128: The 5 Habits That Changed My Life

In this episode, I share these five crucial success principles, inspired by my morning runs, and prepare for a new chapter of relentless training and personal challenge. CHAPTERS: 02:18 Introduction 11:28 Point #1 23:10 Point #2 31:34 Point #3 45:10 Point #4 53:03 Point #5 Order my NYT Best-Selling Book GO ONE MORE Here: https://www.amazon.com/Go-One-More-Intentional-Life-Changing/dp/1637746210 FOLLOW: Become a BPN member FOR FREE - Unlock 20% off FOR LIFE https://bpn.team/member IG: instagram.com/nickbarefitness/ YT: youtube.com/@nickbarefitness

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Nick Bare?

  This Ironman prep is going to look different than the previous one did. That's a given, but I have this internal pressure and drive and calling that this is what I need to do next. To maintain momentum, personal growth, ambition, accomplishment, success. I want to face something that I have been, in all honesty, scared to do the last couple of years. And I've been scared to jump back into it because of the larger commitments and responsibilities I have now. But I want that challenge. I need that challenge. That internal pressure and drive is telling me, go do it.

• 0:42Nick Bare?

  Go test yourself. Go see what you are capable of. Remove this glass ceiling, stop making excuses and just go make it work. Find the time and make it work.

• 1:01Nick Bare?

  What is going on, guys? And welcome back to another episode.

• 1:07Nick Bare?

  We just wrapped up a lot of projects here at BPN and in my personal life. We moved into our new HQ. We moved out of our existing headquarters. We hosted the Go One More Ultra on the Bear Ranch, which was a huge success. We launched and released a new product being GUM Sport Plus. And then my book that I've been working on for the last two years has been published and released. That went live June 24th, 2025.

• 1:53Nick Bare?

  So a lot of big projects that we have collectively been working on for a long time have been wrapped up and are wrapping up and it feels really good. And I've had the opportunity the last couple of weeks to reflect on a lot of the things that we've been working towards and have finished. And a lot of those have been huge accomplishments, a lot of success. And there's five things that I want to talk about today that I believe, and this is a working title right now, I'm not exactly sure what we're going to title this episode, but it's five things that I believe you must start doing right now in order to win,

• 2:37Nick Bare?

  to succeed, to achieve, to accomplish. And sometimes when I'm on my morning run,

• 2:46Nick Bare?

  and this happens very often, almost daily, I run with my phone because if I'm listening to a podcast, I need my phone to listen to that podcast. And I carry my phone in the event that my wife needs to get ahold of me. If my kids are waking up, they're, you know, the, the apps that monitor the kids while they're sleeping, I'll get notifications. And it just gives me a, a sense of ease and comfort knowing that I am accessible to my family when I'm out on my morning run early.

• 3:22Nick Bare?

  And when I'm running with that phone in hand, if something pops in my head, I will mid-run, pull my phone out, pull my notes app up and write down something that I want to talk about on an episode, a video that I think we should, we should create or film,

• 3:40Nick Bare?

  a business initiative, a conversation I have to have with someone. I just take notes all the time. My notes apps in my phone are just filled with all of these ideas. Sometimes I get back from these runs, I'll look through my notes and I think to myself, what was I thinking? This makes no sense, you know, because when you're on a run or you're exercising. Dopamine is being dumped, your emotions are all over the place. Sometimes in the moment, what seems like a good idea is not a good idea afterwards. But oftentimes, or sometimes, I think of the most creative ideas, initiatives, perspectives,

• 4:23Nick Bare?

  thoughts, and I write these down so that I don't forget them. There have been runs where I don't have my phone with me and I will repeat that thing in my head over and over and over again until I get back to the house so I can write it down so I don't forget. What your mind does during exercise, during moments of solitude, deep thought, game changing. And for me, that is that morning run. So the five things that I'm going to talk about today are things that I've thought about on recent runs in the morning and I have worked them down in my, my notes app on my iPhone.

• 5:06Nick Bare?

  And I want to riff on those a little bit because I think they're very meaningful. And I have to give credit to the, the founders podcast. I've given credit to the founders podcast many, many, many times before. But for me, that is my go-to favorite podcast. It's hosted by David Senra. If you are a high performer, if you're a business owner, if you're an entrepreneur, if you're an athlete, if you're a creative, I believe this is and should be one of your go-to podcasts. It's so impressive and it's not just noise. It's not just busyness.

• 5:49Nick Bare?

  It is value and there are very clear takeaways. And a lot of this episode that I'm going to talk about, these five things have been inspired and sparked by some of the, the episodes from founders by David Senra. Specifically, this is one episode I think you guys should go listen to. It's episode 384 on Ken Griffin.

• 6:19Nick Bare?

  So I wanted to give credit to David Senna of Founders, because there's a lot of inspiration in the things that I'm going to discuss from some of his episodes, specifically number 384.

• 6:33Nick Bare?

  Before we dive into the meat and potatoes of this episode, I gotta talk about our summer sale.

• 6:41Nick Bare?

  We only do two sales a year here at BPN. That is our summer sale, and that is our Black Friday sale.

• 6:50Nick Bare?

  This episode goes live July 7th. Our summer sale is July 7th and July 8th.

• 7:01Nick Bare?

  So it's today. If you're listening to it on release day, it kicks off today, 10 a.m. Central Standard Time. It is 20% off our entire website, 20% off a subscription. So if you lock in a subscription, it is 20% off for life until you cancel that subscription. The first 10,000 orders that come through over $99, get a free Camo CLE BPN Go On More Endurance Hat. These hats for us absolutely crush. We have the red CLE hat, we have the black CLE hat, and now we have this custom Camo. The custom Camo was developed by CLE just for,

• 7:45Nick Bare?

  exclusively for BPN. And under the bill, it has "One More" written on it. The first time I ever wrote "One More", this is the founding story of Go On More.

• 7:59Nick Bare?

  The first time I ever wrote "One More" on the bill of my hat, we took that photo, we scanned it, and we printed it under the bill of this Camo Go On More CLE cap.

• 8:14Nick Bare?

  So the first 10,000 orders over $99, get a free hat thrown in their order. And we're launching a new flavor of whey protein. It is Salted Caramel. It is absolutely ridiculously delicious.

• 8:27Nick Bare?

  It is naturally sweetened. It is. It is so good. We are really proud of all of our flavors, especially our whey protein flavors. We crush this one. So July 7th, July 8th, BPN Summer Sale 2025. If you miss this sale, we don't have another big sale, site-wide sale until Black Friday in November. Only two sales a year. So take advantage of this if you are interested. And the last thing I want to bring up before I get into this first point. Many of the things that I talk about on this podcast

• 9:11Nick Bare?

  across all forms of content that we create, they may come across as self-promoting and self-centered. Do this so you can achieve. Do this, think this way, so you can accomplish X, Y, and Z. Do this to reach this. And that is true. I think that self and personal development is absolutely essential. We should all be working on ourselves all of the time to get better, to improve, to embody going more. But there is a meaning behind self-promotion. There's a meaning

• 9:56Nick Bare?

  behind self-improvement. There's a meaning behind self-betterment. I had Nick Klaver on the podcast a few weeks ago, and something he said rings so true. And it's that individual development, self-development is essential, but it's essential to enable, to be an enabler within a collective unit or a team. You practice self-development so you can apply that self development to a larger meaning, a larger mission, a larger group of people. It is to contribute to greater success for a collective unit, tribe, organization, society.

• 10:44Nick Bare?

  So these five things that I'm going to discuss, it's so that you can get better. I want you to think of it in that way. But it's so that you can get better, I can get better, we can get better for a greater cause that is larger than ourselves. That mindset shift for me has been monumental.

• 11:10Nick Bare?

  It has provided so much more fulfillment, meaning and purpose behind the things that I do, the pursuits that I endure and the accomplishments that I want to achieve.

• 11:28Nick Bare?

  The first thing I want to talk about is never stop being a student.

• 11:35Nick Bare?

  I believe that this is one of my greatest strengths personally. And I'll be honest, my life changed in 2020. When I started training for my second Ironman.

• 11:52Nick Bare?

  This was shortly after I got married.

• 11:56Nick Bare?

  And when I say shortly after I got married, like days after I got married, I hopped into Ironman prep.

• 12:03Nick Bare?

  And I was going to do Ironman Texas. But this was during the pandemic. All of these Ironmans got canceled and shut down. I ended up having to go do a race in Cancun, Mexico. It was a challenge Cancun race because all the Ironman races just weren't happening.

• 12:27Nick Bare?

  But why that fitness prep was so pivotal for me is because this is where I really started reading books, listening to audiobooks and consuming a lot of podcast content. Up until this point in my life, I just had no interest in reading or listening to books. Like no interest.

• 12:52Nick Bare?

  And then when I started this Ironman prep, I found myself on the bike for sometimes 90 minutes in the morning, sometimes three hours in the afternoon. Occasionally, there was a six hour ride on the indoor trainer. Six hours on a trainer. I mean, I still have very vivid memories of what that did to my butt cheeks. Like, just incredibly sore.

• 13:23Nick Bare?

  Yeah, incredibly sore. But, no pun intended, I will say, that time sitting on the bike, hours, hours logged, gave me an opportunity to start listening to audiobooks and podcasts. That changed my life. That is where I truly embraced the opportunity to be a student. And everything that I was listening to and learning in these audiobooks, in these podcasts, I would consume and then I would almost immediately go apply. That transformed our business.

• 14:05Nick Bare?

  Between 2019 and 2020, I can't say it was just because of all these audiobooks that I listened to and this new profound concept of being a student. I can't directly attribute the growth of BPN to that, but I think it was definitely part of it. We grew 400% that year. I mean, we went from like 4 million in revenue roughly to about 22 million in revenue with just about the same size team. And that was just a crazy amount of growth.

• 14:47Nick Bare?

  But I will tell you, when I started actually embracing being a student, it changed my life. It changed the way I thought, it changed the way I led, it changed the way I operated the business. That is something that we should all be doing, and I am the biggest proponent of getting people to read books, listen to like actually good podcasts, not just noise and, like I've said, busyness and fiction. I mean, there's a time and place for fiction, but spend your time wisely and find that

• 15:27Nick Bare?

  skill, that craft that you want to refine and improve upon, and then go find the resources that help you do that. I had a conversation with the BPN team last week because I was, I was thinking about this on a run that was sparked by the podcast I listened to. I wrote it down, I came into the office and I had to share it with everyone. And we run these meetings within departments, they're called L10s. A few years ago, we implemented EOS, which is the Entrepreneurial Operating System into our business.

• 16:11Nick Bare?

  If you're not familiar with that, go read the book called Traction and then Rocket Fuel by Gina Wickman. Incredible for businesses. There's a system you implement into an organization called EOS, Entrepreneurial Operating System. Part of that system is a meeting cadence and structure, they're called L10s. So within our Slack channels for the business, within our Asana channels that we have for the business that, that are project management software, we can list out things that we want to talk about in that weekly L10 meeting. On my run, I went into Asana, I went to Slack, and I made a note that I wanted to talk

• 16:55Nick Bare?

  to the, the brand team, I wanted to talk to the leadership team, and I wanted to talk at the next all-hands meeting about the, the value and importance of always being a student. And what I shared with them was,

• 17:10Nick Bare?

  Up until this point in the business, for the first 13 years,

• 17:16Nick Bare?

  hard work and effort

• 17:20Nick Bare?

  has always been appreciated and respected and it always will moving forward.

• 17:26Nick Bare?

  But hard work and effort is

• 17:32Nick Bare?

  similar to quality. Quality in a business, talking about product or service, is expected. It is table stakes. Having high-quality product or services is not a competitive advantage. That is just the expectation. It is the bare minimum. In order for you to survive, you have to have quality products and a quality service. The same goes for hard work and effort.

• 18:03Nick Bare?

  At least in this business, if you work at BPN, hard work and effort is expected. It is table stakes. It has gotten us to where we are today and it will get us to where we need to be, or at least it is part of what is going to get us to where we need and want to be in the future.

• 18:21Nick Bare?

  But if you only have hard work and effort to offer, you will not make it here in this organization. This is what I share with the team.

• 18:31Nick Bare?

  And I said, if you want to be a part of the BPN team into the future, here's what you need to do. You have to be a student, a constant student. You have to keep searching out resources, continuously learning how to improve not only your skill and craft, but the organization as a whole. And if you don't do that, you will not make it in this next chapter. I can promise you that. I can tell in this business and who I work with and who I speak with, who is consistently reading valuable content, consuming valuable content, just by the way that they think, the way that they apply

• 19:15Nick Bare?

  critical planning, thinking and execution.

• 19:20Nick Bare?

  The proactive approach to everything that they are working on. People who don't embrace this always being a student mentality, they're always one, two, three steps behind. They are running outdated blueprints. They are trying to keep up. They're always behind. So I share with the team, if you want to be a part of this organization in the future, you have to constantly be learning. Not just while you're here in the office, but in your own free time. That is how we succeed as a collective unit. That's how you succeed as an individual.

• 20:04Nick Bare?

  And to learn is much more than an ability. It is a willingness. Winston Churchill once said, "I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught." There has to be a humility aspect. You need to remove ego to recognize that you don't know everything. There's a lot to learn. Even though you might not like being taught and corrected, that's okay. You must always be willing to learn. To learn is much more than an ability.

• 20:48Nick Bare?

  It is a willingness. And what being a student does is that it maintains and generates momentum. I was thinking about this on my morning run today, and I wrote this down in my notes app. It's easier to maintain momentum once it's started than it is to generate that momentum from the start. If I think about starting a business.

• 21:15Nick Bare?

  People used to ask me and still do ask me, where do I get started? It's a really hard question to answer because it's so unique and different for everyone. Where do I get started? Typically, once someone gets started and they start gaining and generating some momentum, that momentum is going to guide them to what has to be done next. But oftentimes, before you get started, it's where do I get started? What do I do? What do I begin? If I think about right now in this business,

• 21:54Nick Bare?

  after building for 13 years, I have and we have a lot of momentum. That momentum will die very quickly if we stop learning and we stop consuming valuable content and we stop being willing to be a student. That momentum can shut off tomorrow. I've learned and recognized that this momentum will keep building and building and building. It's like a snowball that starts at the top of a hill and it rolls down and it becomes larger and larger and larger.

• 22:33Nick Bare?

  That momentum will continue gaining as long as we feed it information. Be a student. If you want to maintain momentum, you have to be a student and you have to continue learning. That might be one of the greatest hacks along with consistency. Be a consistent student for your entire life and it will take you to amazing places. You will accomplish remarkable things. I promise you. The second thing I want to talk about is to embrace adversity.

• 23:19Nick Bare?

  I love this, this saying here. And I use the, the term man, but this is not gender specific at all. You could say person or, or female or male. Fear a man, fear a man who has not faced adversity. Fear a man who has not faced adversity. Those who lack adversity will take many of life's greatest rewards for granted. I've learned so much through failure and that probably sounds cliche,

• 24:05Nick Bare?

  but I've also learned so much from other people's failure as well. I was listening to this Ryan Holiday podcast a few days ago. And he said something that really stuck with me. Again, I was on a run, I wrote it down in my notes app. He said that it's important and valuable to learn from your own personal experience, but to embrace the learning from other people's experience and their adversity as well. He also said, and this was quoted in a Medium article by Ryan Holiday,

• 24:50Nick Bare?

  who Ryan Holiday is, is a great author. He, he studies the Stoics. His books are incredible. He's actually located here in Bastrop, Texas, which is right down the road from Austin. I've never connected with Ryan, but I would love to in the future. I have a lot of respect for, for his work. He said, "Any fool can learn by experience," the saying goes. "It's vastly preferable to learn from the experiences of others." This is what mentors are for. They've been where you've been. They've done what you've done. They've made mistakes that you don't have to make. This is what books do as well.

• 25:35Nick Bare?

  Again, going back to constantly being a student and reading.

• 25:39Nick Bare?

  They allow you to benefit from the experiences of others, successful and not so successful, happy and deeply broken people alike. My whole life, I've sought out that kind of advice, explicit and deduced. I've benefited from being pointed in the right direction and warned when I was headed in the wrong direction. I've picked up lessons in the books that I've read. I've highlighted and printed out passages of advice that I've tried to live by.

• 26:11Nick Bare?

  We can learn a lot through our own personal adversity.

• 26:16Nick Bare?

  But some of us, and it's all, it's all relative. Some of us have gone through more or less adversity, hard times, struggle, obstacles than others.

• 26:31Nick Bare?

  And sometimes I've, I've met people who have gone through a lot of adversity and they position themselves as the victim. And they don't view it as an opportunity to learn and grow from. That is one approach, that is one take. I'm not here to judge, that's just an observation.

• 26:51Nick Bare?

  I've also met people who have gone through a lot of adversity. A lot of adversity. And they've grown from that situation and come out the other side with a new perspective on life and the opportunity they've been provided and what they're going to do with that adversity. Mitch Amens is a great example of that. I just had Mitch Amens on the podcast recently. And Mitch is an incredible person, but also an incredible athlete. He's a 216 marathoner. He runs here in Austin, Texas. He's a BPN athlete.

• 27:32Nick Bare?

  Mitch struggled with addiction for, I believe it was seven years.

• 27:39Nick Bare?

  His story is extremely inspiring, but like a hard heroin addiction.

• 27:46Nick Bare?

  Overdosed multiple times, nearly killed him. He got over that addiction. He's now recovered and he is one of the most positive people to be around. He's having the greatest success in his professional career in real estate and just crushes his athletic endeavors. He's been through a lot of hard times, struggle, obstacles, failed rehab attempts. He has faced adversity. But he's grown through that. I'm not saying you have to go search out adversity.

• 28:25Nick Bare?

  To be a strong person.

• 28:28Nick Bare?

  But I think we should fear people who fear adversity. And we should invite people who embrace adversity and grow from it and through it. But this is the value of being able to read all these books and listen to people's stories and learn from where they they messed up and made mistakes and how we can grow from it. So we don't have to make those same mistakes. This reinforces the reason why we have to constantly be a student and learn.

• 28:56Nick Bare?

  Learn not only about our skill and our craft, but also what to avoid and how others have made those same mistakes before us.

• 29:05Nick Bare?

  To be able to embrace adversity, we need humility. Because it allows us to have an accurate self-perception. It allows us to be open to learning and it allows and facilitates an appreciation for others.

• 29:22Nick Bare?

  Embrace adversity.

• 29:25Nick Bare?

  Fear a man who hasn't faced adversity, but also fear a man. Who fears adversity and doesn't grow from.

• 29:36Nick Bare?

  If adversity doesn't stimulate growth in learning, fear that person. I want to take a quick break in this episode to talk to you guys about our newest product. And that is called G1M Sport Plus. G1M Sport Plus is the pre-workout for endurance athletes. And in my honest opinion, a great option did not exist up until this point. Now, it is built off of the foundation of one of our bestselling products, and that is G1M Sport. G1M Sport is fuel and it is hydration. Fuel from carbohydrates, 20 grams of fast digesting carbohydrates in the form of cluster dextran

• 30:21Nick Bare?

  per serving, and 350 milligrams of sodium. G1M Sport Plus has added energy and focus. Energy from 150 milligrams of caffeine and focus from nootropics such as Alpha GPC and N-acetyl L-tyrosine. This is the pre-workout option, the pre-workout source for endurance athletes. And these ingredients work very synergistically together from carbohydrates, electrolytes, energy, and mental focus. So now you can not only prime your body, but prime your body and your mind for the toughest workouts

• 31:06Nick Bare?

  in the hardest training sessions. And once you try G1M Sport Plus, you will realize just how powerful these ingredients and this product is. It is truly a game changer. So elevate your training, elevate your workouts with the future of endurance. The newest pre-workout for endurance athletes, G1M Sport Plus. Now, back to the episode. The third thing I want to talk about is to let internal pressure drive you.

• 31:44Nick Bare?

  In this, uh, in this podcast, this founder's podcast, episode 384,

• 31:53Nick Bare?

  David Senna shared this story about Kobe, and I love studying Kobe, Kobe Bryant.

• 32:02Nick Bare?

  In this past couple of years, I think my favorite people to study have been Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, Steve Jobs. And there's been a lot of other entrepreneurs, but I find myself pretty frequently looking for more content on the, the life of those three people, the mindset of those three people and, and just their approach. Just like this ruthless want and desire for improvement, betterment, and then just like being focused on this mission, this purpose.

• 32:37Nick Bare?

  But there was a story shared about Kobe that I loved. Kobe was being interviewed.

• 32:43Nick Bare?

  I think it was, it was after a game and someone asked him

• 32:48Nick Bare?

  what it's like or how he handles the external pressure from other people who have such high expectations of him. People have these high expectations for Kobe to do these things and to perform. And the interviewer says, how do you handle that stress and that pressure? And Kobe looks at this interviewer, I get chills thinking about this story. I wish I was there in person.

• 33:15Nick Bare?

  Kobe looks at this interviewer and he just looks disgusted. Like this, this look on his face is just pure disgust. And he goes, their expectations.

• 33:28Nick Bare?

  Their expectations are so much lower, I'm paraphrasing here, not exactly, but their expectations are so much lower than my expectations for myself. The standard that Kobe, and I'm sure it's the same for Michael Jordan and Steve Jobs and a lot of these other great athletes and entrepreneurs and leaders. The standard and the expectations they set for themselves is much larger and greater than the expectations of other people that they have on this said individual.

• 34:02Nick Bare?

  If we allow for an external pressure to drive us,

• 34:09Nick Bare?

  we're already behind. That comes from a place of insecurity and inferiority.

• 34:17Nick Bare?

  Our expectations and the pressure for ourselves to perform and execute should be so much greater than what anyone else could expect from us. There's an internal stress, there's an external stress. I think you need some external stress that puts pressure on you, but it shouldn't be greater than the internal pressure and stress you have for yourself.

• 34:45Nick Bare?

  In order to allow this internal pressure to drive you, you have to set a standard, set a standard for which you operate, what you do, and then fight to hold that standard. And ignore your competition. In the 13 years of building this company, and the same will ring true moving forward in the future.

• 35:06Nick Bare?

  So many people, like I sit in these business meetings and people ask me the question, "So who's your competitors? Who's your competition? Who are the first three businesses that you're trying to take market share from?"

• 35:21Nick Bare?

  And I hate this question more than anything. And I look at these people often, and I answer very politely and respectfully. I say, "I don't think about competitors, ever, ever." I'm not trying to take market share from one specific competitor necessarily. I am like a racehorse, where I have blinders up, I don't see to my right. I don't see anything to my left. I am focused on our mission, our vision, and what we're trying to pursue. My peripherals are are are open.

• 36:00Nick Bare?

  I am aware of what's happening around me. I'm aware, but I'm not hyper focused on my competitor over to my left, my competitor over to my right. I am aware that they're there, what they're doing. For sure. I'm not going to operate out of a place of ignorance. And being naive. I am aware. But they don't have all my focus. My my focus is forward. It is on our mission. It is on our vision. What we're building and why.

• 36:37Nick Bare?

  That drives that internal pressure.

• 36:43Nick Bare?

  They also made this comment in in this podcast that I loved and it was all about.

• 36:50Nick Bare?

  Not just existing to be a player in the game. But existing to win the game. I think that's directly applicable to to building a business, for me at least. I don't want to just be a contender in the endurance consumer space. I don't want to be just another player in the game that is participating. I want to win the game. I want to be the best. And I want to be the best.

• 37:25Nick Bare?

  And respected. By doing it the right way, no matter how long that takes. It's not going to happen next year, and I know it's not not going to happen in the next couple of years, but 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years from now.

• 37:42Nick Bare?

  Maybe after I'm dead. I want. My company, my business, what we're building, to be known as the best, to win the game, not just to exist.

• 37:56Nick Bare?

  I set my standards for myself very high. I have for a long time now and I work really hard to hold that standard. And actually, at the time of this recording, I just signed up for my next fitness endeavor. And at the time of this release of this episode, this episode releases July 7th. My prep officially starts the day this episode is released, July 7th, for our next race, which is November 16th.

• 38:38Nick Bare?

  That is Ironman Arizona, November 16th, 2025. And as I mentioned in the beginning of this episode, we just wrapped up and are wrapping up a lot of projects. And we've accomplished a lot of things the last couple of months. And it's time for a new target. Because in the absence of a target, a very clearly defined goal, and I think it's really important, like in our vision for BPN, we have 10-year targets. And that guides our strategy and that guides all of our tactics in building the business and what we pursue

• 39:23Nick Bare?

  and what we say yes to and what we say no to. But I believe you also need these short-term and shorter-sighted targets, much shorter than 10 years. For yourself personally and then for the collective unit of your business, your family or your team. I just wrapped up a bunch of these projects. I needed a new target. And that target for me was Ironman Arizona. So we're back in Ironman Prep. This is Ironman Prep, Season 3, which I'm extremely excited about. We'll be documenting the whole journey

• 40:07Nick Bare?

  over the next couple of months to November 16th.

• 40:13Nick Bare?

  And it wasn't because of an external pressure that I had on me to do an Ironman. I could feel, I could feel something brewing inside of me these last couple of months. And when I had my running injury, where I had to take a few weeks off from running,

• 40:30Nick Bare?

  and that resulted in me getting back on the bike and spending some time on the trainer inside, on Zwift, that sparked something inside of me that I hadn't felt for, I guess about five years since my last Ironman prep.

• 40:47Nick Bare?

  And I missed being on the bike.

• 40:50Nick Bare?

  I was reminiscing back on Ironman prep and the work that goes into it, and the commitment and the dedication that is required.

• 41:00Nick Bare?

  And I wanted that really heavy target again. I wanted that big commitment again.

• 41:10Nick Bare?

  And just recently, I decided,

• 41:15Nick Bare?

  Ironman Arizona is going to be it.

• 41:19Nick Bare?

  And I'll be honest, the thought of going into an Ironman prep the last couple of years has been there slightly here and there, but I've always resisted that temptation based off the other life responsibilities that I had, and I still do have.

• 41:37Nick Bare?

  My business is much larger and much more demanding than it was in my last Ironman prep in 2020, 2021.

• 41:47Nick Bare?

  My family is larger. I now have two kids that I didn't have in my last Ironman prep years ago. My personal responsibilities are greater, my professional responsibilities are greater. And for the last couple of years, I have resisted that temptation to go back into Ironman prep.

• 42:07Nick Bare?

  Because I love that training. It's exciting, it's different, it's, it's, uh, it's broad.

• 42:17Nick Bare?

  It keeps you very engaged. And at the same time, I love the content that we create around it. I love what it does for our community, the inspiration that it sparks, and what it does for the business. There's so many reasons that an Ironman training block just makes sense for me from a professional drive as well as a personal drive.

• 42:41Nick Bare?

  And I finally got to a point where I thought, I can make this work. And I'm going to make this work. This prep for me is going to look a whole lot different than 2020, 2021 did. Because like I've said, my life responsibilities are greater. My schedule is much tighter. My sleep is much less with a three-year-old and a one-year-old.

• 43:06Nick Bare?

  But if it matters to you, you will find time and you will make it work. And I'm gonna find time to make it work. This Ironman prep is going to look different than the previous one did. That's a given.

• 43:21Nick Bare?

  But I have this internal pressure and drive

• 43:26Nick Bare?

  in calling that this is what I need to do next.

• 43:34Nick Bare?

  To maintain momentum, personal growth, ambition, accomplishment, success.

• 43:45Nick Bare?

  I want to face something that I have been,

• 43:50Nick Bare?

  in all honesty, scared to do the last couple of years.

• 43:55Nick Bare?

  And I've been scared to jump back into it because of the larger commitments and responsibilities I have now. But I want that challenge. I need that challenge. That internal pressure and drive is telling me, go do it, go test yourself, go see what you are capable of. Remove this glass ceiling, stop making excuses and just go make it work. Find the time and make it work.

• 44:32Nick Bare?

  So that's what's next. Ironman Prep, Season 3, baby. November 16th, Ironman, Arizona. At the time of this, uh, this episode going live, we are in prep. And the YouTube series is about to kick off. And I'm so excited. I'm, I, I haven't had this much excitement around like a fitness prep in a hot minute.

• 44:57Nick Bare?

  And it just...

• 45:03Nick Bare?

  It's hard to explain. I'm just excited. I'm really excited for it.

• 45:10Nick Bare?

  The fourth thing that I want to talk about

• 45:14Nick Bare?

  is the importance of being a leader that listens

• 45:18Nick Bare?

  and sets the conditions for others to succeed.

• 45:23Nick Bare?

  I've had this mind shift, mindset shift.

• 45:28Nick Bare?

  There's actually a book by Erwin McManus called Mind Shift that I highly recommend. And, you know, I think I meant in my notes to write mindset shift, but I wrote mind shift because of that book. There was a mindset shift, a mind shift

• 45:46Nick Bare?

  over these years

• 45:49Nick Bare?

  from what can I do to grow my business? What can I do to grow my business? To what can I do to help other people contribute to growing the business?

• 46:06Nick Bare?

  How do I be the leader that listens and sets the conditions for others to succeed? It's not what can I do? What can others do and how can I help them do that?

• 46:16Nick Bare?

  That mindset shift has been huge for me.

• 46:20Nick Bare?

  You don't always have to be the doer, but you can be the facilitator. And there's so much reward that comes from that. Part of that is removing your ego, eliminating your ego and having humility to realize you can't do everything. And some people, a lot of people are going to do it better than you, depending on what that thing is.

• 46:43Nick Bare?

  And to be honest, I've learned this just from years of working with people and leading people and making the mistakes and growing a business. 13 years is a decent amount of time to learn a lot of these things.

• 46:56Nick Bare?

  And I recently came across this individual named John Gordon. And he has this quote that I shared in a recent YouTube video that I really enjoy. And it says, "Great leaders don't succeed because they are great. They succeed because they bring out the greatness in others."

• 47:14Nick Bare?

  That is my north star for the vision of myself. For the future of my involvement within BPN, within my business.

• 47:27Nick Bare?

  My job as a leader, my job as the CEO is not to

• 47:37Nick Bare?

  succeed just because my actions are great and they contribute to the success of the organization. My job is to facilitate success and growth by bringing out the greatness in others. How do I set the conditions for others to succeed? And a lot of the times, this is just listening to people. Actually, really listening to people. People want to speak. People have things to share. People want to be heard. It is a leader's job to actually really listen. Listen, consume, digest, and then respond and make a plan. It's not a reaction, it is a response.

• 48:20Nick Bare?

  This might sound ridiculous, but this is the way that my mind works. We just moved into this new HQ, right?

• 48:30Nick Bare?

  And when we got in here,

• 48:33Nick Bare?

  we hired a design agency to help us add some design elements to this space, which they did an incredible job with. But it's 76,000 square feet. There's a lot of white walls to be filled still. When I walked in day one and everyone was at their offices or at their desks and working, the biggest thing I realized is there's white walls everywhere.

• 48:58Nick Bare?

  We came from a headquarters that we were operating out of for the previous five years. And over those five years, we painted walls, we added murals, there was ship lap and accent walls everywhere. It just was very creatively inspiring. You could feel the energy when you walked in. And when we occupied this new space, the energy felt kind of dead. It felt very commercial. It felt very creatively uninspiring, to be honest. And I thought, if I want this business to succeed, I need people to show up here every day inspired.

• 49:40Nick Bare?

  I want it to be a place where they show up and they can feel the energy. The energy from the walls, to the smells, to the sounds, to the sights, to all of the things, should bring energy and life to them. I am all about creating an environment that is conducive to success. That has been my mission the last couple of weeks since getting into this building. I've had mural artists coming out. I've been working with a designer here in Austin, Texas. Her name's Britt Wheeler. She's been incredible. We've added plaster walls, we've painted ceilings, we've added wood accents, ship lap, slot walls, all of these things.

• 50:26Nick Bare?

  Because the way that my mind works and operates is, I need this place to feel like BPN. I need this place to be leaking creativity and vision and success. So when people show up here, they understand, okay, this is the energy we got to bring. This is the standard.

• 50:49Nick Bare?

  Let's run with this. Let's build. It is my job to set the conditions for others to succeed. And part of that is the environment in which they work. That's why we've invested so much money, time, resources into the private gym we have here at HQ. It's a 9,000 square foot private gym for the team and employees. We have a sauna, we have cold plunges, we have a beautiful break room.

• 51:18Nick Bare?

  We get food delivered every week for the team. So we provide free lunches by Snap Kitchen. So there's pre-prepped meals, there's prepped meats. We do team lunches every other week. We bring in, like this past week, we brought in Chase Fishback to cater barbecue for the team. We had ribs and Spatchcock chicken and tri-tip and all the sides and fixings.

• 51:47Nick Bare?

  I believe if you invest in your people, you invest into the environment, their experience, the culture.

• 51:55Nick Bare?

  That is a huge component for success. But it's a leader's job to listen and set the conditions for others to succeed. You don't have to be a business owner to apply this to your life. It can be within your family, it can be within your workplace.

• 52:15Nick Bare?

  You don't have to have a leadership title to be a leader. Leaders listen and leaders set the conditions for other people to succeed. That's why when you have a captain on a sports team, the captain isn't necessarily always the best player.

• 52:35Nick Bare?

  A lot of people get that wrong. Sometimes when someone is the best at what they do, they believe they should be the leader. The leader isn't always the best at the skill or the craft or the ability. But they set the conditions the best for everyone to achieve success, for the team to be successful. That's the role of the captain, that's the role of the leader. And the last thing I want to talk about.

• 53:06Nick Bare?

  Is don't sacrifice durability for growth. This was a direct pull from that podcast, that founder's podcast, number 384.

• 53:18Nick Bare?

  The Ken Griffin podcast. And it talks about not sacrificing durability durability for growth. And I cannot agree more.

• 53:29Nick Bare?

  One of our core values in our business is very similar. One of our core values is we will never sacrifice profitability for growth.

• 53:40Nick Bare?

  There are some business models, and this is not the way that BPN was built. But some business models, they have an idea and a concept. And they go out and fundraise through venture capital. Or angel investors. It's a startup, it's an idea, and it raises money on the idea, the concept, the potential. They raise all this money and they pursue growth as fast as possible. So that they can then turn around that business and sell it to someone for more. So that the founders, the team and the investors get a return on their time and capital. That is not the way that we pursue scalability and growth.

• 54:27Nick Bare?

  I always play the long game in everything I do. You want to see consistent growth year over year, project over project. But you should not, at the expense

• 54:43Nick Bare?

  of growth, have to sacrifice profitability or durability. One of the things they mentioned in this podcast episode that I've been referencing is that there are businesses who have been in business for 30 plus years. And their best years

• 55:05Nick Bare?

  are the last two to three years. Took them 27 years to get to where they are right now.

• 55:14Nick Bare?

  Consistent return on investment, continuous, consistent growth. A lot of businesses can't say that. A lot of people can't say that. They go out hot. They have quick growth and scale and then it is consistent decline. They have the best of their years, the best of their times early on. And then it's decline. This is like the, the story of the notorious high school or college athlete. And you'll know if someone has peaked in high school or college in their athletic endeavors or careers or personal accomplishments, because they will tell you at every barbecue and

• 55:54Nick Bare?

  party you're at, they will talk about the high school sport days or their college athletic careers. That was the peak and then everything after that was the decline. I don't hang my hat on any previous accomplishments that happened far in the past because what I'm most proud of and should be proud of is the durability of growth and success. Now and into the future. I made this note here. I wouldn't have wanted my business to grow any faster than it has. Why?

• 56:37Nick Bare?

  So this year in 2025, we will do about north of 80 million in revenue and we're projected that in 2026 that we will cross the hundred million dollar revenue mark. Which is wild to say. And we're also going to do that profitable. So this year we will be, we will be mid teens, mid teens EBITDA profitability. Our goal for next year, 2026 is a hundred million in revenue, 20% EBITDA margins. It's 20% profitability. And we've gotten to that point by being very disciplined. And looking at the long-term.

• 57:21Nick Bare?

  Being durable, building a legacy as opposed to the short term. So there's definitely competitors, there's other brands that I'm aware of that hit 100 million in revenue within a couple of years and some that have done it in their first year of business, which is very impressive.

• 57:40Nick Bare?

  But I think it's more impressive if they can sustain that growth over 10, 20, 30, 40 plus years. That's the growth that I want to experience, not just for my business, but for my entire life. I want the end of my life, those years to be some of the best years. It just keeps getting better. I made this note in response to the why. Why I wouldn't want my business to have grown any faster. It has taken me all of these 13 years to learn, realize and know where we need to go and why.

• 58:19Nick Bare?

  If I would have been provided the same opportunities driven by growth earlier on, I wouldn't have known what to do with it.

• 58:28Nick Bare?

  Sometimes you don't want growth to happen fast because you won't be prepared for what to do or how to manage that growth.

• 58:40Nick Bare?

  I like the long-term approach. And I share this one because I don't want people to become discouraged when you're not succeeding, accomplishing, or growing, or even achieving the things that you want to be doing

• 58:58Nick Bare?

  in the short term. But if you keep chipping away and working towards

• 59:07Nick Bare?

  that goal, that result, little by little, year after year, eventually you'll get it. And I guarantee when you get it, it's going to be so much sweeter than it would have been if you got it earlier on, when you didn't know what to do with it or what it meant necessarily. Don't sacrifice durability for growth.

• 59:30Nick Bare?

  So those are the five things I wanted to share that have just been top of mind recently that I believe are extremely valuable, important. And oftentimes, you know, I talked about having these notes in the notes app on my phone. I'll be laying at bed at night and I'll just go back through that as like a self reminder of these are the things I need to be focused on. And they will guide the decisions I make tomorrow and the next day and the day after that to ensure I'm getting to where I want to be. And when I get there, I'm proud of how I got there and what I've accomplished. So with that being said, we'll see you guys next episode. As always, go one more.