The Nick Bare Podcast - 117: How Focus Will Transform Your Life

Episode Date: April 21, 2025

In this episode of the podcast, I cover the concept of focus and its transformative impact on various areas of my life, including my business and personal success. I begin by discussing the broader meaning of focus beyond simply dedicating time to a specific task, emphasizing the importance of a focused life driven by core values, purpose, and goals.CHAPTERS05:09 The Book: Go One More10:46 Defining Focus and Simplification31:29 BPN's Evolution and Focus46:42 Opportunity Cost and Long-Term Vision57:13 Conclusion and Final ThoughtsMENTIONS:BE 2.0 (Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0): Turning Your Business into an Enduring Great Company by Jim Collinshttps://www.amazon.com/BE-2-0-Beyond-Entrepreneurship-Business/dp/0399564233FOLLOW:Become a BPN member FOR FREE - Unlock 20% off FOR LIFEhttps://bpn.team/memberIG: instagram.com/nickbarefitness/YT: youtube.com/@nickbarefitness

What is going on, guys, and welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Today's episode is all about focus. This is the number one thing that I started doing that has transformed my life, my business, and ultimately my success. And I believe if you apply focus to your life, you will have similar, maybe not the same, but similar outcomes and experiences. Now, this is much more than being focused for a period of your day or being focused on a specific project.

This is not sitting down at your desk, away from distractions, away from your phone, and focusing for a short period of time, a sliver, whether that be a few minutes or a few hours, and dedicating focus to this one thing in which you are trying to accomplish. That's not what this is. This is focus that is entirely focused around your entire life, a focused life, focused core values, focus, purpose, focused goals, ultimately a focused vision for what you want to build, what you want to achieve, the outcomes you want to experience.

I truly, I believe in the last year, I have really, really, really focused. And there have been changes that I've made in my life. There have been changes that I've made in this business. And the results are exponential. Before we dive into this topic, I have a few notes. One, this is completely random, but I feel obligated to share. And you might already be aware. But I don't want you to sleep on cold honey crisp apples.

I literally, right before kicking off this episode, I had two cold pull round of the fridge, organic honey crisp apples. And there is nothing quite like a cold honey crisp apple. I promise you there's no like call to action here. this is not an ad. This is just me being a big fan of cold honey crisp apples. I typically eat them at night before going to bed. That's like my nighttime snack. But today I had them before coming to this episode. And as I was sitting at my desk going over my notes for this conversation, this discussion, and just biting into this cold honey crisp apple, I made a note that I need to bring this up.

Because if you're sleeping on them, please do your stuff. a favor, go to the store and just get a bunch, throw them in the fridge, and then save them for the perfect moment. You want them crisp. You want them cold. A few nights ago, I was craving apples after dinner, so I instacarded some organic honey crisp apples to the house. And we were putting the kids down. And the plan was that as soon as they got delivered, I was going to take these apples, put them in the fridge, get some things done within our nighttime routine. And then the last thing I was going to do at night was go grab that apple, bite into it, and just have a little breather.

There was a long day, lots of training, a bunch of meetings, work, kids, dinner time. What better way to relax? I go and check the bag that's been dropped off at our front porch from the Instacart. they're gala apples Gala apples I was like so disappointed that I didn't know what to do

they were gala apples I grew up and my mom would buy red delicious apples all the time which might be even worse than gala apples Fuji is a close second behind the honey crisp so the next day I ordered some more honey crisp threw them in the fridge

redeemed myself the night after, but I just felt obligated to really bring that up and share it with you guys. Cold honey crisp apples. Maybe that could be a future BPN supplement flavor. Cold honey crisp apple. That sounds delicious. And on that note, moving into another topic, which, is going to guide us into this whole discussion around the number one thing that I started doing that has transformed my life, business, and ultimately success that I've experienced.

I wrote a book on this about two years ago, and it's called Go on More, and it is being published June 24th, 2025, and I'm really excited. I'm really proud of this book. You can pre-order this book titled Going More right now on Amazon. You can pre-order it on Target. You can pre-order it on Barnes & Noble. But it's going to start shipping June 24th, which is the official publication date. And I'm really excited about this because I put a lot into this,

this book. And I rewrote this book about three times over the course the last couple years. And publishing a book with a publisher, it's a long process. Like I said, I wrote it almost two years ago. And I'm really proud of this book because it is a message and story around the evolution of Go One More for me. You see, when I first founded Go One More in 2019, if you're familiar with the story, I founded it when I was training for my first marathon. I quit 10 miles into an 18 mile run.

And on my way back to my apartment, I stopped. I realized if I quit on that run, I will quit on many other things in my life. So I went back and finished that run, ran 19 miles, came back to that apartment, wrote one more on the bill of my hat. And that has evolved into Go on More, which used to be just an action. Go on More was an action to me to do more. of something, do more of anything. Run one extra mile. Stay up one extra hour and work on your business.

Do one extra rep in the gym. And the thought process back then was just doing one more of something or anything would compound into progress and improvement. But Go and More for me has evolved where Go On More is, it's much more than action now. It can be an action, but it's an outcome. And it's an outcome when you make the right choices. You do more of the right things. Not everything, not anything. The things that you say yes in no two are very intentional, very intentional. And intentional decision making leads to go on more, the outcome. Intentional decision making requires focus.

Focus requires clarity and clarity requires vision. So this book that I wrote, it's life lessons that I have personally learned from, mainly from failures, mistakes, stepbacks, because I was always or always have been a motivated, disciplined person for as long as I can remember. No one had to push me to get off the couch. I have been type A, set goals and chase them down. Set goals and chase them down. Set goals and chase them down. But in the pursuit of progress, I have made a lot of mistakes.

I have made decisions that lacked intention. And with that, I have gone down the wrong roads and have made decisions that have, come with consequences or collateral damage. And I want to share in this book the lessons that I've learned by making the wrong choices that lacked intentionality, that lacked focus, that lacked clarity because I've seen just the massive impact that making focused, intentional choices and decisions can make in your life.

and you can still accomplish your goals, but you're going to do so with reduced consequences or collateral damages to the things that matter most to you in your life. Your friends, your family, your spouse, your kids, your relationships. So I'm really proud of this work and I'm really excited to get it into people's hands. Like I said, this is not a book to or was not meant to motivate the uninspired. This book was to guide the already inspired, the already committed, to be more intentional with the decisions and choices you or they are making

so that you're proud of the legacy that you create and leave even after you are gone. So last week, I spent three days recording the audiobook so that when we launched June 24th, the audiobook launches, the hardcover launches, the paperback launches. but it is right now available for pre-order. And I wanted to share that because, like I've already mentioned, I'm really proud of this book. I'm really proud of going more and how those three words have evolved for me over time. Now, getting into focus,

I've already mentioned what focus is and what focus is not. Like I said, it's not just a focus period of time or part of your day that you've carved out to work on something very specific or intentional. No, it is a focused life. It is holistic. And this is actually part of my book. This is a section from one of the chapters called Choosing Simple is a sign of intelligence.

Being focused is to simplify. Simplify parts of your life. And that comes with reduction. and subtraction and pruning. But as I've mentioned before in past episodes, simple and to simplify does not mean easy. But choosing simple is a sign of intelligence. So let me read this part of the book.

Allegedly, Albert Einstein once said, everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler. The irony is that that quote itself was simplified from the original statement he gave during a lecture in Oxford. It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single dalton of experience.

The former paraphrase quote is often used as an appeal to make a subject as easy is possible to understand, but not so easy that it becomes meaningless. It is an art to condense material, yet not lose its substance. As a great jazz composer, Charles Mingus once said, making the simple, complicated is commonplace. Making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity. Albert Einstein believed there were five ascending levels, of intelligence.

The first is smart, then it goes to intelligent, then it goes to brilliant, then it goes to genius, and at the highest level, the highest level at which Albert Einstein believes is the greatest

level of intelligence, simple. That is a section from part of the book. But I want to go back to this. As a great jazz composer, Charles Mingus once said, making the simple,

complicated is commonplace, making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity. In order to focus, we have to simplify. And what often happens, what I've done in the past, I've made this mistake many times before, trying to focus, you start chasing opportunities. And while you start chasing opportunities in an effort to build, succeed, win,

you complicate. It is common to, to complicate, over complicate. Like I have, I have been the poster boy for complicating everything and anything as much as possible

in the past. And it has always led me to a bad place of being overworked and underachieved and disappointed and unsatisfied and stressed.

and just chaos. But making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that is creativity. I mean, that's powerful. Now, when I realized that I lacked focus and that the lack of focus that I had was holding me back was,

I guess a few years ago. And I made some big changes. Something I want us all to realize is that where we spend our time and what we spend our time on really does matter. And I think about that quite often. Where I spend my time, would I spend my time on who I spend that time with? It matters because it guides what we are going to accomplish. It guides the life that we are building.

It guides the relationships that we are fostering. It also tells us what we value in life. If you spend all your time at work, all your energy, your mental and physical energy on your work. So by the time you get home to your family, all that's left is table scraps, it's hard to say that your family matters. And again, I had to learn that the hard way,

where for years I was running myself into the ground. I'm really good at that. I'm really good at running myself into the ground, into the ground, and just getting hyper-focused on a goal and unfortunately used to neglect some of my other life responsibilities. And I tell the story in the book, but me and Steph were having dinner one night years ago.

And she told me, she said, You know, I see you apply this Go One More mindset, which was then an action to all these other parts of your life, your business, your fitness, these physical goals and accomplishments you sit down to achieve like these ultra marathons and triathlons and marathons. And you put everything into that. Like they truly matter to you. Your business, your work, your fitness, that matters. you and that is so, that is so great. But by the time you get home, you are so physically and mentally exhausted that there's really nothing left for me in our future family.

This is before we had kids. And it really made me think. I was like, is that, is that what I want? Is that why I'm working as hard as I'm working? is that the outcome I'm trying to achieve? And I knew I had to make a change there because I wanted my actions and where I'm spending my time, who I'm spending my time with,

what I'm spending my time on to reflect what really does matter to me. There's a few things in life that really do matter to me. My family, that includes my wife, my kids, my business, BPN, the team, the staff, the employees, the athletes, the products, the brand, the mission, everything around BPN, my faith, how I'm showing up and building a relationship with God and other relationships in my life, my friends, team members, those things matter to me.

those things really do matter to me. And I used to think that having focus or going from lack of focus to focus was an on-off switch. So like if I look back at my life years ago when my time, my energy, what I was working on, now in retrospect was somewhat unfocused or a period of time very unfocused. The moment I realized that I lacked focus was not an on-off switch. It wasn't one day where I had this realization and maybe this podcast will do this for you. But it wasn't this realization that I'm unfocused. Flip, switch in my mind, day afterwards, wake up,

I am now focused. My life is all focused. It was never an on-off switch. It's been a dimmer switch over time. I've recognized it a long time ago. And that was just the catalyst to start making change. And part of making change was, okay, now I realize that things are a little unfocused. And I'm trying to do way too much.

My core values are unfocused. My purpose is unfocused. my goals are unfocused. I'm trying to go really wide and stay shallow as opposed to go really deep and stay narrow. And once I realized that, a few things changed. One, I started making more intentional decisions.

I created boundaries, and I started to control what I said yes to and what I said no to. And I was still trying to figure it out. I was still trying to figure out this whole focus thing. And then I started listening to audiobooks, reading books, listening to podcasts around these topics. And because I already had that self-awareness, all these books, these audio books, these podcasts that I was listening to and reading from these high achievers, these high-level entrepreneurs with decades of experience. Because I had that level of self-awareness, and now the content that I was reading was coming from. from people who have been there before, I was able to connect the dots.

And I realized that all of these people who have achieved some of the things that I wanted to achieve in their personal life, in happiness, and in fulfillment, satisfaction, in business, in terms of the success of business and size of business they are building, there are certain characteristics and traits that are common amongst them. And some of those things are that they simplify their life and they focus. They hyper focus. I've mentioned this many times before, but one of my favorite podcast is called Founders by David Senra. And I just listened to an episode where he was talking about the success in the life of,

I can't remember his name off the top of my head, the founder of Cain. Keynes, the fast food restaurant that does chicken fingers. And there's some similarities between canes and in and out. And those similarities are the simplicity of their business model, the simplicity of their menu, they only offer a few things. And their menus hasn't changed for years and years and years. but they focus on creating the best products within that menu, the best experience for their customers.

They're not trying to be something for everyone. They have their area of genius. They have their focus. They simplify and they go all in to be great at that. In-N-Out is a great example. Keynes is a good example. I'm sure there's a bunch of other business. that are great examples.

But being able to focus and simplify allows you to go really deep while staying very, very narrow. Again, I want to reinforce, I brought this up in the beginning of the episode, but focus in this context is not sitting down at your desk at night and planning your morning

when you wake up the next day. It is not trying to get one project across the finish line. It is not one training block that you are preparing for to run a faster marathon. This focus applies to your whole life, every aspect. Personal, professional. If your whole life isn't focused, you can't focus on these smaller projects and initiatives that mean the most to you. And the way that you harness. focus. This has made a huge impact on me this last year. And I've brought this up

again many times in the last couple weeks. I feel like I have. Maybe I've just talked to the team about this or everyone I've encountered recently. I believe everyone should go read chapter four of BE 2.0 by Jim Collins, beyond entrepreneurship 2.0. And that chapter is all about vision, the importance of vision. If you don't have vision, you can't have focus. Holistic focus. You need vision. Vision guides where you're heading, how you're going to get there, and what you say yes and no to.

Vision allows you to be consistent. Vision is made up of three components as described by Jim Collins. One, its core values, two, its purpose, three, its goals. So if you have your core values clearly defined and established and written down, and you have your purpose written down, clearly defined, those two things shouldn't change more than once every 100 years. And your goals are, in the context that he has in this book, about business, 10 to 25 year targets,

but I think when you apply to your personal life, you can set some of those goals, you know, one to three years, five years, ten years, maybe 25 year targets. But when you have your core values, your purpose, and your goals clearly established, that is your vision for your life, what you want to build, how you want to build it.

The reason it makes focus so easy because is because it allows you to be consistent. It allows you to be consistent because you know exactly what you can say yes to and what you should say no to. So about maybe a year ago at this point or less than, reading this book, implementing a very clear vision, establishing core values, establishing purpose,

establishing goals, for me, it has been the biggest game changer. And it has provided me the ability to say no to so many things because I now have boundaries for what gets a yes. And I say no a lot. I say no a lot. But I say no a lot because I can be so confident in what I say yes to. that's been

that's been a game changer 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 milligrams 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. To keep riffing on the importance of simplification and why to focus on simple. Again, simple is not easy.

But simple can be revolutionary to allow you to focus and achieve more. So what have we changed within BPN the last two years. Again, it has never been an on-off switch, but it's been a dimmer switch. We've constantly, man, for the last 13 years,

since I started the business, this August will be 13 years. It's just very consistent improvement and refinement. But that refinement has got so much sharper these last couple years because my vision is, very, very clear.

And when your vision is very clear, the refinement becomes very, very sharp, and you can cut through a lot of the noise, a lot of the BS. In 2012, we started, I'm going to give a quick overview of the brand's evolution to provide some context

into where we're at right now. 2012, we launched the business. I launched the business out of my college department, Western Pennsylvania, And I was obsessed with bodybuilding and strength lifting or strength training. I wasn't into running.

I was running because I was in the Army ROTC program and we had to. But I was going to the Arnold Fitness Expos. I loved sports nutrition. I was a pre-workout junkie. For me, building a sports nutrition brand was a bodybuilding brand. And that's who and what we were in 2012. Flight, creatine, pump enhancer, branch chain amino acid. proteins, protein. Those were our first couple products. And then in 2018, we started offering

health and wellness products, green superfood, red superfood, multivitamin, joint support, collagen. 2010, 2021 is where we started to explore the endurance space. And this was primarily because my interests as an athlete had evolved from bodybuilding and power. to bodybuilding and powerlifting with a focus on holistic health, to then tinkering and dabbling in endurance training, to being all in to endurance training, where strength and wellness was always and is always a foundation, but endurance training, which we call performance endurance, that was the tip of the spear. BPN's natural evolution over these last 13 years has been guided by my and our talking about the BPN team. Our interests, our passions, what we want to do,

the products we want to create, the consumers we want to help and serve, the mission that we want to contribute to, our purpose. Our purpose has evolved. Our goals have evolved. Our core values have, I'd say, pretty consistently maintained, but they weren't clearly defined or established until recently. So if I look at where the brand is today, everything was pointing us in the direction of, you are going to be a performance endurance brand. Focus on that. The world, God, the consumer, the market was telling me, focus on being an endurance consumer brand. That's what you guys do. That's what you love. But for the longest time, I was afraid to make that focused step and decision because I thought it would reduce our ability to grow in scale. In all honesty,

I thought that we had to be a brand that offered something for everyone. We have to be a brand that offers products for the bodybuilder, strength athlete. We have to be a brand that offers health wellness products to people who don't train at all. We have to offer products and solve problems for endurance athletes. And I thought by having this larger audience, this larger consumer base, that would give us the ability to be a bigger, more successful company. And it actually did the opposite because we are trying to be something for everyone. And in the pursuit of being something for everyone, we were something for no one. Because, and now I'm probably being extreme with this from maybe your point of view, maybe the consumer's point of view.

It didn't feel like that. But for me, as the founder, as the visionary, for what I wanted to build, as we went to build out brand campaigns, marketing campaigns, advertising strategies. it was really hard to have clear messaging, a clear tone of voice, be very clear and intentional with what problems we were solving because our messaging was a little different based off the consumer we were trying to speak to. The problems we were trying to solve were a little different based off of the category of products that someone was being introduced to initially from the brand. And I had to ask myself the question as this dimmer switch slowly started to turn on.

The light bulb of focus became brighter and brighter and brighter. I realized we got to make a change. It feels like we're spreading ourselves too thin between all these categories, consumers and products. the messaging feels challenging because we can't be clear because we're trying to do a little too much. I think some brands can have success with this approach, but it wasn't the approach that I wanted to take. So about a year and a half ago, I made the decision along with our team to hyper focus on performance endurance. It is where endurance training, endurance goals are the tip of the spear.

That is the priority. But wellness and strength training will always be a foundation that supports those goals. We fuel performance for endurance consumers. Once we made that change, everything got simpler. And it also got easier. It got easier to identify who our customer is, what our messaging looks and sounds like, how we create ads around the products,

what events we go to and don't go to. That focus which came with reduction, subtraction, and pruning allowed us to double down and stay narrow and go very deep. Now there will be a point in the future where we have to start exploring opportunities to go a little bit wider. But right now it's not the time. It's not the time.

That decision has paid off massively. And I've applied that same approach and strategy to other parts of my life. What we say yes to now is a hard yes. Because that yes is aligned with our core values, our purpose, and our goals. if it doesn't align with those three things, it's an easy no. So I've created the same blueprint or template for my life where I have vision, I have core values, I have purpose, I have goals. And if it doesn't align, the opportunities don't align with those three things.

It's a hard no. It's an easy note. It allows us to be more consistent. One of the first products we ever launched was endopump. We launched endopump in 2006. I want to say. Maybe 2015. So like three or four years after starting BPN.

An endopump was a muscle pump enhancer. No stimulants, but ingredients. And the main ingredient being bedane nitrate, which is formulated to increase blood flow to the working muscles. So when it comes to bodybuilding and strength training workouts, you're training for hypertrophy. Higher reps, moderate weight, you're focusing on the contraction,

and that contraction moves blood into the muscle, and blood into the muscle creates a pump. It's where your arms, your legs, your chest, your back, it feels full. It feels tighter. Bodybuilders love those feelings. I mean, I love those feelings. I love the pump.

So we created a product to help assist with the pump, and it worked amazing. And endo pump was one of our best selling products for years. I mean, nearly nine or ten years, we had endo pump, which is crazy to even think about just now. We had end a pump for almost 10 years. we recently discontinued endopump because it didn't align with our message and our focus moving forward. It was really easy to say no to end a pump moving forward

but was also very hard. It made the decision easy. It didn't make the acceptance any easier because endopump generated multiple seven figures for this business. That one product generated multiple seven figures for this business. But if we're playing the long game and I'm looking into the future, what's going to to help build this brand as well as possible if an endurance athlete finds out about BPN,

a performance endurance athlete consumer just finds out about BPN and who we are what we do. And they lay on the website and the first product they come across by some chance is a muscle pump bodybuilding supplement called endopump, that will turn that consumer off. That was my fear. And that's one of the reasons we discontinued endopump. It didn't align with our purpose and our goals. Yes, it aligned with our core values,

but it didn't align with the purpose and goals of BPN. As I was planning out this episode, I was thinking on my run this morning, about some some previous experiences when it comes to focus and simplifying. The ultimate goal is that you want to be able to do more with less. In all parts of your life, especially in business, the best businesses focus and they do more with less. There's some companies out there and my brother has worked for them.

in the past before he started working at BPN, where their product catalog, the amount of different products they sell is in the thousands, tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of different products within their catalog that they offer. That is, for me, a nightmare of having to manage that many different skews, market that many different products. Obviously, you have certain ones that are better performing and you put more resources behind those. But I'd rather do more with a couple dozen products, max. You can allocate and dedicate your time, energy, and resources to those fewer things and maximize growth and scale.

Instead of having to really spread yourself thin, do more with less is the goal. A few years ago, when we first got on Amazon with BPN products, we were working with an agency. And we were just getting started. We were just trying to figure out the game of which Amazon is. It was complex. It was intimidating. But we knew there was opportunity there. And the agency we were working with wanted us to sell all of these things out.

side of just BPN products. And I remember this, this conversation vividly where they were like, hey, in all these YouTube videos you film, what are some of the things that you are using on a daily basis? You know, you got your running shoes. I see you eat oats every morning. Peanut butter. You love peanut butter. You're eating peanut butter.

Let's launch a BPN peanut butter. Let's launch a BPN oats, oatmeal. Let's, let's do like a BPN shoe. in this advertising marketing Amazon agency wanted us, wanted me to sell hundreds, if not thousands of items on our Amazon site of all these things that we use and touch on a daily basis. That was the clear answer to me, the clear and obvious answer of,

maybe not answer, focus. Even as a young entrepreneur and business owner and founder, I'm thinking, you guys are the experts here. And this sounds all wrong. This just sounds like more to manage, more chaos, doing less with more. No, we're not going to do this. And now, as I'm sitting here, it's like, yeah, why would we ever do that? But back then, when the experts are telling you this is what you should be doing, you're almost convinced that, maybe I should be doing this. Maybe I got it wrong.

Lack of focus will lead you to destruction, being overworked, misguided, and ultimately unsuccessful. Yeah, there's always exceptions to the rule. But I can guarantee you, if you stay unfocused, you are setting your self. up for failure. Inconsistency is what you will experience and feel. Focus is all about playing the long game. Decisions and choices are made based off of long-term vision and not short-term gainful opportunities.

As I was running this morning, I was really thinking about this topic and the this quote or saying or phrase popped in my head. And it was that building your brand and building your bank account are completely different approaches to building a business. Now, this is going to be very brand, creative business focus, but it is applicable to all things in life. And the key takeaway here, which... The stories and the lessons, specific lessons that I share might not be applicable to your life,

but I want you to think about this and how you can apply it to your life where you should be aiming to play the long game. Build for the future. Make choices that set you up for success in the long term as opposed to a short-term, short-sighted winner gain. Are you trying to build a legacy? or you're trying to build your bank account. If your choices and decisions are being guided by your bank account, I can promise you you will make decisions and choices that don't align with your core values, your purpose, and your goals. Maybe your goals if they're financial,

and maybe your purpose if your purpose is financial as well, which I hope it's not. But playing the long game requires you to be very intentional with what you say yes to and what you say no to, what you pursue. It's building legacy. If you build your legacy, good things will come along the way.

But when you try to just build your bank account, that will lead you to short-sighted decision-making that lacks focus, that lacks intentionality, that lacks a legacy you'll be proud of. There's a reason I don't monitor, I could easily monetize this podcast. We could go out and we can source a bunch of deals for ads and I have a lot of friends in the podcast space who have a show similar size to ours and

they are making over seven figures a year, over one million dollars a year on advertisements placed throughout their show before the show starts in the middle, in the end. We run one ad in our show, if you want to call it an ad. And it's for BPN. It's for my company that I started 13 years ago. I don't get paid for that ad, but it's to bring awareness to the brand, to the business, a call to action to send the listener, the viewer somewhere. That is my hope with that cut out segment of the podcast. But we're not going and sourcing podcast ads because for me, I'm playing the long game. I'm making decisions to build a brand,

not build a bank account. There's a reason we don't, and I don't monetize my YouTube channel outside of ad revenue, which is, believe it or not, very, very slim. And one of the questions we get on YouTube all the time is how do you use copyrighted music? Well, you can use copyrighted music

on your YouTube videos, you just can't then make money on those YouTube videos from ad revenue. So because we use copyrighted music on our YouTube videos, those videos can't be monetized for the creator. So we make no money on most of our YouTube videos through ad revenue. I used to do some brand deals on YouTube. I worked with a few different companies over the years, and there'd be a two to three minute segment within a video that was sponsored by a company. And I did it back then because I had to. We had to generate revenue in other places to keep pouring back into the business

to continue growth and scale. And I could keep doing that, but I don't because I'm playing the long game. And I want to build a brand that is durable, that's, I don't say bulletproof, but strong that has legacy. And there's more value to me, personally, to build a brand that has those characteristics as opposed to a bank account. Focus is playing the long game. Focus is making intentional choices with clarity and focus that lead you to success in the long term, not short-term gain or bank account guided financial decisions and outcomes.

The last thing I want to talk about is opportunity cost. And I've loved the concept of opportunity cost ever since I heard it in college when I was in an economics class. I was a nutrition major with a business administration minor. and the first time I ever heard of opportunity cost was from an e-com professor. Opportunity cost is the loss of potential gain from other alternatives when one alternative is chosen. You go to dinner and there's two items on the menu that you're looking at. You either want the burger or the steak. I know they are completely different, but I'm often torn between two.

items like this, where one is super expensive and one is very inexpensive. And whenever I ask the server, which one should I get? Of course, I always know they're going to tell me, oh, get the expensive steak. Adds the bill, higher tip. No server has ever told me to get the cheap hamburger or cheeseburger. But I still ask because I'm curious. If I order the cheeseburger, the opportunity cost is that I can't, order the steak. Now, I could order both, but I'm not going to. And then if I order the steak,

the opportunity cost is that I don't get the cheeseburger. So every choice we make has opportunity cost. That's why I said in the beginning that where we spend our time, what we spend our time on, what we spend our time doing, it really does matter because there's opportunity cost to every decision we make. There's opportunity calls to focus because as I've mentioned, focus is subtraction. It's not addition.

If there's one thing I want you to leave with after listening this episode, it's that focus is subtraction. It's not addition. It's not adding more onto your plate. It's not adding more responsibility. It's not doing more. It's doing more with less.

And when you do more with less, you prune, you subtract. you exclude. And when you hyper focus, there is now opportunity costs because you're not doing as much. So you have to say by to certain things. But the goal is that you can do more with fewer.

I miss out on a lot of opportunities because I say no a lot. And I call them opportunities because like I've mentioned, there's opportunity costs to what we say yes and no to. I say no a lot. I say no to a lot of things because my vision is very clear. And if it doesn't align with those core values, purpose, and goals, it's an easy no.

And it's because I'm so in tune with my vision now, which wasn't always the accurate truth, but it is now, that when I say yes, I'm very confident in that yes. So I'm okay with those missed out opportunities because they're not aligned in my vision. Recently, we were approached by a brand to do a collaboration. And this is a brand that years ago, if they would have approached me to do a collaboration, it would have been a dream come true. I would have signed right there on the spot,

wouldn't even look at the contract, just like, let's make this happen. This is a dream come true. Let's do this. And recently, we were approached by that brand to do a collaboration. And after running it through the model of does it align with our core values, our purpose, and specifically our goals, the answer is no. It was a very easy no. Just like that.

It didn't make sense. And we politely declined. But we're so focused now that what we say yes to is a hard yes. But what we say no to is also a hard no. There will always be opportunities. that present themselves to you, especially as you continue to build something, whether that's your life or your family, your business, your work, your fitness, more opportunities will present itself. But it's not always the right time to take that opportunity. It's not the right

time right now to pursue certain opportunities for me based off of where I'm at with a business or my family. I have two young kids at home. I have an eight-month-old. I'm getting ready to launch this book. We're moving HQs into our new facility in less than a month. So it's a lot of nose right now because I'm so focused on these bigger projects. That's focus. That's a power of focus. and I hope that you guys can understand how powerful that opportunity is and why you need to harness your ability to focus because it truly will change your life. It truly will transform your business, your work, ultimately your success. Go on more is not just an action.

It's not just doing more of everything. It's doing more of the right things that allow you. to experience Go One More, which is an outcome. We'll see you guys in the next episode.