119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes

Bowhunter, endurance athlete, and Keep Hammering Collective host Cameron Hanes is back on the show — and this time, he’s preparing for one of the hardest races in the world: Cocodona 250. We dive into the mindset, obsession, and sacrifice it takes to show up day after day for something that pushes you past your limits. Cam talks about the release of his new book Undeniable, the cost of being an outlier, and why real growth starts where comfort ends. He shares lessons from a lifetime of running, training, and suffering — both planned and unexpected — and how that pain sharpens purpose. CHAPTERS: 00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome 02:02 Why This Year for the Race? 03:50 Discussing the New Book 04:49 Defining Outliers 17:12 Bodybuilding and Endurance Training 25:51 Upcoming Race and Competitors 34:38 Running Journey and Mindset 42:08 Mental Preparation for Marathons 46:54 The Value of Suffering 54:39 The Drive to Keep Pushing 01:09:09 The Importance of Hard Work 01:24:37 Intentionality and Focus ORDER CAM'S NEW BOOK HERE: https://www.amazon.com/Undeniable-How-Reach-Stay-There/dp/1250365945 PRE-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/ http://instagram.com/nickbarefitness/ YT: youtube.com/@nickbarefitness http://youtube.com/@nickbarefitness

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

• 0:06Nick Bare?

  All right. Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Today's guest is Cam Haynes. Welcome.

• 0:14Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 0:15Nick Bare?

  How are we doing?

• 0:16Speaker 01

  Great. Yeah. Pleasure to be here.

• 0:18Nick Bare?

  You're, uh, you're multiple days out from Coko Dona 250.

• 0:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 0:24Nick Bare?

  Uh, what's, what's the mindset like right now? We were previously talking about it, but what's your mind focused on right now being a few days out from a massive effort race?

• 0:36Speaker 01

  I, I don't know. It's like, I don't know if this is a blessing in disguise to have the book coming out at the same time. Cause the race starts on May 5th. My book comes out the 6th. So I'm doing this, stuff like this, podcasted Rogan yesterday, got you today, then Chris Williamson also today. And I don't know if that's, if it helps me or yeah, if I'd be obsessing if I was at home and didn't have this. So maybe this is better or it's distracting me from, and I should be focused. I don't know.

• 1:07Nick Bare?

  Is there extra pressure around the race, given the momentum and kind of amount of eyeballs on you, given the, the book launch?

• 1:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, yeah. You know, there's a lot of people who probably want to see me do bad. And so I gotta think about that because for whatever reason, it's a weird time in uh, the running world these days, you know, with the run influencers coming in and

• 1:35Nick Bare?

  It's a big thing.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, um, but there's people who will be rooting for me too. And all we want is, uh, I just want to have a, I just want to put forth a good effort out there. And, um, yeah, I hope my body holds up. And yeah, it's, there's, there's pressure for sure.

• 1:54Nick Bare?

  But you're just saying it's been multiple years since a 200 plus mile race.

• 1:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, many years. It's been like six or seven years.

• 2:02Nick Bare?

  Why this year? Why 2025?

• 2:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. Uh, I think it's cause.

• 2:09Speaker 01

  If anybody says anything to me about like, hey, what do you think about this? No matter what it is, I'm usually like, sounds good. And so I think Speedland said they want to have a couple of shoes come out, a running, road running shoe with me, a new trail running shoe. They said, would you want to do around Cogadona? We get you in the race and then we could have this shoe launch, you know, because there is some highway miles there, so we could have both shoes. And for me, I'm like, oh, yeah, it sounds good. It sounds like a good opportunity. And then the running, the 250 miles part, I didn't really think about, just the cool event and having fun and seeing everybody and being in the mountains for a few days.

• 2:49Speaker 01

  And then after I agreed, I thought, then I was reflecting like, wait a second. So this is going to require a lot of effort from me for many days. So I just agree to it and don't really think things through usually.

• 3:03Nick Bare?

  Who's your crew for Cogadona?

• 3:06Speaker 01

  Uh, Rihanna.

• 3:07Nick Bare?

  Just Rihanna?

• 3:09Speaker 01

  I don't know. I got some guys filming. My camera guys will be there. I think Taylor, my brother is coming down, I think on day two. Taylor, we were just talking about, did the Arizona Monster 300. And yeah, I mean, the Speedline guys will be there. I'll have plenty of people there to help out. I do have, oh, the guys who paced Taylor at Arizona Monster, one of those, Adam, he's going to come down. He said he'd help pace, so there'll be people around.

• 3:38Nick Bare?

  I heard you guys talking about him on the podcast.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. He's a stud, yeah. I don't know him. Taylor vouches for him and Taylor's super tough, so I'll go with that.

• 3:48Nick Bare?

  We'll see. So the new book, Undeniable, I recently just read through it. First off, I appreciate the feature in the book. There's a full page of me shirtless, standing on top of the mountain.

• 4:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're a stud.

• 4:01Nick Bare?

  I can't complain about that. But I love the different approach of bringing in the stories of all of these individuals you brought on your podcast. You've been doing the podcast two, two and a half years now?

• 4:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, something like that, yeah.

• 4:19Nick Bare?

  Two and a half years. And, you know, as I was thinking about like this conversation and where to take it in the book, because the book comes out, what's the date?

• 4:29Speaker 01

  May 6th.

• 4:30Nick Bare?

  May 6th.

• 4:33Nick Bare?

  Just thinking about like, you talk about it a lot in the book, these outliers, people being outliers, and I like to keep the conversation focused, at least in the beginning about that, because I'm curious from your perspective, you know, you have all these conversations with people, you're an outlier yourself, what separates someone considered an outlier from everyone else?

• 5:00Speaker 01

  Um, yeah, I mean, I think if I had to just sum it up, it would be obsession. It's like, because you'd say, well, are you an outlier? Do you want to be an outlier? Most people would be like, I don't even know what that means really, other than, well, you could be like, you're so weird, nobody wants to hang around you. So it's like, oh, that guy's an outlier. Why? Oh, he's kind of a freak.

• 5:23Nick Bare?

  Like an outcast.

• 5:24Speaker 01

  An outcast. I think of it as, when I think of it, it's always success related, it's achieving goals, it's you've risen to the top of whatever field you're in. So for these people, no matter what it is, you can talk about being a scientist, a runner, lifting weights, endurance athlete, it's so much passion has been involved in that journey that they've dedicated their life generally to one pursuit, and because of their success in that pursuit, they've made this name for themselves, and that's what I call an outlier. So every person in the book, every person who I've sat across the table with, I've

• 6:05Speaker 01

  learned, I've learned, I've tried to learn what makes them an outlier in their field. Why do people, if they think about this one endeavor, think that they have a name, right? If you think of ultra running, you think, Courtney DeWalter, have you ever heard of her? Everybody's heard of her, right? So it's like, she's the outlier in ultra running. If I think of science, Andrew Huberman, people, people think of that name. So it's like, why do people think of one person, they think about performance, Nick Baer comes up. It's like, that's what you do, that's the name of your business, Baer Performance Nutrition, right?

• 6:47Speaker 01

  It's like, you, you have risen to the top to where when people think of that, that field, your name's going to come up. That's who I want to learn from.

• 6:56Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 6:58Nick Bare?

  In the, in the book, um, in your book, you quote, you have a lot of really great quotes that shape the context of some of the, the chapters and lessons. Uh, one of my favorite books is outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. And you quote him from outliers, the story of success. And I truly do believe this. I really believe this. And I wish that most people believed this. If you work hard enough and assert yourself and use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires. Shape the world to your desires. And I think once people actually believe that, it just takes this glass ceiling completely away.

• 7:42Nick Bare?

  Was there a moment in your life when you realized you could shape the world to your desires?

• 7:47Speaker 01

  When you think about applying it to your own life, or whether that could be true in your own life, that, for me, that was really hard. Cause you feel like, you know, I know your, your origin story too, coming from PA and, um, just the, the growing pains of breaking loose of the community or culture that you're in. Um, so for me, when I think of that, I'm like, no, that's probably for other people that would make sense. Somebody who, you know, is more dialed in, somebody who's, um, just better. I never thought I've ever been talented or anything. So I, I would think that, oh, that would make sense for other people. I never thought that I could create this environment or this

• 8:28Speaker 01

  culture that, that would, that quote would ring true to. Um, but over time, you start to believe because you start to stack these wins. And then you're like, um, maybe, maybe I've been selling myself short a little bit. And then you just keep working and working and working. And then all of a sudden, after a couple of decades, you're like, I guess that is true. That is what I've done. Yeah. That's, it happens. But.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know. It's hard to believe it sometimes. It's hard to believe that that's possible, but once you do, man, that's there's some power there.

• 9:13Nick Bare?

  Do you ever wake up surprised at where you're at in your life right now? Compared to where you thought you'd be at this point in your life?

• 9:20Speaker 01

  Yes, like not even it's a whole different universe.

• 9:22Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 9:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I I thought I'd never make it out of the small town I was in. I would hope to get a good job, hope to get a truck that wouldn't break down and, you know, just a decent, a decent house if possible, or a trailer. That's so yet to to have what I have now or the life I have now. Yeah, I would never have believed it for sure.

• 9:46Nick Bare?

  Curious, like when you were younger and growing up in a small, smaller town, was there anyone that was in your circle or around you that was you would have considered highly successful? That you could have like been mentored by or inspired by? Not from like, you know, reading in magazines or articles or see on TV, but actually in your circle? Someone inspiring you?

• 10:14Speaker 01

  Uh, it was always, yeah, there's a couple athletes. It was always just sports related. So if in a small town, if you're good in sports, that's a big deal. I mean, there's nothing else to do. Everybody's at the high school game on Friday nights. So those, those are the, the athletes are the guys. It wasn't so much business related or economic at all. It was all performance related. So there's a guy, Mark Ludwig. Um, he's a really good athlete at Mohawk High, which is where I went and he, I think he got a tryout for the Cowboys. I think he played in the Canadian Football League. Really good. He was like huge personality.

• 10:57Speaker 01

  Was a, uh, I mean, a male stripper for a while back home after football, drove this baby blue Porsche, had like a fur coat. So we were like, God, that guy, he's made it. Ludwig is a stud, right? And, uh, he had some demons he had to deal with and, you know, didn't survive them. But, uh, that, that was, that was one guy. Another guy, Gordon Duncan, really good at basketball. Remember he could dunk it. Um, so those were the guys. It wasn't, it was never like.

• 11:29Speaker 01

  I still remember this one story. What was it? I think it was Taylor. Or maybe it's my other brother Pete. But anyway, they said, here's how little school or anything had to do with, but they said something like, oh, Cam got a four point. And telling some girl, and she's like, oh, where's he going to school? And they're like, no, four point box.

• 11:53Speaker 01

  So this, it was never about school or success or it was always about either hunting or sports. Yeah. So yeah, those are the people I looked up to.

• 12:02Nick Bare?

  That's funny because growing up in a smaller town in central Pennsylvania, it was the same thing where the perception of your success was based off of what you did in high school athletics.

• 12:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:13Nick Bare?

  You're talking about the the athlete who was a stripper. And we had a guy just like that too. Where he was like the only person we knew of that he didn't even make it to the the pros. He went to like AAA. But that was on the way to the pros.

• 12:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:29Nick Bare?

  And then AAA bowl didn't work out. So then he went and became a stripper. He was a good looking dude. But we had this guy on the pedestal. You know, we praised this guy because he was doing the thing. And and growing up, my brother Preston was a stud athlete. I mean, he was varsity football, varsity baseball. He got D1 offers to go for baseball and football.

• 12:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:54Nick Bare?

  He ended up going to play in baseball. But our hometown like praises, there was this restaurant that made a cheeseburger named after my brother. Based off of his performance.

• 13:05Speaker 01

  High school?

• 13:06Nick Bare?

  Newspaper clippings. Yeah, high school. And if you go to my parents basement now, like the the basement is this shrine to Preston where it's newspaper articles clipped out, framed on the walls. And there's one photo of me and it's my Army ROTC.

• 13:23Nick Bare?

  Like camo uniform, just like in the corner. But I wasn't a stud athlete in high school.

• 13:29Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:29Nick Bare?

  And for me, that was a massive hit to my confidence because in a small town where you are successful, if you are the athlete, I was not the athlete. So I just assumed that success was not in my my cards.

• 13:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:44Nick Bare?

  Were you a good athlete in high school?

• 13:47Speaker 01

  Um, I don't know. I mean, I played all the sports and yeah, so.

• 13:52Nick Bare?

  What'd you play?

• 13:53Speaker 01

  Football, basketball, baseball. Yeah. So I was probably best at football. I was, I only know this from, cause it's in my, uh, senior album or whatever, but, uh, was the leading scorer on the team. We were pretty good, but, uh, it just, I remember that says that in a caption. So anyway, wasn't like getting recruited or anything like that, but.

• 14:16Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 14:16Speaker 01

  Tried to play in college.

• 14:18Nick Bare?

  I played, uh, I played football in middle school and they identified in practice that I was a really good kicker.

• 14:24Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 14:25Nick Bare?

  So they made me the kicker, but I would get, um, you ever heard of the yips?

• 14:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:31Nick Bare?

  Yeah. Baseball, you get the yips where you get in your head. You can't throw the ball.

• 14:34Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 14:34Nick Bare?

  I got the yips in football too, where it'd be time to kick the ball.

• 14:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:38Nick Bare?

  And I, I just couldn't do it. Like I'd miss, it'd be like, so they put me in for like three games, tried me, pulled me out. And then I played baseball in high school, got the yips where I was in my head and I could just not, I cannot throw the ball. If it was from me to you.

• 14:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:54Nick Bare?

  I was throwing it like anywhere else. That stuff like, like, uh, it messes people's, uh, sports careers up forever.

• 15:02Speaker 01

  In archery, there's something similar. It's called, uh, target panic. So people, they pull back and you cannot put the pin on that where you want to hit. It like will lock low and no matter how hard you try to get that pin up to where you want, it won't.

• 15:19Nick Bare?

  Is it because your like arm is not connecting with your mind? It's the coordination?

• 15:24Speaker 01

  Uh, I think it's the anticipation because you know, once that pin gets on that X, you have to shoot. And so that is stressful. And then you're trying to, you're trying so hard that it almost makes it, it makes it worse.

• 15:39Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  Then you cannot get it up, get the pin up high enough on the target and that's called target. And then so what happens is people, they'll go get, go buy it quickly and then just hit the trigger.

• 15:51Nick Bare?

  Dang.

• 15:52Speaker 01

  So the same thing. It's, it, but it's just mental.

• 15:56Nick Bare?

  I was telling someone this story the other day, cause the first time I ever shot a bell was with you.

• 16:00Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:00Nick Bare?

  When I came out to, to be for the podcast. And I could not get like my left arm in the right position.

• 16:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:08Nick Bare?

  And it's where I was.

• 16:09Speaker 01

  A few times.

• 16:09Nick Bare?

  I was shooting through the the paper.

• 16:11Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 16:13Nick Bare?

  And something happened where I released the the arrow and something smacked my forearm.

• 16:22Speaker 01

  The string.

• 16:22Nick Bare?

  The string smacked my forearm. It hurts so freaking bad.

• 16:25Speaker 01

  I remember, yeah.

• 16:26Nick Bare?

  And.

• 16:27Speaker 01

  It's called a string kiss.

• 16:29Nick Bare?

  I looked down at my arm and the whole it was a whole thing was black and blue.

• 16:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 16:33Nick Bare?

  It was all swollen up. No one sees this. As soon as I went and drew back my next arrow, all of you guys recognized it. Damn it.

• 16:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, that and then and then that part where you hit is sticking out further.

• 16:46Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 16:46Speaker 01

  So now you made it like more likely to be hit again. And when people start hitting that same spot, that hurts.

• 16:53Nick Bare?

  I was trying to like overcompensate then by like blowing my arm out.

• 16:56Speaker 01

  That happens a lot too, because most people they have their forearm kind of twisted in is the key to shooting a bow is you want to get that. You want to get the grip on your thumb. So then you kind of rotate your hand and it's just that tiny little movement. That's the that's the difference.

• 17:10Nick Bare?

  It messed me up.

• 17:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:12Nick Bare?

  I mean, that day, I was, I remember you guys sent over the the schedule for that day. And I was three weeks off from my bodybuilding show.

• 17:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I remember.

• 17:22Nick Bare?

  So I was like.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  You were shredded, though.

• 17:23Nick Bare?

  I was shredded. That's why that photo you guys put in the book.

• 17:27Speaker 01

  So shredded.

• 17:28Nick Bare?

  I said that to my my advisor and mentor in the business, Chris Hickey. He's like, dude, that's like a great shot.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:37Nick Bare?

  So I I wish I would have timed it up perfectly. I almost did like three weeks post bodybuilding show.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:42Nick Bare?

  I was diced.

• 17:42Speaker 01

  You're full, full again.

• 17:44Nick Bare?

  Yep.

• 17:45Speaker 01

  Looking big, yeah.

• 17:46Nick Bare?

  But um, I like my my endurance wasn't really there, you know, I was still fatigued. And you guys sent over that schedule for the day. And there was a there was a jam packed day.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:57Nick Bare?

  We did a lot. And I remember looking at the, the schedule thinking, we'll probably run a few miles because we have to get to, to go get the bow, go, go to the range, lift, then podcast.

• 18:08Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 18:09Nick Bare?

  So I didn't fuel up too much for this run and we run up the mountain. It's probably like three, four miles. I was like, all right, what's next? And you pointed across the valley like we're going over there. I was like, how far is that?

• 18:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:22Nick Bare?

  Seventeen miles.

• 18:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:24Nick Bare?

  Shit, I should have fueled up. I am not in running like shape right now.

• 18:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:29Nick Bare?

  And remember we bombed down the mountain. I'm trying to hold on to you. And then we get to the road and it was a few weeks out from the Eugene marathon.

• 18:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:39Nick Bare?

  And we get to the bottom of the road and you're just cooking.

• 18:42Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 18:43Nick Bare?

  And I don't think you were wearing a watch. You know, what pace were we running?

• 18:47Speaker 01

  I never wore a watch.

• 18:49Nick Bare?

  I was like six.

• 18:49Speaker 01

  I mean, now, now I am, but.

• 18:51Nick Bare?

  That was like six twenties. And again, I'll probably do pretty good at Eugene. I was like, this dude's just crushing me right now.

• 18:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:59Nick Bare?

  It was a great day.

• 19:00Speaker 01

  Oh, it was fun. It was great.

• 19:01Nick Bare?

  Yeah. You weren't set up for running success. I mean, based on just being so depleted and yeah, it's a whole different training. Wow. What would you call that? Block?

• 19:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:12Nick Bare?

  I mean, for bodybuilding as opposed to running. I was just like, you know, it's my only bodybuilding show I've done in the last 10 years.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  And you won, right?

• 19:21Nick Bare?

  Uh, my, one of my classes, not the overall.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 19:25Nick Bare?

  But it's like, yeah, I'm gonna go do this bodybuilding show.

• 19:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:27Nick Bare?

  Being the worst endurance shape, uh, three weeks prior to going and running with you.

• 19:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 19:32Nick Bare?

  A genius idea.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  Oh, it was great. You did, you did awesome. You're always a beast.

• 19:38Nick Bare?

  So as, we're talking about outliers, uh, and specific to you and bow hunting and, you know, other conversations you've had with people considered outliers. Do you think you have to be a specialist to be considered an outlier? I guess the opposite of being a specialist would be a generalist.

• 19:59Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 19:59Nick Bare?

  Like, do you have to find your area of focus and go all in on that, deep and, and narrow as opposed to wide and shallow?

• 20:10Speaker 01

  Um, when you started to say that, I was answering.

• 20:15Speaker 01

  Already answer in my head, yeah, I think because you have to be, as I said earlier, you have to be obsessed. It's hard to be obsessed on multiple things. But then I started thinking of Truitt and he's been, he's been, I don't know if you'd say an outlier, but like in pull-ups and now he's trying running. So it's like, he's kind of dabbled in a couple of different things. Maybe that's unique in its own way, or an outlier-ish in its own way. But I think in general, to be the best in a certain endeavor, it's really hard to do multiple things. I could, I'm sure, you know, if I think like, Deion Sanders played baseball for the Yankees, then he played football, obviously. So.

• 21:00Nick Bare?

  There's exceptions to the rule.

• 21:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, but I think in general, yeah, I think you have, if you're gonna be a true outlier, you're, it's gonna be all in on probably one thing.

• 21:11Nick Bare?

  When you decided to go all in on bow hunting, you know, I'd say, uh, running and ultras was just to complement bow hunting. So it was all in on bow hunting.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 21:25Nick Bare?

  What were some of the things you, you turned off or said no to, or sacrificed in that pursuit?

• 21:30Speaker 01

  Everything. I mean, it's, uh, yeah. And that's not, that's not good either. I mean, a lot of relationships were lost, a lot of, yeah, I mean, I wasn't probably a great employee. I wasn't probably a great friend, definitely not a good, at that time, I think, um, you know, boyfriend and things like that. So it's like, went through a lot of people and opportunities and situations, because all I cared about was bow hunting. And, so that's not great, but, but yeah. Um, gave up, eventually gave up, you know, drinking, um, doing anything

• 22:12Speaker 01

  that would take, that would affect my ability to be the best bow hunter I could be. And then everything else, sort of like, you mentioned the running, that was just to elevate my bow hunting game. So it was. In general, bow hunting has been the only thing I've ever really been good at. Like if somebody said, somebody's good at something, they'd say that, oh, I'm pretty good at bow hunting. So that's been the only thing anybody's probably ever said that when they're speaking of me in that regard, it's been bow hunting as far as being positive. So I really had no choice. Either I was gonna muddle around and be an average bow hunter, or because that was my talent or skill, I could be pretty good if I, if I put all the chips in. So that's what I did.

• 22:56Nick Bare?

  Is there anything else at this point in your life that you want to be a specialist in? Or is it still that bow hunting is the only thing that matters?

• 23:04Speaker 01

  Uh, I mean, I, I mean, I like running and stuff like that, but it's still.

• 23:13Nick Bare?

  A means to an end?

• 23:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's still always, it's not, you know, like pushing myself. So running, even though I'm not, you know, competitive like with elites, um, there's, running is cool because there's, everybody has their own measurables, right? You can always get your best 10K or marathon or 100 mile or so. You always have these little wins you can stack up, but still it's not really why I get up every morning. What, what I think about and what I do is shoot arrows, think about hunts, think about just being immersed in the mountains. And it's not so much, you know, killing the animals when I'm there, but it's just, I just like being in the mountains and being.

• 23:56Speaker 01

  Um, I don't know. I, I just like that there's no distractions out there. It's just me. I like that. So that's what I think about mostly.

• 24:07Nick Bare?

  When's the next hunt?

• 24:09Speaker 01

  End of May for bear in Alberta. Yeah.

• 24:12Nick Bare?

  When's the last time you got a bear?

• 24:14Speaker 01

  A bear? Um, I usually kill at least one every year. Yeah. So last year I killed.

• 24:23Speaker 01

  I think three or four. So yeah, I do a lot of bear hunting from, you know, grizzly to brown bear, usually mostly black bear, but I'll hunt. I like hunting bear.

• 24:34Nick Bare?

  How do you pack a bear out?

• 24:37Speaker 01

  Uh.

• 24:38Nick Bare?

  Like, how's that different than packing an elk out?

• 24:40Speaker 01

  Um, bear, yeah, I mean, bear are, can be tough. I mean, not than an elk, but like a deer, you can grab antlers and drag. Bear doesn't really have anything to grab, so they're hard to drag. So that's where I've packed a lot of bear on my shoulders. If they're, but I've killed bear that are 400 pounds, it's tough to pack a 400 pound bear on your shoulders. Um, if it's a smaller bear, I can just gut it out, um, get the intervals out, basically, which lightens it by about 30%. And then I can pack that if it's not a giant bear. Uh, if it's a giant bear, then you gotta skin it and kinda quarter it like you do an elk. Um, you know, deer, you can generally pack a deer out. Sometimes, like on a mule deer,

• 25:24Speaker 01

  you'll have to cut them up, so you'll cut the quarters off, uh, clean them out, get the skin off, get the backstraps, which is like the, it'd be loose meat. Once you're done, you know, the quarters, shoulders come off first, but then you still have like neck meat, the backstraps, there's some tenderloins inside, so there'll be some loose meat and you need meat bags for that. It's generally like multiple trips is how you get them out.

• 25:47Nick Bare?

  Hmm.

• 25:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, cut them up.

• 25:49Nick Bare?

  I want to talk about Truitt for a second.

• 25:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:51Nick Bare?

  Uh, so Truitt's coming and doing our race.

• 25:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know.

• 25:55Nick Bare?

  End of May.

• 25:56Speaker 01

  I told him, I, you know, he needs a win. I go, you need, you need a win. I said, you got everything you need. You've done some good stuff. You got some good times. Of course, you got the pull-up world record. I said, I need to see you come across. Do you have a tape? Is there a tape for this race or is it?

• 26:14Nick Bare?

  No, just because it's, uh, last man standing.

• 26:16Speaker 01

  So I guess you, I guess you could get one for the last person doing the last lap.

• 26:20Nick Bare?

  We could, yeah.

• 26:21Speaker 01

  But I told, but, so what, I didn't know, but I said, you need to be. You need to get a win.

• 26:27Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 26:28Speaker 01

  So that's the goal.

• 26:29Nick Bare?

  I know that's what he's coming to do. And there's some competition there. Chad Wright's coming.

• 26:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:35Nick Bare?

  To run.

• 26:36Speaker 01

  That's good.

• 26:37Nick Bare?

  There's another guy that, uh, I think he just, uh, he just did a last man standing race and did like 300 miles.

• 26:44Speaker 01

  Ooh.

• 26:46Nick Bare?

  So there's some competition.

• 26:47Speaker 01

  Okay, that's different.

• 26:48Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 26:48Speaker 01

  Who's that?

• 26:49Nick Bare?

  Uh, just some random guy who, who got into the lottery.

• 26:53Speaker 01

  That's, see, that's what's tough is you never know. There's some freaks out there you've never heard of.

• 26:58Nick Bare?

  Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

• 27:00Speaker 01

  When one of them shows up, it's on.

• 27:03Nick Bare?

  Yeah, I remember when I did my last man standing race, you can tell typically when you get started in a race like this guy's here to, to crush and

• 27:11Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 27:12Nick Bare?

  This guy's like, he's just figuring it out. And I saw this guy, he's massive sideburns. He ended up winning, but I spotted him early on and people were kind of whispering like this guy did Moab last year. And I was passing him early on in a loop and I just said, hey, how, how far are you going?

• 27:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:31Nick Bare?

  This race. He goes, the whole way, brother.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  That's not a good sign.

• 27:36Nick Bare?

  I was like, yeah, this guy's here to win it.

• 27:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:39Nick Bare?

  And he did, but it's gonna be, it's gonna be an epic race. I spent a lot of time building out this, this ranch the last couple of months.

• 27:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:46Nick Bare?

  And the trail is really nice. I mean, we're, we're dragging it right now. We're grooming it.

• 27:50Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 27:51Nick Bare?

  4.2 mile loop every hour in the hour.

• 27:53Speaker 01

  Hmm. Yeah. That's up.

• 27:56Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 27:57Speaker 01

  What's it, so do you think it'll be pretty pa- uh, compact, like the ground or it'll be, what's the ground gonna be like?

• 28:03Nick Bare?

  It'll be pretty compact.

• 28:04Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 28:05Nick Bare?

  We, we're pulling out like all, uh, loose big rocks. We don't want anyone turning an ankle or anything.

• 28:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:11Nick Bare?

  And it's like a small loop and then it goes into a big loop.

• 28:14Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 28:15Nick Bare?

  And there's some like varying level of terrain.

• 28:18Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 28:19Nick Bare?

  But it's, it's pretty flat overall. But I mean, we're starting at 12 PM.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 28:25Nick Bare?

  May 24th. Uh, so it's gonna get hot that day. So you have the whole day and then you go into the night. And there's hogs all over the property. There's deer all over the property. So I'm excited to see.

• 28:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:41Nick Bare?

  How far it goes.

• 28:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a, yeah, I've only done one. And that was, it was a little different, had a five mile loop, which you wouldn't think that that would make a difference. Frickin makes a difference.

• 28:53Nick Bare?

  I believe it.

• 28:54Speaker 01

  You're having to go another mile in an hour, which normally it's so slow when you're starting, you know, you can get bustos out, but starts adding up. And you're like, these miles are not getting ticked off quick.

• 29:07Nick Bare?

  No.

• 29:07Speaker 01

  You still gotta, you still gotta fuel up in between. So yeah, it's gonna be fun.

• 29:12Nick Bare?

  How far did you go on that race you did?

• 29:14Speaker 01

  That one, like, I just did 11 laps. It was like 55 miles. The winner got 70. So it was, we had a pretty good climb in that, like, was it, I don't know, it wasn't 900 feet, maybe 300 feet, but even that started adding up.

• 29:30Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 29:30Speaker 01

  So yeah, and it was on, on road, which you'd think is, is better, but can kind of beat you up a little bit more. But yeah, nobody went very far that day.

• 29:42Nick Bare?

  Well, I've never seen anyone progress as fast as they are in the marathon, as true it is right now.

• 29:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:49Nick Bare?

  It's like PR after PR with like days in between races.

• 29:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, he did Boston on Monday and that was 238 and Eugene on Sunday. So six days later, 234. Yeah.

• 30:04Nick Bare?

  And he's going for sub 230, right? That's his goal?

• 30:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it's, that's the first goal. It's, it's gonna get more lofty after that, but yeah.

• 30:12Nick Bare?

  Well, does he have a, does he have a, like a vision going in mind of post 230?

• 30:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:19Nick Bare?

  Has he announced it?

• 30:20Speaker 01

  No.

• 30:22Speaker 01

  No. It's a.

• 30:24Nick Bare?

  Olympic time trials?

• 30:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean,

• 30:28Speaker 01

  that's way down there, but. I mean, the 230 is like, I told him, I said, you know, we're talking about super shoes and oh, these are six ounces, these are five ounces. I'm like, how about lose 10 pounds?

• 30:42Nick Bare?

  What's he wearing?

• 30:43Speaker 01

  It's like, we're worried about ounces on these shoes. Could you just lose 10 pounds? He's like 170 some.

• 30:50Nick Bare?

  He looks thicker.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  He looks bigger. He looks bigger, but he's still, I mean, if you're talking Olympic trials, qualifying, you got like 140, right? I mean, we can't, 30 pounds. And so that's not, we're not talking about that. But so just to get sub 230, if he just lost a few pounds and wore shorts,

• 31:14Speaker 01

  he'd be in the twenties right there.

• 31:15Nick Bare?

  Yeah. Is it like a rule of his that he can't wear shorts?

• 31:19Speaker 01

  No, no, I was just messing around.

• 31:21Nick Bare?

  Except I feel like his time would significantly drop just wearing, not wearing jeans.

• 31:24Speaker 01

  So you'd think so. It's a, um, I don't know. I think it's, he,

• 31:32Speaker 01

  he thinks it gives him a little mental edge. He likes blowing past people wearing jeans and having them go, what the fuck is going on here?

• 31:41Nick Bare?

  It happens.

• 31:42Speaker 01

  He likes that.

• 31:43Nick Bare?

  People have been sending me, uh, like articles and photos of him that don't know that he's coming to our race or that I even know who he is.

• 31:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:52Nick Bare?

  Like, check out this guy wearing jeans in this marathon. I'm like, oh yeah, he's coming to our ultra. My dad called me, uh, a few days ago. He said, do you hear about this guy who's running these marathons in jeans?

• 32:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:02Nick Bare?

  Said, yeah, he's coming to our ultra in May. No way.

• 32:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, he'll be there. Yeah, it's a, I don't really even know why or how that started, but now he has a sponsor, the Perfect Gene, I think is his sponsor. So he's, um, he said, he says it, it's not that, not that bad. I don't know.

• 32:24Nick Bare?

  It sounds horrible.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  It sounds horrible to me. I mean, just think of the weight. If we're talking, again, we're talking ounces for shoes. Pants are heavier than shorts, as far as I know.

• 32:33Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 32:34Speaker 01

  Right? So, and then plus a restriction on the stride. Um, the thing about it is he's all the way from when he was a little kid, I told him, running is your thing. He's like, Dad, I hate running. I'm like,

• 32:50Speaker 01

  you might hate it. I'm just telling you, that's your talent. That's your thing. If you wanna, you can do whatever you want. Every kid wants to play basketball, right? Play football. It's all cool. But I told him, I said, your gift is running. No, I hate running. So, all right, well, I made him run, made the boys run all the time. That was like discipline. It's like, this is what, this is how you guys are gonna learn discipline. We have to do shit we don't like to do sometimes. So, we would go run the mountain. I made him do track and cross country. And he was like, he was good. He's like, you know, all conferences, a freshman, but didn't care, was tiny. Never, never gave. I would see those guys running during practice, and he'd just be mid-pack.

• 33:34Speaker 01

  Just not working hard. And I'd just be so irritated almost all the time. And I just didn't feel like he's giving his all. So, I told him, I said, hey, listen, you could, you can run in college. I said, you, you can be as good as you want to be in this. He's like, I'm not gonna run four more years in college. I'm done after high school. And I'm like, okay, well. So, now, he finally is coming back, and it's like, he has a gift. He just didn't wanna... Running is hard.

• 34:05Nick Bare?

  Yeah, it is.

• 34:06Speaker 01

  Unless you want to do it, it's gonna suck. So, now, he's finally like, he's finally seen. And then now, it feels good, because now, he's getting, you know, positive reinforced. He's getting negative reinforcement, too, because the elites, and the elites don't like the run influencers, or, and regular people don't like people showing up and running fast times in jeans. So, then it's PED. So, it's like, he gets plenty of backlash, but he's getting a lot of positive also, just like your dad sending articles.

• 34:38Nick Bare?

  Yeah. I mean, when I was younger in high school, my mom knew that I was gonna go join the army after college. So she was always pushing me to run. And when I got to college, I was in ROTC. So like, the ROTC program was pushing us and forcing us to run. And then when I was in the military, it was forcing us to run. I hated running because people were making me run.

• 35:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:03Nick Bare?

  And then when I got out of the army and it was a choice finally, that's the only time I was able to finally start loving or enjoying running because it was my choice. It wasn't someone forcing me to do it.

• 35:17Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:18Nick Bare?

  And that was the biggest difference was like, if I'm doing it on my terms.

• 35:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:23Nick Bare?

  Now, now I will commit to improvement and putting in the effort.

• 35:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's the first step. But then, you know, as well as anybody, to get these times, you have to push. You can't just show up, say, okay, I'm choosing to run. I'm gonna go run five miles and run nine minute miles. That's great. That's not gonna get you a fast marathon. So embracing that, okay, I'm a runner. Now I need to push it on some of these. So that's where, that's where Truitt's really good now is he, he pushes really hard without anybody telling him. And that's, that's been developed over time too. But yeah, it's like, first there's that step of, okay, I don't hate this anymore. But to, to be the best at it or to be, to have success,

• 36:13Speaker 01

  then it's just like, how hard are you willing to push in training?

• 36:15Nick Bare?

  Right.

• 36:16Speaker 01

  That's what people still don't like because that hurts.

• 36:18Nick Bare?

  I'd be so curious what his training program looks like because it's almost like he's holding back each race to peer or the next, even though I'm sure he's not.

• 36:28Speaker 01

  He's pushing with always got every race. And he doesn't know what that ceiling is. That's what's kind of exciting. And to be honest, it's Eugene. Because he had just done Boston six days prior, um, we were thinking, okay, you're not gonna run good. Your leg, he'd also done, I think, 60 miles in training. Because he's getting ready for your race and the key is dead leg. You know, you got to run on dead legs to do have success in last man standing. So we're just like, okay, obviously you're not going to be fresh. Just get out there. I told him, I said, his goal is to beat my time, my best time at Eugene, which is like 352 or 252.

• 37:12Speaker 01

  And so he's like, that was just to take down the Hanes PR, whatever, basically. So we thought he'd get about 250. It'd be reasonable on dead legs. And then he also, you want to be in Corral A. He was Corral E. And I'm like, did you put your time in for this fucking race? Why are you in Corral E? There's 9,000 people here you got to get through. So he had, by the time I saw him, because I didn't run because I've been hurt. But I went and the marathon goes out, loops back, it starts coming. So I went to where I was going to see him coming back so I could see what plate, where he was in the field. And I'm like seeing, I'm like, okay, well, I'll try to count these guys.

• 37:56Speaker 01

  So I was like a mile, maybe mile seven by that time. And my first group elite guys, I'm like, okay, there's about five or six. Then it's like, okay, there's 10 more guys. Okay, it's like maybe 20 more guys. And then pretty soon I'm like, there's hundreds of people. I still haven't seen them, right? I see him finally, I bet a thousand people had passed me. And he's running and I'm going like this and, and I just said, I go, you got some work to do, dude. So he's like in a thousandth place at, at mile seven and he finished 25th.

• 38:29Nick Bare?

  Oh dang.

• 38:30Speaker 01

  So he re, so point is he had to reel in everybody. But again, just like the genes with the mental thing, he said passing all those people helped him. So point, I guess the whole point to that was we thought his legs were going to be dead based on this training and the race prior.

• 38:46Nick Bare?

  Right.

• 38:46Speaker 01

  And he actually, it was a cool day in Eugene, the environment, whatever it was. Some days you just have, sometimes you just have those days where it's clicking. And I was kind of trying to track him. I saw he was under sixes through mile 10. I'm like, It's good to get through all those people that fast and still have that pace because you know how it is joking around people. And um, yeah, so I saw I I went and did Spencer's like what we did and then I tried to hustle back. I was looking where he was. I got to get him to the finish line before he gets there or get back to the finish line before he gets there at Hayward. And uh, he comes through and I'm like, I go, what'd you get? He's like, 234. I said, what?

• 39:29Speaker 01

  Because I never saw the time. I said, what? 234? He's like, I think so. And uh, we were just blown away.

• 39:37Nick Bare?

  That's impressive.

• 39:38Speaker 01

  So I don't know what he's ca- but no, point, that whole all started with, no, he's not sandbagging. Point is though, I I think here's the key. So he had every reason not to run hard in Eugene. It was just extra miles. It was just training on dead legs. There's no reason to push under six minute miles. He already set a PR on Monday in Boston. But his mindset is I push as hard as I can every race. And you see what happens.

• 40:14Nick Bare?

  I love that approach.

• 40:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's not mailing, point, he's not mailing anything in. They're not just showing up just to, it's like always hard. So.

• 40:25Nick Bare?

  I mean, that's like, that's why when I, I think I take a different approach to competitions and races and some other people do where if I'm going to sign up and commit into a race, I'm doing a full prep. Because I'm not going to spend all this time training for something and the the race itself and traveling to in this big effort to go just walk across the finish line.

• 40:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:49Nick Bare?

  If I'm going to race, I'm going to set a PR. And that's the way I approach all these different aspects and accomplishments in my life. Where I say no to a lot of things because the things I say yes to.

• 41:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:01Nick Bare?

  I'm going to try and be great and go all in.

• 41:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:04Nick Bare?

  And that's where a lot of people miss is they say yes to all these things. They just dabble, they toil and they tinker. And none of it actually moves the needle in any part of their life. And that's what makes people who are outliers so unique is they're specialists. When, when they say yes to something, you know they're saying yes to go absolutely crush it.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:22Nick Bare?

  Not just participate.

• 41:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I, I don't want, I don't want it to sound like people can't go have fun and just have fun with their friends at a marathon. Cause that's fine too. It's just different, right? It's just a different mindset.

• 41:35Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 41:35Speaker 01

  So it's a, cause I, I do love seeing like all these girls wear all their bright stuff. They're looking like they're having the best time of their life. That's not how I go into a marathon. I go into a marathon usually ready to suffer. But if, if they are having fun and it's like a positive impact on their life, or Jeremy had fun at Boston, that's awesome. I'm not, I don't want to judge anybody. I'm just saying that truth is different. That's only, that's all I'm saying.

• 42:01Nick Bare?

  Yeah, to each their own.

• 42:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, and it's great. You're actually, you're doing something positive. It's healthy. It's amazing.

• 42:08Nick Bare?

  That's one of the reasons I love the marathon so much is because of the like mental headspace it puts me in. Yeah, I remember standing in the crowd at C I M, California International Marathon. And for me, when I, when I toe the line of a marathon, I feel like I'm going to war.

• 42:26Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 42:26Nick Bare?

  I am television focused. I don't hear anyone. I don't see anyone. I don't say anything to anyone. And I remember being on the bus, cause for C I M, it's an, it's a point to point.

• 42:36Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 42:36Nick Bare?

  So they bus you out to the start point and then you run straight to the finish line downtown Sacramento. And we're on this bus going to the start, start line. And I'm just, I'm zoned in. I'm ready to just fuck people up at that point. And there's these people, there's these two guys behind me, I'll never forget this. These two guys behind me already talking about why they're not going to run the race they wanted to that day. Because work got crazy. They didn't get the sleep they wanted three nights ago and all these things. And it started pissing me off.

• 43:12Nick Bare?

  And I'm like, you could completely change your mindset and approach from, from this point moving forward, these next 20 minutes.

• 43:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:20Nick Bare?

  But you already have the wrong headspace going into this race. You're not going to perform.

• 43:23Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 43:24Nick Bare?

  So for me, so much of my performance is based off the, the headspace I had to put myself in. I had to create the conditions and the environment to go execute.

• 43:33Speaker 01

  Yeah. And a marathon is, is one too, like the time you're trying to get. So I think you got 239 there, right?

• 43:39Nick Bare?

  239.

• 43:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. So you can't warm up. I mean, you can't like get in a groove after the race starts because you, what was your pace?

• 43:49Nick Bare?

  Like 603.

• 43:51Speaker 01

  Right. So you got to run a six minute mile to start this fucker. You, you can't give yourself a half hour to get warmed up and kind of get in the groove to run a fast marathon time. And every, it's fat, everybody's relative on their time. But if it's your best time, you got to push.

• 44:10Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 44:11Speaker 01

  So a six minute mile is pushing from the gun. That means you got to be in the right headspace before the gun.

• 44:18Nick Bare?

  Yeah. Cause every mile where you run second slower, you have to make it up for.

• 44:24Speaker 01

  Faster than next.

• 44:24Nick Bare?

  An additional.

• 44:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah. So you do a couple of six twenties to start. You got, you know, 40 seconds to make up somewhere.

• 44:32Nick Bare?

  Remember when I first started running marathons, the concept of like negative splitting was presented to me. It makes sense to me now because you know, with more experience. But I remember in the beginning, someone was like, yeah, run your first half like a little slower than run the second half faster. It's like, what are you, in what world?

• 44:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:51Nick Bare?

  Do you expect me to run the second half of this marathon faster than the first?

• 44:55Speaker 01

  On dead legs. Yeah.

• 44:57Nick Bare?

  Dead legs. Yeah. I want to take a little break in this episode to talk to you about one of my favorite VPN products, and that is the Go Gel. So if you're an endurance athlete or you want to become an endurance athlete. Endurance gels are probably not unfamiliar to you. And endurance gels are used during big efforts, training sessions, races and competitions to replenish fuel sources so you don't bonk and you can maintain a high level of performance and output throughout the entire duration of that event. An issue with a lot of endurance gels in the market is that they are produced with

• 45:41Nick Bare?

  a cheap, low-quality carbohydrate source, typically maltodextrin. And maltodextrin can and probably will create GI distress, gas, bloating and stomach discomfort. And our goal, our solution with the GO Gel has been to create an endurance gel with carbohydrate sources that are easily digestible, in this case, coming from fruit purees and fruit juice concentrates that are easy on the stomach and can replenish fuel sources so you can keep training at a high level of performance.

• 46:22Nick Bare?

  That is why we created the GO Gel, to be a solution and to fuel your performance during training, races and competitions. So if you are an endurance athlete and you need a fuel source, you need an endurance gel, the GO Gel is and should be your go-to. Now, with that being said, back to the episode. So another quote in your book, which I want to share because there's a question around it, from Oscar Wilde, "The only people I would care to be with now are artists and people who have suffered, those who know what beauty is and those who know what sorrow is. Nobody else interests me."

• 47:06Nick Bare?

  I just want to hear your thoughts and perspectives on the dangers of surrounding yourself with people who are unfamiliar with suffering.

• 47:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, it's just you live too comfortable of a life and I don't see I don't see you achieving anything great. I think like you have to know suffering. And you know, the artist's part is is a little bit different, too. But I just think artists look at things differently than a regular person. So you see, maybe you see detail or others, just, you know, maybe you look at what you just see a wall where an artist would see the detail to it. Suffering also exposes back, pulls back the curtain on a on a different type of existence. I think that if this comfortable life, avoiding

• 47:54Speaker 01

  pain or discomfort at all costs, I think is, I don't know, it's, it's not going to lead to a very fulfilling life, in my opinion. So why would I spend time around people like that? I want to know, I want people who have suffered, they can add something to my life. There's either the discussion, or their presence, or just, there's just more layers to somebody who's been through more, or sees things like an artist might see things. So that's what I think of there. And if you're not around people like that, too, I mean, you don't know what you don't know, but I think you're missing a lot. So that's why I like these endurance events and doing like what we do, being

• 48:39Speaker 01

  so focused on training and so focused on leaning into pain, suffering, discomfort, whether it's manufactured, or it just happens in life. I just think it definitely changes you. And I just, yeah, I don't know, suffering has made me who I am. So that's why I'm pretty protective over of the power of it, I think.

• 49:03Nick Bare?

  Do you think there's a difference between suffering that you choose to pursue, and suffering that chooses you?

• 49:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm sure Chris Williamson has some quote on this that ties it all together. But yeah, I mean, it's, I think what he said on my podcast, I had him carry the rock up the hill, and you know, that's a lot of suffering there. But there's two

• 49:27Speaker 01

  In life, you're gonna have chosen suffering and unchosen suffering and, and one can prepare for the other. And so, yeah, it's definitely different because a lot of times people, when life just happens and you're like, why me? That's usually what hap- people, the attitude people have is why is this happening to me?

• 49:45Nick Bare?

  Like the victim mentality?

• 49:46Speaker 01

  The victim mentality. But if you're, if you're accustomed to like, yeah, this sucks, this is gonna hurt, but I've been through a lot, lot of things like this. We're gonna just get through, through this suffering, just like the other one, whether it was, I created it myself, or it just happened, suffering is suffering, we're getting through it. So I think it does make you stronger regardless of how it came about.

• 50:09Nick Bare?

  And all these people in your circle and outliers you have on the podcast, is there someone that really stands out who's had the greatest impact on you? That is familiar with suffering, or who's accomplished greatness, that has transformed your thoughts, ideas, perspectives?

• 50:28Speaker 01

  Um, I mean, everybody, I, I'm fascinated by every person for a different reason, but

• 50:39Speaker 01

  it's always the endurance athletes. I mean, it's a Sally, Taylor, of course Courtney, Max, Cat Bradley, um, I don't know, it's,

• 50:55Speaker 01

  you just have to go through so much and just, it, it just makes,

• 51:01Speaker 01

  I don't know, it just makes a, a deeper, more impactful human, I think, when you subject yourselves willingly to challenges like that. That's a,

• 51:15Speaker 01

  not many people want to do that.

• 51:17Nick Bare?

  Right.

• 51:17Speaker 01

  But if they do, and they can, you know, I don't know, just kind of live through it, face the fire and live through it. Those are the type of people that impact me. And you know, out of all of them, Taylor, just, you know, he's my younger brother. So we've been through a lot. I was older, so I wasn't, I was like super hard on him always, um, growing up. But, but aside from Taylor, probably Courtney, just because her, I don't know, she, I, I can't figure her out.

• 51:47Nick Bare?

  Can you tell when she's suffering or not?

• 51:49Speaker 01

  No, I can't. Well, yeah, I've seen, I've seen her struggling, really struggling, like on the Colorado Trail. She's trying to get the fastest known time there. But normally, no, like she came out, we did three, three days, we did a hundred miles. I think we did, uh, you know, something like 20 summits in three days. Never saw her one time tired, anything other than smiling. I'm miserable pretty much the whole time. Maybe, maybe not the first half of the first day, but, uh, yeah, she's, I, I just don't know. Cause like, if you look at, you know, maybe time, like, I don't know what her fastest time would be on a marathon, but whatever. Probably, probably fast now, but

• 52:35Speaker 01

  speed wise, maybe we're about the same, right? Just say that. What, how can she just keep doing these nine minute miles in the mountains forever? How? If it's physical, I mean, I got more muscle, I can, we can run short distance the same. How? I, I don't know how she can just keep doing that. So that's, she fascinates me on just getting in that. You know, she talks like, like a robot, she wants to be a robot, wants to step at a time. She talks about her pain cave. We talked about that in great detail recently on, on my podcast. Where she's not thinking about running, she's thinking about just hitting this chisel with a hammer.

• 53:15Nick Bare?

  Be curious if I could just put myself in her.

• 53:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know.

• 53:20Nick Bare?

  During that experience?

• 53:21Speaker 01

  That was one, one question, one of my guys had, they, like my camera guys, they come up with questions at the end. It's like, one of the questions for her was, if you could change brains with anybody at the end of an ultra, who would it be? And then I always like, like, nobody would want my brain. Cause if you had my brain, you'd be like, what the fuck is wrong with this guy? But I would like to have her brain, cause I just don't get it. She, I just don't understand how she can just.

• 53:50Speaker 01

  She's hurting, everybody hurts, but just keep pushing. And it's like, if you think of Moab, you know, which you know, Moab, but Race Max won. She won it. That was the first race. First time I met her was 2017. Well, she was out one by 10 hours. Nobody even knew who she was, or some people did. I didn't know who she was, but won by 10 hours over the field. And if you got a big lead in an ultra and it's day three, or whatever day that was, and you're up by, say, say, three hours, you're not going to be pushing hard. You won by, you're gonna win by hours.

• 54:32Nick Bare?

  Right.

• 54:32Speaker 01

  She was still pushing. Nobody's pushing her. She's gonna win anyway. Why, why wouldn't she be okay with winning by four hours? Why'd she have to push and win by 10? That's what I, that's what I want to know. Cause, cause it's easy to push if somebody's right here. You're like sprinting, sprint. I had this 8K I just did earlier this year, and me and this guy just sprinting, sprint. That is easy. When nobody's there, and the goal was to win, and you're gonna win, why are you still pushing? That's a special person.

• 55:10Nick Bare?

  How does she respond to that?

• 55:12Speaker 01

  I don't know. She, she says, well, she'll always say like, she doesn't care about competition. She doesn't care about whatever. She's just trying to, she wants to learn more about herself, push herself. She wants to do the best she can do. It's never about anybody else, which she's probably so pure, that's probably true. That would never be true with me. It'd be like, I want to beat everybody and I want, I want them to know I'm beating them. So I'm not, maybe not as pure as her, obviously. Um, but I think for her, it's generally, genuinely just wants to do her very best. Wants to know what her best, what is the limit of her potential? I think that's just a hundred percent. She's a hundred percent honest with that.

• 55:55Speaker 01

  And it's beautiful to hear because I don't get it. Cause it's not me at all, but I love, I, I'm just fascinated by that mindset.

• 56:04Nick Bare?

  Does Courtney have any haters online? I can't imagine that there can be anyone that dislikes Courtney.

• 56:15Speaker 01

  I mean, I haven't, I don't know. I don't know that I've seen any hate. I've never seen anything. I don't know why you, yeah, I mean, and that's weird because social media, people hate on Jesus. Exactly. How can Courtney somehow bypass? I think she's just so, I don't know. I don't know. She's impossible to hate. Remember when she was on my podcast, I was trying to ask her questions about like, Never. Her races and performance and she kept deflecting. Deflecting and pushing it, asking me questions. Yeah, I know. It's like, hey, we're not doing this here. Yeah. This is about you. Yeah. It's not about me. Well, I can't remember if I said on the last one, but I went, she was trying to break that Colorado Trail record.

• 57:01Speaker 01

  She was in it for four days and I mean, she got sick and ended up having to go to ER. But day four, I had just got there and she's like, I don't think she'd, I don't know if she'd slept, whatever. But she's like, how are you doing? Are you doing okay? I'm like, don't, don't be fucking asking me how I'm doing. Right. I had just got here. You've been running for four days, but she's like asking about me. Did she look fresh? No, no, she didn't. Not at that point? No, but that was, you know, that was, I think she, yeah, I don't know, it was kind of bronchitis thing. Maybe from the dust on the trail or the heat or I'm not, or maybe she's just sick.

• 57:43Speaker 01

  But yeah, she, that was a hard, hard one for her. That was, that was tough. Yeah, I remember her ending up in the hospital. Yeah. Oh, I felt, I felt, I hated seeing her struggle, but no, I mean, that was one of the few times I haven't seen her look fresh at that time. And then, I don't know if you saw the, if you watched UTMB, it was her last race of the three that she won in the summer. Western, Hard Rock, then UTMB. The end of UTMB looked really hard. She was, she said the first 60 were okay. She said the last 40 just fumes. But this is against the best in the world and, and people, the best ultra mountain runners in the world closing in.

• 58:23Speaker 01

  She still held them off, but she looked really tired. But yeah, so there's a couple of times I've seen her look, you know, gassed. There's another level of pressure in a race like that. Oh, best, you know, best of the best. So a coconut coming up.

• 58:41Speaker 01

  You know, I'm sure there's like this feeling of.

• 58:45Nick Bare?

  You know what kind of suffering you're about to endure.

• 58:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:48Nick Bare?

  You're not unfamiliar with that level of suffering.

• 58:52Nick Bare?

  But is there also like a level of excitement knowing that the suffering produces an unlock to something new? Or is there no excitement there at all?

• 59:01Speaker 01

  I haven't felt the excitement yet. Hopefully that comes later. Yeah, I'm it's a I'm kind of nervous. I mean, I was in really good shape. Got been dealing with like a foot foot injury for a year. That's kind of led to other injuries up the leg. But, you know, me and Trill are running like a few months ago. And he's like, you should be the one getting two 30s. He's like, he couldn't keep up with me. And I was like, oh, my God, I'm going to, you know, this is going to crush all this stuff. Ended up, you know, hamstring injury. So I didn't run Boston, didn't run Eugene, just trying to. But still try trying to get in a bunch of miles for Cogadona.

• 59:45Speaker 01

  Because that's the real test. But yeah, I haven't got to a place where I'm like looking forward to the suffering. I'm to a place right now where like this could blow up, the wheels could come off.

• 59:59Speaker 01

  You know, I say I'm, you know, I love this stuff. I say I love suffering. And what if I just get exposed? What if I'm what if I'm a fraud? That's that's the thoughts I'm having right now. It's just like because in right you can in regular life, you can pretend a lot of things. In a 250 mile race, you can't pretend anything.

• 1:00:23Nick Bare?

  No, every weakness is exposed.

• 1:00:24Speaker 01

  It's fucking all exposed. So I can say all this. I can say this stuff like I'm tough. I can put up my stats like I did 20 miles today. Doesn't mean anything. You gotta show it. You gotta prove it. That's scary.

• 1:00:42Nick Bare?

  But I would argue that there's very few people that love the, the act of suffering, but they respect what is produced from suffering.

• 1:00:56Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:00:56Nick Bare?

  So they, they do what they have to do regardless if they want to or not, or they enjoy it or not. Like most of these mornings I wake up and run. The last thing I want to do is go run.

• 1:01:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:07Nick Bare?

  And sometimes like my morning eight mile run feels like a breeze and sometimes the whole thing hurts.

• 1:01:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:14Nick Bare?

  But even when I'm two miles into a eight mile morning run, I know for a fact I'm gonna run all eight miles.

• 1:01:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:01:22Nick Bare?

  Because I know what that is gonna produce and I'll be proud of myself afterwards and it's just part of being consistent. But I don't think there's, there's very few people who actually enjoy suffering frequently, but they respect it.

• 1:01:36Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, I mean, this one I watched. Did you watch The Chase recently? It's a new movie out on Cocaldonna last year.

• 1:01:44Nick Bare?

  No, I didn't.

• 1:01:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's pretty, pretty damn good. But the point is, it's like, they had these four favorites. Michael McKnight was one, uh, Jeff Browning was one, uh, Arlen Glick. And then Michael Verstijch, I think is his name. It's, uh, and so they were gonna follow these guys. Well, none of those guys even, they didn't win. Because that's how unpredictable, you know, these 250 mile races are. But the point is during that movie, you go into it like, oh, 250 miles. It's like, yeah, if I just keep moving, right? It's like you do the math. You're like, oh God, three miles an hour, six, you know, that's, what is that? That is close to 80 miles a day, right?

• 1:02:28Speaker 01

  And if I just keep that pace up, I'll be done in a few days. That is hard to do. And then you see the, see the movie and you're like, um, these guys suffering, suffering and just look miserable. And you saw the training they did. You know that they're best in the world at what they do. And then you see the depths to they got knocked down. It's hard not to be like. What's in store for me?

• 1:02:58Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:58Speaker 01

  You know, so it's a good challenges, but.

• 1:03:02Nick Bare?

  Yeah, it kind of like in the podcast between you and your brother talking about the, the 300 miler. Yeah, I think you asked him the questions, do you ever think about quitting? And he said, not until the last 15 miles. And like, in all things considering, it's 15 miles of like a 300 mile effort.

• 1:03:24Speaker 01

  Tiny fraction.

• 1:03:25Nick Bare?

  But those 15 miles can take six plus hours.

• 1:03:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:28Nick Bare?

  So then you're suffering for like another quarter of a day.

• 1:03:31Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:03:32Nick Bare?

  Remember like the last, I had the last checkpoint at Leadville, I had 10 miles left.

• 1:03:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:37Nick Bare?

  But that 10 miles felt like another 100 miles.

• 1:03:39Speaker 01

  No, yeah, so, so slow.

• 1:03:42Nick Bare?

  Yeah, you're asking like your, your pacer, hey, how, how much further? Three miles, an hour later, how much, how much further? Three miles, what the shit?

• 1:03:51Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:03:52Nick Bare?

  Going backwards?

• 1:03:53Speaker 01

  Those miles can click off so slowly. When you're hurting, you know, it's, I, I did Bigfoot one, the first 200 I did and, and like there's a long stretch and something like 10 miles. And I said, all right, so what do we think? You know, these guys had done it before we were at the checkpoint and said, what are you guys figuring for this last 10, for this 10 mile stretch here to the aid station? They're like, two miles an hour. I'm like, what? They say, yeah, it's a rough one, but two miles an hour, that's not, that's not getting miles done very quick.

• 1:04:29Nick Bare?

  No.

• 1:04:29Speaker 01

  You know, so that's five hours just for 10 hour or 10 mile stretch in the heat. And then you're thinking, I got 200 to go or whatever, you know, wherever you are in the race, but yeah, it's. And so that's the key is like, if you can just keep moving, a three, three mile an hour pace seems so slow. In an ultra, it's not that slow if, if that's consistent. It's just hard to do.

• 1:04:55Nick Bare?

  Yeah. What's crazy about these, these massive 200 plus mile efforts, you know, you get 120 miles in. Verifying you have, you've only done half the race.

• 1:05:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:05:10Nick Bare?

  And you're out there at that point already for potentially day and a half, two days. And that's like, that's where the, the, the mental, it's not just like suffering in the moment, but it's the realization of what is to come and what is not yet accomplished.

• 1:05:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, yeah, Rihanna keeps asking me about my pace and when do you think you'll get, be at this place? And I'm being like, I have no, I, I couldn't, I couldn't say, I have no idea. I've, I don't know what my body's gonna do, but you can think about that, that mental part, like when you finish Leadville, if somebody said, okay, now you gotta go do it again. That's your 200. Could you imagine?

• 1:05:51Nick Bare?

  No, I honestly couldn't.

• 1:05:53Speaker 01

  Could you? I mean,

• 1:05:54Nick Bare?

  I collapsed after that.

• 1:05:56Speaker 01

  So it's, that's what's crazy. I've never finished a hundred and been like, I don't feel that bad. It's always like, it's all I had to finish that hundred. And now, yeah, when, but that's the power of the mind too. It's like, you know, when you get to a hundred at a, at a 250 or 300 or 200, you're half, you know, maybe not even halfway. So you're just, the goal, the goalpost is different.

• 1:06:21Nick Bare?

  Right.

• 1:06:21Speaker 01

  But man, it's tough.

• 1:06:23Nick Bare?

  I think it might've been Harvey Lewis. I could be completely wrong here, but I think at Badwater, maybe last year or two years ago, he finished the race.

• 1:06:34Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 1:06:34Nick Bare?

  And him and his crew went and ran it back all over again.

• 1:06:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:38Nick Bare?

  Is that correct?

• 1:06:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, that is, that is, I saw that too.

• 1:06:41Nick Bare?

  I was like, what the hell?

• 1:06:42Speaker 01

  I know. I think he stayed out there and did it again.

• 1:06:46Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:47Speaker 01

  Nuts.

• 1:06:48Nick Bare?

  I had Harvey on the podcast and that guy's just like,

• 1:06:51Speaker 01

  How was it? I didn't hear that one.

• 1:06:53Nick Bare?

  Just, he's like a Courtney, like so nice.

• 1:06:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:57Nick Bare?

  And so unassuming.

• 1:06:58Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:06:59Nick Bare?

  But there's just like this warrior in their head.

• 1:07:01Speaker 01

  Don't get it.

• 1:07:02Nick Bare?

  No.

• 1:07:03Speaker 01

  It's, yeah, it's, it trick, that's what I would say, these girls, they trick you. Because we're so used to like, I don't know if it's just a guy or me being just an idiot meathead, but you'd never think that like, these girls could be killers, right? And I talk, you know, Courtney, Sally, Kat, what is so sweet, these like free spirit type, sort of whatever, I don't know what, not really hippies, but sort of like, But then they're such in competition, it's just like killers. They will crush you and but they trick you. Same with well, Harvey sounds like the same way.

• 1:07:47Speaker 01

  If I if somebody's gonna crush me, I wanna look at him be like, yeah, that guy's probably gonna crush me.

• 1:07:52Nick Bare?

  Exactly.

• 1:07:52Speaker 01

  I wanna, that's what I like. I like that being that reinforced feedback type or whatever. When I look at these, you know, I look at Courtney, I'm like, she's not gonna crush me. Yes, she is.

• 1:08:05Nick Bare?

  Yeah, Sally also is like the nicest, sweetest person.

• 1:08:07Speaker 01

  The nicest, such a machine.

• 1:08:10Nick Bare?

  I was pacing Sally at Western States.

• 1:08:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:14Nick Bare?

  And her stomach completely turned on her.

• 1:08:16Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:08:17Nick Bare?

  And we'd be running and mid-conversation and then she'd just stop and throw up on the side of the court, say nothing, clean her face off, start running again, keep talking, not acknowledge it at all. And that was for the last 50 miles.

• 1:08:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:32Nick Bare?

  Just puking everything up.

• 1:08:34Speaker 01

  So I think that I think women, I think like the childbearing part of, you know, just genetically, I think they're built for pain more than men are. And I've said this before, I'm sure somebody could prove me wrong. I don't know, but I think that they're just better. I think they're tougher. That's all there is to it.

• 1:08:53Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:54Speaker 01

  I think they're tougher. I think we could, you know, potentially be stronger, faster, maybe in short durations. But toughness, I think women, man, they're tougher than me for sure.

• 1:09:06Nick Bare?

  It's impressive.

• 1:09:07Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:09:09Nick Bare?

  So this is something I've always believed in. And I think, uh, I think it's perceived in the wrong way by a lot of people. And you know, even the reference, like your hat, nobody cares, work harder. I think to me, people put hard work on a pedestal.

• 1:09:27Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:09:28Nick Bare?

  And that harder work is expected, harder work is the standard, harder work is the only way. And something I say in my new book is that amateurs want praise.

• 1:09:41Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 1:09:42Nick Bare?

  When they work hard, they wanna be like patted on their back, they wanna be clapped for. But professionals want feedback.

• 1:09:50Nick Bare?

  Where did, you know, nobody cares, work harder. Where'd that come from? When you start saying that? When you start printing on T-shirts? Like, yeah, obviously, it's connected with a lot of people.

• 1:10:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, some people get triggered by it. Um, I care, I care if you're what it's like, okay, well, that's not really the point. To me, it's always like, whatever we do, whatever we achieve, to me, in my head, doesn't matter. Because it's always like, what's next? Or even if you didn't achieve something, if, if, if you did a race, you DNF'd, or you lost your job, or whatever. It doesn't matter. It doesn't, you're gonna have to get back on the horse, get, get back to work. What do you, what you do next is what matters. So regardless of the outcome of what just happened, nobody cares. Where you gotta get back on the grind and like, okay, what are we gonna do about it?

• 1:10:46Speaker 01

  So that's what it is. So if I've been successful, like my first book did good, it wasn't number one. I want to be number one. So should I be happy I made New York Times on the first one? Yeah, I guess, but that wasn't the goal, the goal is to be number one. So it's like, no matter what happens, I'm always like, okay, let's, or, you know, whatever. It's like, a lot of people fail and then they get distracted or lose interest or whatever. It's just like, that's when you really need to buckle down. It's, we can, both those times, we can let our guard down and get weak. When we win, we can get complacent.

• 1:11:30Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:31Speaker 01

  Cause like, I got this figured out. When we lose, we can get discouraged and say it's, what's the, what's the use? Both those times are critical. Get back to work.

• 1:11:43Nick Bare?

  I was reading this book earlier this year.

• 1:11:46Nick Bare?

  I can't remember exactly which book it this section came from. I want to say it was

• 1:11:52Nick Bare?

  Beyond Entrepreneurship, BE 2.0 by Jim Collins. And it talked about like the we made it, the downfall of the we made it mindset and approach. And they actually used, it was very applicable to me in this business at the time, because we're getting ready to move in this new HQ next week. And we've been working on this new HQ move for the last year. And it's all about a lot of businesses, when they move into a new, big building that has all the bells and whistles, and they graduate to the next level. What often happens is they move into this new building, they have all these features and amenities they didn't have previously, and they think to themselves, we made it. And then revenue declines, profitability declines, momentum decreases. So there's this

• 1:12:38Nick Bare?

  negative consequence of achieving and allowing yourself to celebrate that achievement too much, and pat yourself on the back for working so hard and accomplishing the thing. And I think that's, it's, one of the things that separates these outliers from everyone else is the ability to recognize, I've accomplished this, but I'm going after the next win. And as much as that is a strength, it can also be a weakness.

• 1:13:08Speaker 01

  Can.

• 1:13:08Nick Bare?

  I know that is for me. Like, and my, my wife tells me, this team tells me, it's like, there's a, a year ago, we had our best month ever in this business. And there was something that happened that we weren't really happy with, outside of hitting our revenue goal. And our CFO, COO, Josh Holly came in and he said, you know, I know this business is going to be successful is because we just had our best month ever. We just hit it today, and everyone's pissed off.

• 1:13:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, still hungry.

• 1:13:41Nick Bare?

  Because I'm hungry for the next thing. There's never. There's an appreciation for the accomplishment, but there's never satisfaction for where I'm at. Cause it's always what's next?

• 1:13:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:13:53Nick Bare?

  What's next? What's next? Have you found that common with a lot of these people you you meet with, talk with? Has anyone you've met hung their hat on their accomplishments that is still continuing to succeed?

• 1:14:08Speaker 01

  Um, I think not really, but I mean, I think like I've had Sintra on who won the gold at Rio in the 1500. It's hard to like stay at the top in elite athletics, right? So it's like, he has to, and I see now he's like working for Grand Slam Track as a commentator. So he's probably just readjust goals, but um, so I don't think he's satisfied with where he's at. He's just reevaluating, kind of recalibrating his goals, but um, generally, no. I mean, nobody I know or spend time with or want to spend time with is ever satisfied with where they're at.

• 1:14:48Speaker 01

  It's always like, this is what I do, gonna keep doing it and we're gonna achieve more. Or we're gonna, I mean, if you look at Rogan, he's still one of the hardest working guys I know. It's like, why? He's got it all, but he's an outlier. It's like, it's never, he's never done. It's like, why is he doing four or five podcasts a week? He's number one, he's the greatest. It's like, it's just what he does. So yeah, it's, it's never being satisfied, never like you sign a big deal. Happens a lot with athletes, they sign a big deal and then, you know, they have a down year the next year.

• 1:15:30Speaker 01

  But um, the people that I like is, yeah, no matter what happens, it's a success, failure, it doesn't really matter. Even with all the success, it's still what's next. That's, that mindset is so powerful.

• 1:15:44Nick Bare?

  What do you think drives them? What drive, what?

• 1:15:46Speaker 01

  Who, Joe?

• 1:15:47Nick Bare?

  What, uh, any, any of these like, these outliers, like what is the common drive? Or maybe what's the drive for you?

• 1:15:54Speaker 01

  Oh yeah, I mean, it's if, if we knew that. We'd be, we'd be rich.

• 1:15:58Nick Bare?

  Bottle it up.

• 1:15:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, bottle it up and sell it, right? It's a, what is the drive? I mean, I don't know. I mean, what, what makes people satisfied with status quo and somebody not satisfied with that? I'm not sure. It's a, you know, it could go back to trauma and earlier life. But a lot of times it's trauma and earlier life with some of these super high achievers. They're trying to right the wrongs of when they're young or whatever. That's probably part of it for me. But yeah, it's hard to say. It's like different things impact people differently, but uh, and I don't really know the, the whys. I just know the type of people I'm attracted to. And that's the, the people who accept no excuses and just produce results.

• 1:16:45Nick Bare?

  I think about this, this often, like what is the drive?

• 1:16:51Nick Bare?

  And there's like parts of my life that support my drive.

• 1:16:57Nick Bare?

  Like my family, financial goals.

• 1:17:02Nick Bare?

  Being relevant in the space that I've worked to become somewhat relevant in. And all of those things support my drive. My, my foundation of, of faith in being someone who is living a, a life like Christ.

• 1:17:19Nick Bare?

  But as I think about this question I just asked you. And a lot of it is I've worked so hard to achieve momentum. Not even accomplishment, but, but momentum and some wins. Is that now there's not necessarily this, this want and need to win, but this is fear of losing. And I don't want to lose the momentum. And that's what's even, makes it harder to take a break.

• 1:17:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:49Nick Bare?

  See, if I take a break or take a step away, I will lose all this momentum that I've built. Regardless of that is true or not.

• 1:17:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:17:57Nick Bare?

  If I want to really milk this life and accomplish all the things that I could ever accomplish out of it. So I have to have the, the gas pressed to the floor. I can't lose this momentum.

• 1:18:11Speaker 01

  Yeah. So because if you've had, you, you mentioned your best month ever and nobody's happy, but um.

• 1:18:19Speaker 01

  You're kicking ass. I don't know what your sales are. I know they're, you know, millions, but why, why not just maximize being here as opposed to the new building? So why, why wouldn't, what was the drive to have a new building if you're already kicking ass here?

• 1:18:38Nick Bare?

  Cause if, if I fast forward five years from now and I look back, we're, we're really comfortable with where we're at right now. And we could, we can make it work and stay here, which would have saved us literally millions of dollars. We, we wouldn't have had to pick up everyone and move. We wouldn't have to adjust to this new routine and schedule. But five years into the future, if I was looking back, I would have to ask myself the question, where could we have been if we would have moved into a new space that forced and facilitated growth?

• 1:19:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:19:12Nick Bare?

  As opposed to staying where we were comfortable and still growing at maybe a relatively consistent rate. But what opportunity would we have been missing if we would have made that jump and take that risk and pushed?

• 1:19:28Speaker 01

  Does the formula stay the same with the, with the new investment? Or do you have to look at what you've been doing and be like, okay, this worked for where we were at, but where we want to get to, we needed to change our game and do this now? I mean, do you have, is it a new formula for, a business formula for success because you're the, of the new investment?

• 1:19:51Nick Bare?

  More so, uh, in terms of like financial formula?

• 1:19:56Speaker 01

  Just approach, just like, just your mindset on how you, how you perceive your business.

• 1:20:01Nick Bare?

  Completely. Like the, the way that I see the business now compared to where I see the business a year ago is completely different. And it's, it's hyper focused where I've turned off so many things. Going back to the earlier conversation, it's like narrowing that focus and becoming a specialist. Like we're, we're focused on being a specialist in the endurance space now. It used to be that we're going to try to build a business that talks to the bodybuilders and the powerlifters and the health enthusiasts and the endurance athletes and everyone. We want to be a brand for everyone. And we realized by doing that, that we weren't actually serving any deep audience. So we hyper focused on endurance and that's like the vision for the brand moving forward.

• 1:20:46Nick Bare?

  And I've said no to a lot of things, a lot of things I used to say yes to.

• 1:20:49Speaker 01

  Why the focus on endurance?

• 1:20:52Nick Bare?

  It's a passion. We believe we can do it really well and we see an opportunity. We see the way the, you know, it's all aligned pretty well where my passion and our passion for endurance has grown over the years. Naturally, it has evolved. And then simultaneously during that evolution, we've created more endurance products. And then it just so happens that the market has started to shift more towards endurance. And the endurance category is becoming larger, races have more demand than ever before. So there's this very interesting intersection between the endurance market and consumer category and where BPN has naturally evolved over the years.

• 1:21:34Nick Bare?

  I see a massive opportunity and I think it'd be a missed opportunity not to go all in on that. Now, I might look back five years from now saying, hmm, maybe that wasn't the right call. But right now, my gut intuition is saying that's where we gotta go. And I'd rather go all in on being a specialist in something than being something generally for everyone.

• 1:22:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that, I mean, if you just look at the landscape of marathons, they're, you know, exploding and selling out and so much energy for marathons. And then with the fueling, now it's the carbs per hour. Everybody's really focused on how to fuel for these things because, you know, when we, when everybody started, it's like, I remember running marathons and

• 1:22:23Speaker 01

  there's no such thing as gel. So it's like, maybe you'd get a half a banana at some point. And then everybody would bonk or hit the wall at 20 because they've, you know, blew through their reserves. And then it's just a suffer fest, last six miles. It's just kind of, kind of what it was. And now. It's like fueling and performing all the way through the marathon is that's the thing. So yeah, it's like the gels and you know, this, this science, you know, a lot of, a lot of these. I always say running nerds just because I'm so like, don't think about it so much, even though you need to. But these guys are so dialed in on the exact science of fueling.

• 1:23:07Speaker 01

  It's like, it's crazy what, how it impacts performance. Yeah. I mean, you know, these, you know, between the shoes and the, and the, um, the science part of it. And these records being blown out of the water. That's the biggest difference. People having more success than they've ever had. So it's perfect timing. I only recently, uh, found about this stat. Do you know how many people sign up for the lottery for London Marathon every year? No. If you had to, like, just try to take a guess. Let's see. Well, how many runners do they have? Do you know what it is? It's probably like 30 or 40,000. It's probably, it's probably something around that. Probably big. Um, couple hundred thousand? Eight hundred and fifty thousand. Jeez, yeah. Eight hundred and fifty thousand people. Yeah.

• 1:23:51Speaker 01

  In our lottery for a marathon. That's crazy. That's wild. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. When, when someone asked me that, I guessed like a hundred thousand. Yeah. Eight hundred and fifty thousand. Yeah, that's, that's, that, well, I mean, Eugene Marathon sold out a pretty, pretty fast. It's small, but it's just like every mar, every big marathon, you want to run? Sold out guaranteed. You better be on, you better be on it just to get in. Yeah. And, uh, you know, they're lowering the standards at Boston. You gotta be faster, more competitive. It's like, yeah, so endurance and marathons and, which is good because it's, it's those wins people need in life. It's like, it gives people a focus in life, a healthy focus. So yeah, I think it's great that you're going all in on it. It's awesome.

• 1:24:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, um, it's like the, the word that I've been focused on this last year is intentionality. Mm-hmm. It's being very intentional and very focused. And, uh, you know, you quoted Jack Nicklaus in your book, under the chapter, make a good shot. Mm-hmm. And it's, I never hit a shot, not even in practice, without having a very sharp, in focused picture of it in my head.

• 1:25:04Nick Bare?

  So like when I approach life now and these goals, I say, I want to, I want to see exactly in my head, what I'm going after, eliminate all their distractions and then go, go and achieve, go and accomplish. Now, I'm a, I'm a fan of Alex Hermosy.

• 1:25:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:22Nick Bare?

  And just like his approach to all things work, it's no BS. He calls on all the BS that is down there.

• 1:25:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, he's great.

• 1:25:32Nick Bare?

  And you know, if we're talking about like work and hard work and nobody cares, work harder and intentional work. Two quotes that he has that I pulled, I thought were very applicable to this whole conversation. Hard work is the point. It's not the way. We do, we do things because they are hard, like we like the hard work and that hard work isn't enough for success. But it's crucial when combined with a clear direction and strategic effort. So it's much more than just doing the work.

• 1:26:04Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:26:04Nick Bare?

  It's the focused work.

• 1:26:06Speaker 01

  There's a lot of people that work their ass off who don't have much. Yeah. So it takes more than just hard work.

• 1:26:12Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:12Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's like, um, yeah, I, I agree with Alex, hard to argue with Alex. He's pretty dialed in on quotes.

• 1:26:20Nick Bare?

  I would honestly, I would hate to argue anything against.

• 1:26:23Speaker 01

  I know.

• 1:26:23Nick Bare?

  Alex.

• 1:26:25Speaker 01

  He's so smart. Yeah. It's tough. It's like arguing with Tony Hinchcliffe.

• 1:26:30Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:31Speaker 01

  That'd be good, probably.

• 1:26:33Nick Bare?

  Well, Cam, I, I really enjoyed the book.

• 1:26:36Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:26:37Nick Bare?

  Again, uh, I appreciate the, the feature in, in the full page shirtless shot.

• 1:26:43Speaker 01

  You're badass. That's what, that's what you get.

• 1:26:45Nick Bare?

  Thank you, brother. Appreciate that. And wishing you, uh, amazing luck and suffering at Kokadona coming up in a few days.

• 1:26:53Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:26:53Nick Bare?

  And congrats on the book. It's a big accomplishment, not just, you know, having one year times bestseller, but now going for number one.

• 1:27:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, likewise, your, your book looks great. Um, I'm pumped. Uh, who, did you use Esther for that?

• 1:27:08Nick Bare?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. Good. Well, who's your publisher?

• 1:27:11Nick Bare?

  Ben Bella.

• 1:27:12Speaker 01

  Okay. Yeah. It's a, it's a fun process, huh?

• 1:27:15Nick Bare?

  Dude, it's been two year process for this one.

• 1:27:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. Looks great.

• 1:27:20Nick Bare?

  I appreciate it. I, I. Rewrote it like three times and a lot of editing, a lot of work. And I remember vividly doing the final additions of the edits while we were in the hospital with Steph as she was getting ready to give birth to our son Nico. I was trying to wrap it up because the final manuscript was due. And she's getting induced, they're putting her on the drugs to start the induction process. I'm like rushing to get the final chapters done. So I always remember finishing that book because it was moments before Nico was born.

• 1:27:54Speaker 01

  Well, it's, uh, yeah, what a memory that that'll be tied to your book for sure. But I'm, I'm super impressed with all your success. Even the last time I was here, we walked through this building here and I was blown away at that time. And now seeing what you, what you're doing and what you're building and just this culture you've, you know, manufactured around, around BPN and just a health conscious, positive. You're just making a good impact on this world and we, we need young men like you just doing, building and doing things like this. So it's, I'm, I'm so appreciative. I'm so proud of what you're doing and it's just like, I, I couldn't be happier for your success. So I just wanted to say congratulations.

• 1:28:38Speaker 01

  I'm, I'm proud of you, Nick. Keep kicking ass and I love to see it.

• 1:28:42Nick Bare?

  I appreciate it, man. Thank you.