Ignite Your Inner Fire: Turn Your Setbacks into Motivation through the Heartfelt Inspiration of Bishoy Tadros

He would end up moving from his home across the world to America.

And of course, by the time he turned 13, he would end up going in for brain surgery.

But the powerful thing is that instead of allowing all of these obstacles to define him, he instead chose to allow them to transform him.

And today, because of the journey that Beshoy has been on, because the man he has become, he is here today to hopefully inspire you in your own journey.

So from an Egyptian immigrant battling cancer to a man who has found a way to turn every setback into a powerful comeback, Beshoy's journey is one of hope, love, determination, and inspiration.

So if you're ready for an inspiring story to pull at your heartstrings, to get you motivated, maybe even a little empowered to tackle your own challenges, well then, my friend, you have found the right podcast to listen to.

This is episode 318.

This is my interview with the toy.

And yes, that means you to never give up on life, even when it may feel like life is giving up on you.

How do I accomplish this mission?

Well, I do it by bringing on guests who I believe can inspire you, empower you, motivate you, encourage you to keep going just one more day.

This life is hard, and I feel like we can all use a little help along the way.

With that said, I hope you enjoy today's inspiration, brought to us by Boshoi Tadros.

SPEAKER_02: So I was born in Egypt back in August of 1987.

When I was three years old, I was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.

And the story, you know, quite frankly, was this was around 1990.

And from a medical advancement perspective, you know, Egypt wasn't necessarily equipped to handle a case like mine, where ultimately it became a life or death situation.

And so while I, you know, do have some really, really vivid memories of my time there, mainly being around grandparents, my grandfather in particular, you know, I have a little bit of memory with.

And, you know, the reason being was that it was all they knew.

You know, they grew up there, they had spent their entire lives there, all their family and friends were there.

They didn't really know much about life outside.

My father had traveled a good amount, but still, you know, when you think about settling down somewhere completely foreign, regardless if, you know, there's the idea of opportunity there, it's still a very, very difficult decision to make to leave everything that you know.

And so that was the foundational reason why my parents had to ultimately make the decision to up and leave.

You know, some additional background is the fact that uh my family is uh unique in the sense that my dad is a Coptic Orthodox priest.

And when you think about, you know, that period of time in Egypt, Egypt was a heavily Muslim nation.

And so about, let's call it five to ten percent of the population was Christian, and the Coptic Orthodox Church composed a heavy majority of that, and across the entire Middle East, the Coptic Orthodox Church is the biggest Christian church.

And that's an important context because a lot has happened, obviously, over the last 35 years in terms of how the country has evolved.

But historically speaking, when you think about the priest's role in the community, especially in Egypt, it's a very figurehead type of position, meaning that he had served a community of thousands, if not thousands, of families, and essentially kind of had an open door policy for people, you know, in a country like that to call him, you know, whenever they needed on a 24-7 policy of sorts.

So it's important to call that out because that was a unique part of my overall childhood and how he had to take that part of his life and then figure out how to do that here in the States, where obviously it's a much different demographic and and much different breakdown, and the role of the religious institutions don't really play as big of a role as they do in you know some nations outside of the US.

And so that was a big part of my move as well.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, wow.

Now, after you guys moved, did you ever get to see family, whether on traveling there or then coming to America, even just on vacation?

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

So most of my treatment was between the ages of three and 13.

And so my mother, when she moved in 1990, she was 26 years old with a three-year-old child with cancer, and she was eight months pregnant with my sister.

So just imagine being 26-year-old with a child with cancer and eight and eight months pregnant and having to leave your family, your friends, and everything that you know, right?

And so in the years that followed, some of the relatives did try to come and visit us in the States, although there was just a lot of distraction.

My parents were trying to get settled, trying to figure out where they were gonna live.

They were trying to figure out how healthcare even worked in the U.S.

And the translation of Egyptian pounds to US dollars, they were really, you know, figuring it out from the from the ground up.

And so family did come to visit uh every now and then, and that definitely provided them some sort of comfort.

And my parents went back almost annually, but because I was in the midst of treatment, uh I didn't go back that frequently.

I did, you know, eventually go back.

I recall one time in high school, and then, or maybe when I was, you know, in my upper elementary school years, and then you know, I went again maybe a couple years after that.

But my parents definitely have close ties and they still go back.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

Wow.

You you mentioned how old your your mom was.

It started to say, I guess it just speaks so much to the power of love, the power of being a parent, and just even just who your mom and dad were, the fact that they're willing to give up basically everything.

The family that they had, the the position that your father had to move to this foreign country all in pursuit of better medical care.

I mean, you can't help but just admire them for the courage that they had.

SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.

I mean, you know, when I talk about my story, it's impossible to talk about the story without talking about the sacrifice that they made and, you know, fully understanding that that sacrifice was was rooted in love and unconditional love, and how when it comes down to it, especially when you think about relationships like a parent-child dynamic, you really can't put into question the heights or the limits of that love.

You know, now as a parent, it it's become abundantly clear to me that when it comes to the overall well-being of my child, there are no limits to how far I should go as a parent.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.

Now, where in America did you guys move to?

SPEAKER_02: So when we first moved, we moved to the city of Hope in California, and that's where I did about a year of treatment.

And, you know, I have vivid memories of of that as well because now I'm four years old and my memory is starting to take form.

In my first book, I talk about how my parents were also trying to figure out the schooling system over there.

And so now here I am, an immigrant child battling cancer.

You know, there's a lot of assimilation that has to go on, not just in terms of, you know, basic cultural assimilation, but small things.

Like at the end of the day, English was not my first language.

And in the book, I talk about how my parents were really focused on trying to normalize things for me, right?

And trying to, again, as a four-year-old, you can't really explain the complexity of cancer.

You can't explain chemotherapy, you can't explain what a spinal tap is or what radiation is.

So you have to do your best to make sure that your child is living the most normal of lives as they can.

And they had put me in a Montessori preschool outside of where we were living.

And I recalled that I was the only non-Asian student in that school.

And so here I was as a four-year-old trying to learn English, and I ended up in a hodgepodge of, you know, Mandarin and, you know, other dialects, essentially, as a four-year-old.

And the intention was obviously good, but immediately I moved to this new country under these extreme circumstances, and immediately I realized I was different than everybody around me.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.

I couldn't help but think, my goodness, it was a kindergarten.

It was like thrown into the Tower of Babel from the Bible.

Everybody's thinking a different language.

Yeah.

Now, would you guys stay in California like your whole childhood?

SPEAKER_02: No.

So we did a year there, and then about a year later, my father got relocated to Long Island, New York.

So we moved over to a town called Woodbury in Long Island.

SPEAKER_00: Okay.

Okay.

Talk to me a little bit before kind of like moving on through this journey.

Correct me if I'm wrong.

You said that you basically battled leukemia until you were 13.

SPEAKER_02: So I had a good amount of setbacks along the way.

And so the diagnosis was leukemia, and then I had to undergo chemo and radiation.

And when I was approaching my 13th birthday, I started to get a series of violent headaches.

I was vomiting frequently.

You know, my father had taken me to multiple checkups.

The prognoses from different doctors was inconsistent.

A lot of doctors wrote it off as a virus of sorts.

But I didn't mention this prior to my dad becoming a priest, he actually had a medical degree.

He was a practicing doctor.

He was a urologist.

And in his mind, it wasn't adding up.

And, you know, he he took note of the fact that, especially at my age, the impact of radiation, it could be very comprehensive and some things even might not show up until later years.

So after a couple doctors' visits, he insisted on uh scheduling a CT scan.

And when they did that scan, they discovered a mass within my brain.

And immediately it was diagnosed as being a brain tumor.

So, you know, doctors basically said, you know, given this boy's medical history and and given, you know, the circumstances that he's had to deal with, more than likely this is a cancerous tumor.

And so I was approaching my 13th birthday and I was admitted into the hospital.

A lot of MRIs, a lot of scans.

And on my 13th birthday, August 8th, 2000, I had a brain surgery, and they took out the mass.

It was a golf ball-sized mass, and it was called a venous hemangioma.

And ultimately, what that is, is it's it was a benign blood clot.

So thankfully it was benign.

And it was after that surgery that I finally got a clean bill of health.

And, you know, in my book, I talk about my experience in the recovery room.

Because you have to, you know, take a step back here when you think about my childhood.

Yes, I had cancer.

Yes, I had physical setbacks.

Yes, medically things were not right.

But what I like to point out is the fact that it was a lot more than that because as a child, you don't know what cancer is, right?

I didn't know I had cancer.

No one is talking to me about cancer as a child.

I I did notice some abnormalities.

For instance, when I was four years old, they had to inject a feeding tube, you know, that was coming down my my stomach.

No one else had that.

I didn't understand why I couldn't go swimming in a pool because of that feeding tube when all the all the other kids could.

I didn't understand why when I wanted to play sports, even though I was the first one at practice or the last one out, I was always the slowest kid on the court.

And that was because of the chemotherapy.

You know, you can't explain that to a child.

Kids just aren't built to rationalize things like that because as a child, you believe anything is possible.

Anything you put your mind to is possible.

You believe in dreaming big.

And when you're disappointed, those disappointments tend to tend to shatter you.

But that doesn't necessarily mean that it's easy for you to look under the hood and understand where you can make small corrections at that age.

You just continue to show up.

And so I share that because there I was in the recovery room, right?

My 13th birthday.

I get out of this treacherous surgery.

It was somewhere in the six to eight hour range.

And I try to explain to people the amount of pain you're in when you come out of brain surgery because you're tape from head to toe, essentially, right?

It hurts to breathe, it hurts to move in any capacity.

And it's a pain that, quite frankly, I don't even think I can articulate or describe because your body is so swollen.

And I had a moment when I was in the recovery room, it was the pediatric ICU, and there was another child in there who unfortunately was suffering a seizure in the ICU.

And I I remember that my mind went to a dark place while I was in the unit, and I thought to myself, it's either gonna be him or me, because there's no way that my body can survive being in this room with this kind of dysfunction, because even the dysfunction of the nurses shuffling around to help this child was really bringing my mind to a dark place.

And it was around that time or that night where I had a moment with myself, and I realized I was old enough to process that it's gonna be over soon.

And I made a promise to myself that from that point forward in my life, anything put in front of me, any sort of obstacle, I was gonna figure out a way to break through.

And the idea or the slogan, if you will, of breaking barriers was one I couldn't get over my head.

It was something that just kind of stuck in me.

And it became a mantra right after that surgery because I was able to reflect on my childhood up until that date, and nothing was working out.

I wasn't able to make friends.

I was, you know, getting rejected from the sports teams that I wanted to play on.

My parents, you know, did an absolutely incredible job shaping me, building perspective, and loving me, but I still had to overcome the hurdle of just not fitting in because of my background being different.

You know, I want to call out that growing up where I grew up, there weren't many people who looked like me, who had my background.

So I was an outcast of sorts, and I looked like a cancer patient, you know.

So, like there was really no getting around it.

And so I made this promise to myself, and I I was able to lean into the perspective that my parents gave me, and that perspective was founded on three main tenors.

And those tenors were patience, perspective, and purpose.

And patience was the idea that as a child, I had to learn over and over again that you won't always get the results you want when you want them.

And I learned that the hard way.

I learned that through medical results.

I learned that through, you know, different results and different outcomes that I wanted in my personal life through that period.

Perspective was the idea that you're dealt the cards that you have because you were built to deal with them.

My parents instilled that in me.

They instilled in me a belief that, you know, despite the circumstances, I was built to handle them.

And they did it in such a loving way with a conviction that allowed me to, you know, strongly believe that that was indeed the truth.

And then lastly, the idea of purpose and exiting your comfort zone in order to unleash potential.

And so for them, it was this idea of, you know, you look at your circumstances, and yes, they are difficult.

And, you know, there's no denying that they are difficult.

But if you embrace the mindset of difficult circumstances form you, create you, build resilience in you, and show you what you're truly capable of, as difficult as it is, it's those circumstances that will ultimately shape your future, drive future outcomes, and build a refined product.

And so patience, perspective, and purpose are three key tenors that you know are fundamental to everything that I've done since I got out of that recovery room.

SPEAKER_00: Wow.

You know, earlier you you spoke about your mom when she moved from Egypt.

I believe you said she was 26.

Yes.

And you spoke with with such like admiration uh for the courage at such a young age.

I look at you and the story that you just shared, and you are 13 years old.

And to have that type of mindset lying in the hospital, that I'm not gonna let anything stop me from here on out.

I'm gonna start living.

You have to sit back and think, wow, how profound for a 13-year-old kid to have that type of thought process.

And I wonder, especially now, is you're an adult, you're a father.

Do you think to yourself, wow, how at 13 did I even have the ability to look at life from that angle?

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, look, a lot of that was because of my parents.

My parents did just such an incredible job in terms of shaping my mind.

Look, I talk about the fact that, right, they moved to this new country.

There's a lot that they don't know, right?

Figuring out healthcare, figuring out where to live, figuring out a lot of the logistics, figuring out how to raise myself and my sister, who, you know, was, you know, just basically brand new to this world.

And how do you prioritize even taking care of a second child when one child is dealing with, you know, a cancer diagnosis?

And despite all that, the one thing that was consistent, and we touched on it, you know, at the very beginning of this episode, was they leaned into what they knew.

And that was they knew how to love unconditionally, and they knew how to love in a way where it was not just a matter of taking care of the basic needs, but in terms of cultivating a mind that has conviction in a future that's better than these current circumstances.

So, you know, I owe them all the credit for shaping that mindset.

You know, even headed into that surgery and prior to that recovery room, you know, I I actually didn't know what the diagnosis was going into surgery, to be honest.

So at that age, they didn't they didn't even really tell me what was going on.

They didn't want me to worry.

So I didn't know the diagnosis was a brain tumor.

I only knew that after the fact and several years after, to be honest.

So that was my parents doing.

They didn't want me to panic.

They didn't want me to be stressed, they didn't want me to have any sort of anxiety.

You know, the amount of people that showed up at the hospital with gifts and the amount of cards that were sent to me and the amount of well wishes that were sent to me, it didn't click with me at the time that the diagnosis was that dire.

I just thought all these people were being really nice.

Um, to be honest.

Like I just thought, and you know, and I knew that my dad was loved by so many people, and you know, he's got a huge network of.

People who, you know, support him and and who love him dearly, and same with my mom.

And I thought they were just being nice for them.

I didn't realize the reason all these people were showing up in droves was because the diagnosis was actually very serious.

SPEAKER_00: Wow.

Wow.

Wow.

Wow.

After surgery, after that profound kind of moment in the hospital, obviously you were 13 years old.

You still had a lot of childhood kind of left to go, probably finishing middle school, high school.

How did kind of the rest of that time period go for you?

SPEAKER_02: When I go back to that promise that I made myself, I realized that there were some things that I had to learn from what I had gone through as a child.

And the first thing was around the fact that in order to succeed, you have to embrace failure.

I realized I wasn't going to get out of that hospital bed, and all of a sudden I was going to be revived with energy and my life was going to work out.

I knew that there was going to be a good amount of friction along the way.

And I realized that that friction was going to come about in all forms of my life.

And so, for instance, now here I am, I talk about the fact that I really struggled with friends leading up to that point in life.

I really felt misunderstood by a lot of my peers.

I felt outcasted.

But I also knew that in order to find the right group of friends in high school, I was going to have to deal with a good amount of rejection.

And so I cast a wide net when I went to high school, expecting the fact that I was going to have to eventually whittle down to the people who I felt I should most closely surround myself with.

So, you know, that meant a lot of rejection in the earlier years of my high school years.

Similarly, I always wanted to be an athlete.

You know, athletics was always important to me.

And I talked about how, you know, I was always the last kid on the suicide lines when I was trying out for basketball teams, despite the fact that I wanted it so bad.

I can't tell you how bad that I wanted it because I was, I was the kid who was, you know, in my driveway shooting free throws late into the night.

And I wouldn't leave until I hit a set number, right?

Like 50 free throws in a row.

And I wouldn't go inside until then.

But I wasn't making teams.

So I talk about my experience in high school.

I went to St.

Anthony's High School out in South Huntington on Long Island.

And for anyone from the area, St.

Anthony's is a very prominent school when it comes to athletics.

In particular, they had a very big football program.

It was a Friday night light type of high school.

And I talk about how I tried out and got cut from the football team twice before I made it the third time.

And the reason why that's you know important to call out is because this is a team that doesn't really cut people, right?

But I got cut twice.

And, you know, in my mind, I was able to compartmentalize what it meant to get cut from that team, realizing that it was just part of the process, right?

I was just, you know, going about my promise to accept failure as a way to ultimately succeed.

And by the third time I tried out, I finally made that team.

And in Break Barriers, my my first book, I talk about what that meant to me to finally be part of a locker room after all those years of just fighting for a sense of camaraderie.

SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, and just talk about the level of perseverance, the level of determination is pretty powerful.

What about academically?

I mean, were you through, especially all those early years, did you get set back in school as far as academics go?

SPEAKER_02: No, fortunately, I actually did pretty well academically.

And I think a reason for that is the fact that a lot of things weren't clicking socially.

And so, you know, I was always afforded the opportunity to lean into my schoolwork.

And throughout my elementary years and my high school years, schooling came to me pretty, pretty naturally.

And so my mother uh did a good job in instilling regimen and discipline and and helping me make sure that I build a foundation academically and it and it helped me build some confidence, right?

Being good at school at that age isn't necessarily cool, right?

Like when you're when you're young, like, and I'm talking more elementary school than I am talking about high school, especially back then, it's it's not really cool, but it was something that I could say that I did and that helped me build a little bit of confidence while I was working on figuring out all the other pieces to the puzzle.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.

Before moving past high school, did you ever find a group of friends that you really fit in with and you know were your group throughout high school?

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, toward the tail end of high school, I talk about what I had to go through to find a group of friends during that period and how I wanted I wanted to fit in so bad that when I was 15, I threw a wild party at my house, not knowing that it was gonna get out, not knowing that it was gonna get out of hand.

And the crazy part about that story was that I thought I could get away with it while my parents were actually home.

Like my parents were home.

And, you know, I, you know, and and they had encouraged me to invite people over because of course my parents wanted to see me making friends.

And I'm sure they thought about, you know, maybe five, six people would be coming over.

And before we knew it, you know, there was like a hundred kids in my basement.

Um and you know, this one kid walks in with like a hockey bag just full of alcohol, and we're like 15, right?

And, you know, unfortunately, one of the kids got really sick that night.

And that was the unfortunate part.

Fortunately, you know, after he had to go to the hospital, he came out okay.

He got a stomach pumped.

So it was a scary situation for my parents and for me at the time because I didn't realize, you know, what kind of position I put them in, all because I wanted to give myself the best chance at fitting in and figuring out how to make friends.

And, you know, at that point, you know, kids were starting to go to parties and starting to drink.

And I thought, oh, okay, like this is this is how I'm going to make a name for myself.

And I joke around in my book about how some of the guys went from calling me Bichoy to Brochhoy.

SPEAKER_03: Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_02: And that was the birth of Brochhoy.

And so similarly to, you know, trying out for the football team twice and you know, finally making it the third time, I was, you know, throwing everything at the wall and seeing what hit socially.

And so I I would say it wasn't until my junior or senior year in high school where I finally found a group of friends that at that point I had felt comfortable surrounding myself with.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah.

Yeah.

Understandable.

So high school years in.

We're kind of exiting childhood per se.

Did you go away to college?

SPEAKER_02: I did.

And so, like I said, schooling for me came pretty naturally.

I had applied to 15 colleges.

I got into the majority of them.

I had decided ultimately to go to SUNY Geneseo, which is a school in upstate New York, about six hours outside of New York City, not far from Rochester and Buffalo.

And the interesting thing about it was a lot of people don't know this, but New York is obviously a huge state.

And there's a huge difference between the New York City metro area and pretty much any other part of New York.

And to go to school about six hours away from where my parents was was actually a little bit of a culture shock.

You know, life was moving at a much slower pace up there than what I was used to growing up in the New York City metro area.

And so I had gone to school up there because I had grown up.

Well, actually, let me take a step back.

I went to school up there and I went to school as a pre-med major.

I got into a medical program, but I actually had no desire to go into medicine.

It was just a program that I got into, and because I didn't have the firmest grasp on what I was going to do, and you know, my parents saw the stability in medicine, they encouraged me to go down that route.

But in my heart of hearts, I knew I didn't want to be a doctor.

I didn't have an interest in the sciences or biology or any of that.

And so I did a year of that, and my grades were horrible.

And then I and then I took matters into my own hands and I decided to switch my major.

And the reason I did that was because growing up on Long Island, especially pre-2008, and this was pre-2008, I went I started college in 2005.

I saw the appeal of working on Wall Street.

A lot of my friends' parents had Wall Street type careers.

And I had a meeting that I'll never forget toward the end of my senior year in college with my college career counselor.

And I told her, I said, I want to work on Wall Street.

And she looked on me and she said, You know, we don't do that here.

And I was like, Excuse me.

And she's like, Yeah, like, you know, this school is known for accountants, it's known for teachers, it's known for, you know, other specialties and professions, but we don't really have any outlets to Wall Street.

And, you know, to me, it it all goes back to anytime I'm told I can't or I won't, it all goes back to that boy in the recovery room around like, okay, you're saying there are none, but I'm telling you I'm gonna find a way.

Because I made a promise to myself when I was 13 that whatever, you know, obstacles in front of me, I'm gonna figure out a way to navigate.

And and for context, it's important to share this because I graduated college in 2009 in the heart of the financial crisis, right?

And all I want to do is work in finance in the middle of the financial crisis.

And despite the fact that, you know, my school wasn't really graduating Wall Street grads, I didn't really take that as a no.

I just took that as I need to figure out a way to get there on my own.

And so I remembered my very first accounting class, the way that they positioned accounting was they positioned accounting as quote unquote the language of business.

And that really stuck with me because I said to myself, if I can speak the language of business, then I have just enough of a foundation to navigate the business world and get to where I want to go.

And so I graduated in May of 2009 and the job market was bleak.

I was unemployed.

A couple months went by, and the first job that you know I came across was an opening for a recruitment agency.

Now, this recruitment agency was specialized in placing public accountants.

And so I said to myself, all right, this will get me a little bit of income.

This is a good way to start.

So I took that job, and the good thing about that job is it opened up a world of networking.

And in having that job, I ultimately came across someone who knew of a public accounting firm that was hiring, and they were looking for a junior accountant.

And I said to them, Well, I know somebody, and that person was me.

And so I gave them my resume, and that person put in a good word for me, and I took that job.

Now, mind you, I didn't lose sight of my goal, Kevin.

I didn't want to be an accountant, I just wanted to be able to tell a good story so that way when I finally got a job interview at a bank on Wall Street, I had a good story to tell.

So the day I got that job offer for that accounting firm, I also signed up and started my MBA.

So now I was starting my MBA and I was starting to work at this accounting firm.

And for anyone that knows anything about accounting, the hours are grueling, the expectations are nonstop, you're working, you know, a crazy amount of time, and you're really heads down in your work.

But I was young, I was like 24, 25, so I had all the time in the world.

So I would finish a full day at work, you know, go to my MBA classes.

I was taking five classes at a time.

I wasn't really sleeping much.

I probably could have eaten and you know taken care of my body a little bit better.

But I was, I was a man on a mission.

And what happened was about a year after I got that job, and I joke around about this story in the book, I was out with a couple friends to celebrate an acquaintance's birthday.

And I had one too many drinks that night.

And a friend of a friend was starting to ask me about my job, and I just kind of went all out and I was like, listen, man, this sucks.

I've been fighting now for three, four years trying to figure out how to get, you know, a job on Wall Street.

I'm exhausted, I'm working crazy hours, I'm nowhere near where I want to be professionally.

And the thing about being in New York, especially New York City at the time, was you're surrounded by a lot of people who at least appear to be very successful.

And so if you're not where you want to be, it could be very intimidating because you don't understand why everybody else, you know, has seen success while you're still grinding.

And that person, he said to me that night, he said, send me your resume.

And and mind you, Kevin, I was 25 years old.

This guy was about 25, 26 years old.

I wasn't stupid.

In the back of my mind, I was like, what the heck is this 25, 26 year old gonna do for me?

And the next morning I woke up, I was pretty hungover, and he sent me a text message and it said, Hey, I never got your resume.

And I was like, I was like, I was like, what is going on?

And it turns out that person who I now consider to be a very good friend, he worked at JP Morgan and he was really good friends with the hiring manager that he that he worked under.

Oh, wow.

He gave that hiring manager my resume and he said, This is a good guy.

You know, please give him a shot.

And it honestly speaks volumes to how this world works, Kevin, because I I was so underqualified for that job.

I didn't have any of the job requisites that that job was asking for.

I didn't have, you know, a Wall Street background.

I didn't get that job because of my MBA either, because I wasn't even done with my MBA at that point.

I got that job simply because, you know, someone fought for me.

Or not even fought.

Someone just simply said, you know, this person's gonna work his tail off.

He's worth taking a shot on.

And that's ultimately how I ended up working on Wall Street.

So I got that job offer, I believe it was it in July of 2012.

So I was 25 years old when I got that job offer.

SPEAKER_00: Wow.

You know, man, like you just have to like love sometimes when you look back on your life, how things like fit together in the craziest of ways.

Where, you know, it's like today we go and like we watch movies and we're like, oh my gosh, it's so far-fetched.

Like this would never happen.

But if you really think about it, our lives are pretty much just as crazy as movies, you know?

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

Yeah.

No, absolutely.

That was definitely, you know, one of many moments of my life that was very movie-esque.

And, you know, I don't want to go on a sidebar, but the truth is that I'm working on turning my first book into a movie.

And that's because a lot of the ways that things worked for me that I'm sure we're going to continue diving into, they weren't just, you know, kind of pinch me New York City moments, which some of them were.

A lot of them were testimonies to having conviction in in those values that are instilled in you as a child.

And so I continue to reveal more and more about how it's possible to manifest certain outcomes in life if you lean into that conviction that you build during your childhood.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.

So I'm excited to ask you this next question because you know, we we've heard as you talked, you know, your childhood, you know, as far as athletics.

You wanted to be involved and it didn't come easy.

You know, you said didn't make the football team twice, third year, you finally got on.

You did excel at, you know, academics, and here you are, you got this amazing job.

Finally, your dream job on Wall Street.

How though does then fitness come back into your story?

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that was a really, really good question.

So, like I said, childhood, just horrible experiences.

I really wanted to, you know, get more involved.

I kept having to deal with rejection.

Then high school, I finally make that team after getting cut three times.

I started to see a little bit of capability, but you got to understand there was no foundation, Kevin.

I didn't know what I was doing.

I just knew that I wanted it, right?

Whereas a lot of those other guys in the locker room, you know, they had been lifting for years.

They had a foundation, right?

I didn't have that.

I was figuring it out as I as I went.

And so then I moved into college.

I didn't lose sight of needing to stay in shape.

But again, I didn't really know how to cultivate it.

I talk about how I put on the quote unquote freshman 15, if you will, when I was a freshman in college because I drank a good amount of beer.

I ate whatever I wanted to eat.

And then the summer of my freshman year, I didn't like what I looked like when I looked in the mirror.

And I talk about how that year I was doing an internship in the city, and fortunately a friend that I was staying with took me under his wing and he taught me some of the important fundamentals around just basic training.

And I never lost sight of that summer because after I lost those 15, 20 pounds that summer, I went back to college looking a lot better, a lot leaner, feeling more confident.

And I knew at that point I was never gonna go back to that period where I where I didn't like who I looked like in the mirror.

And so now we fast forward, I'm at JP Morgan, I'm really leaned into my career.

And one of the other things I want to call out, especially in a city like New York, a lot of people define themselves by their career in a city like New York, right?

That's your that's your signature, that's your stamp.

Like, what do you do?

That's the number one question our people are asking.

And especially in the banking world, during that time, you know, people hold a lot of pride in that.

And I got sucked up in that for a little bit.

But one of the things that you quickly realize when you're in that world is that there's a huge lack of fulfillment in tying your identity to your career.

Your career is ultimately your paycheck, but it does very little to fill your soul or to fill your purpose or to fill your passions.

All it does is, you know, it offers you the opportunity to, you know, pay for shelter and food and basic needs and some luxuries even.

But none of those luxuries even give you fulfillment.

They're fleeting, right?

And so it takes a while to get to that understanding.

For me, I got that what got there when I was in my mid-20s, and a friend of mine opened up a spin studio.

It was the era of boutique fitness in a lot of major cities.

So a lot of small boutique fitness gyms were opening up.

So he opened up this spin studio.

The concept of the spin studio was very unique because it was a team-based spin experience.

So it was three different teams that were cycling against each other for 45 minutes.

There were scores on a scoreboard.

You could see how you fared relative to your teammates and to other people in the room.

And one of the things I liked about it was you were in a dark room, you didn't know who was next to you, and it forced you to kind of engage after class.

And what I started to realize was there I was in this studio, and for years I was, you know, fighting to be an athlete, constantly being told you can't, you won't, you don't belong here, so on and so forth.

And in that studio, I was surrounded by college athletes, even pro athletes, or just people who I always kind of would have thought are in much better shape than me.

And Kevin, I was competing with them, and I was competing with them on a pretty high level.

And I started to realize like slowly, like maybe I can do this.

And I said to myself, and kind of approaching that idea of being in a dark room of I I'm not gonna say anything.

I'm just gonna continue to surround myself with these people.

I'm gonna continue to show up and just be in the midst of these people who are doing the things that I want to do.

And I'm just gonna soak it in and I'm gonna learn.

I am gonna be fully committed to separating myself in a way where the only part of me that's existing is my ears, my eyes, and my heart.

But my mouth is gonna take a back seat here because this is not a time for me to speak.

This is a time for me to just soak in and learn.

And one of the things that I learned throughout that experience, Kevin, is when you surround yourself with people who have accomplished the things that you want to accomplish or who are in certain respects a little bit ahead of you on certain trajectories, those people are not there to attack you.

They generally are either there to uplift you or to teach you.

Because to them, they've already accomplished the things that you're trying to accomplish, and they probably get more fulfillment in helping you get there.

And you know, a lot of times that's a misconception.

You think these people don't want to bother you.

But especially in positive, uplifting environments, which fitness generally promotes, just given all the all that your body is going through through a fitness experience.

If people could take a step back and realize that those communities are actually more likely to empower you than to break you down, it's a whole different game and a whole different mindset.

So now all of a sudden I'm surrounding myself with these people.

Those people took their fitness activities well beyond just the spin classes.

Some of them were marathon runners, some of them were triathletes, some of them were involved in other sorts of sports and activities, and most of them were endurance-based.

And so they had slowly encouraged me to set for different goals.

And so I talk about the fact it was like it was that group that encouraged me to sign up for my very first half marathon.

And ultimately that group got me to sign up to the triathlon circuits.

They started a little triathlon club.

And so I joined that with them.

And as the weeks and months went by, that group that was doing the triathlons with me, they ultimately said, Hey, Beshoy, we want to sign up for a half Iron Man.

And they said, We want you to do it with us.

And I couldn't say no, Kevin, but I gotta be honest with you.

I was scared shitless because I had never done anything like that.

I had never done anything like that in my entire life.

It was one thing to challenge my body to run 13 miles and in break barriers.

I talk about that race explicitly.

I talk about how from mile 10 to mile 13, it was pure will that had to get me to the finish line because I had never experienced that before.

And now I was asking to do a 70-mile race, right?

A 1.2 mile swim, a 56-mile bike ride, a 13-mile run.

Kevin, that's not me.

Like, that's not the boy who was battling cancer, who was constantly told that, you know, he couldn't, or the guy who was always last on suicide lines, or the guy that got cut twice from the football team.

I'm not a guy who could do a 70-mile race.

Like that's just not, that's not my makeup.

But internally, somewhere, there was something telling me that I had to sign up.

And I couldn't really articulate it.

So here I am.

I decide to pay.

Like I literally willingly paid to put my body through this experience that I couldn't in my wildest dreams imagine.

And I paid the money, and for six months, I completely shut it down.

I wasn't going out.

I was training twice a day on certain days.

I was eating well.

My mother was very concerned about me because you can't forget, you know, even though now we're like, you know, I'm I'm turning 30 and we've been in the States for over 25 years, she's still an immigrant mother.

She's still concerned about, you know, my well-being.

You know, she joked around because I was single at the time.

She's like, you know, maybe you should focus a little bit more on your dating life and a little bit less on all these, on all these athletic endeavors.

But in my heart of hearts, I knew I had to do this race and I didn't know why.

People kept asking me, Beshoy, why are you doing this?

And I I quite frankly didn't have an answer, Kevin.

So fast forward June of 2017, it's race day.

It's in Maryland, kind of the middle of nowhere.

It's 90 degrees outside that day.

And like I said, there is no amount of preparation that could really get you ready for the unknown.

Right?

Despite all the training, despite all the time, I was still walking into the unknown that morning.

And I didn't really know what would happen.

I didn't know if I was gonna make it out.

I didn't know how my body was gonna handle it, and I didn't know how I was gonna potentially treat myself if I failed.

So it starts off with the swim portion.

It's a 1.2 mile swim, like I said.

Half of it is with the current, half of it is against the current.

I made it through the swim in about an hour and eight minutes, which isn't a horrible time.

It's it's definitely nothing to write home about, but it's not horrible.

And then I move over to the biking portion.

And this is where things got interesting.

And so I had to rent the bike that I was going to use for the race that day.

And it just so happened the race was the same weekend as the New York City bike tour.

And the company that I rented my bike from sent me a hybrid instead of a road bike.

And for listeners who know anything about biking, it's essentially like ordering a Ferrari and getting a beat up minivan.

So, you know, in 90 degree weather, I am pounding and pedaling away at this bike.

And people are just flying past me, Kevin.

Right?

Like there is no such thing as a time goal at this point.

And, you know, it's sad.

I'm getting the wind sucked out of me mentally.

I'm not really sure if I can make it.

I'm questioning myself.

You know, my mind is going to dark places.

I joke around about how some guy's tire popped, and I I pulled over next to him, and he thought I was gonna help him, but I didn't even know how to change a tire, Kevin.

I just I just needed to I just I just needed to stop pedaling.

And I I just stopped because I just saw him stop, and I could tell he was frustrated that I stopped next to him because he clearly was trying to go for a time, and there I was just kind of looking for an excuse to stop.

And around mile 40, I finally broke down.

I looked around, there was no rider, no athlete around me.

I was in the middle of nowhere, salt all over my skin, I was completely dehydrated.

I had 30 miles left to go on this race.

And Kevin, for the very first time, I had asked myself the question that everybody was asking me for the last six months.

I said, Beshoy, why are you doing this?

And it was the very first time in my adult life that adult Beshoy took a second, transcended time, and thought about that 13-year-old boy.

And he thought even further back, he thought to that four-year-old boy and that five-year-old boy, and he's that six-year-old boy, and he thought to himself, if that kid with that feeding tube, if that kid in that recovery room, if that kid who was constantly told you can't, you won't, you shouldn't, if he made it through everything that he went through, then this man can finish the last 30 miles of this race.

And my body went into a fight or flight mode.

And when your body does that, your mind goes to a place that is very hard to explain, but immediately your mind is going to this mode of we're gonna figure this out.

And you get very tactical.

And immediately I thought about how when I was going through what I went through as a child, my parents always celebrated small wins, whether it was positive updates from doctors or positive reports from teachers, or whether it was seeing me accomplish something that I hadn't accomplished before.

And I applied that in that moment and I said to myself, I have 30 miles left to go on this race.

But instead of looking at it as 30 miles, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna look at it as one mile 30 times.

And what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna celebrate every individual mile.

And so I broke it down into one mile increments, Kevin.

And I said, It doesn't matter how fast you go.

All that matters is that you focus on one mile at a time.

And for every single mile, I celebrated.

And about I think a little over eight hours, I finally crossed that finish line.

And I talk about the power of that moment because you've been on my podcast.

The name of my podcast is Mile 40 because of that moment.

Because what that moment taught me was if you are willing to put yourself in uncomfortable situations and exit your comfort zone to the point where your mind is getting tactical about how to survive whatever it is that you've put in front of yourself, you're gonna unleash a whole new level, Kevin.

And that's exactly what happened.

This guy who for six months, quite frankly, couldn't understand why he had signed up for this race in those last 30 miles unleashed a whole new level, not just of what I was capable of, but what I was put on this earth to do.

And that was to show others that barriers can be broken.

And that was to show people that no matter how big the obstacle, there's a way out.

And for me, that was a literal portrayal of that.

So I'm gonna fast forward.

I get home from that race, and you know, my mother's still terrified that I had just done what I did.

Uh for me, I realized something.

I unleashed that new level.

I just didn't know what to do with it.

And I had decided that I wanted to run my very first marathon.

I never ran a marathon before.

I didn't even know anything about running a marathon.

I didn't know what I had to do to even get into the marathon.

So I decided to run the New York City Marathon.

And in order to get in, I had to raise money for charity to get my bib.

So I had decided I'm gonna raise money for the Leukemia Lymphoma Society because I was a leukemia survivor.

And I wrote down my story on a piece of paper, Kevin, and I called it the comeback is always greater than the setback.

And I didn't focus on the biographical aspects of my story.

Instead, I focused on the lessons I had learned going through what I had gone through.

And I ultimately shoved my story in the drawer because I was afraid that nobody was gonna donate.

I had to raise$3,000 in order to get my bib.

About a month went by and I showed it to a mentor who I worked with at JP Morgan at the time.

And he looked at it and he laughed and he said, Beshoy, why is your goal just$3,000?

And I said, Tim, I just need to raise$3,000 to get into the race.

And he looked at me and he said, You need to make your goal $100,000.

And I said, Excuse me?

He said, You need to aim high and make your goal$100,000.

And that was my first, that was the first time in my life, Kevin, where outside of my parents or close family, somebody saw something in me and believed in me.

And, you know, I had accomplished a lot of small things to that point, even, you know, getting through that half iron man.

But quite frankly, Kevin, I didn't really believe in myself.

You know, I didn't think I had the ability to let alone raise $3,000.

And this guy's now telling me to raise$100,000.

But, and I talk about this, you know, in a lot of the engagements that I've had since then.

It is just so important to find that mentor or to find that person who's going to again push you outside your comfort zone and challenge you to unleash that potential.

And that's exactly what he did.

So because of him, I should mention he told me to raise my goal and then he donated$1,000 and he said, go.

And$1,000 turned into five, turned into$10,000,$20,000,$30.

And then I got a call from NASDAQ as we were approaching the marathon, and they said, Hey, we got to hold your story.

We want to invite you to come ring the closing bell.

In four months, I went from almost never sharing this story, thinking I was going to donate all this money myself, to now raising over$30,000 and you know being put on a national stage.

And I also got a note from ABC saying, Hey, you know, we want to feature you during the broadcast of the New York City Miracle.

So I had a reporter running alongside me.

And, you know, it was an unbelievably incredible experience for me, Kevin, uh, because not because I was getting this publicity, not because I was being put in a spotlight, but because I started to see the impact of showing others that they too can overcome obstacles, that they too can find power in sharing their story, that they too can empower, impact, and have a strong, everlasting ability to drive a positive influence in other people's lives.

And so I was getting notes from not only cancer patients, but I was getting notes from caretakers.

I was getting notes from all sorts of people who were saying, hey, because you shared your story, you know, we're finding strength in our current situations.

And for me, that meant the world.

It wasn't about any of the publicity.

The publicity was something that, quite frankly, at that time, I didn't even know how to handle.

And to date, we've raised well over$125,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, which is incredible.

But what was even cooler about that was I got back to work after that New York City marathon, and I realized my life was never going to be the same.

I realized that that sense of fulfillment that I had talked about earlier, that a lot of people realized doesn't come from career.

I realized that it was going to come from somewhere else.

And uh a couple months after the marathon, I started to get contacts from people saying, hey, we got to hold your story.

We want you to come speak at our company.

So now I was invited to come do speaking engagements.

And December of 2018, I was sitting at my desk and I said, Screw it, Kevin.

I have known this the whole time that I have a story to tell and I'm finally going to tell it.

I'm sitting at my desk and I Googled how to write a book.

I also Googled how many words you need to write to reach 100 pages because I had no idea how to write a book, Kevin.

And so I got to work and I it was 20,000 words.

I started bringing my laptop to work, and in three months I hit that 20,000 words, and it was a long Microsoft Word document.

I had no idea how to turn it into a book.

I had reached out to a friend that went to Harvard and I said, Hey man, you've got to know how to publish, or you've got to know somebody that's published.

And he did.

And that person looked at my Word document.

He's like, Hey, this is pretty good.

Can I give you my editor?

And the rest was history.

Nine months later, we published Break Barriers, my very first book.

And Break Barriers was my life on paper.

And that's the book that you know I'm working to now turn into a screenplay.

But the objective of that book, as was the objective of my mission overall, was to help people channel the mindset to overcome obstacles.

I didn't write that book for cancer patients.

I didn't write that book for marathon runners.

I didn't write that book for immigrants.

I wrote it for every single person because I realized throughout my journey the one thing that unifies us all as humans is the fact that we all have our obstacles.

And if we all can channel the mindset to battle those obstacles, we're in a much better position to empower and uplift those of us around us.

And a lot has happened since then, and I feel very, very blessed.

I've published a second book this last December.

It's called Audacious: Uncaging Your Authentic Self.

And as far as my fitness journey, because I think that's where this conversation started, I've now run 10 marathons and I'm about to finish my sixth world major marathon in Tokyo this year.

And the cool thing about that, Kevin, to bring it all home is the fact that I was an Egyptian immigrant battling cancer whose parents had no idea what they were up against when they moved here.

Now, come this March, I'll be only the second Egyptian national to ever finish all six world marathon majors.

Ever.

And that for me, I think is a story that puts, you know, the cap on everything around the fact that a lot of people are going to tell you that you can't, you won't, you shouldn't.

But ultimately it's on you to take the pen and write out the final chapters of your story.

So hopefully I answered your question.

I know that was very long-winded.

SPEAKER_00: That was the most beautiful, most inspiring, most motivating story I think I've ever heard.

The way that you spoke about the Iron Man, I don't think many people have a story like that.

Most of them have a story of the adventure, the gruel, the the hardship.

You had a life-changing moment on mile 40 that impacted your life from that day forward.

And to hear you speak about life from that day to then the marathon, to all this stuff, you can't help but feel like you're living right where you're supposed to be.

You have found kind of that gold at the end of the rainbow.

You're making an impact, you're making a difference.

And just hearing you speak about all of this, man, I just I just want to say how grateful I am for you.

You know, we we talk about comeback stories.

We talk about your story being uh a movie.

Yeah, man.

Like I cry every time I watch Rudy.

I think you're the next Rudy.

I mean, in the most just utmost sincerity, your story is incredible, man.

The fact that you just shared all of this with us today is absolutely freaking awesome.

And I uh uh such a joy to hear it.

SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Kevin.

I really appreciate that.

And you know, I I want the audience to know, because I I do mean this sincerely.

Like I said, I didn't know how to handle some of the things that were happening when I very first shared my story.

And I wrote and published Break Barriers in 2019, and my daughter was born in May of 2022.

And it was around that time that I had decided to start the Mile 40 podcast.

And the reason for that was because it was about three years of talking about myself.

And like I said, I realized during Mile 40, the one thing that unites us all is that we have our obstacles, we have our rock bottom moments.

And that was why I birthed Mile 40.

It's because I wanted to give people a forum to come on and share those.

And you, my friend, have been one of the most inspirational guests that I've had on Mile 40.

And so, you know, I just want to make sure I call that out because as much as yeah, the break barrier story is about me and we're gonna turn that into a screenplay, my mission isn't about me.

It's about helping people channel that mindset.

And I really hope that, you know, looking back on all this, when all is said and done, people can see that as being the focal point uh of this journey, as hopefully someone who who led a mission to instill hope in others that regardless of how dark it gets, they too can overcome their own obstacles.

SPEAKER_00: You know, man, it goes back from the very beginning.

We talked about the love of your parents to leave it all, to move to America, to a foreign country for you.

And then we talked about you, this story you've been on, and the overwhelming sense of just pure love, of wanting to help people, of caring about people.

What you've just shared today is just the most heartwarming love story I think we can hear.

Man, tell us all where we can find your books, where everybody can find the podcast, and where can we keep up to date when you become the second only Egyptian to do all six of these crazy world marathons?

SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.

Thank you, Kevin.

So to follow me, I would say follow me on Instagram or LinkedIn at Beshoy Tadros, Beshoy underscore tadros on on Instagram to purchase the books.

They are available on Amazon.

Uh, however, if you purchase them from my website, www.beshoitadros.com, I will sign them for you.

Mile40 is available on all major podcasting platforms.

And so I strongly urge you to check it out.

And if you don't mind, uh subscribe and drop a review.

SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.

I love it.

My last question for you, just to round things out today.

You as a father now, what is the single biggest piece of advice that you hoped instill in your children?

SPEAKER_02: I knew you were gonna have a good last question.

I want my children to just be kind, Kevin.

I want them to know that love will always win, right?

I want them to take that example that my parents set for me and to know that ultimately in the end, none of this stuff matters.

The only thing that matters ultimately is the love that you show for those whom you encounter.

It's the love that you show for the people who are not as fortunate as you, the people who are afflicted, the people who are perhaps dealing with certain adversity.

You know, I want my children to know that as humans, we're all in a level playing field.

Even if there are people out there who want to project that, you know, they may have it better.

The one thing that I've realized in this lifetime, and I had mentioned it earlier in this episode, is that none of these things that we encounter in our lifetime, whether it's money or medals or material items or accomplishments or job titles, none of these things go to the grave with you, Kevin.

But the thing that does go to the grave with you is your soul, right?

And one of the things that I, you know, hope to show my children is that love has no limits.

And it would be my goal as a parent to feel like I've done my best or done to the best of my ability to show them that.

Because one of the things that you know you learn as a parent very quickly is children don't do as you say, they do as you do.

And so you can't tell a child to love limit limitlessly, but you can show them how to love limitlessly and instill that in them so that way they pass that on to other people.

And I don't know if limitlessly is a word, so I'm gonna say love without limits.

SPEAKER_00: I love it.

Man, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for being here today.

Thank you for for sharing your story.

I'm so excited to see what comes.

I'm so excited for the movie.

I'm just so excited for you.

You're an amazing guy, and it has been a true honor to have you on my podcast.

SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Kevin.

It is a sincere pleasure.

I really appreciate you and to the guests out there if you've made it this far.

I hope you've enjoyed this episode, but also go check out Kevin's episode on Mile 40 because Kevin's story, as you all know, is one thing story button.