The Nick Bare Podcast - 060: Why You Should Focus On Being The Best, Not The Biggest

Episode Date: April 1, 2024

Save 10% at BPN Supps: https://bit.ly/nickbare10audio Follow for more:  IG: https://www.instagram.com/nickbarefitness/ YT: https://www.youtube.com/@nickbarefitness Topics: 0:00 Intro 0:52 Athlete week 5:40 The future of the team 9:40 Surviving vs thriving 13:27 Being the best brand 17:35 Pursuing what matters 27:59 Feeling inferior to your potential self 38:31 The mockingbird and the crow 45:56 Belief and courage 48:04 You can’t be the best at everything

In today's episode, we are talking about being the best, focusing on becoming the best version of ourselves, building the best business, the best product, the best life, and not necessarily falling to the influence and the negative consequences of chasing the biggest. the biggest house, the bigger car, the bigger watch on our wrist, the bigger company. I think you can have both, but you need the patience to achieve both. But it's better to focus on being the best, not the biggest. We just came off of an epic last couple days. The past couple days was the BPN Athlete Week.

So we had 18 of our athletes and partners fly in from out of state, out of country. Tommy, for example, came from Australia. And we spent the last couple days team building, talking brand, running, lifting, lifting, eating, and just building camaraderie. and it was so powerful. It was so much fun. We haven't done one of these BPN athlete weeks for years. When I first started the brand and we started building in Texas, our first athlete we ever signed who was still with us

and was with us this past week, Russell Orhey. We signed Russ in 2018, I believe it was. Russ was our first ever athlete. Russ has been with us now for six years. Six years. That's loyalty right there. So I appreciate you, Russ. I appreciate you for believing in us,

and our mission and all the changes and evolutions to the brand means so much to me. But the team got in to Nashville on Tuesday afternoon, Tuesday evening, and we took everyone out to an Airbnb, in Brentwood, Tennessee, which is about 15 minutes south of downtown Nashville. Beautiful Airbnb.

This Airbnb actually had a chicken coop on the property, right by where we were grilling, out in just the hill country of Middle Tennessee. It was beautiful. So Tuesday, everyone got in. We did some grilling. We made steaks and chicken on a big, massive, charcoal grill that we rented.

And then the next morning, we went for a run. And we went to the listening room to listen to some live country music. Did a lift at a gym downtown, quantum fitness. And then from there, we,

what do we do? What do we do Wednesday? All these days are just kind of blurring together. Went to the gym. And we went back, we had dinner, the Airbnb. We made a bonfire. That night we got Mexican food catered. And then Thursday, we woke up.

Some people went to the gym. Some people went and ran. A lot of our athletes are in marathon prep right now in preparation for Boston coming up. And then from there, we met at Soho House. And Donald Miller, who's one of my favorite authors and speakers and entrepreneurs, spoke to our team for two hours about building your brand and really leaning in and clarifying your message and your mission and talking to your customers in the most clear, effective way.

It was a very powerful two-hour conversation, Q&A setting. And we took a lot away from that. Then we hit another training session. And then we took everyone to get custom cabal Hats at the Rustler Hat Company, which was a super cool experience. And then everyone came over to my house. We saundered and cold plunged. And then this morning, which is Friday, everyone flew out of Nashville.

These past couple days were just absolutely amazing. Like, just so great to bring the team together. And then this coming Monday, we fly out to Los Angeles for the kickoff. of the Speed Project. So the Speed Project, as I've announced and discussed and kind of described, it's a unsanctioned race. There's no rules. There's no spectators.

It starts in L.A. and it goes to Vegas. There's no route. It's a six-person relay team. And we have a team that will be kicking off the race March 29th. in Los Angeles, and we'll be running to Vegas to see if we can win the Speed Project 2004. And we're going to be creating a whole film that we will be premiering in Austin, Texas, this coming June, once that project is wrapped up.

So March for us has been jam-packed, and it's about to get even crazier, but with all good things. and the reason I share some of that leading in today's podcast episode is based off some of the conversations I've had with the BPN staff and team as of recently, but it's something I was really driving home during Athlete Week these last couple days as we were painting a picture for what this future is going to look like for this team and this business, this brand, this organization,

for me. And it's to be the best. It's not to be the biggest. And I'm not saying that there is one right or wrong way to build a business, to build your life, to go after your dreams.

And I'm also not saying you have to choose between the two. You don't have to choose between being the best at what you do, building the best company, leading the best team, team and you don't have to draw a line in this hand and say, well, I don't want to be the best. I want to be the biggest.

I want to have the biggest business, the biggest team, the biggest organization that makes the most money. I think there's ways that you can have both. You can be the best. You can also be the biggest, but it is rare. It is rare. And from my experience, and what I'm I've gone through these last 12 years of building a business to the point that it is right now

today, I've learned that I want to focus on being the best. I don't want to focus on being the biggest because sometimes when you go after the goal and the outcome of being the biggest, you make decisions and choices that you might not be proud of later on or that sacrifice the quality of your product or service. Sometimes in the pursuit of becoming the biggest, you sacrifice becoming the best. And that's kind of just what I want to break down in this episode. I want to describe why I think that way. and I want to encourage you to ask yourself some of these questions,

which should be a guiding light in the way that you approach life, you approach your work, you approach your family, you approach building your body, and the foods you decide to put into your body and what you consume, these choices are very, very important, and they will guide the trajectory of the outcomes that you experience in your life.

There's this Charles Darwin quote. I've been obsessed with quotes recently. If you haven't noticed in the podcast, if you haven't noticed on some of these things I've been posting on social media or YouTube videos, as I've discussed, I'm currently writing a book. I have three more chapters of this book that I'm editing.

They're written. I'm just, I'm editing now. And I have so many quotes by so many amazing people that I've been adding in this book. Quotes from Irwin McMannock Jesse Itzler All the books that I've read and loved by

Dr. Henry Cloud, Badros Kulian, Lewis Howes. I quote, so many people, Hardy, we're going to talk about Hardy in this podcast episode. I quote Hardy, an entire section of the book,

who's one of my favorite musicians and artists. But Charles Darwin says, it's not the biggest, the brightest, or the best that will survive, but those who adapt the quickest. It's not the biggest, the brightest, or the best that will survive, but those who adapt the quickest. So from what I'm taking from this quote by Charles Darwin, he's saying, don't focus on becoming the biggest.

don't focus on being the smartest or don't even focus on being the best if you want to survive. Those who survive are adaptable. They are resilient. They are open to change to survive.

But in order to thrive, how do we flip that script? And I think in order to thrive, you have to focus on being the best. I've seen people chase the pursuit of becoming the biggest.

I have gone through chapters of my life, which we will talk about, or I have been influenced and I have been guided and I have pursued a route to become the biggest. Build the biggest business, the largest company that makes the most money.

And it has led me to chapters seasons of emptiness. And that's just me personally. I'm just sharing this from my personal perspective. I'm not saying, again, that there is a right or wrong or one way to do it, but based off my values and what I'm incentivized by, I want to pursue a life to become the best, the best version of myself, the best business that I can build, the best team that I can lead.

not the biggest and that's how I personally thrive in life not just survive but thrive so I'm by no means questioning Charles Darwin

I think it's a great quote and it's extremely important advice and perspective but there's a difference between surviving and thriving To survive, you just have to consume food, calories. You can survive on some pretty low-quality shit food,

but are you going to feel your best? Are you going to be thriving? Are you going to have the most energy, the most optimal recovery and ability to build lean muscle mass and tissue? Are you going to have the best mental clarity? are you going to sleep really well? Is your gut health going to be strong? Probably not.

But you will survive. There are people walking around right now on a daily basis, probably more than any of us would like to admit, that are surviving based off of the food that they are consuming on a regular basis, but I can guarantee you they are not thriving. Walk around any city. Go into any. fast food, convenience store, grocery store, you'll see people who are barely surviving

and have not thrived in years and years and years. There's a big, big difference. So like I said, a lot of these thoughts have been sparked really since I started diving back into the CEO role of BPN. And I've had a lot of thoughts as we're rebuilding the team and the organization and Athlete Week had so many ideas that were running through my head. And I told the team, I told the team, I want to be the best. I wanted to be the best brand organization company that BPN can possibly be.

I don't want to pursue becoming the biggest anymore. And I didn't just come up with this overnight. there were a lot of things that had to happen leading me to this decision. And before I dive into some of those, you might be listening to this episode or now thinking this isn't basic bullshit. Of course I want to be the best. Of course I don't want to be the biggest. Like I want to be the best version of myself.

I want quality. I don't want just quantity. I want to thrive, not just survive. If you're listening to this podcast, I'm sure you are that type of person. but I will tell you from personal experience that sometimes in the pursuit of becoming the best version of yourself, in the pursuit of being the best and building the best, you get caught up in the whirlwind of chasing what was once the best and is now the biggest. And that opportunities come up and you receive advice and guidance from people who

who influence you to change your perspective and change your ideas. And before you know it, you're chasing the biggest as opposed to the best. And you realize what you're doing and where you're running and you think, where did I fall off course? Where did I get distracted? What made me start pursuing becoming the biggest when my initial intentions and values were centered around being the best? And that's what I'm going to share.

And when I launched my company in 2012, the whole foundation of building my business was around building a product line and offering that was trusted by the consumer that instilled transparency and quality formulas and tasted really good. When I launched BPN in 2012, the supplement industry was the Wild Wild West. and I've talked about this extensively to lengths, but it was in the age where Jack 3D was the most popular pre-workout formula on the market. And it was getting pulled off shells

because people were getting injured and sick and going to the hospital. And then I remember this one pre-workout launched. It was called Craze. It was in this black and purple tub. I can't remember who made it. And this thing was even crazier than Jack 3D and people were taking this and getting sick and having heart issues, again,

going to the hospital, and that got pulled off the market. So in 2012, as I'm finding the sports nutrition dietary supplement industry, it was truly the wild, wild west where brands were popping up and they were being discontinued the following day because they were being shut down by legal organizations and entities. So I wanted to enter the market having a competitive advantage of being a brand that people could truly trust. I built my business with this team to be the best possible brand that we could be. And there was a moment where I fell off course a little bit. I'm about to explain some of this.

So as I talked about in a previous episode, and that episode is titled, something along the lines of I'm coming back as CEO moving back into the CEO role and moving back to Texas I explained in detail and if you haven't listened to that episode yet I highly recommend it

because all of this will make a whole lot more sense but I explained how we decided to sell part of the business and I was going to to bring on a private equity partner who's going to invest money into the business and own a minority share. I was still going to own majority share of the business.

And they were going to inject a significant amount of capital. Some was going to primary, which means BPN's balance sheet, BPN's bank account. But majority of that was going to secondary, being the shareholders. And I am the largest shareholder, not the only shareholder, but I'm not. the largest shareholder in BPN. And we pursued this journey of bringing you on a private equity partner. So we hired and partnered with an investment bank. And that investment bank helped us launch a process to find the best private equity partner

who understood what we were trying to do in the market, but also brought not only capital into business, but strategy in the real. right strategy. So you start casting this wide net and you go on these speed dating rounds to meet all these different private equity groups. Long story short, we never ended up doing that private equity deal. It all fell apart. I learned so much to that experience. And I'm glad that we went through that experience because I learned more in this last 12 months than I did in the previous 12 years.

So I wanted to make sure I addressed that before we moved any further. We didn't do the deal. I still maintain all of my equity, but learned a shit ton during that process of running a process. And when we were going through all these speed dating rounds

with these private equity groups, they kept talking about this thing called the TAM. And I had no freaking clue what they were talking about. sometimes when you get involved in certain industries, all these industries have these acronyms or these words to describe certain things that if you aren't familiar with the depths of that industry,

you have no clue what they're talking about. So people are throwing around all these acronyms and terms that are way above my head. I mean, go spend a day with a military unit and try to understand what they're saying and talking about based off of the acronyms and the words they use to describe certain things that are just part of military language and lingo. It's a culture.

It's a language within itself. And if you're not in it, you don't understand it. Same thing goes for certain sectors of business and echelons or departments of finance. So everyone's talking about these things. called the Tam. In the beginning, I acted like I knew what I was talking about. I had to Google it because I had no freaking clue. The Tam stands for the total addressable market.

And it refers to the total available market and overall revenue opportunity for a product or service if 100% of the market share is achieved. So to give you an example, energy drinks, like RTD ready to drink energy drinks. You go into a 7-11, there's a whole probably three or four fridge floor to ceiling shelf cases of just energy drinks.

And I'm just going to throw a number out there. I have no clue what that number is. It's probably way off. But say the total addressable market is $10 billion. Right? If you own that whole total, addressable market of RTD energy drinks. If you own that whole thing, it'd be $10 billion.

So that tells an investor, it tells an entrepreneur, tells a business owner where the upper limit is for the part of the industry that they are pursuing. So they know what kind of upside they have if things go right or if things go wrong. So all these private equity groups were, we're trying to figure out one, where our company fit in terms of niche markets. Is it wellness?

Is it CPG? Is it sports nutrition? You know, is it, is it the way protein sector? Is the green superfood, the bodybuilding, tam? And you can go pretty niche, but you can also keep it pretty high level. So everyone's trying to evaluate the business based off of the TAM, total addressable market. And what people try to do then, these investors, people who don't really care about brand, look, feel, culture, energy, intuition, you know, the things that really matter, they care about money. They're like, well, what can we do to change the brand and change the products so we have to we.

have a larger tam and we can make more money in a different market. So some of these private equity groups are coming in. They're like, well, you guys should reposition the brand to be all things health and very approachable and softer so you have a larger tam. Or you should water down your formulas a little bit so they can be cheaper so we can have higher profit margins and the ingredient. profiles and formulas aren't as intimidating, which makes it more approachable to a larger tam.

Or we should reposition the way that you guys are taking photos or talking about going more, so it's not as aggressive and it's more inviting to a larger tam. And through this whole process, I'm like, so you're telling me you kind of just want to destroy, ruin, water down, erode, dissolve, everything that's been built over the last 12 years so we can make more money. Yeah, that's what we're essentially telling you. You know, I don't think this partnership is probably going to work out. Next, that's how a lot of the conversations looked.

That's how they went. I heard some ridiculous things from some, from some of the industries, smartest people and most successful people and best entrepreneurs. I learned a lot in this past year. But when money is the only thing that matters and quality, product, people,

connection, impact, legacy, all those things are secondary to money, you pursue becoming the biggest, not the best. A lot of people approach life that way. A lot of the businesses approach building that way. And it's not the way that I want to build. It's not the way I ever wanted to build. And that's why I'm so passionate about pursuing becoming the best and not the biggest.

sometimes when you pursue becoming the best, the outcome that is not the intent, but the outcome is that you become the biggest because you focused on the right things along the way. Now, with all that being said, talking about total addressable market, talking to private equity partners, finances, I do have to be fair to say that the success of a business is determined by two things. Profit margins and cash flow. So you still have to make smart decisions as a business owner,

as an entrepreneur, as a founder, where if you just focus on building the best product, team, culture, environment, headquarters possible, and you ignore all the other aspects of running a healthy business,

and you have horrible profit margins, and you run out of cash, you can't help anyone at that point. So you can't become the best. You can't maintain the status of being the best because you ran out of money because you didn't operate a smart, healthy, functioning business. So it's this balancing act

where you can still focus on being the best. This is very business-focused and driven, but you can still focus on being the best and run a healthy, smart business by making the right decisions and choices. But I just learned through running this process with an investment bank and talking to all these private equity partners

that a lot of people don't care about the things that actually matter. But they're more concerned with how fat their back pocket becomes by just selling to a bigger tam. and that is sometimes some bullshit. I'll tell you that much. Now, I've talked about this book a lot,

and for as many times as I've brought it up, if you haven't read or listened to it yet, I hope this is just one more opportunity for you to either go buy it on Amazon right now or download it on Audible, and it's the courage to be disliked. That book, for me, was just a game changer, and I've listened to it multiple times.

But in that book, they talk about a lot of things, but one of the things they focus on is a difference between feelings of being inferior and inferiority complex. They're different. Feelings of being inferior. I think that we or I at least used to believe that that word alone,

inferior was bad and that it was a weakness. If you are inferior, you are subpar to someone or something and someone is superior to you. And whether they are or not, it just felt like a lack of self-confidence

and it was a display of low self-confidence. And it was a display of low self-confidence. esteem, but it's not the case. Because having feelings of being inferior doesn't necessarily mean that you are inferior to someone else. You can also be inferior to your potential self one day. Like think of a chef, for example, the best chefs in the world. Sean Brock, for example, Sean Brock is a chef here in Nashville. And I came across Sean Brock. because he has an episode on Netflix's chef's table. Highly recommend it.

And I was watching this episode one day before I knew who Sean Brock was. And it's a story of Sean and how he became one of the best chefs in the world. And then I came to find out he has multiple restaurants here in Nashville. So I've been to a bunch of his restaurants and they're absolutely incredible, very innovative, very original, very good. My favorite restaurant here in Nashville, one of my favorites is one of Sean's restaurants called Audrey. And if you go to Audrey, they have a Somalier there. Do the Somalié wine pairing tasting experience. It was incredible.

get their chicken and dumplings. Actually, just order everything on the menu and just share it with your entire table but make sure you get the chicken and dumplings. They were incredible. But Sean Brock is this example of someone who had and has feelings of being inferior, not necessarily to other chefs,

but feelings of being inferior to his greater potential. When we first started cooking and he became a chef, he knew he could be better. He knew he could do better. He knew he could build bigger, better restaurants that had better food with a greater experience that just hit the palate in different ways. So he pushed his ability and he worked harder and harder and harder.

And through that process, he became a better and better and better chef. to where he is today. And to be honest, he nearly killed himself through that process of just exhaustion and working so hard and burning himself out and down. But he became this world-class chef

through the process because he had feelings of being inferior to his greater potential and his greater self. When we trained for marathons, for example, you know, you run your first marathon, my first marathon, I ran three hours, 57 minutes. Didn't really care about the time.

Second marathon, I ran four hours, 15 minutes. And that kind of pissed me off because it got slower. And I had these feelings of being inferior to my greater self and greater potential. So I started working. I ran 324. And I still felt inferior to who, and what I could accomplish and be. And then I ran a 256.

And then a 248. Then a 239. And at some point, probably next year, I'll go for another marathon PR because I know I haven't reached my full potential in running 26.2 miles as fast as possible.

I have feelings of being inferior to my greatest potential and my greatest self. And that's why I keep working. It is healthy and necessary to feel inferior because that's what keeps driving us to improve and get better and make progress. That's healthy.

We need to feel inferior to become the best at what we do. We have to. If you don't have feelings of being inferior, you don't have the motivation or drive to become better. But there's a difference between feeling inferior and an inferior. The inferiority complex. Now, the inferiority complex was introduced in 1907 by Austrian physician Alfred Adler. And in the courage to be disliked, they reference and talk about Adler a lot.

But an inferiority complex is, it's not, like, think of feelings of being inferior as acute. And something you feel every once in a while. inferiority complex is chronic. It's something you feel all the time. It is all-consuming and self-destructing. And an inferiority complex is an intense personal feeling of inadequacy often resulting in the belief that one is in some way deficient or inferior to others.

It can manifest differently among people, although low self-esteem and persistent self-doubt are always at the root. People who have an inferiority complex don't believe they can achieve anything. They have low self-esteem all the time. Self-doubt. They're quiet. They're timid. That inferiority complex doesn't create any sort of sense of motivation or drive or want

or need to improve and get better. It's this headspace, this chronic headspace that is just debilitating. It's an unhealthy experience and feeling for the mind, body, and soul. But we need to feel inferior to become the best. You know, I think of Jordan and Kobe. Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant all the time. I've been obsessed with just their mindsets and the life they lived. I've been obsessed in the last couple months.

Growing up in the era of Jordan and Kobe, I always knew they were great, incredible players. But when you don't truly understand what went into building the type of person and athlete, they were at the peak, you really can't fully respect it. You know, growing up, I was like, man, they're talented, God-gifted athletes who are great at their sport and their job. And then over the years, as people have written books about them

and told stories about them and described what they actually did become the best at what they did, you realize that those two people had very strong feelings of being inferior. Not inferior to other people, but inferior to themselves and becoming their best, the greatest. And because athletes like Kobe and Jordan, who I would argue are not the rule, the exception to the role because the way their mind worked. What made them the best is their relentless work ethic and drive to reach their greatest potential as individuals and then contributing members of a team and family.

On the Founders podcast, he talks about Kobe and Jordan a lot. and if you haven't read or listened to Tim Grover's books, Relentless or Winning, Tim Grover was the trainer to both Kobe and Jordan and some other world-class athletes. But Tim Grover uses Kobe and Jordan a lot as examples in terms of the way their mind worked and they approached work to improve and get better and become the best. and they were unique. They were not the rule. They were the exception to the role.

But that's why they were so amazing. Now, I mentioned earlier in this podcast that I was going to talk about Hardy. Hardy is a musician. He's an artist. He started as a songwriter and then pursued a career in country music. And as of recently, has transitioned into a rock star, releasing rock music. And I love Hardy songs.

I love Hardy as an artist. His country stuff was catchy. It was a good tune. You could throw it on in your truck and feel good, driving some back roads in Texas or Tennessee. Just feel good music. And then last year he launched an album called The Mockingbird and the Crow

and the story behind this album and the songs made me fall in love with Hardy even more. I mean, Hardy is my favorite artist right now because he launched this album and he decided to be unapologetically, authentically himself and he made the decision that

he was going to risk and sacrifice being the biggest to be the best version of himself. He said, I don't care about doing all these things that everyone else wants me to do. And if I follow that blueprint and that plan and I give people what they want, regardless of what I want, I will be and can be the biggest thing in this world. And he said, no, it's okay. I'll potentially sacrifice that for pursuing the best. So Hardy launched an album

like I said this past year called The Mockingbird and the Crow and it talks all about throughout these songs how he started his career as a songwriter and then he moved into being an artist and a musician and when he became a musician

he pursued country music and he was writing songs that sounded and looked like every other country song on the radio. But he knew that that's what country radio wanted to hear and what they wanted to play. And that producers were going to select these songs based off what he was singing about and the catchiness to it and coloring within the lines and building a song in this box that was accepted by society. and country music and producers and the music industry as a whole. And he achieved a lot of success through that.

And then he reached a point where he was like, I don't want to play this stuff anymore. I want to play rock music and I want to write a rock album and I want to sing about things that I want to sing about and that aren't necessarily accepted by radio stations or country music or these producers. but in the pursuit of

of writing, recording, and performing these songs and this album, I will be happier because it'll be the best version of myself. And if you listen to songs like radio song, The Mockingbird and the Crow on his most recent album, you'll hear him talk about transitioning from being this mockingbird that was singing songs that everyone wanted to hear so he was writing and then becoming the crow.

And what potentially could have ruined his career made him even bigger and better and more popular and his audience became more loyal and more cult-like. So because he decided that he wanted to be the best and sacrifice becoming the biggest, he became the best version of himself and got even bigger than he was previously. What I also love about Hardy's story

is that he told this story at the ACM Songwriter of the Year Award in 2022. And he said that seven years before accepting that award, he was playing a show. And this was in 2015. And after that show was done, this is before he had his big break,

he had a tip jar on that stage, and he went and collected the tips on the tip jar and in that tip jar was this napkin and on that napkin was just the word quit. So someone was so unimpressed by Hardy's performance and his songs

and they wanted him to know that and they were so angry and resentful and pissy that he was up there doing his thing they wanted him to quit and if he would have listened to that doubt from outsiders, if he would have quit, he would have

never reached the success that he has reached in his career, he would have never reached the potential he has in himself, he would have

given up way too early to ever have experienced the man, the artist, the musician that he is and will be

in the future. That's why I always say that. Doubt is only dangerous when you start doubting yourself. Everyone in the world can doubt you. You might have someone in your life right now who is writing quit on a napkin and shoving it in your lunchbox

or putting it under your windshield wiper on your truck actually or hypothetically to try to bring you down. Someone wants to know that they doubt you so much they want to want you to quit. They want you to stop. And if you buy into that doubt, that doubt will ruin you. If you buy into that doubt, which is so dangerous, you will never become the best version of yourself. You will never reach your greatest potential. You will end up on your deathbed wondering, what could my life have been if I would have just ignored that doubt,

maintained these feelings of being inferior to my greater potential, and pursued what could have been. Hardy did that. And we're seeing the result of it right now, live as we speak. What you need to do, what we need to do, what I always tell myself, I need to keep doing, when things feel really tough and really hard and you want to stop in the pursuit of becoming the best gets so challenging and there's so much resistance that you don't think you can keep pursuing it any longer

it's not necessarily confidence that's going to keep going it's not necessarily discipline that's going to keep going it's definitely not motivation that's going to keep you going it's courage to be the best you require, we require courage. And courage is the action. One of the things that we know we need to do to get to get to where we want to be to be the best. Right now I'm listening to a founder's episode all about Jay-Z, which I'm loving.

Highly recommend that episode. And Jay-Z said that belief comes before ability. you're not always born with the ability but you have to believe before you have the ability and if you believe you have the ability and then you have the courage

to take action on that belief and that ability then you can start moving forward that is momentum momentum is potential it's not guaranteed success but it is potential You need momentum.

Comes from belief, ability, and courage. Something else that Jay-Z said in this Founder's episode that I thought was badass, he said that you need Kanye levels of self-belief combined with the work ethic of Kobe. You need Kanye levels of self-belief combined with the work ethic of Kobe. That's badass. I love that. And the last thing I'm going to leave you guys with that I've had to learn the hard way

and I now truly understand how important this is is that you can't be the best at everything. When you try to be the best at everything, you don't become the best at anything. So you can either focus on being a generalist at everything or you can

focus on being an expert at a few things or maybe even one thing I think we often think that if we tinker or we focus on being good at a lot of things

that that's the way towards success because it increases our chances in likelihood of one of those things popping or working but I'll talk you right now, at the point of business I'm in right now as I'm hiring new roles and positions,

I'm not personally looking for generalists. When I'm hiring for a role, I am looking for a role that does a very specific thing and someone who has a lot of experience, skill, and ability, and knowledge in that specific thing to really hyper-focus, own that responsibility, and take it to exponential levels. I've surpassed the point where I need generalists on my team any longer. We need specialists.

And if you focus on being a generalist, it will get you so far, but you have to get to a point where you then become a specialist. You become an expert. Again, going back to Kobe and Jordan. I've brought up these two guys in the last couple podcasts because

just been on my mind a lot recently and the resources that I've been listening to and reading had talked a lot about Jordan and Kobe. But look at Jordan, for example. Like Michael Jordan hyper-focused his earlier career on being the best basketball player ever.

And by doing that, it opened up these other opportunities for him. He had the opportunity to sign a deal with Nike and make hundreds of millions of dollars a year now on a Nike contract that he signed decades ago. But he would have never gotten that Nike contract if he wasn't the best athlete in the world at that one sport at that one time.

Kobe. Kobe focused on being the best basketball player ever. And because he focused on me and the best basketball player to open up these other opportunities for him later on in life. Or he got to act and be in movies and be a star. I mean, Jordan, Jordan is the best basketball player to live or one of the best basketball players to live.

Then he decided that he wanted to go play baseball for a few years and it proved that that baseball wasn't his sport. So he came back to basketball. Just because you're the best at one thing doesn't mean you're going to be the best at everything. And if you focus on being a generalist in a lot of things or everything, you won't be the best at anything. So it's not me saying that you should give up all these passions and pursuits and curiosities and just hyper focus on one thing. I don't really know what I'm telling you to do from that, but I'll kind of break down the way I think about it.

You can't be the best at everything. Okay, I can't be the best at everything. which means I shouldn't focus on being a generalist at everything because that won't get me to where I want to be and I won't reach my full greatest self potential through that journey. So what am I most passionate about? What makes me want to jump out of bed in the morning? Where do I thrive? What am I good at? What's going to what am I going to focus on that's going to help me reach my greatest potential?

and greatest self. Maybe there's a few things for a short amount of time that I'm focusing on. But I think the bigger question, the most or more important question is through that discovery, what else do I need to eliminate

that I'm doing right now that I know I'm not going to be the best at? If I'm focused on 12 things right now, what are three things that I can try to become the best at? And then everything else I just stopped doing if I don't have a responsibility

or obligation to. So it's process of elimination by focusing on what I can be the best at. I think the reality is that most people aren't willing to practice long enough to become the best at anything. You're not going to become the best at something or anything overnight

or even 12 months maybe not even 12 years. Most people give up on that thing before they become the best or they reach their greatest self-potential. They lose the interest, they lose the ability, the desire, the feelings of being inferior

to their greater potential and they give up and they move on to something else. Which might be, the right answer based off the chapter or season of life that you're in at the moment, but most people aren't willing to practice long enough to become the best. I do believe that more people have the ability to become the best at what they love and what they do, but they aren't willing to practice long enough. Becoming the best requires focus, intentional, strategic, hyper focus.

You got to maintain that focus. because there will be distractions. Those distractions will make you pursue and chase being the biggest. And as soon as you stop focusing on being the best and you get distracted by the shiny, bright, beautiful thing of bigger and thinking bigger is better, just like that, you're off course. So that's what I want to share with you in today's episode. Based off some of my experience, the way my mind works and thinks,

I think we're persuaded and influenced to think that bigger is better, the bigger car, the bigger business, the bigger house, the bigger bank account, the bigger watch on our wrists. For me, that's not necessarily the case. being the best version of myself building the best products building the best team

associating with the best people that I can have in and around my life again not necessarily the most valuable people not the most wealthy people or the people who have built the biggest businesses but the best people based off principle value, quality.

That's what I'm focused on. That's my North Star. That's my vision. To be the best, not the biggest.