099: An Honest Conversation After a Near-Death Experience

This episode is a raw and unfiltered take as I recount a life-changing experience from December 11th, 2024, where I miraculously survived being hit by a car during a morning run. I share my reflections and lessons learned from this event, emphasizing the importance of embracing contentment without complacency. As an entrepreneur and athlete, I've always struggled with balancing ambition and presence. This experience has prompted me to reassess my life's pace, appreciate what I have, and commit to a future that values both growth and gratitude. Chapters 00:00 Intro 03:28 Full Story 20:46 Reflections on Contentment and Ambition 26:26 The Addiction of Doing: A Personal Struggle 31:54 Balancing Sacrifices and Values 37:38 Building a Life to Be Proud Of 47:55 Conclusion: Embracing Contentment and Moving Forward Strength, endurance, and wellness supplements to fuel your performance. SAVE 10% at BPN Supps: https://bit.ly/nickbare10audio Follow: IG: instagram.com/thenickbarepodcast/ 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?

  I've titled this podcast episode within my notes as an honest conversation with myself. And at the time of this recording, it is December 12th, 2024. And on December 11th, 2024, yesterday, was the closest experience to death that I have ever experienced.

• 0:30Nick Bare?

  And I want to share that story. I want to share what I learned through it. And there's a lot of takeaways and reflections coming off of the last 24-plus hours that I've really sat with during that time. I just want to share it. This is an opportunity, one, to have a conversation with myself, an honest conversation with myself,

• 0:59Nick Bare?

  that I'm then going to share with you guys to listen to, digest, consume, and hopefully use and incorporate into your life. Now, before I dive into what happened, I have a goal for 2025. We're approaching the end of 2024, and my goal for 2025 is to be more content with my life. Contentment. I am pursuing contentment. It is something that I have, I have struggled with forever, especially as a, as an entrepreneur, a bootstrapped entrepreneur. I'm always looking for the next thing.

• 1:45Nick Bare?

  The grass is always greener. The next challenge, the next big chase, the next goal, the next obstacle.

• 1:52Nick Bare?

  And being content does not mean being complacent. They are two different things. Contentment is not complacency.

• 2:03Nick Bare?

  Being content is living and pursuing a life of go one more. This means that I am grateful for what I have and what God has provided me. I can live in the moment and enjoy life as opposed to constantly looking into the future and neglecting the present.

• 2:25Nick Bare?

  One of the things that we've been saying at BPN this last year is that we are a brand for the committed. That is going to be a staple of BPN forever, just like Go One More is. We founded Go One More 2019 for the committed as BPN. And what I'm committing to moving forward, especially after yesterday, is I'm committed to embracing contentment. And again, contentment is not complacency.

• 3:01Nick Bare?

  I want to live a life where I am grateful for what I have and what God has provided me, but I'm also pursuing growth and greatness and challenge moving forward.

• 3:16Nick Bare?

  It's ambition, it's contentment, it's the balance between the two. That is what I am committed to from this day moving forward. Now, what happened yesterday that I hope to say in the years to come that yesterday, December 11th, 2024, changed my life forever. I shared about it on Instagram, but I was hit by a car while I was running. I was hit by a car.

• 3:52Nick Bare?

  And I don't know how I am sitting here today, for one, alive, but also not seriously injured.

• 4:02Nick Bare?

  So I want to talk about what happened, how it happened, my reflections, and then some things moving forward.

• 4:10Nick Bare?

  So yesterday morning, it was a Wednesday and on Wednesdays I have my speed workouts that Jeff Cunningham programs for me. Yesterday was a tempo run. So I had some warm-up miles. I had some cool down miles and in the middle of that I had five tempo miles to be done at a 545 minute per mile pace. And yesterday I woke up and it was cold. It was probably 34, 35 degrees. It was brisk for being here in central Texas. And right now where we're

• 4:48Nick Bare?

  living, we are renting a home. Because we moved back to Texas, end of, I guess, April of this current year, about eight months ago, we moved back, we started renting a home and we're building our next home. We're actually closing on our house in a few days and moving next week into our new home. In this house that we're renting, it is right along a really busy road, a very busy road. High traffic, the speed limit is 55 miles

• 5:30Nick Bare?

  per hour. And one of the downfalls of this rental is for me to get to my morning run route, I have to be on this main road for about a mile. Depending on what route I take, sometimes I'm on it for like a mile and a quarter, but typically just a mile. I'm on this road for a mile and I turn off into either a neighborhood or like back ranch roads where I see no one for my entire run. So I have a mile stretch that is dangerous. It's pretty much the first mile of my run and the last mile of my run. And

• 6:09Nick Bare?

  I always run into traffic, but there are certain parts of this one mile-ish stretch where I will run with traffic because there is a, a big shoulder on that side of the road. Because along this main road, there are opportunities to merge into different neighborhoods. So there's this massive shoulder and additional lane. I will run over there to, uh, just have more space in the event there's vehicles coming towards me and behind me. So like setting those conditions. Yesterday, normal day, took off my run and

• 6:53Nick Bare?

  what was interesting about yesterday is because it was colder and because I was running at faster paces, my eyes were, you know, watery from the cold air rushing into them. And my senses were just kind of off. Like hands were super cold, body was cold. I was trying to warm up earlier into that run. And I do what I always do. I took off. I was running into traffic.

• 7:23Nick Bare?

  And then about a mile in, I crossed the road where I was running with traffic because there was that additional shoulder to run with. And I wear the Garmin Epix watch. And what I love about the Garmin Epix watch is that there is this light you can turn on and it's pretty bright. Like it will light up the entire ground around me. And if I am running in the complete pitch dark, I will be able to see it's like, it's like wearing a flashlight on my hand. It kills the battery, but it's an incredible feature. So every morning when I go run, before I start my watch, I turn on the flashlight and it lights up everything around me. So vehicles can see me as I'm

• 8:07Nick Bare?

  running. Now, in retrospect, especially coming from a military background, I should wear some type of

• 8:16Nick Bare?

  I should have been wearing some type of high viz reflective material. And I can promise you, I am going to moving forward. And if you are a runner, I highly recommend and encourage you to wear something high visibility. Wear reflectors, wear lights, like light yourself up as much as possible to protect yourself. This is one of the first mistakes I made. The only way I was lighting myself up on this run was through the, the light on my, my watch. Which in the past has been

• 8:52Nick Bare?

  helpful. It's worked.

• 8:56Nick Bare?

  So I'm going off my morning run and I start my fast miles. And I just crossed over to be running with traffic on that big shoulder.

• 9:07Nick Bare?

  And as I'm running, I could see a car on the other side of the road coming towards me. And I could see the lights behind me of a car that was approaching from behind me. So I knew these, these cars were going to pass around where I was as I was running. And I was a quarter mile from making my turn off of this main road where I would be safe and untouched as normal.

• 9:38Nick Bare?

  And the next thing I remember happening was I looked down at my feet and my feet were very lit up.

• 9:48Nick Bare?

  And my feet are never very lit up because if there's cars passing me, their headlights are,

• 9:54Nick Bare?

  are out of my direct kind of path. So I knew when I saw the lights under my feet that this, this vehicle was very close to me, but I didn't think anything of it. And this all happened very fast. And then the next thing that happens is I hear screech tires and then boom.

• 10:15Nick Bare?

  The impact and it hits me.

• 10:18Nick Bare?

  And in that moment, I felt like time literally stood still. I've heard people explain situations in their life, like traumatic experiences like this in the past where they say it feels like time stands still and that's what it felt like in this moment. I, I vividly remember the sound of it hitting me and the impact. I don't remember any pain, but I remember the impact. And thinking in my head, holy crap. I just got hit. And I'm dead.

• 10:57Nick Bare?

  That's all I could think of. I am dead. The next thing I remember, I don't know if it all just happened so fast or if I blacked out, but I got hit when I was on the right side of the road. And I, I came to on the left side of the road.

• 11:16Nick Bare?

  And I came to, I, I got up and I just started touching every part of my body. I didn't feel anything. I didn't feel pain. My adrenaline was through the roof. I was in shock. I've realized I just got hit.

• 11:34Nick Bare?

  And I saw the car that hit me pull up the road. They pulled off, they stopped, sat in their car for a little bit and then started waking, making their way back towards me. And another vehicle that was passing saw what happened, pulled off as well. And the guy that came over to me that hit me was in shock as well. He thought he killed me. He thought he was walking over to a dead body.

• 12:03Nick Bare?

  I don't know exactly how fast he was going, but the speed limit on that road is 55 miles per hour.

• 12:12Nick Bare?

  And he mentioned when he approached me that he thought he killed me.

• 12:18Nick Bare?

  He saw the light on my watch at the last minute.

• 12:25Nick Bare?

  And he said that, and he asked if I was okay. And I didn't feel any pain. I felt nothing, nothing, not one thing. I was like, yeah, I'm good. I think I'm good. Nothing was sore. Nothing was tender.

• 12:40Nick Bare?

  And then I was like, I'm gonna keep running. I was like, I'm just gonna keep running, finish my run. Took a few steps and my, my left ankle gave out from under me and I realized I probably shouldn't run. So I was just gonna walk back to the house, which is about a mile. And then I walked over to where he was with his vehicle and the other gentleman that stopped with us walked over to us with us as well. And he shows me his vehicle and the passenger side, the entire mirror was ripped off. I don't know where the mirror was. And the passenger door was dented in

• 13:19Nick Bare?

  from where he hit me.

• 13:22Nick Bare?

  So we talked for a little bit. They asked if I was okay. I, I continued to say, yeah, I'm okay, I think. The guy who hit me left. I didn't get any of his contact information. We didn't share anything. And then I started walking back to my house. And the other gentleman who stopped, who witnessed everything insisted that he, he drive me back. So I got in the car with him. He drove me back to my home. I was still in shock. I was still trying to figure out what happened. And all I kept saying to this guy was, can't believe I'm not dead. Can't believe I'm not dead. Can't believe I'm not dead.

• 13:58Nick Bare?

  And I went into the house and a new staff, my wife was gonna... Lose it. She was gonna freak out. So I was trying to just like go back to my regular morning routine. So when she woke up, she wasn't alarmed by anything.

• 14:14Nick Bare?

  So I start making breakfast and then I realize there's blood dripping everywhere. And I go into the bathroom and my left arm had a massive gash in it was just bleeding everywhere. I could not get the bleeding to stop. And then I looked at my leg and my, my left leg had this huge skid tire mark from my ankle up my calf the whole way. I mean, the, the mark is still there. There's rubber embedded into my left leg. So apparently the, I'm assuming the, the front passenger tire hit my leg and ran up my leg in some way.

• 14:57Nick Bare?

  And I'm taking my shirt off and I'm finding, you know, I have road rash and cuts and bruises all over.

• 15:04Nick Bare?

  And then slowly the adrenaline's wearing off, the shock is dissipating. And I start feeling all of this pain all across my body, my arms, my hips, my leg, my ankle. And it all started, you know, I started feeling all the effects of what just happened. I was just hit by a car. A fast moving car that threw me across the road.

• 15:31Nick Bare?

  And then Steph woke up, realized what happened. We had that conversation, which was not a pretty one. And we chilled out for a little bit. And then went to the hospital and got checked. When I got to the hospital,

• 15:48Nick Bare?

  they admitted me as trauma because I was hit by a vehicle. So they did a, a CT scan on my neck and my head. They did a CT scan on my entire body.

• 16:01Nick Bare?

  They did like a contrast IV where they put this contrast color in my, my veins and then circulated it through. Put me through the CAT scan to make sure that I didn't have any internal bleeding. They did blood work. Uh, I got stitches in my arm and they just cleaned up all of, uh, all of my wounds.

• 16:27Nick Bare?

  We were, you know, at the hospital for about three hours before we got released.

• 16:34Nick Bare?

  And I got home and realized I just escaped death.

• 16:44Nick Bare?

  I mean, when I say I was hit by a car, I wasn't like,

• 16:48Nick Bare?

  I wasn't pushed to the side. It wasn't a small like scrape. It didn't just like tap me. No, I got boom, hit by a car from behind, thrown across the road.

• 17:08Nick Bare?

  Somehow it didn't seriously injure me. Somehow it didn't kill me. I walked away from that.

• 17:19Nick Bare?

  I walked away from what should have seriously injured me.

• 17:27Nick Bare?

  That all happened yesterday morning. Now, obviously today I'm feeling pretty banged up. My ankle's all messed up. My legs all messed up. My hip is, is trashed. I'm definitely not going to be running anytime soon. I have stitches in my arm. My whole body hurts, you know? It feels like I got hit by a car, literally.

• 17:51Nick Bare?

  But I walked away from that somehow.

• 17:57Nick Bare?

  And before I go any further, like what I want to say is I am extremely lucky. I am extremely grateful to have survived that.

• 18:10Nick Bare?

  And there's some things that I should have been doing. And I guess I encourage you guys to do moving forward. And that is one. Run into traffic.

• 18:22Nick Bare?

  So you can be aware and you can pivot and you can move and you don't get blindsided by something coming up from behind you. Two, wear something reflective. Have a light. Have something high vis reflective at all times. Make sure that you can be seen, seen well, and choose smart run routes. I should have always got in my truck, drove that one mile to where it was safe, parked my car, drove or ran, got back to my car, drove back. I should have never been on that road ever. But it was just convenient for me at the time to run from my house down that road to where it was safe.

• 19:09Nick Bare?

  Some of the eerie

• 19:12Nick Bare?

  things that happened leading up to this.

• 19:15Nick Bare?

  One last week, and we've been living in this rental for eight months now. Last week Steph,

• 19:23Nick Bare?

  well, I was coming back from a run. I was five minutes late for the run. And when I normally come back, she said I left it a little bit later. And I came home and Steph was in the front yard freaking out because I was five minutes late and she thought something happened to me. I didn't have my phone with me on that run that day.

• 19:42Nick Bare?

  That was the first time that happened in the whole eight months we were living in this rental house. And it happened last week. She said she had an eerie feeling the last two weeks about my morning runs and something just didn't feel right.

• 19:58Nick Bare?

  And then I made a comment last week to our builder.

• 20:04Nick Bare?

  As we were going through the, the final blue tape walkthrough with him as they're finishing up the build. I said, I made it eight months without getting hit on that main road. I got one more week to make it and then I'm, I'm clear.

• 20:21Nick Bare?

  I made that comment to him. I have one more week to make it without getting hit by a car on that main road, almost as if it was a joke.

• 20:31Nick Bare?

  And 48 hours after making that comment to the builder. I got hit by a car.

• 20:39Nick Bare?

  It's almost like I was asking for it.

• 20:44Nick Bare?

  And maybe I was.

• 20:48Nick Bare?

  My reflections after yesterday is to slow down.

• 20:57Nick Bare?

  I took yesterday as a sign from God, when he spared my life.

• 21:05Nick Bare?

  But I took that as a sign from God saying, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. Slow down. And if you will not slow down and listen to me, then I will force you to slow down. Stop ignoring what I have blessed you with. Stop ignoring what I have blessed you with and be content.

• 21:28Nick Bare?

  That was a wake up call from yesterday.

• 21:33Nick Bare?

  There is no explanation of, one, why that did not kill me. The impact I'm telling you was like boom.

• 21:46Nick Bare?

  Boom, threw me across the road. That should have seriously injured me, if not killed me. Why am I not dead? Why am I still alive?

• 21:59Nick Bare?

  It's a miracle.

• 22:02Nick Bare?

  There is no worldly explanation of why I'm walking today.

• 22:11Nick Bare?

  Now, I can't run right now. I'm trash. My body's trash, but I am. I am able and I am okay. I'm safe. I'm going to heal. I'm going to recover from this.

• 22:25Nick Bare?

  And as I've sat with this for the last 24 plus hours.

• 22:31Nick Bare?

  This sounds wild, but.

• 22:35Nick Bare?

  I got hit by this car. I ended up on the other side of the road. Nothing was seriously broken or damaged. It's almost like I got hit. And I got picked up by an angel. Carried to the other side of the road and protected just as a wake up call, just as a call to action, a sign from God saying,

• 23:02Nick Bare?

  "Slow down. Slow down. Be content. Be grateful for what I have blessed you with because you are moving through life so fast. And so furious that you are so caught up in, in living. You're so caught up in, in life itself that you're forgetting to live.

• 23:27Nick Bare?

  You're so caught up in life itself that you're forgetting to live.

• 23:33Nick Bare?

  And getting hit yesterday was almost this call to action of having it's time for a course correct. I think it's time for you to commit to embracing contentment. Which is not, like I said, complacency.

• 23:48Nick Bare?

  But it is being grateful for what you have and what God has provided you. That's the only way I can explain yesterday.

• 23:58Nick Bare?

  It's the only way. It's the, it's the only thing and I'm, I'm taking this, this sign very serious.

• 24:06Nick Bare?

  I was, I was giving my daughter a bath last night as I normally do. And as I was giving her this bath and she's such a fun age right now. She's two and a half years old, almost two and a half years old.

• 24:19Nick Bare?

  And just like her personality is so funny and engaging and just the thing she does is hilarious.

• 24:28Nick Bare?

  And as, as I was giving her this bath, I was thinking about what if I would have died earlier that day? Like who would be giving her that bath? And then when she asked where dad was, how would that person respond?

• 24:44Nick Bare?

  How do you even tell a toddler, a child, that their dad, their mom, their parents, their siblings, they have, they're not coming back?

• 24:57Nick Bare?

  They've passed away, they've died. Like, how do you, how do you, how do you share that news?

• 25:03Nick Bare?

  And as I was giving Charlie her bath, I was just thinking about someone having that conversation with Charlie and it broke me.

• 25:10Nick Bare?

  I mean, it, it, it broke me thinking about that, like, the things that I have been taking for granted.

• 25:25Nick Bare?

  Giving my daughter a bath every night, my, my, my daughter having two loving parents with her.

• 25:33Nick Bare?

  And I want to be able to do that every night.

• 25:41Nick Bare?

  Slow down. Slow down is the sign that I took from yesterday.

• 25:48Nick Bare?

  I mean, I, I, that was the closest I've ever gotten to dying, I can honestly say.

• 25:57Nick Bare?

  And somehow walked away from it.

• 26:03Nick Bare?

  So I have some notes here that are part of an honest conversation with myself that I want to dive into, and this is just me being honest with myself about what I need to work on, some of my improvements and where I'm going to be spending some time in the future. And the first is, I have an addiction of doing.

• 26:30Nick Bare?

  An addiction of doing. I've had the gas pedal pressed to the floor since 2012.

• 26:40Nick Bare?

  Since I started BPN in my college apartment in 2012, nearly 15 years ago now,

• 26:48Nick Bare?

  my foot has been gas pedal pressed to the floor for nearly 15 years.

• 26:59Nick Bare?

  And I'm addicted to doing. Like, why, why am I addicted to doing? I have some notes here. I'm addicted to doing and constantly working to achieve more because of a fear, a fear of loss of control, a fear of loss of momentum, a fear of loss of identity significance.

• 27:22Nick Bare?

  I have, I have and have had this, without doing, we are dying mindset.

• 27:30Nick Bare?

  And I think it's a blessing and a curse. This mindset of like, if, if we are not doing something, we are dying, we are falling behind. That facilitates growth. It pushes you forward. It really does.

• 27:49Nick Bare?

  But at what expense? Now, at what sacrifices are you making?

• 27:56Nick Bare?

  An addiction of doing, like constantly feeling like we have to be doing something. And when that thing is done or it's nearing an end, it's what is next? What is the next thing? And what is the next thing? And what is the next thing?

• 28:16Nick Bare?

  And an addiction to doing can enhance and facilitate success and accomplishment and achievement.

• 28:28Nick Bare?

  But to our own downfall sometimes when we're not content with what we actually have and what God has blessed us with.

• 28:39Nick Bare?

  You know, part of an addiction of doing is because of internal and external responsibility pressures that we put on ourselves. Like internally, I'm, I'm very hard on myself. I have set the bar very high for what I expect out of myself on a, a regular inconsistent basis. And I hold myself to that standard.

• 29:06Nick Bare?

  But at the same time, I feel this external pressure to always be doing as well, especially as a business owner. As a founder and CEO of BPN, I feel the external pressure to constantly be doing, working, pushing, pursuing, challenging myself to facilitate growth for myself and the business and the brand and the employees and the team and the people. And everything that we're working towards. It's like this responsibility pressure that is internal and externally created.

• 29:43Nick Bare?

  An addiction of doing.

• 29:49Nick Bare?

  I can guarantee you a lot of entrepreneurs, founders, athletes, type A individuals, if you are just very ambitious,

• 30:01Nick Bare?

  you probably have an addiction to doing. And you, you probably, I would assume also struggle with being content. Because you confuse contentment with complacency.

• 30:15Nick Bare?

  So my key takeaway here is like, I'm going to try and reduce or remove my addiction of doing.

• 30:25Nick Bare?

  And sometimes just not doing anything other than being present. And being in the moment.

• 30:33Nick Bare?

  Which for me is very challenging. It's very difficult. Weekends for me are really hard. My wife can attest to this. Weekends are like Saturday and Sunday are the hardest day of the week for me. Because I feel like I am not doing enough to push myself forward and progress in life and business and fitness and all of the things. Because.

• 31:01Nick Bare?

  The world, my friends, my family, people around me, they slow down. They live. They relax. I have always struggled with this.

• 31:13Nick Bare?

  And I used to, I used to beat my chest.

• 31:18Nick Bare?

  Thinking like that was a power move for me. It's not. It's not. There, there is so much

• 31:27Nick Bare?

  freedom in allowing yourself to just live and be present and not do anything. Except you just soak in the moment.

• 31:39Nick Bare?

  Especially for a father of two young kids and a husband to a committed wife. My family deserves that. The people in my life deserve that from me.

• 31:52Nick Bare?

  The second thing I have written down here is

• 31:56Nick Bare?

  the reality is that your goals will require necessary sacrifices. And I wanted to slide this one in here because

• 32:08Nick Bare?

  I believe it's important to

• 32:12Nick Bare?

  to mention that

• 32:17Nick Bare?

  yes, contentment is very important and that is what I'm committed to in 2025 or today moving forward. But that does not mean complacency.

• 32:29Nick Bare?

  And I'm still gonna be

• 32:32Nick Bare?

  ambitious, just as ambitious. But I might pursue those ambitions a little bit differently and in order to keep progressing and moving forward and achieve success and accomplishment and achievement.

• 32:48Nick Bare?

  You still have to recognize, I still recognize that like these goals that I set still require necessary sacrifices.

• 32:57Nick Bare?

  You can still make necessary sacrifices and be content and still live.

• 33:04Nick Bare?

  But some of the questions I have for myself are Nick, what do you value?

• 33:10Nick Bare?

  And this is my question for you. What do you value? Do you value growth, personal, professional growth? Do you value achievement? Do you value money? Do you value freedom? Freedom of your time and finances? Or stress? Do you value family? Do you value your faith? Do you value friendship?

• 33:31Nick Bare?

  Like, what do you actually value? Because that will help you identify then, what are you willing to do without? And what aren't you willing to do without?

• 33:43Nick Bare?

  What are there

• 33:47Nick Bare?

  things in life that you are willing to stop doing? In order to achieve your goals?

• 33:58Nick Bare?

  Making those necessary sacrifices to refine your focus. So that the time you spend on certain things is time that you actually want to spend because you value those things.

• 34:10Nick Bare?

  But what aren't you willing to do without? I'm not willing to do without my family.

• 34:16Nick Bare?

  But the reality is that I've made some decisions in the past that probably won't reflect that.

• 34:26Nick Bare?

  I'm not willing to do without growth.

• 34:33Nick Bare?

  I think as individuals, as people, at least me personally, I thrive off of growth. That doesn't necessarily mean business growth or financial wealth and success, money, things. It's personal growth.

• 34:53Nick Bare?

  It's becoming better. It is go one more. It is the outcome of go one more.

• 35:02Nick Bare?

  Your goals will require necessary sacrifices.

• 35:07Nick Bare?

  And in order to identify and establish and commit to these necessary sacrifices, you need discipline and you need commitment.

• 35:19Nick Bare?

  Those are very powerful characteristics to master. But they can also be extremely destructive if not managed properly. And I share that from personal experience.

• 35:34Nick Bare?

  That

• 35:36Nick Bare?

  what I'm really good at is being disciplined and committed. And oftentimes to my detriment, my own destruction. If I commit to something,

• 35:52Nick Bare?

  I have the willpower, I have the discipline to stay on that course no matter what happens. No matter what happens.

• 36:03Nick Bare?

  I will stay on that path until it is completed. And sometimes that becomes robotic and automated. And I can operate in a cold state that lacks empathy and understanding and that is oftentimes ignorant, but

• 36:25Nick Bare?

  I have this powerful characteristic, and this is just me being honest with myself, that I can commit to something and be so disciplined and ignore everything that everything else that is happening around me that should influence that path. That actually isn't.

• 36:43Nick Bare?

  And if you're one of those people, if you can be so strongly disciplined and committed, it's having the awareness to know that that can be a blessing and a curse.

• 36:55Nick Bare?

  It can positively reinforce everything you do, but it can also negatively destruct everything in its path. How do you use that discipline and commitment for good?

• 37:11Nick Bare?

  Your goals will require necessary sacrifices. We gotta ask yourself the question, I gotta ask myself the question, what do I value? What am I willing to do without? What aren't I willing to do without?

• 37:25Nick Bare?

  Because this balance again of being content, but also pursuing growth and ambition.

• 37:34Nick Bare?

  The next thing I've written down is will you be proud of the way you built your life?

• 37:39Nick Bare?

  Not what life you have built.

• 37:45Nick Bare?

  This is coming off my reflection of yesterday.

• 37:51Nick Bare?

  Where I say I felt like I was called by God to slow down.

• 37:58Nick Bare?

  And I feel like I've had my, my foot on the gas pedal for these last 15 years almost in starting VPN.

• 38:10Nick Bare?

  It's been these evolutions in the business of what is required of us to get this brand to the next level?

• 38:19Nick Bare?

  What YouTube series are we documenting, creating? What race are we putting on the calendar? What's the next challenge? What's the next goal? What's the next thing? What's the next thing?

• 38:33Nick Bare?

  And this is great. This has worked for me personally.

• 38:41Nick Bare?

  But one, when you, when you fall in this pattern and this routine, it's really hard to be content because you're constantly looking for and at the next thing

• 38:53Nick Bare?

  to prove yourself that you are better, that you have improved, that you can do more, you can accomplish more, you can achieve more, more, more.

• 39:09Nick Bare?

  But it's, it's challenging.

• 39:14Nick Bare?

  It's tough when you're constantly pursuing the next thing. You're constantly pursuing more.

• 39:22Nick Bare?

  It's hard to appreciate and be grateful for what you have in that moment. And you're so caught up in life itself that you you forget to live. And for the things that you've been blessed with in that life. And that all your time and energy, mental and physical energy is dedicated to pursuing that goal or that challenge or that next thing. And you save, or I save no energy, mental and physical energy for the here and now. The people in my life, my family, my friends, the contentment.

• 40:05Nick Bare?

  All of that energy is directed to the future.

• 40:12Nick Bare?

  The dopamine hit, the next big challenging thing.

• 40:20Nick Bare?

  Will you be proud of the way you built your life? Am I going to be proud at

• 40:27Nick Bare?

  the end of my life with the way that I built my life, the way I showed up for my family, the way I showed up for my friends, the way I showed up for my team, as opposed to the life that I've built? If I would have died yesterday,

• 40:43Nick Bare?

  would I have been proud of the previous months leading up to that moment?

• 40:52Nick Bare?

  And would I have been able to say that I was living a life that I was really, really, really proud of?

• 41:02Nick Bare?

  No.

• 41:04Nick Bare?

  Because I was so caught up in the next thing

• 41:11Nick Bare?

  that I wasn't appreciating and I wasn't grateful for what I had right then and there.

• 41:21Nick Bare?

  I was not content. I haven't been content for a long time. Because I'm pursuing that next big thing.

• 41:32Nick Bare?

  But yesterday, like I said, it was a

• 41:36Nick Bare?

  a wake up call of, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. If you're not going to slow down, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna bless you with all these great things in your life, and you can't recognize that, you can't appreciate that, I'm gonna force you to slow down. I'm going to hit you with something that slows you down so fast and so hard, and it's gonna shake you that you realize that you've been given another opportunity, another chance to course correct, not redo, but course correct your life

• 42:11Nick Bare?

  and focus on being proud of the way that you are building it as opposed to what you have built.

• 42:20Nick Bare?

  If I look at my life, what I, what have I built? I've built this business, which I'm so proud of. I've built this team, I've built a house, I've built things, I've built my body. Am I always proud of the way that I've built it? Sometimes, not all the times.

• 42:40Nick Bare?

  Sometimes when I'm pursuing these, these fitness goals, or certain business ambitions and projects and chapters, I neglect other parts of my life. I'm not proud of that.

• 42:54Nick Bare?

  I'm not proud when

• 42:58Nick Bare?

  me and my wife aren't aligned and on the same page, and we're not getting along, and we're fighting. I'm not proud of that. I'm not proud when so it's a late night and

• 43:14Nick Bare?

  everyone in the family is having fun and wanting to do all these things, but I'm too tired from the the big training sessions I did earlier that day.

• 43:25Nick Bare?

  And I'm just zapped. I'm not proud of that. We're not gonna be proud of every day, every chapter, there's, there's sacrifices, like I said, that have to be made.

• 43:38Nick Bare?

  But this was for me was an opportunity to course correct a little bit of, hey, I think my, my ambition, contentment, balance is a little unbalanced right now. It's time to re-shift

• 43:51Nick Bare?

  and refocus and truly be grateful for what God has blessed me with because he's blessed me with some

• 43:59Nick Bare?

  abundance, a lot of great stuff, a lot of great people, a lot of great relationships, a lot of great opportunities. And I should, I should recognize that and value that as opposed to being unhappy with where I'm at and ungrateful and thinking that the next thing is the thing that's going to bring the joy and fulfillment and contentment.

• 44:27Nick Bare?

  It's more than just being there, but it's being present. It's having the energy to be there too.

• 44:36Nick Bare?

  And that's, I think, where I have

• 44:39Nick Bare?

  lived and maybe am living an unbalanced life in a sense of

• 44:47Nick Bare?

  my energy balanced towards work sometimes and training in these challenges and growth outweighs the balance of the energy that I save for my family, but also save for just being able to recognize how grateful I should be for what I have.

• 45:12Nick Bare?

  Because I could die tomorrow.

• 45:17Nick Bare?

  I could be hit by another car. I could be in a car accident. I could, anything could happen tomorrow.

• 45:24Nick Bare?

  And if I would have died yesterday morning after getting hit by that car, which was an SUV on that busy road.

• 45:35Nick Bare?

  It's not how or when I would have wanted to go out.

• 45:43Nick Bare?

  So this is an opportunity for me to recognize, let's do a, let's do a course correct.

• 45:49Nick Bare?

  Let's, let's focus on being content and being happy and being grateful for what I have, what I've been blessed with.

• 45:59Nick Bare?

  Again, this is not mean I am, I am becoming complacent.

• 46:05Nick Bare?

  Contentment is being satisfied with where God has placed you. Complacency is settling for the place God is telling you to leave.

• 46:19Nick Bare?

  I oftentimes struggle with being content because I confuse it with complacency.

• 46:27Nick Bare?

  After building a brand for 15 years

• 46:32Nick Bare?

  and realizing and, and tying your identity to working really hard and seeing the fruits of that labor

• 46:44Nick Bare?

  turn into something great.

• 46:47Nick Bare?

  When you dedicate time and energy and you go all in on something,

• 46:52Nick Bare?

  you see the outcomes, you see the rewards, you see the success on the other side.

• 46:59Nick Bare?

  So it's a simple math equation of, I just need to keep doing more of that. It's an addiction to doing to maintain the momentum and increase the intensity of the momentum. So I'm going to do more and not let my foot off the gas because I'm, I'm afraid of becoming complacent.

• 47:19Nick Bare?

  When in reality, I'm ignoring contentment.

• 47:24Nick Bare?

  Complacency is satisfied with where we are today, but puts no effort into trying to improve and grow tomorrow. You can be content and you can pursue improvement and growth simultaneously.

• 47:46Nick Bare?

  So my key takeaway from this entire experience.

• 47:51Nick Bare?

  Was to slow down.

• 47:57Nick Bare?

  This does not mean I'm trying to pursue less. This doesn't mean that I'm gonna become complacent.

• 48:12Nick Bare?

  But this means I need to slow down and learn how to be content with what I have in this life. Because you can lose it so fast. You can lose it before you even realize you have it.

• 48:30Nick Bare?

  Slow down. Yesterday,

• 48:36Nick Bare?

  I mean, it feels like a very clear call to action from God, saying, if you're not gonna slow down, I am going to force you to.

• 48:49Nick Bare?

  Because like I said, I am a very disciplined and committed person. And I know every day when my alarm clock goes off at 4:30, I'm gonna go in the kitchen, I'm gonna fuel up, lace up my shoes, I'm gonna go for a run. Doesn't matter the weather, doesn't matter how I feel, doesn't matter my energy, doesn't matter anything, I'm going to do that. And it becomes robotic.

• 49:18Nick Bare?

  And

• 49:21Nick Bare?

  you become a zombie.

• 49:25Nick Bare?

  You start just doing things based off of routine as opposed to responsibility.

• 49:33Nick Bare?

  And you're kind of just on autopilot, just doing all of these things. Because I feel like they are moving you in the right direction to pursue growth, to pursue more.

• 49:48Nick Bare?

  But you end up sacrificing contentment, you end up sacrificing actually freedom.

• 49:53Nick Bare?

  You actually sacrifice living in freedom.

• 50:03Nick Bare?

  So yesterday was an eye-opener for sure.

• 50:10Nick Bare?

  Leaving that experience, I'm sure even over the next couple of days, I'm gonna have more time to reflect and

• 50:21Nick Bare?

  and just recognize where these small shifts in my life have to happen.

• 50:30Nick Bare?

  But it's the awareness of

• 50:35Nick Bare?

  I have to be grateful for what I have and what God has provided me. And I'm committed to being content moving forward and applying that to my life, not just for me personally, but for the people in my life as well.

• 50:54Nick Bare?

  So that all happened yesterday. Crazy morning, crazy day.

• 51:00Nick Bare?

  But a much-needed shift in focus.

• 51:07Nick Bare?

  And something that I will remember for the rest of my life. And I hope that the lessons I learned yesterday and I'm reflecting on today are now the foundations of my future moving forward. So I wanted to share that with you guys.

• 51:23Nick Bare?

  I appreciate you. I love you. Thank you for all the support

• 51:29Nick Bare?

  over these last couple of days, couple of wild days. And we'll see you guys in the next episode.