152: 3 Characteristics Guaranteed to Change Your Life and Reach Your Goals

In this episode, I break down the three traits I come back to when the goal feels heavy: discipline, commitment, and consistency. From Ironman Arizona to military training, I’ve learned success is built in the reps—showing up when it’s boring, repetitive, and hard. I also share how faith has strengthened my commitment to Go One More. CHAPTERS: 00:00 Introduction 02:03 The Power of Discipline, Commitment, and Consistency 05:57 Call to Action for 2026 11:02 Embracing Life's Repetitiveness 21:42 Consistency in Health and Fitness 27:24 Going All In 31:17 The Power of Going All In 35:43 The Importance of Pruning for Success 39:05 Stand Firm and Act Like Men 41:18 Understanding True Discipline 44:21 The Dangers of Pride 48:56 Commitment Has No Finish Lines 53:50 Lessons from Ranger School 59:58 The Journey of Sanctification 01:01:47 Obedience: The Ultimate Goal ORDER MY BOOK HERE: https://www.amazon.com/Go-One-More-Intentional-Life-Changing/dp/1637746210 FOLLOW: Become a BPN member FOR FREE - Unlock 20% off FOR LIFE https://bpn.team/member IG: instagram.com/nickbarefitness/ YT: youtube.com/@nickbarefitness

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

• 0:06Nick Bare?

  Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the podcast.

• 0:12Nick Bare?

  Today's episode is on three words. Three characteristics, three traits, three skills. And those are discipline, commitment, and consistency.

• 0:29Nick Bare?

  As many of you probably know, I just finished Ironman Arizona. That was November 16th. So at this point, I've, I've been done with that prep and that race for three weeks now. And whenever I finish a, a fitness challenge, a professional goal, objective milestone, there is a period of time after it is complete where there is just this, this ability to reflect on the previous chapter, the previous season.

• 1:05Nick Bare?

  What worked, what did not, what I learned in that process. And as I've been sitting in reflection, a lot of my time sitting in reflection is spent in the sauna.

• 1:21Nick Bare?

  The sauna for me is, it's my quiet place. It's my secret place. It is where I go to pray. That is where I hear God very vividly. And it's also just a time to be still, be present, be patient, and listen.

• 1:46Nick Bare?

  That for me is either in the sauna or times when I'm running. And these three words have just been top of mind a lot recently. And as I planned this episode out and I started putting all these things together, I think there's a much greater purpose and reason and why behind these three words, which I'll get into.

• 2:12Nick Bare?

  Like these three words at face value, they're just words and they are redundant words or descriptions or characteristics. They get thrown around a lot.

• 2:29Nick Bare?

  They get overused in my opinion, a lot. Discipline, commitment and consistency. And they get thrown around and used so much that I believe they get watered down and just how valuable they are and can be.

• 2:50Nick Bare?

  As I've thought about like how we apply or how have I applied commitment, discipline and consistency over the years, it's actually a really simple concept. It is, it is simple to accept. It is difficult to apply. You know, in my book, Go One More, that we launched earlier this summer, there is a section of the book talking about the difference between what is simple and what is easy. And I used to view them as synonyms. I used to think that simple was easy and easy was simple, but they are so far from each other. Just because something is simple does not mean that it's easy.

• 3:36Nick Bare?

  The way that Albert Einstein described the word simple is that it is at the highest level of intelligence. To be able to make the most complicated and complex, simple is hard. It is challenging, but if you can do that, you have a high level of intellect.

• 3:57Nick Bare?

  You might even be a genius.

• 4:00Nick Bare?

  To take these three things, these, these three characteristics, discipline, commitment and consistency,

• 4:07Nick Bare?

  to accept it, it's, it's very simple, but to apply it and to execute upon it.

• 4:17Nick Bare?

  I would argue that a lot of people don't do it, can't do it, and have failed many, many times before. These characteristics and values are foundational to life, to success, to winning, to achievement.

• 4:37Nick Bare?

  They are not competitive advantages. They're not hacks.

• 4:43Nick Bare?

  Being disciplined doesn't make you any more competitive than somebody else. Being committed doesn't make you any more competitive against something else. Being consistent doesn't necessarily make you more competitive.

• 4:59Nick Bare?

  And where I'm going with this is those three things, discipline, commitment, and consistency, they are table stakes. It is the minimum requirement to compete. It is the minimum requirement to succeed. They are the minimum requirement to win. And if you are sitting somewhere, listening to this episode right now, or watching it, and if you are failing to succeed, if you are failing to accomplish, if you are failing to win,

• 5:33Nick Bare?

  I would put money on it that, that more than likely, the reason or the chances that you are not winning, you are not succeeding, you are not achieving, is because you are not disciplined, you are not committed, and you are not consistent.

• 5:50Nick Bare?

  So I have a call to action in this, in this episode of what I'm about to dive into. And that call to action is if you want to succeed, truly, you must.

• 6:05Nick Bare?

  It's not a you should, you can, you may, you must. One, be able to hold yourself accountable.

• 6:13Nick Bare?

  Discipline yourself. Two, set goals and objectives and don't quit until you reach or achieve them.

• 6:23Nick Bare?

  Commitment. And three, show up every single day, over and over and over again, while in the face of adversity, or obstacles, or struggle.

• 6:42Nick Bare?

  Consistency.

• 6:46Nick Bare?

  I'm recording this episode at the end of 2025. It is early December 2025 at the point in time that I'm I'm sitting here speaking to a camera. If you want to change your life in 2026,

• 7:04Nick Bare?

  that call to action, those three things will change your life guaranteed.

• 7:12Nick Bare?

  Guaranteed.

• 7:15Nick Bare?

  And I say this

• 7:18Nick Bare?

  very carefully with no ego. I say this with no ego, but with full humility and self-awareness and confidence.

• 7:31Nick Bare?

  I truly believe in the deepest parts of my soul and my heart. The only reason that I had been able to build something, achieve certain things,

• 7:46Nick Bare?

  succeed in the way that I have

• 7:50Nick Bare?

  measured success.

• 7:55Nick Bare?

  Because success is relative to the individual. The only reason I've been able to get to a certain point in my life that I'm proud of

• 8:05Nick Bare?

  is because I have been disciplined. I have been committed and I have been very, very consistent

• 8:16Nick Bare?

  for over a decade now.

• 8:22Nick Bare?

  If I think back, if I reflect

• 8:26Nick Bare?

  of

• 8:29Nick Bare?

  my journey in the military and then transitioning out of the military and building BPN into what it is today, which started in my college apartment in 2012 with a $20,000 loan.

• 8:45Nick Bare?

  If I think back and reflect on any of the physical accomplishments, or at the bare minimum, the improvements I've made in my physical performance over the years. It is not because of raw talent and skill. It is not because of the family I was born into. It is not because of some sort of supernatural gift.

• 9:15Nick Bare?

  It is because of discipline, commitment, and consistency.

• 9:21Nick Bare?

  So I wanted to really set the stage before diving into the rest of what I'm about to speak into.

• 9:30Nick Bare?

  Because like I've said, those three words, they get thrown around. They get added to cute Instagram captions. And they get put on people's walls, you go into a gym. They end up just being a filler at some point, fluff.

• 9:54Nick Bare?

  And the true value and power, in my opinion at least, behind these words, these descriptors, these characteristics.

• 10:05Nick Bare?

  They lose some of the oomph and the power.

• 10:10Nick Bare?

  Discipline, commitment, consistency. Those are values. Those are values that we as individuals, organizations, and teams, we embody. We live out. We apply.

• 10:24Nick Bare?

  They are by no means easy to execute upon. Especially when we water down the meaning and the message of them.

• 10:34Nick Bare?

  But man, they will take you places. They've taken me to places that I never would have dreamed or imagined 10 plus years ago.

• 10:48Nick Bare?

  But if you apply them, or you at least take them going into this next year, you're going to see a massive return.

• 10:57Nick Bare?

  Huge results.

• 11:01Nick Bare?

  Now, I've recently been reading a few books. One of them is called "Living Life Backward" by David Gibson. The subtitle of this book is "How Ecclesiastes Teaches Us to Live in Light of the End." It's an incredible read, and I've really been enjoying it.

• 11:28Nick Bare?

  And there is a section of that book that is titled "Embrace Life's Repetitiveness." Repetitiveness, repetition.

• 11:44Nick Bare?

  Repetitiveness and repetition requires consistency.

• 11:53Nick Bare?

  Consistency is a muscle that needs to be trained,

• 11:57Nick Bare?

  and it atrophies without a stimulus. What does atrophy mean?

• 12:04Nick Bare?

  I first learned about the word atrophy in terms of muscle.

• 12:10Nick Bare?

  When you strength train, you go in the gym, you build muscle,

• 12:16Nick Bare?

  you get stronger.

• 12:18Nick Bare?

  When you're in the gym, you're breaking down those muscle fibers, and then post-workout, you recover. You consume food, nutrition, calories, you sleep, you rest, and then the muscles grow. Your muscles are not growing while you're in the gym, you're breaking them down. You're literally creating micro tears in the muscle when you're putting them under a stimulus. But when you rest and you recover, that's when the muscle actually grows and develops. When you stop training, you stop going to the gym, you stop putting that muscle in that body under a stimulus, and you stop breaking it down, it doesn't grow, it doesn't improve, it doesn't get better.

• 13:01Nick Bare?

  The muscle becomes smaller, it becomes weaker over time in the absence of the stimulus. The muscle atrophies. So much of our life atrophies as well when we don't keep applying a stimulus on a regular basis.

• 13:20Nick Bare?

  And just like my good friend and running coach Jeff Cunningham says, it's better to be consistently good as opposed to occasionally great. If you train a muscle one time every six months,

• 13:40Nick Bare?

  that muscle does not have the ability to grow and develop. Even if you go in every six months and you train that muscle for hours to a point where you can't even move that part of your body anymore,

• 13:57Nick Bare?

  it isn't a consistent enough stimulus

• 14:01Nick Bare?

  on a frequent and regular basis that there isn't going to be growth. There isn't going to be adaptation. There isn't going to be development. Consistency itself is a muscle that we have to train. We have to keep applying this stimulus to experience growth, development and adaptation.

• 14:21Nick Bare?

  Going back to this book that I've been reading, Living Life Backward.

• 14:27Nick Bare?

  I mean, one of my favorite books in the Bible is Ecclesiastes. It is a a rude awakening of a book in the Bible. It is humbling, extremely humbling. And every time I reread that book,

• 14:47Nick Bare?

  I learn something new.

• 14:50Nick Bare?

  There's new perspective gained.

• 14:53Nick Bare?

  There are more humbling moments experienced.

• 15:00Nick Bare?

  Life is repetitive. But we as individuals, we as people wanna we wanna break that cycle of repetition. It's just natural.

• 15:13Nick Bare?

  So within the book, I'm going to read some of the things that David Gibson has written down.

• 15:20Nick Bare?

  And my goal with citing some of this and talking about repetition and how we should, the call to action, embrace life's repetitiveness. Because a life of repetitiveness facilitates a life of consistency. And the more consistent we can be at what we are doing, what we are practicing, what we are reading,

• 15:47Nick Bare?

  who we are praising, who we are giving the glory to,

• 15:53Nick Bare?

  the more consistent we can be in the absence of chasing and pursuing change.

• 16:03Nick Bare?

  The reward is on the other side of that repetition.

• 16:09Nick Bare?

  So the section of embrace life's repetitiveness.

• 16:16Nick Bare?

  We're playing pretend.

• 16:19Nick Bare?

  Let's pretend that if we get the promotion, or see our church grow, or bring up good children, we'll feel significant and leave a lasting legacy behind us. Let's pretend that if we change jobs, or emigrate to the sun, we will experience the humdrum, tedium, and ordinariness of life.

• 16:47Nick Bare?

  Let's pretend that if we move to a new house, we'll be happier. We'll never want to move again. Let's pretend that if we end one relationship and start a new one, we won't ever feel trapped. Let's pretend that if we were married, or weren't married, we would be content. Let's pretend that if we make more money, we would be satisfied. Let's pretend that if we get through this week's pile of washing, dirty diapers, and shopping lists, and school runs, and busy evenings, next week will be quieter. Let's pretend that time is always on our side to do the things we want to do, and become the people we want to be.

• 17:29Nick Bare?

  Let's pretend we can break the cycle of repetition and finally arrive in a world free of wariness.

• 17:39Nick Bare?

  David Gibson goes on to say,

• 17:43Nick Bare?

  "This is exactly what the preacher wants us to spot in the Book of Ecclesiastes, where we are unsatisfied with the rhythmical repetition of our lives. It is because we are pretending that things should not be like this for us as human beings. To want infinite change, in other words, to gain something, is to want to escape the confines of ordinary existence and somehow arrive in a world where, on the one hand, repetition does not occur, and on the other, permanence for our lives does. But neither is possible.

• 18:27Nick Bare?

  As we search for something new under the sun, so we are searching for absolute novelty, and it does not exist. The pleasure of novelty is by its very nature more subject than any other to the law of diminishing returns."

• 18:47Nick Bare?

  One, the Book of Ecclesiastes is so important and valuable.

• 18:54Nick Bare?

  Two, the way that David Gibson breaks us down, in my opinion, is absolute gold.

• 19:03Nick Bare?

  We live in a life where we want to turn away from repetition and repetitiveness,

• 19:14Nick Bare?

  and we want change, we want different, we want novelty, we want newness, because we start getting bored. We start becoming unmotivated.

• 19:26Nick Bare?

  I have been here in the past, and I'm not perfect, where I experience this myself from time to time. You get tired when you're running the same day over and over and over again. You want newness. This is one of the reasons we take vacations and we go see new parts of the world. This is one of the reasons we start new businesses or pursue new passions and projects. We want newness, we want novelty, and there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with pursuing change and something different and wanting to shake up your day-to-day.

• 20:08Nick Bare?

  But if we can't embrace the repetitive nature of our lives, we can never be consistent.

• 20:17Nick Bare?

  And in my opinion, when we are running away from the repetitive nature of our lives,

• 20:25Nick Bare?

  it's because we are scared to sit in the quietness, the presence,

• 20:32Nick Bare?

  what requires patience and stillness and listening.

• 20:41Nick Bare?

  The truth is, we're not bored.

• 20:45Nick Bare?

  We're not burned out from the same repetitive schedule and rhythms from one day to the next. But we are human and we are in need of these dopamine hits.

• 21:00Nick Bare?

  This is why we pick up our phone every three seconds.

• 21:04Nick Bare?

  This is why we're looking for these moments and experiences that release endorphins

• 21:16Nick Bare?

  and dopamine, and it feels good. There is a reward to the dopamine circuit, truly.

• 21:26Nick Bare?

  But the reality is, we're not bored. We're not burned out. We are just avoiding the repetitive nature of our lives that promotes and facilitates consistency.

• 21:42Nick Bare?

  As I was thinking about how to apply this

• 21:47Nick Bare?

  to everyday life.

• 21:51Nick Bare?

  And there's, there's many examples I can think of, but

• 21:55Nick Bare?

  in this case, based off of who I believe I'm speaking to and can relate,

• 22:04Nick Bare?

  health, fitness, nutrition.

• 22:08Nick Bare?

  You know, there's, there's people that I come across and talk to, and they struggle with weight loss. They struggle with consistency of, of eating healthy, or training, or going to the gym. And these are the same people who get bored of the same meal from one day to the next. They get bored from the same workout from one day to the next. They constantly need newness and change and variation.

• 22:43Nick Bare?

  And then you meet people who continue to make progress in their health, in their fitness, in their personal life, in their professional life.

• 22:54Nick Bare?

  And they don't need novelty. They don't need change. They don't need variation from day to day.

• 23:03Nick Bare?

  They have consistent schedules. They have consistent routines.

• 23:08Nick Bare?

  I think about lunch, for example. Let's, let's go down to like the most basic, fundamental example that I can use. I have been eating the same lunch every day

• 23:23Nick Bare?

  with small changes, very small, for years now, literally years. It is beef and it is rice. Sometimes I throw some pickled onions in there. Sometimes there's some barbecue salt thrown in there, some buffalo sauce, hot sauce, sea salt. Small things added to, but 300 grams of jasmine rice that I weigh out, eight ounces of ground beef, or bison, or venison, or elk. Eight ounces, half a pound of meat, and a cup and a half of rice.

• 23:59Nick Bare?

  I've been eating that every day for lunch for years. And you know what? I never get tired of it. Never. Because I know I'm gonna feel good from it. I know it's gonna fuel my day. It's gonna fuel my workouts. It's gonna digest easily, quickly, so I can get back to work. It's easy to prep. Every night before coming into work the next day. Doesn't take any additional time or mental energy to prepare, heat up, consume. I throw it in the microwave for three minutes, 20 seconds, right before I eat it. It allows me to be consistent.

• 24:40Nick Bare?

  But there are some people who can't eat the same lunch from one day to the next. They get bored. They gotta switch it up. And because they are required to switch it up because they are bored, they want variation. They didn't prep it the night before, which forces them to go out during their lunch break and go find something that isn't going to be as healthy, as nourishing, as convenient. It's gonna take more time away.

• 25:10Nick Bare?

  That is lack of consistency because they can't embrace the repetitions of life.

• 25:22Nick Bare?

  Now, you might be listening to this thing, dude, you're making a much bigger deal than it has to be around what you eat for lunch. But the way you do one thing is the way you do everything. And I can almost guarantee that same individual who can't eat the same lunch from one day to the next gets bored of the same workouts from one day to the next. And they require more variation, which reduces their ability to maintain consistency. And then they get so bored and tired and mentally exhausted of trying to think, well, what workout can I do next? Because I'm bored of the ones I've currently been doing, they just stop going altogether.

• 26:05Nick Bare?

  And they stopped trying to eat healthy. And they go from prepping their meals and working out daily to running to McDonald's and skipping their workout and sleeping in and staying up late and binge watching Netflix.

• 26:19Nick Bare?

  Again, you might be thinking, Nick, you're like taking this a little too far. But no, this is how it starts. I've seen it time and time again with hundreds of people. This is how it starts. If you can embrace life's repetitive nature, which is natural,

• 26:37Nick Bare?

  you can maintain consistency. But if you require variation and you're always looking for change and you always want newness,

• 26:49Nick Bare?

  that leads to an inability to maintain consistency where eventually you just fall off completely.

• 26:58Nick Bare?

  And before you know it, you're thinking back to, man, you remember the days where I felt really good? I was performing good. I was eating well. I was training hard. I was showing up for my, my job, my work, my passions, my family, my faith. Yeah. That's when consistency was at its strongest because you embraced

• 27:21Nick Bare?

  life's repetitiveness. When we were at our old HQ. Yeah, now we're in our, our new headquarters for BPN.

• 27:32Nick Bare?

  Our old HQ, we were there from 2019 until early 2025. And we had a gym there.

• 27:45Nick Bare?

  And when you walked into the gym, there was this door, this wooden door. And on that door had go all in. And these big, bold, black letters. Go all in.

• 28:02Nick Bare?

  That has been my life motto

• 28:06Nick Bare?

  for a long time.

• 28:11Nick Bare?

  And it's worked.

• 28:14Nick Bare?

  You know, I'm never someone who dabbles or tinkers. I'm never related to that way of living in life. Now to each their own.

• 28:27Nick Bare?

  I know a lot of people who are dabblers, who like to tinker. And for many of them, they are very successful people.

• 28:38Nick Bare?

  They live a very good life.

• 28:42Nick Bare?

  Where they have their one thing they're working on. And then there might be 10 other things or hobbies or passions. They just dabble in, they just tinker in.

• 28:53Nick Bare?

  And I've never been attracted to this way of living.

• 28:58Nick Bare?

  I'm not saying the way I approach this is right or necessarily wrong. But I just want to share the way that I think about it and I approach it.

• 29:08Nick Bare?

  I like to be able to go all in on things.

• 29:13Nick Bare?

  Because I find that when I tinker or dabble.

• 29:17Nick Bare?

  I'm just dipping my toe in the water.

• 29:21Nick Bare?

  And it might be fun.

• 29:24Nick Bare?

  But that fun isn't going to turn into something that

• 29:28Nick Bare?

  in my opinion is is worth spending a little bit of time in. Because it also takes away from the time that I can spend elsewhere. With my family, with my business, or my passions, my projects.

• 29:47Nick Bare?

  And of the people that I've met, who have made the decision to go all in on something.

• 29:56Nick Bare?

  It's paid off. In massive returns.

• 30:03Nick Bare?

  Going all in

• 30:06Nick Bare?

  requires sacrifice. It requires commitment.

• 30:13Nick Bare?

  Huge levels of commitment.

• 30:17Nick Bare?

  The question you gotta ask yourself is, what are you going to go all in on?

• 30:25Nick Bare?

  And why? Why do you want to go all in on this one thing? In 2026,

• 30:33Nick Bare?

  if you want to see your life change, first off, go all in on following Christ.

• 30:40Nick Bare?

  Second,

• 30:42Nick Bare?

  set a goal. Set an objective. Like, write it down and put it out there. Put it into the existence of the world to hold yourself accountable. And go all in on it.

• 30:57Nick Bare?

  Now, you have to choose carefully. Because when you go all in on something, other parts of your life will have to give.

• 31:07Nick Bare?

  In order to go all in on one thing,

• 31:11Nick Bare?

  you can't tinker. You can't dabble in these other things. Because when you tinker and dabble in other things, that takes away

• 31:24Nick Bare?

  from what you could actually be doing on the thing, the mission, the project, the goal that you want to go all in on.

• 31:37Nick Bare?

  Here's a, here's a good example.

• 31:41Nick Bare?

  As I've been sharing

• 31:46Nick Bare?

  over this past year, these past couple of months,

• 31:51Nick Bare?

  how my life has transformed by committing my life to following Jesus Christ.

• 31:58Nick Bare?

  That is a part of my life. The number one thing in my life. That I have made the decision to go all in on. Surrender everything to God.

• 32:15Nick Bare?

  When I made that decision to go all in. I knew that I was going to have to give up other parts of what I was spending time on.

• 32:33Nick Bare?

  Because if I didn't, I wouldn't be able to go all in on Christ.

• 32:39Nick Bare?

  If I truly wanted to spend time in the Word, reading Scripture,

• 32:44Nick Bare?

  studying theology, in prayer, literally changing and transforming my life. There were parts of my life that I previously had lived that I was gonna have to let die, or stop, or give up.

• 33:02Nick Bare?

  One, because it didn't fit in this new way of life in the way that I was reborn. But two, because I needed to make time for what I was about to and did prioritize in my life.

• 33:19Nick Bare?

  So this doesn't just apply to

• 33:23Nick Bare?

  a race that you want to accomplish. I think sometimes when I talk about

• 33:30Nick Bare?

  setting these goals or objectives, going all in. It's easy to apply this to,

• 33:38Nick Bare?

  here's this Ironman I'm gonna do. Here's this ultra I want to run. Here's this weight that I want to lose. It's much larger than that. This doesn't just apply to a 12-week training program. Going all in,

• 33:55Nick Bare?

  this applies to your family, this applies to your faith, this applies to your work, this applies to your identity, everything.

• 34:05Nick Bare?

  Absolutely everything.

• 34:09Nick Bare?

  What does it look like to go all in?

• 34:12Nick Bare?

  To go all in, you have to be willing and able to strip yourself of all things that are holding you back.

• 34:23Nick Bare?

  Now I say this with a grain of salt.

• 34:31Nick Bare?

  And I say this with a grain of salt because

• 34:35Nick Bare?

  there are certain things you can't strip away from your life.

• 34:40Nick Bare?

  When I say strip things away from your life, strip things that have no value towards the end goal.

• 34:49Nick Bare?

  I've watched people go all in on something and they stripped their lives from everything else that was holding them back from that goal, that accomplishment. And that ended up being things in their life that they probably shouldn't have stripped away. Like their family, their marriage, their responsibilities as a parent, their responsibilities as an employee, as a team member, as a friend, as a peer.

• 35:22Nick Bare?

  To go all in on something, you have to be able to strip your life from all the things that are holding you back, but

• 35:30Nick Bare?

  be mature enough and self-aware enough to know what you're able and willing to strip away and what you are not.

• 35:39Nick Bare?

  It's extremely important.

• 35:43Nick Bare?

  But too many people are afraid to prune their life

• 35:48Nick Bare?

  so that their objectives can flourish.

• 35:53Nick Bare?

  There are a lot of things that we can prune away from our lives that provide little to no value or benefit. And it'll open up a whole lot more space so that those goals, those objectives, the things that we want to go all in on can actually flourish and grow.

• 36:13Nick Bare?

  One of my favorite quotes from a speech is from Theodore Roosevelt. And it's titled "The Man in the Arena." I've quoted this many times before, but I don't think it ever gets old. Truly, I could reread this over and over and over again. And it just, it jacks me up. It sets me on fire. It motivates me.

• 36:49Nick Bare?

  Theodore Roosevelt said, "It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs, who comes short again and again, because there's no effort without error and shortcoming.

• 37:21Nick Bare?

  But who does actually strive to do the deeds? Who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions? Who spends himself in a worthy cause? Who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement? And who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly? So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

• 37:54Nick Bare?

  You can't go all in if you're not willing to put yourself in a position of failure,

• 38:01Nick Bare?

  criticism, vulnerability, humility, or sacrifice.

• 38:13Nick Bare?

  To go all in is to surrender everything.

• 38:20Nick Bare?

  In my journey and walk with God,

• 38:24Nick Bare?

  the decision to go all in was to surrender everything to Him.

• 38:34Nick Bare?

  Even if it led to criticism,

• 38:41Nick Bare?

  failure in other parts of my life, sacrifice,

• 38:46Nick Bare?

  vulnerability,

• 38:49Nick Bare?

  promoting and exposing humility as opposed to ego,

• 38:56Nick Bare?

  that is required and that's what comes with

• 39:01Nick Bare?

  the decision and commitment to go all in. One of the best books I've, I've read in this past year was by Pastor Joby Martin, and it's called Stand Firm and Act Like Men.

• 39:17Nick Bare?

  I highly recommend it. It was, it was a great read. And some of the things I'm going to speak about in this next session,

• 39:27Nick Bare?

  I would say are, are and were inspired by Pastor Joby Martin's book.

• 39:35Nick Bare?

  To stand firm

• 39:38Nick Bare?

  and also to eliminate pride.

• 39:42Nick Bare?

  Two things that he speaks highly of in, in his book.

• 39:49Nick Bare?

  To stand firm is to be disciplined. And much of being disciplined is knowing when, how, and why to say no.

• 39:59Nick Bare?

  Saying no to certain things in our life allows

• 40:05Nick Bare?

  us to say yes to the enablers

• 40:09Nick Bare?

  that facilitate progress, momentum, and, and transformation.

• 40:18Nick Bare?

  If we can be disciplined in what we say no

• 40:23Nick Bare?

  and yes to,

• 40:25Nick Bare?

  we can then be more consistent in our ability to show up

• 40:32Nick Bare?

  to the objectives, the missions that we committed to.

• 40:37Nick Bare?

  Luke 21, 15 to 19.

• 40:42Nick Bare?

  For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict. You will be betrayed even by parents, brothers, ancestors, relatives, and friends, and they will put some of you to death. Everyone will hate you because of me, but not a hair on your head will perish.

• 41:11Nick Bare?

  Stand firm and you will win life.

• 41:18Nick Bare?

  Stand firm.

• 41:22Nick Bare?

  Be disciplined in your values. Be disciplined in your beliefs.

• 41:30Nick Bare?

  Be confident in your values and your beliefs. If you are confident and you stand firm in your values and your beliefs, you then can more consistently show up and say yes to the right things and no to the wrong things.

• 41:51Nick Bare?

  That level of discipline is absolutely critical to get you to where you want to be. Be proud of where you got to and how you got there.

• 42:04Nick Bare?

  Discipline is so much more than setting your alarm clock at 4:00 a.m. and getting out of bed when your alarm clock goes off at 4:00 a.m. Discipline is so much more than saying you're going to train once a day and training once a day. Discipline is so much more than putting a marathon on the calendar in this next year and training for 12 to 16 weeks and going and running that marathon.

• 42:40Nick Bare?

  Those goals, those commitments have elements of discipline, but discipline is so much more than that.

• 42:50Nick Bare?

  Again, like I talked about in the beginning of this episode,

• 42:56Nick Bare?

  these, these words, these terms, these characteristics, they get watered down in my opinion because they're not provided enough value for the greatness that they embody, the greatness of potential that exists within them.

• 43:16Nick Bare?

  If we think about discipline in,

• 43:20Nick Bare?

  in this case, coming from Luke 21,

• 43:27Nick Bare?

  being disciplined is truly knowing who you are, what you stand for,

• 43:37Nick Bare?

  who you follow and why,

• 43:41Nick Bare?

  what your identity is rooted in, or more importantly, who your identity is rooted within.

• 43:53Nick Bare?

  And then using those beliefs and those values and that purpose to guide what you do, why you do it, what you say yes to, what you say no to.

• 44:10Nick Bare?

  Being disciplined is an enabler for progress, momentum, transformation and renewing of your mind. Truly. And the second thing I wanted to bring up, that's in reference to some of Pastor Joey Martin's book, is pride.

• 44:33Nick Bare?

  Yeah, I've been hearing pride a lot in this last year as I have explored my faith and have gone all in to follow Jesus Christ. And I used to view pride as the word proud. And I've come to learn and realize that pride and proud are two completely different things. And that pride is actually an enemy. Pride is, is a negative. Having confidence in being proud of oneself,

• 45:13Nick Bare?

  that can be a positive, but when proud and confidence evolves into pride, there are consequences and negative behaviors associated. And I share this, I think it's important, coming off of discipline, as we talk about consistency and commitment and discipline as a whole, because what I have found myself in the past, and I've watched other people experience this too, is that when you go all in and you experience this life transformation of really being able to apply

• 45:56Nick Bare?

  discipline in your life and consistency and commitment, and you start achieving, you start winning, you start succeeding, what started as a growth of confidence in being proud of what you're doing, that can quickly evolve into being prideful. Pride is an inflated self-importance. Believing that one self is superior or better than others and refusing humility or correction. Being prideful is thinking you don't need help. Or that no one else can hold you accountable

• 46:41Nick Bare?

  because you are so much better and greater than everyone else.

• 46:47Nick Bare?

  Pride is dependent on oneself.

• 46:53Nick Bare?

  Someone who carries pride, when confidence in being proud evolves into pride, it is this self-inflated sense of importance.

• 47:07Nick Bare?

  You know, someone who stands on top of the mountain and puffs out their chest and looks down on everyone else, that's pride.

• 47:15Nick Bare?

  Proud is confidence.

• 47:21Nick Bare?

  It's an accurate assessment of one's self-awareness.

• 47:30Nick Bare?

  A confidence of knowing this is where I've come from, this is where I am, this is what I know I can do.

• 47:40Nick Bare?

  But I also know that I can get better, I can improve, I can't do this on my own, I need help. I need to be held accountable by others.

• 47:50Nick Bare?

  It's a lack of ego and full of humility.

• 47:57Nick Bare?

  I strive to be confident, I strive to be proud. But

• 48:05Nick Bare?

  I'm fearful

• 48:08Nick Bare?

  of that evolving into pride. And I'm very careful to make sure that level of confidence in being proud does not turn into pride.

• 48:26Nick Bare?

  It's something to be mindful of.

• 48:30Nick Bare?

  As you set these big goals and you chase them down, and you start to succeed and you start to win, you start to achieve.

• 48:39Nick Bare?

  Be humble, maintain humility.

• 48:43Nick Bare?

  Don't let that success turn into...

• 48:49Nick Bare?

  Ego.

• 48:52Nick Bare?

  And to maintain that posture requires discipline. So the brand team and I have been talking a lot lately as we prepare to go into 2026 and

• 49:03Nick Bare?

  every year we start a new year off with a brand campaign. And at the end of 2024, we sat down, we planned what 2025 was going to look like in terms of brand content, messaging, look, feel, what we wanted to convey to our audience,

• 49:26Nick Bare?

  what we wanted to represent as a brand and organization. And we did that same thing the last couple of weeks, end of 2025, as we, we plan and prepare for 2026. And in 2025, we introduced For the Committed.

• 49:45Nick Bare?

  It might have been 2024 that we introduced this, but we are a brand for the committed.

• 49:52Nick Bare?

  Go One More is our tagline.

• 49:55Nick Bare?

  But who do we serve? We're for the committed, the committed individual, the committed athlete, the committed spouse, the committed parent, the committed team member. We are for the committed.

• 50:12Nick Bare?

  And what we've been talking about a lot recently is

• 50:16Nick Bare?

  it's easy to think about commitment in terms of races, in terms of preps, in terms of short-term goals, milestones, or accomplishments. I'm going to be committed for this Ironman prep. I'm going to commit to this marathon. I'm going to commit to losing this much weight in 2026.

• 50:39Nick Bare?

  That's great. That is a great goal and objective to be committed to.

• 50:47Nick Bare?

  But what happens when that race is done? That prep is completed? That weight loss goal was accomplished?

• 50:56Nick Bare?

  What's after that?

• 50:59Nick Bare?

  So our brand campaign going into 2026, we've decided as we guide this brand

• 51:08Nick Bare?

  to truly create impact.

• 51:13Nick Bare?

  At the fundamental core, it is fully committed.

• 51:18Nick Bare?

  But going to Q1 of 2026,

• 51:22Nick Bare?

  our, our brand campaign

• 51:26Nick Bare?

  broken off of fully committed is that commitment has no finish lines.

• 51:33Nick Bare?

  Commitment has no finish lines. Of all the brand campaigns that have real meaning and purpose behind them that we've launched, this is, it's probably my favorite we've ever done. Cause it hits near and dear to my heart. It rings true.

• 51:55Nick Bare?

  When I think about where I first learned

• 52:00Nick Bare?

  the hard lesson of commitment,

• 52:06Nick Bare?

  it was definitely in the military.

• 52:10Nick Bare?

  And I started BPN before I joined the military. I started BPN in 2012. It was between my junior and senior year of college. And I graduated from college in 2013 from the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, degree in nutrition. Uh, I commissioned directly into the US Army as a second lieutenant infantry officer. I was a contracted Army ROTC cadet at the university.

• 52:41Nick Bare?

  So when I first started BPN in 2012,

• 52:46Nick Bare?

  I committed to starting this company. But it was so early on.

• 52:55Nick Bare?

  Now, being

• 52:59Nick Bare?

  almost 14 years now after starting that business, I can say I was committed. I've been committed to building the brand, to scale, to succeed.

• 53:14Nick Bare?

  When I joined the Army in 2013, a year later,

• 53:19Nick Bare?

  I commissioned as a second lieutenant.

• 53:23Nick Bare?

  Right after graduating college, I got sent down to Fort Benning, Georgia for a year of training. I was in the Infantry Officer Basic Leader Course, went to Ranger School, Airborne School, Bradley Leader Course. I was in Fort Benning for a year before my first duty assignment, which was Fort Hood, Texas. I got stationed there in October of 2014. And that's where I did my platoon leader time.

• 53:50Nick Bare?

  But Ranger School was my first test of true commitment.

• 53:59Nick Bare?

  I went into Ranger School.

• 54:03Nick Bare?

  I believe it was February of 2014.

• 54:11Nick Bare?

  And the date that I started was the best Ranger competition date. Meaning that if I didn't go straight through, if I didn't, there's three phases of Ranger School. There's the Fort Benning phase. Then there's the mountain phase in Delanauga, Georgia, and then there's the swamp phase in Florida, right outside of Eglin Air Force Base, close to Pensacola, Santa Rosa Beach.

• 54:41Nick Bare?

  And in order to move on to the next phase, you have to pass the current phase. So in order to get to the mountains, you have to pass the Fort Benning phase. In order to get to the swamps phase, you have to pass the mountains phase. Ranger School has about a 50% pass rate. And very few people go straight through.

• 55:04Nick Bare?

  For most people, you recycle at least one phase. I ended up recycling two phases. And when I started the school, it was called the best Ranger competition date of the year. Meaning that if you failed any phase, there was a six-week holdover.

• 55:26Nick Bare?

  Because Ranger School essentially shut down because of the best Ranger competition at Fort Benning, Georgia that happens every year. Well, I failed the first phase, which means I went through the three-week phase. I failed. I was a six-week holdover. For six weeks, I had to stay at Fort Benning and do various tasks and details in preparation for the best Ranger competition. When the best Ranger competition was over, I could restart the school. So after being at Ranger School for nine weeks, I was then restarting it all over again.

• 56:05Nick Bare?

  Went through that phase, passed, moved on to the mountain phase. Three weeks in mountains, recycled, had to do mountains all over again. At that point, I felt like I was never gonna escape or graduate this course.

• 56:20Nick Bare?

  Passed the second time through, went to the swamps phase in Florida, passed, first time through, graduated.

• 56:28Nick Bare?

  Ranger School is a 61-day leadership and tactical evaluation course in school. I was there for about 145 days, like four and a half months. It felt like my entire life.

• 56:44Nick Bare?

  I never thought I was going to get out of there, but I'll tell you one thing. From the moment I walked into that school and started, I was committed, I'm not leaving here until I get my Ranger tab.

• 57:00Nick Bare?

  I will stay here years if I have to, and if they let me, before I quit, stop, or give up, because I'm not leaving here without this Ranger tab. I was all in. I learned a whole lot about myself there, and I learned the power of going all in,

• 57:24Nick Bare?

  to showing up with commitment, to showing up consistently, and to holding myself accountable and being disciplined. And I eventually graduated that course and got the Ranger tab pinned on my shoulder, which was one of the best feelings of my life, knowing that you were so committed, and you worked so hard, and you didn't give up, and it paid off. For a lot of people...

• 57:52Nick Bare?

  They weren't as fortunate.

• 57:55Nick Bare?

  That shaped my ability to commit to a goal, to commit to a mission and see it through. That changed my life. That school truly set my life on a new trajectory.

• 58:07Nick Bare?

  It was the first time in my life that I was truly tested, pushed and challenged to succeed, to win, to achieve at this level. With this much on the line.

• 58:20Nick Bare?

  It was humbling. You know, you can walk into that school with pride. You can walk into that school with ego, but they will strip you down from that right away and you will have so much humility. You'll be so humbled so quickly.

• 58:35Nick Bare?

  There's no pride in that school. There's no ego in that school.

• 58:41Nick Bare?

  Everyone gets stripped down

• 58:44Nick Bare?

  to remove it. That's the best part.

• 58:49Nick Bare?

  It's one of the best parts.

• 58:53Nick Bare?

  But commitment has no finish lines.

• 58:58Nick Bare?

  After accomplishing that, it wasn't jobs done, box checked, move on. It was how do I use this? Moving forward. What have I learned? How have I grown? How have I adapted? How have I developed?

• 59:18Nick Bare?

  What's next?

• 59:21Nick Bare?

  It was going all in as an infantry platoon leader. You know, it was transitioning out of the military, going all in on building BPN.

• 59:29Nick Bare?

  Going all in, learning how to be the best leader possible to take this organization to where it is today.

• 59:37Nick Bare?

  Commitment has no finish lines.

• 59:44Nick Bare?

  It's not a 12-week prep. It's not an 18-week journey. It's not a four-year contract. It is a lifetime of learning.

• 59:58Nick Bare?

  You know, there's this term called sanctification. I learned after being saved by Christ.

• 1:00:06Nick Bare?

  And after someone gives their life to Christ, which is salvation, the rest of a Christian's life is a journey of transformation. This ongoing change, this ongoing transformation, becoming more holy, more Christ-like, and more aligned with God's will, that is sanctification.

• 1:00:32Nick Bare?

  Once you experience salvation, the rest of your life is sanctification.

• 1:00:39Nick Bare?

  It has no finish line.

• 1:00:44Nick Bare?

  It is not a

• 1:00:47Nick Bare?

  you give your life to Christ, you experience salvation, and then you have a four-year study for where you graduate and get a degree and it's, here we are, we've arrived. No, it's forever. A lifetime journey.

• 1:01:08Nick Bare?

  Commitment is just that.

• 1:01:13Nick Bare?

  It is the becoming. Salvation is the beginning. Sanctification is the becoming. Who are you becoming in the process? That's what commitment is.

• 1:01:30Nick Bare?

  Once you make the decision to commit,

• 1:01:33Nick Bare?

  it is who you are becoming in the process. The process is the reward.

• 1:01:40Nick Bare?

  Not the finish line, because there is no finish line.

• 1:01:47Nick Bare?

  And I was explaining this, uh, this episode to one of my mentors yesterday. His name is Justin.

• 1:01:55Nick Bare?

  But how I've, I've really just been sitting and reflecting on

• 1:02:01Nick Bare?

  these three terms, these three characteristics of discipline, commitment, and consistency.

• 1:02:07Nick Bare?

  And applying it to my work, applying it to my life, applying it to, to my faith and my walk with God.

• 1:02:14Nick Bare?

  And he said, you know what those three things are, Nick? I said, what?

• 1:02:19Nick Bare?

  He said, what, what God calls us to obedience. Obedience is commitment, consistency, and discipline.

• 1:02:33Nick Bare?

  In our walk with God.

• 1:02:37Nick Bare?

  To become more aligned with God's will, sanctification.

• 1:02:45Nick Bare?

  And when he shared that with me, it was like the bow

• 1:02:50Nick Bare?

  on why these three words have just been top of mind for me the last couple of months and this last year.

• 1:03:00Nick Bare?

  Obedience.

• 1:03:04Nick Bare?

  The goal of life, the purpose of life, the mission that I'm on. After surrendering everything.

• 1:03:15Nick Bare?

  Has been and is to be more obedient. Through commitment, consistency, and discipline.

• 1:03:27Nick Bare?

  That's the episode.

• 1:03:30Nick Bare?

  Hope you guys enjoyed it.

• 1:03:33Nick Bare?

  And as always.

• 1:03:35Nick Bare?

  Go one more.