118: Avoid My Mistakes: Evolve or Die

Coming back from some much-needed family time, I’m diving into a powerful topic — evolution. Not just in business, but in life. Growth isn’t something that happens by accident — it’s built through intentional choices, embracing change, and showing up even when it’s uncomfortable. In this episode, I open up about my struggles with vacations, the launch of my new book Go One More, and the exciting next chapter for BPN as we move into our brand new HQ. CHAPTERS: 01:14 Family Vacation Reflections 03:23 Book Announcement: Go One More 05:33 Embracing Change 15:37 Maintaining Life's Balance 22:58 Struggles with Vacationing 35:36 Balancing Work and Vacation Guilt 46:08 Adapting to New Vacation Realities 54:14 Personal and Professional Evolution 59:09 Moving to a New Headquarters 01:03:58 The Importance of Evolution and Growth PRE-ORDER MY UPCOMING BOOK HERE: https://www.amazon.com/Go-One-More-Intentional-Life-Changing/dp/1637746210 Become a BPN member FOR FREE - Unlock 20% off FOR LIFE https://bpn.team/member FOLLOW: 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.

• 0:00Nick Bare?

  I knew that if we didn't evolve and we didn't turn to this next chapter,

• 0:07Nick Bare?

  that five years from now, we would look back and say, man, we grew. If we would have stayed in our current spot, wow, we grew, but what could we have grown into? What could we have become? What could we have accomplished if we truly would have taken the risk? If we would have stepped into the discomfort, because if you don't evolve, you die.

• 0:39Nick Bare?

  What's going on, guys? And welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Today's topic is all around evolving. And if you stop evolving, if you don't evolve, you die. Or you waste. You waste time. You waste opportunity. You waste away. You erode. You wither. And that might sound extreme, but I don't believe it is. I honestly, truly don't believe that it is extreme. And I have a lot that I want to talk about and share, especially coming off of our annual family vacation.

• 1:22Nick Bare?

  So every year, Steph and I, and now with our two kids, go to seaside Florida. 30A. 30A is a highway that goes along a bunch of small beach towns. And it's beautiful. We love it. We go every year at the end of April for Steph's birthday. Happy belated birthday to my beautiful wife, Steph. And we just got back from that trip. It was our first family trip as a family of four. And I want to share just some lessons and values.

• 1:59Nick Bare?

  That I took away from this past trip, especially this being a different vacation for me than ever before, because I am personally someone who struggles with vacationing. I always have. I'm not proud of that. But it's the truth. I've always struggled with vacations and taking time off. And this is one trip, this is one vacation where things just felt different. They were different. And as Steph and I laid in bed last night after returning from Florida in a crazy travel day, reflecting on the, on the, the previous week, we both laid there and said, this trip was different.

• 2:44Nick Bare?

  This felt good. This felt right. I have made some changes. I have evolved my mindset, my practices, my routines around taking time off from work, vacationing properly, spending time with family, and truly embracing the season of life that I'm currently, and we are currently in. Now, before we dive into some of this, this meat and potatoes, if you will, I want to share a section of my book that is applicable to this topic.

• 3:23Nick Bare?

  And as I've mentioned before, and I'm going to mention it again until this book launches, my new book titled Go One More is being published officially June 24th, 2025. And I've been working on this book for over two years now. And to, to be able to see the publishing date

• 3:46Nick Bare?

  into the near future, on the horizon, it feels surreal. I've put a lot of time and work into this book. I'm really proud of this piece. Really excited to get it into your guys' hands. And you can actually preorder the book right now. So we have the link shared in the, the description of this episode. And you can go preorder the book on Amazon. You can preorder the book on, on Target, Barnes and Noble, wherever you like to get your books at. You can preorder Go One More. And like I said, it will start shipping and being released officially June 24th, 2025.

• 4:29Nick Bare?

  And I would greatly appreciate if you guys obviously bought the book, supported the book, but pre-ordered as well, because one of my goals is to get on the New York Times Bestseller list. And the way that you do that is by selling a certain number of books. And that takes into account all of your pre-orders and the books you sell up until the Saturday after launch. So I have from now until the Saturday after launch to sell as many books as possible,

• 5:04Nick Bare?

  pre-sell, sell during launch week, in hopes of getting on the New York Times Bestseller list. And that can be the paperback, the hard copy, or the audiobook that I recorded myself as the author.

• 5:21Nick Bare?

  But if you want to support me and the brand and the mission, I would greatly appreciate it if you guys pre-ordered and bought Go On More. Now, what I'm about to read is Chapter 4.

• 5:38Nick Bare?

  And Chapter 4 is titled, "Change is not a threat, it's an invitation." And the section specifically is, "Embrace Change."

• 5:50Nick Bare?

  Why does change scare so many people? Maybe it's because of their pride. Maybe it's their doubts and insecurities. Maybe it's the emotions that arise when someone's ideas or actions are challenged. Regardless of how scary change might be, if you want to be the greatest at what you do, and if you want to reach your full potential, there is something that's going to have to change along the way. And if you're afraid of making that change, or you don't want to confront it, you will never get better. And that weakness will surely break you. The strongest people embrace change. They want constructive criticism. They want to become better.

• 6:33Nick Bare?

  Amateurs constantly want to be patted on the back, praised, and be told how well they are doing. But professionals, professionals want feedback. They want to know what they can be doing better and how. Professionals embrace change. Over the years, there have been a lot of people who have worked with me and for me, who have been broken by the many changes we have implemented. The strongest employees have evolved through the many struggles of working at a startup company, and many of them are still with me today. BPN has constantly been changing, evolving, and growing, because we have to do that in order to survive.

• 7:15Nick Bare?

  And in a lot of the ways, BPN is still considered a startup, even though I've been at it for 12 years. Working for a startup can be extremely challenging. There is constant change, and new systems are always being established. You do what you have to do to keep the business growing, developing, and thriving. This means you have to think differently and creatively. You cannot become complacent, and your foot cannot come off the gas. Startups are filled with change, and if you don't embrace it, you won't survive. For many people, this type of business culture is everything they don't want in a professional career. But for others, like myself, it is exactly what I want and what I need.

• 8:00Nick Bare?

  The intent isn't to change just to change. Change still needs to be intentional. I don't wake up every morning, ask myself, "What should I change today?" But with each new day, I try my best to not fight the necessary evolutions in life that provide opportunities to grow and improve. If we don't evolve, over the course of a lifetime, we die. There is a reason we don't live like cavemen anymore. It wasn't an efficient or productive way to live. We have evolved as a species. These changes don't have to be extremely disruptive to your way of life, although they may be.

• 8:44Nick Bare?

  It might be something as small as changing the time you wake up in the morning, so you can complete your workout before your kids wake up. It might be changing your diet and food choices to live a healthier lifestyle. We don't have to go out of our way looking for changes to make, but we should be willing to embrace change when the right opportunity exists. And when change happens, don't let it break you. Change will break the brittle, but not you. Change makes the strong stronger.

• 9:18Nick Bare?

  So that's a section from the book. All about change, all about evolution. All about accepting these natural changes and evolutions that happen to us throughout our lifetime. On a daily basis.

• 9:35Nick Bare?

  But the only way that. We see progress and results from. Change and evolutions if we are. Is if we are intentional. With the decisions we're making. If we don't evolve, we will die or waste.

• 9:57Nick Bare?

  Without evolutions, we are wasting potential. Or we're letting opportunities die. And they said, we have to evolve with purpose. We have to evolve with purpose. We have to evolve. With purpose, not just to do it. And life is a series of evolutions and adaptations. And there's a difference between adaptations and evolutions. So the way that I think of adaptations. Is I think back to when I was in. Probably middle school. Maybe early high school. And. I was in science class. It might have been biology and we were working with microscopes.

• 10:39Nick Bare?

  And on a microscope. There is a coarse adjustment, which is the big knob. And then there's the fine adjustment. The small knob. So the big adjustment will get you. You know.

• 10:57Nick Bare?

  Or get you closer to the image that you're trying to view, but the fine adjustment, you just turn a little bit. A little bit to the left or the right to really get clarity. And for some reason. Ever since that experience. Middle school, early high school, like I said.

• 11:17Nick Bare?

  I've pulled that microscope.

• 11:22Nick Bare?

  Analogy into so many other parts of my life. Whenever I think of course adjustment, fine adjustment, moving big pieces, moving small pieces, I think back to that microscope. I can tell you exactly where I was, Pomeroy, Pennsylvania. I can tell you what the classroom looked like. It was before our school went through a remodel. So it was an older classroom, old desks, old chairs. I can, I paint you a picture. I mean, we had old chalkboards. We didn't have whiteboards in this, in this classroom yet. Where the teacher was standing, for some reason, working with this microscope

• 12:06Nick Bare?

  at that time of my life, at that age was very monumental, I guess you could say.

• 12:19Nick Bare?

  And it just put things into perspective for me. And that's the analogy I'm going to use right now with the difference between adaptations and evolutions. I see adaptations as the fine adjustment. It's the, the small knob that you just turn a little bit to the left and the right to dial in. The evolutions are these bigger, broader movements and changes and implementations. Adaptations are changes we make that allow us to thrive better in

• 13:03Nick Bare?

  our current environment based off exposure to a previous stimulus. Adaptations happened, they happen very frequently and often. We're constantly adapting to our environment based off of previous experiences, wins, losses, successes, failures, mistakes. Evolutions, like I said, are broader. They result in new traits, characteristics, and result in more dramatic results. So I see adaptations and evolutions differently. And I share that.

• 13:50Nick Bare?

  To set the stage, set the foundation of what I'm going to talk about

• 13:59Nick Bare?

  in terms of how meaningful

• 14:02Nick Bare?

  implementing change that is an evolution into our life and how dramatic of a result that it can create.

• 14:13Nick Bare?

  There's another section from my book that I want to share here. It's from chapter three titled "Endure the Process."

• 14:23Nick Bare?

  What happens to a vehicle that sits in your garage without upkeep, routine driving and regular care? It rusts, erodes, and fails to start the longer it sits. It doesn't maintain its current condition. It breaks down without tension. We need tension in our life because without it, we erode.

• 14:50Nick Bare?

  We want tension. Whether we pursue it and choose it and we look for it, or that tension happens to us

• 15:05Nick Bare?

  ultimately for us and we have to accept it.

• 15:10Nick Bare?

  It's going to happen regardless. We're going to be faced with obstacles, resistance, hardship, and we can either invite it or we can resist it. But if we invite it, it allows us to learn from it, grow with it, and resist erosion, resist death, resist waste.

• 15:34Nick Bare?

  Endure the process.

• 15:37Nick Bare?

  And the reason I share that section from the book

• 15:41Nick Bare?

  is because yesterday when I was coming home from from vacation.

• 15:48Nick Bare?

  Now, I'll get into our vacation here a little bit. But I'm always planning ahead, always forward looking and backwards planning, which is another big section of this book. And I believe that is a strength and a skill that I learned in the military that I have then implemented into every other part of my life. Forward thinking, backwards planning. The concept is, it's pretty simple, but it's one that so many people just don't practice, and it can be game changing to your life. And it's pretty clearly defined as the way it sounds. You look into the future.

• 16:31Nick Bare?

  What do I need to plan for? What should I expect that's going to happen in the next one minute, in the next hour, in the next day, in the next week, in the next month, in the next year, in the next five years? And then you backwards plan accordingly to prepare for that forward thinking. So whenever we're traveling, as we're about to land, because I oftentimes buy the internet on a flight, so I can get some work done, just get caught up on some things, instead of just wasting time sitting on an airplane. What I will do, especially after we've been gone as a family for a few days, is I will

• 17:15Nick Bare?

  order groceries and I will try to time up groceries perfectly so that they arrive right as we are getting home. Yesterday, I mistimed it a little bit. The groceries got delivered about 15 minutes before we got home, which is not all that bad, but we had the chicken being delivered and cottage cheese and milk and butter and eggs and all of these things that needed to be refrigerated.

• 17:44Nick Bare?

  So that's one of the things I do as we prepare to come home from a vacation or a big trip as a family is let's get the house set up as well as possible. So we can get back home, get back into our routine and keep operating, keep living, keep thriving. And groceries is a big part of that. Got to keep this bear family fed and fed well. So I ordered all these groceries through Instacart. And since having kids and creating a family, Instacart has become one of our best friends. I'm not gonna lie. It's so helpful. Instacart all these groceries, they got

• 18:26Nick Bare?

  to the house. And we were gone for five nights. So we were on vacation for five nights. Not that much time. In the grand scheme of things. But I was so surprised because when we got home, as soon as I walked in the door, I could tell, one, that we haven't been home for five nights. It just, I get there was a musk in the air. So I'm trying to find like where these smells are coming from. I go into our pantry, there was a half eaten loaf of sourdough that we left sitting out in the bread basket that Steph made a few days before we left for vacation. And this thing

• 19:07Nick Bare?

  was the moldiest thing I've ever seen in my life. If you or your family make homemade bread, like we make sourdough bread every week, or I should say Steph makes homemade sourdough bread every week, you'll be so surprised by how fast that bread goes bad and mold and spoils compared to some store bought breads. I mean, I can buy store bought bread and it will last me weeks. Sometimes it will never mold. It just gets hard and crusty. And you realize, okay, there's a lot in this bread. There's a lot of preservatives that are keeping this bread alive and well to

• 19:52Nick Bare?

  resist change. That bread has, has added ingredients and solutions to resist the evolutions of change and mold and die and become weak. Although maybe eating that bread will make you old, die and become weak.

• 20:12Nick Bare?

  But we make, like I said, sourdough bread every week and within a couple of days, it starts going bad. So I walked in the pantry and the bread is black and blue and moldy, like giving off of this heat. It was, it was crazy. And then I go to this basket of where we keep potatoes and the potatoes have like the roots, the white roots growing out of it. And then I went into the fridge and we had berries that were in there that were discolored and bad. There was a package of chicken that was bad. There was milk that we got from the

• 20:54Nick Bare?

  farmer's market, raw milk that was, that was bad, that had been thrown out. We had this fruit basket that we have sitting out that had avocados and bananas in it and there were fruit flies everywhere. And in a matter of five nights, being gone five nights, all of this stuff went bad. And I, I just sat back for a second. I'm thinking, how did all of this happen so fast? Five nights. And then I was thinking back to, why doesn't this always happen? Why

• 21:32Nick Bare?

  aren't I walking into the pantry every morning to moldy bread and, and fruit flies and spoiled milk and rotten berries? And it's because we maintain the house. We maintain our life. When the bread starts going bad, we throw it out or we've already consumed it. We've already eaten it before it goes bad. And the milk gets drank or if it's not drank in time, we, we dump it out down the drain. And the same with the avocados and the bananas and the chicken and all of these things. And because we maintain the items in our house,

• 22:14Nick Bare?

  we maintain the home, we don't experience the erosion, the death, the destruction, the waste.

• 22:26Nick Bare?

  And it's so applicable to our life as a whole.

• 22:30Nick Bare?

  If we are not maintaining, if we are not evolving, if we are not tending to our life, areas of our life, goals in our life, the same thing is going to happen

• 22:45Nick Bare?

  as it did, the food in my, my home while we are gone. It goes bad, it spoils, it becomes waste, we have to throw it away, it stinks.

• 22:58Nick Bare?

  That's so applicable to our lives and honestly, that,

• 23:04Nick Bare?

  that realization, as I was putting my daughter to sleep last night and I was thinking about just like that whole experience and how applicable it is to the vacation we just got back from in our life as a whole. That if we stop evolving, if we stop maintaining, if we stop pursuing growth, we die, we wither, we waste. We might not even waste away physically, but we can waste away mentally and emotionally. Like I said in the beginning of this episode, we can waste opportunity and potential and time in memories and moments.

• 23:49Nick Bare?

  And that leads me to like what I really wanted to, to share and discuss in this episode.

• 23:58Nick Bare?

  And that's to summarize some changes that I've made in my life over these last,

• 24:06Nick Bare?

  I'd say two years, but probably less than one year specifically, if I'm being honest. And that's

• 24:14Nick Bare?

  just being more intentional with the time that I'm spending at home with my family and really around vacations.

• 24:25Nick Bare?

  Now I'm really proud of myself. And I don't say it often, uh, and I, and I say this very humbly. I'm really proud of myself by the way that I vacationed this past week, this year with our family, our family of four, for Steph's birthday.

• 24:47Nick Bare?

  And as I say that, I think back to verbally saying, I'm proud of myself for X, Y, and Z.

• 24:59Nick Bare?

  I don't say that too often. I'm proud of a lot of the things that I've done and I've accomplished and what I'm doing. But for me to audibly say that out loud, it is more rare.

• 25:14Nick Bare?

  And the last time I think I ever said that out loud and like really, really meant it, was when I crossed the finish line at the California International Marathon. And my goal was to run a sub two hour, 45 minute marathon. And I ran two hours, 39 minutes.

• 25:36Nick Bare?

  And I put in such a big prep for that marathon. I put in so much work, really like dialed in and focused and sacrificed. And then just had a great race. And when I crossed that finish line, I was talking to our team, I said,

• 25:55Nick Bare?

  man, like as my eyes started to swell up and I had this lump in my throat, I said, man, I'm just like, I'm really proud of that one. Really, really proud of that prep and that preparation and that race and that performance.

• 26:10Nick Bare?

  And I really meant it. I was really proud of that race.

• 26:15Nick Bare?

  And when I say that I'm really proud of the way that I vacationed this past week, as crazy as that sounds, I'm proud of the way that I vacationed. I'm hoping after I share some of these stories that it will make more sense. And I think if, if you were anything like me, you might struggle with the same things that I've struggled with and still do struggle with,

• 26:40Nick Bare?

  that it might make more sense. But it sounds so wild. I'm proud of myself for the way that I vacationed.

• 26:49Nick Bare?

  And two nights ago, after we put the kids down, we were laying on the couches, getting ready to go to bed, all sunburned and beat up from the sun and the ocean and the pool from that day, I made an Instagram story, just talking about how I used to really struggle with vacations and still do to some extent, but I've gotten better. And this vacation felt different for me. Steph and I both agreed, this vacation just felt different. And the response was, was pretty surreal. After I posted that, a lot of other people responded,

• 27:34Nick Bare?

  saying, I too struggle with vacation. And I have, and I still do. And I believe that if you are listening to this podcast and you follow my content and the message and go one more, you might struggle with vacations as well, too. Because vacations sometimes feel like you are doing less and you are missing out on opportunity and you are degressing, you're losing progress, you're becoming dull, you are

• 28:14Nick Bare?

  just taking it easier than you deserve or should be having it in that moment of time.

• 28:23Nick Bare?

  And honestly, that whole mindset and that experience is one of the reasons I wrote my new book, Go One More. The subtitle of Go One More is Find the Clarity to Make Intentional Life-Changing Choices.

• 28:42Nick Bare?

  Go one more when I founded it.

• 28:46Nick Bare?

  Those three simple words.

• 28:49Nick Bare?

  They were just an action.

• 28:54Nick Bare?

  You might think of go one more as a verb. Do more. Do one more up in the gym. Run one more mile, spend one more day on your business. Continue to pursue greatness by doing more of everything and anything, but that's not the goal or the meaning or intent of going more. Go one more is an outcome. And you achieve the outcome and results of going more by making intentional, life-changing choices, and you can only make intentional, life-changing choices if you have clarity. You need clarity into what you are

• 29:38Nick Bare?

  attempting to pursue and accomplish.

• 29:43Nick Bare?

  So the reason that I used to struggle with vacations was because I felt like I was not living out go one more.

• 29:56Nick Bare?

  It was forcing me to slow down. It was forcing me to take a step away from my business for even a few days. It was forcing me to not train as much or be off my diet a little bit or relax. And I wasn't comfortable with that position or that mindset. But I've now come to realize that that actually wasn't pursuing or achieving the outcome of going more. That was the complete opposite. The complete opposite. That's one of the reasons I wrote this book. That's why I'm so proud of this book. It's because of the message that's in here, which can be, should be, and is so powerful.

• 30:41Nick Bare?

  Now, like I mentioned, this was our first vacation as a family of four. Seaside, Florida. I love

• 30:51Nick Bare?

  the Seaside, Florida area.

• 30:55Nick Bare?

  Again, it's along Highway 30A. Growing up, never heard of this area. Vacation for us growing up. I'm from central Pennsylvania. We would go to Ocean City, Maryland every summer. And I loved it. I still love Ocean City, Maryland. It is a completely different experience than Seaside, Florida. I mean, they call it ocean shitty. Because it is wild. It is, it can be reckless. When I was a senior in high school, we went to this thing called Senior Week at Ocean City, Maryland, where all the seniors

• 31:36Nick Bare?

  in all the high schools in pretty much Pennsylvania went to Ocean City, Maryland for a week. Senior week, and it was just pure chaos. I mean, I would never let my kids go to that beach during that week because it was reckless. But they have a beautiful boardwalk there, and there's mini golf spots everywhere. You can get crab legs and Maryland is just for me, it is a special place in my heart because we grew up going there. And then when I first started dating Steph in 2018, she just recently visited Seaside, Florida and fell in love with it. So we shortly after took a trip down there. We stayed in Rosemary Beach our first time there.

• 32:20Nick Bare?

  And then we ended up staying in Seaside and Sea Grove and Watercolor. And there's all these cool beach towns, very family friendly. There's no high rises. You fly into Panama City. It's about a 45 minute drive from the Panama City Airport to these small beach towns. And it's just, it's just perfect. It's actually where they filmed The Truman Show, if you've ever seen that movie.

• 32:46Nick Bare?

  Quaint, quiet little town, great restaurants, right along the water. You can walk everywhere. As I've mentioned, it's like my favorite place in the world to run. I will run along Highway 30A, which has, it's not like a, a big highway. It's a two lane highway. Uh, and when I run in the morning at 5:30, 6:00 AM, I see like a few cars, a few other runners. But there's these bike trails along Highway 30A and the coast and the water and the beaches. And it's beautiful. It's stunning. And that's our favorite place to go. We love it. We go every year and we've been doing it for years.

• 33:29Nick Bare?

  And of all the vacations that Steph and I have ever gone on, I'd say 90 to 95% of them, I was not fun. I'll be very honest with myself. I was, I was not a good time. I would get so stressed out just thinking about vacation coming up. And the thought of not being at work, in the office, leading a team, being off of my routine, having to figure out where I was going to eat throughout the day, how I was going to get all my training sessions in. Because for, for years I was in some sort of fitness prep,

• 34:09Nick Bare?

  whether that was for a marathon, triathlon, Ironman, high rocks, bodybuilding competition, ultra. I've been in a fitness prep for pretty much all of the time that Steph and I have been together. So vacations were for me, a big distraction, a wasted time. And unfortunately I just could not enjoy them. So Steph would put in all this work, and I recognize this, she put in all this work, planning these vacations, booking these homes, getting everything set up. And days before we were about to leave, I could already start feeling the stress sitting in.

• 34:53Nick Bare?

  And a lot of it was, I had and carried this guilt around going on vacation. This guilt that it was going to take me away from work. I should be working. I should be like head down.

• 35:09Nick Bare?

  Gas pedal to the floor, pressed down and just work, work, work, non-stop. I didn't think I deserved time off, no time off. There was a guilt of slowing down. There was a guilt of, of missing out on potential opportunities.

• 35:30Nick Bare?

  And some of these, these pressures, most of these pressures were internally created. But I also felt this obligation and responsibility that if my team,

• 35:45Nick Bare?

  the people who work for BPN are back in office,

• 35:51Nick Bare?

  packing orders, working supply chain issues, filming content, creating videos, editing films, all of the other departments and operations of the business, if they were still back at HQ in Round Rock, Texas, working really hard, and I was somewhere else on vacation, I felt this heavy sense of guilt. Why should I get time off while they're working? Now, everyone at BPN gets 20 vacation days a year. That's our, our PTO policy, you get 20 vacation days a year.

• 36:34Nick Bare?

  And I highly encourage everyone, take all of those 20 days. Please, don't leave one day left in a calendar year. Don't take 19 days off, take your 20 days off. But as much as I encourage everyone else to take your vacation, disconnect, take time away, don't touch your phone, just relax and chill.

• 36:58Nick Bare?

  It's easier said than done.

• 37:01Nick Bare?

  And I believe that if you are, again, a high achiever, if you are pursuing this life of building and accomplishment and achieving, you might struggle with this as well.

• 37:19Nick Bare?

  What did vacations used to look like in the past? It was heavily controlling my diet. It was excessive training. It was waking you up very, very early to knock out one of my training sessions. There were times where I was training twice a day on vacation. I wasn't able to relax or disconnect from work. I'd be on the beach on business calls, answering emails, answering slacks.

• 37:52Nick Bare?

  There have been many vacations where, I mean, I can think back to our honeymoon in Cabo. I was in an Ironman prep during our wedding and then our honeymoon. And I was waking up and getting on the treadmill in Cabo during our honeymoon and running 14 to 16 mile runs every morning while Steph was at breakfast by herself or by the pool. And I just could not disconnect. There have been times in Florida where I've been in a marathon prep and while the whole family, we go to the beach with Steph's family, my family sometimes, where everyone's been

• 38:35Nick Bare?

  at the beach and I'm out running along Coastal Highway 30A, doing a 22 mile workout for the day. And obviously, doing a 22 mile workout in the middle of summer in Florida afterwards, you're absolutely taxed. So you have no physical, mental, or emotional energy for the rest of the day. And I was useless. But for me, I cannot turn it off. I couldn't. I wouldn't. I had the choice, but I chose not to.

• 39:10Nick Bare?

  And...

• 39:13Nick Bare?

  I knew what this was doing to my relationships. I knew what this was doing to my family. I knew what this was doing to me personally, but I cannot stop. I cannot turn it off. And I had a lot of pride in that discipline, in that ability to maintain. But the reality is, I recognize that if I didn't make a change, if I didn't evolve, I would die. Maybe not physically die, but I would waste.

• 39:53Nick Bare?

  I would waste a lot of memories that I couldn't get back. I'd waste a lot of time that I couldn't get back. I'd waste a lot of joy, potentially waste and ruin relationships. Sometimes evolving is not just continuing to push and push and push in one direction, but it's pushing in a different direction that may unlock another type of go one more.

• 40:32Nick Bare?

  That may unlock a different type of growth and perspective and wisdom. And this past week, this past vacation, for me, was like the definition of an evolution in me personally and professionally. Now, I have to recognize and admit that my business is now at a different level and size where I can take a step back.

• 41:05Nick Bare?

  Or maybe not even a step back, but I can take a step away for a few days and go on vacation and know that I have the right people in the right positions in places to make decisions and execute and keep the business pumping at full steam. And I'm very grateful and appreciative for that because there was a, a time, there was a moment, there was a place when that wasn't the, the way it was or the way it is today. But now I have a great team, an amazing staff, dedicated individuals who contribute to our mission, our success and what we're doing. And I'm able to take a step away for a few days, focus on my family and not have to worry about

• 41:49Nick Bare?

  the business because there's other people worrying about the business just as much as I am, which is a great place to be, but it took me at this point 13 years to get there. What else has changed that has facilitated this new type of vacationing? I had kids. My daughter is going to be three years old this summer. My son is going to be one year old this summer. Now I will say going on vacation with two young kids, an eighth, eight month old right now and almost a three year old. It is a lot.

• 42:33Nick Bare?

  It is exhausting. It is not a vacation. Uh, I was once told this a few years ago before we had kids that once you have kids, you don't go on vacations anymore. You go on trips and I found that hilarious and I find it even more hilarious now because it is so absolutely true. They are exhausting. I mean, Steph and I, last night when we got home, we were dead, but it was absolutely amazing. It was so much fun. Seeing Charlie like love being in the pool and being on the beach and right now.

• 43:12Nick Bare?

  She's just like changing so much on almost a daily basis. She's obsessed with Hannah Montana at the moment and she was doing these Hannah Montana reenactments on the beach. And I would announce her to come out on stage. She'd come out on stage and she would perform, she would sing, she would dance. And it was hilarious. And just the memories that we created

• 43:39Nick Bare?

  for a few short days in seaside Florida. And my son being on the beach for the first time and we spent Easter there and going out to dinner and just so much time spent as a family. It was so rewarding. It was so much fun. But it was really hard and it was all worth it. But having kids has changed my perspective.

• 44:10Nick Bare?

  Having kids has been

• 44:13Nick Bare?

  one of the, the, the greatest life-changing experience in my life. It is forced change. It is forced evolution. Because if I haven't

• 44:25Nick Bare?

  or wouldn't and didn't accept that change,

• 44:31Nick Bare?

  I would be vacationing the same way I was

• 44:36Nick Bare?

  three, four years ago before having kids, where I wasn't fun to be around. We'd go for burgers and fries and I wouldn't eat the burgers and fries back then. Or we would go to a celebratory dinner and if I was in a prep, I wouldn't get a, a glass of wine or a cocktail with the family. And I wouldn't stay up past my bedtime to play board games because I had to get into bed and wake up for an early morning run the next day.

• 45:06Nick Bare?

  And all of that is respected. You know, there's something to say that if you have a goal and you're focused on that goal and disciplined, there are sacrifices you have to make. I recognize that. I've done that more times than I can can count. I can promise you that.

• 45:23Nick Bare?

  But when it starts affecting other people or other parts of your life, there has to come a time where you recognize and ask yourself, why am I continuing to do this? What is the purpose? And is it creating more harm than it is good? There's a time and place to sacrifice. There's a time and place to be super dialed in and disciplined and committed. And when it's time for me to be there and go there, trust me, I can go there, I can do it and I will. I had before and I will do it again. But there are certain times when it's okay to relax and just enjoy the time with family, with friends.

• 46:08Nick Bare?

  And the way that this vacation looked differently is that, one, traveling to Florida, I was stressed out. I'll be honest. I was stressed out because traveling with two young kids and all the luggage and all of the car seats and strollers and beach gear, just the thought process of getting from your house in Texas, through security, onto a plane, off of a plane, getting your luggage, getting a rental car, getting to the house, getting set up. That just stresses me out just thinking about it. But once we got there, once we got the floor in our home,

• 46:49Nick Bare?

  we sat down, took a deep breath,

• 46:54Nick Bare?

  and I told myself, I told myself, I get to make a choice right here. This is where I get to choose if I evolve and grow or fail to evolve and die and waste. I know this week is going to be tough. It's going to bring challenges. It's probably going to be exhausting. I accept that. But it's going to bring so much joy, so many memories. And I want that. I want to embrace that.

• 47:25Nick Bare?

  Or I could have said, this is gonna be a hard week. This is gonna suck. This is gonna be tough. This is gonna be exhausting. I'm just gonna be in a negative mindset and headspace because I gotta find time to hit all my meals and do all my training and answer all these emails. And I chose

• 47:43Nick Bare?

  a path that I'm really proud of where

• 47:49Nick Bare?

  I said, I'm gonna train when I have the opportunity, if I have the opportunity to train. I'm not gonna force it.

• 47:56Nick Bare?

  I'm gonna enjoy all the meals and food and drinks with my family. And I'm not gonna force anything. I'm gonna leave my phone back in the room as much as possible and I'm not gonna get on my laptop.

• 48:11Nick Bare?

  And those are the things I did and it felt really good. I created a lot of core memories with my family. The phone stayed in the room most of the week. I barely touched it. Laptop didn't get opened.

• 48:26Nick Bare?

  You know, Steph and I, when it comes to working out, training and eating healthy, those are things that we just love to do and they make us feel better and they make us better people, better parents. So we do them regardless of whether on vacation or not. So I would wake up in the morning and my son would be up. I'd give him a bottle, put him back down. He'd sleep for a few more hours and then I'd go and run. And when I got back, Steph would do Pilates on, uh, Pilates and her workouts out on the back patio. And she had her workout in and by the time she was wrapping up her workout, both our kids were waking up.

• 49:11Nick Bare?

  And we would get them up. We'd all eat and we'd go for a walk and get coffee. And then we'd spend the day bouncing between the beach and the pool, different restaurants and shops.

• 49:26Nick Bare?

  And we had no plans, no expectations,

• 49:32Nick Bare?

  no routines, really, they were rough routines, but allowed for a lot of flexibility. There are a few days where I didn't get to go run in the morning because the kids woke up early, and that was okay. I wasn't gonna do a second workout of that day. But if I had the opportunity to wake up early, go knock out a run, yeah, I'm gonna do that because it makes me feel good. And I love running in 30A. Because it matters to me, and it makes me feel good. And it sets the foundation for the rest of my day. I'm a better dad and husband because of it.

• 50:03Nick Bare?

  And when it comes to food and eating while we're traveling and vacationing,

• 50:09Nick Bare?

  we like to feel good. So we buy a lot of groceries and we cook a lot of our meals at the house. You know, my breakfast every morning was four eggs, some fruit and bacon. And then we'd get a coffee at the coffee shop and we'd all split a blueberry muffin or a breakfast taco. And then for lunch, I was eating some ground beef or chicken and rice that we had prepped. And we also picked up this really good crab dip and these homemade sourdough crackers that we found at this 30A market, which were absolutely delicious.

• 50:50Nick Bare?

  I crushed this crab dip with my beef and rice or chicken and rice for lunch. And then for a mid-afternoon snack, we'd go down to our favorite little restaurant shop called Shrimp Shack in 30A. And I would get peel and eat shrimp. And I would eat like a pound of peel and eat shrimp every day. Like, it's one of my favorite things to eat by the beach. And I'd grab like a few apples and eat that. And then for dinner, we would go out to eat. And one night, we went for burgers and fries at a spot called Pickles, which was probably the best

• 51:27Nick Bare?

  burger that I've ever had in my life. No exaggeration.

• 51:32Nick Bare?

  It was absolutely incredible.

• 51:36Nick Bare?

  And then we got pizza one night. And we got ice cream one night. And we

• 51:46Nick Bare?

  We got lobster rolls one night. And just ate whatever we wanted to in the evening with the family and it was a great time and I wasn't stressed about hitting certain macronutrient goals or going to bed at a certain time. We stayed up late with our daughter and watched movies after my son was already down.

• 52:11Nick Bare?

  And I just wasn't overly controlled with this trip, with this vacation. One of the hacks that Steph and I implemented on this vacation that will become a standard for us moving forward is what we found when we go out to dinner with the kids is it's typically chaos. That's just like the reality of it. Like there's food everywhere. Baby's crying, someone's holding Nico while you're trying to shovel food in your mouth. It's just like pure chaos this season and chapter of life. Going out to dinner is not ever easy. So there are so many times where we'll go out to dinner, we'll order a cocktail or a glass of wine and like we don't touch our drink because we just

• 52:55Nick Bare?

  don't have time to drink it. You're passing the kids back and forth, you're feeding one of the kids, you're changing a diaper. It's just the way it is. So we implemented this new thing that as we're getting ready to go to dinner and we timed it up pretty well where Charlie would come back from the beach or the pool and she'd lay down on the couch and watch a show and pass out for a little bit. And Nico would get a bottle and he'd sleep for about an hour before we'd go to dinner. And Steph and I would use this time to get ready, shower up, get dressed, get all the kid stuff ready to then walk down to the square of seaside and grab some food. This is when we shared a drink together.

• 53:40Nick Bare?

  So I would make either a margarita for us or we'd pour a glass of wine. And as we were getting ready, we'd share our pre-dinner cocktail, have a little moment together, get ready in silence, peace, and then the kids would wake up and, you know, we'd go get dinner, eat our food, come back, go watch the sunset on the beach, or go get some ice cream and some sweet treats. And that was a hack that we implemented in this past vacation that was very beneficial and nice.

• 54:14Nick Bare?

  But this vacation for me was an evolution.

• 54:19Nick Bare?

  It was an evolution that I chose

• 54:24Nick Bare?

  to implement.

• 54:26Nick Bare?

  Because I knew if I didn't,

• 54:29Nick Bare?

  I would create this trend that potentially would last years, decades, my lifetime. Or I was the person on vacation that was a buzzkill. I was stressed, I was negative, I was working, I was going to sleep early, I went to go to dinner with the family. All of those things, I didn't want to be that person anymore.

• 54:55Nick Bare?

  I wanted to live and embrace the outcomes of go on more. That's a choice that I made on this vacation. And that evolution

• 55:08Nick Bare?

  and choice paid off in dividends for my relationship with my kids, my family, my wife. And I'm really proud of that choice.

• 55:21Nick Bare?

  It wasn't easy.

• 55:24Nick Bare?

  And it sounds ridiculous. It wasn't easy to enjoy vacation and time away from work and training and strict dieting and all of these things. But again, I believe that if you are type A, mission focused, goal oriented, you might struggle with this as well. Just like me. You know, there's a lot of reasons

• 55:56Nick Bare?

  we probably avoid change and we avoid and resist evolutions.

• 56:03Nick Bare?

  Some of those reasons are the fear of the unknown.

• 56:08Nick Bare?

  Routines feel really good. Routines are comfortable. Routines are predictable. And anything that challenges that routine.

• 56:22Nick Bare?

  Oftentimes comes with a lot of uncomfort, discomfort, and we want to avoid that at all possible costs for many of us.

• 56:34Nick Bare?

  Change and evolutions require work, lots of work. And there's naturally a resistance to that change in that work that is required to facilitate something new, something different.

• 56:51Nick Bare?

  And if accepting change and pursuing and choosing these evolutions that will facilitate growth, if it isn't a skill, there's an opportunity right now to make it a goal to turn it into a skill.

• 57:09Nick Bare?

  You know, like right now, one of the things that we are doing with BPN, a big focus of mine, a big focus of mine, this is a crazy chapter, actually, of, of life.

• 57:22Nick Bare?

  Because right now, we are getting ready to move into our, our new HQ that we've been working on for the last 18 months. It's been a massive project, which I'm about to talk, talk about.

• 57:38Nick Bare?

  I have my book launch that is coming up. So a lot of preparation for the book launch, a big media tour. We are hosting our Last Man Standing Go On More Ultra on the Bear Ranch next month, which I'm so excited about. It's going to be an absolutely incredible race. We have some people who are coming out to put down a lot of miles. We are launching a new product in June, which is what we're calling the Future of Endurance. I will do a podcast just on this new product in the near future.

• 58:20Nick Bare?

  But in June, we are launching that. I'm, I'm really excited about that. And then we are preparing for our annual summer sale, which is in July.

• 58:33Nick Bare?

  So there's a lot that we're, we're creating, we're, we're building right now.

• 58:41Nick Bare?

  Lots of momentum behind the brand, lots of opportunity. And all of these things that we're pursuing are choices that we made to push the brand forward, to continue evolving the brand into the business, into the brand, into the company that we and I want it to be, need it to be in the future. Like moving into this new HQ is a big evolution for us. And I'll explain why. It might just feel like another move. You know, over the years,

• 59:27Nick Bare?

  we have acquired a bunch of new space. And it might look like we've made a lot of moves, but we really haven't made any moves. I mean, we moved into our, our current HQ that we're operating out of right now for another two weeks in 2019. And we first secured 10,000 square feet. And then from there, that was 3161 Eagles Nest Street, Suite 360, Round Rock, Texas, 78665. That is our headquarters. That was about 10,000 square feet. And then we started growing. And we grabbed 10,000 square feet next door. And we grabbed 5,000 square feet next door.

• 1:00:12Nick Bare?

  And there was nothing left in that building. So we had to go to the building behind us and grab 20,000 square feet. And then we had to go grab another 5,000 square feet in another building. Because as we moved into this business park, other businesses and companies came in and grabbed different suites. And we were trying to grab more space around them. It wasn't ideal, but we, we did what we had to do as a growing brand, a growing business, to continue scaling and adapting, adapting to our current environment.

• 1:00:50Nick Bare?

  Now this lease that we're currently operating out of was coming to an end and it comes to an end next month. We had a choice to make. We could either re-sign the lease, which was the path of least resistance. We keep operating out of our current existing footprint. We would have ran out of space eventually. We definitely would have ran out of space for inventory in the near foreseeable future. So we would have had to have grabbed some more warehouse space, which wouldn't have been a problem. We just grabbed another, you know, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50,000

• 1:01:34Nick Bare?

  square feet somewhere in a business park close to us to store inventory. That would have been a pretty easy solution. The path of least resistance. There's a lot of comfort in the space that we're currently operating out of. It works. It's not the most efficient or the most effective, but it works. The other choice is not an adaptation, but an evolution for this next chapter of BPN. That would have been not re-signing our current lease and signing a new lease for a bigger space that comes with a lot more work. These last 18 months have been

• 1:02:18Nick Bare?

  jam-packed with working alongside architects, designers, construction managers, engineers, getting blueprints drafted up, furniture ordered, and in two weeks, we've moved into this new space. We chose growth. We chose the evolution, not just the adaptation.

• 1:02:47Nick Bare?

  We wanted a little bit of discomfort. We wanted new, we wanted different, we wanted challenge. This new space that we're moving into is 76,000 square feet total.

• 1:02:58Nick Bare?

  It's about 9,000 square feet of gym, over 15,000 square feet of office, and over 50,000 square feet of warehouse for inventory and fulfillment. It's a massive building. If you would have shown me this building back in 2012, when I first started BPN in my college apartment, I would have told you there's no way. There's no way we will ever be operating out of that space. It's beautiful. It's immaculate. It's intentionally and well-designed. There's hits of branding everywhere. It's unique. It's functional. It's efficient.

• 1:03:37Nick Bare?

  I mean, if you would have told me in 2012 that that's where we will be operating in 2025, my jaw would have dropped and hit the floor. Truly, truly.

• 1:03:52Nick Bare?

  And we're two weeks away from moving into that space.

• 1:03:58Nick Bare?

  The reason this is such a big decision, or has been a big decision, in evolution for us as a team, as a brand, is because

• 1:04:09Nick Bare?

  for me, this is the the closing of one chapter to start the next. The the past couple of years have been

• 1:04:22Nick Bare?

  turning of pages and maybe some editing of of chapters, but this is truly

• 1:04:31Nick Bare?

  closing one chapter and then starting the next. Like right now, I am I'm about to turn the page of one chapter,

• 1:04:40Nick Bare?

  which is the past, and then moving into this new HQ, we start anew. And it's all blank pages right now that we get to write. But the vision of where we're going is so clear.

• 1:04:53Nick Bare?

  And we have the right people on the team. We're focused. We're making intentional choices and decisions. And this new building, this new space, it's just things, it's desks, it's tables, it's walls, it's concrete, it's wood, it's drywall. But it's so much more to me. It truly is. And this is a 10-year lease. We signed a 10-year lease. So 10-year lease. And in order to build it out the way that we wanted to build it out, we had to come out of pocket

• 1:05:38Nick Bare?

  quite a lot of money. We've invested ourselves a couple million dollars into this new building. Now, the landlord has provided us some TI, tenant improvement, where they, you know, give you some money to build out the space as you desire. But in order for us to build it out the way that we wanted to build it out, we had to invest a couple million dollars. And what we're really proud of is the fact that we didn't have to take out any debt. We didn't have to touch a line of credit. We were able to finance all of the construction built out for this new building with cash on balance sheet. Because we've operated the business very intentionally

• 1:06:23Nick Bare?

  and smart and resourceful for years now, that we've positioned ourselves to make this decision and this choice and this investment, this investment into the team, the people, the brand, the future, the mission, the consumer, so that we can do better at our job. We can continue building the brand we want to build.

• 1:06:52Nick Bare?

  But all of this planning, the last 18 months, the investment, the millions of dollars, the time that we spent on calls with designers and architects and engineers and construction managers, all this time, money, resources invested, it's all part of a choice that we made to evolve. Because we knew, I knew, that if we didn't evolve and we didn't turn to this next chapter, that five years from now, we would look back and say, man, we grew. If we would have stayed in our current spot, wow, we grew, but what could we have

• 1:07:34Nick Bare?

  grown into? What could we have become? What could we have accomplished if we truly would have taken the risk? If we would have stepped into the discomfort? If we would have avoided and resisted the path of least resistance and pursued growth? Because if you don't evolve, you die or you waste. If we wanted to have chose to evolve to this next building, to this next chapter, to this next opportunity, we would have wasted time, potential, opportunity,

• 1:08:15Nick Bare?

  what could have and will become of BPN. This is so applicable to all areas and aspects of our life. We get to make that choice every day. Every day, we are adapting. And again, adaptations are changes we make that allow us to thrive better in our current environment based off of exposure to a previous stimulus. It is a fine adjustments of the microscope. But there comes a time where we have to make the course adjustments. We have to make the big choices and changes. Those big choices and changes are scary, they

• 1:08:58Nick Bare?

  are intimidating, they are costly, they can be risky. But man, the opportunity on the other side is life-changing.

• 1:09:15Nick Bare?

  Make intentional life-changing choices.

• 1:09:20Nick Bare?

  Whether that is pursuing growth in your business,

• 1:09:25Nick Bare?

  whether that's taking ownership and responsibility of your health, of your fitness, of your performance, or maybe it's just making life-changing choices, intentional life-changing choices in the way that you are going to vacation with your family and the memories that you're going to create.

• 1:09:48Nick Bare?

  It's not always about doing more and going harder. That's not what go on more is. Go on more, as I've mentioned already. It's an outcome. It's not just an action.

• 1:10:03Nick Bare?

  So we'll see you guys in the next episode.