The Nick Bare Podcast - 099: An Honest Conversation After a Near-Death Experience

Episode Date: December 16, 2024

This episode is a raw and unfiltered take as I recount a life-changing experience from December 11th, 2024, where I miraculously survived being hit by a car during a morning run. I share my reflections and lessons learned from this event, emphasizing the importance of embracing contentment without complacency. As an entrepreneur and athlete, I've always struggled with balancing ambition and presence. This experience has prompted me to reassess my life's pace, appreciate what I have, and commit to a future that values both growth and gratitude. Chapters 00:00 Intro 03:28 Full Story 20:46 Reflections on Contentment and Ambition 26:26 The Addiction of Doing: A Personal Struggle 31:54 Balancing Sacrifices and Values 37:38 Building a Life to Be Proud Of 47:55 Conclusion: Embracing Contentment and Moving Forward Strength, endurance, and wellness supplements to fuel your performance. SAVE 10% at BPN Supps: https://bit.ly/nickbare10audio Follow: IG: instagram.com/thenickbarepodcast/ YT: youtube.com/@nickbarefitness

I've titled this podcast episode within my notes as an honest conversation of myself. And at the time of this recording, it is December 12th, 2024. And on December 11th, 2012, yesterday was the closest experience to death that I have ever experienced. And I want to share that story. I want to share what I learned through it. And there's just a lot of takeaways and reflections coming off of the last 24 plus hours that I've really sat with during that time. I just want to share it. This is an opportunity, one, to have a conversation with myself, an honest conversation with myself,

that I'm then going to share with you guys to listen to, digest, consume, and hopefully use and incorporate into your life. Now, before I dive into what happened, I have a goal for 2025. We're approaching the end of 2024. And my goal for 2025 is to be more content with my life. contentment. I am pursuing contentment. It is something that I have I have struggled with forever, especially as an entrepreneur, a bootstrapped entrepreneur, I'm always looking for the next thing. The grass is always greener. The next challenge, the next big chase, the next goal, the next obstacle.

And being content does not mean being complacent. They are two different things. contentment is not complacency. Being content is living and pursuing a life of go one more. This means that I am grateful for what I have and what God has provided me. I can live in the moment and enjoy life as opposed to constantly looking into the future and neglecting the present. One of the things that we've been saying at BPN this last year is that we are a brand. for the committed. That is going to be a staple of BPN forever,

just like Go on Moore is. We founded Go on More 2019 for the committed as BPN. And what I'm committing to, moving forward, especially after yesterday, is I'm committed to embracing contentment. And again, contentment is not complacency. I want to live a life where I am,

I'm grateful for what I have and what God has provided me. But I'm also pursuing growth and greatness and challenge moving forward. It's ambition. It's contentment. It's the balance between the two. That is what I am committed to from this day moving forward. Now, what happened yesterday that I hope to say in the years to come that yesterday, December 11th, 2024 changed my life forever.

And I shared about it on Instagram, but I was hit by a car while I was running. I was hit by a car. And I don't know how I am sitting here today, for one, alive, but also not seriously injured. So I want to talk about what happened, how it happened, my reflections, and then some things moving forward. So yesterday morning, it was a Wednesday. And on Wednesdays, I had my speed workouts that Jeff Cunningham programs for me. Yesterday was a tempo run. So I had some warm up miles.

I had some cool-down miles. And in the middle of that, I had five tempo miles to be done at a 5.45 minute per mile pace. And yesterday I woke up and it was cold. It was probably 34. or 35 degrees. It was brisk for being here in central Texas. And right now, where we're living, we are renting a home. Because we moved back to Texas, end of, I guess, April of this current year,

about eight months ago, when we moved back, we started renting a home and we're building our next home. We're actually closing on our house in a few days and moving next week into our new home. In this house that we're renting, it is right along a really busy road, a very busy road. High traffic, the speed limit is 55 miles per hour. And one of the downfalls of this rental is for me to get to my morning run route. I have to be on this main road for about a mile, depending on what route I take. Sometimes I'm on it for like a mile and a quarter, but typically just a mile.

I'm on this road for a mile and I turn off into either a neighborhood or like back ranch roads where I see no one for my entire run. So I have a mile stretch that is dangerous. It's pretty much the first mile I run and the last mile of my run. And I always run into traffic,

but there are certain parts of this one mile-ish stretch where I will run with traffic because there is a big shoulder on that side of the road because along this main road there are opportunities to merge into different neighborhoods so there's this massive shoulder and additional lane I will run over there to just have more space in the event there's vehicles coming towards me and behind me

so like setting those conditions yesterday, normal day, took off my run. And what was interesting about yesterday is because it was colder and because I was running at faster paces, my eyes were, you know, watery from the cold air rushing into them. And my senses were just kind of off. Like hands were super cold, body was cold. I was trying to warm up earlier into that run. and I do what I always do.

I took off. I was running into traffic. And then about a mile in, I crossed the road where I was running with traffic because there was that additional shoulder to run with. And I wear the Garmin Eppix watch. And what I love about the Garmin Epex watch is that there is this light you can turn on. And it's pretty bright. Like it will light up the entire ground around me. And if I am running in the complete pitch dark,

I will be able to see it's like wearing a flashlight on my hand. It kills the battery, but it's an incredible feature. So every morning when I go run, before I start my watch, I turn on the flashlight and it lights up everything around me. So vehicles can see me as I'm running. Now, in retrospect, especially coming from a military background,

I should have been wearing some type of high-vis reflective material. And I can promise you I am going to moving forward. And if you are a runner, I highly recommend and encourage you to wear something high visibility, where reflectors, wear lights, like light yourself up as much as possible to protect yourself. This is one of the first mistakes I made. The only way I was lighting myself up on this run was through the light on my watch, which in the past has been helpful. It's worked.

So I'm going off my morning run and I start my fast miles and I just crossed over to be running with traffic on that big shoulder. And as I'm running, I could see a car on the other side of the road coming towards me. and I could see the lights behind me of a car that was approaching from behind me. So I knew these cars were going to pass around where I was as I was running. And I was a quarter mile from making my turn off of this main road where I would be safe and untouched as normal. And the next thing I remember happening was I looked down at my feet, my feet were very lit up.

And my feet are never very lit up because if there's cars passing me, their headlights are out of my direct kind of path. So I knew when I saw the lights under my feet that this vehicle was very close to me. But I didn't think anything of it. And this all happened very fast. And the next thing that happens is I hear screech tires

and then boom, the impact and it hits me. And in that moment, I felt like time literally stood still. I've heard people explain situations in their life, traumatic experiences like this in the past where they say it feels like time stands still. And that's what it felt like in this moment.

I vividly remember the sound of it hitting me and the impact, I don't remember any pain, but I remember the impact. And thinking in my head, holy crap, I just got hit and I'm dead. That's all I could think of. I am dead. And the next thing I remember, I don't know if it all just happened so fast or if I blacked out, but I got hit when I was on the right side of the road. and I came to on the left side of the road.

And I came to, I got up, and I just started touching every part of my body. I didn't feel anything. I didn't feel pain. My adrenaline was through the roof. I was in shock. I realized I just got hit. And I saw the car that hit me,

pull up the road. They pulled off. They stopped. sat in their car for a little bit and then started making their way back towards me. And another vehicle that was passing saw what happened, pulled off as well. And the guy that came over to me that hit me was in shock as well. He thought he killed me. He thought he was walking over to a dead body.

I don't know exactly how fast he was going, but the speed limit on that road is 55 miles per hour. And he mentioned when he approached me that he thought he killed me. He saw the light on my watch at the last minute. And he said that. And he asked if I was okay. And I didn't feel any pain. I felt nothing, nothing, not one thing. I was like, yeah, I'm good.

I think I'm good. Nothing was sore. Nothing was tender. And then I was like, I'm going to keep running. I was like, I'm just going to keep running. I finished my run. I took a few steps. and my left ankle gave out from under me,

and I realized I probably shouldn't run. So I was just going to walk back to the house, which is about a mile. And then I walked over to where he was with his vehicle and the other gentleman that stopped with us, walked over to us with us as well. And he shows me his vehicle, and the passenger side, the entire mirror was ripped off.

I don't know where the mirror was. And the passenger door was dented in from where he hit me. So we talked for a little bit. They asked if I was okay. I'd continue to say, yeah, I'm okay, I think. The guy who hit me left, I didn't get any of his contact information

and we didn't share anything. And then I started walking back to my house and the other gentleman who stopped, who witnessed everything, insisted that he, he'd drive me back. So I got in the car with him. He drove me back to my home. I was still in shock.

I was still trying to figure out what happened. And all I kept saying to this guy was, I can't believe I'm not dead. I can't believe I'm not dead. I can't believe I'm not dead. And I went into the house and a new staff, my wife was going to lose it. She was going to freak out. And so I was trying to just like go back to my regular morning routine. So when she woke up, she wasn't alarmed by anything.

So I started making breakfast and then I realized there's blood dripping everywhere. and I go into the bathroom and my left arm had a massive gash in. It was just bleeding everywhere. I could not get the bleeding to stop. And then I looked at my leg and my left leg had this huge skid tire mark from my ankle up my calf the whole way. I mean, the mark is still there. There's rubber embedded into my left leg.

So apparently the, I'm assuming the front passenger tire hit my leg and ran up my leg in some way. And I'm taking my shirt off and I'm finding, you know, I have road rash and cuts and bruises all over. And then slowly the adrenaline's wearing off. The shock is dissipating. And I start feeling all of this pain all across my body, my arms, my hips, my leg, my ankle. and it all started, you know, I started feeling all the effects of what just happened. I was just hit by a car,

a fast moving car that threw me across the road. And then Steph woke up, realized what happened. We had that conversation, which was not a pretty one. And we chilled out for a little bit and then went to the hospital and got checked. When I got to the hospital,

they admitted me as trauma because I was hit by a vehicle. So they did a CT scan on my neck and my head. They did a CT scan on my entire body. They did like a contrast IV where they put this contrast color in my veins and then circulated it through. Put me through the CAT scan to make sure that I didn't have any internal bleeding. they did blood work. I got stitches in my arm, and they just cleaned up all of my wounds.

We were at the hospital for about three hours before we got released. And I got home and realized I just escaped death. I mean, when I say I was hit by a car, I wasn't like, I wasn't pushed the side. It wasn't a small, like scrape. It didn't just like tap me. No, I got boom hit by a car from behind thrown across the road. Somehow it didn't seriously injure me.

Somehow it didn't kill me. I walked away from that. I walked away from what should have seriously injured me. That all happened yesterday morning. Now, obviously, today I'm feeling pretty banged up. My ankle's all messed up. My legs all messed up. My hip is trashed.

I'm definitely not going to be running anytime soon. I have stitches in my arm. My whole body hurts. You know, it feels like I got hit by a car, literally. but I walked away from that somehow. And before I go any further, what I want to say is I am extremely lucky. I am extremely grateful to have survived that.

And there's some things that I should have been doing. And like I said, I encourage you guys to do moving forward. And that is one, run into traffic so you can be aware and you can pivot and you can move and you don't get blindsided by something coming up from behind you. Two, wear something reflective. Have a light.

Have something high-vis, reflective at all times. Make sure that you can be seen, seen well, and choose smart run routes. I should have always got at my truck, drove that one mile to where it was safe, parked my car, drove or ran, got back to my car, drove back. I should have never been on that road ever. But it was just convenient for me at the time to run from my house down that road to where it was safe.

Some of the eerie things that happened leading up to this. One last week, and we've been living in this rental for eight months now. Last week, Steph, oh, I was coming back from a run. I was five minutes late for the run. then when I normally come back, because I left it a little bit later, and I came home and Steph was in the front yard, freaking out because I was five minutes late,

and she thought something happened to me. I didn't have my phone with me on that run that day. That was the first time that happened in the whole eight months we were living in this rental house, and it happened last week. She said she had an eerie feeling the last two weeks about my morning runs, and something just didn't feel right.

And then I made a comment last week to our builder as we were going through the final blue tape walkthrough with him as they're finishing up the build. I said, I made it eight months without getting hit on that main road. I got one more week to make it. And then I'm clear. I made that comment to him. I have one more week to make it without getting hit by a car on that main road, almost as if it was a joke. and 48 hours after making that comment to the builder, I get hit by a car.

It's almost like I was asking for it. And maybe I was. My reflections after yesterday is to slow down. I took yesterday as a sign from God. One, he spared me my life. But I took that as a sign from God saying, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, slow down. And if you will not slow down and listen to me, then I will force you to slow down.

Stop ignoring what I have blessed you with. Stop ignoring what I have blessed you with and be content. That was a wake-up call from yesterday. There is no explanation of, one, why that did not kill me. The impact I'm telling you was a, like boom, boom, through me across the road that should have seriously injured me, if not killed me. Why am I not dead?

Why am I still alive? It's a miracle. There is no worldly explanation of why I'm walking today. Now, I can't run right now. I'm trash. body's trash, but I am, I am able and I am okay. I'm safe. I'm going to heal. I'm going to recover from this. And as I've sat with this for the last 24 plus hours, this sounds wild, but I got hit by this car. I ended up on the other side of the road. Nothing was seriously

broken or damaged. It's almost like I got hit and I got picked up by an angel carried to the other side of the road and protected just as a wake-up call, just as a call to action, a sign from God saying, slow down. Slow down. Be content. Be grateful for what I have blessed you with because you are moving through life so fast and so furious that you are so called up in living. You're so called up in in life itself that you're forgetting to live. You're so caught up in life itself that you're forgetting to live. And getting hit yesterday was almost this call to action of,

I think it's time for a course correct. I think it's time for you to commit to embracing contentment, which is not, like I said, complacency, but it is being grateful for what you have and what God has provided you. That's the only way I can explain yesterday. it's the only way it's the only thing and i'm i'm taking this this sign very serious i was i was giving my daughter a bath last night as i normally do and as i was giving her this bath and she's such a fun age right now she's two and a half years old almost two and a half years old and just like her

personality is so funny and engaging and just the thing she does is hilarious And as I was giving her this bath, I was thinking about, what if I would have died earlier that day? Like, who would be giving her that bath? And then when she asked where dad was, how would that person respond? How do you even tell a toddler, a child that their dad, their mom, their parents, their siblings? They have, they're not coming back. They've passed away. They've died.

Like, how do you, how do you share that news? And as I was giving Charlie or bath, I was just thinking about someone having that conversation with Charlie and it broke me. I mean, it broke me. Thinking about that, like the things that I have been taking for granted, giving my daughter a bath every night, my daughter having two loving parents with her. and I want to be able to do that every night. Slow down.

Slow down is the sign that I took from yesterday. I mean, that was the closest I've ever gotten to dying, I can honestly say. And somehow walked away from it. So I have some notes here that are part of an honest conversation myself that I want to dive into. And this is just me being honest with myself about what I need to work on, some of my improvements and where I'm going to be spending some time in the future.

And the first is I have an addiction of doing. An addiction of doing. I've had the gas pedal pressed to the floor since 2012. Since I started BPN in my college apartment in 2012, nearly 15 years ago now, my foot has been gas pedal, pressed to the floor for nearly 15 years. And I'm addicted to doing. Like, why am I addicted to doing?

I have some notes here. I'm addicted to doing and constantly working to a, achieve more because of a fear, a fear of loss of control, a fear of loss of momentum, a fear of loss of identity significance. I have, I have and have had this without doing, we are dying mindset. And I think it's a blessing and a curse, this mindset of like if we are not doing something, we are dying, we are falling behind. that facilitates growth.

It pushes you forward. It really does. But at what expense? At what sacrifices are you making? An addiction of doing. Constantly feeling like we have to be doing something. And when that thing is done or it's nearing an end, it's what is next. What is the next thing?

And what is the next thing? And what is the next thing? and an addiction to doing can enhance and facilitate success and accomplishment and achievement, but to our own downfall sometimes when we're not content with what we actually have and what God has blessed us with. Part of an addiction of doing is because of internal and external responsibility pressures that we put on ourselves. Like internally, I'm very hard on myself.

I have set the bar very high for what I expect out of myself on a regular and consistent basis. And I hold myself to that standard. But at the same time, I feel this external pressure to always be doing as well, especially as a business owner. As a founder and CEO of BPN, I feel the external pressure to constantly be doing, working, pushing, pursuing, challenging myself to facilitate growth for myself and the business and the brand and the employees and the team and the people

and everything that we're working towards. It's like this responsibility pressure that is internal and externally created, an addiction of doing. I can guarantee you a lot of entrepreneurs. founders, athletes, type A individuals. If you were just very ambitious, you probably have an addiction to doing. And you probably, I would assume, also struggle with being content because you confuse contentment with complacency.

So my key takeaway here is like, I'm going to try and reduce or remove my addiction of doing. and sometimes just not doing anything other than being present and being in the moment, which for me is very challenging. It's very difficult. Weekends for me are really hard. My wife can attest to this. Weekends are like Saturday and Sunday are the hardest day of the week for me

because I feel like I am not doing enough to push myself forward and progress in life in business and fitness and all of the things because the world, my friends, my family, people around me, they slow down. They live. They relax. I have always struggled with this. And I used to beat my chest thinking like that was a power move for me. That's not. It's not. There is so much freedom. and allowing yourself to just live and be present and not do anything, except you just soak in the moment. Especially for a father of two young kids and a husband to a committed wife,

my family deserves that. The people in my life deserve that from me. The second thing I have written down here is the reality is that your goals will require necessary sacrifices. And I wanted to slide this one in here because I believe it's important to mention that, yes, contentment is very important. And that is what I'm committed to in 2025 or today moving forward. But that does not mean complacency. And I'm still going to be ambitious, just as ambitious. But I might pursue those ambitions a little bit differently.

And in order to keep progressing and moving forward and achieve success and accomplishment and achievement, you still have to recognize. I still recognize that these goals that I set still require necessary sacrifices. You can still make necessary sacrifices and be content and still live. But some of the questions I have for myself are, Nick, what do you value? And this is my question for you. What do you value? Do you value growth, personal professional growth?

Do you value achievement? Do you value money? Do you value freedom? Freedom of your time and finances or stress? Do you value family? Do you value your faith? Do you value friendship? Like, what do you actually value?

Because that will help you identify then, what are you willing to do without? And what aren't you willing to do without? What are there things in life that you are willing to stop doing in order to achieve your goals? Making those necessary sacrifices to refine your focus so that the time you spend on certain things is time that you actually want to spend because you value those things. But what aren't you willing to do without? I'm not willing to do without my family. But the reality is that I've made some decisions in the business.

past that probably won't reflect that. I'm not willing to do without growth. I think as individuals, as people, at least me personally, I thrive off of growth. That doesn't necessarily mean business growth or financial wealth and success, money, things. It's personal growth. It's personal growth. it's becoming better. It is go one more. It is the outcome of go on more. Your goals will require necessary sacrifices. And in order to identify and establish

and commit to these necessary sacrifices, you need discipline and you need commitment. Those are very powerful characteristics to master. But they can also be extremely destructive if not managed properly. And I share that from personal experience that what I'm really good at is being disciplined and committed. And oftentimes to my detriment, my own destruction. If I commit to something, I have the willpower.

I have the discipline to stay on that course no matter what happens, no matter what happens. no matter what happens. I will stay on that path until it is completed. And sometimes that becomes robotic and automated. And I can operate in a cold state that lacks empathy and understanding and that is oftentimes ignorant. But I have this powerful characteristic and this is just me and being honest with myself. that I can commit to something and be so disciplined and ignore everything that, everything else that is happening around me that should influence that path that actually isn't.

And if you're one of those people, if you can be so strongly disciplined and committed, it's having the awareness to know that that can be a blessing and a curse. It can positively reinforce everything you do, but it can also negatively destruct everything in its path. How do you use that discipline and commitment for good? Your goals will require necessary sacrifices. We got to ask yourself the question. I got to ask myself the question.

What do I value? What am I willing to do without? What aren't I willing to do without? Because this is bound. once again of being content, but also pursuing growth and ambition. The next thing I've written down is, will you be proud of the way you built your life? Not what life you have built. This was coming off my reflection of yesterday, where when I say I felt like I was called by God

to slow down and I feel like I've had my foot on the gas pedal for these last 15 years almost and starting BPN. It's been these evolutions in the business of what is required of us to get this brand to the next level. What YouTube series are we documenting, creating? What race are we putting on the calendar? What's the next challenge? What's the next goal?

What's the next thing? What's the next thing? What's the next thing? And this is great. This has worked for me personally. but one, when you fall in this pattern and this routine, it's really hard to be content because you're constantly looking for and at the next thing

to prove yourself that you are better, that you have improved, that you can do more, you can accomplish more, you can achieve more, more, more. But it's challenging. It's tough when you're constantly pursuing the next thing, you're constantly pursuing more, it's hard to appreciate and be grateful for what you have in that moment. And you're so caught up in life itself that you forget to live and for the things that you've been blessed with in that life and that all your time and energy, mental and physical

energy is dedicated to pursuing that goal or that challenge or that next thing. And you save or I save no energy, mental and physical energy for the here and now, the people in my life, my family, my friends, the contentment, all that energy is directed to the future, the dopamine hit, the next big, challenging thing. Will you be proud of the way you built your life. Am I going to be proud at the end of my life with the way that I built my life, the way I showed up for my family, the way I showed up for my friends, the way I showed up for my team, as opposed to the life that I've built. If I would have died yesterday, would I have been proud of the previous months leading up to that moment and what I have been able to say that I was living a life that I was

I was really, really, really proud of. No. Because I was so caught up in the next thing that I wasn't appreciating and I wasn't grateful for what I had right then and there. I was not content. I haven't been content for a long time because I'm pursuing that next big thing. But yesterday, like I said, it was a wake up call of, hey, Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, if you're not going to slow down and I'm going to bless you with all these great things in your life and you can't recognize that, you can't appreciate that, I'm going to

force you to slow down. I'm going to hit you with something that slows you down so fast and so hard and it's going to shake you that you realize that you've been given another opportunity, another chance to course correct, not redo, but course correct your life and focus on being proud of the way that you are building it as opposed to what you have built. If I look at my life, what have I built? I've built this business, which I'm so proud of. I've built this team. I've built a house. I've built things. I built my body. Am I always proud of the way that I've built it? sometimes, not all the times,

sometimes when I'm pursuing these fitness goals or certain business ambitions and projects and chapters, I neglect other parts of my life, I'm not proud of that. I'm not proud when me and my wife aren't aligned and on the same page and we're not getting along

and we're fighting. I'm not proud of that. I'm not proud when, So it's a late night and everyone in the family is having fun and wanting to do all these things, but I'm too tired from the big training sessions I did earlier that day. And I'm just zapped. I'm not proud of that. We're not going to be proud of every day, every chapter.

There's sacrifices like I said that have to be made. But this was for me, it was an opportunity to, course correct a little bit of, hey, I think my ambition, contentment balance is a little unbalanced right now. It's time to reshift and refocus and truly be grateful for what God has blessed me with because he's blessed me with some abundance, a lot of great stuff, a lot of great people, a lot of great relationships, a lot of great opportunities. And I should I should recognize that and value that as opposed to being unhappy with where I'm at and ungrateful and thinking that the next thing is the thing that's going to bring the joy and fulfillment and contentment.

It's more than just being there, but it's being present. It's having the energy to be there too. And that's, I think, where I have lived and maybe am living in unbalanced life in a sense of my energy balance towards work sometimes and training in these challenges and growth outweighs the balance of the energy that I save for my family, but also save for just being able to recognize how grateful I should be for what I have because I could die tomorrow. I could be hit by another car. I could be in a car accident.

I could, anything could happen tomorrow. And if I would have died yesterday morning after I getting hit by that car, which was an SUV on that busy road, it's not how or when I would have wanted to go out. So this is an opportunity for me to recognize. Let's do a course correct. Let's focus on being content and being happy. and being grateful for what I have, what I've been blessed with, again, this is not mean I am

becoming complacent. Contentment is being satisfied with where God has placed you. Complacency is settling for the place God is telling you to leave. I oftentimes struggle with being content because I confuse it with complacency. after building a brand for 15 years and realizing and tying your identity to working really hard and seeing the fruits of that labor turn into something great. When you dedicate time and energy and you go all in on something, you see the outcomes, you see the rewards, you see the success on the other side.

So it's a simple math equation of, I just need to keep doing more of that. It's an addiction to doing to maintain the momentum and increase the intensity of the momentum. So I'm going to do more and not let my foot off the gas because I'm afraid of becoming complacent when in reality I'm ignoring contentment. Complacency is satisfied with where we are today but puts no effort into trying to improve and grow tomorrow. You can be content and you can pursue improvement and growth

simultaneously. So my key takeaway from this entire experience was to slow down. This does not mean I'm trying to pursue less. This doesn't mean that I'm going to become complacent, but this means I need to slow down and learn how to be content with

what I have in this life because you can lose it so fast you can lose it before you even realize you have it slow down yesterday I may it feels like a very clear call to action from God saying if you're not going to slow down

I am going to force you to Because like I said, I am a very disciplined and committed person. And I know every day when my alarm clock goes all at 4.30, I'm going to go in the kitchen, I'm going to fuel up, I'm going to lace up my shoes, I'm going to go for a run. It doesn't matter the weather. Doesn't matter how I feel. Doesn't matter my energy. Doesn't matter anything. I'm going to do that.

And it becomes robotic. and you become a zombie. You start just doing things based off of routine as opposed to responsibility. And you're kind of just on autopilot. Just doing all these things. Because I feel like they are moving you in the right direction to pursue growth, to pursue more. But you end up sacrificing contentment. You end up sacrificing actually freedom.

you actually sacrifice living and freedom. So yesterday was an eye-opener for sure. Leaving that experience, I'm sure even over the next couple days, I'm going to have more time to reflect and just recognize where these small shifts in my life have to happen. But it's the awareness. of I have to be grateful for what I have and what God has provided me. And I'm committed to being content moving forward and applying that to my life,

not just for me personally, but for the people in my life as well. So that all happened yesterday. Crazy morning, crazy day, but a much needed shift in focus. and something that I will remember for the rest of my life. And I hope that the lessons I learned yesterday and I'm reflecting on today are now the foundations of my future moving forward. So I wanted to share that with you guys.

I appreciate you. I love you. Thank you for all the support over these last couple days, a couple wild days. And we'll see you guys in the next episode.