Dealing With Adversity – Bedros Keuilian

Summary-icon

SUMMARY


Dealing with adversity is quite challenging sometimes. Each one of us is struggling with our own adversity. On this episode with Bedros Keuilian, the founder and CEO of Fit Body Boot Camp, shares how he was able to overcome great adversity in his life. He gives helpful tips on how to deal with adversity and use it for your advantage.

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KEY TAKEAWAYS


arrow-iconPoor is more of a state of mind. Dealing with adversity is so important.

arrow-iconAll of those things you think were a disadvantage for you and was adversity, ended up being some of the best learning lessons in your life. Dealing with adversity in life is essential.

arrow-iconWhen you reframe a negative and think that things happen because of it, then, you’re able to move on the hurt and the pain rather than holding on to it and using it as an anchor to weigh you down. Sometimes dealing with adversity is challenging.

arrow-iconThe more frequent and the greater the adversity, the stronger your mind, your heart, and your spirit gets. However, you have to be willing to reframe it that way. If you don’t, you’re forever stuck with that as an anchor.

arrow-iconTo get to the other side of the adversity and use it as an advantage:

  • First, you need to break the pattern for dealing with adversity. Do something drastic.
  • Second, go out and do something good for others.

arrow-iconThe human mind is a very selfish weapon and is designed to be selfish for a reason. It’s always looking for self-preservation. Be mindful while dealing with adversity.

arrow-iconWhen we are selfish and we are in a state of depression or funk or adversity, the best thing we can do is go out and do something good for others because that releases the happy hormones. This is one of the best ways to dealing with adversity.

arrow-iconIt’s simple to break the pattern but it’s not easy dealing with adversity because we just want to continue what’s causing us to feel depressed.

arrow-iconInterrupting patterns, reframing things, and choosing your circle of influences are necessary for dealing with adversity and turn your life around.

Summary-icon

TRANSCRIPTION: DEALING WITH ADVERSITY – BEDROS KEUILIAN


Dealing With Adversity

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Kamala Chambers

In this episode, we’re going to talk about how to overcome adversity and what are the tips for dealing with adversity.

We are here with Bedros Keuilian. He is the founder and CEO of fastest growing fitness franchise worldwide, Fit Body Boot Camp and he’s also been on Spike TV’s Gym Rescue. This guy is amazing and knows tips for dealing with adversity. He has overcome such great adversity. We’re going to explore just what that means.

Hey, we are so excited to have you here. Are you ready to launch?

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Bedros Keuilian

Yes! Thank you so much for the opportunity guys. I’m very excited here to be on this podcast with you and thank you for the opportunity.

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Kamala Chambers

I know that you’ve gone through a lot in your life. You’ve overcome a lot of adversity and I’m excited to unpack how we can apply this to our own lives.

What do you think is one of the biggest hurdles? Maybe dealing with adversity?

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Luis Congdon

Coming from another country and then, coming here to The United States, and Bedro, when you came here to The United States, did you speak English?

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Bedros Keuilian

Yes.  That’s a really good question.

When we escaped communist Russia, specifically Armenia, my father was a member of the communist party. We decided that we weren’t going to be communist anymore and he wasn’t a communist by choice per say. He was a communist because it kind of give you that opportunity.

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Luis Congdon

It kind of give you that opportunity.

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Bedros Keuilian

Yeah. The way he explains it is funny.

18% at the time of Soviet Union, the population were communist members. The whole country was communist but 18% actually belonged to the party. When they make this what they consider a tremendous offer and opportunity to you, you’re welcome to say, “No,” but if you say “No,” your family doesn’t see you anymore. You end up in Siberia somewhere.

Dealing With Adversity In The Most Crucial Times

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Bedros Keuilian

So, like all of the people who came before him, he said, “Yes. It’d be an honor to be a member of the communist party.” Of course my dad, at that time, in the late 70’s, being a free thinker and he always thought about democracy, freedom, opportunity and effectively, being able to do what you want, when you want without the man watching you.

In 1980, he decided that we’re going to escape and myself, I was the youngest of the family, 6 years old, my 2 older brothers, my older brother and sister, and my mom and dad. We slit into Italy under the veil of we’re just taking vacation to Italy and of course from there, we entered the American consul in Italy and said, “Hey, we are political refugees. Would you take us?”

Within 2 weeks, we were in The United States legally and my father was ecstatic to give us this opportunity. Maybe he didn’t think everything all the way through because in hindsight, we could have come here with more money because all we had was $87 or $88 in his pocket, one suitcase because if you brought any more than one suitcase it was obvious we weren’t going on vacation to Italy. It’s obviously you were escaping. So one suitcase for a family of five and we didn’t speak English and we didn’t have anybody here in The States.

Until this day, I don’t know why he chose California. He did and I’m thankful for it but I grew up being poor and broke. I explained to people, broke is when you have no money. Your family has to decide whether if we’re going gas or electricity or water this month. Poor is more of a state of mind.

Tips On Dealing With Adversity

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Bedros Keuilian

Jokingly, I was my telling my wife these days that, “I may go broke one day by making a bad business decision but I’ll never be poor like I was back then where we always run out of money before we run out of month and we look at ourselves as 2nd class citizens in this country.”

However, having growing up in that situation where you’re dealing with so much adversity, from a language barrier to financial barrier. Even being kicked out of so many apartments because we couldn’t afford to pay the rent.

I went to three different elementary schools, two junior highs, and two high schools. All those things that I thought were a disadvantage for me and was adversity, ended up being probably some of the best learning lessons in life for me. I believe those lessons have made what I am today, which is a leader amongst the fitness and the wellness industry.

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Luis Congdon

Really, some of those adversities are the building blocks to your success now.

I know personally having come to The United States from Medellin, Colombia in 1991. In Colombia, when I was born, Pablo Escobar was in power. There are other people in power but Pablo Escobar had quite a reign over the country, with the mafia and the cocaine cartel.

So, I share a similar journey to you although I have a little bit more privilege in that. Dealing with adversity is not everyone’s cup of tea. I was adopted when I was 8 years old. I came to this country and I had some people that were going to take care of me and they knew how to navigate this country.

I’m curious, what are some of the things that you’ve done to overcome some of that history and that past to get to where you are today? That’s a dramatic difference that you’ve made. Now, being somebody who’s the CEO of the fastest growing fitness franchise in the world, a fit body boot camp. You’ve been on TV with Spike TV’s Gym Rescue. You have a lot of success and accolades but the cards were stacked against you.

Dealing With Adversity In Life

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Bedros Keuilian

Exactly. When the cards are stacked against you, all you could do is really hand ring and him and her about how if you’d just more opportunity had, you had the information, the right people presented themselves to you, if you had the money to go and buy the knowledge. However, in reality, I realize I had this ability to thrive and with many of my coaching clients in our Fit Body Boot Camp franchises, we have this funny little terms we use and I’d love to share one with you.

We always walk around saying that, “We are a cock weed” and in my mind, I look at who I am and what I am as a cockroach. If a cockroach made sweet love to a weed, and then, no one is able to kill. It grows in your vegetable garden. It grows out of cracks. It grows out of concrete. It grows out of telephone poles, grows out of ice.

The weed is the most resilient plant on the face of the earth yet, we always give prettier flowers the accolade.

Like the orchid. You don’t go to a grocery store when you’re going to someone’s house as a guest and you look for a pot of weed to take them. You typically will buy an orchid.

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Luis Congdon

Depends on what kind of party you’re going to. I had to say that.

Examples of Dealing With Adversity

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Bedros Keuilian

Depends on the kind of weed. Well said sir. It’s funny you say that.

Everyone buys an orchid and so, I decided to start studying orchids because when people are bringing orchid at our house, I’ve never seen they really last.

As it turns out, just a little bit of too much humidity and the orchid dies. If an orchid is growing next to another plant and that plant happens to share the same soil, the orchid dies. If there’s a little too much sunlight, the orchid dies. It is one of the most fragile plants on the face of the earth here. Yet, we all want to be an orchid.

Yet I realized, if you look at the cockroach and the weed, I don’t know of anything more resilient than these two things on this planet. They could survive anything. We have yet to find any kind of spray at home depot or lows that you can spray on a weed and permanently kill it. Those suckers come back and they come back with a vengeance.

I guess what I’m trying to say is I reframed everything that I had gone through as an adversity. I reframed that as an advantage by saying, “Look, you could stomp out a weed. You can pull it out. You can spray it with poison and it will come back stronger, more resilient than ever.”

Well, I’ve effectively been stomped out, pulled out, told I couldn’t do it. I’ve even been in a police helicopter chase and I wasn’t the guy in the helicopter. I was the guy in the getaway car.

So, all those things, as a young man that I had so much rage and anger towards, I realized that was all of the adversity that gave me the advantage because I just simply reframed it as, “I’m a weed. I can survive and thrive over any other adversity that’s given to me.”

When you reframe a negative and think that things happen because of it, then, you’re able to move on the hurt and the pain rather than holding on to it and using it as an anchor to weigh you down.

Key To Dealing With Adversity

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Luis Congdon

That’s a great reframe, especially for me. It really resonates as being an immigrant and coming to this country because when I came to The United States, I didn’t speak English. My first school that I went to, not a single person in the whole school spoke Spanish. I was quite lost. The first few years of school are very hard. I really couldn’t communicate with people.

In 1991, in Seattle, Washington there really weren’t a lot of Latinos and there really wasn’t anywhere in the schools that I was put into. It took a while before I even met someone who had a Spanish name. So, that journey and that reframe you’re talking about really resonate for me.

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Bedros Keuilian

Yes.

You know it’s funny. I was 6 years old. My brother was 19 years old when we came to The United States. Until this day and in fact, we’re going to go visit my parents tonight, my wife and I and our kids in Anaheim. They’re about 30 minutes away from us and my brother and his family will be there.

Until this day, my brother carries a chip on his shoulder and if you just ask one or two questions about, “So, you’re from another country?” “Yes” “And you are an immigrant? How was life when you first got here?” Within the first sentence or two, he will tell you that people were yelling at us and telling us to go back to our own Effin country.

Now, he’s held on to that and that’s become the narrative of his journey over the last 34 years that we’ve been in this country.

Resilience – Key To Dealing With Adversity

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Bedros Keuilian

I was the youngest in this family so when we were being yelled at and people were chasing our family down. You could imagine the early 80’s, they weren’t too friendly. California wasn’t quite the melting pot that it is today. Let’s just say that.

I cried. I was afraid as a kid but as I grew up, I realized that by overcoming that I’m a stronger more resilient person. My brother took that same event and held on to it and it’s a chip on his shoulder. It’s his reason why things haven’t worked out for him in his life and that crushes me to say that. He’s my brother. He’s my own blood but is a great example of reframing an adversity.

Let’s say this is why I’m going to do better in life just like a dumbbell against the muscle. The heavier that dumbbell is and the more you curl it, the stronger that muscle gets.

Bedros Keuilian Dealing With Adversity Thriving Launch Podcast
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Bedros Keuilian

However, you have to be willing to reframe it that way for dealing with adversity. If you don’t, you’re forever stuck with that as an anchor.

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Kamala Chambers

I absolutely love the way you frame that because it really is about how we choose to live in an experience and carry an experience with us. A hundred people can have the same experience but they carry it around with them in a different way and I just want to acknowledge you for the way that you’ve chosen to move through the world with the adversity that you’ve come across.

I’d love to hear from you. With people that are struggling with their own adversity and their own challenges in life, what are some really practical things you would say to them to help them move to the other side?

Dealing With Adversity And Moving From It

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Bedros Keuilian

That’s a really good question.

How do we move from adversity? What are some tips on dealing with adversity?

Whether the adversity is financial, emotional, passing of a family member, or a divorce that you didn’t necessarily want and you were shot by when you were serve divorce papers. Whatever the adversity is, how do we get to the other side of it to use it as an advantage?

There are various tips on dealing with adversity. The first thing we have to do is we have to break the pattern. In NLP, there’s a program and they call that, “The pattern interrupt”.

Do you guys have kids? Let me start there.

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Kamala Chambers

We don’t.

 

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Luis Congdon

I’ve been a parent before though. I’m co-parented so I can resonate and Kamala loves little kids.

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Kamala Chambers

He loves throwing in those sarcastic comments. I love my nieces and nephews.

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Bedros Keuilian

Regardless, if you don’t have a kid, certainly, we’ve all been kids at some point and remember when stabbed our toe or we stabbed our finger, immediately, we’re crying. We’re raising holy hell and it’s a big dramatic scene but often times, I remember my parents doing this to me and I did it with my kids.

Simply doing something to get their attention elsewhere, “Look at the little bird outside,” or “Oh my gosh! Look what our dog did,” and they immediately stop crying and they turn their attention to that other thing. We’re breaking the pattern. That’s a pattern interrupt.

Let’s say we’re in a state of depression. The longer we stay in that actual pattern, we go deeper and deeper into it. What happens if you just break that pattern for dealing with adversity?

What happens if you decide that, “I’m going to get my car? I’m going to drive to the beach. I have no plans on driving to the beach but I woke up and I’m a little dark. I’m a little depressed today.” “I’m upset about the fact that my spouse had cancer and she’s passed away.”

Breaking The Pattern And Dealing With Adversity

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Bedros Keuilian

Let’s say that had happened and I’m human and I wake up on the wrong side of the bed. I could either sulk on that. I could go deeper into that level of depression or I can get on my car and drive to the beach and go do something for someone else. This is where we have to understand those two things. If we can understand thing one, which is break the pattern, do something drastic.

If we can understand the need to break the pattern for dealing with adversity, do something drastic.

I’m not saying go get a tattoo or go shave your head but break the current pattern that you’re in that’s causing this thing. It might be that you’re sitting there in the dark, curtains drawn, thinking about the bad thing that happened to you. Keep doing that and you’re soon going to consider purposely eating a bullet. Or, you get in your car, you get on your bike and you go put on your hiking boots and you just go and you go and you go until your body‘s chemistry has changed.

Tony Robbins calls that, “A state change”. When you change your state, you literally change your physiology, your body’s chemistry changes. This is one of the best tips on dealing with adversity.

So, the second part of that is, if we can create an instant pattern interrupt by just getting in our car and putting on our hiking shoes going, the second thing is go out and do something good for others.

The human mind is a very selfish weapon and is designed to be selfish for a reason. It’s always looking for self-preservation.

We have to be selfish so that we have to, “I want to live, I want to live, I want to live.” That’s what our brain wants us to do. However, when we are selfish and we are in a state of depression or funk or adversity, the best thing we can do is go out and do something good for others because that releases the happy hormones. It releases the endorphins that helps you dealing with adversity.

There’s never been a time when someone says, “Thank you,” the person that’s getting thanked hasn’t felt good about that.

Changing The State of Mind And Dealing With Adversity

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Bedros Keuilian

If we can break the pattern, interrupt the pattern and we can go do something good for someone else or our society or for our city or for the homeless in our community. We can temporarily get out of that state of funk and we do that often enough, then, we start creating a new pattern and this how we overcome that bridge. It’s how we bridge the gap and get to the other side of whatever darkness or adversity that people are dealing with.

If you can interrupt the pattern and do something good for someone else, we can temporarily get out of that state of funk. Doing that often will lead you to the other side of adversity.

Bedros Keuilian Dealing With Adversity Thriving Launch Podcast
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Kamala Chambers

That’s so powerful in dealing with adversity. This is something that I absolutely in 100% behind you on and it doesn’t have to be even something dramatic or drastic.

I know that if I’ve been really depressed and I’m maybe curled up in a fetal position or something, to just uncurl my body or just stand up instead of laying down, even making that little bit of a pattern interrupt can be a big help.

Another example is maybe if I’ve feeling sorry for myself and a friend call who is going through a hard time, to be there for that person is a really great way to stop thinking about my own problems, to reach out and help someone else.

I love your examples and it can be really easy to do these things and incorporate them.

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Bedros Keuilian

My friend Craig Ballantyne always says, “It’s not simple but it’s easy.”

I’ll use your analogy. When you are curled up in bed and you’re in a bit of a funk, if you just break that pattern, if you just get up, open the curtains, go and pet your dog, do something other than the thing you’re doing that’s causing or that’s kind of got you in this funk, you might break that pattern. It’s simple but it’s not easy because we just simply want to stay in that position. But man, if we can just get up and do that thing, holy cow, what a difference.

Dealing With Adversity Using NLP

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Luis Congdon

Have you been studying this NLP piece stuff for a while? It sounds like it’s something that you’ve really heavily utilized to transform yourself and to rewire your brain and to understand your past.

It’s something that I’ve had to do and just the story that I tell myself about what happen is a huge differentiator between me and other people who have had similar pasts.

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Bedros Keuilian

That’s a good question.I didn’t realize I was studying or have been using NLP on myself when dealing with adversity. I did it out of sheer desire to survive and I’ll be very transparent with you guys.

The two years before we came to The United States, between the ages of 4 and 6, I was sexually molested for 2 years straight by 2 older boys in our complex there in Armenia and it’s a Soviet Union.

You imagine as you get to an age where you’re a young man and testosterones pumping through your blood and your veins and you feel more confident about yourself, there’s a sense of rage and guilt and shame.

What an interesting combination to put rage, guilt, and shame together in a jar. Shake it up and see what happens. You end up in many fights and you end up in a police helicopter chase. That happened between the time of 4 and 6 but it manifested itself and me going into a complete self-destructive pattern in my late teens and early 20’s.

I realized this very quickly when a cop has their boot on the back of your neck that, “Ah, okay. This strategy didn’t work. What else can I do?” So, I realized there’s always someone bigger and stronger than you.

Dealing With Adversity, Guilt And Shame

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Bedros Keuilian

I might go out and cause trouble not even realizing what was causing me my trouble. Dealing with adversity is quite challenging sometimes. I didn’t realize that there was guilt and shame and rage that I was held bottled up within. It took a lot of self-work and working with professionals to get that uncovered and work through that.

I quickly realized that I can go and start problems but there are always people bigger and stronger than you. Even if they show up in multiple squad cars and a helicopter, they may be just bigger than you because they show up in numbers and I’m a pretty big guy. I’m 6 foot, 230 pounds, and I’m not ashamed to say that the time that all these happened, I was also using a lot of steroids and so, I was fiercely strong and I had a lot of anger.

Again, going back to that ego, “Okay, this didn’t work,” cops are chasing me, I’ve got a boot on my neck, and I’m likely going to jail. What do I need to do now? So, you really literally hit a fork in the road. I don’t know what got my brain to think this way that I’m in a fork in a road. Do I take the part where I continue to self-destruct and unable to be dealing with adversity or do I take the path of how do I make things right?

I don’t know where that comes from, that thing inside, but I choose to make things right and I choose to start looking within. I’ve gone through so much while dealing with adversity. I’ve gone through so much as a kid when we came to this country. I had my hair washed with gasoline because we couldn’t afford Lice Rid when I got lice. I was eating out of dumpsters.

Reprogramming Your Neuro-Linguistic And Dealing With Adversity

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Bedros Keuilian

If I survived that and I always have a running joke with my family. I go, “Listen, food could be as bad as you want it to be. I can eat it and just got a little indigestion.” Everybody else has diarrhea and they’re vomiting because I’ve eaten food that’s gone so bad. As a kid, I’ve developed this immunity and so, I look at that as my superhero power. Nothing impressive, right?

I said, “If I did that as a kid, if I was able to eat bad food and get used to it, overcame that adversity, why can’t I overcome this adversity of either going to jail or turning my life around?” That’s what I chose to do when dealing with adversity. All of that of course, was a by-product of pattern interrupts, was a by-product of reframing things, and was also a by-product of choosing who my circle of influences.

As I made those conscious choices to be able to be dealing with adversity and stacked my guns, I want to hang-out with my friends who were causing trouble but I knew that I could very likely end up in another police helicopter chase.

Did I study NLP? No. I was using NLP by accident to save myself. I never knew dealing with adversity using NLP. Later I learned as a therapist told me, “Oh, what you’ve been doing is called reframing.” I’m like, “What the hell is that?” “That’s neuro-linguistic programming.” I’m like, “That’s all Asian Chinese to me and I don’t get it.”

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Luis Congdon

Dealing with adversity using NLP really works. The thing is when NLP or different modalities have been created is they just look at people that like yourself, who are having success, who were changing something really dramatic into something else. They are basically taking manure and using it for fuel to create something that could run a city for example like they do over in India where they take the cow manure and they use it for fuel.

I’m using that analogy where manure can actually become something that creates flowers and gives life to something very beautiful. Dealing with adversity is essential to have happy life.

What you’re doing essentially is what other people have studied to come up with these arts. These different ways to help other people who haven’t figured that out or who want to expedite the process but you found something on your own that is incredibly powerful.

Kudos to you for all your efforts in dealing with adversity! It’s just very inspiring to hear somebody that comes from such a past that has gone to where you’re at now. Not just you’re a husband, you’re a father, you’re a contributor to society, you run a business, and you help other people be employed. To me, that’s very inspiring to have you on the show and hear the story.

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Bedros Keuilian

Thank you.

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Luis Congdon

All right everybody. We’ve been here with Bedros Keuilian. It’s been a real honor to have you on the show today. We loved your insights on dealing with adversity. Thank so much for joining us on the Thriving Launch show.

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