The Nick Bare Podcast - 001: A New Chapter

Episode Date: March 7, 2023

Life transitions come fast, often unexpected, and leave us to process the complex changes we are moving through. Over the past few months, I've become a father, stepped down from CEO of the brand I've built for ten years, and opened doors within myself that remained shut for so long. These massive life transitions have brought me here - to a place of learning, navigating, and growing. A place we all inevitably will find ourselves. The relaunch of this podcast is to have powerful, unfiltered conversations with the world's most incredible individuals to understand what it takes to reach our full potential and create the life we desire.  Welcome to the Nick Bare Podcast. Follow for more: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nickbarefitness/ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@nickbarefitness  Topics: (00:00) Intro  (00:45) Change is not a threat  (01:25) Books I’m currently reading  (02:10) Massive life transitions (07:00) Becoming a dad (07:45) Stepping down from CEO (09:30) Sharing everything (10:55) The goal of this podcast (11:45) There are no quick fixes  (14:05) What's the solution to change?  (15:30) Life gets complicated  (17:20) Finding solitude (18:30) Best decision I've ever made (21:30) Why the rebrand (30:20) Evolving mission (32:35) Mission, Vision, Values (34:45) Water your character (36:05) Boundaries protect priorities (38:00) Ambition and contentment (40:30) Actions over words (41:50) Accepting change (42:55) Final words Supplements I Take: https://bit.ly/3Nviqpc

Welcome to the Nick Bear podcast. I've spent the past decade as a CEO building an industry leading supplement brand. There's a story. There's a mission. Serving in the U.S. Army. First video in Korea. And creating a community of inspiring leaders. The mission isn't changing, but it's evolving. So I'm excited for this next chapter.

It's out of you, man. Through powerful, unfiltered conversations. You have to be careful with entrepreneurship. You can get hurt. My mission is to help you unlock your full potential and create the life you desire. not tell you how fired up I just got. Camera's rolling and we're on. I'm your host, Nick Bear, enjoy the episode.

Change is not a threat. It's an opportunity. Survival is not the goal. Transformative success is. That's a quote by Seth Godin. And this marks episode number one of the Nick Bear podcast. Previously, the Bear Performance Podcast.

And in this episode, I want to one catch you guys up to speed of what I've been working on, where the podcast has been, and why the change from the Bear Performance Podcast to the Nick Bear podcast. There's three books I've been reading recently. And I'm always reading two to five books at a time. I'll listen to them when I'm running. I'll listen to one where I'm driving. There's a book that I'm reading as I'm falling asleep at night in bed next to Steph. And the books that I'm currently reading right now, I just finished actually from strength

is strength. I highly recommend. Life is in the transitions and set boundaries find peace. Now, those three books really do focus on life transitions. and they're very applicable to my life right now. I just experienced a massive life transition. Huge. And I thought I was experiencing a quarter life crisis, to be honest.

I was very confused by what I was feeling and experiencing. That in itself is part of the reason for the new podcast. That in itself is the reason for the way we are changing. content, what we are sharing and what we're putting out there and the way that we do it. You see, the last six months for me have been, had been challenging. And the reason I thought I was going through a quarter life crisis, because I felt lost. I felt lost in the, it's almost like the first time I felt lost in a long, long time.

You know, for the last 10 and a half years of building BPN, creating content, it's been go, go, go from one thing to the next. And there hasn't really been anything that has slowed me down. And if I'm being very honest with myself, even when my mom passed away from cancer in 2019, that didn't slow me down. I got back to Texas from Pennsylvania and I didn't skip a beat. I jumped right back into the business. I jumped right back into creating content.

When my daughter was born in July, I had planned to take two weeks off. Two weeks off, spend time at home. And because I didn't create boundaries, which is my fault, I ended up back at work the day after she was born, fighting fires and just being an entrepreneur, being a founder.

And what I've realized through talking to mentors and coaches and reading some of these books, I mean specifically from strength to strength, I found that book through a podcast with Peter Atea and Arthur Brooks. And I was listening to that podcast on a plane coming back from my brother's wedding in New Jersey, where it was me, Steph, and Charlie, my seven-month-old daughter. because I could not figure out what was going on. And what I realized is I wasn't experiencing a midlife crisis or a quarterlife crisis, which I don't even know if they exist, to be honest and realistic. What I've learned through some of these readings and some of these books that I've been studying

is we often confuse a crisis in our life. with a transition. Transitions are normal. You have kids. You get a new job. You move. There's life. There's death.

There's destruction. There's chaos that cause these, these, what they call lifequakes, these sometimes natural transitions in life. Sometimes it feels like they are a quarter or midlife crisis. A clear example.

A lot of people experience or think they experience a crisis when they're 60 years old. But what's also happening when most people are 60 years old? They're retiring from their job that they are working for the last 30, 40 years of their life. Their kids are moving away and starting families. It might not be a crisis, but it's actually just life transitions. and there's about 52 life, major life transitions that we can experience every 12 to 18 months. In these small life transitions, they provoke and facilitate change. And if you're not ready to accept and adapt to that change, it can shake you up for what feels like a crisis.

Now, I provide that context because I recently just experienced two massive life transitions. I started this business in 2012 out of my small college department in Pennsylvania. And for the last 10 and a half years, I have poured my heart and soul, blood, sweat, and tears into this business. And with that being said, for the next 10, 20, 30 years, I'm going to keep pouring my heart and soul in blood, sweat, and tears into this business. but it's going to look a little bit different. And part of the life transition that I experienced recently, one, I guess in chronological order, I became a dad and Charlie was born.

July 15th, 2012, I became a dad. Charlie was born. And I thought I knew what being a dad would feel like. And I thought, I thought that I knew what the end of the end of the end. experience would do for me and how it shaped me. But to be honest, I had no clue. It's better than I

expected. It's harder than I expected. It's more rewarding than I expected. And it changed my life in more significant ways than I expected to be honest. And the second big life transition that I experienced was I stepped down from the CEO role of the company that started 10 and a half years ago. the company that I poured everything into, the company that started with a $20,000 loan, the company that I believe in more than anything else in this entire world, I stepped down from the CEO role,

which was a big transition. And through those two big life transitions, I felt a little lost. And I did not expect that. I didn't, but there I was. trying to figure out how this mission that I have evolves and how I spend more time with my family, how I prioritize being a father.

You know, for someone who has bootstrapped the business from the beginning who has invested so much time, energy, and money into something, when you don't have all that time available anymore to keep doing it the way you were doing it, it's a shock. And I experienced that for, I made some notes here that I wanted to keep up with for this episode.

But my self-identity changed with these two life transitions and I was attempting to regain clarity in my mission again in the last couple months. And after reading books, after studying resources and talking to people and talking to mentors, I have found that path again. Now, I'm not going to say I have figured it all. out. I'm still in the middle of navigating. I think that's what's going to be so unique and great about the relaunch of this podcast and the content we're producing is I'm sharing with you guys my navigation through these transitions as a recording. And I'm going to be sharing

very real, vulnerable emotions and feelings. I'm going to start meeting with a therapist and and just talk to someone about some of the collateral damage that I've experienced of the last decade of stressing out to remarkable levels of building a business and exploring why I had an eating disorder when I was 14 years old and why I handled losing my mom to cancer the way that I did and move past it so quickly. I am now, as I'm getting older, interested in exploring why my mind, why the mind works and thinks in certain ways.

And I just want to be more aware of what causes certain decisions or actions or behaviors. I want to study myself. I want to share this experiment of myself with you guys through one of one of on one podcast or when we bring in experts and guests. The goal with the podcast is to provide you tools, resources, and knowledge to optimize your life, to optimize your health, your fitness, your performance, your business, the way you show up as a leader, the way you show up as a spouse, the way you show up as a parent. That is my goal with this podcast.

I want to help you reach your full potential. I want you to push so fucking hard in all aspects of life. But through that ambition, also appreciate the contentment of where you are and who you're with at the moment. That's what I'm experiencing right now. That's what I'm personally experienced right now. And I'm going to share that journey with you to help you get to where you want and need to be. and as someone who is naturally a doer and a fixer, when I was experiencing these life transitions,

I wanted to implement an overnight fix, but I realized that this one was different. You know, when something happens in the business, for example, where say we have an employee that's not working out, that's a pretty easy fix. You know, you put them on a performance improvement plan, and if they don't improve, you fire them pretty quickly. If our website goes down, we reach on to our developers and we work nonstop overnight for days until that is fixed.

If we're not acquiring as many customers as we were the previous month and we're off pace, well, then we implement a new marketing strategy and we have brainstorm sessions. Those are generally easy fixes. You can identify a problem and then implement a problem. solution typically overnight or instantaneously. What I experienced these life transitions recently of stepping down from the CEO rule, and I will caveat to that, putting Kat Thomas in the CEO role was one of the best decisions I've ever made in my entire life.

Right person, right position, right time. I can't be more excited for that decision that I made. I couldn't be more excited selfishly for myself, but also for the business, our trajectory of where we're heading, the team internally here, the community. Best decision, one of the best decisions I've ever made in my entire life

is putting Kat Thomas in the CEO role. I'm so grateful to have had someone come into my life that could take, that rule and run with it. But the transition, it still was harder than I expected. There is still an acceptance in regaining of clarity through that process. So instead of this overnight quick do or fix, well, what's the solution, right?

You guys are all, we're all going to experience these life transitions throughout the course of lifetime. If you don't experience any life transitions, I hate to break it to you, but you're probably dead. You're probably actually not here. You're just, you're a ghost watching yourself on earth. But it's through self-work. I talked about therapy. I'm going to start therapy.

Which should be interesting and cool. Just discovery, reading, mentors, having conversations and communication with people, rebuilding relationships and friendships and being more open and vulnerable. And I think about this a lot in terms of when I first started this company in 2012, I was naive and I was ignorant. I was ignorant to the risks that I was about to take

and I was naive to how hard it was going to be. But when you're naive and ignorant and you don't know the risks. You kind of ask yourself the question, what are I got to lose? Nothing. Everything was brand new. Everything was fresh.

Everything was exciting. Everything was challenging. Everything was challenging. But the larger things get, the more challenging it becomes. And you're not ignorant and naive anymore. And I think what happens is the more experience we gain and the more time we spend here on earth,

the more complicated life can actually get because when we shed layers of ignorance, we shed layers of being naive and we have more exposure to the harsh realities of the world, and we have more obligations, we have more responsibilities, more realistic expectations, life gets more complicated, right? You know, business grows and there's more top line revenue, which makes things more complicated.

There's more employees associated with a business that makes things more complicated. You get married and you start a family and you have kids. That makes life more complicated. Not more complicated in a bad way. And I don't want you to take it that way, but life gets more complicated, sometimes in the most amazing ways possible. birth of a child, for example. But what I'm learning through this process is life gets more complicated and responsibilities get larger

and you shed some of these layers of ignorance that you have to do the work to take care of yourself. Your perspective has to change on things that you approach. And it's a lot of deep work. It's not surface-level conversations. It's not just this thing that pops in your head as you're walking to lunch on a Tuesday afternoon. This is why I run.

I talk about the solitude of running a lot. The solitude of running is just an example of ways to experience solitude. There's meditation. You can go on trips and vacations. You can have these deep, meaningful conversations with really close friends. You can have small groups. For me, the solitude I experience, while running is so powerful and necessary for my life

because I can reach depths of what I'm going through and it allows you to simplify a complicated life or discussion or situation and you have to create these moments of solitude. You have to create these moments of perspective and deep work to navigate the complications of life as you get older and you experience more. and I'm putting more effort and emphasis on that solitude the older that I get.

This August I'll turn 33 years old. I spent all my 20s and now my early 30s in the Army and building this business. Amazing years. So rewarding. I can't imagine where I would be right now in my life. If one, I didn't join the Army and two, I didn't start this business. business. I can't imagine. If I could look back at myself when I was 22 years old and I remember where I was when I formed the LLC for bare performance nutrition. I was home for a weekend

from college and I was in my parents' kitchen at this bar on my laptop submitting the application for the LLC for Bear Performance Nutrition. And when we first formed the LLC, it was a Pennsylvania LLC, we then converted to a Texas LLC, I believe in 2017. I remember where I was, and if I could go back and talk to 22-year-old Nick Bear,

I would say this is the best decision you're going to have ever made in your entire life. And you don't even understand the impact or significance that it is going to make on tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people across the world by the content that this team creates, the mission that you guys live behind, and the message that you share. You don't even know what you're doing right now filing this LLC, but it is so powerful, and it's going to change its trajectory of not only your life, but so many people. I wish I could go back and just tell myself then that because I had no clue what I was starting

or where I was kicking off. But here we are 10 and a half years later. And I'm proud. I'm proud of these past 10 and half years of work, which had been so hard but so challenging and rewarding. And I'm so grateful for the team that we have. I'm so grateful to finally be in a position where I can prioritize things like this podcast. The mission, the message.

Now, I'm not as operational in the business anymore. Again, it goes back to hiring the right people. Josh, our CFO, is a clear example. Kat, our CEO, clear example. Preston, my brother, our chief operations officer, clear example. people have taken lead in this business to allow me to focus on what I'm very, very, very passionate about. And that's what we're going to do in this podcast. This is my passion.

This is where I want to be. This is what I want to be doing. And I couldn't be in this position right now without amazing people on this team and by my side. Now, why the rebrand of the podcast? Why, you know, for the last year and a half, maybe two years now, we built out this beautiful studio, which is literally on the wall next to me, where I'm sitting right now, we've got this beautiful studio. We recorded 100 and so podcast episodes with amazing guests under the Bear Performance

podcast name. Why end that and start something new? and I wrote something down here and it's good is good, great is better. Optimized is continuous improvement. I was happy with a bare performance podcast. I wasn't psyched. I didn't think it was remarkable. I knew I could do better.

I knew I could be more focused and more intentional. When I was in the CEO role and I was managing and hosting a podcast and I was creating content, on YouTube through these training series and I was very operational in the business. I was, you know, I can say this now in retrospect, but I was operating at my red line. If you think of, like think of a race car. When you're racing a race car, you're at redline.

And when you take that vehicle over a redline, the engine blows up. You stop wherever you're at, right? over these last 10 years, I've gotten very effective and efficient at operating at my red line. And there have been a few times where things

have pushed me over that red line and I felt the effects and I think everyone in this building has seen the effects of that. But, you know, I got really efficient at operating at that red line. When I had, when we had our daughter, Charlie,

that pushed me over the red line. because I was trying to operate as a CEO of a business, hosting a podcast, creating content, getting out in the community and doing events. And I was trying to figure out how to be a father and a good father. I want to be a great father. I don't want to be just a good father. I don't want to be just an okay dad. I want to be great. I want to be a great father.

That is a big priority for me right now. and the effort that I wanted to put towards being a great father while operating at Red Line, pushed me over Red Line, and my engine blew up. It's the only way to describe it. It blew up. And I was feeling the effects.

And, you know, a reason for the transition out of the CEO role was to rebuild the engine, to delegate an engine, to delegate an engine, elevate duties and responsibilities and operate in the business where I could truly move the needle. And if I'm being very honest with myself, and this can be hard for people during situations and transitions in life, I believe that I'm a very aware person. I can be very honest with myself. What I realized was the way that I move the needle in the business is operating my area of genius. And my area of genius is creating content, building the brand through the message,

the mission, helping people, and all things creative. And if I was being honest myself, it wasn't the CEO role. I needed someone in the CEO role who could truly just focus on being CEO. I know a lot of a lot of CEOs and businesses that aren't operational, but they just hold on the title because of the ego that's associated with that title. Someone should be in that role that truly deserves it, and it can dedicate all time and resources to the chief executive officer role, and that is Kat Thomas. I was being very honest with myself and saying that is not where my area of genius is

at this moment in my life. I need to move into a new area of the business to help this business grow as much and as fast as possible. That's content. That's helping people. That's creative. That's media distribution. Now, why the change of the name?

Well, to be very honest, there were certain things that I felt that I couldn't talk about behind the bare performance podcast name. Now, a brand podcast, one, is never going to have the ability to grow and scale to a size that a personal brand or an individual's podcast can reach. So part of the change of the name was we wanted to grow this platform. We want to grow the podcast.

So we wanted to change the name to pull away from a brand name to give it ability, to give it a chance to really level up and grow and scale. That was part of the reason. Another part of the reason is there's things I want to talk about on this podcast that might be more controversial that are going to be more real and raw and when it was the Bear Performance podcast and

conversations started moving towards directions that were more controversial or I guess just a way of not representing the brand very well I started to get nervous so changing into the Nick Berry podcast I think will be able to scale the podcast

at a faster and larger rate. And I can talk about whatever the fuck I want to talk about now. And that's what we're going to do. My goal in life, my mission is to help a lot of people. I want people to realize that nothing is impossible. You know, when I started my business in 2012, I was afraid to talk to a camera. I was shy.

I was timid. I was uncomfortable in public. I knew nothing about business. I was the underdog. Everything that I decided in 2012, I had no reason to succeed. I had no reason to get to this point. But I worked so hard to get here.

And what I learned that process is, if you're listening to this, if you're watching this, man, it sounds cliche, but if I did it, you can do it. And it's the belief in yourself. And it's putting in the work to reach your full, and that's what I want you to realize through the content that I'm producing. And I'm being very honest in a way of saying my goal was to build BPN to be the best and

largest supplement company in the world. I believe in our people. I believe in this brand. I believe in the products with everything in my body. And I believe in it so much. and I believe that our mission can change the world and help so many people that I want to keep building this brand

to reach more people. That's my goal with content. I want to help people and I want to build this brand and they both complement each other. You know, we recently implemented EOS which is the entrepreneurial operating system into the business

and through that process, it really confirmed that my strength is a visionary. I have a lot of ideas. I have a lot of bad ideas, but the good ideas that stick and work, there's a big return on those ideas. And I want to live in the visionary role of the business.

And I finally have gotten to a point where I'm living and operating in a visionary role. And I have a vision for this podcast. And the last thing I'm going to say in regards to why the transition to the Nick Bear podcast, podcast is because I had a vision for what this platform could be and what it will be in the future. And the only way to get there was by changing the name, changing the branding, changing what we talk about, how we talk about, how we show up and how it's created.

And that's all we did it. You know, my mission is not changing in life. I want to make that very, very clear. My mission is not changing, but it is of all. And it's evolving because of the transitions that I experienced of having a child of the business growing from stepping down from the CEO role. My mission is evolving. And if I ignore that, if I ignore that, I am not doing myself justice.

I'm holding myself back. The last thing I want to talk about in this episode is five things. I've learned a lot over the last six months. but there's five things that I want to share with you guys, five key takeaways that I learned in the last six months. And when I ran the Leadville 100 in August of 2021, the one thing I took away from the Leadville 100 with our crew was, you can go very fast alone,

but you can go so much further together. I've been saying that since then because it rings true very strongly in deep. to me. You can go very fast alone, but you can go so much further together. And the first handful of years of building this company, I had to move very fast by myself. Being an entrepreneur can be a very lonely life. That's just the reality of it. But in the beginning, when you're bootstrapped when you have no demand for your product, when you have no awareness of your company, you have to operate very fast and alone. And that's what I did. But then there was this

pivotal point. That pivotal point for me really happened during Leadville 100, 2021. It was a quick realization that, you know, we can actually go much further together. and that in a sense is applicable to business, but I'm now applying that to my family. You know, a family actually operates very similar in a way that a business operates. And if you're ever lost, what I found is I've been lost with my family.

You know, me and Steph were having this conversation a few weeks ago after we put Charlie down one night and we sat down, I thought, you know, one of the things that have changed the, just the infrastructure of the business is that we implemented a strong mission and vision and we plastered those all over the walls and everyone understands them and then values. Values that we operate behind, that we hire and fire behind. Vision, mission, values. You can put boundaries in there too.

Boundaries are super important, which I'll get to. And me and Steph, we're talking and we realize, well, we should and need to have those in our family too. We need a mission. We need a vision. We need boundaries. We need values. And whenever we get stuck, whenever life gets hard and we're confused,

we need to fall back on that foundation of mission, vision, values, and boundaries. And I want my family to be stronger to get, and go much further. And if I try to operate my business, or sorry, my family, like I did my business in the beginning, of going very fast alone,

if I try to apply it to my family right now, I'm not going to have a family in five to ten years. Because no one's going to want to stick around me. And I had that realization. And it's reprioritizing family. It's reprioritizing relationships. It's reprioritizing happiness. That is where I'm,

in my life right now. And like I said, having a daughter changed that. And I'm actively working to accomplish and pursue that mission and that vision of reprioritizing family, relationships, and happiness. The five things that I learned in the last six months. One, parts of your life grow where you water it. And without water, they die. It's funny.

I posted this on Twitter two days ago and somebody commented back and said, well, no shit, that's obvious. And I responded with, I think you need to water your character. You know, we all have parts of our life that we can improve. And, you know,

we talk a lot on this podcast and in my content about training in nutrition and business, which yes, if you don't water your training, you're going to be on a shape. If you don't water your nutrition, your diet, you're going to feel like crap. You might gain weight.

You're going to be unhealthy. If you don't water your business, your business is going to fall apart and you're not going to make as much money. If you don't water your family, your family's going to fall apart. If you don't water your relationships with friends and your children and the church,

all of those fall apart. and it sounds very cliche and it sounds very simple. But if I look back at any part of my life that has fallen apart in the past, it's because I didn't water it and I let it die. Number two, this is why I recommend, honestly, the book, Set Boundaries Find Peace. I'm in the middle of it right now and it's amazing. I've been listening to it as I've been running.

Boundaries protect your priorities. That's number two. Boundaries protect your priorities. and you can only sacrifice yourself, your time, your energy for so long until you feel the effects of not having boundaries. You overcommit, you don't know how to say no, you become overwhelmed, exhausted, you resent yourself, you resent other people. You have to create boundaries for yourself.

And when you create boundaries for yourself, and you set those boundaries, and you communicate those boundaries, and you take action on those boundaries, your life changes. overnight. I have started implementing more boundaries in my life. And it's very obvious why I was overwhelmed through the transition of having a child and stepping down from the CEO rule. And it goes back to what I said in the beginning of this podcast where when Charlie was born

and I said I was going to take two weeks off of work, I didn't communicate that boundary firmly enough and I didn't put action on that boundary. So when we got back from the hospital and there was a fire to put out at work and I came back into the office the next day and never took this two weeks off which I feel very bad for now

and guilty to my wife. So, Steph, I'm sorry. But it's because I didn't know how to set boundaries. You have to set boundaries with your work, family, friends, things you want to do, things you don't want to do,

if you don't set boundaries, you can't be mad or angry or resent people because it wasn't clear, it wasn't communicated. Number three, ambition must be complimented with contentment. We were listening to a sermon the other day, Sunday morning, and it talked about in this sermon, and the struggle of balancing ambition and contentment. And it makes me think of the movie Click with Adam Sandler.

You know, in this movie, Adam Sandler wants this job promotion. And he finds this remote control. It's magical that can fast forward through moments of time where he can skip the boring parts to achieve the ambition that he's aiming towards. So for example, he wants his job promotion and he skips to the job promotion and he misses like 25 years of his life. Ambition, like you need ambition. You need to choose hard things to work towards and put all effort towards those things.

I would not be where I am today if I wasn't an extremely ambitious person. I set very ambitious goals, very ambitious goals, and I work very hard to achieve them. I fail often, but I succeed occasionally, and that's what's got me to this point. But where I struggle, and I've struggled more in the past than I do now, but it's still a struggle, is to be content with what you have, with who and where.

Living in the present, being where your feet are, that is hard, especially as a very ambitious person. I'll be very clear that contentment is not complacency. Being content does not mean you're complacent, but it's being fulfilled and happy with where you're at, who you're with, and why you're doing it. But you're still chasing ambition.

You're still working towards ambition. Ambition is healthy and absolutely necessary to move forward and succeed. But without contentment, you will not be fulfilled. You won't be happy. And it will wear on you, but more importantly, it will wear on the people around you. Number four, actions are the follow through of the words we speak. I never thought I had actually an issue with this.

I'm a very actionable person. So for me to say this, it sounds very odd to say that I have struggled with actions as a follow through for the words that I speak. I'm very actionable in business. I'm very actionable in my health and fitness. But I'll give an example. For a long time, I've said that faith in God is a priority of mine. But I wasn't having conversations with God.

And I wasn't going or prioritizing church. So I was saying one thing, but I wasn't following it up with actions. I was saying that a family was a priority, but I was still willing to work till 11 or 12 p.m. every night and not be present or content with where I was in life. There's a big realization of mine. So if you say something as a priority, look at your calendar, look at your schedule, look at your day, does that reflect with what you say your priorities are? And what's helped me achieve this is delegating responsibilities and duties and elevating people in my life to help me and then stick to those boundaries as well.

And the last one is to accept change and adapt to thrive in it. Change and life transitions will happen and if you resist them, they will resist you. Life transitions happen. You know, to kind of quote the books that I mentioned in the beginning every 12 to 18 months, we experience a big life transition. There's 52 major life transitions. And they are going to happen. It's not a matter of if, but it's a matter of when.

And when they happen, how do we adapt and change with them? How do we use them and view them as a strength and opportunity and not a negative or an obstacle? accept the change and adapt to thrive in it. Not just survive. Not just surviving. So I'm now 10 and a half years in of building this business. And my role has officially changed. My mission has evolved.

My mission hasn't changed. It is evolved. And my mission feels more clear now than ever before, if I'm being honest. I want to share my experiences. I want to share my struggles. I want to share how I'm navigating life transitions as a new father, as an entrepreneur, business owner, as a husband, reprioritizing relationships, friendships,

faith, God. And my mission feels more clear than ever before. So I'm excited to take you guys along for that journey. But here we are, episode one of the Nick Bear podcast.