:07In those four weeks, he built such rapport with me that for the first time ever in my life, I dropped a hint that there was some other abuse that took place that was even worse and the beatings my dad would give me. My dad's beatings were so severe that my mom would sometimes throw herself in there. Yeah, watch a UFC fight. Yeah. And fucking the ref, like, John McCarthy would jump. Yeah, big John McCarthy jumps in between because motherfuckers gone senile. He's just beating the fuck out of the guy and the guy can't even defend himself anymore, right? Yeah. Like, my mom was John McCarthy before John McCarthy was a thing, right?

36:40Yeah. Because my dad would fucking lose it. Lose it. And so she would get in between us and fucking pull him off. and I'd run to the bathroom, fucking lock the door, and like, okay, calm your shut down. You got this. It's happening. He's gonna fall asleep and you're gonna sneak out. You know, everything's gonna be good. But I share this with you because I'm telling this to Kevin. He goes, wait, what happened to you as a kid that was worse than those beatings? I just started bawling and crying, man. And this started 15 months of weekly therapy about the sexual abuse that I had faced and experienced as a young boy in Armenia.

37:11Between the ages of four and six, I was by two older boys, repeatedly. in like a carport and That that I'd never talked about that and I had carried the weight of that Did you had it locked away in a chamber in your mind for 30 plus years to yeah? No one that's heavy as shit no one and I realize now it was the equivalent of if I put Well, he's really buff all of you are really buff in this room if I gave you guys a big burlap bag of fucking cinder blocks To hold over your shoulder now. Let's all go outside and we're gonna sprint I'm not gonna hold a bag of cinder blocks. Just you four are. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna win the fucking race.

37:50Cause that bag of cinder blocks is gonna be pretty heavy. You down baby. I've been trying to live life with the weight of that. The shame, the guilt, the confusion, the anger. And so fucking Kevin lied to me. He said in four weeks he'd help me with my anxiety. 15 months. 15 months later he took a lot of my money and helped and truly healed me. And that's why I'm so grateful for him. and to this date now, I've sent 81 different men to him. 81. 81 different men, guys who went through the project, guys who just reach out to me because they'll hear podcasts like this, like, hey, I follow you and I listen to the podcast with Sean French.

38:25What was the name of your therapist? Do you think he's, sure, man, let me make a connection, right? That's cool, man. Yeah, so, and then when you heal from that kind of stuff, you realize the shame, the rage, the confusion, the guilt, all that goes away. The guilt was simply like, did I do something to invite those older boys to take advantage of me, to do this to me? Like, am I fucked up? Your little brain can't process that, your child brain, right? Yeah. And so you're like, maybe I did something to invite that. Maybe I'm gross. Maybe I deserve it. Yeah. Yeah. Dude, no one can find out who's going to want to marry me, right?

38:57Who's going to want to date me? Who's going to want me to be around their kids? Like, oh my God, I had a pact with myself because I had heard as a young adult that kids who have been boys who have been or or any kind of sexual abuse. But I share this with you, man, because I had a pact with myself that if I'd heard that boys or men that have been sexually abused can become sexual predators. And my pact was, I was afraid to have kids. I had a pact with myself. And so I'm telling this to Kevin. He's like, you've lived your whole fucking adult life this way? I go, yep, yep. He goes, wow, that's a hard way to live, huh?

39:36Yeah. He goes, did you ever have any desire to do that? I'm like, nope. You know, more of a helicopter dad and protector and would rather like my kids, friends come and stay with us because I don't trust their parents. And right, I go again, the pendulum swung the other way. Right? He goes, yeah, that's such a harsh way to live. Don't you think? Will all that pressure on yourself? I was like, yeah. He goes, if you spend some time together, we can work through this like we worked through anxiety. But because he had proven to me that he can help me process through my anxiety, I believed that he could help me process through this.

40:09It didn't take four weeks. It took 15 months, a lot of fucking painful work and layers and layers and layers of old shit and belief systems and stories and identity being peeled off. And then one day at a Joe Polish event, it was like two years after working with him, Joe Polish was running a Genius Network event. I was in his mastermind. By the way, one of the greatest connectors of all time, Joe Polish. He can connect you to anyone on the planet. So I was in his mastermind after about three years being in his mastermind. He's like dude I'd like you to speak on leadership like how you grew fit body boot camp and your leadership team because you tell me You don't really do much at the corporate office In terms of the day-to-day work.

40:46I'm more of a visionary right and so Tony Robbins was up so like Joe was opening it up It's his event and then Tony Robbins and then I was like the second speaker and this is I Don't know nine years ago ten years ago and I didn't have as many speaking gigs under my belt as I do today so I'm getting mic'd up in the AV table in the back of the conference room like 300 high-level entrepreneurs and Tony Robbins is on stage with his big giant mitten hands like you know slapping his hands and talking about like what was the thing that he was saying I was getting all hyped up and the AV guy's like hey fucking stand still so I can mic you up uh he was saying oh um don't be built for the summer be built for the winter, right?

41:31He was ending his talk because I was about to go up. He's like, so basically the lesson of my talk is don't be built for the summer. Anyone can thrive in the summer and spring. Be built for the winter. I was like, yeah, fucking Tony Robbins, right? I'm just, because I'm a big fan, man. Of course, yeah. And so, and I'm fucking nervous. Like my butthole's puckered and like I'm going to go on stage. And so I go on stage and I'm like, hey man, so Joe wants me to talk about leadership and how we grew Fit Body Bootcamp into Inc. 5000, Inc. 500, Entrepreneur Magazine's 200 fastest growing franchises.

41:58Like we were just hitting all these fucking records with Fit Body. And so here I am. And then as I look around, I'm like, I realize like you're all multimillionaires. You guys don't even need to learn leadership. I needed to because I was a horrible leader and I couldn't afford a leader to bring on a leader. Here's my leadership talk to you guys. Go recruit a leader, a good leader from a competing company by paying them more and maybe giving them some stock options. And then you don't have to become a better leader. You become the visionary and that's that. Now let's talk about something different.

42:28I was as a kid. Brave. Literally just came out of my mouth. Wow. And then one out of every four of you in this audience have had some kind of sexual abuse. Those are the stats, by the way. That abuse you carry with you into your relationships, into your health and fitness. There's this glass ceiling that we all press up against in our faith and our family and our fitness and our finances because we don't feel worthy. And I can tell you that it wasn't until after I did the healing work that I finally got abs. I've always been big and strong. It looks good in a T-shirt. But I'm telling you, man, after working with Kevin for those 15 months, people were like, dude, you look lighter.

43:04You look more like radiant. Finally, I hit my goal of like 12 % body fat. Now I'm 51 and I've got abs. In my 30s, I couldn't get abs, right? Because I would just get close to my goal and then self-sabotage. Get sick, get too busy, something always happening. Relationship was always almost there, but then it wasn't. then something would go wrong. Business was almost always there, but then something would go wrong. And that's because when you are carrying that burlap bag of cinder blocks and you feel like you're a piece of shit, you, because it's all in the shadows, right? It's all in the shadow work.

43:39You don't feel worthy of the love and the abundance that God or the universe wants to grace you with. And so I'm just talking about that. I'm like one out of every four of you, and I'm seeing grown men and women squirming in their seats. One of them being Dean Graciosi, and he's cool with me talking about this because we talked after we hugged each other and cried in the green room. He's talked about this on podcasts openly, but he's like, bro, that happened to me as a kid. I've done fucking stupid shit in my life. I'm like, amen to that brother, I get it. And he goes, where do I start? I'm like, let me introduce you to Kevin.

44:13Very cool. He ended up getting his own therapist and working with him and now he's got a beautiful family and he doesn't self-sabotage and he and Tony have, of the Zenith Mastermind together and many of my coaching clients are in that group as well. But I share this with you, man, because it's like this glass ceiling will break if you start doing the healing work. The healing work is painful, it's ugly, it takes long. After you sit with your therapist, you feel worse. You feel worse. It hurts. I've never had cancer, but I've heard, you know, you hear about cancer patients say like after chemo, they're exhausted for a few days, right?

44:48Like the radiation and the fucking chemotherapy drugs almost feel worse for the next few days than the cancer itself. That is what healing from sexual abuse,

45:01emotional abuse, physical abuse, people think, Bedros, I'm so sorry you had sexual abuse. I was only beaten by my parents. Bro, the same part of our brain lights up. The fight or flight system lights up whether you're physically, mentally, emotionally abused. So just get the healing done. And then it worked for me and that's why I've become an advocate of it, that I could talk about it now and it doesn't weigh on me. What was a mountain on the timeline of my life is now just a tiny little speed bump and that's it. See, that's amazing. And there's so many things to dive into there. I'm gonna pick one or two that's very powerful that I wanna speak about.

45:33First and foremost, I think most men can feel exactly how you're feeling, like almost getting there. I don't know if you remember, but when we met three years ago, I was probably 30, 40 pounds heavier. I would start getting in better shape and then I would get sick or I would get stressed or we'd go on vacation or I'd get in an argument with my wife or have a fight with a friend. And then all of a sudden I relied on that nasty word called motivation to get me to move my fat ass to do anything. And it never worked. I kept going backwards and never really pulling forward. And I also noticed that the show was staying stagnant in certain ways.

46:12And so in 2024, I walked into a room, ran into my buddy, Jeff Delaney. I couldn't even look at him in the face. He owns multiple testosterone clinics, a weight loss company, everything. I couldn't look at him. And then he came up to me. He's like, we good? Hey man, I'm just struggling. I need help. And then from that point on, I have done the work. I have focused on my nutrition. I have focused my, on the resistance training. I have started to heal some of the things from my past. I was never, not that I'm aware of, it hasn't triggered in my chamber yet if I was abused in the way you were, but there's a lot of emotional things as, as a youth, you know, my, my biological father left when I was little, I never really knew him.

46:55And I can only remember certain things, uh, early in childhood. And then after nine years old, I didn't see him until I tracked him down when I was 30, before I moved to Florida and I'm for We're almost 48 now, right? So I think that's powerful because it gives a peek behind like what could be going on with somebody that's just almost there, but can't quite get there. There's something that you need to deal with. And I always say this, it's the one thing. There's one thing typically that's so big that someone has to work through and heal from in order for them to excel to the next level. And for me, it was the worthiness of feeling like I can be in better shape.

47:35I can do this. I always thought I wasn't, you know, allowed to I wasn't good enough. I had so much shame Right and so I love that that is that is insane. It's only true Would you like me to channel my inner Kevin Downing? Okay for a second psychoanalyze my ass. Let's do it Well, this is I'm just I've been around him so long. I am like what would Kevin say right now? You said you've you had these feelings of not being good enough of shame, right? You know, having your dad abandon you, that's what happened. That's what it was. You were abandoned. Probably neglected, building all the way up to the point of abandonment, and then abandoned.

48:16Of the one man who had the responsibility to fill the hole, the only hole in a young man's heart that can be filled by anyone, is not by a mom or older brother or mentor that's a male, is by a dad. Mm-hmm. So when you're abandoned and neglected building up to that, you start feeling, maybe I'm not good enough to be around. Maybe I'm not good enough for him to go, that's my son. That's my fucking spawn. Yep. Right? Yep. And so if you don't feel good enough there, you probably won't feel good enough in other areas of your life. But you've either started doing the work or you've done the work or you've acknowledged the work you need to do.

48:52And so as you start healing from that, you were good enough. That fucker missed out on a fucking really awesome dude. Yeah, man. And three years ago, I got to meet a great guy. And today, you seem even more comfortable and with it in your own skin. And you've made 10 years of transformation in the three years that I've known of you, right? Thank you, man. Thank you. And it's simply because it starts with awareness. Like, okay, something's wrong. Something's wrong. And once we see something, we can't unsee it. Once we become aware of something, we can't become unaware of it. from that point on, it is like, if I'm just pestering you, like Chinese water torture, like sooner or later, it's going to burst through.

49:31It's going to burst, man. Yeah. And so that, and that's what it is. Like once I realized like there was this weight that I was carrying of, no one could know what happened to me. And there might be a monster that lives in me and I'm not worthy. And that's why these two older boys did this to me. Like they could tell that I wasn't worthy. We could have done it to anyone else, but they did it to me. Like the stories that we start conjuring up, we tell ourselves a story. So I'm not worthy. I'm not lovable. I'm broken. uh i probably did something to to instigate that and attract that so that's a story based on an experience right and then you go through life looking for evidence to make that story true in any situation in any situation and then that reframe in a negative way absolutely you might go hey bedros what's up and i'm like the fuck did i mean by that yeah like what do you mean what's up what's up with you bro yeah right and and and you're like no buddy i'm just saying like what's up?

50:21What's going on? But if I haven't done the healing work, I'm like, aha, he's challenging me. Aha. He's like, oh, he's trying to see if he's doing better than me in life. No, my buddy from three years ago was just like, hey, Bader's, what's up? What's up, man? I haven't seen it. Yeah. Everything good? Why wouldn't it be? It's the lens that I bring it through. Yeah, man. It's not your tone. It's the lens that I bring it through. Yeah. And so it goes story. And then we start looking for evidence to reinforce that story. And when we find evidence or manufacture your evidence because you will always find what you're looking for in life then that becomes our identity so you're like how do i change my identity change the fucking story yep you change the story you find evidence like yeah i'm a pretty fucking likable guy and you know what turns out i do have great genetics i know it because i'm on a tiny dose of trt and i take bpc and tb500 and at 51 i fucking work out twice a day i do jujitsu and i'm fucking in better shape than i was in my 20s and 30s it i've told myself i've sold myself on the idea that i have great genetics and because of that i find evidence for it everywhere and it's become my identity yeah in my 60s and my 70s i will have abs with loose skin hanging probably that's okay i don't give a fuck yeah why not it's okay hey man we all get old right we all get old control it 75 it's it's it's the identity and it's backed by a story and people forget to change the story and they live to that that story and the narrative for fucking decades and it's like bro take this pen back and start rewriting in your book of life what the actual new story could be and for people you know I would challenge people you know and even because like we can sit here and say that's all you have to do right is find a different perspective reframe it it's a heavier lift sure when you when you go from I'm not good enough to like convince yourself that you are and it's harder and it's more emotional but but through it all, it's necessary.

52:11And there's certain amounts of healing that have to take place and through healing in your situation, you started NBK project, right? And you've, you've been a leader for so many men that, that come to the project and, and really go through the warrior side of it. And, and again, last time we talked, we talked about the inner advocate and inner critic, right? But there's also external advocates and external critics. And I'm an external advocate of you. I know the narrative. I know your intentions. I even know the guy yelling at everybody at the MDK project, but the critics will say that someone's going to pay five figures to go to this, get screamed at by a former SEAL or whatever.

52:53And you know, that, that the MDK project is preying on vulnerability to become a man. What would you say to that, to that? it's funny man 10 years ago i would have been like you're absolutely wrong these are men who have either you know former military or high level entrepreneurs or former police and firefighters they've gone through some level of trauma in their life they don't want to work with the therapist and i'm not professing that we're therapists but i'm telling you right now this is where they're going to find a brotherhood a mission a sense of purpose and a community of like-minded men who want to grow in their faith family fitness and finance and i help them make more money while the navy seal and the marine break them down and build them back up and we could you know teach them rules for life and get them off the drugs and the alcohol and whatever that they don't want to address publicly today I'm like you have a right to your opinion I love that and and and again that's a that's the answer I thought you were gonna give but I wanted the audience to yeah to really see how powerful that was because we can defend things all the time and and that shows a massive massive weakness you know one of the YouTube channels that really did a great job in squatting like took a deep Asian squat and shat all over me and the project is a channel that my son subscribes to.

54:07Penguin 00 or whatever his account is. Okay. Funny entertaining guy. 7 million subscribers. Wow. Right? Mm-hmm. 7 million subscribers. And my son's like, dad, this guy's shitting on the project. Oh my god. Like, all the stuff he's saying is so untrue. He's like, oh my God, he's saying, you guys call yourselves alpha male. I know you hate the word alpha male. We don't use it on the website. We don't use it at the project. I never consider myself an alpha male. If someone's an alpha male, you'll just get a sense for it. It's because they have a sense of who they are and where they're going. And you're like, I like this guy's energy.

54:44They don't talk about it. No, they're not going to beat their chest about it or whatever. But I'm like, son, don't sweat it. You like this guy? He's like, I'm going to unsubscribe from the channel. No, son, you like their shit. In fact, I subscribed to the channel, right? To the guy's channel, because he actually speaks a lot of truth about the Epstein files and all this stuff. But guess what? He has to create content, two long form videos a day, not a week, a day for 7 million subscribers. The guy monetizes like a motherfucker. So I became a piece of content for him. And then when Sean Ryan had me on his show, we ended up getting four dudes into the project.

55:17Two of the dudes told me, I'll never mention their names, told me in person afterwards that had it not been for the project, I was gonna myself. And so, look, some people are gonna hate me. Some people are gonna love me. Same for you. The old version of me once like, don't you see I'm a good guy? Don't you see I'm a good guy? Now I'm like, you have a right to your opinion. Yeah, absolutely. Good for you. I just remember seeing it and I just kind of chuckled at it. They don't understand the intent, right? They don't see the back end. I know dudes that have gone through it and said it was the worst but best week of their life.

55:50I mean, it looks horrible. I mean, it really, really does. But I mean, you know, in anything in life, when you're trying to build something, let's talk about a body. Don't you have to break it down first? Absolutely. Don't you have to break it down to the base level of like just hell and you build it back up. It's the same thing with anything, man. You just have to go through those things, you know? And again, you know what? It is what it is. You're entitled to your opinion. That's it. Look, I've learned long ago, again, through Kevin, I feel like I'm a walking infomercial for Kevin Downing. Yeah, I mean you're you're plugging him man.

56:25That's your homie. Yeah. Yeah He taught me this lesson long ago and he taught me to me recently like as literally as a month and a half ago Because I went in to see him for a two two-hour session now. I do two-hour sessions with him Less frequent, but now I go in there with intent Kevin These are the things that are irritating me bothering me and I feel like I'm hitting my head against the wall Can I have a two-hour session? Yes, and I'll go and pay him and for two hours We just chew the fat and he gives me insight but I learned this long ago and I learned it again recently. In an argument with a business partner or a friend or a spouse, we might go, well, I think this is what you meant.

57:03So first of all, I'm going to interpret what you think, right? Like, don't tell me how I feel, right? You've probably heard that from your wife or a business partner or a friend. So I've learned to not tell people how they feel. I'm like, hey, through my lens, it seems like this is how you feel, but I now realize that's not how you feel, and I'm sorry for that. But it seems like that's how you're feeling though. So I responded to what I thought you were feeling, right? Because sometimes we'll anticipate their feelings and this is probably what they need to hear. The other thing is to help make them, I need you to understand my point of view.

57:36I need my business partner, I need the wife, I need the friend to understand my point of view. No, no. Kevin says, just give them a different experience. He told me that recently. He goes, just give them a different experience. Instead of going, no, that's not what I meant. This is what I meant. bro the entire country's divided between democrat and republican they will hang their hat on fucking joe biden sniffing people and his kid fucking snorting cocaine in the white house on the 4th of july no matter what right they're not about to be like well you know he's sniffing little kids and the his son's fucking snorting crack and coke and the fucking thing and so i'm gonna be republic no if those two worlds can't fucking come together you think i'm gonna be able to educate you into seeing things my way no i just give you a different experience how about i go you know what sean I get that's how you feel.

58:22And while I can respect it, I don't agree with it. So can we just move on and be friends? And you'd be like, holy fuck, he made me feel understood, but he's not trying to be like, I need you to understand my perspective. Yeah, I think with anything like that, you know, it's important to hear somebody out and maybe kind of, maybe not agree, but have an idea of how they were feeling, right, instead of just attacking or assuming assuming and we're walking away from it completely. Right. But there's also a lot of people too that won't grow a pair and have those conversations. Right. And that's hard because you know what, in those moments, if I'm sitting here and me and you, right, we have, we have an issue and I'm not willing to talk to you and you are left with the assumption, right?

59:14And so it takes to people who are willing to communicate in order to bring it back together. And it's just like you said, you gave the example about the country, this side and that side, there has to become an understanding that we all live in the same country. Spoiler alert for all you people, but we all live in the same country. We love our freedom here. It means something. It's different than any other country. And we are the youngest country, by the way, but we are the most free. And if we can't sit there and understand a difference of opinion, what in the fuck are we doing? Yeah, yeah, and you know going to the country by the way, how crazy is it?

59:47I believe this is where I'm gonna put my tinfoil hat on for a moment and say that by design They want to separate it and segregated and as many factions as possible You know blue states red states Republican Democrat love the police hate the police believe in the vaccine Don't believe in the vaccine because all the different ways abortion on abortion or what is it right right to? Whatever the fuck it is right right to life not a right to life because the more they can keep us separated, the better they can have control and compliance over us. Like if I want control and compliance over anyone, we did this at the project.

1:00:19We take away their watch. We black out all the clocks in my gym, in the vans that we carry them in. Everything's blacked out. They're hooded. They have no idea if it's daytime or light time when we're driving them to Newport Beach for Ray to put them through, Ray the Navy Steel will put them through water torture. When we take away your sense of time, direction, and start isolating you, you become much more compliant of a human. And we do this in three days, the project. Imagine when the system, the opposition, does it over time using media, both CNN and Fox, using television, using movies, the university, school systems, churches, churches.

1:01:01All messages are disseminated through churches and all those other platforms that I mentioned, social media. And if they can keep us separated and enemies, they will have greater sense of control and compliance. The moment we unite as a country, we are more powerful. And we can easily unite and still say that, you know what, I believe that you have the right to bear arms, but I don't think I'm into guns, which, by the way, I am. I love guns. But we can be friends and be like, hey, cool, man. You can have the First Amendment and the Second Amendment. I'm just cool with the first. I think we should limit guns, but i also understand that our country is the freest because of that i just wish there was like and still get along yeah that's unity we don't have to be on the same page but we can still have unity yeah i mean there's always going to be difference of opinions right and and i think the the problem now is there's one truth for everybody like nothing else right and see that's the problem right right oh you nailed it you nailed it there's one truth one truth which is funny because Because if you were to be like, hey, where's home for you?

1:02:07Chino Hills. How far? 35 minutes. And I'd be like, bro, if you wanna get my car, we can go there five different ways. Right off the top of my head I could think of through Carbon Canyon, through 91, through the toll roads with the beautiful hills, 241. I could think of three ways off the top of my head right now. There's no one way to get to Chino Hills. There's no, but we all believe there's one truth. You nailed it. If there was like anything to this whole episode, it should just be a solo episode. You can just cut all of my shit out and just be like there's one truth and everyone believes there's one truth i can't come out man i appreciate it come on now dude but the moment we all realize that maybe we could all have a truth and still be friendly and unite maybe as a family as a community and as a country at that point we would be able to overthrow the opposition but until then this is how we live there can be two truths because everybody has their own truth yeah and that needs to be respected um speaking of that question for you is there any belief or truth that you held five years ago that you believed loudly that now that you've quietly just don't believe that very much any longer geez um

1:03:20yeah i get beat up on this on my podcast in the comments section a lot on youtube of my podcast

1:03:29I believe there's a higher power. I believe there's a God. There's universal consciousness, the Bratman connection, something. I don't know if Jesus is the way. I don't know if Allah is the way. I don't know if Buddha is the way. I don't know if the Quran is the way. I don't. I do know that in times of near death, we instinctively all shout, Oh God, why do we ask for help instinctively from a higher power? So that's within. again the radiance right and so people are like pedros you you share such great content you've transformed my life you helped my marriage you've helped my business like if you just believe in jesus you'll go to heaven and then i go listen dr laura schlesinger let me tell you about dr laura schlesinger she is a jew she is a therapist and she was on kfi am 640 it's still an active radio station here in LA, LA County.

1:04:25She's retired now, but she was a radio therapist, right? Had written many books. One of the books that she wrote was the proper care and feeding of a husband. It was written for women, the proper care and feeding of a husband. And spoiler alert, it was just like, basically like give him food. When he says he's not thinking about anything, actually believe him. Men know how to just have a blank mind. Women don't. All the wires are connected with us and then it was not very smart give him food make love to him and then when he says he's not thinking anything actually believe him don't ask him what's on your mind um but i share this with you because when i was a young man in my late teens 17 18 19 years old home invasion robberies carjackings police helicopter chase right by the anaheim police department and then they caught us in buena park at a gas station corner dark they caught you yeah Oh, that was you?

1:05:18Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was the getaway driver at that particular time. And I was like, guys, as soon as I fucking stop at this gas station, we're all going to jump out of the car and run and go. Off we go. The cops were far smarter than that. So you can't get away from the helicopter. The cops are just slow speed chasing you. And there's a radio. You cannot run that. Yeah, yeah. And so I pull over. They jam their bumpers into my front doors. And so we're stuck. We're trying to jump out of the windows. By the time you jump out of the window, they're dragging you out and stepping on your neck.

1:05:48So I was that guy but while I would carjack and we would strip the cars down and sell the parts to Auto body shops who would claim that they would buy that bumper from the car dealership, but really charge your dealership price But then you stole them parts to fix your car and then so we'd make some money So I'm carjacking doing home invasion robberies as a young little shit bag. I Don't know if it was guilt. I don't know if it was God but something would afterwards, I would listen to KFI AM 640, right? And I would always listen to the Dr. Laura show. And she would have callers. Callers would call in with their life problems.

1:06:25The call screener would screen the call, make sure it's like a worthy question because it needs to be entertaining. And then Dr. Laura would answer it, right? Like one of the things she taught, my dad never left, but he was otherwise negligent and unavailable mentally, emotionally. It was as good as leaving. And one of the things Dr. Laura said to a caller, some dude called, he's like, man, my dad was absent out of my life. My wife's pregnant with our boy. It's gonna be our first boy. I don't know how to be a father to a young man. I don't know how to be a father, period. I never had a father-son relationship.

1:07:00She goes, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. He goes, what? She goes, okay, so you had a bad father and son relationship. Yeah, like I don't know how to be. Well, you have a second chance at a father and son relationship. So like learn to be a better dad. Here's some books I recommend. And then you have a second chance of like healing yourself. He's like, oh, fuck. That's right. Sometimes we have a second chance by becoming the father at this time instead of the son. Right. But living vicariously through our sons in a way. So Dr. Laura is like healing people, bro. She's literally made me start. I learned about karma through the Dr.

1:07:31Laura show. Yet people would periodically call. They would lie to her call screener because she would openly talk about being a Jew and they would lie to her call screener. And then when she's like, all right, this is Dr. Laura. You're live on the air. how can I help you? Like, you're a fucking Jew. You're going to hell. You should believe in Jesus. Right. Whatever. And I'm not pro Jew, pro Christian, pro anything. I'm just saying like that lady stopped me from being a criminal shit bag. All she would do for a decade that I would listen to her show is help people on the radio. How is she going to go to hell?

1:08:05Sean, I just can't process. How's she going to go to hell? Now, a good Christian will say, because John 3.16 says that Jesus died for your sin, and if you believe that, you will be absolved of all your sin, and you will go to heaven. If you don't believe that, no matter how good you are on this earth, you're flawed, and you will go to hell. I just can't imagine that. It's a tough pill to even swallow. You don't break it down. Look, man, we'd go to Calvary Chapel. Dr. or Pastor Jack Hibbs would take the stage and he'd talk about Hellstone and Brimfire. And if you don't believe and on Easter, he would do the sermon in the parking lot.

1:08:46It was packed. And I was just like, I don't know, man. I'm a marketer. I'm a stage speaker. And I could see that he's using this thing called leading and pacing. Leading and pacing is you tell a couple of facts that people know and then and then you pace with a not something that could be a non-fact. But for example, you might say, back then, he was talking about how there's a war taking place in Iraq right now, like when we invaded in 90s, right? Or sorry, in the early 2000s, we invaded Iraq and then I think Afghanistan after that. There's a war taking place in Iraq right now, yeah. And it's taking place right by the Euphrates River, and that's in the Bible.

1:09:22And the Bible says that when a war starts taking place in holy places, it is end times, and therefore it's end times. So he would say two facts, there's a war in Iraq. Yes, I saw it on the news. And it's taking place right by the Euphrates River. Fuck, I saw that. There was tanks and people fighting and therefore it's end times and then the tithing plates would come by. Put your money in. And then people would like empty their pockets. I'm like, motherfucker. I lead them pace on stage, too. I also know how to anchor the stage. Whenever you give negative news, you anchor it from the left side. Whenever you're gonna give great optimistic news, you go to the right side of the stage.

1:09:58And you do that, you keep anchoring different sides with negativity and positivity so that at the end, if you're going to pitch from stage, here's a marketing lesson for all of you. If you're going to pitch from stage and pitch something ethical where they give you a dollar, you give them$10 worth of value back. You don't pitch from the negative side of the stage. You pitch from the positive side of the stage where you anchored all the good feelings and you stand there and you pitch because they subconsciously associate that side of the stage as a more positive, optimistic side because you delivered a lot of good news for the last hour from that side and a lot of bad news from that side of the stage.

1:10:28I share this with you because it's not going to make you a better closer, but it's a force multiplier, your ability to sell to the masses from stage. I'm a fucking gangster at it. I share this with you because I see Pastor Hibbs doing the same thing, leading and pacing, anchoring the stage, and then the money plates come around. And what do I do in my business? When I speak to a thousand people, then the black envelopes with the gold stickers get passed around at the right time. No different. So very quickly, I'm like, okay, Dr. Laura can't be going to hell after she saved a fucking asshole like me and all these other assholes who called for a decade this guy and by the way he's got his own tv show dr uh pastor jack hibbs there's like 7 000 seats three seven a.m nine a.m eleven a.m on a sunday like he was like a fucking micro joel ulstein you know i mean yep there in chino hills and so i don't know man then i read uh joseph Campbell's book, The Power of Myth.

1:11:26So I combine all those things together, and then I listen to my radiance, and I go, I think, I think we determine heaven or hell right here on earth. And then there's a lot of books on life after death, right? And near death experiences. So then I read that, many books on near death experiences, and I realized some people that have gone to the light and have seen the other side, Many of them report and they're non-related that you have this flash of your whole life, the good, the bad. And if I crossed you on this earthly life, I get to feel in that moment how you felt when I crossed you. Wow. So all the good that you've done, all the bad that you've done, you get to feel.

1:12:09And then you go and you're amongst this beautiful place. I don't know if that's true or not, but I've developed my own belief system in the last five years. and that belief is that there is a higher power there is a good place but we get to decide if this place is heaven or hell and there's no way dr laura could go to hell with as much good as she's done and if she is then i'd like to be right next to her wow so i can thank her i'm gonna sit with that for a second because that's powerful man yeah and i'm not trying to convince anyone to believe what i'm believing but no that's the thing like i i i personally don't agree right i i'm i'm a christian at the same time i respect what you're saying thank you i mean dude come on man you know that's the whole beautiful part about life is yeah you're not gonna and we can still be homies and not have to like fucking duke it out like i mean seriously like i don't want everybody to be like me and think like me i think we're not clones we're not robots there's going to be difference of opinions and difference of beliefs and we can all still be good people we can all give back to the society and we can all be productive and help this thing run a lot smoother than it is right now.

1:13:16Yeah. You know, when you go back and you brought up the carjacking, the armed robbery. See, I didn't know that. Not armed robbery. Wait, what? Okay. What was it? Home invasion. Oh, okay. And it became a home invasion because we didn't know the lady was inside the house. We thought it was an empty house. You didn't know. So it's a robbery, just so you know, the penal code. It's a robbery when it's an empty house. It's a home invasion robbery when there's someone in the house. Got it. And that's a different consequence. I love it. So be careful when you're robbing places. Okay, thank you. Yeah, I know.

1:13:42i mean you know i'm not stealthy enough like you you know so you know my friends were just dumb we all have done dumb right you know when we're talking about the young bedros and then you you know we've we've had the six-year-old right we talked about the six yeah we talked about the 38 year old bedros same guy two different moments what do you owe each one of them Well, the little dude, I wrote him a 11-page letter. Again, Kevin encouraged me to do that, and he gave me the first sentence. Hey, Bedros, between the ages of four and six, you were a **** by two older boys, but today you are dot, dot, dot.

1:14:27He gave me the first sentence, and he goes, just write a letter to your young man. and man that little dude was like what you did what you came to america and then you learned the language and then you you uh not too far from here uc irvine across the street from uc irvine there's a place called california graduate institute uh way back in the early 90s i was dating this girl and she was going to uc irvine she was hey cgi california graduate institute is doing this study they'll pay 25 cash a week for 13 weeks if you go through the study So I'm telling little Vedas, I'm like, dude, so I went through this little study, and I didn't know what it was, but I was not in the placebo group.

1:15:04I was actually getting the treatment, and they would put the glasses on me, and then the earbuds, and that, that, that, that, that, and the glasses would shine. And they did the MMPI test first, Minnesota multiple personality inventory test. And they're like, hey, you're manic depressive, which today manic depressive is bipolar disorder. I am not on any drugs for bipolar disorder. This is why I will have ups and downs. that I talk about, I wake up every morning and I send out three gratitude text messages because I wake up very mean, very angry, very dark and depressed for no reason whatsoever.

1:15:32I just do, that's my chemistry. And I teach myself to become manic by sending out three gratitude text messages to three random people that have helped me in my life that forces gratitude on me because I'm a fucking asshole of a human being by factory default, right? So with that in mind, California Graduate Institute, my IQ over the 13 weeks started at 100, ended at 118. And I'm telling little Pedro's bro, you came to America, you went through this fucking CGI thing because you wanted$25 cash because you were a broke young man. Thank God for that girl that you were dating because she helped you raise your IQ by introducing you to that thing.

1:16:07Later finding out that it was sponsored by, NASA had funded CGI to do that. And the platform that they built is called Holosync. You can go buy today, it's the theta waves with the light glasses. So Holosync is the main company that NASA and Holosync work together. and they were doing that to help astronauts and military professionals increase their ability to retain and memorize speed recognition.

1:16:34And there was one more thing. Oh, and to increase the ability to fire your synapses on demand, right? So think at a higher level. What I jokingly would tell my friends, bro, I could see the world in the fourth dimension. I could see the world in the fourth dimension now. And I didn't know what it was until Dr. Wolf who ran the event or the experience was like dude you were not part of the placebo group you're actually getting the treatment this is what it is and it's by holosync and nasa it's for them but later holosync made a civilian version of the glasses and the thing that we could all wear just like tang was founded for uh astronauts and then now it's you can mix water and drink tang is orange juice in the morning but where the were we going with all this i i was just asking you if there was something that ask again yeah okay so the six-year-old bedros and the 38 year old bedros Yes.

1:17:19Same man. Yes. Moments. What do you owe each one of them? Fucking A. Even Ed's laughing back there. Ed's always heard my fucking hijinks. So I share all this with you because I wrote to that little dude. I was like, man, we fucking went through CGI. We can see the world in the fourth dimension. We can recall faster, higher IQ, speak better. You're an introvert where you're on stage and you're getting paid to speak and you're donating all your speaking fees to Shriners Children's Hospital. And then you have a fucking awesome life and great family and your kids and you travel the world and you have a podcast and a platform and the little dude inside me was so fucking happy.

1:17:51And then the 38-year-old version of myself was like, you have no one to show approval, to get approval and validation from. Like, all you need is internal approval and validation. I was doing all that shit. I have custom suits. Ed's seen it. I have eight custom suits, actually not too far from here in Costa Mesa. I had custom suits made with BK because I got traps, big traps, big traps. I took a lot of testosterone and Sestanon and fucking Deca and all these things. And my traps just grew, man. My quads and traps just grew. And so a custom suit with BK lining all in the fucking thing because i thought i needed custom three-piece suits and fucking rolex watches and cartier watches and all i got these fucking things that the watches spin on i don't wear a single watch anymore a little asian lady gave me this and then when my mom died two and a half years ago this was her fucking thing that armenian ladies and men fucking play around with and i turned it into a bracelet because chloe made it for me my daughter that's it that's the only jewelry i wear i got hundreds of thousands of dollars of jewelries and suits and fucking pants and shoes that i don't wear because i thought i needed the world's approval and validation So the 38 year old version of me is like Now you don't need to do that fucking chucks t-shirt jeans and a hat.

1:18:53That's it, bro That's how I roll and then at 51 years old I realized I don't have to like I don't have to try and tell anyone like no no no here This is what I meant with the project. This is what I mean with the Squire program This is why I created the truly something you don't like my supplement my franchise my events shit on me all you want man That's all good. That's all good You have a right to but when the opposition comes to get us Let's all fucking arm ourselves and shoot the opposition before they shoot us Like that that that's it. I just want to be a decent human And i'm so glad I wrote that letter to little b because he's so fucking happy and then big b is like I don't have fomo anymore I love lewis house, but he's like a red carpet event a few months ago red carpet event You got to come out to it man You've been on my podcast a few times lewis.

1:19:38I love you, but i'm not gonna you know why because me and my daughter We're gonna go do something really cool. What what are you gonna do? we're gonna fucking work out and go eat at cpk boom i already committed to her i love it man yeah i love it man and that and that doesn't happen if you didn't work on your trauma and and you know because i'd want to be there because i can't miss out yeah because you've already you've already can look in your you yourself and i want you to sit with this for one second you yourself can look through your camera roll when your kids were young and you don't have a lot of pictures of right you already know what that feels like yeah you don't need to sell out you've dude you've already made your money you've already done it you're a visionary so that's what you do you keep going because if not, you'll wither away.

1:20:14You need to be productive. It's what you enjoy. It's what you're great at. Yes. But there's men out there right now, potentially listening to this episode as we speak, right? And their credit cards are maxed out. Their marriage is broken. They don't know who they are. What's their first move tonight? Their first move tonight is eat something healthy and go work out. That's it. Because you can't fix your marriage overnight. You can't fix your credit card debt overnight, right? But you can decide it's control. We need some, as men, we need control. Dude, it's so funny. Have positive control in your life.

1:20:49So the next thing you're going to put in your fat jowl, make it higher protein with fiber, low carbs, low to no fat, and then go get a workout in. Two very productive, positive things of control. You get dopamine there, you get dopamine there. And then tomorrow, when your fat, sloppy ass wakes up, do the same thing. You have control over that. And once you start stacking little W's, like, man, I control what I eat. I can control how I work out. I wonder if I can control my attitude with the honey. I wonder if I can control my spending habits. I wonder if I can watch a YouTube video on how to get out of debt, on how to maybe consolidate all my credit card debts into a smaller interest rate and pay it off over time.

1:21:28I wonder if I can create a side job. I wonder if I could actually make some money on the side Friday nights, Saturdays, and Sundays instead of watching sports and having another man's name on the back of my shirt as though I play for the fucking Lakers because you don't. Does that make sense? It makes perfect sense. You want to know the funny thing? I'm writing these cards out, right? Because I'm stupid. I can't remember anything, right? The older I get, bro, I have to text myself everything. It is what it is. My iPhone notes are crazy. And sometimes I forget why I took the note and I can't figure out what the hell it is.

1:21:57Write a note about the note. Right. I'm writing that question down and I knew your initial answer was going to be eat something healthy and go work. Yeah. You know, because you learn to know what somebody's going to be about and what they're going to say because that is kind of the the energy spark to everything else because if you don't feel good when you wake up in the morning you don't feel good when you put your damn pants on right or when you're walking outside you can't do anything else so i i love that man and when you when you look at your your your whole your whole life man everything that you've been through the abuse the the the panic attacks the recovery from that, even reconciling the fact that when your children were young, you weren't there a whole lot, you were building.

1:22:45When you look at all that and everything that you've overcome, even as a young child, what does true determination mean to you? I think true determination is this, man. Know the path that you want, and every day, no matter how hard, how difficult, how severe, how slow, take forward momentum. Like some days you'll be sprinting towards what you want. Those are the big W's. Other days you might just be like clawing your way one millimeter forward. That's a win too. That's determination. It's like forward momentum. In my book I talk about this little saying that I created, never peak, the best is yet to come.

1:23:19Right? Listen, man, when I started doing these six week challenges 13 years ago now, my first six week challenge was hired a running coach, trained for six weeks, run a marathon, because I can lift heavy weights. I was like, I'm not made to run. and that's a story i told myself very big story yeah since then i've done like mma challenge jiu-jitsu challenges jiu-jitsu stuck surfing stuck guitars guitar stuck i did salsa dancing you name it chess sign language i want video of you doing salsa dancing i can move like a gorilla i bet uh wearing concrete shoes yeah beautiful but i share this with you because um i may not be able to move faster on the mats today than i could have if i took jiu-jitsu 20 years ago, right?

1:24:01Because I started jujitsu at 48. So we're three years in. But I make progress. I told you my son and I started jujitsu at the same time. Well, he was 17. He's 20 now. I was 48. I'm 51. He's progressing a lot faster. But I still make forward momentum every day. Every day I make forward momentum. That's determination to me. It's never peak. The best of me is yet to come. It might come a little slower. It might take more coaching and more repetitions than you and him and him. But it'll come. And what the fuck do I have to do with my time anyway? Dwell on myself and my problems and really start self-destructing?

1:24:35Because that's what we do when we go inward and start dwelling on it. Oh, I'm so sad that this is wrong and my knee hurts on my shoulder and my wrist. Shut the fuck up. Like, what do you want? No problems? Just do it. Yeah, dead people have no problems. If I want no problems, I'll have to be dead. Yeah, I'm not ready for that yet. You know what I mean? I just think it's a great answer, you know, because, you know, determination to me used to look like it was loud and look at me and I'm doing the work. and I'm documenting everything. But really what it is, is those days where I don't emotionally feel great, it still works.

1:25:07Even if it's not 100 % of my normal capacity, it's still doing something. And the next day you feel better about yourself. Like, man, yesterday I felt like dog shit, but I still went this much forward. And that next day, I'm back at 100 % capacity. But if I don't do the work the day before, I'm not at 50 % anymore. I'm at 20. And now I'm struggling and now I'm depressed. And then I reach for the pizza instead of the protein shake. You see what I'm saying? I do. So, you know what? I appreciate you, man. This has been fun, dude. Thank you so much for coming back on and running it back with me, dude.

1:25:36Amazing conversation. I appreciate it. And, you know, I'll always, you know, love having chats with you. So, dude, again, thank you. Yes, sir. It was a lot of fun. For the audience, go check out my boy BK. Watch his podcast on YouTube. See everything that is actually involved with him. His books, his speaking events. He runs a lot of events speaking. So go check him out. You might learn a thing or two and who knows, it might change your life. But until then, stay determined.