117: How Focus Will Transform Your Life

In this episode of the podcast, I cover the concept of focus and its transformative impact on various areas of my life, including my business and personal success. I begin by discussing the broader meaning of focus beyond simply dedicating time to a specific task, emphasizing the importance of a focused life driven by core values, purpose, and goals. CHAPTERS 05:09 The Book: Go One More 10:46 Defining Focus and Simplification 31:29 BPN's Evolution and Focus 46:42 Opportunity Cost and Long-Term Vision 57:13 Conclusion and Final Thoughts MENTIONS: BE 2.0 (Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0): Turning Your Business into an Enduring Great Company by Jim Collins https://www.amazon.com/BE-2-0-Beyond-Entrepreneurship-Business/dp/0399564233 FOLLOW: Become a BPN member FOR FREE - Unlock 20% off FOR LIFE https://bpn.team/member IG: instagram.com/nickbarefitness/ YT: youtube.com/@nickbarefitness

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

• 0:00Nick Bare?

  What is going on guys and welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Today's episode is all about focus. This is the number one thing that I started doing that has transformed my life, my business, and ultimately my success. And I believe if you apply focus to your life, you will have similar, maybe not the same, but similar outcomes and experiences. Now, this is much more than being focused for a period of your day, or being focused on a specific project.

• 0:42Nick Bare?

  This is not sitting down at your desk away from distractions, away from your phone, and focusing for a short period of time, a sliver, whether that be a few minutes or a few hours, and dedicating focus to this one thing in which you are trying to accomplish. That's not what this is. This is focus that is entirely focused around your entire life. A focused life, focused core values, focused purpose, focused goals, ultimately a focused vision for what you want to build, what you want to achieve, the outcomes you want to experience.

• 1:28Nick Bare?

  I truly, I believe in the last year, I have really, really, really focused. And there have been changes that I've made in my life. There have been changes that I've made in this business. And the results are exponential.

• 1:53Nick Bare?

  Before we dive into this topic, I have a few notes. One, this is completely random, but I feel obligated to share and you might already be aware, but I don't want you to sleep on cold Honeycrisp apples. I literally, right before kicking off this episode, I had two cold, pulled round of the fridge, organic Honeycrisp apples, and there is nothing quite like a cold Honeycrisp apple. I promise you, there's no like call to action here. This is not an ad, this is just me being a big fan of cold Honeycrisp apples.

• 2:37Nick Bare?

  I typically eat them at night before going to bed, that's like my nighttime snack. But today I had them before coming to this episode. And as I was sitting at my desk, going over my notes for this conversation, this discussion, and just biting into this cold Honeycrisp apple, I made a note that I need to bring this up. Cause if you're sleeping on them, please do yourself a favor, go to the store and just get a bunch, throw them in the fridge, and then save them for the perfect moment. You want them crisp, you want them cold. A few nights ago, I was craving apples after dinner, so I Instacarted some organic Honeycrisp

• 3:20Nick Bare?

  apples to the house. And we were putting the kids down, and the plan was that as soon as they got delivered, I was gonna take these apples from the fridge, get some things done within our nighttime routine, and then the last thing I was gonna do at night was go grab that apple, bite into it, and just have a little breather. It was a long day, lots of training, bunch of meetings, work, kids, dinnertime, what better way to relax? I go and check the bag that's been dropped off at our front porch from the Instacart, they're Gala apples. Gala apples. I was like so disappointed that...

• 4:05Nick Bare?

  I didn't know what to do. They were Gala apples. I grew up and my mom would buy red delicious apples all the time, which might be even worse than Gala apples. Fuji is a close second behind the Honeycrisp.

• 4:22Nick Bare?

  So the next day, I ordered some more Honeycrisp, threw them in the fridge, redeemed myself the night after, but I just felt obligated to really bring that up and share it with you guys. Cold Honeycrisp apples.

• 4:39Nick Bare?

  Maybe that could be a future BPN supplement flavor. Cold Honeycrisp apple. That sounds delicious.

• 4:49Nick Bare?

  And on, on that note, moving to another topic, which is going to guide us into this whole discussion around the number one thing that I started doing that has transformed my life, business, and ultimately, success that I've experienced.

• 5:09Nick Bare?

  I, I wrote a book on this about two years ago, and it's called Go One More. And it is being published June 24th, 2025. And I'm really excited. I'm really proud of this book. You can preorder this book titled Go One More right now on Amazon. You can preorder on Target. You can preorder it on Barnes and Noble. But it's going to start shipping June 24th, which is the official publication date.

• 5:46Nick Bare?

  And I'm really excited about this because I put a lot into this, this book. And I rewrote this book about three times over the course of the last couple of years. And publishing a book with a publisher, it's a long process. Like I said, I, I wrote it almost two years ago.

• 6:05Nick Bare?

  And I'm really proud of this book because it.

• 6:10Nick Bare?

  Is a message and story around the evolution of go one more for me. You see, when I first founded Go One More in 2019, if you're familiar with the story, I founded it when I was training for my first marathon. I quit 10 miles into an 18 mile run. And on my way back to my apartment, I stopped, I realized if I quit on that run, I will quit on many other things in my life. So I went back and finished that run, ran 19 miles, came back to that apartment, wrote one more on the bill of my hat. And that has evolved into go one more, which used to be just an action.

• 6:51Nick Bare?

  Go one more was an action to me to do more of something, do more of anything. Run one extra mile, stay up one extra hour and work on your business. Do one extra rep in the gym. And the thought process back then was just doing one more of something or anything would compound into progress and improvement.

• 7:22Nick Bare?

  But go one more for me has evolved where go one more is it's much more than an action now. It can be an action, but it's an outcome. And it's an outcome when you make the right choices, you do more of the right things. Not everything, not anything. The things that you say yes and no to are very intentional, very intentional. And intentional decision making leads to go one more, the outcome. Intentional decision making requires focus. Focus requires clarity and clarity requires vision.

• 8:03Nick Bare?

  So this book that I wrote, it's life lessons that I have personally learned from, mainly from failures, mistakes, step backs. Because I was always or always have been a motivated, disciplined person for as long as I can remember.

• 8:27Nick Bare?

  No one had to, to push me to get off the couch. I, I have been type A. Set goals and chase them down, set goals and chase them down, set goals and chase them down. But in the pursuit of progress, I have made a lot of mistakes. I have made decisions that lacked intention. And with that, I have gone down the wrong roads. And have made decisions that have come with consequences or collateral damage.

• 9:01Nick Bare?

  And I want to share in this book, the lessons that I've learned by making the wrong choices that lacked intentionality, that lacked focus, that lacked clarity.

• 9:15Nick Bare?

  Because I've seen

• 9:18Nick Bare?

  just the, the massive impact that making focused, intentional choices and decisions can make in your life. You can still accomplish your goals, but you're going to do so with reduced consequences or collateral damages to the things that matter most to you in your life. Your friends, your family, your spouse, your kids, your relationships.

• 9:46Nick Bare?

  So I'm really proud of this work and I'm, I'm really excited to get it into people's hands.

• 9:52Nick Bare?

  Like I said, this is not a book to, or was not meant to motivate the uninspired. This book was to guide the already inspired, the already committed. To be more intentional with the decisions and choices you or they are making. So you're proud of the legacy that you create and leave even after you are gone. So last week I spent three days recording the audiobook. So that when we launch, June 24th, the audiobook launches, the hardcover launches, the paperback launches. But it is right now available for preorder and I wanted to share that because like I've already mentioned, I'm, I'm really proud of this, this book.

• 10:37Nick Bare?

  I'm really proud of, of going more and how those three words have evolved for me over time.

• 10:46Nick Bare?

  Now getting into focus, I've already mentioned what focus is and what focus is not. Like I said, it's not just a focused period of time or part of your day that you've carved out to work on something very specific or intentional. No, it is a focused life. It is holistic.

• 11:08Nick Bare?

  And this is actually part of my book. This is a section from one of the chapters called, "Choosing Simple Is A Sign Of Intelligence."

• 11:20Nick Bare?

  Being focused is to simplify, simplify parts of your life. And that comes with reduction and subtraction and pruning.

• 11:33Nick Bare?

  But as I've mentioned before in past episodes, simple and to simplify does not mean easy. But choosing simple is a sign of intelligence. So let me read this part of the book. Allegedly, Albert Einstein once said, "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. The irony is that that quote itself was simplified from the original statement he gave during a lecture in Oxford.

• 12:03Nick Bare?

  It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single dolman of experience. The former paraphrased quote is often used as an appeal to make a subject as easy as possible to understand, but not so easy that it becomes meaningless. It is an art to condense material, yet not lose its substance. As a great jazz composer, Charles Mingus once said, "Making the simple complicated is commonplace. Making the complicated

• 12:48Nick Bare?

  simple awesomely simple, that's creativity."

• 12:54Nick Bare?

  Albert Einstein believed there were five ascending levels of intelligence. The first is smart. Then it goes to intelligent. Then it goes to brilliant. Then it goes to genius. And at the highest level, the highest level at which Albert Einstein believes is the greatest level of intelligence, simple. That is a section from, from part of the book. But I want to go back to this. As a great jazz composer, Charles Mingus once said, making the simple complicated is commonplace. Making the complicated simple, awesomely simple. That's creativity.

• 13:36Nick Bare?

  In order to focus, we have to, have to simplify. And what often happens, what I've done in the past, I've made this mistake many times before.

• 13:47Nick Bare?

  Trying to focus, you start chasing opportunities. And while you start chasing opportunities

• 13:55Nick Bare?

  in an effort to build, succeed, win,

• 14:01Nick Bare?

  you complicate. It is common to, to complicate.

• 14:07Nick Bare?

  Over complicate. Like I have, I have been the poster boy for complicating everything and anything as much as possible in the past. And it has always led me to a bad place of being overworked and underachieved and disappointed and unsatisfied and stressed and just chaos. But making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that is creativity.

• 14:42Nick Bare?

  I mean, that's powerful. Now, when I realized that I lacked focus and that the lack of focus that I had was holding me back.

• 14:54Nick Bare?

  Was I guess a few years ago. And I made some big changes.

• 15:02Nick Bare?

  Something I want us all to realize is that where we spend our time and what we spend our time on really does matter.

• 15:15Nick Bare?

  And I think about that quite often. Where I spend my time, what I spend my time on, who I spend that time with, it matters because it guides what we are going to accomplish. It guides the life that we are building. It guides the relationships that we are fostering.

• 15:38Nick Bare?

  It also tells us what we value in life. If you spend all your time at work, all your energy, your mental and physical energy on your work. So but by the time you get home to your family, all that's left is table scraps.

• 16:00Nick Bare?

  It's hard to say that your family matters. And again, I had to learn that the hard way where

• 16:09Nick Bare?

  for years I was running myself into the ground. I'm really good at that. I'm really good at running myself into the ground, into the ground and just getting hyper focused on a goal. And unfortunately, used to neglect some of my other life responsibilities. And I tell the story in the book, but

• 16:32Nick Bare?

  me and Steph were having dinner one night years ago. And she told me, she's like, you know, I see you apply this go one more mindset, which was then in action to all these other parts of your life, your business, your fitness.

• 16:50Nick Bare?

  These physical goals and accomplishments you set out to achieve like these ultra marathons and triathlons and, and marathons and, and you put everything into that like they, they truly do matter to you. Your business, your work, your fitness, that matters to you and that is so, that is so great. But by the time you get home, you are so physically and mentally exhausted that there's really nothing left for me and our future family. This is before we had kids. And it really made me think. I was like, is that, is that what I want?

• 17:34Nick Bare?

  Is that why I'm working as hard as I'm working? Is that the outcome I'm, I'm trying to achieve? And I knew I had to make a change there because I wanted my actions and, and where I'm spending my time, who I'm spending my time with, what I'm spending my time on to reflect what really does matter to me. There's a few things in life that really do matter to me. My family, that includes my wife, my kids, my business, BPN, the team, the staff, the employees, the

• 18:18Nick Bare?

  athletes, the products, the brand, the mission, everything around BPN, my faith, how I'm showing up and building a relationship with God and other relationships in my life, my friends,

• 18:39Nick Bare?

  team members.

• 18:43Nick Bare?

  Those things mattered to me.

• 18:46Nick Bare?

  Those things really do matter to me.

• 18:51Nick Bare?

  And I used to think that

• 18:54Nick Bare?

  having focus or going from lack of focus to focus was an on off switch.

• 19:04Nick Bare?

  So like if I look back at my, my life years ago,

• 19:09Nick Bare?

  when

• 19:11Nick Bare?

  my time, my energy, what I was working on, now in retrospect, was somewhat unfocused or at periods of time, very unfocused.

• 19:23Nick Bare?

  The moment I realized that I lacked focus was not an on off switch. It wasn't one day where I had this realization, and maybe this podcast will do this for you.

• 19:35Nick Bare?

  But it wasn't this realization that, ah, I'm unfocused. Flip, switch in my mind. Day afterwards, wake up, I am now focused. My life is all focused. It was never an on off switch. It was, it's been a dimmer switch over time. I've recognized it a long time ago.

• 19:58Nick Bare?

  And that was just the catalyst to start making change and part of making change was, okay, now I realize, I've realized that things are a little unfocused and I'm, I'm trying to do way too much.

• 20:13Nick Bare?

  My core values are unfocused. My purpose is unfocused. My goals are unfocused.

• 20:19Nick Bare?

  I'm trying to go really wide and stay shallow as opposed to go really deep and stay narrow.

• 20:26Nick Bare?

  And once I realized that,

• 20:29Nick Bare?

  it, a few things changed. One,

• 20:32Nick Bare?

  I started making more intentional decisions. I created boundaries and I started to control what I said yes to and what I said no to. And I was still trying to figure it out. I was still trying to figure out this whole focus thing.

• 20:45Nick Bare?

  And then I started listening to audiobooks, reading books, listening to podcasts around these topics. And because I already had that self-awareness, all these, these books, these audiobooks, these podcasts that I was listening to and reading from these high achievers, these high-level entrepreneurs with decades of experience, because I had that level of self-awareness, and now the content that I was reading was coming from people who have been there before, I was able to connect the dots. And I realized that all of these people who have achieved

• 21:26Nick Bare?

  some of the things that I wanted to achieve in their personal life, in happiness, in fulfillment, satisfaction, in business, in terms of the success of business and size of business they are building, there are certain characteristics and traits that are common amongst them.

• 21:46Nick Bare?

  And some of those things are that they simplify their life and they focus, they hyper-focus.

• 21:56Nick Bare?

  I've mentioned this many times before, but one of my favorite podcasts is called Founders by David Senra. And I just listened to an episode where he was talking about the success in the life of, I can't remember his name off the top of my head, the founder of Canes, Canes, the fast food restaurant that does chicken fingers. And there's some similarities between Canes and In-N-Out. And those similarities are the simplicity of their business model,

• 22:31Nick Bare?

  the simplicity of their menu, they only offer a few things. And their menus hasn't changed for years and years and years. But they focus on creating the best products within that menu, the best experience for their customers. They're not trying to be something for everyone. They have their area of genius. They have their focus. They simplify and they go all in to be great at that.

• 23:09Nick Bare?

  In-N-Out is a great example.

• 23:13Nick Bare?

  Canes is a good example. I'm sure there's a bunch of other businesses that are great examples.

• 23:22Nick Bare?

  But being able to focus and simplify allows you to go really deep while staying very, very narrow.

• 23:34Nick Bare?

  Again, I want to reinforce, I brought this up in the beginning of the episode, but focus in this context is not sitting down at your desk at night and planning

• 23:48Nick Bare?

  your morning when you wake up the next day. It is not trying to get one project across the finish line. It is not one training block that you are preparing for to run a faster marathon. This focus applies to your whole life, every aspect, personal, professional.

• 24:10Nick Bare?

  If your whole life isn't focused, you can't focus on these smaller projects and initiatives that mean the most to you.

• 24:20Nick Bare?

  And the way that you harness focus, this has made a huge impact on me this last year. And I've brought this up again many times in the last couple of weeks. I feel like I have, maybe I've just talked to the team about this or everyone I've encountered recently.

• 24:44Nick Bare?

  I believe everyone should go read chapter four of BE 2.0 by Jim Collins, Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0. And that chapter is all about vision, the importance of vision. If you don't have vision, you can't have focus.

• 25:02Nick Bare?

  Holistic focus.

• 25:05Nick Bare?

  You need vision, vision guides

• 25:10Nick Bare?

  where you're heading, how you're going to get there, and what you say yes and no to. Vision allows you to be consistent.

• 25:22Nick Bare?

  Vision is made up of three components as described by Jim Collins.

• 25:27Nick Bare?

  One, its core values. Two, its purpose. Three, its goals.

• 25:33Nick Bare?

  So if you have your core values clearly defined and established and written down, and you have your purpose written down, clearly defined, those two things shouldn't change more than once every 100 years. And your goals are, in the context that he has in his book about business, 10 to 25 year targets, but I think when you apply it to your personal life, you can set some of those goals, you know, one to three years, five years, 10 years, maybe 25 year targets.

• 26:08Nick Bare?

  But when you have your core values, your purpose, and your goals clearly established, that is your vision for your life, what you want to build, how you want to build it.

• 26:20Nick Bare?

  The reason it makes focus so easy because,

• 26:26Nick Bare?

  is because it allows you to be consistent. It allows you to be consistent because you know exactly what you can say yes to and what you should say no to.

• 26:40Nick Bare?

  So about, maybe a year ago at this point, or, or less than, reading this book, implementing a very clear vision, establishing core values, establishing purpose, establishing goals, sharing them with our team, for me, it has been the biggest game changer.

• 26:58Nick Bare?

  And it has provided me the ability to say no to so many things because I now have boundaries for what gets a yes. And I say no a lot. I say no a lot, but I say no a lot because I can be so confident in what I say yes to.

• 27:22Nick Bare?

  That's been, that's been a game changer. 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. 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,

• 28:03Nick Bare?

  and one Go Bar, which is our lightweight oat-based bar. With this combination, I'm getting about 800 milligrams 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, 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

• 28:45Nick Bare?

  each gel, and 110 milligrams of sodium. We have a non-caffeinated version and a caffeinated version. The caffeinated version has 75 milligrams 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 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.

• 29:27Nick Bare?

  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 500 milligrams of sodium, full electrolyte profile. So I'm using our products to fuel training, enhance hydration,

• 29:51Nick Bare?

  Maintain effort intensity during training sessions with the Go Gel and then rehydrating immediately after. 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. To, to keep riffing on the importance of simplification and why to focus on simple.

• 30:28Nick Bare?

  Again, simple is not easy, but simple can be revolutionary to allow you to focus and achieve more. So what have we changed within BPN the last two years? Again, it has never been an on off switch, but it's been a dimmer switch. We've, we've constantly, man, for the last 13 years, since I started the business, this August will be 13 years. It's, it's just very consistent improvement and refinement. But that refinement has got so much sharper

• 31:13Nick Bare?

  these last couple of years because my vision is, is very, very clear. And when your vision is very clear, the refinement becomes very, very sharp and you can cut through a lot of the, the noise, a lot of the BS. In 2012, we started, I'm going to give a quick overview of the brand's evolution to provide some, some context into where we're at right now. 2012, we launched the business. I launched the business out of my college apartment in Western Pennsylvania. And I was obsessed with bodybuilding and strength lifting or strength training.

• 31:55Nick Bare?

  I wasn't into running. I was running because I was in the Army ROTC program and we had to. But I was going to the Arnold Fitness Expos. I loved sports nutrition. I was a pre-workout junkie. For me, building a sports nutrition brand was a bodybuilding brand, and that's who and what we were in 2012. Flight, creatine, pump enhancer, branched chain amino acids, protein. Those were our first couple of products. And then in 2018,

• 32:26Nick Bare?

  we started

• 32:28Nick Bare?

  offering health and wellness products, green superfood, red superfood, multivitamin, joint support, collagen. 2020, 2021 is where we started to explore the endurance space. And this was primarily because my interests as an athlete had evolved from bodybuilding and powerlifting to bodybuilding and powerlifting with a focus on holistic health, to then tinkering and dabbling in endurance training, to being all in to endurance training, where strength and wellness was always and is always a foundation. But endurance training, which we call performance endurance,

• 33:13Nick Bare?

  that was the tip of the spear.

• 33:17Nick Bare?

  BPN's natural evolution over these last 13 years has been guided by my and our, talking about the BPN team, our interests, our passions, what we want to do, the products we want to create, the consumers we want to help and serve, the mission that we want to contribute to, our purpose. Our purpose has evolved. Our goals have evolved. Our core values have, I'd say, pretty consistently maintained, but they weren't clearly defined or established until recently.

• 33:52Nick Bare?

  So if I look at where the brand is today, everything was pointing us in the direction of you are going to be a performance endurance brand.

• 34:03Nick Bare?

  Focus on that. The world, God, the consumer, the market was telling me, focus on being an endurance consumer brand. That's what you guys do. That's what you love. But for the longest time, I was afraid to make that focused step and decision because I thought it would

• 34:28Nick Bare?

  reduce our ability to grow and scale, in all honesty. I thought that we had to be a brand that offered something for everyone. We have to be a brand that offers products for the bodybuilder, strength athlete. We have to be a brand that offers health and wellness products to people who don't train at all. We have to offer products and solve problems for endurance athletes. And I thought by having this larger audience, this larger consumer base, that would give us the ability to be a bigger, more successful company. And it actually did the opposite because we were trying to be something for everyone.

• 35:10Nick Bare?

  And in the pursuit of being something for everyone, we were something for no one. Because, and now I'm probably being extreme with this, from maybe your point of view, maybe the consumer's point of view, it didn't feel like that. But for me, as the founder, as the visionary for what I wanted to build, as we went to build out brand campaigns, marketing campaigns, advertising strategies, it was really hard

• 35:42Nick Bare?

  to have clear messaging,

• 35:46Nick Bare?

  a clear tone of voice,

• 35:49Nick Bare?

  be very clear and intentional with what problems we were solving. Because our messaging was a little different based off the consumer we were trying to speak to. The problems we were trying to solve were a little different based off of the category of products that someone was being introduced to initially from the brand.

• 36:13Nick Bare?

  And I had to ask myself a question as this dimmer switch slowly started to

• 36:21Nick Bare?

  turn on, the light bulb of focus became brighter and brighter and brighter.

• 36:27Nick Bare?

  I realized, we gotta make a change. It feels like we're spreading ourselves too thin between all of these categories, consumers and products. The messaging feels challenging because we can't be clear because we're trying to do a little too much. I think some brands can have success with this approach, but it wasn't the approach that I wanted to take.

• 36:57Nick Bare?

  So about a year and a half ago, I made the decision along with our, our team to hyper-focus on performance endurance. It is where endurance training, endurance goals are the tip of the spear, that is the priority. But wellness and strength training will always be a foundation that supports those goals. We fuel performance for endurance consumers.

• 37:27Nick Bare?

  Once we made that change,

• 37:30Nick Bare?

  everything got simpler.

• 37:34Nick Bare?

  And it also got easier.

• 37:37Nick Bare?

  It got easier to identify who our customer is, what our messaging looks and sounds like, how we create ads around the products, what events we go to and don't go to. That focus with came, which came with reduction, subtraction and pruning, allowed us to double down and stay narrow and go very deep. Now there will be a point in the future where we have to start exploring opportunities to go a little bit wider. But right now is not the time. It's not the time.

• 38:16Nick Bare?

  That decision has paid off massively. And I've applied that same approach and strategy to other parts of my life.

• 38:29Nick Bare?

  What we say yes to now is a hard yes. Because that yes is aligned with our core values, our purpose and our goals. If it doesn't align with those three things, it's an easy no.

• 38:43Nick Bare?

  So I've created the same blueprint or template for my life where I have vision, I have core values, I have purpose, I have goals. And if it doesn't align, the opportunities don't align with those three things. It's a hard no, it's an easy no. It allows us to be more consistent.

• 39:02Nick Bare?

  One of the first products we ever launched was Endo Pump. We launched Endo Pump in 2016, I want to say, maybe 2015. So like three or four years after starting BPN. And Endo Pump was a muscle pump enhancer. No stimulants, but ingredients.

• 39:27Nick Bare?

  And the main ingredient being betaine nitrate,

• 39:33Nick Bare?

  which is formulated to increase blood flow to the working muscles. So when it comes to bodybuilding and strength training workouts, you're training for hypertrophy.

• 39:48Nick Bare?

  Higher reps, moderate weight. You're focusing on the contraction and that contraction moves blood into the muscle and blood into the muscle creates a pump. It's where your arms, your legs, your chest, your back, it feels full, it feels tighter.

• 40:07Nick Bare?

  Bodybuilders love those feelings. I mean, I love those feelings. I love the pump. So we created a product to help assist with the pump and it worked amazing. And Endo Pump was one of our best selling products for years. I mean, nearly, nearly nine or 10 years, we had Endo Pump, which is crazy

• 40:32Nick Bare?

  to even think about just now. We'd Endo Pump for almost 10 years.

• 40:37Nick Bare?

  We recently discontinued Endo Pump because it didn't align with our message and our focus moving forward.

• 40:49Nick Bare?

  It was really easy to say no to Endo Pump moving forward. It was also very hard.

• 40:59Nick Bare?

  It made the decision easy. It didn't make the acceptance any easier because Endo Pump generated multiple seven figures for this business. That one product generated multiple seven figures for this business. But if we're playing the long game and I'm looking into the future, what's going to help build this brand as well as possible?

• 41:24Nick Bare?

  If an endurance athlete finds out about BPN, a performance endurance athlete, consumer, just finds out about BPN and who we are, what we do, and they land on the website and the first product they come across by some chance is a muscle pump bodybuilding supplement called Endo Pump, that will turn that consumer off.

• 41:47Nick Bare?

  That was my fear. And that's one of the reasons we discontinued Endo Pump is that it didn't align with our purpose and our goals. Yes, it aligned with our core values, but it didn't align with the purpose and goals of BPN.

• 42:09Nick Bare?

  As I was planning out this episode, I was thinking on my run this morning about some previous experiences when it comes to focus and simplifying. The ultimate goal is that you want to be able to do more with less. In all parts of your life, especially in business, the best businesses focus and they do more with less. There are some companies out there, and my brother has worked for them in the past before he started working at BPN, where their product catalog, the amount of different

• 42:50Nick Bare?

  products they sell is in the thousands, tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of different products within their catalog that they offer.

• 43:04Nick Bare?

  That is, for me, a nightmare of having to manage that many different SKUs, market that many different products. Obviously, you have certain ones that are better performing and you put more resources behind those.

• 43:19Nick Bare?

  But I'd rather do more with a couple dozen products, max.

• 43:30Nick Bare?

  You can allocate and dedicate your time, energy, and resources to those fewer things and maximize growth and scale.

• 43:40Nick Bare?

  Instead of having to really spread yourself thin, do more with less as the goal. A few years ago, when we first got on Amazon with BPN products,

• 43:53Nick Bare?

  we were working with an agency and we were just getting started. We were just trying to figure out the game of which Amazon is. It was complex, it was intimidating, but we knew there was opportunity there. And the agency we were working with wanted us to sell all of these things outside of just BPN products. And I remember this, this conversation vividly,

• 44:20Nick Bare?

  where they were like, "Hey, in all these YouTube videos you film, what are some of the things that you are using on a daily basis? You got your running shoes, I see you eat oats every morning,

• 44:35Nick Bare?

  peanut butter, you love peanut butter, you're eating peanut butter. Let's, let's launch a BPN peanut butter. Let's launch a BPN oats, oatmeal. Let's, let's do a BPN shoe."

• 44:46Nick Bare?

  And this advertising, marketing, Amazon agency wanted us, wanted me to sell hundreds, if not thousands of items on our Amazon site of all these things that we use and touch on a daily basis.

• 45:02Nick Bare?

  That was the clear answer to me, the clear and obvious answer of, maybe not answer, but that was anti-focus. Even as a young entrepreneur and business owner and founder, I'm thinking, you guys are the experts here and this sounds, sounds all wrong.

• 45:26Nick Bare?

  This just sounds like more to manage, more chaos, doing less with more. No, we're not going to do this.

• 45:38Nick Bare?

  And now, as I'm sitting here, it's like, yeah, why would we ever do that? But back then, when the experts are telling you this is what you should be doing, you're almost convinced that maybe I should be doing this. Maybe I got it wrong.

• 45:53Nick Bare?

  Lack of focus will lead you to destruction,

• 46:01Nick Bare?

  being overworked, misguided, and ultimately unsuccessful. Yeah, there's always exceptions to the rule. But I can guarantee you, if you stay unfocused, you are setting yourself up for failure. Inconsistency is what you, what you will experience and feel.

• 46:29Nick Bare?

  Focus is all about playing the long game.

• 46:34Nick Bare?

  Decisions and choices are made based off of long-term vision and not short-term gainful opportunities. As I was running this morning, I was really thinking about this topic and this, this quote or saying or phrase popped in my head. And it was that building your brand and building your bank account are completely different approaches to building a business.

• 47:04Nick Bare?

  Now, this is going to be very brand, creative, business-focused, but it is applicable to all things in life.

• 47:13Nick Bare?

  And the key takeaway here, which the stories and the lessons, specific lessons that I share might not be applicable to your life, but

• 47:26Nick Bare?

  I want you to think about this and how you can apply it to your life where

• 47:31Nick Bare?

  You should be aiming to play the long game. Build for the future. Make choices that set you up for success in the long term as opposed to a short-term, short-sighted winner gain. Are you trying to build a legacy? Are you trying to build your bank account?

• 47:51Nick Bare?

  If your choices and decisions are being guided by your bank account, I can promise you, you will make decisions and choices that don't align with your core values, your purpose and your goals. Maybe your goals, if they're financial, and maybe your purpose, if your purpose is financial as well, which I hope it's not. But playing the long game requires you to be very intentional with what you say yes to and what you say no to, what you pursue. It's building legacy. If you build your legacy, good things will come along the way. But when you try to just build your bank account,

• 48:33Nick Bare?

  that will lead you to short-sighted decision-making that lacks focus, that lacks intentionality, that lacks a legacy you'll be proud of.

• 48:47Nick Bare?

  There's a reason I don't monetize this podcast.

• 48:52Nick Bare?

  I could easily monetize this podcast. We could go out, we could source a bunch of deals for ads. And I have a lot of friends in the podcast space who have a show similar size to ours and they are making over seven figures a year, over $1 million a year on advertisements placed throughout their show, before the show starts, in the middle, in the end. We run one ad in our show, if you want to call it an ad, and it's for BPN. It's for my company that I started 13 years ago. I don't get paid for that ad,

• 49:35Nick Bare?

  but it's to bring awareness to the brand, to the business.

• 49:41Nick Bare?

  A call to action to send the listener, the viewer somewhere. That is my hope with that, that cut out segment of the podcast, but we're not going and sourcing podcast ads because for me, I'm playing the long game. I'm making decisions to build a brand, not build a bank account.

• 50:02Nick Bare?

  There's a reason we don't, and I don't monetize my YouTube channel outside of ad revenue, which is, believe it or not, very, very slim.

• 50:13Nick Bare?

  And one of the questions we get on YouTube all the time is, how do you use copyrighted music? Well, you can use copyrighted music on your YouTube videos. You just can't then make money on those YouTube videos from ad revenue. So because we use copyrighted music on our YouTube videos, those videos can't be monetized for the creator. So we make no money on most of our YouTube videos through ad revenue. I used to do some brand deals on YouTube. I worked with a few different companies over the years and there'd be a two to three minute segment within a video that was sponsored by a company. And I did it back then because I had to.

• 50:57Nick Bare?

  We had to generate revenue in other places to keep pouring back into the business to continue growth and scale.

• 51:07Nick Bare?

  And I could keep doing that, but I don't because I'm playing the long game.

• 51:13Nick Bare?

  And I want to build a brand that is durable, that's, I don't want to say bulletproof, but strong, that has legacy. And there's more value to me personally, to build a brand that has those characteristics as opposed to a bank account.

• 51:33Nick Bare?

  Focus is playing the long game.

• 51:37Nick Bare?

  Focus is making intentional choices with clarity and focus that lead you to success in the long term.

• 51:48Nick Bare?

  Not short-term gain or bank account guided financial decisions and outcomes.

• 51:58Nick Bare?

  The last thing I want to talk about is opportunity cost. And I have loved the concept of opportunity cost ever since I heard it

• 52:09Nick Bare?

  in college when I was, I was in an economics class. I was a nutrition major with a business administration minor. And the first time I ever heard of opportunity cost was from an Ecom professor. Opportunity cost is the loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen.

• 52:32Nick Bare?

  You go to dinner and there's two items on the menu

• 52:39Nick Bare?

  that you're looking at. You either want the burger or the steak. I know they are completely different, but I'm often torn between two items like this, where one is super expensive and one is very inexpensive. And whenever I ask the server, which one should I get? Of course, I always know they're going to tell me, oh, get the expensive steak.

• 53:00Nick Bare?

  Adds to the bill, higher tip. No, no server has ever told me to get the cheap hamburger or cheeseburger. But I still ask because I'm curious. If I order the cheeseburger, the opportunity cost is that I can't order the steak. Now I could order both, but I'm not going to. And then if I order the steak, the opportunity cost is that I don't get the cheeseburger. So every choice we make has opportunity cost. That's why I said in the beginning that where we spend our time, what we spend our time on,

• 53:39Nick Bare?

  what we spend our time doing, it really does matter because there's opportunity cost to every decision we make. There's opportunity cost to focus because as I've mentioned, the focus is subtraction. It's not addition. If there's one thing I want you to leave with after listening to this episode, it's that focus is subtraction. It's not addition. It's not adding more onto your plate. It's not adding more responsibility. It's not doing more, it's doing more with less. And when you do more with less, you prune, you subtract, you exclude.

• 54:17Nick Bare?

  And when you hyper-focus, there is now opportunity cost because you're not doing as much. So you have to say bye to certain things. But the goal is you can do more with fewer.

• 54:33Nick Bare?

  I miss out on a lot of opportunities because I say no a lot. And I call them opportunities because like I've mentioned, there's opportunity cost to what we say yes and no to. I say no a lot. I say no to a lot of things because my vision is very clear. And if it doesn't align with those core values, purpose, and goals, it's an easy no. And it's because I'm so in tune with my vision now, which wasn't always the accurate truth, but it is now, that when I say yes, I'm very confident in that yes. So I'm okay with those missed out opportunities

• 55:15Nick Bare?

  because they're not aligned in my vision. Recently, we were approached by a brand to do a collaboration. And this is a brand that years ago, if they would have approached me to do a collaboration, it would have been a dream come true. I would have signed right there on the spot, won't even look at the contract, just like, let's make this happen. This is a dream come true. Let's do this. And recently, we were approached by that brand to do a collaboration. And after running it through the model of does it align with our core values, our purpose, and specifically our goals, the answer is no. It was a very easy no.

• 56:02Nick Bare?

  Just like that. Didn't make sense. And we politely declined, but we're so focused now that what we say yes to is a hard yes, but what we say no to is also a hard no. There will always be opportunities that present themselves to you, especially as you continue to build something, whether that's your life, or your family, your business, your work, your fitness, more opportunities will present itself. But it's not always the right time to take that opportunity.

• 56:47Nick Bare?

  It's not the right time right now to pursue certain opportunities for me based off of where I'm at with the business, or my family. I have two young kids at home, I have an eight-month-old. I'm getting ready to launch this book. We're moving HQs into our new facility in less than a month.

• 57:07Nick Bare?

  So it's a lot of no's right now because I'm so focused on these bigger projects.

• 57:13Nick Bare?

  That's focus. That's the power of focus. And I hope that you guys can understand how powerful that opportunity is and why you need to harness your ability to focus because it truly will change your life. It truly will transform your business, your work, ultimately, your success. Go one more is not just an action. It's not just doing more of everything. It's doing more of the right things that allow you to experience go one more, which is an outcome. We'll see you guys in the next episode.