How To Become Dangerously Competent - Bedros Keuilian (4K)

1. 0:00 – 7:45

   What Man Up Means To Bedros

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      What does man up mean to you?

   2. BKBedros Keuilian0:03

      Uh, man up just simply means to me to human up, as in human up to your highest potential. I think as humans, we're not all created equally. In other words, many of us, 95% of us, maybe even greater, operate as human animals. Impulsive, instinctive, reactive, selfish. Necessary for survival. However, consciousness dictates that we evolve to our highest self, that we become selfless, that we become servants, and that there is no user's manual that teaches Chris how to go from human animal to human being. Being, consciousness, radiance, connected to source or creator, right? And so man up, I manned up my way, which is why that was the title of my book. Manned up my way to becoming a better human, less emotional, more responsive, less reactive, and that led to becoming a better leader, better entrepreneur, better husband, better father. Led to overcoming many of my childhood traumas, sexual abuse, physical abuse. Um, but I can tell you that when you man up to your higher self, or human up to your higher self, uh, it's a gift. It's a gift. And we all start as human animals, because I believe that is our number one purpose we have to first develop and work through to then find our true purpose to serve humanity.

   3. CWChris Williamson1:34

      I'm feeling the word ascend here, you know? To-

   4. BKBedros Keuilian1:38

      Transcend.

   5. CWChris Williamson1:39

      Yeah. To become better than your base instincts.

   6. BKBedros Keuilian1:42

      Mm-hmm.

   7. CWChris Williamson1:42

      To transcend and include in, uh, Wilburian language. Yeah, it's, uh, I think an awful lot about how at the mercy of the confused chemical signals of our body we are.

   8. BKBedros Keuilian1:53

      Yeah.

   9. CWChris Williamson1:53

      You know? The- the reason that we do many things is because of the paths of least resistance or societal norms, or what we learned when we were a kid, or the way that we dealt with past traumas, or that thing that we want right now.

   10. BKBedros Keuilian2:05

       Yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson2:06

       And that, to me, doesn't feel like liberation. That feels like slavery.

   12. BKBedros Keuilian2:10

       It is. It- it is modern day slavery. Uh, and I do believe that the opposition, you know, news media, big pharma, military industrial complex, food industry, the government certainly, controlled by all those elements, uh, have a oppressive benefit. They have a- they have a reason to oppress humanity and keep them as human animals, as dependent and needy and reactive and emotional as possible, because that is how you then manipulate and get control and compliance.

   13. CWChris Williamson2:44

       Hm, so I had this conversation with Eric Weinstein a couple of months ago about the objective of modern media is not to convince you of any one narrative, but to make belief in all narratives be less certain. And I- I don't disagree. I think that fire hosing as a, uh, tool is very useful in making people uncertain about the future.

   14. BKBedros Keuilian3:12

       Yeah.

   15. CWChris Williamson3:13

       What I couldn't get to, and Eric couldn't either, was what is the end goal usefulness of that? Because I don't just see people being, uh, pliable, complicit, compliant citizens. I have seen as many, if not more people use their new distrust in mainstream media and pharma companies and so on and so forth. I've seen as many people use that as the activation energy to become almost rebels as I have people roll over backward and say, "Please, Mr. Big Government, just tell me what to do." So, I was skeptical, at least a little skeptical that this strategy is either achieving the outcomes that they meant or is actually coordinated because it doesn't seem to be making a pliable populous as far as I can see. Do you get where I'm coming from here?

   16. BKBedros Keuilian4:09

       I- I do, but I do wonder is it because of the circles that you're running in that you see more people who are rebellious against this? Does that make sense?

   17. CWChris Williamson4:18

       A friend, a- a friend group of middle fingers, yeah.

   18. BKBedros Keuilian4:20

       Yeah. If we were to go hang out, and- and I'll use this term exactly as I mean it, with the peasants of humanity, the majority, the unwashed masses, the human animals. They are the majority. You would see that we and the circles that you hang out with are the minority. It's just our circles consist of people who are rebellious, who are free thinkers, who are sovereign, who will give the middle finger to the man.

   19. CWChris Williamson4:46

       Hm.

   20. BKBedros Keuilian4:46

       It's, we are the minority.

   21. CWChris Williamson4:48

       Do you think you need to be cautious of using words like, like the- the- the peasantry of humanity, the unwashed masses? Do you worry that that might be dehumanizing sometimes?

   22. BKBedros Keuilian4:56

       No, because I hope that that is triggering to most so that they will understand the point that I'm making. I love humanity. I will fight for humanity. And I- and I pray that the masses stop living at the bottom of the mountain and take the journey to the top. Because when they do, as we talked about earlier, transcendence takes place. But first, they have to get triggered. First, they have to be told what no one else is willing to tell them, that they are the unwashed masses, that they are slave labor, that they are there to just work, be in debt, pay taxes, die, lose majority of your inheritance to the government so that your kids can repeat the cycle. That should piss them off enough to want to transcend. In the process, will I get some hate messages?

   23. CWChris Williamson5:42

       Mm-hmm.

   24. BKBedros Keuilian5:43

       Absolutely. I'm not a stranger to that.

   25. CWChris Williamson5:44

       (laughs) Yeah, it's, uh ... Alex Hormozi is the guy that I think taught me most about nudging your ... view of activation energy from just being something which has to be positive sum-... to being able to use something which is actually a really negative fuel source to kick you out of the bottom. So, uh, his idea is people need some sort of motivation, some sort of justification to make changes. Most people have way more pain than they do pleasure. Use what you have.

   26. BKBedros Keuilian6:22

       Right. And, and that is absolutely true.

   27. CWChris Williamson6:24

       And resentment of you.

   28. BKBedros Keuilian6:26

       Right.

   29. CWChris Williamson6:26

       Resentment of your message, resentment of you, uh, of being accused of being the unwashed mass peasantry is also part of that-

   30. BKBedros Keuilian6:34

       Sure.
2. 7:45 – 15:17

   Dissecting the Story We Tell Ourselves

   1. CWChris Williamson7:45

      influences our lives so much?

   2. BKBedros Keuilian7:48

      Well, the story that we tell ourselves is a byproduct of what happened to us, what's, what people tell us, like, "Oh, well, you're, you're big boned. You've always been clumsy. You've, you've..." You know, "Everyone in our family is fat." You know, like, these, this is thing, what I've heard. I'm not pointing to you, per se.

   3. CWChris Williamson8:01

      (laughs)

   4. BKBedros Keuilian8:01

      I'm just pointing to myself. Like, this is what I've heard, right?

   5. CWChris Williamson8:03

      I get it.

   6. BKBedros Keuilian8:03

      So, if that's the story, we start piecing together what? An identity. "Oh, this was..." If that's my story, this must be my identity. I'm clumsy, big boned, supposed to stay fat, not supposed to be active, clumsy. Okay, got it. Now that I know that's my identity, which by the way is a false identity, we, we, we go into life looking for evidence to validate that identity.

   7. CWChris Williamson8:25

      Yeah.

   8. BKBedros Keuilian8:25

      And you will always find what you're looking for.

   9. CWChris Williamson8:28

      Yeah. Yeah, the, uh, reticular activating system is one hell of a drug.

   10. BKBedros Keuilian8:32

       Right.

   11. CWChris Williamson8:32

       You know, you buy a new car, you see that every... Why, how, how, there were never these many cars on the road before.

   12. BKBedros Keuilian8:38

       Yeah.

   13. CWChris Williamson8:38

       It's because you're looking for it.

   14. BKBedros Keuilian8:39

       Yeah.

   15. CWChris Williamson8:39

       Yeah. Uh, I heard a really phenomenal quote a year ago to do with cynicism. Uh, people with low self-esteem will always find a way to be miserable.

   16. BKBedros Keuilian8:49

       Yeah.

   17. CWChris Williamson8:49

       And it's this predisposition that you have to look for the thing that you... You're looking for confirmation bias.

   18. BKBedros Keuilian9:01

       It is.

   19. CWChris Williamson9:01

       "The world is the way that I predicted it to be."

   20. BKBedros Keuilian9:03

       Mm-hmm.

   21. CWChris Williamson9:04

       We were talking earlier on about control, uh, and the fact that there is a, a comfort in knowing. And even if that knowing is-

   22. BKBedros Keuilian9:15

       Bingo.

   23. CWChris Williamson9:15

       ... in, even if that knowing is not accurate or useful, if it feels like it's predictively correct, because you can warp what you see to retrofit what you believe, you end up with a world that feels like it's in control.

   24. BKBedros Keuilian9:28

       Yes. And when you feel like you have some sense of control, then you have less stress, less anxiety, et cetera. Now, you may not have a quality of life-

   25. CWChris Williamson9:36

       Mm-hmm.

   26. BKBedros Keuilian9:37

       ... a, a, at least a great quality of life. You may not have great income, you may, you may not be of the best health. But at least it fits your locus of control and, and, and you're able to have some predictable results. Someone, your neighbor in the very next house, could have a very different life experience because of how they view the world.

   27. CWChris Williamson9:57

       Even if their material condi- conditions are exactly the same.

   28. BKBedros Keuilian10:00

       Correct.

   29. CWChris Williamson10:01

       Yeah, I mean, this example from Sam Harris is so phenomenal. So, everybody has done a tough workout, where they're up into zone five heart rate and they've got the taste of metal in the back of their throat and they're lying on the ground doing a sweat angel. That, even though objectively it's an uncomfortable feeling, is oddly satisfying because of the story you tell yourself about what that means.

   30. BKBedros Keuilian10:21

       Mm-hmm.
3. 15:17 – 21:53

   Why Bedros Despises the Red Pill World

   1. CWChris Williamson15:17

      and speak to a, a type of man, you know, that I think could be categorized as, uh, dominant, lean in, alpha, in some regards. There is another group of guys on the internet who would also categorize themselves as alpha, who are very anti-family creation, who are, uh, looking toward women and giving advice to men, uh, that, uh, the opposite sex is someone to be avoided at all costs or to be, uh, used and discarded, to be treated as, uh, transient transactional objects.

   2. BKBedros Keuilian15:53

      Yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson15:54

      How do you see this sort of world of, you know, red pill, manosphere, men's advice, with your perspective, given that you work almost exclusively with men?

   4. BKBedros Keuilian16:03

      Yeah, yeah. I- I... Truth be told, man, I- I despise most of that red pill world. And t- to say that, look, you know, "All women are bad and all women want to use you and all women are chasing down the dudes with the Lambos and the watches and the money," that is not, that is not true. That is not true. Again, that, that is, you'll always find evidence for what you're looking for in life. And so if these young kids are seeing that on YouTube, right? I say young kids, in their 20s, late 20s, even 30s, I'm 49. What do you got? I mean, what do- what do you got? So you got a life where you're lonely. The number one category of suici- suicide is men over the age of 60 who are alone. So that's what they're preaching. In other words, be alone, just have sex, move on, have sex, move on, and at some point, your value as a man, you've become old and now you're alone, you don't have a life partner, the highest category of suicide for men is men over 60 who are alone, either divorced or widowed or never found anyone.

   5. CWChris Williamson16:56

      Yeah.

   6. BKBedros Keuilian16:56

      So like, that's the end game they're preaching? That's stupid. The- the highest level of fulfillment is not, it's not stuff, and it's not even legacy, it's actually having children and seeing those children become great members of society, value adders to society, knowing that when you pass, that is the legacy you leave behind. Like, I've got Andrew and Chloe, a son and a daughter who will do so much more good for this planet than I ever did 'cause I got such a late start.

   7. CWChris Williamson17:29

      Mm-hmm.

   8. BKBedros Keuilian17:29

      Whereas they started off, my wife and I poured into them from day one to be just servants of humanity, but to also be savages in terms of expectations for themselves, right? And so that is the greatest legacy. And so without my wife, how can I have those two beautiful children? And even if I were to adopt them, I can't give them the love that a mom can give, the nurturing, the safety. I can give them what a dad can give. And so it's necessary that we connect. And so these dudes that get behind a microphone and a camera and they preach this bullshit, it's just hurt people hurting more people. That's all it is. And then th- you know, that happens.

   9. CWChris Williamson18:09

      I think a lot of what I'm seeing...And this isn't to say that everybody needs to have kids. There is absolutely a cohort of people out there for whom they can get to old age and the end of their life without a family, and maybe make the right call and say that that was the right call. But not having a life partner-

   10. BKBedros Keuilian18:29

       Right.

   11. CWChris Williamson18:29

       ... to me, seems ... You have to be an unbelievably rarefied strata of human to say, "Oh, it's just me and my paintings and my cats or dogs or whatever." Uh, and you know, this perpetual sort of juvenile world, uh, I, it doesn't seem heroic to me. It doesn't scream highest service. It doesn't scream, you know, overcoming my base instincts, giving back to, to the world and humanity. It's like this sort of endless immature hedonic, like, fucking sludge that you just keep pumping into yourself. And what I also see is like an industrial strength cope that's used by these people to try and retrofit meaning into their life through other areas.

   12. BKBedros Keuilian19:16

       Mm-hmm.

   13. CWChris Williamson19:16

       Right?

   14. BKBedros Keuilian19:17

       Mm-hmm.

   15. CWChris Williamson19:17

       You know, look at the people who are fucking obsessed by politics or obsessed by the deep state or obsessed by conspiracy theories or obsessed by p- fucking comic books, whatever it ... Right? Something. Because they need to imbue meaning into their life through a vehicle, because they do not have that coming from a significant other and/or kids-

   16. BKBedros Keuilian19:41

       Bingo.

   17. CWChris Williamson19:41

       ... that come along with it.

   18. BKBedros Keuilian19:42

       Bingo. We, we are hardwired to search out, find, develop our purpose. We're hardwired for that. And in the absence of it, so you don't have a life partner, you don't have children, which are the two s- two of the highest source of purpose, and then your vocation would be probably the third highest source of purpose. In the absence of that, you begin to glom onto something. I don't care if it's ANTIFA or Black Lives Matter or some ... the new fucking gay flag that's, you know, it's got triangles and, and whatever. I don't care if you wanna be a transgender unicorn. Like, I'm all for it, man. Fly your freak flag. However, the people that are so locked onto that as their purpose are locked onto that because they are lacking true purpose and meaning and fulfillment in their life. And so you're forced to glom onto something, because the absence of purpose means you are going to be addicted to vices, pornography, vape, alcohol, whatever the thing might be, and that's how we then start spiraling into anxiety and depression and self-loathing.

   19. CWChris Williamson20:39

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4. 21:53 – 31:56

   Advice For Correcting Your Inner Voice

   1. CWChris Williamson21:53

      who says, "All right, Bedros, seems okay for you. You have got a lot of freedom and you're evidently friends with the person that exists inside of your head." What would you say to someone who has a bad inner voice and wants to change it?

   2. BKBedros Keuilian22:09

      Well, I think the very first place to start is to understand that we are very unique creatures on this planet. We live on three different planes, don't we? And my dog, Cookie, has no idea about that. Only we have self-awareness. We have this sense of purpose. And we live on three planes. The physical plane, like this is a vehicle, this ... You know, your body is a vessel, a vehicle, and it's deteriorating. No matter what you do, take all the drugs you want, all the hormones you want, time will always win.

   3. CWChris Williamson22:35

      Entropy will win.

   4. BKBedros Keuilian22:36

      Right? Exactly. So we live on that physical plane. But we're also energy. We're radiance, we're a soul, we're spirit, we're energy. And then somewhere beyond, between those two, there's the thoughts, feelings and emotions that you have. So you're living, uh, life on three planes, and as you get older, assuming you're doing the work, 'cause wisdom is not just age. Wisdom is experience compounded by age. There, you have wisdom. So literally, your soul, your consciousness gets wiser as your body begins to deteriorate. And this is why you hear old folks always saying, "If I could just go back." Like, what do they say? "Age is wasted on the youth." That term exists because, "If I just knew what I know now then, oh my gosh, what I could've done in my 20s," they say, right? And so we have to reconcile the fact that the vehicle is dying. The vehicle that I'm in is dying, yet I have greater self-control, greater self-mastery, more in line with what my God-given source, uh, uh, purpose is. And there, I still have thoughts, feelings and emotions, and I have to master those so that I could keep driving towards my God-given purpose as my body is deteriorating. And so the inner voice is constantly fighting with those three factors, the human animal, consciousness, the physical being that breaks down and gets sick, w- which they should take care of, eat right, work out, et cetera, and then the thoughts, feelings and emotions because they are living incongruently. The reasons our negative self-talk exist is just ... That's your conscience. Your conscience has no other way of getting your attention other than making you feel bad, making you feel shame, guilt, anxiety, depression. That's how your conscience knocks on your door and says, "Dude, you're living incongruently with how you believe you should be living, and that's why I'm giving you negative thoughts and negative voices in your head. Just literally flip the switch and tomorrow live congruently to the man you want to li- be."... don't hit the snooze button. Maybe you're sick and tired of hitting the snooze button. Drink your 30 ounces of water, like Sean Stephenson says, right, first thing in the morning. I don't even know why he said that, I just love the guy so much. I read that in his book, like, 10 years ago, and I just drink 30 ounces of water every single morning. It doesn't do, it doesn't do me any harm, only does me good. I send out my three gratitude text messages because I wake up angry and bitter most days-

   5. CWChris Williamson24:51

      (laughs)

   6. BKBedros Keuilian24:51

      ... 'cause that's factory installed for me. It, like, I know who I am. I'm so self-aware that I have to send out three gratitude text messages every morning so I can put myself in a state of gratitude. That is what consciousness and my conscience demands of me, and if I don't, I'll still be the miserable fuck.

   7. CWChris Williamson25:07

      Yeah.

   8. BKBedros Keuilian25:08

      Right? So we have to do the thing that our body wants us to do. Be congruent with the man you want to be. If you don't, the inner self-talk will always be negative.

   9. CWChris Williamson25:17

      Yeah, the, uh, keeping promises to yourself is just this insanely powerful tactic. And what I realized, especially throughout a lot of my 20s, was that the things that I was doing in the story that I was telling myself about who I should be weren't aligning, right?

   10. BKBedros Keuilian25:36

       Right.

   11. CWChris Williamson25:36

       That I just, I felt like I was built for more. I felt like I should be more mindful, more equanimous, uh, m- that my memory, my... the texture of my existence should have been better. The inner texture, not materially, right? I never cared for that. I, I still don't, largely, which is what I think makes me a particularly bad businessman. I ran a business for 15 years. Didn't really care. It was just a game to me, it was never really about money. Money was a g- it's a fantastic scoreboard, but it wasn't about that. I felt like I was built for more, and I knew that I wasn't keeping promises to myself. And, like, I was cheating on girlfriends and stuff, and the worst part about the way that I felt after cheating on girlfriends wasn't me being caught, it was what it told me about the sort of person that I was, that I would've hurt this completely innocent other part of my life who'd done nothing except for care for me, done nothing except for try and make my life good, and I'd been disloyal and damaging. And, uh, I thought, "Right, is this really, like, who you are? Is this really who you want to be?" And I, I didn't, and that was like, it was like a fucking fugue state, for a long time, of me thinking, "Well, Jesus Christ, like, if this is, if this is the person that you say that you're supposed to be, why the hell are you doing all of these different things?"

   12. BKBedros Keuilian27:07

       Right, right. And so how did you feel? Let's just, like, let's just take a moment and unravel that for a moment, if you don't mind.

   13. CWChris Williamson27:13

       Mm-hmm.

   14. BKBedros Keuilian27:15

       So as you're cheating and as you're doing things that's harming this person who otherwise loves you and cares for you-

   15. CWChris Williamson27:19

       Mm-hmm.

   16. BKBedros Keuilian27:20

       ... and wants to see you thrive, and you know that that's not the guy that you are, that's not the man that you wanna be. The difference between that is how did you feel? What did you experience?

   17. CWChris Williamson27:31

       It was pain. It was a lack. It was a sense of a lack. It was a, uh, a bitterness turned inward against my own ineptitude, my own weakness, my own fragility, uh, the fact that I was at the mercy of my own base instincts. I didn't have the control, I didn't have the insight. I, I just was not... I was not all that I could be, and the fact that I knew that there was potential there was what hurt the most, right?

   18. BKBedros Keuilian28:02

       Yeah, yeah.

   19. CWChris Williamson28:03

       The fact that I felt like I was built for more, and yet I hadn't decided to answer the call of that. Uh, and I had this, I had this, I, even, this may resonate with people that kinda come from a background where they don't have as many good role models around as they would like, and, and, you know, you don't feel like you fit in, and, and you struggle to find people that give you the values that you want. Uh, I had, for a good while, a chip on my shoulder about not being given the tools that could've got me to the place that I wanted to go more quickly.

   20. BKBedros Keuilian28:40

       Yeah.

   21. CWChris Williamson28:40

       You mentioned yourself, like, I started late-

   22. BKBedros Keuilian28:42

       Right.

   23. CWChris Williamson28:42

       ... I think you said.

   24. BKBedros Keuilian28:43

       Yeah.

   25. CWChris Williamson28:43

       Um, like a, a delayed onset intellectual adolescence, perhaps.

   26. BKBedros Keuilian28:49

       Yeah, I'm a late bloomer in every category of life, man, yeah.

   27. CWChris Williamson28:51

       Ah, fantastic. So I almost had a, I had a resentment toward those people, uh, toward the fact that I wasn't given the tools sufficiently early on. Uh, and even accepting that, even being able to see that for what it is-

   28. BKBedros Keuilian29:07

       Mm-hmm.

   29. CWChris Williamson29:07

       ... okay, well, look, what did you want? Did you want Alain de Botton from The School of Life or Jordan Peterson to b- be born early? Like, what the fuck did you want? Did you want YouTube to be invented more, earlier than it was? It wasn't, right?

   30. BKBedros Keuilian29:21

       Right.
5. 31:56 – 36:24

   Getting From 0 to 1

   1. CWChris Williamson31:56

      I'm gonna guess that most of the guys that you'll deal with at least are probably not at zero, but many-

   2. BKBedros Keuilian32:02

      Right.

   3. CWChris Williamson32:02

      ... will be beginning on the journey and there'll be a little bit of momentum behind them.

   4. BKBedros Keuilian32:06

      Yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson32:07

      With the guys that you work with, what are the things that are most common that they need to overcome in order to be able to retell that story and improve those beliefs internally?

   6. BKBedros Keuilian32:22

      I think the most common thing that we see in the guys that we work with at the project specifically, and these are guys, like you said, they're not starting at zero. They have some momentum. They, they might have a business that's doing a few hundred thousand a year or maybe a few million a year. Uh, but they realize they're still meant for more, and it doesn't matter what they're doing, 'cause we've got guys that were, you know, senators and guys that are, like, professional poker players who, who are doing fantastically well financially. But if financial- if the finances were the only measuring stick, then great. They're successful. Hey, go on.

   7. CWChris Williamson32:51

      Elon Musk's the number one on the planet.

   8. BKBedros Keuilian32:53

      Right.

   9. CWChris Williamson32:54

      Yeah.

   10. BKBedros Keuilian32:54

       He'd be the... Exactly. But it's not the only measuring stick, because these are the guys who are also sabotaging their life. One particular guy can tell you that he, he was making about of 20 million a year, and he's the second in command to the chief operations officer for a company in... I'll use a different city. Let's say... Oh, I don't know. Camarillo Beach. But he would drive from Los Angeles to Camarillo Beach three times a week to work at the corporate office. The rest of the time, he'd work from home. Doing really well for himself. However, he would... On his way home, he would stop at one mistress' house, and then another mistress' house-

   11. CWChris Williamson33:30

       (laughs)

   12. BKBedros Keuilian33:30

       ... and then at Commerce Casino to gamble, and then he'd come home.

   13. CWChris Williamson33:34

       (laughs)

   14. BKBedros Keuilian33:34

       And it's because he felt he was unworthy of earning that, and he was just constantly self-sabotaging to destroy all that.

   15. CWChris Williamson33:41

       (clears throat)

   16. BKBedros Keuilian33:41

       As we started to dig deeper, it's typically some kind of event that took place that changed their trajectory on how they felt about themselves. The event could've been they were drinking and driving, crossed an intersection, killed a family of four in the car. They survived. They have survivor's guilt.

   17. CWChris Williamson33:58

       Mm-hmm.

   18. BKBedros Keuilian33:59

       It could be that they were physically, mentally, emotionally, sexually abused, and they haven't reconciled with that. So, that soundtrack of shame, rage, confusion is constantly playing in the background as you're trying to develop a career, get into a marriage, raise your children, start a business partnership. You're doing all of that with this almost, like, this 55 kilogram kettlebell attached to you. So, if we're gonna race and I'm like, "Hey, Chris, before you race, I'm just gonna chain this kettlebell to your leg," you're always gonna have an unfair... A disadvantage, right? And so if we can just go back and identify, because as men, we're really good at compartmentalizing and going, "Everything's good. Everything's good. Yeah, that happened to me, but everything's good."

   19. CWChris Williamson34:39

       Mm-hmm.

   20. BKBedros Keuilian34:39

       No, it's not, man. It's like a corrupted hard drive. Your hard drive's corrupted, and when you're pushing this button, there's a delayed response, or you pushed the button A, but you get the letter S on the Word doc, and you're like, "What the fuck is going on?" It's a corrupted system. And so if we can go back and identify what happened that created these toxic cognitions, these false beliefs and narratives about yourself, solve through it, now you can actually go and say, "This is actually not my story. Therefore, that's not my identity. This is my new identity. I'm a fucking badass husband. I could be a badass father. I could be a badass friend." And then you'll start looking for evidence in that. You'll start taking on the actions and deeds and habits and characteristics of a badass dude. But you have to first address that. And without addressing that, in other words, without apologizing, you're never gonna have... You know, if... L- let's go back to that relationship that you had where you cheated on this, on this, on this woman. If you went back and apologized to her, it would be just as meaningful to her as it would be for you in terms of closure and healing.

   21. CWChris Williamson35:40

       Mm-hmm.

   22. BKBedros Keuilian35:41

       Then you would go, "You know what? That's what a higher status man does. That's what a dude who's connected to consciousness does. He owns what he... 'Hey, I'm sorry for doing this. I imagine it made you feel this way. Here's what I can do to make it right if that's okay with you.'" Like, that's a proper apology. Whether she accepts it or not doesn't matter. You did the deed. Now you can move forward with grace. And so by not fixing the traumas, the... A- and no one... It's rare. Like, one out of every three people have been physically or mentally abused. One out of every four have been sexually abused. So, if we just look at the number of dudes in this building, like, there's fucking trauma-

   23. CWChris Williamson36:15

       Yeah.

   24. BKBedros Keuilian36:15

       ... all around us, right?

   25. CWChris Williamson36:16

       Yeah.

   26. BKBedros Keuilian36:17

       So, we gotta do the work, heal from it, move on with a new identity.

   27. CWChris Williamson36:20

       You're someone who had some pretty ruthless trauma-

   28. BKBedros Keuilian36:23

       Mm-hmm.

   29. CWChris Williamson36:23

       ... growing up

6. 36:24 – 48:57

   Traumatic Events Can Become Your Superpower

   1. CWChris Williamson36:24

      as a kid. That is used, used. Many people feel like experiences that were outside of their control hold back their potential when they're moving forward. What has your worldview been-... of this. You know, patient zero for having dealt with something bad and then-

   2. BKBedros Keuilian36:44

      Yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson36:44

      ... coming out the other side of it.

   4. BKBedros Keuilian36:45

      Yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson36:46

      Like, what do you say to people that have had things bad happen in their past?

   6. BKBedros Keuilian36:50

      Yeah. Well, we, we don't, we don't realize that that bad thing, when healed through or processed through, could actually become a superpower, right? And so I'll give you an example. I was molested by two older boys in Armenia over and over again between the ages of four and six. When I turned six years old, my dad decided, "We're going to escape the Soviet Union." He was a member of the Communist Party. He decided, "We're gonna escape." Um, what he doesn't realize is, by escaping and bringing us to the United States, he saved me from almost daily mole- molestation by these two older boys.

   7. CWChris Williamson37:23

      You think that that would have just continued?

   8. BKBedros Keuilian37:25

      I would imagine so, until I got older and stood up for myself, right? Uh, but I was, you know, between four and six years old. These guys were, like, 12, 13, 14 years old. And so I come to the United States. I've never told anyone about this. I grow up. I get married. I have kids all the way until 38 years old, until I have this massive panic attack, right, which I thought was unrelated to that. I never even once... I just thought, "Hey, that's behind me now. I've left that." I go work with a therapist, and, and I'm like, "Hey, man, I had a panic attack. They put me on Xanax. I don't wanna be on Xanax. The doctor said I should do talk therapy. I think talk therapy is for broken people. I am clearly not broken, (laughs) so..."

   9. CWChris Williamson38:07

      Me?

   10. BKBedros Keuilian38:08

       Right? Right?

   11. CWChris Williamson38:09

       Not me.

   12. BKBedros Keuilian38:09

       Yeah.

   13. CWChris Williamson38:09

       Not this one.

   14. BKBedros Keuilian38:10

       And he goes, "Well, I think at... within four or five sessions, I can help you, give you some tools to cope with your anxiety." I was like, "Great." And being very type A, high-speed, tightly-wound person, I told him, I said, "I don't want this to be an indefinite thing where I'm sitting on your couch. Like, how long would it take?" He says, "Three to four or five sessions max." "Great." So he teaches me a few things, like, you know, uh, action alleviates anxiety, and anxiety being anticipation of future pain, and HALT when you're hungry, angry, lonely, tired, uh, you're more likely to go back to your old ways. Uh, like if you're an alcoholic and you're hungry, lonely, angry, tired, you're more likely to hit the bottle or whatever. So just manage your HALT and understand that action alleviates anxiety, and anxiety is really anticipation of future pain. And get your sleep, and don't try and burn the candle on both ends, all common sense shit, right? And so, you know, four or five weeks go by. I'm like... His name was Kevin. I go, "Kevin, I feel like a million bucks." Like, I don't even have this... There used to be this, this little undertone of anxiousness constantly gnawing at me. After about two or three weeks with him, gone, right? Gone. I'm sleeping like a champ. So I'm shaking his hand, writing, signing the credit card statement, and I'm standing at his door. Um, and he goes, "Hey, can I just ask you one question? How's, how's your relationship with your parents? Like, do you wanna talk about that maybe?" And I realize now, maybe he was trying to, obviously, not lose a patient, not lose a client, right? At the end of the day, the man's running a business. Um, at least that's my assumption. I should call him and ask him. I can't make that assumption. Four Agreements, right? Four Agreements says, "Don't go assuming things." So I was like, "Ah, my parents..." Like, look, dude, I come from a communist country. My dad was a little heavy-handed. He slapped me around here and there. But quite honestly, that was nothing compared to what happened to me in Armenia. I had never, not even told my wife about what happened to me in Armenia. But in these five sessions, Kevin had built such rapport with me that I felt like I could throw that out there. And he goes, "Well, what happened?" And I just started bawling, and I'm crying, and I'm just like... snot's coming out my nose. And he's asking me questions, and I can just nod my head yes or no, you know. "Were you raped?" And I'm shaking my head no. "Were you, were you abused?" "Yes." "Were you molested?" "Yes." You know, "By a babysitter?" "No." And so finally, we get... I, I can blurt out, "By two older boys," right? And he goes, "Man, Bedros, I'm so sorry." And I said, "Kevin, don't be. What happened to that little boy, I've dealt with." And he goes, "Can you say what happened to me, I've healed from?" And I went to a new level-

   15. CWChris Williamson40:37

       (laughs)

   16. BKBedros Keuilian40:37

       ... of crying, bro. I'm standing. Chris, I'm standing... So, so it's a two-story building. I'm standing at his door. I've handed him the credit card slip, and I'm thinking, "What's faster, smashing my way through the glass and just falling towards my car, or going down the staircase?" Like, that's all-

   17. CWChris Williamson40:52

       (laughs)

   18. BKBedros Keuilian40:52

       ... my brain is thinking. I've gone fully human animal, right? I've gone limbic.

   19. CWChris Williamson40:55

       Yeah, yeah, just escape.

   20. BKBedros Keuilian40:56

       I just wanna leave this conversation, right? But I'm stuck. Also, my body has seized.

   21. CWChris Williamson40:59

       Yeah.

   22. BKBedros Keuilian41:00

       And as I calm down, and he hands me a napkin, I drink some water. He goes, "Bedros, can I tell you something?" I said, "Sure." He said, um, "You know, by saying what happened to that little boy, that's called disassociation." I'd never even heard that term. This is 10, 11 years ago. He goes, "That's the first step in developing a multiple personality disorder." I'm like, "Holy fuck, it's the last thing I need," right? So I spent the next 15 months on his couch every Monday. (laughs) So he did retain a patient.

   23. CWChris Williamson41:32

       Yeah.

   24. BKBedros Keuilian41:32

       But man, we dug deep. And what we found is, I was living with shame, rage, confusion. Shame, like I, I was embarrassed that my friend Chris can't fig- find out about this. He's gonna think I'm broken, I'm, I'm filthy, I'm dirty. Like, "Why would you let two older boys do that?" 'Cause at the end of the day, I let them do that to me. And Kevin helped me unpack that, that, you know, young boys look up to their dads, their older brothers, the older boys in the community as a rite of passage. And these boys took advantage of that.

   25. CWChris Williamson41:59

       Abused that right. Yeah.

   26. BKBedros Keuilian42:00

       Exactly, right? And then the confusion, like, "Am I gay? Am I gay?" So I went around banging fucking millions of chicks in my 20s, bro, to, to subconsciously-

   27. CWChris Williamson42:10

       That's to signal to yourself that-

   28. BKBedros Keuilian42:11

       Yes.

   29. CWChris Williamson42:12

       Yeah.

   30. BKBedros Keuilian42:12

       Yeah. And you know what Kevin said? So, so I was like, "Kevin," like, "What the fuck, man?" So, like, "Was I gay?" He goes, "Well, you know, did you read any gay porn magazines or anything?" I'm like, "No." He's like, "Well, clearly not. Did you go and seek out any gay sex?" I go, "No, clearly not." And I realized, like, instead, I went and just fucking ran through hundreds of women just to signal to myself that I'm not, right? Like, that's how stupid I was. But again, when you're limbic, you're just looking for a solution. And then the rage, "How come no one protected me?" In Armenia, there's the babushkas, the, the grandmas.... uh, in Russian, "babushka" means grandma, and Armenia was under Russian Soviet control. And these grandmas were like the fucking mafia, bro. They, like, oversee all the children, doesn't matter if it's their grandchild or not. They would make me wash my hands and clean my face, et cetera, yet they s-... wouldn't save me from what happened there. And I realized, with Kevin's help, they never saw that. They would have torn those boys limb, limb to limb had they seen what those boys were doing. And so what really happened is on my timeline of life, there's this giant mountain that I didn't want anyone to see. So it's like, "Hey," all right, "No one see what's going on here. Shame, rage, confusion, unworthiness, unlovable." I even remember telling my wife one time, I go, "You and Andrew and Chloe, metaphorically, are in this room. Then there's this hallway, and I'm in the hallway, and that's as close as I can get to you guys." Right? And she started bawling, like, "That's so sad." She goes, "I feel that." Like, "I feel like there's another layer I have to break through-"
7. 48:57 – 53:52

   Observing the Path You Could’ve Gone Down

   1. CWChris Williamson48:57

      kind of want people to take away is that it is unfortunately a- a- a double-edged sword, and if you do not do some work to ameliorate those things, and to work out how the skills that you've developed or your response to the things that you don't like in yourself can be used to make the texture of your own existence better, if you don't go and do that, you will continue to be ruled by things that you hate.

   2. BKBedros Keuilian49:28

      Agreed.

   3. CWChris Williamson49:29

      And the, like, how close you can come to having that happen is fucking terrifying.

   4. BKBedros Keuilian49:37

      Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson49:40

      It's really, really scary. Like, I see, I can see the other path, or many other paths, right?

   6. BKBedros Keuilian49:46

      Mm-hmm. Many paths, exactly.

   7. CWChris Williamson49:47

      And there's many, many, many ways, there's many, many sets of slip- slippery slides down into some circle of hell.

   8. BKBedros Keuilian49:53

      Yeah.

   9. CWChris Williamson49:53

      And there's only a couple of set of stairs up.

   10. BKBedros Keuilian49:56

       Yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson49:56

       And, uh, yeah, I, you know, I wish, I wish I could give people the hope that they can, that they can do that, that they can make that happen.

   12. BKBedros Keuilian50:03

       Yeah. Well, see, but- but that's what we're doing here. It's- it's those who leave ... make excuses that, "Well, you know, it seems like you had this obsessive observing ability that I don't," or, "You guys have this ability to focus and have singularity of focus on a task, and I don't." Well, I didn't. I, when we came to America, by- by second grade, the Anaheim Union High School District, or Anaheim Union School District, uh, decided to do, I don't know, studies on all the immigrant kids in that particular school, Walt Disney Elementary, and they figured out that I'm OCD and ADD, right?

   13. CWChris Williamson50:39

       And this is before the, uh, perhaps over-

   14. BKBedros Keuilian50:43

       Yeah.

   15. CWChris Williamson50:44

       ... pathologicalization of-

   16. BKBedros Keuilian50:45

       Exactly.

   17. CWChris Williamson50:46

       ... you know, you-

   18. BKBedros Keuilian50:46

       This was, we're talking '84, '85, 1984, 1985. And so they put me on Ritalin, different doses, trying to figure out what's gonna work, and I remember just slumping over, just being hyper, uh, but because of that, they put me in these classes for special education, right? Special ed classes. And so effectively, I was in classes with what they called retards back then, right? And so that became part of my identity-

   19. CWChris Williamson51:08

       Mm-hmm.

   20. BKBedros Keuilian51:08

       ... that obviously I'm slow, obviously I'm- I'm not capable. Um, w- when in reality, that too was a superpower. My ability to obsess about something that interests me is a superpower, and so the people who might be like, "Well, you got ... I don't have this and I don't have that," it's like, but what you do have, if you heal through it and weaponize it, and that's what we need to do, I weaponized ADD, I weaponized OCD, I weaponized being molested, I weaponized being called a foreigner, an immigrant, getting a chip on my shoulder so fucking big, that I was like, "No one ever will put my family in a financially destitute place, man. Ever, ever." And so to me, making an obscene amount of money was like this mission, and that led to then developing, you know, as a human even more. I think I had to solve through that first, because money was a big factor as an immigrant in this country when you're living in Section 8 housing. But you can weaponize anything that's happened to you. So they don't have to have the gift that you have or I have, you just have to understand that what's happened to you, if you can heal through it, solve through it, process through it, there's a massive fucking superpower on the other side. It's the work the majority are not willing to do, but wanting the outcome that we have, and that's, again, once again, the gap, and it's the gap that makes them feel a certain way about life. They hate life, and they- they think they're at a disadvantage and they're anxious about it, so then they begin to escape and soothe with drugs and alcohol, infidelity, pornography, gambling, whatever the source is, and I don't care, I can check off every fucking box. I can check off every one of those boxes. But if you do the work and you close that gap and time collapse, you will have that superpower, and you can start living the life you're meant to live.

   21. CWChris Williamson52:50

       We'll get back to talking to Bedros in one minute, but first, I need to tell you about Surfshark. If you want to protect your browsing online and get access to the entire world's Netflix library for less than the price of a cup of coffee per month, you should be using Surfshark VPN. You can browse the internet without a VPN, but it's kind of like trying to run a marathon in Crocs. You can do it, but it's gonna be dangerous and uncomfortable. If you use public wifi networks like a library or a cafeteria or an airport, the internet admin of that network can see all of the traffic going back and forth between your computer and the internet, and that is tres bad. All of this is fixed by using Surfshark. It takes two clicks of a button. It is available across unlimited devices, your laptop, your phone, your iPad, even your smart TV. While I'm over here in America, maybe I want to access some British Netflix, just turn on Surfshark VPN, and I immediately get access to all of that. You can get an 83% discount plus three months free and a 30-day money back guarantee by going to the link in the description below or heading to surfshark.deals/modernwisdom. That's surfshark.deals/modernwisdom. I've heard

8. 53:52 – 1:02:26

   Get Good at Eating Shit

   1. CWChris Williamson53:52

      you say, "If you're gonna eat shit, get good at it."

   2. BKBedros Keuilian53:54

      Yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson53:55

      What do you mean when you say that?

   4. BKBedros Keuilian53:56

      Well, look, n- (laughs) life is not gonna be butterflies and flowers and rose gardens all the time. In building a massive brand like FitBody Bootcamp, I had to eat a lot of shit with the Federal Trade Commission. You know, I started FitBody Bootcamp and I wanted to, uh, make sure that all of my licensees at the time had a protected territory, 'cause, you know, CrossFit, for example, you can open up a CrossFit across the street from another CrossFit, and they just have to compete. So my whole thing was, if I have this licensing program, I can give them a five-mile protected territory, they're gonna be cool with each other, right? Little did I know that by doing that one thing, I crossed the line into franchising. The great state of California decided they're gonna fine me $2,500 times 115 locations that I had. And I said, "If you guys did that, I'm gonna have to go bankrupt, and those 115 locations are gonna have to fend for themselves," right? They've opened up a- a location, they bought equipment, they're running their business, we're coaching them and making this thing successful. So...I've had to eat a lot of shit. I was having to... (sighs) I was having to negotiate with the State of California, all while trying to also find ways to refinance my house and get another credit card, so that if I had to pay that money, 115 locations times $2500, I would. Thankfully, the State of California was kind enough to say, "Don't pay us the money. However, don't sell another location until you become a franchise." So again, more shit-eating. It cost me $87,000 to become a franchise. You gotta get a FA, franchise agreement, FDD. There's 13 states that require different FDDs, franchise disclosure documents. Then you're overseen by the Federal Trade Commission. You go through three audits a year. You have to have your, uh, uh, operations manual made in a very specific way. It doesn't matter if you're a Subway sandwiches, Jiffy Lube, or a Fit Body Boot Camp, this is how it is, and the disclosures have to be very specific. This is all fucking new to me, bro. I'm like, barely getting by back in 2010, but all of a sudden by 2012 I have to become a franchise. I got good at eating shit very effectively and efficiently, because if I'm gonna eat it slow, it's just gonna prolong the pain. So if I'm gonna go into franchising, or if I have to negotiate with, with the State of California, if I have to do anything... The pandemic, for example. We lost 218 locations, Fit Body Boot Camp locations, from March 16th to December 31st of 2020. So I decided, "All right, well if we're gonna eat shit, we're gonna eat it real- really fast and get really good at it." So let's just make a full pivot into online coaching. Like, take all your personal training clients, boot camp clients, put them into Facebook groups. We're gonna use Trainer Eyes. We're gonna follow along workouts. The problem is most people, they will sit on this, in this dissatisfaction and stay there, and stew in it, and root in it. My whole thing is, dude, you're- you're given shit sandwiches, eat 'em as quickly as you can and move on. Like, you have to move on. My friend Jason Redman, he's a, uh, retired Navy SEAL who was shot up all over his face, Purple Heart recipient, uh, he says, you know, he was on a mission, and they found themselves on the X, right? Like, you, he's the predator, him and his team, and they're going to kill the bad guys who are bomb makers. This is in Iraq in 2007. And next thing you know, they get ambushed, and he gets shot up. Seven shots across the body. One hits him through the cheekbone, blows out his orbital plate. Um, his eyeballs is hanging, his nose is gone. Um, shoots him in the arm. Uh, he almost had to get his arm amputate- amputated. He found himself on the X that night, him and his team. So now at this point, should they just sit there and call for an airstrike and wait? Or do they just do what they can and shoot back and attack and attack and attack? And so what he says in his book is that they had to just full on attack these guys while calling in an airstrike that was danger close to Jason Redman. He caught shrapnel, but the bad guys were dead. Helicopter came in, saved his ass. But the bottom line is, like you, most humans will find themselves on an X of ambush, life will ambush you, and they sit in it, they root in it, they take forever to stew in it. Instead, eat it quickly and fucking move on. Does that make sense?

   5. CWChris Williamson58:10

      Yeah. I, what, uh, what it meant to me if you're gonna eat shit, get good at it, was... In order to achieve anything that you care about, there is going to be an associated amount of shit that you need to eat. If you want to take on the burden of trying to achieve something in life which is meaningful to you, accept that the shit-eating is not a bug, it is a feature.

   6. BKBedros Keuilian58:37

      Mm-hmm. Fact.

   7. CWChris Williamson58:39

      It is a part and parcel of existing and trying to locally reverse en- entropy, right?

   8. BKBedros Keuilian58:48

      Yeah.

   9. CWChris Williamson58:48

      I'm locally reversing it. It is trying to act on me. You're a finite creature with an infinite complexity around you. Of course you're going to be scared. There are literally an unlimited number of ways that you can die, and a very, very small number that you can live through, right? Like that's just on a macro level.

   10. BKBedros Keuilian59:06

       Right.

   11. CWChris Williamson59:06

       But when it comes to achieving a life where the outcome is the one that you wanted, like that's one fucking outcome. And yeah, there's a few different routes there, but like it's a, you know, the entirety of different wa... I could walk outside now, put, like put my head on the tarmac and get hit by a truck. Or I could put my head slightly to the left of it. Like, all of these different iterations, right? The multiverse of ways that Chris's demise could fucking occur to me.

   12. BKBedros Keuilian59:27

       Sure.

   13. CWChris Williamson59:28

       And yet, you believe, you hope that you can manage to wrangle reality, your existence into some sort of usable, functional, useful, nice, enjoyable form. There is going to be an associated amount of pain and shit-eating that goes along with it.

   14. BKBedros Keuilian59:50

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And I do believe that's a function of our creator, right? Whether you believe in universal consciousness, you believe in God, you believe that whatever, I- I believe we have to go through a series of tests to see if we are qualified to the, for the next level of happiness, bliss, joy, success, abundance, whatever. And so, the shit sandwiches will be laid out along your journey. There is no way to circumvent that. The creator does want to test you. And I believe proof of that is, what do they say, 82% of lottery winners are back to being broke within two and a half years. Well, that's because they didn't eat the shit sandwiches, they didn't deal with the adversity, the pain, the setbacks, and so they don't know how to value that wealth, and therefore they lose it. A fool and his money will quickly be parted. And I'm not even Christian. It's just the Jesus wrote something that really made sense. And so if we know that we have to eat those shit sandwiches, one, get really good at it, and two, understand that it's part of the process so that you can achieve the outcome that's desired.

   15. CWChris Williamson1:00:50

       80% of the time you'll feel like you're failing. 15% of the time you'll feel like you're treading water. 4% of the time you'll feel like it's over. 1% of the time you'll feel like you're winning.Why?

   16. BKBedros Keuilian1:01:02

       Yeah. Thi- this i- this is not scientific, by the way. This is something that I would just share with my wife, stand in the ki-

   17. CWChris Williamson1:01:07

       Journal of Bro Science.

   18. BKBedros Keuilian1:01:08

       Ex- exactly. This is just Bro Science, but based off 20 years as an entrepreneur, that's about how I felt. 80% of the time, I felt like I was just behind. I was constantly behind. You know? And- and... But that 1% of the time I felt like I was winning. And then after a few years, about five or six years into my career as an entrepreneur, I realized the secret is just to find as many of these one percents and k- k- keep stacking them.

   19. CWChris Williamson1:01:32

       Yep.

   20. BKBedros Keuilian1:01:33

       'Cause I could dwell on the 80% of the time where I feel behind, or the... or the fricking whatever it was, five, 10% that I feel like, you know, everything's falling apart around me. Like, the 4% that everything's falling apart around me. Or I could just focus on these one percenters and realize that, "Okay, that's a win. Let's move on to the next battle, the next battle, the next battle." Before you know it, you've won the war, you know? Inc. 500, uh, recognition, Entrepreneur Magazine's Top 200 Franchises. Those recognitions will come if you stack the one percenters.

   21. CWChris Williamson1:02:00

       Yeah.

   22. BKBedros Keuilian1:02:00

       You don't need 100% wins. And I think it's probably impossible to have 100% wins all the time. Uh, but as- as any kind of high performer, and I believe this- this is probably true for professional sports, uh, for people who are actors and celebrities, they- they feel like they're just behind, they're not doing it, they're... someone else got the part, and then boom, they land a part that gets them the Oscar. That's a one percenter. Stack more of those. And that's what worked

9. 1:02:26 – 1:17:18

   The Realistic Path to Enlightenment

   1. BKBedros Keuilian1:02:26

      for me.

   2. CWChris Williamson1:02:27

      I put this in a newsletter the other week, so I wanna teach you about it.

   3. BKBedros Keuilian1:02:30

      Sure.

   4. CWChris Williamson1:02:30

      I think it's kind of related to what we're talking about here. "I've been thinking about how to achieve a realistic path to enlightenment. As much as moving to a cave in the woods and spending a decade in silent retreat might be great for your spirit, it's not going to be doable by pretty much anyone. If you've meditated enough, you know that you accumulate momentum and mindfulness kind of like a swell moving underwater. After enough time, there is a force and a power to your ability to drop into the present moment, and sometimes even little waves of genuine calm insight break above the surface. But if you're anything like me, it doesn't result in an extended self-perpetuating enlightenment. Doesn't even really work on its own where your mindfulness sneaks up on you and you're in the present moment without realizing it. More so consistent meditation and a focus on mindfulness strengthens the thinking muscle that you use to wrangle your mind to actually exist in the now. You learn to punctuate your day with instances where your mind finally settles into the moment, and then it's gone. But then you can get it back later in the day. And as far as I can tell, this is the realistic path to enlightenment. You are never going to become a fully blissed out, in perpetual non-dual astral realm synchronicity, bro. But you can string together a few moments of peace, so that at least for a few times each day, your mind rests where your feet are."

   5. BKBedros Keuilian1:03:46

      Mm.

   6. CWChris Williamson1:03:46

      "I always used to think that this was a failure. If I can achieve mindfulness but then lose it, that's still not persistent enlightenment, so I failed. Instead, I think it's smart to reframe the goal. If you can just have your mind and your feet in the same location five or 10 or 20 times a day, that's a good start. And then maybe you can do it 25 or 30 times. That seems both attainable and really useful." And that seems to be what you were doing there, right? "I understand that self-doubt and uncertainty and fear of the future is just going to riddle my experience as I try and do something that's difficult." That was in the business world, but it could be in personal development, it could be in trying to reshape the dynamic of your family or whatever it is that you're trying to do. And presuming that you're going to be able to do this and it's just like an ambient peace, equanimous, beautiful, like, membrane that you get to skate along, that's not gonna happen.

   7. BKBedros Keuilian1:04:42

      Mm-mm.

   8. CWChris Williamson1:04:42

      But what you can do is try and string together a series of these wins.

   9. BKBedros Keuilian1:04:46

      Yeah.

   10. CWChris Williamson1:04:47

       Here is a landmark that I have gotten to. And importantly, string together a series of wins that you don't immediately look over the shoulder of as soon as it's happened. "Oh, Inc. 500, fantastic, but what's next?"

   11. BKBedros Keuilian1:04:59

       Right.

   12. CWChris Williamson1:04:59

       It's like, no, no, no, no, no. Like, allow yourself to celebrate.

   13. BKBedros Keuilian1:05:02

       Yeah.

   14. CWChris Williamson1:05:02

       I think, uh, Hardwiring Happiness by Rick Hanson's a really great book that... It came out just a little bit before the podcast revolution, which is a shame, 'cause I think it would have really changed a lot of people. He came on the show to talk about a second book five years ago. What he basically says is that when good things happen, you should allow yourself to marinate in them as much as possible, even if it's just a small thing. And this is such an unbelievable tactic, like having a 10-minute walk after, after having food. Something good happens, your first response should not be to kind of accept it for what it is. You know, people that hold themselves to high standards, I do this too, there's almost a part of me that doesn't want to bathe in things that go well because they should be a given, because I'm a high performer that demands a lot-

   15. BKBedros Keuilian1:05:46

       Right.

   16. CWChris Williamson1:05:46

       ... of myself.

   17. BKBedros Keuilian1:05:46

       Right.

   18. CWChris Williamson1:05:46

       Do you get... You know what I mean?

   19. BKBedros Keuilian1:05:48

       I- I do.

   20. CWChris Williamson1:05:48

       Yeah. So-

   21. BKBedros Keuilian1:05:49

       I do.

   22. CWChris Williamson1:05:50

       But this isn't the way that the- the brai... We spoke about the reticular activa- activating system earlier on. You want to permanently be on the lookout for as many reasons to feel good about yourself as possible, because Lord fucking knows there's enough reasons to feel like shit about yourself, right? And everybody has that.

   23. BKBedros Keuilian1:06:06

       Yeah.

   24. CWChris Williamson1:06:08

       So what I try to do, and I fail a lot, and I need to work harder at this p- specific skill, maybe do a sprint for sort of three months where I really, really, really focus on it. I finish a podca... I finish a podcast, like, three or four times a week. Like, I have the opportunity to set myself a little reminder, maybe I need a Post-It note, to set myself a little reminder that when I finish, for just, you know, 15 or 30 seconds after I do that, or after you complete the tasks that you said for the day, or finish your gym routine, or- or, uh, do your meditation, or have a great conversation with your partner, or have a bad conversation with someone that you didn't want to but you did because you needed to be truthful and be virtuous to yourself, when you do that, just allow it to sit for 30 seconds and just marinate in the sensation of that.

   25. BKBedros Keuilian1:06:53

       Yeah.

   26. CWChris Williamson1:06:54

       "Okay, how does it feel for me to have done something that I feel proud and satisfied about myself for doing?" And...... Rick, neurons that fire together, wire together. You will continue to find reasons to feel good about yourself.

   27. BKBedros Keuilian1:07:08

       Yeah.

   28. CWChris Williamson1:07:08

       And, uh, as a strategy, you know, the- that's it. That's the concept of hardwiring happiness there in the book. Like, highly recommend you go and read it, but if you don't want to, there's- there's the concept.

   29. BKBedros Keuilian1:07:16

       What- what you're describing there, especially for high performers, right? Pe- people that are high speed, tightly wound, and have some high expectations of themselves, we are wired to get, to get satisfaction, to get self-worth through production. Production. Which, in many ways I'm jealous of regular people who can just watch TV and, you know, not feel lazy and sluggish. Dude, I could watch TV, like a show with my son, like I, we, I, we watched Pulp Fiction the other day, and I had comple-... I probably stacked like 15, 20 wins that day. But after watching Pulp Fiction, it's somewhat of a long movie, I was like, "Fuck, man. This was not productive." Like, I have conditioned myself, or maybe better said this way, I've been wired through a series of abuse and trauma and neglect to feel that I am only a worthy human when I am producing.

   30. CWChris Williamson1:08:17

       (laughs)
10. 1:17:18 – 1:23:45

    How to Not Give Power to Enemies

    1. CWChris Williamson1:17:18

       in, uh, people's ability for personal growth, uh, especially this... The, the people that are listening to this are already outliers, right? They've got enough time to listen to me and you waffle on about the nuances of, of-

    2. BKBedros Keuilian1:17:28

       Sure.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:17:28

       ... like, fucking mindfulness for two hours.

    4. BKBedros Keuilian1:17:30

       Yeah.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:17:30

       So, they're already outliers, but I have a lot of faith that most people realize that there's something up here. "I, I'm built for more. I'm built for more, and I, I, I could become more, and I really, really want the tools to be able to do it." And the satisfaction that I get... I would actually go as far as to say that the satisfaction of noticing when I nearly go awry and then bring myself back in is about on par with reflecting and realizing that I never went awry in the first place, because both of those things have been arrived at by conscious effort.

Episode duration: 1:50:35