Recently, I had the pleasure and honor to be interviewed by my longtime client, Purdeep Sangha. His show is called “The Male Entrepreneur” podcast. I usually avoid the spotlight but I couldn’t say no to my brother from another mother.

This is part 1 of the interview.  You can listen below by clicking the link or if you prefer reading then the full transcript is available below as well. Anyway here’s how he describes the interview.  He is a great writer so don’t get too excited. My life is not as exciting or as badass as it sounds. 🙂

Enter Purdeep: Imagine growing up in the mean streets of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Your father is a beast. You fall in with the wrong crowd. Before you know it, you’re flirting with a life of crime and all the possible consequences that go with it.

Now, imagine being able to turn that all around. Instead of a life sentence in prison, you’re working with some of the most successful people in the world. Instead of beating people up, you’re changing their lives for the better. Instead of struggling to get by, you’re living the life of a rock star. It takes a certain type of mindset to make this change possible. Billy Beck III had that mindset. This week, on the podcast, he’s sharing some of his most powerful insights with you.

You’ll discover:

• What kinds of gifts turn boys into men
• How to pivot when you hit rock bottom (hard)
• Which people you need to get the attention of if you want to excel in your field
• Why you’re likely setting your goals too low (and how to fix that)
• The best way to master any skill
• How to turn one opportunity into infinite opportunities
• Why bullies are actually needed in society
• One mind-blowing fact about your personal health that even your doctor doesn’t know
• How to find a balance between being tough and being empathetic
• And more

Warning. This one gets a little raw. May not be safe for work. Listen anyway. – Purdeep

To listen to Part 2 of the podcast CLICK HERE.

 

If you prefer to read it, here’s the transcript…

Nathan: Helping you build a better business so you can lead a better life. This is The Male Entrepreneur Podcast with Purdeep Sangha.

Nathan: All right. Welcome to The Male Entrepreneur Podcast with your host, the alpha male himself, Purdeep Sangha. And Purdeep, you’ve got a special guest lined up today.

Purdeep Sangha: You bet. I’m so excited today because I’ve been trying to nail down this guy for so long and I finally got him. This guy, he’s like a lion. It’s tough to trap him, but I’m super excited to welcome Billy Beck the third onto our show here today. Aside from being elected into the Fitness Hall of Fame, you’ve also been voted Personal Trainer of the Year, two time winner for The World’s Best Personal Trainer Contest. Like this guy knows his stuff when it comes to personal training, getting results and just being a high performer overall. But more than that, just to give you a little bit of background, he’s a human being. And when I met Billy for the first time, he just totally threw me off whack because I said, “A guy with this kind of background and reputation, I can actually have a conversation with him.” This guy is super cool. So I don’t want you guys to wait any longer. I just want to introduce, Billy, welcome to the show.

BB3: Oh thanks, Purdeep. Thanks, Nathan. I appreciate you guys having me on the show.

Purdeep Sangha: Yeah, thanks. Another quick fact out there is Billy is actually my personal trainer as well, and he kicks my butt and I just feel so privileged to have someone with so much knowledge helping me throughout my life and just taking my fitness and my life to a completely different level. So Billy, I just want to thank you first of all. I did your workout this morning. It was awesome. I just absolutely love what you do for me here, man. And the reason why I have you on the show is A, because this show is all about the male entrepreneur, and you are like the epitome of the male entrepreneur. So thank you for coming on the show. Billy, can you just give us a little bit of background in terms of where do you come from?

BB3: Yeah. Well first of all, thanks for trusting me with your health and fitness. It’s a privilege and an honor, so it’s nothing I ever take lightly. You could train with anyone and you chose me, so thank you. Where did I come from? I’m not sure where I came from, but I was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And so really, most of what happened when I was growing up in Pittsburgh is when all the steel mills closed down. So it was a really tough time. There was a lot of unemployment. People were struggling. And my father was like bigger than life, he was like six foot five, and I’m five foot nine so you can see how tall my mom is, she’s four foot nothing. And my dad was in special forces in Vietnam. He was not like the typical dad though.

BB3: He would work in a steel mill or a factory for 12 hours, then he’d come home and train, and then he would do triathlons on the weekend. And then he started fighting in like tough man contests, because the way a tough man contest works is just random people show up on Friday night and they fight. If you win, you come back Saturday night, you just keep fighting until no one’s left. And my dad would win those things all the time. And he was doing that in his forties, and what happened was is he was inspiring people, but there’s also a level of intelligence you need. Like when you see someone do something, it’s like, my dad might not be normal. So at his age and getting hurt really bad, they said, “Hey, you can’t fight anymore.” And so he turned professional, became a professional undefeated boxer, and he did that until he was 48 or 49. And so that was my role model, and he never bought me a toy my entire life.

BB3: He only got me things that sharpened me physically or mentally. So I remember when I was four I got my first weight set and punching bag, and I loved it. Other people want to hug me when I tell them that. I was like, “No, this is awesome.” So I was hooked by the time I was 13. I grew up in a trailer, so we had very little space. So it was like, “Hey, you can either have a weight bench or you can have a bed.” And so I slept on a weight bench for three and a half years. And I’d lay on there like I was Jesus, my arms would be out on the little pads and my legs would be crossed just so I could stay on there.

Purdeep Sangha: That’s crazy. Wow.

BB3: I always knew what I wanted to do, and I knew it was always something like this. And even when I was playing football in college, I was still training people. And I was a strength coach for my high school the year after I graduated. I would go back and train them, the team, and then I would go to college and I would go there, and then after football season I would continue to train people myself. And then one of my friends opened a gym and her dad, he was Doctor Canturna was his name. And he was my high school football physician and my college football physician. And he was just like the best, because one time I got hit right on my chin. I was running down at kickoff, I was a freshman in college and so it was a big deal to get a play then, right, as a freshman. So I’m booking down the field, and I’m just like hounding on the guy with the ball. I’m like, “I’m going to crush this dude. I’m going to destroy him.”

BB3: And as I’m running someone somewhere, I don’t know where the guy came from, hit me right in my chin, and it looked like I stepped on a landmine. I got back up and made the tackle somehow, but I don’t remember any of it. And then my head coach was always really tough on me, because I was mean. I’d hit the quarterback when they had the red jersey on. I was always hitting everybody, but I always went all out. And so I remember he comes over to me, Coach Lockhart, he comes over and he looks at me and he goes, “Are you okay?” And he never says that. I’m like, “Fine.” And then I look over, and we have a white jersey on, and I just have blood pouring down. So like I cut my whole chin open, and then Doctor Canturna’s in the locker room and he looks at it, he goes, “Hey, we don’t have any anesthetic.” And the other team scored right at that moment. And I just laid back and he just stitched it up-

Purdeep Sangha: Right there.

BB3: He was that kind of guy. Like other ones would be like, “Oh, liability.” He goes, “I knew you since you’re a kid, I’m stitching you up. Go back in.” And that’s what I did. And his daughter, Megan, was older than me. I went to school with her brother and younger sister, and she was super cool and she was always like a bigger sister to me. And when she was like 25 she opened this big gym. I don’t know, where I lived, there weren’t any big gyms. And she didn’t have to work, she’s from a wealthy family, but she’s a go-getter, you know? And as she’s opening it, they signed up like a thousand people and they all got three free personal training sessions.

BB3: And I just wanted to train, and I had a bad reputation because I used to collect money for a bookie. I used to get in fights all the time. I was just out of control. I was born to fight. My dad’s a fighter. I fought for money. And so no one would hire me. I was like, “I want to be a trainer.” No one would hire me. I went everywhere. I’m like, “How far does this go?” I drove 45 minutes to a Gold’s Gym, and they knew who I was. They’re like, “No.”

Nathan: We ain’t hiring you, dude.

BB3: They’re like, “Yeah, we’ll think about it.” And I was like, “Shit.” So Megan gave me a shot. So she’s like, “Hey,” I didn’t get officially hired to be honest. But she said, “Hey, you can get a free membership if you take all these thousand people.” Like there’s other people there too, not just me, for these three free personal training session. And I was like, “I’ll do it. I just want to train.”

BB3: And I had to skin chickens and bartend to pay my bills, but that’s what I did like most of the day. And I would just need all these people, just tons of repetition. And then what happened was two weeks after the gym opened, she passed away in a car accident. And I’m not an employee there, but I took it upon myself and some other people that were friends with her there to make it successful. And so I remember I was so broke though. I lived above a garage, wasn’t even a house. It was a garage in an alley, and I lived in one room above it. And in the winter it gets really cold there, the pipes would freeze so I couldn’t shower. So I had to go the gym and shower, and that seems like, “Oh man, that sucked.”

BB3: It was one of the best things that ever happened to me, because I was like a 21 year old, to be able to do thousands of personal training sessions, not get paid for it, but I developed so much experience and so much compassion, understanding for people when you sit down with them and be like, “Okay, so tell me what do you want to do?” And it was always a story of that I’m not enough. Like, “I need to weigh this much so that I can feel like I’m enough so I can be happy.” Or, “I need to look this way when I’m in a bathing suit,” whether it’s a man or a woman, and because I’m not enough.

BB3: They said different things, but when it came down to it, it was always that. And all that experience really was really great for me. But I remember I went to … I would learn everything, and I was young and I felt like kind of inadequate because I was so young, and I was training people that were successful. I trained the Over 45 Mr. America, I was training professional athletes from Pittsburgh Penguins and stuff. And other trainers, they’re kind of ego-driven maniacs. And so they were like ripping on, like I was getting all this stuff and I wasn’t confident yet. I didn’t know who I was as a man yet. And I was still a kid and I was like, I wanted to kick their ass because that’s what I did. And I’m like *** , pardon my language. That’s what I said.

Purdeep Sangha: It’s all good, we can bleep that out.

BB3: And so what happened was I didn’t get one certification, I got 12. And it wasn’t that I needed them. It was because I felt like I needed to know more. Like I need to gain a lifetime information in a year. That’s what I decided, because I’m 21, how do I get there? Then by the time I was 23 I was at a conference, and they had this big sign that said, “Are You The World’s Best Personal Trainer?” And I walk up to the table and I’m like, “Yeah, I’m going to win this thing.” And the guy’s named John Spinserellis, I know him to this day. And he’s like, “It’s for Metrics. Metrics sponsored it.” And basically what you did is you had to take, it was a really good structure, and you would get a client, you would do their measurements, you’d submit everything, write down their goal, and you’d send it to them.

BB3: Then you had to document everything for 12 weeks and send it back. So you had to prove that you got results. And it was like I think 25,000 trainers or something. So not every trainer in the world, but very few. There’s only a couple hundred that actually finished, because trainers don’t get results. That’s the bottom line. They’re just hanging out with people. They count their reps, and they don’t really use science and they don’t really understand psychology. To get someone, you got to have like a passion to want to help someone, be able to tell them what they need to hear, not what they want to hear. And that’s scary because you can lose a client, because you can upset people because the truth people don’t always want to hear. They’re like, “Yeah, it’s good to be truthful,” but people love the lie. So what happened was I was one of the finalists, and then I went in there.

BB3: I didn’t know what was going to happen. I was like, “I thought they just said, ‘Who’s the best looking one here?’ And then you win,” and I was like, “Oh, I’m screwed.” And so he sat down, they called me in this room with my client, and I had one client and there’s multiple categories, and then all the people around the table were all the people I learned from. There was like a guy named Paul Chek, but all the people that I learned from … like most trainers will take, and I think there’s a lesson somewhere in this, but most trainers will take like one thing and say this is my guru. I’m going to learn from this person, and that’s going to be everything! Anytime someone disagrees, I’m going to argue with them, I’m going to debate them. And I always said, well, when I did martial arts when I fought, I learned them all.

BB3: I didn’t learn one because I’d fight someone that could go on the ground and they’d choke me out. I’m like, “Oh fuck. I don’t want that to happen again.” So I had that mindset when I was young. So I carried that over to training, and so I learned from everybody. And I wanted to take what was useful and discard the rest like Bruce Lee said. And so when I got in that room, I knew what everyone wanted to say. I knew everyone’s beliefs, because I knew what they thought. So I crushed it. I was like, “Oh, I understand what you would say from this point,” and I would just go around the room and I knew everyone’s perspective. And so I won that. And then one of the other trainers there, Brian, I remember his name, he was a really good guy and a really good trainer, and he had two clients.

BB3: And I was like, “You can have more than one client in this competition?” And they’re like, “Yeah.” And I’m like, “Well, I’m going to win them all.” And so the next year I did this program and I got all these clients and I trained like 33 people, and I got them in incredible shape in all the categories. So I destroyed it, and so that was huge for me. And then the following year, other trainers voted and they voted me as the Trainer of the Year. And that meant a lot more to me actually, because it was like the people I was trying to impress.

BB3: Later on, I realized it does not matter what other people think, but that’s kind of how I got there, and I was always focused on like mastering my trade. My Dad would always tell me like, “Hey, if you work hard at something and you get really good at it, there’s other opportunities.” He’s like, “Look at Arnold Schwarzenegger, he used his body to achieve these other things.” And he would always bring that up about things, because you could get really good at a sport and there’s other opportunities, not just the sport. And so that’s what I did with training. And so that was like where the big evolution occurred, and from then I’ve just repeated those things, honestly. It’s not magic.

Purdeep Sangha: No, that’s awesome. Your story is cool.

Purdeep Sangha: I love what you said at the end there in terms of mastering something in particular and that kind of opens the door up for everything else. When did that hit you? So when was a moment for you that you just said, “Wow, these doors are opening now.”

BB3: Yeah, well I think there’s some humiliation at times that help you, especially as a man. Things that like, you know when people say you shouldn’t bully, I think bullies are awesome because they force you to … like when you fight and you fight somebody, I’ve been in hundreds of fights, so there’s a thing you do to know what’s going to happen, and you throw down. And when you throw down, people either bitch up, they just kind of cover up or they throw down. So there’s a big difference. That’s when you find out if you’re a fighter or not. And if you’re a fighter, there’s a very specific mentality. So I got picked on by these older kids at one point when I was in eighth grade. I was going out with this super hot chick I really liked, and you’re in eighth grade, had to get dropped off by my mom and stuff at the mall.

BB3: And when I came out, these kids were all there and they’re all older. They can drive, they’re like 16, 17, 18, but they’re still in the same grade as me because they’re not that smart. Right. And I remember them kicking the crap out of me. And I’m trained to fight, but I was more scared of my dad and my teachers than these kids. So I was just curled up in a ball and just getting kicked and punched. I’m waiting for someone to help me, and I could see people through the cracks walking by, and looking but not doing anything, like grownups. And I’m like, “Hmm.” And at that point I realized like, “Okay, it’s up to me.” And I took an ass whooping there, and I remember I got up, I was so mad that night. I trained that night, I ran that night, I couldn’t sleep. And I’m like one by one, I will avenge this. And that’s not the best attitude, but I was 13, 14 years old. So that’s what I did for the next couple of years.

Purdeep Sangha: It’s payback time.

BB3: Yeah. But I was like I know I can develop, I can learn anything, I can develop the skills, work hard and I give it a massive focus, and I constantly vision that. Like this will never happen to me again and it will never happen to anyone when I’m around. I promise you that. And that’s what I vowed. And I think making a statement of absolute certainty like that changes you. So people say, like Tony says, Tony Robbins, my best friend, he says, “It’s your moments of decision that your destiny is formed.” And most people don’t think of a decision, like decision comes from the Latin root inducas, which means incision, to literally cut off all of their possibilities.

BB3: Because when you choose one path, you can be massively successful. But when people get distracted, and what happens is, is like when I work with a client, I’ll have clients who are like, “Hey, I want to do this.” Or they’re learning things, which I love that they learn. But to master something, like you have to own that path. You’ve got to only do that thing for a period of time because then the principles get crossed. So you could have three programs that are affected when done individually, but when you combine them, they may not work at all. And so I learned that later with fighting for one. Like, okay, if I’m doing Jujitsu in a tournament, it’s not the same as when I’m on the street. If I go to the ground on the street, one of their buddies comes in and will kick me in the head.

BB3: And so I was like, “Yeah, that doesn’t work.” And then I was like, “I need to learn from people that fight.” And so I would go to bars and I’d be like, “Okay, who’s the guy that fights here?” And I’m like a kid. And they’re like, “What the hell are you doing here?” And I’m like, “How do you fight? I want to learn how to fight.” And then I’d fight these guys, they’d beat the shit out of me. I’d always choose one thing and I just owned it. So even now, I met this incredible doctor, Doctor Jerry Tenant in Dallas, he’s like 79 years old. He’s just a healer, like a real healer. He’s an MD. But he realized that, and these are great at trauma and they’re great when you’re really sick and you didn’t take care of yourself or you were in a car accident.

BB3: But they’re not great at like the prevention or certain things like cancers for instance. They’re not going to have a high success rate. Right. I’m not saying they’re bad, but they’re a byproduct of the system. So these are really good people that were trained in a way that doesn’t always work. And so he took it upon himself to, he has an incredible story too, to learn how to heal himself because he got super sick. He’s one of the doctors that did the research on LASIK eye surgery, so he’s not like some woo woo doctor, you know what I mean? He’s legit traditionally trained. And what happened is when they were using the laser, they were cutting the lens on the patient, and they didn’t know lasers didn’t kill viruses. And so he breathed that virus in that was airborne into his nose through his mask, got in his brain, got encephalitis, and he was in bed for like eight years.

BB3: He could only think clearly for about two to three hours a day. And during that time he took it upon himself to figure out how to heal himself. And then from then on, now he has the Tennant Institute and he trains other people in how to do this, and it’s remarkably simple. But I’m learning from him right now. And so all I do is that. And I’m like, “Okay, with my clients now, how can this benefit my clients? Who do I know in the past that can benefit from this now? Or is there a demographic of people that can learn this so they can teach more people?” But that’s the thing I’m doing right now. So I always take something, I go deep on it so that I understand the principles, and if I know the principles then I can apply it in different situations. Rather than just like when we go to school, we memorize things, but we don’t really understand it. And so that’s really the way I roll.

Purdeep Sangha: Okay, awesome. Sweet. So I just want to pick up on one other thing, Billy. So you were a fighter, you scrapped. How do you balance, quick question because we’re going to go into another episode here with you. We’re going to bring you back on this show. But for guys, the one thing that we talked about in Male Entrepreneur is self-mastery, because that’s what it’s about. And the balance between your masculine energy and everything else, because you are a fighter, but how are you … because you’re a cool guy. You seem like someone that you could have a beer with and chill with, but then you want to scrap, you got Billy on your side. How do you personally manage between the two sides, the scrapper and the guy that’s empathetic?

BB3: Well, I think you have to be … you got to know yourself. Like when you take martial arts, they teach you honor. And I think honor is … like I would not scrap out of emotion. So you have to first master your emotions, because I used to get in fights when I was young because I was emotional. When you hang out with people that were basically criminals, they have different belief systems and different values, and what they value is respect. They demand respect. If you disrespect me, we’re going to fight. And it can be something, you can step on someone’s shoe and all of a sudden you’ve got to fight them. That’s silly. that’s ego, right? That’s not productive. So as a man or as a human even, your emotions have to be in check. You have to master that. And then the only time I would fight now is like if I’m on a plane, there’s a terrorist attack, I’m not going to sit there and wait around, I’m going to throw down. Right. That’s like my dream actually to do that.

Purdeep Sangha: You’re going to make a movie.

BB3: Or if like a man was beating the shit out of somebody, and that person’s not … I don’t know what’s going on but I’m not going to let that happen. You know what I mean?

Purdeep Sangha: Yeah.

BB3: You want to be able to protect people that can’t protect themselves, and I think that’s when it’s necessary. Like with your family, your friends, if something’s happening and you want to … training isn’t just about fighting too. Like if there’s a fire, can you pick up the people you need to pick up, your family, and get them out of the house. You want to have that certainty because people rely on you to feel safe. Women don’t generally feel safe. Tony does this in his seminars and the first time he did it, it blew my mind.

BB3: He says, “Gentlemen, how many,” there’s like thousands of people in the room, you know what it’s like. So he’s like, “Gentlemen, how many of you have feared for your life in the last year?” And like two guys raised their hand and they legitimately had someone, like they were in a car accident or someone put a gun to their head. He goes, “Now gentlemen, watch this.” He goes, “Ladies, how many of you feared your life in the last week or last month?” And every single one of them raised their hand.

Purdeep Sangha: Yeah, it’s crazy.

BB3: And you don’t realize, that’s things we don’t understand. And I think part of that being a fighter and stuff is having that compassion and also having that presence. Like when a guy starts bitching and complaining, you know this as a leader, like if you have a staff even as a business and you start bitching and complaining, bad day, it affects everyone. They’re like, “What the hell? Billy’s off. What’s going on? Billy’s messed up, we’re all going to be screwed now.” Like they rely on you for certainty, for strength. And so it’s your responsibility to master your emotions and have enough presence to give them the certainty so they can carry through. And then eventually if they’re around you enough they start to resonate that too. But if you’re up and down all the time, your life kind of happens to you and not for you. You’re not in the driver’s seat.

Purdeep Sangha: Yeah, I love it. I love that whole emotional mastery piece. We touched on that quite a bit. So thank you for sharing that. So I don’t have any more questions for you right now because I want to save them for the next episode.

BB3: Okay, great.

Purdeep Sangha: So Nathan, I don’t know if you have any questions for Billy.

Nathan: I have one question before we’re out of here. Where can listeners go if they want to find out more about Billy?

BB3: Okay, that’s a good question. So I love to stay behind the scenes. I work with a lot of people that impact other people and that’s kind of how I work. But I’m not really on social media. I have accounts, but I don’t check them. But you can go to my website. It’s billybeck.com, and check things out there. Some good information and stuff. But for the most part, I redirect people to others. And I have very few coaching clients. So if someone does want to get, there is a form on there they can fill out, and you have to apply. So I don’t take anybody, obviously. I’ve got to make sure I can actually help you, and if I can, then that’s the place to do it: billybeck.com

Nathan: Nice. Awesome episode. Pretty fantastic guest. And until next time, if people want to check out more episodes of the podcast, where can they go?

Purdeep Sangha: Malepodcast.com.

Nathan: All right, sweet. And we’ll be back with a continuation of this conversation on the next episode.

Purdeep Sangha: Awesome.

Nathan: Hey, did you enjoy this podcast? Make sure you never miss an episode by subscribing on iTunes today. This is the Copy and Funnels Podcast Network.

To read Part 2 of the podcast CLICK HERE.