Hala Taha: [00:00:00] [00:01:00] Yeah, bam. What if the real key to long-term success is simply showing up day after day, and pushing yourself to go one more round. Today's guest turned that philosophy into a multimillion dollar empire. Nick Bears started with just $20,000 in an idea in his army barracks and scaled Bear performance nutrition into a $60 million brand.

But here's what's truly incredible. He did it all while leading a platoon in the US Army, creating content on YouTube and staying true to his go. One more mindset. In today's episode, Nick shares his journey as a creator entrepreneur in the nutrition industry. Practical insights on health and fitness and key strategies for embracing the go.

One more mentality centered on living with intention, building discipline, and developing long-term consistency. 

Now I know you guys are gonna absolutely love this episode. It's jam packed with advice on health, fitness, and entrepreneurship. But if you're new to [00:02:00] this channel, I want you to take a moment to follow and subscribe to Young and Profiting podcast so you never miss an episode packed with Expert Insights like this one.

Nick, welcome to Young and Profiting podcast.

Thank you for having me on. 

I'm really excited for this conversation. I love that we're in person and that now that I'm in Austin, there's so many more people that I can interview live, so thank you for joining me in person. 

Nick Bare: For sure. There's a lot going on in Austin right now, especially in the media space, fitness space that I'm in.

Hala Taha: Yeah, 

Nick Bare: podcast space. It's a great place to be located, to just have in-person connections. 

Hala Taha: I know. I'm really excited. We're like building out studios here and building our home base for Yap Media, so I'm so excited. I wanted to know a little bit about your background.

You've never been on the show before. Mm-hmm. Hopefully you come back on. Again and again, but this is your first time, so I wanna introduce you properly to my listeners, and I was researching you all day and I found out that you started your career in military. 

Nick Bare: Yep. 

Hala Taha: Talk to us about your military experience and how that helped shape your approach to [00:03:00] entrepreneurship.

Nick Bare: So I grew up in Central Pennsylvania, and I'll give a little bit more context that positions me where I'm at today, because there's just a few certain like decisions I've made throughout my life that I believe have been very pivotal 

and he was stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. And he was going back and forth on deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. It was very kinetic warfare then. And I watched him transform through these multiple deployments into this. 

completely different person. 

Hala Taha: Mm.

Nick Bare: And I saw that and I thought, I want that for my life. So my plan was to enlist in the army after graduating high school, which was 2009. 

But my mom said no. She said, you're gonna go to college. So I applied for an Army ROTC scholarship, which now is very competitive, but back then no one really knew of it, or at least that I knew. Mm-hmm.

And it was this great opportunity. 

So I got this scholarship, ended up going to the Indiana University of [00:04:00] Pennsylvania to study nutrition and then owned the scholarship. They paid for all of my tuition housing books.

I got a monthly stipend with the military obligation to come after graduating. And um, in college I started in 2009. I was obsessed then with the bodybuilding supplement sports nutrition space and. YouTube Fitness at the time was brand new. Mm-hmm. So I'm watching all these YouTube fitness creators document their training, their nutrition building brands, building businesses.

And it was between my junior and senior year of college that we were given this opportunity to take out a loan with a military associated bank. 

Hala Taha: Hmm. 

Nick Bare: USAA. It was called a pre-commissioning loan. And my friends and peers were taking out this loan. They were going on vacations, buying engagement rings, getting new vehicles because you didn't have to make your first payment for 18 months after getting this money.

Mm. And it [00:05:00] was extremely low interest rate. USAA new newly commissioned army lieutenants were gonna be making steady pay and no opportunity to spend it. 'cause you're always training. 

Hala Taha: 

Nick Bare: So I took out this loan, $20,000 and found a manufacturer, placed an order, a production order. Mm-hmm. For flight, which is our pre-workout Still is.

Different formula, which has evolved over the years. 

And it was 500 units. I spent all my money on that production order. I had a friend design our website for free. I had a friend design our labels for free. I told my dad I was gonna make a million dollars that first year. And he said if it was that easy, everyone would do it.

And in our previous hq, I had those words plastered on the wall that said if it were that easy, everyone would do it. 

Hala Taha: '

Nick Bare: cause he was right. That first year I did $20,000 in revenue. That second year I did $20,000 in revenue. That third year we did $20,000 in revenue. 

Hala Taha: Oh, wow. 

Nick Bare: And I had this strategy that I was going to send supplements to these fitness [00:06:00] YouTubers and if a small portion of their audience converted a thousand million dollars.

Right. Like easier said than done. 

Hala Taha: 

Nick Bare: So the first year of business was challenging. It was tough. I was in my apartment at the time, which was on Philadelphia Street in Indiana, Pennsylvania. The few orders that would come in, I'd pack that order in my apartment and then I'd drop it off at the post office on the way to class.

I did that for the first year and then a year after starting the business, I graduate college degree in nutrition and go right into the army. 

Active to the army. So I spent the first year in Fort Benning, Georgia. I was in the infantry officer, basic course, ranger school, airborne School, Bradley leader course in and out of the field the entire time.

So very little time to actually build the business. So I'm in Georgia for a year and then after finishing all my schools there, I ended up coming to Fort Hood, Texas. Okay. Which is what landed me in [00:07:00] Texas. And that was 2014, my first duty assignment. And when I got to Texas, my unit at the time was in Germany for three months.

So I had three months of little work to do with the military and. I had $500 left to my name, and I decided that I was going to create a YouTube channel and try to build a business. Love that. I spent the last $500. I bought a camera. It was a Cannon, T three I I bought a 50 millimeter lens. I bought a tripod, and I just started documenting everything.

I filmed my training, I filmed my nutrition. I filmed behind the scenes of building the business. I filmed my military journey up until that point so far. And that platform slowly started to grow. But that decision to start documenting my life, changed my life. Forever. And that was the catalyst to where I am today.

Hala Taha: I love that you gave this backstory because I have so many follow up questions about all your different experiences and what your approach [00:08:00] was to entrepreneurship throughout this. So first of all, you started this as a side hustle basically. Yep. So you started Bear Nutrition as a side hustle. What was the initial spark where you're like, okay, I wanna put out this brand, I wanna start this. 

Nick Bare: I was just obsessed with the supplement space. I was obsessed with the experience that was created around using products around training. I remember using pre-workout for the first time ever when I was in high school and I worked at a gym and I was introduced to pre-workout. Have you ever taken pre-workout before? 

Hala Taha: Of course. Yeah. I work out a lot. 

Nick Bare: Okay. So I remember taking my first pre-workout ever, and you have this energy, you have this focus, you get the tingles from the beta alanine. Mm-hmm. It felt like a drug. You're like, oh my gosh, this just unlocked this new experience.

The training where you now have this like pre-training ritual where you have your pre-workout meal, you let digest, you take your pre-workout, you get in the zone. I had to watch motivational bodybuilding videos back then. [00:09:00] And you go to the gym, ready to throw down and train. I loved that whole lifestyle and experience.

So I had this passion around it. And then when I got to college, really learning how to use and manipulate diet and macronutrients to change your body composition. Mm-hmm. Or how it influences training performance and getting stronger and getting bigger. And when I was in college, I was making my own supplements.

So I'd buy these ingredients in bulk. I'd buy like creatine in bulk, citruline malate, beta alanine, caffeine. If I could go back in time right now, and you could look into my college dorm room, it looked like I was dealing drugs because I had like this, this food scale that I would get at Walmart. And I have all these bags of white powder, essentially.

Mm-hmm. And I'd weigh out grams. It'd be like five grams of creatine, 3.2 grams of beta alanine, 200 milligrams of caffeine. I'd put all these ingredients in this bag that [00:10:00] I would use for myself. But then friends would come to my dorm room and they knock on my door. They gimme a few dollars, I'd give 'em a bag of pre-workout, and I just loved everything about the industry, the space, the product.

So it just felt like this natural fit of, well, I'm just going to create something that I already love and I'm already doing. But there was no true entrepreneurial background in my family. 

Hala Taha: 

Nick Bare: Like my dad's side of the family, they were dairy farmers in central Pennsylvania. My mom's side of the family was mostly military, so like an e-commerce consumer business that was brand new.

I went into it so naive. You probably can understand that based off me saying I'm gonna make a million dollars that first year. Yeah. And being humbled very quickly. But it was just like this huge passion that I was obsessed with. 

Hala Taha: And would you say the military impacted the way you thought about business in terms of planning and decision making and execution?

Nick Bare: For sure. Not those [00:11:00] first couple years because I was so new to the military. But when I transitioned outta the Army in 2017, at that point I did a four year contract. I was a infantry platoon leader. We took that platoon to South Korea and a nine month rotation. I was our unit movement officer. So I was the officer in charge of moving all of our company's equipment and vehicles from Texas to South Korea.

Hala Taha: 

Nick Bare: So in terms of forward thinking and backwards planning 

And operational planning, I definitely had some very clear takeaways there. I would say more so in terms of leadership and leading people and building teams and understanding what motivates individuals and teams to operate at a higher capacity.

 I took more away from my military experience than I still used today. From that perspective. 

Hala Taha: 

Nick Bare: As opposed to like operational planning, I'd say. 

Hala Taha: Okay. So more like leadership [00:12:00] skills is what you feel like you gained from it. So I was actually reading a bit about you and you had a bit of a weakness you thought during your CEO career at your company where you felt like you weren't a good manager, but you were a good leader.

 Can you talk to us about what were some of your strengths as a leader and what did you feel like were setbacks in terms of your managerial experience? 

Nick Bare: I've learned a lot through this entire experience. There's probably a lot to unpack there. 

Hala Taha: 

Nick Bare: So in 2023, I stepped down from the CEO role of mm-hmm.

The business because I didn't think that I was the person. To take the business to the next level. I was out of the CEO role for a year before returning, and I gained a lot of confidence in my ability to be that person, to take the business to the next level. 

Hala Taha: Oh, wait, so you only were not CEO for a year?

Nick Bare: For a year. 

Hala Taha: Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. Okay. So you stepped down, but then you came back. Correct. Okay. 

Nick Bare: Yeah. I was outta the CEO role for a year, and one of the systems that we implemented into our business [00:13:00] years ago was EOS, the Entrepreneurial Operating System. Okay. Are you familiar with it? 

Hala Taha: No. I'd love for you to explain it.

Nick Bare: There's this book called Traction by Gina Wickman. There's a follow up to that called Rocket Fuel and EOS is essentially this system you can implement into your business. Typically, you, you hire a facilitator that helps you implement the system into your business. 

Hala Taha: 

Nick Bare: There's a few different parts of EOS, but essentially it helps with meeting structure and cadence.

It helps with the hiring and firing process to make sure you have the right people in the right seats. It helps with setting goals, short term and long term, and then assigning rocks, which are objectives or goals to each individual that help the business get to the short term and long term goals.

Mm-hmm. We still run parts of EOS in our business, but not the full [00:14:00] structure. Yeah. So we fully implemented it and then we realized, okay, there's certain things we love, there's certain things we don't necessarily love, so we kind of run like part of EOS in our business now. But the reason I recommend everyone who's an entrepreneur to read Traction and then Rocket Fuel is because it describes in Rocket Fuel the relationship between a visionary and an integrator in a business.

Mm-hmm. So I am the founder of Bayer Performance Nutrition. I'm also the CEO. But I have an integrator in the business. Uh, his name's Josh Hawley. He's C-F-O-C-O-O. Really strong operator. And there's this relationship between a visionary and an integrator. The visionary, typically a founder thinks very high level, lives in the clouds, the dreams, thinks big, picture ideas that can move the needle in the business and is always typically optimistic.

Yeah. I'm always thinking of [00:15:00] what do we do that continues to help us scale and grow into the future? What are the new products? What are the marketing campaigns? What's the direction, what's the brand doing? And then between the visionary and the team, there's an integrator. There's someone who takes the visionary's vision and then puts it into action.

Hala Taha: 

Nick Bare: And activates teams and operational planning and logistics and makes that thing happen. So I'm a visionary. 

Hala Taha: 

Nick Bare: I love leading people. I love inspiring people. I love thinking big picture. I don't necessarily love the turning the wrenches and doing all the small things to make it happen. I love building teams and leading teams and inspiring teams to go act on that vision.

Hala Taha: 

Nick Bare: But I like thinking big picture and big picture, three months, six months, 12 months, two years, five years, 10 years out. [00:16:00] And I think it's really hard to be a visionary and an integrator. I think you're either one of the other, and I believe that naturally the visionary can be a strong leader. Mm-hmm. Isn't always, but the integrator has to be a, A strong manager. 

Hala Taha: Let's walk it back to your first couple years. You said you made $20,000 for your first three years in business. Mm-hmm. What do you think were some of the big mistakes that you made that didn't enable you to have more sales?

Nick Bare: We didn't have brand awareness, so we had supply, but we had no awareness. And the brand has made so many shifts in evolutions over the years. We started as a bodybuilding company. It was pre-workout, it was creatine, protein amino acids. And if you would've asked me in 2012, what kind of brand is BPN gonna be in 2025?

I would've said, we are a traditional sports nutrition bodybuilding brand. And there were a few shifts from then until now. So in [00:17:00] 2018, we launched our first health and wellness supplement. Mm-hmm. It's called Strong Greens. And I thought at the time that was gonna be an upsell at checkout, but overnight it became one of our best selling products.

So we went from being just a bodybuilding brand to being a bodybuilding brand, but also a health and wellness brand. So we expanded that line of products within our category. And then in 2020, we launched our first endurance supplement, which was called, and it is called G one M Sport. It's carbohydrates and electrolytes.

So 2020 2021, 2022, even 2023, we saw the brand in three categories. Strength and performance. Mm-hmm. Health and wellness Endurance. I'd say one of the biggest issues I made from 2012 until 2023 is that I was trying to be something for everyone. I was trying to create a brand that spoke to you, whether you were a gym rat, bodybuilder, [00:18:00] or if you were a 6-year-old woman going to yoga.

 Like truly, we had photography. I can still go through our Dropbox folder. And find the craziest images because we were trying to speak to everyone. 

Hala Taha: 

Nick Bare: In 2024, we made the decision, and this is obviously only kind of recently. 

Hala Taha: 

Nick Bare: The brand was still growing and the brand was still growing strong up until that point.

But we made a shift in 2024 that was a game changer and we hyper-focused and we decided that we weren't gonna try to be a brand for everyone anymore. We were gonna go all in on what we call performance endurance. So at the tip of the spear, we are focused on the endurance consumer and the consumer that we speak to.

We say they are for the committed or we are a brand for the committed. They are someone who like takes it serious. They might not be a professional athlete, but they treat their lifestyle like they are. They eat like they do, they sleep like they do, they train, they supplement, they treat it like it's life or death.

Mm-hmm. We are a brand for the committed, [00:19:00] so we went all in on performance endurance for the committed. Went very hyper-focused on brand and it was a game changer for us. So I'd say one of the mistakes I made early on was the inability to focus. Not knowing exactly who we are. It was a brand that could be replicated by just about anyone else early on in those days.

 But you could rip our logo off, put someone else's logo on, and it would fit pretty well if we didn't have the strongest brand identity. We didn't have the strongest messaging and communication or tone of voice, but there was a story behind the brand back then. Mm-hmm. And people bought into the story and our mission and what we were creating, but there wasn't something that was a very clear differentiation, and that's where everything scaled for us.

Hala Taha: When I looked online, it said you made about $50 million in revenue last year. Is that about accurate? 

Nick Bare: We did a little over 60 million last year and then Amazing. We'll do north of 80 [00:20:00] million this year. 

Hala Taha: Wow. Congratulations. Thank you. I'm gonna do 10 million this year. That's awesome. So I'm excited about that.

That's awesome. Your company had this crazy rocket growth. If first three years was 20,000, now you're at 60 million. What were like the big milestones? Did you know one year you just started making 10 million? 20 million? Like how did it go? Was it overnight? And then also, you know, you have a million plus subscribers on YouTube.

How did your YouTube channel fuel all this? 

Nick Bare: The YouTube channel was definitely the fuel to the fire early on. Now, not so much. Mm-hmm. Just because we've broaden in our reach through athletes and partnerships and mm-hmm. The brand has grown beyond me. Yeah. Which was my goal. But early on, you know, I remember sitting in my bare extreme in South Korea in 2016, and when I got to South Korea, we were doing $2,000 a month in revenue, and this was February of 2016.

It was a nine month [00:21:00] rotation, and my goal was that after that nine month rotation, we were doing $10,000 a month in revenue. So over in Korea, the time difference is significant. So I was waking up extra early to have conversations back in the states with manufacturers, and then after work was over in the evening going back to work in the business.

I mean, I just worked that entire nine months within the first 90 days of being there. We went from $2,000 a month to $10,000 a month in revenue. I launched new products while I was in South Korea, rebuilt our website, so transitioned from what was built on a friend's website hosting platform to Shopify. Mm, 

Hala Taha: love Shopify. 

Nick Bare: Love Shopify. I I learned how to vlog and do storytelling through watching and studying Casey. Nice stats, YouTube videos. And when I was in Korea, I mean, it was very slow, gradual growth. From 2014 to 2016, when I was in [00:22:00] Korea, I was filming videos all the time. I filmed this one video one day, just like I always was.

Came back to my barracks room, didn't think much of it. And I'm thinking like, what do I title this video? And I just titled it A Day In the Life of an Infantry Platoon Leader. Didn't think much of it. It was just, that's what it was. And that video within the first couple weeks went over a million views, which for me back then was next level.

Hala Taha: 

Nick Bare: But the subscriber growth in comparison to those metrics was remarkable. Hmm. So I went from 30,000 subscribers on YouTube to 80,000 subscribers from that one video. Wow. And BPN sales didn't grow in correspondence with that, but there was more brand awareness and there was slowly this uptick in sales and revenue.

Mm-hmm. So that back then that video was a spark, and I think there's an opportunity when you go viral. And that was viral for me back then. 

Hala Taha: Yeah. I [00:23:00] mean, it's viral now. Like a million views. 

Nick Bare: Yeah, a million views. But it was a video that was very authentic to me. Mm-hmm. It was me sharing my life in South Korea, doing the work that I was doing back then, showing the business.

So a video that went viral and popped off was one that was so insightful into who I am and what I was doing. It wasn't this random trend video that I created that has no relationship to what I'm actually doing and building and mm-hmm. And living. It gave people insight into here's this guy building this business in South Korea while stationed in the army.

And then it grabbed the interest of the right people who wanted to learn more about BPN. So that was definitely a significant step for me. And then after that nine month rotation in Korea, came back to the states, my military contract was up. Mm-hmm. I started transitioning out and in 2017 we crossed seven figure revenue mark for the first time, 1.7 million in [00:24:00] revenue.

And it was me, it was my brother Preston, and it was our friend Joe who still works in the business. We signed a lease for a 6,000 square foot warehouse. We could barely afford rent for it. Cashflow was an absolute nightmare. I didn't know about financing inventory. I didn't know about lines of credit.

I just thought that the money you have to spend is the money you have in the the business bank account. And at the time we had 12 week lead times with manufacturers, no terms. So I would place a production order for inventory. I put 50% of that money down. When it was completed 12 weeks later, I'd pay off the remaining 50%.

So I'd pay all of it off before getting it. But the issue was that we were growing very fast then and we were running outta inventory. So I was having to stack production orders like 12 weeks out, eight weeks out, four weeks out. So all of our money was tied up in inventory that we didn't have yet with manufacturers.

And there would be [00:25:00] weeks where rent was due the next month or the next week for our warehouse. We didn't have enough money in the bank account. We'd run a, a flash sale online. We get just enough money to get by. I mean, 2017 was the hardest year of my life in terms of building the business, but I would go back tomorrow and live it all over again.

Hala Taha: Why? 

Nick Bare: It was like waking up on Christmas morning every morning. Three young guys who felt like we had nothing to lose, all to gain. Living the dream. We had a 6,000 square foot warehouse. 

Hala Taha: 

Nick Bare: We're documenting our life. We are waking up every morning ready to just build and go to work. 

Hala Taha: 

Nick Bare: And do it with my brother, do it with a friend.

And I've documented all this. I go back and watch those YouTube videos. Wow. All the time. Just like relive it and as little money as we had and as hard as those days were. And that year was, it was a blast. But that year taught us how to be lean mm-hmm. And resourceful, and get [00:26:00] really creative with how we grow. Like how do you, how do you grow when you don't have money? 

Hala Taha: Yeah. Talk to us about that. How did you fix the cash flow problem? 

Nick Bare: And we just like slowly dug out of it. But that's why I've always leaned into content. Mm. And using organic content and storytelling to connect with a consumer. And I love long form content.

 I love long form podcasts, long form. YouTube never really got into short form stuff because I believe you can use social media platforms to bring a consumer in, and if a consumer resonates with what you're putting out there, your core values, your purpose, your mission, your goals, they'll come alongside and they'll support and they'll fight alongside you.

And when money was even tighter, we just leaned in harder to organic content. We had the laptop to edit. I had the camera to film. It was just man hours now of filming, [00:27:00] editing, creating, uploading. I filmed and edited and published all my own content from 2014 till 2019 while building the business. And it was two to three vlogs a week back then.

I think that's the power in building true, authentic organic content platforms. 

Hala Taha: Yeah, it's so true. Building an audience-based business or having that audience that you can sell to de-risks a lot of things. I think about it with my own business. Like let's say for some reason this social agency is slow, I can just be like, all right, I'll launch a course, you know, I'll launch a mastermind and promote it and make a couple hundred thousand dollars and we're good.

So having that audience de-risks, if one part of your business is slow or something, you can just tap into your audience and sell what they want. So sticking on this creator entrepreneurship piece, you were really a creator entrepreneur before that term even existed. Mm-hmm. You were an influencer before that term existed.

I feel like your approach was really awesome [00:28:00] because you said you started as a creator entrepreneur, but then you tried to build a legacy brand and make sure that the brand wasn't really tied to you. And I feel like that's just a really good model for everybody to replicate. If you're starting a business, start a personal brand, get some brand awareness through your personal brand, and then you've gotta figure out how is the business not just revolving around you because that's not sustainable.

Mm-hmm. Right. If you want a long-term business that survives without you, so how have you thought about that and made sure that BPN was a legacy brand? 

Nick Bare: It's very hard to do when the brand starts built off of a person. Yeah. And an individual. It's definitely doable, but it takes years to successfully transition.

One of the approaches we took was building out an athlete and partnerships program and we keep our athlete partnerships program. Smaller and leaner. We aren't in the business of adding hundreds or thousands of [00:29:00] ambassadors and athletes and partners just for reach and exposure. But the athletes and partners that we do sign have to be very directly aligned with our core values, our purpose in our goals.

Hala Taha: 

Nick Bare: So we have 25 roughly athletes and partners that we work with who are extremely aligned with our core values, our purpose, our goals, our vision, who can help us scale and grow the business going to the future. And that's been efforts of successes and failures and wins and losses along the way.

Another piece of that strategy has just been building out a really strong team. I sat down with Ben Francis a few years ago. Mm-hmm. He came and visited our hq, Ben Francis, being the CEO and founder of Jim Shark. One of the pieces of advice he gave me was. That there's three components that make a business successful.

It is brand, it is product, and it is people. And you have to be great at all three [00:30:00] of those things. You need a great brand that is sustainable, different and strong. You need great products. You can't build a strong business without great products. And the people matter almost more than anything else. If you have the wrong people on the team, it's gonna be really hard to scale and succeed if you have the right people on the team, but in the wrong seats, in the wrong roles, that's also gonna make it very hard to scale and grow.

I believe so much in building a very strong culture that is both a family and a team. I take the hiring process very serious, but I also take the firing process very serious and just having one wrong person on the team 

mm-hmm.

Can erode and destruct an entire business. Hmm. So we have a, a very, very strong team. Our HQ is here in Round Rock, Texas. Everyone is in house. We don't have any remote roles. 

Hala Taha: Oh, really? 

Nick Bare: Yep. Everything's in house from media brand, all of our videographers, photographers, editors, [00:31:00] marketing. We use some agencies for certain parts of the business. All fulfillment is in house. Everything's in house. 

Hala Taha: Why these days? People like at least flex hybrid work. Why in person? 

Nick Bare: We've tried it and for the culture we've created, it just doesn't work. Our team is so dedicated and committed. It's more than just a job. This past weekend's a great example. We had a race this past weekend, and it started Saturday at 12:00 PM and it went until Monday at 9:00 PM and we didn't have to ask people to come work.

We said, here's a list of times that we need to fill. We're not saying you have to come work this weekend, but it'd be nice if you would. People signed up for multiple shifts. Mm-hmm. There were people who stayed there from Saturday at 12:00 PM until Monday at 9:00 PM No complaints, no negativity. All positivity. All optimism. I mean, it's like the power in building a really strong culture [00:32:00] and for my business at least, remote does not work. We've tried it. It does more harm to the culture than good. 

Hala Taha: I'd love to understand what makes your team so dedicated. What do you think it is that you guys do? 

Nick Bare: I think there's real purpose and impact behind the brand.

These events, we go to the message of go on more. Mm-hmm. It truly does change people's lives. Our purpose is to show people that they have the ability to do whatever they want to do, and helping them realize that, and then providing them the tools, resources, the knowledge, the education, the community to go do it.

People towed the line at this weekend's race. Never running 10 miles before, and they, some of them ran 20, 30, 40 miles. So like we're actually changing lives and creating impact. And when you're in person and you go to these events and you hear the stories from people, it's real. I mean, there are thousands of people with going [00:33:00] more tattoo on their body because those three words, as simple as they are, they are so powerful when actually applied to your life.

And when you realize you're working on something, in something towards something that's much greater than yourself, which I believe is the greatest reward in life, is you're building something that is much larger than yourself. It's selfless. That's what the power of being in the military is.There's a lot of appreciation and fulfillment and satisfaction in that, and it's hard to find that in many places. 

Hala Taha: So I know you have a new book by the time this interview comes out. It will be out and available. It's called Go one more. So talk to us about that, because you actually created this concept years ago.

 Why are you putting out a book now about it and how has that term evolved? What does it mean to you today? What did it mean to you back then? 

Nick Bare: Go one more for me has evolved over the years and the reason I wrote the book is because it's evolved from just [00:34:00] being an action to actually an outcome. So I'll explain all of that.

I founded going more 2018, 2019, before it really came to life. I was training for a marathon, the Austin, Texas Marathon, and it was before I really started running marathons and building endurance. So running for me was very challenging. And it was a year after I got outta the military and me and my fiance, then wife now.

We're living downtown Austin, right off Zilker Park in Barton Springs. 

Hala Taha: Oh, that's where I live. Zilker. 

Nick Bare: We loved living there. We're north now. I miss living like by the trail. 'cause I would run the Lady Bird Lake Trail. Mm-hmm. Every morning. And that's where I was doing my marathon training. And in this one day I had an 18 mile run scheduled.

I got 10 miles into this run and my legs got heavy. I was tired. I decided to quit. So I stopped running. I started walking back to the house that we were [00:35:00] renting. And as I'm walking back to the house, I'm thinking if I quit on this run, even though no one will know, what will this say about me as an individual and a leader in the business and my character?

Like, what else will I quit on? Will I quit on my business? Will I quit on my family? Will I quit on my wife? Can I like, take myself serious? Honestly serious, if I quit on this run. So I turn around, as I'm walking back, I go back to the trail. I finished the run, I run 18 miles and then I run one more mile just to prove to myself I could.

I ran 19 miles and I came back to the house we were renting. I took my hat off because I'm always wearing a hat and I wrote one more under the bill, took a photo of it, posted on social media and that was it. There was not much other intention behind it and it struck a chord amongst a lot of people and all these other people started writing one more on the bill under their hat, taking a photo of it and sending it to me here.[00:36:00] 

Summarizing, okay, there's like, there's something here. It's like the power of doing the action of go one more. Or one more evolved into Go one more. We trademarked that. That became part of our business and my mission, and back then, for those first couple years, it was just the action of doing more.

Hala Taha: 

Nick Bare: Like just go do more of anything and everything. Work one more hour, do one more rep. Run one more mile. I just realized that people didn't have the ability to truly understand when, why, how, and what was appropriate of doing more of, of anything. And that I did it myself, thinking that just by doing more of anything or everything was gonna result in success regardless of what you were doing more of.

I think sometimes we make the mistakes of putting a lot of effort into one part of our life, say our, our fitness, sometimes I made this mistake myself. You're doing all this training, you're running, you're working out, you're lifting, [00:37:00] you're eating healthy, and you're spending all this time, and you think that that success in that department of your life carries over to other parts and it doesn't always, and I've had employees before who spend all this time on their nutrition and their body, and they want that work and that action to be rewarded, saying, well, look how hard I work.

Well, you're not working hard in your job. You're working hard in something that you're not being paid for. I respect and appreciate that, but for what we need you to do, let's apply that same amount of effort elsewhere. So I've realized over time that go one more is not actually just an action that is part of it, but it's this outcome that we can achieve an experience when we were very intentional with the decisions we're making.

And there have been multiple times in my life where I've had to make a decision that has shifted the trajectory of my life, starting my business in college. That decision changed my life. Picking up a camera and [00:38:00] documenting everything changed my life. Turning around on that training run and running one more, and taking a photo of my hat and posting online that changed my life.

Stepping down from the CEO role of my business and coming back that changed my life. All these things that I've done along the way, have shifted the trajectory of where I am right now. And we all have the power. Ability to make these decisions. But if we go through life that lacks intentionality and focus and clarity around these decisions.

 We're gonna end up somewhere we don't wanna be. And that's not the success or outcome of going more, it's being lost in unsatisfied and unfulfilled because we weren't intentional with where we were spending our time. How with who on what. Mm-hmm. 

Hala Taha: Something that just made me think is you step down from your CEO role.

So you could have just been like, you know what, I'm just gonna keep going. I'm just gonna go on more. I'm just gonna keep being the [00:39:00] CEO. Sometimes you do need to actually quit pause and not go. One more. So is there some sort of framework that we should go through to decide whether or not we're gonna go one more?

Nick Bare: Yeah. I mean, I think it's, it's really easy to just keep pushing. One of my favorite books is called Necessary Endings. By Dr. Henry Cloud. There have also been many books in my life that have come to me at the right time and the right place, and in necessary endings by Dr. Henry Cloud. He talks about pruning and the analogies around a Rose Bush.

So like if you look at a Rose Bush, and if you don't tend to it, it's a mess. There's thorns, there's stems, there's dead pedals. And in order to help this plant and bush flourish, you have to prune it. You have to cut away the dead leaves and the stems. 

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. 

Nick Bare: And the thorns. And for a moment in time, it's going to look [00:40:00] bare and empty and dead.

But you're actually helping it grow and become stronger and larger and more durable. I think that's applicable in our same life, where there's going to be moments where we have to create unnecessary endings and we have to prune parts of our life. For a period of time, it's going to feel empty, it's gonna feel bare, it's gonna feel like we took a step back.

But in that moment, we're allowing ourselves to grow and flourish. Another one of my favorite authors, he's a pastor Irwin McManus. He talks about these moments of quietness or these lulls in life. It's an opportunity to sharpen your ax. And he uses this story, which I absolutely love. And when he was younger, he was a lumberjack and he showed up to be this lumberjack among all these old men.

And you got paid based off of how many trees you chopped down for the day. So he is looking around all these older men, look [00:41:00] weak and tired, and he's like, I'm gonna crush 'em. I'm gonna make so much more money and, and cut down so many more trees than them. And the end of every day he would come up short.

All these older, weaker. Fatigued men were cutting down more trees and they were making more money. She said, why is this happening? What was happening was he kept just swinging dull ax at trees all day, all night, every day. And in order to chop down each additional tree, he had to put forth more effort, more strength, because his ax was dull.

What the old wise gentlemen were doing was they would take breaks during the day. They would drop off their ax to get sharpened, and then they would rest and nap. So when the ax was sharpened, they'd come back and with every swing it was sharp and they were more effective, more efficient. So he quotes the Bible, and I believe it is [00:42:00] when the acts is dull and uns sharpened, more strength and effort is required.

So sometimes you'll look at someone's life and you're thinking, oh, they're not doing anything. They're in this lull. Or maybe you're in a lull right now, I'm in between jobs. I'm in, in between careers. I'm not sure what the next path is for me, and it's really hard to sit in that lull of time where you're not actually making progress and pushing forward.

Maybe you had to take a step back, but that is the opportunity to sharpen your ax. So when you come back and swing it again, it is sharp, refined, it requires less effort because you have a strong blade. So that framework has really shifted the way that I think about life in terms of it's okay to slow down.

For me, I, I never want to lose momentum. Slowing down is not losing momentum. You're still moving forward. But sometimes we have to slow down or maybe even stop and [00:43:00] recognize, okay, I, I'm at a point where I have to make a decision. Do I go left? Do I go go right? Do I go forward? Do I backward? Make very clear decisions that are guided through an intentionality.

Then swing again with a sharp axe. But if you keep just pushing forward, the axe becomes duller and duller and duller more strength is required and you're not actually making effective or efficient progress. 

Hala Taha: I feel like I'll never forget that story now. Strong. I love that story so much.

 So one of the things that you talk about a lot is consistency, and you talk about the need to be intentional and not mechanical. So walk us through some examples of somebody being mechanical with their consistency and what that would result in versus if you're intentional. 

Nick Bare: I think consistency and being consistent.

It's such a strong ability to harness, but everyone's preaching it. Just be consistent. Just be like, what does that mean? What does it mean to just be consistent? And [00:44:00] my running coach, Jeff Cunningham, who's based on Austin, Texas here, he said this on my podcast years ago. And it clicked so well. And he said It's better to be consistently good than occasionally great.

And sometimes being consistently good isn't sexy, and you're not throwing the hail Mary pass and you're not hitting the home run. And you're not coming out in first every time. Sometimes the most consistent person is middle of the pack and they're not falling behind, but they're doing all the things right and they're moving forward and they're very unassuming, but they're consistently making progress.

And then, I mean, I can think back to high school where you had like the occasionally great athlete who nine times outta 10 would show up looking like a soup sandwich, missed the passes, struck out, wasn't focused, didn't care. But occasionally [00:45:00] they would hit the home run. They would catch the game winning pass and they became the hero, but you couldn't count on them.

Nine times out of 10, it is better to be consistently good than occasionally. Great. And there's a caveat to that where there's a difference between being all in and all consumed. And Jeff also taught me this, where when you're all consumed, like if you have a goal and you're all consumed by it, which I have been many times in my life before, it actually is destructive.

It takes away from, it doesn't add to, and it's different from being obsessed. Being all consumed is where you actually create more harm than good because you can't get out of your own head and you can't distract yourself by being present with your family or friends or your business. Being all in is this hyper focus ability to really be [00:46:00] consistent towards your goals.

Without it being destructive towards your life. And I've had to learn the hard way that being all in is different from being all consumed. Especially now being a husband and a father to two young kids. Life looks very different now than it did four years ago. And you can be consistently good and you can be all in without it being destructive to your life.

'cause I have felt the destructive path. 

Hala Taha: Well, talk to us about how fatherhood changed, how you think about going more. 

Nick Bare: They changed everything. Fatherhood shook up my life in the greatest way possible because when my daughter is born, so my daughter will be three in July, my son will be one in August. And when my daughter was born, it was around the same time that I was stepping down from the CEO role.

And all of these things happened at once because I didn't think that I could be the ambitious entrepreneur. That I wanted to be, and also [00:47:00] a present and content husband and father that I wanted to be. I thought I had to choose between one or the other. Now I realized over time that, well, you can be both and go.

One more for me is the outcome of what that looks like is being a successful entrepreneur, a really strong leader, making decisions, building product, leading the brand through morals and values and ethics, and creating success for myself and other people with me. But it's also being a really dedicated and committed husband and father.

And with that just comes a lot of sacrifice in saying no to a lot of other things. There's not much in my life right now outside of my work, faith and family and my fitness. That's completely okay with me. There's not really any hobbies in my life right now outside of that because [00:48:00] there's something I said this past year or these past two years that connected with so many people, and it's not in the book because the book was written prior to a lot of this.

And it's that if it matters to you, you'll make time. And I, I briefly discussed parts of it in the book, but the whole message of it really didn't develop until recently. And this connected with so much of our audience that if something matters to you, you will make time. And I truly believe that. And if you say your family matters to you, but none of your time and your calendar reflects that well, then does your family really matter to you?

If you say that you wanna build a nine figure business, but your calendar doesn't reflect those priorities, doesn't really matter to you. I believe there's a difference between responsibilities and routines. And before my kids were born, I would get really [00:49:00] caught up in my routines, especially my morning routine.

And when I became a father and I had kids, I realized the hard way that those routines we're oftentimes going to be disrupted and broken. And that's okay. And we have to place our responsibilities in life over routines. And your routines can flex and change and adapt and evolve as long as you consistently prioritize your responsibilities.

And my responsibilities are my family, my business, my faith, my health and fitness. 

Hala Taha: One more question about, go one more, and that is about motivation. You talk about the fact that we need to prove ourself, right, rather than prove others wrong. So talk to us about that.

Nick Bare: This ended up being a brand campaign. We launched a few years ago, and I've never been someone who's been motivated by having a chip on my shoulder or trying to prove others wrong. [00:50:00] I believe some people are motivated to do that and that's okay to each their own, but it, it doesn't work for me. I share it in the book because my hope is that that connects or resonates with some people.

You know, I have never been someone who wants to spend time pursuing a goal or an objective just to prove someone else that I can do it. Like what does it matter if someone else ifs you can or, or can't? 

Hala Taha: 

Nick Bare: One of my favorite things to say and I shared in the book is that doubt is only dangerous when we start doubting ourself.

Everyone can say you can't do something. Everyone in the world can doubt you. Let them think that, but if you allow that doubt from them to. Shift over and transpire into yourself. That's when it dangerous. It's dangerous when you start doubting yourself. And I guess it was 2020, I went for my first sub three hour marathon attempt and above my go.

One more tattoo I wrote in Sharpie marker. You effing can't [00:51:00] Because I didn't believe in myself. And when I do these fitness challenges, I make 'em public. And there was a lot of doubt online from critics on forums all over the place saying, you Nick Bear, will never run a sub three hour marathon. So I went that marathon thinking I'm gonna prove everyone wrong.

So I wrote you f-ing Can't Above my go. One more tattoo. I didn't believe myself. I was setting out for that goal just to prove others that I could, and I missed that goal by 24 minutes. I ran three hours and 24 minutes in that marathon. It's a huge miss. It's not a small miss. 

Hala Taha: 

Nick Bare: So after that I went back to training for another year.

Not because I wanted to prove to else that I could, but to show myself, you can actually do this man. Like you can, you can run sub three. So I trained and I ran two hours, 56 minutes, and I got it. I did it. And I've just learned over the years that if you sit down on a life to consistently keep trying to prove to [00:52:00] everyone else that you can and prove them wrong, and you have a chip on your shoulder, maybe that works for you.

But that does not work for me. And for me, that comes from a, a place of insecurity and weakness as opposed to wanting to be better and reach your full potential and continue to pursue greatness. And it's a small shift in, in just mindset and positioning, which might not seem significant, but it deconstructs and rebuilds the whole framework in which you go to pursue all these other areas and aspects of your life.

Hala Taha: Let's move on to talk about nutrition. Just a few questions about nutrition health. One of the things that I've been really interested in, which is new, is creatine. And I know that's one of the products that you guys sell at BPN. I remember all my guy friends always using creatine, but suddenly now I feel like more girls use it.

Nick Bare: My wife uses it. 

Hala Taha: Yeah. And I'm really excited to try it 'cause I love to work out. And as I'm getting older, I used to feel like I would just do squats [00:53:00] and gain muscle like right away. Now I feel like I need something else to kind of help me build muscle. So talk to us about creatine, the benefits of creatine if men and women need to take it differently or think about it differently.

Nick Bare: I mean, creatine monohydrate is the most studied sports performance supplement in the world. It's been extensively studied. Now there are different forms and purities of creatine monohydrate on the market. The most pure form you can get is called Creapure. Okay. Uh, it comes from this manufacturer called S Chem.

So it's the most pure and safe form of creatine monohydrate in the market. And there's a lot of misconceptions about what creatine does. So many people think, oh, it's just gonna make you hold water. 

Hala Taha: Yeah, I've heard that. Hold water in your muscles 

Nick Bare: and you're gonna go bold and steroid, and all of these things.

The way that creatine works, creatine has so many different benefits, not from just power output and muscular [00:54:00] development and muscular endurance, but there's also studies now showing the benefits for mental processing, uh, and mental acuity. And I believe that everyone can benefit from creatine monohydrate.

So when you consume creatine and the typical dose is three to five grams per day, it doesn't really matter when you take it, it doesn't necessarily have acute benefits. Mm-hmm. Like you take caffeine. And you feel the effects of caffeine in 20, 30 minutes. Creatine doesn't work that way. Creatine loads into the muscle.

So when you consume creatine, it is stored in the muscle in what's called creatine phosphate. So it's stored in the muscle. And when you train, when you work out, you're breaking down the energy source of a TP. And as you're working out and you're breaking down a TP, it's degraded and it loses a phosphate molecule.

The way a creatine works is it's stored in the muscle. It sees that a TP is degraded, breaking down, so it [00:55:00] donates a phosphate molecule mm-hmm. To regenerate a TP. So you have more muscular energy and ability. And because creatine is stored in the muscle, it will store some water with it. But it's storing water intracellular intramuscular, where you want it.

Which is great for the muscle, so you should look fuller and maybe bigger and stronger, but it's not subcutaneous where it's like under the skin. 

Hala Taha: 

Nick Bare: And it's making you look watery. It should make you look and feel fuller, more muscular. 

Hala Taha: Yeah. I'm excited to try it. So I think a lot of people tuning in are like me. They're entrepreneurs. They work out, maybe they don't train. I know there's difference between working out and train. They might be in really great physical health because I feel like a lot of high achievers are. What would you recommend in terms of supplements and what would you say are typically the big mistakes you see in people's nutrition?

Nick Bare: Biggest mistakes people make in nutrition? It's like a bunch of different ways you can take this. I think what's hard right now for so many people [00:56:00] is that they're being fed so much different. Yeah. Contradict, yeah. Information. 

Hala Taha: Yeah. It's like, can't eat anything. 

Nick Bare: there's this fear mongering online of every food is going to.

Make you sick or you should fear it. Do you eat meat? Do you not eat meat, do you, do you eat meat? Do you plant-based? Do you like only eat meat? Should you avoid seed oils at all costs? Should you go organic, non-organic? There's like so much out there and I think you just have to find what works for you and what you prefer.

I prefer a diet that's well-rounded of meats. I mean, I love cooking meat. I could probably eat all meat for my diet, but meats, I eat lots of lean red meat. I incorporate eggs into my diet, whole grains, oats, fruits, vegetables. I'm an endurance athlete, so high carb. Yep. Moderate protein, moderate fat. And that for me works like I like a well-balanced approach.

For some people that might not work and they don't enjoy [00:57:00] that. So I think you have to find a diet that works for you, that you enjoy, that you feel good with, but also isn't deficient in the macronutrients that you need to fuel your body. The macronutrients are proteins, fats and carbs. They all serve a different role.

And then micronutrients as well. And for most people, I don't think you have to get caught up in the deficiencies of micronutrients. You're gonna experience, you can get blood work done if you want to, but I think if you focus on just a well-rounded diet, it's gonna point you in a, a good direction. Mm-hmm.

Most of us know what we should be eating. 

Hala Taha: 

Nick Bare: It's just making the decision to do that. And I think most people can set themselves up for success by meal prepping. 

And having the right foods in their house at the right times. Living here in Austin, we have accessibility to. Great foods. I saw just around the corner, there's this store called Local Pastures. Which I don't know if you've ever been there. 

Hala Taha: I've never been there. 

Nick Bare: Yeah. Highly recommend it. Where they have the best eggs [00:58:00] there that are like open pasture, fresh eggs, cage free, a lot of organic grass fed meats and produce, and There's also a really cool grocery store in Butcher in East Austin called Radius.

Hala Taha: 

Nick Bare: dunno if you've checked that out yet. 

Hala Taha: No, I'm so new. I don't know anything. 

Nick Bare: I get all the, the food. 

Hala Taha: Yeah. You gotta let me know. 

Nick Bare: Grocery store where I'm, I'm a big foodie myself. 

Hala Taha: 

Nick Bare: I also, I love going out to dinner with my wife and friends and family and enjoying a meal. And I don't get too rigid or strict with that.

And I believe food should be celebrated and enjoyed. But 90% of the food, maybe 95% of my food and diet is, it's dialed in, it's accounted for. It's, it's fueling my body. I look at foods in terms of like, how is this gonna make me feel? Not necessarily what am I craving, but like how is this gonna make me feel?

And then I crave a certain feeling, like I know if I'm gonna for lunch, eat some rice and some veggies and some [00:59:00] ground elk or bison or beef, and maybe some hummus with that. that's gonna make me feel really good. I crave that feeling as opposed to like, I'm gonna go crush two double cheeseburgers.

It's gonna taste really good, but I have this association with a feeling that drives my, cravings. That's where most people should start with diet. Don't get all caught up in the minutia, but it's important to find what works for you, what you actually enjoy, and then educate yourself around food and nutrition through credible people and resources.

So I believe that's the first step there for me, like having. A whey protein powder or a plant-based protein powder in the house is like a non-negotiable, like you have to, in my opinion, have that. Getting enough protein in our diet helps with building lean muscle tissue, keeping you full for longer.

If you go and make a protein shake or a protein sludge bowl, that's gonna keep you full and [01:00:00] fueled and filled up for longer than just going to eat some simple carbs. So having a protein powder source in the house for convenience, 

Hala Taha: 

Nick Bare: Is super beneficial. Creatine is another one of the products that I believe everyone should have. I'm personally a big fan of Omega-3 fatty acids from fish oil. So I take fish oils every day that are concentrated in EPA and DHA, great for the heart, the mind, the body. I take a multivitamin every day just to ensure. All of my nutritional insurance is covered. And not deficient anything throughout the day or the week or or my life.

And then from there it's what are your specific goals? Are you trying to solve for digestive issues? Are you an endurance athlete? Do you need carbohydrates and electrolytes and fuel sources around your training? The minimums for everyone are lower. But then goal specific, [01:01:00] independent, what do you need supplements for?

Hala Taha: Mm-hmm. 

Nick Bare: That you can't get in your diet. Like for me, if I'm in a big endurance training block for an Iron Man or an ultra or a marathon, I need electrolytes. I need endurance gels. I need carbohydrate powders because my energy demands are much higher. And those products help facilitate higher performance demands and needs.

So like I think that's the best way to approach the, what are the minimums? To cover your bases, protein, multivitamins, fish oil, creatine. And then from there, what are your goals and what products do you need to support those goals? 

Hala Taha: Hmm. That makes a lot of sense. That's smart. Okay, I wanna end our conversation with a fun game called Supplement This.

So basically I'm gonna throw out a common challenge that entrepreneurs face, and then I want you to give us the solution with supplements. So if I say like burnout, you can say, okay, the solution might be taking a pause, [01:02:00] taking more breaks, whatever. Okay. So you can just, ingredients can be hypothetical, not like real food or anything like that.

Okay. Ready? 

Nick Bare: I'm ready. 

Hala Taha: Okay. How about somebody who's afraid to launch their business? How would you supplement this 

Nick Bare: action? We all have these curiosities and that curiosity will always be a curiosity if you don't have the courage to take action. I believe courage is the answer to many. Of life's problems. Apply courage when you have a curiosity, because a curiosity will maintain and be a curiosity as long as you just wish and hope for it. So courage and action. Apply courage and action. 

Hala Taha: How about somebody who feels like an imposter? They wanna be a creator, entrepreneur, but they feel like an imposter. 

Nick Bare: Just accept the fact that we all go through that everyone feels like an imposter at some point. That's one of the reasons I stepped down from the CEO role of my business. Hmm. That's why I struggled creating YouTube videos in the beginning. [01:03:00] I wish people could see what the early years of YouTube looked like. I remember this one night, the first year I started YouTube. I was afraid to film anything outside of my apartment 'cause vlogging wasn't really a thing then.

And it took me years to get comfortable walking around in public, holding a camera. Where I got really comfortable with that was actually South Korea because I realized no one really knew what I was saying or could understand me, and I felt like I was invisible. In 2014, I remember setting up my tripod in my apartment, speaking to the camera 'cause I won't take that camera outside of the apartment.

And somebody, one of my neighbors was passing by and they looked into my window and they saw me filming myself. And I was so embarrassed that they saw me. And in that moment I felt so stupid that I was embarrassed that someone who I didn't know and didn't know me was looking at me. And I just assumed that they were making fun of me even though they weren't.

And we create these narratives in our head that everyone [01:04:00] cares what we are doing and is thinking about us all the time. And the reality is they're not. So if you think you are an a posture and that people think you're an imposter, they're not spending that much time or energy thinking about you. I can promise you that.

It's in your head, it's in your head. So just be okay with being an imposter and the new person early on. I love being the new guy now. I love being vulnerable and putting myself in positions that I don't know what I'm doing. And if you get. Become okay admitting that. Like, show up somewhere and say, I'm new to this, I don't know what I'm doing.

Can someone help me? Ask me for help. Automatically it says I'm starting at baseline. Everything from here is up in growth. Be you wanna be the new guy in, in certain positions in places, be okay with that. 

Hala Taha: Let's say your business is stagnant. Your business is not growing. 

Nick Bare: There's a reason I used to tell myself that there was this three year business growth rule.

'cause people [01:05:00] told me, oh, don't worry, you know, this first couple years, don't worry. It takes three years for business to really start getting off the ground. And I bought into that. So year two, I thought, well, I'm not the three year mark yet. Mm. It's just gonna take time. Three year mark, no growth yet. Uh, like people told me, it takes three years.

What's going on? You have to have the ability to take responsibility for lack of growth if something's stagnant. It's not the market's fault. I hate that excuse. Mm-hmm. Oh, the market's not primed right now. Yeah. You have to be able to identify that you are responsible, take accountability. You're probably gonna have to make some sort of change or pivot and just continue to find resources and tools and learn and test and try and see what works.

One of my favorite podcasts is Founders Host is David sra. I can't remember who he quoted in this, this one episode, but he said that change breaks the brittle and that [01:06:00] if you aren't willing to change, what that quote means is if you aren't willing to change and if change scares you, it is going to break you 'cause it's a weakness.

So the strongest people or the most successful people, the most durable people, are okay with change. They embrace change. They allow change to be an invitation and not a threat. It's one of the ways I describe it in the book, and if you view change as necessary. You'll make decisions and you'll do things when growth stops and halts and ceases and lean into that as an opportunity.

Hala Taha: And being honest with yourself about things need to change, things aren't going well, you've gotta change something in order to progress. 

Nick Bare: Right. 

Hala Taha: Okay, last one. Now what if you're an entrepreneur who feels like they have no energy, wake up every day with no energy, no drive. How would you supplement this?

Nick Bare: Well, I think all entrepreneurs are pretty tired. Uh, so, so like that type of energy, I would say [01:07:00] that probably feels normal, especially as responsibilities grow. But in terms of like having the drive and purpose, I think you have to be honest with yourself. Am I doing something that I truly love? Am I truly passionate about it?

Someone once told me, if you're doing something you don't like, change it. But if you can't change it, change the way you think about it. That has always stuck with me. Like there are certain parts of our life, especially as entrepreneurs, we have to do things that we don't wanna do. 90% of my job is doing things that I don't wanna do, but how do you shift the way you view it and position it to realize that it contributes to a greater cause and good, but if you can't find passion in what you're doing ever, or appreciation, it might be a point in time where it's time to pivot.

I referenced Lewis House in my book and he talks about identity, foreclosure, and I think a lot of people are afraid of identity foreclosure, where like, you're doing this thing for so long, this job [01:08:00] and this job becomes part of your identity, but you don't like it. You, you try to change what you think about it, but you still don't like it.

So many people are afraid of saying, okay, I'm, I'm done with this. I'm gonna go do something else. And certain situations in life, you just can't do that. If you have responsibilities, you have a family, you have. People you have to take care of. I get it. But if you can make that change, close that identity that you've created for so long shift and do something new that brings life to you.

Because I don't wanna be looking back on my deathbed thinking like, oh, I, I did this job for 40 years that I hated just to make a certain amount of money. Mm-hmm. That's a wasted life. 

Hala Taha: Yeah. A lot of founders, especially first time founders, you forget that you can sell your company, start something new. 

Nick Bare: Yeah. 

Hala Taha: Where do you see BPN in 10 years? 

Nick Bare: I set all of our goals for actually 10 year targets, and I just reset all of our 10 year targets this past year. So I, I referenced a lot of books. I read a lot of books. But one of my favorite books is [01:09:00] that I read in the past two years is be 2.0. Mm-hmm. Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0 by Jim Collins.

That book transformed my business this past year. Chapter four is all about vision. Jim says there's three components to vision. It's core values, purpose and goals. Core values and purpose shouldn't change more than one time, every 100 years. Goals are 10 to 25 year targets. So we we hit 10. 

Hala Taha: Wow. That's like really long vision.

Nick Bare: Exactly. Yeah. So like some of our tenure targets are that we are the most respected and trusted endurance consumer brand in the world. We are known as the Nike or Apple of endurance performance. We sell more endurance gels than all other competitors, and this is by 2035. And that we inspire more lifters to be runners and more runners to be lifters and that G one M Sport and the extensions of G one M Sport.

Fall under that product offering line. [01:10:00] That product line alone is a hundred million in revenue. 

Hala Taha: 

Nick Bare: By 2035. So those are where we wanna be in 10 years, owning the endurance performance space, being the most trusted and respected endurance consumer brand in the world. And the reason it's so important to define and write down vision is because your team that can then go operate and create strategy and tactics, knowing that they are aligned with the core values, the purpose, and the goals of the organization.

Mm-hmm. And if that's not defined, then people, teams, departments will create strategy and tactics that might be aligned with your vision. It's hard to tell if it's not clearly defined. 

Hala Taha: And it's great that it's not changing very often 'cause I know one big complaint from people is, oh, my goals are always changing, so I don't know what to do and, and then things get messy. So having these consistent goals that are so long term, yeah. I feel like is really valuable. 

Nick Bare: Yeah. I agree. 

Hala Taha: If somebody never buys a single product from you, but they follow your [01:11:00] brand, what do you hope to leave them with or inspire them with 

Nick Bare: the power of going more and that there's a realization that there is so much power and ability in the decisions we make in our lifetime.

There's millions and millions and millions of decisions, some way more than others and can shift the trajectory more than others. But we have a responsibility to be very intentional with the decisions we make because my goal in life is to create a legacy that I'm proud of. When I'm old that I'm trusted and respected and that my kids want to be with me.

Mm-hmm. My wife wants to be with me regardless of how much money I make or how big the business is. And if people can implement the action of going more, but also understand the power and the outcome, I believe that can guide the trajectory of people's lives to a place where they can be really proud of the [01:12:00] legacy they leave.

Hala Taha: I ask two questions at the end of all my shows to my guests. The first one is, what is one actionable thing our young and profits can do today to become more profitable tomorrow? 

Nick Bare: I mean, I'm a brand guy, so I would say you have to recognize that we're all building brands and that brand is much different than product brand has a heartbeat.

Brand bleeds brand has DNA. You build a brand in drops and you lose it in buckets. And to be profitable and to build a really strong business doesn't matter what business you're in. I believe that building a brand through storytelling and connecting with an audience is extremely powerful and beneficial.

And that brand needs to be focused through a vision, hyper-focused through a vision. 

Hala Taha: And what would you say your secret to profiting in life is? And this can go beyond business advice. 

Nick Bare: I honestly [01:13:00] think it's consistency. I say this very humbly. I'm a very consistent person. You will never see me winning races.

You'll rarely see me being the occasionally great. But I can promise you I am always very consistently good. Even in terms of my running, I wake up every morning and I go for my run regardless if I want to or not. Whether I got one hour of sleep the night before, or eight hours of sleep the night before.

Because I find so much power in being consistently good. And you might not see the benefit from it in a week, a month, or even a year. But I've been building my business now for 13 years. Yeah. And just being consistently good for 13 years can take you quite far. 

Hala Taha: 60 million in revenue, annual revenue. I mean, that's huge. It compounds a lot. 

Nick Bare: It does. Yeah. 

Hala Taha: That's amazing. Nick, this has been such an awesome conversation. I really enjoyed it. I think our listeners are gonna love it. Where can everybody learn more about you and everything that you [01:14:00] do? 

Nick Bare: So on YouTube, if you search Nick Bear, I've been documenting my life literally since 2014.

Uh, over a thousand videos there. So the whole story is there. 

Hala Taha: Can we see those early videos in that warehouse? 

Nick Bare: Oh yeah. they're all still there. 

Hala Taha: Amazing. 

Nick Bare: We've kept 'em all up. My company's website is. VPN subs.com and then Instagram. It's Nick Bear Fitness. And then my book Go. One more launches. June 24th, 2025. 

Hala Taha: We'll stick all those links in the show notes. I think this will be out by the time we put out the episode. So everybody go grab that book. Go one more. And thank you so much, Nick. 

Nick Bare: Thank you. Appreciate it. 

Hala Taha: Well, young and profits, what an incredible conversation with Nick Bear. A true example of what happens when you stop making excuses and start making moves. Nick's journey from army barracks to building a multimillion dollar brand reminded us that success isn't just about having perfect conditions. It's about showing up consistently, especially when nobody is watching.

You [01:15:00] make time for what matters and consistently prioritize what matters to you and the goals that you have. What really struck me today was his distinction between being consistently good versus occasionally great. So many of us get caught in chasing those big breakthrough moments, but Nick built bPN by making the choice to show up.

Every single day. Whether that meant filming YouTube videos from his barracks or grinding through the unglamorous parts of building a business,

as Nick put it, doubt is only dangerous when you start doubting yourself. And he's absolutely right. Courage and action is the answer to life's many problems. The strongest people embrace change, and that's exactly what Nick demonstrated throughout his journey. I loved how he redefined what it means to go.

One more, I. It's not just about doing more for the sake of it or pushing until you break. It's about the moment when you want to quit. When your mind is telling you that you're done and you choose to just push a little bit further, that's where growth really happens. [01:16:00] So here's my challenge to you, young and profits.

What's your one more moment gonna be today? Where can you just push a little bit further than you think you can? Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Young and Profiting. If you listen, learned and profited from this powerful conversation with the inspiring Nick Bear, do us a favor and share this episode with somebody who needs a reminder that consistency, discipline, and courage can change everything.

And if you enjoyed this show and picked up something valuable, we'd be so grateful if you dropped us a five star review on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen to the show. Your support helps us reach more people who want to profit in life. And if you guys like to watch your videos on YouTube, head to our YouTube channel, subscribe.

And drop us a comment on your favorite video. You'll find all of our episodes on there. You can also find me on Instagram at yap with Hala or LinkedIn. Just search for my name. It's Hala Taha. And of course I have to thank my amazing Yap production team. It takes a village to put on this podcast. So thank you for all that you do.

This is your host, [01:17:00] Hala Taha, AKA, the podcast princess signing off.