130: Building the Brand: Part 7 "Focus Isn't An Option"

In this episode of the Building the Brand series, we dive into Chapter 7, exploring a tumultuous year and a half characterized by pivotal decisions, personal growth, and business challenges. From stepping down as CEO of BPN in January 2023 to moving back to Texas in May 2024, this chapter covers a ton of the complexities of balancing professional ambitions with my personal life. CHAPTERS 06:02 Building a Community 08:25 Stepping Down as CEO 25:11 Pursuing Private Equity Partnership 30:02 Reflections and Realizations 45:33 Lessons from Mistakes 47:03 Moving to Nashville 59:36 Marathon Prep and a Failed Deal 01:05:39 Returning to Texas and Reclaiming Leadership 01:08:35 Rebuilding the Brand 01:16:07 Reflecting on Mistakes and Growth 054: Moving Back into CEO Role episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1sPjWTR0jyd5agxLxcXacy?si=7xNXEuPBSA6CwEQHtkmnLA ORDER MY UPCOMING 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.

• 0:00Nick Bare?

  Previously on Building the Brand. I was lucky enough in 2021 to have been given the opportunity to run Leadville 100. If you weren't prepared, it would bury you. It would crush you. Leadville 100 was this turning point in the brand's trajectory because we became a content and storytelling machine. You can't buy that. You gotta build it. And when you build it from the ground up, it is authentic to your mission. It is authentic to your values. It's authentic to what you believe in and your passions. That's how you build a brand. These preps that we document, it helps people reach their goals, whether fitness related or personally. What I'm obsessed with is improvement, getting better. That's what drives me.

• 0:45Nick Bare?

  I don't want to fail because I'm setting these goals so ambitiously, so bold, so big. And as a brand, we have the opportunity, as a business, you have the opportunity to create these moments for people along the journey, along the way to remember forever. You have to keep showing up, even on the days that you don't want to, and log the long, slow, base building miles. That's not only applicable to endurance training, that is applicable to life, that is applicable to business. We play the long game. We know our mission. We know our vision. We've established our values. We've shared those things. And we only pursue objectives and goals and growth strategies that align with those things that we've established.

• 1:28Nick Bare?

  If you're just chasing success, you will make decisions that sacrifice integrity. With our products, with our content, with our mindset, with our community, we fuel performance.

• 1:47Nick Bare?

  All right, welcome back to another episode of the podcast. This is the next installment of the Building the Brand series. It's been quite some time since the last one that we uploaded, recorded and uploaded. The previous episode was chapter six. This is chapter seven. If you're unfamiliar with this series, the Building the Brand series is a multi-part that we are breaking down into chapters. Series, it is storytelling, it is lessons, it is a step by step of what has gone into

• 2:29Nick Bare?

  building the brand, building BPN from inception in 2012, we started in Pennsylvania out of my college apartment, and each additional chapter builds off of the previous one. So in chapter six, as a recap, the episode that was prior to this one, that one was all about building a content and storytelling machine specifically around endurance races.

• 3:04Nick Bare?

  This is when I signed up for and went after Ironman and my first ultra being the Leadville 100, something that changed my life forever and shifted the trajectory of BPN. We created and produced a documentary out of that race called More Than the Miles. And then my sub three hour marathon journey, which started at my first marathon in 2018 being three hours 57 minutes and the next year being four hours 15 minutes and then

• 3:46Nick Bare?

  going after sub three and missing and getting 324, then eventually 256 and then 248. And then in this episode, you'll find out eventually 239, which is my current marathon PR, two hours 39 minutes. But with all those fitness preps, we told stories along the way and those helped build BPN. It was truly revolutionary. And when we started creating those films and telling those stories, it shifted BPN forever to what we are and what we're doing right now. And during the previous chapter, I recognized that there are distinct parallels between endurance training and business and life as a whole.

• 4:36Nick Bare?

  It's where I realized that it's so much better to be consistently good as opposed to occasionally great. Endurance requires consistently good. Endurance is not built by the occasionally great. And when we were in Leadville during the week of the Leadville 100 in August of 2021, I've told this story many times before, but we were scouting the course the day prior, myself and the media team, we came across this gentleman in one of the parks outside

• 5:17Nick Bare?

  of Leadville. And we sparked conversation, talking about the race and this being my first ultra and our first time in Leadville. And he told us, you know what, boys, this gentleman is probably in his mid 70s, he said, you know what, boys, the key to this race tomorrow, the way that you will succeed, it is this thing called endurance. And we started laughing, we thought he was joking, but he was serious. And what this man was telling us was so much more wisdom than we took for face value. Endurance is the key to success. It is the key that unlocks so much in all aspects of life, professionally and personally. And in

• 6:02Nick Bare?

  the previous chapter, this is where we started really building a community and focusing on community as opposed to an audience. An audience is one to many. A community is many to many. And we were going to these races and these competitions, we'd see BPN apparel and flags and products all over the course, all over the checkpoints, all over the world, to be honest. People started getting Go On More tattooed all across their body, thousands of people. This wave, this movement felt like it was a storm disrupting a sleepy category

• 6:42Nick Bare?

  in space. And this is where we, and I specifically realized that what makes a brand so unique is that a brand is alive. A brand bleeds. A brand has a heartbeat. And where the last chapter ended,

• 7:05Nick Bare?

  was a massive shift in my life where I started my family. Steph and I got married and our daughter Charlie was born. Charlie was born in in July of 2022 and at the time this recording, it is July of 2025. Next week, Charlie turns three years old. So it's it's now three years after this last chapter that I just broke down ended. And one of the biggest things I learned in the previous chapter was that

• 7:50Nick Bare?

  as hard as it may seem, and to be honest, still does at times, you can balance being a very driven and ambitious professional at the same time as being personally fulfilled and content. You can go fast and slow at the same time. So that was the previous chapter. Now, chapter seven, which we're diving into today. This chapter ends. Or excuse me, this chapter begins, it starts when I stepped down from the CEO role of BPN in January of 2023.

• 8:33Nick Bare?

  And it ends moving back to Texas just nine months later from Tennessee in May of 2024. Now, I've shared many parts of this story in multiple different podcasts. And there's one podcast I I dedicated specifically to everything that I'm going to, I don't say glance over, but give more of the the Cliff Notes of in this episode. We will link that episode in the description of this episode where I go into much more detail about.

• 9:15Nick Bare?

  The move to Tennessee, stepping down from the CEO role. Why, the what, the where, all the things. But this chapter begins stepping down from the CEO role, January 2023, and then it ends moving back to Texas just nine months later. From Tennessee in May of 2024. The lessons that I learned in this chapter.

• 9:41Nick Bare?

  Focus isn't an option. It is a requirement for success.

• 9:48Nick Bare?

  Number two. It's never too late to pivot, adjust and adapt. Number three. Ego is the enemy. Or at least it can be if you allow it to. Number four. Your gut or intuition deserves more credit than you may believe. And number five, always place people in the mission first. Financial success will follow. Okay, this chapter is jam packed.

• 10:20Nick Bare?

  And I sat down for a while to really lay this one out because

• 10:27Nick Bare?

  even though.

• 10:30Nick Bare?

  I mean, from the start to the end of this chapter, it's about a year and a half roughly. But so much happened in this, in this year and a half.

• 10:42Nick Bare?

  And this was the biggest learning lesson of my life. And as hard as, as this year and a half was. It was instrumental to where I am today. It was absolutely necessary. I believe God guided me to make some of these decisions and experience this hardship. So that I could be appreciative and grateful. I was forced to reflect. I was forced to have some very honest conversations with myself and my family.

• 11:18Nick Bare?

  This chapter is packed and it changed my life, it changed my family's life, it changed this business forever. But I believe it was just part of my story. I believe it is part of my story and it was necessary, it needed to happen and it put a lot of things into, into the right place. Sometimes when things get really messy, there has to be some sort of massive shakeup to put it back into order. You know, I was sitting in church actually, two weeks ago and we go to a celebration church

• 12:00Nick Bare?

  in Georgetown, Texas. Pastor Joe Champion was speaking and I wasn't, I wasn't planning on talking about this, but this just popped in my head. And of all the, the, the chaos in the world at the moment, especially two weeks ago of what was going on. And sometimes as a Christian, you wonder why all this chaos is happening and why God is allowing it? What is the reason? How are we supposed to get involved and solve if we shouldn't be

• 12:42Nick Bare?

  violent or forceful, given the circumstances? And Pastor Joe was explaining how at times of chaos, that we have to put things back into order. And sometimes there are extreme measures that need to be taken in order to create order from chaos.

• 13:10Nick Bare?

  You know, if we think about the way our, our military is trained and responds to chaos, there's a purpose, there's a mission, there's a meaning behind that. It is to put chaos back into order. We have a duty and we have a responsibility as a country and as a society to respond with that level of involvement. And the reason I share that is to say that sometimes in life, you will experience what feels like pure chaos.

• 13:45Nick Bare?

  And it is your, our, my responsibility to apply order back to chaos, to solve chaos with order.

• 14:01Nick Bare?

  And in this chapter of my life, there was a lot of chaos.

• 14:06Nick Bare?

  And I realized it was my responsibility, it was my doing to put things back into order.

• 14:13Nick Bare?

  And I, I did that through making some poor decisions and making some right decisions.

• 14:22Nick Bare?

  One of the reasons I shared that one of the lessons is it's never too late to pivot, adjust and adapt is because if at times in life, you feel like you're too far in, you're too deep, I want you to realize that it's never too late to pivot, adjust, adapt and turn chaos back into order. But you have to take that responsibility, make a plan, take action and see it through.

• 14:55Nick Bare?

  I was once told that you should build a brand or a business as if you were to own it forever.

• 15:05Nick Bare?

  And I could not agree with that more. As a business owner,

• 15:12Nick Bare?

  you start a business not knowing what it can become.

• 15:17Nick Bare?

  And I started my business in 2012 when I was 22 years old.

• 15:22Nick Bare?

  The ceiling for what I thought could happen and the success that I could experience and where we would take the business

• 15:31Nick Bare?

  is nowhere close to where it is today. The glass ceiling that I had in my own mind is nowhere close to

• 15:41Nick Bare?

  where and what we're doing right now.

• 15:45Nick Bare?

  But I think that most business owners have this this goal, this dream that you start a business to one day sell that business.

• 15:55Nick Bare?

  But in that process, you should build it as if you were going to own it forever and pass it on to your kids and your kids' kids and your kids' kids' kids. And generations come will continue running this business. And some businesses are like that and some are not.

• 16:13Nick Bare?

  It's just the reality of entrepreneurship. And there's, there's many different methods to take in terms of building, scaling, growing, selling, holding, acquiring, merging a business and a brand.

• 16:32Nick Bare?

  But in January of 2023, I stepped down from the CEO role. Why?

• 16:41Nick Bare?

  Well, to be honest, I lost confidence in myself.

• 16:46Nick Bare?

  And I didn't respect a lesson that I learned in the previous chapter. You know, the previous chapter, chapter six, I was, I was talking about a lesson that I learned then. And that was that belief comes before ability.

• 17:04Nick Bare?

  And I should have listened to my own advice in this chapter.

• 17:09Nick Bare?

  Because I lost belief in my ability to be the CEO for this next chapter of business. I got my own head.

• 17:21Nick Bare?

  Other people got my head. I was also at this interesting transition point in my life. Where up until this moment,

• 17:32Nick Bare?

  I dedicated and committed every waking moment to building BPN.

• 17:39Nick Bare?

  And then when Charlie was born in July of 2022, and I've talked about this many times before, but it really shook my life up. I was trying to figure out how to balance being all in on building the business, but also all in on my family and being present and content and fulfilled. And I was really struggling with balancing these two. And if I'm being honest, if I've learned anything over these last three years is that

• 18:12Nick Bare?

  you're just trying to navigate different transitions in parts of your life and in different seasons. But there is always this unbalanced feeling of being very professionally, ambitiously driven and wanting to sink all of your time and energy and resources into building a brand or your career, especially if you're very passionate and mission driven behind your career. But in the same time, being a very active and present husband and father, this is something that I struggle with still. And I'm sure some of you listening can can relate, some maybe not.

• 18:55Nick Bare?

  I love my family. I love my work.

• 19:00Nick Bare?

  And I want to spend all of my time on each one of those things. So constantly being pulled in different directions. But when Charlie was born in July of 2022, that was my first time experiencing that. Because up until that moment, I had limited responsibility outside of my job, what I was building, BPN, and nothing else was really stealing my time. I didn't have to split my time and energy and presence between multiple people or things or passions and loves.

• 19:40Nick Bare?

  My wife, yes, Steph, but we were building together.

• 19:47Nick Bare?

  So when Charlie was born, things really shifted and I was trying to navigate this new period of life. And a few months after that, I started losing confidence in myself to be the CEO to take BPN to the next level.

• 20:06Nick Bare?

  The way that I started BPN is, is very unique. And I think my involvement in the business today is still very unique. I haven't found many other founders in a similar situation and position as mine.

• 20:24Nick Bare?

  You'll find a lot of people online who, who build a, a community or an audience, a platform on social media. And there are people behind those, those follows and those subscribes and their support. And then sometimes when people build a platform, a social media community, they will then leverage that and start a business.

• 20:52Nick Bare?

  I did it the other way around. I started my business in 2012, realized it wasn't growing, had no money left to do anything else other than dedicate some time and commit to building an online presence and platform to then help the business scale. Putting myself out there on social media was not something I wanted to do in the beginning, but I had to do because if I didn't, BPN would not be a thing today.

• 21:23Nick Bare?

  I created

• 21:27Nick Bare?

  these platforms. I started documenting my life. I started making YouTube videos in 2014 because for the previous two years, the business wasn't generating any level of success.

• 21:45Nick Bare?

  I did these things out of survival to just kickstart BPN.

• 21:53Nick Bare?

  So then I found myself as, as the business scaled and grew over years,

• 22:00Nick Bare?

  that I was splitting my time between running and operating and building a business, and then creating content and pursuing these, these fitness preps and goals and documenting that process. And then when I started a family and Charlie was born, I was now splitting my life between these three things that equally took up a lot of time. Creating content, fitness preps, running social media platforms, building and running a business, being in the business, and then dedicating time to a family.

• 22:46Nick Bare?

  This is one of the reasons that I really dislike when I'm categorized or titled as an influencer. I just don't like that title. I never did. I'm not an influencer.

• 23:01Nick Bare?

  I'm an entrepreneur. I'm a founder, but I'm also a creator. I create content.

• 23:09Nick Bare?

  I didn't start building these social media platforms to be an influencer.

• 23:15Nick Bare?

  But I created these social media platforms to build a business, create content, inspire individuals, build a legacy that I'm proud of, be a role model, be a light in all the darkness that exists. It wasn't to be an influencer. That was never my agenda. That was never my purpose, and it never will be. So sometimes when I get called an influencer,

• 23:48Nick Bare?

  that hurts. It hurts. I really dislike that term. I just do. I just do.

• 23:57Nick Bare?

  But I stepped down from the CEO role during this time because I lost confidence in myself to do all three of these things. Create content, drive awareness for the business, run the business and lead the team, and be an active and supportive father and husband.

• 24:16Nick Bare?

  I didn't believe in my ability any longer.

• 24:20Nick Bare?

  And again, some of this was

• 24:24Nick Bare?

  coming from my thoughts and insecurities. Some of it was being guided by mentors and advisors and people in the business. You know, someone told me once that, hey, I think it's time to to level up BPN and bring in a true professional, a true operator. And this is probably the time for you to to step into a different direction, into a new role.

• 24:50Nick Bare?

  And when I get advice like that, or at least I used to, I took it serious, especially coming from people I I liked and trusted and respected. So that's what I did. In January of 2023, I stepped down from the CEO role. And I moved into a chief creative officer role. And simultaneously, we started running a financial process to bring on a private equity partner. So this is what the the podcast that I I mentioned in the beginning of this episode. This is where I really go into

• 25:27Nick Bare?

  find details throughout that episode that we're going to link if you want to go listen to that one after you listen to this one. But that'll give some more in the weeds details of what I'm going to glance over here.

• 25:41Nick Bare?

  But we we brought on an investment bank because we wanted to sell part of the business. So the the deal that we were pursuing at that time in 2023 is that I was going to sell a minority share of the business to a private equity partner. So we hired an investment bank. The investment bank helped us run a process, which is essentially where you

• 26:06Nick Bare?

  you create materials and you cast this wide net to financial institutions and partners.

• 26:13Nick Bare?

  Who if they are interested in will come and learn more. And then you eventually, after entertaining a bunch of different groups, get to a point where you go exclusive with one group in the hopes of getting a business transaction done, where you sell part of the business to, in this case, was a private equity group. And then they own part of the business and you build that business together in hopes of getting to a second transaction or a larger exit to in hopes of being a strategic buyer in the future. A strategic buyer would be, for example, Unilever or Nestle,

• 26:54Nick Bare?

  one of these large corporations that buy businesses based off of their portfolio needs.

• 27:01Nick Bare?

  So we ran this process. And

• 27:06Nick Bare?

  we ended up going exclusive with a private equity partner in hopes of getting a deal done. So this was about a year process.

• 27:17Nick Bare?

  I'll give a little nugget here, which I'll address here in a little bit, but the deal never got done. The deal fell apart at the two yard line, right before it was about to get completed. But going into a financial process, you know, hiring an investment bank and trying to partner with a private equity group, it is a huge distraction to the business.

• 27:42Nick Bare?

  Huge distraction because you're not only trying to run the business as your full-time job, but you're also dealing with lawyers and you're dealing with the investment bankers and you're dealing with the potential new partner. And there's a lot of due diligence that is required. There's a lot of legal documents that are required to get drafted. There's a lot of calls all the time, every day for months up to a year. It is a huge distraction to your normal day job. So right after or shortly after I sat down from the CEO role, we launched a financial process and went into this huge distraction for the next year.

• 28:22Nick Bare?

  Why did I want to bring on a private equity partner? First off,

• 28:29Nick Bare?

  I was looking for strategic assistance and support to scale and grow the business to get to a future exit years down the road. So one, I wanted a partner that was going to help us navigate these new seasons and obstacles and hardships of building a brand to get to the level that we wanted to get to at one point. And at this point, 2023

• 29:00Nick Bare?

  was 11 years into building the business. Didn't take any meaningful money out of the business at this point. And it was an opportunity to take some chips off the table. Take the chips off the table is a quote, which pretty much says to de-risk a little bit. Now you sell part of your business to a private equity partner in this case. And you get some liquidity from this sale. That kind of makes you more financially secure and sets you and your family up for success in the future. So that you can go back to building with a partner in place. Some money in your pocket. You've de-risked and now you can go swing for the fences.

• 29:45Nick Bare?

  So those were some of the reasons that I was at the time pursuing a private equity partnership. That's why we hired the investment banker. That's why I sat down from the CEO role.

• 29:58Nick Bare?

  And like I said, it was a huge distraction to the business.

• 30:02Nick Bare?

  And this distraction

• 30:05Nick Bare?

  honestly made me lose a lot of interest in what had been my passion for the 11 previous years. Because I was working on things that I didn't want to be working on. I was on calls with lawyers, I was on calls with bankers. I was on calls with people who didn't understand the business or what we were trying to build. I just wanted to build the best brand possible. I wanted to inspire people, I wanted to motivate people, I wanted to create content and get behind this brand that had so much momentum and energy and was alive and could bleed and had DNA. That's what I love. I'm a brand builder.

• 30:52Nick Bare?

  I heard this saying months ago, it was on the Founder's Podcast hosted by David Senra. And I can't remember what founder said this, but he described himself as the anti-business billionaire. And I thought, wow, that's powerful. And the reason he described himself as the anti-business billionaire is because the business he built was worth over a billion dollars. He was worth over a billion dollars. But he didn't follow the traditional business practice. He didn't follow the stereotypes. He didn't follow the trends. He didn't follow the blueprints. He paved his own path. He's a trailblazer.

• 31:37Nick Bare?

  He was against all things business. He was building brand. He was building connection. And he became a billionaire in the process. I thought to myself while I was seeing this episode, man, like that's, that's a dream. Do it your own way. Do it in a way that is unapologetic. Do it in a way that is authentic and organic and natural to you. That's the way to win. That's something you can be proud of. And when we decided to sell part of the business, we brought on this financial partner. We started working with these private equity groups.

• 32:20Nick Bare?

  This shifted the brand in the worst way possible. For many different reasons. But one of these reasons was TAM. I don't ever want to hear TAM in my life ever again. TAM, T-A-M, stands for Target Addressable Market. In all these conversations with the investment bankers and the private equity groups, they kept asking the question, well, how big is the TAM? How big is the Target Addressable Market? That's all they cared about. How big is this market that you as in your business and we are going after?

• 33:04Nick Bare?

  How big can this business be? I hated that question. I don't know. That's an objective metric that you're looking to apply to a subjective.

• 33:22Nick Bare?

  Non-navigated path and journey that hasn't been done before. We're trying to do things here at BPN that haven't been done before. How can you put a target addressable market there if we're still in the building process?

• 33:40Nick Bare?

  So these investment bankers and these private equity groups wanted us to shift things that we are doing within the business, within brand, within content, within all of our strategies and tactics, to make sure that our TAM was larger.

• 33:58Nick Bare?

  Make sure that we're speaking to and addressing a larger market so the opportunities for growth and scale were larger. So that's what we started doing.

• 34:09Nick Bare?

  You know what happens when you do that? You become unfocused. You're chasing every and any opportunity that is not aligned with your vision. The reality is back then, we didn't have a defined vision. I am now, through this entire learning experience, in the mindset that the way that you scale is not going shallow and wide. That might work for some people, there are exceptions to the rule, but that's not my rule. My rule is that you stay narrow and you go deep. And you stay narrow and you go as deep as possible until there's nothing left.

• 34:49Nick Bare?

  You keep digging and digging and digging as deep as you can until there's nothing left, and then you go wider.

• 34:58Nick Bare?

  But so many brands and businesses, they think the way you scale and grow is to go shallow and wide.

• 35:06Nick Bare?

  That's not my approach to building a business or a brand. And it never will be. It is narrow and deep. And when you can't go any deeper, then you start to go a little wider. It's not a mile wide, it's not...

• 35:24Nick Bare?

  It's not a foot wide, it's not an inch wide, it is a millimeter wide. That's how slow you start expanding outwards.

• 35:35Nick Bare?

  TAM, Target Addressable Market.

• 35:42Nick Bare?

  Makes me cringe just hearing it.

• 35:46Nick Bare?

  So what happened from there? Well,

• 35:52Nick Bare?

  the lesson I learned was that an undefined vision creates unfocused strategies and tactics. What happens when you try to go very wide and very shallow? Go after TAM?

• 36:09Nick Bare?

  And you don't have a defined vision? Is that everything is in fair play and game? It's unfocused strategy and tactics. The reason that I'm so convicted

• 36:26Nick Bare?

  into having a clearly defined vision? And a clearly defined vision is made up of three components: core values, purpose, and goals. And when you have a very clearly defined vision, your team in the business can operate in a decentralized leadership structure and create their own strategies and tactics, knowing

• 36:51Nick Bare?

  that it is acceptable and it works because it's aligned with the core values, purpose, and goals of the organization. The vision. In 2023, we did not have a defined vision, which means we didn't have focused strategies or tactics, which means that we were trying to go very wide and very shallow.

• 37:16Nick Bare?

  And I was prepping for this episode this week, and I was thinking back to

• 37:24Nick Bare?

  2023

• 37:27Nick Bare?

  and just all the things that happened.

• 37:31Nick Bare?

  And what's so interesting

• 37:34Nick Bare?

  is that, like in the previous chapter I shared, storytelling became a big part of the business and the brand.

• 37:45Nick Bare?

  Content. We became a storytelling, content-producing machine around endurance events and competitions. We found our niche back then,

• 38:00Nick Bare?

  and we started to own it, and it started to work really well. Documenting fitness endurance preparations.

• 38:12Nick Bare?

  And you know what I did in 2023?

• 38:17Nick Bare?

  Right when I sat down from the CEO role of business, right when we launched this process, it all this stuff like just just happened simultaneously. I decided I was going to do a new fitness prep and that fitness prep was going to be a bodybuilding competition. Completely misaligned with

• 38:38Nick Bare?

  what was working for us and where we were heading. I mean, I was I made some some decisions in 2023 that lacked focus and lacked vision and we're all over the place. If I look back over the course of my lifetime, I'll be 35 years old uh next month. 2023, when I was 33 years old, just two years ago. That was

• 39:07Nick Bare?

  a quarter life crisis. It had to have been. I made some choices and decisions that were so unlike me and that were so miscalculated and I didn't listen to my gut and my intuition. And I made some some bad choices.

• 39:26Nick Bare?

  Which is the only reason I can explain that that's why I decided to go into a bodybuilding prep. I was into just like a self-destructive mode.

• 39:37Nick Bare?

  That was the catalyst for a year of unfocused effort. I hated that entire bodybuilding prep.

• 39:44Nick Bare?

  I didn't want to train for an aesthetic goal. I didn't care about aesthetic goals anymore. I cared about performance goals. A bodybuilding prep was not a performance focused goal.

• 39:56Nick Bare?

  Completely unlike me.

• 39:59Nick Bare?

  But I did that prep. And that was probably the worst time I could have went into a bodybuilding prep where I'm eating 1600 to 1800 calories a day, the peak of that prep and my body fat got down to 6%. I wasn't sleeping because my calories were so low and my mind was so fuzzy and brain fogged and

• 40:23Nick Bare?

  could barely make it through a training session, could barely make it through a day. And it was not the right physical or mental or emotional space to be in at this point of the business, which led to even more destructive decisions.

• 40:40Nick Bare?

  We as a brand didn't know who we were anymore, who we wanted to be, or who we were serving.

• 40:51Nick Bare?

  I'm so grateful that we got the brand back on track, which you'll hear towards the end of this episode. But like I said, sometimes

• 41:01Nick Bare?

  for things to get back into order, you have to reach utter chaos.

• 41:07Nick Bare?

  And this was

• 41:11Nick Bare?

  utter chaos this time. From the outside looking in, you may not have realized it or experienced it or even known it, but from the inside, seeing in, this is how it felt. I was going through some old Dropbox photos the other day. So we categorize a lot of our media in Dropbox.

• 41:35Nick Bare?

  And we have archive photos and footage from back in 2019, 2020, up until today. There's so much,

• 41:46Nick Bare?

  so much media within our Dropbox. I was looking for some photos

• 41:53Nick Bare?

  for something I was adding to our website a few weeks ago. And I came across some old files from 2023, some photo shoots we did. And this describes how how

• 42:08Nick Bare?

  off course we were. You know, if you look at our media team now, we are dialed in. Our brand team, our marketing team, we know who we are, we know who we want to be, we know where we're heading, we have a very clearly defined vision. We know who we serve. We know who our consumer is.

• 42:27Nick Bare?

  We have clearly defined our tone of voice, our brand guide, our vision statements, our vision guide. But in 2023, we didn't have any of those things.

• 42:37Nick Bare?

  We lacked leadership and that is my fault and my responsibility. But as I was going through these Dropbox files from 2023, some of our brand photos and photo shoots we were doing, there was one of our team taking supplements while playing pickleball on a pickleball course, court. Uh, there was a volleyball and yoga, uh, photo shoot that we did. We did this urban photo shoot on a train and a subway with some of our products. Uh, there was a photo shoot that we did with some older people, 60s, 70 year old people using our products.

• 43:22Nick Bare?

  If you follow the BPN brand now, you know how intentional we are with videos, photos, consumer behavior, the way our products are being introduced and showcased. We're focused. That's the difference. The difference between being focused and unfocused is so massively different. It can disrupt and destroy your goals and your success and your progress almost overnight.

• 44:01Nick Bare?

  I've said this before and it's not my quote. I'm not going to act like it is, but you build a brand in drops and you lose it in buckets, literally.

• 44:10Nick Bare?

  From 2012 to 2023, 11 years I spent building BPN.

• 44:21Nick Bare?

  We built the brand in drops, daily deposits, day after day after day for 11 years.

• 44:30Nick Bare?

  And we almost lost the entire brand in 2023 in buckets within months of losing focus.

• 44:43Nick Bare?

  Complete lack of focus.

• 44:49Nick Bare?

  In order to build the best brand possible, you have to choose durability over growth.

• 44:55Nick Bare?

  If you make decisions just based off of growth, in absence

• 45:01Nick Bare?

  of durability, you will find yourself without a business or a brand in the following years to come. In this season, in chapter BPN, we chose growth over durability. Now, we always choose durability over growth.

• 45:20Nick Bare?

  As I'm sharing some of this, you might be thinking, wow, you're really pulling back the curtain.

• 45:29Nick Bare?

  And yeah, I'm, I'm not proud of this chapter, but it was instrumental to where we are today. I will never make these mistakes again.

• 45:46Nick Bare?

  I don't want to say I'm glad I made these mistakes, but I'm grateful that I made these mistakes. Because I learned so much in this process. I am a better entrepreneur, I'm a better founder, I'm a better leader, I'm a better CEO now, because I went through this. And I'm sharing it with you because if you're in a similar situation or position,

• 46:12Nick Bare?

  and you feel helpless, it is never too late to pivot, course correct, adjust, and get back on track.

• 46:26Nick Bare?

  And you don't have to be an entrepreneur, you don't have to be a business owner, you don't have to be a founder, you don't have to be an executive to do that. No matter where you're at in your life, if you feel off course, if you feel like there's chaos, take responsibility, put things back into order.

• 46:43Nick Bare?

  So things did get worse before they got better. Alright, so here we are, unfocused.

• 46:52Nick Bare?

  No clear defined vision. Strategies and tactics are trying to go after TAM very wide, very shallow. And then, me and my family decided to move to Nashville.

• 47:07Nick Bare?

  Why did we decide to move to Nashville at this time?

• 47:11Nick Bare?

  To be honest, the financial process was wearing me down. That was part of it.

• 47:18Nick Bare?

  It's not what I wanted to be working on or towards and it felt very misaligned with the reason I started BPN in the first place.

• 47:28Nick Bare?

  I also felt like I was stepping on the new CEO's toes. And that by me moving away physically, it would allow for the team to operate more professionally without me there daily.

• 47:46Nick Bare?

  I needed a creative reset. I was just ready for new place, new space, new faces.

• 47:56Nick Bare?

  And I felt stuck and in between what I was doing and what I needed to be doing. As I mentioned, after stepping out of the CEO role, I moved into a chief creative officer role and my responsibility was brand amplification. Really creating content that aligned with our vision and our purpose and our goals and creating content to

• 48:23Nick Bare?

  help grow and scale the brand.

• 48:26Nick Bare?

  And at that point, one of the things that we did is completely separated the media team that was working on my content and the media team that was working on BPN content. We completely separated those teams, which was one of the worst decisions we made. Those teams now are the same team because the content has to move in the same direction. There can be a different approach to the content I produce for my platforms and the content that BPN produces for their platforms. But there needs to be alignment because the vision is the same. The core values, the purpose, the goals are the same. We're trying to get to the same place.

• 49:06Nick Bare?

  There's just different methods in order to get there. Same team, same fight, same mission.

• 49:15Nick Bare?

  But at this point, it wasn't like that.

• 49:19Nick Bare?

  So Steph and I started talking and we decided we were going to move to Nashville. We didn't really put a

• 49:28Nick Bare?

  a definitive timeline on it.

• 49:33Nick Bare?

  But we said, hey, let's, let's put our house up for sale. And if it, if it sells,

• 49:39Nick Bare?

  that's God telling us that we should move. That's what we thought. So we listed the house for a price that we thought would never sell. And we listed our house for two times. Well, we paid for it just three years prior.

• 49:55Nick Bare?

  And we sold the house within hours. Literally within hours of putting it on the market for two times, we paid for it three years prior. It sold.

• 50:06Nick Bare?

  So then everything started just happening very quickly.

• 50:10Nick Bare?

  We now had a timeline on closing. We had to find a house in Nashville. And before I know it, I'm packing up the house. And we're making our way to the middle of Tennessee

• 50:26Nick Bare?

  to set up a new office with a small creative team for this next chapter of my life and BPN's journey.

• 50:35Nick Bare?

  So we signed a lease for an office space in Nashville, downtown Nashville. We bought a house in the 12th South Green Hills area. Me and my family moved. Jordan Utter and his family moved with us. And Ian Rodriguez moved with us as well. So it was three of us that made the move from Austin to Nashville. And we set up a small BPN creative office. Like I said, right downtown Nashville, Tennessee. And we started working on content that was driving awareness and traffic for the brand. And that's where I thought we were going to be for the rest of our lives.

• 51:16Nick Bare?

  And I'll never forget, I'll never forget

• 51:21Nick Bare?

  the way we got to Nashville.

• 51:24Nick Bare?

  Like I said, it all happened so fast.

• 51:27Nick Bare?

  We packed up the moving truck. Movers came, loaded up our home, took off, started making their way towards Tennessee from Texas. Steph got on a plane with Charlie, who was our only child at the time. And they flew to Nashville. I packed up my truck with as much as I could fill in it with our two dogs. And I made my way to drive from Texas to Tennessee. And I had to stop at BPN on the way

• 52:03Nick Bare?

  to throw some stuff away in the dumpster. And as I was pulling up to BPN HQ,

• 52:11Nick Bare?

  I felt like I was abandoning the people, the team, the business. Even though we were continuing the mission in Tennessee, it just didn't feel right.

• 52:23Nick Bare?

  And

• 52:25Nick Bare?

  I dropped off all the trash. I will never forget this moment. I was driving away from BPN HQ to make my way to Nashville. And I could not look in the rear view mirror to see the HQ behind me because I didn't want to see what I was leaving behind. I was ashamed. I was embarrassed. Didn't feel right. Felt like it was all happening way too fast, way too quickly.

• 52:53Nick Bare?

  And I just kept driving.

• 52:56Nick Bare?

  And that whole ride, it just not sit well with me.

• 53:02Nick Bare?

  It was one of those things, you know, where you have an idea. You don't think it the whole way through. And you start putting that idea into action. And then you realize it might not be what you want to do, but before you know it, you're too far in. So you keep going. And then when it finally all happens and it's reality, you feel like it's too late to turn back. And you've realized or think you've realized that you made the wrong choice and decision. That's what it felt like in that moment. This empty pit in my stomach.

• 53:37Nick Bare?

  It didn't feel good. It didn't feel right. So when we got to Tennessee, we started setting up our office right away.

• 53:48Nick Bare?

  And literally a week after getting to Nashville, we had already a race on the calendar on the schedule out in Maine, Pylin Farms, Maine.

• 54:02Nick Bare?

  So we spent a week unpacking, getting our house set up, getting a new office set up. And then we flew from Tennessee, from Nashville to Maine for the last man standing race, which was in September of 2023.

• 54:23Nick Bare?

  This was a very

• 54:26Nick Bare?

  pivotal race in moment for me.

• 54:31Nick Bare?

  And I talk about this in my book that I just launched, Go One More, but it was at this race that I unlocked a new meaning of Go One More. And that was that Go One More, those three simple words

• 54:48Nick Bare?

  that were the foundation of BPN. Go One More is much more than an action. Go One More is an outcome. This is why I wrote this whole, this whole book.

• 55:01Nick Bare?

  And it's much more than just doing more of everything. It's doing more of the right thing at the right time with the right people. And the way that I unlocked this, and I described this story in the beginning of the book is

• 55:15Nick Bare?

  we got to the race and we set up our campsite. So last man standing style race. It was a 4.2 mile loop that restarted every hour on the hour until there was one runner left. In this race, I ended up going just over 100 miles.

• 55:33Nick Bare?

  And when we were setting up our campsite,

• 55:37Nick Bare?

  there was this gentleman and his wife at a campsite close by that I knew of, but not very well, just from social media. And our campsite looked like it was built out for us to live there for months. And we had everything we needed. And this gentleman and his wife, their campsite was very minimal. It was bare.

• 56:03Nick Bare?

  There was no covering, there was no tent. It was just like a blanket and some food in a chair. So we invited him and his wife to come over to our campsite and stay with us because we had more than we needed. So they came over and the energy he brought was just pure negativity.

• 56:26Nick Bare?

  You could tell he didn't want to be there. You could tell he was overtrained. You could tell

• 56:33Nick Bare?

  the, the race wasn't a focus of his. And I thought to myself, is this what people think that Go One More looks like?

• 56:44Nick Bare?

  It's wearing yourself down, being a, a burden and a negativity to people around you, to your family, to being collateral damage and destructive. Is this person taking my mission and my message and applying it in the wrong way? Yes, they are taking the action of Go One More and applying it in a way that could produce results, but it lacks intentionality.

• 57:20Nick Bare?

  It lacks purpose. It lacks reason. It lacks responsibility of your other priorities in life.

• 57:30Nick Bare?

  And throughout this race, I kept thinking about this gentleman and his wife. And eventually he dropped down early and complained and they went home. They left their campsite and it brought energy and vibes back into our space again. Once they were gone.

• 57:45Nick Bare?

  But I unlocked this new thought and perspective during that race. And that's that go one more is much more than an action. That is part of it. Go one more is an outcome. It is a success that you achieve with the right clarity and intentionality behind the decisions you're making, the who, the what, and the why.

• 58:11Nick Bare?

  That is what ultimately sparked

• 58:15Nick Bare?

  my book.

• 58:18Nick Bare?

  And I started writing the book shortly after that.

• 58:23Nick Bare?

  And through the process of writing that book in Nashville, I had to rewrite it multiple times because initially when I wrote the book, uh, it ended with us moving to Nashville. And that's where the future of our life was going to be from that point moving forward. And then you'll see why throughout the story, why the ending of that book had to change. And I ended up rewriting that book two times. The publishing date got pushed back on two separate occasions because I had to rewrite the book multiple times because my life changed so much in the matter of a year and a half.

• 59:03Nick Bare?

  And the lessons that I learned evolved and were so transformative within a year and a half.

• 59:13Nick Bare?

  So the last man standing race in Pineland Farms, Maine in September of 2023 was life changing. And that gave me a lot of perspective in the months to come for what I was about to navigate and deal with in terms of our personal life now being in Tennessee and my professional future and career with BPN moving forward.

• 59:36Nick Bare?

  And then after the last man standing race was done, I went right into a marathon prep in Tennessee, and that was for the California International Marathon, December of 2023. That's where I ended up running my lifetime PR of two hours, 39 minutes.

• 59:56Nick Bare?

  And during that prep, which was a very stressful prep because keep in mind, we are still in the middle of this financial process that we are running with this investment bank and this private equity group that started when I was still in Texas and then continued when I moved to Tennessee. I thought a few months after moving to Nashville that we were going to close this deal and my life was going to change forever, to be honest. And just days before we were supposed to close the deal, it ended up falling apart. And it just so happened, and that was days before I was supposed to fly to Sacramento, California to run the California International Marathon.

• 1:00:40Nick Bare?

  And when the deal fell apart, you would think after putting months and months and months of work and energy and money into this process and this deal to get this transaction done, you would think when I got the phone call, and it was about 10:00 PM at night from the investment banker, and he said, "Hey, pencils down, deal's done, we're not closing this one." And you would have thought, and I would have thought, I would have been crushed and devastated, all this work for nothing.

• 1:01:21Nick Bare?

  But honestly, it was such a sense of relief. It felt like it was the best possible outcome. This deal was being structured in a way that was not conducive or productive for me or the business. It felt like it was being forced to get done. It just wasn't the right partner, it wasn't the right time, it wasn't the right valuation, it wasn't the right anything. And the fact that it didn't get done felt like another sign from God of saying, "I'm going to give you a second chance to provide and create order to this chaos."

• 1:02:08Nick Bare?

  So I got that call days before the California International Marathon, days before the race was supposed to be kicking off, days before the deal was supposed to be done. It felt like this sense of relief, like my shoulder sat back better. I slept so much better at night. And when I showed up to Sacramento, California to throw down to that race, I felt more focused than ever before. That was the best run of my entire life. No exaggeration. That run was a high the entire way through, all 26.2 miles. I toed the line of that race and I was so dialed in. I didn't hear or see anyone around me at that start line.

• 1:02:52Nick Bare?

  And as soon as that gun went off, I was in every mile of those 26.2, focused on my heart rate, focused on my fueling, focused on my breathing, focused on focused on my mentality. It was the most intentional run, the most focused run of my life. And maybe that was like a a foreshadowing of what was about to come. But it felt so right. And for that to be a massive PR. I mean, I was going into that race trying to run sub two hours, 49,

• 1:03:33Nick Bare?

  45 minutes, sorry, sub 245 and ended up breaking that by like six minutes, 239, I was very, very happy. So here's where things start to get really interesting. This was December 2023. And we just found out that Steph was pregnant with baby number two, who is my son, Nico. Nico actually turns one year old next month, August 10th. My daughter's birthday is July 15th. My birthday is August 1st. My son is August 10th. So pretty much my birthday is just non-existent for the rest of my life

• 1:04:18Nick Bare?

  because my kids take over my birthday, which is all good. I'd rather celebrate their birthdays than my birthday, to be fair. So at this point of our life, the deal just fell apart. I just ran a lifetime PR, 239 in the marathon. Steph finds out she's pregnant with baby number two being Nico.

• 1:04:45Nick Bare?

  And I start having this, this confidence reinjected back into me.

• 1:04:52Nick Bare?

  I remember texting my brother, Preston, this month.

• 1:04:58Nick Bare?

  And I can't remember exactly what I said. I'll have to go back and find the text messages. But it was along the lines of, hey, man, we're taking this thing back. We're fixing this. Time is now, let's go.

• 1:05:15Nick Bare?

  And I had this awakening, this epiphany of, how do we get to this point?

• 1:05:21Nick Bare?

  How do we get to this point where I'm not the CEO anymore? I'm not leading the business. I'm not in Texas. I'm not with a team. We're distracted, we're unfocused.

• 1:05:31Nick Bare?

  There's nothing else I can do right now, other than just start to fix it.

• 1:05:39Nick Bare?

  So I flew back to Texas.

• 1:05:43Nick Bare?

  Announced I was coming back as CEO. And moving back to Texas.

• 1:05:50Nick Bare?

  This was December, January timeframe. December 2023, January 2024.

• 1:05:59Nick Bare?

  And I talked to my family and I talked to the team. And we all decided we were moving back to Texas. Just a few months after being in Tennessee. Very expensive decisions, very expensive moves. But it was the only

• 1:06:15Nick Bare?

  right decision in that moment.

• 1:06:18Nick Bare?

  I realized I made a lot of wrong decisions that affected a lot of people's lives. I took and take full responsibility of that. But the only option was to cut our losses and fix everything and move back to Texas.

• 1:06:37Nick Bare?

  And that's what we did.

• 1:06:40Nick Bare?

  Within that next couple of weeks, I was back in the CEO role. Our house was up for sale. Uh, we were closing down our Nashville office. I was remote CEO from January until early May of 2024.

• 1:06:59Nick Bare?

  During those months, I was on Zoom calls all day, every day in my office at the house in Tennessee until we moved.

• 1:07:08Nick Bare?

  Just because it took some time to find a new house, took time to sell our house, took time to break down the Nashville office that we just signed a lease for. Get a new tenant to take that over. And just moving my family and Jordan's family and Ian back to Texas. And I was remote CEO on Zoom calls, January to May, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM every single day.

• 1:07:35Nick Bare?

  And I had a conversation with Josh, who's our CFO and COO when I came back as CEO.

• 1:07:43Nick Bare?

  And we both recognized the brand was way off track from where we wanted it to be and needed to be. And I had a conversation with Josh and I said, I'm just going to get this brand back on track. I'm going to get us hyper focused. I'm going to get everything we do to look, feel, and be right again. And I don't want anything financial to guide or dictate that. Please just tell me if I'm heading in a really bad direction financially and I'm about to bury this entire thing. But if I'm not, I don't want to see any financials. I'm just going to build this business and this brand by gut feel, intuition,

• 1:08:27Nick Bare?

  and just subjective

• 1:08:32Nick Bare?

  energy.

• 1:08:34Nick Bare?

  And that's what we did. And we turned the business around and we, we, we planned for Josh and I. We thought it was going to take a year to turn everything back around. To get brand content back on track, to get paid digital advertising and marketing back on track, to get.

• 1:08:54Nick Bare?

  Vision and team alignment and the athlete program and all these things just realigned again. We planned for an entire year and we thought 2024 was just gonna be a wash year for us. And we end up getting the brand in all aspects of the business, front of house and back of house, back on track within, I'd say, 90 days, fully back on track. Profitability and EBITDA back in the mid teens range. Revenue growing, becoming more effective and efficient with all of our brand and marketing, content and digital advertising strategies and performance. Everything got back on track really quickly.

• 1:09:37Nick Bare?

  And that's when Josh finally started to share with me some of the financial data that proved that all the things that we were feeling were reflecting in the data, in the financials in a positive way. But that was a really powerful conversation with Josh and I will always respect and remember that because I went to him telling him, dude, we just gotta, just gotta fix things right now, regardless of what it does to the financial impact of the business.

• 1:10:10Nick Bare?

  And he said, I trust you, I get it, I support you, let's go. And that's what I really needed. I needed a teammate alongside me in that moment that was just like, I trust you, I get it, I'm here to support in any way, let's go.

• 1:10:31Nick Bare?

  And that was very meaningful to me and I needed that.

• 1:10:36Nick Bare?

  This is January 2024.

• 1:10:40Nick Bare?

  A month later, we had the Austin Marathon 2024 where we were a

• 1:10:49Nick Bare?

  a meaningful nutrition partner of that race. And this was gonna be our first big event back

• 1:10:58Nick Bare?

  after reinjecting order to chaos, if you will.

• 1:11:06Nick Bare?

  The team felt really good, the energy felt really good. And before we kicked off that race, because we hosted the Shake Out Run. We had a team there, we handed out hats.

• 1:11:23Nick Bare?

  We brought it together and activated the community throughout that weekend in a meaningful way. And people showed up, people showed up, the energy was electric, it was next level. I mean, you could, you could feel it coursing through your veins, like goosebumps all across your body, because you could just tell the brand reshifted so quickly back to where we needed to be.

• 1:11:53Nick Bare?

  And I say this very humbly, and it lacks ego and pride, but this is the power of having

• 1:12:06Nick Bare?

  a founder and leader in place who can speak vision and knows where the brand needs to go and how to get there.

• 1:12:17Nick Bare?

  And has a team that is in full support and trust and respect and willing to back up that vision and that mission and the strategy and the tactics and those goals.

• 1:12:33Nick Bare?

  You can't replace vision with anything else. It is that important. Vision is everything. When it comes to brand building, culture, leadership, you will get nowhere without it. Leadership and vision is not just an amplifier.

• 1:12:58Nick Bare?

  Like I said in the beginning of this episode, focus isn't an option, it's a requirement for success.

• 1:13:05Nick Bare?

  The Austin Marathon 2024 was what the brand needed.

• 1:13:11Nick Bare?

  And it put things back into place and into perspective and right before we kicked off the Austin Marathon, I shared this manifesto with the team that I'm about to read. And after I shared it with the team, I posted on social media to share with our community and then I included this in our book. And this was right around the time of the Austin Marathon when things started to get back on track.

• 1:13:37Nick Bare?

  And I was still living in Tennessee at the time. But me and the family and Jordan and Ian were traveling back from Tennessee to Texas frequently to get the brand back on track and just being active in our new roles again as we prepared to move back to Texas. The manifesto goes, "2024 is going to be different. This is the year we show up as our true, authentic, unapologetic selves. It's how BPN started. It's how we were built. You can't buy brand, story, mission, or vision. It has to be created.

• 1:14:18Nick Bare?

  It's forged through hardship. It's born by toughness. We fuel performance. We fuel individuals through training, supplements, nutrition, education, content, motivation, and by showing them how to be tough. Real toughness is not for show. It's not intended to intimidate. It is the ability to pursue greatness without sacrifice of integrity. It is choosing the hard right over the easy wrong. Toughness is a driven commitment through confidence. We have changed lives, transformed from rock bottom. That is the power of Go On More.

• 1:14:58Nick Bare?

  It has saved people from their lowest of lows and that is a responsibility that should not be taken lightly. I'm not here to follow a blueprint or build a business based on what has been done before. I'm here to pave a path. We're pioneers. We lead from the front. Trailblazers."

• 1:15:18Nick Bare?

  Let's take everything we learned in 2023, the good and the bad, the wins and the losses. Let's learn from all of it as we enter 2024. If you're on this team, you better be here to win. Because if we're not going to try and be the best, we shouldn't be doing it at all. It feels good to win. It feels good to chase down your wildest dreams and aspirations. And it feels even better to do it as a team. If at any point you are lost, confused, misguided, or unmotivated, I encourage you to raise your hand. Ask for help. We cannot be the best by operating through independent silos. It's time to row the boat in the same direction. With the support of each other, to build the best brand BPN can be.

• 1:16:03Nick Bare?

  Be tough. Be really fucking tough. As we made the move back to Texas.

• 1:16:11Nick Bare?

  And I made that lonely drive with the dogs once again, but this time. Going from north to south, as opposed to south to north. Just a few months after making that big move. I had a lot of time to think.

• 1:16:30Nick Bare?

  To myself, that drive back to Texas felt much different than the drive from Texas to Tennessee. The energy was different. The creativity was different, the intentionality was different. I was a different person at this point in my life.

• 1:16:48Nick Bare?

  And something I kept thinking about was. I was talking to myself, Nick. For this next chapter, personally and professionally. You have to realize that your gut and your intuition deserves more credit than you may believe. When in doubt, and when challenged through a decision. First. Have a clearly defined vision, but trust your gut. And have the belief. That you can do the thing, because belief comes before ability.

• 1:17:28Nick Bare?

  And remove ego.

• 1:17:31Nick Bare?

  Ego is the enemy, as Ryan Holiday says, and within Ryan Holiday's book, Ego is the Enemy.

• 1:17:40Nick Bare?

  He says, "This is what ego does. It crosses out what matters and replaces it with what doesn't."

• 1:17:51Nick Bare?

  To make that move back to Texas,

• 1:17:57Nick Bare?

  there was no ego I could have. I had to remove all ego. I had to be vulnerable. I had to be honest. I had to be responsible.

• 1:18:07Nick Bare?

  Ego would have kept me in Tennessee.

• 1:18:11Nick Bare?

  Ego would have crossed out exactly what matters and replaced it with what doesn't.

• 1:18:20Nick Bare?

  Ego would have led me and guided me to making the wrong decisions.

• 1:18:27Nick Bare?

  When I got back, I told the team, "I made a mistake.

• 1:18:32Nick Bare?

  I made many mistakes. Now it's my responsibility to fix it." I realized that a lot of people were

• 1:18:40Nick Bare?

  hurt

• 1:18:43Nick Bare?

  with some of those decisions that I made over the previous year. And I am very apologetic for that, mainly internally in the business.

• 1:18:55Nick Bare?

  Because people had to feel the impact and the effects of an entrepreneur and a founder

• 1:19:03Nick Bare?

  trying to navigate different life transitions.

• 1:19:09Nick Bare?

  But that entire experience, that entire year and a half,

• 1:19:14Nick Bare?

  was the greatest learning lesson that I needed to experience in my 35 almost years of life so far.

• 1:19:26Nick Bare?

  I realize that you always place the mission and the people first.

• 1:19:31Nick Bare?

  Financial success will follow if you do that.

• 1:19:36Nick Bare?

  And sometimes, to be the greatest leader you can be, it requires you to take some time away and work on yourself. Learn, reflect, recognize, and then come back stronger.

• 1:19:54Nick Bare?

  In my book, I quote Erwin McManus.

• 1:20:00Nick Bare?

  And he talks about having a sharp axe.

• 1:20:06Nick Bare?

  And sometimes, you'll go through a lull of life. And it feels like you are falling behind. And you are misguided. And you are missing out. And you're not in the fight. But the reality is, you're just sharpening your axe.

• 1:20:25Nick Bare?

  The way I look at that year and a half,

• 1:20:29Nick Bare?

  which was

• 1:20:32Nick Bare?

  a front row seat in the arena

• 1:20:38Nick Bare?

  of learning how to build a business and how to lead a team and what is required of the strongest culture. I mean, this made me, this experience made me such a better entrepreneur and founder and leader and husband and father and all of the things.

• 1:20:55Nick Bare?

  But sometimes, to stay in the fight with a sharp axe, you have to take a tactical pause and step away. So you can

• 1:21:05Nick Bare?

  sharpen the blade. Sharpen your axe. So when you come back into battle, you're swinging with a refined and sharp edge as opposed to trying to grind with a dull edge over time.

• 1:21:23Nick Bare?

  Sometimes, time away is necessary. It's the right approach.

• 1:21:29Nick Bare?

  Chapter seven was a meaty one. Chapter seven, like I said, it started from stepping down from the CEO role in January 2023 and ending by moving back to Texas after nine months of living in Tennessee, May of 2024, getting the brand back on track, getting the culture back on track, building a healthy organization, subjectively and objectively, again, full of life lessons and learning experiences.

• 1:22:12Nick Bare?

  And as painful as they were and it was, it was, in my opinion, absolutely necessary to get us to where we are today.

• 1:22:25Nick Bare?

  So until the next episode, as always, go one more.