004 – The Immigrant Edge Success System Revealed
Welcome back to another episode of Early To Rise Radio. This one is really, really special because we’re gonna help you set the foundation for your success. I am here with Bedros Keuilian. Welcome.
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Bedros: Hey Craigy, hey friends, hello. We are going to have an amazing discussion about what makes a successful and highly disciplined entrepreneur.
Craig: Really, there are two types of entrepreneurs out there, and really two types of people in life. First of all, the reactive folks that struggle. When you’re reactive, you’re just not going to be as successful as possible. And then there are the proactive successful people, so Bedros, let’s talk about you because you have become a highly disciplined entrepreneur and you have great systems in place. What’s the first one that you use first thing in the morning with the snooze button?
Bedros: Yeah, well, the very first thing I do is I don’t hit the snooze button. And in fact, those of you that have an iPhone can actually turn the snooze feature off. And the reason for that is that the subconscious mind controls many of our actions and our belief systems. And if the subconscious mind controls your belief systems and one of the first messages in the morning that you’re sending to subconscious mind when you hit that snooze button is that ten minutes of interrupted sleep holds greater value to you than getting up and living your purpose, your passion, your gift that you’re given. When you hit that snooze button, you’re chasing your day instead of dominating your day, and we don’t want that.
Craig: All right and then, so I love what you do next, you take the phone, you turn it off, you put it face down, and then you move into dominating your day. You sit at the kitchen table or on the couch or where are you doing this stuff?
Bedros: Yeah, yeah, so it’s on the couch. I’ll drink my protein shake, and I’ll drink my sixteen ounces of water, play with the dog, go through my gratitude list, I very quickly grab my laptop, grab another cup of water and coffee and I go to my couch. Not only is it symbolic that I’m basically buckling down, I always look at it like a checklist, like a fighter pilot goes into a fighter jet, they go through a routine of checklists before they’re given clearance for takeoff, right? And I truly take myself seriously what I do for a living, and ever entrepreneur should. And I liken it to, do you want to be a crop-duster, or do you want to be a fighter jet? If you want to be a fighter jet, you’re going to go through your morning checklist. Part of my morning checklist is to take my phone, put it on silent, turn it upside-down, and push it away from me. Why? Yes, I’m structured, I’m disciplined, and thank you to you for that, however, I’m also human, and I’m susceptible to temptation. And if the phone is turned right-side-up, and if while I’m thinking, I happen to see a text message pop up, I might be tempted to grab that. What people don’t realize is mentally, when you’re shifting gears, and then coming back to something else, there’s that time that’s required to actually make the shift. You can’t just go from checking your text back to writing your copy or working on that book or whatever the magical thing is that you’re working on. And so I make sure the temptation is pushed far away for the next two-and-a-half hours, my ‘magic time,’ and I go through my list and crush it.
Craig: You’ve really got this dialed in, you are taking the symbolic measures, and now, I want to go back to something that you mentioned. You said you only have about three things on your to-do list. This is really important because I’m sure you tackle the big ones first, but so many people have nineteen things on their to-do list, and that just derails them. So talk about what you do, how you get things done so you can knock off your to-do list before noon.
Bedros: The professional entrepreneur should not have nineteen things on their list. Look I can’t imagine Warren Buffett or Richard Branson having nineteen things on their list when they wake up. If you’ve got that many things on your list, odds are, you need someone that you can pay twenty dollars an hour or less to do the majority of those nineteen things. The things on my list are the things I’m capable of doing, they’re within my zone of genius and no one else is more qualified to do it than me, and these are things that move the big levers. That really is one of the defining factors of a professional entrepreneur and an amateur entrepreneur.
Craig: Yeah, and what we’re talking about here is highly disciplined and highly successful entrepreneurs, because a highly disciplined entrepreneur can do those nineteen things, but it doesn’t mean they’re going to be successful. So it’s also the strategic part of going and knowing what to do. We’re going to shift gears a little bit and talk about how you keep that all-day energy, great health, great mental energy, and great physical energy because you do a workout once you’ve got those big things done. It’s almost like your reward, but it’s also really important for you to be that high-performance fighter jet as well.
Bedros: Yeah, so we all know if you’re going to be an entrepreneur, you have to keep your body in shape, mind in shape, and health in shape. The wage workers who clock in and clock out, and no offense to them whatsoever, they are the backbone of all our businesses, but they don’t necessarily have to stay razor-sharp. For me to stay sharp, I want to make sure I eat right. I’m eating five, six small meals a day, and when I wasn’t, I was starting to get fat, I was starting to feel lethargic, my metabolism was crashing, and now as I’m working, I don’t feel authentic when I’m on stage, my suits are getting tight on me. All those things matter to an entrepreneur. Keep your mind healthy, keep your body healthy, and eat right. I do all those things and I stay hydrated. After I’m done with my magic time on the couch, you’re right, my reward before I go to the headquarters and work with my staff, is to go to the gym. I have 45 minutes to an hour to just crush a really good workout and that is a great source of stress-relief, it gives me more thinking time.
Craig: You mentioned something I want to go into next, which was how you bring great energy to leading your team. So you’ve gotten through the heavy-lifting for your own work in the sales department. Now you go in and you do the great work of leading your team. So how does everything you’ve done lead up to having that great energy going in and being the best leader you can be?
Bedros: That’s a good question. I have very high expectations of myself. I have very high standards of myself, and because of that, I have very high expectations and standards for my team. But the reality is that I can’t just go and tell them what I expect them to do, and I have to actually lead from the front. All good leaders lead from the front, they lead by example, so the way I look at it is, all of my team is chasing me.
Craig: All right, so you bring that amazing energy to your team, they see you as a high performer and they want to step it up. Is there anything else that you can say about being a highly disciplined entrepreneur that motivates and inspires your team to better themselves?
Bedros: No one is going to follow a flighty leader and no one is going to follow an undisciplined leader. So, if you have a team problem, odds are you have a self-problem and that is something you have to address.
Craig: All right, perfect, and then, so I know that you often finish your days with podcasts, I mean you’re continuing to bring the energy, nine hours later on a podcast that you’re doing at 3:00 in the afternoon. How do you become that entertaining leader and visionary in the shows?
Bedros: It’s my passion, it’s my purpose, and so anyone asking me to share my passion with their followers and their lists, I’m all for. But I’ll tell you the truth that maybe most people won’t talk about – this is an exercise that was built through repetition as well. When I used to do one or two podcasts a day, I would just get fatigued and tired, right? The second one always had lower energy than the first one. These days I get interviewed on three or four podcasts a day sometimes, and I bring the energy to every single one. The reason is through repetition, I began to build my adversity quotient and my emotional quotient, so I’m not as stressed out, and I’m not as overwhelmed. I know how to throttle my energy. And if you are able to do something for a long enough period of time, you get good at it. And this goes back to the discipline of sticking to it. Most people don’t stick to things long enough to become an expert, to become the man or woman who’s known for something. If I could just touch on something real quick, Craigy, on our show here, is that I used to go to events, and it would kill me when people would go, “hey, Bedros, nice to see you. So what are you doing these days?” Because most entrepreneurs know that other entrepreneurs are flighty. They start something, and then they shift – now I’m doing this, now I’m in this industry, now I started doing that, oh I wrote a book, I stopped writing a book, I’m making the feature film documentary. I always tell them in a firm way, I’m still growing Fit Body Bootcamp and my coaching programs. Those are the two things that I’m highly focused on, and there’s nothing else I’m going to work on until I reach my goal with those two things.
Craig: One thing that you brought up was that you used to struggle with one or two things and now you’ve desensitized yourself, you’ve put yourself out there, you’ve left your comfort zone, it’s so important. And so what’s the power in leaving the comfort zone, which everybody says, but hardly anybody does, and I know you do it.
Bedros: The power of discipline is that you do what you must do to be in line with your vision and your purpose. It’s as simple as that for me. And so I may wake up on days on the wrong side of the bed, or I don’t have the energy, but I know that I’m put on this planet because I have a purpose and a gift. No matter what, I’m disciplined enough to put one foot in front of the other, even on the bad days, even on the off days, even on the days where things don’t go right. As our friend, Alan Cosgrove says, he only has good days and great days. He has no bad days because he survived stage four cancer. And so even on the good days, I put one foot in front of the other, because discipline forces me to and because I have an obligation to share my passion with the world.
Craig: Yes, and then my favorite part of the day. You have been so disciplined, so structured over the course of the day that you have earned your freedom at night to go home and be with your family. How is this the most important part of your day?
Bedros: Well, I think that’s the place that I, as a father, have the greatest amount of leadership requirement, right? I mean I’m raising two little kids. My son must be a modern-day knight. My daughter must be an independent, free-willed young lady, and I want to make sure that I give them all of my time, all of my attention, make them feel like they have a voice, and that they’re not competing against my iPhone or my iPad. So the phone gets put away, gets put on silent, and now I’m fully present. But you could only be fully present if the day started the night before with making that list, not hitting the snooze that morning, going through your morning routine and ritual, and dominating your day so that you can check, check, check everything off, and be fully present with your family.
Craig: How do you avoid the thing that gets so many entrepreneurs when they go back on social media at night. And the next thing you know it ruins their next day, because they stay up late, and then they go, “Craig, oh, man, you know, I’m doing so well, but I keep getting off track with the Facebooking and the Netflixing, and all that stuff at night.” How do you do it right?
Bedros: Like everything else, I’ve designed moderation. Everybody listening to this should not go on Facebook or social media once they’re home. The reason for that is, there’s no good information that you’re going to get from Facebook that’s going to make you feel good.
Craig: Absolutely, and so you have from the very first minute you wake up the success path. Any other words to our listeners about how to take these lessons and apply them to their lives so that they can go from that reactive and struggling mode to just totally kicking butt?
Bedros: Yeah, some final words are that entrepreneurs do not have room to be reactive. In fact, I say all entrepreneurs should be control-freaks. And I know the word control-freak has gotten a bad connotation to it, but I look at myself as a control king. I mean, don’t I want to control my health? Don’t I want to control my wealth? Don’t I want to control my relationships? Don’t I want to control what time I go to sleep, what time I wake up if I have good sleep? Don’t I want to control if my kids feel validated by me? I want control over every single thing! And so the more things you can control, the better the outcome will be.
Craig: Absolutely. That was a great show, thanks so much brother.
Bedros: Thank you!
Hi, this is Craig Ballantyne, host of Early To Rise Radio. Have you ever wanted to become wealthier, healthier, wiser, or just have more time to appreciate the finer things in life? On this show, we reveal what high performers are doing every day to be more successful WITHOUT sacrificing their personal lives. Early To Rise Radio is sponsored by The Perfect Day Formula. Get your free copy of this game-changing success guide at FreePerfectDayBook.com.
Craig Ballantyne
If you want to double your income, work less, and become the ambitious millionaire you've always wanted to be... Craig Ballantyne is the coach who will help you do it. With more than 20-years of experience as an entrepreneur and five 7-figure businesses under his belt, he specializes in helping "struckling" entrepreneurs get out of the mud and build the business of their dreams. To see if you qualify for Craig's "Millionaire Coaching Program" send an email to support@earlytorise.com with the subject line "Millionaire".