017: From War Stricken Refugee to Champion with Sam Bakhtiar

Foreign.

Hi, I'm Natalie Jill, fat loss expert turned high performance coach. When odds are stacked against us, how do we shift and create everything from nothing? How do we level up when we aren't feeling it yet or we've had a big setback? On this podcast, I'll be talking to some of the most inspiring and courageous men and women on this planet who at their worst learned how to achieve success greater than they ever dreamed possible. Leveling up and creating everything from nothing. Born in Iran under a strict regime and no freedom of speech, Sam Bakhtiar was a very poor child. And not just financially. From ages 3 to 11, he went to sleep to the sounds of sirens and bombs. In fact, there was a constant firework of missiles and air attacks throughout his whole childhood. His parents divorced when he was just three and he never saw or heard from his dad again. Raised by his grandparents and a single mom, Sam thought this war stricken poverty way of life was normal. And then in 1985, Sam's World began to change. He and his mom left his refugees with just $500 to their name and one piece of luggage. They made their way out of Iran. Coming to the US was not what Sam expected. His expectations of the US were based on shows like Dallas and Dynasty and even the A team. But the drug dealers, prostitute filled streets and abandoned buildings that he came to know as home was not what he expected of America. Barely speaking English, being a minority, being poor and living in a foreign country, he longed to fit in. His love of sports gave him his first excitement to try out for a basketball team. But when that five foot five Sam was rejected on a two hour hike home in the snow, he vowed that day he would one day become a known success. A success is what Sam is now. He leveled up, transforming his own physique from scrawny, awkward kid to a champion bodybuilder who holds the record of having a first place title in every single weight class. Today, he's not only a proud husband and father of two beautiful girls, but he is a devoted family businessman and he became a doctor. He's helped transform thousands of people, not only physically, but from what he says is even more important mentally. Please welcome Sam to the show and hear exactly how he leveled up and created everything from nothing. Today I've got Sam Bakhtiar here and I hope I pronounced that right. Thank you so much for being here Sam.

Thank you so much for having me, Natalie. I really appreciate it. It's an honor and privilege to be here.

So you look at you on Instagram and you've got all these followers and such a success, and I see all these things that you've done and it looks almost unobtainable. And I know you've mentioned to me that it was not always this success for you. I would love to know who you were before you became this incredible.

Well, thank you so much for your kind words. But Natalie, I don't see myself successful at all. For me, success is just a stepping stone, right? You want to always want to achieve more, achieve more and become more. And it's not just about having stuff and having followers and having nice things. It's all about achievement. Right? You get somewhere and then you're like, well, this is cool. I wonder what I can do, what I have to do next. And that's just being human, right? God created us to always evolve and become better. So, you know, the answer to your question is that I grew up very poor. I'm a Persian American. No. You know, I was born in Tehran, Iran, and from age 3 till age 11, you know, we were getting bombed on every night by a very familiar guy you should be familiar with. His name is Saddam Hussein. So he was attacking our country and every single night we used to hear sirens and we were under air attack and we would go rush into our basement and we'll just hope that the bomb doesn't land on our house.

So from age 3 to 11, I listening to you say this, I have an 11 year old daughter and I'm just trying to wrap my brain around that. Like how, what are you even told about this and how are you even sleeping with that?

You know, it was just crazy. I mean, you would go outside and it looked like it was fireworks, but it wasn't fireworks. It was anti air missiles and it was shooting down and shooting up at the air. And so it was very tough times. We, when I say we, it was me and my mom, my dad and my mom got divorced when I was three and I never saw my dad again. And so we were very poor. We lived with my grandma and grandpa, you know, and my uncles and everything like that in one house and, you know, just grow up with a single parent in a third world country wasn't really, really easy.

Yeah, I'm so, I'm trying to imagine this. So you're three years old even, and your dad's gone and you're poor and you're living at grandma's house and now you've got bombs going off. How is your mom or your grandmother even talking to you about this. What were you thinking going to sleep at night?

You know, it's funny because when you are kind of like are born into something like that, you kind of think that's the normal thing. Right? You don't know any difference or, you know, or anything like that. We just know that we were at war. We knew that the resources were scarce. We had to wait two hours to get gas in the car. I mean, when I say car, it's not our car. My grandpa had one car for the whole entire family, you know. So at that moment in time, you don't really know any better. As you're such a young kid, you just hear gossips of people talking. Your aunts and uncles and your mom talking. But it was just another day for me.

Now, did you have a mom that was stressed all the time? Were you in that energy?

Yeah, you know, my mom was always stressed because she always had to go to work all day. You know, she had to take care of things, she had to provide for me, you know, and she was an amazing woman. Not only, you know, being a mom, but she was a dad and a provider and everything at one time. But, you know, it was a very stressful situation because we were in a regime where there's no freedom of speech. They want you to dress in a certain way all the time. All the women have to be covered up. Men have to have long sleeve. And it was just a big dictatorship, you know, that was going on at the time. And I was getting recruited when I was getting towards 11 years old. They were recruiting guys to go to war at age 12.

Wow. A year old. A year older than my daughter. Yeah. I can't even imagine this. You know, it's here. We're on the other side over here. It's like we don't really know what it's like to be living in that, you know, it's incredible. So, my gosh. So tell me, how does the journey over to here begin? Like, what were you even visualizing for your life at that time? Like, did you think as a kid, Like, I think of my daughter saying what she wants to be when she grows up. What did you want to be when you grow up and how did you end up over here?

You know, I didn't really have a choice of why what I wanted to be. You know, in a Middle Eastern or Persian culture, you know, you're grown up and you're told that you can only be three things in life. And if you're not these three things, you're a Failure. They're very old school. They're very education oriented and very close minded. So they're not, you know, entrepreneur there means you're a merchant. So they don't really, you know, look, you know, entrepreneurship is just as somebody who's just selling stuff like a bazaar or like a yard sale, you know.

Everyone'S, everyone's an entrepreneur. They have got a yard sale. I love it.

So my mom, always growing up, you know, ever since I can remember, said you can only be three things in life. You can either be a doctor, lawyer, or engineer. And I prefer you become a doctor, you know.

Now are they all sort of paid the same over there too? Like is that, is there no hierarchy of that or is it.

They're getting paid more. You know, doctors, lawyers and engineers get paid more. But it's not just about being paid. It's. It's the status that they see. The status.

Okay.

You know, they're very status oriented.

So as a kid you're told these three things. Did you have one of them that you wanted to be or were you daydreaming of something else?

You know, ever since I was a little kid, I love sports, I love cars, and I like girls.

You're our normal guy.

Ever since I can remember those, like my three things that I always have been attracted to and you know, I'm 45 years old right now and the hobbies stayed the same. I technically haven't evolved.

Yeah, you sound like most men. You know, sports, cars and girls. I think you're normal there.

Thank God I narrowed the girl down to one, so I'm blessed.

Yeah. So you knew like sports cars and girls, but you thought, I'm going to be a doctor, lawyer, engineer. You knew war was just what you knew.

Yes.

How did you end up over here?

Okay, it's a great story, man, and I hope you're ready for this.

I'm ready.

Okay. So my mom says, you know what? You know, I don't want my only son to die at the war because of men's egos. So she arranged for us to go to France as refugees. So we went to France as refugees of refugees of war. So we left the country and with $500 and one luggage. That's all we had.

All your belongings in one.

All the belongings, one luggage. We went to France where we stayed with one of my aunts and we stayed there for a year. Then we came to United States as refugees in 1985. Now, Jill, when we're leaving, when we're coming to the United States. I'm thinking, you know, I'm watching all these shows and I'm going to show my age. Some of you younger people probably won't know this, but there were shows like Dallas and Dynasty and the A Team back then.

Oh yeah.

And when I was looking at it, I'm like, oh my God, I'm going to go to the United States and everybody there is rich and everybody has swimming pools and everybody has Cadillacs and mansions. And that's what I was seeing on tv. So when my mom said we're going to United States, I'm thinking I'm going to, you know, where like the movies are showing. And I was very disappointed because we came to a little town called Sharon, Pennsylvania.

Okay.

Because my uncle was going to college there in a college called Youngstown State University. And Sharon is a very depressed old steel mill town where all the steel mills left and there was no economy and there was a middle of crack epidemic. And so we came there in 1985 and my uncle had a convenience store in the worst neighborhood in the town. And we came there. I mean the neighborhood was so bad. It was full of abandoned buildings and the road wasn't even paved, it was just a brick road. When I say the hood is the hood.

Yeah.

So I came there and I'm like, wow. I wasn't used to the diversity of people. I wasn't used to people being that big. Americans are big compared to the Europeans and the Persians. Right?

So you go from war stricken area, so it's not nice there, I'm assuming. And then you're in, you are in Europe, so it's a little bit nicer. So you're getting used to nicer stuff. So then you come here thinking you're going to have Dallas dynasty or a team and you've got this dangerous area. Did it remind you where you came from? Did it remind you of war zone or what were, what was.

It was just totally different. Like, I mean even though we live in a war zone, we live in a nicer neighborhood. And it wasn't like the war, like the bomb hit us directly, but it was right near us.

Okay?

But when I came to the United States, I was expecting mansions and Cadillacs and swimming pools. And when I saw abandoned buildings and just ugly streets and excuse my language, but drug dealers and prostitutes outside, I'm like, oh my God, what is this? Where is. I mean, where is. I was looking at in there? So anyway, I started working for my uncle at his convenience store and then I went to, to school the first day as a seventh grader, I walked in and I said, you know, I want to go to seventh grade with my mom. I barely spoke English. And remember in 1985, in the middle of Nowhere, USA, I was the only minority in town. When I walked into school, there were black people and there were white people and then there was Sam walking in. They didn't know who the hell or what the hell I was. Yeah, I remember they telling me, what is you? Oh, wow.

What is you?

So I went to the guidance counselor, I said, I want to enroll in seventh grade and I need to learn English. And I also want to play football. And they're like, yeah, yeah, football. And they show me this odd looking ball. And I'm looking at that, I'm like, that's not football. My English is not that good, but.

Oh, you're used to European football?

Yes. I'm like, my English is not that good, but I know that's the foot and that's the ball. What you're playing is rugby. And they're like, no, no, no, no, that's called soccer here. And we don't have a soccer team. And now I'm devastated because I'm in a new country and this country is not as nice as I thought it was. And I don't speak English, I have no friends. Kids are making fun of me because I don't have the same school, same clothes or same haircut or same thing. So now I'm totally depressed because I don't know what to do. I've never heard of, I've never seen American football before. I didn't even know what baseball was. And the only thing that I've ever seen before was basketball, even though I've never played. And I'm 55 right now on a good day. Okay, so like, okay, I'll play for the basketball team. So I tried out for the basketball team. And you know, I'll never forget it was a snowy Pennsylvania day. You know, it was a Saturday. I went, you know, I put on my best shoes and my best basketball clothes and went on, tried out for the basketball team. And next thing you know, the coach read everybody that made the team and I wasn't one of them. And at this point I left, walked two hours in the snow home crying my eyes out. Really, you know, my eyeballs were just red. And I came home and my mom was like, what's wrong? I said, mom, I didn't make the team. And she sat down and gave me the speech like every other parent. And Said, okay, no big deal. Here's what we're going to do. After school, I'm going to take you to the boys club. You go to the boys club, you work out for two hours, practice basketballs and I can pick you up after work. You do your homework, you get better, you try out next year. So that was the plan. So I started doing that. But while I was going to this boys club, it was called the bull club. So this is like a boys club. I saw these guys go into this room upstairs and these guys looked all jacked. You know, they looked all jack. You know, they look like Sylvester Stallone and like the Rocky movies and Arnold. And I was like, wow, I want to look like them. And one day I walked into this room upstairs and I saw these bunch of these big guys just lifting weights and cussing and having a boombox and slapping each other. And I was a scrawny, odd looking kid. I went back, I'm like, man, I ran out of there, I'm like, this guy's gonna eat me. So I was scared. So I waited every day for them to leave. And I started going out there and trying to work out a little bit that I didn't even know how to lift. But by the grace of God, almost killed, you know, I didn't get killed. Almost killed myself so many times I dropped the weight on me. There was nobody there to help me. Literally, I could have been dead, but I would never lift because somebody was there. Because I was too self conscious. After a couple of months, Natalie, I started, I started developing what I call baby muscles. You know what baby muscles are?

No, tell me, what's a baby muscle?

Baby muscles are muscles that you can only tell on yourself. Nobody else can tell.

I love it.

Okay, yeah, baby muscles. And I'm thinking I'm all bad, right? You know, like I'm like now, you know, in the bathroom, you know, flexing from a mirror, I see little, little things popping out and my self esteem started, started develop. I start feeling better about myself at school, you know. And one time my mom walks in, walks in my room and she goes, what are you doing? I'm like, mom, look at my muscles. She's like, what muscles? I'm like, mom, if you stand right there at that angle and look at that light right there and look at that cut, look at that. And so that was my first thing of falling in love with body transformation.

Wow.

And learning to lift. And because not only changed me physically, but it really changed me mentally and it changed my self esteem How I carried myself. And I literally fell in love with it. Just fell in love with it. And every week my mom gave me a $20 allowance. And that $20 went straight to a magazine, a bodybuilding magazine, and the rest went to gnc. I literally will buy the latest amino acid or, you know, protein powder or something like that because I was just infatuated with just bodybuilding and changing my body now, you know, this was like at age 15, you know, you know, and I would just get the latest potion and read the latest workouts and things like that. And my mom and everybody in my family think that I'm just crazy. I just lost it. Yeah, nobody in our family ever did anything like that. You know, Persians don't work out. You know, person's idea of working out is person say, yeah, you know, I want to work out for two hours. What they mean is they went to the gym, they sat by the sauna for, you know, an hour, then they went into the Jacuzzi and then they took a shower. That's their two hour workout. That's a, that's what I call a Persian workout.

I love this. And the thing that, you know, I keep catching from you is the power of your mom too and her belief in you. And what I love is that here you're growing up first and war stricken areas. And I know my first question was like, how is your mom dealing with that? And it's like that didn't even phase you that, you know, your mom was just, she was strong. And then you having, you know, you moved to this country and you're feeling depressed down and walking two hours home after not making the basketball team. And your mom like, is just so uplifting. Like she doesn't take the excuses, she just goes into like, here's what we're going to do, here's what's going to happen. And I think that that person believing in you is so amazing and so huge for people to hear that just having somebody else believe in you is so powerful.

Yeah. My mom is a very strong minded woman. And I can honestly tell you, as much as I love my mom, she's very hard to satisfy. You know, I don't think I've ever heard her say, good job, Sam. She always pushed me to do more. She said, well, this is good, but you can do better.

Got it. Okay. I hadn't heard that part. Okay, so it's sort of a backhanded like, yes, you got this, but let's do this too.

Yes, yes. And that's like Been embedded in me, you know, like you. Like earlier you said, wow, you're successful and you have this many followers. You have this and that. I don't see myself as successful as at all. For me, I'm always looking at the next thing. What can I do better? What can I do? Things. And honestly, sometimes it just drives people crazy, you know, But I'm just never.

Yeah.

You know, I never sat down and celebrated. Oh, wow, I did good. Maybe for a second, you know, like, I wake up every morning, I'm like, oh, my God, I cannot believe this is my house.

Yeah.

Oh, my God, I cannot believe this is my car. Oh, my God, I cannot believe this is my life. You know, every morning I'm grateful. And I heard Ed Milet talk about it one time, and I think his word was blessfully dissatisfied. I'm blessed, but not satisfied, you know, and that kind of describes me. I'm blessed. I'm looking at it. I think Tim Story, my pastor, he married us and he said something very profound. He says something like, he goes, thank God. You know, he goes, I'm not where I want to be, but thank God I'm not where I used to be.

Yeah, you know, it makes sense too. You know, your dad leaves at age 3. If your mom's hard to please, it's that constant seek for approval. So what else can you do?

Yes. Yep.

Got it. Okay, so bring me to how you get to be this mega success. So I get. I totally see why you start taking care of your body while you're getting your power and getting strong. And do you think that boy training, gets rejected from basketball, starts working out the gym, finds his love for that? Did you think that boy would become who you are today?

No, no. I mean, coming from a very poor family. And when I say poor, poor doesn't necessarily look, we're definitely. Nobody in our family was ever a millionaire. Nobody in our family ever made over a quarter million a year. So when I say poor, I mean we're working class. Working class family, you know, when I mean poor, not just financially, but also mindset wise. Yeah, I mean, I remember a couple of times, even a couple of my family members came up to me and say, post, Sam, you think you're all that now because you read a bunch of books? And I'm like, wow. You know, so I never thought in a million years that I'm here now. I always thought, hey, man, there's always some kind of a struggle and, you know, some kind of thing and, and. But I can tell you that I broke the curse and broke the family curse, and I'm here, and I want to hope I can pass on the legacy. Not the legacy as far as I'm monetary wise, but the mindset to my two daughters as well.

Yeah. Yeah. Where did you close that gap? How did you go from the belief system of my family's poor. I don't have the mindset. I don't have the support. All this stuff. How did you go from that to changing your mindset and becoming what you are? Because what you are now could not have happened without a change of mindset.

You know, the thing that God has always blessed me with was never, like, the best talent. I'm never the smartest person in the room, but I always had a vision. And I'm the type of person that I'm very disciplined and I do whatever it takes. Always been that way. Ever since I was a little kid. Being uncomfortable never fazed me. I thrived being uncomfortable. Matter of fact, I'm at a point. Point that I drive my wife and everybody sometimes crazy because I can't sit still and Netflix and chill.

I can relate to that. You're right. Yeah.

They're like, what is wrong with you, Sam?

Yeah.

I'm like, I feel like I can't just sit. Sit for two, three hours, just sit down. I'm like, maybe I need to read a book. Maybe I need to, you know, do some work. Maybe I need to email. And I'm getting better at it, you know, but it's not who I am. So I'm very uncomfortable being comfortable, if that makes sense.

Yeah, it totally makes sense. I can relate exactly to what you're saying. So. But, you know, you hit on something that every interview I've done has mentioned, and it's such a commonality, and I want listeners to grasp this, that you said you had a vision, and that is that big step. That's that first step that you have to have a vision of what you.

Want, you know, Very much so. And, you know, my vision came from pain. And let me tell you what that pain is. You know, growing up without a dad and struggling and seeing all the kids with that, having the nicer things in life. I remember going to people's Christmas parties and they had their own home and they had the nice gift that the kids got and things like that. I mean, growing up, I'm like, wow, I don't have a dad. I don't have anyone to take care of me or be able to provide me with a nicer Life. So I vowed to myself not to be that dad. So I vow to myself that when I have kids that I'm going to be able to provide for them and give them the best that life has to offer. If you look at anybody with success, there's got to be some kind of a chip on their shoulder somewhere.

Yeah.

Something that really, really pains them to be able to go out there and make it happen. Without that, it's kind of hard to get up in the morning and to be able to go out there and think it happens. So to this day, if you ever seen some of my things that I do, I get up at 3am and I really work until, you know, my body was like, okay, I'm slurring my words. Sam, you're sounding stupid. Go to sleep. The only time I shut it off is when it's family time.

Yeah. So your pain really became your purpose. And it sounds like your driving core motivator that your. Why is your. Is that you want it to be something else for your kids.

Yes. And, you know, and now I realize that it's got to be a balance. Right. You know, because for me, you know, I went totally opposite for. Because I such a chip on my shoulder that my girls for a while are so spoiled now they're five and nine, and these girls are just like, beyond out of control. And now I'm like, okay, maybe I need to pull back a little bit because I don't want to, like, yeah, I don't want to grow up at the Kardashians or. Or anything like that. So, for example, like, I've been taking them, like, the Disneyland or Legoland, and we just go all vip and, you know, we don't wait in lines and we just go right in. And now, you know, they come up to me and they're like, hey, they go places. They're like, hey, Daddy, are we VIP? Are we always VIPs? We're in Legoland one time and we're. We walked in and they walked right in front of. Excuse me, excuse me. We're VIPs. We have a little wing. I'm like, you don't say that. Yeah.

So part of you must feel some kind of good satisfaction. Like, wow, like, look what I provided for my kids. But I get what you're saying, too. There's that balance. You don't want them to be spoiled, but you've got to feel proud, too.

I do. I really do. You know? I really do, you know, and it's to the point I, like, I Feel like my girls are now, you know, bragging. You know, the other day we went somewhere and they're like, yeah, you know, we live in a mansion. And I'm going like, stop. I'm like, advertise this, you know. Yeah, but it does feel good inside. But. But I'm hoping to make sure they understand the value and the value of hard work. And I'm trying to instill that in them at the same time.

So you had a vision, you wanted more. You're clear on that? How did you end up with what you're doing now? And you do several things, so I'm not even sure what your main thing is. It sounds like you're pretty diversified, but where did you end up making your money? And then. And also, I want to know, has it been easy making money once you sort of dove into that, or did you have setbacks and failures?

Oh, no, I had a bunch of failures, man. I mean, you know, bunch of failures, you know. So when I graduated, so I went to Penn State University, got my bachelor's degree at pre medicine and nutrition. Then I went to Los Angeles and I moved to California, went to Los Angeles. Cultural chiropractic. I got my doctorate in chiropractic because my mom said that you need to become a doctor. Not because I was what I wanted to do, but I went to chiropractic because chiropractic was the closest thing to bodybuilding. You taught me, taught me anatomy, physiology, biomechanics. It had to do with muscles and bones and nutrition. So I was all in. But when I graduated in 1999, I gave my diploma to my mom. And my mom, I have a picture of my mom with my diploma. She held it up high in her head like LeBron winning the first championship, you know, and I said, mom, now you can go brag to all your Persian friends that your son is a doctor. But now I want to open up my own gym. And she goes, okay. So I started my Gym in year 2000 here in Chino, California, you know, and I was doing, you know, personal training. And I literally, for the first two or three years, live in a one bedroom studio apartment. You know, I worked day and night. You know, I was making at that time, you know, 10 to 15 grand a month, which was, you know, at age 27, 28. Oh, yeah, my family was ever doing that. And I was on top of the world, you know, I was doing well and I did well up until, you know, 2008 when the recession hit. And when the recession hit, you Know, none of my clients can afford personal one on one training anymore. A lot of them were realtors and into real estate and loan officers. And next thing you know, my income just dramatically changed. Dramatically changed. And nobody ever told me, and you know, nobody ever told me about economy. There's ups and downs in economy. So obviously I wasn't very good with my money. When I started making money, you know, I had all the toys and I, you know, everything. And I literally, now I can't afford to pay for my house. And I remember I was literally, my house was in foreclosure and my wife was pregnant. And now I'm, I'm looking at myself, I'm like, you're just going to be just like your dad. You know, I told myself, I mean, I had to, I sat down with myself. I'm like, you're such a loser, Sam. You lost it. You know, now you're gonna have a kid, the kids gonna come in this world, you don't have any money, the house is gonna be foreclosed on and you're gonna be a loser. And I literally was like, okay, I'm gonna have to do whatever it takes. I gotta get myself out of this. Worked literally 18 hour days for a couple of years just to make ends meet, was able to save the house. And then I came up with the Camp Bootcamp concept which is called a Camp transformation center now. I invented something called the six week challenge. And from then on our business started taking off and taking off and taking off and taking off. And now we have 107 locations that are open, we're international franchise. I own three different supplement companies and so far, you know, the rest is history, you know, and, you know, kind of stable now.

That's incredible. I mean, I think of all the people in, I mean, my gosh, that's what I built my business and brand on in fitness. But to think of somebody going from the recession to that is incredible. And all on a six week challenge and to have 107 locations, incredible.

Thank you. Thank you. It was a lot of trial and error as an entrepreneur. You know, nobody is undefeated.

So Sam, how did you get to that though? Because you know, like you said, you're going through this self talk of, I'm a failure, I'm a loser, this sucks. I'm going to repeat a pattern that my dad did. I get it in that 2008 recession, 2009, because I know that wasn't overnight. Like, how did you lift yourself up? What did you have to tell yourself? What did you have to do to get yourself to, to move out of that and to work to that. Like, how did you even pick yourself up to do the 18 hours to get to that?

It was like, look, if I'm going to go out, I'm not going to go out without a fight. I'm going to do whatever it takes. I've never been the type of person to let stress put me to sleep. Some people get stressed out and the day just freeze. I'm the opposite. I just can't go to sleep if I can't sleep. If I'm stressed out, I can't sleep. I might as well work. So, you know, you got to figure out what's the highest and best use of time. What am I going to do? I'm going to sit at home and watch TV and stress out. At the end of the day, that TV show is not going to do anything. At the end of the day, sleeping is not doing anything. The only thing I can do is try to figure this out. So I told myself, I'm just gonna do whatever it takes. And we came with that concept. You know, I've done six week challenges since 2010, and so many different variations, so many different things that we lost money on didn't work. Finally, you do it enough, you do enough. You fell forward, you fell forward and then, boom, headed out the park.

What makes your six week challenge different? Because there's so many fitness programs that have seven day challenge.

Originally, when I wanted to do the six week challenge was when I wanted to update our website. So we want to update our website. And I told myself, look, I'm gonna train 20 people for free, for exchange, for their before and after pictures. All they have to do is show up every day, work out. I'm gonna monitor them for six weeks. They need to lose £20 and I train them for free. And So I took 20 people and I started working with them. And after a week, two weeks, three weeks, most of them quit. And I was just devastated because I come from a background that you do whatever it takes. I couldn't understand when somebody comes into my office on Monday, sick and tired of being sick and tired. You know, they want to get in shape, they're tired of their current situation, current health and fitness, they're crying. Then on Wednesday they don't show up. I just couldn't fathom that. That kind of stuff really depresses me. You know, coming from where I come from, you do whatever it takes. Right?

Right.

So I was devastated, not only because nobody finished A six week challenge, originally, because the fact that some of these people were my friends and now they're avoiding me because they were embarrassed of not following through. And I remember one time I walked into the restaurant, there was this client and they saw me and they ran the bathroom and hide from me because they were so embarrassed seeing me see them in a restaurant. So I called one of my mentors. His name is Bill Phillips. You know Bill Phillips?

Of course.

So the great Bill Phillips is one of my mentors. I've been to his house, I've talked to him, to Colorado. I said, bill, what is going on? I'm trying to get these people to get in shape. I tell them to train them for free and they're not getting and they're not there quitting. And he goes, sam, simple. Those people are motivated by external prize. He goes, let me tell you something. He goes, I've had people who have a doctor's note that have high blood pressure, diabetic, you know, borderline cholesterol, they need to lose weight from a doctor and they don't do anything about it. But all of a sudden I tell them, hey, I'll give you this limited T shirt. And all of a sudden they're all about it for $20 T shirts. And these people are millionaires. And I'm going like, are you kidding me? And they're like, no, I'm not kidding you. He goes, that's what I found. So I'm like, okay. So I took from that statement from Bill, I'm like, what can I offer these people so that they will finish the challenge? And I said, you know what, I wanted this challenge to be free, but obviously they have nothing to lose. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to collect the money up front. And what I'm going to do is then at the end, when they finish the challenge, I'm going to give them their money back.

Oh, brilliant.

So I switch it. So I told him, hey, the challenge is free, you pay for it. But you got to come in five days a week. You got to do what I tell you to do. You got to show up to your reins and once you finish it, you know I love your money back. So I took another 20 people. So 20 people went through the challenge and their motivation was they didn't want to lose their money, right? So they pushed through. Most people, you know, when it comes to that week two, week three, when all of a sudden they have a weak moment and they want to have a drink or they want to have some fries or whatever they want to do, they give in. And next thing you know, when they give in, they quit.

Yeah.

Now they didn't want to give in because they didn't want to lose their $500. And they kept push through, pushing through, pushing through. And next thing you know, they found that they have the inner strength to push through and they found that new zone they'd never been into. So at the end of the six week challenge, when I was weighing these people in, out of the 20 people, 19 actually finished, one person quit. 19 finished the night before. I had 19 checks pre written. That was our deal. Then finish the challenge, I can give them their money back. And so when they came in, they started weighing in and I was, you know, taking their after picture. A lot of them were like, you know what, why are you giving my money back? I'm like, that's our deal. They're like, you don't want me to your gym anymore? I'm like, I do want you in my gym, but that was our deal that you do the thing and I'm going to give you your money back. They're like, well, I don't want to go back to my old self. I love this is what I'm doing. Can I just stay and do another challenge or can I get a membership? I'm like, of course. He goes, just apply to a membership. Apply to my one year. I'm like, okay. So out of the 19 people who, who went through the challenge, only two people asked for a refund. 17 converted into incredible.

What a lesson. And you know, people and motivation and what people having skin in the game and they get results, they don't even want it back.

Absolutely.

Wow, I love this. Do you ever worry about what other people think? I mean, you're so on a mission and so great at shifting and making things happen. Like, do other people's opinions get in your way ever?

You know, as you get more successful and more successful, you know, like I said, I don't consider myself successful at all. But once when you climb higher and higher success ladder, it becomes part of territory. Nobody's going to talk about somebody who didn't do anything. So I got used to it. I'm not going to lie, man. I mean, you know, back in the day it bothered me a lot more. So over time, you know, you have a thicker skin and you just expect it and it doesn't bother me at all these days when I hear people's opinions or people talk about me, I'm like, all right, well that means I'm doing something.

Yeah. Do you ever have days now that you have self doubt or feel down? I mean, I know you said you don't feel successful, which boggles my mind that I kind of understand after talking to you, but do you ever have self doubt that like you can't do something?

You know, it's, you always have a little bit of self doubt about the next level? Right. Let me give you a comparison analogy, if you will. I remember when I first started lifting, you know, guys measured our success in the weight room, usually back in the day, which, how much can you bench? How much can you bench? He was always like in high school, how much can you bench? And I remember, I'm like, hey man, once I get to two plates, two and a quarter, 225, I beat a man, right? So you'll do 225. I'm like, I wonder if I can ever get to 275. And they get to 275 and I wonder if I can ever get to 315. And then it was never ending. And for me now it's okay, you wonder what it's going to take for you to get next level. But let me tell you what I've done to ensure that. So I have two little journals. One of them has what I call my 2018 goals and my life goals on them. I read those twice a day, in the morning and at night. But then what a lot of people don't do is now that you have your yearly goal and your life goal, what do you need to do every single day to chip at it? What do you need to do every single day to chip at your life goals and your yearly goal? And I came up with a list of stuff that I need to do every single day. I don't know if you ever read the book the Compound Effect by Dan Hardy.

I have not.

It's one of the most profound books. Basically, the book states this, Dan Hardy is the editor of Success magazine and he basically interviewed all the most successful people in the world. And he basically came out to this. He goes, little things repeated over time, little things done correctly, repeated over time compounds to big results. And small things repeated, small wrong things repeated over time goes into big disaster. Let me give you an example. Look, Natalie, if people started eating a hamburger, french fries and a shake today and gain 40 pounds tomorrow, nobody will eat a hamburger fries in a shake, correct? So you eat a hamburger, fries and a shake today, it's not going to show up but if you start eating it more often after over a year, over two years, over three years, it's going to show up.

Yes. I've done that before in my life.

Me, too. Me too.

Yeah.

And the same thing goes with doing the right things. You have a great workout today. You can do your cardio, you do your weight. Say you eat perfectly today or perfect this week.

Yeah. You look in the mirror, you're like, where are my abs?

Right. It's not going to show up. But if you keep repeatedly doing it, it's going to do it. So I'm asking everybody here that's going to listening to this, what do you need to do every single day? That really doesn't seem like you're doing anything, but it's going to take you to that next level, and. And you got to write it down, and you got to be relentless about it. I write it down every single day. These are the same things.

So can you share what some of those are? Like, what are some of the things that you do every single day?

Okay. Every single day? One hour of cardio.

Okay.

One hour of weight every single day. Five balanced meals.

Okay.

Every single day. I'm very conscious of what I spend my money on. Okay. So a lot of times people don't talk about it. People say, I want to save money. Okay, well, I want to save money. Stop spending money on bullshit.

Yeah.

Right. So I'm very big on one of what, you know. Okay. If I want to save money, I don't care how much money you make, because I always spend more than you have. Right. Every single day, I block out two hours of time for reading. So whether it's an audiobook, whereas what is something I want to read, I want to do it every single day. I text five of our franchisees.

You text five of your franchisees.

Okay, text five of my franchisees. Because for me, for me to be able to get our business to the next level, I got to make sure our franchisees are successful, and I need to communicate with them every single day. I need to reach out to a couple of my partners and see how they're doing. My business partner see how they're doing it. Is anything I can do to help them every single day. I need to speak to my daughters and talk to them about their day and how they're doing. These are little things that you feel like, oh, well, of course you have to do that. But sometimes we take it for granted and we don't do it.

No. I'm pretty sure that a lot of things on this list most people don't do, by the way, I'm pretty sure most people don't do an hour of cardio a day, an hour of weights, eat five balanced meals. It's conscious of what they spend. So it's a great list. I love it. I wrote it all down.

Yeah, it's like a list of 15 things. Part of that list is read my goals twice a day.

Okay.

Part of that goal is to tell my wife I love her. And these are. I check those. Believe it or not, I check those. My wife thinks I'm like a checklist. Not. See, that's the only way that I can get it done. My mentor, one of my mentors, told me that the shortest pencil is better than the longest memory.

I like that. So, Sam, how do you shift your mood? You don't feel like it Because I know that you have to have days where like, I just don't feel like it. I don't feel like doing this today. What do you do?

You know, I don't. Gosh, man. Can I tell you something?

Absolutely.

I don't have those days ever.

Never.

I don't. Unless I'm sick in the hospital or a tragedy happens, I stick to my game plan no matter how I feel. Listen, if you live your life by how you feel, you're going to have a hard fucking life.

Yeah.

You can't live your life by feelings. You got to live your life by design. You got to live your life the way that you set it out to be. You gotta live. You gotta stick to your game plan. A lot of people just, oh, I don't feel. I don't feel like this. I don't feel like that. Well, if you just feel, I want. I feel like this, or I feel like you can't do that. You can't do that.

So you, it's like you notice your feelings, but you don't let them in.

I mean, look, sometimes I don't feel like getting up at 3 o' clock in the morning. But my goal is stronger. My will to succeed is stronger than my sleep. Okay, I got a sleep pain. I feel like, tired, I feel sore. I feel this, I feel that.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

So three in the morning? What's happening at three in the morning? Like, how do you start your day every day with that? Is it starting with this list? Is it starting with going over this stuff? Is it a workout? How do you structure your day?

I'm glad you asked that. So I learned for me, now I'm almost like a robot. They call me a robot, but, but back in the day when I was getting myself in this routine, you got to figure out how you can do things correctly and get out of your own self. So I remember when I was first getting used to these kind of hours, I used to hit the snooze button and they say, you know, sometimes I turn the alarm off and then next, you know, I'm not getting up. So here's what I do, what I, what I did. So I learned to put the alarm 10ft, 15ft away. So I actually have to physically get up out of the bed to turn the alarm off. And right there, right next to it was my pre workout sitting, sat right next to it. So I get up, turn the alarm off, hit my pre workout. Now you can't go back to bed. Now you have to start your day.

Yeah. Or it's going to wake you up for you.

Yes. So these days, you know, I just get up at 3:00 in the morning, you know, just out of respect to my wife. I have my clothes and everything set out in another room. So I don't, you know, you know, I, you know, brush my teeth in another room. I sneak out of there and get ready, I go to the gym and come back home. I read my goals first, go to the gym, come back home, have a healthy breakfast, take a shower, get ready, go to the office.

So you do your two hours, your hour of cardio and your hour of weights in the first thing in the morning. So you're there for two hours?

Absolutely. I have to get mine done first thing in the morning because during the day that's my time to work, focused work. And then after that is family time. I want to work out when my family is sleeping.

Got it. You have just redefined a whole new definition of commitment when talking to you. I don't know that I've talked to somebody this committed to a routine and a schedule and a regimen. It's pretty incredible. How do you stimulate creativity? Does it just come to you with ideas or do you have to get yourself in the mood to be creative? What do you do for that?

Honestly, creativity for me comes from when I'm just relaxing and reading. Creativity comes from a parasympathetic state, not a sympathetic state. So sympathetic nervous system is what is called the fight or flight system. As you know, when you're in a fight or flight, you're in the woods, you are in a defense or an offense position where you're not really seeing the things around you when you're relaxed and you're just kicking back and reading a nice book, you have all your phones off, you have everything off and you just concentrate on this one thing. That's when creativity comes. Creativity comes from you being alone with yourself. No other distractions, just thinking of things. Random things that pop up in your head.

Yeah, I love that. Sam, a couple few final questions for you. I'm curious, like, who do you hang out with? Like, what types of people do you surround yourself with? Do you look for people to uplevel you? Who's in your circle?

Honestly, my circle, as I got older and wiser, my circle has become very, very small. Natalie, I became crystal clear of my purpose a few years ago. I sat down with myself and I asked myself, okay, what are you going to do? And let me tell you, I didn't share this with you earlier because it's kind of embarrassing, but I'm going to share this with you right now. About four years ago, four and a half years ago, I went through a divorce. And I was devastated. I was devastated because that was like towards the end of when I was doing horrible financially and you know, we're going through a divorce and I moved out of the house and moved out of house that was almost foreclosed on, but I saved it and I live in a hotel for four months. And again I told myself, sam, you know, now you don't have any money. You're not going. Now you're going to get divorced just like your dad. You're not going to see your kids. What are you going to do? I sat down in this little hotel that I live in for four months and I said, okay, well, there's two things I can do. Most men going through a divorce that I know, they go out partying, going to the clubs, drinking, feeling sorry for themselves, and that's what they do. And nothing ever good comes out of that. I had a couple of friends that went that route that DUIs and kind of self destructed. So well, that's not what I want to do. So I said, what's my priority in life? What's my top priority in life? Well, my top priority in life was my girls. And I sat down and I said, all right, well my top priority be with my girls as much as possible during my life. But what am I going to do when I don't see him? Because now I don't see him every day. I'm going to get to see him on Wednesdays and on the weekends. So I told myself, well, if I'm not going to be with my girls, then I'm just going to work. I'm going to provide for my girls. That's the only two things I'm going to do. So my top priorities was my girls, and now I recently got remarried, my family and providing for my family. So when you have your goals and your vision crystal clear, then decision making becomes very easy. So if somebody calls me up right now and wants to hang out, I don't just hang out. I have my family to hang out with, my girls to hang out with. So it either has to be something regarding giving me more time for my children or providing for my children. So my circle has become a lot smaller and I'm a lot more crystal clear on what I want to do, if that makes sense.

Yeah, absolutely. So I have a final question that I've asked everybody. What are three pieces of advice that you give someone that's like, maybe in a rock bottom spot, like, somebody's at that rock bottom, they've had a failure, they've had the awful things happen, they're feeling that thought that you had that I'm a failure, I can't do it. What would three pieces of advice be to them so they can start to dig themselves out of that?

Well, number one is if you rock bottom right now, if you at the rock bottom right now, then the only way to go is up. If you study success history, nobody just went straight to the top. People have hit rock bottom many times to study. Anybody, anybody successful, they went through it. So you have a choice. You had a rock bottom. Are you going to lay down and keep being at the rock bottom? You're going to feel sorry about yourself and, you know, say, oh, you know, I'm just not going to do it, or are you going to get back up and fight? If you look at boxing or mma, when you get your. When your back is against the wall and somebody's punching at you, you have two choices. Either get knocked out and go down or be able to figure out a way to fight back and fight back. That's number one. Number two, where you are right now doesn't mean that you're going to have to stay there and where you want to be. Where you are right now doesn't define your life. Your story doesn't need to end right now. You're one idea away from your next million dollars. You're one person away from your next big deal. You're just one degree away from doing something big. God has created you to become great. Utmost God doesn't make almost children. And number three is your associations. If you want to become a better basketball player, then play with people who are better than you. If you want to become a better football player, be around people that are bigger. You cannot be the biggest fish in the pond. You have to be the smallest fish in the pond. And then once you become the biggest fish, then find a different pond.

Oh, that's good. This is incredible. Sam, I absolutely, I love talking to you and learning from you and I love your commitment and just how clear you've been and how you really just turned around your whole life from a whole different direction I could have gone in. Where can people learn more from you? Where can they follow you? Where can they find you?

You know, my Instagram is Sam Baktiar S A M B A K H T I A R. They can find me there, you know. And also sambaktr.com is my website. But yeah, well, you know, I'm just here to serve. There's so many people that have helped me along the way and have given me nuggets that I was able to take and apply to my life. And if I can serve in any way, you know, that's a big fulfillment for me. Tony Robbins talks about, you know, success without fulfillment is the biggest failure. And that's one of my biggest, most favorite quotes. Because being successful and being at the top and not taking anybody with you and not helping anybody along the way, it is the biggest failure. And I'm just here to be able to give back. And if you're in a place right now that you need help, anything that I can do, it'll be. It'll be my pleasure.

Thank you. Sam, this was amazing. Thanks for joining me today.

Thank you, Nala. Thank you for having me.

Thanks for leveling up with us today. Please share this episode if you found it helpful so others can join in. And don't forget to hit that subscribe so you don't miss out on future shows. And if you would leave me a five star review, I appreciate those so much. I read all of them and it's how I know that I've given you information that you find valuable. And come interact with me over on Instagram at nataliefillfit. I read all the direct messages and comments over there. Make it a great day. Creating everything from nothing.