The Nick Bare Podcast - 142: What You Asked Me on Instagram

Episode Date: October 6, 2025

In this episode, I answer various questions from a Q&A posted on Instagram, sharing insights on my training regimen, nutrition strategies, and reflections on personal growth through faith. But first, you'll get a good story for laughs.CHAPTERS:00:00 Introduction and Episode Overview00:36 Ironman Prep and Family Challenges01:18 Running and Training Insights06:19 Fuel Strategy for Long Runs09:36 New Product Launch and Brand Evolution11:09 Story Time20:00 Q&A: The Importance of Mentors29:28 Q&A: Consistency and Motivation37:12 Core Values and Decision Making38:41 Faith Journey and Bible Reading41:01 Transformation Through Christ45:48 Faith's Impact on Leadership49:51 Lessons in Obedience and Change54:21 Contentment and Ambition01:01:52 Post-Ironman Training Plans01:06:56 Managing Sickness During TrainingORDER 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

Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Today's episode is a combination of a lot of different things. I'm answering some questions from a Q&A that I posted on Instagram earlier this week. I want to share some stories, share some things, but to be very transparent and honest, this week was wild. we are approaching the peak of Iron Man Prep for about five weeks out right now and the Bear family got hit with the stomach bug and our whole family went down which I'll get into at some point in this episode we went down hard all of us

every single one it was it was interesting sending your kids to school They tell you the kids are going to get sick, they're going to bring home sicknesses, we're learning that the hard way. We're in it this past week. So we're playing a little catch-up just from being out.

But this morning, I knocked out a 21-mile run. Now, I have one more super big run of this prep, which is really wild to even say and share. big run left. I have a long run every weekend, 14, 15, 16 miles. But my next big run is October 29th.

That's a 22-mileer. The Iron Man, which is Iron Man, Arizona is November 16th, 2012-25. So as of today, we are 44 days out from the race. I'll end up doing a 10-day taper.

So we have, say, 30, you know, 33 days left of a really big work in this prep before I start to taper. But today, 21 miles, total time running two hours, 34 minutes, 23 seconds, to 721 minute per mile pace. for these long runs, a lot of these long runs, if they are not structured, I just go based off of feel and effort. There isn't necessarily a pace in mine, and I'm not adding in any sort of structure or specification to segments or intervals. Today was just 21 miles, go run based off feel, and that feel was a 721 minute per mile pace. and I felt really strong, was really happy with that run. One thing I have noticed, you know, obviously I'm lighter right now on this prep, if you can't tell.

I'm in the 180s, which is wild. I haven't seen the 180s on the scale since the day after I got out of Ranger school in 2014. I remember getting out of Ranger School post-graduation stepping on the scale and I think I was like 180 pounds and that's after a week of them trying to fatten you up. You know, when you finish Ranger School and you know you're going to graduate,

there's about a week between finishing the school and graduation and you're still in the school, you can't leave. And they truly try to fatten you up. I mean, the last phase is, it's in Florida. And I remember the amount of food they would feed us was insane. I mean, we'd have MREs daily. We had meals at the dining facility daily.

The Ranger Instructor's wives would bring in baked goods in pizza and soda and all these things. So, I mean, at the lowest in Ranger's school, I was probably, You know, low 170s. But after them fattening us up and just force-feeding us 10,000 plus calories a day for a week, I weighed in at 180 pounds post-graduation. So seeing the 180s on the scale now, I haven't seen it a long time. And the last time I saw it was after extreme sleep and food deprivation. You know, I usually sit comfortably between.

between 200 and 210 pounds. And I will get back there post Ironman eventually, slowly. But based off of just the training, the reduced strength training that I'm doing right now, my cloric expenditure, weight has just naturally been falling off pretty consistently throughout this prep. And I'm still eating a lot and I'm fueling appropriately. But I will say that being at a lighter weight for this prep does make the movement and the exercise feel much more efficient. Like running 21 miles at 200 to 210 pounds is and will be more taxing on the body as opposed to sitting in the mid-180s, for example. So I do find that movement and exercise for Iron Man training is more efficient.

at this weight. And I have also found that my body just recovers better at a lighter weight for this style of training. But I don't like being this thin. And I'm not staying this thin forever. So post-iron man, we're going to add some weight back on and start balking up a little bit. My fuel strategy for today's 21-mile run. So I had about an hour to an hour and a half before the run started. I had a go bar and I put some honey on the go bar. I had one scoop of G1M Sport, one scoop of G1M Sport Plus. And then what I've been doing for my long runs, and I'll do this for Iron Man, Arizona,

is carrying a handheld water bottle, just a Nathan's handheld water bottle that I get on Amazon. And I put one scoop of our electrolytes in each bottle. So I have two bottles. I have a bottle that I carry for mile, in this case, one to 10, and a bottle that I carry from mile 11 to 21. One scoop of electrolytes, which is 500 milligrams of sodium per bottle. And then what's nice about these handheld water bottles is that there's a little zipper case.

I'll put my gels in the zipper case of the handheld water bottle. So over the course of the run, I had my electrolytes on me in fluid the entire time. and then I had four go gels. I had a go gel at mile 4, 8, 12, and 16. I had a caffeinated go gel at mile 12. That makes such a big difference. For my long runs and even maybe all of Iron Man Prep, my favorite product that we offer that I've been using

might be the caffeinated go gels. It's 75 milligrams of caffeine per gel And it just hits so well And 75 milligrams of caffeine Doesn't sound like a lot And it's not But when you're 12 miles into a run I'll take the caffeinated go gel

And I've dialed in timing pretty well Where a mile later Which is about seven minutes and 30 seconds later I feel the caffeine hit perfectly. And my pace starts dropping. And it just brings me back to life. I mean, I was thinking about this when I was on the run. You know in those video games where you're moving throughout the video game course or game. And I'm not a big video game person. I never have been. But just, I think this is how it works to go with me. You have your character. And your character hits some

sort of like token or milestone and they go on like turbo where they start sprinting and just like everything is is heightened. The colors are different. There's explosions. There's louder music, whatever it is. That's what hitting a caffeinated go gel on a big long run feels like. It just activates and brings you to life. It is like rocket fuel. And then post, post run, I had a GUNM Sport RTD and a meal. So I had two pieces of sourdough. I had four eggs. I had a bunch of blueberries.

But one thing that we have recently launched with BPN is our RTDs, ready to drink beverages. So bottled G1M Sport and GOMSport Plus. We're selling these exclusively on ANM. Amazon. So if you go to Amazon under the Bear Performance Nutrition Catalog and Page, you can now buy a case of G1M Sport Plus and GOMSport. And here's the hack. This is the way I use it.

I'll use G1M Sport Plus RTDs before runs or workouts, but you come back from a long run. and you have a nice cold G1M Sport RTD sit in the fridge. You crack that thing open. It's like the perfect level of sweetness. You get 20 grams of carbs to replenish glycogen. You get 350 milligrams of sodium to start rehydrating. When you get back from your long run,

just crack open a nice cold, not beer, a nice cold G1M spore. RTD. You can get them at Amazon, Amazon only. But we recently launched those, and that's a big evolution for our brand, especially the future

of our brand, BPN, where we're heading, and what we believe is a big opportunity for us. Now before we get in the Q&A, story time. I got a story that I want to share with you guys. And this was sparked yesterday because we had to call a plumber

onto the house. Our garbage disposal stopped working. I try to fix it myself. If you don't know if your garbage disposal ever stops working, there is a reset button on the bottom. You literally just press that button in and it resets. And that usually solves most of the garbage disposal problems I've ever had. But I click the reset button.

Nothing happened. So we had to call a plumber to come out. A plumber came out and the plumber had to put a new garbage disposal in. And here's why. So when we first moved into the house, which is almost a year ago now, our new house, we put a whole house water filtration system in, which I highly recommend. It filters all of the water that goes through everything. Your shower, your sinks, all of your faucets, it filters everything.

It's great. We love it really just for peace of mind. But we put this whole house water filtration system in. And because we did this, there was like this sale going on at the time where you got like a free reverse osmosis system put under your sink with a faucet that comes out under your counter. So that's the water that we drink from, this reverse osmosis water. At the time of installation, the faucet that we had didn't fit the system that was installed. So the plumber that installed it, who was certified and credentialed and had all of these reviews, a plumber that we use all the time, we've been using for years now,

he said, just call me when the new faucet comes in and I will get you on the schedule and install it. So I said, okay, cool. Well, the new Fawcett came in, I went to schedule a time. I was impatient. It was going to take a few days. So I went on Thumbtack. Thumbtack is like one of those apps or sites you can use where you can find handymen or people to come, you know, contractors, repair men, electricians, movers. really anything. I've used Thumbtack

so many times in my life. 95% of the time I'm let down by the quality of the service. I'll be honest. But I still keep using it. And Steph just like gives me so much crap because I keep going back to Thumbtack because it's easy and it's quick and it's convenient.

And sometimes I'm impatient. I just want things done now. So I went on Thumbtack. I found this plumber. He came out. It should have been a five-minute installation. Literally five minutes to install this faucet. Six hours later, this was months ago,

this guy still at my house. And he had to go back and forth between Lowe's and Home Depot and all of these places. And he still couldn't get it figured out. He couldn't fix it. He was looking for this one special part.

While in the process of him, trying to install this faucet. He's like, hey, you know these garbage disposals you have in your sinks. They're super, like, cheap and low quality. And when I'm at Lowe's, I'm about to go back to Lowe's, I can pick you up one of the best ones they have

and I can install it for you. And I just trusted this guy. It's like, you know what? We just move into this new house. I want things like to be working. I want the top of the top of everything. Yeah, let's do it. Let's upgrade our garbage disposal.

of all things. Whoever thinks about upgrading your garbage disposal. I was. Because this guy said, you have a bad garbage disposal, you should put a new one in, a better one. So let's do it.

Let's go for it. So he comes back, he puts his new garbage disposal in. He's like, hey, I can just get rid of your old one, the one I just took out. I can dispose of it for you. I said, even better,

less than I have to do. So he, leaves the day and the faucet still isn't installed but now I just pay like $800 for this new garbage disposal and still I haven't solved my problem that night the entire sink and dishwasher started leaking it was a mess I'm calling this guy straight to voicemail call on the sky straight the voice mail, ghosted. Never heard from him again. So I had to end up calling

an emergency plumber to come out to fix this leak that we had from our dishwasher and below our sink. He gets into the sink. First off, he fixed it in about 10 minutes. But he goes, dude, who worked on your stuff? I tell him the story.

He's like, all these wires, They're not connected wires and tubing and plumbing. It's not connected properly. Like he's got your dishwasher hooked up to your faucet and your faucet hooked up to your garbage disposal. It's like, it's a mess down here. So he fixes it. I never think anything of it.

We're good to go. Falsit's fixed. Dish washer isn't leaking. Sink isn't leaking. Well, yesterday, months later into the future, feature, garbage disposal stopped working. So we call our credible plumber. He comes back out and he's inspecting the garbage disposal.

And he goes, you guys have like one of the worst quality garbage disposal that ever seen my life. Like this is a garbage disposal. You get it dollar general. That's what he said. A dollar general type garbage disposal. I told him the story about how this guy took out my good garbage disposal now, and he told me he was giving me an upgrade, put a cheap one in,

or would I come to realize I got hustled. This guy on Thumbtack, he must have took in my good garbage disposal, took it home, sold it, put in a dollar general type garbage disposal, messed up all of my plumbing, I got hustled. I got hustled. I come to realize all of this yesterday. And it cost me another $700

to put a new garbage disposal in. I share this. There's a moral to the story. And it's for you guys to get some entertainment out of my lack of due diligence and ignorance. You get what you pay for. I paid for a cheap plumber.

I got bad cheap service. Number two, trust but always verify. Trust but always verify. And number three, don't rush to failure. I called the thumbtack plumber because I didn't want to wait on the original plumber because he had a few days until he could return. And I was impatient. I rushed to failure.

That is the Bear family garbage disposal story of how we got hustled and robbed. And I spent way too much money on the same garbage disposal. Now with all of that out of the way, just some things I wanted to share with you guys. I felt obligated to because as Steph was telling me that

plumber story yesterday. I was really disappointed in myself. As a man, in all honesty, I should be able to replace a garbage spousal myself at this point, especially with YouTube. All right, question number one. Now, there were a lot of questions

that were similar. So some, you know, in some of these questions that I'm going to bring up, there are sub-rengths. questions throughout these topics that I will, uh, that I'll be addressing that were kind of consistent throughout some of the entries on my Instagram. First one here.

After all the success you have experienced, do mentors still play a large part in your life? I thought this was a great question. And I'll talk about why. but I always feel the need to preface the word success. Success is a personal definition. You know what I deem as success may be different than what you deem as success, whether that's personal or professional. What does success look like for you?

I think you have to ask yourself that question. success is not what you necessarily see from the outside looking in. But like I said, it's how you personally define it. The reason I say this is such a good question is because I would argue that mentors for me now at this point in my life are even more valuable and important than they were when I first got started. When I first got started in pursuing my goals and the vision that I had for my life, my professional ambitions and desires, much of that being building BPN.

Even before that, going to college, studying nutrition, starting BPN, joining the military, serving in the army, transitioning out of the military, building BPN and these platforms. that had been built alongside. When I was doing that in the beginning, a lot of the guidance and answers that I needed, I could find within free resources. And this is really what I did. I watched YouTube videos, I read articles,

I read books, and they have been extremely valuable resources to me. There's so much free information out there for when you're first getting started, that is probably the information that you need. Could you benefit from a mentor or an advisor? Absolutely. Absolutely.

I'm not saying you can't or you shouldn't, but a lot of the information you need right now, at least to get started, it's already out there. It's at the tip of your fingers, literally. It is in something that you touch multiple times, probably, I hate to say it, a minute, your phone. There's a lot of resources out there. I used YouTube to learn how to film and edit YouTube videos.

I learned and used YouTube to learn how to code certain parts of a website. I used YouTube and online resources to learn how to build a website on Shopify, and manage fulfillment and distribution and marketing and storytelling and all of these things. And I've had mentors or advisors along the way, but I can confidently say at the phase I'm at in my life right now being a business owner, a leader in a business at the size that we are right now. as a father, as a husband, as a man of God. Mentorship is so important to me. It's really important. I have two really important,

I'd say mentors or advisors in my life that I speak to frequently, multiple times a week, that have been so instrumental. I don't want to say necessarily professional success, but navigating life. You know, I have one mentor and advisor who works alongside and with me

that is mainly focused on the business side, helping me navigate being a leader here at BPN, building the business, building the brand, someone who has extensive experience and knowledge in the industry that we operate in, has been a CEO of multiple organizations over the course of his career, has had successful exits with multiple companies, selling those companies. That individual, that person, is a very valuable asset to me, a great mentor and a great advisor. I also have another individual in my life who is a mentor to me that is more personal focused.

This person is helping me with my walk with faith and my relationship with the Lord. learning and implementing and practicing and talking through how my faith and my relationship with Christ is integrated into my work and my family, my identity, in all things that I do. Mentors provide wisdom, experience, and I believe they should have an unbiased perspective on the problems you're trying to solve and navigate in your life. And to be honest, with these two individuals specifically, I didn't go out searching for a mentor or an advisor. These two individuals came into my life,

both in very unique ways and situations. And it just felt right. And they wanted to help. For both these individuals, actually, it wasn't me reaching out to them asking if they can help me. They identified where I was at in my personal and professional journey in life and saw that they realized they could help me. So they asked if they could help me. Those are sometimes the best mentors or advisors. people who truly want to help because they see a need.

It comes out of a, not out of a transactional relationship, but more so a selfless servant behavior, a selfless leadership trait and characteristic. So yeah, after all the success, if you will, that I have experienced, do mentors still play a big part in my life? Yes. Like I said, more now than ever before.

And I think that goes for most people. The older you get, the more you experience, the more success you try to achieve and accumulate, you start to realize that the success that you're, you're chasing and striving for might be the wrong thing. And you might need an experienced, wise mentor to help reinforce and navigate that. Next question. Again, I think this is a really good one.

Why do people find it so difficult to stay consistent and motivated? The reason I think this is such a good question is, it's very unique to the individual. This is something that I personally, in most parts of my life, haven't struggled with. Consistency and motivation. Because I have found that sometimes even when I'm not motivated at all, I can still be consistent.

I can still see the reason why I am doing it why I have to do it. So I don't allow the motivation to determine my consistency. And my consistency isn't reliant upon being motivated. So these might be two separate questions. Why do people find it so difficult to stay consistent? And then why do people find it so difficult to stay motivated? But let's talk more about consistency because I think this this question and topic is in terms of motivation. I think it's overdone.

I can sit here and tell you, it's not the motivation you need. It's a discipline and that's true. And that's as far as it really has to go. Like you're not always going to be motivated. Sometimes you just got to be disciplined and just get it done and just do it because you know that doing it

is going to help you be consistent and then you're going to then in turn achieve what you want to achieve. So that's all that has to be said about motivation. You don't need motivation. Even though it's nice, you've got to be disciplined. But why do people find it so difficult to stay consistent? That's a good question. And here's where I'm going to go with this.

There's so many different directions you can go. And I think a lot of people will struggle with consistency for many different reasons. but my question to the question is what are you rooted in? What are you rooted in? In order to be consistent, you have to be rooted in something. Think of a tree. A tree, a really strong tree that's durable, that has life. It has these deep, strong roots.

Those roots keep that tree standing up. bright and strong. When the storm comes in, it's not falling over because those roots are so deep and strong. A tree that has new, shallow roots, wind comes in, blows it right over. Storm comes through, rips it right up. You want strong, deep roots. What are you rooted in? Many people aren't rooted in anything.

That's a truth. What do you believe in? What are your value? what your core values. What do you believe in or who do you believe in? And what do you believe about yourself? I think this is a great question to the question. What do you believe about yourself?

One of the best things that Chad Wright ever told me that I love. He said, you know, Nick, your tongue is your rudder. Your tongue is your rudder. The things that you say out loud or the things that you say internally about yourself, about your circumstances, about your situation, those things that you say, whether out loud or in your head, those are the rudder to your life.

Your tongue is your rudder. What you say about yourself, what you say about your situation, what you say about your circumstances, that will guide, just like a boat, where you go in life. It can either lead you to a really dark, negative place, or it can lead you to a really positive,

light place. It either leads you to a place where you view the cup as half full or it leads you to a place where you view the cup as half empty. What do you believe about yourself? What or who do you believe in? What are you rooted in? If you're not rooted in anything, if you don't have positive thoughts and words to say about yourself, and if you don't have something that you believe in,

it's really hard to be rooted. And if you're not rooted, you are vulnerable to being ripped up and blown down. And that's when it makes it really hard to be consistent. Another question to question,

who and what do you want to be known for? I was listening this podcast the other day and they were talking about two different perspectives on how you want to build your life. Do you want to build your life where at the end of it? you've built it for a resume or do you want to build your life in such a way that it is built for

your eulogy what people are saying about you that they have a person you are your character when you pass or are they going on on your LinkedIn and be like dude this guy's impressive or this girl's impressive look at all the things he or she has done look at their accomplishments look where they went to school, look where they worked, look at their position, look at their salary, look at their house, look at their money, look at their things, look at their cars. Who and what do you want to be known for? That goes back to what are you rooted in, which then goes back to why or why not are you consistent? Is your purpose in being rooted?

Is your purpose rooted in pleasing others? that's a dangerous spot to be. It's really hard to be consistent then. And don't allow your emotions or reactions, just like Chad said, to be the rudder of your life. Not only your tongue, but your emotions and your reactions.

This next question is going to really solidify what I'm about to say, but for me, consistency is all about defining your vision. And I've brought up this book so many times on this podcast. It's probably annoying to many of you at this point. BE 2.0, Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0, Chapter 4, Division Chapter.

Three components of vision. Core values, purpose, and goals. If you know your core values, what or who you believe in, you know your purpose, why you're doing what you're doing, and you have goals, you then can be extremely consistent because what you say yes to

and what you say no to is so clearly defined. You're presented with an opportunity. Does that opportunity go against your core values? Okay, it's obvious no. Does that opportunity align with your purpose? No, okay, it's a no. Does that opportunity align with your goals?

Maybe, maybe not. That one has more flexibility. But if there's not alignment between your core values, the purpose and the opportunity, it's an easy no. It allows you to be extremely consistent. Now, your core values and your purpose in my case can and is rooted in my relationship with God in following Jesus Christ, which is what we're going to talk about in the next question.

What has been the biggest difference in your life since committing your life to following Christ? This question and some of the questions I'm going to answer as sub-questions within was probably 90% of the questions asked in the Instagram question box. Many people have been interested in my faith journey as I've been sharing it publicly, which gets me super excited because I love talking about it. One question I get online all day, every day. and I've shared this, but people must have missed it. What Bible am I reading?

The Bible that I read is the John Maxwell Leadership Bible. I get this question so many times. I love this Bible. This Bible was gifted to me, gifted to me originally by Steve Weatherford a few years ago. And then about a year ago, Trey Freeman also gifted me a John Maxwell Leadership Bible. And it's my favorite because it has the traditional scripture in it.

But there's also these little blurbs throughout the books in the scripture that break down how certain parts of the word are applicable to leadership lessons and how we can apply it to our life, whether in leading a business, a business, a community, our family, our relationships. I mean, it's got some really good stuff in there and I really enjoy it. So that's the Bible that I'm reading. What's the biggest difference in your life since committing your life to following Christ? Man, there's a lot. There's a lot of differences. I am not the same person as I was before I was saved. That's such an amazing thing to say. You're not the same person. You are reborn.

You are new. You are a new person when you are saved, when you commit your life to Christ. It's so powerful. You know, I want to bring Steph on the podcast here soon. Steph is my wife to talk about this. So we can just share how it has transformed our home. It has transformed our relationship. It is transformed our family.

The way we speak, how we speak, how we act, how we approach life. It's almost like we're living a new life together. And I want to bring Steph in to just share her perspective on everything. This Sunday, actually, in two days, Steph and I are both getting baptized at Celebration Church in Georgetown, Texas. Extremely excited about that.

We were getting baptized. I was baptized when I was a baby. You know, in the church that I grew up in, my family grew up in, babies when they were born or young children would get baptized. And I obviously don't remember. any of that. I might have been like one year old when I got baptized. But this baptism,

this weekend, means a lot to both Steph and I because it's a choice that we are making ourselves based off of our transformation and committing our life to Christ and being saved. And there's scripture that I want to share here that is applicable to this question. What's biggest difference in your life since committing your life to following Christ. Matthew 11, 28 to 30. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart. And you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke.

yoke is easy and my burden is light. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. That is the biggest difference that I feel since committing my life to Christ. It is peace. It is ease. It is rest. Rest for the soul. Not constantly striving.

and desiring more and more worldly things. It has repositioned my purpose, why I'm working so hard, what I'm working towards, the impact that I want to create and leave. It's a glorified God, but it's not for these worldly things that I used to want and desire.

And I used to pursue a lot of things because I wanted to be, I wanted to be praised for my achievements. I wanted to be viewed on this pedestal because I measured my worth in those things and I don't feel that anymore. My identity is embedded in the Lord. My purpose is to glorify,

and serve the Lord. One of the questions is, how has your faith shaped you as a business leader? And I think personally, this is where I'm experiencing the most growth as a leader in the business. It is shaping the way that I view relationship building one-on-one.

It has provided me more competitive. passion and humility and care. You know, since committing my life to following Christ, I want to make this very clear. It hasn't made me want to work any less. It hasn't made me any less driven. But it has shifted my perspective on what is important, what I value,

and how and why I want to achieve. certain things, the pursuit, what that looks like and how I want to lead others in their pursuits as well. I mean, how has faith shaped me as a business leader? I asked myself the question. You remember those bracelets that everyone used to wear? I mean, in the 90s, everyone was wearing a WWJD bracelet. What would Jesus do? You just ask yourself that question. When confronted with a problem that you're trying to navigate or solve, what would Jesus do? Jesus was the ultimate teacher and leader. By following Jesus Christ, we can be a great teacher and leader, just like he was based

off the scripture in his teachings and the gospels. And that's why I'm in my Bible every night reading and learning. one of the realizations I had recently I think I was reading the book of John and one of the things I used to say is I wanted to be a light

in this dark world this world is a dark place there's so much evil I want to be that light and as I'm reading the book of John I believe it was he actually addresses this and he says, you know, he's not being called to be the light for the darkness.

He's being called to be a witness of the light for the darkness. And that clicked for me. Oh, I get it now. I, as a follower of Jesus, am to be a witness of his light to share with the darkness. as a disciple, as an apprentice of him. That's how it's shaping me as a business leader. And I'm, to be honest, very proud of what I'm learning and implementing as a leader that isn't coming from these traditional leadership books or podcasts of how to manage and direct

and oversee people in all these systems, no. Everything that I'm learning and implementing is coming straight from my John Maxwell Leadership Bible. And I've learned more in that Bible by following the ultimate leader and teacher than in any of the other traditional corporate leadership executive books that I read before.

I thought this was a good question. question, which is still within the section that I'm in, what is God teaching you in this current season? What do I think he's trying to teach me in this current season? I believe he's trying to teach me to how to be obedient, how to be patient, and how to find and embrace stillness. stillness is something that I have struggled with forever. As a business owner, as an entrepreneur, as a high achiever, you feel like as a type A individual, you feel like you have to constantly be doing something.

This is why I used to really struggle with vacations. That stillness disturbed me. But embracing and accepting stillness, I believe God's trying to teach me that right now. It feels so good when you surrender everything, give him everything, and truly do embrace that stillness, which brings about joy and peace. I also believe that God is trying to teach me that change is required. You are a new person. You have been transformed.

I am transforming you in the image of my son, Jesus Christ, to be a follower of him. To do that when you become something new, change is required. Matthew 9, 16 to 17. My mentor walked me through this last week, and I wanted to share her because I found it very powerful. Matthew 9, 16 to 17. No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. For the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do people pour new wine into old wine skins. If they do, the skins will burst.

The wine will run out and the wine skins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wine skins and both are preserved. So back in the day, when they would make wine, they'd pour in these wine skins, which would be made from animal skins. And as the wine fermented, these wine skins would expand. And then they would serve the wine when it was ready. these wine skins which were expanded through fermentation, they were done.

You couldn't use them again. If you tried and poured new wine in those old wine skins, the fermentation process would happen again. They would expand. They would burst because they'd be cracked. They already be used. They've already been expanded. So you have to put new wine into new wine skins when you are a new person,

when you are reborn, when you commit your life to following Christ, you can't go back to your old ways. You can't put the new wine in the old wine skin because it will ruin the new wine. I think God is trying to teach me in this current season, you are new wine. You can't go back to your old routines and habits and what you used to do because you will ruin that new wine.

So now it's finding the new. the new routine, the new habits, the new structure to facilitate this new life, which is so exciting. I believe that is what God is trying to teach me. One of the things he's trying to teach me in this current season. Next question. Are you ever satisfied? And when is enough, truly enough? again, great question.

Great question. Are you ever satisfied? I didn't used to ever be satisfied. I think if you look at a lot of entrepreneurs, especially high-level entrepreneurs, maybe even athletes, just high-achieving people, it's always what's next.

What's next? What's next? Need more. need more, need more, need more trophies, need more accomplishments, need more monies, need more toys, need more cars, need more followers, need more subscribers. When's enough enough? And someone asked this question actually, which I don't know if I have the answer to, but I thought it was a great question. Why do so many books about greatness and growth lack a chapter about family? That's a great question. I don't know if I have the answer to that,

but maybe a hypothesis to that is that a lot of people believe that in order to get to where you want to be, you have to sacrifice, which I agree. There's certain things you have to sacrifice to make certain things work. But some people put success and accomplishment and achievement at the very tippy top of their priorities where they're willing to sacrifice everything else to get that one thing, including their family, which is unfortunate and scary. So if you would have asked me this question years ago, are you ever satisfied? I would have said no. I would have said no proudly. No. When's enough enough? It's never enough. We got to keep growing. We need more. We need more. We need

more. And I think that that tune is just out of tune just don't resonate with it anymore. One of the reasons that we can never be satisfied in that we always want more is because that's what the enemy is for the devil

wants from us. The enemy wants to distract us so that he can then destroy us. And one of the ways he does this, enemy does this is by tempting us with constant desire for more and more and more. Someone asks the question, can you define contentment as it's related to balancing faith, family, and business? Chat GPT says the state of peaceful,

contentment is the state of peaceful satisfaction with one's current situation characterized by an inner sense of well-being and a lack of anxiety or restless desire for more. Okay, so that's interesting. To be content is that you lack this restless desire for more. First Timothy, six, six to ten, but godliness with contentment. is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of it.

But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money

is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wondered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. I want to be clear here. Wanting more to accomplish more, to do more, that is not, that's not the evil. That's not bad. But it's why.

The why is the line in the sand that determines, you know, are you content? or are you not? Why do you want to accomplish more? Why do you want to do more? What is the purpose? What is the reason? If the reason is more money, more things, more power, more toys, those are worldly possessions that are not ever going to serve contentment.

for my for my faith my family and my business i i for my faith i i want more i want a deeper more meaningful connection in relationship with the lord for my family i want to spend more time with them i want more quality time with them i want a day every week just with my wife for my business, I want more people to grow and develop personally and professionally as leaders here in this workplace. In my opinion, that more is not evil and it's not bad. And that's not a question of, are you satisfied or not? And when is enough enough?

You can be content and still be ambitious. being content does not mean lazy or easy, but it is the reason behind the more. It is the reason behind the why. Okay, next question. What will your training look like after this Ironman prep and race? This gets me very excited to talk about and share. And definitely more to come.

come on this. You know, right now I am training between 19 and 21 hours a week on average. This week will be about a 20 hour training week. And it's a big week. And this volume of training for me feels very manageable for at least the next five weeks. You know, I definitely couldn't train 20 hours a week for a year, nor do I want to, if I'm being honest. That's why I like these preps and these builds and these training blocks because, you know, it's high effort, it's high intensity, it's high volume, but it's for structured purposes and there's specification integrated into. So five more weeks of Iron Man prep, and then my training is going to do.

look completely different. And like I said, I'll share that as I start building it out. But to be honest, I don't know exactly what it's going to look like right now. There's no races or competitions on the schedule for the foreseeable future. I don't plan on doing any races or competitions in 2020. six, training for me is going to be a lot of fun. I'm going to run, I'm going to lift, I'm going to cross train, and for most days I'm probably going to decide what I'm going to do either the night before or the day of. Hey, today do I feel like running? Today do I feel like

strength training? Today do I feel like doing a high rocks circuit or some sort of cross training? Do I feel like going on a rock? Do I feel like getting on my bike? For the first couple of weeks or months, that's probably just the way I'm going to train. It's going to be once a day, maybe twice a day occasionally. Running mileage in volume will go to, say, 30 to 40 miles per week.

Right now I'm anywhere between 60 and 65 miles a week. I've significantly reduced strength training during this Ironman prep, mainly for the reason of just not having enough time to fit in more training on top of the swim, the bike, and the run. And post Iron Man, my time is going to be spent between my family, my relationship with the Lord, and business. and just fun things that I want to do with my wife. And then training in my preference and opinion is going to support that lifestyle.

Training is always going to be a priority in my life, but not the number one priority. And right now in this Iron Man prep, it's not the number one priority, but it's occupying a lot of space and time on my calendar, on my schedule. That's just the nature of an Ironman prep. But in five weeks, it's not going to look like that. And I'll go back to a very traditional, normal, conservative training routine and time allocated per week to my training.

And I'm excited for that. I'm excited to give the business more time again. I'm excited to give my family more time again. I'm excited to really find new opportunities to go deeper with my faith and my relationship with the Lord. And post Iron Man, I'll have, say, 12 plus hours a week given back to me to dedicate to these things. So that's what training is going to look like post Iron Man Prep. That's as far as I've gotten.

But as I navigate it and build it out, I'd love to share it with you guys and take you along for the journey. So the last question I'm going to answer, which I mentioned at the beginning of this podcast episode, I believe it's very applicable. How do you manage getting sick while training? So like I said, we started sending Charlie, who's three years old, to school this year. And we are now experiencing what it's like when you send your kids to school and they get sick.

Because there's all these other sick kids at school and they bring those sicknesses home and then the whole house goes down. everyone in the home gets sick. We've experienced that. I think this is our third time now since Charlie has started school. So end of last week, Nico got sick. I don't know how Nico got sick. Nico's one. Maybe Charlie brought the bug home.

He picked it up first because he's just younger and his immune system is still trying to figure it out. And then earlier this week, I was on the bike. I was feeling great. It was a big workout day. I ran in the morning, then I swam, and I was on the bike. And I was on the bike for maybe an hour and a half into a big ride. And my stomach started turning.

I started feeling a little nauseous and just not right. Within 10 minutes, it got significantly worse. within another 10 minutes, I was down. I got off the bike, I crawled over to the turf, which is about 20 feet away. I had laid down in a cold sweat, and I was in the pain cave. I went from zero to 100 so quick, and I was like, okay, Nick, you just got to get from this turf floor back to the house, somehow, which is like a 25-minute drive. It took me an hour and a half to get home, just like picking myself off the turf, getting all my stuff collected, getting in the truck, taking my time, getting home. I went straight to bed and I was out. Out. And I woke up, I fell asleep probably like 4 p.m. I woke up at 9 p.m. Just hurting. And the whole family was starting to go down now. Charlie started going down. She was getting sick.

Steph was still feeling strong, but later that night, she started going down. By the next day, we were all down. We got hit hard. Bear family got hit hard with the stomach bug. And I could tell the next day when I woke up, you know, it's so cool watching objective data to see just what, like, illness and sickness, how it impacts your body. in your recovery. My HRV, my heart rate variability was tanked. My resting heart rate was increased. My sleep performance, my sleep score was absolutely horrible. So all this objective data is just like reinforcing, yeah, you got pummeled by this, uh, by the sickness. So how do I

manage getting sick while training? I prioritize rest first. off. I don't try jumping back into training too quick because then it just delays the recovery process. This was a fortunate one where it was a 24-hour stomach bug. I had to take one full day off. The next day, I was good to go. I was good to train again. But I think what I want to share is prioritize rest because if you don't prioritize rest while you are sick, you were just extending, like I said, that recovery process, it's delayed, and it just isn't helping you. But the second thing I want to share that I do, that I believe helps out significantly. So let's go back a little bit, got off the bike, was feeling sick, went home, got into bed,

laid in bed from, you know, like 4 p.m. until 8.39 p.m. got up. The last thing I want to do was eat food. Now, this is just my personal approach and preference in the way that my mind thinks. Maybe it's not right. Maybe it doesn't work for everyone, but this is what I like to do. I woke up and I'm thinking, okay, I had a big training day today. I haven't eaten since getting off the bike because I got sick. Before I go back to bed, I have to get a meal in me to help my body just fight this and be stronger and recover from the workouts. You know, it's one thing to get sick, but to get sick in a prep when you're already beating your body down, I wanted to fuel it to provide my body with the tolls and resources to get better. So I forced down some food that night. I mean,

it took me a long time. I was laying at the kitchen table five minutes in between bites just to get this meal down. And I kept it down, but I knew that just putting some fuel in my body would assist in the recovery. And the next morning, I woke up feeling a little bit better, but definitely not 100%. And I ate as much as I could throughout the day. I mean, I pretty much stuck to my diet, even though I wasn't hungry because I wanted to get in vegetables. I wanted to get in fruits. I wanted to get in protein. I wanted good carbs and good fats. I wanted to stay on top of my hydration with my water and all my supplements, my vitamins and my minerals and electrolytes. So even though I wasn't feeling great that day, I still made myself eat as much as I possibly could and stay on top of my routine to fuel my body with what it needs to be stronger and fight the sickness, to fight the illness.

also knowing that, hey, if I want to train tomorrow, I have to get food and fuel in my body because if I don't and I'm training fast at the next day, it's just going to be a disaster. So I like to use rest. I like to use sleep, and I like to stay on top of my nutrition as much as possible. Even when I don't want it and it's hard to get down,

I know that it's fueling my body to recover stronger and better. So that's how I try to manage getting sick. Will this be the last time I get sick in this prep while Charlie's school was picking up all these illnesses and they're coming home to our household?

I hope so. I hope this is the last time. But we'll see. But I fight it with food, nutrition, hydration, water, sleep, rest and prayer. All right, guys, that's all the questions I'm going to answer today.

Hope you guys enjoyed this one. And as always, go on more.