My First Million - Nick Bare Reveals How To Get Jacked & Run Sub-3 Marathons ft. Sahil Bloom

Episode Date: January 8, 2024

Episode 538: Sam Parr (https://twitter.com/theSamParr) nerds out on fitness with Nick Bare and Sahil Bloom. They answer listeners questions about training techniques, blood doping, and the worst things about fitness influencers and the trends they create.  No more small boy spreadsheets, build your business on the free HubSpot CRM: https://mfmpod.link/hrd — Show Notes: (0:00) Intro (1:00) Is Nick natural? (4:00) Genetics vs. Effort (12:30) Changing your brain chemistry (14:30) Monthly burn rates (20:00) Biggest health and fitness mistakes (29:00) The truth about running (35:00) Designing your workout program (40:30) Who are Sahil and Nick's influencers (51:00) Running a sub-3 hour marathon (1:04:00) The media machine behind BPN (1:10:00) The business of supplements (1:18:00) Outsourcing CEOs — Links: • Nick Bare Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/nickbarefitness/ • Sahil Bloom Twitter - https://twitter.com/SahilBloom • Bare Performance Nutrition - https://www.bareperformancenutrition.com/ • Winning - http://tinyurl.com/jpxe2c39 • The Speed Project - https://www.instagram.com/thespeedproject/ • Carbon Diet Coach - https://www.joincarbon.com/ • Perplexity - https://www.perplexity.ai/ • Trust - http://tinyurl.com/2s3sxuu3 • Eric Cressey - https://ericcressey.com/ • Ben Bruno - https://benbruno.com/ • Zach Rocheleau - https://www.instagram.com/theflexibledietinglifestyle/ • CREAMi - http://tinyurl.com/y65x3uub — Check Out Shaan's Stuff: • Try Shepherd Out - https://www.supportshepherd.com/ • Shaan's Personal Assistant System - http://shaanpuri.com/remoteassistant • Power Writing Course - https://maven.com/generalist/writing • Small Boy Newsletter - https://smallboy.co/ • Daily Newsletter - https://www.shaanpuri.com/ Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/ • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/ • Copy That - https://copythat.com • Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth Past guests on My First Million include Rob Dyrdek, Hasan Minhaj, Balaji Srinivasan, Jake Paul, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Gary Vee, Lance Armstrong, Sophia Amoruso, Ariel Helwani, Ramit Sethi, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Diamandis, Dharmesh Shah, Brian Halligan, Marc Lore, Jason Calacanis, Andrew Wilkinson, Julian Shapiro, Kat Cole, Codie Sanchez, Nader Al-Naji, Steph Smith, Trung Phan, Nick Huber, Anthony Pompliano, Ben Askren, Ramon Van Meer, Brianne Kimmel, Andrew Gazdecki, Scott Belsky, Moiz Ali, Dan Held, Elaine Zelby, Michael Saylor, Ryan Begelman, Jack Butcher, Reed Duchscher, Tai Lopez, Harley Finkelstein, Alexa von Tobel, Noah Kagan, Nick Bare, Greg Isenberg, James Altucher, Randy Hetrick and more. — Other episodes you might enjoy: • #224 Rob Dyrdek - How Tracking Every Second of His Life Took Rob Drydek from 0 to $405M in Exits • #209 Gary Vaynerchuk - Why NFTS Are the Future • #178 Balaji Srinivasan - Balaji on How to Fix the Media, Cloud Cities & Crypto • #169 - How One Man Started 5, Billion Dollar Companies, Dan Gilbert's Empire, & Talking With Warren Buffett • ​​​​#218 - Why You Should Take a Think Week Like Bill Gates • Dave Portnoy vs The World, Extreme Body Monitoring, The Future of Apparel Retail, "How Much is Anthony Pompliano Worth?", and More • How Mr Beast Got 100M Views in Less Than 4 Days, The $25M Chrome Extension, and More

All right, everyone, what's happening? This is Sam. So on today's pod, I did something very selfish. So I've got these two friends. One is named Nick Bear. So you probably have seen Nick on Instagram or on YouTube. He's got millions of followers. And he owns this company called BPN, Bear Performance, Nutrition. They do something like $60 million a year in sales. So he's a really successful entrepreneur. But he's like a fitness fanatic. So he looks like a bodybuilder. But he's runs the marathon in like two hours and 39 minutes, which is a freakish time. But it's also freakish considering how big he is. And then we have Sahil Bloom, who's another buddy of mine, who's really popular on social media on Twitter. He's a writer. You probably have seen them all over the place.

And I just nerded out on fitness with these guys. We also talked a little bit about business. So we asked the typical questions like, where do you guys spend your money? How much you spend each month? Where do you like to invest your money? We talked about their companies and how they're growing. And we did a lot of business stuff.

But most of this was about fitness. And I just asked them all the fitness questions that I had. I had a bunch of listeners. Send me questions. And I think it was a great time. and it was really fun to learn about what these guys are doing for training. Hopefully inspire you. So, anyway, check out the pot.

I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off. On the road, let's travel. Can I ask you? So I tweeted out that you guys were coming on, and I got a bunch of questions. They range from personal finance, fitness, business, all types of stuff. I want to ask you guys both, a couple questions.

I'm going to start, which I'm going to start with one. That sounds like the hardest, but I actually think it's the easy. is because you answer this all the time. And I'll preface this by saying, I've seen your father in videos. I've seen your brother in videos. And I've seen you in real life. And so I think I know what the answer is because I know the genetics that you come from. But someone said, generally curious, how can Nick be natural given his performance? Please press him on this. And so you constantly get asked if you're natural. I know you've answered it constantly, but just humor me for,

because this was a very, a lot of people asked this question. I am natural, and I used to address these, these callouts and questions and claims all the time, because I would get defensive in it. Like, it was all the time.

It's been like that, since I started creating content. I even went to the extent of sharing blood work every month. I was going and getting blood work every month, and I would share it on my videos during my bulk in my cut. And people, like, oh, he's faking. He's fine.

He's finding workarounds. I'm like, guys. So I finally have gotten to a point where I'm just over addressing the questions and the claims and the hate around it. And I'm just going to do my thing. Like, even in this last marathon, people were like, he's using EPO. What is that? Like blood doping.

I'm like, what amateur, what amateur athlete you know that's running marathons, run marathons is taking EPO and blood doping. But then you're like, how do I get that? Does anyone have a guy? I'm like, yeah, I'm like, where do you get EPO? I don't even know where you'd get that. I mean, I've seen you in real life.

You just have, I think you're just a freak genetically. And I would be honored if someone asked if I was on a bunch of stuff. That would make me feel wonderful. Dude, also, by the way, like my thing with this always is, I have a few friends who everyone says this about. They're like, oh, they, you know, definitely not natural. And I just know for a fact that that person has just outworked me in the gym on a daily basis for the last like 10 fucking years. Excuse my language.

And not by like a ton, but by a little bit every single day for 10 years. And that adds up to something insane. And it looks like a totally different human being. So like when I see a dude that has way bigger shoulders than me or way bigger chest, like I know that they probably did that extra set or they did the extra two reps. that I was just like, oh, six is good and stopped. And so, like, I just, I think it's such a cop out when people freak out about, like, oh, are you natural or not? But the reality is like...

Sometimes they don't because genetics are real. Like, for example... Genetics are real, but like... Genetics are, like, definitely a real thing. Like, the bare genetics are solid. Dude, your dad ran like a sub-six mile. I don't remember what age he is, but he was some, you know, he was a grown man. And he still was huge.

Like, you got... Then I saw your brother. Your brother looked like he competed in the Strongman games. I mean, you guys are just huge. Yes, my dad's 60. My uncle, his brother is 57. If you saw both of them with their shirts off after running, they've still both run marathons, half marathons.

I mean, six-pack abs, chiseled arms and shoulders. They don't take anything. They're not on TRT or any of that stuff. They're just like farm boys who grew up in central Pennsylvania, milking cows and bail and hay. Well, dude, listen to this. So Sahel texted me. I nerded out with him.

Oh, yeah, this is good. I go, dude, I just hung out with Nick Bear. And it was amazing. And Sahel was like, yeah, he's, you know, he looks great, whatever. But how tall is he? And I was like, I'm pretty sure he's my height or just like an inch shorter. So he's pretty tall. And I sent him this picture.

And I remember in that photo, I think, I think, Nick, you were at like your weakest. You were about to run a marathon. I was at my strongest. And our squats and bench were like almost the same. I think you did five pounds ahead. And you just like looked so much better. And, you know, we're like, this sucks that like we're kind of comparable, I guess, in terms of the strength.

But like, he just, he just has it. You just has it. Like, you just have whatever it is that you just, you look good. I appreciate that. Genetics are real. Ari's laughing at me. Being tan helps, Sam. Sam, you got to get a tan, man.

You're too pale to, you're too pale to have good looking abs. That's genetics, man. That's another genetic subpoena. He just has it. And so, I don't know. Everyone in the comments are going to make fun of me that I'm just like flirting with you. But, you know, I'm just saying what people think. Genetics are like a real thing.

You can take person A, person B, different genetics, same work ethic, same diet, same training program. And you're not going to get the same results. People send me messages all the time. They're like, I eat exactly what you eat. I train exactly the way you train. I run exactly the same miles as you. Well, you don't look the same.

Oh, yeah, because genetically, we are not. not the same. We have different DNA, so it's going to have different results. It doesn't mean you shouldn't eat right and train and try to do your best. But, like, I will give genetics the credit they deserve, but also I am one of the most consistent people I know in terms of training and recovery and diet. Like, my diet is dialed in. I still enjoy myself.

Like, me and my wife will go for dinner. I'll get some drinks. I'll, like, order the whole menu and try everything. I love food. I'm a big foodie. But my diet, 90% of time, is so regimented and dialed in. I'm eating my meals when I'm not hungry. I'm eating my meals when I know I need nutrition to fuel workouts.

Like, it is, for me, a lifestyle that I truly love and embrace. Are you like that style? Are you as dialed anything? Yeah. I mean, I'm just like, I probably have a similar. or wiring to you. Like I kind of have like an obsessive personality. And so when I,

when I commit to something or dive in on it, it's going to piss off everyone around me because I'm like, if we were traveling during the day and I get home at 10 p.m., but I had a six mile run to do, I'm going out at 10 p.m. and have to go hit the run.

And it's not a question. And like if I get home at midnight, but I'm the type of person that wakes up at four and gets in my cold plunge, I'm waking up at four and getting in my cold plunge. And I feel the same way as you in general on the genetics thing, although I will say, like when people say,

oh, I do the same workouts as you, I run the same miles, I did the same thing, I call bullshit. I just don't like, I've trained super hard my whole life, but there are people that I just know have trained harder than me because I know, like, in the back of my mind,

I know for sure that like, I could have probably done two more reps on something, but I like was working out on my own in my home gym and I just like took it easy. And that two reps compounded over five years makes a difference to the point. on time being a lever. And so I'm honest enough with myself on some things where, like with running, I post all my stats. And so there's no hiding, right? Like if I'm going to post my Coros,

you know, screenshot or whatever on my Instagram from any run workout, I can't hide from whether or not I put in the right amount of effort on that workout. But lifting, I can totally hide from it. Like I'm not, you can't see all the stats exactly on what I did and how many reps I hit or whatever it was. And so it's also just like the accountability. that comes with sharing things publicly on your progress, that I feel like for you, like you've been basically doing that for, what, six, seven, eight years? Like you've been showing your process in public

and the accountability that comes from that, that people are out there waiting, like, oh, what's next, next thing? What's he going after? Is he going to hit his goal? That adds a whole lot of fire. Like, when you're running Sim and you're struggling mile 20 and you're like, this isn't for me. Like, I have a million people out there that want to see me get this two,

39 done. So I'm going to go do it. I mean, that's why we included a small clip in the video after that race was over. But that's why these, when you hit your goal in a race or you hit your goal in anything, it feels so good when you hit it because you know the work that went in.

And all I kept saying after I got across that finish line at CIM, I kept saying, man, I'm so fucking proud of that. I'm so proud of that one. Because, like, you know all the work that goes into it, the early mornings, hitting your workouts, making sure you hit your, your, your paces, making sure you fueled properly the night before those big workouts. And when I was at like mile 20, I knew I was, I was running sub 240. The guy, I just knew I was on pace. I was like,

I could hold on for another six miles. And I could feel this lump just like forming in my throat. It's getting emotional. So I was thinking, man, all this work. Like, this is why I did it. I'm holding 605 paces at mile 20 with six miles left, like home stretch. And when you finally hit that goal and it's because of the work you put in, there is nothing that replaces that. My dad and I have been really close my whole life. And I played baseball in college, Nick, in case we hadn't talked about that. And when I had to retire because I was hurt, the hardest thing was

telling my dad, because so much of our relationship had been built around the sport and built around, you know, him coming to all my practices, taking me to all my lessons, all that stuff over the years. And he told me at the time, like, I don't care. I'm going to be there to cheer you on and whatever your next thing is in life. And at my marathon, he surprised me and flew out for it. And I remember, like, those last six miles, I was hurting so, so bad. And all I was thinking and the whole time was like, I got to get to my dad. He's at the finish line.

He's there waiting for me. And when I crossed the finish line and I had done it, I'd gone sub three. He was standing there. And I like broke down completely. I like all of the emotion that you hold in from that, you know, from trying to get to something like struggling through it,

hitting your goal. That emotion, like it's completely unparalleled. Like nothing I've ever experienced in life, just that rush. I think it's why people keep signing up in doing races or signing up and committing to hard things is because when you finally accomplish it,

it's like I reference this part of this book all the time because I think it's so applicable, but in Tim Grover's book, winning, he talks about achieving your first win. And when you achieve that first win, no matter what it is, it builds this little ounce of confidence. So then you set out to achieve another win,

but that win is larger and more ambitious and it requires more work, more effort, but when you finally get it, it builds more confidence. And you keep applying this thing over years and years and years, and you keep pushing out

what that win is and could be through the process of succeeding and failing and winning and losing, you build this massive amount of confidence or you finally get to a point thinking, oh, I can actually do whatever I want to do. That's a really powerful position to be in. That's why I always say there's no such thing as a loser who wakes up at 5 a.m. and works out.

Because it is so hard to do. And if you are losing in life and you're not happy with where you are, get up early and work out for two weeks. You piss me off so much when you say that because I get out of bed at 7 or 8, but I'll be doing stuff until 1 a.m. Whenever you see that, I feel so guilty. But I'm not saying it on the other end that you can't win. I'm saying if you're not happy with your position in life, one of the biggest reasons is that you need to change yourself identity. right? Like you need to start identifying as a winner. Exactly what Nick said. Like you need to create evidence that proves to yourself that you're a winner. And waking up early and working out is the easiest way to do that. And like, it still sucks. But if you do that for a week, you immediately are like, oh, wow, I can do that. That's one hard thing that I do. I'm like, you start to change your brain chemistry around who you are as a person.

Dude, I feel so shitty. I'll wake up. I'll look at Instagram and I'll be like, all right, I just got up at eight. And then I see Nick post. And it's like, I think on Saturday or something, it's like, Dude, he just ran eight miles. He just ran 72 miles at a 615 pace. He'll, like his Instagram post. I'm a shit. And fed his daughter, a great meal. Yeah, like he does all this problem even awake. But in my head, I'm like, that bitch is going to bed at nine, though.

I'm going to fuck him up between 10 and 1 a.m. I am a morning person. I am not a night owl by any means. But now my daughter is born and she's getting older. If I don't wake up at 5, and work out, there's a chance that it might not get done. So, like, right now we're going

through this sleep regression where she's waking up at the oddest times and screaming her head off in the night. It's like, last night, woke up in the middle of the night, gave her a bottle, put her down. She didn't want me to leave her room, so I ended up sleeping the rest of the night

next to her crib. My alarm went off at 5. I was like, all right, here we go. Went downstairs, went through my routine, went out for my run. Ugh. There's nothing to, that makes me more sick to my stomach than morning air. Let me ask you guys, let me ask you guys

a quick question. This will be, it's met for Nick, but Saha, I want to hear your answer too. Nick covers all fitness and diet stuff extensively on his channel, but I want to know his monthly burn. So what he spends his money on and where he puts his money, invest his money outside of BPM. So investing wise, at this point in my life, I haven't gotten to a point where I have any personal interest in investing. So I just hire a financial advisor. and he takes care of all of my investments for me. Maybe at some point I'll actually be curious and explore that curiosity,

but like I work with a guy. We make a budget. So just index funds probably. Yeah, I'm just like, take this money, put it where you think it's going to make me some money. Other than that, I mean, most of my money I'm spending is either going towards

my mortgage, investing back into the business, my personal brand, and mainly food, to be honest. Like me and my wife. How much she spent per month on food? Just groceries?

Maybe like, it's hard to say because we'll do like one big grocery hall a week. Then I go like every other day to the grocery store. And I'm going like these exclusive like butcher shops here in Nashville. So like maybe I spend $2,500 a month on groceries. But then we're going on to dinner and like when we go on to dinner, it's we want every appetizer, every entree. We're going to sample stuff, getting a few cocktails. I was like, that's our thing is we love experiences like that. And we'll do some big vacations every year.

But I'm not going out and buying a lot of materialistic things right now. It's more so on experiences. So you haven't gotten on the no alcohol train, Nick? Nope. To be honestly, I really have no interest on the no alcohol train. Like, I'm not a big drinker. But like, if me and my wife are going to date night on Thursday, because Thursday's our date night night.

I'll get one drink, maybe two drinks, but I really, really never drink over two drinks, ever. Wait, do you drink Sahel? I'm the same way as Nick. Like, I think, like, when it enhances the experience with the person you're with, I love it. And then I just, I've cut all, like, drink by myself at home out of my life. Yeah, I don't do any drinking by myself.

but if I'm with a group of people and we're having like an old-fashioned or opening a bottle of wine, I do think it enhances the experience and conversations always good and it lightens the mood a little bit and just allows you to relax.

What's your style? What's your answer to that question? What do you do? You do your money the same thing I do. You just are in Vanguard and decks, right? Yeah, I mean, we were like, I was much more fun, with my money when I was in my private equity days

because then it was like I don't know, I was just like freewheeling in my 20s doing whatever the hell and then we had a kid and I was like I should probably start just being really boring with this and I feel like you influenced me in this like we're in this group chat altogether with a bunch of absolute degenerate

and they all like sling their money into the most degenerate stuff and they're always texting the thread like this is the best new opportunity by like a million dollars of aluminum or a million dollars of some shit that I'd never even heard of. And without fail, by the way, like six months later,

it's at its all time low. Like, this thing just absolutely tanks. Yeah, it's stupid. Or little short stuff or whatever. I don't even know what did they do. But it's like these terminology that I don't even understand. I mean, it goes back to, like, the fundamental thing is, like, you should spend more time figuring out how to increase your income

versus, like, what your returns are investing for the vast majority of people. Because that's a much bigger lever for your level. long-term financial wealth. That's what I did for a while. I just focused on how to make more money, how to build revenue streams. And then it got to a point where, like, I was finally ready to start investing

and I was able to invest or put away a lot of money a month that I didn't need to spend or have liquid. Yeah, and it's just like, I just like to not have to think about where that is, though. Like, yeah, I do that too. I just want it to sit in, like, I basically wanted to just track an index and just go sit there.

To the burn question, Sam, we probably spend like, I don't know, 20, 30 a month or something like that, all in on everything. And grocery is probably similar to Nick. We probably spend three to five a month on food. I don't even know. I don't know what my monthly spend is at the moment, but maybe 20, but I can see why New York would be significantly higher. But you're about to get on the northeast grind, right? Yeah, I'm thinking about moving up there. And I'm looking at the difference in prices.

And like it's, it's, it's pretty meaningful compared to Texas. Yeah. Are they not going to the city? So my in-laws live around in this in Manhattan. And I frankly hate Manhattan. I like Brooklyn, but I have a newborn. And I think that we will likely do the most bougie thing on earth. But there's a town called the Westport, Connecticut.

It's next to Greenwich, Connecticut. So you could say I'm going to move to Greenwich, Connecticut. which is like clay, clay tennis courts and white skirts and shit like that, but I think we're going to, yeah. But I'm testing it out. So I rented a place for a few weeks in late January just to see what it's like.

And I'm looking at what the rent is in like a comparable home to where I am now because I don't want to buy it the moment. It's like 20 grand a month in rent. I mean, it's just like crazy. The biggest reason, by the way, that Sam's not saying for why he's moving here is because it's like 20 minutes from me.

And we have a long-term plan of my son, Roman, and his daughter, Naomi, starting to build the Par Bloom Empire here. So we need to, like, start cultivating it early in their young years. Yeah, I'm okay with that. We're just planning ahead. Let me ask you guys another question. This is a two-parter. So what do most people get wrong about health and fitness?

What makes you want to, Nick, what makes you want to throw your computer out the window when people say it online? And the second thing is, would love an honest assessment of time requirements and what's the best bang for your buck for workouts? Because a lot of us listening are entrepreneurs and we don't have a ton of time. So what's like the best bang for your buck? So that's a two-parter. I can answer both probably in one answer. I think most people think that they need to spend like an hour running a day and an hour strength training a day.

So everyone thinks they have to spend like two hours training a day. I think you could easily split that 45 minutes to an hour a day, split between strength and endurance training and get like a really, really solid workout. But I think you have some sort of, you have to have some sort of level of cardiovascular conditioning as well as strength into your programming. When you say cardiovascular, do you mean like hit like a 60 minute Berries or do you mean like a Barry's boot camp class or something? like that or a body weight thing or do you mean walking or do you mean zone two steady pace stuff?

I'd say it's a mixture between zone two zone three because most people to be honest aren't spending their time in zone two zone two is actually like super low. Which is like 130 beats per minute for like a 30 year old. Yeah, it's it's low and most people are not doing any zone two training. So I like to refer. What's the benefit of zone two though? Aerobic base building. But what's that mean for?

Does that make me live longer? Do that make me less likely to have a heart attack? What's it do? All those things helps cardiovascular health. It helps build your aerobic foundation so that you can utilize oxygen more efficiently. You're not going to go run a sub-three-hour marathon by just doing speed work.

You need that aerobic base building where your body is learning how to utilize the oxygen at a more effective and efficient rate by then using fuel sources appropriately alongside of. So like I'd say a split between you probably want just talking about cardiovascular conditioning, 70 to 80% of that training being your aerobic zone, whether that zone two, zone three, which is like lighter. Say you're walking, hiking, jogging, something like that.

And then 20 to 30% of your cardiovascular conditioning is more hit. You go do a Barry's boot camp. You can go do like a, my wife does. Soul cycle, like a Soul cycle class, hop on your Peloton, go do some sprints, speed workout, something like that, where the heart rate is getting elevated, lactate threshold type stuff. So if you split your cardiovascular training between aerobic zones and some high intensity interval training, and then you have compound movements, strength training, you're doing some heavier movements, working with free weights, barbells, machines, stuff like that. You don't need to spend

two hours every day. You can spend 45 minutes to an hour, you know, four days a week, five days a week. I personally love the train, so I'm working out every day a week doing something, move my body. For strengthening, what do you say? Do you tell people, like, do the five by five or like what's your suggestion, just squat, deadlift bench? What do you do? I mean, there's a lot of different ways to approach it. Like right now, I personally enjoy the push-pull leg split, which is a three-day split that you can do three workouts a week or you can do six workouts a week. So like a push day would be all pushing movements. It'd be chest focused, shoulders, triceps, pushing being upper body. And then a pool day would be back, biceps, movements like rows, all upper body again.

and then your lower day is lower body, legs, quads, hamstrings, glutes. I like starting every strength workout with some warm-up movements and then going into a heavy working compound movement exercise like a barbell squat, you do a deadlift, you do a hexbar deadlift, bench press or dumbbell chest press, and then having some accessory movements alongside of that to support the development of the movement of the movement. muscles that you're utilizing for those big compound movements. So that's the way I like to approach cardiovascular and then strength training. I don't personally like to mix the two, like the CrossFit approach.

I've never fallen in love with that. Like when I'm strength training, I like strength training. And when I'm doing my cardio, I like cardio. But I don't like doing them together. I like when they're separate and distinct and separated. Now, moving on to, I think, where, like, what irks me about the fitness space. I actually made a post about this yesterday because everyone going into a new year is going to have new training and diet goals. And everyone thinks that there's this new thing that they're going to do that's going to change their life.

It's going to change their body. It's going to change their health. So January 1st starts, people are thinking, I need to do something new. What should I do? I'm going to do carnivore. Now, I'm going to do keto. I'm going to go strictly bodybuilding. No, I'm just going to run.

So people go to these extremes thinking it's like the magic pill they haven't tried yet that's going to unlock this hidden potential that was just disguised by everything else they were doing previously. And the reality is that like that's not going to change anything. If it does, like the changes are incremental. But what makes this compounding. change in your life and your fitness is your health is just being consistent with eating better, drinking more water, moving your body. That's why everyone's talking about getting in more steps. When you're getting in more steps, you're just being more active. Going to the gym on a regular

consistent basis, it's creating habits and routines in your life that help you facilitate these healthy habits on a consistent and regular routine. Sean was telling me that he was talking or He saw the guy who started a slice. It's like a pizza app. He was like between January 1st and January 11th, our sales slump. And he goes, on January 12th, that's National Quitting Day. And he goes, we see all-time high sales for people ordering pizza because everyone from their New Year's resolution is giving in on January 12th.

That's where it ends. 11 days. That's wild. We owned a ton of Planet Fitnesses back in my PE days. And that like first 10 days of the year is. like rainmaker season. You're just sitting there just watching the fees pour in

praying to the rain gods for all the money that's coming in. And then inevitably, those people just don't end up going to the gym. They still pay. Yeah, they still pay. Dude, they're playing a fitness business model.

Dude, they begin to possibly cancel. It's like, yeah, you get like 10,000 members for a gym and maybe like, you know, 5, 10% of them actually like regularly use it. So the equipment doesn't have to get refreshed that often.

It's like, I mean, it's an incredible business model. All right, here's a question for Sahel. So we didn't even mention this, but Sahel, Sahel, you mentioned that you were a baseball player. I was a runner all through high school and college. The baseball players were usually the duches who made fun of the runners because of our shorts.

And about a year ago, you got into running. You made all these grand claims about these times that you were going to run. You said you're going to break 18 into 5K. I was like, you're an idiot, dude. You don't know what the hell you're talking about. Turns out you were completely right. You nailed all of it. You crushed it and running.

and someone asked what the biggest. So at this point, by the way, you're a pretty, like, you're like a pretty successful runner for like in the weekend category, in the weekend warrior category. You're like top in that category, which is, sounds like a left-handed compliment. That's not what it, that wasn't supposed to be that. It was, that was a compliment.

Someone said, what's the biggest surprise South Hills learned from getting more into running? Honestly, it goes back to what you said. Like, when I was in high school, like I thought runners were nerds. And in my mind, it was like the nerdiest sport. Like I couldn't imagine running or like being into, I was like, oh, it's not, you know, it's not a team sport. Like it's not, it doesn't seem hard, whatever. And I have developed unbelievable respect for endurance athletes and for runners

from having gone through this because, I mean, a few reasons. First off, the training is so many hours and so monotonous. And you have to fall in love with the long, slow runs. Like, you know, in baseball, it, was all intensity. So you can get excited about, you know, like a really fast sprint, you know, I was a pitcher. So like a bullpen session or whatever. But with running, like, if you're going to be a marathoner, you have to love the 22 mile at a like 830 pace, just zero fun. Like, you have to fall in love with that and be willing to do that over and over and over again in order to

become a great amateur or to become elite, you know, like on Nick's level and above. And you have to do it consistently over a long period of time. And then the second one is just like, The mental fortitude to pull through a race is badass. Like, it hurts so bad. I mean, I would argue that the 5K is the most painful. Like I did, so my PRs were the 257 marathon, which was painful, but in like your legs are cramping kind of way where you just need to like grit your teeth to the finish. I ran the 459 mile, which honestly didn't hurt that bad because it was too short to hurt.

Like it was just, it was over before it could really start to hurt. It was like you're breathing really fast, but didn't hurt. that bad. But the 5K, which I ran 1752, was like excruciating pain. Absolutely. Like the last five laps of that were the most miserable experience, maybe of my life, just like past your lactate threshold, awful. And the mental fortitude that runners have and that endurance athletes have to grind through that, I now like, I no longer think runners are nerds. I think it is legit badassery. And especially when it's like a runner that has body weight on them, I think it's unbelievable. Well, the, the, The runner, the runner has evolved over the years, too.

Like, now running has become so popular in the past couple years. Do you think it's because of people like you? I mean, I think that you've created, like, a huge trend of these, like, it's now macho to be a runner. Yeah, I do think that, like, COVID and the pandemic definitely contributed to a lot of that, where gyms were closed down. And this is why a lot of my content actually started growing is because, I was pumping out running content for like a year and a half before the pandemic hit. And then pandemic hits, all these gyms close, people have nowhere to work out and train.

And they need for their physical health, but also their mental health. So people start running and looking for running content. And my content blew up during that time because everyone was looking for how to run, especially people who are focused on strength now transitioning and evolving towards running. But I mean, I think running has become cooler because there's a different look to running now. Like you can carry more weight. You can look like a bodyboat or you can look like a strength athlete. And there's these different parts of running that exist.

Like the ultraseen has come up. And I didn't know what ultra running was years ago. And you have like these badass disruptive races. Like have you guys heard of the Speed Project? No, what's that? No. So the Speed Project is like this underground race. race that happens and you start in L.A. and it goes to Las Vegas. There's no spectators,

there's no rules. You just get there as fast as possible, and it's a relay race. So you have a team of, I say like maybe six people. I think it's like 300 miles and someone has to be running all the time. But it's like super disruptive, really like aggressive in your face look and feel. It's badass. And then you have races. Like, have you guys heard of the Barclay Marathons? No, what are these? Dude, you guys need to watch this documentary like tonight. It's called

Where Dreams Go to Die. I have seen this. And this race happens in Tennessee. It's, I think there's five loops, and it's run by this guy named Las.

And you can't have a GPS watch. You don't have like any sort of sense of where the route is. You're given a map and the map has points on it. There's no trail and you're

given a bib number. So say your bib number is 13. On this map, you have to go find all these points before you come back to the checkpoint. And at each point on the map is a book and you have to pull out the corresponding page with your bib number and bring it back to LAS

after each loop to be able to go out and start again. And I think there were like six years where no one finished, no one won. Yeah, it's like 15 runners in 38 years. Dude, that sounds like a pain in the butt. I'm not trying to learn how to read maps. I just want to look good naked. Like, by the way, like running to Nick's point, running has definitely changed in public perception.

Like I just more and more now, I'm like, I used to think, oh, okay, lifting, like deadlifting to me. I'm like, oh, it's so primal, deadlifting. Like, you got to pick a car up off of your wife or off of your kid. Like, you got to get it up off of them in order to save their life. And now I add running to that where I'm like, if you can't go run like super fast to go call for help when someone's in trouble, like, that's super prime ultimate. Like, you got to pick the car up and then you got to go run two miles to get help from like the nearest aid station. We had Scott Galloway on. Nick, Scott Galloway says like big social entrepreneur or whatever.

And he said something that was brilliant. He's like a poet. He's really good with words. And he said, he goes, my. fitness regime, I want to be able to kill and eat most everyone in a room or outrun them. I like that. That's great. I love that.

That sounds like a very practical way to exercise. I enjoy that. Have you seen Theo Vaughn on Joe Rogan talking about who he would eat in a plane crash? If you haven't seen it, it's like one of the funniest Theo Vaughn clips I've ever seen. Let me, all right, I'll ask one or two more. someone asked, do you guys religiously stick to your programming? And do you ever create the programming yourself? It really depends on for me, like, what I'm training for.

If I have a very specific goal, then my training program is specialized to get to that specific goal. So, like, for my marathon prep, working with Jeff Cunningham, like, he would give him my workouts for the week. and I would hit those workouts to a T. I wouldn't miss or skip anything. I mean, there's been times where Jeff has accidentally sent me

my workouts with wrong paces, and I'll look at them and be like, oh shit, that seems fast. And I go out and hit him. He said, what are you doing? I'm like,

you sent this over to me. He's like, oh, that's a typo. So like, if you send the program when I'm in a prep, I'm doing whatever you tell me to do.

But outside of that, I have a lot of flexibility. Like, Today I woke up and I was thinking, how does my body feel? How far do I want to run? I went and ran 10 miles. Sometimes in the middle of the run, like two to three miles in, I decide how far I'm going to run based off my feel. That's called auto-regulation. So you adjust your training programming based off your recovery and how you're feeling and how well you slept and all those things. So a lot of my training now is flexible, but it's not as rigid because I don't have a specific competition goal at the moment. What about you, Sahel? I need someone else to write the programs for me. Otherwise, I don't take them seriously, and I need to pay for them. I've found because when I pay for something, I take it way more seriously.

So my marathon training, I had no program. I was just running with my neighbor, Brian Maza, who's also a, I know Nick knows him. Also, he's like a fitness influencer and personality that was really into hybrid training as well. So I started running with him, had no program. And then I got connected on text with Nick, and I was like, Nick, I want to run a sub three-hour marathon. What's a workout I should do? And Nick replied and was like, try doing this.

And it was, I don't think I'd run over like 16 miles at the time, by the way. And Nick replied and said, 22-mile run. It was six miles easy to warm up. And then it was four rounds of three at 630 with one at 710 float. He was like, if you can do that, you'll feel good about being able to run sub-3. And I had never done, I mean, I had not come close to that. But that weekend, I had the same thing as what you said with your trainer, Nick. We're like, I was like, all right, I got to go do that, I guess.

And so I went out and hit that. And then I started following Nick's marathon program as a result that got me through it. Wow. I do the same thing, by the way. I've got a guy that does my programming here in Austin. His name's Jesse at Central Athlete. And it's expensive. I think I pay $400 a month.

And I only, I do everything that I'm told because I'm paying money for it. and if I won't take it seriously, if I'm doing it, or I wouldn't go, my intensity would be lower. I'd be like, dude, I can't do this. It's like, well, Jesse told me I have to do it. Therefore, I will do it. All right, last question. Do you get nutrition coaching too? I get nutrition coaching.

Yeah, I use my body tutor. It's basically a service. When I was like really into it, I would call them for five minutes every single day. And they would be like, all right, what's the plan today? Where, like, you have like a quarterly plan. You're like, I want to lose weight, gain weight. I don't want to eat this. I do want to eat this, whatever.

And it's like, all right, what's your plan today in order to hit your goals? And you, and you'd have to, like, show them. And then they review your My Fitness pal every night. And it's like, all right, you're doing, you're doing everything according to plan. So it kind of guilt, gilts me into doing it. But it also teaches me. Like, I didn't know that you had to get a gram of protein per body pound or per pound of body weight. Like, I didn't know any of that shit.

And so they, like, educated me. I think tracking nutrition can be super beneficial for people just getting into health fitness. It just teaches them about serving sizes and macronutrients and total calories. Well, I started weighing my food after I saw Nick, you did it on some of your videos. You were like, and I thought weighing your food was like cumbersome. But like I just saw you like just have a bowl on top of the scale. And when you were pouring the chicken in there, like, I just need about half a pound. And you just poured it in there.

I'm like, oh, cool. That was really simple and easy. He just poured it right into the bowl and put it in microwave. it and it was like a very easy thing to track. So I started doing it after I saw your videos actually. Yeah, I don't track my nutrition right now, but I still weigh my food just for like serving size allocation. Yeah, and now I know, but now I just buy like if I buy red meat, I buy it by the pound and I know that a pound of red meat reduces to 0.7 and I know what's in 0.7 of, you know, ground beef or 0.7 of chicken. And so yeah, that's how I do a lot of it now for weighing. Last question.

And this is from me. I'm actually curious. Who influences you guys and what sources do you turn to for like, like for example, there's this guy. What's the guy on, I think his name's bio lane on Instagram. What's his name? Lane Norton. Lane, Lane's great. So like I like, he's like, you know, New York Times did an article where they're like, now everyone has their own fitness guru who they trust. And so like Huberman is like a guy for someone. Nick, you're a guy for someone probably where I'm like, if they say this, I do what they say. Who are your gurus, your fitness guys, that you trust for health and nutrition, and what sources do you use? Lane Norton is definitely one for me. What I like about Lane is, like, if anyone's ever saying something,

and it seems so ridiculous and bold and new and fresh, I will literally go over to Lane's platform and wait for him to do a response, because he typically does. I love his carnivore stuff, and the guy who says like vegetables are bad for you. Like, that's great. Yeah, Lane has like a really holistic,

science-based approach to health nutrition. He also has a really good app called Carbon. That is great for people who want to track their nutrition and reach your fitness school. Like, fitness-wise, I follow Lane. I listen to some Huberman stuff. I'm typically just like, I don't have one person I'm following.

for fitness and nutrition. I'm kind of just like having a pulse and feeling what's out there. And then if I hear about something, I'll go do my own research. So I'll read the actual articles and peer-reviewed literature to see what- What do you use for that? Have you heard of, I've been using perplexity for that. It's been kind of cool for it's like a chat GBT for studies. Interesting. Perplexity? Yeah, I have that bookmarked here, perplexity. And it's, they do a bad job of explaining what it is, but they basically review tons of different studies so you don't have to read all of them and so you can ask you can ask you the question of like

is Aspartame proven to give cancer? And I'll say like well of all these studies here's what here's what they here's the summary. I'll check it out. Lane has one called reps. I also use examine.com. Same. Love them. Examine.com is really good.

And then I'll just go to PubMed. PubMed and just like read the articles there. from like fitness that's where I'm like pulling a lot of my info outside of fitness um just like audiobooks like whenever I'm running I'm typically listening an audiobook and that's crazy to me that's insane to me that you do that

you can't do that dude no like A I go pay attention and B like usually what I like to do is I like when I go for a run I know how many I like beat beat per minute songs you know songs that are a certain beat per minute and so my stride will go

to that that beat per minute you know what I mean which is typically like like around 80 or 85 beats per minute I used to do that when I first started running I would do that but yeah I'll listen to an audiobook and like 10 miles I forget I'm running for 10 miles

like I just I listened to an audio book during the marathon I did the exact same thing what I listened to the Martian Andy Wears the sci-fi dude you guys are so weird That is so weird to me. Dude, you know what book I just finished up that I can't recommend enough? It's called Trust by Henry Cloud.

If you guys haven't read that yet or heard of it, I mean, maybe it's just hidden me at the right time of my life, but it is a powerful, good book. What is it? It's all about, like, how to evaluate relationships and trust, how to regain or rebuild trust when you've been betrayed, what to look for in, in trusting someone.

A lot of the times we think that trust is someone who just like won't lie, steal or cheat. So we'll hire people, or bring people onto our team who meet those requirements. Oh, they don't lie, steal, or cheat, I can trust them. What can we trust them in the capacity of the rule that we're expecting them to perform?

Dude, this is serial killer shit that you could listen to a self-health book while you're like, while you're like running a marathon. I think that's so weird. Like, I would read this. You went no headphones. for the marathon, right, Nick?

Yeah, yeah. I did no headphones. That's what ballers do, Sahel. Like, if you... Yeah, that is what ballers do. I grew up and going to cross-country... I'll definitely give you shit. Yeah, if you, like, go to a cross-country practice

or something and, like, you go run with headphones on, like, the hard cores will totally mock you. But I do it anyway, because I'm like, this is fun for me. I'm doing what I want. I'm not doing to be hard for. It was what Nick said at the beginning, by the way, which is, like, when you,

if you publicly state, you're going to hit some sort of, like, goals. The running, like, the running hardcores will definitely talk crap and troll you until you post proof that you actually did it. And then you kind of like have earned enough clout. Like I sort of feel like everyone made fun of me for getting into running. And then I like posted some actual verifiable stats. And now you, you know, now I'm like a solid amateur and people can't really make fun of you anymore. So now you've like, you've like earned the respect of the crew, like the cool kids in the, in the cafeteria. So now like they can't come beat you up. So that's a real thing that actually happens.

What's your answer to that? What's my answer to where I go to? Yeah. And who influences you? Who's like your person? I mean, I grew up, so my baseball training, I was the first client of this guy named Eric Cressy, who has now become pretty famous.

He's the performance coach for the Yankees, but is now like the Major League Baseball strength guy, like trains Max Scherzerz or Justin Verland or all of like the who's who of baseball. Dude, I feel like a baseball guy is the worst person to get fitness advice. from. That's like the fattest sport there is. No, he was like the, he was the first guy to like really bring strength and performance training to baseball. So it was that. It was like the fat guys or the steroid era guys who were just meatheads. And he brought like true performance training to the sport, which now is like the real driver of why every guy throws 100 miles an hour. Like guys are

hitting absolute tanks all the time. Like he was really the pioneer of that. I mean, he's been on like Tim Ferriss's podcast. He's really, really big time and a close friend. Incredible. And then there's this guy Ben Bruno, who is like a celebrity trainer, pretty big Instagram presence. And he's more of the stuff for regular people to actually implement in their life training. And I just love that stuff because it's kind of a cool blend of the more extreme things that I like doing with the actionable stuff that people can actually take as advice. Yeah, Ben Bruno, he's got like the everyday Rip Guy vibe. He's super, super strong. functionally and trains like insane legit celebrities out of like a 150 square foot gym in his garage.

Yeah, here's him with Justin Timberlake. Yeah, Timberlake is like one of his one of his good friends rolls up there and trains with him. He's incredible. And then on diet stuff, there's this guy, Zach, I think Ruchelow is how you pronounce his last name. He's like the flexible dieting lifestyle is his Instagram handle. And he just posts like insane macro recipes basically, things that are like delicious. but don't completely screw up your diet. And I just,

I nerd out on that kind of stuff. He's Austin, Texas based. Yeah, he's Austin based. Yeah. Dude, you probably know, like half of these guys,

I don't bet. I know, I know Zach. I know Zach personally. You know who else is really good for a general health information, health and fitness information for people just getting started

is Jordan Siet. Jordan. Yeah. Jordan Sight. So Jordan was an intern at Eric Cressies, Jim. So Jordan is my year in high school. He went to Lincoln Sudbury High School,

which was like our arrival high school. And he was an intern at Cressy's gym when I was training there. So I've known Jordan since we were like, we were kids. Oh, wow. He's got good stuff. By the way, he was Gary V's trainer. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I saw that. I just went to this guy, the flexible dieting lifestyle.

And I'm like typing all this in as you guys are talking. And I'll do a little flex. I go to file this guy and it says follow back. Oh, yeah. That's awesome. Zach, it's awesome. The protein ice cream recipes are like the best thing in the world. Yeah, this is a great Instagram.

This guy kills it. Do you have a creamy at home, Ninja Creamy? I do. Oh, it's the best. One of our best purchases, my wife and I, like every Saturday. The Ninja Creamy, you can make, like, protein ice cream with it. They got popular based off of TikTok early on, and they were sold out for months. And then they finally came back on the market and we purchased one.

Well, I used to do that. So what I do with your, so BPN, so I like to do a scent protein with just water. And then I use BPN to like eat. And so like, for example, I'll mix it with some type of liquid and I'll microwave BPN. And it's almost like I'm eating like, I don't know. I mean, it's like a dessert. Because you gave me the key lime pie one and then you gave me a birthday cake one. And I think the birthday cake one is discontinued.

And I would just, we would microwave it and just eat it. and it was like a souffle or something. Now I guess I'll use BPN to this creamy. Sam, I will change your life right now. Two cups of whole milk, like Fair Life whole milk, a scoop of BPN vanilla, maybe like two tiny little packets of stevia, and some sugar-free vanilla pudding mix.

Freeze it overnight, put it into the Ninja Creamy, and it is literally identical to like a vanilla McDonald's McFlurry. Really? It comes out insane. you can put a couple like Oreo things in there and get like a legit McDonald's McFlurry that has like 40 grams of protein and is great for you. Shoot, this is awesome. I'm like literally writing all this down and I'm, I just add the creamy to my cart.

It will change your life. I'm not joking. It is pretty wild. I did it my first time and like I only mixed it once and it came out. I was like, what's this? Yeah, you gotta go twice. So did it twice. Completely different thing.

After like one more mix. Light ice cream setting once, open it up, pour like a tiny, like a tablespoon of whole milk in and then blend it on light ice cream again and it makes the perfect consistency. All right. I literally just bought it off Amazon, the creamy. And I only have, it's the best. I got to get BPN vanilla now because I only did chocolate, birthday cake and Keyland Pie. You can do it with whatever flavor you like. I just think the vanilla base is so good. I want to hear about this 239 though. I'm going to nerd out on this. Yeah. So Nick, you're trying to rent 239 now for the marathon, right? No, I just did. So, you just did at CIM, which

the California International Marathon. That was December 3rd. I ran a 239.20. And when I went into that prep, I was shooting for a sub 245. And sub 245 is about a 615 minute per mile pace. Ended up doing 605 minute per mile pace for all 26.2 of those miles.

Can you just walk through your progression on the marathon stuff? Because I feel like I've seen a video. So, I mean, I only, I started running in March and someone mentioned name as soon as I started getting into running as like the person that was pioneering this whole idea of like hybrid athlete, whatever. It's kind of become like an invoked thing now. But basically a guy that can be both jacked and fit in cardio things, not crossfit, like actual strength related stuff and

then and then running. And I remember seeing a video of you like a four hour marathon maybe. And your progression from that to running maybe sub three for the first time. Can you just walk through like what your progression has been from start to finish on the different marathons you've done? Yeah. Well, first off, when you and I first started talking and you said you wanted to do a sub three for your first marathon. I thought he was crazy when he said that.

Dude, so did I. I was like, man, that's, I think I even told you. Like, that's a bold move, but you did it. So congratulations on that. But yeah, my marathon progression. So my first marathon was in 2018. It was about a year after I got out of the military. And what's funny is the day I got out of the military,

I said I would never run a day in my life again. And about a year later, I was running my first marathon, and here we are like thousands of miles later. But 2018, Austin Marathon, I ran a 357, which was just an absolute dumpster fire. But you weighed like 225, right? I was like 225.

I didn't have a training program. I was a bodybuilder. I just wanted to be as big and yoked as possible. ran this marathon after mile 16 I hit the wall it was just all downhill from there a year later

I signed up for the Austin Marathon again same training program which was lack thereof and I ran a four hour 15 minute marathon so I ran 18 minutes slower than the previous year and then after that

I signed up for my first Iron Man trained for an Iron Man did Iron Man Florida actually started to learn what it takes to build endurance and get better at endurance events and races. You broke 12 hours in that one? Yeah, I did.

Iron Man, Florida, in 1128. But I ran the marathon in four hours and four minutes. So the reason that was so kind of significant was I looked back at my previous two marathons. I was like, man, after I just swam and biked and then ran, I was able to run a pretty decent marathon. So I told myself I want to run sub three. And that was the goal.

And I posted this online. I said, I'm doing a sub three hour marathon. And the internet trolls and activity just blew up. I mean, there are forums on Let's Run. There are forums on Reddit. Everyone was like, this guy will not run a sub three hour marathon. So then I signed up for the Austin Marathon again. I followed a training program.

It was a better prep. But even in my head, I was like, I'm not in sub-hour marathon. three shape. But at the starting line, I told myself, you can mentally outwill anything. I'll say, if I just like, I can mentally overcome the physical weakness that I have to run the sub three hour marathon. And what's sub three? Is sub three 650 per mile? I think 651 is like 259-59, like if you sneak in under one second. And the only reason I know that is because of exactly what Nick said about mine that everyone was like, dude, there's no way. So I knew in my mind, like, I just have to keep this under 651 my watch base, and I'm going to be fine.

See, I like banking time. So I always like, I like saving time. So at the end, if I needed it, I have it. Which is the opposite of what, like, real runners tell you to do. I did the same thing, by the way. Like, I went out way too fast and then was just, like, hanging on for dear life, doing the math in my head of, like, okay, if I run, like, a 10-minute mile here, I'm still going to make it.

Because there's the, like, they call it the wall. The wall is basically, I think it's like when you burn 1,800 or 22, 200 calories or something like that and you start going into, what's it called, where you like start using muscle as energy, I believe, or instead of cart. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's when that wall is where you're like, I can't go any further. Usually that's in like mile 20, right? Yeah, ranges, yeah, based on the individual of like your conditioning, your experience, glycogen stores, how fast you burn through your body's energy.

So I went out that Austin Marathon with a goal running sub three. I went out way too fast. And within the first six miles, I knew I wasn't going to do sub three. In the first six miles, I was done for. And the Austin Marathon is not flat. It's hills. It's like a horrible PR course. No one PRs that I know of at the Austin Marathon.

So then the remainder of that race, I was just holding on, ended up running 3 24, so 24 minutes over sub three. Everyone on the internet that doubted me loved it. And I went into another training block immediately after that race was done. I actually did a real prep this time, had a really solid coach, Jeff Cunningham, and I ended up running a marathon a year later in two hours, 56 minutes, 27 seconds. So that was the first time I went sub three. Then a year later, I did the Buffalo New York Marathon in 248.

And then just recently, December 3rd, 2023, I ran at 239-20, which is a 6-4. 05 100 mile pace. What weight were you? I was 195 pounds. Oh my God. That's ridiculous at 195. And it's ridiculous at any body weight, but it's insane at 195.

Were you still squatting and benching while you're, I mean, were you still strong? I took a lot of time off strength training during that prep. So for like 13 weeks leading up to that race, I was still lifting here and there, but I wasn't lifting legs heavy. I wasn't lifting even upper body really heavy. I was just getting some movement in just to maintain and feel good. But the priority was, was running. Because what a lot of runners don't realize is like, so 239, that's, that's impressive. That's very impressive. But it's more impressive that you're doing it at your body weight. That is, that is, that is like out of this world. I got dinner one time recently with this guy named Josh Kerr. You guys know who Josh Kerr is,

Unless you're a running nerd, you don't know who he is. But he won the world championships recently in the 1500 meter. He's like a 345 miler. So one of the fastest milers ever, whatever. But he's pretty big for a miler. For a normal human being, you think he's skinny. But for a miler, he's big. And I started talking to him and I was like, you're pretty big.

How'd you do this? He goes, man, he's from Scotland, I think. He goes, when I came to America when I was 17 to go to college. And I was training for the mile. But I wasn't used to having fast food and like having restaurants open. 24 hours a day. And so I got fat, like my first semester there, and I weighed 200 pounds. And I broke the mile when I was 17 or 18 that year when I weighed 200 pounds. He goes, I think I own the world record for the fattest sub four mile. And like 200 pounds for like just a guy who's

six foot, that's not huge. But to be able to run that time or the time even that you're running, or even Sahel, you're pretty big too. For running those times with that weight, that's just like inconceivable. Not only because it's hard, but what's inconceivable is that you're not getting hurt running 50 to 80 miles a week leading up to it. That's what's like in my mind the most impressive part here. Yeah, when I first started running, I had a lot of injuries just because my body mechanics weren't super efficient. So I've had knee injuries, uh, quads, ankles, shins, calves, like everything. But now as I've, I've run longer with more miles, my body has become pretty efficient at form and function,

and I rarely get injured anymore unless I do like an ultra marathon. I had two, you know, from my training, I just had two like random life lesson type things from the running that I'm curious, Nick, if you've experienced these. One was before my marathon, I was trying to figure out like how to just like mentally take on the goal of running sub three for it and how to think about, like, if I'm six miles into the race and I realize I'm not going to hit it, how to make sure I still finish the race and don't just, like, mentally completely lose it.

And this marathoner told me that for every single race or anything that you're going after, you want to have basically three goals. He was like, you have your A goal, which is the main thing you're trying to hit. And then you have a B goal, which is like just slightly worse. And then you have a C goal, which is just like finish the damn race. And you can always, like you lock in on your A goal from the start. But if you start falling off that and realize you're not going to hit it, you need something to fall back on that keeps you motivated when you're in it. And so you have your B goal. And then the C goal is just get to the finish line. And I have taken that and run with it in every area of life now. Like no matter what it is, if you have a fitness goal, like a daily fitness goal, you want to run every day and work out every day, it's good to have that A goal. But the reality is that like shit hits the fan sometimes. Like your kid is up all night or, you know, like you have a problem at home or something at work pops up. And so having that idea, of like what is the B goal? Maybe it's a slightly lower version. And then the C goal is like,

I'm just going to go for a walk and get 15 minutes of movement in. That has helped me so much in terms of just like navigating the vagaries of life that inevitably hit when you know you're not going to have your perfect day every single day. Yeah, it's like the mindset of like all or nothing. It's like you see so many people at every marathon, every race, it's very applicable to anything else in life, but like you see these elite runners go out and it's, like, you see, soon as they fall off of pace, they drop out. They just fall to the side. And I was actually talking to Ken Rydowt a few weeks ago when he was on my podcast, and now he lives right down the road from me here in Nashville. But he was telling me when he did Kona Iron Man years and

years and years ago, during the race, he realized he wasn't going to hit the time you wanted. So he just dropped down to the race. And him and his family traveled to Hawaii for this race. So there's a lot of time, effort, energy, money going into it. He dropped down to the race, and he said it was like his greatest regret ever. So he forced himself to go back the next year for redemption, just to prove to himself that he could do it. But I think the feelings, the emotions, and just everything that's created when you quit something and drop out because you weren't on pace for that egg goal, I mean, that's like self-destruction. That hurts so much more than not actually finishing the race. The other thing that's funny to me about all runners that I feel like they've gone through,

you said it with your first marathon, or when you left the military, you were like, I'm never going to run again. I'm done with this. It's like women after they have babies, there's like that chemical that gets released that makes them forget how much it hurts going through childbirth. I think the same thing happens with running. It just is like a little more delayed. Like when I finished my marathon, I was like, fuck this.

I'm never running another marathon. That was the most painful thing I had ever experienced. Like the last six miles, I wouldn't wish that on my worst damn enemy in the world. And then like two weeks later, I'm like, hmm, like which one should I sign up for next year? Like, I got to go 249. I got to do this. Yeah, I mean, I'm the same way with ultras. Like, I finish an ultra and I'm out for two weeks.

I can't walk. My toenails are falling off. And I talked to my wife. I'm like, this was stupid. Why did I do this? I'm useless. I can't help out at home. And I find myself signing up for another ultra shortly after.

Dude, your ultra documentary was so good. Good. I remember I had, I subscribed for like the premiere. So I was like sitting at my TV waiting for it to come out. It was an hour long about Leadville, I think, right? Yeah. It was so good. I remember I was like one of the first ones. I was like, all right, it's coming up at this time, Sarah. Let's sit down and watch it. And what's crazy about you is like there's this whole thing where these people who want to talk in cliches are like every media or every company should be a media company, yada, yada, yada. And the thing is they mostly suck at it. You're actually one of the few guys. that has like your supplements, they meet, I don't know what the grade is, but you know, I know I've talked to you and I've talked to other people about it and your competitors will be like, yeah, BPN, they meet this particular grade. They are of high quality. But you also, you nail that, the supplement thing, but then you also are nailing the media thing. And no one else, or very few other people are doing that where you're actually really nailing it. It's almost, you could argue that your media is even better than the supplements because supplements,

like, I don't know how the industry works, but it seems like, yeah, they're like these five were great, but your media is awesome. I appreciate that. It looked like you had three or four guys following you around the whole time. Your wife was there. I feel like I know her because of the videos. And then she was following you on Instagram and talking about your splits. And these guys had these beautiful cameras.

It was just like, it was a great documentary. How many views did that have? The Leadville Dock now has, I think, one and a half million. It was so good, man. It was so good. Are you, did you come? up with that storyline or do you just hire a good, a good team? That's my creative director, Jordan in-house here. Where's he from? Jordan is from Ohio geographically, but he was just,

when I met him, he was employee number four at BPN, and he was filming for another YouTuber when I met him as a freelancer, and I was looking for a videographer at the time because this was 2019. At the time, I was still filming and editing all my own videos. That's crazy. That's a shit ton of work. I mean, all I did, literally all I did was work. And 2019 was the first time I was able to bring some one I'm on, but I was looking for like over a year for the right person. I would fly people down. They would stay with me. I'd meet them. We'd film something. It just didn't feel right, so I didn't pursue it. Met Jordan.

It felt right. He moved down. Creative director. He led my content. for a while. Then he went and led BPN's content for a while, and now he's back working directly on my content again. But he came up with the storyline, the whole production, the scouting, the editing process. Obviously, we had a lot of guys on the team supporting that editing and filming and production, but Jordan led that project. We just launched the last man standing Ultra that he led and created with Ian Rodriguez here on my team. And we posted the CIM race video Monday. But, yeah, Jordan is a super talented, creative. What's your, how much are you spending per year on a team for content? And are you able to, are you tracking the ROI? Or is this just like a thing where you're like, I'm pretty sure it's worth? It's up.

I'm pretty sure it's working. I mean, our media team is, I mean, with video, just videographers, photographers, we have 10. but then we have our social team and a lot of my business decisions as an entrepreneur one thing I've learned and I think we were talking about this

when you're on my podcast a few months ago is that I make a lot of my decisions and I've made a lot of my decisions in business based off of intuition and gut feeling I never looked at the P&L I never looked at the balance sheet if I had this feeling that it was working and I could feel momentum and I had a pulse on it,

I was just like, keep spending, keep hiring. Then finally at one point I hired operators, a CFO, a CEO, and they're like, hey, we've got to put some guardrails around this. But like all of my decisions in business have been intuition gut. If it feels right, I'm going to do it. I have a feeling there's going to be an ROI. I might not be able to measure it, but I can subjectively tell if it's going to work or it is working.

Is it separate at all? Like the Nick Bear Fitness platform and your personal social media, is that separate from BPN as like a functional entity? Or are the people like the videographers, the 10 people, is that all under BPN? Yeah, the whole process has changed significantly of the last couple years. So originally it was all one team. And then at one point we separated out where I now have the Nick Bear Fitness business and then the Bear performance. It's nutrition business. So there were like two separate teams.

And the Nick Bear Fitness business is your app, right? Your app and your channel? Yeah, it's like my content, my IP, my channel, my training app, stuff like that. I used to do brand deals. I don't do any brand deals anymore. Dude, Hoka should have been paying you like seven figures a year. I bought Hocus because of you because I saw it. I was like, oh, big guy wears Hocus.

Hocus is the thing. The amount of Hoko Rincon's I sold when I first started running has to be absolutely ridiculous. So just talking about the separation, we separated out Nick Bear Fitness team and BPN team for a while. Really, it made no sense of what we were doing and why we were doing it. I just thought it was the professional move to take in that next step and stage of business. now we've brought it all back into one entity. I still have the Nick Bear Fitness business, but everyone that is working on media is on BPN payroll,

is a BPN team member, and all the content we're creating is in the hope of building the supplement business. Now, the teams are separated and working on different projects. I have my creative director, Jordan, who's leading my content, Ian who's working on my content, Everett, who's a podcast producer, And then we have videographers, creatives that are working on just BPN stuff. But there's definitely crossover and the lines are bluerrier than they used to be.

Do you think that dings your valuation if you ever wanted to sell the company because it's so tied onto you? I don't know if it dings the valuation, but I definitely think that a process and a sale would come with a whole lot of structure. a lot of IP negotiations and possibly issues. I feel like it's less than you think, actually. I was always impressed. So I had actually taken BPN supplements before knowing you and had no idea who you were or that you were involved. They had just popped up as one of the supplements I was taking.

That's not the bulk, you think? You think, Sao that's the bulk of customers? Honestly, I have no idea. I just remember back in my private equity days, we looked at On It, you remember that brand? I don't know if it's still around. On it was selling.

Yeah, they had a huge exit. Well, it was so tied to Joe Rogan and what was his name, Aubrey. Marcus. And that was like, when we were looking at it, private equity guys, like, that's their biggest fear is like, oh, how involved are these two guys?

Like, is it a key man risk? All this stuff. And then ultimately, they ended up getting to an amazing exit with somebody and, you know, they put guardrails around it. They get like key man insurance or whatever it is.

But I would, I mean, I'd be interested to find out, actually, like, run a survey of your customers, like what proportion actually end up coming through you and your media versus now just, like, the flywheel is spinning, SEO is there, and the business kind of just, you know, is self-propagating. Well, that's been the fear with my businesses, which is I don't want to make it me. I want to make it its own thing. But me or Nick or Sahel, like, that gets initial base, but it's like at what point do you, when do you make the transition?

and that's a challenging. I don't know the answer to that question, and I'm afraid of the repercussions of making the wrong choice. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's been a topic of discussion for the last couple years with us and trying to figure out how to navigate that. And for a while, I kept leaning into,

okay, well, let's separate in the hopes of building BPN away from myself so that it's separate and distinct and can stand on its own. But what I found by doing that is the separation created this loss of vision and brand. So I've kind of just like flipped my whole thought process on that and said, screw whatever happens in the future. And I'm going to lean fully back in. And I don't care really how it affects valuation or the end process anymore. I'm just going to build a brand that I'm really proud of and the way I want to build it.

And whatever happens happens. and if someone comes knocking on my door in the next couple years and says, like, hey, we love what you're doing, let's talk. But if you don't like it, you know, I just want to make sure I'm enjoying the process and not building in business based off of KPI's and milestones. And I bet you're, I mean, I have no idea. I've never seen you comment on this. But I would have to assume the app that you have, how much do you charge 50 bucks a month

or something? It's 1999 a month. So I would have to imagine that's doing well, too. Right? I mean, I make much more money outside of BPN than I make personally with BPN. Yeah, I mean, I think it's killing it. Sihil, have you ever thought about doing it? Yeah, I mean, that type of business model is incredible, right? It's just like the ultimate scalability and, you know, as your personal brand, like it just for you, as you think about reinvesting cash flows into your brand building, it just makes it makes it so much more

dynamic because you can run all of your media stuff at break even if you want to. You can just reinvest all the cash that you're generating from YouTube ads, from the app, from any of those things into creating better and better content and create this massive flywheel and just count on BPN as the long-term upside bet. Yeah, but if I had a bet, I bet you, Nick, if I had a bet,

Nick has probably been, even though his net worth has skyrocketed. If I had to bet, you've lived relatively poor compared to the net worth that you've created cash flow poor. And now you probably taste this and you're like, okay, finally I can afford like to live like I want to live as opposed to just living on $80,000 a year. Yeah, I mean, for the first, I didn't take any money out of the business for the first five years. What do you get like just like a like an army or you get like a military stipend or something?

Yeah, so it worked well because I started the business 2012, 2017 is the year I trained. transitioned out of the Army. So I actually had to start paying myself then, me and my brother, who moved down from Pennsylvania to help us build a business. We signed our first warehouse lease that year. It was the first year we hit seven figures in revenue. And it was also like the most challenging year my entire life because I didn't know anything about financing inventory. I didn't know anything about leveraging debt. I didn't know anything about taking out business loans, utilizing lines of credit. Cash flow is an absolute nightmare.

The only money I thought I had to spend was the money that was in the bank account. We had no terms with manufacturers. Like, 2017 was arguably the worst and hardest year of my life, but also the best year of my life, that if I could go relive any year, right now, it'd be that year.

That's insane. That's one thing, by the way, like, just the time frame on all of this. I feel like people don't appreciate time as a lever for growth. on anything as much as they should. And actually, like, people in fitness and athletes understand it better because they understand that, like, growing slowly is the game and just getting better slowly.

Like, when I look at your YouTube channel and go to most popular videos, a bunch of these videos, like, you've been at this for years and years. There's, like, six-year-old video, four-year-old video, three-year-old video, like eight-year-old video, the 10,000 calorie cheat day challenge. Like, some of this stuff, you've just been at it. And I know you just said it. You were editing these. You were actually on the ground spending the like 100 hour weeks doing this stuff for a long,

long time. It wasn't like you all of a sudden popped up and had this unbelievable production quality that you have today. So I also just think like appreciating time as a lever for growth on these fronts is incredible. That is one thing that's been a powerful skill for myself of this last decade plus is just the consistency at which I've just kept doing the thing. but even the one thing Sam and I talked about when he was on my podcast.

I think you were going to do like a speech and you were back in like the green room before going out to the speech and you're talking to all these high worth individuals who are super powerful and they're all sitting there super insecure and scared or nervous and like yeah,

they're like holy shit, these people aren't any more secure, confident or better than me. And I think once you realize that that I have all the skills that I need to take, whatever is I want to take to the top, I just have to apply it.

Because I used to think, and I went through this phase where, I was like, okay, I'll get this business, I'll get this thing to this level, but at some point I'm not going to be smart enough, so I'm going to have to outsource people to come in and take it from where I build it

to where it needs or can go. And sometimes you do that, but you don't have to. And I've realized that there's no one smarter than me that's going to take this business to the level it needs to go. I just have to be super consistent. at this approach for a long period of time, and it's going to pay off in dividends.

But you did hire a CEO, I think, what are you a year into that? A little over a year. Yep. How's that? It's been great. I mean, the main reason I wanted to step out of the CEO role, and I wasn't actively looking to hire a CEO, but Kat came into the business.

First, it's kind of just an advisor. and then she joined as the chief revenue officer leaning into more operations. And then we just had a conversation one day. I was like, hey, would you ever want to be CEO? Because I really just want to like focus on creating content and brand building. And she was like, yeah, if you want me to be CEO, I'll be CEO.

So we made the switch because the business got to a point in a size where I wasn't spending my time on the things that I was passionate about anymore. I was spending my time on people management and lawsuits and retail and finances and P&L and balance sheets. And I was like, this is all like super critical, important stuff, but I don't love it. I want to focus on what I love and that's creating content, that's building brand, that's getting people jacked up. It's talking about the products. It's working on new product innovation. And that's why I wanted to make that change, which has been like much harder than I thought.

it would be. And I'm only now a year in of that transition really finding my lane. But this last year for me has been an interesting one. Dude, and it's hard. So I have a CEO too. We'll be at one year in a couple months. And it's hard because you want to be a good, I don't know what it's called, a good partner with your CEO where you want them to make mistakes and you want them to put their flavor and stuff because you've got to let a CEO do that. But then at the same time, like, but I already did all this and I can tell you what the outcome of this is going to be or, uh, you know, it's just like, it's a, it's a, it's like getting married where you, and, but not living together right away. And so you get married and then you move in and you're like, oh, you're

fucking quit leaving the cap off the toothpaste. And it's like, well, no, you can't like bitch about little stuff. You got to let them do what they want to do. You know what I mean? It's like kind of weird. It's like a, it's like a weird. It's a weird thing, but you have to learn how to like, manage each other, and it's, and it is a challenge. But when it works, it's hard. It's, it's the best. At any point, do you feel the need to jump back into the CEO role? Well, in my, when I get pissed off, I'll be like, I got to do this. And then I'll get like, end of week or end of month updates. And I'm like, oh my God, Jordan is so much better at me than all of these things. And I, and also, like, I would have done this different, this different, this

different. And those three things I probably would have been wrong about. So, like, the name of the game isn't being right 100% of the time. The name of the game is being right for the right things most of the time. And I just had to, like, kind of like have empathy and put myself in his shoes. And that helped a lot. But no, like, when I, on a bad day, when I get pissed off, I'm like, I should do this. And then 99% of the time, I'm like, you are more talented than I am at so many things, I cannot do this. I think sometimes too, when you're far removed from the position for an

extended period of time, you forget all the bad things you used to deal with. You only remember the good. Like, man, I kind of miss this. And you get exposed to all the things, the bad things that you don't miss. Too much. No, you got it. You run with it. It also kind of, just before you jump forward from that, Sam, it

also differs greatly between like a true business operations endeavor and a creative endeavor, you couldn't step away and truly have a CEO just like running your content apparatus because it would lose, it would lose the like the Nick soul that is in it. It's in every single piece of content that exists. You can like build your team around it, but you actually being in that creatively,

I think it's so key. There was this, I think it was Jerry Seinfeld did an interview with, I think it was like the Harvard Business Review. And they asked him about the fact that him and Larry David basically wrote every episode of Seinfeld. And after nine years, they had basically burned out. And so the show just had to end because they had burned out on doing it. And the Harvard Business Review was like, could you have hired McKinsey to come in and help you find a better model and design something?

And Jerry Seinfeld said, who's McKinsey? And they said, it's a consulting firm. And Seinfeld responded, are they funny? And basically his point was, you don't, like, I don't know. need them if they're not funny because the efficient way of doing the creative thing is actually the wrong way. And what he said is the right way is the hard way. The show was successful because they did it the hard way. They micromanaged every single detail of the creative process and they really had their soul in it. And so I think that like your creative success and what has allowed

all your businesses to thrive are also fundamentally tied to the fact that you have your soul in every single piece of content that you guys are putting together. Yeah, I agree with that. I think sometimes entrepreneurship and building a business and founding a company, from the outside looking in, like people make it seem easy. So it's romanticized and everyone's like, oh, I could start a business,

I could do it. And then you finally do it. And like you have this passion around everything you're building, but then it gets hard and then it gets challenging and then it grows. And then, you know, your passions are sidelined for the priorities of the, for other parts.

to the business, but it's just maintaining that consistent work ethic, even when you're working on things that you truly weren't passionate about in the beginning, but you know it drives business and leads you to an ultimate end goal. Well, guys, I appreciate you coming on. It was a little impromptu, but this is fun. I just like hanging out with you guys and learning. Nick, Sahel, I'm close to Sahel, so I don't have to say this to him, but Nick, I've looked up to you for a while now, and I appreciate you.

doing this. Sahil, I appreciate you doing this too. This is awesome. Thanks, guys. Appreciate the opportunity. All right, that's the pod. I feel like I can rule the world. I know I could be what I want to. I put my all in it like no days off. On the road, let's travel, never looking back.