The Nick Bare Podcast - 029: Discover Your Unique Superpowers For Success

Episode Date: August 28, 2023

We all have superpowers. And while they may not be as cool as invisibility or time travel, they hold the power to help us achieve our wildest dreams and aspirations. Our superpowers aren't physical characteristics but rather unique values that drive our behavior and decision-making. Today, I'm sharing my four superpowers and challenging you to discover your own to achieve fulfillment and success. Follow for more:  IG: https://www.instagram.com/nickbarefitness/ YT: https://www.youtube.com/@nickbarefitness Topics:  00:00 Intro 1:12 Harness superpowers for success 5:08 My four superpowers 7:02 Self-accountability 21:19 Courage 25:53 Curiosity 33:58 Consistency 37:24 Final words

Be fucking fearless. Be fucking fearless. The reality is a lot of people are going to try and spread their fear onto you. They're talking about what could go wrong and how it will go wrong and what you should be cautious about and what you should be afraid of and they just piss on your dreams. Don't let the fear of others influence your courage to act on your curiosity. Before we dive into today's episode, I want to thank you for tuning in and supporting the brand. Now, I have spent the last decade plus of my life building bare performance nutrition, and we create effective supplements that you can trust to support your wellness, endurance,

and performance goals. We offer high-quality, great-tasting weight protein powders, effective pre-workouts, superfoods, sleep support, electrolytes, and much more. So if you want to support the content that we produce and the message that I am sharing through my content and on this podcast, I would greatly appreciate it if you went to BPNsups.com And you can use code Nick Bear 10 to save 10% off your next order. So thank you guys. I appreciate you.

And let's dive into the show. Hello everyone. And welcome back to another episode. Now this episode is powered by run thoughts. A few weeks ago, I was thinking about this concept. and it was a 10-mile run. I had this thought, and it just kept building in my mind.

And it's been one of those thoughts that have kept coming back on runs after that one. And I wanted to share it because I think there's a lot of power and potential behind it. And it's all about superpowers for success. Now, I always feel obligated when I mention success that success is relative. It is very specific to an individual. It's how we define success.

Success for you might be happiness. It might be fulfillment. It might be money. It might be an accumulation of wealth or materialistic things. Like, there's no judgment. However you define success is how you define success. and my definition of success is definitely evolved over the years. It is definitely evolved over the years,

especially since starting a family and being a dad and prioritizing my deep and meaningful relationships more recently. The podcast and interviewing guests and having discussions and really deep conversations has helped me evolve my definition of success and my meaningful mission. It's a long way of saying, you got to figure out how you define success. And that's going to help you then identify your superpowers.

This episode is just me talking all things, superpowers. And when we think of superpowers, I at least think of superheroes. And when I think of superheroes, I think of growing up and reading comic books or watching cartoons. And I think of Batman and Superman and Spider-Man. And when I think of superpowers related to superheroes, I think of someone who can fly.

I think of someone who can create fire out of their hand, who can shoot webs out of their wrists, who can run at the speed of light, who can turn into like this big green, massive, muscular man being the Hulk. When I think of superheroes, I think of superpowers in a physical capacity. Right?

I think a lot of people probably do. But I would encourage you throughout this conversation of what I'm about to discuss, think of superpowers, not necessarily by something that we physically have, the ability to manipulate, but a characteristic,

a value that we can refine and focus on. We get to choose our superpowers. Think of it that way. What do you want to accomplish in your life to achieve success

as you define it? And then ask yourself the question, what superpowers do I need to get there. Not being physical capacity or characteristics, but values, mental, emotional, spiritual values

that are built off of the foundation that allow us to accomplish our success. So I'm going to explain what I believe are four of my superpowers that I have worked on over the last decade plus of my life, and then I continue to work on and refine that have allowed me to accomplish these big objectives and goals that I set.

They allowed me to show up as the man, the leader, the father, the husband that I want to be in my life. And as I constantly work and refine on these superpowers, they allow me to accomplish my goals. They allow me to to succeed and win and learn from my failures. So I would also encourage you

through this episode, think about some superpowers that you want to harness and work on. You're not going to be amazing at all of them in the beginning. But if you truly spend time, energy, resources,

maybe even money, refining these superpowers, they will make you a better person. they will make you a better version of yourself. So the four that I'm going to talk about. The first one is self-accountability. The second one is courage. The third one is curiosity and the fourth one is consistency.

Now, some of what I'm about to talk about are observations that I've made personally. There are observations that I've picked up on through reading books or listening to podcast. reading articles or having discussions with some of these amazing guests that come on the podcast on a weekly basis. So a lot of what I'm about to talk about has been influenced by other people, ideas, thoughts, perspectives outside of just what's in my mind. But the first one being self-accountability. I think this is one of the greatest superpowers that I have learned how to harness and that has a huge

impact on myself, but can have a huge impact on you as well. And when I think of self-accountability, I can't think of self-accountability without thinking of and discussing dopamine. As you guys know, I'm obsessed with the theory and the practice and the principle of how dopamine controls our lives. I've referenced the book many times, a book that I've read probably four or five times at this point, the molecule of more. And it talks about how dopamine ultimately controls everything that we do. And there's a reason that I'm going to talk about dopamine in a relation to self-accountability. Now, self-accountability, that is a, that's a discipline, right?

Like, it is the ability to control our actions that is influenced by our thoughts or our wants. and in the molecule more talking about dopamine, the big question is, will our likes meet the expectations of our wants? There's a lot of things that we want in life. You know, think of some of the things you want right now. You might want a new pair of shoes. You might want a job promotion.

You might want a bigger house. You might want a newer car. You might want a new partner or a new spouse. That is like the reality. But what happens when we actually get what we want? Do we like it? Like you want this new pair of shoes. And say this new pair of shoes that you want is like really expensive.

And you're saving up and you're saving up and you're saving up. And all you can think about is this new pair of shoes. And you finally get these new pair of shoes. And you put them on, you wear them. And you feel like a gangster when you're going out in public in the shoes. You feel like a badass. And then one week goes by, and you still feel pretty cool. Two weeks goes by.

You feel like a little cooler than you did before you had the shoes. A month goes by, they're just another pair of shoes. Like this, this dopamine was telling us we want this thing so bad. But the reality is we don't actually like it as much as we thought we would based off of how much we wanted it. I also think of, and I want to use this example, of being able to harness dopamine control to influence self-accountability.

Like the way that you can hold yourself more accountable is being aware and understanding how dopamine works. After I read the molecule more, and I became more aware of the way dopamine worked and the impact it had over our entire, mind, body, life, I was able to actually be more aware and hold myself more accountable

to the decisions that I was making. So here's an example. Diet and food choices are a great way to describe our ability to control dopamine. And say you just started a new diet. And you're just trying to clean up the foods that you eat. You want to feel better.

You want to lose a few pounds. You're going into summer. You want to expose some of your abs. You want to prioritize protein and lean meats, quality carbohydrates, good fats. You want to reduce your intake of industrial seed oils and processed foods, ultra-processed foods. You're just trying to clean up your diet, right? That's what I'm trying to get across. and you go to this party

and this party is like a smorgas board of slider cheeseburgers and french fries and chicken fingers and dips and chips and beer and there's just like all this good stuff sitting out. Someone's barbecuing it smells so good smells so good

and you're like I gotta stick to my diet I got to sick to my diet. But your dopamine is just flooding your brain. And your mouth is salivating. You're thinking, I'm about to just go hard on all this food. And because you can't control that dopamine, you just splurge. You eat everything. You have like six plates of food.

And by the time you're finishing that last plate, you're eating the food, but you don't even enjoy it anymore. You're just, you're still eating it. And you're disgusting. with yourself. You know, you wanted this thing and you had this expectation to like it as much as you thought you wanted it, but you actually didn't towards the end of it.

Now you actually feel worse because one physically, you ate all this food and you feel physically unwell. You feel physically sick. But mentally and emotionally, you're disappointed in your inability to control your dopamine desire. self-accountability is the awareness of being able to put yourself in a situation or position

and as much as something is telling you you want it, you should have it, go after. It doesn't have to be food, doesn't have to be diet related. But pulling yourself back, taking a step back, having some awareness and perspective and thinking, as much as I want this, will I actually like it once I achieve it or get it? what are the consequences that come with this decision? And can I intentionally, strategically, and deliberately make a better choice based off of the outcome and consequences I know will result from the decision I'm about to make? I mean, that explanation sounds overly complicated. It's really not.

but it can be a hard place to be. And the only way to describe the way this works is being able to harness dopamine control. It's a muscle that has to be trained. And the more stimulus that's provided to it, the better you become. And in my case, being exposed to different foods or diet, I can hold myself very accountable

to make the right food choices because if I'm put in a situation and this muscle has been trained for years and years and years. And it's evolved and it's adapted and it's become stronger. It's a muscle that I can flex. You can put me in a situation

and present really healthy, nourishing food in front of me or really just like delicious, cheesy burger, pizza type food in front of me. And one obviously tastes a whole lot better, but the other one is going to make me feel a whole lot better. I'm always going to gravitate towards the healthier food option

that's going to make me feel better. Yes, there's a time and place for the delicious burgers, fries, pizza, et cetera, et cetera, where I allow myself to enjoy these things. I'm not saying I'm a robot. But on a regular basis, because I've trained this muscle of self-accountability and dopamine control,

I'm naturally going to gravitate towards the healthier food option because I'm weighing the consequences before I even make a decision knowing how it's going to affect me that evening the next day in two days and how it affects and influences my objectives and goals towards improvement. Harnessing dopamine control is the first part of self-accountability. The second part of self-accountability that I want to talk about is being self-powered. As you hear this, you might be in this situation right now, but again, it's a muscle that as it has more exposure to a stimulus, it gets stronger. Just like a muscle that isn't exposed to a stimulus, though, it atrophies. It gets weaker.

The way you become more self-accountable, the way you maintain and build accountability, is to continuously exposing yourself to a stimulus that's, forces that muscle to grow, adapt, and develop, because without it, it atrophies and dies or decreases. A lot of people aren't self-power. They need some sort of constant motivation or influence to keep showing up and performing. I've used this example in this analogy before, but think of a vehicle. A traditional vehicle can only travel a certain amount of miles based off the amount of fuel that you put in that vehicle. Once it runs down a fuel, it can't go any further. That fuel for a lot of people is motivation.

It's inspiration. They might have to constantly be watching something, consuming some sort of content, talking to a friend to stay motivated. But when you are self-powered and you find a way to be self-powered, there's an internal driving force that makes you show up for yourself and your goals, you don't need that constant drip of motivation. You are a vehicle that can go an extended amount of miles without the need for fuel. And the way that I like to think about this is an internal driving force that holds you accountable.

Now, a lot of that comes down to, like, are you actually working towards a goal or an objective that you are truly passionate about, that you really want to achieve? And if you're not, if you're working towards something that someone else wants for you, you don't actually want. It's going to be really hard to be self-powered. You're probably going to need to keep looking for this external source of motivation or inspiration. And that's the way that I look at the ability to be self-powered and why you should be self-powered. Now, the last thing I want to talk about in terms of self-accountability, I'm going to open up

of the question, should we be competitive? And I find this very intriguing because when podcast guests come in to be on the show, you know, sometimes we'll go for a run or a dinner or a workout the day, the night, the morning of the recording or sometimes even afterwards. So there's conversation with a lot of the guests that come on the show outside of just the hour or two that we spend sitting down for the recording. And one of the questions that I've been asking guests recently is if they consider themselves a competitive person. And when I say competitive, competitive with other people.

And the reason I ask this question is because through a lot of the studying I've been doing recently, through some different social scientists and podcasts, I've been listening to books that I've been reading, I've been asking myself the question, am I a competitive person? And I think we always assume someone who is driven, who is successful, who is an athlete, they are naturally a competitive person. But I would argue that I am not a competitive person. And I've met a few people that are like this too. I actually find that more people are competitive than not. I don't believe that I am competitive with other people or brands or things,

but I'm competitive with myself. And I think this reinforces the ability to harness dopamine control, but also be self-powered through an internal driving force of purpose and direction and mission. I don't know if there's a right or wrong answer. It's kind of just something that I want to bring up and discuss. but when I go into a race or I go into a new sprint and business or I'm creating content or I'm doing anything in life, like anything in life, I'm not trying to compete against anyone or anything.

But what I'm trying to do is get better. I'm trying to improve upon my last performance that was measured. If I'm going to run a marathon, I want to run that marathon faster than I, I ran in my previous marathon, not necessarily faster than someone else. If I run that marathon faster than someone else, that's great in all, but that doesn't provide me the happiness and fulfillment that I think a lot of people expect to get from that result. But if I improve from my previous performance, that brings me happiness.

That brings me fulfillment. That brings me a level of success as I define it. So I would encourage you guys to ask yourself, just from like an awareness perspective, do you think you are competitive in a sense that you compete against a previous version of yourself or competing against other people? And I don't know if there's a right or wrong answer, but I think it will guide your ability or inability to truly harness dopamine control, be self-powered internally, and have self-accountability for a sustainable period of time.

The second superpower is courage. Recently, two guests came on the podcast, separate interviews, Chad Wright, and Chris Williamson. And we talked about similar things at different parts of this podcast, and the question was, as a society, as a group of people, why are we unhappy? Why are we unfulfilled? Why are we lonely?

And a lot of it came down to, as I've summarized, and I've thought, it's because of a lack of courage. Now, you might be hearing that thinking courage has nothing to do with being unhappy, being unfulfilled, being lonely, but I would disagree. And I'm going to explain why. I think a lack of courage holds us back

from accomplishing all of our dreams and aspirations. And curiosity, which I'm about to talk about next, curiosity without courage is useless. Just because you are curious about something, nothing will change unless you act upon that curiosity and that action is courage to take that first step. The reason people don't lose weight even though they want to, yes, it's self-accountability, but it's courage.

The reason people are unhappy is because they have a lack of courage. The reason people are unfulfilled is a lack of courage. Courage is the action to make a change. That's the way I look at courage. Courage requires action. If you lack courage, but you want to lose weight, you're not going to make a change. I could wish all day that I'm going to lose 20 pounds, run a faster marathon. But unless I have the courage to take the steps and the required action and make that happen,

nothing will change. I could say that I want my business to be worth a billion dollars. But if I don't have the courage to put a plan in the right people in place and the work ethic required to get there, if I don't have the courage for that, it's just a dream it's just a wish curiosity without courage is useless because there is no action and i think truly having courage like real courage is a superpower and in part of courage this comes from my conversation with chris williamson he brought up a very valid question it seems so basic but also so complex that i think a lot of people have a

a hard time putting in a practice. The question is, what do you want to want? Like, what do you want your life to look like? What do you want to want to want? Like, do you want to be happy? If you want to be happy, you have to have the courage to make a change. Something's got to change. If you're unhappy, something's got to change.

If you are unfulfilled, like, what do you want to feel? How, what do you want to be doing? And the reason that I think, I think that's a hard question for people to conceptualize and put into action because or actually asking ourselves is, or what's being asked, what do you want that people want you to want? And I'm generalizing right now, but a lot of times people will want things based off of what other people in their life want for them. That's the reality of it. Like, what do you want your life to look like? I wanted to look like this

but this person in my life thinks I'd be better off doing this this employee this employer thinks I'd be better off doing this the people on social media that I've never met before my life who could be bots or could be real people are telling me they want me to do this so I think I should want to do this

based off of what other people want me to do bullshit what do you want it seems like a really easy answer but if you actually sit down, audit your life and write down, what do you want in life? What do you want it to feel like? What do you want it to look like? What do you want it the experience to be like?

Write that down and then have the courage to take the steps to make it happen. It's harder. It's much harder than just having the curiosity to think about it. The third superpower is curiosity. I was thinking about this on this morning's run, actually. morning run thoughts they're powerful and i was i was thinking about curiosity and why we don't act on curiosity and the answer i came to is fear fear is a lack of courage and what i found is is why people don't act on curiosity as much as much as you might be curious about something

now curiosity to me is it is the spark that makes us do the things that we do I would have never started my business if I wasn't curious. I would have never started running marathons if I wasn't curious. I would have never went to join the military and go through Ranger School and be an infantry platoon leader if I wasn't curious. I would have never scaled my business to the size it is today if I wasn't curious. I would have never ran a sub three hour marathon if I wasn't curious. Curiosity is the spark to literally everything that we do.

But the reason a lot of people don't act on curiosities because they lack courage. And fear is a lack of courage. Now, other people will try and inject their fear, fear for themselves or for for you and me, for us, and that's contagious. The goal is to be fearless. I was thinking about this this morning. I was like,

on my run, I'm thinking how impactful fear can be and why we don't act on curiosity because of fear. And I'm like, what's the answer?

Be fucking fearless. Be fucking. fearless or as close to it as possible. Is that achievable? Maybe, maybe not. But like, be fearless. Because the reality is a lot of people are going to try and spread their fear onto you.

You ever go into a room and you have this curiosity and you have this courage to act on it? Maybe you haven't, but I definitely have. I've experienced this before. And I'm so eager to get started. started and you start talking to someone or a group of people and they're just pessimistic. They just piss on your dreams.

And they're talking about what could go wrong and how it will go wrong and what you should be cautious about and what you should be afraid of and they're fearful for you. Now, it might feel like it's because they care about you, which they may or may not. but that fear starts to jump from them onto you and it's like bedbugs or they just spread all over you and as soon as that fear gets on to you and it spreads you lose the courage

you lose the action of that previously driven curiosity don't let the fear of others for good or bad influence your courage to act on your curiosity Be fearless. Be truly fearless. Now, part of curiosity is being open-minded.

This is something I've worked on the past couple years of my life that has opened up my mind in perspective so much. It increases your perspective capacity. I was thinking about the analogy of when Courtney DeWalter, who is an elite ultra-marathon runner, she was on the podcast probably two years ago she's talking about the pain cave

now Courtney arguably the best one of the best ultra runners to ever exist she talks about what she gets out of each and every big effort that she does and her goal is just to build out her pain cave

a little bit more and visually I'm thinking about literally this cave on the side of a mountain and her with this pickax and with every race, she's just going in and picking a little bit more at this pain cave. She's building it out. And after dozens and dozens and dozens of races, this pain cave is massive. The capacity of pain in which she can manage and handle is huge because she's built it out over time.

I think perspective is the same way. The way you build out perspective is the same way that Courtney builds out her pain cave. You need to be open-minded. You need to have conversations with different people. You need to be open to learning new things. You need exposure from different people of different walks of life and different experiences with different perspectives that add to yours, being open-minded. You know, recently I've been listening to the Sam Harris podcast.

me and Sam are very different people. I'm a Christian, I'm a believer, I'm a man of faith, Sam is an atheist. Now there's a lot of people who would never listen to anything Sam says, people who are Christians, because he's atheist. Instantly, they devalue any of his thoughts,

opinions, or perspectives because there is not this common belief between the two. And I would argue that that is the worst way that you can approach or build perspective capacity. Now, I've been listening to a lot of what Sam says in this podcast, and he approaches a lot of topics and issues, things that are happening in the world from a different lens, a different perspective. Some in which I agree, some in which I disagree. we obviously don't share all of the same values. I like to listen to his content because I get to see another side of a perspective

around an issue or a topic or an opinion. And that's something I've intentionally tried to do more frequently is to ensure that I'm not consuming all the information from the same source of or sources of thoughts and opinions because you end up in an echo chamber. An echo chamber is

imagine an actual chamber where everyone in this chamber believes in exactly what you believe in thinks the exact same way you think once in likes exactly what you want and like. So there's no new experiences coming in, there's no new perspectives or thoughts or opinions. It's just in this chamber of echo.

But when you remove an echo chamber and you allow yourself to consume information from different people, in backgrounds, and perspectives, in beliefs, all different types of walks of life and being very open-minded to it, that can add to your ability to be more curious.

It can be a superpower that you can truly harness and use because I believe being closed-minded will truly shut you off from growth potential and opportunity, not just professionally, but personally as well. Curiosity is truly one of the greatest superpowers you can harness and use. The last superpower I'm going to talk about is consistency. Now, if I look back at the last 10 plus years of work that I've performed and executed on,

The reason I'm where I'm at today is because I have been just ruthlessly consistent. And I'm sure you guys have heard me talk about it. Jeff Cunningham, my running coach, was previously on the podcast. And he said this thing that went viral and has just stuck for so many people. And he said, it's better to be consistently good than occasionally great. Occasionally great is the showboat. It's the Hail Mary. The consistently good is not sexy.

It's not flashy. But it works. It's sustainable. It's better to be consistently good than occasionally great. It's easy to want the occasionally great because you get the recognition, you get the feedback,

you get the pat on the back, you get the handshake. The consistently good is hard to recognize until it compounds and builds over time. Consistently good can't be bought. It has to be built. And when you build it very strongly on a foundation over a long period of time,

it is nearly bulletproof. It is durable. It's a foundation you can build a house off of. Being consistent is an investment in yourself. It's an investment towards your objectives, your goals. Now, the reason I think it is a house. superpower is because it allows you to create sustainable habits that you can actually enjoy and want to do.

And by being more consistent with them, they help you achieve that end result. If you hate running and after a year of doing it, after a year of running, you still hate it, it's going to be very hard to be consistent. You should try to be consistent at the things that you, again, this goes back to the things that you want to want, if there's something that you are going after in life and you're working towards it,

not based off of what you want, but based off of it because it's something that someone else wants for you or you're being told you should want, you're not going to be able to do it for a long period of time and you're going to fail at consistency. The reason I've been able to be so consistent

for such a long period of time is because I found this thing that I was obsessed with and I loved. Health, wellness, helping people reach their goals, creating valuable content around that, building a business around a mission

that is created and driven around influencing and impacting people in the world to become a better version of themselves. That's what I'm working towards. It's so easy to be consistent when I'm working towards something I'm so passionate about. But if you set this goal that's based off of a want that is externally driven and not internally driven, it's going to be so hard to sustain that consistency unless you truly want it. Those are the four superpowers that I believe I have created and harnessed and refined for my

over years, I will continue to work towards and refine because I've seen the impact of them, being self-accountability, courage, curiosity, and consistency. And now, like I said in the beginning of this episode, I challenge you, I encourage you, find these superpowers that you want to harness, work towards them, instill habits and structure to get better at them. find ways and reasons to apply a stimulus that forces adaptation and grow and flex that muscle. Because if you don't, like I said, it will die. It will atrophy.

So be the superhero. You want to be by harnessing the superpowers you need to get there. Thanks for tuning in, guys. We'll see you in the next episode.