Nick Bare
Appearances
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
Previously, on Building the Brand. First platoon, Bravo Company, 212 Cav, titled The Misfits. That was my platoon that I was assigned to. I was the platoon leader, leading 40 soldiers and non-commissioned officers there. And this was a very intimidating environment to walk into. Here I am, this brand new second lieutenant expected to lead that platoon.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
And as I got really close to my time of transitioning out come May, we decided we needed to be closer to the warehouse. So I sold my house in Temple, Texas, and we rented a house in Round Rock that was 10 minutes away from the warehouse. And me, Preston, and Joe moved into that rental. And shortly after I transitioned out of the army and it was game on, it was full speed ahead.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
Me, Preston and Joe, the three amigos, the three man team, just trying to figure out how we were going to get from where we were starting to where we wanted to be. Now we had a game plan. And that game plan didn't necessarily work out the way we thought it would. So when we signed that warehouse lease, 6,000 square feet, I want to say our rent was $9,000 a month, which we could barely afford.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
As I was telling you, when we came back from South Korea, the supplement business, BPN was doing about $10,000 a month in revenue. When we signed this lease, we got a few months of free rent up front that allowed us time to just get settled in.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
So between the three of us, our game plan was that we were going to build BPN in this warehouse, but in order to cover the rent, which BPN could not fully do, we couldn't spend all the money we were making on rent and utilities, we decided to open a gym. So 6,000 square feet, about 3,000 of the space, we turned into a gym. The other 3,000 square feet was office.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
It was storage for inventory, pallets, and then packing stations. We had two packing stations at the time. Unfortunately, The reason that didn't work out is one, we didn't have enough money to get the amount of equipment we needed for a public gym to be truly an attractive public gym.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
We had like two squat racks, dumbbells, a few machines, some cables, and just the location of that warehouse was in the back of this business park, this dark business park tucked away by behind all of these commercial properties.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
So if we view life as this opportunity to collect keys, by the end of this life, we want to be a key collector of these different experiences and perspectives and ideas and outlooks. And that's how I now view opportunity, discomfort, hardship. The reward is the key. And these keys that we collect to unlock opportunity. Welcome back to another episode of the podcast.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
So it was one really hard to find and you weren't going to just come across it unless you followed the content we were creating and the mission and message we were sharing. So we didn't get enough members to truly make it worth our time. We didn't get enough members to really put a dent in the rent that we needed.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
but also the time that we were spending and allocating on the gym and keeping it open was distracting us and keeping us from building the supplement company. And when we opened the gym, we had this massive event. We spent months kind of building out the space, like I was saying, and Me, Preston and Joe were really in a strength training at the time.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
When I got out of the army, I set this goal of wanting to deadlift 700 pounds. So I was spending all of my training working up this 700 pound deadlift. And the day we opened the gym, I went for that 700 pound deadlift. I did it. It was one of the most memorable experiences of my life.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
I'll never forget pulling 700 pounds in front of all these people standing around me and just being on this high of, I just transitioned out of the army. I just signed my first warehouse lease. We were building BPN. I was doing it with people I loved and enjoyed. And I just pulled 700 pounds, which was a goal I set months and months and months prior. I was like, we're living the dream. This is it.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
This is like what I was meant to do and pursue in my life. And it was all fun until things started to get really hard. And what ended up happening was the gym required someone to be there all the time. We were open seven days a week from 5 a.m. until 10 p.m. So it was either me, Preston, or Joe having to be there
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
while it was open because it was a liability having our packing stations, our inventory, all of our money in this warehouse. And we didn't want people being there, leaving the door open while all of our net worth was tied up in that building. So it became very hard for us to actually do anything outside of having to be at the gym, which was also keeping us from
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
building BPN and learning how to build an e-commerce based supplement business. So we made our first hire. We hired this young gentleman who to this day, I can't remember how we came across him or how he ended up working for us, but we hired someone to help us work the front desk of the gym so that we could spend more time learning how to build BPN.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
And a lot of our strategy was just more content. Create more content. Gain more brand awareness. Create more content with other creators, online collaborations. Just learn what we got to do to build a business. Between the three of us, we had zero experience building a business, especially an e-commerce business. So we were just trying to figure it out.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
We made this one hire who we thought would alleviate a lot of our issues. And that was one of the first times I've realized that there's this saying that goes, hire slow, fire fast. Well, in this case, we hired fast and fired slow.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
And just to provide some framework and context to the way that me, Preston, and Joe's mind worked in this period of our life, early 2017, it was truly a whatever-it-takes mindset. And every ounce of our mental bandwidth was going to be spent learning how to build BPN. And we'd come to work every morning and we'd be in that warehouse until late at night. And we'd bring our food.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
We'd prep our meals. We didn't have a fridge. We didn't have a microwave. We didn't have filtered water. And I bring that up because now if you walk into BPN HQ, we got fridges and microwaves and snacks and drink fridges in every suite. We... We get food catered in weekly so the team has access to beef and chicken and rice and things to eat for their lunches. We do team lunches almost weekly.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
This is another installment of our Building the Brand series, the multi-part series, and this is chapter four. I'm titling chapter four, Go All In. And where this chapter starts... is when I came back to the United States after a nine-month training rotation in South Korea with the Army.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
We have a gym. We have a sauna. We have showers. We have this whole built-out facility here in the BPN campus, which now sitting here in 2024 is completely different than what it was in early 2017 with me, Preston, and Joe. In early 2017, we didn't have a microwave to heat up our food. We ate all of our food cold and we never thought anything of it.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
And I don't share this to say like we wanted to be harder so we didn't heat up our food. No, we just didn't have space or the money to spend on a microwave at the time. And we had a fridge, but it was one of those small mini fridges that you'll find in a motel or a hotel. And the only reason we had that is because a friend donated that fridge to us because they didn't want it any longer.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
So we would eat our food lukewarm after it was sitting out all day. We wouldn't heat it up. We'd drink the water right from the spigot. All of these things, which I'm not complaining about, but it just puts things into context then compared to where we are today. And this story I'm about to tell about this gentleman that we hired to help us work the front desk.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
And the one day he asked, like, hey, do you guys not have like a fridge or a microwave here at the warehouse? We're like, no. He goes, well, why? We just never thought much of it. There's not space for it. And we really don't want to spend money on it. And to be honest, we just don't have the time for it. We'll eat our meals when we're ready to eat. And they won't go bad.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
We'll let our stomach be the judge if we're getting sick or not. We don't need things cold. We don't need things warm. We just need things to keep us going. We need that fuel. So a few days later, after we had that conversation, he walked in with a microwave.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
He brought a microwave from home and he would bring it to work when he'd come to work and he'd take it home with him every night because he wanted to use it at his house or his apartment too. And me, Preston and Joe were so offended that That he brought this microwave in every day. I think we are more offended by the fact that he took it home at night as well. He'd bring his microwave to work.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
He'd take it home with him. And we're like, you don't need to heat up your food. What are you doing? We're here to work. We're here to build. You're here to heat up your food? What kind of nerve is that? How bold of you to think that you need to heat up your food when we're just working?
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
I was just talking to Joe about this story the other day because it's just so funny, the headspace and the mindset we are in back then, but it was a whatever it takes attitude and mindset. And we didn't want to take time away to heat up our food in that microwave because or spend the money on that thing or try to find a place for it in this packed office.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
And we were so offended by the fact that this employee brought in a microwave to our warehouse. Needless to say, he did not last very long at BPN. One, Well, there's a lot of reasons, but it wasn't a culture fit. Me, Preston, and Joe were there to work. We were there to build. We wanted to build something great. We knew broadly what we were trying to build, what we were trying to accomplish.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
We didn't know how exactly we were going to get there, but we all three were aligned and And if we're going to invite you in to work for this team and build alongside of us, you have to have that same mindset, whatever it takes. That one individual early on, we realized not a culture fit.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
So it's October of 2016, and I'm boarding a plane leaving Camp Casey, South Korea, heading back to Central Texas. And at this time, A few weeks prior, I believe it was a few weeks, my brother Preston moved from Pennsylvania to Texas. He quit his job. I asked him to quit his job, which he did on the spot. He packed up a U-Haul with all of our inventory and he moved down to my house in Texas.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
Yes, it's just a microwave and it sounds ridiculous, but it's the principle behind we're going to do whatever it takes. And you're going to come join this culture of what we're doing and how we're doing it. And if you don't agree and you don't like it, this ain't the team for you. And that's okay. But we're building something and we're building greatness.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
Shortly after letting this individual go, me, Preston, and Joe sat down and we realized we had to focus. We had to focus on what we wanted to build, what we were trying to build.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
In this game plan that we created earlier on of building a gym to cover some of the expenses and the warehouse lease so we could build the supplement company on the side, that game plan had so many holes in it that was holding us back from actually accomplishing the things that we wanted to accomplish. And it wasn't really a hard decision to make, but we decided to close the gym.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
And we knew that if we closed the gym, we could spend more time on the supplement business. And if we could spend more time on the supplement business being BPN, then we wouldn't need the money that the gym was bringing in. And we could cover those costs with the additional money we were making from BPN. And it felt really risky. It felt really tough. But it felt right. And that's what we did.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
We closed the gym. We let our members know we were closing it, which there weren't many. But from the outside looking in, all these people who were kind of watching the journey thought we were failing. It's like, oh, well, here's Nick. He went and started this company while in the military, left the military because he wanted to go all in on this company and build this gym.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
The gym failed, closed the gym. Oh, the supplement company must be next. I'm sure from the outside looking in, that was the perception. That was the thought. That's what was going on. But no, that was not it. I was just sharpening my ax. Erwin McManus talks about this, and I love this concept of sharpening your ax when you're in a time of a lull.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
It could be between a down period of your life or a transition. In this case, close the gym, preparing to go all in and build BPN into its full potential. It's this transition period, which feels like a lull. And that lull can sometimes feel counterproductive or inefficient, but really it's when you are sharpening your axe and you're preparing to go into that next season of battle.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
And from the outside looking in during this lull, it's, oh, this is failing. This is falling apart. No, it might be a little quiet right now, but it's quiet because we are sharpening our axe to go attack this next objective. We're preparing to go back into war. And that's honestly what it felt like closing down the gym.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
We closed the gym, sharpened our axe, and went back into attack the back half of 2017. And it was a game changer. It was a complete game changer because we hyper focused. Now, 2017 was easily the hardest year of my entire life. The most stressful year of my entire life. It was the year that I transitioned out of the military. It was the year that I stopped getting paid by the military.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
It was a big learning year, but it was also the most fun, rewarding, fulfilling year of my life up until that point. I wish that I could go relive 2017 tomorrow. I would go relive 2017 all over again. And one of the best parts about documenting this entire journey on YouTube is that I can go back and rewatch some of these videos we created during that time, which I do often.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
There was so much passion that was just getting started. And we were learning and trying and winning, but also failing at the same time. And we documented and shared everything on YouTube, the entire journey, the entire process. I mean, every day it was film, work, edit, work, train, edit, work, upload, sleep, repeat. Film, work, edit, work, train, edit, work, upload, sleep, repeat.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
Seven days a week, every single day. It didn't feel like work. Did not feel like work. It felt like Christmas morning every day I woke up. It was me, Preston, and Joe. Filming, working, editing, working, training, editing, working, uploading, sleeping, and repeating. And 2017 was the first time I actually took money out of the business. That's when I started paying myself and Preston and Joe.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
I wasn't getting paid by the military any longer. So we started paying ourselves a little bit, just enough, just enough to get by, just enough to survive. Every other dollar outside of what we were paying ourself was going back into the business. I look back and I could not have done it without those two. Without Preston and Joe, could not have gotten to where we are today without those two.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
And that's where I truly valued the responsibility of being a leader. Every other part of my life, I turned off. It was army number one, BPN number two, creating content number three. BPN sales slowly started to growth. No, it was so slow over such a long period of time that it was really hard to recognize the wins and the results, but you could feel the momentum.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
And at the time, I purchased a home in Texas with a VA loan. It was a brand new three bed, two bath house, Temple, Texas. I paid $130,000 for this home. No money down. Like I said, VA loan. I think my mortgage was like $900 a month. And a few weeks before getting back to the States, pressed to move down and was operating the business out of that home. And during that time,
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
Because while I was focused on creating content, in driving brand awareness, in building the brand, Preston and Joe were keeping the business alive. They were packing orders. They were working with manufacturers alongside me. They were doing customer service tickets.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
I mean, there were days where we launched new products or launched a sale and thousands of orders would come in and they would work around the clock to get those orders out. Just the two of them. All manual. Zero automation. And over the course of your lifetime, you're going to have people that are in your life for periods or seasons. And there's people who are in your life forever.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
Preston and Joe will be people who are in my life forever. I mean, Preston's my brother. Joe is essentially a brother as well. And there's no way I could get to where we are today without the two of them. 2017 ended up being a really big year for us. That was the first year we did seven figures in revenue. And that was organic. Without paid advertising.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
That was mainly just from building a brand online. And when I say online, primarily YouTube. I believe YouTube is still one of the best places to build a brand and build a business. It's the second biggest search engine after Google. Content there is evergreen. You can build a community. You can build an audience. You can share stories. It favors long format content, which is hard.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
And it was so powerful for us. building a brand from 2014 when I picked up that camera and I spent my last $500 to 2017 and beyond. We did a million dollars in revenue by building a brand on YouTube with zero paid advertising. And even when we started doing paid advertising for our first time and working with an agency, it was complete sunk costs.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
It was this agency that took all this money from us and delivered very few results based off these horrible ads they were running with no strategy or direction or thought. It was a painful experience and learning process. But 2017, we did seven figures. I remember crossing that $1 million revenue mark. being completely mind blown. Completely mind blown.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
And my dad called me shortly after we did that. My dad was really, I don't want to say pessimistic, but he was very cautious of what kind of success we expected to experience in building BPN. And when we crossed the seven-figure revenue mark, he said, you know what? This might actually turn into something someday. And hearing those words come out of my dad's mouth felt really good.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
I don't want to say my dad doubted me as we were building BPN, but he definitely had doubts in what it could potentially be. do for our lives. And I think once we crossed that seven-figure revenue mark, he realized we were on to something. And I think he also realized we were on to something because we had the whatever it takes mindset and attitude.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
We were willing to work and work and work to build this thing into its full and true potential. Now, what made 2017 the hardest year of my life is that cash flow was an absolute nightmare. And just because we were doing seven figures in revenue does not mean seven figures in profit.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
You know, profit is your revenue minus cost of goods sold, expenses, overhead, everything you spend to keep the business going. building, maintaining, operating. And what made cashflow so hard for us in 2017 was one, we had no finance person in the business. The way that I viewed the health of BPN at that point as a young, inexperienced entrepreneur is I would log into our bank account,
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
He also found a warehouse and he signed a warehouse lease for us. 2590 Oakmont Drive, Round Rock, Texas, 78665, suite 420. It was 6,000 square feet. It was perfect. It was perfect. We signed that lease. I signed that lease when I was in Korea in my boxers, in my barracks room. Preston facilitated the whole thing. We landed back in Texas. We hopped on buses. Those buses took us into Fort Hood.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
And if it was positive, we were good. If it was close to negative, we weren't good. And we had to do something very quick, very fast to make a change. I mean, I remember vividly logging into our business bank account and I'd close my eyes and I'd slowly open one eye because I didn't want to see. Sometimes I was like, all right. We're good for another couple of days.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
Then there were other times I'd log in. I open a little bit of one eye and I yell to Preston, where's our money? We had no finance function of the business. Eventually, we outsourced bookkeeping services. to a remote contractor, then eventually brought on a fractional CFO.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
And then eventually, which I'll get to in a future episode, we hired our CFO, Josh Hawley, who's now CFO and COO, which was a life-changing hire for the business. But those early days, We determined the health, the financial health and success of BPN based off our bank account. Was it positive or was it negative?
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
And we had one manufacturing partner at the time for all the products we were creating. And the products at the time that we had in 2017, Flight, our first product, our pre-workout. EndoPump, our muscle pump enhancer.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
creatine monohydrate, intraflate, which was our branched-chain amino acid product, which has since been reformulated and renamed to Recover, and then whey protein, which was one of the later SKUs that we launched in 2017. And we had one manufacturer that we were working with, and we didn't have terms with that manufacturer. So what do I mean by terms?
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
Sometimes you'll get net 30, net 60, net 90 terms. So that could mean a few things. One, you might have to put a deposit down on inventory when you put it in production. And then if it's net 30, you pay that inventory off 30 days after you receive it. If it's net 60, you pay that inventory off 60 days after you receive it. If it's net 90, you pay that inventory off 90 days after you receive it.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
So you can make some money selling the product after you receive it to pay off the inventory that helps offset some of your cashflow potential issues. Or you can finance inventory. You can use lines of credit, all these things that we didn't know how to do. And we didn't know were options. We just thought, hey, the money in the bank is the money you have. That's how you operate the business.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
We knew nothing about finances and starting a business. And where it got tricky is 2017, we really started growing quickly. The brand started growing faster. Demand started growing faster. We couldn't keep up with it. We kept running out of inventory for certain products. We placed a production order for a product and we had 12-week lead times. We placed that order.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
About 12 weeks later, it would be done and it would ship to us. We could sell it. The way that our contract was set up then was when we placed that production order, we'd have to put 50% down. And then before it shipped to us, we had to pay the remaining 50%. We had no terms with our manufacturer. And we didn't even know that was an option to negotiate.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
So before we received the inventory, we had to pay all of it off, which put us in a hole. And that worked for a period of time, but it stopped working when we started selling product too quickly, where we get it in and then we'd sell out. We get it in and we'd sell out. So we had to start stacking production orders.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
So I had stacked a production order 12 weeks out and then 10 weeks out and eight weeks out and then four weeks out. So we could try to time up when we were receiving inventory to pay off these invoices and and bridge the gap between how much we had and how fast we were selling it. So cashflow got super, super tight.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
I mean, tight, tight, tight, where all of our money would be tied up in production before it shipped because we were having to stack all these production orders. So our manufacturer had all of our money and we were waiting for the product. And there are many times where we get our rent that was due, $9,000 a month. I'd log into the business bank account. There'd be $6,000 in the account.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
So we had to get creative on how we bridge that gap to pay the rent in a few days. So if you were following the brand closely in 2017, there are a few things we did to bridge those gaps. One, we would often do a 50% off flash sale or 50% or 20%.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
We would do anywhere from 20 to 50%, but we do these flash sales where it'd be like two hours and we'd send out an email to our email list and say, you know, for two hours, you can save X amount on product shop now. And that would drive a lot of traffic to our website and a lot of purchases and
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
and we would make just enough money during these flash sales to cover the rent for the next week, for example. So if you ever saw flash sales come from BPN in 2017, just know we were doing those because we needed money to pay for rent or upcoming invoices for inventory. The second thing we did a few times, and because we had a social following and presence,
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
I got off that bus and my mom was there. My dad was there. Preston was there. They greeted me, we hugged, felt so good to be back home. And there was just like this excitement. It's so hard to even explain what it felt like and how powerful it was, but there was this excitement. One of being back in America, seeing family, being able to touch family again, people you know and you love,
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
we would make an announcement either on social media or through email campaigns because from the beginning, we were building out an email list that we could then market to. We would say, hey, every customer who purchases an order between this time and this day and this time and this day will get an order from Nick directly or a call from Nick directly. So people would place orders
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
during that timeframe and orders would flood in. I mean, hundreds of orders would flood in. And then I would spend the next week from 6 a.m. until 5 p.m. making phone calls all day to the people who ordered during that promo. So it's like I called every customer who placed an order during that promo because that was our promise. If you placed an order, then you would get a call.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
And if you didn't pick up, I left you a voicemail. Sometimes those calls lasted 30 seconds. Sometimes they lasted 16 minutes. I'm not joking. But those were our two strategies for bridging the gap. between moments of tight cashflow in 2017. And I'll tell you, it was the hardest, most stressful season of BPN. I would lay in bed at night, not being able to fall asleep no matter how tired I was,
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
trying to figure out how we were going to keep the business alive for one more month. Not because we weren't selling product. That wasn't the issue. And I'm fortunate for that reason. But we were just having such a hard time managing cash flow because all of our money was tied up in inventory. And for any young entrepreneurs listening, I just want you to know there are options.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
We had so many options that we didn't know were available. or accessible at the time. You can establish a line of credit with your bank. You can finance inventory. You can do a lot of things. You can take out these small loans. But I and we didn't know those options existed. So we just kept thinking, if that money isn't in the bank, we don't have it.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
Which taught us to be very disciplined with our spending. And it instilled some really strong principles and values around money and overhead and reducing costs. I mean, that was a huge benefit for us. It taught us out of necessity how to be disciplined with cash and expenses. But at the same time, we potentially made things a lot harder on ourselves than we potentially needed to.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
As hard as 2017 was and as busy as it kept me, Preston, and Joe, I also happened to meet Steph, my now wife, in 2017. And the way we met is that she was working for a military news network called Rated Red in Nashville at the time. And I was living in Texas.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
And shortly after Hurricane Harvey came and went through the Houston area, I decided to ruck march from Austin to Houston to raise money for Hurricane Harvey victims. So I announced this ruck march that I was doing and we were raising money and And at the time, Rated Red picked up the story. And Steph picked up the story.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
And we had to connect and hop on a call to talk about them covering the story and supporting. And that's how me and Steph first started talking is through that experience in 2017. And just like I decided to go all in I had the opportunity to go all in on BPN when I left the military. After meeting Steph, I went all in on that relationship.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
I knew early on after meeting Steph, I was going to marry her and went all in in pursuing a relationship with her. just after meeting her briefly and then connecting and spending time together. And then about a year later, she ended up moving down to Texas. And she was a big part of building BPN alongside of us and supporting the mission and everything we did.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
But I have to include that in the hardest, most fun, passionate year of my life, of going all in and building BPN, that's also the same year that I met my now wife, who is the mother to my two children, my daughter, Charlie, who is just over two years old, and my son, Nico, who is just over two months old. So we wrapped up 2017 with a big win. We finished crossing the seven-figure revenue mark.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
But this excitement of this next chapter of life is going to be so much fun. I mean, we just signed a lease for our first warehouse for BPN. Four years prior, I was establishing the LLC in Pennsylvania in my parents' kitchen and then building this business in my college apartment. And here we are. signing a warehouse lease, 6,000 square feet. I never thought we would get to that point.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
Just the three of us. Me, Preston, and Joe. And then shortly after, our next employee, John, joined. John Byers was originally one of our members of the Bear Performance Gym, the gym that we had in the warehouse. And John and his friend Eddie would train in that gym every single day. And when we closed the gym down, we stayed connected with John.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
And when we needed more help fulfilling orders and packing the warehouse, John was the first person or the next person who joined the team and is still with BPN today. And again, John is one of those people that like I could not have, we could not have built this business without him. Truly.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
You know, to fast forward to the next chapter, which I'll talk about in 2019, when me and Preston's mom got sick with ovarian cancer and she was going through treatment and unfortunately passed away from, after my mom passed away, Preston and I had to go back to Pennsylvania to spend time with family about two weeks. And Joe was working on some other stuff at the time.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
John was the only person down here managing and keeping BPN alive. He was packing all the orders. He was doing all the customer service. He was running the entire business while me and Preston spent two weeks in Pennsylvania at my mom's funeral and spending time with family. Could not have done that. We could not have done that.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
If John wasn't a part of the team, then and still today, you'll have people who join you on the journey who are so committed to the mission and they have the whatever it takes attitude that once you find those people, you never want to lose them. They are unique. They are special. They are so valuable and important. And there's not many people out there like that. I promise you, there's not many.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
And when you find them, do not lose them. Do not let them go. John's one of those people. Joe's one of those people. Wrapping up 2017 and going into 2018, We were coming off a high, but we knew we were just getting started. And the foundation of building BPN was and still is content. Content, content, content. It's sharing, living, and breathing the brand and the mission and what we're all about.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
And I recently heard a podcast with Alex Hermosi and he was talking about how content compounds. And he used to view content as a brand completely different than he does today. And he used to look at branded content as something that is created, lives briefly, and then dies off because there's a sea of new content that overtakes that old content.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
But the reality is that content compounds and it's evergreen. YouTube, for example, there's content we created five years ago that people are still coming across. And that's our first touch point. That's our first introduction into the brand. I believed in creating content and storytelling, authentic, real storytelling, since I got started in 2014. And that is still the foundation of BPN.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
There's a difference between creating entertainment online, fun, engaging skits, scenes, narrations. There's a difference between that and creating strong storytelling pieces that are inspirational, that are real, that are authentic to you. That has been the foundation of our content strategy from the beginning, and it's worked for us. It's been authentic to us.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
Our brand, our business has evolved. In 2012, when I started it, the thought process was we were going to be a bodybuilding and strength supplement company. One of those supplement companies you see at the Arnold Expo, exclusively on GNC shelves, just used for the gym. And in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017, that was the vision of the company. But things changed in 2018 because
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
It almost felt like I was dreaming. And all I wanted to do after getting off that bus and hugging my family was go straight to that warehouse. So that's what we did. We got in the truck at Fort Hood. We drove straight to Round Rock and we went and looked at the warehouse. And there was just like this energy that was crawling all over me. And there was so much excitement.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
the things that I was interested in, the things that we were interested in personally evolved and changed. And when I said in 2017 that I would never run a day in my life again, well, that changed in 2018 when I ran my first marathon, the Austin Marathon, February of 2018. And during that year, our training philosophies changed, our lifestyle changed, our values changed.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
And as our lives and interests and curiosities evolved, so did our brands as well. Because BPN was just an extension of the lifestyle that we wanted to live and promote and be a part of. So in 2018, coming from strictly a bodybuilding and powerlifting background, we started getting more into health and wellness. It wasn't just how much can we lift? How big can we be? How strong can we get?
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
How many calories can we consume? Quantity of calories. In 2018, the focus shifted a little bit more towards, well, what's more sustainable? How can we incorporate more cardiovascular conditioning into our training to be a more well-rounded athlete? How can running and endurance training support strength training?
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
How can we put more of an emphasis on quality of nutrition in food as opposed to quantity of food in calories? And that shift, that evolution in, like I said, our lifestyle, our values, our training philosophies, also was reflected in our product offering. So in 2018, we developed and launched Strong Greens, which was and still is our greens superfood supplement.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
It was the first supplement we introduced that was part of our health and wellness line. A greens powder, wheatgrass-based, We wanted to provide not only ourselves. I mean, we create a lot of these products, if not all of the products, selfishly because we want to use them ourselves. And we know we want to use them and we will use them.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
Then there's other people out there that want and need them as well. So the thought behind creating Strong Greens was that we wanted to create a product that that would supplement a diet that was extremely nutrient dense with vitamins, minerals, adaptogens to help with natural energy levels, boosted immune system, digestive support, gut health.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
We wanted to create a product that we would use with those benefits that we then could offer to our customers, the consumers. And we just assumed it would be something that people would occasionally would add on at checkout. We never thought that people would come to BPN's website and buy strong greens first and then maybe flight and protein second.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
Now, we thought that people would come to BPN's website. They buy their pre-workout flight. They buy their protein. They buy their creatine. And as they're checking out, they're like, you know what? I'll also add on strong greens. That was our expectation because we thought we knew our consumer. We thought we knew our audience. We thought they were the gym rat, the meathead.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
But what we realized is that as our training and lifestyle and value philosophies evolved over time, so did our consumers. with us. And as soon as we launched Strong Greens, it quickly became our best-selling product almost overnight. It was wild. We could not keep this product in stock. It sold more than our whey protein did. It sold more than Flight did. We were mind-blown.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
So from there, we realized there was an opportunity to expand on the health and wellness offering of products that we created for the BPN consumer. And that completely shifted where we thought we were going with BPN for the next decade.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
If you were to ask me in 2017, where is BPN going to be 10 years from now, we would have been the number one bodybuilding, powerlifting supplement company of the world.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
But then in 2018, when we launched Strong Greens, I didn't know if I thought that was a feature any longer because we now had this pretty even split between people wanting health and wellness products and people wanting strength and performance supplements. So we doubled down. And we use that research and that insight to create more products around health and wellness.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
From strong greens, we launched strong reds, strong multivitamin, strong joints, eventually strong omega and collagen protein powder. In 2018, 2019, The health and wellness category of supplements matched, if not surpassed, our strength and performance supplements. And that was a huge turning point for BPN. You know, I'm a big fan and believer that you have to force growth from time to time.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
And sometimes forcing growth feels unnatural and it feels risky. And it can be, but it works. Forcing growth can work. And it continues to allow you and force you to go all in. It's a burn the boats mentality, whatever it takes mindset. In 2018,
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
And I just wanted to do everything right there. I just wanted to go, go, go, get started, start filming, documenting, creating, building all the things. And it was actually tough to hold back and restrain myself, but I knew it was going to be a long journey, a long process. Because there was so much happening at this time in my life. October of 2016 was,
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
Even as the brand and the business was growing and we were making more money and we were selling more products and we were gaining more recognition, we easily could have comfortably operated out of that first warehouse. 6,000 square feet. It worked for what we needed and what we had. But part of me felt like we were getting a little comfortable in that space.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
And I wanted something that made us feel really uncomfortable and that scared us and forced growth. So we began exploring options for new warehouses. And at a time, our landlord just built out these new buildings, these brand new buildings. They are beautiful. On 3161 Eagles Nest Street, Round Rock, Texas, 78665. About three quarters of a mile from the warehouse we are currently operating out of.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
And these new spaces had 10,000 square foot suites. And they were beautiful. They were dock high. So 18 wheelers could back right in, unload pallets and inventory right in your warehouse. Our first warehouse was not dock high. It was ground level. So sometimes it was an issue getting pallets and inventory off of the trucks into our warehouse.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
And I went and toured these warehouses and they were spectacular. They were brand new. They were beautiful. Just being finished up. And I opened up the conversation with our landlord and he agreed that he would end our lease in our current warehouse and allow us to move into one of these new spaces. And in my head, I was thinking, it'd be nice, but do we need it?
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
Do we need an additional 4,000 square feet? Do we need the additional liability and expenses that come with this new space? office and warehouse. Do we need it? No. Do we need it to force growth? Yes. Yes. And I believe that. And so many people in retrospect probably would have seen me making that decision and say, that was stupid. That was dumb.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
But I know the way my mind works and that I want to put myself in uncomfortable situations. I want to seek discomfort. Because I have the whatever it takes mindset and attitude, and I will burn the boats, and I will make it work. I will create solutions to solve those problems to make it work. Also, for me, a new warehouse was more than a warehouse. It was our headquarters. It was now an HQ.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
It was a fresh start to refined focus. We are no longer trying to be half gym, half supplement company. Now, this new space was a fresh start, refined focus to say we are BPN. We offer effective health and performance supplements you can trust. We're not trying to be anything outside of that. Yes, it was risky. Yes, it was more money.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
But I knew we would make decisions now that forced us to grow from 6,000 square feet to 10,000 square feet. And to put it in context, we now operate out of multiple buildings in the same business park and 50,000 square feet. And next April or May, next spring, we'll be moving into our future HQ, which is 76,000 square feet that we're currently building out. 6,000 square feet intimidated me.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
coming back from South Korea, signing this warehouse lease, and then starting the process of transitioning out of the military. So I had a four-year contract with the army and that ended up getting me out of the military. Like my last day active duty service was May of 2017. So there was obviously some time between landing back in
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
10,000 square feet really intimidated me. 76,000 square feet does not intimidate me anymore. That comes with experience, that comes with repetition, and that comes with knowing how to force growth, especially when you have the whatever it takes mindset and attitude to get it done.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
When we first moved into that 10,000 square foot warehouse, we could not even fill the bottom level of racks with inventory. And I remember looking at Preston thinking and saying, we're never going to fill this space. Well, a year later, we outgrew it and we signed a lease for an additional 10,000 square feet. Because we are forced to grow into it. And then we are forced to outgrow it.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
We are forced to grow out of it. What was funny though is. When we moved in. The landlord gave us the go ahead. So me. Preston. John. Joe. Steph at the time too. We. We. Loaded things up in vans and trucks. And we moved everything over. From the old warehouse to the new warehouse. And we moved in. We got everything set up. That same day. I went to connect the internet. Couldn't find it.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
Called AT&T. Who we were told was the provider in that business park. And AT&T said... We plan on pulling fiber lines out there, but no one's actually pulled internet to that business park yet. We were the first business to move into that business park. It was just finished. And there was no fiber cable pulled into the entire business park yet.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
We operated BPN in 2019 for those first couple months off of a Verizon hotspot. We packed all of our orders, uploaded all of our videos. Everything we did online at BPN HQ 2019 was done on a hotspot. And I would carry and move that hotspot around that 10,000 square foot warehouse and footprint based off where we needed the service most for what we were working on. Never a dull moment.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
Always a learning experience. But we were all in. We were all in for that next chapter. And that's where chapter four of building the brand ends. We just moved into our second warehouse, April 2019. That's where things really changed. We'll talk about it in the next chapter. But from 2019 to 2020, the business grew 400%. We'll see you in the next episode.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
in the States and then officially transitioning out of the military. But the transition process of leaving the military and going back to being a civilian is actually a pretty long and drawn out process. There are certain classes and courses and requirements that you have to go through, accomplish, achieve in order to successfully transition out.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
And I learned at that point that every time I seeked discomfort, I experienced some sort of new level of growth. And within the first 90 days of being in South Korea, we went from doing $2,000 a month in revenue to $10,000 a month in revenue. My nine month goal was accomplished in 90 days. I filmed the video and it was just me documenting my day. It went from 5,000 views, maybe to a million views.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
So my transition out of the military pretty much started as soon as we got back from South Korea. So during this time, I'm transitioning out. We're preparing to build out our future HQ and warehouse, creating all this content. And like I said, the energy was so electric that It was pure passion and excitement for this next chapter, this next journey.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
And as I've described in the previous parts of this series, there were certain parts of my life where I realized that I was in the driver's seat. I was in complete control of the outcome. One of those first times is when I landed in Fort Benning, Georgia. I made the drive from Pennsylvania after graduating college to Georgia. I pulled into my apartment complex.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
I sat in my truck and I realized the things that I accomplished while I'm here, it is my responsibility. I have to own that. I am in the driver's seat. The second time is when I made the drive from Georgia to Texas and I pulled into my apartment complex and I thought the same thing. I'm in complete control of the outcomes I experience and I am responsible. I have to own that.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
This was another one of those moments where I get back from South Korea. I go see this warehouse that we just signed a lease for that we really didn't know if we were going to be able to afford. And we didn't know the future success or failure of this company until And I've realized in that moment, I'm in the driver's seat. I'm in control.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
And I have to be accountable for the outcomes we experience or do not experience. The wins, the losses, the successes, the failures. Pure accountability. And if you are not willing to take pure accountability seriously, I promise you, you will never achieve the outcomes you want. That's when I was able to go all in.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
This is the first real time within BPN that I could go all in because the military was no longer going to be my primary job. It was not going to take up Hours and hours and hours throughout the week. I was not going to be going to the field any longer. I was finally able to go all in, spend every waking moment on BPN. And that's what I committed to doing.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
That's what I truly decided I was going to do. I was going to go all in and I was not going to turn back no matter what happened. And I experienced the success that I did because of that commitment, that commitment to go all in. Now, it's funny. Shortly after getting back from Korea and one of the YouTube videos that I created, I made this comment and I'll never forget it.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
I said, I just spent the last four years of my life doing a lot of running. And I just want to get big and strong. I said, I will never run a day in my life again. And if you follow me and if you've been following me for any amount of time, you know how much my life has changed since those words came out of my mouth. I will never run a day in my life again. I now run every single day of my life.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
many, many miles. After multiple marathons and triathlons and ultra marathons, running has become a significant part of my life. But I truly did commit to that. When I got back from South Korea, I committed to never running a day of my life again. Because I thought bodybuilding and powerlifting was going to be the future for me and this brand and BPN as a whole.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
We were going to be a strength bodybuilding brand. Now, shortly after getting back from Korea and moving into the home that I owned with Preston, Joe Pivots ended up coming down to Texas. Joe was technically our first employee after me and Preston. And when I was in Korea, like I talked about in this last chapter, I had two phone calls that were pretty significant.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
And the YouTube channel went from 30,000 subscribers to 80,000 subscribers. The exposure that video brought me in the brand was like I said, pivotal, but it wasn't the one video that did that. It was the probably over a hundred, maybe hundreds of videos before that one. You just got to get started. I didn't know how to build an online following. I didn't know how to build a business.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
The first call was depressed and to tell him and ask him to quit his job, move to Texas, which he did. That's a call that I made. A call that I received was from Joe Pivots. And I went to college with his brother, Jonathan. We were in ROTC together. And I met Joe briefly when I was at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, going to school there.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
And I met him actually in the library at IUP because he wanted help losing weight. So I wrote him a diet plan And because his brother was Jonathan and me and Jonathan were in ROTC together, Joe was familiar with BPN and me starting BPN in college and then building it while I was in Korea. And I got this call, this random call from Joe one day when I was in Korea.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
And he said, I see what you guys are doing online. I want to be a part of it, which was one of the most random calls I've I ever received, especially not knowing Joe much at this point in my life. And I was like, you know, we got nothing to lose. So I told Joe, once I get back from South Korea, come fly down to Texas, meet me in Preston.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
We'll show you the warehouse that we just signed a lease for. We'll show you what we got going on and we'll see if it's a good fit. So shortly after I got back to the States, And me and Preston were living in my house together. The small house was probably 1,300 square feet total. Joe flew down from Pennsylvania to Texas. And we went and we showed him BPHQ, the warehouse.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
We talked to him about the plan. We showed him where we were packing orders out of this one small room in this home in Temple. And he said, I want in. I want to join. I told him, Joe, I can't pay you much. I'm not even paying my brother right now. I'm not even paying myself. We can pay you a little bit, but until we get this company off the ground, I can't promise you much.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
And we can put an air mattress up for you in this house and you can live here with us as we build this thing. And it was no questions asked. No questions asked. He said, I'm all in. He went back home, packed up his stuff. A few weeks later, he was living in Texas with me and Preston. It was me, Preston and Joe living in this home in Temple, Texas. I was transitioning out of the army.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
Preston and Joe would go to the warehouse and start working on it during the day and And they come back at night and I would come back from the army and my day of training and working about five, 6 PM. And then we make the drive to our warehouse, which was about 30 to 40 minutes away from temple.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
We decided to put the warehouse in round rock and we'd spend the whole night there filming videos, creating content, building out the warehouse, getting it ready for our full move in and expansion. And for a few months, it was that same routine of just work, work, work, create, create, create, train, train, train, sleep a little bit, repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat.
The Nick Bare Podcast
093: Building the Brand: Part 4 "Commitment"
I didn't know any of these things. It was just doing and then learning from my mistakes. And with each additional day, each additional YouTube video, how do I do this a little bit better? South Korea in the nine months I spent there provided me a huge key that was pivotal for my life.
The Nick Bare Podcast
121: Gut Health Essentials with Dr. Will Bulsiewicz
Well, I'm excited for this conversation. It's been really fun following your journey over the years since I came across your content. Reading Fiber Fueled and you being an educational resource has been powerful in my journey with diet and health. And I know you're a huge resource to so many other people. So first of all, before we...
The Nick Bare Podcast
121: Gut Health Essentials with Dr. Will Bulsiewicz
Yeah. One of my favorite messages that you share on social is just the simple concept of addition rather than subtraction. And I remember when I first came across your content, that's what really stood out to me where it's like a lot of people, a lot of people struggle with nutrition and how to clean up their diet and what they should be focused on.
The Nick Bare Podcast
121: Gut Health Essentials with Dr. Will Bulsiewicz
And there's so much fear mongering out there that people are looking at what they should remove or reduce and eliminate. But if we shift the focus, and the thought process is new, what can I add? You will naturally eliminate things because you're adding the right things too.
The Nick Bare Podcast
121: Gut Health Essentials with Dr. Will Bulsiewicz
You can't just add... I can't add broccoli, seeds, nuts, kale, vegetables, fruits, all these things on top of what I'm already eating if some of those things were bad because I'd be overly full and uncomfortable. So one of my favorite ways to get... And kind of like you said, it probably sounds intimidating, 30 different sources of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, all of these things a week.
The Nick Bare Podcast
121: Gut Health Essentials with Dr. Will Bulsiewicz
One of my favorite things to do, like tonight's dinner is a good example. We make these just like big nutrition bowls. It's just the only way we can describe them. And we'll do like a base of quinoa, and then we'll have a protein in there. And then I'll add pumpkin seeds, avocado, bean sprouts, diced up tomatoes, some kale, pickled onions. peppers. I'll just load it.
The Nick Bare Podcast
121: Gut Health Essentials with Dr. Will Bulsiewicz
Then I'll do an olive oil lemon juice on top. For me, it's knowing that I just got so much nutritional value out of this meal. I probably knocked out
The Nick Bare Podcast
121: Gut Health Essentials with Dr. Will Bulsiewicz
We'll do crunchy chickpeas all the time to get some crunch, some texture in there. Exactly.
The Nick Bare Podcast
121: Gut Health Essentials with Dr. Will Bulsiewicz
Do you add that to pasta? Yeah.
The Nick Bare Podcast
121: Gut Health Essentials with Dr. Will Bulsiewicz
Honestly, that's one of my favorite sauces is like a tomato sauce. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with that. How can you get away from that? All right. So we dove in real quick. I want to pull back a little bit just to set the stage and provide some more context as we explore the rest of this conversation. Yeah. I find it really important that people, individuals need to feel and be connected to their work.
The Nick Bare Podcast
121: Gut Health Essentials with Dr. Will Bulsiewicz
And by being connected to your work, that's the power of narrowing your focus often on that thing, having your thing. I'm curious, how has your thing become gut health and even more specifically, pooping?
The Nick Bare Podcast
121: Gut Health Essentials with Dr. Will Bulsiewicz
Your recent podcast you did, it was all about whole grains. And every day I eat rice with my meat for my second meal. But I decided to switch out the rice yesterday. And it was, I don't know why I'm blanking on the sorghum. It was sorghum. It's high protein, actually. I saw that. I flipped over. I was surprised by how much fiber and protein was in sorghum.
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Yeah, I really appreciated and respected how you guys acknowledged that in the episode. Yeah. Because for most people who follow Max and then potentially follow you too, you would almost think that you are complete opposites and going to debate these two different topics. But I came to realize during that conversation that you guys align on a lot of things.
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Yeah. One of my favorite quotes is that The concepts are few, but the methods are many. And I think it's very applicable to health and performance and even diet that the concepts that we're talking about, there's very few that we know are practical. effective and they work, but there's so many different methods to get there.
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And I also do appreciate that people come from different experiences and backgrounds and potentially traumas that have shaped what they prefer, what methods they prefer to incorporate into their life to accomplish the things that they're trying to accomplish. And even if I don't necessarily align or do exactly what someone else might do, I can respect and appreciate that.
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It's got a nice texture, too. I enjoyed it. However- Uh-oh. I find, we might as well talk about this now. I find that when I consume certain whole grains, it wrecks my gut. And there's a lot of different like fiber sources that don't bother me at all.
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But like sorghum, for example, yesterday, and it might've been the dose that I consumed it in, super bloated, super gassy in like the back half of the day. And the only thing I changed in my diet yesterday was from the sorghum. So I guess before we like, We dive into anything else. I'm curious, is it introducing the new type of food potentially? Is it the dose that I consumed it at?
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Yeah. I think it's a really clear message to distinguish at this point in the conversation is you're not pushing this position or narrative to not consume meat. But I love the way that you phrase it before where it's, you're focused on being plant forward. Yeah. So an emphasis on how can you, and again, it's not the focus on subtraction, it's the focus on addition. And
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I want to really get into fiber here in a little bit. But before we do, I want to spend a little bit of time around your experience in med school and prior to your discovery of Food's ability to transform the gut, specifically fiber's ability to transform the gut. What were you being taught in med school that is the solution to some of these gut issues?
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And then simultaneously, what are doctors in your field doing or prescribing that don't have this emphasis on food and fiber specifically?
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Because it was about a cup and a half of sorghum. Or is it like an intolerance that I might have to whole grains?
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I don't want to act like I'm on the side of the system by any means with this question or comment, but isn't there an assumption that you would bring in a specialist at that point? And isn't that the point of a registered dietitian? Or is it the fact that just the registered dietitian doesn't get integrated or implemented enough in those situations?
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An opportunity in some way. Is that why more people like yourself are leaving traditional practice and pursuing different routes? Because you can actually make differences outside of the traditional medical system?
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Yeah, I know some of the people in my life who have gut issues. Gut issues are such a common occurrence in so many people. I feel like every time I meet someone new, there's some sort of gut issue they're experiencing. And I'm constantly hearing about how they are let down and failed by the traditional system.
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So they end up fixing their gut most likely through someone they find like you on social media or going through a functional doctor or reading a book or just trying new things and trial and error and experimentation. When you were in practice, what were the most common gut issues that you were witnessing?
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Can we talk about constipation a little bit? Yeah. It's such an interesting thing to say. Can we just talk about constipation a little bit? I'm very comfortable talking about these things. You mentioned that a lot of people who are actually constipated don't realize they're constipated. Totally. And they cover it up or they blame it around just being bloated.
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Can you talk a little bit more about that? Because I think that's a pretty common... The thing that I hear is like, oh, I just ate this and I'm really bloated. Or I'm super gassy. What is constipation? What are the levels? And what do you mean when you say that?
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When I listen to a podcast or I read a book and something grabs my interest, and in this case, it was actually the conversation you were having with Max Lugavere on Max's podcast. And you're talking about whole grains and gluten-free whole grain sources. And I never heard of sorghum before. Never. I was like, let me look into this.
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So how do we accomplish that? Like the tactical next step. If someone's listening to this right now, I'm like, holy crap. No pun intended. This is me. What do I do now? Yeah.
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And based off of the photos I found, it kind of reminded me of couscous, even though it didn't really taste like couscous, but it looked like couscous. Um, so as soon as I got back from my run, which I do this all the time, I went on Instacart and I ordered three bags of sorghum. So I then go to work, it gets delivered.
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Interesting. So do you take magnesium daily? I don't take magnesium daily because- So you don't need it.
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When it comes to a fiber supplement, what source of fiber are you recommending? Okay.
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And my wife sends me a photo of, uh, it came from natural grocers, you know, natural grocers delivers in, in cardboard boxes. And it's these three big bags of sorghum. And she goes, I think someone accidentally delivered this to our house. But then she said, or did you listen to a podcast this morning? There it is. Yeah, I listened to a podcast with Dr. B and he recommended sorghum.
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I want to take a quick break in this episode to talk to you about one of our products at BPN, and that is our Peak Sleep Gummies. Now, Peak Sleep is one of those products that everyone can benefit from. Everyone can benefit from better, higher quality sleep. And the way that we formulated this product, like I said, it's in a gummy format.
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You consume about four gummies, 30 to 45 minutes before winding down in the evening. And it has ingredients such as magnesium, GABA, 5-HTP, Levagen Plus, theanine. These ingredients were put together to work synergistically and formulated to help you wind down in the evening. have better quality sleep throughout the night and wake up feeling refreshed, recharged and ready to take on the day.
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It is non-habit forming. We did not use ingredients such as melatonin that might leave you feeling tired and groggy and foggy and struggling to get out of bed in the morning. No, we didn't want any of that. We wanted to help you wind down, sleep better, and wake up ready to perform. Peak sleep is much more than a sleep supplement. This is truly a recovery and performance amplifier.
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So try Peak Sleep today. They are delicious. It is a berry flavored gummy. I look forward to taking my Peak Sleep gummies every single night. I count down the minutes until I can take my Peak Sleep gummies because they taste that good. They help me wind down. They help me sleep great. And they help me show up the next day ready to perform. Now, back to the episode.
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121: Gut Health Essentials with Dr. Will Bulsiewicz
So with your product specifically, did you guys take a pre-pro fiber approach? Because there's prebiotics in your powder, correct? Right.
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Because I'm like, how can I get more whole grains in my diet? How can I get more fiber in my diet? What can I replace? I'm like, well, my second meal is white rice every day. What's a better potential option? And as I was laying in bed last night, I'm thinking, did I overdo it? Should I have done like half white rice, half sorghum? So what is the approach?
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Yeah, I'm really curious. I'd actually like to talk about probiotics for a little bit. Yeah. I have never personally had success with probiotics, where I purchase an over-the-counter, high-quality probiotic supplement. It has large quantities of CFUs and multiple different strains of probiotics, nothing targeted specifically based off of testing on myself and then identifying what I need.
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And it almost always destroys. my gut. Why is that? And what's the problem with this mass blast probiotic approach?
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I know we're kind of jumping right in, but I'm genuinely curious. If I was going to start incorporating new different foods, especially foods that are higher in fiber, maybe whole grains. How do you kind of ratchet that up to allow your gut to get used to those?
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But I'm assuming the issue could be that you find that one strain that is identified for your problem, but that product has seven other strains of bacteria in there that could be disrupting another part of your gut. So you're not actually experiencing the benefit because it's being covered up by an intolerance to another strain.
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Is there anything more unique in our body other than the gut? that require so much specificity?
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This is a one-off question, but I'm just curious. talking about the differences in, in one another's gut microbiome. Do you have any data or research or findings from what happened to people's guts? And, um, bacteria in their stomach, their gut, during the pandemic?
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Yeah, because I just think about like, the lack of diversity you're getting from interacting with other people or being outside or just the health of socializing and over sanitizing and over cleaning everything and just the reduction of exposure to these different bacterias that ultimately end up in our gut. You have to assume that it'd have negative consequences from isolation.
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Yeah. I'm curious about... people who pursue the carnivore diet, and I have a few questions around that. Because as you described, and as we know, we have bacterial strains in our gut. We consume these prebiotic fibers that fuel and feed the probiotics, which then produce the postbiotics and maintain the health and integrity of the gut, digestion, bowel movements.
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I know there's certain people who go on the carnivore diet for short periods of time and they get relief from some of their gastrointestinal distress. Why is that potentially?
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I don't generally have gut issues, but like you said, my diet is very routine.
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That's actually the next thing I wanted to talk about on my list was FODMAPs and histamines. Sure. Because I found a lot of interest in FODMAPs and histamines this past year. Yeah. Where I never even thought about histamines, low histamine diet. But I did this genetic testing about a year ago. And-
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I met this person at this wellness retreat and I would have never done this on my own, but they offered it to me for free. So I tried it out and I was just curious and it came back and showed that I was highly sensitive to histamines. So I just started asking questions.
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I was genuinely curious because occasionally what would happen is I would, throughout the day, I would eat something and my stomach would bother me and I couldn't figure it out. And my diet's always very clean and routine and organized, but there were certain things in certain parts of the day that were triggering my stomach. So I started researching like what are high histamine foods?
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And some of those came back as specifically dates, bananas, canned fish, like sardines. I was eating a lot of sardines at that point. And I just started eliminating and reducing a lot of these high histamine foods. And then at the same time, I also reduced a lot of high FODMAP foods as well. And it was almost overnight that I just stopped experiencing some of these issues I was having.
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And I slowly started reincorporating things back into to see what I could manage and handle. And it was like, it blew my mind. So I'd love to talk about what are FODMAPs, what are high histamine foods, and what are the potential dangers or negative consequences of these foods for people who are not tolerant to them?
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Yeah, there's one food though, For the past like two years, I've been eating pickled beets and a ridiculous amount of pickled beets. It might've been the dose that I was consuming them, but it was probably like a jar of pickled beets every three days. I'd get them from the farmer's market, loved them.
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But then I stopped eating pickled beets in this pursuit of finding out what was bothering my stomach. And I realized when I stopped eating the pickled beets, all of my stomach issues I was experiencing went away. So that's the one thing I haven't reintroduced. And I just share that to say, For the last two years, I've been like praising the pickled beet gods.
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And the reason I haven't recently is because I stopped eating them altogether because I realized they were bothering me.
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Something to share really quickly on that. It's funny when you start learning and realizing this stuff because you're so aware of of your body and you're in tune. When I started just like researching histamines, I realized that when I eat crab, after I eat crab, stuffy nose, sore throat, clogged ears. There it is.
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Do you find that with some of the patients you work with or even people you interact with online, this is sometimes what I do is I go from zero to 100 and then I have a negative effect. So then I just go back to my old ways. I'm like, well, this food doesn't have a place in my diet. I must have some sort of intolerance. Do you find that's common? And then to caveat off of that,
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Yeah, I didn't necessarily eliminate all the histamines in my diet, but I tried to reduce. And just by reducing, it made a big difference.
The Nick Bare Podcast
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Should we expect some sort of adjustment acclimation period as we start introducing new foods?
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I prepare rice twice a week. I make it in the rice cooker and I put that rice cooker, I take the pot out, I put it right in the fridge. And I've heard people say that when you make certain foods or you have leftovers, specifically like a grain like rice, and you let it sit in the fridge, it's already cooked, that the longer it's in there, the more histamines it will kind of build. Is that true?
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I knew that was the case for potatoes, but I didn't even realize that was the case for- Any grain. Okay. And legume. And green bananas are higher in resistant starch too, correct?
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Yeah, I always find that Because I knew that with potatoes, like I said. So I will cook potatoes and I'll put them right in the fridge and I'll eat them cold. They are the most easily digestible potatoes I ever eat. And when I eat cold rice, now that I think about it, it digests much easier than the warm rice does.
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Do you work with a lot of patients or interact with a lot of people online? who goes zero to 100, feel the negative effects, and then go back to their old ways and don't anticipate the acclimation.
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I didn't realize that sugar alcohols could be naturally occurring in foods.
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That's what I actually did myself. Exactly. And I found a lot of success with that. Yeah. So how do you... How does someone know... if going back to my experience with sorghum, how does someone know if they have an intolerance to FODMAPs and they need to go low FODMAP diet, or if they're just in that acclimation period of introducing new things into their diet?
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So for example, if I ate this sorghum, hurt my stomach, And now in the beginning of this conversation, I was thinking, okay, I just need to eat less of it. But maybe it's the fact that it's high FODMAP that's actually causing the issue. What's the approach?
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Yeah, tonight with my salad, I'm going to put like a quarter cup on. I mean, I went all out, man. I did 300. I weighed out 300 grams of sorghum. And I didn't even think about it. I was like, that'll be good. But you're excited. I mean, you just bought three pounds. Yeah. I'm going to completely remove my rice. I'm going to add the sorghum in. And I was fine. And it was a few hours later.
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I was like, oh, I definitely, I feel it. Yeah. I can tell. Yeah. When I experimented with high histamine food and high FODMAP foods earlier this year, because I'm assuming the listener right now is like, holy crap, this is a lot of information. Where do I get started? What I did is I just downloaded a free app in the app store where I could just type in the food or I could even scan it.
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And it would say, you could distinguish on this app, I forget what the app was called, what you're looking out for. And I would scan it and it would show green or yellow or red for histamine, green or yellow or red for FODMAP. because I didn't want to carry a list around with me all the time or just Google search stuff.
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But I had this app and it helped me become more aware of, okay, these things that I'm eating, they're high histamine, they're high FODMAP, these aren't, let's eliminate some of these and then reintroduce. It was a pretty easy process. It wasn't as complicated as it might sound or seem.
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This was one of the most tactical, strategic conversations I've had in a while in terms of like, if I was a listener to this, like clear, evident takeaways of how to identify if you have gut issues, you're experiencing something, and then next steps. So one, I just want to say thank you for sharing all the information the way you did, because it can be a very complicated conversation.
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But I think you did an amazing job laying all that out. I now have key takeaways of I'm actually going to go start on one of these magnesium supplements. I'm going to increase my dosage. And then I'm going to try experimenting with a little bit of a fiber supplement post-magnesium supplementation. That's my next steps, key takeaway.
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You brought up an interesting point there, how our digestive systems now in today's environment may not be as responsive or durable as they once were potentially decades ago. What's changed?
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decade and a half. And I think sometimes people are still tainted by what the supplement industry used to be back in the day, where it was untrusted, it was untested. And now a lot of these companies, like the companies we've created and products we've created, they are there. They've been created to solve problems and fill gaps to, like you said, optimize and create solutions.
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And both you and I invest a lot of money into our products and testing programs. I think I heard on Max's podcast, you were talking about entering your products into the NSF certified for sport. Yep. That's imminent coming any day now. Yep. So we're enrolled in that program because we believe in it. Yeah. It is not a cheap program to be involved with. Not at all.
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But it comes with a lot of due diligence and it comes with a lot of... certification and trust and test. And I believe in that. I believe in this industry. I believe in these products. And like you said, there is a place for them for specific use cases to help optimize the consumer and the people.
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Dr. B, I appreciate you. This was great. Good to finally meet in person. Yeah. You're as big as I thought you would be. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Yeah. How tall are you, by the way? I'm 6'4". Man, I was going to say, you're a tall dude. It's funny because you're a tall guy.
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Today on the podcast, we have Dr. Will Bulsiewicz. Dr. B, welcome back.
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I hate when I get the notification on my phone that says like your daily average. It's brutal, isn't it? I'm like, dude. Yeah. How, first off, and why are we doing this?
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It's been a while since we, our first podcast was probably over two years ago at this point.
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What has caused the reduction in fiber in the diet over these decades? Is it the introduction of processed and ultra-processed foods? I mean, I would argue, yes.
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You have a stat. That's like a certain number of plants you try to eat per day or is it per week? Per week. How many plants is it? Well, the goal should be 30.
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120: Warren Zeiders: Collegiate Athlete to Country Music Star
In today's episode of the podcast, I sit down with country artist Warren Zyders. Now, Warren is currently on tour for his new album, and he was playing a show in New Braunfels, Texas, which is right down the road from the Austin area. And funny enough, Warren and I grew up in neighboring towns. We didn't know each other or know of each other as we were growing up.
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I think it was just a few years ago that you weren't even playing music. And now you're on tour. Your whole family's on tour. Outside of having people like your parents keeping you straight, how have you kept a level head Because for a lot of people, when you gain that much success that fast, it guides the trajectory of...
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your values, your legacy, how you're showing up, the longevity of success that you want to maintain and accomplish.
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120: Warren Zeiders: Collegiate Athlete to Country Music Star
I want to talk about that because that is one of my favorite venues to go to. I was there my first time ever a few years ago to see Aaron Watson. Texas country boy. I loved that venue. And then there's this restaurant right around the corner, which I doubt you had the time to go to, but there's like one restaurant that after shows, they sell these massive turkey legs.
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i'm not going to sit here and say i'm not confident you got to be confident if you're going to go step on a stage in front of thousands of people night after night oh for sure i don't doubt that i don't doubt you that in that at all either um when you decided to bring your parents on your team was there anyone in the industry that pulled you aside and said hey i don't think this is a good idea oh 100 oh my goodness there's another artist in town that um
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The P&L is upside down. Yep. Yeah. I mean, people won't like the yes man or yes woman when they are pushing back against what is expected or... resisting the norm and asking questions. Asking questions typically is offensive to a lot of people who have experience in a certain space or industry. So right now you're in great shape.
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I mean, you reached out to me a few months ago and you've lost 15 pounds since then. I actually heard you on a podcast say that when you first went on tour, you gained like 35 pounds. What did you weigh at your peak?
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And that for me is Texas in a nutshell. I mean, right now it's April, but you go to a concert there, July, August, you don't stop sweating the entire time. They got Lone Stars on tap, turkey legs afterwards. How's Texas been treating you on this tour?
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My wife loves it. I'm heavier. She wants me to pack on the pounds. If I'm getting too lean or skinny. You're more cuddly. Yeah. Put on some weight. Come on, Steph.
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It's like 50 pounds lighter than you were at your heaviest. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. What a lot of people don't realize is, you know, you go to dinner and I have some friends who own restaurants and are executive chefs at restaurants. And the goal of those restaurants is to make those meals taste absolutely amazing. Yep. And I have this one friend who's an executive chef and,
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120: Warren Zeiders: Collegiate Athlete to Country Music Star
And I was asking him what they do to make the meals healthier. And he's explaining to me, we don't make these meals to be something you're supposed to eat every night. We make these meals for an experience. It should be a special occasion. So when you're going out and having these big steak dinners that come with the like loaded mashed potatoes and you get the appetizers and the drinks. Yeah.
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That's like when you order a steak, it's not just a piece of meat. It's a piece of meat that's loaded with salt that's cooked in oil and butter. Oh yeah. And before it comes out, there's butter added on top of it.
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So, you know, your typical ribeye that might have 50 grams of fat now has 110 grams of fat and you think you're just eating a steak, but you're eating a steak with a stick of butter on it. Yeah. And you do that multiple times a week. Adds up really fast. It does. 50 pounds fast.
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165 and then carve up. Yeah. Fill back out. Yeah. And look really good. Yeah. So what are you doing now? Obviously like life is crazy on the road. Yeah. Before we started recording- You guys were telling me about your current schedule. You're playing these night shows. You wrap up. It's 1, 1.30, 2 a.m. You sleep on the bus. You're waking up preparing for travel and another show. Mm-hmm.
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How are you maintaining diet and training right now while being in a different city every single night? It's tough.
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120: Warren Zeiders: Collegiate Athlete to Country Music Star
That'd be super interesting. Yeah. I want to talk about diet because I recently saw this video on Instagram of Jelly Roll. And obviously Jelly Roll's on this weight loss transformation. And you toured with Jelly Roll recently. And I saw this video pop up where he has a chef on tour with him. And then his chef makes all of his meals for him.
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And he has like two meals a day right now on tour, plus a snack. And he looks like he's losing weight and staying on track and working out. Do you have someone with you that's making meals, sourcing meals, or are you just trying to find whatever's convenient and available? It's normally sourcing meals.
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I'm sure going into like the summer too. Oh yeah. Being on stage for 90 minutes. Yep. you're probably burning well over 1,500 calories. Oh my goodness.
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Do you have a pre-show meal? And I ask that because... I listen to a lot of podcasts about Michael Jordan and Kobe, but Michael Jordan had like a pre-game ritual where he would always have a steak before a game. Do you have like a pre-show ritual meal?
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They're so good. I love cold potatoes. Like I'll do... like a red potato or a yellow Yukon potato, poke holes in it, put it in the microwave, and then I'll put it in the fridge and I'll eat it like an apple. And it's like a russet is like a dry potato, but red or sweet potato and Yukon gold. That cold is really good.
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And when you heat potatoes and you let them cool and you eat them cold, they're high in resistant starch, which is really good for your gut and digestive system. Oh. So there's two foods that are really high in resistant starch, cold potatoes after they're heated and cold. Okay. And then green bananas. Okay. Both of those high in resistant starch, really good for your digestive tract.
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A cold sweet potato for me is like dessert. The way I make my sweet potatoes is I'll throw them in the microwave for four minutes with some holes in them. Then I'll wrap them in tin foil, finish them off in the oven. Then I'll let them cool and I'll put them in the fridge. Then when I want a sweet potato, I'll just take it out, unwrap it, eat it like an apple. and it's like super sweet. Okay.
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Maybe I'll throw some, like I'll cut it open, put some flaky sea salt, a little honey and cinnamon on it. Now we're talking. Man, a sweet potato for me is literally dessert. Oh yeah, 100%. I love it. Yes. Okay, now I got to try that now. I don't know if you've tried the viral meal going around right now that's,
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diced up sweet potato, like cooked sweet potato, ground beef, cottage cheese, avocado, and then you cover it all in honey. And it just works.
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So the first time I came across your music was probably two years ago. Okay. And this was like before... The blow up, I guess you can say. Yeah. That happened these last two years. And what grabbed my attention is I was listening to Spotify and listening to country music. And it's just kind of like feeding me new music. And then West Texas weather popped up.
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And I was like, oh, dude, I love this song. And then I saw the 717 and like 717 tapes. Yeah. And in my head, I was like, there's no way, there's no way this dude is from central Pennsylvania. So I Googled your name and then 717. It was like Warren Ziders from Hershey, Pennsylvania. It's like, no fricking way. I grew up in the town next to you, Pullmire, Pennsylvania.
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So it was good. Of all these shows you've done the past couple of years, What's been like your favorite geographic location to play? I mean, I've seen you play, I saw you play at the Ryman actually in Nashville when me and Steph were living there. And that was a great show. Like we loved watching you perform there. But for you, do you like the big shows? Do you like the smaller venues?
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You grew up in Hershey, Pennsylvania. What year did you graduate high school? I was 17 grad. 17, I was 09. So I was a little before you. But I could not believe- You were from Hershey, Pennsylvania.
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I want to take a quick break in this episode to talk to you about one of our products at BPN and that is our peak sleep gummies. Now peak sleep is one of those products that everyone can benefit from. Everyone can benefit from better, higher quality sleep. And the way that we formulated this product, like I said, it's in a gummy format and
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You consume about four gummies, 30 to 45 minutes before winding down in the evening. And it has ingredients such as magnesium, GABA, 5-HTP, levagen plus, theanine. These ingredients were put together to work synergistically and formulated to help you wind down in the evening, have better quality sleep throughout the night, and wake up feeling refreshed, recharged, and ready to take on the day.
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It is non-habit forming. We did not use ingredients such as melatonin that might leave you... feeling tired and groggy and foggy and struggling to get out of bed in the morning. No, we didn't want any of that. We wanted to help you wind down, sleep better, and wake up ready to perform. Peak sleep is much more than a sleep supplement. This is truly a recovery and performance amplifier.
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So try Peak Sleep today. They are delicious. It is a berry flavored gummy. I look forward to taking my Peak Sleep gummies every single night. I count down the minutes until I can take my Peak Sleep gummies because they taste that good. They help me wind down. They help me sleep great. And they help me show up the next day ready to perform. Now, back to the episode.
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So I want to get into some of the music stuff, but I want to go backwards a little bit first. Because for me, what makes, or one of the reasons you are so unique as an artist, as a country music artist with a number one, is that music wasn't always part of your life. Yeah.
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I had a similar conversation, actually, with one of our athletes, Max Joliff, a few weeks ago, where he is crushing the ultra running space. He just won Moab 240 last year, which is a 240-mile race. Very notorious, very popular. But he only started running ultras three years ago. And he only started running in 2017. Wow, okay. So you think back to...
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In any industry, any space, the people who are at the tip of the spear, who are doing really well, must have been doing it for decades and decades and decades. And they must have been born into a family of ultra runners or born into a family of musicians. But that wasn't the case for you. And I want to talk about that. really going back to Hershey, Pennsylvania, being an athlete.
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Take me through that journey of being an athlete, playing the cross before music.
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What brings a lot of life to you? Oh, man. I think for me, I love a big crowd.
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I'm a little bit older than Warren. But as I was listening to some country music a couple years ago, I came across Warren's music and I saw on one of the albums, it was titled 717 Tapes. Now, the reason that 717 is applicable is because that was my area code growing up. So to see those numbers together, it grabbed my attention.
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So- Did you know- that you had the ability to sing then? You enjoyed singing, but did you know there was something there?
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So I went back and listened to your acoustic covers album that you released in 2021.
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Your voice is completely different now.
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I was mind blown.
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you have to make the decision, do I go all in and pursue this? Or do I see what happens and just keep tinkering? And if you keep tinkering, the flame of that opportunity will eventually die. But once you see that opportunity and you go all in, it is foot pressing that pedal to the floor and you just can't let up. Momentum is there. You got to keep the momentum.
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I just did it. I have a few thoughts there. One, one of my favorite quotes is belief comes before ability. So you have to believe that you can actually achieve before you can actually go and do. And it feels like from an outsider looking in, this was like a burn the boats mentality. Yes. And what I've found with a lot of successful individuals is,
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or businesses and brands is that what makes them successful is being able to hyperfocus. And you oftentimes, at least in the early stages, you can't hyperfocus on multiple things. So it makes sense where you had this passion for music, But the focus couldn't be music because it was sports. And it was playing lacrosse at college.
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But then when you got the multiple concussions and you couldn't play lacrosse anymore, that was no longer an option. It couldn't be a focus. So as people who are achievers, you sit back and you say, well, what's the next focus? Boom, music is this. I'm all in. It is the burn the boats mentality. I finally believe now I have to go do.
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What I'm really curious about though is how did that experience in high school where that tape was released of you singing and I'm sure that was embarrassing and it kind of killed your confidence a little bit. How did you have the confidence to then go on a larger scale based off of your previous exposure to when you put yourself out there?
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I can only imagine the energy of what that feels like. A few weeks back, we were at the University of Texas. And we were just touring the athletic training facilities. And after the tour, they took us onto the football field. And I've been to UT football games before in the stands watching the game. And that's one way to experience it.
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I've actually heard this from a lot of different artists. Yeah. I actually heard Thomas Rhett talking about this once before where he was watching this guy in the audience and the guy was showing no emotion and he stopped midway through the show and was like, are you not enjoying this show or something? And the guy was like, no, man, I'm like your biggest fan. I love this. I know.
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But he couldn't read the emotion. But see, that's the thing though. Like to them-
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Yeah, I heard that a while back. And I thought that really interesting. And I also recently heard you talk about how in Europe, the fans show emotion differently where it's really hard to read based off of the UK then and the US where fans are super engaging. And when you're performing, you're feeding off of that. But in Europe, it was completely different.
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But when they took me onto the field, walking out there and looking at the stands, which felt like miles away, I was just thinking, I can only imagine what this place feels like when it's full and it's rocking and what that does to the energy. I can't imagine the high and what measures to that high. Anywhere else?
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It is. It's like it drives you nuts. I can imagine. So when was your first headlining show, a show on your own?
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So that would have been 2022. Was there a fear going into that show? I'm sure there are a lot of fears, but was there a fear that no one was going to show up? No, there was not a fear of that.
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But yeah. How long after was that? from when you released that first song, that Chris Stapleton cover on TikTok. Okay, yeah. During COVID. Yeah, man.
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It seems like you just applied that athlete mindset that you were applying for 12 years in pursuit of lacrosse and played at the college level. And then when that ended, just applying that to something else. Embracing and enduring the process, searching consistent improvement, and then refining your craft. Once you understand that process,
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and you realize what works, you can apply that to anything you do. Anything you do. And it's so powerful. One thing I'm really curious about is, and I'm sure you've experienced this in the industry with other artists, there's got to be like a we made it accomplishment or a moment. But the dangers of accepting the we made it check the block, or then it's all downhill from there.
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What do you do to avoid or resist the, I made it mindset?
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Makes me think of, to quote Kobe, someone was asking him post COVID, post-championship. And he goes, job's not finished. Job's not finished.
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I love Kobe and Jordan's mindset. Oh my gosh, man. I literally thought of that exact quote.
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Thank you for saying that. They just make chills. Yes. Because of just how... Like Kobe and Jordan were so confident, but they were so confident because they backed it up with all of the work. Yes. And they were confident because of the preparation they put in. Yes. So when they went to execute, it wasn't a guess of will I perform or not? It was, oh, I'm going to perform. Yep.
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And I'm so confident in my ability. I'm now going to show confidence. myself and all of you, what I've been working towards. And that is like, I love studying those two guys.
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I was running an ultra marathon in 2023. It was called Last Man Standing. 4.2 mile loop restarts every hour on the hour until there's one person left. Everyone else is DNF. And there was this guy that I identified in the first couple of loops who looked like a stud. And he ended up winning the Last Man Standing race. He was the last person standing. But I ran up next to him early on.
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It might've been like loop two or three. And we were just keeping it light. And I looked at him, I go, how far are you going, man? Like, how far are you going today? And he looks at me and goes, the whole way, brother. And in my head, I was like, he is calling that right now. And I can see it in his eyes. I can hear it in his voice. He's going to win this.
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What's it feel like coming down from that high post-show?
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And he went and did it the whole way, brother. Yep.
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So yeah. Chad Wright, one of my favorite things Chad Wright says, he's been on the podcast. He says, your tongue is your rudder. And if you speak it into existence, it will come to fruition for good or bad. So if you talk down upon yourself, if you are pessimistic, if you are negative about your disbelief in yourself and what you can do or what we can do, that will happen.
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Your tongue will guide you in that direction of life. But if you speak all positivity and belief, in your mind and out loud. Yep. That will guide everything. I always think about that before I say something negative or, or whatever it is. As soon as I say it, as soon as I think it, as soon as I put it out there, that is now guiding my actions moving forward. That's well put.
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I did want to ask one question. Um, I love your piano versions of your songs. Is that your idea? Yeah. Dude, those are my favorite versions of the songs you do. Well done on those. Thank you. And then as you were talking about growing up in the church, having a foundation of faith, Have you ever thought about collaborating on a worship album?
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Like Brandon Lake, for example, just did a song with Jelly Roll. Yep.
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Yeah. That'd be awesome.
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Well, Warren, dude, appreciate you making the time for us. Appreciate you. I know your life is absolutely wild right now and you're heading back to Nashville tonight.
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So I appreciate it, man. I just want to congratulate you on everything you're doing. And it's cool seeing someone else from the 717 doing some stuff. Amen, my friend. Let's go take a scuba-free workout now. For sure. All right. Thanks, man.
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I did some research, found out that Warren Zyders was from Hershey, Pennsylvania, which is right next to Palmyra, Pennsylvania, where I grew up. So I reached out to Warren, we connected, we've talked back and forth a little bit over the years. I've enjoyed his music. I love a lot of his music. And as he was passing through Central Texas, I was like, you got to stop by BPN HQ.
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I guess that's like one of the things that separates us
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just a musician and a performer like performer is at the root performance yeah and i've obviously never been on stage and played music but if i compare it to a race or competition i've done you know you show up and toe the line and the energy is just out of this world like you are so hyper focused on this one thing and during that one to three hour effort
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all other distractions in your life disappear. You're focused on this one thing and three hours could feel like 30 minutes. And then when you're done and that high starts to fade a little bit, you then start to reflect back on every little thing you could improve upon.
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And I'm sure that hyper-focus and that critical component of yourself can actually lead to some dangerous thoughts if you get stuck in that. Do you ever experience that?
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I think it's a really important the thing that you identified there is not having just yes men in your corner, especially at the level of exposure and excess that you're experiencing right now. If I look back at my life to compare these last couple of years, this last decade, in the beginning of this journey,
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Let's record a podcast. Let's sit down. Let's connect. Let's talk. So that's what we did. So I welcome Warren Ziders onto the show. Okay, today on the podcast, we have Warren Zyders, another 717 boy. What's up, brother? I'm good, man. I'm good. 717 in the house. So you're on tour right now for the Relapse, Lies, and Betrayal album. You were at Whitewater Amphitheater last night in New Braunfels.
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everyone was willing to tell me what I was doing wrong and criticize and provide feedback. But then as you climb and you improve and get better, less and less people are willing to tell you what you're doing wrong.
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So right now I have a few people that I can count on one hand who I know are going to pull me aside very tactly and tell me what I'm doing wrong and how to improve and call me out my crap. They won't do it in large groups or out loud, but in private, they will provide me constructive criticism. Yeah.
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who in your life are those people right now that aren't the yes men, but are those who will tell you what you need to know, not what you want to know in here?
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I'm really curious and I want to get more into this topic a little bit later in this conversation, but you have grown really fast over these last couple of years and you're still pretty young. You're 25 years old right now. What are some of the things you've done to... I guess to say manage the ego as you've grown at this rate, because the rate at which you've grown is remarkable.
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Yeah. I mean, that day. I remember you guys sent over the schedule for that day. And I was three weeks off from my bodybuilding show. Yeah, I remember. You were shredded, though. I was shredded. That's why that photo you guys put in the book. So shredded. I sent that to my advisor and mentor in the business, Chris Hickey. He's like, dude, that's a great shot.
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I wish I would have timed it up perfectly. I almost did. Three weeks post-bodybuilding show, I was diced. You're full again. Looking big, yeah. My endurance wasn't really there. I was still fatigued. You guys sent over that schedule for the day. It was a jam-packed day. We did a lot.
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And I remember looking at the schedule thinking, we'll probably run a few miles because we have to get to go get the bow, go to the range, lift, then podcast. So I didn't fuel up too much for this run. And we run up the mountain. It's probably like three, four miles. I was like, all right, what's next? And you pointed across the valley. You're like, we're going over there.
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I was like, how far is that? 17 miles. Shit, I should have fueled up. I am not in running shape right now. Yeah. And when we bombed down the mountain, I'm trying to hold on to you. And then we get to the road and it was a few weeks out from the Eugene marathon. Yeah. And we get to the bottom of the road and you're just cooking. And I don't think you were wearing a watch.
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You know, what pace we running? I never wore a watch. I was like six. I mean, now, now I am, but that was like six twenties. Like, yeah, I'll probably do pretty good at Eugene. I was like, this dude's just crushing me right now. Yeah. It was a great day.
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I was just like... It's my only bodybuilding show I've done in the last 10 years. And you won, right? One of my classes, not the overall. Okay. But it's like, yeah, I'm going to go do this bodybuilding show and be in the worst endurance shape three weeks prior to going and running with you. Yeah. It was a genius idea. It was great. You did awesome. You're always a beast.
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We're talking about outliers, right? And specific to you and bow hunting and other conversations you've had with people considered outliers, do you think you have to be a specialist to be considered an outlier? I guess the opposite of being a specialist would be a generalist. Do you have to find your area of focus and go all in on that deep and narrow as opposed to wide and shallow? Yeah.
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Yeah, many years. It's been like six or seven years. Why this year? Why 2025? Yeah, I think it's because...
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When you decided to go all in on bow hunting- You know, I'd say running in ultras was just to compliment bow hunting. So it was all in on bow hunting. Yep. What were some of the things you turned off or said no to or sacrificed in that pursuit? Everything.
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So that's what I did. Is there anything else at this point in your life that you want to be a specialist in? Or is it still that bow hunting is the only thing that matters?
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How's that different than packing an elk out?
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I want to talk about Truett for a second. Yeah. So Truett's coming and doing our race.
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End of May.
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I know.
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So that's the goal. I know that's what he's coming to do. There's some competition there. Chad Wright's coming to the run. That's good. There's another guy that I think he just – He just did a last man standing race. He did like 300 miles. Ooh. So there's some competition. Okay.
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Yeah. Who's that? Just some random guy who got into the lottery.
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Exactly. When one of them shows up, it's on. Yeah, I remember when I did my last man standing race. You can tell typically when you get started in a race, like this guy's here to crush and this guy's like, he's just figuring it out. And I saw this guy, he's massive sideburns. He ended up winning, but I spotted him early on. And people were kind of whispering, this guy did Moab last year.
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And I was passing him early on in a loop. And I just said, hey, how far are you going in this race? And he goes, the whole way, brother. That's not a good sign. I was like, yeah, this guy's here to win it. Yeah. And he did. But it's going to be an epic race. I spent a lot of time building out this ranch the last couple months. Yeah. And the trail is really nice.
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I mean, we're dragging it right now. We're grooming it. 4.2 mile loop every hour on the hour. Yeah. Yeah, adds up.
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It'll be pretty compact. Okay. We're pulling out like all loose, big rocks. We don't want anyone turning an anchor or anything. And it's like a small loop, and then it goes into a big loop. And there's some like varying level of terrain, but it's pretty flat overall. But I mean, we're starting at 12 p.m., May 24th. So it's going to get hot that day.
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So you have the whole day and then you go into the night. And there's hogs all over the property. There's deer all over the property. So I'm excited to see how far it goes.
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But yeah, nobody went very far that day. Yeah. Well, I've never seen anyone progress as fast as they are in the marathon, as true it is right now. Yeah. It's like PR after PR with days in between races.
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Does he have a vision, goal in mind of post-2.30? Yeah. Has he announced it? No, no.
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Is it like a rule of his that he can't wear shorts? No, no. It's just messing around. Because I feel like his time would significantly drop just not wearing jeans. You'd think so. You'd think so.
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People have been sending me emails like articles and photos of him that don't know that he's coming to our race or that I even know who he is. Like check out this guy wearing jeans in this marathon. I'm like, oh yeah, he's coming to our ultra. My dad called me a few days ago. He said, do you hear about this guy who's running these marathons in jeans? I said, yeah, he's coming to our ultra in May.
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He said, no way. Yeah, he'll be there.
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Yeah. I mean, when I was younger in high school, my mom knew that I was going to go join the Army after college. So she was always pushing me to run. And when I got to college, I was in ROTC. So the ROTC program was pushing us and forcing us to run. And then when I was in the military, it was forcing us to run. I hated running because people were making me run.
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119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
And then when I got out of the Army... And it was a choice finally. That's the only time I was able to finally start loving or enjoying running because it was my choice. It wasn't someone forcing me to do it. And that was the biggest difference was like, if I'm doing it on my terms, now I will commit to improvement and putting in the effort.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
I'd be so curious what his training program looks like because it's almost like he's holding back each race to PR the next, even though I'm sure he's not.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
So the new book... I recently just read through it. First off, I appreciate the feature in the book. There's a full page of me shirtless standing on top of the mountain. Yeah, you're stud. I can't complain about that. But I love the different approach of bringing in the stories of people all of these individuals you brought onto your podcast.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
So, I mean, that's like, that's why when I, I think I take a different approach to competitions and races and some other people do where if I'm going to sign up and commit into a race and I'm doing a full prep because I'm not going to spend all this time training for something and the race itself and traveling to in this big effort to go just walk across the finish line.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
If I'm going to race, I'm going to set a PR. And that's the way I approach all these different aspects and accomplishments in my life where I say no to a lot of things. because the things I say yes to, I'm going to try and be great and go all in. And it's where a lot of people miss is they say yes to all these things. They just dabble and they toil and they tinker.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
And then none of it actually moves the needle in any part of their life. And that's what makes people who are outliers so unique is they're specialists. When they say yes to something, you know they're saying yes to go absolutely crush it. Yeah. Not just participate.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
It's healthy. It's amazing. That's one of the reasons I love the marathon so much is because of the... mental headspace it puts me in. I remember standing in the corral at CIM, California International Marathon. And for me, when I tow the line of a marathon, I feel like I'm going to war. I am television focused. I don't hear anyone. I don't see anyone. I don't say anything to anyone.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
And I remember being on the bus, because for CIM, it's a point-to-point. So they bus you out to the start point, and then you run straight to the finish line, downtown Sacramento. And we're on this bus going to the start line, and I'm zoned in. I'm ready to just fuck people up at that point. And there's these people, these two guys behind me, I'll never forget this.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
You've been doing the podcast two and a half years now? Yeah, something like that, yeah. Two and a half years? And as I was thinking about this conversation and where to take it in the book, because the book comes out, what's the date? May 6th. May 6th. Just thinking about, you talk about it a lot in the book, these outliers, people being outliers. And
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
These two guys behind me already talking about why they're not going to run the race they wanted to that day because work got crazy and they didn't get the sleep they wanted three nights ago and all these things. And it just started pissing me off. And I'm like, you could completely change your mindset and approach from this point moving forward, these next 20 minutes. Yeah.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
But you already have the wrong headspace going into this race. You're not going to perform. So for me, so much of my performance is based off the headspace I had to put myself in. I had to create the conditions and the environment to go execute.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
2.39, yeah.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
Every mile where you run second slower, you have to make it up for an additional mile.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
I remember when I first started running marathons, the concept of negative splitting was presented to me. It makes sense to me now with more experience. But I remember in the beginning, someone was like, yeah, run your first half a little slower, then run the second half faster. It's like, in what world do you expect me to run the second half of this marathon faster than the first?
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
On dead legs, yeah. On dead legs, yeah. I want to take a little break in this episode to talk to you about one of my favorite BPN products, and that is the GoGel. So if you are an endurance athlete or you want to become an endurance athlete, endurance gels are probably not unfamiliar to you.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
And endurance gels are used during big efforts, training sessions, races, and competitions to replenish fuel sources so you don't bonk and you can maintain a high level of performance and output throughout the entire duration of that event. And the issue with a lot of endurance gels in the market is that they are produced with a cheap, low-quality carbohydrate source, typically maltodextrin.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
And maltodextrin can and probably will create GI distress, gas, bloating, and stomach discomfort. And our goal... Our solution with the GoGel has been to create an endurance gel with carbohydrate sources that are easily digestible.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
In this case, coming from fruit purees and fruit juice concentrates that are easy on the stomach and can replenish fuel sources so you can keep training at a high level of performance. That is why we created the GoGel, to be a solution and to fuel your performance during training, races, and competitions.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
So if you are an endurance athlete and you need a fuel source, you need an endurance gel, the GoGel is and should be your go-to. Now, with that being said, back to the episode. So another quote in your book, which I want to share because there's a question around it. From Oscar Wilde, the only people I would care to be with now are artists and people who have suffered.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
Those who know what beauty is and those who know what sorrow is. Nobody else interests me. I just want to hear your thoughts and perspectives on the dangers of surrounding yourself with people who are unfamiliar with suffering.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
I like to keep the conversation focused, at least in the beginning about that. Because I'm curious from your perspective, you have all these conversations with people, you're an outlier yourself. What separates someone considered an outlier from everyone else?
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
Do you think there's a difference between suffering that you choose to pursue and suffering that chooses you?
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
of all these people in your circle and outliers you've had on the podcast, is there someone who really stands out who's had the greatest impact on you that is familiar with suffering or who's accomplished greatness that has transformed your thoughts, ideas, perspectives?
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
I'd be curious if I could just put myself in her shoes
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
Does Courtney have any haters online? I can't imagine that there can be anyone that dislikes Courtney.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
She's impossible to hate. I remember when she was on my podcast, I was trying to ask her questions about her races and performance, and she kept... Deflecting. Deflecting and pushing it, asking me questions. Yeah, I know. It's like, hey, we're not doing this here. Yeah. This is about you. Yeah.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
There's another level of pressure in a race like that. Oh, best of the best. So at Cocodona coming up, I'm sure there's like this feeling of, you know what kind of suffering you're about to endure. You're not unfamiliar with that level of suffering. But is there also like a level of excitement knowing that the suffering produces an unlock to something new? Or is there no excitement there at all?
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
I haven't felt the excitement yet.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
But I would argue that there's very few people that love the act of suffering, but they respect what is produced from suffering. So they do what they have to do regardless if they want to or not, or they enjoy it or not. Like most of these mornings I wake up and run. The last thing I want to do is go run. Yeah.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
And sometimes like my morning eight mile run feels like a breeze and sometimes the whole thing hurts. Yeah. But even when I'm two miles into a eight mile morning run, I know for a fact I'm going to run all eight miles. Yeah. Because I know what that is going to produce and I'll be proud of myself afterwards. And it's just part of being consistent.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
But I don't think there's, there's very few people who actually enjoy suffering frequently, but they respect it. Yeah.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
Good challenges, but yeah. Kind of like in the podcast between you and your brother talking about the 300 miler. And I think you asked him the questions, do you ever think about quitting? And he said, not until the last 15 miles. And in all things considering, it's 15 miles of a 300-mile effort. Tiny fraction. But those 15 miles can take six-plus hours. Yeah.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
So now you're suffering for another quarter of a day. I know. I remember the last checkpoint at Leadville, I had 10 miles left. But that 10 miles felt like another 100 miles. I know. Yeah, so slow. Yeah, you're asking your pacer, hey, how much further? Three miles. An hour later, how much further? Three miles. What the shit? No. We're going backwards?
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
It's just hard to do. Yeah. What's crazy about these massive 200 plus mile efforts, you get 120 miles in, realizing you've only done half the race. Yeah. And you're out there at that point already for potentially a day and a half, two days. Yeah. And that's where the mental... It's not just like suffering in the moment, but it's the...
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
realization of what is to come and what is not yet accomplished. Yeah.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
I think it might have been Harvey Lewis – I could be completely wrong here, but I think at Badwater, maybe last year or two years ago, he finished the race. Oh. And him and his crew went and ran it back all over again.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
Is that correct?
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
Nuts. I had Harvey on the podcast and that guy's just like... How was it? I didn't hear that one. Just like, he's like a Courtney, like so nice. Yeah. And so unassuming. Right. But there's just like this warrior in their head. Don't get it. No, it's yeah.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
Yes, she is. Yeah, Sally also is the nicest, sweetest person.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
Such a machine. I was pacing Sally at Western States, and her stomach completely turned on her. And we'd be running, and mid-conversation, and then she'd just stop and throw up on the side of the course, say nothing. clean her face off, start running again, keep talking, not acknowledge it at all. And that was for the last 50 miles. Yeah. Just puking everything up.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
So this is something I've... always believed in and i think uh i think it's perceived in the wrong way by a lot of people and you know even to reference your hat nobody cares work harder i think too many people put hard work on a pedestal and that hard work is expected hard work is the standard hard work is the only way And something I say in my new book is that amateurs want praise.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
Yeah. In the book, in your book, you quote, you have a lot of really great quotes that shape the context of some of the chapters and lessons. One of my favorite books is Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. And you quote him from Outliers, the story of success. And I truly do believe this. I really believe this. And I wish that most people believed this.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
When they work hard, they want to be like patted on their back. They want to be clapped for, but professionals want feedback. Where did, you know, nobody cares, work harder. Where did that come from? When you start saying that, when you start printing on t-shirts, like, because obviously it's connected with a lot of people. Yeah. Some people get triggered by it.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
Get back to work. I was reading this book earlier this year. I can't remember exactly which book this section came from. I want to say it was Beyond Entrepreneurship, BE 2.0 by Jim Collins. And it talked about the downfall of the we made it mindset and approach approach. It was very applicable to me in this business at the time because we're getting ready to move in this new HQ next week.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
We've been working on this new HQ move for the last year. It's all about a lot of businesses when they move into a new big building that has all the bells and whistles and they graduate to the next level. What often happens is they move into this new building they have all these features and amenities they didn't have previously. And they think to themselves, we made it.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
And then revenue declines, profitability declines, momentum decreases. So there's this negative consequence of achieving and allowing yourself to celebrate that achievement too much and pat yourself on the back for working so hard and accomplishing the thing. And I think that's, it's,
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
One of the things that separates these outliers from everyone else is the ability to recognize I've accomplished this, but I'm going after the next win. And as much as that is a strength, it can also be a weakness. I know that is for me. And my wife tells me, this team tells me, it's like, There was a year ago, we had our best month ever in this business.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
And there was something that happened that we weren't really happy with outside of hitting our revenue goal. And our CFO, COO, Josh Holley came in. He said, you know, I know this business is going to be successful. It's because we just had our best month ever. We just hit it today and everyone's pissed off. Yeah. Still hungry. Because I'm hungry for the next thing. There's never...
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
There's an appreciation for the accomplishment, but there's never satisfaction for where I'm at because it's always, what's next? What's next? What's next? Have you found that common with... A lot of these people you meet with, talk with. Has anyone you've met hung their hat on their accomplishments that is still continuing to succeed?
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
If you work hard enough and assert yourself and use your mind and imagination, you can shape the world to your desires. Shape the world to your desires. And I think once people actually believe that, it just takes this glass ceiling completely away. Was there a moment in your life when you realized that you could shape the world to your desires?
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
Yeah. Who, Joe? Or anybody. Any of these outliers. What is the common drive? Or maybe what's the drive for you? Oh, yeah.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
I think about this often, like what is the drive? And there's like parts of my life that support my drive and like my family, financial goals, being relevant in the space that I've worked to become somewhat relevant in. All of those things support my drive, my foundation of faith in being someone who is living a life like Christ. But as I think about this question I just asked you,
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
I think a lot of it is I've worked so hard to achieve momentum, not even accomplishment, but momentum and some wins, is that now there's not necessarily this want and need to win, but there's this fear of losing. And I don't want to lose the momentum. And that's what even makes it harder to take a break. So if I take a break or take a step away-
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
I will lose all this momentum that I've built, regardless if that is true or not. And if I want to really milk this life and accomplish all the things that I could ever have accomplished out of it, I have to have the gas pressed to the floor. I can't lose this momentum.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
Because if I fast forward five years from now and I look back, we're really comfortable with where we're at right now. And we can make it work and stay here, which would have saved us literally millions of dollars. We wouldn't have had to pick up everyone and move. We wouldn't have to adjust to this new routine and schedule.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
But five years into the future, if I was looking back, I would have to ask myself the question, where could we have been if we would have moved into a new space that forced and facilitated growth, as opposed to staying where we were comfortable and still growing at maybe... a relatively consistent rate.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
But what opportunity would we have been missing if we would have made that jump and take that risk and pushed?
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
The way that I see the business now compared to the way that I see the business a year ago is completely different. It's hyper-focused where I've turned off so many things. Going back to the earlier conversation, it's like narrowing that focus and becoming a specialist. We're focused on being a specialist in the endurance space now.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
It used to be that we're going to try to build a business that talks to the bodybuilders and the powerlifters and the health enthusiasts and the endurance athletes and Everyone. We want to be a brand for everyone. We realized by doing that that we weren't actually serving any deep audience. We hyper-focused on endurance. That's the vision for the brand moving forward.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
I've said no to a lot of things. A lot of things I used to say yes to. Why the focus on endurance? It's a passion. We believe we can do it really well and we see an opportunity. We see the way the... It's all aligned pretty well where my passion and our passion for endurance has grown over the years. Naturally, it has evolved.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
And then simultaneously during that evolution, we've created more endurance products. And then it just so happens that the market has started to shift more towards endurance and the endurance category is becoming larger. Races have more demand than ever before.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
So there's this very interesting intersection between the endurance market and consumer category and where BPN has naturally evolved over the years. I see a massive opportunity and I think it'd be a missed opportunity not to go all in on that. Now I might look back five years from now saying, maybe that wasn't the right call. But right now my gut intuition saying, that's where we got to go.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
And I'd rather go all in on being a specialist in something than being something generally for everyone.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
So it's perfect timing. I only recently, uh, found about the stat, but do you know how many people sign up for the lottery for London marathon every year? No. If you had to just try to take a guess, let's see. Well, how many runners do they have?
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
Yeah. I think, um, The word that I've been focused on this last year is intentionality. It's being very intentional and very focused. You quoted Jack Nicklaus in your book under the chapter, Make a Good Shot. I never hit a shot, not even in practice, without having a very sharp, in-focus picture of it in my head. When I approach life now and these goals...
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
It's like, I want to see exactly in my head what I'm going after, eliminate all their distractions, and then go and achieve, go and accomplish. Now, I'm a fan of Alex Hermosi. And just like his approach to all things work, it's no BS. He calls on all the BS that is out there. Yeah, he's great. And if we're talking about like, Work and hard work and nobody cares. Work harder and intentional work.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
Two quotes that he has that I pulled that I thought were very applicable to this whole conversation. Hard work is the point. It's not the way. We do things because they are hard. We like the hard work. And that hard work isn't enough for success. But it's crucial when combined with a clear direction and strategic effort. So it's much more than just doing the work. It's the focused work.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
Really enjoyed the book. Thank you. Again, I appreciate the feature and the full page, shirtless shot. You're a badass. That's what you get. Thank you, brother. Appreciate that. And wishing you. Amazing luck and suffering at Cocodona coming up in a few days. Thank you. And congrats on the book. It's a big accomplishment, not just having one New York Times bestseller, but now going for number one.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
It's a fun process, huh? Dude, it's been a two-year process for this one. Yeah, looks great. I appreciate it. I rewrote it like three times. And a lot of editing, a lot of work. I remember vividly doing the final additions of the edits while we were in the hospital with Steph as she was getting ready to give birth to our son, Nico.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
I was trying to wrap it up because the final manuscript was due and she's getting induced. They're putting her on the drugs to start the induction process. I'm like rushing to get the final chapters done. So I always remember finishing that book because it was moments before Nico was born. Wow.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
Do you ever wake up surprised at where you're at in your life right now compared to where you thought you'd be at this point in your life?
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
Curiously, when you were younger, growing up in a smaller town- Was there anyone that was in your circle or around you that you would have considered highly successful that you could have been mentored by or inspired by? Not from reading in magazines or articles or seeing on TV, but actually in your circle, someone inspiring you.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
All right, welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Today's guest is Cam Haynes. Welcome. Thank you. How are we doing? Great. Yeah, pleasure to be here. You're multiple days out from Cocodona 250. Yeah. What's the mindset like right now? We were previously talking about it, but what's your mindset? focused on right now being a few days out from a massive effort race?
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
I don't know. Is there extra pressure around the race given the momentum and kind of amount of eyeballs on you given the book launch?
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
So yeah, those are the people I looked up to. That's funny because growing up in a smaller town in central Pennsylvania, it was the same thing where the perception of your success was based off of what you did in high school athletics. Yeah. You're talking about the athlete who was a stripper.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
We had a guy just like that, too, where he was the only person we knew of that... He didn't even make it to the pros. He went to AAA. But that was on the way to the pros. And then AAA Bowl didn't work out. So then he went and became a stripper. He was a good-looking dude. But we had this guy on the pedestal. We praised this guy because... He was doing the thing.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
And growing up, my brother Preston was a stud athlete. I mean, he was varsity football, varsity baseball. He got D1 offers to go for baseball and football. He ended up going and playing baseball. But our hometown praises. There was this restaurant that made a cheeseburger named after my brother based off of his performance in the newspaper clippings. Yeah, high school.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
And if you go into my parents' basement now, the basement is this shrine to Preston where it's newspaper articles clipped down, framed on the walls. Yeah. And there's one photo of me and it's my army ROTC, like camo uniform, just like in the corner. But I wasn't a stud athlete in high school.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
And for me, that was a massive hit to my confidence because in a small town where you are successful if you are the athlete, I was not the athlete. So I just assumed that success was not in my cards. Were you a good athlete in high school?
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
I played football in middle school, and they identified in practice that I was a really good kicker. Okay. So they made me the kicker, but I would get... Have you ever heard of the yips? Yeah. Baseball, you get the yips where you get in your head, you can't throw the ball. Oh, yeah. I got the yips in football, too, where it'd be time to kick the ball, and I just couldn't do it. I'd miss.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
It'd be like... So they put me in for like three games, tried me, pulled me out. And then I played baseball in high school, got the yips where I was in my head and I could just not, I could not throw the ball. If it was from me to you, I was throwing it like anywhere else. That's tough.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
Is it because your arm is not connecting with your mind?
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
So the same thing. It's just mental. I was telling someone this story the other day, because the first time I ever shot a bow was with you when I came out to visit you for the podcast. And I could not get like my left arm in the right position. Yeah. And it's where I was shooting through the paper. Yeah.
The Nick Bare Podcast
119: Be Undeniable: Achieve Greatness and Sustain it with Cameron Hanes
Um, and something happened where I got released the, the arrow and something smacked my forearm string. The string smacked my form. It hurts. So I remember. Yeah. And, uh, it's called a string kiss. I looked down at my arm and the whole, it was a black and blue. Yeah. Yeah. It was all full up. No one sees this. As soon as I went and drew back my next arrow, all of you guys recognized it. Damn it.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
Because the OG formula was created to be able to use multiple scoops, multiple servings around your training based off of your energy demands. So if I look back to when I was in my last marathon prep, doing big track workouts, I would have two scoops of G1M Sport before my workout, before my run.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
And on the side of the track during these big interval sections, I would have a water bottle with two more scoops of G1M Sport in a bottle so I could keep replenishing the carbohydrates during my workout during these high effort training sessions while on the track or a tempo run or a speed workout.
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six years now, tremendously, and he has led the creative execution of this project, of this product, and I want him to speak into it. Because the truth is, I cast vision, high-level vision, when it comes to creative deliverables, but Jordan and the team, they are the ones that bring it to life.
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So G1M Sport can and should be used multiple times throughout a day or a training session based off of the distance, the duration, and the intensity. G1M Sport Plus is different. You should have to or want to use one scoop prior to training, 20 to 30 minutes prior to a training session, but it's not something you're going to keep using throughout a workout.
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You don't want to keep adding on more caffeine and more nootropics. If you need more fuel, if you need more sodium, more electrolytes, then add more scoops of GOM Sport OG. So that's kind of the difference there. You can use G1M Sport Plus not only for pre-run nutrition, fuel, energy focus.
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You can use it prior to going to a swim, before a big bike session, any type of endurance training, high rocks workouts. It's great for circuit training. I was using G1M Sport Plus a lot during my high rocks prep training. Before I went and competed at my High Rocks in Dallas, I used GLM Sport Plus before the competition, but I'm also using GLM Sport Plus before some of my strength days.
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There are days where I still use flight, but there's also days where if it's a more high intensity, a more conditioning-based strength workout, and I want the addition of carbs and electrolytes, I will actually use G1M Sport Plus before a strength workout. So it's not just for running. It's not just for triathlon. It's not just for hitting the trails.
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This is a product that can be your go-to pre-workout because it has everything you want and need to fuel and support massive efforts and effective training sessions. But for me, the way I'm using it right now, one scoop of each before my morning run. And then occasionally I'll use this and replace a flight for my strength training workout later in the afternoon.
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The entire team here at BPN has been using G&M Sport Plus for a few months now. And I don't just say this to say this. And I don't say this with the obvious bias that there is. We're obsessed. We're obsessed with this product. And we do believe that this is the future of endurance. but it's also the future of BPN, what we're building, what we're focused on and where we're heading.
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So I wanna provide a little bit of context for those of you who don't know the origin story of G1M Sport. 2019, I started training for my first Ironman. And this really came from after my second marathon, I wanted to really push myself and challenge myself.
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And I've shared this story many times before, but I saw this, this viral video of this triathlete from the eighties, Julie Moss at the Ironman world championships, crawling, literally crawling across the finish line, suffering, but fighting for that finish. And I saw that and, And I said to myself, I want to feel that. I want to experience that.
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So I signed up for Ironman Florida, which I completed in 2019, November of 2019. And I trained for months in preparation. This was my first introduction to big effort endurance training. Prior to that, I I had experience with forced endurance training, if you will, from my time in the military, but then marathons, two marathons.
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When you're on social media or you're on our YouTube channel and you're watching our athletes and the product, that is that team bringing that vision to life. That is the execution. There's a lot that goes into that. And I think I would be doing the creative team a disservice by trying to speak into that on my own without Jordan and the team. So this episode is...
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I've done long ruck marches in the day, but this is my first time really training for high intensity, high effort, long, multiple hour endurance efforts. And when I was training for my first Ironman, I was using all these different fuel sources, all these different carbohydrate sources that were available on the market. And they were wrecking my stomach.
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You know, there were days where I was on the bike for hours and I was consuming 60 to sometimes 100 grams of carbohydrates per hour. And these carb sources were killing me. I was hunched over holding my stomach from cramps and GI distress and pain.
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And I did some research and I found out that most carbohydrate sources meant to be formulated and used for endurance training in the market were maltodextrin based. Multidextrin is a cheap carbohydrate source. Most of the endurance gels on the market are multidextrin-based because it's cheap, it's easy to flavor, it mixes well, it's pretty adaptable and universal. However,
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It has notoriously caused gut rot and stomach issues in athletes. It digests very slow. It doesn't necessarily work with the athlete. It sometimes works against the athlete. And at the time in BPN's history, we were not an endurance brand. We had strength supplements. We had pre-workout, creatine, amino acids, protein.
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We had health and wellness supplements, strong greens, strong reds, multivitamin, joint support. There was no vision for us to be an endurance brand or to ever launch endurance products. But I wanted to create something for myself in 2019 because I couldn't find something on the market that I could or wanted to use.
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So this is where we started a huge research and development project with one of our manufacturing partners. And I tested 20 plus carbohydrate sources over months. And I couldn't find anything that worked for me in my training until I came across Cluster Dextrin. Cluster Dextrin, the research behind it, the trial and error, the testing, I mean, the writing was on the wall.
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This is the material that we have to use for this product. And there were some brands out there that were using clustered dextrin, but not in the full 20 gram serving. There's this phrase in the supplement industry known as pixie dusting. So you take the expensive ingredients and you add a little bit of it to say that it's in there.
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So there were some companies in the industry, in the market at a time that would have, you know, say 20 gram carbohydrate powder per serving. 15 of those grams were from maltodextrin and maybe five grams were from cluster dextrin. So majority of it was maltodextrin because cluster dextrin is significantly more expensive than these other carbohydrate sources on the market.
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I said, no, if we're going to do this, the whole 20 gram serving, the only carb source in this product has to and will be cluster dextrin. So we created this product while I was in my Ironman training. We brought it to market. And initially we actually, I don't know how long some of you guys have been following the brand, but when we first launched G1M Sport, it was in a bag.
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And the reason being is that A lot of the endurance powders that I was aware of at that point were put into bags. So we just took that route. But what we were finding was as our team was opening up pallets and boxes and through shipment, bags were popping and they were getting cut and they were opening and the seals weren't working really well. We decided we're not going to do the bags.
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Like I said, much more than just explaining a product launch and why G1M Sport is beneficial and what problem we've tried to solve and we are solving. It's a brand, it's a business operation that I want to bring you alongside. G1M Sport Plus. Our tagline for this product is the future of endurance. And we've been working on this product for over a year now.
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We're going to transition to bottles like the rest of our products. When we first launched G1M Sport, it was not a top seller. It was far from. I didn't expect it to be I created G1M Sport selfishly to fuel my training and in hopes that there were other athletes out there that were potentially experiencing the same problems I was experiencing, GI distress, gas, bloating, gut rot, pains, cramping.
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And I thought if we could create a solution that fuels us, that works for us, but also helps other people as well, That's a win, regardless of how many units we sell. It doesn't have to be a top seller. Because we weren't positioning ourselves or the brand to be endurance-focused back then.
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But over time, as the brand slowly started to evolve, a natural evolutionary process to where we are today being... an endurance focused consumer brand. I mean, we are endurance at the tip of the spear and strength and wellness will always support those endurance goals. But the priority is endurance. That's who we are. That's what we do. That's who we serve. Those are the problems that we solve.
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So it's been a very natural evolution from 2020 until today, 2025, these last five years. There was never one moment where we said, okay, today's the day, change of plans, we're an endurance brand, and we're shifting focus. No, it's very organic and natural over time. And if you've been following the brand, I'm sure you have experienced that, felt that, saw that.
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And a lot of that just natural evolution organically was based off of my and our interest and passions and pursuits. And it just became part of our story. It was by no means strategic. I would love for us to have the ability to take credit for that and say it was strategic, but it was just what felt right to us and what we wanted to do, who we wanted to become. So in January of 2023,
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to just show you the growth trajectory of G1M Sport. January of 2023, we were selling about 2000 units of G1M Sport a month. Today, at the time of this recording, May of 2025, we are now selling nearly 30,000 units of G1M Sport per month. the trajectory of growth has been wild.
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But I believe truly that that's what happens when you create a product that actually solves problems, a product that is a solution and that works. And when people find it and love it, they keep buying it, they tell everyone about it. And that growth was, again, very natural, word of mouth, organic. And a few things happen from 2020 to 2023 and then now 2025.
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Our brand has evolved and transformed, yes, but also the market and the consumer has transformed and evolved as well simultaneously. Endurance has become more popular. Running has become more popular. People who said they would never run a day in their life are now running marathons and ultra marathons and signing up for Ironmans. Run clubs are exploding all over the world.
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Marathon signups are at its peak, larger than it's ever been in history. I mean, I just recently found out about this stat, but The amount of people who signed up to run the London Marathon last year was 850,000. 850,000 for one marathon tried to get into that race. Now, I believe the London Marathon has maybe 50,000 runners. So 800,000 plus didn't get in.
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But that is not an exception to the rule. That is not an anomaly. That goes for all the major marathons in the world. That goes for marathon signups all across the country. Marathons are selling out faster than ever before. Endurance sports like High Rocks are exploding. High Rocks is the perfect combination of strength and endurance. The industry is shifting. The consumer mindset is shifting.
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Consumer behavior is shifting towards endurance. So I believe, and I've shared this with our brand and our team many times before, but if we look at this experience, this opportunity, this moment in time as a chart, as BPN, has been moving in one direction, this natural evolution, growth, and transformation to become the best endurance consumer brand in the world.
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I am extremely proud and excited to finally be able to launch it and bring it to the market, bring it to you guys. It is something that I've been using around my training, around my running specifically, every time I go for a run. And it has made a big difference. Now, what is G1M Sport Plus? Well, it is...
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That is one of our goals, to become the best, the most trusted and respected endurance consumer brand in the world. The market is also moving in a direction, and that market is moving in a direction in the industry that is endurance focused. And I believe, the way I see it, is that we as BPN in the market are at a point where we are crossing paths.
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And we have the opportunity to lead the market, lead the industry, to become, and to accomplish one of our goals, to become the best, the most trusted, the most respected endurance consumer brand in the world. Those transformations and those evolutions of BPN as a brand in the consumer behavior landscape and industry, they're just crossing paths at the right time in the right place.
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And we're primed to seize the opportunity. And I also believe that the consumer, not just in endurance training, but in the fitness industry and fitness as a whole, the consumer is now understanding the value of two things. One, fueling. Two, strength training. So historical endurance athletes, many of them ran away from strength training.
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because strength training meant building muscle, and building muscle meant additional weight, and additional weight meant slower. But that's not the case. Strength training can now complement endurance training to make you stronger, make you more durable, reduce risk of injury. It is only a benefit for endurance athletes.
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So the mindset and training philosophy of endurance athletes has evolved over time. And now we understand the value of carbohydrates, electrolytes, and proper fueling. There's a reason that something we've been saying the last few years has connected with so many people. And that is once you train fueled, you will never train fasted again. I can speak into that from personal experience.
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There were times in my life where I thought training fasted was going to make me stronger. If my body can get through these workouts without the need of carbohydrates, electrolytes, water, fuel, it will only make me stronger. I don't want to have to rely on food and fuel and supplements to make me a stronger athlete. That was such a naive, ignorant, and outdated way to think.
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Carbohydrates are our friend. It is a benefit to our training. It will maximize performance. It will maximize output. And it will optimize recovery. We want and need carbohydrates and electrolytes around our training, especially endurance training. So for all those reasons, I believe that is why G1M Sport has blown up for us. That is our hero product, our hero SKU.
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It's all these things that have come together. And that is what led us to really feeling called to create GUNM Sport+. One, there was an opportunity to take a product that is and was already crushing it for us and that so many people loved. And it's how do we simplify our consumer's life so they don't have to consume two beverages prior to a workout or a run in the morning.
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the base of G1M Sport, which is 20 grams of carbohydrates per serving in the form of Cluster Dextrin. As I've said many times before, Cluster Dextrin is a very fast gastric emptying carb source, which means that it doesn't sit in the stomach. It has a high molecular weight, moves through the stomach quickly, so it can be utilized as a fuel source,
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And we can highlight and increase and improve those training sessions, those workouts. Something I wanted to add in there as well is, that I think is really important to touch on is some people might be asking themselves, why don't I drink an energy drink prior to endurance training?
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The reason I don't like traditional energy drinks around training, whether that's strength training or a run or endurance training, is because what most energy drinks are on the market is carbonated water and caffeine. And sometimes they'll throw in some trace amounts of B vitamins and very trace amounts of other ingredients.
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You'll never or rarely get a full dosage, an efficacious dosage of a really great nootropic in a canned drink. energy drink that you're picking up at 7-Eleven or the gas station or convenience stores. But carbonated beverages are not ideal prior to training. You don't want that bubbly carbonated water in your stomach sloshing around because carbonated beverages are naturally going to create gas.
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It's going to create belching, some stomach discomfort. So avoiding carbonated beverages at all costs around training for me is a non, it's a non-negotiable. I will not consume a carbonated beverage around training for that reason, that it just upsets my stomach. And for most people, it's going to create the same and similar effects. So that's what G1M Sport Plus is. That's how we've come to the
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the desire to create it, to formulate it, to bring it to market. And just like all of our other products, G1M Sport Plus is NSF certified for sport. It is naturally sweetened, it is naturally flavored. Our entire product line is enrolled in the NSF certified for sport program. So what does that mean?
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That means that our products, we test our products every batch, every lot with NSF certified for sport, which tests for banned substances. So being enrolled in the NSF program, they also test for label accuracy and claims. So if it says on our product that we have 20 grams of carbohydrates from clostridextrin, 150 milligrams of sodium, We have 300 milligrams of alpha-GPC.
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We have 1.5 grams of N-acetylaltyrosine. By being enrolled in the NSF program, they test our products to ensure that that amount of that ingredient is in that product. And then we're also enrolled in the For Sport program, which tests for banned substances.
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So if you are an NCAA athlete, college athlete, professional athlete, military, law enforcement, or subject to frequent drug testing, you can know that our products have been tested, certified, and are safe. They've been tested for banned substances. They've been tested for label accuracy and claims. Our entire product line is enrolled in that program.
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And I believe that every endurance athlete deserves a pre-workout too. You know, when I fell in love with the supplement industry, I fell in love with the supplement industry because I fell in love with pre-workout. I remember my first pre-workout experience. It was like 2006 or I went to the local supplement store in Hershey, Pennsylvania.
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It can be used to replenish muscle glycogen, stored energy, and it reduces the risk of gastrointestinal distress, GI distress, gas, bloating, gut rot. So it's 20 grams of carbohydrates from a high quality, a very high quality carb source. Cluster dextrin doesn't have any sugar either. So you'll see there's 20 grams of carbs per serving, zero sugar.
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I was getting really into strength training and the bodybuilding. And I heard about this thing called pre-workout. And I went and bought my first bottle of pre-workout in the supplement store. I came home, I took it before my training session. And I don't say this in an exaggerated way. It changed my life. It changed my life. That first time taking pre-workout
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I fell in love with the whole experience, the energy, the tunnel vision focus, the tingling feeling on my skin from the beta alanine. I fell in love with that. Like that was the spark that led me to where I am today, truly. From that moment on, I was obsessed with supplements. I was obsessed with training, trying different pre-workouts, trying different ingredients.
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That expanded my love and passion for bodybuilding and strength training and going to the gym. Because going to the gym for me wasn't just this one hour I spent every day. It was the lifestyle. It was waking up in the morning and having my meals planned and eating a clean diet, which back then it was a lot of egg whites, oatmeal, vegetables.
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rice, broccoli, chicken, which still is like the foundation of my diet. But it was like, keep my diet as clean as possible. Hit my meals every three hours, drink a gallon of water, take my pre-workout 30 to 45 minutes before the workout starts, feel the effects. I would then go on YouTube and I watched motivational lifting videos of Ronnie Coleman or Jay Cutler.
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So by the time I got to the gym, I was dialed. I was mentally prepared. I was in it. I was ready to go to war with myself with those weights. And then post-workout, you have the protein shake. You're getting your meals back on track. Everything about the lifestyle, I loved. And that sparked my interest into this industry, into everything I'm doing now.
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That experience in 2006 literally changed my life. And I don't believe that there's a great pre-workout supplement solution for endurance athletes on the market right now. Something creates that same feeling, that same I'm ready to attack it feel, that mental edge, that energy, that focus, that fuel.
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I approach my training sessions for endurance, for running, the same way that I used to approach my strength training sessions for endurance. You know, those early college days. It's not just going and doing it to do it. It's not just going and do it to check the box and say, did this for the day, done, on to the next thing. No, I want to show up and I want to embrace it.
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I want to be focused and I want to be locked in and treat it like I'm going to war for that next hour or so. I think that endurance athletes deserve that experience as well. It shouldn't be something that is saved for and reserved for strength athletes and just the gym.
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Now, as a endurance athlete who was at one point a gym rat and is still a gym ratted heart, I wanted a pre-workout experience for my endurance training. And I believe a lot of other people do as well. That's what brought us to creating the solution for the endurance industry, the future of endurance, G1M Sport+. So we're going to take a quick break in this episode.
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And when we come back, I'm going to be sitting down with Jordan Utter, brand director of BPN, to talk about all things creative and marketing around G1M Sport+. which has been hidden behind code word Project Sierra for the last couple of months. So we'll be back soon. All right, we're back at it. We got Jordan Utter now joining me. Welcome, brother.
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We did some upgrades. All right, so for the remainder of this episode... I want to talk about like our marketing plan, creative process for this product, because we've took a completely different approach than ever before. And I'll kind of share like the way I was thinking about this.
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There's also 350 milligrams of sodium per serving, which the goal there is electrolytes to replenish what is lost during training and to maximize and optimize hydration levels. So you have fuel and you have hydration. That was and is the foundation of G1M Sport, the original. And we launched G1M Sport in 2020. And I'll eventually get into the origin story of G1M Sport.
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And then I'd love to hear like your initial reaction and then what you kind of took from that and then the next steps. So as I was thinking about G1M Sport+, This product for me and for us is so special, especially with the success of G&M Sport and the way that we're positioning our brand moving forward.
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I was thinking on a run one day, I was like, if we just rolled this out like we do everything else, it would feel like all of our other products and it wouldn't highlight it in any different or special way. As I was thinking about this, I was like, how do we create hype and buzz around this new product in a unique way? I thought, what if we don't share anything until the morning of launch?
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If anyone has, up until this point, because the day this episode is going live is the day that the product goes live, all of the content we've created up until this point has been very... disruptive, abstract, secretive. We haven't shared the name of the product. We haven't shared the formula.
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All we've really shared is this is the future of endurance, and this is a pre-workout solution for endurance athletes. And my goal was that we build so much hype and awareness and buzz through our athletes, through our social, through our website, through our marketing efforts, that the day that we launched
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All of that buzz goes to the website ready to buy without even knowing what it is they're going there to buy. I want it to feel like a Black Friday sale. I want it to feel like a summer sale where we have tens of thousands of people on the website. Site traffic is nuts. Conversion is wild because we took a completely different creative and marketing approach to this. That was my vision in my head.
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Much easier to visualize than to execute. So I shared that with you, all your initial thoughts and reactions.
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A lot of my goal with it was honestly to challenge the team. I wanted to see how the team would respond from not just a brand creative department, but also performance marketing and partnerships and activations. These last couple months, we've hidden this project under the codename Project Sierra.
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All of the bottles that our athletes have had, the bottles that we have had, didn't have the GOM Sport logo or label on it. It was a Project Sierra bottle and label. It said, The Future of Endurance. One of the pieces of feedback that I got from multiple people on the team was that fear.
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Pulling me aside and saying, hey, I'm afraid that when we launch, it's not going to have the effect that you want because we can't share everything about it. That's what I wanted people to come to be saying. Because I said, I want you to be afraid. I want you to fear that. So now go and eliminate and mitigate that fear by execution and planning.
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That's not on me to create strategy and tactics for everyone. That is to challenge our team so that we can grow through this and become better on the other side. What was some of the pushback you potentially got from team members?
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But now we're launching and have launched the plus version. What is the plus version? It's the foundation, the 20 grams of carbohydrates, 350 milligrams of sodium, but now with energy and focus. 150 milligrams of caffeine per serving, 300 milligrams of alpha GPC, 1.5 grams of N-acetyl L-tyrosine. So for the energy, the stimulant, caffeine.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
And if it flops... you learn from the flop. It's like, what did we miss? What did we do wrong that we can improve upon later? Because the easy way to launch this product is the way that we launched the product, every other product before this. That is a blueprint that we know that works. But what if, in order to go to this next phase and chapter, It's not trying harder, like James Clear says.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
It's not trying harder, but it's trying different. And that trying different can actually 10x the results of ultimately what you would have done otherwise. So from that initial brainstorm vision session, how does your creative process work? What did you do from that moment until you and me sat down and you presented me that creative presentation?
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
Yeah, we talk about the marketing flywheel all the time, which I don't think I've shared on the podcast before, but it's like, how does...
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
brand tie into performance marketing has performance marketing tie into partnerships how are all those things leveraged and supported through events and email and sms campaigns and every part of the business where it can't be departments operating independently on their own but it's making sure they all tie together to leverage one another and then maximize the performance
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
What did you want the viewer, the consumer to feel with the content deliverables that you guys were creating? Was it inspiration? Was it hype? Was it energy? Was it curiosity? Like, do you think that way when it comes to shooting and delivering?
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
And when we landed on 150 milligrams, how did we land on 150 milligrams? We found that's a sweet spot. Anything less than You might not necessarily feel the effects based off of your sensitivity and experience and usage with caffeine. Anything less than 150 might be a little too little for most people. You won't feel the stimulant, the energy.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
and then the follow through. It's like lead up, execution, which is just launch, follow through. Here it's like lead up, launch, pivot. The follow through is now a brand new launch. So every department has to have a plan and strategy for a two launch approach because we're building up all this hype behind something that has no name. Then we launch the name.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
And there are a lot to showcase after that, which makes it extremely challenging and demanding for the team.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
Right. Yeah. For me, what makes this product, and you briefly mentioned this, this product so special and the reason that it required, in my opinion, a special launch is because, like you said, we launched G1M Sport years ago and that was to offer a better solution than what was already on the market. And we launched the GoGel to create a better solution than what was already on the market.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
And caffeine also has the ability to blunt the feelings and effect of fatigue. So caffeine can actually... reduce feelings of fatigue, mental and physical, anything over 150, you know, 200, 250, 300 might not be optimal for endurance training.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
And we created our electrolytes to create a better solution than what we believe was already on the market. And similar for the GoBar and similar for some of our other products. G1M Sport Plus, in my opinion, is... the first of its kind.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
And like you said, it's our way of flagging the ground, playing it, saying, we are going to be the best, most respected, most trusted endurance consumer brand in the world. We're on that mission. Here's how we're going to start doing it. And it's something brand new. It's something different. It's truly an experience you can feel.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
With G&M Sport, you can feel the carbohydrates as you're putting out an effort. But with G&M Sport Plus, you feel it within five to 10 minutes. The caffeine, the nootropics, like it hits you, you feel it. This is for me an opportunity to truly pave the path. And I believe, you correct me if I'm wrong,
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
the creative and brand team feels that weight and that responsibility to carry through and execute. Absolutely.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
So, yeah, it's a responsibility. You've done a great job. you know, tying all this together and, and leading the brand team to, uh, execute on these, these shoots and launches and deliverables and watching it all come together. I mean, the time of this recording, we haven't actually launched, uh, the teas yet. Yeah. So it's next week. The time this goes live, it's the product is now launched.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
So we have a lot to discover these next couple of weeks. Um, But I'm curious from your perspective, like right now, if we take a snapshot of BPN, there's a lot going on, right? Like today we actually moving into our new HQ across the street. We are preparing to launch a brand new product. We have really shaped and refined the brand over these last 12 ish months.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
from where you started in 2019, 2020 here at BPN until now, if you had to wrap it up and like what that experience has been like and what you've learned and what has changed from like the way you used to view creative and brand and marketing and business, what are some of those things that are top of mind that you just want to get out there and share?
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
It might be optimal for strength training, but not necessarily optimal for endurance training because you don't want to overstimulate the central nervous system. And, uh, Energy, because what ends up happening is that when you overstimulate the central nervous system with caffeine or other stimulants, you start affecting heart rate.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
I wasn't planning on asking this, but I'm genuinely curious because of how you mentioned this is us planting the flag in the sand. And you filmed my first Ironman. You've been along for this entire journey and this entire natural and organic evolution journey.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
And one of the things I shared in the beginning of this episode was there wasn't a moment in time of a day where I said, we're going to stop being this brand. We're going to start being this brand. It has just been this slow refinement where I can't even pinpoint a day or a period of time where we intentionally or strategically made this shift. I look back at these last five, six years.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
I mean, how did we get here? Just slow refinement, chipping away, consistently chipping away over time. But I'm curious, for someone who's been along for that whole journey, what's that experience been like for you?
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
There's a reason that I'm dedicating an entire episode to this product, this launch. And I want to share the why, the how, the reason we created this product. And the process of launching and bringing a new product to market. And we've approached this product specifically G1M Sport Plus different, completely different than anything else we've ever done in the past.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
And as we know, when it comes to endurance training, you're trying to moderate and control heart rate. So when we go on our easy runs, our sub max aerobic heart rate runs, We want to maintain a lower heart rate to get the benefits of lower heart rate training. And we're building this aerobic engine.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
Yeah, clarity and focus comes with just time. Yeah, yeah. I was listening to a My First Million podcast the other day. He's hosted by Sam Parr. Yeah. Saw him in a coffee shop the other day.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
Yeah. Here in Austin?
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
I was listening to a podcast between him and David Senra, who's the host of Founders.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
And they made this really good analogy that I actually shared in the Slack channel, the general Slack channel this past weekend. And there's this saying that life is a marathon. It's not a sprint, which I wholeheartedly believe in. I'm all about playing the long game. and in being patient. But there's a difference between being patient and being complacent and procrastinating.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
And they made the distinction. They're like, yeah, life is a marathon. It's not a sprint. But in order to be the best, it's going to feel like a sprint. So you look at Kipchoge running the marathon, the best of the best. Go try to run one mile at Kipchoge's marathon pace. It's like a 4.30, 4.33. Yeah, you won't make it. You won't make it a mile.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
So even though life is a marathon and these goals that we set are marathons, It's still going to feel like a sprint. That doesn't mean you slow down. That doesn't mean you become complacent and you're lazy. You have to be patient, yes. But when you're in it, we're looking long-term with this business. We're playing the long game. But every day still feels like a sprint.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
It doesn't allow us to slow down and take a day off. Now it's foot pressed against the pedal to the floor because we want to and need to be the best.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
And then when our heart rate gets too high, we get into different zones and we're starting to utilize different systems. So with too much caffeine prior to endurance training, especially running, It can elevate your heart rate at an unnecessary level, and it can move you into a different zone of training than you might be aiming towards for that specific session.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
Yeah, I've always been told, just build it as if you're going to build it and work on it for every day for the rest of your life. Yeah. And build in that longevity and ability. Yeah, it's good. Well, thanks for coming on. Thanks for sharing the creative thought and process behind it and a little bit extra. G1M Sport Plus is now live.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
You go to bpnsups.com, purchase it, try it, and experience the future of endurance.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
So that's how we landed on 150 milligrams of caffeine. We have found that's the sweet spot. And then when it comes to mental energy, mental acuity, focus, cognitive support, cognitive enhancement, that's why we incorporated nootropics such as alpha-GPC and tyrosine. So alpha-GPC, choline in the brain can create this mental alertness, acuity, awareness.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
The combination of caffeine, alpha-GPC, and tyrosine, very powerful combination. They work very synergistically together, especially at the dosages that we've incorporated into this formula. So if you look at what G1M Sport is, You have the perfect combination for a pre-workout endurance supplement. You have fuel, carbs. You have electrolytes, sodium. You have energy, caffeine.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
And you have nootropics, focus, mental awareness, mental clarity. That comes from the N-acetylaltyrosine and alpha-GPC. I'm extremely proud of this formula, extremely proud of this formula. And the way we, we got to these ingredients and these additions is through a lot of trial and error and testing. And we had our, our bottle of GM sport and we would add, we would
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
you know, supplement with different levels of caffeine, different stimulants, different no tropics. And we did this for months and months and months. And we got to the sweet spot of 150 milligrams, caffeine, 300 milligrams of alpha GPC, 1.5 grams of N-acetyl tyrosine, lots of trial and error, lots of research and development R and D to get to this formula, which works.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Today's episode is a little different. Today I'm talking about the newest product we launched through BPN and that is called G1M Sport Plus. And before you tune out, I don't want you to think that this is just an episode of product advertisement. The reality is it is, part of it is, but it's so much more than that.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
Who is it for and how are you going to use it? Well, I'll share multiple different ways you can use it, case studies, and how I personally have been using GM Sport. This is for someone who wants and needs a little bit more of a pick-me-up for their endurance training or that morning run.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
And what I was finding for a long time, and I know a lot of our consumers and athletes and partners were doing the same thing, is part of my morning routine was I'd wake up and I'd slam my G1M Sport, two scoops of G1M Sport to get 40 grams of carbohydrates, 700 milligrams of sodium. And that was the first thing I would do every single morning in preparation for morning run.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
to let those carbs sit in, digest a little bit. And I would also make a coffee. So I'd go to the coffee machine, I'd make a coffee. I add a shot of espresso on top of that. And that would get me to about 150 milligrams of caffeine. And I would then drink that after I would consume my GOM sport. I wake up at 4.30 every morning and I'm running by 5.30 a.m.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
So between 4.30 and 5.30, I'm drinking two different beverages because I want the stimulant. I want the energy. I want the focus from the coffee, but I also want the fuel from G1M Sport. And the idea came to us of how do we simplify? How do we make it where you reduce the number of steps you have in the morning and you can get more out of your product?
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
You can get more out of your performance than just coffee. What's going to add a layer onto that mental acuity? What's going to add a layer onto that mental edge and awareness and clarity? What no tropics can we incorporate into this formula that enhance the feeling, the preparation, and the outcomes of that run? Simplification was the goal.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
Simplification was the outcome we were looking to achieve. That was the desire. So this is for someone who wants some more energy, who wants some more mental clarity, who wants better and stronger concentration for their endurance training, who wants to perform at a higher level, who wants to accomplish their goals.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
And towards the end of this episode, I will be bringing on Jordan Utter, who is our brand director, who leads all things creative here at BPN. Jordan was the first creative hire that we ever made. And that was in 2019. And Jordan has grown, he has evolved, has matured over these last years.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
who wants an edge that they can apply to the workouts and the training and performance in pursuit of their goals. Now, the way that I use G&M Sport Plus is just like this. So every morning, I wake up at 4.30 a.m. Like I said, that hasn't changed. But now I consume one beverage as opposed to two. I mix one scoop of G1M Sport and one scoop of G1M Sport Plus in my shaker bottle.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
And I do about 18 to 20 ounces of water, sometimes a little bit less. And with those two scoops, I'm now getting 40 grams of carbohydrates. I'm getting 700 milligrams of sodium, but I'm also getting 150 milligrams of caffeine, 300 milligrams of alpha-GPC, 1.5 grams of N-acetyl L-tyrosine.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
And the way that my morning routine works is I wake up, I mix it up, I drink that right away, and then I make a bottle for my son. I make about an eight ounce bottle and he's typically waking up when I'm waking up in the morning. It's just been part of his morning routine ever since he was born.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
So I go into his room, I change them, I give him that eight ounce bottle and that takes about 10, sometimes 15 minutes for him to drink that whole bottle. As I'm sitting in the chair in his bedroom and I'm giving him that bottle, I can feel the effects of the caffeine and the nootropics sitting in. I'm starting to feel the stimulant effects I'm starting to feel the tunnel vision focus.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
I'm getting energized. I'm not trying to fall asleep on that chair. I am literally feeling like I'm ready to attack that workout. I am itching to go put on my socks and put on my shoes and throw my hat on backwards and go take off for my run, dialed in and focus. And you can feel these ingredients kicking in within five to 10 minutes.
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
What's beautiful about Cluster Dextrin, and the team over at Cluster Dextrin actually ran a few studies on this raw material over the years. Very strong clinical studies. One of those studies, they showed that the addition of Cluster Dextrin with caffeine amplified the effects and feelings of caffeine. And
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
I can confirm this because before we actually launched GUNM Sport Plus, and I found out about this research through the Cluster Dextrin team, I was actually starting to mix my Cluster Dextrin, my GUNM Sport, with my Flight, our traditional pre-workout, primarily used for strength training. And I could feel the effects of Flight. I could feel the effects of the caffeine in Flight,
The Nick Bare Podcast
123: The Endurance Pre-Workout of the Future: G.1.M Sport +
significantly more with the addition of cluster dextrin, with the addition of carbohydrates. So I can confirm that even prior to the R&D process of bringing GUNM Sport Plus to life. Now, you're not going to want to or need to use more than one scoop or one serving of GUNM Sport Plus per workout. which is different from G1M Sport, the OG formula.
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
At one point they thought I had a parasite and a worm from Mexico, from a vacation. They thought I had celiac disease, so they had me eating no gluten for a period of time. And one of the last tests they did on my body was they put me under and they put a tube down my throat to look into my stomach. And what they realized was the food from the day before was still sitting in my stomach.
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
So my organs weren't working and they weren't digesting this food. And I was essentially killing myself through this process. And I remember one day my mom would take me out of school and she'd take me to the doctor's appointment at the Hershey Medical Center, what it felt like on a weekly basis at this point. And we would drive into the medical center and we'd turn towards the
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
The clinics and the emergency room section. But this last trip we ever took, we pulled into the Hershey Medical Center. And instead of turning left, we turned right on this one day. And it was the outpatient clinic. And we pulled into this building. And on the building, it read eating disorder clinic. And at that moment, I knew it was like, I'm caught.
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
Right. Wow. So I remember that day where we walk up and I can picture it like it was yesterday. We walk up these set of stairs into this outpatient clinic and I sit down with this doctor and he literally just confronts me right away. We know what you've been doing. We know you've been starving yourself. Wow. And I broke down just crying. And I turned to my mom and said, I'm done.
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
I'll fix it right now. I was that embarrassed that I didn't want to be in that room. I didn't want to come back to this place. I'll make a conscious effort to get better. We wrapped up this session and we went home. And I remember opening up the pantry thinking I need to start eating again. And I grabbed this box of Pop-Tarts. And I pull out a package and there's two Pop-Tarts per package.
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How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
And I turn it around and it says 400 calories in two Pop-Tarts. And I'm thinking, this is probably more than I've been consuming in a day. For most days. And I ate these two Pop-Tarts, which was, at the time, relatively one of the most challenging things I've ever done. And I had a very, you know, I started eating and putting weight on after that moment.
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
To say it was like a switch flipped, it wasn't that by any means. For years, I had unhealthy relationships with food. That slowly got better. That's what made me want to study nutrition in college. I wanted to learn more. I wanted to know more. But that, for me, was a pivotal point in my life. It was very long ago, but... I still can remember a lot of those moments like they were yesterday.
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
And that'd be from 6.30 to 7.30 or 6.30 to 8 a.m. And then I would eat my breakfast in my truck, shower change, be in the office by nine. That was my morning routine. And I lived that for four years. When I transitioned out of the Army. So that was ROTC, is that what that is? That was actual active duty military. Okay, but that was in the U.S. or in South Korea? That was in the U.S.
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How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
But it was, I think, fundamental and a foundation for who I am today and what I'm interested in, what I'm passionate about, possibly a reason I want to and enjoy helping others, especially in health, fitness, nutrition. But that was challenging for me when I was younger, for years.
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
No, I mean, the only thing that I can really pinpoint to is, and this might have correlated and transformed who I am today, is I enjoyed having control. I enjoyed having control of what I was able to put in my body and how much I would work out, how much I would sweat to lose weight. And I loved having that control, this obsessive, controlled mindset and motivation.
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
I do think I have funneled that level of obsessive control into building a business, into building chasing and working towards success. I think I still have that in me, but I've just funneled it into something else.
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
In the U.S., gotcha. Yeah, that's when I was stationed at Fort Hood. I was in South Korea for a nine-month rotation in 2016. Got it. Morning routine was very similar. When I transitioned out of the Army, there was never really the thought of, well, let's change this morning routine up, because it worked.
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
For me, it was proven successful that it allowed me to achieve a lot of things that I wanted to do throughout the day through backwards planning. Backwards planning and forward thinking. Now, my morning routine, I still wake up early, move my body and sweat, and search for solitude. Solitude for me it is a form of meditation and that's running. So I'll wake up every morning, 5 a.m.
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
And people ask the question all the time, like, well, if I'm not a morning person, how do I wake up at 5 a.m.? Sometimes you have to train the body. You got to become a morning person. Right. You wake up at 5 a.m. for 30, 60, 90 days. That just becomes routine. That becomes habit.
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
Right. No. I'm trying to get at least seven hours of sleep. Yeah, exactly. So I wake up at 5 a.m., and the first thing I do is I go out in the kitchen, I make my coffee, and I'll check my emails, I'll go through kind of things I have to do to prepare for business that day.
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
I check my schedule, and as soon as I'm done drinking my coffee, I lace up my shoes, throw on my shorts, throw on my hat, go out for my morning run. Right now, it's anywhere from five to seven miles, and for me, That morning, five to seven miles at a aerobic pace, it's below my max aerobic heart rate, I can really sink in.
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
And what happens during those five to seven miles is absolutely transformational. Where if there's problems in my life, they will find me during that run. I will navigate issues that I'm experiencing. I will solve problems I'm experiencing. I'll get emotional during these five to seven miles. there's this dopamine dump and rush that I experience unlike anything else in my life.
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
And then when I get back from that run, it's eat breakfast, shower, get into the office. But I've already started my day with a win. I've accomplished those three things of waking up early, move my body and sweat, and then solitude. Yeah, it's beautiful, man.
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
It's off, I feel like I'm behind. Really? Yeah, I mean, even days that I, I might wake up early and not run if it's not a run day. But regardless, I'm waking up at 5 a.m., I'm moving my body in some capacity. I just feel better when I move. And I'm searching for solitude, whether it's sitting on the couch drinking my coffee or giving our baby girl a bottle to put her back to sleep.
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
But if I don't achieve those things, the day's off, or I feel like I'm behind and I'm playing catch-up. where I need that 5 a.m. wake up call to set the day up for a big win.
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
I think you have to detach yourself from the issue you're experiencing. Go big picture. So to kind of paint a picture of a story that kind of wraps that all up, I remember I was in Fort Benning, Georgia for training. This was 2014, probably. It was before I got to my unit in Fort Hood.
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How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
I was a brand new second lieutenant, and we were being mentored by the 75th Ranger Regiment for a few days in training. And these were all captains in the captain's career course. And I was talking to this one officer and I said, you know, sir, when I get to my unit, what's going to set me up for success? How do I become the best officer possible?
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
And he pointed across the room to this other officer. He said, you see that guy over there? When it's a fan, when chaos strikes, that guy is as cool as the other side of the pillow. Really? Because he detaches himself. He's not reactive. He's proactive. He has a plan, but he pulls back from 10,000 feet in the air, looks at all the moving pieces and then makes a plan.
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
So I think what happens with a lot of people and myself included, it used to happen a lot is something goes wrong. Your plan isn't working. Well, now you're in fight or flight. You're reactive. You're trying to just put things back in place. it's often better to just take a step back, take a deep breath, look at what's going on, and how do I deliberately make a plan to adjust and execute?
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
What's the things you guys did in the Army to train for that? I think it was just through mentorship. You always throughout training have... a non-commissioned officer who has years of experience or an officer who has years of experience. But when I got to my platoon in 2014 in Texas, I was an infantry platoon leader. I was the platoon leader of these 40 soldiers, non-commissioned officers.
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
I had the least amount of experience out of all of them. You were the leader. Exactly. New officer. My platoon sergeant had 18 years of experience in the Army with multiple combat deployments. But he was reporting to you. Technically. Wow. My squad leaders, my team leaders, they had multiple deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. You know, a lot of experience.
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
And then I had, you know, junior enlisted soldiers in the platoon, but... For me, I was being mentored by my platoon sergeant, my squad leaders, my team leaders. So the biggest piece of advice I got when I first arrived at that platoon was don't make any changes. This is not your platoon. Allow them to let you in. Just come in and observe.
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
And when they start asking for some advice and your opinion, that's them letting you in. And I learned so much through and from these non-commissioned officers and soldiers during my four years. A lot of it was just having awareness, you know, reading the room. Like, do these people trust me? Do they want me to lead them? Will they work alongside of me?
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
Having that awareness and then repetition, consistent repetition will help you get better.
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
My wife has a morning routine. It was definitely different. It wasn't 5 a.m. wake up? It was never 5 a.m. wake up. But for her, it was always, we are routine people. It was wake up. She would go through her green supplement and then water and then coffee and then go work out and train. And both of us, we need to move our bodies to be sane. Having the baby has changed life pretty significantly.
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
But we've found ways to still implement our plan to achieve our routine throughout the day where we both have to adapt and make some changes. But It's difficult, it's challenging, but it's doable. Yeah.
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
It goes back to, I'm a huge fan of what the military taught me about setting your, not day, but a mission, a week, a year, five years up for success, it's backwards planning. So it's okay, in this amount of time, for me to get from point A to point B, I now need to go backwards. What do I need to do at this time away and this time away?
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
How do I set myself up for success to get from point A to point B? So it's backwards planning while you're forward thinking. And anyone who has some sort of routine allows you to, execute and complete your non-negotiables while still achieving your day, your week, your month, your year plan.
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
So there's three things I talk about that are non-negotiables for my morning. One, it's wake up early. Two, it is move your body and sweat. And three, it's search for solitude. So when I was in the military, you don't have an option to press news or sleep in. You've got to wake up early. Right.
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
And for me, that's why I believe it's, it's so important for myself, but a lot of other successful people, it's because if you don't have a routine, especially a morning routine, you're playing catch up. And especially if you have a lot of responsibilities and obligations, because for me, as soon as the day starts in the office at 8 a.m.,
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
I don't know what fire I'm fighting, but if I didn't do my three things early on, I don't know what I'm getting to, especially now having a child.
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
I mean, if it works for you. If it's not broke, don't fix it. I've never been the type of person that says, you need to, you have to, you should. A lot of the content that I put online is, this is what works for me. And it might work for you. But I can tell you right now, if I didn't have a morning routine... You'd be a mess. I'd be a mess. My day would be chaotic. I would be behind.
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
I'd be... I hate being in a reactive space and state. I'm a very proactive, deliberate, strategic, intentional person. One of my favorite things that I've ever heard, and it's from Jordan, my media director. I walked into his office one day and it was his note on his computer. And it said, lack of intentionality leads to a repetition of what is easiest.
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
For me, I want to be intentional with everything I do. And if I'm not being intentional... with a routine or my day or the things that I say and do, I'm falling into a rhythm and routine of easy. And I don't want easy. I want challenging. I want hard. I want deliberate, intentional, strategic. Why do you want challenging and hard versus easy and comfortable?
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
Because I've grown in every aspect of challenging and hard. I can't tell you...
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
one moment of my life where i've grown in easy and it drives my wife insane she's like take a break quite often but i know that when the pressure is there and it's challenging and it hurts and it brings stress and discomfort i know it's on the other side of that and the only reason i know it's on the other side of that is because i've gone through it so many times you know bootstrapping a business
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
is tough. I've gone through a decade of hurt and struggle and pain, but to see where it's put me, there's no way I'd be there now if it was easy and comfortable. And regardless, I want to work for what I achieve. You know, it's often choosing the hard right over the easy wrong. Mm-hmm. And wherever I get to, when I die one day, I wanna know, I've worked for this. I've earned this.
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
So I had an eating disorder when I was younger. I was 13, 14 years old. To this day, I can't tell you what caused or created it.
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
Unfortunately not. Yeah. When I got to Fort Hood in 2014, I was a infantry platoon leader, and I lived about 30 minutes away from Fort Hood. So I had to be at work by 6 a.m. So I'm waking up at 4.30 a.m. every morning, and I'm getting to work at 6 for a quick meeting. And then by 6.30, we're stretching out for morning PT, and we do that for an hour.
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
I just remember I slowly wanted to restrict more food. I wanted to be able to feel more bones. Really? Over my skin. I wanted to be lighter. I wanted to see the scale decreasing. I wanted to be hungry. I wanted to be frail. I don't know why to this day. You wanted to be weak. I wanted to be weak. How old were you? 13, 14 years old.
The School of Greatness
How To Start Your Day For Peak Mental & Physical Performance
And I mean, it started getting pretty severe to the point where my parents were taking me to the hospital on a regular basis and they were running tests. I was in and out of the hospital. They diagnosed me with all these different things multiple times. I internally knew I was starving myself. So what did they diagnose you as and what were you telling people?