The Nick Bare Podcast - 080: 5 Traits To Master So You Can Go All-In

Episode Date: August 19, 2024

These are five essential traits you need to master in order to truly go all-in on your goals and purpose. I'm exploring the importance of operating at "Level 12," where intensity outweighs mere volume, and how building resilience through hardship can be a game-changer. I'll also emphasize the power of owning your focus by eliminating distractions and playing the long game for lasting success. You can challenge the norm by rejecting conformity and leading with your values. CHAPTERS: 00:00 Introduction to Purpose and Success 01:33 Defining Personal Success 03:26 Five Traits to Master for Success 07:36 Operating at Level 12 17:38 Resiliency Through Hardship 29:55 The Importance of Focus 30:15 The Fear of Focus 31:33 Burning the Boats: No Plan B 32:10 The Myth of Serial Entrepreneurship 34:39 Lessons from Steve Jobs on Focus 35:22 The Hard Way to Learn Focus 36:59 Turning Down Opportunities for Focus 39:07 The Launch and Closure of Lost Supply Apparel 41:50 Rejecting Brand Partnerships for Clarity 45:07 Playing the Long Game 47:28 The Power of Delayed Gratification 52:20 Rejecting Conformity 59:23 Final Thoughts and Takeaways Strength, endurance, and wellness supplements to fuel your performance. SAVE 10% at BPN Supps: https://bit.ly/nickbare10audio Follow: IG: instagram.com/nickbarefitness/ YT: youtube.com/@nickbarefitness

In this episode, I want to share five traits to master so you can go all in. Go all in on the things, the opportunities that align with your purpose. And purpose is this big, lofty thing that gets thrown around. And the way that I view purpose is that it's a north. Star. It's a vision. And that North Star, that vision, that purpose can and probably will evolve or transform over time. And that's completely okay. I mean, I've experienced that over years. My purpose, my vision, my North Star has evolved based off of life experiences and chapters and seasons of life and things that I've succeeded at but also failed at and just from learning and

growing personally and professionally. But these five traits that I've curated, I believe that if you master and you refine, you can go all in on that purpose that is set, that vision at North Star for that period of time. And if you're aligned and working towards these five traits, you will reach a level of success as you define it. Success. Success is an interesting word. It's an interesting word because it is subjective. Everyone defines success a little differently. And I think when I was younger, I didn't fully understand or even believe this. When I was younger, I thought success was

graduating college, getting a really good job, making a lot of money, potentially being a professional athlete. I think when we were younger, a lot of us, especially young boys, dream of being like a professional athlete. I know I did. So when I was younger, success was this thing that was on this pedestal and there was a clear direction. There was a clear guide. There was a clear trajectory of how to get success. It was like this, this token, this coin. You know, you're playing video games and you're young Donkey Kong, for example. I used to play Donkey Kong on my game boy. And you'd achieve the coins, the tokens, you'd move on to the next level.

That was success. And as I've gotten older, I've had more experience in life. I've realized that success is very subjective. It is very personal. So we all, I believe, have to ask ourselves the question, like, what is a successful life for us? What is a life that isn't successful? What is failure? If we do all of these things over the course of a lifetime and we do it right, what does success look like and what does failure look like?

There's five things that I want to share with you guys. today in this episode. It's five traits to master so you can go all in on what that success is for you. And I think these five things, I believe these five things, are applicable for anything you want to achieve that you would determine successful. So the first question I asked myself, what does success look like to me personally? It is, being a value-based and driven leader. It is being a supportive and loving husband. It is an active and present father.

It is being a role model. I want to be a role model for my kids, my community, my business, the team, everyone who's on the other side of the content that we're creating on a consistent basis. I want to build a growing, healthy, profitable business. I want to create an impactful brand that has strong mission and messaging. I also want to focus on being transformative as opposed to conforming to the norm of what is accepted by society. And I'll talk about that more in more detail in this episode. And also, success is being resilient. It's being.

adaptable, flexible. What does failure look like to me and for me? It is not being able to achieve any of the five traits that I'm about to talk about. Failure is also the opposite of what I define success by. You know, right now, this chapter of my life, where I'm at, what I'm experiencing, what we're building. In a few days here, we're about to celebrate. 12 years of BPN. I started bare performance nutrition almost 12 years ago. And my small college department, 12 years ago, I can't believe like 12 years has gone so fast.

I cannot believe it's been 12 years. And I'm in the CEO role of my business. I stepped out for a little bit, but now I'm back in that role. My daughter is, and just turned to years old and my wife is about to have our second child. We're having a boy and he is due any day. We're going in for an appointment this afternoon actually, which we could potentially get induced. My wife could get induced into labor based off some previous doctor's appointments. So I could, I mean, technically, we could have a baby today. It could be a few days or weeks from now. But I'm this chapter of my life where I'm focused on my professional career, building my business, leading a team, positioning myself as a role model for my community, the industry, what I'm doing, my values.

My values are so important to me. But it's also showing up for my family. and my wife, my daughter, and my soon-to-be son, and the legacy that I'm creating for them. And these five traits that I focus on mastering so that I can go all in on my goals, on my values, on the things that I want to achieve based off of what I've determined to be successful,

these five things I'm thinking about all the time. These five things I'm thinking about in my morning run, I'm thinking about as I'm going to sleep, I'm thinking about as I wake up, these five things keep me focused. So the first one is being able to operate at a level 12. I recently heard this analogy and this concept, but if I'm being honest with myself, I've been operating with this mindset for a long time.

I was listening to a podcast on a morning run, and that's when I listen to my podcast. It's when I listen to audio books. It's when I consume a lot of most of my content. Throughout the day, I'm not actually consuming a lot of content. I'm creating content or I'm working on and in the business. But that morning run, that hour that I'm by myself between 5 and 6 a.m., that's when I'm consuming content that is going to set the stage

for what I'm working on, what I'm focused on. This is a little side note, but you need to be very intentional with the content that you're consuming. If you are consuming crap and just entertainment and nonsense, that's what fills your mind. That's what fills the space in your brain.

That's what floods your thoughts. and you're going to be acting on that content for the rest of that day. So I see the morning when I'm running, it's an opportunity to be very intentional with what I'm consuming because that's going to set the foundation for the remainder of my day. So I don't just listen to anything. I'm very specific with what I'm listening to a reading. And recently I was,

I was on a morning run listening to a podcast. It was a podcast titled My First Million. That's the podcast. It's with Sean Puri and Sam Parr. I've had Sam Parr on the podcast before. And this episode was titled How to Go Beast Mode as a Founder. It's episode 606 of My First Million. And one of the things Sean was talking about in this episode was

operating at level 12. Most people, if you ask them, you know, what level are you working at? Thinking in terms of volume and work ethic and commitment and intensity and all of these things, like what level are you working at? And you should ask yourself this question. Like, what level am I, what level am I working at? When I go into the gym at what level am I showing up? When I'm going into work and I'm presenting a project or I'm diving into something new or I'm

working with my team and I'm leading people at what level am I showing up? When I get home from work and I'm beat tired and my kids want to play with me, my wife's asking me questions at what level am I at? How am I showing up? And if you ask most people, I think their peak, their top end would be a 10. And a lot of people think they are operating at a 10. In reality, they might be operating at level 4, 5, 6, maybe 7 because you just don't know what level 10 looks or feels like and you definitely don't know what level 12 looks and feels like. And the way Sean describes operating at level 12 is not necessarily doing more work. It's not volume.

You don't get a prize for working from 4 a.m. until midnight every day. day burning yourself out, neglecting your other responsibilities, you get no reward for that, especially if it's not intentional and needle-moving work. The way you achieve level 12 is by upping your level of intensity. And Sean shared this equation, this calculation of how to measure intensity. Again, it's not doing more. It's not working more. It's not doing more things.

Intensity is focus times common sense times insanity. And he actually quotes Connor McGregor in this episode. And Connor said something, and I'm going to paraphrase, but Connor once made this quote or said this thing. He said, I have lost my mind. to this sport, speaking in terms of fighting, UFC. He has gone all in. He's been operating at level 12 and increased his level of intensity

so much to a place where he lost his mind to the sport, he said. Focus times common sense, times insanity. Common sense also is not common. I think a lot of us have probably learned this over time, but common sense is not common. Intensity is focused times common sense times insanity. Up your level of intensity, not volume to operate at level 12.

That's how you go all in. One of my favorite conversations with one of my favorite people was with Jeff Cunningham. Jeff Cunningham has been, is my running coach when I train four marathons. Jeff helped me go from a 324 marathon to a two-hour, 39-minute marathon. Now, Jeff has helped me increase my running volume,

but more so he has helped me maximize my running intensity on days where I'm supposed to be intense. And Jeff talks about, I had him on the podcast, multiple times, but one of my favorite things he has ever said is that there's a difference between being all in and all consumed. And I'm writing a book right now. The book is called, entitled Go One More. And right now, it's planned to be released and published spring of 2025. So I've written the book. It's in the editing process right now with an editor and a publisher. And it's a slower process, but we're pushing the book forward.

And I quote Jeff in my book. And I quote him from a podcast. And Jeff says, all consumed is when we turn something into our identity. And without it, we become soulless and rudderless. All in means you compartmentalize your energy in a way that allows you to be hyper-focused on a goal without it being destructive to your. professional life to your relationships and the destruction of your personal health. There's a difference between being all in and all consumed. All consumed is when you think that

you have to work on everything all the time. It takes over your life. All in is when you increase your level of intensity of what you're working on. You refine that focus because you can actually you then go all in. It is not your identity. And here's a quote that I pulled actually from my book that's launching. There's a fine line between being all in, which is a healthy obsession and all consumed, which I view as an unhealthy obsession. It's easy for that line to become blurry and disappear,

but having the knowledge of what each looks like and feels like can help you navigate goals in a healthy way. when self-awareness meets all-in, the result is powerful. On the contrary, lack of self-awareness in being all-consumed is a recipe for disaster and destruction. Oftentimes, you don't even realize you're all-consumed until you're in the thick of it, drowning in the headspace, ignoring personal responsibilities, and lighting a fire of collateral damage behind you. The key word that I took away from Jeff's comment is destructive. Being all consumed and likely will lead to a destructive life.

We have to be all in on our goals. We have to be all in in order to reach a level of success that we've identified and we've set. And we can only do that by not necessarily just increasing volume and time and work, but intensity. And when we increase intensity, we then can operate at level 12. The second trait is resiliency. To become more resilient. Now, resiliency is developed through hardship.

Not necessarily hard things. And I want to distinguish between the two. when we're going through something hard, hardship, that is an opportunity to strengthen our muscle of resiliency, to become more resilient. And there's a difference between choosing something hard

and then being welcomed or experiencing hardship. Like choosing to do. do something hard is to choose to do a marathon. You know, you identify you want to run a marathon. You train up for it. You sign up for the race. You go run it.

It's hard. We learn lessons through that experience. And it makes us stronger. It builds adaptations. I believe it can help us become more resilient, but where we really strengthen that resiliency muscle, in my opinion, in my experience, is through hardship. And sometimes hardship is not things that we've selected that we want to do.

It's not the marathon, it's not the ultra, it's not building a business. It's unexpected. It's when life throws us a curveball. Or maybe we sign up or commit to doing something, but in that process, the plan changes. And we're faced with things that we didn't expect or anticipate going into that challenge of what we expected it to look like or feel like. So a lot of times we're forced with hardship.

And the question is, how are we going to react? How are we going to maybe not even react, but how are we going to respond? And a lot of building the adaptation and strengthening the muscle of resiliency, which is a physical, mental, and emotional muscle, it's how we respond. And it's being patient in that weakness. One of the things Sally McRae recently said on the podcast when she was here in our discussion. And then when I was pacing Sally during Western States 100, we actually talked about this a lot. And when she said this, it just like, sometimes someone will say something or I will hear something.

And those words get tattooed on the inside of me. And she said, we have to be patient in our weaknesses. And how we respond to that weakness while being patient is how we learn. It's how we grow. It's how we develop. It's important to set big goals. And it's important to do hard things and embrace the hardship that might come from that. But as I thought about how I become more resilient over the years, the last thing I listed was fitness goals.

The last thing I listed was marathons that I signed up for, ultras, triathlons, Ironmans, any workouts. It's the last thing that comes to mind when I think of how I've become more resilient over the years. I've kind of listed out some of my life experiences up until this point that have helped me become more resilient. And I share this in hopes that you might reflect back on your life and some of the things you've gone through. but also if something happens to you, as good as it is or as bad as it is, view that hardship as an opportunity to become more resilient.

Because being more resilient doesn't just help you get to that next level of life or achieve that next thing or become a better person, but it helps people around you as well. So the things I listed out, One, experiencing an eating disorder when I was 14, 15 years old. That was hardship. That was hardship on me.

It was hardship on my family. It was hardship on the people in my life. And as much as I view that as a weakness, then I've learned from that hardship and become more resilient from that experience. starting a business in college, joining the military, going through Ranger School. Ranger School was probably,

and is probably, at the peak of what has built so much resiliency in me because, yes, I've volunteered to go to that school, but I didn't know what to expect. I knew it was going to be hard, but I didn't realize

how hard it was going to be. You know, Ranger's goal for me, it's a 61-day course. I was there for around 145 days. I failed two phases. One of those phases was during Best Ranger Competition, which was a multi-week holdover. I started that school in January and graduated in July. Saw multiple seasons.

it was very challenging, lost a lot of weight, but I'm stronger from that experience. Like a ranger school, my military experience, being a platoon leader, taking that platoon to South Korea for a nine-month rotation, a lot of that hardship built a lot of resiliency in me personally. Scaling a business. You know, when I transitioned out of the army in 2017,

I was in full-time entrepreneur. I was full-time business owner. It was me, it was my brother Preston, and it was Joe, working together, living in my house, trying to get this business off the ground, bootstrapping it. There's a lot of hardship there.

I chose to start that business, but I didn't know what to expect. I didn't realize how hard it was going to be. And I became more resilient through that process. Losing my mom to cancer in 2019 was hard. You know, she was diagnosed with cancer six months before she passed away. Very aggressive, stage four ovarian cancer. And that hardship of losing my mom, losing a parent, losing someone so close and special and important my life, as hard as that was, I've found,

and realize that I can pull positive takeaways from it. As hard as that is to say, I've become more adaptable. I've become more resilient. My perspective on life changed and evolved after that. I think it helped me become a better leader in my business and a better spouse and a better parent. But that was hardship that I didn't choose,

and I didn't know what to expect. Becoming a father. you know, that transformation in life built a lot of resiliency. Stepping down from the CEO rule of my business, and I did this about a year and a half ago, I've talked about this to lengths, but I stepped down from the CEO rule of BPN, my business, because I thought it was what I was supposed to do at the time.

And we ran a process to sell part of the business, private equity. I was going to liquidate part of my equity, take some chips off the table, de-risk a little bit, bring on a strategic partner. And through that process, which it failed, that deal didn't end up going through, we didn't sell part of the business, that we had no private equity partner right now. That was a 12-month process. It was mentally emotionally draining. Like truly, one of the most draining things I've ever done

and wore me down. And it was hard. It was hard to go through the process, but it was almost even harder to see it fail and fall apart at the end. And it'd be really easy to look at that 12 months and say, that was a wasted time. Like those 12 months, we just wasted.

It was a distraction. It slowed business growth. Step me out of the CEO role was a bad decision, it's really easy to look at that whole experience and say nothing good came from that. But my perspective on that whole experience is completely different. I look at those 12 plus months stepping down from the CEO role, moving my family to Nashville, running a failed process, moving my family back from Nashville, back to Texas, moving back into the CEO role. None of that was part of the plan and it didn't work out as we expected or anticipated. But I am very grateful

it worked out exactly the way it did. I am extremely grateful for that experience. I am more resilient because of it. I am stronger. I am more adaptable because of it. That's the way I view a lot of things that I experience in life. I search for in life. Even if a doesn't work out and it wasn't deemed successful based off of what we are trying to achieve. If I maintain my values, if I still showed up for my responsibilities, if my vision, my North Star is still clear, it's all good. and if I became more adaptable and more resilient from that experience, that's a win. That's actually a win.

That stuff compounds. Like that strength, that adaptability muscle, that resiliency muscle, when that compounds and that grows, that's only a win. And that's a win that you don't just get to experience once, but you get to experience that and hold on to that and apply that for the rest of your life. The next trait to master is focus. If you can master focus, you can then go all in. And I added something to this, I just want you to think about very briefly. It's important to focus, but a lot of people are afraid, and I think I've been here before, too,

we're oftentimes, sometimes, afraid to own focus. Because sometimes when we focus, it means we are doing less and that we're turning down opportunities and we're going all in on this one thing or a few things. And if we truly do that, and those few things that one thing doesn't work,

There's no fallback plan. There's no plan B. When you hyper focus on one thing or a few things, you have to own that. And if it doesn't work out and you don't have a plan B or a fallback plan then, you're kind of in a tough spot. And a lot of people, like I said,

I've been here before, afraid to own that focus because it eliminates that fallback plan. It eliminates that safety net. You're burning the boats. You're coming up on shore. You're burning the boats. And your one thing, your focus is to take the land.

Take the land. There's no retreat. There's no fallback plan. Burning those boats. That makes you own. the focus. Burning those boats is a scary thing. Because if and when you get on the land and you can't seize it, you can't take it, you're not going anywhere else. You are forced to own that focus. Bejus Koolian made this post the other day, which I really appreciated. In the entrepreneur space,

in the business space, you can apply this to anything. Being a serial entrepreneur is, is something that a lot of people are proud of. And I used to think I wanted to be a serial entrepreneur. Being a serial entrepreneur means that you have multiple businesses, hopefully multiple successful businesses. And I used to always say, like, this is when I was younger, more naive, inexperienced. I would say, man, I want to be a serial entrepreneur one day. I want multiple businesses. I actually don't want that anymore. I want to focus on my one business

because I want to be focused. I want to be all in. And I also want to be able to operate at a level 12 and increase my intensity on that one thing as opposed to spreading myself too thin. Bejaro's Koolian said the only time it's sexy to have multiple businesses is at a cocktail party.

You know, you're at a cocktail party. cocktail party, you're drinking an old-fashioned, you're wearing a suit maybe, which I probably wear a suit like once a year at a wedding. And someone's asking you, what do you do? I'm a serial entrepreneur. I own multiple businesses. Oh, how successful are those businesses? Oh, you know, they all do great.

In reality, they have like very minimal cash flow, no profitability, cash position is poor, employees aren't happy. It's only sexy to have multiple businesses at a cocktail party. Now, I'm not saying it's impossible to be a serial entrepreneur or have multiple successful businesses. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that that shouldn't be the focus. If you build that with the right systems, the right people over a long period of time,

it's very doable. A lot of people have done it and are doing it today. But trying to be a serial entrepreneur, just to be able to say you're a serial entrepreneur, is not the goal. That's not the goal. Steve Jobs has a quote all-around focus that I think is very applicable. He says, people think focus means saying yes to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are.

You have to pick carefully. I'm actually as proud of the things we haven't done as the things I've done. Innovation is saying no to a thousand things. Innovation is saying no to a thousand things. I had to learn this a hard way. I had to learn the ability to focus through failure, through mistakes. For me, when I just got started,

I saw everything as an opportunity. As my platforms were growing, as a business was growing, I saw different markets as opportunities. I saw different products as opportunities. I saw different partnerships and athletes and content, all of these things I saw as opportunities. And I wanted to grab them all.

For me, they all, fed to one thing building what I was building. But the reality, I wasn't focused. And because I wasn't focused, some of those things weren't growing at all. Some of the things where we should have been focused on were actually declining. And it felt like this, it felt like I was on my hands and knees just like pushing this car in neutral, trying to get it six inches, 12 inches, 18 inches further. And all this work, all this effort was going in, but it was so slowly growing. And then when I eliminated 95% of the things that I was previously working on and

up my level of intensity on one or a few things, I saw exponential growth. Expendential growth. I have a few references and stories around that. You know, for me personally, I started building my platforms, which started as YouTube and then other social media platforms and now this podcast. And my platforms have over one million active subscribers or followers that are engaged with the content. and so many people approached me saying, Nick, you have these platforms with over a million people on it. We could launch X, Y, and Z.

You could make this much money. And the reality is, yes, I could. I mean, we could run so many ads on this podcast. I could run so many ads on my YouTube channel. I could add or run so many ads on my Instagram accounts. we could do all those things, but it would take away from the focus of what we're actually trying to build. It would take away from the message in the brand that I'm trying to convey, create, build, and impact. So I turned down all those other opportunities. I turned down that

money. Turn down, like, to be honest, I turned down significant money for ads that I could run on all these platforms that have been built because I want to maintain focus. And I want to build something that I can actually increase my intensity over a long period of time. That's my focus. It's not chasing down all these opportunities because they're just opportunities. Now, I want a refined focus. That might be turning down millions of dollars. millions of dollars and opportunity upon opportunity.

But I want the right opportunity. That's my focus. I started BPN in 2012. And it was a slow build. I mean, it was a slow build. We didn't cross a seven-figure revenue mark until 2017. And when we crossed the seven-figure revenue mark, that for me was just like, holy crap.

We're making over a million dollars in revenue right now. We had three employees at the time. So I thought, wow, there's an opportunity here to launch another company, be a serial entrepreneur, run the same blueprint and playbook, create a different company, and build that alongside BPN. And I don't know how long some of you guys been following my journey and the YouTube channel, but in

2018, we launched a brand called Lost Supply Apparel. Had nothing to do with BPN, but it was an outdoor adventure apparel line. Something that was fun, it was

a new opportunity, we thought we could build two businesses simultaneously with the same exact team. same fulfillment, same operations, same marketing, same platforms, all these things. So I spent months building lost supply apparel with Steph and we launched it in this first couple launches did really well. But what ended up happening was as I started putting more time into law supply apparel, I was able to put less time into BPN. BPN's growth slowed down, which is a brand that I just spent the last five years pouring blood, sweat, tears into.

And now this brand is slowing down. Law supply apparel is growing a little bit. But I had to ask myself the question, where do I want to spend my time? Where do we create impact? Where do I want the focus to be? So shortly after launching law supply apparel, we actually closed that business down because we realized we lost the ability to focus. We spread ourselves too thin.

And chasing that serial entrepreneur title wasn't as sexy as we thought it was going to be. Another thing that I had to learn the hard way over the years of building a YouTube channel and these platforms that I previously talked about is I saw this opportunity to start doing brand partnerships on YouTube. and these would be like two to three minute segments of a video of a YouTube video that would be a partner with another brand that I signed a contract with. And I only signed a contract with a few brands. It wasn't just any brand. It was brands who I actually thought they had a good product and I believed in their

company and I used personally. So I signed contracts with a few different brands. And in the middle of a YouTube video, you guys have probably seen a few of these. It'd be like this quick cut for two to three minutes. And it would be me talking about this product or this brand or this company that I use personally and that I believe in and I endorse. And it would push people towards that. And after that two to three minute segment, it would go back to the vlog or back to the video.

And I was doing multiple of these a month on my YouTube channel. And if I'm being very honest again, I was making very good money from. from these brand partnerships and deals. And I could have lived very comfortably just on those brand partnerships that were these two to three minute, pretty easy to film segments, added into a video I was already creating.

But what I learned and realized is that I was losing focus. And if I was losing focus, my team was losing focus, the viewer was losing focus, the consumer was losing focus, and it just didn't make sense to me anymore. The money that I was making from these brand deals, these partnerships, these ads, I could not justify based off of the focus

that was being lost from all parties. So I stopped doing all of those. I don't do any brand partnerships any longer outside of my companies being BPN. But I had to learn that the hard way. I had to go through the process and experience trying to do all the things and saying yes to everyone and anything and just about every opportunity to realize that I wasn't focused. And when I wasn't focused, all growth slowed down.

Some growth stopped. And more importantly, there wasn't clarity. There wasn't clarity for myself or who I was speaking to or who I was building with. Focus. Refine focus, learn focus, eliminate distractions. Go all in on a fewer things and be more proud of the things you say no to than the things you might say yes to. Trait number four is to play the long game.

This has and will never fail me or you. I guarantee it. I'll listen to a Jocko podcast. actually this morning, and they were talking about the concept of playing the long game. And I thought this was a very good, clear differentiation between short-term and long-term. When we're focused on the short-term, short-sighted, we often focus on tactics. The tactics are the day-to-day operations, things that we can. manipulate or adjust or do, that's going to provide immediate feedback. We can implement a tactic

that's going to either work or not work. It is the day-to-day hand-to-hand combat. Tactics, short-term, short-sighted, immediate. Strategy is the long-term. Strategy is the vision. Strategy. strategy is the North Star. And when we focus on strategy, we then do things day to day, week to week, month, even year to year, that is going to facilitate the strategy that we're trying to achieve. So to play the long game, focus on the strategy, focus on the vision, focus on the North Star, as opposed to the hand-to-hand day-to-day tactics. playing the long game requires patience.

It requires endurance. I love the word endurance, not just because I run daily, and I have running goals, and I love running, but I love the word endurance because you don't build endurance overnight. You don't build endurance immediately.

You don't build endurance with tactics. You build endurance through strategy over a long period of time. consistent work day in and day out playing the long game requires endurance and there's this thing that we should aim for and towards called delayed gratification i'm sure everyone's heard of delayed gratification at one point or another but it's what can we do to hold off for the success that we're going to achieve and i think of it as a spring. And the more, like say you have this spring, and the more you delay the gratification,

this spring condenses a little bit tighter, a little bit tighter, a little bit tighter, a little bit tighter. And the more consistent work that you put in, the more this spring compresses, where eventually, when it's ready to actually release, the power from that spring is so much greater because you delayed the gratification of releasing it earlier on. It has bigger, greater impact and reward. I was listening to this podcast the other day. I can't remember what podcast it was, but they were talking about this study in terms of delayed gratification and it used kids in this study. And there was a correlation they measured between the success of the study and the success of the kids as they grew and got older.

And in this study, they presented all these kids with a marshmallow. And they said, you can either eat the marshmallow right now, or if you wait 10 minutes, we'll give you a second marshmallow. Some of the kids ate the marshmallow right away. They just wanted the marshmallow. Some of the kids looked further into the future and had to be a little bit of the future and had some delayed gratification. They said, okay, I'm going to wait 10 minutes so I can get two marshmallows. When the 10 minutes was up, these kids were presented with an opportunity. You can eat the two

marshmallows now, or you can wait an additional 15 minutes. I'm paraphrasing, but same concepts. Wait another 15 minutes and we'll give you two more marshmallows. So after 25 minutes total, you'll have four marshmallows. Some of the kids couldn't wait. They ate the two marshmallows. Some waited to get the four. And this experiment went on for a few rounds. And what they found through correlation was that the kids who had delayed gratification and were able to hold off from eating the marshmallows to acquire more marshmallows over time ended up being more focused, more successful in life, personally

and professionally. I don't know how exactly it was measured, but But that's the overarching theme of the study. Delayed gratification works, but you have to play the long game. And playing the long game is creating a vision, having a north star of where you want to go, and that vision is built through strategy, and not losing sight of your values or being tempted by false promises throughout that experience, throughout that journey.

You need to apply endurance to that strategy to have the result and reward of delayed gratification. And the longer you play the game, the easier it is for you to maintain those values. Delayed gratification for a lot of people is hard. Playing the long game for a lot of people is hard. But again, it's a muscle that if you practice and implement and really try to just work towards that muscle becomes stronger.

It adapts. And you can hold off from eating that marshmallow. You can hold off from going and having that cheap meal. You can hold off on eliminating or ignoring your values based off of the short-term gain. and you can experience the long-term reward because you've strengthened that muscle. Play the long game. Play the long game.

And trait number five is to reject conformity. This whole thought is actually coming off of a recent sermon that we had at church. And the church that we go to here in Texas is called Celebration Church, The pastors are Pastor Joe and Lori Champion. We've been going there for a few years. When we were in Nashville, obviously, we were going to some different churches.

One of my favorite churches in Nashville was Legacy by Pastor Lyle Phillips, but our Texas church is a celebration. And one of the recent sermons from Pastor Joe was all about focusing on being transformative as opposed to being conformative or conforming to society's norms and expectations. And he says to focus on being transformed to be more Christ-like as opposed to conforming to be like the majority. And I have some thoughts around this. I was doing some research on just rejecting conformity.

And the way that I think about conformity is you stop thinking. You stop using your brain. You stop using common sense. You just reduce and eliminate any self-thought or values that you really have for yourself. And you just move with the current. as the current moves. The world's thinking this. The world's talking in this way.

The world's treating people this way. The world values X, Y, and Z as opposed to what should be actually valued. And when you conform to those standards, you just accept what everyone is accepting because it's accepted. You don't actually stop and say, do I actually believe in this? Do I actually value this or am I doing this just because everyone else is doing that? And right now, especially with just how wild and crazy so much of social media is in the world in general, that it's really easy to just conform to society and think a certain way and talk a certain way and value certain things that actually shouldn't be valued.

We need to stop and just think for ourselves, do I value this? or am I saying these things or valuing these things because everyone else is telling me, I should. Stop moving with the current. Be the current. Be the current that moves and moves other people. I was doing some research just to own this thought. And I came across this article in the Harvard Business Review by Peter Bregman.

And it was titled the high cost of conformity in how to avoid it. The thing is that leadership is the willingness to move in a different direction than others. I resonate with that so much and I view that as a personal responsibility as a leader. It is my responsibility as a leader to move in or at least be willing to move in different directions than others. And he has three steps that we can implement on how. how to avoid conformity when necessary. I don't think we should just avoid conformity to avoid conformity, but it's actually being aware of should we conform or not.

Step one, you have to have clear and strong, committed values. Like, what do you actually believe in? I oftentimes, like, just take a step back. I do this on my morning run. What are my values? and am I actually focused on my values? Am I actually practicing my values? Am I doing things that reflect my values?

If you don't ask yourself that question, you don't know. You'll never know. Have clear, strong, and committed values. What do you believe in? Step two, what is going on around you? And can you see it for what it really is? That's awareness.

Self-awareness. Like, what's going on in this conversation that I'm having. What's going on in my business? What's going on in my family? What's going on in the world? And can you see it for what it really is? Or is there a narrative that we're being presented with that is making us think a certain way and buy into or reject certain things? Like, what is it really? What's going on? And step three is courage. It's acting when something is going to. on that is out of sync with your values.

So you have your values. You have the awareness of what's going on. And then it's having the courage. Like this is, is something happening that doesn't align with my values? And if so, I'm not going to conform. I'm going to transform. I'm going to be the current.

I'm going to be the leader. Got to be willing to be the leader. Be willing to reject conformity. That is so critical and essential to be able to go all in. It's a trait that we have to master. It's a trait that we have to master. Like more so now than ever, it's one of the things that I want to teach my kids as they grow and get older. Like have the awareness to my daughter, Charlie, and to our son that's going to be born.

and however larger we grow our family, I want them to know their values. I want them to be able to be self-aware enough to recognize what's going on in the world and with people in their life. And I have the courage to say, I'm not about this or I am about this, but not just conforming to what we're told we're supposed to do

or believe in or say or buy or value. So reject conformity when it doesn't align. Those are the five things that I think we should aim to master so we can go all in and live a life of success and create legacy for ourselves and our family and what we're building and what we're creating. So I hope this resonated with you guys and you enjoyed it and you can take some of something away from it and practically apply to your life immediately right now. So thanks for tuning in, guys. I appreciate you. I love you.

We'll see in the next episode.