The Nick Bare Podcast - 033: Endure The Process

Episode Date: September 25, 2023

If I have one competitive advantage, it’s the ability to endure a process in order to achieve the desired result. Whether it’s building a business, a community, or chasing a performance goal - showing up consistently is essential to me. In this episode, I chat about why enduring a process is so valuable, questions to ask yourself about the work you’re doing, and finding a deeper purpose behind the process. Follow for more:  IG: https://www.instagram.com/nickbarefitness/ YT: https://www.youtube.com/@nickbarefitness Topics: 00:00 Intro 1:11 Endure the process 4:10 Questions to ask ourselves 5:50 Reduce execution risk 08:44 “Hay is in the barn” 16:55 A decade of enduring 21:17 YouTube milestone 25:15 Knowing when to turn on autopilot 31:24 Find purpose behind the process

It's easier to endure the process when you enjoy parts of the process. You're not going to love every moment or every minute. But if you don't have purpose and you don't have reason behind the process that you are embarking to endure, you're not going to enjoy it. You probably won't respect it. And it probably will not lead to a successful, sustainable outcome. 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. 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.

So a few weeks ago, we had Chad Wright on the podcast. And one of the things that Chad talked about, Chad was a former Navy SEAL, entrepreneur, ultra runner. One of the things that we talked about was enduring the process. and it resonated with a lot of people. It resonated with me. And I've been thinking about enduring the process a lot since my conversation with Chad. I've had some amazing conversations with Chad.

Since getting to know him and going for some runs and sitting down and talking, I've been so appreciative and grateful for his mentorship and guidance. and guidance and advice. And, you know, one of the things he talked about in regards to enduring the process, he said everything in life that facilitates growth requires a long process. And I've been thinking about this

on my morning runs recently. Specifically this morning, I was thinking about it. Now, I look at my content that I've been producing over the last decade, the message that I've been sharing. my mission, what I'm truly passionate about. It's been the documentation of a process, the process of building a business,

the process of joining and serving in the U.S. Army as an infantry officer, the process of prepping for marathons, triathlons, ultras, bodybuilding shows. The process of, of becoming a husband and a father. And that's what my mission has ultimately been. It's been sharing and documenting this process

because I've learned and realized that anything great that I have achieved or anything great that I will achieve in the future is not short-sighted. It isn't just by chance. It happens because of this long. long, grueling, intentional process. And that's what I want you guys to take away in this episode. Is it anything great?

Anything that facilitates growth requires. It requires a long process. We should expect, we should anticipate, we should look forward to that process being longer and longer and longer. Because the longer the process is, the more that it sharpens and refines us. the more that we grow. And I thought about this in regards to like, you know, yes, we need to endure a process,

but what is that process? Why should we pursue a certain objective goal milestone? And I think we have to ask ourselves some questions. What are we trying to accomplish? How are we going to do it? Why do we want to do it? And this one's important. Who are we going to do it with?

What do we want to do? What do we want to achieve in life? Truly, like that's a question that I ask myself all the time. And I think that we should all be asking ourselves. What do we want to achieve? What does success look like for us? And then how are we going to do it? What does that process look like that we're going to endure?

And why? What is the purpose behind it? what is the reasoning what is the why we need to have a why behind the things that we are doing because the more time that we spend on on these said things well there's an opportunity cost that we could be spending on something else and i think this is really important who are we going to be doing it with the people that we spend our time with our goals with our objectives our life, that is going to mean so much to you. It means so much to me. It's going to determine if we enjoy that process, if it's a successful outcome, if we want to keep doing it for longer

periods of time. But ask yourself those questions, what, how, why, and who. They are all important. The repetition of enduring a process builds confidence and it reduces execution risk. Now, after building a business for the last 11 plus years, the term execution risk has come up frequently. You know, with every decision that we make, new hires, new omni-channel expansion, when we've decided to go from being only a direct consumer e-commerce brand to Omni Channel being Amazon, wholesale, retail. Well, there's execution risk associated with that. And the way that you mitigate and reduce execution risk,

one, it's through strategic, intentional planning and preparation. It's weighing the outcomes. But it's also repetition. the more that we do something, the more confident we become. And as I've endured more processes over these last 10 plus years of my life, the better I've become

and the more confidence I've built. You mitigate execution risk by planning, preparation, covering your blindside, bringing you on mentors, advisors, coaches, having self-awareness. Like if I look at, at the way that I've reduced execution risk. If we just use the example right now of this marathon prep, which I'm about to dive into, I'm training right now for CIM, the California

International Marathons, December 3rd, 2003. At the time of this recording, I am 73 days out. I've brought on a coach, Jeff Cunningham, to reduce execution risk. He is building out my programming, my structure, looking at my data points, being my paces, my heart rate, my recovery, my sleep, my ability to bounce from one workout to the next. And he is changing and manipulating my plan and program to facilitate. a successful build in a marathon. By bringing on mentors, advisors, coaches, you can reduce execution risk

on the things you are working on. But the way that you get better at enduring a process is by doing it more. The first time you try to do something that is difficult and hard, yeah, it's going to be extremely uncomfortable. And it's going to take a long time, but the more you do it, the better you get.

Now, like I said, I am, as of today, 73 days out for my next marathon. And I love the marathon. It is my favorite thing to train for. I love a marathon prep and build. I'm thriving in it right now. And it's not necessarily the race itself. It's not the 26.2 mile race that I do and complete on that given day, but it's the build leading up to race day. because I thrive in the process.

I enjoy the process. And as you get deeper into a prep and you go into peak week and you start tapering, which means that you reduce training volume and intensity, you start carving up and you're just trying to prime your body for race day, a lot of people will say, you know, good luck, but then it'll follow up with the hay is in the barn. I love that quote, the haze in the barn, maybe because I come from a background of dairy farmers. My dad's side of the family, they were all farmers in central Pennsylvania. And my grandfather, my dad's dad was a dairy farmer in central PA.

So the term the haze in the barn has always been relatable for me. All of the work you've done leading up to every workout, every tempo workout, every track session, and staying on top of nutrition and fueling and rest and recovery and sleep, all of these things that contribute to a successful build in a marathon prep. That's a bail of hay. And you put it in the barn one day at a time.

It's like stacking bricks, brick by brick. Hay bale by hay bale. And when you finish a successful process, you've endured a process being a build, to marathon prep, all of that hay is sitting there in the barn and it's ready. It's ready to be used. There's like these factors that all contribute to this one day, this one moment, it all comes together.

You have your easy runs. You have weekly mileage that changes and increases. Tempo and critical velocity workouts. You have recovery, nutrition, fueling long runs, marathon-paced workouts that are long runs, give your taper, and you have race day. All of these things come together that are part of the process that you have to endure that allow you to show up race day ready.

It's not just the race that I love. Like I said, it's not just that 26.2 mile run. that you get to do, but it's the weeks and months leading up too that are so rewarding. And I've tried to explain this to people because my first couple of marathons that I did, I didn't really experience or utilize an appropriate prep.

I kind of just went out and logged some miles, went and ran, suffered through it. I didn't endure a process. I didn't even start a process. I just, I would argue, put out a half-assed effort and then suffered through what I thought was supposed to hurt and be painful because I didn't do it the right way. But all of the reward that you get is through that prep, through that process.

I think of it almost in terms of an orchestra or a symphony. and you know when I was younger I really didn't appreciate an orchestra or a symphony or that style of music to the extent that I should have you know you're in middle school you're in high school even college and you don't really appreciate the synchronization that's happening in front of you but if you really sit back and look at it you have all these different instruments you have you have the horns in the the drums and you have the conductor and you have the strings. You have the piano. You have all these pieces of an orchestra that are working synchronized

to produce this amazing piece of work and art. It is absolutely amazing. I'm astonished when I watch it because of how intense and deliberate and focused every single individual is to produce this amazing piece of work. And there's so much parallel and there's so much similarity between that and a marathon prep, that and enduring a process. There's all these things that have to work together that you have to organize,

and manage and focus on. But when it all comes together, it produces this amazing piece of work. It produces this just astonishing art. And that's when you, you know, when you've done a successful marathon prep and build and you tow the line come race day. And you take that first step and energy's high

and you finally, after a few miles, fall into your rhythm, you fall into your pace, and you're just clipping mile after mile after mile. At least for me, I think back to those 12 plus weeks of prep and realizing all of the work that went into, all of the hay that was placed into the barn, there was a reason for every run. There was a reason for every workout.

There was a reason for all of that. discomfort and pain because it leads up to this one moment where you just show off and experience the fruits of the labor. That is what enduring a process feels like. And if you're not willing to endure a process, it doesn't have to be a physical challenge. It could be building a business, could be leading your family. It could be anything. But if you're not willing to endure the process, you will never experience the success in greatness that comes from that outcome. Because if you haven't taken all the pieces of the orchestra and symphony and brought them together to produce this amazing piece of work, you can't expect it to have this outcome

that would produce similar results without the process, without the synchronization. It just doesn't work like that. Pope, I'm telling you, once you do it once, once you endure a process once, it's got to be challenging. It's got to be hard, and it has to take a long time. It's not hours, it's not days, it's weeks and months. When you've experienced that and you've seen the result

and success and greatness that is born from it, you realize the potential that exists within yourself and what you can actually do. And you keep repeating that and applying that to many different things in your life and those repetitions build and get stronger and it improves and builds confidence. It improves and supports and facilitates growth.

Growth comes from enduring a process. I love this quote from this Aaron Watson song. Aaron Watson is one of my favorite Texas country artist. And he says, I became an overnight success in just over 10 years. I've been at it for over 11 years now.

Started the business August 2012 out of my college apartment in central Pennsylvania. And there was never this occasionally great moment. There was never this out of nowhere overnight, sensational success and explosion. The only way to describe it was like a snowball. And you start this small snowball at the top of the hill and you let it roll down this gradual hill.

And over time it builds and it gets bigger and it gets bigger and it gets bigger. But it's very gradual and incremental. And it just builds over time. The growth that I've experienced by building bare performance nutrition over these 11 years is the direct result that I've documented on social media I've shared with you guys. You've seen it.

You've seen every chapter and season of the growth. It's because we endured a process over a long period of time. We chose the hard right over the easy wrong, which might take a long time. It might take a decade. If you want to be an overnight success, you can choose one path.

If you want to be an overhead success in 10 years plus, there's another path to take. And the results that produces is very, very different than the other route. There's this quote from Thomas Edison that I pulled. And it says that, unfortunately, there seems to be far more opportunity than ability. We should remember that good fortune often happens

when opportunity meets with preparation. There's no reason that I should be where I'm at in my life today. There's no reason given where I'm from and my God-given talents and ability that I should have built a business to the size it is and chase down these physical challenges and feats and developed into the man that I am today. But I saw the opportunity

and I prepared for years and years and years to seize that opportunity. That preparation met opportunity and allowed me to achieve certain things in my life. And that's the path that I'm going to continue to follow. I will never look back and say I wasn't born with this ability or I don't have to.

have this ability to do X, Y, and Z. I know if I have the opportunity and I prepare for that opportunity, I can achieve it. It might not happen today, tomorrow, next week, next month, but I'll tell you one thing, I can do it. I never imagined that I would build a company to the size it is today, especially coming from a small college apartment in central Pennsylvania with a small alone. One side of my family was dairy farmers. The other side was pretty much all military. Never thought or imagined that I would build a business to the size it is. When I ran my first marathon, three hours, 57 minutes, my second marathon, four hours, 15 minutes, I never imagined that I would be setting a goal to run sub 245. Never imagined that.

But I realized the opportunity and I prepared for that opportunity. And I'm now achieving and seizing these goals. that I didn't necessarily have the ability to achieve when I was born, but by enduring a process, I've been able to make reality. It's so powerful. And we all have that ability. We all have the ability to pursue and endure a process. This past week, we celebrated one million YouTube subscribers.

1 million people clicked subscribe on YouTube. Now, it's a great milestone and metric to measure and realize, recognize. But the impact that the content we create has much more meaning in depth than a number or a data point. But what that 1 million subscriber mark tells me and tells the team that work on this content is that we're doing something. right. It's a positive reinforcement, an objective positive reinforcement that we are focused on the right things, making impact in the right places for the right people. Talk about a process. Talk about enduring a process to get there. It took me 3,256 days after releasing my first video on YouTube to surpass the one million YouTube subscriber mark.

We created 907, created and published, 907 YouTube videos. In the beginning, when I first got started, I was uncomfortable in front of a camera. It took me forever to edit videos. I was slow. I was learning how to set up cameras and film. I had to learn how to tell a story and articulate my word. and thoughts properly, I was horrible in the beginning. If you go back and I encourage you to, go back on my YouTube channel, filter by oldest to newest

and just watch some of those first videos that I filmed and created and published. It is cringeworthy. It is horrible. I go back and watch those and I'm watching it with one eye closed, the other hand over the other eye. and just like peeking through to see what I was saying and what I was doing, how I was looking at the camera, how awkward and uncomfortable I was.

But I kept going. I kept working on more videos. And what happened was after months and years, I got better at talking to a camera. I got faster editing videos. I became more effective and efficient at story. telling and articulating my words and thoughts. I got better at taking what was in my head

and putting it into sentences and paragraphs and a message and sharing a mission. I got better at it through repetition. The repetition of enduring a process built confidence. It didn't only build mental and emotional confidence, but it also built and improved my ability. And I would argue that that is my competitive advantage. My competitive advantage in life is that I know how to endure a process

and I'm willing and able to endure a process because I know what the outcome and result will be at the end. And if I can apply discipline and consistency and grit to this process, it will allow me to grow and achieve greatness. That is my competitive advantage. And that's what I've been sharing for the last decade plus of my life. My competitive advantage is enduring a process. It is not an ability.

The best part is anyone can endure a process. You just have to be willing and able and commit to that challenge, to that time frame, to that outcome, to that objective. And I talked about this, briefly in a video we were just recording this morning actually. It's applicable in relation to running,

but I want to share the parallels and differences between being a good husband and father. Now, with a lot of these processes that we set out to endure, say a marathon prep. for example, you get to a point that as you get better at something, you build confidence through repetition, you can almost become robotic. You can go onto autopilot.

You know, this is now, I think, my sixth, fifth or sixth marathon prep. Like I said, I'm going for a sub 245 at CIM. I know what the process looks like and feels like. I know why we run these easy runs and increase weekly running mileage. I know why there is a tempo workout and critical velocity workout every other week. I know why I need to fuel properly for these big training sessions. I understand the importance of sleep and I know that the last couple of weeks is we get closer to the race. Every other week is going to be a big,

marathon-paced workout that will tell us if we're ready or not. I know what the process for a marathon prep looks like. I could do it in my sleep. So now some of these workouts that I do, I can go into autopilot. This morning's workout, for example, it was a 2.25 mile warmup, and then it was nine times 1,000 meter repeats. each repeat was to be done between three minutes, 35 seconds, and three minutes, 38 seconds. In between each 1K repeat was a one minute walk.

So I did my warmup, my 2.25 mile warmup, and then I went directly into the first interval. That first interval, I was trying to get pacing down, did a one minute walk, went into my second 1K interval, pacing was pretty locked in, went into my next one-minute walk. By repeat three, four, five, I knew the pace. I knew what it was supposed to feel like for the rest of that workout.

And my mind shut off. I went on to autopilot and I just endured the process of that workout. I just fell into a groove and when I was completing those 1K repeats, I wasn't really thinking about anything related to the run. My brain was just wandering off. I was on autopilot.

I was robotic. Now, that ability to go into autopilot or robotic is and can be a strength for sure. When there are certain things that we can be robotic, and I guess just therefore physically there completing. There's work that just needs to be done to build certain parts of our life to get to the final objective. It worked for certain things. There are certain processes that we can endure that we're able to go onto autopilot or become robotic.

But I've been thinking about this a lot. There's also things that we want to accomplish and goals that we set that we cannot be robotic. We can't go on to autopilot. And I don't really have a solution for all of this, but this is just something that I want to share. It's been on my mind to be more aware of to be intentional with. One of my goals, now that my life has evolved and changed over the past couple years, is I want to be a really good husband, which is what I've learned constantly,

something you need to work on. And I want to be a really good father. And now that my daughter just recently turned 14 months old, I'm learning so much. What I'm realizing and learning is, yes, that is a process you have to endure. And it's challenging. Having a child, becoming a dad, has been by far,

the hardest process that I've ever experienced and had to learn how to do. And we only have one kid so far. I can only imagine how it gets more challenging as you have more children and they get older. And maybe not more challenging, but maybe those challenges just change and evolve. But I've realized that to be a good husband, to be a good husband, to be a good father, yes, you have to endure a process, but you can't go on autopilot. You can't be robotic. You have to be present.

You have to be there. Everything, every moment, every day, every decision, every word that comes out of your mouth, it matters. It has meaning. It has reason. It has the ability to change someone's entire life. You can't be robotic. You can't be on autopilot. for certain goals or objectives you're trying to achieve,

but some you can. And I think just having that self-awareness as you set goals and you build out that process that you're going to endure, realizing that there's certain things you can do on autopilot and there's certain things that you can't. I opened up this episode, this conversation, this podcast, talking about enduring a process

and realizing the what, how, why, and with who. It's easier to endure the process when you enjoy parts of the process. You're not going to love every moment or every minute. But if you don't have purpose and you don't have reason behind the process that you are embarking to endure, you're not going to enjoy it. You probably won't respect it. And it probably will not lead to a, successful, sustainable outcome. I don't wake up every morning, hop out on bed and say I can't wait to run 11 miles.

Because right now my weekly mileage is right over 70. My run Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. Those are easy runs between 10 and 11 miles. Wednesdays rotate between a critical velocity, which is a track workout and a tempo workout. And then Saturdays are my long runs, 16, 17, 18, 20 mile long runs. And the closer we get to a marathon, those will become marathon-paced workouts. I don't wake up every single morning, hop out of bed and say, I can't wait to go run 11 miles.

Especially when I have family responsibilities, work responsibilities. They're stressors in life, obviously. I wake up at 5 a.m. every single morning and I get through my morning routine and by 545 mount the door I'm running whether I want to or not. I don't want to or love every single one of those runs

but I know and understand that it's part of the process and because the repetition I've seen the direct result of enduring a process I know it's part of what I have to do. There's no choice. if I want to grow, if I want to get better, if I want to accomplish a certain thing,

I have to. I have to do that thing. I have to go run. There is no option other than to run. You're not going to love every part, every ingredient of the process or every single day, but realizing that it contributes to the outcome. It contributes to the goal.

It contributes to the result. That's why it's so important to have purpose and a reason and a strong why behind what you're doing. I love the marathon prep. I love the marathon. I can't wait to tow that line December 3rd, 2023. Am I going to love every workout? Am I going to love every run leading up to that? No, that's a reality. But I love to endure the process. I truly enjoy it. Learning how to and respecting the process has led me to the life that I live right now. And I'm proud of it. I'm proud because the success that I've achieved as I've defined it, the milestones that I and we as a team have accomplished, the goals that we have seized,

They are the result of enduring a process, a long process, choosing the hard right over the easy wrong. And I'm proud of that. I'm proud of it. I really am. So my challenge for you, choose to endure the process. Hope and wish for that process to be longer and longer and longer because the growth you experience from a longer process is only going to be greater and embrace it. Embrace it and respect it. We'll see you guys in the next episode.