Pivoting in Business: How to Thrive Amidst Challenges Like a Pro with Bedros Keuilian

This is the story of the one. As a custodial supervisor at a high school, he knows that during cold and flu season, germs spread fast. It's why he partners with Granger to stay fully stocked on the products and supplies he needs, from tissues to disinfectants to floor scrubbers, also that he can help students, staff and teachers stay healthy and focused. Call 1-800-Ranger, click Granger.com or just stop by. Granger, for the ones who get it done. What happens is entrepreneurs pivot, they don't still realize it, because it happens slowly over time. You know, technology comes, marketing gets more sophisticated, consumers become more educated in the way they buy, and so business is devolved in terms of transparency. This is right about now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping necks and cash and checks? Well, it starts right about now. On the debatero's Killian, founder and CEO of FitBodyCamp, author of Man Up, how to cut the bullshit and kick ass in business and life, Killian, my brother. What's up, brother? What's happening? I'm doing well. I'm doing well, right. Thank you for having me, man. I appreciate the opportunity. Yeah, man. Pull up to have you. We know a lot of the same people, and you know, I've been following you for a while. I admire her from afar. You gotta be pumped up all the time. Your book's awesome. I think you're a great inspiration for what we need in today's world. Motivation, positivity, but a little kick in the damn ass. You know, it ain't all sun shines and flowers and roses all day. That is true. That is true. What's going on in your world these days? Well, I've got to tell you, man, I'm just intrigued in watching the downfall of our Greek country and wondering when the most capable men who can exercise their voice will decide to actually stand up and be men and exercise their voice so that we can win back our country. It is the last free country, thanks to our Constitution, but it is also being radically eroded away, unintended. And so with that in mind, when are the men gonna stand up because in the, you know, one thing I always say, and you asked this question, and it already triggered me, so I'm just gonna jump into this real quick. If I were to, see, I come from a communist country. I escaped the Soviet Union as a kid. My dad was a member of the communist regime. And his whole thing was, we're gonna go to a country that affords us freedom and opportunity so long as you serve that country. It's backed by this document called the Constitution. Cool, so we escaped in 1980. I was six years old and we come here. And in that time, we've seen the slow erosion of the Constitution, of our freedoms, of our liberties. And of course, of that first amendment, the freedom of speech, which is backed by the second amendment, the right to bear arms. And we're seeing a constant attack on that. And then I share this with you because when our rights are being encroached and people think, that someone else is going to go and do something about it. I'm sure someone else is working on it. That's what happened when, during World War II, when Germany killed millions of Jews. Everyone else thought that someone else would stop it. And so I'm just here to maybe message to people that we are that someone else. Yeah, I mean, we're, we're just gonna get hard and heavy, quick and fast, let's follow up about it. So, where did this, where did it all start, man? Where did this erosion begin? I don't know where, there's this fine line with me personally where we can't all personally attack every single issue in life. Like, and you can fight me on that. But like, I just have so many battles that I can fight. And we need to fight some battles, and maybe, maybe fight some wars not too many battles. I don't know where the structure falls. But, and then there's the common sense that there's this erosion of the things that you're talking about and accepting things that shouldn't be accepted as Americans. I don't know where that started to fall, but I also don't know how many, how many things can we take all of them at once? Am I just being, you know, a pus about that or like, how do you fight, which battles do you fight? Yeah, well, like, you have kids, I'm sure you got kids, right? Yeah, I have four boys. There he goes. You got four boys, and so you know this, with your boys, you have to pick and choose your battles. Yeah. If you can't battle everything. Like, my son is 17 years old, two years ago at 15. He said, he said, hey, mom, dad, I think I want to get my ears pierced. And apparently he had been working up to that for two weeks. They get about how he's going to pitch us, et cetera. Now, I immediately was like, what do you want to get in your ears? He's like just a couple of studs. I'm like, cool, done. I knew that wasn't a battle I'm willing to fight. Now, if he said, hey, mom and dad, I'm 15, and I want to get a back tattoo, that might be a battle I'm willing to fight. So you're absolutely right, bro, and that we can't fight every battle. Just like in business, we need singularity of focus if we want to accomplish the outcome. And so there's a lot of small battles that are common sense battles. Like, do I am I going to fight the battle of people's pronouns right now? Probably not. Like, I can care less. Call yourself a bookshelf if you want. But I will fight the battle of the erosion of the dollar. I will fight the battle of the inflation that's taking place. I will want to fight the battle where we've got a commander in chief who I believe has some cognitive dysfunction. And we've all turned a blind eye to all of that. Those are all battles we're fighting. I will fight the battle of censorship of our first amendment. It's the first amendment for a reason. I will fight the battle of the erosion of our second amendment. So we do need singularity of focus. And then, you know, given Jockel Willink a shout out for his book, Extreme Ownership, he talks about prioritize and execute. So if those are the five or six big battles to fight to be able to save our country, like during the pandemic, man, I run a franchise, FitBody Bootcamp. You know, we had over 700 locations worldwide. And during the 10 months of 2020, we lost over 200 franchise locations. I had to pick and choose the battles I needed to fight to be able to save locations, to be able to save certain states that were more friendly to letting us run our gyms. And, you know, maybe let others die. And you have to prioritize and execute. But it's not impossible. It's just we have to have that conversation as a nation. And until that happens. And I think it will. It's just, it's unfortunate that it has to get so bad. Almost like, you know, it's someone's like an alcoholic in the family and they're crashing their cars or getting arrested. But it reaches a point where the whole family gets together to have that intervention. I feel like we need to have a national intervention. And I feel like we might be coming up to that sooner than later. I think the only way we can get there is if we could somehow figure out that it's not a left and right decision. This is a common sense American discussion. You know, like this isn't about right. This isn't about left. This is about fucking American rights and about the American way of being able to speak our minds, have freedom of speech. Here are guns for as well. The second amendment is, you know, but everything is so fucking left and right. You can't, it's so polarizing. And so like, you can't just have a fundamental discussion. And that's the shit that just drives me crazy. Yeah. Well, here's a thing on that though. If you and I decided that we're going to team up and we're going to invade. Oh, I don't know. Let's say we're going to invade Canada. They're pretty lean back and chill. Yeah. Yeah. Right. You and I will this massive army and maybe and you and I are going to invade Canada and take over and we're going to call it Ryan and Beto's land. And now, as you and I are planning over your kitchen table, we're probably not, we're probably going to go, all right, dude, are we worried about the elderly people of Canada? No, no, we're not. Are we worried about the children of Canada to attack us and fight us back? No, not worried about them. Are we worried about the women? Are we worried about the one? No, no, no, we're not about the word. We're worried. We're worried about the capable, able-bodied men. All right. So then before we go to Canada, what should we do? Well, hey, Ryan, why don't we take the next 15, 20 years and create an erosion of the fiber of masculinity? Create this dysfunction in men, weaken them, make them docile, make them dependent, confuse them, separate them by class, separate them by left and right, separate them by black and white, separate them by, you know, the jab or no jab, have so many elements that separate them so that they can't come together as a tribe as an army to stand up against our opposition. And so it kind of seems like, I'm not a tinfoil hat kind of guy, but it kind of seems like they've done a damn good job separating the country from left to right to black and white to all those different things because when you do, you don't have unity, which is why we need to become a family again and have that intervention to get old cousin Joe out of that seat. Yeah, it's, you read the art of war. With a better, better, better strategy than what you just described. You know, it almost seems intentional, right? But again, I'm not here to be political and all that stuff. Man, I'm a free Marcus capital capitalist. I want to make a ton of money and do a lot of good with it. So I certainly want to keep the conversation positive, but we do need to have these conversations so people do start thinking for themselves and not being told how to think. I think that's the takeaway, Beatrice, right there. You know, if everybody listening, you know, we've gone heavy and hard right at it, but you need to hear this because we need to think for yourself. I think clearly, and not be leaned or pointed towards one direction because of popularity or whatever, you need to be convicted. And I think that's what it's about. Beatrice, I do want to give some props and some attention to your background in history. Obviously, you're going to pick up your book and they can do enough googling. I don't want to wear that out. And I think you're such a good storyteller. I think you're just having such an amazing foundation. I do want to do some justice to that for the audience. Talking a little bit about that story, building up one of the fastest growing franchises in the country. So let's talk a little bit about that background. Sure. So the background of how I came through that and say it for the background of how I build the franchise. Yeah, let's start. I'll start from the, you know, we'll do, let's do justice to both of those. And I think that's an important story because about what we started down this path of the American way, the American country, think your history is what matters in that foundational, of what sets your mind where it is. Yeah, I agree. So, so really when you just imagine my dad through the sky, so he's like 89 years old today, alive and well. And in his 40s, he came to the conclusion, we'll build it up to that. But in the 40s, he decided that I'm going to pull the trigger and I'm going to escape the Soviet Union. So where are we, and Armenia was under Soviet control, Russian control. And my dad was one of the 18% of the population that was actually a member of the Communist Party. So he was a card caring party member, Communist Party member, and people always go, well, my choice, right? Yeah, but if he said no, when they ask and get a party member, you're shipped off the Siberia and never to be burned from again. So long story short, this dude left to Communist passport at home all the time, never take it out with him, never exercise his right to be able to question people and to be able to check businesses, all the businesses were run by the system. They were really worked for the state. And so part of being a Congress party member is you can do surprise inspections in the region that you're in. My dad was just like, hey, live on that thing. And he's the guy that worked, you were going to ask for Ray Vans, listen to Elvis. Yeah, he was full on America. And so he decides that we're going to escape. So he does a lot of side gigs, collects about 25,000 rubles, which is enough to bribe the people that needed to bribe to allow us to escape. Age in Italy, 10 days into Italy. And my dad always demands that I tell this part of the story. Exactly as it happened. We went to the American consul in Italy. You said we declared ourselves as as political refugees. We said we wanted to legally enter the data in states. And so after 10 days of pumping my dad for information, after all, it's part come as party member. They deal after introducing the added states. My dad chose California about places, because they were not being for weather, and they never have to see snowing it. And I love the state. And I will stay in the state for as much people should on it. You'll never find a better state climate and geography. I can guarantee you that. I've traveled the entire world. But anyway, that said. The difficulty set is this country offers freedom and opportunity as long as you serve the people in it. I find a solution to serve people. You play at value. And so I just. Being the youngest of the family. Believe that. Oh, heartedly. And decided that's what we're going to do now. I got to tell you we grew up in section housing, which is government system housing. My dad worked three or four jobs at any given time. You'll be able to. Make it up. I'm going to need a paid bar. A short full apartments to be living in. One of the times I got lice because the apartment that we living was so filthy might. My mom had to have my dad. Siphon out of gas. A little bit park car. We'll wash my hair with gas. And continue to afford. Ice treatment. So. I did speaking with. I didn't understand the culture. All items. Add value. Certainly. Add value. Certainly. As I grew up. I just took a liking for fitness. And decided that I was going to go into a personal training space. I wanted to help people transform their bodies and their minds. You know this. You're in great shape. When you transform your body. Your mind follows. You become. More optimistic. More positive. More focused. More disciplined. Mental toughness. All those things. Confident source. I love seeing my clients do that. So get faster. Myself. How do I still. My personal training. Just thankfully one of my personal training clients. This older gentleman getting. Break up. Very true. People. I never beat the scale. Unless you know how to sell. To your affordable sales. Kid. A little. Shit. That. And I. He has a gym. I've had to go. I sold you a six month training program. Three times a week. Seven grand that you paid. Man. He goes on. I came in. Wanting. Well, probably three times a week. You just took my order. And no one had. It was spoken to me. That directly before. It was during order taker. Not that sales person. And until you can learn to sell. You're never going to throw. And so you can. Really put together as many. You can see multiple. You saw for a company in the auto. And the street. And he brought me to the zig-zag with the. Sacades. Brandy tracing books. Poppins. Well, like I was introduced to all these. Sales people. And I would listen to the cassette tapes. I would breathe the books. And I started to. Develop the skill of persuasion and influence sales. We're coming with Jackson before I knew it. There was four or five six trainers working. One hundredly before I knew that. Eight percent interest to open up a little studio. That led to four more. That led to coaching and consulting gym owners. That led to starting. This. Shia. Empire. Somebody knew care. So as the housing market crashed back in 2008. I knew that one on one personal training was not going to be a thing anymore at that point. And so. I had learned from Jim Franco that anytime there's a disaster. There's people capitalizing on a disaster. Like when the stock market crashes. Housing market crash. Anytime there's a disaster, not everyone loses their money. He taught me that money doesn't just go away. It exchanges hands. And the example he gave me was. He goes even at the worst of economy. You can see people driving Mercedes, land rovers, Rolls-Royce's, Vietnamese, etc. And so he goes you set the find who's got the money and end up adding value to their life. With that in mind, housing market crash in 2008. I knew people weren't going to be able to afford one on one expensive personal training. So I said we can take that outdoor bootcamp. The personal trainers do outside group training, bring it indoors with equipment, a system, and legitimize it. I can create a franchise system where it's one trainer, many clients, and bring down the cost of personal training. Because it will be a group environment, group personal training. That's how FitBody Bootcamp was born. Within the first two years, we had hit 100 locations. And as we grew to 200, 300, 400, 500 locations worldwide and beyond, we were hitting the Inc. 5000 list, entrepreneur, 200 fastest growing franchise lists. And what I had realized at that point is whenever there is a disaster, you can become a solution and therefore create a new product to serve humanity. And so that's how FitBody Bootcamp grew. And through there, as we grew beyond 500 FitBody Bootcamp locations, and the average location has 300 to 500 paying clients. They'll pay about $249 a month. I realized, all right, what else do our clients need? So here's another great opportunity for entrepreneurs. If you're serving people who are trying to get fit, lose weight. What else do they need? Well, they probably need supplements. They need protein. They need hydration supplements. They need something to help them with their immune system and inflammation. So I said, well, why not create a supplement line as well? So we created, truly, a supplement company that serves our clients throughout FitBody Bootcamp locations worldwide. And here's the crazy thing about that. You fast forward all these years. In 2020, when the pandemic took place, and nobody was buying a gym franchise from me because everyone thought the gym's well, the gym's worth working. The gym's in restaurants took them to the shorts. You know that. And so it actually surprised me that in 2020, we actually sold six new franchise locations. And I was like, every time someone would buy one, and like, are you sure you're buying a franchise location from me right now? They're going, you know, I'm not going to give you a refund. That was very transparent. At that point, I'm going to do it in sales because we had, you know, we didn't have much web at thin skeleton staff. And I said, listen, I know things will turn around with the economy. When they do, you're going to be in a good opportunity. But just to give you some contrast, we would normally, before the pandemic, we would sell six to eight new franchise locations per month. And now all of 2020's old six locations. And so I was just grateful for those six because, you know, in that time, we also lost over 200 franchise locations. But here's a beautiful thing about it is, when the pandemic happened and gyms had to shut down, our supplement company started to hockey stick. And our immune system product, because everybody was really into building their immune system, trying to fight off the virus. That thing went on Amazon and just started blowing up. So there's so much to be said about creating multiple income streams because when one stream dries up, you've got another stream that might hockey stick and really keep you afloat. And so I've had the good fortune, obviously, over the years to build many income streams by investing in companies, apparel companies, software, et cetera. But my two core companies, FitBody Bootcamp, the international franchise, and Trueline, thankfully continue to thrive. And they're in an industry where I love serving people, making them better, building their immune system, building their health and confidence. And so that's always the industries that I like to play in. Yep. Pedro, there's a lot to impact there and really appreciate you going backwards from the beginning. I mean, the biggest, you know, there's about 12 takeaways. Let me start with the first one. We talk about the American dream, and we talk about the opportunities as Americans. Then, you know, I see a lot of people that talk all the time about, like, how blessed you are, like, to wake up if you're born in America and the opportunities that are at your feet, no matter like how bad it is. But, you know, you're an immigrant, you were not born in America, but came over, had the opportunity but saw the American dream and how you took it by the balls and, you know, like, have become what everybody wants to. Like, what, where does that, I don't know that it's been lost, but where does that, well, is it just hoods, is it nature or nurture? Like, I hear guys like you, Badras, that I just want to like, you know, like, man hug and like, high five, you know, like, in the best possible way, you know, and I'm like, but where does that come from? Is it nature or nurture? Like, is it just, because you wanted it more? I don't know. Well, when you, when you, when you eaten out of dumpsters, when you lived in a sectionate housing, had your hair washed with gasoline, when you've seen people yelling at your parents and telling them to go back to your old fucking country, you're taking our great American jobs, which by the way, my dad had a, when we first came, the first two years, he had a newspaper route at 2 a.m., I don't think anybody wanted that job, and he was a bus boy at a pizzeria, and then he pumped gas at an arco in the middle of the night. So that wasn't necessarily the great American dream that he was living, but he knew that the sacrifices were going to make. But so I got to see a contrast, right? And I really believe that if every American, when they turn like 18 years old, have to go and either go into the military to see the world, and what real racism is, what real, what real criminals, other countries, governments are, they would come back and they would love and defend this great country of ours so much, because they wouldn't want it to change any road. And if it's not the military, then at least we should be made to go out and serve another country, build a while, build a school, build homes, build something in third world countries so that you can have a contrast when you come back, and you can appreciate it. But if you grew up in a great country like this, where you could literally have your face and your phone walking down a parking lot at 10 o'clock at night, feeling safe that you're not going to get mugged. Like, come on, that doesn't happen. You go anywhere, you go to Armenia, bro, you have your face in the phone, so I was clubbing you over the head right now today and taking your shit. And so, I share that with you because I don't know if it's nature or nurture, I think it's just a contrast, because the American dream is not dead, it's completely changed. I think it's actually the barrier to the American dream and I think you agree with me is lower, because today you've got, you've got the internet. Yeah. So if I was broke, if I was broke when I had some bad news, my goofy little iPhone to create how-to videos and put them on Instagram, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, and Facebook, and that would, the algorithm would help me build an audience, and then I would go get a free WordPress site and I'd make a sales page, a website, I'd use PayPal, which is free, and I could take payments, and all of a sudden, I've got now PayPal, I've got a list, social media, I've got a platform, I can, that, of course, and sell it, like, or have a coaching program, or maybe, leverage some money, somebody, and say, look, I'll do the sweaty, and you give me $30,000, I'm going to create a supplement line and we're going to sell it. Like, the barrier is so much lower, because you've got access to social media, you've got access to a free website, you can take money for free. What is happening, though, is we've been conditioned to be comfortable. We are too, everything is too convenient. You can order on GrubHub or DoorDash, your burrito, and watch it come down, your neighborhood streets, and people get healthy and puffy when it's stopped at a red light, and you're just wondering where your burrito is. Motherfucker, get out and buy your burrito. Go out and build a burrito, make a burrito. When you get so complacent and comfortable doing all this shit, then why would you want to even make a free website, make a, how-to video? People have just gotten so lazy, they expect money to roll in. But, and a year ago, 20 Robyn said something, so sharing the stage with him, at Joe Polish's event, at the Genius Network event, this was 2016, and he was clapping his big giant hands, and I was gotten mic'd up to speak next, and I was very intimidated by 20 Robyn. It's like, how do you follow that giant of a man? And he's clapping his big giant hands on the stage, and he goes, winter is coming, prepare for winter. Anybody can thrive in summer and spring, but winter is coming, you should be built for winter. And I was like, Motherfucker is right. Like, we could all do great when the economy is thriving, but sometime the economy is going to shit, whether it's an active war on our country, like in 2001, whether it's a pandemic, whether it's a stock market crash, housing market crash, winter will always come. And what's happening now, winter has come, and it's getting colder, and you're seeing people die, literally, and metaphorically, financially, emotionally, mentally, but it's going to be a thinning of the herd, and those of us that have what it takes are going to thrive out of this. I'm going to ask you a question, and it's not, it has nothing to do with anything I thought I was going to ask you, but based on what you just answered, so the next thing I'm going to ask is, is your ability to pivot, and I think people don't appreciate exactly what that means or the power of that, which you have as true strength in. I'm going to come back to that, but I'm going to seed that with you right now. As an immigrant, and as being someone believes in American Dreamers, sees all that, how do you, where do you, where do you fall in the open borders situation? Like, is that a, is that a, then is that a tough one for you or an easy one for you? No, that's an easy one for me, man. Lockdown the borders. Period. Yeah. I came in legally. I entered the country legally. We did the paperwork that was necessary. We entered legally. And when you come to a country legally, and you paid your dues, and you're going to be paying taxes and putting into social security, you are going to value the place more. And, no, never mind that. And it's not to say that anyone comes in illegally, isn't going to value it. Obviously, people are risking their lives to cross the Rio Grande. They're risking their lives to go over those walls, walk through the desert. I get it. But also, amongst those people, are really bad dudes that are bringing in fentanyl, really bad dudes that might be bringing in dirty bombs because I also have dear friends like Tim Kennedy and others who are great Americans, great Patriots, connected to the military and have a lot of access to information. And when I get to hear from them, what they're catching at the border, I wonder what's not being caught that's coming in, that's going to be a dirty bomb, more drugs, or some kind of child abduction. Like, what is going to happen? Because we're not vetting who's coming in. All I'm saying is this vet who comes in, you would never let open your doors and just let strangers come into your party, would you? If you have an invitation. Yeah. Right. It's the same thing. Let's just vet people out. That's all. Ding, ding, ding, looks and folks, you know, you have to have a system and process in place to know who's coming in your front door or your back door. And look, if there's not a condition for it to happen, then there needs to be. Because you got to be able to appreciate you got to understand our ways and cultures and values, you know? So boom, there it is for people that don't understand why. There has to be some protections there. Now, let's talk about some business. Pivoting. You know, you talked for, I don't know, 15 minutes. Who knows how long it was? Doesn't matter. And there, you know, all I heard, this fucker knows how to pivot. And he knows and it is a skill because everybody is so locked in. This is my baby. This is my business. It's going nowhere. No, you got to pivot that shit. And that's what you are brilliant at. I see it. I hear it. You've done it in a million ways. We even talked about some of your coaching stuff. But talk to me about, is it just smart? That's hard to say. It's about this nature version of what I've talked to guys that I liked that are successful. Tell me about pivoting because that's what you did. You know, like understanding and the nuance of what's happening. So, so in 2020, the term pivot was just like overplayed. Right? You saw in a box, and you see, and everyone was talking about pivoting. And people think there was exclusive to 2020-2021 where you got to pivot. I don't know about 2008. When you pivoted. Right. You were the master pivoter. Group fitness. You said, literally yourself. You were talking about it. And I don't know. I'm like, did this guy call in group fitness because that is essentially what happened when personal training took a dive. It was group fitness. That became the word pivot and fitness. But that was it. And so, so what happens? As most people pivot, they just start entrepreneur's pivot. They just don't realize it because it happens slowly over time. Like the one, you know, technology comes, marketing gets more sophisticated. Consumers become more educated in the way they buy. And so businesses evolve in terms of transparency. Like Edmunds.com was created back in the day. And now you can see what the sticker price of a car is. And so there's more sophisticated buyers. And so dealerships had these little window stickers that said, hey, this is our best price. We're going to offer you. We don't haggle. No slimy sales guys. Just buy it or not. Right? So things do slowly change. That is a pivot. It just happens slowly over time. And in 2020, I developed this little term here at our headquarters. I was like, guys, we either pivot or we perish. Like everything was pivot or perish. And because when changes happen quickly, like on March 16th, 2020, I announced to all of our franchise locations. I said, guys, close down your locations for two weeks. We're all going to flatten the curve. Because all we knew at that time, Ryan, was that this is some kind of a death virus. Right? And so they said, two weeks. But I come from a communist country and I've been taught to never trust big government. And so while I said, we're going to shut down for two weeks. I also, when the video turned off, I turned to the CEO of my company, Bryce. And I said, Bryce, prepare to be shut down for a few months. And so let's start building online coaching models. Workouts, videos, Facebook pages, YouTube, Facebook groups, etc. for all of our franchise locations. So that if this goes beyond two weeks, we can move all the clients online. Because I knew one thing we were not going to do. We were not going to shut down our franchise brand, like Orange Theory did. And say, well, sorry, figure it out. We're not going to charge you a franchise royalty. That means I have to fire all my employees. You might have to fire your employees. And sad, man. So sure, sure, sure, a shit. We went well beyond the two weeks. And so by week number four, we pivoted to online coaching. And all of those clients kept paying our franchise locations. Our franchise locations kept paying their royalties to us. So we were able to support them. And we just continued to pivot as we went, creating different coaching programs and models. And if you don't pivot, you will perish. Sometimes pivots happen slowly over time and sophistication. Other times, a dramatic life event will force you to pivot. And if you don't, if all these motherfuckers take the wait and see approach, they end up dying, which is good for the rest of us because we take on more market share. Boom. Love it. What? What's the Badras personal brand? When you hear that word, do you cringe when you hear personal brand? Like, it's become like a bad word. You know, like, it's overplayed. And look as a marketer and as a writer. Like, and I read, you know, can you hear me now? Like, you know, coming up with some history, I struggle with what to call paid personal brand, this not personal brand because it's gotten such a bad rap. But when I hear the Badras, then I'm like, you know, that's a personal brand. Like, but what's your feeling on that? So if you, if you had asked me this 10 years ago, I would have been like, bro, shut up. You know, like, shut up. I mean, I, I come from the Dan Kennedy Gary Halbert, direct response world. Right? And like, you know, you know, you know, you're the exact, you say those days, that's exactly what that means. Yeah. And so like for me, and especially, you're into direct response if you were, you know, broke because you go, I got one dollar, I got to turn this into two dollars. Like I can't put up a billboard like Coca-Cola or Gatorade and the bus bench and they go, well, you know, it's branding. And one of those billboards or bus benches, you're going to get me a client. I got to know, I got to hold every dollar accountable. So I grew up, like locked on to direct response. And that was my Bible. But up until about five years ago, when I started watching what the rock does, I'm also very observant. And I think, you know, going back to what you said, I'm a teacher, a nurture. I am factory installed by nature, very observant. I learn more by watching than by being taught. And so I was like, do it. I like the rock. I watch WWF. I'm a hillbilly. Somewhat about, you know, I grew up very blue collar. And so, how did this wrestler become an actor and not even a great actor? But then create a personal brand. Like, what the fuck does he know about tequila? What does he know about shoes? What does he know about water? What does he know about ice cream? What does he know about movies? What does he know about football that he just bought the XFL? When he became a personal brand, people knew him, liked him, trusted him, connected with him, saw him as the everyday guy. They very quickly began to buy everything he sold. And I said, this motherfucker is on to something. He's not the best actor. He's not the best athlete. Like, if you read his story, like, you're even making the Canadian fucking football league, bro. Right? And I love the rock. Like, and I love him. In fact, I think six months ago, he started following me and I texted a mutual friend and I said, hey, I think the rock accidentally followed me. You might want to follow me just being facetious. Fill heat. Seven times Mr. Olivia. And, and, and feels like, no, man, he doesn't actually follow anyone. Yeah. So, you know, but I realized very quickly, he knows how to connect, which is what you do as a marketer, which is what I do as a marketer. I connect with people, and that is a personal brand. So, I think when you develop a personal brand, where people know you like you trust you, see the dark in the light side of you, get to meet your family, your dog, what your lifestyle is, and you show transparency, they have such a deep connection that if I started promoting fucking, I don't know, cough drops, I could start selling cough drops. And so, because of that, I started wearing fuel hunt shirts, just because I like the brand. I like the brand. I was a customer. They reached out to me and said, hey, every time you wear our shirts on your podcast, and on stage, you move the money needle. I said, well, can we jump on the phone? They thought, we're going to jump on the phone so that they can start sending me free clothes and I could wear it. I'm like, hey, how much can I invest to take 20% of the company? I made an investment. We needed one of the company because I'm a brand, and when the brand wears it, the money needle moves. And I knocked over the table today. I love that. Right? Yes. Right. So, there you go, man. I may convert to personal branding. Even though I hate that term myself. I did too. I hate it. But I use it because people know what it is. But, Pedro is definitely a personal brand. That's why you're sitting here on the radcast. But, it's just amazing. I just don't understand why people don't get it. It's like, it took me a while to get over the cringe worthiness, but I don't know what the block is. You know? Like, what's that roadblock? Is it just, I am worried about other people. What do they think about me? I mean, is that just what it is? You know, I do wonder that because social media has done it where people have become so worried about how many people like and share and engage. Like, people have become hyper-sensitive to that. And so, you know, me, I can give two shits. I'll post a piece of content. And I'm like, wow, this was going to pop off. I'm like, oh, that did nothing. Oh, well, maybe tomorrow's will pop off. I never know what episode on my podcast or what social media posts is going to pop off. I was listening to my gut, my radiance. Whatever the source tells me to write, I write, or write, I orate. And then if it pops off, I'm like, well, look at that. They wanted to learn, you know, the seven things that men do to ruin their lives. Here, I thought they wanted to make a, build a $200 million empire like I did. The $200 million empire show, like, flopped. The seven things men do to ruin their lives, popped off. If you had asked me to bet on that, I would have lost a lot of money. Well, yeah. You just never know. You got to, it's educate and entertain and entertain a lot. Or just be human, man. People just got to be, oh, you got to be human. You got to be human. You know, people say, what's your stick? It's not B2B, it's not B2C, it's B2H. This is just a human. Like, we're all human beings. We relate to one another. You know, like, stop beating. Yeah. You know, that's the, that's the formula right there. So, what's our biggest threat today? What's like, we talked, I think we may have started at the beginning. We ended the beginning with, literally, you know, but maybe from a business standpoint, you know, you got AI, you got GBT, everybody scared about shit. I'm just like, that's a tool, man. But what do you see is, what's the, what are the gray clouds and the blue sky? Yeah, what for, for Badras? Yeah. So, I'll start. I'll hit you with three categories. Our biggest threat to our country right now is the debt that our country is in and China. And who were in debt, too? Yeah. And we need a great lead. Our greatest threat is that we're, as a country, we're in too much debt. We're in debt to China and China has become a very large superpower. And we have a very weak leader in power. So, that is the threat to our country. In terms of threat to businesses, it's not Chad GPT or AI. I think just like the internet, people that were like in the beginning back in 2000 or 1998, 1999, man, the internet, the internet, the whole thing. And then when they had that whole bubble burst in 2000, and people were like, oh, man, the internet's just a fat. It's going to go away. There were headlines, New York Times, LA Times, internet's a fat. No, we just figured out how to use it to become more efficient. AI, while it sounds scary when you hear headlines like, oh, my God, two computers started to talk to each other. And what if, and what have said they want to come alive and feel emotions? Listing. You do it. You want, just what are my mind as I'm going, shifting from one meeting to another like, what would happen if Chad GPT and that Boston Dynamics robot ended up like connecting? I, you know, I do wonder like, what would happen? What would happen? Then I go, oh, we just need to make sure that motherfucker can't plug himself in. in. And as soon as the battery dies, we're, but then I move on because humanity typically means towards pessimism. We go, it's going to be bad for us. When in reality, AI is making shitty copywriters, better copywriters. It's really helping people understand and search for things better. There's always a benefit to it. Gary Banner checked many years ago, a couple of, ah, five years ago, posted a black and white photo from New York. People were in subways back in the 50s. Everyone's got a newspaper open and they're facing the newspaper. And the modern version of that is people are on buses and subways on their iPhones. So, you know, when people go, well, the good old days, people would talk like there was a picture from the 1950s where the entire subway was packed full of people with their face and their, uh, information, information is king. And that person who can give information, disseminate information, feed information with humor, with entertainment in a way that season digestible will always win. So, I'm not threatened by AI. I think we just need to figure out how to use it in our favor. And over time, we figure things out. And then finally, what's the biggest threat to humans, to individuals? While we all worry about, hey, who's our president, um, you know, AI and all that stuff, the biggest thing you got to worry about is the conversation that takes place right between your ears, man, the inner self talk. That is it. The story that people tell themselves, that I was broke, I was molested. Look, I was molested as a kid. I'm a foreigner. I came to this country. If I list off all the things, why I should be drunk and hopped up on drugs and suicidal, bro, there's a million reasons why I should. But if I don't tell my story to myself and feel sorry to myself, instead go, all those things made me more resilient, more resourceful, and therefore, and more compassionate towards humanity. And I'm just going to keep creating solutions to problems people have. And I'm going to charge money for it and be able to put that money to good use. The story that we tell ourselves, the conversation that we have, the biggest threat to an individual. And if they can control that narrative between their ears, they will control their lives. Boom. There it is. It is our A goes are the biggest liar that ever existed. Amen. And if you were the adult, know that you need to know it. Badras. I'm going to ask a favor. I'm going to ask favor. I want to do it. Can we do this again in like three to six months? We need a part two. Bro, I would be honored with Badras because I want there's so many things with laser want to get in. But I value your time. And I really are people are audience likes to snack on these things. And you know, we're going to give them a few snacks of Badras because I feel like there's you got so much knowledge to tell you guys so much. And look, I consider you like one of those, one of our real modern leaders right now. And I think people need to understand your perspective and growing man and some of the stuff you're doing behind the scenes with that. And I really want to go down those channels with you. If you'll do me that honor in the next few months. Brother, I would be honored to do that. And I would again and thank you for that opportunity. Yeah. Pedro's the BK podcast author of man up how to cut the bullshit and kick ass in business. How can everybody keep up with you brother? That's where to find me is on YouTube and Instagram at bed roast coolian. Badras coolian. I tell you what guys this radical we cover it. Badras is fucking radical and you need to go buy his book. You do a listen to his show and you need to follow him on Instagram all his content and the whatever he says what the algorithm says. I don't give a fuck what the other rhythm says is good shit. Badras appreciate your brother for coming on today. Thank you man. I appreciate you right. Hey guys you're going to find us Ryan is right.com. You find all the how they close from today all the info and links to this platform. Hey, a lot of ways to make money. We're just here to help you learn all those different avenues. We'll see you next time on right about now. This has been right about now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. Visit Ryanisright.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities. Thanks for listening.