NICK BARE ｜ Forward Thinking, Backward Planning
Episode Stats
Length
1 hour and 10 minutes
Words per Minute
182.09671
Summary
Nick Baer is a former Army Ranger and founder of Bear Performance Nutrition. He started his company in college and built it into a multi-million dollar company, which he built through a military deployment to South Korea and has since turned it into an eight-figure company. In this episode, we discuss removing ego from the equation, looking at life as a series of sprints, managing expectations with important people in your life, and keeping yourself from becoming resentful and callous towards others.
Transcript
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Men, as you're thinking about your New Year's resolutions, it's easy to become trapped in
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daydreaming. So many men look forward to what they want to accomplish, but rarely do they
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calculate the plan to achieve their objectives and most importantly, take the actions necessary.
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Today, I'm joined by former Army Ranger and founder of Bear Performance Nutrition, Nick
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Bear. We discuss removing ego from the equation, looking at life as a series of sprints, managing
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expectations with important people in your life, also keeping yourself from becoming resentful
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and callous towards others and ultimately the power of forward thinking and backwards
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planning. You're a man of action. You live life to the fullest. Embrace your fears and
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boldly chart your own path. When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every
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time. You are not easily deterred, defeated, rugged, resilient, strong. This is your life.
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This is who you are. This is who you will become at the end of the day. And after all is said
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Gentlemen, what is going on today? My name is Ryan Mickler. I'm the host and the founder
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of the Order of Man podcast and movement. Welcome to December 2022. Yeah, we've been here
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for a couple of weeks, but guys about this time of year, it seems like everybody's thinking
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about goal setting and new year's resolutions and what they want to accomplish in 2023 and
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how they want next year to be different than it is this year. And to that end, we've got
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this podcast. We've been doing it for almost eight years now and it has done phenomenally
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well. And that's a testament to you. That's a testament to the fact that we as men want
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this information. We want to improve. We want to get better. We want to hear from each
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other. We want to learn. We want to grow. We want to implement. And so I just want to
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give you a shout out and thank you for tuning in. Whether you've been here for a week or a
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year or all eight years with us, we got some big things in the works moving forward. If
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you are new, this podcast is designed to have conversations with men like my guest today,
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Nick Baer, very successful in his own right. Other guys like Jocko Willink and Cameron Haynes
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and Andy Frisilla and Terry Cruz and Tim Tebow. These are all men we've had on the podcast and
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so many more incredible guys doing incredible things. So we're going to get to it in a minute.
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I want to let you know the great news today is that we are actually open. Finally, I've
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been talking about the iron council for weeks, if not months, we are finally open for the
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last time of the year. I'm going to talk more about it a little later in the show, but for
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now, if you want to join with other men who get it, meaning they are on the same path as
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you, they're wanting to do the same things as you. They're wanting to succeed like you do.
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Then you need to check out the iron council because we're open until the end of the year.
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And that's it. You can check it out at order man.com slash iron council. Again, I'll talk
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about it later for now. I really want to introduce you to my guest. He is a former army ranger.
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His name is Nick Baer. He's the founder of the hugely successful company, Baer performance
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nutrition, which he started in college and he built through a military deployment to South
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Korea and has since turned it into a multiple eight figure nutrition company.
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I'm super inspired by Nick, especially as he successfully navigates running his company,
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taking care of his mental and emotional, and of course, physical health, and also recently
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becoming a father for the first time. Nick is using his passion for exercise and nutrition
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to improve people's lives through sports performance. Also his content online. He's reaching millions
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and millions of people, his book, 24 hours a day, speaking engagements, and really at the end of it
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all, just embodying the type of person others can look up to and learn from. So enjoy this conversation.
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Nick, what's up brother? Glad to have you on the podcast, man.
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I think we got, I'd been following you for a little bit and then I think we got synced up.
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I was down there because you're in Austin, right?
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Yeah. Yeah. I was down there with our literary agent and then I met up with Cam and then I think
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you and I got synced up a day or two, like right after I had left. Otherwise it would have been
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cool to record a podcast face-to-face. I like doing that better, but we'll make this work.
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Hey, next time you're in Austin, let me know. I have the spots for dinner. I have the spots for
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some drinks. We got a podcast studio. We got a jam. We can hit it all in one session.
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Right on, man. I also want to train with you too because that to me is where the real value would
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come from because I'd be able to see what that training schedule is like. I'm not sure I'd be
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able to keep up, but I'd like to do it nonetheless. Honestly, that's one of my favorite ways to
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meet someone and get to know someone because you're both humbled by something difficult and challenging.
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You have something to bond over and it kind of just breaks down sometimes the awkwardness of like a
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new interaction. And you leave that experience as such closer people and acquaintances and friends.
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Yeah. I actually think more men ought to do stuff like that because in modern times,
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we're told, men are told that in order to build friendships or bonds, they need to do it like women
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and they don't resonate with it, which is basically sitting across from each other talking about who
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knows what. As opposed to men, we best bond over a common objective or a common enemy. So if it's in
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the gym, that's a common objective. We're pushing hard against something. We're challenging each other.
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We're pushing each other. But yeah, generally society would say, don't do that. Just sit around and
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talk about your feelings. And that just hasn't worked for me, let alone any other guy out there,
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I'm sure. Well, I think that's why I've seen parallels and similarities between my time in
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the military and then building my company because both things are very physically and mentally
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challenging. And you bond together through this difficult objective. And I've seen such
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similar crossover between the two experiences. Yeah. I know your story a bit about joining the
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military and then going through ranger school. I was really curious about your transition out of
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the military. I think if I understand correctly, you started your nutrition company while you were
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still in the services. And then you transitioned after you came back from South Korea, I believe.
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So I started my company in 2012 while I was still in college. So I went to school. I went to school
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out in Western Pennsylvania at the school called Indiana University of Pennsylvania, IUP. No
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affiliation with Indiana University. It's just in a town called Indiana. And I studied nutrition there.
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I was on an Army ROTC scholarship there. And between my junior and senior year of college,
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I decided to start my business, which was probably the worst time I could have started a business because
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a year later, I graduated with a degree, I commissioned in the Army as an infantry officer,
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I got sent to Fort Benning, Georgia for a year. I was in, you know, Fort Benning for a year through
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the infantry officer basic course, ranger school, airborne school. And then I got stationed in Texas
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in 2014 at Fort Hood, served four years in, in the Army. Most of that time as a infantry platoon leader,
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transitioned out in 2017. And that was like the first opportunity for me to, to go all in on the
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business. But I spent, I spent those, those five years leading up to that moment, building the brand
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as much as I could in my free time, which was outside of my time in the military. So I did set
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myself up for success pretty well through my transition. I can't say that a lot of people do
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that. I've seen a lot of people struggle with the transition of military to civilian. But I am
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grateful and fortunate that I did set that, that transition up pretty successfully.
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Well, where did I get South Korea from? Am I way off? Am I thinking about something else?
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No. So I was in South Korea in, in 2016 with the military for nine months.
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And so I got to, I got to Fort Hood, Texas. I was stationed there. I was leading an infantry
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platoon there. We had orders to go to South Korea for nine months. I spent nine months there
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training at Camp Casey. And I actually, I built the business a lot when I was in South Korea
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because what I realized is when I got there, I thought my brand, I thought my business was going
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to die because I thought I was going to have zero free time to do anything. What I quickly realized
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was we were doing the same job in South Korea that we were doing back in the States. However,
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now I didn't have a 35 minute drive to and from work every day. I had a 20 second walk from my,
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my barracks to, to my office. So what I told myself when I got to South Korea was I wasn't going to
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watch any TV shows, no movies. I wasn't going to hang out with anyone. Every waking moment outside of
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my job as a platoon leader, I was going to spend building the business. I was going to read books.
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I was going to listen to podcasts. I was just going to learn as much as possible. I rebranded our
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website. I relaunched new products and we scaled the brand. I scaled the brand when I was in South
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Korea. So when I got there in February of 2016, we were doing $2,000 a month in revenue. My goal,
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my goal was by the time we left or by the time I left South Korea, I wanted to be doing $10,000 a
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month in revenue. We hit that in the first 90 days of being there. Really? Yeah. So that was just
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building the brand on social media and, and gaining brand awareness and just documenting my life while I
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was over there and sharing the story. And it started picking up traction. And that was a, you know,
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there's a positive correlation behind building these platforms and the brand and in sales and
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revenue. Yeah. We, we have a, we have a similar story in that I made a similar decision when I was
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in Iraq in 2005. I made the same decision. I'm not going to do the TV shows. I'm not going to do all
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this and that, that the guys are doing. I spent some time in the gym. Of course, I hung out a little
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bit with the guys, but a lot of my time was spent studying for my life insurance and investment
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qualifications so that when I came back, I could jump right into a financial planning practice that
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I was planning on starting. And it was amazing how few guys were actually doing that. Most guys in
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their time off were sleeping or binge watching 24 was the show at the time. And I was amazed at how few
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of us were taking that time and maximizing every moment. Did you find the same thing when you were
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in South Korea? Were guys dinking off doing their thing or, or were there a group of you guys who
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were dedicated to something more above and beyond what you were doing there? No, I was definitely
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the rare one in the bunch. I bet. Yeah. But a lot of the soldiers and non-commissioned officers in my
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platoon, they were talking about their future transition out of the military. And I challenged them
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with, Hey guys, like you need to have a plan. You're, you're either going to like go to school
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or you're going to find a job or you're going to start a business. But the time to start that
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business is not the day after you get out of the army. Right. Right. That's going to be a really
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tough transition. And I saw that happen to a lot of guys where all they wanted to do is leave the
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military. And they thought the grass was greener on the other side and they left. And then the day
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after they decided, Oh, I'm going to start this business and this business is going to blow up and
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I'm going to, you know, be living this, this amazing life. And it took, I I've been following
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some of these guys months and years to get it off the ground if it ever did. So sometimes it's, it's, you
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know, it's too late for a lot of people. You got to start earlier. And I was really encouraging
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these guys to, Hey, let's like, let's build a plan. So that when you do decide to transition out,
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you already have some, some momentum moving into it. Right. Yeah. It's always interesting at how
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often we underestimate, I guess, how, how long it, it will take to build a business. So many people
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might see your success or see the success of what we've had with the podcast and the movement and
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think, Oh, well that's easy. You know, you just talk to cool people or you make a couple of
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inspirational posts on, on Instagram and all of a sudden you're off to the races, but yeah,
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it takes a lot of time. And that actually translates into something I've heard you talk
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a lot about, which makes sense to me is this concept of forward thinking and backwards planning
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where I think most people are forward thinking. They're always thinking about what's next. What
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do I want? Maybe not specifically, or they're not doing it right, but they are dreaming. Right.
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But so few people seem to get to that second part of that, which is backwards thinking. I'd love to
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hear more about that philosophy for you. So backwards planning, you know, the military is
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huge and backwards planning, right? And it's pretty self-explanatory where you set a goal,
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you have an objective, you have a mission, and then you build a timeline based off of where you want to
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be when, where, and where you're at right now. And you fill in that gap with things that you have to
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accomplish to get you to point B to get from point A to point B. What do you have to do at what point
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and where to be successful? Right. And you learn this in the military. And if you directly apply it to
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your civilian life, it works out pretty well in almost anything you're going to do. And what I
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quickly realized was a lot of people were just unfamiliar to this pretty simple tactic. And you
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know, in a business, there's always a visionary in a business. We're implementing the system in our
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business right now. It's called EOS entrepreneurial operating system. And it's based off of the book
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traction. I don't know if you've ever read traction, but I haven't amazing book. And we're implementing
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this, this business system right now called EOS. And within EOS, you have an accountability
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function and structure for your company. And at the top of that accountability or organizational
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structure, you have a visionary. That is someone who is thinking into the future, coming up with the
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crazy ideas and just kind of painting a picture for where you see this company, this organization,
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and these people moving to be successful. You are painting a trajectory. So I think that's been
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one of my strengths in, in my life is I am a visionary. I'm always looking into 12, 24, 36,
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48 months out. Where are we trying to be in the future for either my business, myself personally,
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my family, where am I trying to get us to? And then what do I have to do from now until then
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to make sure that it successfully happens? So I'm always forward thinking and then backwards
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planning. What that visionary does, you can be a visionary for your family. You can be a visionary
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for yourself. You can be a visionary for your team, for your business. You are painting this picture
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of where you're heading. And then you build a plan of this is how we're going to get there.
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And what it does is it creates very clear steps in communication for the people around you of this
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is how we're getting there. And this is when we're going to do it. And this is where it's going to put
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us. So it provides a lot of clarity for not just yourself, but your team, your family.
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Have you found as a person who is a visionary that you are good at the backwards planning where the
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forward thinking might be your strength? Do you feel you're as strong with the planning? I know
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myself personally, I'm more of a visionary personality. I can see things that other people
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can't. I can envision what that might look like, what I want it to be. I'm not really, I can plan.
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I'm not really as good at implementing the, the minutiae, the day-to-day activities that need to
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be done in order to accomplish it. I'm kind of like, Hey, just go for it. And let's just see what
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works. That's my personality. I think it depends on the scale. So I, I enjoy being a visionary. I enjoy
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painting this picture for people to see where we're heading. If I have to backwards plan for myself,
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say I'm doing a marathon prep or trying to gain or lose weight, I can be very successful in that.
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And for like smaller teams, I can backwards plan for smaller teams pretty well. I think in my opinion,
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as the organization gets larger and there's more moving pieces, I like delegating that to someone
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else who is, who's better at doing it than me. It's like, I like paint the picture and I love having
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a team now that can execute on that picture and step in to do the moving parts, the backwards
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planning for me. So how have you then, let's say you've got your team now. And I imagine,
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I think I heard on a recent podcast that you're, you're bringing more people in, in the right places
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to be able to scale the business even greater. Have you found any sort of contention or even just
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disagreement between yourself as the visionary who wants to accomplish this big grand thing
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and your team who is in charge of the day-to-day activities? And they're like, whoa, hold on a
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second. Like we still have to do these things. And you're like, no, that's, that was two months ago.
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We're on to bigger, something bigger and better now. How do you manage that conflict if it,
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if it arises and comes up? That's like the, that's the growing pains that I've experienced as a
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business owner for the last couple of years. I bet. I think a lot of that comes down to
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ego and removing, you know, limiting ego. I think there's, there's definitely a time and place to have
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ego. And if you're leading an organization, you're leading your family, you're leading something,
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you're leading a sports team. You have to have the ability to make a decision and be decisive in
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that decision-making. But I think you also have to have the humility and eliminate that ego to see
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everyone else's perspective. You know, like I've done it before. I failed at this many, many times
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where I have this vision of where we're going to go and like, where I want this company to be in
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12 to 24 months. But it's really easy to overlook everyone else's role in all the things that they have
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to do in order to move their ship with the bigger ship, you know, to keep rowing the ship in the
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same direction. And you can really easily crush people and overwork people and hurt people through
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that process. So that's, that's something I'm constantly trying to navigate is yes, I want to
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put these big projects in emotion. I want to, I want to achieve these massive goals, but is it actually
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feasible for the team to keep up with and accomplish as well? Because if I win in the business wins,
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but it crushes everyone through the process. Well, that's a failure in my opinion.
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Sure. Sure. Yeah. It's not. I do the same thing. I think any high achiever has that problem to a
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degree. And I used to say, or think, well, what's your problem? Just get on board and like catch up
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or you're not. And then I would pin it back on worth of that person, you know, that they were
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crushed or deflated or whatever it might be. And I'm trying to be a little bit more mature. It sounds
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like you're working through some, some of the same things I am of, Hey, look, it's not as effective
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long-term to be 100% in going as fast as you possibly can, but nobody's there to help or to build.
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It's just not a sustainable way of doing it. In my opinion, in my experience,
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I mean, it's tough because, you know, we're talking from like a business perspective right now,
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you care so much about the health and the success of the organization that,
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you know, in my case, I started over 10 years ago. I now identify with this company. I've sunk
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so much time, energy, and money into it. And I care so much about the success of it,
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but I equally care about the people who have uprooted their life that have moved their family
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across the country to come support the mission as well. So I think it's, it's balanced. And
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I don't know if I'll ever solve it or find a solution, but as you're pushing one, sometimes
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you neglect the other, you know, it's like, I'm, I'm pushing the business so hard. And then I'll
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realize, Oh shit. Like I, I, I crushed some people through this process. And then you're in your head,
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you're in your mind of, did I make it, did I make a wrong decision? Am I a bad leader? Like,
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am I, am I a bad business owner? Like, these are things I'm always, you know, navigating in my mind
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as I'm trying to push people and develop people and do something that is almost unbelievable in,
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in, in terms of what I thought was achievable 10 years ago. How, how is your, how is that mentality
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and specifically the way that you've run the business or even viewed your, your employees and
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coworkers through the lens of being a father? Cause I know you've got what, a five or six
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month old little girl. And you know, that's, that's going to change things as well, obviously.
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A five month old daughter. And I'll tell you what, man, like completely changed my life. And
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I I've, I've been told six months ago before Charlie Grace was born, I was told by many other dads,
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this, this child of yours is going to change your life. And like, I thought I understood that I
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really did until it actually happened. And it has completely changed my perspective on what really
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matters in life. And I know that sounds probably pretty cliche, but you know, now with this being
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my new life, five months later, I'm navigating changes. Uh, I am realizing that can't be as selfish
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with my time anymore. And I also realized I want to be super present with my family. I want to be
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present with my wife. I want to be present with like my daughter and our future kids. And, uh, it is
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definitely changed the way I, I operate the business. It has changed the way I look at team members and
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employees, especially employees and team members that have families that have kids who are, who are
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married. Um, because if I'm being honest with myself and I've had this conversation with my wife,
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the last couple of years, my head has been like, it's been down and it's work, work, work.
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And I'm sure a lot of entrepreneurs like can resonate with this and you never come up and kind
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of look around to see possibly what damage you have done. When our daughter was born, that was like
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the first time in a while where my head came up and I was able to look around it. I guess some of
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the damage that I've done, it was okay. I should have been more present with my wife the past couple
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years. That's something I'm actively working on right now. And, um, I'm, I'm honestly now forward
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thinking and backwards planning in terms of the father that I want to be the husband that I want to
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be in the future and how that changes my role in the business. That's something I'm actively navigating
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as we speak. Yeah. It's, it's challenging too. I I've got, I've got four kids and my oldest is 14.
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So I've, I've been in the game for 14 years now. What's a challenge for me is being vigilant about
00:24:14.360
that. You know, it's, it's, I'm not going to say it's easy, but I do think it's at least more
00:24:19.520
on the top of your mind that, Hey, I want to be available and present for my wife and my,
00:24:24.200
my six month old, but then she's going to turn one and two and three and five. And it's really
00:24:30.060
easy for myself. I imagine you're very much the same way for us to slip back into default mode,
00:24:36.560
which is for me business mode and, and remaining vigilant about staying on top of that balance of
00:24:45.380
wanting to be with the family, wanting to run the business and trying to find the right amount of time
00:24:51.980
and energy and effort to give to both. Yeah. I always explain it to my wife as I'm like, Hey,
00:24:57.080
Steph, I'm about to go into a sprint again. And she's like, Nick, you're always in a sprint.
00:25:02.780
Like, stop, stop giving me this bullshit. Yeah. Yeah. Like sometimes she can tell you that.
00:25:08.220
Yeah. But like, you know, sometimes in business, you know, there's a sprint that's about to come up.
00:25:12.700
It's like, maybe there's a new objective for the next quarter or your team is about to grow,
00:25:16.720
you're launching a new product and you know, like, Hey, I'm about to go into this sprint and it's,
00:25:21.400
it's going to be, it's going to be heavy. Um, but I think my wife has kind of just picked up on
00:25:27.440
finally that it is sprint after sprint after sprint, but I'm trying to plan for the future of,
00:25:33.840
you know, what do I want my life to look like in terms of my, my business, my work, my goals,
00:25:39.820
my family, all of that. And, uh, I'm really excited for what that looks like in the future.
00:25:47.340
I don't know what it looks like right now, but I'm, I'm really excited for it.
00:25:49.580
So how do you anticipate managing those sprint periods and not letting them roll into the next
00:25:57.320
sprint from sprint to sprint to sprint and actually coming up for air or, you know, slowing down the
00:26:03.320
pace or the tempo with business because you want to be more deliberate and intentional with the
00:26:07.240
family. How do you anticipate dealing with that as it, as it comes up? Cause she's probably right.
00:26:11.600
I mean, our, our wives are often right about our, the way that we're showing up in, in, in less than
00:26:18.700
favorable ways. You know, they're typically right about that.
00:26:22.160
Well, I'm a, I'm a doer by, uh, by nature. So if, if there's something that needs, needs to get done,
00:26:28.880
I'm going to do it. I'm just going to step in and do it. So building a business has actually
00:26:34.520
been a great lesson for me in terms of delegating responsibility and empowering people to do that
00:26:41.260
job. Because what I've realized in the past and where I failed is I have delegated responsibility
00:26:47.240
to someone who I've hired and I've empowered them, but then I took away that power by going and doing
00:26:53.000
it myself, which if I was working for a company, I, I wouldn't want that to happen to me.
00:26:59.420
So something I had to like really realize as growing this business is delegation is important.
00:27:06.640
Empowerment is important, but truly empower them to succeed, to fail, to learn, guide those people,
00:27:15.720
develop them, but you got to allow for that empowerment. So something I'm actively doing
00:27:22.020
right now to kind of prepare for, for my future with my family is we're hiring more people.
00:27:29.420
And especially people who have the experience, who have done it before that I can truly delegate
00:27:35.480
responsibilities to and empower and know that they're going to run with it like they own it
00:27:40.860
themselves. So that's been a huge part of some changes we've made to the business in the last
00:27:46.220
year is hiring more people who bring experience that can take on some of the responsibilities that
00:27:52.980
I previously had so that I can truly operate in the role that I want to operate in the business.
00:27:57.180
Yeah, no, that's, that is important is bringing in the right people and then trusting that they can
00:28:06.660
do the work that that's, that's been a challenge for me is okay. I know I need to delegate. I know
00:28:11.920
I need other people. And then you see them even do something that's not wrong necessarily, but
00:28:17.380
different than you might do it. And then you step in immediately. It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa,
00:28:21.040
hold on a second. You, like you said, you gave them authority to do that. Like you actually have
00:28:26.760
to trust them to be able to do it. And then guide, of course, and instruct where, where,
00:28:31.120
where it's appropriate and where it needs to happen. But that is definitely a challenge,
00:28:34.740
especially for something like you built, which I imagine you feel like is your, your baby outside
00:28:40.280
of your actual baby. Well, it's like, I was telling you, I identify with this company.
00:28:47.340
I was thinking about this the other day, as I was on a plane, coming back from a work trip,
00:28:52.000
is this thought of, you know, you, you, I founded BPN in 2012 and I put blood, sweat,
00:29:00.920
and tears into this business. And after doing that for an extended period of time,
00:29:05.960
you truly identify with it. And someone asked me the question a few months ago of, well, Nick,
00:29:11.640
who are you without your company? And I was like, you know what? That's a great question
00:29:17.520
because I've, I've truly identified with building this thing for a decade now that I've invested
00:29:24.920
everything into it. So sometimes you so truly identify with what you've built that I don't want
00:29:32.020
to say you lose a part of you, but, um, I think it's just part of being an entrepreneur that you
00:29:38.180
have to accept. How, uh, how are you answering that question or what, what work are you actively
00:29:44.640
doing to be able to answer the question of who you are outside of, outside of the business that
00:29:49.240
you've created? I haven't had an answer for it yet, but I do think that having our daughter five
00:29:56.740
months ago is helping me identify with like who I, I really am. And if I think about who I want to be
00:30:05.760
known for, like when I die one day, whether that's tomorrow or whether that's 40, 50 years from now,
00:30:13.780
I don't want to be known as Nick Barry's like that, that beast guy who lifts weights and,
00:30:19.340
and runs marathons. I don't want that on my tombstone. I love to train. That is one of my true
00:30:25.840
passions in life. I probably trained more than I should, but I want to be known as a role model.
00:30:30.260
I want to be known as a role model for, for fathers, for my children, for people who follow
00:30:37.000
me on social media. I want to be known as the guy who chose the hard right over the easy wrong
00:30:42.520
and who built a life that was respectable. So that's, that's a long way of saying that is what
00:30:52.540
I want to identify with and the things that I do in my life now. And then in the future, moving forward,
00:30:57.200
that's what I want to be known for. And it's, it's choosing things to work on, whether projects
00:31:05.540
or myself with my family that align with those values. I'm, I'm writing that down. Cause I think
00:31:12.640
that's a good frame is, is answering the question. What, what do I, what do I want to be known for?
00:31:18.460
Who do I want to be known for? That's a good, I'm constantly thinking about prompts or questions
00:31:25.480
that I can ask myself and other people can ask that, that we haven't before that might get us
00:31:31.080
thinking about our lives a little different. Cause I think that's what needs to happen. You know,
00:31:35.520
so many guys are listening to this podcast and they're thinking to themselves, I want a different
00:31:40.220
result out of my life. I want a different marriage or I want a different business, or I want to be in a
00:31:44.000
different spot financially or, or, or from a physical perspective, but they don't know how
00:31:49.340
to do it. And, and I've always been the mentality of like, well, if you want something, just change,
00:31:53.300
just do it. It's like, that's really easy to say, but if you don't know what to do,
00:31:58.440
that can seem like a very daunting task for people. And that's why I think looking at these
00:32:04.120
from a different frame is so crucial. So I really liked that question. It's a powerful question.
00:32:08.680
I also like thinking of like, what do you want to be known for, known for and by who?
00:32:14.540
So by all these people who, who really don't know you, that's, what's hard with social media,
00:32:20.900
right? It's like, I have people comment on some of my posts and they say, Oh, Nick,
00:32:25.720
you're such a good leader. Nick, you're such a good husband. Nick, you're such a good father.
00:32:30.200
How do you know? You don't work in my company. You don't, you don't have a bed in my house.
00:32:36.120
You're not around me. You know, when I spend time with my wife and my, my daughter, you really,
00:32:42.060
you see what I show you, but you don't know if I'm a good husband or a good father. It's like,
00:32:47.140
what do I want to be known for by who? A lot of it's my family. It's the people that are really
00:32:52.380
close to me in my life. Yes. I want to be a role model for these people online who follow me for
00:32:57.400
content. But at the end of the day, who, who really matters? And it's, it's the people I'm living in a
00:33:04.980
house with. Yeah. It's a good point because you can actually begin to buy into it, even though,
00:33:10.720
you know, you're deficient in certain areas. And I am, I know I am, you know, but other people will
00:33:16.120
see and say, Oh, you're so good at this. You're so good at that. And you're like, yeah, I am.
00:33:19.680
And you try to convince yourself that you are pretty good at those things. When you know in
00:33:23.180
full reality that you have so many flaws and room for improvement that you might overlook if you
00:33:30.400
begin to buy into that bullcrap that you're, you know, God's gift to whatever.
00:33:34.880
I was listening to this podcast a few months ago. It was probably over a year ago at this point.
00:33:39.840
And I told this story before on my platforms, but I love this story. And in the podcast,
00:33:44.980
it was this gentleman who was being interviewed, who he just sold his business and he sold his
00:33:50.060
business for a hundred million dollars. And the person interviewing him said, you know, sir,
00:33:55.540
you just sold your business. You spent the last two decades building this thing. You sold it for
00:34:00.000
a hundred million dollars. What are you going to do now? And he said, well, I'm going to travel the
00:34:04.180
world with my family. And he looks over at his family and his family goes, dad, we don't even
00:34:10.200
know you. We don't want to travel the world with you. So I always think about that story where,
00:34:15.660
you know, from the outside, it's here's this happy family. You know, the husband, he just built
00:34:21.580
this business. He sold it for a hundred million dollars. They're going to go travel the world.
00:34:24.420
They're going to live this dream life. And his family says, I don't even know you.
00:34:30.780
I always think about that in terms of what do I want to be known for and by who?
00:34:37.760
All right, man, I'm going to step away from the conversation very quickly. I told you,
00:34:40.840
I was going to tell you more about the iron council. You all know that having men in your
00:34:45.220
corner is crucial. I haven't met too many men who don't believe that's the case, but why is it then
00:34:50.400
that, that it seems if a few men have other male friends in their lives? Is it because we're busy
00:34:56.800
or is it because we don't know where to turn to find strong men to band with? Is it because even
00:35:01.660
if we do, it's hard to broach crucial topics that can serve us all well? I think it's likely all
00:35:07.160
three. And fortunately we've addressed all of these problems inside our exclusive brotherhood,
00:35:12.380
the iron council. And when you band with us, we focus only on the most important issues,
00:35:17.740
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00:35:22.180
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00:35:28.220
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00:35:33.300
further behind. These are men who get what it's like to want to thrive. And we've created a system
00:35:38.600
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00:35:43.820
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00:35:50.860
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00:35:55.600
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00:36:01.040
head to order of man.com slash iron council. Again, that's order of man.com slash iron council.
00:36:07.920
Do that right after the conversation for now, let's get back to it with Nick.
00:36:13.180
So this is, this has been a struggle for me personally, you know, as we're talking about
00:36:20.040
this, you've been successful financially, career-wise with your business. I've been
00:36:24.580
successful with my business. And so I think it's easy for us to say, yeah, we don't know our families
00:36:30.620
and we actually have the luxury because of what we've done, you know, and it's not to discount the
00:36:35.040
work, but we do have the luxury of saying, yeah, I am going to go on vacation or I am going to take
00:36:40.900
this week off, or I am going to take Thursday from noon to four off every week to be with my kids or
00:36:48.700
to coach one of their teams. And we have that luxury because of the work that we've done, but man,
00:36:53.600
you know, there's times and I do too, where yeah, like we don't have that luxury because we're trying
00:36:59.100
to make the mortgage payment and it's paycheck to paycheck. What do you say to that guy? Who's
00:37:04.420
like, yeah, I would love to be able to know my family, but I got to work. I got to put food on
00:37:08.060
the table. And they truly are in that position. It's a sprint. Sometimes like you got to sprint
00:37:14.460
with it. And, you know, I think anyone who has achieved some sort of success or has luxuries to
00:37:21.140
enjoy now, they also had to go through some, some mud that sucked for a long period of time.
00:37:27.960
And I've had a few of these years, 2017 was honestly one of these years for me where
00:37:35.340
this is the year I transitioned out into the army. It's the first year we did seven figures in revenue
00:37:41.700
and it was the hardest year of my entire life. It was three of us. It was me. It was my brother.
00:37:48.680
And it was our friend, Joe. He was our first employee. He still works in the business.
00:37:52.440
He's director of operations now. And we moved down of all fulfillment in my house. And we signed a
00:37:59.280
lease for our first warehouse. It was 6,000 square feet. We could not afford it by any means,
00:38:04.940
but we signed a lease for a warehouse. And this entire year was the hardest year of my life because
00:38:13.660
we were growing and we were growing fast in terms of where we relatively started.
00:38:20.080
And inventory demand was crazy. We had no loans. We had no line of credit. We were financing all the
00:38:30.260
inventory on our own. Cashflow was so tight. There were multiple months where our rent was due
00:38:36.080
the next week. And our rent was, I think, $8,000 a month. We had $3,000 in the bank and we had to
00:38:43.720
pull together an additional $5,000 to make it to the next week and month. I think we all go through
00:38:50.500
these periods and you have to be self-aware to realize where you're at right now. And it might
00:38:56.640
suck and it might be really hard and it might be really challenging and it probably hurts pretty bad.
00:39:02.980
But if you forward think and backwards plan and be really intentional and deliberate with it,
00:39:07.320
you can build a strategy to get yourself out of that hole. And through that process,
00:39:13.100
you might have some wins. You're probably gonna have some failures and losses and you're probably
00:39:16.300
gonna get your ass beat through it. But most people can dig out of that hole with a plan in place.
00:39:23.300
But I think you have to be pretty realistic and aware of, this is where I'm at. This is where I
00:39:28.520
want to be. It's not going to change overnight. And I got to take one day at a time and just follow
00:39:34.900
the plan. Yeah. So in 2017, so when you were going through that, were you married at the time?
00:39:43.020
I was single. I wasn't married. I wasn't dating my wife. So I mean, I could dedicate all my time
00:39:50.360
to the business, which, you know, I realized most people don't have that option. People have kids,
00:39:56.780
people have a family. And I can personally say, I can't relate to that. Like I built the business
00:40:04.200
during a time, 2017, when I was responsible for myself and that's about it. I had my brother and
00:40:11.220
Joe and I didn't have a family. I didn't have kids that I was trying to manage during that process.
00:40:17.580
I can't personally relate to someone who's going through that. And I can only imagine how challenging
00:40:22.840
and difficult it is. But you can't, and I get that. I actually appreciate you saying that,
00:40:27.740
but you can relate to having a wife, having your child now and going through those sprints. So
00:40:35.600
when there are moments of sprinting and it sounds like she's called you out on it a little bit,
00:40:42.860
what are your conversations with her? Because you get it, right? You're like, I got to do this for
00:40:49.020
work. It's your vision. It's your dream. It's what you want to accomplish. It's all up here in your
00:40:53.320
mind. You totally, you're bought into it clearly. Cause it's your plan, but she may not be fully
00:40:58.900
bought in. Now she's committed, right? Cause she committed to you, but how do you get her buy-in
00:41:03.700
on these sprints when she just wants to be with you?
00:41:10.480
I mean, I've, I've done it poorly and I've done it successfully. I've done it poorly and I failed
00:41:17.840
more times than I've done it successfully. When I've done this successfully, I've, I've been very
00:41:23.800
upfront and honest with her and the sooner the better, better of, Hey staff, like we're about to
00:41:28.960
go into this big sprint. Like here's the days and be gone. Here's the nights I'm probably going to
00:41:33.820
work late. Things are probably going to change, but like, here's the expectation. Um, and sometimes
00:41:40.940
like for me right now, I'm in a sprint right now. We're, we're prepping for 2023 and we're making
00:41:46.660
some big changes to the business where we put the baby down and then me and staff spend some time
00:41:52.760
together and then she goes to sleep. And then that's when I go into the computer room and I
00:41:58.480
work for a few hours while she's asleep. And like right now I'm in one of those sprints where
00:42:02.880
I'm sleeping very little to make sure that I'm making my wife happy and I still get my work done.
00:42:10.680
So I'm always looking at like a 24 hour period of work. And I allocate some hours to get certain
00:42:20.120
things done. And what can I eliminate through that process to make sure I'm working my priorities?
00:42:25.540
I can pretty confidently say right now I have zero hobbies. It's spending time with family,
00:42:31.780
it's training and it's work. And at some point in the future, I will incorporate some hobbies into my
00:42:39.760
life again, hopefully. But like right now I'm prioritizing what I have to get done. And there's
00:42:45.800
only like three focuses. It's, it's my fitness, my training, it's my family, it's my business and
00:42:50.860
nothing else right now is coming in the way of that because we're in one of these sprints.
00:42:56.000
But I think that's what, that's where a lot of people struggle and fail is people want to add
00:43:02.400
things onto their life. They want to add projects and goals and ambitions and all these new things.
00:43:09.460
But they're not willing to eliminate or sacrifice other parts of their life that can be considered
00:43:15.240
luxuries. You can only add so much onto until you're, you're overwhelmed. As you add something
00:43:23.180
on, you typically have to take one thing away. And, uh, I think it's one thing that a lot of people
00:43:28.720
actually do struggle with. Is that why you wouldn't consider like training, running a marathon,
00:43:34.800
that activity? Is that why you wouldn't consider that a hobby because it's a non-negotiable or
00:43:40.220
because you're a professional in this space? Like, why don't you consider that a hot? Cause
00:43:43.460
when I think of hobby, I think something that's recreational that I enjoy and that's good for me.
00:43:48.840
And I think training and physical fitness would fall into that category. So I'm curious why you
00:43:53.500
wouldn't call it that. Yeah. I think for me, it's, it's a little unique because that is content that
00:44:00.340
we use for the business. So we use these training series as content to generate brand awareness and
00:44:07.740
traffic and sales to the business. Um, but also selfishly I show up as a better person. I show up as
00:44:15.840
a better husband, father, leader, business owner. If I move my body, if I'm working out, if I'm
00:44:22.420
training, um, and part of it is I just love it. Right. Like I can, I can pretty confidently say
00:44:30.780
like, I need that in my life to be a happy person. If I don't, I'm, I'm probably pretty shitty to be
00:44:36.300
around. I bring it up because I know so many men and I've done it where we're willing to give up
00:44:44.980
things that are good for us, you know, and it may not even be physically, maybe it's mentally,
00:44:50.440
spiritually, emotionally. It's like, that's good. That's going to go on the back burner
00:44:53.120
because we're busy and we're doing one of these sprints. And then it seems like more often than not,
00:44:59.200
we never get back to our hobbies. It might be hobbies. It might be friends. It might be certain
00:45:05.600
trips that we take. Like for me, hunting trips, you know, the fall is usually a busy time for me.
00:45:10.100
We were talking about campaigns earlier, you know, that he falls more in line with that. Like
00:45:15.780
that's him, right. That's a non-negotiable than a hobby. For me, it's more of a hobby, but so many
00:45:20.980
guys just don't go back to those things that enrich their lives in other ways outside of family and
00:45:25.500
work. And I think we need it. We have to have it. I agree. I mean, it's like, it's very unique to the
00:45:31.460
individual, but it's what makes you, you is what brings like life and passion into your life. And
00:45:36.460
if we're not thriving and we're just kind of moving through the motions,
00:45:41.060
you're going to kind of show up as just this bland, non-unique, just thing. There's just person.
00:45:51.440
Like you can tell when you have a conversation with someone, you meet someone, you have dinner
00:45:54.940
with someone and there's just like energy flowing through their body. Like they're, they're passionate
00:46:00.280
about what they're doing. They're happy. They're enjoying it. They want to share that with you.
00:46:03.940
And then, you know, you've had conversation with people where it's just,
00:46:07.620
it is what it is. There's just that, there's not that fire there. And I thrive off other people's
00:46:18.500
Have there been times in your life or is this just a personality trait where you've always had
00:46:23.040
something to fixate on that, that drives you that, that, that you're passionate about? Or have
00:46:28.680
there been times where you've been that other guy where it's kind of just blah, like just going
00:46:32.420
through the motions, just trying to survive one day to the next, et cetera, et cetera.
00:46:38.380
I would say, honestly, ever since I graduated college, which was 2013, I've had something I've
00:46:46.360
been actively working towards ever since I started my business, actually in 2012, like that moment
00:46:52.360
really did change my life because I set this huge goal and objective. And I had, I was very quickly
00:47:00.020
humbled by it. You're one of our business. I told my dad, I said, dad, I'm going to make a million
00:47:05.980
dollars this first year. And he said, Nick, if it was that easy, everyone would do it. And there's
00:47:11.120
a reason that those words are now painted in this office right next to me is because that first year
00:47:17.120
we did $20,000 in revenue. Year two, we did $20,000 in revenue. Year three, we did $20,000 in revenue.
00:47:24.100
My dad said, Nick, if it was that easy, everyone would do it. And I was very quickly humbled by that
00:47:32.200
process, but I saw what the, I saw the process was teaching me and I saw what I was learning through
00:47:38.480
it. And since that moment on, I've been setting goals and I've been working towards, and I've,
00:47:45.140
I've failed many, many times. And there's still goals that I'm working towards that I haven't
00:47:50.800
accomplished, but I've, I've had some wins along the way. I'm a very obsessive person. Like
00:47:56.900
naturally I'm an obsessive person where I set a goal and I'm going to do whatever I have to do
00:48:03.160
to achieve it. I control all the variables. I obsess on the process. I obsess on, on every part of it
00:48:11.440
drives my wife insane, but I've seen the result of when you obsess on something and you are very
00:48:20.480
consistent and committed to the process, it gets you really close to achieving, or sometimes you
00:48:26.680
actually achieve it. But if you don't give yourself a chance, you're never going to get there.
00:48:31.540
Yeah. What is your, what is your goal planning? Like? Cause I've seen it just from the outside
00:48:35.880
looking in, I've seen you have different fitness goals. Some are short-term. It looks like some are
00:48:40.960
long-term. What, what is some of your strategy for planning out your goals and business, fitness,
00:48:45.660
family, that sort of thing? A lot of it's, you know, what, what do I actually want to do?
00:48:52.420
What do we actually want to do? I think sometimes, and I've done this myself, people set goals that
00:48:59.500
they personally don't want to accomplish, but they don't really care about. They set goals because
00:49:04.680
other people are going after it or there's some clout behind it, or it seems cool.
00:49:09.940
And I've set goals before. I'm like, I don't know why I'm setting this goal. I really don't
00:49:15.580
want to do this. But when I set something, I want to go after this and it's because I actually want
00:49:22.380
to do it. I'm passionate about it. Well, that's when I had the most fun with it. That's when I see
00:49:27.660
the most reward through the process. So I think that's the first step is like, what do you, what do
00:49:34.240
I actually want to do? And then it's, is it feasible based off this time in my life? How's
00:49:40.000
this going to affect my family? How's it going to affect my business? How's it going to affect
00:49:43.900
employees? And then it's kind of from there, can we all get behind this? Because I can decide what
00:49:51.820
I want to do, but if I'm being realistic, it does affect a lot of people. If I, if I choose a certain
00:49:58.020
goal, it's going to possibly change the trajectory of our marketing strategy and our business plan,
00:50:04.480
the people in this, this building, or it's going to affect my family, my wife, you know,
00:50:09.560
my daughter. So it's, it's really being aware of who else affects the goals that you're putting in
00:50:15.640
place. Yeah. Yeah. That's important to take that into consideration because they will, they will be
00:50:21.560
impacted by the things that you're doing. And so it's important to take it into consideration and
00:50:26.040
then learn how to communicate effectively with those individuals as well. Right. Oh, absolutely.
00:50:30.460
I mean, I'm sure anyone in a relationship or anyone who's married has, has heard the communication
00:50:36.660
segment, but I think the biggest thing I found with communication, yes, it, it, it makes things easier
00:50:45.900
in terms of planning and just a relationship, but it reduces the feeling of resentment. And
00:50:54.880
if I go into something and I lack communication with my wife or I lack communication with people in
00:51:02.420
the business and I'm not clear in terms of what I expect or what's going to happen. And as soon as
00:51:08.740
you start and you don't feel like you are supported, you don't feel like people understand people aren't
00:51:14.460
behind what you're doing. It's very easy to build resentment towards other people who you feel aren't
00:51:20.880
supporting your goals. So that's what I found the biggest part of, of communication in terms of
00:51:26.000
setting goals for thinking backwards planning is if it's done correctly, you won't build resentment
00:51:34.220
towards too many people. Yeah. Yeah. That's a, that's important factor. I found that in addition to
00:51:42.440
resenting other people, you almost become calloused towards people that you actually care about.
00:51:49.560
You know, if you don't feel like, for example, you're, you're getting the, the emotional support
00:51:55.740
or, or whatever that you're, you're looking for from other individuals, not only do you become
00:52:00.680
resentful towards that person, then you start to cut yourself off from that person or put up a wall
00:52:06.680
like, well, I don't care what you think. It doesn't actually matter. It doesn't impact me. And so we put up
00:52:11.060
these coping mechanisms and then you drive on in the face of somebody you care about who might not like
00:52:16.940
what you're doing or might not be on the same page and communication could have solved it,
00:52:20.660
but you put up this big barrier, this big wall, and now you're blowing the whole thing up.
00:52:25.540
Yeah. I mean, that's one of the hardest parts I think of, of for me being an entrepreneur and being
00:52:32.120
a business owner is, you know, in the beginning, we've talked about being this visionary and it's
00:52:38.420
really easy to forget that it's in your head. Like you see where you're going, you see where,
00:52:44.700
what you're working on and you see why you're working on it. And then when you start working
00:52:50.120
on this project or towards this goal and no one else understands why you're doing it,
00:52:54.800
it's really easy to forget that they don't see into your brain. No, no one knows like what you're
00:53:00.760
thinking and where you're going. So when they don't follow you, they don't support it. They don't
00:53:05.020
understand. It's not because they don't care. It's because you didn't properly communicate.
00:53:11.220
And I mean, I'm sometimes horrible at this where clear example, I'm having a conversation with my
00:53:19.280
wife at dinner and I'm there physically, but you know, I'm thinking about something in terms of work.
00:53:26.240
Like my, my, my brain is always just like cooking. Yeah. Like sometimes people will say, you know,
00:53:31.220
Nick, you're like, you're being really quiet. I'm not actually trying to be quiet. It's like,
00:53:34.940
there's something going on in my head. I'm like, I'm trying to navigate some sort of issue right now.
00:53:39.740
And it's, it's, it's so present in my head that I think it's, it's verbally and audibly out loud,
00:53:49.220
but it's not. So no one else sees it. And that's why I love running so much is I run in the morning
00:53:55.940
because that's like my one time where I have some solitude in the morning by myself to navigate
00:54:05.020
through issues and they just come to my mind. And I just, I kind of just find solutions for the
00:54:10.720
problems I'm experiencing. So then I show up to the office, I show up for my family after that morning
00:54:16.140
run. I'm more clear with what I'm trying to communicate. Cause I just had an hour to digest
00:54:22.940
and navigate the process. Yeah. You know, I was going to tell you what's interesting about
00:54:27.960
with you running is I'm sure there's such a stereotype. Like you, you don't look like a
00:54:33.920
quote unquote runner. You look like a strength guy. You look like a bodybuilder, right? So it's,
00:54:38.720
so I wanted to tell you that because my son, my oldest son, he always asks like, who's coming on
00:54:42.760
the podcast. He's coming on. And I said, Oh, this guy, he's coming on next week. We scheduled
00:54:46.780
something. And I showed him your Instagram account. He's like, Whoa, he's big. And he like,
00:54:50.300
he's a runner. Cause my son's a power lifter. That's all he wants to do. So it is pretty cool
00:54:55.400
to see you kind of changing that stereotype around what a runner looks like versus, you know,
00:55:02.140
what a bodybuilder, a power lifter might look like. Well, I'm even heavier now than I, so I ran a
00:55:07.360
marathon this past May and that was Buffalo, New York marathon. And I ran two 48 there and I was 187
00:55:14.260
pounds, 187 pounds for me is extremely light. So I had to, I had to diet down and a lot of the
00:55:21.580
training facilitated that weight loss. And now I'm sitting about 225 pounds and you know, it's
00:55:27.780
middle of December. My body naturally wants to sit around 210 to 15 to 20, but I'm trying to pack on
00:55:36.040
some size right now, but I love being a bigger runner because people do question it. They say,
00:55:42.560
Oh, for sure. You can't be big and you can't run. It's well, you can. So I'm going to really lean
00:55:49.500
into that. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. When's the, so are you training for a marathon right now?
00:55:56.080
Not right now. No, right now the plan is to pack on some size and strength until March 1st. And then
00:56:03.120
I'm going to start a diet and then I'm gonna do a bodybuilding show in June. I've done a bodybuilding
00:56:09.360
show since 2012. So it goes back to like setting goals. I was itching for something like new and
00:56:17.460
refreshing. And I was going through like this nostalgic period of time in my life where I was
00:56:23.280
looking back at when I was strictly strength training and putting on size. And I did my
00:56:27.600
bodybuilding show in college and I was listening to like the old music I used to listen to. Then
00:56:32.980
I started wearing chucks again on my feet and these nostalgic feelings just, just had me
00:56:39.120
gravitating towards a bodybuilding show. So it was like, you know, what do I want to do?
00:56:44.780
Where will I thrive right now in this moment of time? This is how I want to train. And this is what
00:56:49.900
I want to train for. So I'm going to document this process. And then I'm sure in the future,
00:56:54.120
I'll, I'll be itching for a marathon or another ultra or something like that, but I'm setting
00:57:01.660
these goals based off of what I actively want to do right now. And right now it's nostalgic feels.
00:57:10.180
Yeah. So is, so is, is building muscle, putting on weight part of the plan for bodybuilding? So
00:57:16.420
you'll, you'll bulk up, you put on that weight and then you'll diet down, lean out. So you're ready
00:57:22.040
for that, that, that show body, right? Yeah, it's a plan. I mean, during these last couple
00:57:28.220
ultra marathon triathlon preps, I did lose some significant size. So I'm doing about like a nine
00:57:37.600
month build or bulk. And I mean, muscle memory is a real thing. I'm, I put back that, that size and
00:57:44.040
strength fairly quickly. And the goal is to pack on some size and that's why I'm putting on weight
00:57:50.200
intentionally so that when I diet down starting March 1st, uh, I can kind of expose some of that
00:57:56.500
size that I've packed on in the last nine or so months. Right. Got it. I am curious with the muscle
00:58:02.960
memory as I see my two oldest boys get really, really into powerlifting. And that's not, that's
00:58:09.360
something that I was never much into. I was always athletic. I was always into sports, but never
00:58:14.120
powerlifting team sports mostly for me. Uh, do you know of, of research or, or, or something like
00:58:22.700
that, that shows that their development of muscle during their like high testosterone years and going
00:58:29.940
through puberty that the body that becomes like the standard for the body. Do you know what I'm
00:58:35.340
saying? Yes. I see what you're saying. I don't know if any research that supports that.
00:58:40.460
I did have, uh, Dr. Lane Norton on the podcast, on our podcast a few months ago, and he did reference
00:58:49.160
some research that showed that, you know, muscle memory is a real thing. And in terms of, if you put
00:58:54.260
size and strength on, and then you lose that over a period of time, it's easier to build that back up
00:59:00.220
as opposed to if you didn't have it at all. I don't know if like in your early years, if,
00:59:06.380
you know, as your testosterone is higher, naturally, if that impacts anything, I started
00:59:12.660
really strength training when I was 18, 19, 20 years old. That's when I got really, really serious
00:59:19.720
about it. And I packed on a lot of size and strength then. And I lost it, you know, many times.
00:59:25.180
I lost it when I went to ranger school. I lost it when I was in the military. I lost it through
00:59:30.040
like these endurance, uh, preps and races. So like right now is the biggest that I've been
00:59:37.080
since my military days. Hmm. Yeah. Interesting. I'm not, I'm just very curious about that because
00:59:45.080
of how, how dedicated though it's actually really cool to see my two oldest boys. So dedicated to it
00:59:50.140
because I'm trying to think about when I was 14 and 12, which is their ages. Like that's not what
00:59:56.200
I was doing. I mean, they're, they're leaps and bounds ahead of where I'm at, which is pretty cool
01:00:00.140
to see. It was impressive. I mean, it's impressive, uh, to build that type of routine and consistency
01:00:06.580
and kind of goal setting early on. Yeah. And I'm sure a lot of that is, you know, learned and
01:00:13.940
replicated through you being a father. Um, but like that's only setting them up for success in the
01:00:20.600
future. Definitely. I did want to ask about your, this, this mentality of going one more and I want
01:00:30.100
to ask it in a, in a different way that I don't, I don't know if you've been asked. I'd be curious
01:00:33.940
is, is there a time when enough is enough and you shouldn't go one more? And if that's the case,
01:00:43.500
when would you know that? It's a good question. If we're being honest and like being
01:00:50.380
smart, the, the intent of going more was never to be just another rep in the gym or just another
01:00:57.440
mile spent on a run or never just another hour spent on a project you're working on.
01:01:03.380
It was much larger than that. And we established this, this phrase in 2018 and I discovered it
01:01:12.320
during a training run for a marathon prep. Go on more is applied to everything you do in your life.
01:01:17.920
When you think that you just can't go any further, like you want to give up, you want to stop.
01:01:23.880
You always have more effort that you can, you can put forward. Now, if we simplify it in terms of
01:01:32.180
like physical training, if say, for example, you're doing an ultra marathon in the Rocky mountains of
01:01:39.800
Leadville, Colorado and your body's on the break of absolute collapse, it might be smarter for your,
01:01:48.660
your health to, to DNF and go to the aid station and like, Hey, this is like, it's not my year
01:01:54.860
for safety reasons. But if, if we take like a, a broader perspective and approach to go on more
01:02:02.460
disregarding like safety for your health, I think there, there is a point where it can be too much.
01:02:11.300
And I'll kind of like put this in a, an example of a scenario, like say right now I'm in this,
01:02:19.700
this, this sprint of business, say like I had to get the business to another level
01:02:24.760
in the next three months. And I have my wife and I have my daughter and they're being neglected.
01:02:32.140
I'm not present at home. I'm always gone. And I'm just driving the business, just like hard charging.
01:02:39.380
And my wife says, Hey Nick, like I can't do this on my own anymore. Like I need help. I'm home.
01:02:46.500
I need help with a baby. I can't get anything done. You're always gone. If I were to say,
01:02:51.520
Hey, you got, you, you hold down the house. I got to keep going in this business.
01:02:56.480
Go one more, hon. Just go on. Yeah. Apply, go on more to that. It's yeah. Now you're neglecting
01:03:02.600
like your priorities, your responsibilities. I do think that you can overdo it, but
01:03:07.820
that's one of those examples of who's being affected in the process of you trying to
01:03:14.100
push yourself and apply, go on more to your life. If it's causing damage to people around you,
01:03:19.640
especially your family, I think you have to highly consider if you should actually keep
01:03:24.760
pushing on that objective. Yeah, that makes sense. It sounds like you're talking about
01:03:30.080
taking all of your priorities into consideration. You know, it's, it's a luxury to be able to focus
01:03:36.520
on one priority and not have to worry about these ancillary things. They're not even ancillary.
01:03:41.080
That's probably not the right word, but these other things that are equally, if not more important.
01:03:45.060
Uh, I think we have to take that whole pie and in, into equation rather than just one slice. We may
01:03:51.440
be hyper-focused on. Well, as I've gotten older, life is, life is changed. It's different. You know,
01:04:00.180
I was talking about 2017 earlier where I can make a decision and it might impact like one or two parts
01:04:08.540
of my life. Do I get, do I get sleep tonight? And are we going to make more money in the business?
01:04:13.980
Right now, as I've gotten older and I have a family with more employees, I have more
01:04:17.320
responsibilities. That same decision might affect 10 to 12 different parts of my life
01:04:23.920
that I need to highly consider. And as you have more responsibilities and you have more roles and
01:04:30.900
duties, these decisions carry more weight and they affect more things and people. And I think you
01:04:36.680
really need to highly consider that. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Well, Nick, this has been a great
01:04:41.960
discussion, man. I got to tell you, I've been inspired by you for some time, so I'm glad we
01:04:45.100
could finally have it. It sounds like we're going to get together face-to-face at some point and at a
01:04:49.180
minimum, get a training and maybe even share the stage at some point together too. So, uh, not the
01:04:55.140
bodybuilding stage by the way, but maybe just speak. Are you sure? Yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure
01:05:01.120
about that. All right. I mean, we're, we're taught like, we're talking about priorities here and
01:05:05.720
choosing what's important. Um, I'm sure about that. Now, if it's a jujitsu competition, that's
01:05:12.920
something that I'm going to actively be working towards. So that, that'll be my route.
01:05:17.320
It's interesting. I had, I had life Babin on the podcast. Oh yeah. Yeah. Talking about jujitsu and
01:05:23.840
that's something I've never personally gotten into. I'd love to in the future, but I think I'd be truly
01:05:30.140
humbled going into that for my first time because I know I will try to muscle everything through that
01:05:35.820
process and I'll just get absolutely crushed. Yeah. It's really interesting. You know, where
01:05:41.080
you're, you're big and athletic and you're strong. If you take somebody, would you say you weigh 225 or
01:05:46.020
so you said roughly? Yeah. Yep. Yeah. You take somebody who's maybe 200 pounds, who's been training
01:05:51.820
for three, four or five years. It, it, it will equalize that strength very, very quickly. Now you
01:05:59.200
might have an advantage over somebody who's 160 pounds and it's like, there's no gap that's going
01:06:04.080
to make up for that. Right. But if you're talking about 20, 30, maybe even 40 pounds on a high level
01:06:10.080
jujitsu guy, it's amazing how quickly they can level the playing field. I'm curious. Are you,
01:06:16.760
have you ever done any martial arts at all? Like, did you wrestle or anything like that or? No, never.
01:06:21.580
Yeah. You'd be, you'd be a beast, man. You'd be a handful for sure.
01:06:24.720
It'd be brand new for me for sure. Yeah. Well then maybe that's a good place to go,
01:06:28.740
you know, start, start something you haven't ever done before. Hey man, I know you've got a,
01:06:32.560
a new campaign coming up to you. I wanted to give you a minute to talk about that and then also let
01:06:36.860
the guys know where to find you. Yep. So we're launching a brand campaign on January 1st and it's
01:06:44.820
a sub sub campaign of go one more and it's called prove yourself right. And the whole concept behind it is
01:06:52.400
a lot of people will, will go after objectives or challenges, or just try to do something in their
01:07:01.540
life to prove others wrong. And I hate that concept because you're investing time, energy,
01:07:09.320
and resources into what other people think in terms of doubting you instead of believing in yourself.
01:07:16.080
So I'd love to like flip that script in instead of trying to prove other people wrong,
01:07:21.260
prove yourself right. Because if you prove yourself right, you believe in your ability to do it. Now
01:07:25.940
you just have to put in the work. So this brand campaign launched in January 1st, it's called
01:07:30.400
go one more, prove yourself right. Our call to action is to get people to commit to something
01:07:35.820
challenging, something hard in 2003, 2023, something physically hard and hard is relative. It could be,
01:07:45.180
you know, your first 5k. It could be your first half marathon. It could be your first hundred mile
01:07:52.500
ultra marathon. It's what is hard for you. And like I said, hard is relative, but we, we want to
01:07:58.300
encourage people to sign up and commit to something physically challenging in 2023, because we know
01:08:04.680
they will grow significantly, physically, immensely through the process. And it's all about just proving
01:08:11.840
yourself right, not trying to prove others wrong. So that's a brand campaign we're launching. People
01:08:17.540
can find me on YouTube. It's Nick Bear. I've been documenting my life on YouTube for the last
01:08:22.840
nine years now. And I have over 800 videos of, of just vlogs of literally, literally where I started
01:08:30.380
when I was in the military. I documented my nine months in South Korea. I documented building the
01:08:36.440
business. We have a podcast called the bear performance podcast. And on Instagram, I am
01:08:41.720
Nick bear fitness. Right on brother. We'll sync it all up. So the guys know where to go. I appreciate
01:08:45.820
you and looking forward to connecting very soon. Thanks Ryan. Appreciate it. Thank you, man.
01:08:52.900
All right, you guys, Nick bear. What did I tell you? I told you that was going to be a good one.
01:08:56.440
It did not disappoint. I hope you feel the same way. Make sure you connect with Nick on Instagram,
01:09:02.160
very active over there. Uh, he's got his YouTube channel, hundreds and hundreds of videos on
01:09:07.440
nutrition and fitness and goal setting and planning and sticking to your commitments and forward
01:09:11.560
thinking and backwards planning and all of the other things. He's also got that a brand new campaign
01:09:17.560
that he's running in January. So make sure to be connected. So, you know, when that comes out and
01:09:22.960
then also check out the iron council, which is open for enrollment for the next couple of weeks only.
01:09:28.120
And then we're shutting it back down. Uh, if you would, as I ask every single week,
01:09:33.100
take a screenshot right now that you're listening to this podcast on your phone
01:09:36.340
and or on your radio, tag me, tag Nick, let people know guys, this is a grassroots movement.
01:09:43.800
We've built this thing to phenomenal levels and it's because men like you are sharing it,
01:09:49.640
promoting it, telling other people what you're listening to and serving other people. Well,
01:09:54.740
so continue to do that. Connect with Nick, connect with myself, join the iron council,
01:10:00.620
join his challenge that he has coming up, which is proving yourself right. I like that reframe and
01:10:06.720
that twist. And, uh, those are your marching orders. We'll be back tomorrow for our ask me
01:10:13.080
anything, but until then go out there, take action and become the man you are meant to be.
01:10:18.080
Thank you for listening to the order of man podcast. You're ready to take charge of your life
01:10:22.620
and be more of the man you were meant to be. We invite you to join the order at order of man.com.