139 Bedros Keuilian Opens Up On His Rags To Riches Story The Looming Threat Of A Us Civil War

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I'm Mike Boris and this is Straight Talk.

The three C's.

Control what you consume.

Control what you can't control.

Concentrate on what counts.

Cope with what you can't control.

I think we would all live a better life.

Pedro Skoolian, welcome to Straight Talk, Mike.

Thank you, Mark.

Appreciate it.

Just take me back.

What's your story?

The Soviet Union had occupied Armenia, so my dad did whatever he needed to do to bribe the communist government for us to go on vacation to Italy.

We went to the American consulate and landed in Los Angeles, California as political refugees.

At that time, we don't speak the language.

We don't understand the culture.

We have $210 in our pocket.

But with that said, coming to the United States so young, I believe it gave me an advantage to build myself into an entrepreneur with multiple companies.

And today I get to serve humanity because of that.

At 21, this gentleman, Jim Franco, he was a mentor to me.

He taught me how to become an entrepreneur, how to create value in exchange for money, how to solve problems.

The more complex the problems that you solve, the more money you can make.

We are wired to serve.

If you don't have a sense of purpose, routine, the need to serve, we will start self-destructing and digging holes in our life.

Alcohol, drugs, pornography, food, social media.

How do you find out what your purpose is?

Good question.

Well, I'll have two purposes.

I'll start there.

Your first purpose is...

Pedro Skoolian, welcome to Australia Talk, mate.

Thank you, Mark.

Appreciate it.

Actually, welcome to Australia.

It is a pleasure to be here.

It's a wonderful place.

What are you guys doing?

You doing a tour or something?

What's happening?

Yes, yeah.

So we're on a tour.

The tour is called Rise to Greatness, Fizz Productions.

And so tomorrow we'll be in Melbourne speaking there, Rise to Greatness, Brisbane the next day.

And then on Saturday, back to here, Sydney, to finish off with the sold-out crowd.

Again, Rise to Greatness is going to be a wonderful event.

You've spoken at one like that before.

It's sold out?

Yes, yeah.

The Sydney event is already sold out, yeah.

Wow, that's cool.

And by the way, what you've got to do tonight, you've got to watch the New South Wales versus Queensland.

We've got the...

We're talking about Rise to Greatness.

I mean, this is the greatest clash of unadorned warriors that anyone's ever going to see.

So I'm just giving you a quick tip.

Get on Nine Now, the app, and watch that tonight, mate, because you're going to love it.

And tell me who I'm rooting for.

You've got to go for New South Wales.

New South Wales.

Please.

Done.

So I want to...

So when I hear names with I-A-N on the end of it, I immediately think of Armenians.

Yeah.

Are you Armenian?

I am Armenian.

And our cultures are very similar.

Yeah, the Greek culture and the Armenian cultures are very similar.

And in fact, but you...

And you guys love a barbecue too.

Absolutely, yeah.

You love a barbecue.

Yeah.

And so we Greeks, we love a barbecue as well.

We don't call it barbecue, but we do love a barbecue.

But just take me back though, because you're obviously American, as in USA.

Take me a little bit back.

How did you become an American and what's your story?

Yeah, so I'm actually transplant into the United States.

My father was a...

He became a member of the Communist Party in 1974, the year I was born, so I'm 49 years old.

Whereabouts?

In the USA?

In Armenia.

In Armenia, Soviet Union.

As part of the Soviet.

As part of the Soviet Union, yeah.

As you know, the Soviet Union had occupied Armenia.

Yep.

And in 1974, my father became a member of the Communist Party.

Now, with that said, my father loves American music, loves American culture.

So he was like an American who was born in a communist country.

And so my brother, who's older than me by 16 years...

Wow.

Sorry, by 14 years, he was about to go into the Soviet Army.

And if you remember...

As conscription though, like as part of a conscript.

Yes.

Like force.

Yes.

Yeah.

Exactly.

And back then, the Soviet Army was fighting Afghanistan.

And of course, those young men were coming back with limbs missing.

And my dad said, there's no way that we've been occupied by the Soviet Union,

that my son is going to go fight in their war and come back with a limb missing.

And so my dad did whatever he needed to do.

To bribe the communist government and for us to escape into Rome.

We spent 10 days in Rome.

We went to the American consulate.

And on day 11, June 16, 1980, we landed in LAX, Los Angeles, California, as political refugees.

Wow.

Yeah.

So literally a former communist, now in the United States.

At that time, we don't speak the language.

We don't understand the culture.

We have $210 in our pocket.

Okay.

We have $210 in our pocket, a family of five.

I'm the baby of the family, six years old.

So three kids and mom and dad.

Yeah.

Correct.

Three kids and mom and dad.

And I'm the oops baby.

So in other words, my brother's 14 years older.

My sister is 16 years older.

And I was born by accident.

But of course my parents-

Thank God.

Yeah.

My parents say that I'm their biggest blessing.

And so with that said, coming to the United States so young, I had the good fortune to

assimilate easier.

I assimilated.

I was able to live the American dream.

But we certainly lived in Section 8 housing, which is government-assisted housing, which

is low-income housing.

Whereabouts in the US?

In Santa Ana, California, which is Southern California, Orange County.

Santa Ana is the armpit of Orange County, is the only way I could describe it.

Even now, it's not the greatest place.

In 1980, gang-infested, horrible community.

But we were blessed and grateful to be in the United States.

And so the government helped us out the best they could.

My mom and dad, older brother, older sister, worked as much as they could and got us out

of there and moved us into Anaheim, California, cleaner, better place.

And today I live about 30 miles away from where my dad lives.

My mom passed away last year from dementia.

But I live in Chino Hills, California.

It's just outside of Orange County, beautiful place to be.

And it actually reminds me, Southern California reminds me so much of Sydney in terms of the

climate, the weather, the water.

Yeah.

Do you ever think to yourself about the bravery or the courage and maybe the commitment that

your dad had to your family to make that call to just to get up and go?

Mark, when I think about it, and I always tell my son and daughter.

So my daughter is 16, my son is 18, Andrew and Chloe.

And I tell them, it's not even the equivalent of like if we went to Japan, from the United

States to Japan.

Because today you have Google Translate.

So you could speak English and it'll translate.

It'll translate in Japanese.

I said, it would be the equivalent of escaping and going to Mars, where you're meeting Martians.

You're learning a new culture, a new language.

There is no Google Translate.

They may want to kill you when you get there.

In fact, let's say the United States would not be happy if we left.

Like when I think about the severity of punishment that my dad could have faced.

If got caught.

If he got caught.

Holy smokes.

Like the man risked his life.

He risked our life.

To put us, his kids, in a better position.

What does that mean though?

Like, I mean, you may not remember because you're six, but perhaps you do, or perhaps

your mom and dad sort of relate stories to you, or your dad, your mom and dad probably

relate the stories to you.

Definitely your older brother and sister would know.

Did you have to sort of be secreted out of the joint?

Like go in the, you know, the darker night or did you have to sort of hide in a train

or pretend to be just going on a holiday?

What's the deal?

So.

Let me tell you a story for you.

Probably about six months before we fled.

Now I should tell you to preface the story.

My dad was in a communist country.

Everybody works for the government, right?

And my dad worked for a clothing manufacturing plant.

So he made suits and he would put patterns like a vest, pants, slacks, jacket on material

and they'd cut it out and make suits.

My dad got so clever.

He would put the patterns so tight together that after making 10 or 11 suits, he had enough

material.

And he would smuggle that and go home and he would make a pair of pants or a vest or

a jacket for someone to buy on the black market.

This is how he raised 25,000 rubles to be able to bribe the Soviet government to allow

us to go on vacation on a holiday to Italy.

So this is like a side hustle.

Absolute side hustle.

Like the old school side hustle.

Man.

Mark.

In fact.

One night.

It was dark.

There was a knock on our door.

Two KGB agents standing at the door.

They tell my dad they have to inspect the house or the flat, the apartment that we lived

in.

And we were doing well for ourselves.

Because once you're a communist party member, you do well for yourself.

But they had gotten word that my dad might be planning an escape.

So they said, we have to check your house, inspect your house.

And it's not like the United States or here where there has to be a warrant and any of

that stuff.

They knock.

They come in.

I remember they lined us all up against the hallway wall.

We're standing with our backs against the wall.

They check for everything.

They look for a thimble, chalk, a meter stick, anything that would signify that my dad is

running a side hustle.

My dad was so good at hiding everything.

They found nothing.

And my dad is fluent in five languages, one of them being Russian.

And these were Russian KGB agents.

So my dad said, look, let's not make this a wasted trip for you.

I've got this bottle of vodka.

Let's have a seat at the kitchen table and drink and talk.

All night.

They drank.

He got them drunk.

And sent them on their way.

Six months later, we were on our holiday to Italy.

And that was our escape.

And just pardon my ignorance, but I don't know much about Soviet Union time, that time.

Was it okay to go on holiday?

So was that a thing?

You could say, look, we're going to go on holiday, but we're going to come back.

I mean, how did it all work?

Did you make an application?

Yeah.

It's okay to go on a holiday to a approved country.

And of course, Italy at the time being commonplace.

I mean, the sympathizers, that was on the approved list.

And the story we had to make up, as the story goes like this, that my mom has a sister in

Rome, Italy, which she did not.

Oh, you had to make the story up?

Oh, we had to make up a story.

And we had to look like we're traveling with two suitcases.

We had to make it look like we're going on a holiday.

So we left everything behind to family, to cousins, to aunts and uncles.

Now if we said we're going on a holiday to the United States, forget it, it's over.

Like obviously the Cold War was happening.

There's no way you're going to the...

You're not going on a holiday to the United States.

So we went to Italy knowing that they would approve us to go to Italy for 10 days.

And like I said, we ended up spending all 10 days in the...

There were hotels there that would take in political refugees like us that were privately

owned.

In fact, here's a beautiful thing about social media.

Two years ago, I met a lady from Rome, Italy.

She said, I think you and your family stayed in one of the hotels that...

That my grandparents ran.

Wow.

And I asked my dad about it and sure enough, he confirmed it, which was...

I'm getting goosebumps talking about this.

And so there's a beauty of social media there, right?

And so as soon as we got there, we stayed at one of those hotels, because we were broke.

We're trying to make the best of our money.

And in fact, I remember day two in Rome, Italy, I had my first banana.

My dad bought a banana for me.

You've never tasted a banana?

I've never tasted a banana.

Seriously?

Yeah.

And I remember my dad bought five bananas, one for every member of the family.

And after eating mine and realizing how good it was, I grabbed my dad's out of his hand

and I ate his.

And of course, being a good father, he let me have it.

But my dad and my brother spent eight of the 10 days in the American consulate pleading

with them that, look, we are political refugees, I'm a Communist Party member.

We escape, we're escaping.

If we go back to the Soviet Union, they're sending him to Siberia and it's a sure death.

And so they pumped my dad for information for eight, nine days.

And then they said...

Where do you want to go in California or in the United States?

My dad only knew one person, a friend of a friend in California, and that friend had

agreed to let us stay in his flat for one month.

And so that's how we ended up in Southern California and the gentleman was kind to us.

He had a two bedroom apartment, a flat.

He and his wife were in one bedroom and the five of us were in another bedroom.

But he said, you have 30 days.

He helped my dad find a job, multiple jobs, paper route, pumping gas, helped my sister

and my brother find a job.

And within 30 days, we had enough money.

And thanks to the government assisting, we ended up moving into Section 8 housing complex,

which is that government assisted housing.

And from there, it was just hard work and consistency, hard work and consistency.

And my dad knew.

So just about an hour north of Orange County, Santa Ana, where we lived, there's a city

called Glendale.

Glendale is predominantly Armenian.

In fact, there are signs on the highway that say...

I don't know.

There are signs on the highway that say, Little Armenia.

My dad said, we're not moving there.

My mom would beg and plead, let's move to Glendale where we speak the language.

We can get around easier.

My dad said, no, we're gonna stay here where we have to assimilate, learn the language,

understand the culture.

And I think it was one of the greatest decisions he made.

And it was harder in defense of my brother and sister.

It was very difficult for them.

They were 19 and 21 years old.

I was six years old.

So I was able to assimilate to the American culture.

The American culture is so much better than my siblings.

But because of that, I believe it gave me an advantage to become the American dream and

to build myself into an entrepreneur with multiple companies.

And today I get to serve humanity because of that.

Yeah, it's funny, you know, I'm the product of a refugee family in that my father fled

Greece when the civil war was on between the communists in Greece and the nationalists

in Greece.

It was a civil war straight after World War II.

And, you know, we get these great opportunities by virtue of our parents making these great

sacrifices for us.

But the opportunities aren't enough.

And I was only just talking to someone earlier on, it doesn't matter what your parents tell

you.

For me, it's what I see my parents do, they're the things that actually sort of form my DNA.

And I know a lot of other people I know, who are migrants here in Australia, or the kids

are migrants, first generations Australians.

What are the things that you saw in your dad and mom, and probably your brothers and sisters,

given the age difference, that you think formed characteristics for you that made you successful

or help make you successful?

I saw several things.

On the positive side, I saw work ethic that I would not learn anywhere else, other than

from my mom and dad, brother and sister.

I mean, they worked multiple jobs.

My dad worked at a pizzeria, bussing tables, a gas station pumping gas, and at two in the

morning he was delivering newspapers.

My brother worked two jobs and was going to junior college, university, to learn English.

My sister worked two jobs, going to junior college to learn English.

My mom worked one job and was looking after me.

I learned how to manage money.

I learned how to live frugally.

I learned that nothing can change.

Nothing can trump work ethic.

My mom and dad and family had work ethic beyond everything.

I also learned that, and this is a negative thing about being an immigrant to a country.

My dad in Armenia would say a phrase, he said, we would run out of money before we run out

of month.

And he was frustrated because he would have to make decisions, do we keep the gas on or

the electricity on or the water on, but we can't keep everything on.

We would run out of money before we run out of month.

So while I learned work ethic and how to be frugal and manage money, I also learned to

fear money because in my head, money was always scarce.

It was something that other people could come by that we couldn't.

And so when we came by it, we have to hoard it.

We have to be careful with it.

And so I had this blue collar mentality, thinking that because we're immigrants, because we

are not naturally born in the United States, that we don't have the advantages that everyone

else did.

So it took a while for me to break that.

And I, an American entrepreneur named Jim Franco,

he was a mentor to me.

I became a personal trainer at the age of 21.

And yeah, when you're a personal trainer,

your clients are typically affluent people

when they're hiring you.

And little did I know I had built-in mentors

and this gentleman, Jim Franco, so I was 21,

he's in his early sixties, 61.

And he started to mentor me.

He taught me how to become an entrepreneur,

how to create value in exchange for money,

how to solve problems.

And he remembered one of the things he said,

the more complex the problems that you solve,

the more money you can make.

The other thing he told me is, I said,

Jim, well, how do you make your money?

And he owned a software company.

He said, I take a little bit of money from a lot of people.

That clicked.

And I can fast forward from that conversation a decade

and see that the businesses that I built

were all about solving problems

in exchange for taking a little bit of money

from a lot of people.

And so I almost had a rich dad and a poor dad.

The poor dad taught me work ethic and money management

because we didn't have a lot of it.

But he also taught me to fear money

and that none of it was around.

My rich dad, Jim Franco, taught me that money

is a byproduct of value and salesmanship.

And so I was just really blessed

to have two amazing dads mentor me.

That's very interesting.

Yeah.

That's sort of zeroing right into Robert Kiyosaki's book.

Exactly.

and that's his sort of philosophy, the two ways of thinking,

and they're both valuable, both very important.

If I could just double down because a lot of people will be looking at you,

Bedros, and saying, oh, well, it's all very well for me.

He's, you know, did this, that, and the other.

He's making lots of money and they just assume that they can't get there

and they probably undervalue, and this is what I want to double down on,

his work ethic.

Now, it's very easy for us, you and I, to say, oh, we worked hard

and we watched that dad.

My dad was the same as your dad, like, you know, worked.

He was a milk run.

Then he'd go to his factory work and he'd be a cleaner.

They're just sort of conversations.

Like a lot of people go, well, they don't really know what it means.

We get excited by it because we observed it.

Sure.

And we lived it.

But when it comes to work ethic, maybe we could just double down,

as I said earlier, into for me it's not about just working hard.

It's about feeling the need.

It's nearly a need.

I have to work hard.

Like I don't have to work in a financial sense these days,

but if I couldn't work, I would be beside myself.

I would be like I've lost a part of myself.

It's part of my work ethic.

It's part of how I live my life.

Maybe you could explain that, how that sort of sits with you

as part of your life.

I mean, here you are in Australia.

You probably don't need to do this, but you're doing it because people

are always here to try and make a few bucks.

Yeah.

You would like it to be.

I get all that part, but really there's a bigger part of all this.

As an ethic, you want to share something.

Yeah.

And I don't want to put words in your mouth, Mark,

but I think what you're trying to say is if – because you don't need to work.

Like we all know who you are.

You do not need to work.

But you work because your sense of self-worth,

your sense of self-worth comes from the work,

your contribution to humanity.

If you don't contribute – and correct me if I'm wrong.

If I feel like if I don't contribute, then I feel worthless.

I feel like –

I'm the same.

Right?

Yeah.

Here's the harsh truth that I hope I'm wrong, but I think I'm right.

I don't think a lot of people have that.

Meaning they say, man, if I had half the money that Mark did,

if I had half the money that Bedros did, I'm retiring.

I'm not going to work.

Buy a boat and take a holiday.

That's it.

And a mortgage.

I don't know if it's our parents, how they brought us up,

or if it's a nature or nurture, if it's a genetic thing,

where my self-worth comes from production.

I literally feel like a piece of shit if I do not contribute to humanity.

I've raised my kids, Andrew and Chloe, to be value adders,

to be problem solvers, to be an asset and not a liability.

I was teaching them a P&L report at six years old,

and I said, listen, you have to be in the black column

and not in the red column of humanity.

I'm wired that way to add value.

I don't know if that wiring is a byproduct of, again, nurture or nature.

I don't know.

I can sense that you're wired that way.

I think it's a gift that we have.

And I do believe it's a muscle that people can develop,

because doesn't it feel good to do this podcast

and to get messages from people to say, Mark,

you've changed my perspective about money, about wealth,

about generational wealth.

I can change my family's trajectory in life.

That feels good.

Who doesn't want to experience that?

And so I think the people who say that, man, if I just win the lottery

or if I have half the money that you did,

I'd buy a boat and retire never to be seen again,

yes, but I also think within a few months,

you would start self-destructing.

You would find a vice, alcohol, drugs, infidelity, pornography,

whatever it is, and we are wired to serve.

I'll give you a great example.

I've got this beautiful dog.

She's part German Shepherd, part Mastiff, a big dog.

She's nine years old now.

We rescued her.

She was eight months old and 80 pounds, a very heavy dog, big dog.

We live.

We live in Southern California.

So we flew to San Francisco, my son and I, when he was small.

We rescued Cookie.

Her name is Cookie.

And we drove back for eight hours.

And in those eight hours, Andrew and Cookie bonded.

We'd never had a big dog before, Mark.

And so this dog was pulling my wife and kids all over the property,

like to the point where Chloe was falling on her face.

We only had small dogs.

And so I decided I'm going to get a dog trainer to come.

This lady comes.

This is Cookie for three weeks.

At the end of the three weeks, calls me over.

She says, this dog right here, you have to make sure that you have a routine with her.

I said, what kind of routine?

Well, maybe you can play fetch with her every morning.

Throw the ball 10 or 12 times.

Make sure she fetches it.

She's already bonded with your son.

You have to make sure she bonds with your daughter

and that she feels like she's protecting them, shepherding them.

OK, got it.

And she says, I really want to make sure you're understanding me, sir.

She could tell that I was rushed.

Like, come on, lady.

I've paid you.

You've done the work.

Thank you.

Cookie is now, she sits, she heals, she walks.

You could leave.

She kept stressing the point.

She said, if you don't do what I say with this dog, she will start getting depressed and anxious.

And she'll start digging holes in your beautiful backyard in that rose garden.

She points to our rose garden.

I said, how come?

She said, in the absence of having a routine and the need to serve,

she will start getting anxious and depressed.

And she will give herself something to do, which is to dig holes all over your backyard.

We're no different as humans.

If I don't have, if you don't have a sense of purpose, routine, the need to serve,

we will start self-destructing and digging holes in our life.

How that shows up could be, like I said, alcohol, drugs, pornography, food, you name it, social media.

There's so many vices that people use to escape their realities from.

I myself feel that my contribution to humanity will continue until I take my final breath,

because if it doesn't, I will self-destruct.

I will find a way to destroy myself.

I feel you.

I probably feel the same way.

I think most people are wired the same way.

They just think that if they had the money, that they would go off on a boat somewhere.

But we have the money, and here we are creating content to serve humanity.

And that's a very interesting take on the whole, or a very interesting definition of the whole process.

Because I want to just take one step more, and I don't want to sort of double down too much into the work ethic part.

But for me, sometimes these times...

You know, there's all these different types of virtues, being a hard worker or being a person who's prepared to forgive somebody.

Just having these virtues, characteristics in our makeup.

Sometimes, and there's nothing wrong with this, it's nearly a selfish move.

And there's nothing wrong with it, because it's a good selfishness.

Because there's a good outcome for everybody else, not just yourself.

I hate the phrase win-win, but it is a win-win.

Like you win, they win.

And to me, that's the best.

That's the best addiction you can have.

For me, and I wonder whether this is the case for you, I selfishly chase the work ethic.

I selfishly chase helping others, because something happens in my brain.

I don't know what the hell it is.

It's probably some sort of chemical that gets expressed in my brain that makes me feel good.

I get rewarded, and it keeps me alive, and it keeps me happy enough.

I don't mean happy, but just happy enough.

Do you think that's the hallmark of an entrepreneur like you?

That selfishness?

It's not self-centered, but it's selfishness.

Yeah, because there's two forms of selfishness.

There's a selfishness that I could self-destruct and go inward,

and obviously be a bad example of humanity to my family, to my kids, to the world.

And be hurtful.

Or I could be selfish in creating companies and organizations.

Look, I've donated millions of dollars to Shriners Children's Hospital.

These are a series of 22 hospitals across the United States that help children

whose families can't afford medical procedures.

A dear friend of mine, 13 years ago, he was a police officer.

Very limited income.

He had a child who needed a wheelchair.

The spine was deformed.

Shriners Children's Hospital helped that young man.

And when I found out, I said, when I become rich, I will keep donating as much as I can.

Today, we've donated millions of dollars to Shriners Children's Hospital.

I've got 97 kids adopted through Compassion International.

Every Christmas, we spend anywhere from $30,000 to $50,000.

In our community, at the local Target store, to buy Christmas gifts for kids

who would otherwise not have a Christmas gift Christmas morning.

That sounds very, like, gee, you're a really great human for doing that, Bedros.

But it's also very fulfilling for me.

It's the most selfish thing I do.

Because as a young boy, I've dealt with sexual abuse, physical abuse.

And one of the most healing things I do is to donate to these three charities

that are all kid-based.

Child-based charities.

It's not lost on me.

It's absolutely selfish.

But it creates a win.

And it allows me to get that dopamine hit.

It allows me to get that serotonin hit, which keeps me happy enough so that I don't self-destruct.

Because I also realize I'm wired to self-destruct because of what's happened to me as a young man.

I have enough self-awareness.

And I've had a great therapist as well explain to me that I will self-destruct.

In fact, I asked my therapist many years ago.

His name is Kevin.

I said, Kevin, I've got seven companies and growing.

We're donating millions of dollars.

This is fantastic.

I feel like I've got a new addiction.

He said, great.

Do not stop this addiction.

You are an addict.

And if you do stop this addiction, you will be addicted to something that will destroy you.

I said, well, then how long do I keep this going?

He said, until you die.

I said, check.

Got it.

I don't ask a lot of questions from people who I feel are smarter than me.

He said, keep going.

He's good for me.

I'll keep going until I die.

So it's funny.

I'm glad I'm having this conversation with you.

By the way, the reason I do these shows is because I end up meeting people like yourself

and I end up having sex.

It's a brilliant conversation, which I would otherwise never probably have the opportunity

to have.

And it lets me learn about myself.

So selfishly, again, I'm learning about myself by talking to you about your experiences.

And so if we move beyond selfishness, and to some extent, it's about us becoming more

aware of ourself.

So for me, it's an awareness.

So I've accepted that I do these things selfishly because at the end of the day, like you just

said, I probably would self-destruct.

Yeah.

I do probably have an addictive personality in some respects.

And I mean, I don't know about you, but I've experienced those times during my life.

I'm a lot older now.

But during those younger years, when I didn't have great judgment relative to now, that

I would probably do things were a bit destructive of me and people around me, which is terrible

because I've got four sons.

And they're usually the closest people.

Totally, they are.

They always are.

Ex-wives, I've had three ex-wives.

I've got four sons.

These guys have got three grandsons.

But like, I know what the outcomes are because I'm self-aware.

And I think that people listening to this and having the opportunity to listen to someone like you in this

environment, you know, if they want to be entrepreneurs, there are a lot of traits that entrepreneurs

have in common.

Probably the most important thing, though, is to build self-awareness of yourself.

Absolutely.

And, you know, it's great that someone like you makes these admissions.

Because a lot of people, you know, some entrepreneurs don't want to say it.

I don't know whether they want to keep it a secret or not, but they don't want to talk

about why they act, what drives them.

What drives me is self-awareness of if I don't do these things, I'm going to have a bad outcome.

Yeah.

I'm going to be sitting around thinking about what else can I get up to.

Even at my current age, I'm 68.

Like, even now, I always start to think about it.

It's one of the reasons I wrestle with Larry, who you've been wrestling with.

Yeah.

And one of the reasons I used to box, because it's sort of like a, nearly like a self-destruct

thing.

Like, I've got to get in there and get roughed up.

Tested.

By someone like Larry, who's much better than probably both of us.

And, you know, he's an expert.

But it puts me, brings me back to ground, to reality all the time, mate.

You know, just remember how old you are, who you are.

You know, you're not King Kong.

Do you go through those same processes yourself?

Absolutely.

In fact, I currently have a torn tricep.

And it was because last year I was boxing, testing myself, challenging myself.

And as I went to throw a left cross, I got checked.

And pop went my tricep.

I've done that.

Okay.

Five years ago.

I had to get reconnected, though.

There you go.

I have to get mine reconnected.

I just haven't made time for it yet.

And so that, again, grounds me.

It reminds me that who I am, that I'm not indestructible like I used to think I was.

That there is repercussions to actions.

We need that.

Especially, we're type A, tightly wound, high speed.

When people say, describe yourself, I say type A, tightly wound, high speed.

And I can immediately spot someone just like me.

We're cut from the same cloth.

Like, I...

As soon as I met you, I'm like, type A, tightly wound, high speed.

Like, this man will lose interest very quickly or he will lock on to a conversation if it interests him.

And that's how I am.

And again, I think most people can get there, but it takes a high level of self-awareness.

And I think the question to ask is, how do we develop a high level of self-awareness?

That is the question.

Right?

Can you...

What's your...

What is your view?

It is to bring down your ego defenses.

Because as men, especially, male entrepreneurs, especially, and this is where women, I believe, are much better than us.

In this category, we are driven, driven, driven, driven, driven to create an outcome.

We want to kill, fuck, and conquer.

That's what men want to do.

And so it takes a high level of ego to stay focused on that.

To think that you're better than everybody else.

That no one else can do what you do.

And that I'm indestructible.

And I will build a team, share my vision with my team, and we will attack the goal.

But at what cost?

And so if you can bring your ego defenses down,

you can bring up your self-awareness.

Ego goes up, self-awareness goes down.

Those two things are related.

I learned that 11 years ago at the age of 38, when I had a massive panic attack.

I thought it was a heart attack.

And I remember thinking, who's going to walk Chloe down the aisle if I die right now?

Who's going to teach Andrew, my son, to be a modern day...

And I remember thinking to myself, if I could just be spared, I'll change my ways.

Needless to say, it wasn't a heart attack.

It was a panic attack of many.

It wasn't a panic attack of many that I would have subsequently.

But it took reducing my ego, realizing that I'm not indestructible,

that I don't have the answers to everything, that I do need to yield at times.

And also, you know this, with time comes wisdom.

Time plus experience is wisdom.

Yeah, right?

And so as the ego goes down, self-awareness comes up, and you realize, I am human.

I need to serve.

If I stop serving, I self-destruct.

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So very topical entrepreneur and also ego versus awareness, self-awareness.

This week, and I don't want to be indelicate,

but one of America's biggest entrepreneurs,

and he managed to get himself voted in as the President of the United States.

Yeah.

You know, there's not much more you can do as an entrepreneur in life.

You know, you go from a

businessman to becoming the President.

Not a career politician, but I'm going to become the President.

That's that's the deal.

He did it.

And Trump did that.

Yeah.

He got grazed.

Had it been a couple of millimetres, or in your case, a centimetre, in your case,

in each American system, he might have, you know, been in a dreadful position.

And USA could have been in a bit of chaos because I would have thought, well, you tell

me, it seems to be division in the United States.

And do you think it would have been an overreaction if something had happened to him?

Yeah.

Let's just be honest.

There was an attempted assassination on former President Trump.

They tried to cancel him, then they tried to stop him using the court system, the legal system.

And the third and final attempt is an assassination.

This was an assassination attempt that did not work out.

I don't know if it was God's hand.

I don't know if it was just sheer luck that he tried.

turned his head in the right moment, that the bullet grazed his ear instead of hitting him in

the back of the head and killing him. Whatever it was, I believe if that bullet had hit the intended

target in the head, Trump in the head, and he died, we would have seen the breakout of civil

war. Because sadly, and it breaks my heart, man, my dad risked his life, risked our life to bring

us to the United States. The United States today is not the United States that I came to. The

United States that I came to, yes, it still had problems, but people were somewhere in the middle.

Today, it's so divisive. It's so divided. And I believe that if Trump had died, that would be the

final straw that would send the country into civil war.

Well, maybe you can help me out here, because I just don't understand where it came from. We

have a little bit of division here, nowhere near to the extent what we observe in the US

at the moment, and probably the same in the UK at the moment too, and perhaps other places. But

what do you think?

I think it is. They are so diametrically opposed, Biden and Trump, and the red and blue and the left

and the right, so diametrically opposed. It's just so much so that when I watch TV, I'll go from

CNN to Fox, like your stations, and they're completely different.

Well, I'll give you a great example. When the assassination attempt happened this past Saturday,

July.

13th. CNN said President Trump was whisked away by Secret Service after a fall, after he fell

during his press conference. You go to Fox News, and it says President Trump just faced

an attempted assassination, and Secret Service whisked him away. That's how far the story is.

So if you only, if you have tunnel vision, and you're only getting your news from CNN, and

just so you know, I'm neither left or right. I'm right down the middle. I'm right down the middle.

I'm a constitutionalist. Let's just go by the Constitution. And by the way, you know, my family

and I, we went to dinner in Southern California about two weeks ago. There's this beautiful road

called Carbon Canyon, 13 miles of twisting turns that connects Brea and Chino Hills, my city and

the city that we were having dinner in. 10 o'clock at night, I said, hey, let's go through this

beautiful scenic road. And as we come around one of the corners, we see two cars that have just

crashed into each other, a Tesla.

And a Mitsubishi hatchback. A young Asian man in one, Hispanic lady in another. A white couple

had just pulled over to help them out. And you're probably wondering, why is he naming off

ethnicities? No police yet, no fire department, nothing. I've got a first aid kit. I'm first aid

certified. I pulled over, had my wife call 911, while my son and I ran out to help. In that moment,

the young man with the gash on his head, I could see his skull. The woman

with the Tesla with the bloody nose and the white folks who stopped, no one asked me, and I didn't

ask them, what is your political affiliation? We just wanted to help. I believe that's most of

America. That's most of the citizens. The divisiveness has taken place now where the

extreme on the left and the extreme on the right have gotten so loud. And social media is a great

amplifier of the extremes. That's it. It's a great amplifier of the extremes. And I remember driving

through the streets, and I saw that guy's sexual orientation. I don't know if he votes Trump or

Biden. Quite honestly, I don't care if he's a transsexual unicorn. He needed help. I was there

to patch him up. The police came. I drove off. That's it. Yet on social media, he could very

well tell me to go F off and pound sand. And so I realized that social media amplifies divisiveness.

Most people who are in the middle, we just want to have a good life. We want a secure community.

We want to make sure there's some legacy for our family, et cetera. Those on the

extremes are the ones, the squeaky wheels that require the oil that are amplified. Why this is

amplified so much post-pandemic, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. But I can tell you that there seems to

be, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but there seems to be an agenda to erode the American Constitution

and to get more control and compliance over the population. And that I don't agree with.

Do you think it's social media,

though, amplifying it on purpose, or is it the extreme left and extreme right

leveraging social media to achieve their purpose?

I think it's the latter. It's the extreme left and extreme right leveraging social media. And

a great example of this, we saw when Elon purchased Twitter, he proved that certain accounts,

certain voices were muffled, were throttled, were turned off. And in fact,

the FBI had a finger in the whole process. He exposed everything. And so now who's given the

FBI the orders to reach out to Twitter and to decide who gets a voice and who doesn't? Because

Twitter, for the most part, was America's town hall. It's kind of how we look at it, right?

And so-

Originally.

Originally. Originally, yeah. So who's giving those orders? I don't know. Is there a deep state?

I don't know. And so I go back to what I know, which is I will take an internal locus of control.

I know the people who I care for, I will look out for them. I will take control of my own finances.

I will create my own sovereignty. I will have my thoughts. I will curate the thoughts that

occupy my mind, whether it's I listen to the radio, a podcast, television, social media,

news media, it doesn't matter. I control the thoughts that occupy my mind and the people

I surround myself with. Those two things have the highest influence on my behavior. And then

my behavior determines my outcome in life. And so I don't know what is going on in the

United States. I don't know why there was an assassination attempt on our president. I

don't know why the Secret Service, for a good 48 seconds or 47 seconds, knew where the bad guy was

and did not shoot him, why they waited for him to take shots off. I could go down the rabbit hole

like every other American and start wringing my hands over conspiracy theories. How's that going

to help me make more money, have more meaning, and develop self-mastery? It's not. And so while

I'm fully aware of what's going on, I choose to control what I can't control. I choose to control

concentrate on what counts and then cope with what I can't control. And I think if more people

did that, the three Cs, control what you can control, concentrate on what counts, and cope

with what you can't control, I think we would all live a better life, no matter if you're in the

States or in Australia. So do you think, in your case at least, is your advice then to listeners

and anybody for that matter who seeks your advice, extract yourself from the noise? It's the only

way. Because people do get caught up in the noise. It's the only way. It's the only way.

Because people do get caught up in the conspiracy. Because it is sort of interesting.

It is.

I mean, it's sort of more, some people are obsessed by it. But there also is a curiosity

around it. Like, can you imagine there's someone, as you say, like sitting in the background

and there's a whole movement sitting around them and they've been infiltrated all these

various places and they're all acting in concert at the same time. And there's a supreme ruler

of this conspiracy and we don't know who this person will be. It's nearly 007 stuff. But

at the end of the day, it's a conspiracy.

At the end of the day, it amounts to nothing for us, any one of us, normal people. An extraction

of yourself from the noise, but at the same time still listening to it. How do you do that? How do

you manage, extract, but at the same time still be engaged a little bit?

Yeah. Awareness, but not addiction. Be aware of what's happening, but don't be so addicted to the

chaos that you forget what's happening here. And I'll give you a smaller example. On my show,

on my YouTube show, I always talk about this and I re-mention.

I say, you know your favorite baseball team, your favorite basketball team, your favorite football

team. You know all the players. You know their stats. You know who got traded where and how and

how much they're making and what their batting average is. You don't know your own fucking

anniversary. You don't know your kids' birthdays. You don't know exactly how much money you have in

your bank account. You don't know what your financial trajectory is. Yet you carry the name.

You wear the jersey. You wear a jersey with another man's name on your back and you don't own the

team. And I'm not opposed to rooting for teams. Like I said, I'm not opposed to rooting for teams.

Like I said, tonight I'll be watching the game and I'll be rooting for, who am I rooting again for?

New South Wales.

New South Wales. Just wanted to make sure.

The Blues. The Blue Jersey.

Got it. Got it. But I do have a big problem when people are fully invested in that,

yet they're going broke here. Their relationship is a mess. Their kids are addicted to social media

and they're depressed, yet they're fully watching what's happening with Biden and Trump. It doesn't

matter if Biden goes back into office or Trump goes into office or they bring in Gavin Newsom

from California.

Who gives a crap? I control what happens in my family and my economy more than anyone sitting

in the White House.

And that's like that. I think that's an extremely good point in terms of, in terms of advice to

people around mindset, because, because we waste a lot of time and we don't have much time. Time is

a bit mostly precious resource.

I can make more money. I can't make more time.

A hundred percent. And you must make as much money as you can and as much, enjoy as much of the time

as you can. So therefore you've got to eliminate those.

There's wastage areas where you don't influence it. You have no control over it. You mentioned

your YouTube, your YouTube channel. Just tell me through that. What are you doing on your YouTube

channel? Let's, let's hear about that. What do you do?

I created a show called the Bedros Koulian Show, and this was on the heels of the pandemic.

I knew something was going on. Specifically, there was an attack on masculinity. There was an attack

on the way that men are. You're competitive. You, you want to build a legacy. You want to acquire

things. And everything that a man is, you want to speak your mind. You want to speak your mind. You

want to speak your mind. And everything that I just said that a man is, is considered toxic.

And I couldn't figure out why. And I, and it dawned on me one day, post-pandemic,

about a year and a half into the pandemic, I realized, you know, remember we're in the United

States. And so Canada is right above the United States. So I'm explaining this to the CEO of my

company, Bryce. I said, Bryce, if you and I wanted to put together a military so that we can attack

Canada, we're going to take over Canada. I said, Bryce, do we, do we care about the fact that we're

in Canada? Do we care about the children of Canada standing in opposition against us? He said,

well, no, of course not. Do we care about the elderly in Canada standing in opposition against

our army as we invade? I said, no, of course not. Do we care about the women standing in opposition

against us? Do they have a chance? He said, no, of course not. I said, the only opposition would

be Canadian able-bodied men to stand in opposition against us as we attempt to take Canada. He said,

yes. In that, that's your target. Yeah. Yeah. Right?

The others are not your target. Exactly. Children, women, elderly, but we're talking about the men.

Yeah. So if I want to not shed any blood and I want them to hand Canada over to me,

the easiest way will be not to march into Canada with guns and rifles and missiles,

but to spend several years demoralizing and deconstructing the men, making them feel that

they are toxic, that they are not to act the way that God has intended them to act and behave,

to build and to want legacies and to acquire and to question things and to think freely and to come

together. Everything that we've been seeing happening post-pandemic is to dismantle masculinity

because men, us men, we are the greatest threat to the opposition. And if they can get greater

levels of control and compliance over men, then they have greater control and compliance over

the country. And I believe that's what's happening. And so I started my podcast,

with the intention of empowering men and helping them become free thinkers, unite as men,

create money. My whole show is based on money, meaning, and self-mastery. If you can create

money, money is a vehicle to freedom. Money is a vehicle to access. You and I both know that

there's levels to the game that we play, and I'm nowhere near your level, Mark, but I could only

imagine at the Mark level, like, holy smokes, right? But my quality of my life right now,

the access that I have to people, I could drive up and down in any one of my cars on

the highway, and I could drive up and down in any one of my cars on the highway, and I could drive

up and down in any one of my cars on the highway, and I could drive up and down in any one of my cars

on the highway that I've adopted. My company's name is on my highway. Highway 71 and Chino Hills

on both ends. The litter pickup is adopted by Fit Body Boot Camp. And I can speed up and down that

highway, and the police will pull me over, oh, hey, Bedros, and they'll let me keep going. Now,

I'm not bragging about that. What I'm saying is I use my money to influence. And so I could imagine

how money is used to influence our politicians and to act and support specific things.

And I share that with you because men need to acquire more money. They need to have greater

senses of meaning and purpose. Men especially are very much like my dog, Cookie. We need to

have purpose. We need to have significance. We need to have meaning. If we don't, we will

self-destruct. And then we, of course, need self-mastery. Stop your addictions, your vices,

pornography, infidelity, and develop to the higher level self, the self that's connected to God,

to universal consciousness, to whatever your higher power is. And if we can have more money,

more meaning, more self-mastery, we can prevent the opposition, government, and the lobbying,

pharmaceutical companies, and food conglomerates, and the military-industrial complex from

influencing the government to oppress us further. And it's sort of like a bit of a new concept. I

mean, it's maybe five or six years. I mean, sure, we had movements where men had to become much more

aware of how they operate. And I think that's probably fair enough. But there has been a

movement against...

In Australia, at least, white, male, heterosexual.

Heterosexual.

Like, which is, you know, I got four sons and three grandsons. And all of us at this stage fit

into that category. But like, my mother's like a goddess to me. I mean, she passed away, but she

was like a god to me. And my mother was the biggest influence in my life. And women are

extraordinarily important to me in my family, in my life.

I might have been divorced three times, but I'm still good mates with all of them. And I still

talk to them, and I have the highest regard for them, particularly those who are mothers of my

kids. I'm always scratching my head, where did this whole program come from? I mean, do you

think, is it like, and I don't want to get down the conspiracy hole, but is it, why would anyone

be trying to break down what has always been?

I think...

Every January 1st, there's new laws enacted. Have you, you've been around for a long time. You said

you're 68? Have you ever celebrated a New Year's Day where the news didn't say, hey, there's no new

laws and no new regulations? Every year in the United States, I think there's 1,300 new federal

laws that are passed, on average, 1,300. Statewide, about 600 new laws. So I look at it this way. If

there's a noose around our head, around our neck, every year that noose gets tighter and tighter.

More regulation.

More regulation, more laws.

There's never a year where they say, hey, there's, we took away 13 new laws, old laws, and you have

more freedom. You have more freedom, right? You can pay less taxes. You can just go into Australia

without a passport or a visa, because you're a human. You're a, you're a, you're a human. Look,

man, a whale can, can swim from Australia to Mexico to the United States and to Vancouver,

BC. I don't see a whale carrying a passport and looking for a visa. You and I can't do that.

We're not as free as we think.

Control us, I don't know. I do know that there's control and compliance. The noose is getting tighter

for a reason. I do know that if they force, again, call this conspiracy or not, but if they are

forcing a shot on you, a vaccine on you, and saying that otherwise you can't open up your

business, your kids can't go to school.

Which happened here.

Which happened here. It happened there in the United States. It happened in Canada.

Otherwise, it will freeze your financial bank accounts. Like, wait a minute. Wait a minute.

At what?

At what point in history was it okay to start doing that? And who is going to be the opposition

to stop that? Men. Not the women, not the children, not the elderly. It'll be the men

standing up in opposition against big government and the pharmaceutical companies that are

lobbying, bribing. Let's just call it what it is. It's not lobbying. It's bribing big government.

How the fuck does Nancy Pelosi have better stock option picks? She can pick stocks better than

Warren Buffett. How does that happen?

You have to ask.

That's the answer for the question. Someone's telling her.

Is that insider trading? Of course it is. If I were to do that, I'd be locked up. You'd never

see me again. Yeah. And so let's clean up what needs to be cleaned up. So I don't know who the

puppet masters are, but I don't have to know that there's a puppet master. I don't have to see the

fire if I can smell the smoke. And so I'm going to react to it.

And I'll quickly give you a quick short story about that because you just reminded me of

something. And again, neither one of us want to be conspiracists. I mean, I'm not into conspiracy

theories.

In Australia, and in Sydney in particular, we had one individual who brought COVID into Australia

by virtue of being a high car driver who picked up some people who were from an airline. They were

like, you know, pilots and stuff like that, and had to drive them to a hotel. And those individuals

had COVID. And this particular driver stopped in a shop around here where I lived to buy coffee.

And when the individual was in the coffee shop,

I went into that coffee shop to buy myself a coffee because I was going to my farm. I was on

the way to the airport. I just went to the takeaway. And I went to the farm, came back two

days later. I was getting these random phone calls by a private number. And someone had an

actually American accent on the thing saying I needed to call them. I just ignored them.

In the next thing, in that day, the police turned up to my house. And they said, you need to call

this number that's been calling you. And they knew me. I knew the cops. And I said, okay. And

they said, it's the Department of Health. So I rang the health department. And they said,

well, you know, you're now quarantined for 14 days because you were outside the shop. I said,

hey, how'd you even know I was there? They said, you're paid by your credit card. We rang your bank

and the banks and got the, so we got all the bank details and everything. We rang every single

person who went there. So I had, who went there and bought coffee from a credit card. I wasn't

even in the shop. I was outside the shop. I remember the dude in there because I remember

hearing him cough. I got locked in my house for 14 days. It wasn't that bad, but you know,

I'm lucky I live in a nice place, blah, blah, blah. But I can't imagine,

if I live in a one bedroom apartment like your family did when you first came to America,

you know, with a couple of kids and, you know, blah, blah, blah. But I'm lucky, but still,

I was still at my house. They would ring me every single day, the health department, every day.

To check in.

To check up, check where I was. And one day I thought I decided to turn my,

my location services off on my phone. That afternoon, the police called up.

Imagine that.

And I thought to myself, you know, at the time it was sort of not that big a deal. Like I just,

it was a bit annoying, but you know,

post COVID and post all these bloody vaccinations that we had to get in order to travel.

I think to myself, that was, really was stealing my, my freedom.

Absolutely.

You know, like, it was like.

Your sovereignty was, your sovereignty was, was eroded.

If I had the flu, I'm still free to go to a coffee shop. My responsibility is marked,

don't go to work or don't be close to someone or lock yourself up at the office, but not,

I'm going to get the police to make sure you stay home. And I think a lot of people around

the world have been, have been, have been, have been, have been, have been, have been, have been,

have realized, are starting to realize, I should say, this outcome. And I think there are a lot of

people around the world who want to take more control of, over our, what you call sovereignty,

our rights, our actual rights. I mean, you guys got, you guys got, something out of a mens your

constitution, giving people human rights. We don't have that in Australia. We don't actually have a

bill of human rights.

Right.

We don't have that.

Which is scary to me.

It's very scary. And, and in each state of Australia, they can operate differently. So in

the United States, at least things are orderly.

Right.

more uniform um and i often wondered to myself where we're going with all this and what our

kids gonna how our kids gonna live their lives and our grandkids gonna live their lives

and i guess that you know a person like you putting yourself out there having a youtube

series to talk about this sort of stuff is sort of fairly courageous because you you know people

come after you sure i get my fair share of death threats yeah yeah you do yeah yeah and and in

america you got to take that stuff very seriously seriously and we have precautions for it you do

yeah because you know australia we don't we we don't have gun people don't have guns we have

you know there's laws around possessing a firearm it's not that easy to get a gun

mind you you know people getting stabbed to your left right and center there's no no rules about

getting and they take away knives people will get run over by cars yeah totally or they'll

hit you over the back of the head with a bat or something like that so you know so i think it's

a really courageous thing you're doing like uh you know having a youtube series it's called what's

it called uh it's just the bedros cooling just your name my name and how many episodes you've

done uh we are now 94 episodes

in and the show has blown up which is what what made me come to australia in the first place when

rob theo and his wife um who you know well they they found my show they resonated with the

message i said you have to come out and speak in our three three cities melbourne brisbane and

sydney and so this is why i'm here um and i'm while i'm grateful for it i hope we reach a time

where my message i hope i never have to do my show i hope we reach a time where there's so

much freedom and sovereignty that we don't have to worry about big government

oppressing us and forget about us i'm worried about my kids my grandkids how much tighter is

the noose around their neck gonna get before you know like yesterday we were at a nice restaurant

i ordered a nice ribeye wagyu a5 steak are my kids gonna be eating dehydrated grasshopper

their kids gonna be eating like what are they gonna eat right i don't want that for them i i

am the american dream and i believe my father bringing me here like he risked his

life i have to risk my life in saving and supporting the american dream and i know

whether you live in sydney australia or if you live in paris france the american dream is a

worldwide phenomenon and i have to support that yeah that's uh for australians um we look up to

americans because of the american dream i mean we follow your tv shows we follow just about

everything you guys do we we tend to do here in australia problem is now we're tending to follow

some of the stuff that's happening in america relative to politics and i think that's a good

example of that right and uh you know we are getting the divide between left and right and

it's nearly like you have to make a decision it's nearly like in this country today you must make a

decision you're either left or you're right mark that's unfortunate yeah but i shouldn't have to

make this you don't want to be in the middle yeah do you think there'll be some stage a political

party that'll come up and say look we're called the moderates or we're called the middle party

or something along those lines and actually garner all the votes of everybody and actually take on

the left and the right someone right down the middle i think we're getting there i think we're

because of high interest rates and now as you see everyone is experiencing the financial burden

of this no matter how left you are how extreme you are how liberal you are you're experiencing

the financial burden and for the first time people are realizing that you know what i'm left

extreme left but i'm barely able to pay my rent my car note all these things maybe i need to come

more center no i'm not saying right because the right has its own issues as well yeah somewhere

is where the rest of us want to live and i believe there's like 70 of us 70 75 80 of us are in the

middle and then there's a 10 15 on either side that are going batshit crazy yet they are the

loudest they are the most vocal and it is amplified by social media and therefore we feel that the

whole world is divided and what do we naturally want to do as humans anyway like you said the

game is happening tonight we want to divide into teams and so they're using our natural instinctive

desire to divide into to be tribal

to be tribal and if we can divide men by you are pro-vaccine you are not pro-vaccine you're pro-gay

you're not pro-gay you're pro-police you're not pro-police yeah there's so many pros and cons we

can divide in faction that small clusters of men can do nothing and when men come together as a

tribe we are invincible so in that regard um how do you keep your energy up i know you've got this

business called fit body boot camp yeah so did you do that

actually to keep your own fitness up i mean what's the deal there because i mean

because for me i cannot operate unless i feel physically fit right if i feel like shit um i

will operate like shit yeah so i have to force myself on a routine i have a a really like i

can't live without my routine like last week i had a bit of traveling i was in hotels various

other things just like the gym whole scene wasn't right for me at the end of the week i wasn't

depressed but i felt a little bit flat yeah um and i'm so good i'm so glad to be back into my

mean um what's your fit body boot camp what's that about and how's your routine look so i used to be

a fat overweight young man really even throughout high school no yeah yeah yeah true story true

story yeah being a being an immigrant to this country my mom would fry everything and we'd eat

it so it was like fried bread fried potato fry you but is that an armenian thing it is an armenian

thing that's how you eat that would of course but they'd be working in the fields or something

they'd be yeah except i wasn't working in the fields because now it's 1980 1985 1990 right

as i was a fat kid and thankfully in one of my one of my high school classes in science class

there was a athlete he played football his name is dave i said dave you're in great shape man you

have muscles you have confidence you have swagger he wouldn't talk to me outside of the class because

he was with the athletes and the jocks the musicians were over here and the fat you know i

wasn't even a nerd so i can't even say i had good grades and the nerds hung out over there the

foreign fat kid would just walk around i hated lunch in high school because in australia we

called them wogs there you go that's that was me i was one of them yeah i got so you

can relate and i do believe that also put a chip on my shoulder to help me become who i am today

absolutely and so dave was kind enough to take me to the school gym and he taught me how to work out

taught me how to eat right next uh next year i come back which is my final year of high school

i'm 30 pounds lighter more fit more charismatic more confidence making eye contact with people

getting noticed for the first time as though i never went to school there right i was invisible

for three years now i'm invisible so

i realized man i love what fitness did for me i want to be a personal trainer and i want to have

others achieve and experience this transformation so that led me to becoming a personal trainer

that led me to starting a group training program called fit body boot camp and now we have hundreds

of locations between the u.s and canada over 350 locations and growing yeah it's a it's a fitness

franchise and to me if i can keep my if i can have good mental physical and emotional hygiene

i am invincible

and so to me even this morning i woke up i went through my morning routine

i worked out and i will work out again tonight before i go to bed i have two workouts a day

i i shield myself from the outside noise that i don't want to subscribe to i travel with only

the people who are positive um in terms of contribution to my life and i'm very vigilant

with how i live my life you know hey be strict very strict to the point of militant yeah and

the older i get the more militant i become and i'm very vigilant with how i live my life you know

you're 68 i'm 49 as you said you said hey i wasn't depressed when i came back home but you said i was

flat yeah here i am in beautiful sydney i'm flying to melbourne tonight going to brisbane after that

and back to sydney and then back to california i can't wait to get home and get back to my routine

get back to my routine the more predictable my life is and people ask me well where's the

spontaneity i don't have spontaneity i don't want spontaneity i want a predictable happy successful

healthy life and that's what i'm doing and i'm going to do that and i'm going to do that and i'm

going to have so how how important then therefore do you think for others if you could share this is

routine and structure within your life like in terms of the people keep saying to me mindset

mindset for me mindset means about structuring something uh and structuring my mind in a certain

way and the only thing i can think of is routine i can't think of much more i mean routine to do

different things and i i go i'm a bit like yourself i'm extreme i get right down to the time i go to

bed at night it's non-negotiable unless i want to go to something that's like a function or something

if i'm home um what i actually do before i go to sleep um you know there's a few things like

routines i go through to make sure that i'm in a sleep mode what time i wake up in the morning

even down to the point which gym or gyms i go to i noticed you know for those who don't know um

bedros uh his team reached out to me before he came here and uh he wanted to go somewhere where

he could practice jujitsu which and the place i uh recommended is a jujitsu dash wrestling sort

of place it's an mma place which he did he's been there um already he only been a few days

um that's that's sort of to me um extreme routine commitment yeah and i will keep that extreme i

mean you what you described is like my morning starts the night before yeah what time i go to

bed what little rituals i go through the hot tub the tea one episode of the tv show that my my wife

and i watch um all of it all you're watching what are you watching uh we are we are currently

watching um oh geez what is the name of the show is it comedy or is it drama no no i i don't know

i hate i hate drama i love i i we just finished watching right now the the fourth and final

sorry the third part of arnold's documentary on netflix yeah yeah but previous to that uh we were

watching veep so what's veep about julia julia louise dreyfus so the the woman who was on

seinfeld yeah yeah yeah she is the veep vice president of the united states she's hilarious

foul it is just foul it is just foul it is just foul it is just foul it is just foul it is just

banana she can't wait for the president to die for her to step into his shoes and every time she

gets a call she's hoping that the president is dead oh he's in the hospital well i will be there

to to to see him to give my condolences i mean to make sure he's doing well and so i love good

comedies but we again make sure that we only watch one episode and not go down the drain of

you know binge watching an entire season but it's funny because i do the same sort of thing but i i

watch something neutral to neutralize my thought processes i mean what about meditation i love

meditating i so in the mornings i'll meditate i'll drink 30 ounces of water i'll even turn on how much

is 30 ounce of water uh it's about a liter 30 ounces of water is oh gosh it's a fourth of a

gallon okay quarter of a gallon gallons uh is eight pints so it's uh two pints which is close to a

liter yeah yeah yeah that's a lot of water that's it yeah so within within 30 minutes of waking up

i've i've drank the 30 ounces of water i've sent out three gratitude text messages to whom to three

random messages to whom to three random messages to whom to three random messages to three random

people in my life that i'm grateful for yeah uh who have helped me could be jim franco my first

mentor it could be someone you know one of my business partners could be my wife anyone that

i'm grateful for i make sure to put myself in a state of gratitude you know this as an entrepreneur

no matter how structured your day is you're going to get a call or a text or an email that's going to

piss you off it's going to piss you off or make you feel like exactly so again remember we were

talking about creating that win-win scenario the most selfish thing we can do well if i send mark

a gratitude text message when i wake up

sometimes throughout his day mark's going to send me a thank you message and i don't know why the

universe works this way but that thank you message from you will come exactly when i needed it when i

needed to hear it because something's going wrong in my business or in my life which is normal like

i love chaos and my problem is to fix chaos faster than it can produce itself that's what entrepreneurs

do we fix problems faster than problems can reproduce and so the most selfish thing i can

do is send gratitude text messages because that guarantees me three positive text messages every

single day and you can back up by sending gratitude text messages every single day and you can back up

And you can bank them.

I can bank them.

Yeah.

That's it.

It's currency.

Yeah.

I listen to Jack Johnson's music while I'm showering.

I haven't heard Jack for ages, but whatever happened to Jack?

Not many new albums out, but I love his stuff.

Every now and again, he'll randomly just put something out.

But he does a concert once a year where I surf in Dana Point, California.

And so I always go to the family and I go to see him.

I love his music.

It makes me happy, right?

Talk about something neutral, makes me happy.

Then I'll go downstairs, meditate for about 15 minutes, and then I attack my work.

And I say, I use the word attack.

I know it sounds extreme, but I attack my work.

And as Joan is sitting there, she'll tell you money tasks first, things that will make

money first, and then I'll start solving problems that have come through the night

via email from my chain of command, my team members, et cetera.

And then I go to the gym, get my workout in, go outside and walk for about three miles

at the local park.

And then I'll go to headquarters by 12 noon.

And then my second half of the day starts.

So part one of my day starts at home.

Part two starts at headquarters.

And I might coach or consult some coaching clients.

I might make some big decisions or small decisions, a series of small decisions.

Or I might make a few episodes of my podcast show.

By 6 p.m., I'm at home and it's family time and my phone notifications are off.

Because even if the building at home at work catches fire, I'm not a firefighter.

What can I do other than worry about it?

So I'll find out in the morning when my CEO tells me.

So it's very, very disciplined.

And is this seven days a week?

Yeah.

What about food in terms of, you know?

I just follow my macros in terms of food.

What's that mean?

So my proteins, fats, and carbs.

So I'll have about 250 grams of protein per day.

I break it up into four meals.

I can't, six, seven meals, I don't have time for.

250 grams of protein a day, about 150 to 200 grams of carbs a day, and 60 to 80 grams of

fat a day.

And usually the fat will come from olive oil, avocado, et cetera.

And I love routine.

I love routine.

Now, yesterday we went and had steak, like I said.

I got a little dessert.

I got sherbet, sorbet, as y'all might say.

And I had a little bite, a couple bites, and I pushed a plate away.

I'm a fat kid.

So I could eat every, I don't have an off button.

So I have to deliberately go on.

And that's why I have to be disciplined.

I have to be structured.

I have to be militant.

I can eat, I can out-eat anybody.

And I can out-lazy anybody.

But I love financial freedom.

I love serving humanity so much.

I love being fit and athletic so much that I have to be this disciplined and this militant.

And I do it seven days a week.

Like, why on the weekends would I wake up and be lazy?

Wake up late, be lazy, only to set myself up to lose on a Monday?

Because think how quickly our body builds habits and patterns.

So if I'm lazy on Saturday and I get a little drunk and tipsy,

and on Sunday I sleep in, I get a little drunk and tipsy,

Monday, arguably the busiest day for an entrepreneur, now I'm at a deficit.

I don't want that.

The difference is, on the weekends, I'm not working eight, nine hours.

But I'll work a couple hours before the family wakes up.

Still be productive.

Still feel some self-worth.

And then go out there and have fun with the family.

Whether it's surfing or whatever.

And in terms of sleep, for those who are listening,

because a lot of people in business find it difficult to sleep.

What's your sleep mantra?

So I mean, we listen to Peter Thier and Andrew Hoobman and various other people like Simon

Hill in Australia.

You know, you've got to get between seven and eight hours and it's got to be a certain

type of sleep.

What's your sleep regime and or strategy look like?

So.

The strategy is eight, seven, eight years ago, I would function with four to five hours

of sleep.

And I almost scoffed at anybody who would get seven or eight hours of sleep.

Today at 49 years old, I require seven to eight hours of sleep.

And that's a non-negotiable.

I stopped drinking alcohol two years ago, simply because it interrupted my sleep pattern.

And I was not a addict where alcohol is, I would have a couple of cocktails here and

there.

But as I got older, I would feel a little foggy.

It would interrupt my sleep.

It wasn't a deep sleep.

I like to eat earlier in the day instead of a, you know, our culture, especially, we like

to eat at 8.30, 9 p.m.

Right?

Well, shoot.

I got to be in bed by 10 o'clock, man.

I can't do that.

I like to eat at 6 p.m. for dinner.

And so I've adjusted my eating, my alcohol, et cetera, to help me sleep deeper and longer

at night, which makes me more productive.

I don't know if it's a byproduct of getting older.

Or if all those years have gone by.

Yeah.

The years of sleeping four or five hours have now caught up with me, but I require

my sleep.

It's funny.

You know, during that younger years, I mean, I experienced the same thing.

It was like a superpower of people who are good entrepreneurs to be able to go without

sleep.

In other words, how do you do it?

You get four to five hours sleep at night, yet you can work, you know, 14, 15 hours a

day.

And I actually think it was all bullshit.

I actually don't think.

I don't believe anyone has said it.

I mean, I used to do it, but I would then crash.

Right.

Exactly.

And these people used to say to me, I know, I never do that.

I sleep four or five hours, you know, and I've been doing it for years.

I just, I don't know.

I now think I don't believe them because it is like a bit of a superpower sort of, you

know, I'm a professor of business, so to speak.

This is what they're trying to tell us and that they're better than all of us, which

would make you feel like shit.

Right.

Then you start saying, well, what's wrong with you, you pussy?

Why can't you operate on Mark on four or five hours sleep a night for the last 20 years?

Well, because no one does.

I don't think.

I think it's all bullshit.

I really think it is.

And it catches up with you sooner or later.

And there's little pictures of me from 10 years ago.

People see it.

They go, oh, my God, you look so old there.

I look younger today, 10 years later.

And I do believe it's one, stress management, but two, I'm getting better and longer sleep.

And how does nutrition fit into all these things?

So you did talk about, you know, the three things you want to have in terms of protein,

fats and carbs.

And that was pretty precision based, in other words, you have a formula around it.

Yeah.

So we keep getting told that, you know, the so-called Mediterranean diet is the best diet

in the world, etc.

How do you actually formulate what you actually put in front of yourself or what your family

has for that matter?

I mean, because, you know, your kids, your kids are little so like, you know, do you

ever sit around and enjoy what your kids are enjoying or do you try to get the whole family

into one regime?

We, my wife and I brainwashed our kids early on.

Today, like I said, Andrew is 18, Chloe is 16.

They have yet to be inside of a McDonald's.

They've never seen the inside of a McDonald's.

They've never seen a McDonald's.

They've never seen McDonald's or any fast food restaurant commercial on television because

we never had regular television.

I realized I was brainwashed by television.

I would watch Knight Rider in 18 and then I would see commercials and I would eat Frosted

Flakes and sugar-laden cereal.

And so I realized television is a source of influence.

And so if I can control the influence that my kids are seeing and I can build a pattern

of working out today.

So I started taking Andrew and Chloe to the gym when they were five, six years old.

And today?

Today, when I'm traveling, my son will text me, dad, what's a good back workout?

What's a good leg workout I could do?

They're addicted.

Just like I came here today and thank you for introducing me to Larry, right, jujitsu.

Like I can't break my routine just because I'm traveling.

And so I still eat the same way.

I still train this.

I have to get my two sessions a week of jujitsu in because I'm so new to it that I will forget.

I will forget.

Just talk about that for a minute.

How easy is it as we get older?

Oh, man.

To forget what they showed you.

What do they say?

They say youth is wasted on the young.

My God.

Like they get you in a position and you know you're supposed to do something but you can't

remember.

I can't remember it, man.

And I could learn it last week.

I could literally learn it last week.

And if they teach me too many things in one session, I'm just saying, dude, keep it simple.

Just give me two things this week.

Oh, my God.

And I lay in bed before I go the next time and I'm thinking, now, hang on a minute.

I haven't thought about this since my last session.

What did he say?

Oh, my God.

Where's my arm go?

It seems to be crazy, don't it?

Yeah.

You know, it's funny.

I think Larry, he's so knowledgeable.

He knows more than I'll ever acquire.

And I think he wanted to impress us with how much he...

I said, Larry, just show us two things and he showed us two things and I said, I'd rather

just drill this for the rest of the 90 minutes that we have with you and then roll after

that, then learn four or five things, then I'll mix them all up and know nothing.

But jujitsu...

It is a human chess game.

And I'll find myself doing step one and two and then I'll pause and I'm thinking and I

could see my opponent looking down at me like seeing the wheels spin.

If there was any one thing I wish I would have started sooner in life...

There, jujitsu.

It would be jujitsu.

It's funny.

There's something about it.

It's not really fighting.

It's sort of a combination of different things, but it's quite of a brain game.

It is.

And getting your body to do the thing that your brain wants it to do.

Yeah.

And I find it quite cognitively important because someone gets you, especially, you

know, when you're one of the worst in the class and definitely the oldest, someone gets

you in a position, you've got to think, well, I know how to get, I've got out of this before,

I know what I've got to do, but then you've got to make your body do it.

Right.

It's a bit weird.

Your body's not going to do it.

Right.

As we get older.

When you're 20, you wouldn't be able to do it.

No worries.

Of course.

You've got to get your legs up and grow up.

But like, I know what to do a lot of times, but I just, my body just won't do it.

And I think that's a really important thing as we get older to, for our mobility.

And I think it's why people fall over as they get older.

I agree.

They know that they should be negotiating a certain thing in a certain way when they're

walking somewhere, maybe with a bag or they could be carrying a grandkid or whatever the

case may be.

But they just can't do the thing that they should do.

That's the reason I do it.

Yeah.

At my age now.

That's exactly it.

I've realized that I'm not going to stretch and do mobility, but if I do jujitsu, it forces

me to stretch, do mobility.

And as you said, cognitively, it connects my mind and body together in a way that I

don't think there's anything else out there that I'd be interested in doing that would

connect my mind and body together that way.

It's funny, the stretch thing, you're right.

It's not a thing that I grew up doing.

It forces you to stretch, doesn't it?

Yeah.

I don't really dig it that much.

I mean, like I did do yoga for a little while, mainly because my partner at the time, she

was a yoga teacher.

And it's not something that really gets me.

I don't want to be, and this sounds a bit sexist, but I don't really want to be in a

class with a whole lot of girls and I'm the only dude in there, I feel a bit weird.

I think yoga's great, but it's just, I just don't feel comfortable doing it.

I'd rather just roll around the joint, like we're saying in jujitsu, and get put into

weird positions and have to move my body around.

And I think that people listening to this, these are new things, like jujitsu is relatively

speaking new things.

I mean, Dana White, what he's done is brilliant.

By introducing UFC to the world, and all of us now seeing jujitsu, we would never have

seen it unless we went to the Olympics and watched the judo or the wrestling or something.

But all of a sudden, these are new things that have been put in front of us and they're

very accessible.

I don't know about your country, but in this country, my God, there are so many jujitsu

gyms in this country.

They're everywhere.

And it's crazy for us not to access these things for the benefits we get out of it and

make it part of our routine, which makes it part of our structure, which helps our mindset,

which helps us get through the day.

And through the year, and hopefully successfully, can we just talk about your tour?

Yes.

Your tour here in Australia.

Yeah.

So what's the content?

What are you talking to everyone about?

And so it's by Fizz Productions, and the event is called Rise to Greatness, and takes place

in Melbourne, Brisbane, and Sydney.

You're going to just say Brisbane.

Brisbane, I apologize.

No, no, they're spelled Brisbane.

Okay.

But if you're out in Brisbane, people just get Brisbane, or Aussie, but they're Brisbane.

Brisbane, got it.

I got it.

Thank you for the correction.

Brisbane, and Sydney.

And Rise to Greatness, not only great speakers, but it's about empowering people to rise to

their higher potential, to become the best version of yourself.

We all know, we all have a conscience that speaks to us when we're, if you're up later

than you should be, there's that conversation in the back of your head, like, hey, you should

be asleep right now.

If you're eating something you shouldn't be eating, there's that conversation in the back

of your head.

I call it the secondary conversation that takes place.

That's your conscience.

That's your creator speaking to you.

And what do we do?

We ignore it, and we just turn up the volume on the television, or we take another shot,

or we eat another slice of cake, whatever.

But if you listen to your conscience, it wants you to rise to your greatness, to your highest

level of greatness.

Think what you've done.

You have developed to your highest version of yourself, then gave yourself to the world

through television, media, et cetera, this podcast, and everything.

If Mark did not take the time to develop to his highest level of himself, then you would

not have the opportunities to serve humanity.

And to do things for yourself and your family.

And so Rise to Greatness is just an amazing event that I think will be transformational

for everyone who attends.

And I think every year that Rob and his wife put this event on, more people should attend

if they're looking to break out of the rat race and win their financial freedom, their

mental freedom, and realize there's a better path to life than just being a cog in the

wheel.

How long are you up on the stage for?

And is it your interview?

Or you're doing it now?

Or are you doing a presentation?

I'm doing a presentation.

Yeah.

I'm doing a presentation.

And we'll be here eight days in total.

But you're on stage during any one presentation?

Oh, two presentations.

I believe there's a Q&A, question and answer session, and a 90-minute presentation as well.

Like a talk.

Exactly.

And are you hitting on things like mindset, mindset strategies, routines, important instruction,

all that sort of stuff?

Yeah.

Specifically how to make more money, how to find your source of purpose, meaning, right?

Money, meaning self-mastery.

Make more money, how to find your source of meaning in life.

Because let's face it, we all need a sense of meaning.

If you don't have a sense of meaning, you feel like you don't belong.

You start feeling, having dark thoughts soon after.

But if you have a sense of meaning, like you belong, there's a purpose that you're put

on this planet for, you will push through whatever is necessary.

So more money, more meaning, and more self-mastery.

Become the higher version of yourself.

Drop your ego, connect to higher self, solve through your trauma, heal, stop reacting to

things.

Don't respond to things like an adult.

We see great giant adults having temper tantrums emotionally because they are emotionally retarded.

And we need to...

I should get canceled for that, I'm sure.

So I'll say it again.

They get emotionally retarded instead of being emotionally aware.

And when you're emotionally aware, you can go, okay, am I about to react to what Mark

said?

Does Mark have any bad intentions towards me?

Or maybe Mark's having a bad day and I should say, hey friend, are you okay?

Right?

Whatever my emotional state is, I may react instead of respond and trying to help a friend.

Maybe you're just having a bad day and you took it out on me because I'm safe.

The person that has elevated to higher self can tell the difference.

The person who hasn't now becomes inflammatory.

So just in terms of, because I mean, perhaps you and I are lucky we've lived this life,

but to some people, when you say sort of discover or find out what your purpose is, what does

that mean?

It's really important to, to people who might be listening to this because you know, am

I meant to be a butcher and serve my community where I live, where I have my butcher shop?

I want to serve my community, that's called inmate possible.

But what is the purpose of your, how do you find out what your purpose is?

Good question.

It's actually, well, I'll have two purposes.

I'll start there.

Your first purpose is really, and people ask it this way, they'll say, what is the meaning

of life, Bedros?

And I'll say, easy, easy.

Yeah.

don't have to worry about the meaning of life ask what is the meaning of my life so you are your

first purpose and i believe again whether you believe in god or the universe or universal

consciousness doesn't matter to me whatever whoever our creator is made us this way with

where we will experience trauma adversity uh you didn't come with an owner's manual did your mom

and dad give you an owner's man nor did mine yet i can go buy a microwave or a refrigerator it comes

with an owner's manual yet something this complex with emotions and thoughts and feelings and

and movement i have no owner's manual and i believe god or our creator wants us to figure

out what is the meaning of my life relative to everybody else yes yeah see when we try and

understand the meaning of life that's overwhelming what is the meaning of my life well how about the

meaning of my life is to first be a good father be a good husband what does that look like raise

kids who are going to be an asset to humanity and not a liability

have a wife who feels like she's heard and understood and a partner in what i do okay great

manage have patience manage my anger heal through the traumas that i've experienced like i said i

experienced sexual trauma physical trauma physical abuse that doesn't make me a victim but i those

things that happened to me as a young man will show up in my life in a negative way if i don't

heal through it so the meaning of my life is first to heal through my traumas and the adversities

that i faced and then i'm going to be able to heal through my traumas and the adversities that i faced

to raise a family that is going to be an asset and not a liability to humanity and it is to be

myself to be a an asset and not a liability on my fellow man and then from there i'm now at a place

the hierarchy of needs mavzal's hierarchy of needs now i'm at a place where i can all right now

now that i've healed i've got a family who is sovereign and free and free thinking how else

can i serve humanity well for me it's fitness when people ask me how can i get out of my depression

i said you have abs no i don't get your abs what do you mean yeah if you get your abs you will fall

madly in love with yourself in the process of getting your abs eating right and working out hard

you will suffer so much but you'll have to keep going to the gym to burn the fat and build the

muscle and when you do you will release dopamine serotonin and it will help you escape your

depression and anxiety when you do and you get to the best version of yourself and you start solving

all your problems you know this when you're working out how many times are you under rolling and someone's

about to get you in a rear naked choke hold or a guillotine choke hold and you're thinking

through a work problem like some of my best problem solving happens when i'm about to get

choked out or armbarred or something because i also realize like i'm suffering and i do believe

suffering introduces a man to his highest self and the world has gotten so soft so complacent

that we try and stay away from any kind of suffering and we've become fragile we need

to become anti-fragile so to me our second source of purpose is once you've healed through your shit

once you are a good friend a good husband a good father a good business partner

what is my source of serving humanity for me it's through fitness right i always tell people if you

can get fit physically you will get fit mentally and emotionally now someone else might say i'm

going to be a butcher and i'm going to feed you good food and that good food is going to nourish

your body and you're going to feel good about yourself you're going to go out there and do

good i don't know what someone else's source of purpose is but i do know mine and i got to this

i knew what my source of purpose is because at first i took time to

heal myself and work on my first source of meaning the meaning of my life which is to develop to

basically develop my own owner's manual that morning routine you talked about the evening

routine that you have the structure the discipline you have written mark's owner's manual i've

written my own and everyone needs to write their own owner's manual first and then go out and serve

the world with that how important is honesty to yourself when you are sitting down you said get your

the things that are sort of making you feel bad and you know like in your case you suffered some

traumas in your life how important is it to be honest and confront those things and do you need

somebody else to help you through that process is it some people just can't do i think just can't

do it on their own yeah i think most people can't do it on their own you know what do they say they

say what got you here won't get you there right and so you have to be brutally honest with yourself

and i think most people overestimate how awesome they are how amazing they are and they underestimate

how how little problems they have until it's too late you know people who have their ear earbuds in

and they're walking through a city at night they overestimate how safe they are the former me the

1.0 version of me the young man who was very angry i used to carjack i used to do home invasion

robberies and i today i could see someone walking with earbuds in at night i could see where their

purse was and i could see where their purse was and i could see where their purse was and i could

see where their purse is if it's on the street side it's going they're going to be easier to

snatch i'm a 49 year old successful man i have no intention of robbing someone but my predatory

instincts still make me look and when i see i go they overestimate how safe they are and they

underestimate how deadly i can be or another bad guy can be and i think if you can be brutally

honest you realize most people are sitting ducks like several years ago we were my family and i

were flying back from my uh maui and

uh my son and i were sitting over here in first class my wife and my daughter were sitting here

in first class across the aisle uh but we were the last row of first class up front and to the left

in the second row first class there's a gentleman hitting the back of the seat making the gun

gesture now it's 11 o'clock at night man we're flying over the pacific ocean and i had just

started training in mma i hadn't learned jujitsu yet but in mma you know this you learn guillotine

and rear naked choke holds and arm bars and things like that and all of a sudden i see the flight of

attendants they're lacing together two zip cuffs and they're coming down the aisle and i stopped

and i said ma'am is everything okay like what's going on she goes he's a flight risk i said well

can i help she said well by law we have to ask him to put these on and i look at him and he's going

berserk mark he's lost his shit and i go that man is going to put on those zip cuffs he goes we hope

so okay so they get in front of him and you could see the lady uh hey you know you have to put this

on he stands up and starts screaming she looks at me and i look at the guy sitting behind my wife

and we had both made this eye contact like if shit goes down we're going to help i really

thought this is post 9-11 that i thought my biggest concern is i'm going to be the first one there i'm

going to be stuck under a pile of humans i'm going to suffocate that was my biggest concern like oh

shit right little did i know that it was just going to be me and that guy and no one else

everyone else had their phones out filming and so i ran over got him in a rear naked choke hold

then had to get him in a guillotine choke hold so we can put his arms behind his back and lace him

the whole time i'm panicking i'm sweating god has gifted me with two things a lot of body hair

and a lot of sweat glands i was sweating profusely and coming back from from hawaii i was wearing

flip-flops and so i'm sliding out of my flip-flops now whenever i'm on a plane i lace up my shoes

really tight because if i have to choke a motherfucker out again i'm never going to slip

out of my flip-flops and he was a tall guy so i i didn't know how to take him down i just hugged

his neck and didn't let go until he collapsed and then got into a guillotine choke hold but i share

like i want to as old as i get i want to be an asset to humanity like god forbid if i'm on

another plane and something goes down i don't want to be there hoping that someone jumps and

saves the day i want to be the one to save the day in fact jokingly i told my son as we were

coming to australia he's 18 and muscular and he boxes and he does jujitsu i said son if shit goes

down i'm delegating it to you only if it gets bad i'm going to get up and help you know and he laughed

about he goes don't worry dad i got you is he fit he is he is unlike yourself

unlike yourself at 18 yeah yeah yeah he's fit unlike myself at 18 he's fit he weighs 175 pounds

uh lean muscular boxes does jujitsu um plays just he's i'm in awe of my kids man i'm in awe of my

kids they're just they say the apple doesn't grow far from the tree i mean like i mean that's got

to be a lot to do with yourself and your your wife thank you and the mother and and i guess

by the way um your dad he's still alive my dad is alive my mom died um about 10 months ago yeah

and so and when you sit down with your dad this is sort of where we started when you sit down with

your dad and you know you talk about he's no doubt very proud of what he has done and his family has

done do you ever sort of sit down together and reflect on you know going to rome from armenia

and then off to america and where you all landed where you are today do you ever sit

and reflect on that we do we did he's 91 now uh we did more of that

when he in the 70s and 80s uh today at 91 his memory is not as sharp as it used to be

um but i'm so glad that i was smart enough to ask questions like dad what made you want to escape

and he said oh you don't remember when i wore jordash jeans and ray band sunglasses

and listened to the beach boys in armenia i said no i don't remember that he goes oh i was born in

american just in the wrong country holy shit so he goes yeah i just i was in the wrong country

and i needed to escape and bring you guys with me

like he came to america because he felt we'd have a better opportunity but he felt that he was born

in the wrong country like what a visionary you know and so the stories that he tells me he told

he told me a story um actually recently uh maybe a couple months ago i said dad i think you helped

one of your friends stop smoking so he used to be a hunter they would hunt rabbit and squirrel and

foxes small game in armenia i said can you tell me because my son andrew was with me i said can

you tell me and andrew how you stopped one of your friends from smoking cigarettes

oh he goes easy easy and he tells andrew he goes andrew andrew you listen to me you listen to me

and so his friend which was a chain smoker in armenia my dad goes and buys a pack of cigarettes

takes one of the cigarettes takes half of the tobacco out takes a bullet takes a little bit

of the gunpowder out puts it in the cigarette puts the tobacco back in tells his friend hey

you want a cigarette and he pulls out the right one and gives it to his friend of course the

friend lights it up and the thing goes oh he goes oh he goes oh he goes oh he goes oh he goes oh he

blows up in his face and immediately he stopped smoking and he goes you have to be bold son i did

bold things to help my friends and he said i did bold things to make sure that you guys have the

life that you want like he was a visionary like he did things he risked his life and he he has a

sweet tongue in armenian we say a sweet tongue where he was able to finagle his way through the

american consult in rome and when we got here he found a way to get people to help us and like us

and i learned so much of that so yeah we do get together um especially earlier on and we talk

about like like look where we've gotten you know the fact that my sister works for me full time and

does nothing that was one of my life goals right one of my life goals she's listening yeah you

heard it if if you don't agree with him tell me when you say he does she he's just said you do

nothing literally nothing and i love that and i want that for and that's because when we came to

armenia uh to america she had a job one of the three jobs that she had she was a waitress at a

pizzeria the same pizzeria she was a waitress at a pizzeria and she was a waitress at a pizzeria

that my dad was a bus boy and the owner of that pizzeria was very suggestive was very handsy

gropey with her and she would cry to my dad like i don't want to work here anymore he said one more

month just need the money one more month and you know remember she's 16 years older than me so

she's also like a second mom to me and i remember going to her feeling helpless and i said hey sis

when i'm rich when i'm older i'm going to be so rich you'll never have to work again

so 14 years ago um i told her to quit her company job that she had

she works for me doing nothing and i love that and my dad is so grateful to me till this day he

says i know what you're doing for your sister and your brother thank you for that and i'm like dude

it's no worries it's the least i could do it's it i got once told by an armenian friend of mine who

passed away but he and i mean a million friend of mine he told me that mark he said armenians the

best traders in the world the best merchants in the world and i said why is it because we sit

between europe or we used to sit historically between europe and the middle east and of course

he said so everything had to go through armenia and had to get traded one way or the other

he said armenians sort of grew up with this um over the centuries grew up with this sort of history

of being able to do deals and and build bridges between organizations but you know actually

sort of broker things to happen and build bridges between people and concepts people

and products people and services and it seems to me that um bedros is that what you're doing

is that you're you're in your in your job today and your business is

a you sort of build a bridge between consumers your audience consumers of what you talk about

your audience build a bridge between them and what can be possibly with the best version of

themselves so that's a quite an important by the way a big responsibility it is a huge

responsibility which you've adopted yeah that bridge is for some people in particular for some

people could be make or break for them you know because you're

to some extent you're there's potentially their salvation and they look up to you for that and

they will come along and listen to you and pay money listen to you for that do you feel a level

of responsibility in that regard to make sure that they go away with something i mean how big is that

responsibility on your shoulders there's a massive responsibility where that's concerned i um i'm

i'm organically i'm an i'm an introvert i'm an intj introverted intuitive thinker judicial very high

introvert and i think and i people ask me is there a god and i go of course there's a god

he made me a high introvert and then told me my purpose is to do what extroverts do get in front

of a microphone get on stage and speak to tens of thousands of millions of people i 15 years of

speaking i still sweat profusely i'm always nervous when i'm on stage once i'm on stage

a sense of comfort comes over me and i believe i say you know the universe or god speaks through

me source just speaks through me i'm just a megaphone

when that happens i almost go out of body sometimes it's fascinating but the pressure

that i feel as an introvert uh when i'm still stopped on the streets i don't know how oh

you're bedros cool and i follow you i didn't know what to say before my wife taught me three things

hey what's your name what do you do what is your favorite part of my show because i don't know what

to ask they're my three questions are those are three questions okay are you an introvert by

chance yeah okay there you go there you go because i connect one-on-one like this really

well i could do this all day long put me on stage my armpits are sweating my back sweating put you

know and so while i'm grateful for the opportunities the responsibility that i have and i think i

magnify that to myself i make it bigger than it should be but it's also why i my give a shit

factor as my wife says is so high i give a shit uh to the point where i'll i was telling everybody

at dinner last night i say watch tomorrow before i get on stage i'm gonna have to pee and pee

and pee again my bladder goes out of control i feel like i'm getting a sore throat i'm running

a fever and as soon as i'm on stage mark 100 relaxed man it's fucking nuts 15 years later

yeah but that's introvert living in an extrovert life yeah so basically to some extent it's a

performance of the content yeah you perform you you switch on yeah the moment you get on the stage

and you perform with your content yeah and uh you deliver on your promise i i think i do i have yet

to hear anyone ask for a refund and it's not going to happen i think it's going to happen

it's been 15 years bendros coolian it's been a great pleasure thank you

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