The Nick Bare Podcast - 090: Building the Brand: Part 3 "Discomfort"

Episode Date: October 21, 2024

In this third chapter of the series, join me as I revisit my journey from a struggling soldier balancing military duties with building a business, to a thriving entrepreneur with a successful YouTube channel. I cover my experiences overcoming setbacks, like failing Ranger School and banking issues while deployed in South Korea. Learn how seeking discomfort and relentless self-investment led to Bare Performance Nutrition's growth from humble beginnings to tackling financial challenges. Chapters 00:00 Exciting Black Friday Sale Announcement 01:30 Reflecting on a Transformative Year 02:18 Journey to Becoming a Platoon Leader 03:27 Starting BPN with $500 11:44 Building the Brand on YouTube 23:52 Balancing Military and Business 33:34 Embracing Discomfort for Growth 39:17 Denied Opportunities and New Challenges 42:53 Secret YouTube Channel Revealed 47:28 South Korea: A Pivotal Moment 48:55 Building BPN in South Korea 58:57 Unexpected Banking Issues 01:04:12 Preparing for the Next Chapter 01:10:16 Conclusion and Next Steps Strength, endurance, and wellness supplements to fuel your performance. SAVE 10% at BPN Supps: https://bit.ly/nickbare10audio FOLLOW: IG: https://www.instagram.com/thenickbarepodcast YT: youtube.com/@nickbarefitness

Previously on building the brand. This chapter, this year was very transformative. So I packed up my truck and I drove from Pennsylvania to Georgia. Solitude is not necessarily being alone in quiet. Solitude is being one within your own thoughts, being alone in your thoughts and reducing or eliminating the inputs from others, their thoughts, their ideas, their perspectives. That's what that drive from Pennsylvania to Georgia was for me. It was solitude. It all hit me that I know I want to build something. I wanted to be BPN. But right now, my focus

has to be my training in the military. And while as much of the infantry officer basic leader course is preparing you to be a platoon leader, it's also preparing you for ranger school. There's three phases. There's Fort Benning, and there's the mountain phase, and then there's the Florida phase. And we did our mountain phase. And I, I, I, ran my patrol and it was successful. The Ranger instructor pulled me aside and he goes, you know, that was a good, well-executed patrol, but I'll be honest with you. I see so many officers coming through here and just being given spots. And for that reason, that reason alone, I'm going to fail you and recycle you. And I cried, not in front of them, but I went back to

my patrol base. I put my head down and I cried when it feels like the world is against you. And it's so heavy, just to remember that this two shall pass. You've probably had a lot of these moments of extreme challenge, extreme adversity, but they didn't last forever. Eventually that pressure gave off. Everything passed to end at some point. I went into that second phase of mountains. I passed, and I graduated, what's next for me?

What's next for BPN? And it was time to go all in. I had about $500 left to my name. And I decided to spend all that $500. on a camera. I knew that if I went all in, literally all in, spent everything, I'd be forced to make BPN work. So that's what I did. Got to my apartment, Fort Hood, Texas, bought a camera, and started documenting everything. What is going on, guys? And welcome back to another episode of the podcast. This continues our multi-part building the brand series. This is chapter three,

and I'm titling chapter three, seek discomfort. It starts with me arriving to Belton, Texas, being stationed at Fort Hood, which was my first duty assignment in the Army. And then this chapter ends after coming back to the States following a nine-month training rotation in South Korea with the Army. and it starts in October of 2014 and it ends in October of 2016. 14 to 16, two years within this chapter. The lessons that I have learned where I did learn during this point of my life, those two years. One, in order to grow, you must seek and embrace discomfort. And I still, to this day, firmly believe that.

Number two, when everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. We have to focus and create boundaries in our life. Number three, time management is an essential skill that you don't have to be born with, but you can learn, you can teach yourself to embrace. Number four, become a learning machine. As long as you continue to keep learning, you will continue to keep growing. and making progress. As soon as you stop learning,

that is the first ingredient of disaster, destruction, and death. And the fifth lesson, be a key collector. Be a key collector in life of experiences, ideas, perspectives, and outlooks.

So here we are. Belton, Texas. I just made the drive from Fort Benning, Georgia to Texas. And like I talked about in the previous chapter, that drive was filled with solitude. It was filled with just excitement for what this next chapter in my life was going to bring. I didn't know where it was going to take me or what I was going to do. but I knew that the experiences and the reward, the result was all in my hands.

And when I landed or arrived in Texas, active duty, second lieutenant, army infantry officer, hard charging, fresh ranger tab on my shoulder, I'm ready to go. I arrived in my unit, which was the first Cav, first armored brigade combat team, 212 Cav, Bravo Company. And my unit at the time was in Germany. They were wrapping up a training rotation in Germany. And they were still going to be there for a few weeks

once I am processed into the unit. So they threw me in the S3 short. shop, which was just operations. And for those first couple of weeks in Texas, I really didn't have much to do with the Army. I would show up early in the morning. We would do roll call. We would do PT. And then because my unit was in Germany, there wasn't much else going on in the S3 shop.

They would typically send me home and just tell me, hey, we're waiting for the unit to get back here. there's not much to do, just hold on. So those first couple weeks in Texas, I mean, I was fully prepared to dive right in and it wasn't that case. I had to wait for the team, for the unit to get back from that training rotation in Germany.

And I didn't have much money to my name left to that point because as I previously talked about, in the earlier episodes of the series, to start BPN, I took on a $20,000 loan, and I spent all of that money on inventory. And what I quickly realized is that it takes money to keep a company going. There's just expenses and overhead.

Even at that point, me being the only, I guess you could say employee, there were still overhead. We were still incurring costs as I maintained the operations of the business. So I spent that entire $20,000 on the inventory. And the money that was making in the Army, I was reinvesting back into the company to keep it growing.

Because at this point, I was in business for two years. And I had $500 left to my name at that point. And I quickly realized that just because you have supply does not mean you have demand. Just because I got the loan for $20,000 and I placed the production order for, which at the time our only product, flight pre-workout, we didn't have demand of people wanting to buy it. And I had to create that demand.

I used to tell myself that it was just going to take time for this company to naturally grow and blow up and make money. And just because I put it out there, it will eventually catch some sort of momentum. And it wasn't. And it wasn't going to until I actually recognized this and took control, took ownership, took responsibility, and then took action. VPN wasn't growing. The momentum wasn't gaining.

The longer it was in market, the worse it was doing. So I had to create this demand. And all I had was $500 left to my name. So naturally, I decided to go spend that $500. I invested it in myself. I invested it in my future. I went out and I bought a camera. I bought a Canon T3I, which was a DSLR camera.

I did all this research online, what cameras should I be using? what's the best for filming and creating content. What's the best for vlogging? Vlogging at the time, video logging, especially on YouTube, was this newer thing. So I identified that I wanted the Canon T3i. And I spent all my money on this camera setup. It was a microphone.

It was the camera. I believe I got a lens with it. It was like a kit and then a tripod. And I told myself that if I spent all my money, money on this camera, I had no other choice. I had to make it work. It's like burning the boats. I burned the boats so I could not retreat. The only option was to move forward. The only option was to succeed if I was going to spend my last remaining dollars. And what's really important to highlight here is I bought that camera to start creating.

content on YouTube. I saw YouTube as this opportunity, one, to create a community online and document and share my story. And I saw a massive opportunity to create a community that in hopes would support my mission and what I was building and BPN and buy the products. And I know it was a long shot because I saw other people online doing it. But from my perspective, Like they had this natural God-given talent and ability to tell stories and they had on-camera presence and they were just naturally good at what they were doing. And that wasn't me.

But I just wanted a fraction of what they were achieving online. And at that point, I tried creating a YouTube channel two other times before this and those two years leading up to that moment. The first time I use my phone or a cheap camera, camera, something that we had sitting around. And I filmed the YouTube video. I posted it online. It got hate. I was discouraged. I deleted the video. I deleted the channel. And then I decided to try one other time. Same thing. I filmed the video. I posted it. It received hate and criticism. I became discouraged once again, deleted the video, deleted the

channel. And I just kept telling myself, like, I am not made to do this. I don't have the talent. I don't have the skill. I don't have that comfortable on-camera presence. So after two times of trying and failing, I just gave up on it until I got the Texas. My unit was in Germany. I had nothing else going on. I had time to kill. I had this company that wasn't growing where I saw an opportunity. And I needed to create demand because I had the supply. and also my loan with the bank that took the loan out with, payments were going to start kicking on soon. So I knew I had to pay back the money that I took out originally. And because I spent all my money and I invested in myself and I went all in on me, I had no other option.

So I remember setting up this camera in my apartment at the time, and I just started filming everything. I filmed what I was eating, full day of eating videos. I was filming my training. I was taking my camera and my tripod into the gym, which was extremely, extremely, uncomfortable. I can't even describe you how uncomfortable filming myself in the gym was when I first got started. I filmed the behind the scenes of building BPN. Eventually I started documenting the behind the scenes of being in the army

and being a platoon leader and what I was learning. And I became addicted to the process. Became addicted to the process of filming and then uploading all the footage onto my computer and editing that video and then trying to find ways to make that video better every video after that. Like, how can I shoot different angles?

What stories can I try to tell? What message is resonating with people? What message is not resonating with people? And I was just trying all these different things within creating, filming, and editing videos. And slowly, slowly, slowly watching the subscriber account grow on YouTube. And watching people and experiencing people, consume the content, provide feedback, whether good or bad.

I definitely received a lot of criticism and hate and negativity early on, but I just decided to drive through this time. I had no other choice. I burned the boats. I spent all of my money. I had to push through this time. There was no other option. And all that negativity, all that feedback, all that criticism was still there,

that I experienced the first two times when I deleted the channel. But this time it was different. This time I was holding myself accountable to see something through to go all in. And I didn't know where to get started. I think people ask that question all the time. Where do I get started? Where do I get started with creating content? Where do I get started with a podcast?

Where do I get started with a YouTube channel? Where do I get started with a business? where do I get started? Tell me, where do I get started? You just got to get started. There's no perfect answer. I didn't know how to build an online following. I didn't know how to tell a story.

I didn't know how to comfortably talk to a camera. I didn't know how to build a business. I didn't know any of these things. But I just got started. And I tried making every piece I worked on better than the previous one. and that led to improvement in growth and progress. And I learned from my mistakes. And I never looked back.

I wasn't afraid from that point on to fail or lose. And maybe failing two phases of Ranger School and then sticking with it, being resilient enough to see it through and then graduating taught me that you can still fail and succeed. You can still lose and win. Just because you fail or you lose or you make a massive mistake doesn't mean that you can't do better next time.

It doesn't mean you still can't achieve the goal. So BPN at this point was kind of split operations. Here I am in Texas with a $500 camera set up, no money left of my name, killing some time before my unit comes back from Germany to the states, creating content, building the brand, sales slowly started to increase. It by no means was overnight, but like maybe every week it was one to two additional orders, slowly. growth. And then back in Pennsylvania, my dad and brother are fulfilling the orders. So if you've seen like video or photo of the BPNHQ currently, that compared to what it was 2012, 2013, 2014, pretty significant difference. Let me paint you a picture. So all orders were fulfilled in the room above my parents' garage.

The printer was in the basement. The inventory was upstairs in the room above my parents' garage. So when my brother and dad would pack orders, they would go upstairs. They would pack the order. They'd log on to USPS, which we used to fulfill all of our orders at the time. Print the label because the label is downstairs. They go downstairs, get the label, come back upstairs. We didn't know there were these things called label printers developed.

So we would print it out on a nine and a half by, I guess a standard piece of paper was an eight and a half by 11, sheet of paper. We cut it out, hand cut it with scissors, place it on the box, tape it down, and then they would either drop it off the next day at the post office, or they would put it by the mailbox.

And when the mailman was dropping off mail, mail and letters, they would pick up these boxes because there were only one, two, maybe three tops. They were in the back of the truck, take it to the post office, and then it would get delivered to whoever somehow found out about BPN and what we were all about. And that's how the company was operating at the time. My ops team, being my dad and brother, were in Pennsylvania, I was in Texas building the brand, getting ready for my career in the military, my time in the military, and just this slow growth in figuring it out. There was no business plan.

There was no blueprint. There was no mentorship. There was no coach. It was just doing. And then learning for my mistakes. and with each additional day, each additional YouTube video, each additional filming session,

how do I do this a little bit better? How do I do this a little bit differently than I did previously and then tracking that progress and seeing it through? It started with a $500 reinvestment, my last $500, investing in myself, my vision, my mission, my goals.

I bet on myself. When we think about investing, I actually just recently listened to an Alex Formosi podcast, and he talked about this. When it comes to investments, a lot of people want to put their money in places that they know nothing about because professional investing outside of your area of expertise feels sophisticated. You feel smarter. You feel more educated.

Putting your money into the market, putting money into places that you don't fully understand. But hey, that's where the smartest people in the world put their money, so I should put it there too. If you don't understand

where that money is going, if you don't understand how it's generating more money, it potentially could be a really poor investment, especially because it's not in your area of expertise. And the way Alex explains is he invests in business, in businesses, because that's what he understands.

That's his area of expertise. My last $500, I could have went and put it in a mutual fund somewhere, but who knows what would have happened with that, I decided to put it into myself, bet on me because that solitude I experienced in the previous chapter, I knew I was in control. And if I was in control of $500, my last $500, I was also in control of the return. You know, to a certain extent, the control that I had was within me to either achieve or don't achieve, win or fail, succeed. and lose. It was on me. So I'm just doing this in the background, creating, documenting, learning, creating, documenting, learning. And shortly after I started doing all of this,

my unit comes back from Germany, from the rotation in Germany, and I was assigned to a platoon. So first platoon, Bravo Company, 212 Cav titled The Misfits, that was my platoon that I was assigned to. I was the platoon leader leading 40 soldiers and non-commissioned officers of the United States Army. And this was a very intimidating environment to walk into. Like to provide context, I went into the Army as an officer. so you're put into a leadership position if you have the ability, the capacity to do so. Second lieutenant, commissioned in the Army,

infantry officer, here I am taking over a platoon of 40 soldiers and non-commissioned officers and I just graduated college a little over a year prior. No military experience, no deployments to a combat zone, nothing. My experience was one year. The infantry basic officer leader course, ranger school, airborne school, Bradley leader course.

That's it. So it was a very intimidating experience to walk into because here I am a butter bar, which is what they call a second lieutenant because second lieutenant rank is this gold bar on your chest. And I was leading guys who have been in the military for over a decade with multiple combat deployments to Iraq, to Afghanistan, serving in the military during a very kinetic time, having CIB's combat infantry badge, meaning they were engaged in battle at, war. Here I am this brand new second lieutenant expected to lead that platoon. And one of the best pieces of advice that I was ever given, because I was asking a bunch of people prior to me being in the situation, how do you manage this environment? How do you manage being this brand new guy with no experience leading people who have all this experience?

and I was given a lot of advice, and it all kind of boiled down to this one general concept. And I was show up, show respect to the platoon, and just observe for the first couple weeks. Don't make any changes. Don't drastically flip things upside down. The platoon was operating well and can operate pretty well without you. So just come in and observe and watch and let that platoon,

let the soldiers, let the non-commission officers invite you in. So that's what I did. Those first couple weeks I just observed and watched how they were moving, what they were doing, things they are working on, their systems, their processes. And eventually they invited me in. eventually they started talking to me at one point. In the beginning, not so much, started talking to me and inviting me in and asking for my advice and my opinions. And I built a really strong relationship with my platoon. I was lucky enough to be a platoon leader for two years. A lot of platoon leaders have about a year of PL time.

I had two solid years. I loved it. I loved being a platoon leader for that platoon. First platoon, the misfits. It was a blast. I learned so much. I learned so much from those individuals in that platoon. Again, another transformative experience in my life.

And that's where I truly valued the responsibility of being a leader. You can choose to be a leader. You can choose not to be a leader. but if you're in that position, there's this massive responsibility that you have to honor and uphold. And I fell in love with that. Even today, leading BPN,

that is what I truly enjoy. It's leading people. It's taking care of people. It's guiding people. It's coaching people. It's creating and casting the vision of this is where we're going. This is the direction.

This is the North Star. Let's go. and then inspiring and motivating people to get behind that vision and that mission and hard charging with you. That's what I love. And my time in the military truly did start teaching me how to effectively manage my time. Because we worked a lot and we spent a lot of time in the field. what's considered, you know, garrison environment, when you're not overseas, you're not on a combat deployment, or you're not even on a training rotation somewhere else, when you're in garrison and you're just doing your job at your duty assignment, at your base within the States, you're working pretty normal routine hours, but you're also in and out of the field of training, depending on the training cycle,

quite often. In the summers, we'd be out training for two, three, four weeks at a time sometimes before we came back and we were able to go home and live our normal life. It was a lot of in and out of the field. And this is where I really had to learn how to maximize my time because I was trying to build BPN in my free time. I was creating content. I was building this platform.

But the priority was always the military. When I was in the Army, Army was number one. When I showed up to work, that was the focus. When the day was over, when we were released, that was my time. And I was going to manage my time. And I was going to work on and focus on the things that mattered. because if it matters to you, you will make time. And from the time we were released every day from work,

I'd pick up my camera and I'd start documenting, and I'd start learning, and I'd start building the business. Now, do this until 11, 12 p.m. Film, edit, create, document, launch the video, go to sleep, wake up, get to PT in the morning, do it all over again. that was during the week. And the weekends, it was waking up and working on the business

from the time I was up to the time I went to sleep. Every other part of my life, I turned off. It was Army number one, BPN number two, creating content number three. And those were the three things that I was focused on. Those are the three things that mattered at the time. And I was dedicated. I was dedicated and committed to seeing this grow and this build because I started experiencing these small wins.

The more time I invested into BPN, the more time I invested into creating content, the more repetitions I got, the better I became, the more comfortable I became. I wasn't as awkward on camera. I was more willing to film in public. I wasn't as nervous to carry a camera around. And as the platform started to grow, and the community started to grow and resonate with my content and find me online,

BPN sales slowly started to grow too. Slowly. I mean, there was never at one point where I identified, wow, this is a turning point in the right direction. No, it was so slow over such a long period of time that it was really hard to recognize the wins and the results. But you could feel the momentum. There's periods of time in business. Sometimes you can't even look at the numbers and say, we're heading in the right direction.

Sometimes there's no data to support it, but you can feel it. You can feel momentum building and growing and scaling. and it's really hard to describe what that energy feels like, but when you feel it, you know it. And there's been a few times where I can really feel the momentum. And this was one of those moments. And I had the excitement and I had the energy and the passion behind what I was doing. And I was seeking discomfort.

Like filming myself in the gym, filming myself in my truck, going into Austin on the weekends, and filming myself at Zilker Park, on a run, going to different restaurants. It was extremely uncomfortable. Extremely uncomfortable.

I mean, setting up a tripod by the river downtown Austin and talking to it as people are walking by, staring at you, before vlogging was super popular. Or before even some of these social media platforms really started growing and developing. You were the weird guy.

I was a weird guy talking to the camera downtown. People thinking, what's this guy doing? There's no one with him. He's talking to a camera. He's essentially talking to himself. It was extremely uncomfortable for me. But I knew that if I wanted to grow and I wanted to get to where I wanted to be, I wanted BPN to keep scaling.

And I saw the potential BPN. I knew it was there, even when no one else saw it, when no one else believed in it. And the doubt was strong from friends and family and coworkers. I knew that if I just kept the foot on the gas, it would eventually turn into something. I knew it. I felt it. Truly. So I kept seeking discomfort.

And I learned at that point that every time I, I seeked discomfort, I experienced some sort of new level of growth in opportunity. And it just so happened around this time. This was maybe after a year of being at Fort Hood, BPN slowly growing. My dad and brother are still shipping orders back from Pennsylvania. And I was presented with this opportunity. and I saw this opportunity to embrace discomfort and achieve hopefully growth through that discomfort. And at Fort Hood, there was this core asset called Lerce, long-range surveillance.

And it was a small company of a few platoons that were a core asset and would be attached to brigades when brigades would deploy overseas. and this long-range surveillance unit was a specialized unit. You had to try out for it and get selected and then brought on because they would go on special missions and they were expected to operate at higher independent levels. And I caught wind that there was triouts for the Lerst unit. There was one opening for a new platoon leader. And at this point, I'm already one year into my PL time.

And I believe you needed one year of platoon leader time before being able to try out for this position. So I decided to pursue it. I knew that if I received this role, I would go on some combat deployments. I would get great experience. I would definitely seek discomfort or experience discomfort. And I would absolutely grow. And there's certain opportunities you can pursue in the military that will fast track your career. And I knew if I went LERS, I could potentially then go Ranger Regiment or maybe even Special Forces.

And it could fast track my career because the opportunities that I was pursuing. So I decided to do that. And I went through the Lerst Tri-Ons, which were, I believe, one to two weeks. there were a lot of candidates that applied for it. There was an interview process. There was a tactical and strategic kind of operational process that we were evaluated on. There was a physical component. And it was one to two weeks of every day being tested, being evaluated, being assessed.

And then after it was all done, we waited to hear back. And I heard back and I was selected to be the platoon leader of this long-range surveillance unit at Fort Hood. And I was, I was jacked up. I was so excited because I knew the opportunities that would come from this position could be revolutionary for my career

and where it would take me at some point in my life. And all I had to do was get this document signed by my brigade commander at the time, which is called a 4187, to transfer from my current unit to this new unit. And I thought it was going to be a given. I thought it would get signed because I assumed that my brigade commander would recognize how great of an opportunity this was and that he wanted to see me grow and develop as a leader. as an officer and he would approve this 4187 because I assumed he knew how great it could be for me. But that 4187 got denied by that brigade commander at the time. And I tried to fight it and it didn't end up working out. And then shortly after that 4187 wasn't approved, we got orders for a nine-month rotation to South Korea.

So all within a short amount of time, I'm building the business, I'm creating content, I'm seeking opportunities of discomfort because I want that to facilitate the growth that I knew I would experience. This opportunity was there to do and achieve exactly what I wanted and I thought I was in control,

but there's certain situations in life where you are not in control. and someone else holds that over you and it was denied. That 4187 was denied. And then quickly after we got orders to go to South Korea, and I'm not going to lie, I was a little discouraged at that point. Because I assumed,

well, I'm definitely not going on these combat deployments with the Lerce unit. We're going to Korea. There's no way I'm going to be able to, to keep creating content around the business. The business and all the momentum that I created in this last year is probably going to die. And then when I get back from Korea, I'll probably start transitioning out of the military.

And then what's next? And there was always this plan. There was this plan before BPN started making any progress and growing that eventually we were going to go back to Pennsylvania or I was going to go back to Pennsylvania. and I was going to be a chicken farmer. That was a plan because my dad's side of the family, they're all dairy farmers in central Pennsylvania. And my grandpa saw a lot of opportunity in the chicken business.

So he was already looking at land and exploring the loan process to build these chicken houses for me and negotiating contracts with Bell and Evans and Tyson. Chicken farming was in the beginning the natural path that I was going to pursue post-military before BPN really started growing. So I started just thinking, well, that might be the option again. Chicken farming might be in my car because after spending nine months in Korea,

all the momentum that I just experienced and created is probably going to be gone. So we start ramping up all the processes and operations to get ready for this, this nine-month rotation in South Korea. And we're going through our day to day. And at this point, my YouTube channel was a secret. I didn't let anyone in the Army know that I had a YouTube channel that documented my training, the business, my nutrition, none of this stuff. Part of me was embarrassed that I had a YouTube channel.

I don't know why. It was like this secret part of my life. I liked separating Nick Bear, second lieutenant, army, and Nick Bear, fitness YouTuber, founder of BPN. I liked keeping those two things separate and on the room.

And one day, as I'm coming into PT in the morning, about 6 a.m., I can hear my voice as I'm walking through the doors of the building. And it sounds like it's coming from a phone. I can hear myself talking and I was confused. I didn't put two and two together right away. And I started hearing more of my voice from multiple devices.

As I'm walking to the office, one of my soldiers walks up to me, flips his phone around, and it's me deadlifting and talking to the camera at the gym. on YouTube. My company, there's about 120 people, Bravo company, discovered my YouTube channel. And it was almost like a scene in the movie

where someone just gets this bad information. And it's like this vortex where they're standing still and everything around them zooms out and zooms in simultaneously. and I didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to address it. I was embarrassed. I was confused.

I was ashamed. I got bright red. Just thinking about how do I explain this? And somehow someone in my company found the YouTube channel, which is probably good because it meant that there were more people watching the channel and somehow it got out there to a larger network in the internet. in the fitness space to the army. And there I was hearing myself on multiple devices in my company truly embarrassed.

And the response actually wasn't what I expected it would be. I thought it would be people ragging on me and making fun of me because that's what I experienced shortly after starting VPN. people making fun of me and joking about it. But the company and specifically my platoon took a lot of interest in it. They got behind what I was doing in terms of building BPN and my mission and creating content in my free time. And they were extremely, extremely supportive. And that was really powerful for me because I expected one type of response.

I expected the same type of response that I experienced when I was back home shortly after starting BPN and the kids who graduated a year before me saw me at this local bar and were chanting BPN, not in support, but making fun of me. And I expected that same response by my platoon in the Army, but it wasn't. It was support. It was getting behind me. It was wanting to see me win and succeed. and that's when I realized what a brotherhood looks like. That's when I realized what a team and a family looks and feels like. They don't want me to fail.

They don't want to make fun of me. Yeah, we dogged on each other all the time. I mean, the military, especially the infantry, is just like hardcore dogging on each other and playing games and messing with one another and sometimes fighting, but it's all out of love. And I experienced nothing but love from my platoon in the company from that moment on. It was really, really powerful.

So the next part of this chapter is South Korea. And South Korea was another pivotal, truly pivotal moment in my life. Because when I landed there, I thought, well, I didn't know what to expect. I thought it was going to be working nonstop around the clock. I was at Camp Casey, which is far north in South Korea, and pretty close to the DMZ between North and South Korea. And I thought we were just going to be working nonstop. And I quickly realized that we were essentially doing the same job

that we're doing back in Texas. And that's what we were going to be doing in South Korea. Even though we were a quick reaction force, if something, in the event that North Korea pushed into South Korea, we were there as QRF and in support. And I almost didn't take my camera. I almost didn't take any of my creative equipment. But last minute, I threw it in. And when I realized I was actually going to have more free time.

in Korea than I expected or anticipated, I made a commitment to myself. And that was to create boundaries, eliminate distractions, and hyper-focus. And I hyper-focused on building BPN outside of my job in the military. Again, being a platoon leader

and being the Army was priority. But every waking moment outside of that, I was going to maximize my time. I was going to become an expert in time management. So I told myself, I'm not watching any TV, no movies, no socializing, everything outside of my job as a platoon leader, I was going to go all in on me. I was going to bet on myself and I was going to learn how to build BPN. And at the time when I landed in Korea, we're doing about $2,000 a month in revenue, roughly.

And my goal was, at the end of those nine months, I wanted to be doing $10,000 a month in revenue. Because I also knew that once I got back from Korea, I was going to start the process of transitioning out of the military because my four-year, army contract would be approaching. So I was going to do my four years of active duty and then get out of the military. And if I could get the business to doing $10,000 a month in revenue, I could live off of that to a certain extent and grow it from there. But I needed to get it to that point because there was no way that I could have lived off of $2,000 a month of not-profit revenue. So here's the schedule I created when I got to Korea.

I woke up extra early, woke up at 4 a.m., 5 a.m., and I would answer emails, and I would communicate with manufacturers, agencies, anyone I had to that was back in the States because of the time difference between South Korea and the States. So I would do all my communication in the morning. Then I would go to PT with the military and we do our workout.

And then we'd have about an hour, hour and a half between the time PT was over and the workday would start. And most people would go for breakfast, but I would go straight to the gym. And I would go straight to the gym because at this point, no one else was there. And I could take my camera and I could take my tripod and I could film my workouts. And that's what I did. I filmed my work ounce between PT and going to work. And then if we weren't in the field during that time, go to work, you know, 9 until 4 or 5 p.m. And as soon as I would get home, which was very close to where I worked.

I mean, my barracks room was a two-minute walk, if that, from my company headquarters. So it was very convenient. and I'd start working right away. And I would study marketers, read books, listen to podcasts. I became a learning machine. Truly became a learning machine. And this is when I discovered Casey Nystad and his YouTube series. And I'd watch the way Casey was telling stories and filming and the shots he was getting

and the way he was editing in the format of his videos. And I'd go out and I try to recreate some of these shots, learn how to film better, learn how to tell stories better. On the weekends, I'd wake up early, I'd get my camera, I'd take a train into soul, I'd have a story or a message that I wanted to convey in that video, and then I would film it and document it and edit it similar to Casey's style, but with my own content. And Casey taught me everything I needed to know about storytelling and video production and editing.

Truly, a guide and a mentor, even though he didn't know it, that revolutionized the outcome of my life. Revolutionize my business. I found out about Shopify when we were in Korea and rebuilt our entire website on Shopify from the previous platform it was on, I developed new products while in Korea, talking back and forth to manufacturers in the states. And they'd send over samples and I had to go to the mail room and try out

these samples. And we launched new product when I was in Korea. And it was getting delivered at my parents' house in Pennsylvania. Everyone who placed an order, I would write a thank you note too. I had these postcards. and at night I'd write these thank you notes after work, handwritten, by name, with the products they ordered. And I'd seal that letter, drop it off the mailbox every night,

and it would get sent back to the States. I did this for months, in months, in months. I was learning everything I could. I taught myself how to actually code part of the Shopify website because I couldn't afford to pay someone else to do it. So I taught myself code and modified our website with code on the Shopify backend. I was learning, testing, reviewing, and refining everything. And I was obsessed with the process.

I was obsessed with the process. The YouTube channel started growing. And all these people started finding my videos of me being in the military in South Korea, documenting this journey, building the business, the process, my fitness goals, all of these things, and then revenue for BPN slowly started to grow simultaneously. And within the first 90 days of being in South Korea, we went from doing $2,000 a month in revenue to $10,000 a month in revenue. My nine-month goal was accomplished in 90 days.

So all this momentum that I could feel building subjectively, I now had objective hard data that showed the consistency, the work, the relentless pursuit to achieve was finally paying off. And there was this one video that ended up taking off. And at the time when YouTube, I had 30,000 subscribers. This is five months into being in South Korea. Five months of being in South Korea. I filmed the video and it was just me documenting my day. Like I've kind of always documented before that. And I didn't know what to title this video at the end of the day before making it live.

And I just so happened to title it Day in the Life of an Infantry Platoon Leader and didn't think anything of it. And it performed kind of just as my other videos did it first. And then it took off. And it went from 5,000 views maybe to a million views. And the YouTube channel went from 30,000 subscribers to 80,000 subscribers. And you might be thinking, wow, that one video changed everything. And it kind of did.

The exposure that video brought me in the brand was, like I said, pivotal. It was transformative. But it wasn't the one video that did that. It was the dozens, probably over 100, maybe hundreds of videos before that one. For over the two years that I was documenting my life before that video and getting the repetitions in, and learning from people like Casey and learning and doing and testing and reviewing and refining to where I got this one video that had the content, it had the story, it resonated with the audience. And it grew that platform.

It grew my business. It gave me the exposure that I wanted and needed at that time to take the business to another level. Like I said, that video is called a day in the life of an infantry platoon leader. And it changed the trajectory of everything I was doing at the time. It was truly that powerful. So here's a fun story for you. Something I didn't expect at this point. Everything was going well.

The platforms were growing. The demand was actually starting to match the supply that we were. had. The business was growing. I hit my goal of $10,000 a month in revenue from those first 90 days. And we're getting ready to go to Gunnery. So Gunnery was going to be a 30-day duration of time where we were out in the field away from computers, very limited use of our phones or any sort of technology and communication. We're on the field, gunnery, for 30 days. And just before we left for gunnery, I went and used my USAA card, credit card, to pay

for some expenses in the business. And it got declined. And I just assumed it got declined because of some sort of API issue of me being Korea and the business being back in the States. and it was some sort of fraud prevention type, you know, support or system. So I called up USAA at the time. It's like, hey, I just wanted to unlock my card. It seems that it was declined.

I'm over in Korea. And I can imagine, you know, what has happened here. And they go, well, we actually closed your account. Like, you closed my account. What do you mean you closed my account? And they said, well, we sent you. you a cease and desist letter to your house. Well, I said, well, my house back in Texas, I'm in Korea.

And I let the bank know prior to that I was going to create on this nine-to-month rotation. I didn't get this letter because I'm in Korea. My house is in Texas. There's no way I could have seen this letter. And they said, well, we sent you a cease and desist letter because a few weeks ago, we identified that you were using your personal bank account for business operations. You can't do that.

You can't use your personal account for business banking, which I had no clue was the thing. And again, I said, well, that would have been great to know, but I'm in Korea. My house is in Texas. They said, well, we say this, he insists. We've tried to reach you out multiple times. We've officially closed your account. We can't reopen it. And it's under investigation.

So here I was about to leave. for gunnery, 30 days in the field, limited access to my computer and phone. My bank account that I was using for business was closed off. I couldn't access any of the money that was in that account because it was seized and it was in an investigation. Once the investigation was over, they would then send me a check with that money, but I couldn't touch it. Business is growing.

momentum is moving forward. I'm about to go to the field. Money's closed off. I needed that money. I needed that money to pay for production orders, to pay for shipping labels, to just keep the business going, the normal overhead that maintained the business. I needed that account. So I switched up accounts prior leaving for gunnery to my personal account. And that personal account got driven. over the next couple of weeks while I had no access to that locked up money. And I thought I was going to bleed everything dry. I thought for sure we were going to run out and that was the end of it.

But it just so happened right before running out of money. That investigation got closed, check got sent to me. I still couldn't use that bank account, but I had the money again. And we could keep the business moving forward. Some things you just never anticipate or expect or know until you start. And yes, it can be viewed as a failure or a mistake or lack of diligence, but you don't know what you don't know. But I'd learn from that.

And I didn't make that mistake ever again. But that was one of those stressful situations where, again, you feel like you have no control. And I'm in a different country. about to turn off all my technology for limited usage for the next 30 days. And my business just needs to stay alive until I get back, which it barely did. The craziness of entrepreneurship at its finest. Coming to the end of my time in South Korea, which I made significant progress,

and I made a lot of that progress because I hyper-focused on what, really mattered to me at the time, I eliminated distractions and I said no to a lot of things. But that hyper focus in being so efficient with my time, maximizing time management, allowed me get to the business to a point where it was sustainable and it could facilitate this next chapter in my life. So there's these two phone calls that happen in South Korea that were pretty important to mention. The first I made to my brother Preston. And Preston, three years younger than me,

at the time he recently graduated from college, had a full-time job. He was getting paid really good at this job. And I called him and I said, hey man, I'm about to come back to Texas from this rotation in South Korea. And I need you to, quit your job. I need you to pack up a U-Haul van, put all of our inventory in it, drive it down,

move into my house in Texas, and start finding a warehouse for us. Because when I come back, we're going all in on BPN, all in. Because I knew I was about a transition out of the military. And I was going to have more time, more space. And without any questions, no doubt. no pause, he said, done. And Preston quit his job. He packed up at U-Haul with my mom. They drove that U-Haul down to Texas. He moved into my home. I couldn't pay him. He lived in my house and he started packing orders out of there. And that's when all of our fulfillment moved from being in Pennsylvania to being in Texas. And I said, find a warehouse for us. When we had like a certain budget and an amount of space that we were looking for,

and he found it, he signed the lease. He sent it to me. I signed the lease before even seeing it. I fully trusted him. And the excitement is just building at this point. I mean, here I am preparing to come back to the States. This business is growing. I'm getting ready to transition out of the army. I'm working with my brother. He just moved and quit his job. We have our own warehouse we're about to move into. I'm, I'm just jacked up with as much energy that I could have ever had. And there was a second phone call. It was from Joe Pivots. And Joe and Preston still working the business. I went to college with Joe's brother, Jonathan, and we were in ROTC together. And I briefly knew Joe. And Joe sent me a Facebook message when I was in

Korea and asked if we could hop on a call. I was extremely confused. Why would Joe Pivots want to hop on a call with me while I'm in South Korea, who I've barely met before? And he goes, I've been watching what you're doing over in Korea. I see what you're building. I want to be a part of it. I want to move down to Texas. So he booked a flight to come down to Texas shortly after I got back from Korea to come meet. So I had my team. I had my team prepared as I was getting ready to come back to the States. I had Preston, he was down there, building out our HQ and getting things ready.

I had Joe employee number one, you could say, after the founding brothers, who was preparing to move down to Texas once I came back to the States. And we were all in. Now, our plan was pretty loose. And the loose plan at the time was that we knew the business was making some money, but not enough money to cover some of the expenses that we were about to incur. We signed this warehouse lease, and we signed this warehouse lease really before we could afford it. So we had this strategy, which at the time seemed perfect. It seemed bulletproof.

And then in reality, when it came to fruition, it was not bulletproof. So the plan was that we were going to use this warehouse that we signed a lease for that we couldn't afford. And we were going to use half of it for BPN fulfillment, operational. content creation, and the other half we were going to turn into a public gym. And we were going to turn into a public gym, one for content, but two, to cover the expenses of the warehouse. Bulletproof, right? We got the space and the warehouse altogether was 6,000 square feet.

So it was about 3,000 square feet of gym, 3,000 square feet of warehouse and office, split up, that we split up by ourselves, by building walls ourselves. The downfall, though, is that the warehouse was in the back of a business park that had very, very, very low visibility. You didn't know about it unless you knew who we were from social media. We couldn't afford enough of equipment to fill the gym, so it was pretty empty. And we couldn't afford more employees to maintain in, work the gym so at any given time throughout the week and weekend, either me, Joe, or Preston

had to be there. I'll get to that in later chapters of this multi-part series, but that strategy did not necessarily work out in the way we intended. But I had my team. I had Preston and I had Joe ready for me to come back to Texas. You know, when we seek discomfort, and that discomfort facilitates growth, it has the opportunity to unlock new parts of our life, our minds, our perspective, our ideas, our opinions. And as I mentioned earlier on, one of the lessons that I learned is to be a key collector,

a key collector of experiences, ideas, perspectives, outlooks. And we collect keys from these experiences. So if I think back to some of the experiences I had in my life up until this point, that provided me this key to unlock compartment, in my mind, in my ability to do more, to do greater. My eating disorder when I was a young teen, obviously not recommended or advised, but that experience as a whole provided me a key

to unlock a new perspective on life. It led me to pursuing a passion in health and fitness. Having the confidence to start BPN provided me a key. Ranger School and failing two phases and being resilient to keep working to succeed and pass providing me a key. South Korea in the nine months I spent there provided me a huge key that was pivotal for my life. So if we view life as this opportunity to collect keys from experiences by seeking discomfort and facilitate growth, by the end of this life, we want to be a key collector of these different experiences and perspectives and ideas and outlooks that allow us to apply these keys and unlock compartments to things that we would have never had. the ability to unlock if we didn't pursue these experiences. And that's how I now view opportunity, experience, discomfort, hardship.

The reward is the key. And these keys that we collect to unlock opportunity as we move forward. So this chapter ends with me packing up all of my stuff in South Korea and getting on a plane and coming back to Texas and landing in Texas again rising that I'm in control of this next chapter of my life that I'm preparing to transition out of the military

and that I'm now able to finally go all in on BPN it is no longer this thing that I'm working on in my free time and in the background and on the side. But it's about to be the one thing, the number one thing. And this is where everything changes. But I will save that for the next chapter of this series.

This is building the brand, the multi-part series of where I got started to where I'm at today, and the stories and lessons along the way. Guys, thanks for tuning in, and we'll see you in the next episode.