The Nick Bare Podcast - 139: What I’ve Learned From a Loyal Friend with BPN Director of Communications, Trey Freeman

Episode Date: September 15, 2025

I sit down with one of my closest friends and BPN’s Director of Communications, Trey Freeman, to reflect on five and a half years of building BPN side-by-side.We dig into the real challenges of balancing work, faith, and family—Trey opens up about his leap of faith to Austin, seasons of freelancing, heartbreaking miscarriages, and the strength he’s found through it all.This episode is a raw look at personal growth, the grit of building a high-performing team, and how an unshakable foundation of faith fuels life and business.ORDER MY BOOK HERE:https://www.amazon.com/Go-One-More-Intentional-Life-Changing/dp/1637746210FOLLOW:Become a BPN member FOR FREE - Unlock 20% off FOR LIFEhttps://bpn.team/memberIG: instagram.com/nickbarefitness/YT: youtube.com/@nickbarefitness

Okay, today on the podcast, we have my great friend, my brother, Trey Freeman. Thanks for having me. This is special. This is crazy, honestly. Why do you say it special? Because, you know, I never like anticipate being on things like this. So, you know, I just view it as an honor and a privilege. So, and I know we'll just have fun. Yeah. It's going to be great. I mean, that's how I've started to really view this podcast and this platform. I want to have conversations with people. I genuinely want to have conversations with.

I don't want this podcast to be this platform where it's this person was on this podcast, and they jump from the next podcast, the next podcast, and it's the same conversations over and over again. I want to have conversations that I'm genuinely curious and interested in. And you're one of my best friends. We'll be doing life together for the last five, six years. A long time.

I mean, there's a lot to talk about. Yeah. But before we dive into some of this stuff, you know, I shared the notes with you that I put together. I started wearing a sleep mask at night. Yeah. Like an eye mask. An eye mask over the last couple days.

And Steph makes fun of me, but she said that you were a sleep mask, an eye mask. So I used to. Okay. when Pearl, before Pearl was born, Phoebe would make fun of me all the time. Because I had like two eye masks. One of them was like, you remember weighted blankets?

Oh yeah. Yeah, I had a way to blanket. And Phoebe was like, you're like, are you okay? Because I would wear an eye mask and I would do the weighted blanket and I wouldn't use like the other blanket. But then Pearl was born

and I stopped using it probably like a few months afterwards for obvious reasons. We just weren't sleeping a lot. But yeah, I had like an eye mask that was weighted. and it was like smelled like lavender. Yeah, so I used to use that one.

And then I had one where like the mast didn't touch your eyes. So you could like still blink. I have one like that right now. So I used to use that. But then, you know, two kids later, I'm like, no. But it's funny enough like two weeks ago, I was like, I should start wearing my sleep mask. Because I saw Phoebe's, which is funny because she made fun of me for so long. But then she ended up ordering a bunch of these like silk ones.

So, yeah. Some of the things that I've done recently, because I started prioritizing sleep. Yeah. Like when? I should know this, but when? Well, today is Tuesday. I started Friday. But I'm committed to prioritizing sleep.

So what does that look like? Besides taking peak sleep. So it's a lot of stuff. I'll dive into it here. But for some background and contact, I'd say for the last 10 years of my life, I have not prioritized sleep. I have prioritized everything above sleep. And I think, like, you can relate to this.

We're in a very similar season of life where our daughters are both three years old, our sons around one year old, we're married, and sleep just gets interrupted frequently. and waking up at 4 a.m. every single morning to go knock on a workout and get caught up on work before the day get started. It used to be a whole lot, I don't want to say, easier. It was. It was. Yeah. And more consistent.

Yeah. But now sleep becomes more broken, especially with a one-year-old son. And I just found myself burying myself with lack of sleep. And I'd have brain fog and fatigued down. the day and just struggling to get through. And I finally was like, you know what, I'm going to make a change. I'm going to commit to prioritizing sleep. So is the schedule changed? Like your 445? Yeah. Oh. So now I try to be in bed by 9 p.m. 9.30 p.m. of the latest. Obviously there's days where it's not going to happen. But I have this wind down period at night where I'm not looking at

devices or screens. I put on my blue light blocking glasses. I get in a bed, compression boots, I start reading, take peak sleep, wind down. We have an eight sleep on our bed, so it cools the temperature. Yeah.

Which I highly recommend. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Highly recommend. Then you have the chili pad for them? We had the chili pad. Then we went over to the eighth sleep. Yeah. That's the biggest game changer.

You know, it cools your bed to like the appropriate temperature. And then I put on my eye mask. A few nights I've been mouth taping. Okay. How's that? That's the one thing I haven't done. It's good. Sometimes in the middle of night I'll wake up and I'm like, what's going on?

And I rip the mouth tape off. But I'm trying to get at least seven to eight hours of sleep in night. Yeah. wake up time now is at 6 a.m. And every day? Every day. Yeah, that's a huge shift. Yeah.

I mean, since I've known you, you've woken up at 4.45 or earlier. Yeah. So it's a big, me and staff are trying to wake up together at the same time. Okay. Build in my morning routine. Obviously, adjust and shift some things around. But I don't want to keep burying myself in creating this. sleep deficit.

So now I'm prioritizing sleep the first time in forever. And just from doing that the last couple days, I feel great. But the eye mask? Dude, I'm obsessed with it. It's so great. I'm going to have to use mine again. Sleep's tough. It is really tough.

I think anyone with kids could say it's really tough. Yeah. I know that like, when Phoebe was gone last week in Italy, she was like, I feel great. Do you think there's something wrong with our house? Do we have mold? I'm like, no, you're just not getting woken up by two kids

like multiple times in the middle of night. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny you say that and that Phoebe says that because I've had that thought before with Steph. But do you think we have a black mold in our home that we're always fatigued and tired? And I by no means want this to come across as complaining.

No. But it's us just being real about the season of life that we're in that sleep gets disrupted. You know, our daughters just started school again two weeks ago. And everyone always told me when kids start school, they bring him all these sicknesses. I didn't understand it until it happened week one. Now you do.

Oh my gosh. Yeah, I mean, Otto, my youngest, and Phoebe were sick this weekend. Pearl was sick last week. So hopefully we made it. We make it on the other side after this week. Yeah. At least until Christmas. How much sleep are you getting at night?

What do you try to get? I try to get at least six and a half, which is like I know not ideal. I think what is really hard, and we've had conversations about this. And I think the type of a lot of people that probably listen to the podcast and the people dinner in the office, like, I wake up early. I spend time reading my Bible. I work out. And then I come here. And when I get home, I'm just focused on my kids, having a good time with them doing dinner together.

And then once the kids go down, which I think there's seasons of change through the routine. Like right now we're in a good spot where the kids just now started going down like pretty, pretty quick. I mean, we've talked for like, the rest times we're pro, it would take her like an hour and a half. And then it's 9.30. My house is a wreck. I've barely eaten dinner. And then, you know, you blink in this 10, 11 p.m. So right now the kids are going down earlier.

So me and Phoebe are spending more time together. we're trying to just, you know, have conversations. Again, now that we're out of the newborn stage, we're in a routine, and then clean the house and just get in bed and then just do it all over again. But like you said, some days it's just not possible. I think the hard part that I struggle with is when I get to the end of the day after the house is cleaning and the kids are down, I just want to decompress or I want to like work on something that I want to do or like read a book or something.

And then the inevitable happens and I blink and it's 11 p.m. Yeah. Which I don't really know what to do with that besides like put off reading or decompressing. But that's also why I wake up early is because no one else is awake. So I tried to shoot for six and a half, seven. But recently I've been like, I need to get more sleep. But of course, when I'm like, I need to get more sleep, both my kids are sick. Right.

Like this morning, Otto was up at or pro woke me up at three and then auto woke me up at five. I'm like, this is great. But, no, again, not complaining. It's just reality of being a parent. It's just the season of life. Yeah, and the thing is the season will go away. Right. Yeah, I mean, it did with Pearl, and it will with our youngest again.

And one of the things that I think about often is that we pride ourselves in being high performers. I think a lot of people that we work with, the space that we're in, it's all about performance. And optimization and efficiency and getting all these things done. And I have always, I don't say always, but for it. a long time I've been that way. But I don't know why I was so resistant to prioritizing sleep because I now, for some reason, recognize if I actually want to be a high performer, the highest performer possible, then I have to get rest. I have to have this recovery. I have to decompress. And it's not selfish. And it's not being lazy. But it's if I want to do these things at

my greatest capacity, you got to build in this time of rest and recovery. So one of the other changes I made recently is that when I get home from work, I have a reacclamation period, which is 15 to 20 minutes. And the way I spend it is I go into the sauna, cold plunge. I put my phone in a drawer. Yeah. And that the phone stays in the drawer until right before I go to bed. Before I go to bed, I check it one last time for messages and slacks and emails, set my alarm,

and then put it away, go to sleep. The way that looks different is I would have my phone on me from the moment I got home from work until I went to sleep, and I'm responding to text messages and slacks and emails and all these things, and I wasn't actually present in the way that I wanted to be present, and I was still on the clock. Yeah. So I'm now forcing myself to be off the clock when I get home. That's then family time. Not having a phone on you when you get home, because I've done the same thing for the last like probably six months now. When I get home, when I park in the driveway, I'll sit there for like two or three minutes unless the kids are outside. And I'll put my phone in my glove box. And then I just go inside. And I feel like I've noticed the biggest difference in like connecting with my kids and my family by just literally this simple action.

of not bringing my phone in the house. Yeah. And even like not sleeping with it. I did that after Pearl was probably six months old. I would put my phone, I would like charge it downstairs and just use my watch or like, we have one of those hatch alarm clocks, the one that like has the sunrise light. And I just use that. And then when Otto was born and it's been tough because you're just like, when a newborn

wakes for the middle of night, you're just like fighting for your life to stay awake. And the easiest way to stay awake is looking at your phone. Yeah. But I've noticed a significant difference in my ability to be present and connect with my family by just leading my phone in my car. And it's really not that difficult. I'm reading The Intentional Father right now by John Tyson, which I'm really enjoying. It's been recommended to me so many times over the last couple of years. I just never picked it up.

And now that I'm picking it up the foundation. of it is being an intentional father. And I've realized and I've learned, you can't be intentional if you're still distracted by the things you're not willing to let go. And for me, for the longest time, was my phone. I felt like I had to be accessible at all times. And I've just come to the realization that nothing is that important.

There's exceptions. Yeah. And I can't wait until the next day or the morning. morning where when I'm with my family at night, I have to be present, I have to be intentional, I want to be there. Yeah, especially when life happens, you realize. Like, there's nothing more important than your family. Yeah.

Like, when your kids get sick, you're like, I always feel so bad when my kids get sick, obviously I feel bad, but because I see the joy that they normally have and it's not there. And yeah, every time one of the kids get sick or, like, Phoebe sick, I'm like, nothing's more important than my family. You can always wait. Not that work's not important. I believe what we're doing and what a lot of people are doing is really important,

but it's when it becomes the number one thing in your life. And then you're deprioritized, everything else. And we've both done that over the years. It's hard not to. I think it'll probably be a battle that we face for a long time. But, yeah, nothing's more important than your family. Yeah. Did you ever have a problem

making your identity work. And if so, what facilitated a change or a shift to reprioritize? Because what I found is, I've been here myself, it's really easy to list out your priorities in order of importance in life. You can say God is number one,

family is second, and then self. But then when you go to play in your calendar, you're weak, your month, you put self first. Yeah. And then you put family stuff. And then if there's time left over, you put time for God. How do you view or approach identity? It's really hard.

And yeah, I have absolutely made my career, my identity before. And it's tough because I think the vast majority of the world, that's like what everyone struggles with because everyone to some degree wants to be successful, I think for the most part. And, you know, in the life that we live, you know, following Jesus, what you realize is the only true place that your identity can be found is found in Jesus, right?

You have a God-sized hole in your heart that only God can fill. But the issue is, no matter what over time, when we drift away from that reality and that truth, we try to fill the God's size whole other things. And yeah, I've absolutely done it. Even in the time when I've been following Jesus, through the years here, I've made it my identity.

And what that comes out, or comes out like is this now is the priority. And looking back, like, of course hindsight is 2020, but I could look back and see through the years where I did place, a higher priority on work, thinking that it was at the betterment of my family. And I think that's a trap a lot of people fall into is you think, we think building the career and the success is going to be the primary benefit that keeps my family, like, happy and at peace. And the reality is, like,

it's not true. Yes, we need to work hard and steward the opportunity. Like, I absolutely wake up every day. I'm like, I need to steward the opportunity to have a BPN because I know it can all end in a flash. But it should never take the place of that my identity is found in God and God alone. And when I'm secure in that, then I can show up here and be the best version of myself. Right. Yeah. But I have. I have absolutely show up here where this is, I've gone months and probably years where my career, especially even when I was doing freelance photography, where it's like everything that we were trying to do hinged on my ability to make money

and pay our bills. And then coming here, we were just building so fast where it's so easy to make this place everything. It's so easy for anyone to make their career their everything. And it's really tangible, right? You can see the growth, you can see the success or you can see the failures. You can measure it. You can measure it so much.

So it's super easy to attach yourself to that because if it's growing, there's an innate part of you that feels like, oh, I'm being successful, which in reality, we are being successful as things grow. But when things are growing to be successful, the question is, am I getting validation from that? Like, is my security in who I am directly tied to what I'm doing or who I am? And I think that's the biggest struggle that I think anyone who's like a high, high achiever like we are,

like you are, is I put the priority on what I'm doing and not who I am. Yeah. You said validation. I think that is like such a key word to focus on right now. Yeah. You know, I want to say before I dive into this,

I'm not saying that work shouldn't be any less important. I'm not saying that BPN is any less important to me now than it was prior to. I made this post a few days ago on Instagram, and it said, God, family, then everything else in that order. I actually got a lot of pushback. People sent me messages saying there's no way you can tell me that anything matters more to me than my daughter. or my wife or my family. And I used to believe this as well.

What I've come to learn is that if I don't put God first, then I'm not showing up for my family and I'm not showing up for myself and all other things in the right way. I'm not honoring them. I'm not honoring or being intentional in the way that I want to lead and raise my children and my family and show up for my work.

so it has to be in that order. And I myself used to put things in order of priority in my life that were self-serving at the tip of the spear, if you will, because it was measurable and I received validation. If the business was growing and that was measurable, and I could open up my Shopify app and see sales growing and we could look at the P&L

and see profitability increasing. I could see YouTube video views skyrocketing and social growth, improving. That for me was I'm doing the right thing. I am successful, if you will.

There's other parts of our life that you're not getting this immediate feedback and validation and it's not measurable. And sometimes it's really easy to say, well, I will put those in second, third, fourth place because I don't get the feedback or the fulfillment in them because it's more subjective than objective.

It's really easy to place priority on these things in our life that are objectively measured than those that are not. And I think when you start chasing the objectively measured to determine and define your success, that becomes a habit that can potentially become destructive and dangerous. Yeah, and I think, would you say, like, the insecurities come out?

100%. Like, that's, when I can, like, pick up on it is when my insecurities are now the driver. Like, my confidence in not, is not in who I am anymore. I'm being driven, by like fear or success. And success meaning like worldly success, what we would define is like just like business success, which again, success is good. But when it's driving everything,

it's like a wildfire. It can be a wildfire in your life because it can be all consuming. Just like anything else. Like if you put anything at the top like that, you can, you can have it burn through everything in your life. But yeah, that's like the number one. thing is insecurities start to come to the surface. And I'll be insecure towards myself, but also then I'll start to project it out onto other people. Yeah. And that's like, I'm like, okay, I need to like take a step back. What's going on? Like, where am I out of order in these priorities? And insecurity is driven by fear. Yeah. Like, one of my favorite quotes I heard recently. And it was a podcast I was listening to about masculinity and manhood.

But as I share it, I don't want people to view it as gender specific. Strong men fear God and they don't fear man. Weak men fear man too much and God too little. Absolutely. And if you put your fear into God as opposed to man or other people, you'll be led into the right way on the correct path

doing great things but if you put all that fear into other individuals which creates insecurity that's dangerous it's because people are flawed like we're all flawed like we are all to some degree

broken I don't know there is not a single person in the world that's not broken so when you put all your hope and your security and people you will quickly find out that people are broken. Like, and I think that's one of the biggest issues and the challenges that like people face and we face following Jesus, is Jesus is the only perfect person that ever lived and will ever live.

So when you put your confidence and you're hoping him, he is an anchor for your soul that cannot be shaken, right? But when you put that anchor, you take the anchor up and you put it and you put it and you anchor it to someone that is not Jesus, you realize eventually that that person is equally as broken as you are. And that's not to their fault. It's not to your fault. It's just human nature that we look for security and people.

And when we take what you were saying, we place our eyes on success and we don't fear God. We don't have a reverence for him. and we begin to be led by man. Well, man is broken. We're broken. So how can we find security and broken people, right? Yeah.

So that's, yeah, it's tough. So how do you use social media personally? Me? Yeah. How do you consume content, you know, outside of the way that you use it for BPN? Yeah. Because I think social media as a whole is a huge distraction. for many ways and many reasons.

And I think it actually creates more insecurity and weakness than it does strength and confidence. Yeah. It's interesting because I run BPN social. So usually by the end of the day, I don't want to be on social because I've been on social all day. Right. But how I use it is really just a creative outlet right now for BPN.

I don't really use it for anything else. I'll randomly use it to connect with people, like reach out to so-and-so. Maybe they've done something that I thought was very inspiring, but I don't actually use it a ton. I'm probably in the outlier category of social, but I will say it is a huge distraction. And I've gone through phases where I've deleted my account from my phone on Instagram, so the only one that's on there is BPN. and you quickly realize, or I quickly realized, man, I'm far less insecure and judgmental when I'm not on it. And again, I think there's so many great things about social media.

But for me personally, I don't find a huge value in it that's like above and beyond things that I could find value elsewhere, right? Yeah. I do think it's really powerful and I think it's really good. And I think there's a place where goodness and light needs to be spread through social media. And I think there's people probably like yourself and like Chad and other people that we know and the churches that we attend that need to be on social media because you're a light and darkness. I don't necessarily feel like I need to be that person on social media. I've never felt like I need to be like on social a ton. But yeah, that's how I use it, which is more so or less for creative, for BPN, just looking for inspiration. and then outside of that,

honestly, I just try to stay off of it so that I'm not insecure, judgmental. Yeah, I'm certain of you social media truly as an upload in creator platform and not a consumer platform, for me at least. Yeah.

Now, YouTube, I do view YouTube a little differently because there's just things I like, like camping, so I watch camping videos. I think YouTube can be more of a, like, a resource at all. Yeah, I think it's the doom scrolling thing. Like, we've talked about it. Like, right before Otto was born, I feel like everything I saw on Instagram was like, not good things about pregnancy. I'm like, I gotta get off this thing. Yeah. So, yeah. Do you guys ever talk about how you envision your kids using social media?

Yeah, yeah, we do. We probably, maybe it's not as unpopular, but, yeah, the kids won't have social. They just won't. They won't have phones. When they get to high school, in the right scenario, yeah, we'll give them a phone. But yeah, they're even currently outside of like,

we are driving somewhere far and we are in critical meltdown. Like, absolutely, there's no solution. And it's usually our fault. We've stayed out too late somewhere. Then, you know, maybe like a two minute video to get them to like come back down earth. But the kids aren't allowed to use our phones even presently. Yeah, we're very much like, we've seen what social media and phones have done to our lives. And my wife was a nanny for, Phoebe was a nanny for five years. So she got to kind of see it firsthand in like that five to

10 year old range. And I think there's probably a lot more damage being done than people realize. So, yeah, we've, we've more or less took the stand. of no phones. When you're older, sure, but before high school, no shot. Yeah, we talk about it a lot. I would love, and I know there's probably parents listening to this of older kids, like, yeah, good luck.

But my goal, as a leader in my family, is that in the way that I teach my children and mentor them and lead them, they get to a point where I don't have to, say, hey, you don't get access to social media, this technology, these phones. They say, I don't want to use that stuff. I don't need it. I don't need it. I want to stay off of it. Yeah. That for me would be a huge under the table. Yes. Yeah. I mean, and if people want to give their kids' phones, like, I'm totally like, you do whatever. This is just for my family. Right. Yeah.

To teach their own. Yeah. Absolutely. I'm in the same boat where, like, I'm not ever going to tell anyone else how to raise their kids. But I think of how do I want to raise my children? And what do I have to start doing now? You know, the girls are in school now. And I've had this recent realization that we are no longer just trying to keep these children alive. We are now leading these children. They do what we do. Yes. Crazy. Yeah. And like anyone who has kids that are older, or like, well, yeah. Like, well, I just got there. Like, Pearl repeats what I say, like, the good and the bad.

It's super scary. It's, like, intimidating. But also the other side of it, which is, like, so sweet and powerful, it's like, I can see when me and Phoebe are consistent in the things that we value the most, Pearl begins to value them as well. Now, value in a different way. Like, she knows on Sunday. we go to church and she loves it. Like she never, yeah, when she was little, yeah, of course she's

going to like not love going into Sunday school because what kid loves going into Sunday school at first? They're like, what is this room? Who is this person? But now, you know, she's got friends. She goes to Sunday school with Charlie, those type of things. But even like working out, like, Pearl's now to the age where if I work out on the weekends in the garage, she'll come out there with me. Yeah. She does her like squats. And those are the things I love and she knows like where my Bible list. But inversely, I've heard her make comments of like, or Daddy, are you looking at your phone? Just stab you in the heart, man. I'm like, I'm going to throw it away. Honestly, if I didn't run VPN social and work for VPN in a creative capacity, I would probably get rid of it. But yeah, it's super

scary. We went from, I think you talked about on the last podcast. We went from keeping kids alive and, like, taking care of them in a, you know, nurturing, providing way to like, we're in a molding phase now. Yeah. It's a huge responsibility. Huge. It's because it'll be in part who they are for the rest of the life, but also what I've realized is so much of how we view God is in part of how we view our parents. And that's tough. As I've become a dad, like part of Pearl's interpretation. of God will be how I treat her. Now, that's scary. Obviously, God is able to, like, rewire and correct anything because I'm a broken person that I do wrong as a parent. But ultimately,

I know that I'll have an impact on how she views, she's God. Yeah, I've been telling Charlie recently, God loves you. She's like, who? She's like, I don't love him. I was like, you will one day when you you understand. I was like, Charlie, the Holy Spirit is within you. Yeah. She's like, get it out. Get it out. Yeah.

Like, one day you will appreciate this. So I'm trying to lay that foundation now as she's like learning and developing and trying and comprehend. But something you said that I believe is very important and valuable is our kids learn a lot by watching us and especially our marriage in the way that we as husband and wife partners

treat each other like what do you and Phoebe do in your marriage in this crazy season of life where you're building a professional career you guys are raising two young kids life is busy

what have you guys done intentionally to show your your kids, that marriage is a priority? I think we're still trying to figure it out to some degree. I think there's... It's valid. It's valid.

Yeah, I think there's, there are things that we've made, like, intentional decisions that are now common, so I don't think about them as much, but like dinners. We're always going to eat dinner as a family. Whether dinner is, I make dinner, and we bring it all out into the backyard and we just, the kids are playing or outside, or we're sitting at the table. or we're sitting at the table or we go on the front yard, we put an emphasis on dinner and put emphasis on no phones. I know that sounds like, you know, I've already talked about it, but that's like a big thing for us is once I get home really being disconnected from that. And then I think there are

some things that we've tried to do for each other to make sure that we as a married couple are still healthy. So for the most part, when I get home, if Phoebe wants to go to the gym, she absolutely can go to the gym. Phoebe's a stay-home mom. So she's been with the kids all day. So I try to give her the space and time to go work out and have time for herself so that she can be the best version of herself because fitness matters to our family. So I don't know if we have all like a list of intentional things that we're doing, but like family dinner, spending time together, me keeping my phone and my backpack in my car. Now, I used to get really nervous because I would always think, like, what if somebody comes and gets my backpack? Because I keep all of our hard drives, my photo hard drives in

there, so I get a little nervous. But we live in Georgetown, Texas. No one's coming to my driveway and taking my bag out. But yeah, leave my bag in my phone in my car after work. I'll get it after the kids go down and then just being present with the kids like having fun making dinner um not being overly uh rigid about their routines like you know seize the moment with them like go to the park have ice cream every once in a while let's go to kill ones um yeah i would say those are the type of things and then making sure that we are creating space for us to care for each other and allow us to still be the priority. I think that's one thing that's really hard

and when you have kids that I learned from mentors over the years is our kids that could be not received well, what I'm about to say, my kids are a part of my marriage. I am not a,

like my world doesn't revolve around them. They revolve around my world. Like me and Phoebe are still the priority. And if we're not taking care of ourselves in our marriage, well, guess what, our kids are not going to be taking care of as well. It's kind of what we talked about earlier

was like, you know, when you put God at the top and then you take care of your marriage, like it sounds out of order because then your kids are there. What we've learned is when God is to the top and we take care of our marriage, our kids are getting the best version of ourselves. Like, they just are.

Because the end of the day, when our kids are grown up and they leave and they go to college, what's left? Me and Phoebe, you and Steph. Like our marriage is still foundational to the kids to the world that we're raising with our kids.

So the kids are a part of our world. And yes, we do things for them, but like, my entire existence doesn't revolve around just them. You're a part of my world and our marriage that we brought you into and we love you so much.

We're always going to care for you. But I'm not going to sacrifice my marriage on that. Does that make sense? I absolutely agree. I think it's one of those things that is, I'm speaking from personal experience so much easier said than done.

So much easier. Where it's in the past, and this is really what I'm trying to work on in my life for now, in my family's life. It's like, okay, I'm going to get this business stuff taken care of my work because that's what my family needs and values. That's what I thought.

Yeah. And then I'm going to come home from a crazy day at work. I'm going to prioritize the kids and then whatever is left over me and Steph can have our time which rarely ever happen so I do believe that

it's God first that lays a foundation and then it's prioritizing marriage and then it is everything else totally and one of the ways that I think about that is I want my kids growing up to watch me and Steph love each other. Yeah. You know, I watched my parents growing up.

They always had the spark. Like, we'd be prepping dinner and my, like, dad would come to my mom and start kissing her. I'm like, stop. Yeah. Stop, stop, stop. But now looking back, I'm like, oh, my parents. They were in love. They were in love.

And even after decades. They didn't lose that and they showed us that. And that taught me so much. And I want my kids to see that same thing. So sometimes as tired as I am at the end of the day and we're all around together, I'm like, okay, I need a love on Steph. I need to prioritize her. And I want my kids to see what loving when your partner looks like.

Yeah. That's one of the ways that I've tried to be more intentional recently. because your kids will listen to what you say, but more important, they're going to watch what you do, and they're going to emulate that, especially as they get older. So you're for sure one of the most consistent people I've ever met my life. I think anyone online could probably say that, but I've lived a life with you now for going on six years,

and you are so consistent with everything that you're determined to set your mind to. Now that you've been following Jesus now, and you're making these shifts, right? Has the shifts in your consistency to break what was been difficult? Does that make sense? You're so consistent with like the 445. Making the shifts now, has it been difficult to, like, create new consistencies? Yes.

You know, I have a lot of people in my life who are, who tell me what I want to hear, not what I need to hear. And I have a good friend and mentor, his name's Justin. We were on a run last week. And I was telling him how I've fully surrendered everything to following Jesus. And he said, no, you have it. You haven't. You're lying to yourself.

You say you want to make these changes, but you're not willing to make these changes that you say you're going to. You commit to a lot of things in your life. very consistent and the things that are easy and comfortable for you. It is easy and comfortable for me to wake up at 4 a.m. every morning to go knock out my run no matter how tired I am, because that consistency to my routine and schedule feels really good. And striving and accomplishing and achieving. But he was like, in order for you to fully surrender, you need to be able to show up for your family and your work and these people at the best of your ability. That means you need sleep. You need rest. You need recovery. If you're going to fully surrender,

you need to break your routine, break everything you know, empty yourself and follow him. And if you empty yourself and follow Jesus, you will start putting things back in the right order not for your personal needs, but for what he wants for you to accomplish. Yeah, because being consistent isn't bad. No. No. I'm like a huge advocate of like people that follow Jesus. I'm like, you should be consistent. Yeah. It's the priority thing, right? Yeah, I was just curious, like, because you are so, you've always been so disciplined. So to hear, like, that's probably why my, when you told me 6 a.m., I'm so shocked. It's like, shocked in a good way. Mm-hmm. Because I have watched you sacrifice more than anyone will ever know, not just me,

but the staff here are the people. Like there's so much that's happened behind closed doors that no one will really know. So it is, I'm excited for you. It also I'm like, I need to get more sleep. It's this muscle that when you train it for so long, it's really easy to flex. It is super strong.

Yeah, I feel like I could easily not sleep. Oh, yeah. That's like last night I was telling Steph, I knew today it was about to be a really busy day. It's like, hey, I'm just going to wake up at four. knock on this run. Yeah. She said, no, you're not.

You used to do that before you traveled. Yeah. If we were, if we had a 6 a.m. flight, I would wake up at 2.30 to go run. Yeah. And I think there's a lot of ego and pride behind that. There's a time and place when you just got to get it done. Yeah. But when you keep burying yourself, I talk with people.

I meet people who are so zombieed out because they're unwilling to break their consistent routine. Again, a consistent routine is great. But when you are burying yourself and it's hurting you, it's hurting your family, it's hurting people around you, you can't think clear, you're fatigued, you're brain fogged,

you're right, actually there. It's so funny because, you know, God is the God of clarity. I think when we have the right priorities, outside of, like, there's practically things when, like, your kids just wake up. There's just going to be bad days.

But like what you're saying, where you're like, you're just brain fog, nothing. It's like you're striving from a deficit every day. I feel like that is a sense of not having clarity because the priorities are not aligned, right? Yeah. When God's at the top, I feel like no matter what happens, you still have clarity. It doesn't mean the days aren't bad and days aren't great, but I have clarity because God is the top priority of my life. And I feel like he provides clarity even when life is not what you expect or what we expect. You know, God's the God of peace.

You know, the Bible says that God provides a peace that surpasses all understanding. That means that on the good days, the bad days, the days that don't make sense, he provides a peace and a clarity that surpasses what you experience on earth, right? And so I think that when we talk about the brain fog, like I've experienced that so many times and I realize, again, hindsight is 2020. it's because I've not prioritized the main thing. And I feel so challenged sometimes when I'm like, I'm so willing to sleep for four hours

and go for a five-mile run, 10-mile run, track workout. But the question I've been asking myself recently is am I equally as willing to wake up and read my Bible? And there's some days I'm not. Yeah. But I fully believe that if we can give our first part of our day to God, he will provide a path for the rest of the day.

Not saying that you can't wake up and run and do all those things, but the challenges I've been, and the question I've been asking myself is, am I equally is willing to give up, sleep in time, or move a workout at the expense of my soul? It's tough. Yeah, I recently heard,

what are you willing to let go of so that you can go higher. Yeah. There's a ceiling where you can't go any higher because you're not willing to let go of certain things. And for a long time, I was not willing to let go of a lot of things. And something that I keep in mind recently,

a lot is, God doesn't ask you to sacrifice, but he asks you to be obedient. There's a difference between sacrificing and being obedient. And I believe I used to view them as the same thing. Yeah, and the Bible is really clear about that in the Old Testament. It talks about, you know, God isn't looking for a sacrifice.

He's looking for obedience. Because in the Old Testament, they had to bring sacrifice to, you know, have the presence of God come down. And I don't want to, like, I don't want to quote any scripture. So, but yeah, you're totally right. And I had a mentor of mine for years. He's still a mentor in my life. Brian Kromer, and he, one of the number one things he's taught me, and we've talked about it,

is in God's kingdom, success equals obedience, which is so backwards, because what we've been doing you would deem a success, which is successful what we're doing. But when we stack it into God's kingdom, what true success is, is obedience, obedience to what God's saying. Yeah, I've had a lot of different mindset shifts. Yeah. Lately that I've just been sitting on one and thinking about, and I'm really proud of what we have built up until this point. Absolutely.

And what we've accomplished and how we've gotten here. I'm very proud of that. But I've also reached a point, and I've realized that for this next chapter, it's going to look a little different the way that we get there. It has to. And I believe I have confidence that will continue to bring us success because we are prioritizing the right things and that we are being obedient to what God wants us to do.

And we're pursuing things that we don't just want for ourselves. but because we know that this is what we're asking to do and how we're asking to do it and where we're asking to go. And if we follow his will and his word, success will be multiplied, who will be blessed. But we're not doing it because of the multiplication of success. We're not doing it for the blessing. We're doing it because it is the right thing

and because we're being called to be obedient. Absolutely. So that's how I see this next chapter of life looking for us. Yeah. And that brings me so much peace and joy and fulfillment, knowing that, hey, we got here by trying to muscle it on our own, or at least me, muscle it on my own.

Now what happens if I surrender and I just focus on obedience, I know that will only lead us to the right place in the right way. Yeah, when you follow God, you'll never fail. Like, can life be hard? Absolutely. And life will be hard. But if you follow God and you're obedient to what he's asking you to do, you can't fail because God is perfect.

Life will be hard. Things will happen. And life will be great. But the confidence that we have is that God cannot fail. it's not in his nature to fail us. So when we follow God, literally nothing can fail. Bad things happen, good things happen,

but it doesn't change the overarching truth that God is truth and he cannot fail. So it takes all the pressure off because we're not responsible. We're responsible to steward it and to obey, but at the end of the day, if we do those two things, we can rest knowing that it's going to be good.

We were sitting in church like two weeks ago, and Pastor Joe was talking about that. And I took like the tithing envelope, and I wrote in the back of it, and I showed it to staff, it's like, we can't lose. Yeah. We can't lose.

Isn't a great feeling? Yes. I literally said like that. The people behind me were like, what's wrong with that? I was like, we can't lose. Yeah. And it said that.

I wrote it on the card. Oh my gosh. You spend so much time in a defensive position trying to hedge all of your vulnerabilities and weaknesses and weaknesses. And when you realize that you surrender that

and you just follow this one person, you can't lose. You're on offense now. Yeah. And now you probably fully understand now why you're so bad. I want other people to know. That's why I want to share what I've experienced.

Yeah, you've seen and tasted the other side, right? And you've seen the worst of life. And now, through Jesus, you've seen what true joy and true happiness is. And I know, at least for me, like, I just don't want anyone to miss out on that. Like, I want people to feel the peace that surpasses all understanding. I want them to feel the joy that is irreplaceable that will never run dry. Because there's a lot of hurting people out there. And man, there's a joy that can absolutely save your life.

It's even shifted the way that I consume content in terms of books, podcasts, audiobooks. Like, you know me, for the last 10 years I have listened to or read every, self-help book, every self-help podcast, imaginable. I've listened to all of them, all of them. And from a strategy and a tactic standpoint, they have definitely helped me. They have definitely helped me get to where I am today. I'm very grateful for the content that's been created by many people. But that's all they are is transactional strategy and tactics. And they work for a period of time, and then they don't. And then you're constantly searching for, what's the next self-help book? What's the next self-help podcast? What's this unlock that I haven't experienced

or found yet? Where's that key at that someone has? And you seal the marketing behind all of these materials, and this is what's missing in your life. And you go consume it, you read it, you listen to it, you think it's the answer, you apply it, it works for a period of time, and then it doesn't. And then you're searching for the next thing. And now I found that one thing. I found the key. I found the truth, so I don't need all of those other things. Again, they have gotten me to this point. I'm so grateful for. And they're great tools. They're great tools. Yeah. But that's all they are is tools. Tools. Yeah. They're not the foundation. No. Yeah. The Bible talks about you, you, there's, I believe it's a,

and Matthew talks about building your life on the rock of Jesus. So that when the winds and the storms come, if a house is built on the sand, when the winds and storms come, the house will fall. But a house that's built on the rock of Jesus, the foundation of God, it cannot be shaken. You've now found the foundation, right? So you're building your life and your house

on a foundation that regardless of the storms of life and the realities of what happens to us, it cannot be shaken versus when our life was not found in Jesus, we were building on something that was sinking sand and is not stable. So anything of any magnitude or size could blow us over and really wreck our world. And I think that's where it's like, it's hard to watch. It's hard to watch people when you know that there's a firm foundation that you could build your life on regardless of what's happening.

and when you watch people not do that, it's hard because you want that. Like, I know for me and Phoebe, we just want people to find and experience the joy that we have. Yeah, that's, you're building a foundation on the rock of Jesus, on a firm foundation on him. And then these books that I still consume these books, they're just not my foundation.

Like I love listening to podcasts. I love reading books. I love consuming creative inputs for our job. They're just on top of what I'm building, the foundation that I laid. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah, I think the way you describe that, I paint a picture of how I view what I'm going through right now. I've spent the last 13 years working on BPN.

Yeah. and we built this house, but it's taken a long time. It's taken on a long time, and it was really hard, and it was really hard and took a long time because I've been trying to find all the materials. I'd build the house one way, realize I'd build it the wrong way, so I have to fix things,

and things would fall apart along the way, so I'd go patch them and repair them. I'd have to find different contractors, and subcontractors come in and help build this house and over 13 years, the house has been built. And it's strong.

But now, maybe that house has been wiped down or I have to build a new house. But now I have all this knowledge based off of all this learning and understanding from the last 13 years and this new understanding. So I can now go build this new home,

this new house, on a stronger foundation. I have all the materials I need. I know exactly what materials are needed. I have the resources. I know the contractors. I know the subcontractors who are going to do the best work. I will make mistakes along the way,

but there will be smaller mistakes. And this house will be bigger. It'll be stronger. It'll be more durable. It won't be as weak or vulnerable or susceptible to break down a destruction. because I've learned over a long time of what it takes

to build strongly. And it'll far exceed anything we can think or imagine, right? Yeah. I think that's a crazy thing. Is wherever we go from here in terms of BPN, it'll always be bigger than we think

when the foundation's that way. Yeah. Because God's ways are above our ways. His thoughts are above our thoughts. God's dream for our lives are bigger than the dreams that we can have for our lives. Which is crazy to think. Crazy because we dream so big, right? Yeah.

God's dream is bigger than anything we can think of for our own lives. It gets me super excited for the future. I mean, literally before I joined BPN, I was like, this is, I mean, doing freelance was really hard. But I was like, I felt like I was doing what God was asking me to do, and I was being obedient. And I got to see and do things that I know. ever thought. And then I joined BPN. And never in a million years that I think on May 4th, 2020 when I walked in here, that in September of 2025, we would sit in like a podcast room. Because God's dreams are always bigger than our dreams. What did life look like before BPN for you?

You and Phoebe. Yeah. Me and Phoebe, so I used to work in ministry. You know that. church world. So I graduated college from LSU and then I went to work at a few churches in Shreveport, Louisiana, small town, Shreveport, Louisiana. I was actually in Bojure City. Anyone that familiar with Shreveport knows where Bojure is. If you don't know where Bojure is, just don't. It's okay. Worked to ministry there and that was like the beginning of my ministry career. And then I got hired at a church in Dallas. And in between that is when I met Phoebe. I was actually interviewing for a job at celebration, and so was Phoebe. She ended up taking the job, getting the job, and I was just more focused on Phoebe.

And we met, we dated a long distance, and we both finally moved to Dallas, and we got engaged in Dallas, and then we were on staff at a church there, building a life that we loved, and we got married, and two weeks after we got married, Phoebe woke me up one morning and said, I don't feel like this is home. And I was like, well, that's funny, because I signed a 12-month lease. like three weeks ago. And so we prayed about it and we almost moved to Seattle. And one weekend we came to Austin because Phoebe's parents live here.

And I just told Phoebe, I'm not leaving without an answer. And I'll never forget, we were on the South Congress Bridge. You know the time of the year when the bats come out and there's like hundreds of people standing. So we were at the very end of the bridge and the bats were flying out. It has nothing to do with bats. I was just sitting up against a car and I just had this wave crash over me of peace that we needed to move to Austin. The only thing that we knew that we had here was Phoebe's parents and a church that we love in that celebration. And so we drove back to Dallas.

We told our bosses we quit our jobs that both had full-time, you know, salary income with benefits. And we came here with no jobs and no money. But how old were you? Oh gosh, Phoebe was 23 and I was 26. So I would not advise anyone to do that. Outside of, if you feel like that's called you to do that, you can confidently say that. Now in hindsight, like... It led you to where you had to be. Absolutely. And no one will ever be able to question like, hey, do you know what it's like to walk by faith?

Like, I absolutely do because I felt like me and Phoebe heard the voice of God, heard the call to come to Austin. and we gave up everything. And it was a really humbling experience. So I went into full-time freelance photography. We lived with Phoebe's parents for almost a year. God bless her parents. I can't imagine as a parent that your daughter gets married and then they live with you for nine months.

It was such a humbling experience. I wanted to give up photography so many times. And I tried. I really did. over three years. I tried multiple times to like, okay, look, this is really hard.

Like, I mean, nothing compares to like what you went through. Like, for me, that was really hard. We were, we both didn't have jobs.

Phoebe ended up being a nanny. And I was just, like, trying to make freelance work. And every time I tried to quit, I remember I was looking at jobs on, like, Craigslist.

I was desperate. To do what? Would you want to do? Anything. I was like, maybe I'll find something. I would look and be like, maybe God will just speak to me about one of these jobs on Craigslist. Because you wanted security?

Yeah, I just was like, there's no way that I'm still doing exactly what God wants me to do because it got so hard. We, I mean, it was just like every dime mattered. Like, every dollar mattered. It would, and one day I was looking and I was just over it. And I was looking for jobs and I literally will never forget. I felt like God said, it's not what I told you to do. I was like, well, these bills are very real, and I'm getting frustrated. And, you know, I still was like, okay, whatever.

I got over my anger and just kept chugging along. And then Jordan moved here, me and Jordan became close friends, and he asked if I wanted to shoot the Austin Marathon. How did you even Jordan meet? Crazy, right? So the pastor I mentioned earlier, Brian Kromer, I worked with him in Dallas. He went to playing a church in Cincinnati called Queen City. The first person that attended his church was Michael Malay.

Michael Malay texted me and said, hey, I have a buddy, Jordan moving down to Austin. He's going to work in a supplement company. He's good people. Could you meet him? Jordan moved here on like a Tuesday. I met him on Wednesday. And we just became pals. And three months.

four months later, Jordan asked if I wanted to shoot the awesome marathon with you. This was 2019, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, and then I shot the marathon. I'll never forget the day that, I'll never forget meeting you for the first time. Same. I knew you were shooting the marathon for us, but I didn't meet you prior to the finish line. No, I met you for two seconds of the start. This was 2019. This is my second marathon ever. I ran like a four hour, 15 minute marathon there.

And getting across that finish line, I was in the pain cave. Yeah, you were. I remember getting across the finish line and you were taking photos. And you kind of like just came up next to me and

you had grabbed my arm and put it around you. It carried me to like over to where Jordan was and stuff was. And you gave me like a bottle of water and like snacks and you drop me off with my crew and I remember just thinking there

in that moment this guy just he's here to serve he gets it and we need him on this team the team was tiny then I mean we had four people but that's all it took was one small interaction

I was like I need this guy on the team Yeah. And how shortly after that moment did you start working for being? I just was February and then, what's so funny is when I left the race, I was like, I mean, Phoebe could remember it all. I was like so consumed with how do I get around those people again? Because it was one of the first times where I felt like the things that I valued and the type

of person I was like wanting to be was, was I found them, like, really driven. care about fitness, but also care about people. I could just tell you guys cared about each other. So for like two months, I just couldn't stop thinking about it. Of course, I'm still shooting freelance stuff. And then that was in February, and then Jordan called me. I drove up to the old HQ to drop off a mic to Jordan. And what I had been doing like these crazy shifts because we were bringing our church online

because of COVID. We were just, there was like 10 of us that knew how to do that. So we were just working like 15 hour days of the church. And he was like, hey, do you want to come work here? I was like, I could have cried. I was like, yes, but what do you mean? And then he was like, he told me about the job, social. You could come do photo.

I know you're doing freelance, but like, if you're just should let me know. And I was like, yeah, absolutely. And then I believe he was like, you want to come in for an interview. I was like, oh, yeah, sure. Well, it wasn't an interview. Do you remember that? No. Yeah, George was like, come in for an interview.

It was in when we were in the old office. And I'd come, like, prepared for an interview. And I walked in, we went into the podcast room. Yeah. Yeah, the old, old podcast. And you just said, hey, this is a job. Here's the salary. Can you start two weeks?

I was like, I remember being like, yeah. And I tried to ask you a bunch of questions. And you just were like, yeah, this is what we need. We're just trying to do this thing. And does that sound good? And I just asked you to email me like an offer letter. Yeah. Because I had to like, I wanted to be able to like sign it and show my work that I was like legit leaving and had a job.

Yeah. That was a, that was a funny day. But also like a really powerful day because when you actually sent me to the offer letter, which I'm pretty sure you like Googled it. It's like, I'm guaranteed. And it had like an initial box with your name and then like your title and then like a line for me to sign. It was really funny. It's not like what we have now. No, not even close.

This was like, you sent it to me from your Gmail account. It was so unofficial. But I'll never forget it. And the reason was I opened it. I'll never forget where I was sitting. We lived downtown. That house we always ran by. And I was in this yellow chair.

We had this yellow retro armchair that had ducks on it. And it sat in the corner next to our TV. And I think you sent the offer later like two days later. So like 48 hours, I was like sweating bullets. And I got the email. I opened it. And I just, again, that like wave of peace, like crashed over me. Because at this point, I think it had been three years doing freelance. And I just kept going because I feel like that's what God was telling me to do. And I'll never forget. I feel like God told me in that moment,

this is why you always obey. And I sobbed. Because in that moment, I felt like for the first time in a long time, that that small decision, I say small, it was a big decision. that led to like three years of just kind of searching and obeying, it was a moment where I got to see a small portion of like fruit that I got to reap from being obedient for years. And that's why when I came, I was like, I'm going to steward this as much as I can because I know what it was like to be on the other side of it.

And I felt like God brought into my life. And I don't want to not steward what God has brought into my life. Yeah. So that was five and a half years ago. We have this photo from those early days that I love. And it's you, me, and Jordan sitting in that old podcast room. Our creative meeting? Yeah, we didn't have a table.

We didn't have chairs. All of our gear was kind of on the perimeter of the walls. Yeah. And we were sitting there doing like a creative meeting. The team was so small then. Yeah, and we were probably meeting about BP and your content. It was all on the same thing. Yeah.

And we'd show up and we didn't really have a marketing calendar or a plan. We'd show up that day and it was, what are we creating? What are we filming? What do we need to do? And let's figure it out. Yeah. But those early years were so much fun. They were crazy.

It was so much fun. It's still fun, but it was a different fun. Yeah, it is so much fun now. There's just things that we did then that you can't do now. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. I remember me and Jordan would be like plan a photo shoot and we would do it that morning and then we get a text from you at like 11 a.m.

You're like, hey, I'm running at 3. And we would jump in your truck and we'd go chase you down an old country road that's no longer a country road because Georgetown's huge now. And then we would come back and we would edit it right then and there and then we'd do it all over again.

The quickest turn around. Yeah. Man, over these last like five and a half years, I mean, you and Jordan both have been with me through it all. There's been good days. There's been really bad days. There's been easy times. There's been really hard times.

It has been such a journey. The entrepreneurial journey is so interesting. Yeah. And what makes it so interesting is the people that are on that journey with you. And one of the reasons I wanted to have you on the podcast for conversations, we've truly been,

of all the people that I work with and know, we have done life together in sync. Yeah. And out of sync the most of these last five and a half years. Yeah. You joined early on. We had our daughters within days apart. Our sons close together.

we've experienced life together. We went on our first baby moon together in Cancabo. And you have been so loyal and faithful through it all. I'm so grateful and appreciative for you. You have been so faithful. And there have been people in my life who have come and go. And when times have gotten hard, they've ran. and they've taken the easier route

and you stuck with me and this mission the whole way through. So I'm so just grateful for you as a friend. I appreciate that. Yeah, absolutely. It's like, I think the older I get too and as our kids get older and I just sit back and I reflect, I'm like,

there's certain being my life who have jumped shit. when things got hard, but you've been one of those people who have just stuck with. Yeah, and it's one of those things like, I believe building deep, meaningful relationships is, like, critical to life. Like, life is hard. Like, life is good. Life is great.

But life is inevitably hard. And I don't think that God designed us to do that alone. and I do my best to recognize in those moments when I feel like God brings people into my life. I don't feel like God brought me, like the way I view it, I don't feel like God brought me into your life. I feel like God brought you into my life. And I just decided I wanted to like build a, yes, build BPN. Absolutely. I wanted to build BPN.

I still want to build BPM. but I never wanted to build it at the expense of the friendship that me and you have built and me you and Jordan have built two of my best friends in life. You've seen we've lived our best days, boring days, and the worst days together. And I feel like, and what I know to be true is that relationships that are worth fighting for, you have to go through that stuff. like if you really want to build a strong like have strong friendships and strong community you have to be able to go through all those things together yeah i agree you have to be able to like have the hard

conversations we've had hard conversations over the years and we've stuck it out and i feel like you've stuck it out with me i've stuck it out with you and i'm grateful for our friendship and for no other reason than like i just enjoy being friends and i love watching our our kids grow up together. And I love that our wives are friends. And I love that we now get to share our faith in Jesus together. And I know there's going to be more highs and more lows. And obviously, he's so grateful for BPM.

It'll never top how much I care that me and Phoebe care about you and your family, though. I can relate to that. Yeah. The relationships come first. The people always come first. And it's really hard. It's really hard, especially when it gets messy. Yeah.

And I've been in seasons where I have deprioritized the relationships over certain business decisions. Yeah. And they've never been the right decisions or choices. But having the people around you that can like, I know you've stuck it out with me when I'm not been in a good spot. No, is it like pretty? No, but like I never have felt like in the friendships that I've built it or like deep relationships, When I'm in one of those unhealthy spots, they're still there. It's not pretty, but I feel like I've watched you stick it out with me over the years as well.

I appreciate that. Yeah, I mean, like when you were in Nashville, even though we were apart and not building like in tandem here, I feel like you stuck it out with me through that time when I was here. And then, you know, when Phoebe miscarried that first time, I felt like you guys stuck it out with us. and you, like, it's messy. But I think there's a, I fully believe that God designed us to live a relationship with people.

Yeah, I agree. Yeah. I'll never forget, you know, we found out we were pregnant. We were out of golden rule. Yeah. And I think there was a big, like, team dinner we were doing

when we walked off with you guys, and we were like, hey, we got to tell you something. We're pregnant. And you guys said, us too. Dude, Phoebe had been like tripping all night because she was like, I got to tell Steph. I got to tell Steph. I was like, yeah, totally. What's so funny is, didn't you know that Phoebe was pregnant with Otto before I knew?

Yes. Yeah, Steph told me. Yeah, because I texted you, I was like, guess what we're pregnant? You were like, yeah, I knew yesterday. Yeah, that was a fun time because then the girls were born. Days apart. Two days apart? Yeah, we were in the hospital together.

Yeah. I remember you brought your Yeti in. With all my meals prepped. Yeah. And I had prepped meals, but because Phoebe was an emergency C-section, they all went bad in a cooler in my car. Dude, I ate hospital sushi when we were in the hospital with Charlie. Did you fight for your life? I survived somehow.

But looking back, I'm like, that was the stupidest thing I've ever done. Hospital sushi. Yeah. That's when I'm, like, grateful for the discipline we've built. I'm like, I can't eat hospital food. No, no. I had a core of meat and potatoes in my Yeti for days. In your bag?

So, you know, these last five and a half years, what would you say is like one of the biggest key lessons, takeaways from watching BPN go from literally being a startup when we had four people to what it is today with 45 full-time employees and it's a bigger business and there's more systems, more leadership, more operations. What's something you really take away from those years? Yeah, I was thinking about the last night

when I was looking at the notes you sent. And one of the things I wrote down, which I think we've talked about, which is more isn't always the answer. And we learned that the hard way. Yeah. I think that more businesses and brands would be successful if they realized that more is not the answer. In success meaning, I think that they would be more brands that could stand the test of time.

If they realize that more is not the answer, always the answer. I think there's moments where like adding is what you need. But I think what we walked through was when we started to go rapidly, you know, all the opportunities appear. Let's sponsor this. Let's go to this race. Let's add this product. Let's do the apparel line.

Let's do these things. And now that we've been hyper-fixated on focusing down and getting very specific about who BPN is and who we're serving and what we're offering, I've just realized that more isn't the answer. I think more also is the can be the enemy of excellence. I feel like we've watched. that over the years where we tried to launch, you know, different products or we tried to be a wellness and an endurance and a performance category brand. And trying to be great in all those categories is really hard. And because you're talking to so many different people, right? And I think one of the biggest lessons professionally I've learned is more is not always the answer than

it can be the enemy of excellence. Would you agree? Yeah. I was actually just thinking about that on my run this morning. Sometimes it's, it's one of those things you can't really measure, but you have a gut feel and intuition. And this is where I really lean on you and Jordan both to tell me, hey, I think we're doing too much or we're not doing enough. You know what's funny about that, though, is I feel like the, because someone the other day asked, like, how do you build intuition, like in a team? I think you build intuition by providing clarity. I feel like me and Jordan have over the years gotten more of a gut feeling that you always tell us about because you've laser focus of brand. Like the tighter that you've like reigned in the vision, the easier it is for me at least to have

this like intuition feeling because you've provided clarity on like this is the direction versus when it's really wide. Yeah, I think clarity allows you to make really easy, consistent decisions. easy meaning it's either an absolute yes or it's an absolute no and when that vision isn't clear and there's a lack of clarity you don't know what you say yes to or what you say no to there's no core values there's no purpose there's no goals yeah and um there's still moments where i sit back and i'm thinking we're doing a little too much right now yeah and then that that calibrates your intuition and gut for the next season and next chapter. But I would completely agree with that where the bigger you get, I think you feel this need

to do more to be in front of more people and eyes and launch new products and sees more opportunities. But I would argue it's actually the opposite. Why do you think people do it? Because you're trying to maintain momentum. It said we grew 20% last year. This year we have to grow at least 20% to make. maintain that same momentum. So you feel a pressure to do all these new things to keep up with the

level of growth that you've been sustaining for the years prior. And then you realize that it doesn't mean you have to do more. You can do more with less. You can maintain momentum without taking on more opportunities. Yeah, more doesn't equal momentum. No, no, no, not at all. Yeah, we've learned that. Yeah. Because there's been a lot of times where we're doing more and we have less momentum. And that feels horrible. I still, what's crazy is I still feel the pool, though. I don't know if you do.

Like to do more. Like me and Jordan talk about a lot, like, specifically on social. We're like, because we'll go to these like stretches like the altar where we're like pumped out a lot of stuff. And then there's just nothing coming that feels like that. and we're like, should we be doing more? And the reality is, like, no, we shouldn't. Definitely. I experience that same thing.

Sometimes when there is what feels like it's a lull in time, you feel the need to fill the calendar. But as soon as you fill the calendar, oftentimes you overfill it. Yeah. You over commit. And then the things that you take action on, they just don't hit, they don't land.

Yeah. Instant gratification. Yeah, like one of the reasons the ultra hit so hard is because there was an extended period of time where we didn't do something of that level and capacity. Yeah. So it was the right opportunity. It was the right time.

It was the right race. It was the perfect symphony of all these things. Yeah. Well, brother, I appreciate you. Yeah. Absolutely. I think what you've been building is crazy. We.

We've been building this crazy. I'm honored to be a part. When you texted me, I was walking into the sauna. My stomach fell to the floor. I was like, because I thought, at first I thought you wanted me to come hit the record button. And then you were like, no, come have a conversation. But yeah, absolutely honor our lifetime to be on the podcast, but also just to do life with you. Yeah, BPN will never replace friendship for me.

And I'm grateful. And I'm excited to see what we build, right? I mean, that's what I get so excited about coming to work every day is that I'm just hanging out with my bros. Yeah. And we get to work on fun projects and have great, like real meaningful conversations. And we're doing it because we love it with people we love and care about. Sorry, I know you're about to end it. What would you tell people who don't have that?

because I actually really do struggle with giving an answer for that. Because I know what we have here is really special. I think anyone that walks through the doors, they're like, I've never been anywhere like this. And there's a part of me that doesn't know what to tell them. I mean, I think it was back to the earlier part of our conversation is people try to guide their own life, muscle their own life. And I think you have to take action to create the opportunities

that you want to experience and where you want to be. But at the same time, that's where having a faith and following Jesus is so foundational. The ultimate fulfillment. Where,

let God guide you there. Yeah. Be obedient to what he's asking to do. It would probably be crazy if someone heard like, I'm sure you feel this way now is how I feel is what we do and what we have

is so crazy. But it's not the ultimate fulfillment of my life. My fulfillment is found in Jesus. And this is a huge blessing alongside of it. I think that's like, now I'm starting to answer my own question, which is, if your fulfillment and your confidence, your security is found in Jesus, then when these opportunities present themselves, they're just like a huge blessing to be a part of. And it'll make you really have the ability to decide and choose who you spend your time with

and around. And I believe if you are really strong in your faith, in your beliefs, and your values, and then you find people who have those same beliefs, values, and faith, you are creating opportunities for yourself to position yourself somewhere that you will be truly fulfilled, as opposed to, hey, I just found this job that makes four times what we're making right now in this city that we don't want to go to, but we should go because we're gonna make a lot of money. Yeah. You get there.

And you're like, the money's great, but everything else isn't. Yeah. It's tough. It's tough. And sometimes that right thing is coming, but it's not on your timeline.

Yeah. Following God's not like a linear path. I think a lot of people view it. Like, I'm here, where I need to be is here, and it's going to be like a straight line. And it's just not. No.

The following God is not a linear path, and that's okay. It'll be on his timeline that is right for you to achieve what he has set out and lay the path for you to experience, achieve, and fulfill. And it's never on your timeline. No, that's okay. Totally. But that's what surrendering is all about. Yeah, because I've, over the years, did my short time following Jesus.

when I push the timeline or I try to get it, get my way, or achieve something, the, like, God's not in it. Like I'm kicking the door down. I'm like what we talked about forcing the opportunity versus when God's leading, God's grace carries you. He opens the doors. He makes a way. He gives you the peace, all of those things. But I've had those seasons where like I want this. this. And ultimately, like, if I focus on it night and day, I believe that God will give you over

to the desires of your heart, which is one of the biggest fears of my life. You know, God talks about in the Bible that God gave them over to the desires of their heart. I don't want that. I want whatever God wants for me, I want that. Yeah. I don't want to, because I know that my desires for my heart ultimately are fleshly. And I don't want to be given over to those desires. I want to, I want my heart to desire what God has for my family. And, and, you know, and, you know, for me, and not just, I think, one of the biggest things I've learned over the years, following God is not about what I'm doing.

It's about who I'm becoming. And realizing that God cares so much more about who I am versus what I'm doing, and that is such a hard thing for high achievers to come to grips with. Like, I've found so much security over the last year, realizing that God cares so. so much just about who I am and that I'm becoming who I'm becoming. The person I'm becoming,

am I growing closer to Jesus? Am I being transformed into his image? Am I loving my kids? Am I loving my wife? Like, God wants me to steward this really well, and I want to. But I realize that God's number one thing that he cares about for me is my loving God and my loving people. and that all revolves around who I am. The purest form of who I am is what matters the most, not my career and not our careers. They're really important. But who we are is vastly more important than what we do.

Yeah. So one of my favorite things that Pastor Lyle Phillips said on the podcast when I had them on talking about the difference between having a fear of God and being afraid of God. People are afraid of God because they're afraid of God. of what he's going to ask them to do. And they don't surrender. Because if God asked them to go,

move somewhere else, pursue this new life, and change the course of direction, I kind of like the path in one right now, so I'm going to avoid that. So I'm afraid of what, I'm afraid to go all in because of what God might ask me to do.

It's a lie. It's a lie. It's a lie. The path of following Jesus is the greatest path you can walk on. Literally. The ultimate fulfillment, the ultimate reward. Scary, yes, hard, sure. The piece that you get, can't explain it.

Trey Freeman, until next time, love you, brother. Love you, man.