Shawn Stevenson: Welcome to The Model Health Show. This is fitness and nutrition expert, Shawn Stevenson, and I'm so grateful for you tuning in with me today. Have you ever thought about your life being a movie? And if it was, what kind of movie would your life be? Would it be an action / adventure? Would it be a comedy? Would it be some random bumbling strange thing like Napoleon Dynamite where you have to watch it twice and you're like, 'What did I just watch?' Or is it something else? Now the question that I really want to ask you is what role are you playing in your movie? Are you the star? Are you playing a supporting actor? Are you playing the director, or are you playing somebody who's going to get some coffee? Alright? Because all of these positions are available, and a lot of times we don't realize that we have the opportunity to be the stars in our own movie, and it's really about the stories that we tell ourselves. And today I want to talk about stories, and I want to share a remarkable story with you guys to show you really what's possible, because so often we get caught up in our story that, 'I can't do this because-' you know? 'I'm too young.' 'I'm too old.' 'I'm too this.' 'I'm too that.' And also we tend to forget just how powerful we really are. All of the gifts and talents, capacities that we have within ourselves, and not realizing that the challenges that we face are there to help to release some of those dormant capacities that we have, and not to cause a destruction of the superhero. But every good movie has a nemesis, it has a challenge to overcome, and that's what today is all about because I want you to be the star of your own movie, and to absolutely crush it from this day forward. Before we do that, I want to give a big shout-out. I've been on the road for quite awhile now, and always- I never leave home without it, I've got my Four Sigmatic coffee with me, and my Four Sigmatic elixirs. And today, because I knew I was going to need a lot of mental power, I had my Lion's Mane coffee. University of Malaya found that Lion's Mane is clinically proven- this is one of like a handful- we're talking like five substances that are clinically proven to have this process or property of neurogenesis and neuroprotective capacity. So we're talking about literally protecting your brain cells and helping you to create more brain cells, alright? It's also been found to be very, very helpful for folks who've had brain damage, alright? To help to regenerate tissue. There's not many things like that, that we've discovered, and this is one of those things is Lion's Mane. So they have Lion's Mane coffee with Four Sigmatic, and also Lion's Mane elixirs if you're not a big coffee fan. But bottom line is I get them from Four Sigmatic because it's dual extracted, alright? So they do a hot water extraction and alcohol extraction to make sure you get all of the benefits that are actually there, and not just some of them. Alright? It's very, very important. You don't want to just hear about Lion's Mane and go buy from Company X. Make sure you go to Four Sigmatic. So it's www.FourSigmatic.com/model and you get 15% off all of their incredible mushroom elixirs. They also have chaga, rishi, cordyceps, and so many others. So head over there, make sure to check them out. And of course when I'm on the road, I make sure to bring along my MCT oil as well, and MCT oil has been found to have really potent powers in supporting your microbiome, getting rid of unfriendly bacteria, and also it's a very quick source of energy because if you're eating, let's just say a bowl of Froot Loops, or if you're doing more of like a Paleo protocol piece of fish. When you eat that food, it's in a different currency than what your body can use. So it literally has to be a currency exchange. So that food has to become energy in your body, and it has to change currency. So- and it's a pretty complex process, but what's so interesting about MCT oil is that these medium-chain triglycerides go directly to your cells, it's instant cell food, alright? So make sure you utilize some MCT oil as well. I get mine from Onnit, and I love to combine my mushroom coffee or mushroom teas with the MCT oil. They have strawberry, vanilla, coconut, and also a new cinnamon swirl, which I'm really digging as well. So head over to www.ONNIT.com/model. That's www.ONNIT.com/model, 10% off everything they have, and also they have incredible proteins too. So on that note, let's get to our special guest and our topic of the day. Our guest today is the one and only Bedros Keuilian, and if you've been under a rock, you probably haven't heard of him yet, but he's going to just blow your mind, and he's somebody that I definitely want you to follow, and you're going to be inspired to follow because he's one of the most inspirational yet grounded individuals that I've met in a long, long time. He's very practical, he brings solutions, and he really helps people, and he is the Founder of the Fit Body Boot Camp phenomenon, now 614 gyms. Oh my goodness, it doesn't even make any sense, right? But when you hear his story and you hear where he comes from, you're going to be able to understand just how powerful you are to execute on making your vision come true. And I'd like to welcome to The Model Health Show, my friend Bedros Keuilian. What's up, man? Bedros Keuilian: Shawn, thank you so much, man. I appreciate it. Wow, what a great introduction. Thank you! Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, it's my pleasure. So let's just dive right into it. Let's talk about your story. You're not even from the US. Bedros Keuilian: No. Shawn Stevenson: Where did you get your Keuilian roots? Bedros Keuilian: Yeah, yeah, yeah, so in fact English is my second language, and American is my second culture. So my father in 1980 decided that we were going to escape the Soviet Union. We lived in Armenia. Now my brother is fourteen years older than me, my sister is sixteen years older than me, and the reason those two facts were significant is at the time, in 1981 my brother was going to turn twenty and he was going to have to go into the Soviet Army. And at the time of course, Communist Russia was at war with Afghanistan, just like the United States is now. And so my dad did not want his son to go into the Communist Army, and so the two years building up to that, he was literally saving up as much money as he can, he bribed the Soviet government, and we were able to escape- a family of five, to Italy under the pretenses that we were going on vacation. And we escaped to Italy, so as you can imagine if you're going on vacation, you're not taking much with you. So we didn't get to bring anything with us. My dad had $184 in his pocket, we had two suitcases for the family of five. We went into Italy and within three days of being in Italy, we walked into the American Consulate and my dad said, 'Hey I'm a member of the communist party. I denounce communism. We've escaped the Soviet Union. If I go back, they're probably going to kill me, and so I want to go to the United States and experience freedom, democracy, and have opportunity for my kids.' And at the time, the Consulate granted us opportunity to come in, and so after about a week of being in Italy going through paperwork, we escaped- or took our flight to John F. Kennedy Airport. And the only reason my dad decided we were going to move to California is he knew two things; one, California is warm, and of course coming from Armenia it was very cold and snowy. And he knew a friend of a friend who was going to let us stay in his apartment for one month. And so he let us borrow one of the spare bedrooms- he had a two bedroom apartment, one of them was empty, he let us borrow that bedroom. And in one month- literally the second day, my dad was delivering newspapers. So once we got to LAX, the guy picked us up, took us to his apartment. My dad gave him the $184 he had to rent that one bedroom apartment- or the one bedroom, and by day two my dad was delivering newspapers, pumping gas, and washing dishes at a pizzeria. By day three and four, my brother and sister each have two or three jobs. My mom's raising me and cooking food for that gentleman and our family, and after a month of everybody working four, five, six jobs collectively, we were able to get our own place. And listen, growing up in a country where you don't speak the language, you don't understand the culture, it's pretty scary, man. And at the time, the eighties especially, people weren't as forgiving as they are today. So I grew up hearing my mom and dad getting yelled at, 'Go back to your own f-ing country, you foreigner.' And that leaves a lot of scars when you're broke and poor. And people ask me, 'Well what's the difference between being broke and poor?' Well broke, you're financially without money. Poor is a mindset, and we started operating out of a place of a poor mindset because we would always run out of money before we ran out of month, my dad would say. And so we would get evicted out of an apartment, and have to move again. So I've gone to three elementary schools, two junior highs, two high schools, and we've lived- in the first three years in this country, we lived in fourteen different apartments, one worse than the other. Some of the apartments were no kids, no pets. Now I don't know if they do that today, but my dad and mom had to sneak me into some of the apartments we lived in, the landlord would see me, and then we'd get evicted the next day. Shawn Stevenson: Whoa. Bedros Keuilian: So again, the levels of scar and trauma that left on me was that we're not welcome here, 'Go back to your own country. That kid's not welcome here, get out of here.' Kids would laugh at me at school because I didn't speak the language, I had funny clothes, and a funny bowl haircut that my mom gave me. And things were so bad that my dad had found that the grocery stores in town had these dumpsters behind them, and they have to throw away food that's expired. You can't just sell expired milk, and bread, and so on, and sometimes there's a little bit mold on the cheese. And so my dad had discovered that, 'Well if we want to save money, one way is to go dumpster diving.' So he'd push me up into the dumpsters, and I'd start looking for food that was expired but not necessarily completely rotten, and we'd salvage that, and pick off the mold, and eat it. Shawn Stevenson: Wow. Bedros Keuilian: But I realized while all of that- and I told you earlier before we started this, you know I'm working with a therapist now. So here we are 37 years later, I'm working with a therapist now. Ironically I went to the therapist to work on my anxiety attacks I was having about four or five years ago, he worked with me in two weeks and resolved that. But we took a deep dive into kind of the childhood trauma growing up here, and it was really neat to see that while I had all those difficulties like dumpster diving, having to make friends at new schools, one time one of the apartments we lived in was so dirty and infested with lice, I got lice. My mom and dad couldn't afford lice treatment, and so my mom asked my dad to siphon out gasoline from the car. Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, yeah. Bedros Keuilian: And she took me out into the little grassy field in front of the apartment, had me double over, and washed my hair with gasoline. Now I remember looking around as I'm doubled over, and I could see feet all around me, and I realize now it was like all the neighborhood kids and their parents wondering, 'What is this foreign lady doing? Is she about to light her kid on fire?' Shawn Stevenson: Wow, yeah. Bedros Keuilian: But she was just trying to get the lice out of my hair because we couldn't afford the treatment. But each and every one of those adversities have been the pillar of success, and they've been an advantage for me. I've got this amazing ability to build rapport quickly because I had to go to so many schools, so many apartments, I didn't know how long I was going to know you. But I was good at building rapport with you, so for that time that I knew you, we were going to be friends. And I use that skill today to build rapport with business partners, clients, vendors, and so on. And so every single trauma that's happened to me, I've been able to positively reframe into an advantage, and I think that's been my greatest superpower. Shawn Stevenson: I love it, man. And I'm glad that you used that word to cap it off because I was going to ask you about your superhero origin story. Because you know, when people see you today, they have no idea where you came from, you know? And that's so true about so many other people doing great things, and even people that we don't know, you know? And getting to know people's story, and how remarkable we really are as humans. And I love that you were using your kind of disadvantage and making it into your advantage. That's so powerful. So alright, now how did this transition- like how did you go from those kinds of circumstances? Like what got you interested in the whole health and fitness domain? Bedros Keuilian: Well like all good stories it starts with a girl. Shawn Stevenson: Of course. Bedros Keuilian: It starts with a girl. Shawn Stevenson: This is a movie. This is a movie. Bedros Keuilian: Yeah, it really is. You know, when I think about it I realize- first of all, I think what should be a movie is the fact that- if I can just go back for a minute. My dad was a tailor in Armenia, and when you're living in a third world country, especially under communist rule, everybody works for the government. So you know, he was a tailor, and part of his job was to oversee a men's suit manufacturing plant. And they give you these patterns so that you and your crew can make suits. And they gave him so much material. And for example, let's say for thirty yards of material, they can make ten suits. Well my dad got really smart and he put the patterns so tightly close together on the material that for every thirty yards of material, he could make eleven suits. And so he would take that extra material, enough for an eleventh suit, and he would smuggle it and take it home. And he would sew pants, vests, jackets out of it, and sell it on the black market, and this is how he raised 25,000 rubles to bribe the Soviet government into letting us escape. Right? So when you think about a forward thinker, someone who was definitely resourceful, right? And I always talk about that if you don't have the resources, you've got to consider being resourceful in life. And so you know, as I grew up and I went to high school- and when you grow up on government cheese, government peanut butter, government bread, a lot of bologna, just very unhealthy processed carbohydrate-based foods. And God bless my parents man, they didn't have- and there was no initiative to, 'Hey son, go work out. Hey son, go eat well.' We were literally living in fight or flight in this great country, and so grateful for it. But because they didn't ask me to get into sports, didn't motivate me to get into sports, I never did, and because I was eating garbage effectively figuratively, by the time I was in- let's see here, junior year in high school I was 35 pounds overweight. So I was 235 pounds, and ashamed of my body, low self-esteem, didn't really grow up with all these kids because I went to all these different schools, and I was a pariah. I was the guy- I hated lunch breaks because I didn't have a clique to hang out with. I wasn't with the athletes, the musicians, the gothic kids, I was just on my own just circling the quad. I couldn't wait for lunch to be over. Never got good grades, but there was one guy in my science class, his name was Dave, and he was the center for the high school football team. And I said, 'Hey man,' because we were science partners, and so in no other life would he and I have been friends. Thank God for that science class. I said, 'Hey man, listen I know prom is coming up next year. I really want to go to it, I want to look good so I can ask a girl out. I need to start working out. How do I start looking like you?' He goes, 'Dude, I'll take you to the gym.' So he took me to the school gym, I was so intimidated Shawn, I walked out never to go back in again. But the summer before senior year, I was like, 'I'm going to do something about it.' And so I went to liquor stores and grocery stores and I bought every muscle and fitness magazine and flex magazine that I can, and I learned exercises, and I would go to the local community center and do them. And then I would learn about protein and carbohydrates, when to eat them, when to avoid them. Fats. About eating four or five or six small meals a day instead of binging on two big meals. And this sounds like common sense to us, but I didn't know any of this stuff. It was so foreign to me. And of course being a young man, testosterone is coursing through my veins, the summer before senior year, dude I lost 35 or 40 pounds, and I came back stronger, more athletic looking, more confident, self-esteem. Now her name was Nakiah, and the plan was to ask her to the prom. While I looked and felt better, I never had enough confidence to ask her to the prom. So I never went to the prom, but it was the desire to ask Nakiah to go to the prom with me that really got me to want to work out. It wasn't because I wanted to be healthy, I mean it's rather embarrassing to say that, but it was external reasons, it wasn't internal reasons, right? And so while I never went to prom, that forever changed my path. I was supposed to be a smog technician. So I'd be the guy to tell you if your car can be on the road or not, because in California, cars have to be smogged and you've got to get a little smog certificate. But I was going to be a smog technician since I loved cars, I loved tinkering with cars, and my path forever changed and I decided, 'You know, I want to be a personal trainer, and I want to be the kind of trainer that helps people achieve what I achieved; confidence, self-esteem, being able to find their voice again.' Like never mind looking and feeling good, like I really loved the fact that I had confidence to be able to speak to people. Not enough to ask Nakiah to the prom. Shawn Stevenson: There's levels to it. Bedros Keuilian: There's levels, yeah I didn't quite get to that level, but I had the ability to talk to people senior to me. Like to me, that was a big breakthrough to be able to say, 'Hey Shawn, how are you?' and make eye contact with you. Like that was unheard of. I was the guy that blended into the shadows, right? My whole life. And so that really changed my path. Now unfortunately I got certified as a personal trainer, and I realized you can't just look good and get clients, you have to understand the marketing side of it. So I was a personal trainer, a fry cook at Disneyland, and I was a bouncer at a gay bar. The gay bar paid more than the straight bars because skinheads would come to gay bash at night unfortunately when the nightclub would give out, and our job as bouncers were to make sure that there was no fighting happening. And so all I wanted to do- I remember thinking to myself, 'I can't imagine there's like a nurse, or a doctor, or a lawyer who's practicing law or medicine and also a fry cook and a bouncer. Yet here I am as a personal trainer, all I want to do is help you with your body, with your mindset, with your nutrition, yet I've got these two side gigs trying to make ends meet.' Thankfully I had a personal training client who was an entrepreneur, and he said, 'Look, you don't know how to sell. You don't know how to market yourself. You're an order taker, you're not a closer. I came in here asking for a personal trainer and you signed me up. Listen to this tape.' And he handed me a Tom Hopkins sales tape, and it was like Tom Hopkins talking about how to sell real estate. Well I trusted him so much, I just listened to it, and I heard Tom Hopkins talk about Brian Tracy, and so I bought a Brian Tracy cassette tape. And that led to Dan Kennedy, and Dan Kennedy to Tony Robbins, and before I knew it, this whole new world of influence, marketing, sales, self-expression was opening up to me. And man, my life was forever changed. Shawn Stevenson: Wow, that's a remarkable story. Started with a girl. Bedros Keuilian: Started with a girl, yeah. Shawn Stevenson: That's really powerful, and I haven't shared this with you before, and I only recently started to talk about this, but you know my diet was very similar to what yours was growing up, you know? We got government assistance, and you know the WIC programs. Bedros Keuilian: Yeah. Shawn Stevenson: We got the cheese- the government cheese. Bedros Keuilian: Do you remember when it was called foodstamps? Shawn Stevenson: Of course, yeah. When I got a book of foodstamps from my mom, like she'd give me $10, I was Scrooge McDuck. Like I was balling out, alright? Going to the corner store. And so we would always- like bologna was- I didn't even know any other kind of sandwich meat, you know? I didn't know what it was. Bedros Keuilian: And it was delicious. Shawn Stevenson: Yeah I would take it with the white bread, put the bologna, mustard, and put chips on it and smash it down. That was my stuff right there, man. Bedros Keuilian: I could still eat that now if I wanted, I obviously don't. Shawn Stevenson: True story, about maybe- this was after my kind of health transformation, I went to Whole Foods and bought bologna and made this sandwich. This is maybe like twelve years ago or something. Bedros Keuilian: Did it taste as good? Shawn Stevenson: It wasn't the same, no it wasn't the same. It has to be the government standard issue. You know? So yeah man, that's just an absolutely amazing story, but my question now is what- how did you parlay that into- what inspired you to want to take that personal training and put it into something that you can have others replicate? Bedros Keuilian: Yeah, that's a good question. So you know, when I met that personal training client, his name was Jim Franco, and at the time he was 62 years old. And so I worked at a big box gym, it was an L.A. Fitness big box gym. And you know, they don't pay you much. I got paid $11 an hour to train clients, but truthfully, I would have done it for free. I would have worked four more side jobs, because I knew this had to do with my purpose in life. I realized I found the golden thread to my purpose in life. I didn't realize what it was going to become, right? And so thankfully Jim Franco was a mentor to me, and I looked up to him. And so I said, 'Jim, how is it that you can come in here three days a week into this big box gym, and I look outside, and I see you pulling up- it was a Cadillac Escalade, next day it's like a Mercedes. How many cars do you have?' He goes, 'I've got a pretty good life, and I've got a company, and we do about $18 million a year.' 'How do you make your money? Like I make $11 an hour, you make $18 million a year. Like I can't even connect those dots.' He goes, 'Well I take a little bit of money from a lot of people.' And I said, 'Okay.' He goes, 'It's software.' I said, 'Okay great, fantastic.' He goes, 'I'm surprised that you don't charge people reoccurring.' So the gym- ironically the gym charges gym memberships on a reoccurring basis, takes out of people's credit cards, yet we sold personal training five and ten sessions at a time. And then we'd go, 'Alright Shawn, are you ready for more workout sessions?' 'Yeah.' Now we have that sales conversation again. So he goes, 'The way the gym does it here, the way they teach you guys to do it to sell five and ten sessions, and then take off your personal trainer hat and put on your sales hat and sell me again,' he goes, 'That's wrong. You guys are never going to build a business this way.' I go, 'Well frankly, I'm just an employee anyways.' I go, 'I want to open up a gym, but I want to do it right.' He goes, 'Well let me be a partner and I'll loan you some money.' So he loaned me about $48,000 to open up a small personal training gym, and he asked for 8% interest, and then even after I paid him back we were still going to be business partners. So it wasn't the best terms. Shawn Stevenson: Yeah. Bedros Keuilian: Right? It was definitely in his favor. Shawn Stevenson: That's an early artist record deal right there. Bedros Keuilian: Yeah, yeah that's exactly right. But I was forever grateful man, because he got me out of the trenches. Any personal trainer will tell you that working in a big box gym is the trenches, you know? When you're not training a client, they're asking you to re-rack weights, wipe off equipment, and I didn't necessarily become a personal trainer to re-rack weights. I'll gladly do it, but I just- give me a body to train, and I'll train them. And so Jim loaned me the money, and I opened up my first personal training studio in San Diego, California, and man it was so great. And by this point I'd learned sales, right? Through the Tom Hopkins, and Brian Tracy, Dan Kennedy, et cetera- Jay Abraham. And before I know it, that one gym becomes a second gym, and a third gym, fourth gym, and they were all like 2,000 or 3,000 square foot locations. And I had the good opportunity in the early 2000's to sell my gyms. Now here's a crazy story. Talk about a person- of having a mentor. First of all, whether people want to have great relationships, build a business, have better health, mentorship is tremendously valuable, and the lesson there was I didn't have the money to buy mentorship. But what I did was I got lucky enough where I asked Jim, I said, 'Hey I know you work out three days a week. If I train you a fourth day on me, can you hang around a little bit and I can ask you questions?' And he said, 'Sure.' And so I bartered mentorship, right? And so it was a really good place to be because I've got someone in business who can kind of show me the way. And so as I have my five gyms, and the only reason anyone even made an offer to buy my five gyms from me was the lesson that Jim Franco, my mentor, gave me, which was don't just sell once and then have to sell again and again. Put people on reoccurring payments, and they'll see greater value in that. And so when a company came by and wanted to buy me out, they said, 'Wow you've got all this reoccurring payments scheduled to come in month after month.' They're really buying my receivables, right? And so I sold my five gyms at that time, and the Internet by this time it's 2002 or 2003, I'm getting married, the Internet is really taking off, we're past the Dot Com Bubble Burst, and personal trainers used to contact me and go, 'Hey man, I hear you've got four or five gyms out there. I can't even open one gym. How did you do it? Can you teach me how?' My only question to them was, 'Hey Shawn, do you live in San Diego?' If you were not a competitor, right? Shawn Stevenson: Right, right. Bedros Keuilian: I would help you, I enjoyed that process. So I would go- well I've got this money in hand, because I sold my gyms and I had the first taste of what a liquidation of a business is like, and that felt good. Do I want to open up more gyms or do I want to mentor trainers? So 2003, 2004, 2005 I started really taking on building a course, very similar to your fat loss course, right? Except teaching personal trainers how to grow their business, because the one thing I was lacking when I was a fry cook and a bouncer was how do I run a business? How do I get clients full-time so that I don't have to have these side jobs? So I created the solution that I needed, and lo and behold personal trainers started to buy it. It was like a $99 course called The PT Business Course, The Personal Trainer Business Course, and I just put all my knowledge and wisdom into that one thing. It was DVDs and spiral bound books. Well before you know it I've got 1,400 customers, and then 2,300 customers, and today I've got 44,000 paying customers; personal trainers, gym owners, boot camp owners, CrossFit box owners, you name it. And in 2010, I realized that there's something wrong here. As a one-on-one personal trainer, I wasn't making that much money even though I was making a big impact. And going back to my purpose, I knew I enjoyed training people. I enjoyed getting people who are introverted, who wouldn't make eye contact, who lack confidence and self-esteem, and self-worth, everything that I was. All I kept doing my whole life, even today I'm just fixing my old self, right? As the trainer that I was, I created a course to answer the questions that I had as a young trainer, and I wanted to help people who were suffering with low self-esteem, low self-confidence, low self-worth. And while I was doing that making decent money, profit margins were small when you're training one-on-one, especially when you have other trainers working for you. That's a lot of salary. And I saw people were running boot camps, but they were running boot camps out in the parks, you remember that? In the parks and the beach, right? I liked the idea of one-on-many instead of one-on-one, and I thought to myself, 'As a trainer, is that really possible? Can you deliver great results? Isn't it all about one-onone and the relationship?' Then I realized, well don't coaches train their top athletes, NFL athletes, one-onmany? Shawn Stevenson: Right, it's true. Bedros Keuilian: Well if they can train their athletes that way, can't we train someone who's looking for fat loss in this environment and coach them on mindset, and nutrition, and behavior, and habits? Indeed we can. And so I said, 'We're going to take the outdoor boot camp model, bring it indoors like my one-on-one personal training business.' So I melded two concepts together; my one-on-one personal training model inside of a gym, small studio, 2,500 square foot, and the outdoor bootcamp model, and Fit Body Boot Camp was created. Shawn Stevenson: Why bring it indoors? Bedros Keuilian: I wanted to make it weatherproof, and I wanted to make sure that it worked across every city in the United States. Because we're fortunate enough in California where it's beautiful year round. Shawn Stevenson: Right. Bedros Keuilian: But I would always hear from my personal training clients who ran outdoor boot camps, 'Oh man, fall is coming, it's going to get cold, it's going to start raining. What can I do to make more money?' And I would say, 'Dude, go find a gymnastics center and see if you can rent room from a gymnastics center because they're not busy in the mornings because kids don't get out of school until 2:00 or 3:00.' So I'd give them solutions, but it was like fixing a business with like duct tape and bubble gum and putty. Shawn Stevenson: Right. Bedros Keuilian: I figured listen, if they can do that in the gymnastics center and they're making $12,000 or $15,000 a month, and they're training people in groups making a bigger impact.' And you know this, you're a health professional, when you get in the health and fitness space, you don't do it for the money. We get into this space because I'm willing to wake up at 4:30 in the morning to train my first client at 5:00 AM, and I'm willing to stay in the gym until 8:30 or 9:00 at night to train you after you're done working on your last patient or client. You know, I had one of my clients was a dentist, and he would work on his last patient at 7:30, he'd show up to the gym at 8:00, I'd train him for an hour, by 9:00 I'm getting home. And I was okay with that, you know? And so we really serve as health and fitness professionals, and all I wanted to do was serve but as I got married, wanted to start a family, I realized I also need health insurance, I'm no longer a single guy, I need to have some sense of security, I want to create a lifestyle where I can see my children. And so I wanted to create a model where the profit margins were high, the fitness programs were affordable and convenient, so the price of personal training went down from $600 to $800 a month, we now charge $197 a month and you get everything that a trainer does but in a group environment. And the model took off, and since the 2010 to 2011 era, we've been on the Inc. 5000 list twice, and just over 600 locations worldwide. Shawn Stevenson: Man, I literally stopped myself from clapping right now. That's so powerful and so amazing. Bedros Keuilian: I'm a lucky guy, man. I'm the Cinderella Man, I really am. Shawn Stevenson: I love it. You know, I want to take a step back because there's another similarity here that I know we haven't talked about this before. I had- I started off as a strength and conditioning coach when I was still in college after I kind of sorted my own health issues out, because that's the like lowest hanging fruit I knew what to do while I was working on my degree to open my practice. Bedros Keuilian: Sure. Shawn Stevenson: And I worked with I mean countless people, and working in a university, I worked with people from all over the world, and I saw some really amazing stuff. But as I parlayed that and kind of transitioned to my clinical practice, I would still work with people in the gym because there's just something about it, you know? And seeing people get stronger and how that changes their emotional fitness and their mental fitness as well. And somebody that ended up coming in, funny enough- and I haven't thought about this in years, but it was his wife that came in, and it was like for a nutrition program design, and I think she was maybe right around seventy at the time, and he was- I think he was maybe 79 or something like that. But he ended up being the person I worked with because when he came in, he could barely lift his arm, he had a fall not too long ago and he just wasn't getting better. And bottom line, you know I've even got videos on my Instagram of him doing pushups. Like full pushups when he's like 82 or 83 years old, and he became my mentor, and I was training him, but it was really he was giving so much to me as well. Bedros Keuilian: Sure. Shawn Stevenson: So I like moved things around, and even when I stopped seeing anybody else, I still worked with him. I still made the time to go over to the university to work with him because he taught me so much. And he's very successful, he literally built- he designed his own home, he's an architect. Bedros Keuilian: Can you imagine that? Shawn Stevenson: And very, very wealthy, and just I learned so much from him about what to do with finances, because my money thermometer was just off still because of our conditioning. Bedros Keuilian: Yeah. Shawn Stevenson: And also learning about relationships. You know, like he really loved his wife so much, and he lost his first wife, and it really like- it was like the love of his life. And just seeing- even this is like 35 years later, and just him talking about her, he'll start to tear up. And so it gave me the sense of urgency that I invested into my relationship. And he's happily married now, and she's just a superstar too. Bedros Keuilian: Oh, how exciting. Shawn Stevenson: But yeah there's a similarity, man, that the generations sharing that wisdom and that knowledge. So I want to go back to your story and what you're creating right now. So you said earlier, not just the Fit Body Boot Camps, but also CrossFit boxes, there's probably trainers in big box gyms. Who do you feel is your competition now? Bedros Keuilian: Yeah, that's a really good question. I get that question asked a lot. Like, 'If you have these Fit Body Boot Camp franchises, why are you helping people build their own brand of CrossFits, and Bob's Boot Camp, and Mike's Boot Camp, and Joe's Personal Training Studio?' Because my competition is not them. The reality is that my competition is McDonald's, Taco Bell, KFC, Coca Cola, Pepsi, Snickers, Hersheys, M&M, donuts. My competition is ill education about food and nutrition, and it's the food conglomerates, and they are winning. They are winning the battle. We can have 10,000, 20,000, 30,000, 40,000 more driven, motivated, ambitious fitness professionals like you and I, and we still wouldn't make a dent into the obesity rate that's happening. And I'm not being a pessimist here, I'm being a realist in that we are losing the battle against McDonald's, against Taco Bell, against Carl's Jr. And so my competition is not other gyms, my competition are these fast food restaurants that have found a way creatively unfortunately to make food that's bad for you cheaper and more convenient. Shawn Stevenson: Right. Bedros Keuilian: I met a gentleman, he's a scientist, and he works for the Frito Lay company for Doritos, and he was- he didn't realize who I am and what I do, that I'm in the fitness industry, and he was so excited to explain to me how they have scientifically figured out how to make Doritos melt in your mouth to tantalize different taste buds to get you to reach for one more Dorito out of that bag. They've got Doritos, a chip company, a tortilla chip company, a bakery one would say - well that sounds benign - have scientists working for them that have figured out how to get that to break down just right so you can eat one more chip, one more bag, and make it a habit. Shawn Stevenson: Yeah. Bedros Keuilian: Where is that in the fitness and wellness industry? We don't have that. So that's my competition, and not the other gyms, and trainers, and health professionals. Shawn Stevenson: Love it. That's called vanishing calorie density is the term that's used for that. You know? Literally you can't eat just one, you know? And the marketing slogan is very real. But man, you know I love that, that you've changed your perspective, and that it's more like inclusive, and we have a mission that's a bigger mission, and there is so much room for us to work together. Bedros Keuilian: Oh it's totally us against them. It really is. This is the ultimate 'us against them' battle. Shawn Stevenson: Yeah. You know what's so interesting, too? Is you know, there's little inklings that things are changing, you know? But it's still like we're years away. Like we need to- and this is why I was very excited to bring you on to really talk about this stuff, and to get people engaged, to get more people involved, to get more people the right education to sustain their livelihood doing a career that they love. And so I want to talk about that, and whether it's in the fitness and wellness- because a lot of people listening to this show are in the fitness and wellness field, or want to be, but then there's also a lot of folks that- you know, they just love learning about health, they love taking care of their family, they want to get healthier, they want to heal from a chronic illness, and they have careers that maybe they're passionate about as well. So I want to talk about some principles to bring to the table to be successful across the board in your business. So let's talk a little bit about discipline, because I heard you say that word earlier. Bedros Keuilian: Sure. Yeah, well to me, I mean you're talking to someone who was formerly probably one of the most undisciplined people on the planet. And again, this is not a strike against my parents, God bless them for bringing me to this wonderful country. But other than having shown up, and them providing a roof over my head, and government assisted food, and of course dumpster assisted food, there was really no structured discipline in my life. I could go to bed at 7:00 at night, I could go to bed at 11:00 at night, and if I went to bed at 11:00 at night and wanted to watch TV until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, and then wake up and go to school, great. And I was the kid who just got bad grades, barely made it out of high school. 1.9 GPA was kind of standard practice for me, right? And so I grew up undisciplined. Well however, I was ambitious in being a personal trainer, and growing my business, and really serving people, right? With the solution that I knew which was health, fitness, wellness mindset. But I was still undisciplined, and so when you grow up undisciplined, you could only grow- it's almost like if you take a- you're going to build a house, or a building, a structure, and you set a foundation, and you think the foundation looks straight but it's just one degree slanted, but you don't realize that. Shawn, you could build a one or two story house on a foundation that's one degree slanted. If you try and build a skyscraper on a foundation that's one degree slanted, it's going to be very obvious when that whole thing topples over, like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and the reason is you can't really scale anything on poor discipline. And so five personal training gyms, had personal trainers working for me, sure you could do that when you're poorly disciplined, but you can't have an international growing franchise and have thousands of coaching and mentoring clients and be poorly disciplined, because you end up suffering with crippling anxiety attacks like I did, essential tremors that I would just lock up, freeze up, and then fall. I was like one of those goats that just gets startled and then fall over. I would lose my ability to talk, and I would start stuttering to my wife, and she goes, 'What is the matter with you? Are you okay? Like is there something wrong? Is your brain misfiring?' And I really felt like something was wrong with me, and that's when I started working with a therapist because the Xanax that my doctor would give me to deal with my stress and anxiety, which was all self-induced because if you go to sleep watching TV shows at 2:00 in the morning and you're trying to wake up at 7:00 to dominate your day, and grow your business, and get your workout in, and pack your food and meals, you're really chasing the day. And so our good friend, Craig Ballantyne, who wrote 'The Perfect Day Formula,' at that time was- we were working together as a coach / mentor relationship, and I would see him where he would ask like, 'Hey can we have dinner at 5:00?' I said, 'Why are we having dinner at 5:00? Why not 8:00 or 9:00?' 'I don't know, by 8:00 or 9:00, I'm going to be in bed,' and I used to laugh at him about it. Well later, before he ever wrote the book, I always say that I'm the guinea pig that he mentored even though he was my client, I'm the guinea pig that he mentored in that I watched and through environmental exposure, I got disciplined. I started sleeping earlier, I started eating earlier, I started powering down my iPhone and television and stuff earlier in the night, I started to journal what I'm going to do the next morning the night before, so I would do a brain dump, right? And all these other things that are little phases of discipline. People ask me, 'Well great, so I'm going to start being disciplined tomorrow morning.' It's not a light switch; it's a dimmer switch that happens over time. And as I started doing that, I realized, 'Gosh I could wake up earlier,' and when I wake up earlier I have time to now meditate, go through my gratitude exercises. Like I do things today that in the mornings that I never did before. I watch the sun come up. I never did that. I used to tell my wife that the caveman probably woke up when the sun would come up, and they woke up, the sun already was out. What are they doing waking up early? Well listen, if you want to be a high performer in life, in a relationship, in your diet, in your fitness, in your business, in anything, at work- if you just want to work up the food chain and have a better position in your workplace, you've got to be disciplined, structured, and do the highest value stuff first. Take care of yourself. I didn't do that. And so now I do, and to me discipline and structure equal freedom. Ironically I have a bigger business, I have many moving parts in my life, but I have more freedom because of structure and discipline than I ever had before. Shawn Stevenson: Oh yeah. So I want everybody just to ask yourself, do you currently have the discipline that is required to have the life that you want? Whether it's with your health and fitness, or your career, your relationships? Because- and I've talked about this before, but the root of the word discipline is really disciple, and what I'm calling people to do is to be a disciple of your mission, right? Or to be a disciple of yourself and your greatness, and stop looking at it as like a prison because even when you hear the word 'discipline,' it sounds like you're going to get whooped, you know? Bedros Keuilian: Disciplinarian, right? Shawn Stevenson: Yeah you've got to change your reference point and how you're framing it to something that's incredibly valuable. It's becoming a disciple of your mission, and the more discipline that you can develop, the more freedom you create ironically. Bedros Keuilian: Yeah, and you're 100% on there because you talk about becoming a discipline of your mission. My mission was to touch as many lives as I can through the personal trainers that I serve, and the businesses that I serve. I really feel like I'm the world's ultimate personal trainer because there's literally thousands of personal trainers who have more clients because of my coaching, and courses, and systems. Yet I feel like I'm the ultimate personal trainer, but I was undisciplined, right? And so it's like well I wanted to do that, but my lifestyle was incongruent to the mission that I wanted. And so when I finally became more disciplined, became a discipline, became disciplined or a disciple of my mission, there was congruency. My actions were congruent with my wishes, and all of a sudden, ta-da, Fit Body Boot Camp was born, more coaching clients, more access to great people like you where I can hopefully serve your audience. And it really is a byproduct of discipline, and like you said, if folks can reframe what discipline is, it's exactly as you said it, becoming a disciple of your greater self, your big mission in life. Because I believe we're all put on this planet with a purpose and a gift. I can't help someone find their purpose and gift, people can search for that and discover and develop that, but when you do, discipline is what's going to help you reach your fullest potential. Shawn Stevenson: Absolutely, yeah. There's something else that I've heard you talk about, which is I think it's incredibly important and so under-utilized, so overlooked when it comes to creating a successful business, or a career, whatever it is that you're doing, even in just relationships in general. You call it social bank account. Bedros Keuilian: Yeah. Shawn Stevenson: Alright, let's talk about that. Bedros Keuilian: Yeah, yeah. So again, social media is pretty neat, and I'm a weirdo where I look at things probably from what I call the fourth dimension. Like I think most people see the world in three dimensions, I think there are some weirdos like me who look at the fourth dimension. And so social media was coming out, and I was trying to make it make sense to me. Like this Facebook thing, what is it all about? Okay social media. Instagram, what is it all about? SnapChat? YouTube? I figured out very quickly, well there's Starbucks, that's social media, it's just offline. You would never go into a Starbucks- because odds are most people who go into a Starbucks, and probably everyone listening to this has gone into a Starbucks on a routinely routine-based basis. You start seeing the same people, the same faces, and you start- you give them the nod as you're getting your coffee, and you say, 'Hi, how are you? Nice to see you. Wow, I like what you're wearing.' You would never walk into your local social Starbucks, and all of a sudden get on top of a chair like this and go, 'Alright everybody, pay attention. I've got something to sell you, and it's one hell of a deal. Get ready to buy from me.' Right? We would never do that. And what we really do, we go into a Starbucks, and we routinely see people over and over again, and through that repetitious process, we build relationships. And then they start asking you, 'So Shawn, what do you do?' And you go, 'Oh this is what I do, and I have this product for fat loss, and I wrote this book called 'Sleep Smarter,' and it helps you really crack the code on how to sleep better.' And because they've seen you repetitively, and they see that you were not a jerk, you didn't climb on top of a chair trying to sell me your book, they go, 'You know what? I'm going to look up your book and buy it.' Right? Well we need to do that online, and that social currency I guess is what we sometimes forget to do online. And the way I look at it is the more value I can give through social media, Instagram- because anyone can hate. It's the easiest way to hate and troll someone is through social media, because I can hide behind a fake avatar, and tell you what an a-hole you are, and tell you how silly you are with your vision, and your idea, and your fat loss product, and your book. Anyone can do that, but if we really look at what social media is, it's a very massive Starbucks- a massive Starbucks where there's millions of people, and you can take your voice and your purpose and add value to society in a way that we've never been able to add before without ABC, NBC, HBO having to give you permission. Before, we would have to get on TV networks, we'd have to get their permission, and we only had a finite amount of time to do our segment. Today, you have your own network on Instagram, on Facebook, on YouTube, on your different podcast channels, and you can deliver the value to the world. And so why don't we use social currency to add value first, come with a giving hand, and as a byproduct people will then go, 'By the way, you're making a lot of sense with your free stuff, I can only imagine what your paid stuff will do for me,' and they just organically end up buying from you. Shawn Stevenson: Wow, it's so simple. So simple, and it's a different perspective for people because- and you just said it, that's what I tend to see, and I know everybody else sees it as well. People jump on like, 'Here's my thing,' instead of like just continuously filling other people's cup. And eventually there is kind of- I don't want to get too metaphysical, but there's a karmic kind of thing that happens there. Bedros Keuilian: I'm a believer in that. I'm a believer in that there really is, man. I believe in karmic justice. There was a time that I had a chip on my shoulder, I was a pretty angry young man, and I would do pretty bad stuff. And every time I would do something bad, something worse would happen to me. I remember it happened so many times that one of the times- and this is kind of the dark side of growing up without discipline and structure. Look, I'm the guy that's been involved in police helicopter chases, right? And I wasn't in the helicopter, I was in the getaway car driving. Shawn Stevenson: Right. Bedros Keuilian: I'm the guy that's been in a fight and knocked out on the side of a highway- the 5 freeway right here in Southern California. I'm the guy that's been jumped by fourteen gang members and beat with clubs because anytime I would fight someone, I realized there was always someone bigger and badder than you, even if they come as a group. And so that was karmic justice that would happen to me. I wasn't some innocent guy going and getting away from the cops, right? I wasn't some innocent guy getting in a fight on the side of the highway. I would stir up problems, and someone bigger and badder than me, or something bigger and badder than me would create a karmic justice in my life. So I believe in that, man. I believe in that, and if we can just give, we will receive. But I think the human greed glands begin to secrete so much and so hard that we think about us first, which I get it, there's a primal thing of survival, right? But we don't have to go hunt for our food anymore. We don't have to go and start fire by rubbing two sticks together. We've got those conveniences. So if we can put our greed glands in check, and go, 'How can I serve this man first?' And if I serve you enough, not only will you ask me what you can do for me, but you might actually give me access to your network. Shawn Stevenson: Man, that's a mic drop moment right there, man. That's incredible, Bedros. And you also, what I've noticed too, is like you attract amazing people, and I think this is a large reason for that. And coming up here soon, you've got a really amazing event going on; Fitness Business Summit. Let's talk about that. Bedros Keuilian: Yeah, yeah so again going back to what would I have wanted in life when I was a personal trainer starting out? And again, there's medical conferences, there's law enforcement conferences, there's legal conferences for attorneys. There was really no conference for personal trainers who wanted to get better in the business of helping people. Like personal trainers always have the stigma that we wear the tight spandex, and we just want to go in the gym and work out because that's where we belong anyways, we're gym rats. And that's not how I ever looked at myself. I look at myself as a professional, just like a legal professional did. And when I looked around in 2006, and by this point I was really successful with my gyms, I had sold them, and I would go to the handful of fitness conferences that were out there. Dude, I filled out an application to- one of them was a big certification company, which there's probably no need for me to name them, and another one was a big fitness event, which they have sponsors and all that stuff, no need to name them. They're both great companies, they deliver a lot of value. But I said, 'Hey I noticed that we're constantly teaching more education by way of training, posterior chain, nutrition, Bosu ball, different exercise units. You know, I'm a personal trainer, I had several side jobs. I imagine many of your audience has several side jobs.' They go, 'Yeah, in fact they do.' 'Well I'd love to get up on your stage and teach the business, the marketing, the influence, the selling of personal training.' 'No, denied, go away.' And that was in 2006, and I said, 'Well again, I need this.' I went to those conferences, all I got was more certifications thinking more certifications meant I could finally get more clients. That wasn't the case. And so in 2007 I said, 'You know what? To heck with this, I'm going to create my own event, and it's going to be called Fitness Business Summit, and not just a Fitness Summit.' Fitness Business Summit. I'm going to assume that you're a great trainer, that you've got all those certifications, but like me you're probably still trying to make ends meet, maybe you signed a lease with a gym, to open up a gym, a boot camp or whatever, and you're struggling. And so Fitness Business Summit is going to be a three day event, and it's going to be an event where only people who are making six figures, multiple six figures, and seven figures in the fitness industry are going to take the stage and share what's working for them. Actionable stuff that I can take and go apply. And so since I was already successful, obviously I was one of my own speakers, I brought in some more of my mentorship clients, and they were speakers. Jillian Michaels was one of the first speaker at the first Fitness Business Summit. And there was only about 114 people there, no stage, I had no idea how to put on a three day event. And today here we are eleven years later, and we have over 1,000 people, it's a big three day event, massive stage, we do it in San Diego, and it's the event that I would have wanted when I was a personal trainer struggling trying to figure out, 'How do I out-market my competition? How do I attract the leads and clients? How do I become a better entrepreneur so I can serve? I can get my purpose and reach my fullest potential with it.' And that's what Fitness Business has become, and I'm just forever grateful that the fitness industry for- at the last one, trainers from eighteen different countries came. Like they own CrossFit boxes, Anytime Fitnesses, tons of Fit Body Boot Camp owners, private gym owners, and it was so neat to be amongst your peers, and to be able to give back in that way. Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, you know this goes back to the people that you attract, and you literally bring in the best people in the world to the stage to deliver strategies and insights on whatever medium that you were looking for if you were wanting to get into the health and fitness field, or especially people who are already in the health and fitness field. You know, do you want to learn how to maximize things with social media? You've got the top people in the world. Podcasting, if that's something you're interested in, as I'm going to be speaking on the stage. Bedros Keuilian: Yes, sir. Shawn Stevenson: I'm going to be at the event speaking. With YouTube, and also of course the offline stuff, and being able to manage and run your business whether it's personal training, nutrition health coaching, whatever the case might be. Bedros Keuilian: Sure. I mean the fitness industry is so broad in its spectrum right now, right? I mean you really are the ultimate personal trainer, you're the ultimate coach through your voice, through your reach, through your podcast, you're literally helping tens of hundreds of thousands of people. Well that's one way to serve an audience, and you're making money through sponsorships, and speaking events, and courses that you're selling. Wow, that's one way. You don't even have a gym, right? You don't have a big box gym, you don't have a small gym, a boot camp. But then there's people, I have clients who own six, seven, eight gyms and who love serving in their communities that way. There's nutrition coaches like my dear friend, Jason Phillips, who has an online nutrition coaching program, and he'll do an intake process and help you finally figure out how to create a nutrition program that works for you for performance, or fat loss. So the spectrum is so big through the voice, the videos, courses, local business, brick and mortars, online coaching, and I've got the good fortune to be wellconnected finally in our industry, and get good people like you, and some of the industry's top performers to come together for three days, and teach, and give back to the industry. And again, I'm the luckiest guy that I could do that for the industry that I'm so passionate about. Shawn Stevenson: Absolutely. And so everybody, I want you to come and hang out with us if you're interested in this. It's the Fitness Business Summit coming up in- when this is coming out, it'll be just a couple of months from now, so you want to get tickets now before the event gets sold out. Go to www.TheModelHealthShow.com/fbs. So that's www.TheModelHealthShow.com/fbs, get your tickets, it's going to be epic. Absolutely epic. So let's give them a little bit of a head's up of what they can look forward to at the event. Bedros Keuilian: Yeah, so what they're going to look forward to is great presenters like you teaching the meat, you know? And so for example, I'll be teaching about how they can scale leadership, right? Leadership. I was never taught leadership, so I really didn't- my first personal training studio, I wasn't an entrepreneur, I owned my own job. I was the guy training clients, mopping up the floors, paying the bills and trying to do the marketing. So leadership and creating a team behind you that can deliver the service, take your vision and deliver that service, how can you scale from? Shawn Stevenson: I've got to tell everybody this. I'm here at your place in Chino Hills, and you have an outstanding team now. Like you literally- when you talk about leadership, you know what you're talking about, and you've got multi-million dollar facilities going on right now, and you started- again, from nothing. So how do you actually build that? People want to learn from people who figured it out, so go ahead. Bedros Keuilian: And that's exactly what we're going to do, and I'm so blessed to have a great team behind me that can make all this happen, and so people want to always find out, 'How did you get your team? How did you train them up? How did you get them on board with your vision? How did you have all these locations across the world?' And so I'll be teaching that, you'll be teaching how people can leverage podcasts. I mean so many people want to do a podcast. Lewis Howes, last year taught how you can take your idea of writing a book, and actually bring it to fruition. Right? Craig Ballantyne will be talking about how fitness professionals can create better structure in their days, and get more discipline so they can actually make money, serve people, and still have time to spend with their family. We've got such great presenters. Drew Manning, Fit to Fat to Fit, right? New York Times bestseller. Shawn Stevenson: Yes. Bedros Keuilian: I mean this is a personal trainer who got fat just so he can relate to his clients, and then lost weight with his clients, so much so they created a show about it- a TV show, a reality show. He'll be up there speaking talking about how he uses social media to really increase his influence and his reach. Lori Harder, you know she's a female fitness coach, and man she helps so many people worldwide through educating for free through social currency, and then moving them into her funnel, and asking them to pay for a service. And so one of my clients, Matt Wilber, he has four or five Fit Body Boot Camp locations, and the average location does $60,000 to $80,000 per month- per month. I mean we're talking about a young man making more than most medical doctors and highfalutin attorneys do. Well how does he do it? How does he make that impact and how is he still married and has a great relationship? Those are the questions that I had when I was an up-and-coming personal trainer, and those are the answers that we're going to deliver at that event in a very step-bystep formatted fashion. Shawn Stevenson: Perfect. And most of these folks- you know Lewis, these are my friends as well, so guys, they've been on the show. Lewis Howes, Drew Manning, Craig Ballantyne. You get to meet them, hang out, and learn from them directly. And that's why I was, again, really excited to bring Bedros on, because he brings everybody together. So again, www.TheModelHealthShow.com/fbs if you want to come hang out with us. And man, this has been incredibly powerful, and I wanted to make sure that you talk about something that's- you know, that intersection and that congruency because I think it's so important for whatever it is we want to do, whether it's in the health and fitness space, or whatever you're passionate about. Whether it's art, whether it's music, whether it's teaching, whatever the case might be, to be congruent, and to create disciplines around that. And so thank you so much for sharing your wisdom on that, man. And I've got one final question for you. What is the model that you're here to set for other people with the way that you live your life personally? Bedros Keuilian: Man, that's a really good question. I've never really thought about that, but immediately the answer that comes to mind is that no matter your background, no matter your upbringing, no matter your culture, the language, we live in a world now where we're so connected through the Internet, we're so connected through social media, we're so connected. The world has gotten so small, and your background doesn't matter, it doesn't define you, your financial circumstances, from where you come from doesn't matter and doesn't define you. Whatever drug addictions, alcohol addictions, do not matter anymore. If you've overcome those, they don't define you, they are just a foundation of who you are. And here I am a foreigner to this country, English is a second language to me, I didn't understand the culture, I was poor and broke minded, and I've overcome all that. And the model I'm here to set is you can overcome anything and become who you want to be because who you were doesn't define who you are. Shawn Stevenson: Yes. Yes! Bedros, can you let everybody know where they can find you online, connect with you, and all that good stuff? Bedros Keuilian: Sure. Sure, the easiest way to find me is on social media, on Facebook, or Instagram, or Twitter. Just /BedrosKeuilian or on my blog www.BedrosKeuilian.com. Shawn Stevenson: Perfect, and we'll link all that stuff up for everybody too, man. You are literally a superhero, and your story is remarkable, and the things that you're doing, it's just in a whole other dimension, and I'm just grateful for your mind to be able to see outside of the circumstances, and just to continue to strive for that next level, man. I'm excited to see what you're going to do next. Bedros Keuilian: Thank you sir, I appreciate it. Shawn Stevenson: It's my pleasure. Bedros Keuilian: Yes, sir. Shawn Stevenson: Everybody, thank you so much for tuning into the show today. I hope you got a lot of value out of this. You know, this goes back again to our stories, and we all have a story, and we all have struggles, but it really at the end of the day is what do we decide to do about it? And Bedros decided to turn his perceived weaknesses into his strengths, and use those challenging times to become great gifts in his life, and we all have that capacity to do so. And I know you've already done it. You've done it many times in your life. Hard things have come and tried to knock you down, but here you are still standing, and it's just about taking the stuff head on, and keep moving forward, and anticipating that challenges are going to arise. But you are the writer, director, and star of your movie, and the time is right now to take action and shine. So again, thank you so much for tuning into the show today. I hope you got a tremendous amount of value out of this, and if you want to hang out with us at Fitness Business Summit, head over to www.TheModelHealthShow.com/fbs to do so. We've got some incredible guests coming up. None better than today of course, but you're going to be blown away by who we have coming up here, and the show topics are really, really important stuff that we're going to be diving into, so make sure to stay tuned. And if you got some value from this, share this out with your friends on social media; Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, all the good stuff, and tag me. I love to see that. I appreciate you immensely. Take care, have an amazing day, and I'll talk with you soon. And for more after the show, make sure to head over to www.TheModelHealthShow.com. That's where you can find all of the show notes, you can find transcriptions, videos for each episode, and if you've got a comment you can leave me a comment there as well. And please make sure to head over to iTunes and leave us a rating to let everybody know that the show is awesome, and I appreciate that so much. And take care, I promise to keep giving you more powerful, empowering, great content to help you transform your life. Thanks for tuning in.