Life-Changing Books Podcast Episode 65. Nick Bare: Author of 25 Hours a Day

Nick, welcome to the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books Podcast. How are you doing today?

I'm good, man. I'm good. Thanks for having me on. I really appreciate the time.

Yeah. I'm excited for our conversation today. For those that are not familiar with you and your YouTube channel, your online presence, or your business, can you introduce yourself to everybody?

Yeah. So name's Nick Baer. I'm originally from Central Pennsylvania area. And that's where I went to college. That's where I started my business, Bear Performance Nutrition. I started my business when I was in college, right before joining the military, actually a year before joining the military. And I started a business thinking that I was going to make a lot of money right away. And I learned, just like many other entrepreneurs, that's not necessarily the case. And there's years and years and years of failure and hardship and struggle. And Through my time in the military and growing a social media platform simultaneously and kind of documenting my role as an infantry platoon leader and experiences in the military as well as building a business on the side, people started following this journey and what I was sharing. And after transitioning out of the military, 2017, we scaled the brand even more. And now we're at a point where we're located about 20 minutes north of Austin, Texas. We're in 25,000 square feet of warehouse and office space. We have 25 employees. And it's just been a great journey. It's been a great story so far.

Well, I've loved, I loved how you documented the journey in the form of the book, 25 Hours a Day. And one of the things that you mentioned you wanted to talk about is what does life after the book look like and what has the business done? But first, let's go back to the book. So, why did you decide to write this book? Why did you decide to document your journey for people in the form of a book? What was that Yeah.

You know, when I started documenting my life on YouTube, there was never really a clear path or plan when I started it. I picked up a camera and I just started filming whatever I could whenever. I started sharing stories and I learned storytelling. And what I learned through storytelling is people connect and they relate. And a lot of people, they don't need to be told what to do or how to do it necessarily, but more so relate to stories of people who have done it or are currently doing it. And that's what I saw my YouTube channel as, was I was doing these things, I was taking this massive action in my life, I was failing along the way, I was making mistakes, but I was learning and growing. And I started seeing some levels of success. success, if you will, or reaching these accomplishments. And I shared this along the way. And the book was a way of me saying, hey, this is a milestone in my life where I want to tell stories over the last couple of years of what got me to this point. And when I released 25 Hours a Day, that was right after like all of the struggle of getting a brand to that point. where it was late nights, it was no sleep, it was trying to figure out what works and what doesn't work, losing a lot of money and making some money. And when I released that book, it was a collection of stories of up until that point of really documenting and sharing the struggles of true entrepreneurship and growing a brand organically with no investors, no outside capital, and trying to make it work. And we got to that point And that's what I wanted to do is I wanted to share stories that other people could relate to saying, well, if Nick Baer did it, I can do it and I'm gonna do it.

I love that because a lot of people, they don't share their successes or really open up the doors until after the business has been really successful. And then they kind of, I don't know, they glaze over some of the hard times or they sugarcoat things a little bit. They make it seem like it was all rainbows and unicorns, but it's not. And you share a lot of, a lot of those hard times in the book. You mentioned storytelling. One of the stories that I really enjoyed and resonated with was the feed your cows metaphor. So can you tell everybody what that's about?

Yeah. So I had a, I call it a dynamic family growing up where I learned from both sides of my family by watching and learning. Like they never had to tell me, this is what you have to do. This is how you reach your goals. this is how you live your life. I just observed and watched. So my dad's side of the family, they were all dairy farmers in central Pennsylvania. I watched them wake up at 4:00 AM, go milk the cows, and then at night after dinner, go milk the cows. Every single day. There was never an option not to do it. You just, it's what you did. And on my mom's side of the family, there was a lot of military influence. So my grandfather, my uncle, my cousins, they served in the military. And I watched that dynamic of hard work and a very selfless act of service. And feeding the cows is one of those things, and milking the cows is— it's just you do what you have to do. There's no option. It's just that's what it is for the day. I even relate that to my life now where, like, if I wake up or I go to sleep, I know the next morning If I'm saying I'm going to run 7 miles, I'm going to run 7 miles. If I know I'm going to run 50 miles, I'm going to run 50 miles. I don't wake up and say, ah, I don't think so anymore. It's just, I don't give myself the option to. And for me, that has worked pretty well.

Yeah. I love that hustle mentality and the, you have to fall in love with the dirty work, the hard work sometimes. So Book Thinkers family, we've also got Jimmy Grant in the room. You might know him as your favorite DJ, Rose Drive. And Jimmy, what are some things that you resonated with in the book and that you want to talk to Nick about?

Absolutely. There's a point that really caught my attention and stuck with me, Nick. In the 3rd year of your business, you mentioned that your money guy or your accountant said, hey, I don't know how you guys are going to survive and keep going through this. And you just talked about how if you're doing a 7-mile run tomorrow morning, you're doing that no matter what. Did you have that mindset early on where it didn't matter you know, what people were telling you, what logic or numbers people were saying, hey, it doesn't look like this is going to work out. From day one, did you have that mindset of this is going to work no matter what? I'm going to figure this out?

Yeah. I mean to be completely honest, I always say I was ignorant to the risks that I was taking. So when I started my business, I told my dad my plan. I said, I'm going to make $1 million. this year. And he said this quote that has stuck with me. It's on the walls in our warehouse. It said, he told me, Nick, if it were easy, everyone would do it. I was like, oh, I'm going to prove you wrong. I'm going to make $1 million this first year. Year 1, we did $20,000 in revenue. Year 2, we did $20,000 in revenue. Year 3, we did $20,000 in revenue. Each year was at a loss, like zero profit. negative profits. And it wasn't necessarily that I said this is at some point going to work. I just knew that if I kept being consistent, it would pay off and it would turn into something. I didn't know what it would turn into. I didn't know it would turn into what it is today, but I knew it would turn into something if I was just consistent. And like I said, I think I'm ignorant to some of the risks that I take. I am a big risk taker. I, I weigh the, the consequences and I mitigate risk where I can, but when I decide I'm going to do something, I'm jumping off the cliff into it and I'm not looking back. And, and that's just the way I approach almost everything in my life.

I really enjoyed, I really enjoyed that lesson from your father, you know, if it was easy anyone or everyone would be doing it. And, uh, what I realized about my last question is I actually used the word hustle and grind, I think, which is not an accurate representation of 25 hours a day, right? It's more embracing the suck. And so in the book, you say that you don't like the words grind and hustle. Why is that? Can you share that with everybody?

Yeah, for some reason, those 2 words, they never resonated with me. And You know, when I, when I first started building my social media platforms, this was 2013. It was so different then as it is today, you know. And I remember watching these social media platforms grow and people going to these platforms, and everything to them was a grind and hustle. Like, going to the gym was a grind, uh, spending an hour on their business was a grind. and they're constantly hustling and grinding. And in my head, I was just like, that's literally the bare standard. Like, you are doing the minimum of what you have to do. And if that is the grind and the hustle for you, you literally have zero chance of getting to where you want to be. And I related to back when I, when I was in the Army, where I would watch my NCOs, my noncommissioned officers, they would work hours and hours and hours overtime. They wouldn't leave the office until the job was done. They wouldn't leave the motor pool until the vehicles were cleaned, and they never came back and was like, man, today was a grind. Uh, it was just— today was another day, you know? And I think a lot of people put hard work on this pedestal, and it's not like— there's no it's not cool to keep saying you're working hard. It's just make that like your minimum, your bare standard, and just go execute.

Yeah. There's this strange phenomenon which happens. I think it's attributed especially to young people, right? We're all in our late 20s or 30s. And people say, you know what? Young people don't hustle or they don't work hard or whatever the case is. And sometimes that's true. Like in Can't Hurt Me by David Goggins, he says you need to become uncommon amongst the uncommon, because being uncommon isn't really that hard these days. A lot of people are lazy, they're watching Netflix, they're just sitting back and relaxing. And, uh, that's what I really love about the feed the cows mentality. It is what it is. It's hard work. You have to show up and do it every single day, and there's no other option.

Yeah, I've completely adopted that to every part of my life, and it just is Consistency. I say this thing, consistency compounds, and it's true because when you just show up, like, every day you're not going to show up and do something crazy. It's not like I'm running 100 miles every day. I'm not going in and doing these crazy things every day, but I'm just very consistent with the things that I do. Like, every morning I know I'm gonna go run anywhere from 7 to 10 miles. I'm going to eat a healthy diet. I'm going to stay on top of my hydration. I'm going to lead my team. I'm going to try to learn something new. I'm going to work to build my business. Like, I'm just chipping away slowly, but I'm so consistent with it that these massive returns happen every year.

Well, Nick, you are a very successful business owner, but you're also this insane athlete. And so you're a big guy and you're about to attempt the Leadville 100. You're about to crush the Leadville 100. So tell everybody a little bit about that challenge and what it is.

Yeah, like the last 2 years of my life have been a massive endurance block. And what's funny is in 2017, my last day in the Army, I made a YouTube video and I said I will never run a day in my life again. And then about 4 months later, I was running the Austin Marathon. And then after that, I signed up for another marathon and then an Ironman triathlon. And then Uh, another Ironman, and then I ran a sub-3-hour marathon. And then I was like, you know, I'm gonna put my name in the hat again for Leadville 100. So the Leadville 100 is this very famous ultramarathon in the Rocky Mountains of Leadville, Colorado. It happens every year, and it's a lottery system. So tens of thousands of people put their name in this hat to run this race, and I think like 800 to 900 people are selected. Just by, like, there's no, it's luck of the draw. The last like 4 years, I put my name in this drawing, this lottery. And every year I put my name in not expecting to get chosen. I'm just like, I'm just gonna put my name in and if it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, it doesn't. Well, this year was the year. My name got pulled.

Right.

And it's like very anticlimactic where like you get this email and it just says like You were selected. See you in Leadville. And I got this email. I was like, man, is this it? Did I get selected? And yeah, so that was a few months ago. I finished up my triathlon prep in May, and then we leave for Colorado this coming Monday. Leadville 100 is August 21st to August 22nd. You have 30 hours to run 100 miles. Elevation starts at around 10,000 feet and you get up to like over 14,000 feet. It's 50 miles out, 50 miles back, and it's going to be amazing.

Jamie, does that make you want to run 100 miles?

Um, absolutely not, but I would love to one day, just not in the Rocky Mountains for the first time. Um, Nick, something I'd like to really ask, um, you know, from 25 Hours a Day You alluded to the fact that successful people are able to always keep the light at the end of the tunnel in mind, despite how dark and dreary things might be in a specific moment. And I know last year, multiple times you had races canceled on you because of COVID and you're trying to get ready for the Boston Marathon. How did you keep that light in your mind of, I'm still going to qualify, I'm going to figure out how to run a 3-hour, sub-3-hour marathon? qualify for that and how that has built to, you know, you wanting to do an ultramarathon like Leadville 100.

Yeah, man, I think this is something that a lot of us struggle with, but I think that I'm, I'm pretty good at it, but I'm always working to improve. And in Matthew McConaughey's book Greenlights, he talks about— and I think he's a really good example of this— finding the joy in the process. and not always focusing on the destination. I think a lot of times so many people are focused on the destination that they forget to enjoy that process. And I'm guilty of it too. Like there are times when I have to pull myself away from the situation and realize I'm not present in what I'm currently doing. I'm just focused on where I'm trying to get to. And it almost makes me think of the movie Click, you know, Adam Sandler.

Yeah.

Where like he misses his entire life because he thinks It's going to happen in a year. It happens years away and you miss the good stuff. So I try to really focus on finding joy in the present and what I'm doing and what I'm learning, the experience, but also what other people are learning through me as a guide. And that's what I try to focus on is finding the joy in the process. It's hard. I'm not saying it's easy. But really actively trying to focus on that.

That's been big for me too, moving to process-based goals rather than outcome-based goals. And in terms of business, we have a lot of young professionals in the audience. One of the reasons that people follow Book Thinkers is to find book recommendations for entrepreneurship and small business. And so you're a small business owner. You talk a lot about overcommit and overobsess. What does that message mean to you and how can it be applied to small business?

I think it's, it's in a nutshell, it's going all in on the things that you want to do and accomplish. So when there's something I decide that I'm going to do, there's, there's a lot of people that will talk about these things, like talk about the the things they're going to do one day or the things they want to try to work towards, but they really truly have no intent of ever putting that into action. I'm the type of person where if I say something, like my entire team knows it, by the afternoon I'm already starting the process. I'm already putting into action. So overcommitting and overobsessing is when there is something that I want to do or I decide, when I truly decide this is what I'm going to do, this is what I want to do, I flip a switch and there's no turning back. I'm all in. And then it's all I can think about until the systems are in place. Now, when I say this, I'm not saying I'm obsessing over it until it is accomplished, right? Because going back to, we're still trying to find joy in the process.

Hmm.

But you also have to set up the systems and infrastructure to facilitate that goal, that objective. So I'll obsess on building the team out, delegating responsibilities, setting a timeline, setting intent and expectations, and then letting the team work. And it's not micromanagement. It's not just waiting for that day to come. It's finding the joy in the process, but going all in and not turning back.

What advice do you have for young professionals that are looking to start a business? Because you've been entrepreneurial kind of since day one. I learned that in the book. You've been messing around with different projects and kind of getting your hands dirty in different areas of life, always with the intent of kind of overcommitting and over-obsessing on them. And so when is the right time to start a business? We know— and I guess I want to layer one other thing, so it's a big question. Michael Gerber in The E-Myth Revisited says that 95% of small businesses fail within the first 5 years. So you said earlier, you've got to be a little bit ignorant to start a business, right? You're rolling the dice with a 5% chance of success. So how did that work for you? And what advice do you give to small business entrepreneurs that are looking to start their first business?

I don't think it's ever too early to get started. If your business fails in the first 5 years, make it work in the first 10, right? Like, my business failed for the first 3. I didn't take a paycheck until the first 5, and we really didn't start making good money until year 6. And I don't think there's ever a perfect time or a right time to get started because you're never going to have all the answers before you get started. Right? Like you're going to mess up a lot. The best thing you can do is find a mentor and start learning and just start getting your feet wet and trying things out and finding what works and what doesn't. But at the same time, I truly believe that not everyone's meant to be an entrepreneur. I think it's very, it's like a cool term right now, like to be an entrepreneur, especially serial entrepreneur. And to be honest, most of the serial entrepreneurs I've met most of their businesses are failing and suck, and like there's one that's good.

Yeah.

Um, and I think it's like this cool— it's this cool term, it's this cool thing. It's like you're your own boss, but it also comes with a lot of responsibility, and you have to be willing and able to step up and, and be a leader and develop teams. I have a lot of friends that are business owners that I talk to And I was talking to a friend last night who's a business owner, and they're about the same size as us. And they were saying— he was saying, as a CEO, the hardest job for him is managing the people. And my response was, well, you have the wrong people, right? Like, you don't have any leaders within the organization. You shouldn't be managing 25 people. You should be managing like 4 or 5. And then they have teams under them. So the military taught me a lot about echelons of leadership and setting up teams and delegating responsibilities and establishing task, condition, standard, and intent. So that was very beneficial for my business, you know, entrepreneurship. But going back to it, I don't think everyone is supposed to be or can be an entrepreneur. I truly believe that.

Jimmy, you have military experience as well. Has that helped translate into your personal brand and business too?

Um, it definitely has. Um, yeah, Nick, um, something I'd like to really ask is, um, about your time, um, in the Army when you first really got things going with BPN. I know that, you know, you were in South Korea, you were working long hours, your brother Preston was in Texas really holding down the fort with a lot of the day-to-day operations. Um, you know, in that time to when 25 Hours a Day was published to now and how you've scaled your team from your time in the Army, how— like, what did you learn to develop, you know, unit cohesion and making everybody feel a part of the team, um, that you learned in the Army that you've applied to building this BPN team and how it's scaled over the last 3-5 years?

Yeah, the biggest things that I learned As a platoon leader in the Army that correlated to business. One, communication. The biggest thing that I learned in the military when I was going through training or I was a platoon leader was that when communication doesn't work its way down from the top and people don't know why they're doing something or what they're doing, they don't want to do it. Like, if you're told to do something but there's no reason— this is why you're doing it, this is the intent, this is the goal and the mission— you're just told do this, there's really no motivation behind it. Like, you can't build this story, this picture. So for me, it was constant communication of letting people know this is our mission, this is what we're trying to do this month, this is what we're trying to do, this is the new system we're putting in place, and this is why. So I really try to be clear with communication all the time. And then the second thing is culture. And I think that's one of the things that I did a really good job at being an infantry platoon leader. My platoon was building this culture that was fun, that was strong relationships. When it was time to work, we worked, and everyone knew it. But there was also a time where it was focused on building this culture, fostering relationships, developing individuals. And you find that balance of, you know, culture itself doesn't generate revenue. So you have to find this balance where you can have a business that is the best culture in the world, and it's fun to go to work, everyone wants to be there, but you're making zero money. That's a failure. And then you can have a business that's making money, but the culture sucks, so no one wants to work there. And that's also a bad place to be. So you have to find this balance of how do we foster relationships and create this amazing culture, but that culture facilitates growth and we're all working towards this mission. And I think finding that balance is tough, but if you can find that balance, it's powerful.

Well, you mentioned, you mentioned having that conversation with the other CEO of a business that's about the same size as yours, and he's leading 20 to 25 people where you're only leading 5 and they're delegating. So what, what types of advice do you have for people that need to teach other people how to delegate? Because that's a very different type of leadership.

Yeah, I think you have to, one, realize that if you try to do everything, you're not going to be able to do anything. And with BPN, you know, we grew so slow and organic because we didn't want to take on investors. We didn't want to give up equity, which now looking back, like it was tough times, but now we're at a point where we still have 100% equity in the company, which is great. And building out a team is I think the hardest part about building a business. Because you have to bring on the right people for the right job. I've had amazing people work for BPN, but they weren't in the right job and this wasn't the right place for them, so I had to let them go. Even though they were great people, it just wasn't the fit for them. So it has to be the right person for the right job who wants to be a part of a team that believes the mission. And then You start building these echelons of structure, of a chain of command, where it's you build these teams, you put a leader in charge of that team, and then you're delegating responsibility. And it's amazing because now I can sit back and I can watch these teams working on a daily basis, and it doesn't necessarily require me to be in there working with them. But I can deliver and provide my intent, and I know it's going to get executed.

How many years has BPN been in business now?

9 years.

Wow. And so it's taken 9 years to build up to that $25 million, which I think is a really important lesson for a lot of us, especially the version of you who said, hey, Dad, I'm doing a million bucks in year 1, and then did $20,000. Can you tell us a little bit more about the role of social media and YouTube specifically in growing your business? Because a lot of our audience, they see what Jimmy has done and what I have done in terms of leveraging social media to build a brand. And I think you did the same thing.

Social media can be powerful in both ways, positive and negative. And I think that people believe that it's just the numbers that generate the revenue. Like, if you just look at the followers or the subscribers, people think that those equate to dollars, and it's not always the case. And I've learned this, and I've also learned this by working with influencers and athletes. I mean, we can, we can work with someone who has a million-plus followers and they can't sell anything. They're the worst salesman in the world. But then you have someone that has 5,000 followers who can sell to every 5,000 people. So followers does not equate to your ability to be a salesperson at all. And with social media, I didn't start a social media account to have hundreds of thousands of followers. It was to tell a story. And for me, social media is like this, this journal, this diary where, for at least my personal brand, I use it to tell stories, and I learned this through studying Casey Neistat's videos. I was sitting in South Korea, I was watching Casey's videos, and I was thinking, I was like, Casey has this gift where he can take his normal day, tell a story, captivate an audience in 9 to 10 minutes, and everyone's waiting anxiously by their computer For the next upload. So I started studying what Casey was doing and how he was telling stories. And what I did when I was in Korea is I'd travel into Seoul for the weekend and I'd be like, all right, today I'm going to tell a story about Ranger School. And I'd film my journey on the train into Seoul, talking to the people in Korea, trying some new food, telling the story throughout the journey. traveling back on the train to Camp Casey. And I edited that video and put it up and it was captivating to people. So, social media is powerful in a sense that you can tell stories to people. You can share your story with this big audience. And there has to be some sort of value proposition where like I like to integrate telling stories but also providing people with some actionable steps they can take on their life To do the same thing. And there's all these different factors where I think people think you— it's just filming your life and putting it up there, but there's a lot of deliberate, intentional actions that are done behind the scenes where it's, okay, I want to tell a story, I want to provide value in a way of I'm providing actual steps of things other people can do. And I want it to be relatable, and I want people to realize that they can do it too. And that's what we're trying to, trying to do constantly with social media. And when you focus on that rather than numbers, it'll grow on its own. I truly believe that.

Do you believe that every small business should be a social business, should be sharing social content in that way?

I think There's some businesses that can and some that can't. You know, it really depends on the business. There has to be a story there. If there's no story there, I think you sometimes have to take a different approach. Like, for example, if you're selling home loans, um, you have to connect with an audience in a different way. But if you're a brand that has a story, and it's a true story and it's a real story, or you want to share stories, I think you should. And I think every brand and every business should be using social media. I think it's a no-brainer at this point, but in the way you use it has to be different.

Jimmy, you've been a big fan of Nick's page over the last year.

Oh yeah, absolutely. Um, I mean, yeah, your YouTube page was totally the reason why I got into running. totally motivated me to reinvent myself and my approach to fitness. But I think you're the epitome of somebody who's always growing by, you know, reinventing yourself, reinventing BPN. And how can we keep what we like, who you've always been, but do something totally different to get better? Going from bodybuilding or power bodybuilding to endurance running, endurance sports. And with BPN, you're always adding new supplements An app that you've recently added. You're always doing new and fresh things for Black Friday sales every year. Do you have a thought process that you do on a base, like a quarterly basis or monthly, where you're like, how can I think ahead to reinvent the next wave of Nick Bare or BPN?

You have to be forward-thinking, and as soon as you become complacent and comfortable, you're already falling behind. So I mean, a clear example is as soon as I'm done with one event or one series or one campaign for BPN, we've already been planning the next 2. We're always thinking 2 steps ahead. And that's why a lot of brands, personal brands or businesses, die and fall behind, is because they think, I'm going to do what I've always been doing and it works. And if people want to a part of it, they can be a part of it. But if they don't, they don't have to. And that mindset of saying, I'm going to do this, hop on board or don't, and trying to push forward doesn't always work. You have to keep reinventing what you're doing because the consumer market is changing, trends are changing. And if you are ignorant to that and stubborn to that change, well, you won't grow either. So it's constantly thinking 2 steps ahead. What is the next thing? I mean, we're already thinking 2 years now, 2 to 3 years out with BPN, and we're planning things that people won't see for 3 years. But you have to keep doing that.

That's pretty interesting. I like to hear that you're thinking 2 to 3 years out. I read recently that Bezos was always 3, 4, 5 years out, which is pretty crazy to think about. So the importance of forward thinking, but one of the most practical things that I listened to in the book, because I listened to it on audio, was backwards planning. So forward thinking, but backwards planning. What's your backwards planning kind of whiteboard metaphor?

We use this in the military, and it's one of those things that it's common sense, but so many people don't put into action. Right? So like backwards planning. If you have this whiteboard and on the left side of the board is where you're at today, the right side of the board is where you want to be, like your big goal. For us, like right now, it's $100 million company. In between where you're at today and where you want to be, there are some milestones and some things you have to accomplish to get there. So you start making a backwards timeline of, okay, From this big goal, $100 million, probably a year before that, we have to make sure we do this. We probably need this many employees, this many departments filled, these many wholesale accounts. We need to be shipping out this many orders. So that means our warehouse needs to be this big and fulfillment operations need to be able to operate and fulfill. this much. A year before that, we need to be at this point. Maybe we have these events covered and we need this many people coming to our website and our conversion rate needs to be here in order to meet this revenue mark. And the year before that, there's another goal. So then you fill in, okay, there's all these little micro things you need to do to reach these bigger milestones in order to get you to the X. So that's backwards planning in a nutshell. And we would use it for like military operations, planning a mission, and then backwards planning. Okay, well, at this point we need to be at this checkpoint. At this time we have to be at this checkpoint before we step off. You have to make sure you have all your equipment, all your gear, this stuff packed for 3 days, stuff like that. But you can make it— it can be a day operation, it can be a 3-month window. A year window, a 10-year goal. And you can adjust, but backwards planning keeps you on track to be where you need to be. Things are going to change. You're going to have to pivot and readjust. It's never perfect, but it aligns the things that you need to do to hopefully get to where you want to be.

Yeah.

I love that. Backwards planning allows you to act with intention in the present moment. It's funny. People often, they'll read a book or they'll choose to read a book without any intention. Why are you reading that book? What are you looking to get out it. And the same thing happens, I think, with a lot of small business owners. Why are you focusing on that today? Why is that your priority? Does that line up with where you want to be in a couple of years? And so for people that want to read this book for business advice, there's a ton of it. I actually chose to read this book because I was in a little bit of a physical activity slump. I think with COVID hitting and I started to pour myself into the business, I wasn't focused on my body as much as I should be. And one of my biggest takeaways on the physical side was the difference between Mind over body versus body over mind. And that was a huge breakthrough for you, it sounds like. Yeah.

And I learned that really through the Ranger School. Like Ranger School for me was this experience where it's a 61-day course and I thought I was going to go straight through. I knew it was going to be hard. I knew it was going to be difficult. I failed 2 phases, which put me there for 145 days. And I lost like 35 pounds. I went in looking one way, came out looking another way. Well, my mind completely shifted and changed during that experience. And it's one of those things that your mind changes and shifts after the experience, but more, even more years afterwards when you keep reflecting on things that you experienced or were challenged mentally. physically with. And I believe that like going into this 100-mile ruck march or sorry, 100-mile ultramarathon, going to this 100-mile race in Leadville, Colorado, it's like I know my body at some point is going to say stop. But mentally, it's like we'll just keep driving the bus, keep pushing forward. Same in business. Like at some point in business, you're going to think, oh man, I'm tired. I'm burnt out, I'm exhausted. But it's your responsibility to take care of yourself. And that's why fitness is so important for me from a business side, is if I take care of myself with nutrition and proper hydration and training and running and lifting weights, if I feel good, my mind is more clear, my body feels better, I can operate better, my energy is higher in the, the office, which Completely shifts the culture here. It's like, I know that if I come in here and I'm tired and I'm beat down and I'm not feeling my best, that trickles down and everyone is affected in this building by it. But if I come in here high off life after a 10-mile run and my energy's high and I'm feeling good and I last the whole day and I train with the team in the evening, everyone feeds off that. So it's also a leadership responsibility And I believe that like your mind is so powerful that it has to drive your physical being.

Yeah, I really enjoyed the Ranger School lessons. I have a grandfather and an uncle on my dad's side who both went through Ranger School and kind of same experience as you— come back 40 pounds less than you go in, worst experience of your life. Uh, there's one more lesson I'd like to have you talk about from Ranger School, which was the difference between being injured and being hurt. And I think that that actually translates to business as well. Sometimes there's a difference between being hurt and actually being injured in business too.

It's like talking about how many feelings get hurt on a daily basis. It's, uh, it's one of those things like in the military where if something happens to you and a medic walks up or an instructor walks up and asks you the question, are you hurt or are you injured? Well, it's that same way. Like, are you physically not able to do what you need to do? And that's injured. If you have a bone sticking out of your leg or your ankle's broken or your, your arm's fractured, well, that is injured. You can't do the job. But if you're hurt, there's not actually something that's limiting you from completing the operation or the mission. It is more so a mental break. And that's to the extremes of like being hurt and injured in a sense of completing something physical. But from a business side, it's the same thing where I think a lot of the time you see this on social media or in business, decisions are made emotionally. And when you make it decisions on an emotional basis, it is typically the wrong decision. And that's like a hurt mindset. But if you make decisions that are deliberately thought out and the consequences are considered and you execute that decision based off this deliberate thought process, It can be a whole lot better decision. And I think that's one of the things that I'm personally pretty good at is I don't let my emotions dictate the decisions I make for the business or myself. I can soak in my emotions for a little bit, but when I make a decision that actually affects me or the business or the people here, I'm very deliberate with the way that I weigh those consequences.

Hmm. Well, I've got one more question, but Jimmy, uh, what are your final thoughts for Nick? Do you have another question for him?

Um, I guess my last question, Nick, would be, um, you know, you're always doing new things bigger and better, new, uh, accomplishments personally, physically, and then also with your business. What would— what in the next 12 months would need to occur where Nick Bare would feel like it was a 100% success?

Next 12 months, one of the things that we're really focused on in the next 12 months is, you know, up until this point we've been about 95% direct-to-consumer with our business. And because we want to get to the point where like our goal is that BPN is a $100 million brand, so we know that in order to get there we need to open up different Um, distribute— distribution channels. So over the last year, we've made changes to our branding, our labels, some of our new products coming out that are going to facilitate our movement into in-store retail, like big box retailers. And we're working with some groups right now to make that happen, which hopefully is the end of— or middle of 2022, end of 2022. So a win for me in the next year would be that all the things that I've done in the last 2 years to get us to this point, but really to get us to that next point, it all works. So that would be a win for me.

Excellent. I love it. I lied. I actually have 2 more questions. Uh, the first has to do with a term that I like to call play bigger triggers. And these are environmental cues that will remind you of what your goals are. And I do them in the form of tattoos sometimes. So an example, on my right wrist, I have reality is negotiable. And so when societal pressures to conform to the normal behavior sometimes rain down on me, I go, well, reality is negotiable. I could create whatever I want. I think you have a similar tattoo, don't you?

Yep. I got, uh, right here, go one more.

Yeah. So tell us what that motto means to you and why you got it tattooed.

So I was, I was training for my second marathon. And for— I mean, at that point I wasn't in the best endurance shape, right? Like, not like I am now. And I had an 18-mile run to do that day, and I was running around downtown Austin. I got to mile 10 and I was just tired. Like, I wanted to stop and just walk home. I was like, I'm good for the day. But then it started beating down in my head. I was like, well, if I quit on this run I'm essentially quitting on myself. I'm quitting on my business. I'm quitting on everyone else. I'm a piece of shit. I suck. So I was like, all right, I'm gonna run 19 miles today just to prove it to myself. I did. I ran 19 miles. And I came home, I took my hat off because I'm always wearing a hat, and on the bill of my hat I wrote one more in Sharpie. And I took a picture of it and I posted on social media, not thinking anything, no context, just one more. And what happened next was thousands of people sent me DMs of their hat that said, one more on the bill. I was like, man, this really struck a chord and a nerve in a lot of people's mind. And that thought of, well, this is so relatable to people. People will need this to push forward. I need this to push forward. One more turned into go one more, and that just became our thing. That was like, that stuck. And I realized so many people connect with it because it doesn't always mean— it's not like, it's not go one more in the gym, it's not do one more rep, but it's in everything you do, go a little bit further than you think you can. And what happens is you're not going to see the result in a day, 2 days, 1 week, one month. But when you do that on a consistent basis, you go one more on a regular consistent basis, that compounds and you are so much further in the long term than you would have ever been if you just would have stopped at where you thought your potential was. And that's where Go One More was kind of born.

Yeah. Compounding is my middle name. So the podcast listeners will love that. So here's my last question. In the book, you referenced the fact that you read some business books so that you could kind of get acquainted with this world and start to build your business. So, are there any that stuck out as the most useful or practical for you? When you think of the books that you've read, are there any recommendations that you give other small business owners?

Yeah, let me pull up my Audible account real quick. I'd say recently, Some of my favorites, and sometimes books come to me at the perfect time of my life when I really need them. So I think the best example of this is when I was reading The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz. That came to me at a point in my life where I needed it the most, and it allowed me to make a business decision that was absolutely essential for growth. Um, another one that I recently finished by Tim Grover, Winning. Highly recommend Winning. Uh, and then The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team has been a really good one. And I'm a big fan of Donald Miller for his ability to tell stories, like StoryBrand. And when he talks about focusing on being the guide Rather than the hero. That is something that we have adopted in our business and seen a lot of benefit from.

Amazing. Well, Nick, thank you so much for jumping on the podcast today with us. And I hope that listeners got a great introduction to your book and they can make that determination whether or not it's going to be a good fit for them. For people that want to learn a little bit more about you, where should they go? What should they do?

Yeah. You can start by going to nickbaer.com. It's B-A-R-E. Uh, on Instagram, it's Nick Bare Fitness. On YouTube, if you just type in Nick Bare, a bunch of my videos will pop up. I have over 700 videos on YouTube. And then bpnsups.com is where my company's website is.

There you go.

Some pre-workout right there.

Highly recommend it. Well, thank you so much again. And, uh, if you ever need anything, let us know.

Thanks guys. I appreciate it.

Thanks, Nick.