The Nick Bare Podcast - 113: The Reason You Need Core Values & How They Guide Success with Matt Stockton

Episode Date: March 24, 2025

In this episode, I sit down with my podcast producer and growth strategist, Matt Stockton, to break down the power of core values. We dive into why establishing your values isn’t just a nice idea—it’s the foundation for clarity, accountability, and making decisions that actually move you forward. Through real-life examples—both personal and business—we unpack how core values keep you grounded, especially when life gets tough. With insights from influential authors and biblical principles woven in, we explore how staying true to your values leads to consistent growth, resilience, and success.CHAPTERS:01:54 Welcoming Matt Stockton03:28 The Role of Core Values in Decision Making04:46 Defining Core Values for BPN19:25 Core Values in Personal Life23:49 Parenting and Core Values30:31 Chapters of Life and Business34:43 Implementing Core Values in Business37:21 Fueling Endurance Training with BPN Products40:07 Biblical Manhood and Core Values44:51 Leadership and Servant Mentality46:46 Defining Family Mission Statements51:08 The Importance of Core Values56:47 Suffering and Growth01:10:04 Consistency and Success01:17:36 Final Thoughts on Core ValuesMENTIONS:The Resilient Show - Joby Martin cliphttps://youtu.be/V71reDeZU-Q?si=vjIx31W1ZSNrdc0hCraig Groeschel - When You Are Tired of Failinghttps://youtu.be/R9cz3BkeuNQ?si=Hd94qNnsDWXsHvFjFOLLOW:Become a BPN member FOR FREE - Unlock 20% off FOR LIFEhttps://www.bareperformancenutrition.com/pages/bpn-membership?srsltid=AfmBOorlpjVeag2kkt3eZ5UpWcFA5Bb2v5V_93lmO47Vn_Y8DRdLwDLLIG: instagram.com/nickbarefitness/YT: youtube.com/@nickbarefitness

Everybody should have values that they write down. It keeps you accountable, but it also says like, hey, we're not doing that. We're missing this. Right. And then, too, it's just like, what are you driving towards when we're making these goals? Do these fuel the goals that we've set? Well, these written down statements help us get to that thing. So it kind of helps refine the goal, too, which I think is helpful.

Because then you're like, oh, okay, well, these goals don't necessarily match the values of our everyday decision making. What has happened in the past when our core values, our purpose and our goals weren't very clearly established, is that everyone was trying to create a strategy and then tactics that would accomplish that strategy based off the vision they had in their head. Because when you go to pursue your goals, if you don't have core values, it makes that decision-making process very challenging because anything's free game. like in order to accomplish my goal, if there's no value, I can cheat, steal, lie, I can do all these things to accomplish that goal. But when you have core values, you're not only proud of when you accomplish that goal, but the way that you got there.

All right, welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Today, we're doing something a little different. And this topic, or I should say the reason we're doing this episode a little bit differently, which may be something we do in the future, based off how this one goes, this topic is really important to me. And I want to make sure that I convey the value, the importance, the message throughout this episode in the best way possible. And I think the best way possible is to have someone that I trust facilitate the conversation

with me. So today on this episode, we have, for his first time, Matt Stockton. Welcome, brother. Here we are. Thank you. You know, I feel like you work in a position like this, and you look from the sideline, you think,

I could get called up to the big league. And today is that day? Today happens to be that day. So we're in the chair. Did you expect this at some point? No. Well, no, honestly. Because I didn't know where my fit would be.

So I didn't know what, you know, Maybe you think, well, if somebody gets a last-minute stomach virus and we need to have a conversation and it can be personal, sure, I'll hop in. Right. But you try to just play the background and respect the guests and respect the platform and be like, you know, there's a time. Maybe this is it. Well, some of these solos are really hard. Like staying on topic for over an hour and trying to be presently engaged with the message that I'm trying to deliver. but then also in my head planning for what I'm going to say next,

even when I have an outline, it's challenging at times. So I think bringing someone onto this show can really help guide the conversation. And one of the reasons I've asked you is because as we've been working together the last couple months, how many months have you been at BPN now? It was July. It was right at the start of July.

We talked in June right before the 50-mile. That's right. So then we talked right before then, And then July 1st, it was right. It was the week of the sale. That's right. It was a week of the sale that we came on. So since you started working here, and I've had the opportunity to work with you, just watching the way your mind works, the intentionality, the patience you have, the thought

process, looking into the future, how is the consumer going to consume this and digest this? and then what action items can the consumer or the viewer or the listener take from what we're saying and apply to their life? And the way you think about that and then execute on is very unique. And it's an extremely valuable, strong skill and traits. I applaud you for that. You do an amazing job at it. I appreciate that.

And I think that'll just help this conversation today. Yeah. There's so much good stuff in here. I'm excited because it not only applies to the individual. It applies to the organization, it applies to the family. It just, it covers so many things. And I think that when you step back at the end of this conversation, you'll be able to identify specifically where it is that you,

what's the lens that you make decisions with? What is it impacting? And most of the time, it's impacting more than just you. Almost all the time. Almost all the time. And so there is so much good stuff here. That's why I'm excited about it. I feel honored on this topic.

So we're talking core values. And I want to preface this conversation with what I'm about to say. For my entire life, I'm sure for many people's lives, they hear core values or values. And whether it's on a sports team growing up, whether it's within your family, whether it's in a place of business, your work, your church, or wherever it is. We talk about core values. And I always heard about core values. And when I was younger, it was like this lofty term that I just threw away.

I just assumed that people talked about having, if we apply it to a business, values a mission and a vision. Because that's what they were taught in business school. So you create just this boilerplate statement instead of values that you say your family, business, sports team is going to, live and die based off of, but the reality is that a lot of times those things are written down, thrown away somewhere, and then never actually utilized. That is not what core values are. In my experience, my opinion, and core values have the ability to change your life. I mean, some of the notes I have here is when you have core values, it improves efficiency and satisfaction in decision making.

Making decisions is easier. When we have values that are clear, our decisions are easier. And the direction of our life is guided by the quality of those decisions. core values are everything. Yeah. Oh, everything. I mean, and even, too, it's like, you know, I think about mission is that's the road you're on. You know, everybody has a road that they're on. But the core values are the guardrails on that road.

Those are the things that keep you, you know, I think about it when I was a kid and you would go bowling. You'd think about, hey, can you pull the rails up? The bumpers. The bumpers. Can I pull the bumpers up? Because you know, even as a kid, I have this. ball, this bowling ball is going to go to those pins. That is what is about to happen. But what I want to do is, is I want to make sure that I'm going to pull these up so that way I don't find myself drifting or I don't find myself in the gutter. I'm going to make sure that I stay within this lane and it's going to bounce and it's going to ultimately get where I want to go. I think about core values like that. I think that they are these guard rails that provide you safety. It basically keeps you from swaying. It keeps you from going into those gutters, those pieces.

And it ultimately provides you safety and clarity, like you said, to get there. Yeah, the clarity is everything for me. A lot of this thought process was sparked by a book for me a few months ago. Beyond entrepreneurship 2.0, B.E. 2.0. It's a Jim Collins book.

I love all things by Jim Collins. This is a book that I started listening to It Want to Run. It was in the first 30 minutes. I knew it was powerful. I shared it with the entire BPN team. And this book alone has guided the vision for our business, not only in 2025, but for the next 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years. And essentially the way this book is set up, I'm not going to spend too much time on this, but I think it's important and valuable.

To set a vision for an organization, to set a vision for your family, to set a vision for yourself, there's three components that make up the vision. The first is core values. The second is purpose and the third is goals. Core values and purpose should not change more than once every 100 years, as Jim Collins states in this book. Goals, however, when we're looking at a business and you can modify this however, if it's in your life. But for a business, goals are set on 10 and 25 year targets between 10 and 25 years. So after I read this book and I was very compelled to create this very clear vision statement for the BPN team and staff,

I wrote down our core values, I wrote down our purpose, I wrote down our goals and I share it with the team. Again, I want to reinforce core values and purpose don't change more than once every one. 100 years. Goals, 10 to 25 year targets. So here's what I share with the BPN team. I want to share this with you guys because when I say core values, like our core values used to be integrity,

transparency, and service, which they still are, but that didn't, they didn't reach the depths that I wanted it to. It must weren't actionable. Yeah, it was so surface level. It felt kind of boilerplate. I can go on a website search, like,

what are some popular core values? And like, oh, here's three that sound pretty good. Looks sexy on a wall. Exactly. Yeah. But these are very applicable to the BPN team and family. I would encourage the listener, the viewer, that after you listen to this episode and you go to apply action to your life,

when you go to write down your core values, don't make them lofty, don't make them brawl, don't make them soft, make them extremely applicable to your life, the outcomes you want to experience, and make them unique. Don't go on a website and search for like water popular core values for my family because we should be doing this for ourselves and our family and our business and our sports teams and everything we're part of. They are foundational. But the core values for BPN, we share stories of incredible human achievement.

We are a brand for the committed, those unwavering in the pursuit of their goals, never accepting mediocrity. We hold ourselves to the same standard we expect from our customers, athletes, and partners. We are consistently good rather than occasionally great. We believe in hard work. We will never sacrifice profitability for growth. We have hard conversations. We are professional and we treat everyone with respect, regardless of the way. of how they treat us.

We lead, but we also listen. Product quality will never be sacrificed for profit. We take care of our people and treat them like family. Our brand will never be eroded in the process of growth, scale, and expansion. We are resourceful, spending as little as necessary to achieve the outcomes we desire. And we are problem solvers. And our purpose is that we help people realize that anything is a change. achievable with hard work, commitment, and consistency.

And then we provide them the fuel, resources, and inspiration to do it. So that framework right there between core values and purpose, that lays a foundation for the next 100 years. So I guess before we go any further, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Like when we went through that exercise for the team, what you took away from it? What was the value in creating publishing core values, purpose, or goals to set the vision for the future? Yeah. I mean, well, first of all, these feel so dialed in.

I think you would agree with that. There's something about these that even just in the limited time that I've been here, these feel so dialed into what goes into the everyday decision when thinking about building the brand. And one thing I wanted to mention to you was, too, is there was a couple of weeks. weeks ago, had an idea for the podcast, and I was bringing it up to you. It's like, maybe there's an opportunity here to do this and do this. And you were very nicely like, well, let's keep it on this track. Let's keep it here. And I thought, man, he's right. He's definitely right. But when I stepped away from it on the car ride home, I thought, it's so easy to have an opportunity to sway like

that, that it made sense why I feel like, because you're a visionary anyway, you have that sense of like wanting to talk about the bigger picture. There was this realization in me that thought, that's probably often, not from a sense of distrust on your end, but that's probably why often you make time to voice these regularly to the team. It's because it is so easy in small decisions, no matter what area of the business you're in, to just drift. and miss it. And so I thought that was your ability to kind of move that back

into its place. So having these written down, everybody should write them down. Everybody should have values that they write down. Because it's going to be accountable. It keeps you accountable, but it also says like,

hey, we're not doing that. You know, we're making decisions. That's not, we're missing this. Right. And then two, it's just like, what are you driving towards? What is actually, what are the things that these are actually like

when we're making these goals, do these fuel the goals that we've set? So when we make goals, do these, will these written down statements help us get to that thing? So it kind of helps refine the goal too, which I think is helpful. Because then you're like, okay, well, these goals don't necessarily match the values of our everyday decision making. So with several of these, I just think they're extremely dialed in. I think that it's so helpful to be able to operate from, a mindset of just understanding that so much of this business is thinking about the people and serving people, which we'll get into a little bit later, but just the ability to understand a

need and serve that need and have that. What I live about core values, purpose, and goals is that it then provides the strategy and tactics for the team to execute upon. So as a visionary of the business, it is my responsibility set vision so that other departments and people within the business than can go build out strategy and tactics because the vision is so clear. What has happened in the past when our core values, our purpose and our goals weren't very clearly established? is that everyone was trying to create a strategy and then tactics that would accomplish that strategy based off the vision they had in their head.

And there wasn't this central force of saying this is where we're going. Because when you go to pursue your goals, if you don't have core values, it makes that decision-making process very challenging. Because anything's free game. in order to accomplish my goal, if there's no value, I can cheat, steal, lie, kill, you can do all these things to accomplish that goal.

But when you have core values, you're not only proud of when you accomplish that goal, but the way that you got there. And I'm a big fan of writing things down. I like having it in front of me. Because part of it, like, I have this fear that if I don't write something down, that I will forget about it, even though it's already ingrained in my head. And I will create redundancies to make sure.

So I will go into my notes app. Like in preparation for this episode, I had this core values note. And I was writing down all these things. And I was afraid that by some chance, that note would get deleted. So every time I would upstate it, I would screenshot it.

So my camera reel, my phone is like, images or screenshots of so much stuff because I like visuals. I like writing it down. I like getting it ingrained into a piece of material, putting it on the wall, making it my screensaver, my desktop, all of these things because I don't want to forget it.

If it's really important to me, I don't want to forget it. I want to see it often. I want to see it frequently. I want everyone else to see it and experience it. Because when it's in front of you, you can't ignore it. Yeah.

I mean, there's such power in remembrance. Because you get into situation by situation. If you don't remember what you came through, what you walked through, what something taught you, you're going to be in a place of constantly trying to search for some sort of meaning or fulfillment or faith in something.

But there's such power in being able to look back and remember what you walked through or remember what you said, remember what you predetermined you were going to think or act or feel. I think that's just, I mean, there's an element of faith to that too. It's just, that's what builds that, is that ability to the power of living life and having things happen. It's just the ability to recall it, which we'll get into talking about our children. Like, that's the ability to recall and just remember. And just remember where you were and see where you are now. I just don't think, like you mentioned, writing things down, putting things in places. I just don't think there's a lot of people who,

I don't want to stereotype a lot of people, but I can imagine there's a lot of people who struggle to remember either things that they've gone through, things that they made it through, things that they persevered through and got it. And when something similar to that comes in, they fall right back into that anxiety or that stress trap. Yeah. But, There's just such fuel in compounding just the lessons you've learned to remember to that. So I honor that. I feel like everybody should have a sense of remembrance more. Growing up, I'm curious, your background, how were core values incorporated into your family growing up?

If they were at all, were they talked about? Was it shared? Was it very clear? It was, I would say it wasn't something that was extremely difficult. defined. I mean, we grew up, my parents where we would go to church on Sundays. We were basically seen and exhibited good behaviors, treating people with kindness. But thinking about core values was always kind of something that seemed very organizational to me. It seemed like something that this was like for a company or for some sort of organization or some sort of group. And that's not to say

we didn't have any in our family growing up. But I think that when I was able to take responsibility into my own family, I just saw a greater potential as a dad, as a man, to be able to step in and lead that in a strong and powerful way. Because I don't think any of us were raised or maybe had the upbringing that was extremely perfect. You know, the parents, no parents, perfect. But I feel like what I did learn is I grew up and I learned and I saw treating people well, understanding that life is more than just beyond yourself. There is more than just the self-fulfillment. That only goes so far.

It's just going to be a never-ending cycle of just continual trying to fulfill that. But as I became a husband, as I became a husband, as I became, dad, I started to realize that you just get a better sense of legacy. You and I've talked about this. It's just a greater sense of understanding. What is it that I'm leaving behind? What is it that's there? I wrote this down so you could see it. So the Barnagree did a study. They said most children begin developing their own worldview by 18 months. Wow. And the age of two. By nine, it's fairly determined that their moral compass is set. And then by 13, their worldview is almost fully formed. I have two boys, the youngest being 18 months. So I am very much thinking about

what are they seeing? What is the life that they're interacting in? How do they see their dad making decisions? What do they see him value? What do they see him? How does he talk about what he values? How does he show what he values? And so for me, that's just, that's one of those things is that I feel like a natural gift that I was given as a human coming into the planet was, is I've always enjoyed the thought and idea behind living this life with deep purpose and fulfillment and connection. And what does it take to get me there? I was raised in a similar way where I watched my family. I watched my parents do good things. They treated people well.

They were selfless servants. We went to church. We were active in the community. But like you said, it was never defined. We never sat down and talked about water core values or how you live a life of purpose. It was through observation and observing and then replicating and just embodying the way that the family was being raised and growing up. And I'm pretty confident to say that people in our generation grew up in a similar way because podcasts weren't a thing. Self-help books were not popular.

All this content wasn't out there, which there's a blessing and a curse to all of that. But there's more of an awareness. There's more resources. There's more tools available now to help us. be guided in a way of being better selfless servants for our family, for the people in our lives, for our community. But having kids becoming a father, and I talked about this on my Instagram story this past weekend. It sounds so cliche.

It changed my life, as I'm sure it does to every single person as kids. having my first child, Charlie, my daughter, changed my life, but it changed my life in a in a different way. It was exciting. It was new. It was challenging. It was hard. I felt the responsibility. But when our second was born, Niko, seven months ago, in these last seven months, I have grown more personally and professionally than I have in the last seven years. Now, it might be a coincidence of just the chapter of life I'm in. I'm getting older, I'm more experience, maturing. There could be just a coincidence. But just the way that my mind is thinking about what's important to me, what's not, the legacy I want to leave, you know, just hearing that

by nine, what was this at? By nine years old. By nine years old, their moral compass is fairly determined. You have nine years as a parent. It's a big responsibility. Big. It's a huge responsibility. It shapes the present moment instantly. And so many young parents will say, and they've even told me, you know, like, you just got to keep them alive when they're young and then get more involved when they're older. But it might be too late.

Yeah. And you're not only helping raise your children and guiding them so they become successful in their late years and life. But so they are contributing members to this world, to this, this. society. So they are shaping and helping to shape the world and the people to become a better functioning place. That is the responsibility that I feel. Totally. It's almost like you, I think about like a bow and arrow. I read it like this once is basically taking your children, you spend all this time parenting, you're pulling it back. There's going to be tension. There's going to be growth. But then at some point that arrow is going to launch and they're going

to go out into the world. And it is based on where you aim and where you pull. the target that they're going to hit. And there's, that could be kind of scary, which it is scary. You know, nobody's ready for parenting. You can be ready, but every child is so different. But what it does is, is it just, you just realize that as far as I pull back, I want them to go far. I want them to grow up and want a relationship with me, but they don't need me. They're able to see society, see the world, understand it, control.

to it, make it better than it was when they left it, you know. And that's, I think about that and parenting is that it's worth the stretch. It's worth that tension. It's worth pulling back because one day I am going to have to let go. And one day they are going to shoot towards a target, which target is it? And how far away is that? And so to me, I've just, the thing that's helped me so much, even as my oldest son is three, is trying to reframe, and you'll resonate with this totally. It's just the presentness of just trying to remain present and just remember that this is such a chapter I'll never get back. And what in this moment is teachable? Maybe trying less to think about being anxious or stressed or certain things to punish. Maybe they need to be punished. But it's,

or correct it, I'd say, but it's more about looking for opportunities where things are teachable. They're curious as ever. And there's just such potential of being able to find teachable moments to pull aside and say, hey, let me show you about this. Let's talk about this. And just the power of teachable moments, how that can reshape, because, you know, the crying to a laugh back to a cry, the emotions just go back and forth like crazy. But just the ability to just shape the perspective really quick. They know you're in your corner, you know, you're just looking for an opportunity to look at something and say,

what is teachable in this? I think that's given me a new energy. I've had this thought on, you use the word chapter a little bit ago. I've had this thought the last couple days. As you're talking about pulling that bow and arrow back, and the harder you pull that back and the further you pull it back, the more challenging, the more resistance you get.

That's like raising kids. I mean, you're just getting your butt kicked daily. It feels like sometimes. And when you have the opportunity to sit at a table or a dinner or just an event with other parents, and you have the ability to vent and share. It's like, you get it. What's going on? One of the things you'll typically hear is, it's just a season.

We just have to get through this season. And I've been thinking about that term season a lot recently. And I would almost push back and say it's actually a chapter, kind of like you mentioned. Seasons, just like fall, winter, spring, summer, they come, they go, they come back again. We know that when one summer ends, it's going to come back the next year at the same time. we're going to get another opportunity to live out another summer. If you have a bad summer where you're working in the entire time and you get to go on vacation or go to the beach,

it's okay because next summer you can do exactly what you want to do. Certain periods of our life are actually not seasons, their chapters. Because chapters, once you finish one, you turn the page, you don't go back and reread chapter one. you go from one to two to three to four to five so on and so forth. And I've been thinking about this in terms of a lot of things, but I can use raising kids, for example, you know, with raising a toddler and then a young child right now,

I can easily say, oh, we just got to get through this season. But it's actually a chapter. And the chapter when right now doesn't happen again. Because next year it's going to look completely different. We're going to have a three and a half year old and a one and a half year old. And after that, it's a two and a half year old and a four and a half year old. We don't ever go back to the seven month old and a two and a half year old. And I'm applying this to raising kids.

But, I mean, if you're building a business, I look back at 2017 when starting, like really starting BPN. You know, we started the brand in 2012, transitioned out of the army in 2017, went all in on building the business that year. that year was so much fun. And I would love to relive that year. I say it all the time. I would love to go back and relive that year because it was so much fun. But the reality is that that chapter's over. And I can go back and try to do the things that I was doing in 2017,

but there's more people, there's more responsibility, with a bigger business, more customers. I can't go back to that chapter. That chapter's over. So when you're in the chapter, even if it's challenging. And it's much easier said than done. But as I've been having some hard days, raising kids and building a business and all

the things in life recently, and I'm overwhelmed. I just think back to, okay, this is a chapter in life that I'm not ever going to get to relive again. Do I want to waste it? Do I want to take advantage of it? Do I want to skip it? Because if I skip it, what am I missing? And I've just reframed my thought process just recently from season to chapter.

Yeah. I mean, that goes back to that teachable. What in this moment is teachable? Because there's a mindset or an atmosphere or this part of my life where I may be emotionally equipped in a certain feeling or season to learn this lesson right now. That later on, I may not learn it in that way. And so being able to just have that sense of understanding that, like, failure, mistakes, trial, error, it's going to happen. We all know that that's going to happen. But what in that moment is being defined, what you define is how you're standing back up and learning what was teachable from that.

I mean, BPN's built so much on the process. It is about the process. It's about being able to take a risk and have a big goal and set. something and work towards it and continually refine it. That's so much of what it's built upon. So I can imagine, especially you, with as many chapters as there's been, when you've done a series about it. You've done literally a building the brand series. You've defined those chapters. It's been fun. I'm sure to dig that back up and start to think about, yeah, I remember that time. I remember when it was so different. I remember when I was editing videos for 18 hours.

And I remember having to sit in every seat. But also think, you know, I don't want to get too off topic, but I think that's why some of these core values really resonate because I think VPN's in a unique position where there really isn't a seat you haven't sat in in this business. And I think that that, because these core values are written with that perspective, it transcends a cultural shift. Because what's happened is now people in warehouse operations,

brand, you take all the different departments, everyone feels like they can contribute to this. It's not just like, you know, we want to fuel you to run the fastest marathon, you know, what we do. But it's not necessarily about that. These are written to where no matter what area you focus on, no matter where your skills are, no matter where you work in the business, you feel like you're contributing to this. Right. And I think that comes from those chapters that you went through. And the seasons where you sat in every seat and you maybe thought, I don't want to.

want to do this anymore. I can't really do this anymore. I'm exhausted. Or I'm going to keep doing this, even though I'm exhausted. Hopefully one day it'll be better. But I do feel like it's because of those chapters, you were able to now sit back and define something that gives every seat in BPN meaning. Yeah, it makes me think of something, actually. We only recently defined. are core values. So people may be asking the question, well, if you didn't define core values before recently, how did you build a business that maintained culture and values?

That's a good question. Throughout this entire last 13 years, it's because of how involved in the business I've had to have been. You know, staying really present and active and constantly leaning in in being vocal, like, hey, this is, this is not the way we do things. This is the way we do things. Hey, this is like, we're not going to make this decision because of X, Y, and Z.

We've got to do it this way. So what was happening in these last 13 years is I would just inject myself into all these different parts of the business to keep course correcting. The team has done an amazing job of staying within guardrails, I would say. but as the founder, it's my responsibility to define those values and that purpose and not just assume that people can read my mind and calibrate their thought process based off what I'm saying yes to and what I'm saying no to. That was my biggest problem and my biggest miss is that I thought that with enough

repetition and vocalization that I would calibrate the hearts and minds of everyone. And to a certain degree it does. But after having defined exactly what the vision is in those components being core values, purpose, and goals, I now don't have to constantly be going into every department and saying, yes, no, let's modify this. Here's why. This doesn't align for X, Y, and Z. We have a document, a vision document, and a tone of voice document, and a brand guidelines document. that outlines a lot of directional decision making that is required in the business. So it was just that the reason it's so important to define these things is because if you don't

define them, you're going to have to be in every situation, every conversation, every conversation and being a part of every decision to make sure it aligns with what's in your head, not what's on paper. Exactly. Yeah. And then you at that point, you can really, you can really focus on four or five people and really pour that into them, knowing that that's going to be rippled out onto their teams. Just takes less pressure off. I want to take a quick break in this episode to talk to you guys about how I use our products around my endurance training and how you can as well. Now, here at BPN, we've created products to fuel your performance and optimize your recovery. but I want to talk specifically around how I use these products in my morning run.

Before my morning run every morning, I'm not training fasted. I want carbohydrates and I want electrolytes. So I consume two scoops of G1M Sport, which is our carbohydrate and electrolyte powder, and one go bar, which is our lightweight oat-based bar. With this combination, I'm getting about 800 milligram of sodium and 76 grams of carbohydrates total. Carbohydrates for the fuel, electrolytes for the hydration. This is going to set me up to have the best run possible. Fuel and hydration. Now based off of the distance, duration, and intensity of that run, I will add in go gels during

the workout. And the go gel is our simple ingredient, endurance gel, 24 grams of carbohydrates in each gel and 110 milligrams of sodium. We have a non-caffeinated version and a caffeinated version. The caffeinated version has 75 milligrams of caffeine per gel. And I will have one go gel every 30 to 45 minutes or every four to five miles. And we really created the go gel for these bigger effort runs or endurance training sessions and races. They are extremely useful during races because you get a quick hit of energy from the fuel,

the carbohydrates, some hydration from the electrolytes, the sodium, but they also digest very easily. So you're not going to have stomach discomfort and GI distress. And then after my run, I want to rehydrate. So I'm always adding in our electrolyte powder, one to two scoops. each scoop has 500 milligrams of sodium, full electrolyte profile. So I'm using our products to fuel training, enhance hydration, maintain effort intensity during training sessions with the go gel,

and then rehydrating immediately after. So that's how I use our products around my early morning runs and all my endurance training and how you can as well. So go to BPNSups.com, check out all of our endurance products to fuel your performance. And now back to the episode. One of the podcast episodes that I've shared recently with the team, I share with you specifically, I just want to bring this up, because I think we can riff on this for a little bit. It's very applicable to having core values.

And it's from the Resilient Show. and it was episode 037 with Pastor Joby Martin. I highly recommend this episode of The Resilient Show. I second that for sure. It was incredible. And it was titled Biblical Manhood and the Crisis of Masculinity. Now, I wanted to make sure that when I shared this with the team, because we have men and women on the team,

I shared this episode saying, hey, we should listen to this because this is really important for the way that we're going to build our business into the future and the foundational core values that matter to us. It's titled biblical manhood in the crisis of masculinity. So you would assume, and in the context of the show, it was about growing up from being a boy to a man. But I encourage the team, and I would argue for you guys as well, don't think about this

being gender specific. whether you're a man or a woman, the key takeaways from this episode are applicable to just growing up and maturing. And they talk about in this episode, Pastor Joby Martin, that once you figure out that you are a servant and that is your primary goal, you then can become a man.

Maturity and leadership is not about yourself. It is being a selfless, servant to protecting and providing for others. It is being abundantly generous. There's a lot of talk in the world right now of, what is a man compared to what is a boy? And I think most people take the wrong approach with like this toxic masculinity approach.

And the way that they even described it in the show was like the measure of a man is what, you consume and what you have. How big is your truck? How much money is in your bank account? How big is your business? How much power do you have? How much authority?

But that's the wrong way to think about it. As was positioned in this episode and as I believe as well. When I look back at my younger self, I position myself first in a lot of things that I was doing. And to be honest, bootstrapping in business, with very few team members by yourself in the early stages. That's kind of what I had to do in those early years. But if I would keep pursuing that way of building and growing, positioning myself first into the future, I would digress.

I would decline in my personal and professional growth. I wouldn't be proud of the person that I was becoming. And there's this transition from boy to man and then thought process of it's not about me being first anymore. It's me being a servant to others. As a man, as a mature woman, man, it is our responsibility to prioritize taking care of our community, our family, our team members, our children, our employees, our spouses before us. that is growing up. And that is guided in these core values that come from a biblical foundation and reference. And I thought that was such a powerful podcast to just think about

as we grow up and as we lead people. Yeah, it was a powerful podcast. Anybody doesn't matter gender age. Everybody should see something that speaks into that because it's so powerful and it's needed. Yeah, I agree. And even looking at it from a biblical perspective, you know, it talks about it's the man who leaves his parents and goes to take his wife and lead his wife. And from there, it's that immediately speaks to this life of servant leadership.

It's because you're, you're choosing to go out from underneath and step up to eventually lead and provide and protect. That alone speaks to that. But to your point of there's only so far when leadership feels like something that's truly earned, not necessarily that's just, it can be given. But I feel like when you really start to, when you really start to grow as a leader is when you understand that it's earned, it's about the people that you're pouring into and that you get to work with really amazing people. And even when it comes to your family, it's like, oftentimes, the tone and the leadership of the home is going to be mimicked where you work. It's just

it's almost hard to separate those. Yeah, I agree. And so a good leader is going to always, I don't know to make sure I phrase this the right way, but is such a good leader of themselves because that's what helps them show up for their family. It helps them understand the importance of core values. It helps them be mission-minded. It helps them, be in a place where I know where I'm headed. I know who I am. I know what I've been, I know what my purpose is, what my goals are. And I know that my family is my call. It's my duty to look after and protect and provide for them. And for these people that I work with. It's an honor to work with people. And it can be, you know, being able to, when you're all aligned and hungry

for the same thing. I think there's power in that. but just being able to see this level playing field, having the ability to step up and make decisions that no one else is called to make. You're called to make those decisions. But I feel like what helps you make those decisions is your understanding of your team, your understanding of what it is that makes us us

and what is the thing that's going to ultimately help us get closer to that vision and mission. And it's just, it's so timely this topic because we literally my my wife and I and some friends of ours in a small group that we have literally took time this semester to define what is our family mission statements because there's a lot of people getting ready to have kids and it's like what is what is the thing that's going to guide that now that you're thinking about that but what do that process look like for you guys identifying that it's it is interesting there's a my

wife has some friends who they kind of built out a curriculum built for groups just to kind of get the ball rolling. Like here's, let's define what this actually is. What does this, what does it mean to have a family mission statement? And with examples of theirs. And then they have these things called permanent plays, which are really like your, the five to seven different sort of values that help kind of drive that ultimately. So the process was just being able to split off and, you give, because some couples just need the space. And I don't want to silo this just a couple. Some people just need to have space to dedicate time to say, what is actually important to me? What do I actually care about? What's actually important to you and your family, not what do you

think is supposed to be important to you and your family? That's a great distinction. That's a great distinction. What innately is important to you and your family and that you are set here and call to do and to accomplish. And that's going to look different for everybody. But a lot of times, you just need the space to sit and define that. Because it's not just going to necessarily be something that just, it's not reactive. I think it can be scary if you, if you want to somehow conjure up a mission statement or come to a mission statement as reacting to something that happened. Right. I feel like it has to be above that.

You mentioned something a little bit ago about leadership. And I typically, if you have a leader, that leader is a leader in all aspects of their life. And you rarely find someone who is a leader in their business, but not a leader in their home. And I would argue if you find someone or come across someone that lives that life, they're not actually a leader. to want to be a leader in your home and your family, there's no financial incentive for that. You're not getting a raise. You're not getting a promotion.

It is a responsibility that you take upon yourself and really own. There's a lot of people who start working in a place of business and they go to the CEO, they go to the founder, they say, I want to be on the leadership team. And the question is, well, why? Well, you know, I've worked here for X amount of years. I think I deserve this amount of money and this amount of authority after being here for this long. No, you don't want to be in a leadership role.

You just want to be promoted. You just want more financial incentive. I'm going to be in the room. Yeah. Yeah, you want to be part of the decision-making process. If you want to be a leader, the reason is never incentivized by these perks. it is because you want the responsibility to be a servant to others. And if you want to be a leader because you want the responsibility to be a servant to others,

that will then have crossover application to every other part of your life. You will not want to be a servant to others in your business and not in your family and vice versa. So if you're sitting here thinking, I want to be in a leadership position one day, you should really ask yourself the question, but why do it? I want that. Is it for the perks or is it for the responsibility? Because the responsibility comes with a whole lot more weight. And even if it comes with more money, the weight is much heavier than the financial incentives

might offset. I can promise you that. So one of the things I want to talk about next is the consequences of operating your life in the absence of core values. Yeah. The way I'm thinking about this right now is, Donald Miller has like the seven-part framework of storytelling. And I'm going to butcher it off the top of my head, but it's like you're introduced to this character.

The character is presented with a problem. The character then meets a guide. That guide helps them navigate the problem they're experiencing. And then the guide provides the character a process to successfully accomplish this problem and there's two outcomes. There's success and there's failure. I believe that's kind of where we're at right now

in this conversation is if you were the character and you meet a mentor, you meet a guide and that guide provides you this insight to say you need to establish core values in your life because it will guide every aspect of your life moving forward.

If you fail to establish core values, this is what's going to happen. If you succeed in establishing core values, we will then talk about what's going to happen. Now, there are always exceptions to the rule. So someone might be listening to this saying, well, my friend John has no core values in his life. He's never identified these things. He makes a lot of money.

He's super happy in his life. He has a great marriage. His kids respect and trust him and love him dearly. That's great for him. but I would argue that that is the exception to the rule. There's always going to be exceptions to the rule in every aspect of life. And everyone loves to reference the exception because the exception challenges the status quo of what is consistent. And if we operate our life in the absence of core values, let's talk about what can happen.

because I have met many people and when I finally realized how important core values are, it makes it very obvious to who in your life or who in your circle, who in your environment has not identified their core values.

Yeah, yeah. And that's a dangerous person. Like we were talking about before we started recording, that is a dangerous person to be around because they are unpredictable. You don't know what is guiding their decision-making process. Are they guided one day by financial incentives? And the next day, after going to church, maybe it's a Monday morning, they're guided by

biblical reasoning in faith, in God. But then by Friday, they're out at the bar and making decisions that are completely against what they believed the prior Monday. I don't trust being around a person like that. It is dangerous. It is unpredictable. I want someone who is consistent and rooted in values. And I don't know about you, but I now can identify people in my life who do live their life based off the set of core values and who do not or who don't value core values. Oh, for sure. Yeah. It does. It is kind of strange how that lens kind of turns when you start to identify that. It's, I feel like it's even too demonstrated for people who just have a great

sense of safety. I think there's just something about they, And what I mean by that is there's just a home sense with them. It just seems like either talking with them, decisions they make, the way that they, the hobbies they have, the books they read, or the people they surround themselves with just have this uniting sense where it just feels safe to be around them. Because I think that's what ultimately that can do is having that core value belief system is ultimately, in a way, a safety mechanism to ultimately. ensure that I am on the road that I'm trying to stay on and that a lot of these relationships in your life are mile markers, kind of just continually proving that, which, you know, it's a mile marker for a road, but it's, you know, is it the road that you've set yourself to be on? Yeah.

But it does, it does feel like it's, it's easier to, I don't want to say easier, but it's become, you do become more aware of who are people that actually so many of their decisions make sense. You know, you hear something somebody did or you hear something, you're like, oh, that sounds like that totally makes sense. You're just so in line with what it is that they're living for and doing, even down to something small, like they went there to eat. It's like, that makes total sense that they went there. You know, it's just, you just start to get a greater sense of understanding of this person and so much of what you learn about them makes sense. but like you said, if there isn't that, it just kind of seems like you'll start to see certain things in people,

or you'll see decisions or you'll see posts, or you'll see something like, I didn't really see them going there or doing that. And maybe because that was based on a, in the moment decision, that was a feeling, that was acting on a feeling, that was acting on some sort of emotion that influenced them to do something in some form or some way. and that, again, yeah, that's dangerous.

It's very dangerous. So talking about the absence of core values, I want to really lean into suffering. That's a great topic. I did a lot of prep, and I spent a lot of time in my own thoughts for this episode. And I kept thinking about the value of suffering and that suffering is inevitable.

We are going to experience suffering in life, which is not a bad thing. Sometimes we choose our own suffering, and then sometimes we are presented with opportunities of suffering that we did not choose. For example, we can choose to sign up for an ultramarathon or a race and put ourselves through this really hard, challenging preparation,

and experience, race, competition, and suffer through. It's painful. It hurts. We start having moments of self-doubt. And we can grow from those moments and those opportunities. And then there's times where things happen in our life, unforeseen circumstances, tragedies that we end up suffering through

and that we then are responsible to trust God and know that he is having us suffer for meaning, even if we can't identify it or understand it in that moment. So as I was trying to think about all of these things around suffering, I reached out to Pastor Lyle Phillips a few days ago. He was my pastor when we were living in Nashville at Legacy Church. And I just sent him a voice message. It's like, Pastor Lyle Phillips, I want to talk about suffering in the context of core values and the consequences of operating your life in the absence of core values and the importance of having meaning and applying meaning to suffering.

And he sent me back a few things. if you don't have core values established or defined in your life, then when you go through moments of suffering, whether you've chosen them or they've chosen you, it's really hard to identify meaning. And suffering without meaning is wasted time. It's wasted potential. Much of this entire episode is very biblical.

It's really hard to talk about core values and suffering and meaning in all of these things without referencing the Bible. I mean, it is so biblical in every sense and aspect. Even because, too, the essence of, as a believer in Christianity, the essence of Christianity is Christ-likeness. And so if that is the essence of that, so many of your embodied values that are special to you want to go there, want to mimic that. So yeah, I agree with you. How it almost feels like they have to be in alignment. It's almost hard to not be. I mean, the reason that Christ was able to

be so consistent and predictable and challenge all these people who were against everything that he was for is because his core values were so strongly rooted. And they were so unique and special to him that even when everyone else argued against it doesn't matter. These are the foundational principles that he believed in, that we should believe in. Yeah. So why, why in what sense ever should we try to conform to what everyone else is telling us to do when it is completely misaligned with our core values and his core values? Yeah. And even too, most of the time when you think about times where he spoke or corrected something, it was almost seen as a societal shift.

Like, what do you mean? Like, it almost flipped things on it. He was very good about flipping things on its head and almost repositioning people to think about something dramatically different. And that's sometimes I think what people with core values can speak into you. They can almost flip certain things in you on your head and start to make you think, wow, what actually is important to me?

What actually is the way? I think there's something to that. There's authority. I think that's what I'm looking for. It gives you authority, I think, to speak into other people. Before we start a recording, you use the word sway. We talked about that a little bit. That might actually have been when we were recording.

I can't remember, but we use the word sway. You ever meet someone who is so confident in their beliefs and their values, that when you try to challenge them, they don't argue against, but they're like, no, no, no, no, no. That is not what I believe in.

And here is why. I've met people. I've had conversations with people like that before. And I realized someone is so confident what they believe in. I'm not there to argue, but I'm there to understand.

Okay, if you believe this so much, I want to learn from you. That is, like, one type of person, so firmly confident in what they believe in. And it's not for just any reason. There's substance, there's context behind it. There's a reason. Then there's people who are the swayers.

Not to be confused with the swingers. The swayers will conform to what they believe is relevant at the time. All these people, their core values now X, Y, and Z. Maybe I should just sway my core values to conform. to theirs so that I am accepted because maybe their core values are right and mine are wrong because they're not confident in theirs. Did I get that right in the way that you were thinking about sways? And you even mentioned like a chameleon. You kind of added that to the conversation that's just being able to. And then at the end of the day, it's like, is that naturally aligning

with the things that matter to you? We all have things that matter to us that are different. And There's the danger of being a swayer is because a swayer is necessarily going to, it's just not, oftentimes it's just not rooted in anything. And when you're not rooted in something that you're going to find yourself in places, you didn't maybe think you'd find yourself. Yeah. We've talked about this in the business recently, but like instead of going wide, go deep. Yeah.

Go deeper. So Pastor Lyle Phillips sent me over a few verses that I want to share. that I think are applicable to what we're talking about. Romans 5'3, suffering produces perseverance or endurance, character in hope. We will grow through suffering if we apply meaning to that suffering. Some people suffer and they don't have values. They don't provide meaning to that suffering. And they just complain.

I've met people who just constantly are complaining about their hardship and what they're going through. And I have empathy for that suffering, that hardship I do, but it is an individual responsibility to tie meaning to that suffering so that we can experience perseverance, character, and hope that comes from it. 2. Timothy 2.3, join with me in suffering like a good soldier of Christ, Jesus. join with me in suffering like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. And then Peter 412,

do not be surprised at a fiery ordeal that has come to you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal or even as a meddler. However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name. For it is time for judgment to begin with God, God's household. And if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey

the gospel of God? You got to think about that. It is time for judgment to begin with God's household. What will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God? It's a mandate. Yes. Essentially. And even going to Romans, suffering produces perseverance. You know, it's, in James, there's a verse that, you know, mentions when you, when you meet trials, it doesn't say if you. It says when you meet trials of various kinds, the perseverance and endurance through that is going to produce steadfastness, which I think is another quality of someone who is very, lives their life, very mission driven and has very strong core values. is they understand that their faith is being refined. You know, I think we can all say, I just feel like I'm being tested. I feel like I'm being tested.

And sometimes I can have a negative to it, a negative connotation to, I'm being tested, and I'm just stuck. Being grinded down, I'm being worn down. Exactly. But instead of thinking of it as like, is this, am I being worked down or am I being sharpened?

Because you do the same thing with sharpening. there's this kind of a same approach to that. And I believe that when it mentions steadfastness, the root is being steady. And I think about how many people, leaders, mentors, people that you have, that they just are, they're steady. There's something about that.

And I mean, that's so much, that word is even integrated into BPN, too, the ability to be consistent, to be steady. The ability to be refined, because refined means to remove impurities. And so when you think about being refined, it's the ability to take those misconceptions or those places within you

and you're just slowly starting to refine it. But what's going to refine that is times of suffering. When you meet times where you're going to have trials, you're going to have something where you suffer and you're stretched because of it. But in what other heart posture could you learn that or grow from that? without having that experience.

Yeah. You have to ask that. I don't know. I can think of stories, my own sufferings, my own trials. What headspace was I in? I was in the headspace where the lesson I look back on now of what that brought me to really was the thing that it taught me that lesson in that moment.

I had to go through that. I had to experience that. So it's always powerful to think when you meet trials, not if they happen, but when you meet them, it's going to give you the ability to grow endurance and perseverance so that way you can become steady. Yeah, it's that refinement, that sharpening. One of my favorite authors is Dr. Henry Cloud. And probably my favorite book by him, there's two that I love, trust and necessary endings.

and in necessary endings, which he's a faith-based pastor and our faith-based author, sorry. But in necessary endings, he talks about this concept of pruning, which I've talked about many times on this podcast before, but not for a while. And that we sometimes have to strip down parts of our life

to allow our lives to grow. And he uses the rose bush as an example. If you look at an old, overroarrow, on rose bush. There's dead petals, there's thorns. It doesn't look as pretty as a rose bush should. It's just, there's just stuff everywhere. And to keep a rose bush healthy and strong and thriving, you have to prune it every year. You come and you cut away the dead stems and thorns and branches. You clean it up. And by pruning, you strip it bare. It looks dead after you prune it. But give it a few weeks, a few months, and it blooms, it blossoms. It's beautiful. once again. In certain parts of our life, we have to refine, to sharpen. Sometimes that is

stripping down, which looks empty, it looks bare, looks dead, but it's the only way we can then grow and blossom on top of that. So now moving into what happens when you live your life guided by core values. So a few things. Before I want to get into the meat and potatoes of that Craig Grischel video that I shared with you called Pre Decide. One, it allows us to fight for the next generation, not just for ourselves. As I mentioned in the beginning of this episode, it improves efficiency and satisfaction

of decision making. It provides us clarity and confidence. And when our values are clear, our decisions are easy. When our values are clear, our decisions are easy. It allows us to ask the question, are we pleasing God with our decisions and our actions if our core values are aligned with the ones that are like God.

The video I share with you called Pre Decide, there was a sermon by Pastor Craig Grischel found on YouTube was amazing where it talks about if you have your core values established, it makes decision making so much easier. You've pre-decided what you're going to say yes to and what you're going to say no to. because it's not in the moment, do I want to do this? It's in the moment, how does this align with my core values? Some of the quotes I pulled from that video, one, core values promote consistency, two, the direction of our life is guided by the quality of our decisions.

And three, which kind of just like Jeff Cunningham's quote, successful people do consistently what other people do occasionally. and if we can be more consistent in our decision-making process, we can be more successful and we're more consistent if we have core values established. Right.

Can I tell the, he does see an example of the white belt and the black belt? Oh yeah, it's a great one. Yep. Just to quickly retell it for those who haven't seen

the message of the clip. He mentions going to this jihitsu class where the teacher, the master, he poses the question. He says, what is the hardest belt to get? And you know, you instantly go straight to skills to knowledge to, oh, the black belt, the degrees of black belt.

And he quickly shifted it and was like, no, it's the white belt, which is the very first one you get. Because he said, because most people don't show up. It's hardest to show up. That's the hardest belt to get, because you decide to show up. And he said, you know what a, and then here's a black belt. And he said, you know what a black belt is? It's a white belt who consistently showed up. Man, that drilled the entire point for me, like so clear in the ability to what successful people do consistently, what other people do occasionally.

You can think and imagine this black belt of the great achievement and knowledge and skill, set and determination that it takes for these elite martial artists to achieve that. But from someone who is at that, they just see that as I was someone who showed up, and I just kept saying yes. I just thought that was such a powerful image to bringing the power of consistency. Yeah, I think there's a really good way to tie back or tie together this in the beginning of the episode where there's the analogy. There's the analogy. of the belts. And in the beginning,

we talked about the analogy of core values being the bumpers. If you're at a bowling alley. Now, if you don't have any bumpers up, if you don't have any core values, and if you're a new bowler, the chances of you throwing a bowling ball in the gutter and knocking down zero pins

is high. You have little experience, skill and throw it in the gutters or in the gutters if you have core values and those bumpers go up you can't throw the ball

in the gutter. It literally won't. It eliminates it. It'll bounce back and forth. You're going to hit at least one pin and you keep rolling balls over and over and over

and you keep knocking down pins and you're not there in any balls in the gutter because you have the core values up. You just keep doing that years and years and years. You're going to knock down thousands of pins. That is consistency compounding. That is success. That is growth.

So the person who threw the bumpers up maybe never got a strike, maybe occasionally gets a strike, but more consistently knocks down a couple pins, has made much greater progress than the person who has the bumpers down and throwing balls in the gutter over and over and over again.

That's a great distinction because just because you put the bumpers up, what we're not saying is there can't be these gutter moments where you can't find yourself in places where you didn't imagine yourself. That's not what the essence of it is, but what it is is saying

you're setting the playing field to where I may hit one pin, I may occasionally get a strike, but right now I'm thinking at least it's going to get me to the pins at least that structure is going to get me to there and it really greatly

eliminates my chance of going straight into the gutter. Which means to get into a gutter with the bumpers up you really got to like you got to mess up. You got to mess that up so you have to try. You almost

have to try to mess up and that's another great point is how powerful when you have core values, how almost, I don't want to say how hardest, but we'd mention how much easier it helps clarify your decisions. You really have to mess up. Yeah. So, you know, that's why there's having people to keep you accountable to those things, having them written on a wall, having them meaningful to you, because if it's strong enough of a why, you'll find yourself devoted to it. I agree. And that was a point of what Pastor Craig said. It's the, finding that why that drives devotion that continually keeps that. Because you're great at always

keeping the perspective of you're never going to always wake up motivated. It's hard to lean on motivation all the time. But having that why so locked in to what is important to you, that's the thing that's going to continually fuel that devotion to that thing. And so yeah, you put those guard rolls up, you've really got to mess up. I know I've said that several times, but you really have to intentionally go around that because what you've done is you've clearly defined the lane. And that's what it does. Without it, it's kind of open. You have to be way more strategic and you have to be way more specific about your approach.

The bumpers say, this is my lane. I think we nailed what we were trying to get across in this episode. I mean, this was for me, as I was sitting down and like outlining this one, I think, man, this topic is so valuable and so important that I just want to make sure we do this one right. And I think we really drove the topic home this one.

So my hope is that people listen to this. And if you're listening this, you're watching this, challenge the way you may have thought about core values in the past. It is not an organization. organizational term. It's not this boilerplate business plan requirement for your business, your life, your work. It is so valuable. It is the bumpers of your life that allow you to be more consistent, that allow you to be that servant to your community, your family, the people around you. It is, it's not an option. It's essential. It is critical. It is necessary. It is

It's a mandate. It's a mandate. So create those core values, create the purpose, write it down, share it, look at it daily, make it unique to what you truly believe in and go forth and conquer. Yeah. And for people who watch and listen to this, if you have goals, you can reach them, you can get them. Because what core values are going to do is they're going to fuel that. they're going to give you the ability to accomplish what you probably or maybe don't think you can. You will greatly outperform what you think you can do when you are making decisions and setting goals

with something that is extremely locked in to who you are and what your purpose is. Well, Matt, thanks for joining me. Hey, I'll do whatever you want. That's great. That's great. Thanks, man. You're welcome.