Order of Man - Man Up ｜ BEDROS KEUILIAN

00:00:00.000 Man up is a term that is likely to trigger a lot of people in the world today, and it's too bad

00:00:04.520 because the term is so misunderstood by society and so powerful when there's a clear understanding

00:00:09.840 of what that actually means. My guest today, Mr. Bedros Koulian, talks with us about what that

00:00:15.160 means and how to instill the meaning into our boys, how to lead yourself more effectively,

00:00:20.520 assessing and analyzing risk, overcoming bad programming, and how each and every one of us

00:00:25.440 can more effectively man up in our lives. You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest,

00:00:31.240 embrace your fears, and boldly chart your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up

00:00:36.440 one more time, every time. You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong.

00:00:43.740 This is your life. This is who you are. This is who you will become. At the end of the day,

00:00:49.120 and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man. Gentlemen, what is going on

00:00:54.620 today? My name is Ryan Michler, and I am the host and the founder of this podcast, The Order

00:00:58.600 of Man. It does not matter to me how long you've been tuning in. I want to welcome you to what

00:01:04.400 I have deemed and what I am trying to create as the most powerful resource and conversations

00:01:10.420 that we can possibly have when it comes to becoming a better man, better man in our homes,

00:01:16.040 in our communities, in our businesses, in every facet of life that you're showing up. We've got

00:01:19.780 some powerful, powerful conversations with some incredible men, and man, the lineup over

00:01:24.560 the past several weeks has just been unbelievable. I mean, we've had guys on the show like Jocko

00:01:28.600 Willink, Andy Frisilla, Grant Cardone, Tim Kennedy. We just had Ed Milet on the show. Sid Smith came

00:01:34.740 on last week. Man, it's just, it's incredible. It's incredible that we get to have some of these

00:01:39.680 conversations, and I get the opportunity to share them with you. I hope that they're serving

00:01:43.900 you. I hope that you're helping you become a better man, again, in every facet of your life,

00:01:48.960 and I wanted to let you know before we get into this that I really appreciate you helping me grow

00:01:52.940 this movement, and it is, guys. It is a movement. When I started this thing almost four years now,

00:01:58.700 I did not think that it would have the impact that it has. It's amazing to me that we're able

00:02:03.760 to reach millions of men all across the planet, and frankly, we just wouldn't be able to do that

00:02:07.840 without you, without you sharing the stories and sharing the podcast and the message and everything

00:02:13.320 that we're trying to do here. So I want to thank you for that. I recognize that you are doing those

00:02:16.980 things, and I would continue to encourage you to share. Share this podcast. Leave us a rating and

00:02:22.740 review. Invite men to listen in. I know a lot of guys are doing meetups, local meetups, and they're

00:02:29.840 talking about the discussions and the topics that we're doing on this show and the Friday field notes

00:02:33.580 and everything that we're talking about. And also, if you would, guys, make sure that you are engaged

00:02:38.560 in our Facebook group. We've got, I think there's 52,000 men inside of our Facebook group,

00:02:45.360 facebook.com slash groups slash order of man, a very powerful resource, and also our exclusive

00:02:51.900 brotherhood. I'm going to talk a little bit more about that during the break in the show, but for

00:02:56.020 now, you can know that the Iron Council is our brotherhood where we're pushing each other to do

00:03:00.720 great and wonderful things in our lives. All right. I want to get into this conversation. Before I do,

00:03:05.080 I need to make a mention very quickly of our show sponsors and my friend, Pete Roberts with

00:03:11.880 Origin. I actually have the opportunity to head back out to Maine in December. So about three weeks

00:03:17.900 or so, four weeks, maybe I'm going to hang out with Pete and the rest of the guys over at Origin

00:03:22.740 probably get a chance to tour their new factory, their new facility. I'm not sure it'll be up and

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00:03:40.940 I think I told you earlier, my wife actually stole mine. So I need to get some new ones. I'll do those

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00:03:49.320 It's the discipline. It's the joint warfare, the super krill and their mulk. And they've got all

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00:03:59.560 go give this lineup a try. If you want a gi, a rash guard, if you're into jujitsu,

00:04:05.280 go give these guys a try. Origin, Maine. So head to origin, Maine.com origin, Maine,

00:04:09.920 as in the state, Maine origin, Maine.com. And make sure guys, when you're over there,

00:04:13.300 you use the code order, O-R-D-E-R. That's all you need to use order at checkout. And you're going to

00:04:18.140 get 10% off on anything that you purchase over there again, origin, Maine.com and then use the code

00:04:23.740 order. All right, guys, let's get into this one. I want to introduce you to my guest,

00:04:28.680 a repeat guest. His name is Mr. Bedros Koulian. He was on, I must've been, I don't know. I should've

00:04:34.860 looked, but it must've been six to eight months ago. He just came out with a new book called

00:04:38.080 man up. And, uh, the subtitle is how to cut the bullshit and kick ass in business and in life.

00:04:46.060 If that doesn't appeal to you, then I just, I don't know why you're listening. Cause that's

00:04:49.580 what we're trying to do. So I thought when he wrote this book, that it would make sense to have

00:04:53.020 him back on a lot of you guys know, and are familiar with Bedros. He's a serial entrepreneur.

00:04:57.940 He's a speaker, a coach, and of course an author. And frankly, he's one of my favorite people to

00:05:02.380 talk to because he's so Frank. I mean, he's got this no nonsense approach to life. And I think

00:05:07.660 you're going to enjoy this episode because he tells it like it is and says the things that

00:05:11.640 most people are probably thinking, but, uh, too afraid to say. So guys, get out your notepads,

00:05:17.220 get ready, get ready to hear from just a man who has come from absolutely nothing. And you'll hear a

00:05:23.960 little bit about that story in this podcast today and has turned his life into something

00:05:28.780 truly incredible, not only for himself, but the people that he has an obligation to serve.

00:05:33.560 So without further ado, my conversation with Bedros.

00:05:38.900 Bedros, what's going on, man? Thanks for joining me on the show for round two.

00:05:41.960 All right. Thank you for having me, Ryan.

00:05:44.060 Yeah. Looking forward to it. You wrote a book that, uh, I'm sure is going to,

00:05:48.680 how shall we say, cause a little bit of controversy because anytime you say man up,

00:05:53.140 it seems like people, uh, get upset about that term for some reason.

00:05:56.900 Yeah. I think it's just you and me, the only ones on the planet who are okay with the term man up.

00:06:00.720 It's okay to be a man, right? In fact, it's encouraged. Well, I think it should be encouraged

00:06:04.120 anyways. It is very encouraged. And listen, I'm going to tell you a true story, but I'm not going to

00:06:08.460 say who, but somebody who's very, very famous in the guru thought leader space. I wanted him to

00:06:15.000 promote my book, just, you know, read about it. And if he liked it, that he would promote it.

00:06:18.680 And so my publisher connected me to his office liaison. I don't know. I think her official

00:06:24.640 title was like director of culture. Okay. And you know, she got a free copy of the book.

00:06:30.000 The publisher sent her one. She said, I love the content. It's so in line with what our thought

00:06:33.700 leader talks about and to level up and to reach her fullest potential. And both men and women can,

00:06:38.900 can do that. But because of the title, we don't want to promote it. We don't want any copies here in

00:06:44.360 the place because, and she goes, what does it really mean to be a man? And how do you unpack

00:06:50.240 that? Bro, my jaw dropped thinking like, what does it mean to be a man? I'm not, I'm not Bill Cosby.

00:06:55.540 I'm not Harvey Weinstein. I'm not going around raping, molesting, giving pills to women. And this

00:07:00.880 is humaning up. And I'm trying to explain this to her. She goes, yeah, we just can't. And I realized

00:07:05.100 in that moment, something had happened to her in her life. I stopped taking it personal where she has

00:07:10.180 become anti-man because the filters that she's got on, that she looks at men through is twisted

00:07:18.340 and distorted and God knows what. So I said, you know what? I really appreciate your time and

00:07:22.580 opportunity. If you don't want that copy, just donate it to a local bookstore and thanks for

00:07:26.440 your time. I knew there was no changing her mind because literally, what is it to be a man? She said,

00:07:31.860 and how do you unpack, what do you mean? How do you unpack that? What does that mean?

00:07:35.020 Right. It's really interesting. I just think we've been this narrative of masculinity and

00:07:40.520 manliness has been that it's bad has been shoved down our throats. And there's so many people that

00:07:45.520 have actually decided to voluntarily accept that narrative. And in all reality, and in my experience,

00:07:53.580 it's the exact opposite. Now, are there certain men out there who are potentially doing harm and

00:07:58.660 creating more harm than good? Of course, but that doesn't necessarily mean, or even remotely mean

00:08:04.260 that there aren't some incredible men out there doing some wonderful things, improving their

00:08:08.760 families, improving their businesses and their communities and every facet of theirs and other

00:08:12.860 people's lives. You're absolutely right. But the reality is the half a percent or whatever the actual

00:08:18.720 fraction of the percentages forces people for some reason to throw a blanket statement on men and why

00:08:25.040 that's happened recently. I have no idea because when the shit hits the fan, we are looking for

00:08:30.460 policemen, firemen, supermen to come to rescue us. There's an absolute role in the aggression

00:08:36.780 and the violence that men deliver. Sure. Should it be maintained and managed in society? Absolutely.

00:08:44.340 But there's an absolute role in the pecking order for that.

00:08:47.840 Well, and I would say not only maintained and managed, but also fostered. And that's a big part of

00:08:52.440 your work. It's obviously a big part of our work is how do we define what masculinity and being a man

00:08:58.860 is? And then what does it even mean to man up? Because I've told my boys, Hey, it's time to man

00:09:04.260 up. There's also context behind that as well. Now, if I'm just saying, Hey, man up, and they have no

00:09:08.820 idea of what that means. Okay. Well, it's a little bit difficult for them to understand that that's

00:09:12.840 actually a positive thing. So how do you define the term man up? That's a really good question.

00:09:18.900 And in the very first chapter of my book, I say, look, man up stands for stop making excuses,

00:09:23.680 take control of your situation, and rise to your full potential. And it could be stop making excuses

00:09:29.400 about your weight gain and why you don't have time to work out or about your relationship that's

00:09:34.120 falling apart or about your finances. At the end of the day, so many people blame everyone else or every

00:09:40.300 circumstance and don't take responsibility. So stop making excuses, take responsibility, and then

00:09:45.040 take control. Everyone says, Hey, it's out of my control. I can't lose weight because of the carbs or

00:09:49.840 that I eat at night, or because I don't sleep well at night, my metabolism is messed up, or I don't

00:09:54.180 have time. Take control back. And then whatever the potential is, rise to it. What do I need to do

00:09:59.600 next to get there? And then don't stop until you're there. But it's become so easy to make excuses to

00:10:04.740 give up control and to say, I settle for mediocrity. So to me, man up is really just reach your fullest

00:10:09.840 potential and stop being a little baby about it. I just think there's so many people out there who,

00:10:14.920 for whatever reason, have just adopted this victim role and love the attention, I think is a lot of

00:10:23.240 it that comes from being the, you know, woe is me and look at all the bad stuff that happened to me

00:10:28.420 rather than saying, you know what, I got dealt a crappy hand or I went through a crappy situation

00:10:32.900 and I grew from it. I learned from it and I'm better off because of it.

00:10:37.760 Exactly. You know, it takes a certain type of mental toughness though, to go, Hey, this crappy thing

00:10:42.860 happened, but I grew from it, learned from it. And I'm a better person because of it. Right.

00:10:46.880 I mean, the fact that you can look at it through that lens, you look at it as, Hey, what bad thing

00:10:51.360 happened to me happened for me to forge me into a better soldier, a better athlete, a better husband,

00:10:59.420 a better entrepreneur, a better father, where some people say, what happened to me caused me to be a

00:11:05.340 worse husband, father, entrepreneur, soldier, athlete. And it really depends on the filters you're

00:11:10.140 looking at through, but that's exactly it, man. Everybody is, it's easier to get attention than to

00:11:15.320 get recognition once you become the better, your better self.

00:11:19.040 So how does a guy who's potentially listening to this, that maybe even has identified that

00:11:23.720 he has been playing that victim role and he's been saying to himself, this stuff is happening to me.

00:11:29.660 How does he then make the shift to know this is happening for me? I mean, is it literally just

00:11:34.900 making a mental shift or is there a lot more to this? You know, believe it or not,

00:11:39.340 the answer is simple. And I love what Jocko Willink and Leif Babin call, you know, talk about

00:11:43.940 this in their book. And I know they just put out dichotomy of leadership, but their first book,

00:11:48.160 extreme ownership, I mean, they're very clear about it. It's, you just have to own every single

00:11:52.400 situation. You have to own every single situation. And the moment you take ownership,

00:11:57.140 the excuses stop and the control begins. And so any guy listening to this, who's used to

00:12:03.060 manufacturing excuses. And by the way, that's what it is. We manufacture, we are like machines,

00:12:07.900 like companies, industries that can manufacture because the brain is so amazing at connecting

00:12:13.340 weird little dots to come up with an excuse instead of a reason why we shouldn't have to

00:12:17.800 suffer. And so the moment you take ownership though, you go, Hey, that was my fault. I didn't

00:12:22.320 sleep well last night, so I'm not going to be able to work out today. Well, that's my fault. So I'm

00:12:25.800 going to make sure that I get a nap in or sleep in earlier, but I'm going to go and actually get my

00:12:30.340 workout in because listen, lack of sleep. My kid threw up in the middle of the night. I had

00:12:34.880 night terrors. You can come up with a million reasons why I'm not going to be able to wake

00:12:38.140 up and work out. Or you can just get up and say, my mission today involves these things to be a good

00:12:43.280 husband, to be a good father, to get my workout in, to pack my meals and to go to work and give it

00:12:49.120 my all. And I am not going to stop until my mission is done. And I learned this from another Navy

00:12:54.280 SEALs, speaking of Jocko and Leif, his name is Ray Cash. And he goes, look, any soldier, and you

00:12:59.460 obviously, being a military man, there's a mission. And if you wake up and, you know,

00:13:03.380 these are the five things I need to do for my mission today, you just don't go to sleep until

00:13:06.740 you accomplish it or until you die. Odds are, unless you're in battle, you're probably not going

00:13:10.480 to die. So if you just put your mind to it, you'll finish it. But most people always choose the path

00:13:15.640 of least resistance. It's easier to go, and no one's watching. I could just forego mission number

00:13:20.380 three, which is to work out and leave it for another day and kick the can down the road.

00:13:25.240 And the reality of that is very few people even know that you're doing that.

00:13:29.540 Or even care or going to hold you accountable because nobody's worried about your life.

00:13:34.520 They're worried about their own. And so you can get away with a lot of this stuff because you can

00:13:38.920 kick it under the rug a little bit and pretend that it doesn't exist or even put yourself out

00:13:43.500 there, especially in this social media driven world where you can make yourself appear to be

00:13:48.260 better than you actually are. Yesterday, I went on such a rant about that because I see so many people

00:13:54.900 who will reach out to me on DM to myself and my business partner, Craig Ballantyne.

00:13:58.740 Hey, man, I have 1.3 million followers, but I only have $2,000 left in my bank account.

00:14:02.880 And I'm one of those guys where I'm very curious. And so I don't just answer their question.

00:14:07.620 I actually click on their image and go look at their what is it they're portraying to society.

00:14:11.440 And bro, they are balling out. Yeah. On Instagram. Right. They are balling out. But in private,

00:14:17.020 they're telling me that they're going broke. And the reality of it is, is because they're chasing

00:14:21.440 dopamine and not serotonin. And this is where I went on a long rant yesterday to my team

00:14:25.520 here at the headquarters. And also on, uh, I did an Instagram live about it. And I said,

00:14:29.780 look, I just got done with the book launch for man up and we're about to go back into the book

00:14:32.980 launch. Cause we sold that on Amazon. We sold that at Barnes and Noble and they just restocked

00:14:36.880 actually tomorrow. They'll all be restocked. But my book launch, the five days where we sold out of

00:14:42.020 all the books, that was a dopamine hit. All my friends mailing out and talking about it on social

00:14:46.700 media and promoting it, man, that was a really good dopamine hit. It felt good. It's the same feeling

00:14:51.640 that when you're on stage and you're done talking and everybody stands up and claps and gives you

00:14:56.520 that standing ovation, it's a dopamine hit. It's the same dopamine hit that you get when you orgasm,

00:15:01.140 when you're making sweet love to your spouse, that dopamine hit is temporary serotonin, which is the

00:15:07.360 other feel good hormone or chemical in our brain. When I'm building fit by the bootcamp franchise,

00:15:12.020 that's building this legacy where we've got hundreds of locations worldwide paying us royalty fees.

00:15:17.320 And we donate money to Shriners Children's Hospitals, the Marine Corps Toys for Tots and

00:15:21.700 the Compassion International. And those are the three charities that we fund and we get behind

00:15:25.380 that serotonin. That's the real feel good buying the Lamborghini. That's a dopamine hit because I

00:15:30.460 can show it off. I can get likes and loves and all this shit on social media. But then I get the

00:15:35.340 payment for the Lamborghini every month. And I'm like, fuck, I'm reminded of that. I really want

00:15:39.500 this. But the 97 kids from Compassion International who write to me and my kids every single month

00:15:44.340 and we write back. That is serotonin. And if more people start chasing serotonin instead of dopamine,

00:15:49.720 we'd have a better planet. I agree. Well, and I think it's also important to mention that having

00:15:54.000 the fast car and having the boat and having the houses and everything that you want, the experiences,

00:15:58.520 there's nothing necessarily wrong with that. But you've got to have what I refer to as depth of

00:16:02.660 character. So if all you're doing is showing this stuff off, but you're renting it or you're up to

00:16:07.180 your eyeballs in debt, then there's no depth. There's no character behind what it is you're putting out

00:16:12.920 into the world. You know, I look at you and I look at some of these other guys that I follow and I know

00:16:16.180 you personally, and I know that your lifestyle is a byproduct of the individual you are. It's not

00:16:24.620 in spite of it. Correct. And you know what? It's, it would be easy enough for me to go buy a private

00:16:29.860 jet. They're about $2 million for a G4. I find them used these days and they just sell, you know,

00:16:35.900 2 million, not much. But I went and built a private gym for 2 million because I value my health. I love

00:16:40.660 working out with my wife and kids in our private gym. I love having my entire staff here going to

00:16:45.620 work out at my private gym. That's a mile and a half from my office. I paid two and a half million

00:16:49.160 dollars to buy the building and build it out. To me, that's serotonin. It's time and experience I

00:16:53.980 get to spend with my staff and my family at night without an interruption at the local big box gym.

00:16:59.060 Whereas if I bought the private jet, well, okay, I could, I could look like I'm balling out. I can

00:17:02.880 certainly afford it, but I could also just fly first class and still get to my destination. And if I

00:17:07.320 really want to avoid TSA, well, guess what? They have timeshare on and you can rent a jet.

00:17:12.280 They always say if it flies or floats, rent it. If you're buying it, then you're just trying to

00:17:15.680 ball for a reason. But anyway, that's neither here nor there. My point is you nailed it, man. So many

00:17:21.460 people just try and take the shortcut because they're, it just feels good to get that love and

00:17:25.980 appreciation. That's so fleeting by posting some Lamborghini or Rolls Royce or whatever. In fact,

00:17:32.160 it's funny you say that because on Sunday for the first time ever, I posted a video that my driver,

00:17:37.940 Hugo, like I have a full-time driver for the last three and a half years. He drives me around

00:17:41.240 anywhere. It gives me time to sit in the back of the car and work on my laptop and get work done so

00:17:47.020 I can spend more time at home with my wife and kids. I never talked about Hugo, but in this particular

00:17:51.460 video, he was in it and I put it up on social media and I gave him props. And my wife told me,

00:17:57.140 she's like, you know, if you were like everybody else, the day that you got Hugo as your full-time

00:18:00.860 driver, you would have been talking about him and posting his pictures, right? I don't give a

00:18:05.460 fuck about all that, man. What I give a fuck about is the outcome that he helped me produce. He helped

00:18:09.200 me buy back more time with my wife and kids. Yeah. I think there's a lot to be said for the

00:18:13.980 motive of why we do things. Is it to boost ourselves up or is it to go out there to serve others? And I

00:18:19.500 think this decision that you've made of having a full-time driver is not to prop yourself up. It's to

00:18:24.460 put yourself in a position that will allow you to serve other people more significantly,

00:18:29.040 which I think is a huge component of manning up. That's our responsibility to serve others.

00:18:33.360 Correct. The recent talk that I've been giving at places when I'm asked to speak,

00:18:37.880 there's a section that where I talk about the Australian shepherd and very much like the German

00:18:42.680 shepherd dog, the Australian shepherd has this desire to herd animals around. And in the absence

00:18:48.580 of either herding animals or protecting a family, it feels like it's lost its purpose. And these dogs

00:18:54.100 are known to fall into a depression. They get stir crazy and they get anxious. And Ryan,

00:18:59.360 what they do is they go around digging holes everywhere randomly just to burn off energy,

00:19:03.480 to have something to do, to create a new purpose for themselves. And then when I'm speaking from

00:19:07.680 stage, I always ask people, I go, Hey, you might think that we're top of the food chain and you have

00:19:11.260 nothing in common with the dog. But I said, let me ask you this as a human, do you believe that you're

00:19:16.020 put on this planet because you have purpose? And everyone's like, yes, yes, I am. Well, do you believe

00:19:20.140 that if you're not living your purpose, you'd probably fall into a depression. You'd probably

00:19:23.260 fall into anxiety. You'd start going stir crazy. Yes, yes, absolutely. Then I go,

00:19:27.680 then what areas of your life are you digging holes in? And when I frame it that way, I think,

00:19:31.920 oh fuck, is it porn? Is it alcohol? Is it addiction? Is it cheating on your spouse? But at the end of the

00:19:37.340 day, we're no different than these dogs, bro. If we don't live our purpose, whether God, the universe,

00:19:42.040 whoever you say the higher powers has put within us, you're going to start digging holes somewhere in

00:19:46.460 your life. It's interesting. You talk about this because I just had a conversation earlier this

00:19:51.260 morning with a mutual friend at my let. Yeah. And he talked about money. He was talking about

00:19:56.880 happiness and fulfillment. He said, look, man, money can buy you happiness. No doubt. You get a new car,

00:20:01.320 you get a new shirt, you get a new watch. You're happy for a minute, but it's fleeting. He says what

00:20:05.940 is really fulfilling is not necessarily the money, but the purpose and the significance and meaning behind

00:20:10.960 it. So I can definitely hear what you're saying and, and attest to the fact that the money is the

00:20:15.820 by-product I think of fulfillment. I really do. I think it's significantly more sustainable

00:20:20.580 when you are pursuing something that actually engages your, your mind and your heart and your

00:20:26.340 soul. To that point, there's also this other component that I've found from my personal

00:20:31.140 experience. And I don't know if you've had this experience as well, but the moment you stop caring

00:20:35.420 about other people's approval and validation, you no longer have to go and buy the same thing that

00:20:41.220 they did just to show them, look, I got this too and get their validation. I don't care what people

00:20:44.900 think of me anymore. I used to, I was that guy that cared what people thought of me and your

00:20:49.660 approval and validation meant something to me because I didn't know how to give myself approval

00:20:53.840 and validation because again, I was chasing dopamine and not serotonin. Ironically, the biggest

00:20:59.940 serotonin hit that I continue to get over and over again is that build my franchise. I have more money

00:21:04.860 to help the causes that mean a lot to me. And you know, from the last podcast that we talked about,

00:21:09.200 I was very open about my, the childhood abuse and being molested as a kid and all this stuff.

00:21:13.260 So to me, kid causes are the most important causes. And that gives me so much more validation

00:21:18.300 and approval than ever having a peer or someone who I look up to go, Oh bro, I drive the Lamborghini

00:21:25.320 Aventador. You should get one too. The old me used to try and scrape together money to get it. Now I

00:21:30.820 have the money to buy a fucking dealership of Lamborghini Aventadors and I don't even give a

00:21:34.820 fuck about anyone's approval or validation. And that makes me happy.

00:21:38.380 And it's so much more empowering when you do it that way. I mean, it's, it's, it's exhausting

00:21:43.480 trying to keep up with people, but when you do it for you, for the right reason, it energizes you,

00:21:48.940 it lifts you up, it props you up. Exactly right. Let's jump back to the topic and the conversation

00:21:55.560 of the book. You really lead off with something that I think is very, very important, especially

00:22:00.420 for men. You know, we talk about being protectors, providers, and presiders, which is synonymous with

00:22:04.880 leadership. And I think there's a lot of guys out there who want to lead, you know, they want to

00:22:08.860 lead as fathers, as husbands, they want to have employees and they want to be important in the

00:22:13.520 lives of their community members, political aspirations, potentially. And yet you start this

00:22:19.040 book off with not leading others, but leading yourself. Can you help me understand the context

00:22:23.760 and the frame of reference for, for that? Absolutely. So when I wrote man up, it was one of

00:22:28.380 those things where I was like, Oh man, it's going to be embarrassing to say this, but a book on

00:22:31.560 leadership. If I started writing it six years ago, while I was still trying to develop my

00:22:34.620 leadership skills. If you said, Hey, what does a book on leadership start with? I was like,

00:22:37.960 I don't know, but I would have never guessed self-discipline in writing man up. It had to

00:22:42.200 start with self-discipline because I realized I was a hypocrite leader. I was expecting my employees

00:22:47.140 to show up to work on time and to be at meetings on time, but I wouldn't be there. In other words,

00:22:50.840 it was okay for me to be a few minutes late and unprepared and ill-equipped, but I expected them to be

00:22:56.260 there. Well, guess what happens if they start saying that, Hey man, you're a hypocrite leader. You don't lead

00:23:00.860 from the front. You lead from behind, meaning you crack the whip, make sure I'm here, but you can

00:23:04.920 stroll in when you want disheveled. Can someone get me coffee? By the way, who's got a pen I can

00:23:08.720 borrow? Like that was me. It's embarrassing to admit that. But if I don't admit that, then I'm

00:23:13.480 really saying, Hey bro, I know it all. And I didn't, not all, but I had nine employees in one day,

00:23:18.600 four of them quit on me, dude, four of them. So I had almost 50% of my employees quit on me

00:23:23.680 right in one day. And that simply happened because of poor leadership. I was a hypocrite. I asked for one

00:23:30.000 thing of them, but I wasn't able to do it myself. I didn't lead from the front. I had to have a really

00:23:35.460 hard talk with myself and go, Hey man, first of all, you're in the fitness industry, trying to sell

00:23:38.940 a fitness franchise and you're 35 pounds overweight. Secondly, you're taking NyQuil to go to sleep

00:23:43.640 and Vicodin to fall asleep, but you're waking up and you're taking Adderall and drinking cough and

00:23:48.460 shit tons of coffee. And then sports energy drinks just to get out of that foggy headedness.

00:23:54.020 You're showing up to work late and unprepared yet. You want them to be prepared. You have no clarity of

00:23:58.520 vision. Ryan, seven years ago, six years ago, if you said, Bedros, how many fit body bootcamp

00:24:02.320 locations do you want? I would have said a lot. And then if you said, well, when do you want it?

00:24:06.480 I would have said as soon as possible. Sure. Where's the clarity of vision there? So I was an

00:24:09.680 undisciplined, unorganized leader in every capacity. Because of that, I had four employees quit on me

00:24:15.580 and that forced me to open up my eyes and realize what a hypocrite of a leader I was. So I needed to

00:24:20.320 start showing up on time, being prepared, show up before them, go to sleep after them, outwork them,

00:24:27.100 outproduce them. If I wanted my sales reps to make 100 calls an hour, I had to make 110. I had to show

00:24:32.360 that I could do 110 to expect 100 from them, not say that there was a time I used to do 100 and hope

00:24:37.860 that they believe me. And so I believe that demonstration of proof is everything. And if

00:24:42.100 you want to be a leader, it has to start with self-discipline, get your workouts in, sleep right,

00:24:46.380 surround yourself with the right people, save positive mindset, negative mindset or pessimism is the kiss of

00:24:52.640 death for any entrepreneur, for any human for that matter. And so I really had to start with

00:24:56.700 getting myself in order before I can get my business and my finances in order.

00:25:00.440 It sounds like this self-inventory was really valuable for you, but with all due respect,

00:25:05.920 it almost sounds like, oh, you just inventoried yourself and got corrected and you got back on

00:25:09.640 track. But I imagine there was significantly more to it than that. I don't want anybody to believe

00:25:14.760 that, oh, if you just inventory, then you'll be good. Like what did the actual process go from,

00:25:19.860 okay, here's a few things I recognize about myself where I'm falling short to

00:25:23.780 let me now implement these and start being in integrity with who I am and the way I show up?

00:25:30.560 Yeah, good question. So in that time, and by the way, so that's 2011, 12 and part of 2013,

00:25:35.900 just to give you a figure. And it's ironic now because right now we're 2018 and in the last three

00:25:42.120 years we've hit the Inc. 5000 and Inc. 500 list three times. And this year in 2018, we hit Entrepreneur

00:25:47.260 Magazine's 500 fastest going franchises. So anyone that says getting personally disciplined and then

00:25:52.340 the doing, that's pillar number one. And then the next five pillars, which is clarity of vision and

00:25:56.300 decisiveness and building a team and all this stuff, which we can probably go into later.

00:25:59.920 Anyone that says that doesn't work, I am proof that I installed the six pillars in me over a

00:26:04.460 three-year period. And in the next five years, my business literally hockey sticked and went through

00:26:08.980 the roof. I guess some could call that a coincidence, but nothing else changed. My marketing strategy,

00:26:13.480 sales strategy didn't change. Nothing else changed other than that one thing. But to go back

00:26:17.200 to your question, which was, hey, is it just you? You get disciplined and that's it? Well, no.

00:26:21.540 In that time, I was reading a book by T. Harv Becker, and I forget what the book was. Maybe it's

00:26:25.260 called Swimming with the Sharks. T. Harv Becker had a line that read, how you do anything is how you do

00:26:30.360 everything. And while people tag me on that and give me credit for that quote, I always say on my

00:26:35.180 podcast and I always say on these podcasts, it's T. Harv Becker. And I'm just a guy repeating the

00:26:39.900 message. How you do anything is how you do everything. And I remember thinking once those four

00:26:43.860 employees left that, holy crap, they left because they have a poor leader who's a hypocrite and

00:26:49.800 doesn't practice what he preach. And proof of that was you looked in my car back then, there'd be any

00:26:54.660 given time, three to four empty Starbucks cups, three or four or five protein bar wrappers, an

00:26:59.340 empty protein shaker cup that smelled like fart, just awful, man. My car was a mess, right? And

00:27:04.420 ironically, if you could look into my head, my thought process was a mess. And if you could look at my

00:27:08.480 workstation at my old office, that was a mess. Everything was disheveled because truly you look

00:27:13.960 at my relationship with my wife and you can ask her, that was a mess. My kids were like, who's the

00:27:18.520 stranger in the house? That was a mess. You look at my bank account, that was a mess. And truly how I do

00:27:23.440 everything is how I do anything. And I realized that it starts with me. If I just clean up my car,

00:27:28.280 I was like, man, my franchisees don't understand. This is why they're leaving. My employees don't

00:27:31.980 understand. This is why they're quitting. It's like, all right, dude, control what you can then. Since I'm

00:27:36.440 saying that I can't control them, control what I can't. Can I control what I put in my mouth? Yes.

00:27:40.820 I will fix that. Can I control my workouts? Yes. I'll start working out again. Can I control

00:27:44.220 cleaning up my damn car? Yes. Then I'll start cleaning up my damn car. And as I did all that,

00:27:48.900 bled into every other part of my life from communication to clarity of vision, clarity of

00:27:54.300 path, decisiveness, emotional resilience. And then of course, a new leader was born.

00:27:59.680 It's interesting you talk about this because I know there's a lot of guys who are going to think to

00:28:02.940 themselves, these small little tasks, these small little things don't really count, right? It has

00:28:08.460 to be these big, huge wins in order for me to move the needle. But none of these are small things.

00:28:15.120 Everything that you do is significant towards the path that you want to travel.

00:28:20.500 Dude, is it ever? Is it ever? And I'm sure someone much smarter than me probably has done this,

00:28:25.500 but I haven't. So I can't speak for anyone else but me. There's no one big thing. If you're like,

00:28:30.340 show me the one big thing you did to build an Entrepreneur 500 ranking franchise, I'm like,

00:28:35.500 Ryan, I don't know one big thing. But I can tell you a whole bunch of one degrees of changes that

00:28:40.040 I made in my life. And the best example I can give you of that is cleaning my car up. People are like,

00:28:45.220 wait, cleaning your car up helped you build a world-renowned franchise? Yep. And the example I

00:28:49.920 give people is water boils 211 degrees. Okay, great. You drop an egg and you can make a hard-boiled

00:28:56.740 egg in 211 degrees. One more degree of change turns that boiling water into steam. And that steam

00:29:03.760 can power locomotive. That steam can power a generator that can create electricity. And all

00:29:08.780 of a sudden, that one more degree of change can now create motion, locomotion, or create power

00:29:14.800 from that boiling water. And so there's a whole bunch of one degrees of changes in my life that

00:29:20.120 stack on top of each other. And truly, most lives, you know, Ed Milet, you know, Andy Frisilla,

00:29:25.040 all these guys and gals that we know, Sarah Blakely, you know, of Spanx, there's a one big

00:29:30.560 thing. She came up with an idea. Maybe that was the big thing. I came up with the idea of

00:29:34.200 Fit Body Boot Camp turned personal training into a group training program. But it was all

00:29:38.060 just tiny little stacks of one degrees of changes and wins stacked on top of each other that built

00:29:43.260 an empire. Isn't that amazing? I mean, it really is this compounding effect that these little

00:29:49.260 things have. And so, you know, people are always asking that, like, what's the three things?

00:29:53.380 What's the five things that you can do? It isn't. It's an infinite number of things that

00:29:58.120 you can do. And you stack those on top of each other and you produce huge results.

00:30:02.460 Let's move to this next pillar, which I think is clarity of vision. Is that right? Is that

00:30:06.520 would you consider that the next pillar? So talk to me about how you become clear with

00:30:10.660 your vision. What do you want? And why do you want it? I was a fat kid in high school.

00:30:15.140 I reverse engineered what I wanted. I was a fat kid in high school. I started working out

00:30:18.360 so I can ask a girl out to the prom. I got in great shape, but I never had the confidence

00:30:22.200 to ask her out. But that helped me become a personal trainer because I wanted other people

00:30:25.800 to experience the increase in confidence, self-esteem, and to get healthier. I'm still

00:30:30.080 a personal trainer. Like, even when I coach other businesses not in the fitness industry

00:30:33.840 or when I get on stage and I speak, I'm still coaching people, just not necessarily in their

00:30:37.480 fitness. I'm changing their mindset and their perspective. I'm putting different filters

00:30:41.220 on their eyes and ears so they can hear the message differently and see the world differently.

00:30:45.320 And hopefully that'll impact their fitness and finance and family. But going back to

00:30:50.280 this clarity of vision to me was, well, okay, what do I still want? As the ultimate personal

00:30:54.540 trainer on the planet, I would love to train 5 million people every single day. Well, for

00:30:59.420 that to happen, any 2,500 Fit Body Bootcamp locations, each of them with 500 to 1,000 clients

00:31:04.400 and each of those clients tell, at least statistically we found, each member tells two to four people

00:31:10.520 has some kind of fitness impact in their life. And so that would mean I'm impacting 5 million lives

00:31:15.520 a day. And so it's what do I want and why do I want it? If your why is not big enough, and I know

00:31:19.720 that sounds a little hokey, then you're not going to get there. If it's just like, I want it because

00:31:23.720 I want money or I want a Lamborghini, great. As soon as I make enough money to get to the Lamborghini,

00:31:27.420 I'm going to stop trying. Or I want it because I want to live by the beach. As soon as I make enough

00:31:31.340 money to live by the beach, I'm going to stop trying. But it's 2,500 locations, each with 500 to 1,000

00:31:36.480 clients so that we can impact 5 million people every single morning through health, fitness,

00:31:40.320 and a positive mindset. Well, that means I need 2,500 locations. And then I put a date to it.

00:31:45.240 And this is where clarity of vision becomes ultra focused, right? Without a date, it's just a blurry

00:31:52.180 dream. Soon as you say 2,500 locations, but you put a date to it, it just becomes as tightly focused,

00:31:59.280 almost like putting blinders on a horse. I can't see any other distraction. I'm the king of saying no

00:32:03.520 to everything because I'm so clear on my vision. That means we need 34 locations per day to get to

00:32:08.820 2,500 locations by the year 2023. That's my deadline. So clarity of vision. Why do you want

00:32:14.500 it? What is it that you want? Why do you want it? And when do you want it? By set a date.

00:32:18.300 And once you're that clear, now I can message that to my clients. I can message that to my staff here.

00:32:24.780 And the traffic buyers know how much traffic we need so that the sales guys and gals can close 34

00:32:29.020 locations. The operations team can take those 34 locations, make sure they sign the lease, build out

00:32:33.560 the location of their Fit Body Bootcamp franchises, get the clients in there, impact them. And now

00:32:38.600 everyone is on the same mission. I think you were what? In the army? Is that right?

00:32:42.180 The army national guard. That's right.

00:32:43.740 Army national guard. So if you're going on a mission, if you don't know what the mission is

00:32:46.940 and what the outcome should be and when it should happen, then you guys are going to be like, okay,

00:32:51.100 we've got guns and bombs and all this shit, but I don't know when to go and who to get and when to

00:32:55.700 get them by. So everyone on the team needs to know the mission, the deadline, and why so that we can

00:33:01.480 accomplish the goal. So clarity of vision is paramount. What would you consider your why?

00:33:06.140 Because I think this is a concept a lot of people talk about and it is kind of, I don't know if it's

00:33:11.220 woo-woo necessarily, but it's hurt a lot. And I think it sometimes is difficult for us to pin down

00:33:16.220 a great motivating why. It has to be something bigger than you, man. And for me, it's like,

00:33:21.760 I know what it felt like to not have Christmas. I'm a foreigner that came to this country as an

00:33:26.020 immigrant. You know, English is a second language. We came from a communist country. We were yelled at and

00:33:30.420 told to go back to your own fucking country, foreigners. Because of that, we lived in

00:33:34.260 section eight housing and my parents couldn't afford lice treatment. When I got lice, my mom

00:33:38.220 had to wash my hair with gasoline that my dad siphoned out of a parked car so that, you know,

00:33:43.100 I didn't have lice and we had to dumpster dive for food. Because of that, we didn't have Christmas

00:33:47.880 for the first three years. I didn't have a Christmas gift. So you look at the three charities that I've

00:33:52.980 adopted. My big reason why is I don't want any other kid to experience getting yelled at,

00:33:58.140 laughed at, having clothes that don't fit, not having a Christmas gift. So the Marine Corps

00:34:02.600 Toys for Todd's, just this last year, this last Christmas, we bought 22,000 toys for them,

00:34:07.340 a quarter million dollars worth of toys. Took it to the Pico Rivera Marine Corps Depot. And it was

00:34:12.140 so great to see for three days, cars were coming by a kid. And you know what they do, by the way,

00:34:16.520 that's so cool. The parents wait outside while the Marines walk in the, God, I'm getting goosebumps.

00:34:20.540 The Marines walk these kids into where the toys are and the kids pick out the toy they want,

00:34:25.480 not the parents, because the parents are going to pick the one that cost the most, right? The kids

00:34:28.940 were picking what they wanted. All I'm doing, my big reason why is I'm healing myself. Shriner

00:34:33.260 Children's Hospital takes kids who have medical conditions and says, hey, we will fix your kid,

00:34:37.620 we will fix their spine, we will fix their burn, we will fix their cleft palate. No cost to you,

00:34:42.480 parent. And I wish I had medical services as a kid when I was young. Man, we didn't. My mom had to

00:34:47.180 wash my hair with freaking gasoline. And I didn't have clothes that fit. And so I got laughed at. So

00:34:51.620 Compassion International, we've got 97 kids adopted through Compassion. Everyone laughs at it. They

00:34:56.420 go, what do you do with all those letters that they write you on a monthly basis? I go, my kids

00:34:59.220 practically have carpal tunnel writing back. And I can't wait to have 9,700 kids adopted because I'm

00:35:05.100 just going to have to get my kids school, which ironically, Ed Milet's sister is a teacher at my

00:35:10.300 kids school. Oh, is that right? Yeah, yeah. She's totally on board with my wacky ideas. So I've already

00:35:14.540 talked to the principal. I'm going to keep adopting kids through Compassion. My kids are getting carpal tunnel

00:35:18.600 every month. And so we need kids from this school. And Ed Milet's sister got on board with it. And

00:35:22.540 we're going to have Loving Savior Lutheran School here start writing back to all the kids. But I'm

00:35:27.280 just saving myself. All I'm doing is helping the kids who were once more like me than I was once

00:35:32.200 like them. That's my big reason why. And so if you don't have a big enough reason why, the moment

00:35:37.120 the going gets tough and it will always get tough, you will quit. But if you have a big enough reason,

00:35:42.960 and the reason I lost weight, look, I was a fat kid my whole life. But it was senior year of high

00:35:47.000 school that I had the hots for Nakaya. Like she was smoking hot, man. I had the hots for her, right?

00:35:52.160 And so she was my big reason why. Look, as a young man, your hormones are your big reason why. All of

00:35:56.640 a sudden, the grilled cheese sandwich and the bologna, it didn't entice me anymore because Nakaya

00:36:01.160 did. She was my bigger reason why. So in business or entrepreneurship or in battle, survival is a big

00:36:07.520 reason why when you're in battle. So I'm going to go kill the fucking enemy because I don't want to die.

00:36:11.480 Man, that is really powerful and articulates something that I thought about a long time. I mean,

00:36:15.900 even what we're doing here with Order of Man is, again, like you said, it's perfect. Saving myself,

00:36:22.620 healing myself. I grew up without a permanent father figure. I grew up not really knowing what

00:36:26.780 it meant to be like a man. I had some big, big problems early in my marriage with my wife and

00:36:30.840 of course, my one-year-old son at the time. And I struggled, man. I really struggled. And I don't

00:36:36.820 want other people to have to go through that experience. I don't want kids to go through that

00:36:40.540 experience. I don't want fathers and husbands to go through that experience. And so I've tied my work

00:36:45.780 to saving my past self, I guess you'd say.

00:36:51.500 That's exactly it. And as a byproduct of that, you're helping guys like me who listen to your

00:36:55.520 podcast, take notes from your podcast and go, holy hell, thank you, Ryan, because this one guy you had

00:37:00.680 on your podcast gave me more clarity on how to turn my son from a 12-year-old boy to a 13-year-old

00:37:06.480 young man, which just happened two weeks ago. And I took him to Idaho and we'll have an offline

00:37:10.560 conversation about that. But I had this whole man up process, this building of a modern day night

00:37:15.120 process that I did for him.

00:37:16.760 Yeah, I'd definitely like to hear about that. All right. So we've got clarity of vision.

00:37:20.460 I think next is clarity of path. Is that right?

00:37:23.460 Yeah. And clarity of path is real simple. How are you going to get there? So if I want 34

00:37:27.380 Fit Body Bootcamp locations a month, what is my vehicle to getting there? For me, it's spending a

00:37:31.800 quarter million dollars a month on Facebook ads to drive traffic to our application page on

00:37:37.240 fitbodybootcamp.com to qualify the best franchise prospects. That's it. Clarity of path is real simple.

00:37:42.480 What is your one vehicle to create the outcome? Most people think that they have to have 10

00:37:47.960 irons in the fire. You just typically need one. And how have you determined that one? Is this

00:37:52.620 just trial and error and testing and experimenting and figuring out what works and what doesn't?

00:37:57.580 It is. For me, it was, you know, I did what every other franchise does. I, hey, let me buy ads in

00:38:01.420 Inc. Magazine. $20,000 for a full page ad. We got three applications and no one bought. $20,000

00:38:07.500 spent on Facebook. We got 12 applications in and one person bought. Hmm. Can I recreate this?

00:38:12.480 You know, is this a fluke? Yeah. I ran another magazine ad and another Facebook ad and I saw

00:38:17.160 that. Okay. So it is trial and error. And once you do find that sweet spot, go all in. So many

00:38:22.500 people pull up that e-break, which I talked about in the book, but go all in. Like I found that Facebook

00:38:26.800 is the Holy Grail. Dude, I don't know when they're going to change their algorithm, but right now I

00:38:31.420 will give them quarter million dollars every month and they will give me about 400 leads. I'm sorry.

00:38:35.500 Now we're up to 900 leads, 900 applications. And then we sift out the 34 that we need to become

00:38:41.220 the best franchisees. And I could see how you start putting more and invest more and more and

00:38:46.120 more and more, how that could become scary. I imagine all of us have our own internal limitations

00:38:52.280 that keep us from wanting to push on that gas pedal. Yes. And it's so difficult because there's

00:38:57.240 so much friction that comes from our spouse, the programming that mom and dad put into our head.

00:39:02.320 Hey, don't take risks. Be careful now. What if you lose all your money? Right? So you're always

00:39:06.760 fighting these internal voices. Like it's like bad programming that you have to override just to

00:39:11.760 create the outcome you want. How do you do that for yourself? Repetition. If you and I take someone

00:39:17.060 brand new who's never worked out in the gym and we go, Hey, let's go. We're going to bench press.

00:39:20.640 The bar alone is going to feel heavy, even though they have the strength, but because they can't

00:39:24.540 balance the bar. You remember when you first bench, like the bar is like flopping around like a

00:39:28.340 helicopter blade and it's just embarrassing. It's like, who's watching me? But then all of a

00:39:32.300 sudden a week goes by, you've got your balance or it's called proprioception. Your proprioception

00:39:36.820 is back in. And I was sending like, man, I'm all of a sudden I got a 45 plate on each side. Well,

00:39:41.180 easy turbo. You didn't just get magically stronger. The balance set in the mind muscle

00:39:44.980 connection just happened. So it's through repetition, not enough people put in the

00:39:49.020 repetition. So not enough has happened to make that connection, right? The mind muscle connection

00:39:52.920 is what we need in the gym. So we can override the balance. Now we've got the balance set.

00:39:56.800 We can load up the weight and begin to bench more weight. Well, in marketing your business or being a

00:40:01.500 better spouse or being a better father, you just need more repetition. And soon you're less sore,

00:40:06.740 you're less dorky in the gym, and you're actually growing muscles and getting stronger, faster,

00:40:11.140 more resilient. Same thing in business, man. Keep running ads and campaigns with enough money that

00:40:16.200 you're willing to lose until one of them breaks even. And then now you're not breaking even. You're

00:40:20.540 actually cashflow ROI positive. And then once you're ROI positive, start scaling fast because you don't

00:40:26.680 know when competition is going to come around or when the algorithm is going to change.

00:40:33.280 Gentlemen, I want to interrupt you real quick. If you are looking for a way to elevate your life

00:40:38.240 and the way that you're performing in it, I want to invite you to join our exclusive brotherhood,

00:40:42.880 the Iron Council. I talked about it earlier in the show. I want to give you a few more details before

00:40:46.980 we get back to this conversation. This group, fraternity, organization, society, council,

00:40:51.620 whatever you want to call it is a very powerful brotherhood of men who are pushing each other,

00:40:57.420 standing shoulder to shoulder in the same objectives and holding each other's feet to the

00:41:01.640 fire. You know what? The truth is you could do this thing that we call life all alone,

00:41:05.600 but why would you want to? And I think more importantly than that, why not band with other

00:41:10.660 men who will help you get further faster than you could have by going at it alone. So if you're even

00:41:17.300 remotely interested in learning what we're about, seeing what this is all about, jumping on the

00:41:21.880 calls, completing the assignments, having some accountability, guys, just give it a try for 30

00:41:25.800 days, 30 days. You'll get access to all the tools, the resources, the guidance, the discussions,

00:41:30.280 the accountability, everything. And then ultimately you can determine if it's a fit for you,

00:41:33.880 but give it a try. See what you think. If you're interested, head to orderofman.com

00:41:37.560 slash iron council. Again, that's orderofman.com slash iron council. You can go ahead and take care

00:41:44.140 of that after the show. Until then, let's get back to the conversation with Bedros.

00:41:49.860 So what are you doing personally in your business to ensure that there's, or maybe you're not,

00:41:55.340 I don't know, something in the background happening so that when the algorithm does change or when it

00:42:00.060 becomes less favorable that you don't have another plan in place? Good question. I'm a big fan of

00:42:06.700 dedicating about 10 to 15% of our ad budget to what I call new platforms. We tried Instagram. Honestly,

00:42:13.500 it didn't work well. We're just, we don't get enough quality leads. So we're always testing

00:42:17.640 out new platforms while we're trying to max out the platform that's working because make no mistake

00:42:23.000 about it. Like Facebook has shut down our ad account three times over the last six years

00:42:26.820 for any wacky reason. Like you can hit this person spamming me and enough people hit that when they

00:42:32.280 see your ads, just because you're spending a lot of dollars. And maybe what you're saying in your ad

00:42:35.560 is, you know, hurts their emotions or their feelings. Facebook will shut you down until you can

00:42:39.540 prove otherwise. And so when that happens, we do shift to Google pay-per-click ads. Are they good?

00:42:45.880 Eh, they're okay. And of course I build my email list. I've got a massive email list of qualified

00:42:50.700 prospects that I'm always in good contact with. So those, you know, 900 applications that we get,

00:42:56.460 some of them are very qualified people. They're just not ready to buy now. And I'm always just giving

00:43:00.660 them great content, love, mindset stuff so that God forbid Facebook shuts down or does something

00:43:06.560 weird with their algorithm. I can go to Google pay-per-click ads, pay more for YouTube ads if

00:43:11.100 I have to, and I can hit my email list up for applications while we figure out the Facebook

00:43:15.660 problem. You continue to nurture those potential leads at this point. Yes, sir. Yeah, it makes sense.

00:43:20.980 What's the next pillar? So the next pillar after that is decisiveness. Like decisiveness is so

00:43:25.360 important. I think it was general Norman Schwarzkopf during the nineties, uh, during the first Iraqi war that

00:43:30.160 said indecision has cost Americans more money than making the wrong decision. And he said this when he had

00:43:36.280 all these soldiers in the desert, we hadn't quite invaded Iraq yet. Our soldiers were in a holding

00:43:41.280 pattern and he was just waiting for the president and to Congress to decide, do we hold or do we

00:43:45.680 just retreat and go back and say, Hey, forget it. We're done. We're not going to commit to this war.

00:43:50.100 He was right. The cost of getting these guys and gals, keeping them fed and watered and keeping the

00:43:55.820 machine and guns and equipment operating was costing us taxpayers more dollars than actually making a

00:44:02.140 decision and going into war and realizing it was the bad decision and then pulling out. Um, so the

00:44:07.100 same thing applies for entrepreneurs or in business or in personal life. If you're at a crossroads and

00:44:12.840 you think that you're going to have to, you need a hundred percent of the information before you can

00:44:16.100 make a decision. Guess what? Someone like me who's decisive as a motherfucker these days. And I used to

00:44:21.580 not be, we'll make a decision when I have 50, 60, 70% of the information. That's all I need because I

00:44:27.340 know I could pivot back quickly. There's only one thing I can't come back from and that's death.

00:44:32.180 Every other decision, I may lose money. I may lose customers. I may lose staff,

00:44:36.440 but every other bad decision I can come back from, of course, correct.

00:44:39.860 I think that's a good distinction because a lot of people are afraid to quote unquote,

00:44:43.760 pigeonhole themselves into decisions because they think that their next decision has to be their final

00:44:48.340 decision. And it causes people to seize up, to not take action.

00:44:52.660 Back to what we said earlier, there is no one big decision I've made or that you've made that's

00:44:56.600 grown our business or that's impacted our life or our relationship. I decided that,

00:45:00.780 hey, I want a better relationship with my wife. It's every Wednesday night being date night.

00:45:04.700 Even when my buddy Chanta calls and goes, hey, let's do an evening surf session. The water's warm.

00:45:09.380 Oh, Chanta, I'd love to. And the waves are great. It's a Wednesday night. It's date night.

00:45:12.740 Can't do it, buddy. It's the small commitments that I make to myself and I keep that stack up into a

00:45:18.560 big relationship plus or a big franchise ad campaign. But people think like this one decision is

00:45:24.620 going to hinge on that unlikely. We have this ability to make things out more important than

00:45:31.260 they actually are. You know, like this one decision is going to make or break you. No,

00:45:36.340 it's not. It's going to move you in one direction, but it's all of those decisions together that are

00:45:40.580 going to make or break you. Like maybe the president has that kind of pressure,

00:45:44.080 you know, when he's got his finger hovering over the big red button. But dude, the rest of us don't

00:45:48.000 have that, you know, right. We're not about to launch like a nuclear holocaust on North Korea or

00:45:53.440 anything like you and I are just, okay, what do I do? Do I run a Facebook ad or do I not? Do I ask

00:45:57.300 for referrals this way? Am I going to look silly? And if I do, I just stop asking for those kinds of

00:46:01.520 referrals. Well, and I think this ties in nicely to the concept of manning up too, because I think

00:46:05.880 they're inherently within us as men is a greater capacity. I'm not saying that women can't do this,

00:46:11.320 but a greater capacity to take calculated risks. And when we, as men don't take those risks to

00:46:18.040 protect our family or to expand our own personal empires, I think there's a lot to be said that's,

00:46:22.820 that's left on the table that we could potentially capture if we were willing to take a few more

00:46:27.920 risks than we normally would. Absolutely. Hey, and by nature, by genetic design,

00:46:33.520 men are more risk takers. That's it. And men are also less nurturing. And this is why if my wife

00:46:38.920 is gone like on a two day trip with her girlfriends, my kids like after a day, when's mommy coming back?

00:46:43.820 When's mommy coming back? Yeah. Bro, I could be gone on a 14 day speaking tour. I come back and like,

00:46:48.640 oh, you left? Yeah. It's because they need mom more than they need dad. But now that my son's 13,

00:46:54.940 he needs me more, which feels good. But yeah, man, it's just word by nature, more risk takers. And

00:46:59.980 it's by genetic design. Yeah. It is funny when you start to see that, that switch, I've got a 10 year

00:47:05.180 old boy, an eight year old boy and a two year old boy. And I've got a little girl as well, a five year

00:47:09.400 old little girl, but my boys, my 10 year old has made the switch. My eight year old is in that process

00:47:14.720 from mama's boy to daddy's boy. And my two year old, you know, I pick him up from his nap this

00:47:19.300 afternoon. And first thing he says, where's mom? Where's mom? And I'm trying to like carry him

00:47:25.160 around and he just keeps in my ear. Where's mom? I'm like, oh my gosh, here. A couple more years

00:47:29.840 though. You're mine. Right, right. Exactly. We're going shooting. Exactly right. That's exactly right.

00:47:35.520 Here's something I did with my daughter, Chloe, right around the age of seven is when we started doing

00:47:39.520 this. I know your daughter, you said is five, right? That's right. I guess I probably could have

00:47:42.620 started sooner, but I didn't think of it until then. So date nights for me and my wife are

00:47:46.280 Wednesdays. Oh, I know why I started at seven. One day Chloe was like, oh, a date night, dad.

00:47:50.120 What is it? What do you guys got? Oh, me and mom get in the truck and we drive to a restaurant or

00:47:55.040 we'll go to a bookstore and then we'll go see a movie. We might get some coffee after we hang out,

00:47:59.900 we connect. And she goes, I want to go on a date. Holy crap. This is my chance to like brainwash her.

00:48:05.940 Here's the blueprint of the man you're looking for, right? Yes. Yes. Every Thursday we're human. We miss

00:48:11.260 some Thursdays because I'm traveling or she's got volleyball practice because she's 10 years old

00:48:15.200 now. But for the last three years, every Thursday, so Wednesdays is date night for me and the wife.

00:48:20.200 And then me and Chloe go to Chick-fil-A and then we go to yogurt land. And one day, man,

00:48:24.420 we're driving in the truck and she goes, so what do you guys do in the truck? I go, well, we talk.

00:48:28.420 She was, okay, what do you want to talk about? And we started talking about whatever. And she goes,

00:48:31.900 what else do you guys do? I was like, well, we hold hands. And so she puts her hand out and dude,

00:48:35.900 it was the cutest thing. Like just all 230 pounds of me like melted. Oh, I bet.

00:48:39.720 Hold hands like me and my wife do. And we're talking and I go, Hey, Chloe, just so you know,

00:48:45.580 if a boy wants to do anything more than hold your hand in the truck, you just call me.

00:48:50.720 Daddy's going to be there. Okay. Okay, dad. And I knew that's, that's all I had to tell him.

00:48:53.980 You don't have to get into details or anything at that point.

00:48:56.360 Exactly, man. It was such a good feeling. And then I, you know, and I tell her like the small

00:48:59.420 things, right? Like, Hey, Chloe, daddy's going to open your door. Cause that's what modern day nights

00:49:02.680 do. Andrew does that for mom. And so if you ever meet a boy and you like him, but he doesn't open

00:49:07.540 your door, you turn right back around and you call the daddy. Okay. Okay, daddy. So it's my

00:49:11.160 chance to like totally brainwash her into like what I want the kind of guy I want her to be with. And

00:49:15.420 man, you ought to try it. It's such a fun experience. That's pretty cool. I think I will.

00:49:18.900 And I like that idea. I mean, at the end of the day, it is our job as father specifically to model

00:49:23.760 the type of men that we would like our boys to become and the type of men that we hope our daughters

00:49:28.600 choose in a partner. Exactly. What is this concept of modern day night? Where did this come from?

00:49:33.220 Yeah. So before Andrew was born, my son, who just turned 13, my wife's uncle recommended a book to

00:49:39.580 me called raising the modern day. I forget the author's name, unfortunately, but we'll figure

00:49:44.940 that out. But raising the modern day. And he pretty much says, you know, pretty much what you're saying

00:49:48.440 now, he was saying 13 years ago, 14 years ago, he saw this trend coming of the masculinization of

00:49:53.900 men and just men are all bad and evil. And he was like, Hey, you know, part of the reason is no one's

00:49:58.100 raising modern day nights. And the example he gave was when girls become women, it happens

00:50:03.260 through nature. Their boobs begin to grow. They feel that they have a menstrual cycle. So nature

00:50:07.660 turns girls into women. There's nothing for men that does that. But he cited the example of

00:50:13.800 nights had squires and these squires, their job was to wash the horses and to sharpen the swords and to

00:50:19.980 help the night get dressed in his armor. And in the process of doing that over a couple of years,

00:50:25.520 that was his right to passage into manhood, into knighthood. And he says, these days we don't have

00:50:30.280 any modern day nights because part of it is the political correctness world of, and this has

00:50:34.460 happened to me, dude. I opened the door years ago as a young man, before I was even married in my

00:50:37.960 early twenties, I opened the door for this lady who was going to walk in behind me. And I held the

00:50:42.320 door open. I said, go ahead, just let her go in first. She goes, no, you go ahead. I can open the

00:50:46.580 door for myself. And I felt like a total idiot. Like, Oh my God, why did I do this? Oh, did I just

00:50:51.560 insult her or offend her? I realized she's the one who's fucked up, not me.

00:50:54.480 Right. Right. But I realized that a decade later, right? Because I'm like,

00:50:57.320 yeah, not the moments. Yeah. So anyway, the author is talking about like,

00:51:00.560 we need to create a process to turn young men into, or young boys into men. And since nature

00:51:06.360 won't do it for us, this is how knights did it. And this is how it happened. And so the example he

00:51:10.360 gave was, and it was pretty extreme, but he said, imagine if you took your son to a parking lot

00:51:14.440 and you had all of the men in his life that you look up to, like, you know, the uncles and the

00:51:19.560 grandparents, and they all give a piece of wisdom. And then you blindfold your son. And then

00:51:23.240 there's like some rusty nails and broken glass and a bear trap. And you go, all right, son,

00:51:26.680 you're going to follow my voice from 50 yards away. I'm going to guide you to me without,

00:51:31.540 you know, the rusty nails stabbing you or the glass cutting you or the bear trap getting you.

00:51:35.620 And this is supposed to be the example, the metaphor of follow the wisdom of the men who

00:51:39.680 are older than you. And you will always be on the right path. And if he's willing to do this,

00:51:44.240 trust the men who are older than him, blindfolded, et cetera. And there was fear involved.

00:51:47.960 That's the rite of passage into manhood. So what I did, there's a kill house owned by a guy named

00:51:53.120 Matt Schneider in Boise, Idaho called Forward Movement Training. He was a special forces guy.

00:51:58.600 And then he became a U.S. Marshal. And then he retired from there and opened up his own kill

00:52:02.600 house where, in fact, the week before I still team three head was there practicing, you know,

00:52:07.620 room clearing and bank clearing. He's got in a 40,000 square foot warehouse, cars and wacky little

00:52:13.700 scenes of like a full on hotel lobby and a bank lobby and a house that has no roof with a catwalk.

00:52:19.140 So like you can stand and watch. And so I'd met him a year ago and he's like, hey, dude,

00:52:24.480 if you ever want to come out, come out and do this thing. So I took my son and about eight guys that I

00:52:29.760 look up to, great dads, great leaders. And we went and we're shooting each other up with the rubber

00:52:36.380 bullets. And he was training us and there was so much fear involved and it was super scary. And my son

00:52:41.500 went through this whole process, the whole day with us at the end of the day. And also Troy

00:52:45.560 McClain was there. Troy McClain was on the first season of The Apprentice with Donald Trump. Great

00:52:51.320 guy. I realize now Troy was the one who introduced me to Matt Schneider a year ago. So Troy was there.

00:52:57.520 And so I told Troy and Matt what I wanted to do. But at the end of the day, we made a circle around

00:53:01.940 Andrew, my son, and I had all the guys link up arms and I had Troy lead it because I knew I would

00:53:07.200 fall apart and cry, to be honest with you, Ryan. So I was like, hey, Troy, this is what I need you to do.

00:53:11.280 And so we all linked up arms and Andrew's in the middle. Oh man, I'm getting goosebumps.

00:53:17.740 Troy was like, all right, Andrew, your dad wants you to know that all these men around you here,

00:53:22.020 these are the men that he looks up to, that he works with, that are leaders, that he would trust

00:53:26.480 with his family if he was ever dead. And we're going to give you advice here in just a moment,

00:53:30.540 advice that we wish we would have had when we went from a boy to a man, 12 to 13 years old.

00:53:34.580 And as we face in with our arms linked, we're here to give you advice, to give you wisdom and

00:53:40.240 to call you out on your shit when you're not living the path of a modern day night, Andrew.

00:53:44.360 And then I had all the guys turn around with our backs to Andrew and our arms linked. And then Troy

00:53:49.780 said again, on my behalf, and your dad wants you to know we have our backs to you. It's not that

00:53:54.260 we're turning our back on you. We're facing out to protect you. We're your protectors. And as you

00:53:59.020 grow into a young man, you're going to find your own tribe of men who are going to protect you and be

00:54:03.160 there to give you wisdom. So as we have our back to you and our arms linked, no one can penetrate

00:54:07.660 us. We're here to protect you and fight for you because we love you. And then I had them all turn

00:54:11.800 around. And then I went in the circle with Andrew as well. And I turned on my iPhone. In fact, I'm

00:54:16.100 going to send you the audio of this. It's 10 minutes and 10 seconds long. And every guy took the iPhone

00:54:20.980 and because I turned on the little recorder and just gave one piece of wisdom to Andrew. And dude,

00:54:26.580 I'm talking like Green Berets, other special forces guys, FBI agents were there, entrepreneurs. One of my

00:54:32.580 head sales guys, who's just a great Christian, great leader. And we were all just falling apart,

00:54:36.920 crying. And for you to just hear the message that they gave, like it was a learning experience for me.

00:54:41.860 And so that was like the whole knighthood process that I put him through. And we're flying home. And

00:54:45.740 he goes, dad, I can't thank you enough. You just gave me like 20 years of wisdom. And that one grew.

00:54:50.800 I said, buddy, this is what I wish I had. I read this book and I hope that you read it so that when you

00:54:55.440 have a son that you can pass this along. But it was such a bonding moment. And I put some videos of that

00:55:00.160 on Instagram. And of course, some shitheads were like, oh, you guys were shooting guns,

00:55:03.920 teaching your boy to shoot guns at each other. I said, shut the fuck up. It was the most touching,

00:55:08.500 emotional, man moment ever. What the fuck? Yeah. Yeah. Somebody's always got to ruin that. But

00:55:14.580 man, those rite of passages are so, so powerful. I really love that, man. That's really cool.

00:55:19.880 I just went down a whole rabbit hole for you. But I think a lot of my listeners might.

00:55:23.760 No, I know. The guys that are listening to this right now are thinking to themselves,

00:55:27.260 what can I do? I can guarantee that's exactly what they're thinking right now.

00:55:31.540 In Idaho, forward movement training. That's the place to go.

00:55:34.580 Right on. Well, Bedros, let's wind down here a little bit. I do want to ask you a couple

00:55:37.900 additional questions. The first one I mentioned to you a minute ago, about an hour ago, I guess

00:55:41.840 I should say. And that is, what does it mean to be a man?

00:55:44.880 You know, it's probably the same thing I told you last time, which was one, to be able to sleep

00:55:49.240 peacefully at night, knowing I'm doing the right thing, even when people aren't looking. And two,

00:55:53.160 I'm going to be long and gone. And the legacy I leave behind is not Fit Body Bootcamp,

00:55:57.040 or any business I've built, but two great humans, Andrew and Chloe, who will do right

00:56:02.180 by this world. They'll serve, they'll have purpose, and they'll be there for their fellow

00:56:05.640 man. That's what being a man means to me.

00:56:08.100 Right on, brother. I agree with that. I try to live my life very much the same way.

00:56:12.140 Well, Bedros, I appreciate you, man. I appreciate the book. Guys, go out and check out the book.

00:56:15.500 You won't be disappointed. It's a good read, fairly quick read, packed with wisdom. I love

00:56:20.160 the rite of passage thing you talked about. Man, we went through so much valuable information.

00:56:23.800 I appreciate our friendship and everything that you've brought into my life, man. Thanks for

00:56:27.800 joining us on the show today. Thank you, brother. I appreciate the opportunity, Ryan.

00:56:31.660 Hey, last thing, make sure you tell us how to connect with you, where to pick up a copy of

00:56:35.780 the book and figure out everything else that you've got going on.

00:56:38.360 You can go to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, a favorite bookstore, or you can go to manup.com and pick

00:56:43.160 up the Man Up book. And the best place to connect with me is through manup.com or on Instagram

00:56:48.820 or Facebook at Bedros Koulian. Right on. We'll link it all up. Bedros,

00:56:53.080 again, I appreciate you. Thanks for joining us. Thank you, brother.

00:56:57.380 Gentlemen, that's a wrap. I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did. Go out and

00:57:00.940 buy the book. All right. If you haven't bought the book Man Up, go out and buy the book.

00:57:04.080 Obviously, he gets into a lot more depth than what we talked about here in the last

00:57:07.460 hour or so on this podcast. But I really think that this is going to impact your life if you read it.

00:57:13.180 And more importantly, you apply it. All right. There's a lot of guys out there who read a ton,

00:57:17.360 who listen to a ton of podcasts, subscribe to every channel and everything else that's out there.

00:57:22.000 And frankly, they don't do anything. My challenge to you is that if you're going to read and you're

00:57:29.220 going to listen to a podcast and you're going to consume some of this information, I would ask that

00:57:33.720 you apply just as much as you consume, if not more so. So guys, go out there, apply the information

00:57:39.240 that we're talking about. And as you're applying this information, share it. You know what I've

00:57:43.580 noticed is I've noticed there's a large group of people that I hear from who have said to me that

00:57:48.400 I've noticed a change in my husband or I've noticed a change in my friend or my brother or my colleagues

00:57:53.320 or whoever. And I had no idea what this little quote unquote man group of yours was, but I'm seeing

00:58:00.320 the changes in this individual. And I get a lot of compliments and praise for that. And as humbling

00:58:08.200 and inspiring as that is, all it means is that the guys are going out there and they're actually

00:58:13.040 doing the work that we're talking about. And if that's you, I am humbled by that. I'm inspired by

00:58:18.240 that. I thank you for that because you're helping me on my journey to become a better man, a better

00:58:22.620 father, a better husband, business owner, community leader, all the areas of life that I'm showing up.

00:58:27.940 So I appreciate you. This is a mission guys. I hope that you're standing shoulder to shoulder with

00:58:32.380 us. And if you are, I would ask that you play a small part in this by sharing it. All right,

00:58:36.940 go leave the rating and review. Let's blow this podcast up. All right. I'm sick of playing the

00:58:42.520 mediocrity game. I'm sick of being, you know, slightly better than average. Let's blow this

00:58:46.680 thing up. There's no reason that this should not be a top 10 podcast in the world and we can do it.

00:58:53.140 We can do it. I'm going to continue to bring great guests on. You continue to share the more that you

00:58:57.860 share, the more visibility we get, which ultimately means I can get high, high caliber guests like we've got

00:59:03.540 in the past. I can continue to get those people and even more so. So guys, go out there and share

00:59:08.400 it. I appreciate you being on this journey with me. Could not do it without you. Let's go out there,

00:59:13.300 take action and become the man we are meant to be. Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast.

00:59:20.100 You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be.

00:59:23.880 We invite you to join the order at orderofman.com.

Order of Man - November 20, 2018

Man Up ｜ BEDROS KEUILIAN

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