113: The Reason You Need Core Values & How They Guide Success with Matt Stockton

In this episode, I sit down with my podcast producer and growth strategist, Matt Stockton, to break down the power of core values. We dive into why establishing your values isn’t just a nice idea—it’s the foundation for clarity, accountability, and making decisions that actually move you forward. Through real-life examples—both personal and business—we unpack how core values keep you grounded, especially when life gets tough. With insights from influential authors and biblical principles woven in, we explore how staying true to your values leads to consistent growth, resilience, and success. CHAPTERS: 01:54 Welcoming Matt Stockton 03:28 The Role of Core Values in Decision Making 04:46 Defining Core Values for BPN 19:25 Core Values in Personal Life 23:49 Parenting and Core Values 30:31 Chapters of Life and Business 34:43 Implementing Core Values in Business 37:21 Fueling Endurance Training with BPN Products 40:07 Biblical Manhood and Core Values 44:51 Leadership and Servant Mentality 46:46 Defining Family Mission Statements 51:08 The Importance of Core Values 56:47 Suffering and Growth 01:10:04 Consistency and Success 01:17:36 Final Thoughts on Core Values MENTIONS: The Resilient Show - Joby Martin clip https://youtu.be/V71reDeZU-Q?si=vjIx31W1ZSNrdc0h Craig Groeschel - When You Are Tired of Failing https://youtu.be/R9cz3BkeuNQ?si=Hd94qNnsDWXsHvFj FOLLOW: Become a BPN member FOR FREE - Unlock 20% off FOR LIFE https://www.bareperformancenutrition.com/pages/bpn-membership?srsltid=AfmBOorlpjVeag2kkt3eZ5UpWcFA5Bb2v5V_93lmO47Vn_Y8DRdLwDLL 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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Everybody should have values that they write down. It keeps you accountable, but it also says like, hey, we're, we're not doing that. We're missing this.

• 0:06Nick Bare?

  Right.

• 0:07Speaker 00

  And then two, it's just like, what are you driving towards when we're making these goals? Do these fuel the goals that we've set? Will these written down statements help us get to that thing? So it kind of helps refine the goal too, which I think is helpful because then you're like, oh, okay. Well, these, these goals don't necessarily match the values of our everyday decision making.

• 0:27Nick Bare?

  What has happened in the past when our core values, our purpose and our goals weren't very clearly established? Is that everyone was trying to create a strategy and then tactics that would accomplish that strategy? Based off the vision they had in their head. Because when you go to pursue your goals, if you don't have core values, it makes that decision making process very challenging because anything's free game. Like in order to accomplish my goal, if there's no value, I can cheat, steal, lie. You can do all these things to accomplish that goal. When you have core values, you're not only proud of when you accomplish that goal, but the way that you got there.

• 1:13Nick Bare?

  All right, welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Today we're doing something a little different. And this topic, or I should say, the reason we're doing this episode a little bit differently, which may be something we do in the future, based off how this one goes. This topic is really important to me and I want to make sure that

• 1:39Nick Bare?

  I convey the value, the importance, the message throughout this episode in the best way possible. And I think the best way possible is to have someone that I trust facilitate the conversation with me. So today on this episode, we have for his first time, Matt Stockton. Welcome, brother.

• 2:02Speaker 00

  Here we are. Thank you. You know, I feel like you work in a position like this and you look from the sideline, you think, I could get called up to the big league and today's that day.

• 2:15Speaker 00

  Today's that today happens to be that day. So we're in the chair.

• 2:18Nick Bare?

  Did you expect this at some point?

• 2:19Speaker 00

  No, well, no, honestly, because I didn't know where my fit would be. So I didn't know what, you know, you maybe you think, well, if somebody gets a last minute stomach virus and we need to have a conversation and it can be personal, sure, I'll hop in.

• 2:33Nick Bare?

  Right.

• 2:34Speaker 00

  But you just, you try to just play the background and respect the guests and respect the platform and be like, you know, there's a time, maybe this is it.

• 2:41Nick Bare?

  Well, some of these solos are really hard, like staying on topic for over an hour and trying to be presently engaged with the message that I'm trying to deliver, but then also in my head, planning for what I'm going to say next, even when I have an outline is challenging at times.

• 3:02Nick Bare?

  So I think bringing someone onto the show can really help guide the conversation.

• 3:08Nick Bare?

  And one of the reasons I've asked you is because as we've been working together the last couple of months, I mean, how, how many months have you been at VPN now?

• 3:15Speaker 00

  It was July, it was right at the start of July. We talked in June, right before the, right before the 50 mile.

• 3:21Nick Bare?

  That's right.

• 3:21Speaker 00

  Ultra. Yep. So then we talked right before then in July. It was right. It was the week of the sale.

• 3:25Nick Bare?

  That's right.

• 3:26Speaker 00

  It was a week of the sale.

• 3:27Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 3:27Speaker 00

  That we came on.

• 3:28Nick Bare?

  So since you started working here and I've had the opportunity to work with you, just watching the way your mind works, the intentionality, the,

• 3:40Nick Bare?

  the patience you have, the thought process, looking into the future, how is the consumer going to consume this and digest this? And then what action items can the consumer or the viewer, the listener take from what we're saying and apply to their life? And the way you think about that and then execute on is very unique and it's an extremely.

• 4:05Nick Bare?

  Valuable, strong skill and traits. I applaud you for that. You do an amazing job at it.

• 4:12Speaker 00

  I appreciate that.

• 4:13Nick Bare?

  And I think that'll just help this conversation today.

• 4:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, there's so much good stuff in here. I'm excited because it not only applies to the individual, it applies to the organization, it applies to the family. It just, it covers so many things. And I think that when you step back at the end of this conversation, you'll be able to identify specifically where it is that you, what's the lens that you make decisions with? What is it impacting? And most of the time it's impacting more than just you.

• 4:39Nick Bare?

  Almost all the time.

• 4:40Speaker 00

  Almost all the time. And so there's so much good stuff here. That's why I'm excited about it. I feel honored on this topic.

• 4:46Nick Bare?

  So we're talking core values.

• 4:49Nick Bare?

  And I want to preface this conversation with what I'm about to say.

• 4:55Nick Bare?

  For my entire life, I'm sure for many people's lives, they hear core values or values. And whether it's on a sports team, growing up, whether it's within your family, whether it's in a place of business, your work, your church, wherever it is, we talk about core values. And I always heard about core values. And when I was younger, it was like this lofty term that I just threw away. I just assumed that people talked about having, if we apply it to a business, values, a mission and a vision, because that's what they were taught in business school.

• 5:37Nick Bare?

  So you create just this boilerplate statement and set of values that you say your family, business, sports team is going to live and die based off of, but the reality is that a lot of times those things are are written down, thrown away somewhere and then never actually utilized.

• 5:58Nick Bare?

  That is not what core values are. And in my experience, my opinion, and core values have the ability to

• 6:09Nick Bare?

  Change your life. I mean, some of the notes I have here is when you have core values, it improves efficiency and satisfaction in decision making. Making decisions is easier. When we have values that are clear, our decisions are easier and the direction of our life is guided by the quality of those decisions. Core values are, are everything.

• 6:41Speaker 00

  Yeah. Oh, everything. I mean, and even too, it's like, you know, I like to think about mission is that's the road you're on. You know, there, everybody has a road that they're on, but the core values are the, the guardrails on that road. Those are the things that keep you, you know, I think about it when I was a kid and you would, you would go bowling, you'd think about, hey, can you pull the rails up?

• 7:01Nick Bare?

  You know, so. The bumpers.

• 7:02Speaker 00

  The bumpers. Can I pull the bumpers up? Because you know, even as a kid, I have this ball, this bowling ball is going to go to those pins. That is what is about to happen. But what I want to do is, is I want to make sure that I'm going to pull these up so that way I don't find myself drifting or I don't find myself in the gutter. I'm going to make sure that I stay within this lane and it's going to bounce and it's going to ultimately get where I want to go.

• 7:25Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 7:25Speaker 00

  I think about core values like that. I think that they are these, they're these guardrails that provide you safety. It basically keeps you from swaying. It keeps you from going into those gutters, those pieces.

• 7:37Nick Bare?

  Right.

• 7:38Speaker 00

  And it ultimately provides you safety and clarity, like you said, to get there.

• 7:42Nick Bare?

  Yeah, the clarity is everything.

• 7:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:43Nick Bare?

  For me. A lot of this thought process was sparked by a book for me a few months ago. Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0, BE 2.0, the Jim Collins book. I Love All Things by Jim Collins. This is a book that I started listening to on a run. And within the first 30 minutes, I knew it was powerful. I shared it with the entire BPN team. And this book alone has guided the, the vision for our business, not only in 2025, but for the next 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years. And essentially the way this, this book is set up, and I'm not going to spend too much time on this, but I think it's important and valuable.

• 8:28Nick Bare?

  To set a vision for an organization, to set a vision for your family, to set a vision for yourself, there's three components that make up the vision. The first is core values, the second is purpose, and the third is goals.

• 8:44Nick Bare?

  Core values and purpose should not change more than once every 100 years, as Jim Collins states in this book. Goals, however, when we're looking at a business, and you can modify this however if it's in your life, but for a business, goals are set on 10 and 25 year targets, between 10 and 25 years.

• 9:11Nick Bare?

  So after I read this book, and I was very compelled to create this very clear vision statement for the BPN team and staff, I wrote down our core values, I wrote down our purpose, I wrote down our goals, and I shared with the team. Again, I want to reinforce, core values and purpose don't change more than once every 100 years. Goals, 10 to 25 year targets. So here's what I share with the BPN team, I want to share this with you guys, because when I say core values, like our core values used to be integrity, transparency, and service, which they still are, but that didn't,

• 9:56Nick Bare?

  they didn't reach the depths that I wanted it to.

• 9:59Speaker 00

  It wasn't actionable.

• 10:01Nick Bare?

  Yeah, it was so surface level.

• 10:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:04Nick Bare?

  It felt kind of boilerplate. You know, I can go on a website and search like, what are some popular core values? And like, oh, here's three that sound pretty good.

• 10:13Speaker 00

  Looks sexy on a wall.

• 10:14Nick Bare?

  Exactly.

• 10:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:16Nick Bare?

  But these are very applicable to, to the BPN team and family. And I encourage the listener, the viewer, that after you listen to this episode and you, go to apply action to your life, when you go to write down your core values, don't make them lofty, don't make them brawl, don't make them soft. Make them extremely applicable to your life, the outcomes you want to experience, and make them unique. Don't go on a website and search for like, what are popular core values for my family? Because we should be doing this for ourselves and our family and our business and our sports teams and everything we're a part of. They are foundational, but the core values for BPN.

• 10:55Nick Bare?

  We share stories of incredible human achievement.

• 10:59Nick Bare?

  We are a brand for the committed, those unwavering in the pursuit of their goals, never accepting mediocrity. We hold ourselves to the same standard we expect from our customers, athletes and partners. We are consistently good rather than occasionally great. We believe in hard work. We will never sacrifice profitability for growth. We have hard conversations. We are professional and we treat everyone with respect regardless of how they treat us. We lead, but we also listen. Product quality will never be sacrificed for profit. We take care of our people and treat them like family. Our brand will never be eroded in the process of growth, scale and expansion.

• 11:44Nick Bare?

  We are resourceful, spending as little as necessary to achieve the outcomes we desire. And we are problem solvers. And our purpose is that we help people realize that anything is achievable with hard work, commitment and consistency. And then we provide them the fuel, resources and inspiration to do it.

• 12:09Nick Bare?

  So that framework right there between core values and purpose, that lays the foundation for the next 100 years.

• 12:18Nick Bare?

  So I guess before we go any further, I'd love to hear your thoughts when we went through that exercise for the team.

• 12:27Nick Bare?

  What you took away from it? What was the value in creating, publishing core values, purpose or goals to set the vision for the future?

• 12:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, well, first of all, these feel so dialed in. I think you would agree with that. There's something about these that even just in the limited time that I've been here, these feel so dialed into what goes into the everyday decision when thinking about building the brand. And one thing I wanted to mention to you was this too, is there was a couple of weeks ago, I had an idea for the podcast and I was bringing it up to you. It's like, maybe there's an opportunity here to do this and do this. And you were very nicely like, well, let's keep it on this track. Let's keep it here. And I thought, man, he's right. He's definitely right. But when I stepped away from it on the car ride home, I thought.

• 13:20Speaker 00

  It's so easy to have an opportunity to sway like that, that it made sense why I feel like, because you're a visionary anyway. You have that sense of like wanting to talk about the bigger picture. There was this realization in me that thought, that's probably often, not from a sense of distrust on your end, but that's probably why often you make time to voice these regularly to the team. It's because it is so easy in small decisions, no matter what area of the business you're in, to just drift and miss it. And so I thought that was your ability to kind of move that back into its place.

• 14:01Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 14:01Speaker 00

  So having these written down, everybody should write them down. Everybody should have values that they write down because it's going to be accountable. It keeps you accountable, but it also says like, hey, we're not doing that. You know, we're making decisions. That's not, we're missing this.

• 14:16Nick Bare?

  Right.

• 14:17Speaker 00

  And then two, it's just like, what are you driving towards? What is actually, what are the things that these are actually like when we're making these goals? Do these fuel the goals that we've set? So when we make goals, did these, would these written down statements help us get to that thing? So it kind of helps refine the goal too.

• 14:36Nick Bare?

  It does.

• 14:36Speaker 00

  Which I think is helpful because then you're like, oh, okay. Well, these, these goals don't necessarily match the values of our everyday decision making. So with several of these, I just think they're extremely dialed in. I think that it's so helpful to be able to operate from a mindset of just understanding that so much of this business is thinking about the people and serving people, which we'll get into a little bit later. But just the ability to understand a need and serve that need and have that.

• 15:08Nick Bare?

  Well, about core values, purpose and goals.

• 15:13Nick Bare?

  Is that it then provides the strategy and tactics for the team to execute upon. So as a visionary of the business, it is my responsibility to set vision so that other departments and people within the business then can go build out strategy and tactics because the vision is so clear. Right. What has happened in the past when our core values are purpose and our goals weren't very clearly established is that everyone was trying to create a strategy and then tactics that would accomplish that strategy based off the vision they had in their head.

• 15:56Nick Bare?

  And there wasn't this central force of saying this is where we're going. Because when you go to pursue your goals, if you don't have core values, it makes that decision-making process very challenging. Because anything's free game. Like in order to accomplish my goal, if there's no value, I can cheat, steal, lie, kill, you can do all these things. Right. To accomplish that goal. But when you have core values, you're not only proud of when you accomplish that goal, but the way that you got there. Yeah. And I'm a big fan of writing things down. I like having it in front of me.

• 16:39Nick Bare?

  Because part of it, like I have this fear that if I don't write something down, that I will forget about it, even though it's already ingrained in my head. And I will create redundancies to make sure. So I will go into my Notes app, like in preparation for this episode, I had this core values note. And I was writing down all these things. And I was afraid that by some chance, that note would get deleted. So every time I upload it, I would screenshot it. So my camera reel, my phone is like.

• 17:13Nick Bare?

  Images or screenshots of so much stuff because I like visuals. I like writing it down. I like getting it ingrained into a piece of material, putting it on the wall, making it my screensaver, my desktop. All of these things, because I don't want to forget it. If it's really important to me, I don't want to forget it. I want to see it often. I want to see it frequently. I want everyone else to see it and experience it. Because when it's in front of you, you can't ignore it.

• 17:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, there's, there is such power in remembrance.

• 17:49Speaker 00

  Because

• 17:51Speaker 00

  you get into situation by situation. If you don't remember what you came through, what you walked through, what something taught you.

• 18:00Speaker 00

  You're going to be in a place of, of, of constantly trying to search for some sort of meaning or fulfillment or faith in something. But there's such, there's such power in being able to look back and remember what you walked through or remember what you said, remember what you predetermined. You were going to think or act or feel.

• 18:23Speaker 00

  I think that just, I mean, there's an element of faith to that, too. It's just, that's what builds that, is that ability to, the power of living life and having things happen. It's just the ability to recall it, which we'll get into talking about our children. Like, that's the ability to recall and just remember where you were and see where you are now. I just don't think, like you mentioned, writing things down, putting things in places. I just don't think there's a lot of people who, I don't want to stereotype a lot of people, but I can, I can imagine there's a lot of people who struggle to remember

• 19:00Speaker 00

  either things that they've gone through, things that they made it through, things that they, they persevered through and, and got it. And when something similar to that comes up, they fall right back into that anxiety or that stress trap.

• 19:11Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 19:12Speaker 00

  But there's just, there's just such fuel in compounding just the, the lessons you've learned, the remembrance of that. So I, I honor that. I, I, I feel like everybody should have a sense of remembrance more.

• 19:23Nick Bare?

  Growing up, I'm curious, your, your, your background.

• 19:29Nick Bare?

  How were core values incorporated into your family growing up? If, if they were at all, were they talked about, was it shared, was it very clear?

• 19:38Speaker 00

  It was, it was, I would say it wasn't something that was extremely defined. I mean, we grew up, my parents were, we would go to church on Sundays. We were basically seen and exhibited good behaviors, treating people with kindness.

• 19:56Speaker 00

  But thinking about core values was always kind of something that seemed very organizational to me. It seemed like something that this was like for a company or for some sort of organization or some sort of group, but, and that's not to say we didn't have any in our family growing up. But I think that when I was able to take responsibility into my own family, I just saw a greater potential as a dad, as a man, to be able to step in and, and lead that in a strong and powerful way. Cause I don't think any of us were raised or maybe had the upbringing that was extremely perfect, you know, the parents, no parents, perfect.

• 20:35Speaker 00

  But I feel like what I, what I did learn is, is I grew up and I learned and I saw treating people well, understanding that life is more than just beyond yourself.

• 20:49Nick Bare?

  Right.

• 20:50Speaker 00

  There's more than just the self fulfillment. That only goes so far. It, it, it's just going to be a never ending cycle of just continual trying to fulfill that.

• 21:00Speaker 00

  But as I became a husband, as I became a dad, I started to realize that you just get a better sense of legacy. You, we and I have talked about this. It's just a greater sense of understanding, what is it that I'm leaving behind? What is it that's there? I wrote this down so you could see it. So the Barna Group did a study. They said, most children begin developing their own worldview by 18 months.

• 21:23Nick Bare?

  Wow.

• 21:24Speaker 00

  And the age of two, by nine, it's fairly determined that their moral compass is set. And then by 13, their worldview is almost fully formed.

• 21:36Speaker 00

  I have two boys, the youngest being 18 months. So I'm very much thinking about what are they seeing? What is the life that they're interacting in? What is, how do they see their, their dad making decisions? What do they see him value? What do they see him? How does he talk about what he values? How does he show what he values?

• 22:00Speaker 00

  And so for me, that's just, that's one of those things that I, I feel like a natural gift that I was given as a, as a human coming into the planet was, is I've always enjoyed the, the thought and idea behind living this life with deep purpose and fulfillment and connection and how, and what does it take to get me there?

• 22:26Nick Bare?

  I was raised in a similar way where I watched my family, I watched my parents do good things.

• 22:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:34Nick Bare?

  They treated people well. They were selfless servants. We went to church. We were active in the community. But like you said, it was never defined. We never sat down and talked about what are core values or how you live a life of purpose. It was through observation and observing and then replicating and just embodying the way that the family was being raised and growing up. And I'm pretty confident to say that people in our generation grew up in a similar, similar way because podcasts weren't a thing. Self-help books were not popular.

• 23:19Nick Bare?

  All this content wasn't out there, which there's, there's a blessing and a curse to all of that, but there's more of an awareness. There's more resources. There's more tools available now to help us be guided in a way of being better selfless servants for our family, for the people in our lives, for our community. But having kids, becoming a father, I talked about this in my Instagram story this past weekend, it sounds so cliche.

• 23:54Nick Bare?

  It changed my life, as I'm sure it does to every single person that has kids. Having my first child, Charlie, my daughter, changed my life, but it changed my life in a in a different way. It was exciting. It was new. It was challenging. It was hard. I felt the responsibility. But when our second was born, Nico, seven months ago, in these last seven months, I have grown more personally and professionally than I have in the last seven years. Now, it might be a coincidence of just the chapter of life I'm in, I'm getting older, I'm more experienced, maturing. There could be just a coincidence. But just the

• 24:39Nick Bare?

  way that my mind is thinking about what's important to me, what's not, the legacy I want to leave, you know, just hearing that by nine, what was the stat, by nine years old?

• 24:52Speaker 00

  By nine years old, their moral compass is fairly determined.

• 24:57Nick Bare?

  You have nine years as a parent.

• 24:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:59Nick Bare?

  It's a big responsibility.

• 25:00Speaker 00

  Big.

• 25:01Nick Bare?

  It's a huge responsibility.

• 25:02Speaker 00

  It shapes the present moment instantly.

• 25:04Nick Bare?

  And so many young parents will will say, and they've even told me, you know, like, you just got to keep them alive when they're young and then get more involved when they're older. But it might be too late.

• 25:16Speaker 00

  No.

• 25:18Nick Bare?

  And you're not only helping raise your children and guiding them so they can become successful in their later years in life, but so they are contributing members to this world, to this society. So they are shaping and helping to shape the world and the people to become a better functioning place. That is the responsibility.

• 25:38Speaker 00

  Totally.

• 25:38Nick Bare?

  That I feel.

• 25:39Speaker 00

  Totally. It's almost like you, I think about like a bow and arrow. I read it like this once, is you're basically taking your children, you spend all this time parenting, you're pulling it back, there's going to be tension, there's going to be growth. But then at some point, that arrow is going to launch and they're going to go out into the world. And it is based on where you aim and where you pull the target that they're going to hit. And there's, that can be kind of scary, which it is scary, you know, nobody's ready for parenting. Like you can be ready, but every child is so different. But what it does is, is, is it just, you just realize that as, as far as I pull back, I want them to go far. I want them to grow up and want a relationship with me, but they don't need me.

• 26:23Speaker 00

  They're, they're able to see society, see the world, understand it, contribute to it, make it better than it was where they, when they left it, you know? And that's, I, I think about that and parenting is, is that it's worth the stretch. It's worth that tension. It's worth pulling back because one day I am going to have to let go. And one day they are going to shoot towards a target. Which target is it? And how far away is that? And then what? And so to me, I've just, the thing that's helped me so much, even as my oldest son is three, is

• 26:59Speaker 00

  trying to reframe, and you'll resonate with this totally, it's just the presentness of just trying to remain present and just remember that this is, this is such a chapter I'll never get back. And what in this moment is teachable? Maybe trying less to think about being anxious or stressed or certain things to punish. Maybe they need to be punished, but it's, or corrected, I'd say. But it's more about looking for opportunities where things are teachable. They're curious as ever. And there is just such potential in being able to find teach, teachable moments to pull aside and say, hey, let me show you about this. Let's talk about this. And just the power of teachable moments, how that can reshape.

• 27:41Speaker 00

  Cause you know, the, the crying to a laugh, back to a cry, the emotions just, just go back and forth like crazy. But just the ability to just shape the perspective really quick. They're, they know you're in your corner. You know, you're just looking for an opportunity to look at something and say, what is, what, what is teachable in this? I think that's given me a new energy.

• 28:03Nick Bare?

  I've had this thought on, you used the word chapter a little bit ago. I've had this thought the last couple of days. And as you're talking about pulling that bow and arrow back, and I think, you know, the harder you pull that back and the further you pull it back, the more challenging, the more resistance you get.

• 28:21Nick Bare?

  That's like raising kids. I mean, you're just getting your butt kicked.

• 28:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:26Nick Bare?

  Daily, it feels like sometimes.

• 28:29Nick Bare?

  And when you have the opportunity to sit at a table or a dinner or just an event with other parents and you have the the ability to vent and share.

• 28:41Speaker 00

  So you get it.

• 28:42Nick Bare?

  What's going on?

• 28:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 28:44Nick Bare?

  One of the things you'll typically hear is it's just a season. You know, it's, we just have to get through this season. And I've been thinking about that term season a lot recently. And I would almost push back and say, it's actually a chapter, kind of like you mentioned. Seasons, just like fall, winter, spring, summer, they come, they go, they come back again. We know that when one summer ends, it's going to come back the next year at the same time. We're going to get another opportunity to live out another summer. If you have a bad summer where you're working the entire time and you didn't get to go on vacation

• 29:28Nick Bare?

  or go to the beach, it's okay because next summer you can do exactly what you want to do. Certain periods of our life are actually not seasons, they're chapters because chapters, once you finish one, you turn the page, you don't go back and re-read chapter one. You go from one to two to three to four to five, so on and so forth. And I've been thinking about this in terms of a lot of things, but I can use raising kids, for example.

• 29:58Nick Bare?

  You know, with raising a toddler and then a young child right now, I can easily say, oh, we just got to get through this season. But it's actually a chapter and the chapter we're in right now doesn't happen again because next year it's going to look completely different. We're going to have a three and a half year old and a one and a half year old. And after that, it's a two and a half year old and a four and a half year old. We don't ever go back to the seven month old and the two and a half year old. And I'm applying this to raising kids, but I mean, if you're building a business, I look back at 2017 when starting, like really starting BPN.

• 30:38Nick Bare?

  You know, we started the brand in 2012, transitioned out of the army in 2017, went all in on, on building the business that year. That year was so much fun.

• 30:49Nick Bare?

  And I would love to relive that year. I say it all the time. I would love to go back and relive that year because it was so much fun. But the reality is that chapter is over. And I can go back and try to do the things that I was doing in 2017. But there's more people, there's more responsibility, we have a bigger business, more customers. I can't go back to that chapter. That chapter is over. So when you're in the chapter, even if it's challenging, and it's much easier said than done, but as I've been having some hard days raising kids and building a business and all the things in life recently. And I'm overwhelmed. I just think back to,

• 31:31Nick Bare?

  okay, this is a chapter in life that I'm not ever going to get to relive again. Do I want to waste it? Do I want to take advantage of it? Do I want to skip it? Because if I skip it, what am I missing? And I've just reframed my thought process just recently from season to chapter.

• 31:51Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, that's, that's, that, that goes back to that teachable. What in this moment is teachable? Because there's a mindset or an atmosphere or this part of my life where I may be emotionally equipped in a certain feeling or season to learn this lesson right now. That later on, I may not learn it in that way. And so being able to just have that sense of understanding that like failure, mistakes, trial, error, it's gonna happen. We all know that that's gonna happen. But what in that moment is being defined, what you define is is how you're standing back up and learning what was teachable from that.

• 32:36Speaker 00

  I mean, BPN is built so much on the process. It is about the process. It's about being able to take a risk and, and have a big goal and set something and work towards it and continually refine it. That's so much of what it's built upon. So I can imagine, especially you with as many chapters as there's been. And you've done a series about it. You've done literally a building the brand series. You've defined those chapters.

• 32:58Nick Bare?

  Oh, yeah.

• 32:58Speaker 00

  It's been fun, I'm sure, to dig that back up and start to think about, yeah, I remember that time. I remember when it was so different. I remember when I was editing videos for 18 hours. And, you know, I remember having to sit in every seat. But also think, you know, I don't want to get too off topic, but I think that's why. Some of these core values really resonate because I think BPN is in a unique position where there really isn't a seat you haven't sat in, in this business.

• 33:23Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 33:24Speaker 00

  And I think that that because these core values are written with that perspective, it transcends a cultural shift. Because what's happened is, is now people in warehouse, operations, brand, you take all the different departments, everyone feels like they can contribute to this. It's not just like, you know, we want to fuel you to run the fastest marathon, you know, what we do, but it's not necessarily about that. These are written to where no matter what area you focus on, no matter where your skills are, no matter where you work in the business, you feel like you're contributing to this.

• 34:02Nick Bare?

  Right.

• 34:03Speaker 00

  And that's, I think that comes from those chapters that you went through and the seasons where you sat in every seat and you maybe thought, I don't want to do this anymore. I can't really do this anymore. I'm exhausted. Or I'm going to keep doing this even though I'm exhausted. Hopefully one day it'll be better. But I do feel like it's because of those chapters, you were able to now sit back and define something that gives every seat in BPN meaning.

• 34:34Nick Bare?

  Yeah, that makes me think of something, actually. We only recently defined our core values. So people may be asking the question, well, if you didn't define core values before recently, how did you build a business that maintained culture and values?

• 34:57Speaker 00

  Hmm, that's a good question, though.

• 34:58Nick Bare?

  Throughout this entire last 13 years. It's because of how involved in the business I've had to been. You know, staying really present and active and constantly leaning in and being vocal, like, hey, this is, this is not the way we do things. This is the way we do things. Hey, this is like, we're not going to make this decision because of X, Y, and Z, we got to do it this way.

• 35:24Nick Bare?

  So what was happening these last 13 years is I would just inject myself into all these different parts of the business to keep course correcting. The team has done an amazing job of staying within guardrails, I would say. But as the founder, it's my responsibility to define those values and that purpose and not just assume that people can read my mind and calibrate their thought process based off what I'm saying yes to and what I'm saying no to.

• 35:56Speaker 00

  Right.

• 35:57Nick Bare?

  That was my biggest problem and my biggest miss is that I thought that with enough repetition and vocalization that I would calibrate the hearts and minds of everyone.

• 36:08Speaker 00

  Right.

• 36:09Nick Bare?

  Into a certain degree it does, but after having defined exactly what the vision is and those components being core values, purpose and goals, I now don't have to constantly be going into every department and saying, yes, no, let's modify this. Here's why. This doesn't align for X, Y, and Z. We have a document, a vision document and a tone of voice document and a brand guidelines document that outlines a lot of directional decision-making that is required in the business. So it was just that, the reason it's so important to define

• 36:52Nick Bare?

  these things is because if you don't define them, you're going to have to be in every situation.

• 36:59Speaker 00

  Right.

• 36:59Nick Bare?

  Every conversation.

• 37:01Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 37:02Nick Bare?

  And being a part of every decision to make sure it aligns with what's in your head, not what's on paper.

• 37:08Speaker 00

  Exactly. Yeah. And then you, at that point, you can really, you can really focus on four or five people and really pour that into them, knowing that that's going to be rippled out.

• 37:18Nick Bare?

  Right.

• 37:18Speaker 00

  Onto their teams. Just takes less pressure off.

• 37:21Nick Bare?

  I want to take a quick break in this episode to talk to you guys about how I use our products around my endurance training and how you can as well. Now here at BPN, we've created products to fuel your performance and optimize your recovery. But I want to talk specifically around how I use these products in my morning run.

• 37:44Nick Bare?

  Before my morning run every morning, I'm not training fasted. I want carbohydrates and I want electrolytes. So I consume two scoops of G1M Sport, which is our carbohydrate and electrolyte powder, and one Go Bar, which is our lightweight oat-based bar. With this combination, I'm getting about 800mg of sodium and 76 grams of carbohydrates total. Carbohydrates for the fuel, electrolytes for the hydration. This is going to set me up to have the best run possible. Fuel and hydration. Now, based off of the distance, duration,

• 38:26Nick Bare?

  and intensity of that run, I will add in Go Gels during the workout. And the Go Gel is our simple ingredient, Endurance Gel, 24 grams of carbohydrates in each gel, and 110mg of sodium. We have a non-caffeinated version and a caffeinated version. The caffeinated version has 75mg of caffeine per gel. And I will have one Go Gel every 30 to 45 minutes, or every four to five miles. And we really created the Go Gel for these bigger effort runs, or endurance training sessions and races. They are extremely useful during races

• 39:09Nick Bare?

  because you get a quick hit of energy from the fuel, the carbohydrates, some hydration from the electrolytes, the sodium. But they also digest very easily. So you're not going to have stomach discomfort and GI distress. And then after my run, I want to rehydrate. So I'm always adding in our electrolyte powder, one to two scoops. Each scoop has 500mg of sodium, full electrolyte profile. So I'm using our products to fuel training, enhance hydration, maintain effort intensity during training sessions with the Go Gel, and then rehydrating immediately after.

• 39:54Nick Bare?

  So that's how I use our products around my early morning runs and all my endurance training, and how you can as well. So go to bpnsubs.com, check out all of our endurance products to fuel your performance. And now, back to the episode. One of the podcast episodes that I've shared recently with the team, I share with you specifically, I just want to bring this up because I think we can riff on this for a little bit. It's very applicable to having core values. And it's from the Resilient Show. It was episode 037 with Pastor Joby Martin. I highly recommend this episode of the Resilient Show.

• 40:37Speaker 00

  I second that, for sure.

• 40:38Nick Bare?

  It was incredible. And it was titled Biblical Manhood and the Crisis of Masculinity. Now, I wanted to make sure that when I shared this with the team, because we have men and women on the team,

• 40:52Nick Bare?

  I shared this episode saying, hey, we should listen to this because this is really important for the way that we're going to build our business into the future and the foundational core values that matter to us. It's titled Biblical Manhood and the Crisis of Masculinity. So you would assume, and in the context of the show, it was about growing up from being a boy to a man. But I encourage the team, and I would argue for you guys as well, don't think about this being gender specific. Whether you're a man or a woman, the key takeaways from this episode are applicable to just growing up and maturing.

• 41:38Nick Bare?

  And they talk about in this episode, Pastor Joby Martin, that once you figure out that you are a servant and that is your primary goal, you then can become a man. Maturity and leadership is not about yourself. It is being a selfless servant to protecting and providing for others. It is being abundantly generous.

• 42:06Nick Bare?

  There's a lot of talk in the world right now of what is a man compared to what is a boy? And I think most people take the wrong approach with like this toxic masculinity approach. And the way that they even described it in the show was like, the measure of a man is what you consume and what you have. How big is your truck? How much money is in your bank account? How big is your business? How much power do you have? How much authority? But that's the wrong way to think about it, as was positioned in this episode and as I, I believe as well. When I look back at my younger self,

• 42:48Nick Bare?

  I positioned myself first in a lot of things that I was doing. And to be honest, bootstrapping in business with very few team members by yourself in the early stages, that's kind of what I had to do in those early years. But if I would keep pursuing that way of building and growing, positioning myself first into the future, I would digress. I would decline in my personal and professional growth. I wouldn't be proud of the person that I was becoming.

• 43:26Nick Bare?

  And there's this transition from boy to man and then thought process of it's not about me being first anymore. It's me being a servant to others. As a man, as a mature woman, man, it is our responsibility to prioritize taking care of our community, our family, our team members, our children, our employees, our spouses before us. That is growing up and that is guided in these core values that come from a biblical foundation and reference. And I thought that was such a powerful podcast.

• 44:10Nick Bare?

  To just think about as we grow up and as we lead people.

• 44:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was a powerful podcast. Anybody, doesn't matter gender, age, everybody should see something that speaks into that because it's so powerful and it's needed. Yeah, I agree. And even looking at it from a biblical perspective, you know, it talks about it's, it's the man who leaves his parents and goes to take his wife and lead his wife. And from there, it's that immediately speaks to this life of servant leadership is because you're, you're choosing to go out from underneath and step up to eventually lead and provide and protect. That alone speaks to that. But to your, to your point of there's only so far when leadership feels like something that's truly

• 44:57Speaker 00

  earned, not necessarily that's just, it can be given. But I feel like when you really start to, when you really start to grow as a leader is when you understand that it's, it's earned, it's, it's, it's about the people that you're pouring into, that you get to work with really amazing people and, and you get to, and even when it comes to your family, it's like oftentimes you're the, the tone and the leadership of the home is gonna be mimicked where you work. It's just, it's, it's almost hard to separate those.

• 45:29Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 45:29Speaker 00

  And so a good leader is gonna always, I don't want to make sure I phrase this the right way, but is, is such a good leader of themselves, because that's what helps them show up for their family. It helps them understand the importance of core values. It, it helps them be mission minded. It helps them be in a place where I know where I'm headed. I know who I am. I know what I've been, I know what my purpose is, what my goals are. And I know that my family is my call. It's my duty to look after and protect and provide for them. And for these people that I work with,

• 46:10Speaker 00

  it's an honor to work with people. And, and it can be, you know, being able to, when you're all aligned and hungry for the same thing. I think there's power in that.

• 46:20Speaker 00

  But just being able to see this level playing field, you know, having the the ability to make to step up and make decisions that no one else is called to make, you're called to make those decisions. But I feel like what helps you make those decisions is your your understanding of your team, your understanding of what it is that makes us us, and what is the thing that's going to ultimately help us get closer to that vision and mission. But and that's it's just it's so timely this topic because we we literally my my wife and I and some friends of ours in our a small group that we have literally took time this semester to define what is our family mission statements. Because there's a lot of people

• 47:04Speaker 00

  getting ready to have kids. And it's like, you know, what is that? What is the thing that's going to guide that now that you're thinking about that? But

• 47:12Nick Bare?

  What did that process look like for you guys identifying that?

• 47:15Speaker 00

  It's it is interesting. There's a my wife has some friends who they kind of built out a curriculum built for groups just to kind of get the ball rolling like here's let's define what this actually is. What does this? What does it mean to have a family mission statement? And with examples of theirs. And then they have these things called permanent plays, which are really like your the five to seven different sort of values that help kind of drive that ultimately. So the process was just being able to split off and, you know, give because some couples just need the space. And I don't want to silo this just a couple. Some people just need to have space to dedicate time to say, what is actually

• 47:59Speaker 00

  important to me? What do I actually care about?

• 48:02Nick Bare?

  What's actually important to you and your family, not

• 48:05Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 48:06Nick Bare?

  What do you think is supposed to be important to you and your family?

• 48:09Speaker 00

  That's a great distinction. That's a great distinction. What innately is important to you and your family and that you are set here and called to do and to accomplish. And that's going to look different for everybody. But a lot of times, you just need the space to sit and define that. Because it's it's not just going to necessarily be something that just it's not reactive. I think it can be scary if you if you want to somehow conjure up a mission statement or come to a mission statement as reacting to something that happened.

• 48:45Nick Bare?

  Right.

• 48:45Speaker 00

  I feel like it has to be above that.

• 48:49Nick Bare?

  You mentioned something a little bit ago about leadership. And typically, if you have a leader, that leader is a leader in all aspects of their life. And you rarely find someone who is a leader in their business, but not a leader in their home. And I would argue, if you find someone or come across someone that lives that life, they're not actually a leader. To want to be a leader in your home, in your family, there's no financial incentive for that. You're not getting a raise, you're not getting a promotion. It is a responsibility that you take upon yourself and really own.

• 49:34Nick Bare?

  There's a lot of people who start working in a place of business, and they go to the CEO, they go to the founder, they say, "I want to be on the leadership team." And the question is, "Well, why? Well, you know, I've worked here for X amount of years. I think I deserve this amount of money and this amount of authority after being here for this long." No, you don't want to be a, you don't want to be in a leadership role. You just want to be promoted. You just want more financial incentive. To be in the room, yeah. Yeah, you want to be part of the decision-making process. If you want to be a leader, the reason is never incentivized by these perks.

• 50:18Nick Bare?

  It is because you want the responsibility to be a servant to others. And if you want to be a leader because you want the responsibility to be a servant to others, that will then have crossover application to every other part of your life. You will not want to be a servant to others in your business and not in your family, and vice versa. So if you're sitting here thinking, "I want to be in a leadership position one day", you should really ask yourself the question, "But why do I want that? Is it for the perks, or is it for the responsibility?" Because the responsibility comes with a whole lot more weight. And even if it comes with more money, the weight is much heavier than the financial incentives might offset.

• 51:02Nick Bare?

  I can promise you that.

• 51:08Nick Bare?

  So one of the things I want to talk about next is

• 51:13Nick Bare?

  the consequences of operating your life in the absence of core values.

• 51:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 51:16Nick Bare?

  The way I'm thinking about this right now is Donald Miller has like the seven part framework of storytelling. And I'm going to butcher it off the top of my head, but it's like you're introduced to this character. The character is presented with a problem, the character then meets a guide. That guide helps them navigate the problem they're experiencing. And then the guide provides the character a process to successfully accomplish this problem. And there's two outcomes, there's success and there's failure. And I believe that's kind of where we're at right now in this conversation is

• 51:59Nick Bare?

  if you were the character and you meet a mentor, you meet a guide and that guide provides you this insight to say you need to establish core values in your life.

• 52:10Nick Bare?

  Because it will guide every aspect of your life moving forward. If you fail to establish core values, this is what's going to happen. If you succeed in establishing core values, we will then talk about what's going to happen. Now, there are always exceptions to the rule. So someone might be listening to this saying, well, my friend John has no core values in his life. He's never identified these things. He makes a lot of money. He's super happy in his life. He has a great marriage. His kids respect and trust him and love him dearly. That's great for him. But I would argue that that is the exception to the rule.

• 52:55Nick Bare?

  There's always going to be exceptions to the rule in every aspect of life. And everyone loves to reference the exception because the exception challenges the status quo of what is consistent.

• 53:11Nick Bare?

  And if we operate our life in the absence of core values, let's talk about what, what can happen. Because I have met many people in, when I finally realized how important core values are, it makes it very obvious to who in your life or who in your circle, who in your environment has not identified their core values.

• 53:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 53:39Nick Bare?

  And that's a dangerous person, like we were talking about before we started recording. That is a dangerous person to be around because they are unpredictable. You don't know what is guiding their decision-making process. Are they guided one day by financial incentives? And the next day after going to church, maybe it's a Monday morning, they're guided by biblical reasoning and faith in God. But then by Friday, they're out at the bar and making decisions that are completely against what they believed the prior Monday. I don't trust being around a person like that. It is dangerous. It is unpredictable. I want someone who is consistent and rooted in values.

• 54:22Nick Bare?

  And I don't know about you, but I now can identify people in my life who do live their life based off of their core values and who do not, or who don't, who don't value core values.

• 54:33Speaker 00

  Oh, for sure. Yeah. It does. It is kind of strange how that lens kind of turns when you start to identify that. It's, I feel like it's even too demonstrated for people who just have a great sense of safety. I think there's just something about they, and what I mean by that is, is there's just a, there's just a home sense with them. It just seems like either talking with them, decisions they make, the way that they, the hobbies they have, the books they read, or the, the people they surround themselves with just have this, this uniting sense where it just, it, it, it feels safe to be around them. Because I think that's what ultimately that can do is having that core value belief system is ultimately, in a way, a, a safety mechanism to ultimately ensure

• 55:18Speaker 00

  that I am on the road that I'm trying to stay on. And that a lot of these relationships in your life are mile markers, kind of just continually. Proving that which which, you know, it's a mile marker for a road, but it's, you know, is it the road that you've set yourself to be on?

• 55:38Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 55:38Speaker 00

  But it does, it does feel like it's, it's easier to, I don't want to say easier, but it's become, you do become more aware of who are people that actually, so many of their decisions make sense. You know, you, you, you hear something somebody did, or you hear something, you're like, oh, that, that sounds like that totally makes sense.

• 55:57Nick Bare?

  Mm hmm.

• 55:58Speaker 00

  They're just so in line with what it is that they're living for and doing, even down to something small, like they went there to eat. It's like, that makes total sense that they went there. You know, it's just, you just start to get a greater sense of understanding of this person and so much of what you learn about them makes sense. But like you said, if it, if there isn't that, it just kind of seems like you'll start to see certain things in people, or you'll see decisions, or you'll see posts, or you'll see something that's like, I didn't really see them going there or doing that.

• 56:27Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 56:28Speaker 00

  And maybe because that was based on a in the moment decision, that was a feeling, that was acting on a feeling, that was acting on some sort of emotion that influenced them to do something in some form or some way. And that, again, yeah, that's dangerous.

• 56:45Nick Bare?

  It's very dangerous. So, talking about the absence of core values, I want to really lean into suffering.

• 56:55Speaker 00

  And. That's a great topic.

• 56:59Nick Bare?

  I, I, I did a lot of prep and like, I spent a lot of time in my own thoughts for this episode. And I kept thinking about the, the, the value of suffering.

• 57:11Nick Bare?

  And that suffering is inevitable. Like, we are going to experience suffering in life, which is not a bad thing. Sometimes we choose our own suffering, and then sometimes we are presented with opportunities of suffering that we did not choose. For example, we can choose to sign up for an ultra marathon or a race and put ourself through this really hard, challenging preparation and experience, race, competition, and suffer through.

• 57:44Nick Bare?

  It's painful, it hurts. We start having moments of self doubt. And we can grow from those moments and those opportunities. And then there's times where things happen in our life, unforeseen circumstances, tragedies, that we end up suffering through. And that we then are responsible to trust God and know that He is having us suffer for meaning, even if we can't identify it or understand it in that moment. So as I was trying to like, think about all of these things around suffering. I reached out to Pastor Lyle Phillips a few days ago.

• 58:29Nick Bare?

  He was my pastor when we were living in Nashville at Legacy Church. And I just sent him a voice message. It's like, Pastor Lyle Phillips, I want to talk about suffering in the context of core values and the consequences of operating your life in the absence of core values. And the importance of having meaning and applying meaning to suffering. And he sent me back a few things. If you don't have core values established or defined in your life, then when you go through moments of suffering, whether you've chosen them

• 59:12Nick Bare?

  or they've chosen you, it's really hard to identify meaning. And suffering without meaning is wasted time, it's wasted potential. Much of this entire episode is very biblical. It's like really hard to talk about core values and suffering and meaning and all of these things without referencing the Bible. I mean, it is so biblical in every sense and aspect.

• 59:47Speaker 00

  Even because too, the essence of, as a believer in Christianity, the essence of Christianity is Christ likeness. And so if that's, if that is the essence of that. So many of your embodied values that are special to you want to go there, want to mimic that. So yeah, I agree with you how it almost feels like they have to be in alignment. It's almost hard to not be.

• 1:00:12Nick Bare?

  I mean, the reason that Christ was able to be so consistent and predictable and challenge all these people who were against everything that he was for is because his core values were so strongly rooted. And they were so unique and special to him that even everyone else argued against it. Doesn't matter. These are the foundational principles that he believed in, that we should believe in.

• 1:00:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:44Nick Bare?

  So why, why in what sense ever should we try to conform to what everyone else is telling us to do? When it is completely misaligned with our core values and his core values?

• 1:00:55Speaker 00

  Yeah. And even too, most of the time when you think about times where he spoke or corrected something, it was almost seen as a societal shift. Like, what do you mean? Like it almost flipped things on. He was very good about flipping things on its head and almost repositioning people to think about something dramatically different. And that's sometimes I think what people with core values can, can speak into you. They can almost flip certain things in you on your head and, and start to make you think, wow, what, what actually is important to me? What actually is the way? I think there's something to that. There's, there's authority. I think that's the word I'm looking for. It gives you authority, I think, to speak into other people.

• 1:01:41Nick Bare?

  Before we started recording, you used the word sway. We talked about that a little bit.

• 1:01:47Nick Bare?

  That might actually have been when we were recording. I can't remember, but we used the word sway.

• 1:01:53Nick Bare?

  You ever meet someone who is so confident in their beliefs and their values? That when you try to challenge them, they don't argue against, but they're like, no, no, no, no, no. That is not what I believe in. And here is why.

• 1:02:08Nick Bare?

  I've met people, I've had conversations with people like that before. I realized someone is so confident in what they believe in. I'm not there to argue, but I'm there to understand. Okay, if you believe this so much, I want to learn from you.

• 1:02:23Nick Bare?

  That is like one type of person, so firmly confident in what they believe in. And it's not for just any reason. There's substance, there's context behind it, there's a reason. Then there's people who are the swears.

• 1:02:42Nick Bare?

  Not to be confused with the swingers. The swears will conform to what they believe is relevant at the time.

• 1:02:51Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:02:52Nick Bare?

  All these people, their core values now X, Y, and Z. Maybe I should sway my core values to conform to theirs. So that I am accepted because maybe their core values are right and mine are wrong because they're not confident in theirs.

• 1:03:11Nick Bare?

  Did I get that right in the way that you were thinking about sways?

• 1:03:14Speaker 00

  And you even mentioned like a chameleon.

• 1:03:16Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:17Speaker 00

  You'd kind of added that to the conversation. It's just being able to. And then at the end of the day, it's like, is that naturally aligning with the things that matter to you? We all have things that matter to us that are different. And there's the danger of being a swayer is because a swayer is necessarily gonna. It's just not, oftentimes it's just not rooted in anything. When you're not rooted in something that you're gonna find yourself in places you didn't maybe think you'd find yourself.

• 1:03:44Nick Bare?

  Yeah. Go, we've talked about this in the business recently, but like instead of going wide, go deep.

• 1:03:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:03:51Nick Bare?

  Go deeper. So Pastor Lyle Phillips sent me over a few verses that I want to share.

• 1:03:59Nick Bare?

  That I think are applicable to what we're talking about.

• 1:04:03Nick Bare?

  Romans 5:3, suffering produces perseverance.

• 1:04:09Nick Bare?

  Or endurance. Character and hope. Like we will grow through suffering if we apply meaning to that suffering. Some people suffer and they don't have values, they don't provide meaning to that suffering and they just complain. They just like, I've met people who just constantly are complaining about their hardship and what they're going through and. I have empathy for that suffering, that hardship I do, but it is an individual responsibility to tie meaning to that suffering so that we can experience perseverance, character, and hope that comes from it.

• 1:04:50Nick Bare?

  2 Timothy 2:3, "Join with me in suffering like a good soldier of Christ Jesus." Join with me in suffering like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. And then Peter 4:12, "Do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come to you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer, or thief, or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name; for it is time for judgment to begin with God's household.

• 1:05:30Nick Bare?

  And if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God?" You gotta think about that.

• 1:05:42Speaker 00

  What a question.

• 1:05:42Nick Bare?

  It is time for judging to begin with God's household. What will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God?

• 1:05:51Speaker 00

  It's a mandate.

• 1:05:52Nick Bare?

  Yes.

• 1:05:53Speaker 00

  Essentially. You know, and even going to Romans, suffering produces perseverance. You know, it's in, in James, there's a verse that, you know, mentions when you, when you meet trials, it doesn't say if you, it says when you meet trials of various kinds, the perseverance and endurance through that is going to produce steadfastness, which I think is another quality of someone who is very, lives their life very mission-driven and has very strong core values, is they, they understand that their, their faith is being refined. You know, I think we can all say, I'm just feeling like I'm being tested, feeling like I'm being tested. And sometimes that can have a negative to it, a negative connotation to, I'm being

• 1:06:37Speaker 00

  tested, I'm just stuck.

• 1:06:40Nick Bare?

  Being grinded down, I'm being worn down.

• 1:06:42Speaker 00

  Exactly. But instead of thinking of it as like, is this, am I being worked down or am I being sharpened? Because you do the same thing with sharpening. There's this kind of a same approach to that. And I believe that when it mentions steadfastness, the root, that is being steady. And I think about how many, how many people, leaders, mentors, people that you have that they just are, they're steady. There's something about that. And I mean, that's so much, that word is even integrated into be pen to the ability to be consistent, to be steady, the ability to be refined, because refined means to remove impurities.

• 1:07:22Speaker 00

  And so when you think about being refined, it's the ability to take those, those misconceptions or those, those places within you, and you're just slowly starting to refine it. But what's going to refine that is this times of suffering, when you meet times where it's, you're going to have trials, you're going to have something that where you suffer and you, you're stretched because of it. But in what other heart posture could you learn that or grow from that without having that experience?

• 1:07:53Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:54Speaker 00

  You have to ask that. I don't know. I can think of stories, my own sufferings, my own trials. What headspace was I in? I was in the headspace where the lesson I look back on now of what that brought me to, really was the thing that it taught me that lesson in that moment. I had to go through that. I had to experience that. So it's always powerful to think when you meet trials, not if they happen, but when you meet them, it's going to give you the ability to grow endurance and perseverance. So that way you can become steady.

• 1:08:31Nick Bare?

  Yeah, it's that, that refinement, that sharpening.

• 1:08:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:08:36Nick Bare?

  One of my favorite authors is Dr. Henry Cloud. And probably my favorite book by him, there's two that I love, Trust and Necessary Endings. And in Necessary Endings, which he's a faith-based pastor, and, or faith-based author, sorry. But in Necessary Endings, he talks about this concept of pruning, which I've talked about many times on this podcast before, but not for a while.

• 1:09:07Nick Bare?

  And that we sometimes have to strip down parts of our life to allow our lives to grow. And he uses a rose bush as an example. If you look at an old overgrown rose bush, there's dead petals, there's thorns. It doesn't look as pretty as a rose bush should. It's just, there's just stuff everywhere. And to keep a rose bush healthy and strong and thriving, you have to prune it every year. You come and you cut away the dead stems and thorns and branches. You clean it up. And by pruning, you strip it bare. It looks dead after you prune it. But give it a few weeks, a few months, and it blooms, it blossoms, it's beautiful once again.

• 1:09:49Nick Bare?

  In certain parts of our life, we have to refine, to sharpen. Sometimes that is stripping down, which looks empty, it looks bare, it looks dead. But that's the only way we can then grow and blossom on top of that. So now moving into what happens when you live your life guided by core values. So a few things before I want to get into the meat and potatoes of that Craig Gershell video that I shared with you called Pre-Decide. One, it allows us to fight for the next generation, not just for ourselves. As I mentioned in the beginning of this episode, it improves efficiency and satisfaction

• 1:10:34Nick Bare?

  of decision making. It provides us clarity and confidence. And when our values are clear, our decisions are easy. When our values are clear, our decisions are easy. And it allows us to ask the question, are we pleasing God with our decisions and our actions if our core values are aligned with the ones that are like God? The video I share with you called Pre-Decide, it was a sermon by Pastor Craig Gershell I found on YouTube was amazing where it talks about if you have your core values established.

• 1:11:17Nick Bare?

  It makes decision making so much easier. You've pre-decided what you're going to say yes to and what you're going to say no to. Because it's not in the moment, do I want to do this? It's in the moment, how does this align with my core values? Some of the quotes I pulled from that video. One, core values promote consistency. Two, the direction of our life is guided by the quality of our decisions. And three, which kind of is like Jeff Cunningham's quote. Successful people do consistently what other people do occasionally. And if we can be more consistent in our decision-making process, we can be more successful and we're more consistent if we have core values established.

• 1:12:02Speaker 00

  You're right. Can I tell that he does see an example of the white belt and the black belt?

• 1:12:08Nick Bare?

  Oh, yeah, it's a great one. Yep.

• 1:12:09Speaker 00

  Just to quickly retell it for those who haven't seen the message of the clip. He mentions going to this jiu-jitsu class where the teacher, the master, he asks, he poses the question, he says, what is the hardest belt to get? And you know, you instantly go straight to skills, to knowledge, to, oh, the black belt, the degrees of black belt. And he quickly shifted it and was like, no, it's the, it's the white belt, which is the very first one you get. Because he said, because most people don't show up. It's hardest to show up. That's the hardest belt to get because you decide to show up. And he said, you know what, and then here's a black belt.

• 1:12:54Speaker 00

  And he said, you know what a black belt is? It's a white belt who consistently showed up.

• 1:13:00Nick Bare?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:13:01Speaker 00

  Man, that, that drilled the entire point for me, like so clear. And the ability to, what successful people do consistently, what other people do occasionally. You can think and imagine this black belt of, of the, the, the great achievement and knowledge and skill set and determination that it takes for these elite martial artists to achieve that.

• 1:13:29Speaker 00

  But from someone who is at that, they just see that as I was someone who showed up and I just kept saying yes. I just thought that was such a powerful image to the bringing the the power of consistency.

• 1:13:43Nick Bare?

  Yeah, I think there's a really good way to tie back or tie together this in the beginning of the episode where there's the analogy of the belts. And in the beginning, we talked about the analogy of core values being the bumpers. If you're at a bowling alley. Now, if you don't have any bumpers up, if you don't have any core values, and if you're a new bowler, the chances of you throwing a bowling ball in the gutter and knocking down zero pins is high. You have little experience, skill, and throw it in the gutters or in the

• 1:14:23Nick Bare?

  in the gutters. If you have core values and those bumpers go up, you can't throw the ball in the gutter. It literally won't.

• 1:14:34Speaker 00

  It eliminates it.

• 1:14:34Nick Bare?

  It'll bounce back and forth. You're gonna hit at least one pin. And you keep rolling balls over and over and over and you keep knocking down pins. You're not throwing any balls in the gutter because you have the core values up. You just keep doing that years and years and years. You're gonna knock down thousands of pins. That is consistency compounding. That is success. That is growth. So the person who threw the bumpers up, maybe never got a strike, maybe occasionally gets a strike, but more consistently knocks down a couple pins, has made much greater progress.

• 1:15:20Nick Bare?

  Then the person who has the bumpers down and throwing balls in the gutter over and over and over again.

• 1:15:28Speaker 00

  That's a great distinction because just because you put the bumpers up, what we're not saying is, is there can't be these gutter moments where you can't find yourself in, in places where you didn't imagine yourself. That's not what the essence of it is, but what it is, is, is saying you're setting the playing field to where I may hit one pin, I may occasionally get a strike, but right now I'm thinking, at least it's going to get me to the pins. At least that structure is going to get me to there. And it really greatly eliminates my, my chance of going straight into the gutter.

• 1:16:04Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:04Speaker 00

  Which means is, is to get into a gutter with the, with the bumpers up, you really gotta like.

• 1:16:09Nick Bare?

  You gotta mess up.

• 1:16:10Speaker 00

  You really gotta like mess that up. So.

• 1:16:13Nick Bare?

  Yeah, you have to try.

• 1:16:14Speaker 00

  You almost have to try to mess up. And that's another great point is how powerful, when you have core values, how almost, I don't want to say hardest, but we'd mentioned how much easier it helps clarify your decisions. You really have to mess up.

• 1:16:30Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:30Speaker 00

  So, you know, that's, that's why there's having people to keep you accountable to those things, having them written on a wall, having them meaningful to you because if it's strong enough of a why, you'll find yourself devoted to it.

• 1:16:43Nick Bare?

  I agree.

• 1:16:43Speaker 00

  And that was a point of what Pastor Craig said is, is the finding that why that drives devotion that continually keeps that. Cause you're, you're great at always keeping the perspective of you're never going to always wake up motivated. It's hard to lean on motivation all the time, but having that why so locked in to what is important to you, it's, that's the thing that's going to continually fuel that devotion to that thing. And so, yeah, you put those guardrails up, you've really got to mess up. And I've said that several times, but you really have to intentionally go around that because what you've done is, is you've clearly defined the lane. And that's what it does is without it, it's, it's kind

• 1:17:27Speaker 00

  of open. You have to be way more strategic and you have to be way more specific.

• 1:17:30Nick Bare?

  Right.

• 1:17:31Speaker 00

  About your approach. The bumpers say, this is my lane.

• 1:17:36Nick Bare?

  I think we nailed what we were trying to get across in this episode. I mean, this was for me, as I was sitting down and like outlining this one. I said, man, this topic is so valuable and so important. I just want to make sure we do this one right. And I think we really drove the topic home in this one. So my hope is that people listen to this. And if you're listening to this, you're watching this. Challenge the way you may have thought about core values in the past. It is not an organizational term.

• 1:18:21Nick Bare?

  It's not this boilerplate business plan requirement for your business, your life, your work. It is so valuable. It is the bumpers of your life that allow you to be more consistent, that allow you to be that servant to your community, your family, the people around you. It is, it's not an option. It's essential. It is critical. It is necessary.

• 1:18:49Speaker 00

  It's a mandate.

• 1:18:50Nick Bare?

  It's a mandate. So create those core values, create the purpose, write it down, share it, look at it daily. Make it unique to what you truly believe in and go forth and conquer.

• 1:19:03Speaker 00

  Yeah. And for people who watch and listen to this, like if you have goals, you can reach them. You can get them because what core values are going to do is they're going to fuel that. They're going to give you the ability to accomplish what you probably or maybe don't think you can. You will greatly outperform what you think you can do when you are making decisions and setting goals with something that is extremely locked in to who you are and what your purpose is.

• 1:19:36Nick Bare?

  Well, Matt, thanks for joining me.

• 1:19:38Speaker 00

  Hey, I'll do whatever you want.

• 1:19:40Nick Bare?

  That's great. That's great. Thanks, man.

• 1:19:42Speaker 00

  You're welcome.