The Nick Bare Podcast - 177: Why Commitment Is Your Most Valuable Skill | Shawn Johnson & Andrew East

Episode Date: June 8, 2026

I sat down with my wife Stef, Olympic gold medalist Shawn Johnson East, and former NFL player Andrew East to dig into their new book, The Courage to Commit.We talk about why this generation is running from commitment, how defining your family values creates real peace, the collateral damage that comes from being committed to the wrong things, what Shawn and Andrew learned about commitment after their elite athletic careers ended, and why the deepest joys come after, not before, you plant your flag and go all in.ORDER SHAWN & ANDREW'S BOOK HERE:https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0FRR3HBJ5?tag=randohouseinc7986-20FOLLOW THEIR PODCAST:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfo5aZL8pvt8j6UYYkkyz5AORDER MY BOOK HERE: ⁠https://www.amazon.com/Go-One-More-Intentional-Life-Changing/dp/1637746210FOLLOW BPN:Become a BPN member FOR FREE - Unlock 25% off FOR LIFE ⁠https://www.bareperformancenutrition.com/collections/performance-nutritionIG: ⁠instagram.com/nickbarefitness/⁠YT: ⁠youtube.com/@nickbarefitnessThis podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal [health or profession] advice. Bare Performance Nutrition (BPN) is not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. This podcast is not intended to replace professional medical advice.This podcast may not be republished without the written consent of Bare Performance Nutrition (BPN)

All right, ladies and gentlemen, today on the podcast, we have Sean Johnson East, Andrew East, and my beautiful wife, Stephanie Bear. I was literally just thinking, and I told you guys, I never expected to be the four of us sitting in this podcast. Yeah. We've always come to you. Yes. Yeah. It was due time. Yeah.

It was time. How long are you in town for? Six hours. About six hours. Oh, wow. They got babies. That's why. I know.

We've been gone for three full days. So it's time to go back to our babies. Yeah. Yeah. No, we get that. I like the three-night rule. I feel like after that. It's too long.

Yeah, it's too much. Yeah. It's too much. It's a book tour. How's it going? Writing the book was a blast. The book tour, I mean, this is fun. This is the best part of it.

But like leaving the kids and then doing, you know, other media, like newspaper interviews. It's like, all right. I don't know about this. But writing the book was great. I will say, too, I don't know what it is, but, like, Andrew and I are very passionate about, like, helping other people sell beautiful products that we really believe in. And we do a good job at that.

When it comes to selling something that we've done, it feels so much harder. Because I'm like, yeah, we kind of wrote a book. Like, it's fine. We love our book. We poured our heart and soul into it. It took us four years to write. I was going to ask, when did you start the process? Four years ago.

It was four years ago. Yeah. It's not a fluff piece. Like, it took so much time. and energy and research and like trying to perfect it. But I think because of that, the book tour is, it makes us sweat because we're like, oh gosh. I hope people like it. You should be really proud of it.

Yeah. I don't say it to pump your tires by any means. Like, I'll be honest, when I started reading it, I was like, how do you write a whole book on? Oh, yeah. I know. And I went into it with that approach. and before I started reading it, I listened to your podcast, you guys did.

Steph sentenced me, I think it was episode like 302 where you talk about the book and the book of writing process. And I love that you share that you guys brought on someone to help write the book. Yeah, that's transparency. Oh, yeah. But a lot of people don't do that though.

Oh, yeah. I mean, there'd be so many misspelled words if it was us writing, you know? Like, nobody wants that. But as I dove into it, it is very well written. And the content is, it's really impressive.

The format is awesome. There's something like golden nuggets in there. As I was reading, it took me a long time to read through it because I kept making all of these notes. I literally just sent this one to the team today, the brand team, because part of our mission at BPN is we say we are for the committed. And oftentimes you can think of in the sense of, of sports nutrition and athletics

for the committed being a race or a competition. And at the beginning of the year, we shifted our narrative to commitment has no finish lines. And I pulled this piece from the book and I share it with the brand team because what we're trying to do is make commitment, I don't see more approachable, but more broadly accepted outside of just these fitness preps.

And you guys said, real commitment is about creating an ecosystem. that makes the right choices irresistible. It's about designing your life so the path of least resistance leads toward the thing that matter most. I don't have a spot on that showcases how commitment can be applied to everyone.

And, you know, I'm in the season of life. We're in the season of life where it requires focus and intentionality and saying no to a lot of things. And that is just one of the ingredients of commitment as he's talking about. I don't even know where to start. Well, thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to say, like, very well written.

Yeah, last night we went by talking about it, and he was like, this is gold. Thank you. Truly. Like, yeah. He reads a lot of books. Thank you. That means a lot for sure. Yeah, I appreciate you taking the time.

And, I mean, I admire and respect both of you so much, so it's great to be here. And I don't know how you have felt. You've been doing YouTube for, what, nine, ten years now? 12 years. 12 years. Okay. So writing the book was really fun because I'm sure at some point it's hit you that people are listening to the advice that you're sharing. People are watching your content and implementing it into their life.

And so as we were discussing how do we write a book about the stories that people want to hear from us in a way that has some meaningful and encouraging takeaway, that's not just for people who are athletes or wanting to be NFL players or Olympic gymnasts. it's like you can apply it in so many areas of your life. And so we try to approach it, you know, with sober responsibility and with that in mind. And it is a big topic of commitment. It kind of like obvious on the one hand, but then as we were digging into it, it's really, it's hard to break down. Like, okay, what is worth committing to? At what point do you jump in and fully dig your heels into something? At what point is a time to uncommit from something?

you know, because there's always a time that you might need to prune something from your life to make room for other commitments, you and your fitness journey. You know, it's like, that was a good 10-year run that you had going heavy into fitness. I just came, like, this year, I'm closing that chapter two of just a competitor's mindset. And it's like, I got to prune that to make room for higher priorities. So it was a really good challenge. And I feel like it can apply to so many different areas of life, whether it be athletics for sure. It's like the great thing about endurance sports

is pretty much anyone can do it. Like you don't have to have to be, you know, the world champion, you have to have some genetic capabilities. But to be running a marathon and finishing it, you just have to show up every day. Yeah. So it applies to that area of life. It applies to podcasts and the media.

It's like if you publish more than 10 podcasts, you're in an elite pool. Like a lot of people start a podcast, Not a lot of people make it 10 episodes. And then we were looking at our relationship too. And it's like, dude, you just got to, how do you have a lifelong marriage? Well, you stack one day at a time and you show up one day. You go one more.

You have another day, whether it's a good one or a bad one, you close that day. You open another one. You're like, all right, game on. Let's learn and let's get better. So it was a really fun topic. And I think we learned a lot in the process as well. Yeah. We spent a really long time trying to make it worth someone's while to read and not just get it done.

I mean, it took us almost a year just to find a third writer because we wanted to find someone who was truly aligned with what it was we were wanting to put out. We had a lot of people wanting to just share fluff pieces of our life that people get to see. And we had no intention of wanting to share that. We just wanted to share something purposeful. And when we found Jimmy, who's the third writer, he was a godsend. And his research background and his research writing was so perfect for what we wanted to show. We wanted to bring in science elements to actually show this is a proven concept and not just an idea that maybe if you do it, it works out. Yeah, we're just really proud of how it turned out.

It could have definitely been a book filled with fluff. Oh, yeah. And I read a lot of, like Steph said, I read a lot of self-help books. Yeah. So I expected some fluff, but there was no fluff. So, hats off to yes. Thank you. And we read self-help books as well.

And we really wanted to teeter this line of not being a self-help book. Because I do feel like there's a lot of self-help books that try to hack a system that you really can't hack. And kind of like you said, how do you write an entire book about commitment? We found that struggle on the first day. We're like, well, just commit. Just stick with something. But then how do you like dissect that into? really teaching somebody the ends and outs and like the wise of it.

And for us it was let's show, let's lay it out on paper for someone to actually interpret. And so we're not teaching you that this is the hack system for purpose in your life, but we're actually just like, if you read it, you can take your own things away and maybe do implement something in your life to change. Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned the responsibility of influence. And it instantly made me think of,

John Maxwell's book, the 21 irrefutable laws of leadership. I've read that like four times this past year. I've had our whole team read that book. And it talks about how leadership is influence

and what true influence is not being an influencer. Having true influence is having the ability to create behavioral change. And that's like what this book has the ability to do is truly create behavioral change.

which is influence, which is leadership. So there's a lot of power and a lot of responsibility in it as well. I like what you said, though. You're right. There are no hacks in here. Yeah. There's no shortcuts or AIed versions of, you know, definitions. Because that's what this world is.

That's what you guys open the book up with is this is not filled with hacks. It's not a how to in this many days. And I think that's what everybody is used to getting, you know. We've gotten a little nervous just in our interviews, explaining a lot of it to people who haven't read it yet in thinking like we kind of unromanticize a lot of the fantasy of the world of if only I find the perfect job or the perfect person it'll be easy and I'll have purpose and fulfillment overnight and whatever it is and we kind of make it very unromantic and say that's really not how it works you actually have to work to find that and nobody

really wants to hear that but it is the truth and I think being able to present that hopefully people will be able to see that it's worth like working for but yeah i'm curious like how you guys ended up on commitment being the foundation of this book yeah um because you know i see it as being a business owner and leading especially younger people um you know you say in the book commitment is not about having more options more flexibility and and more open doors, that will somehow lead you to greater happiness. And you mentioned it in the text, but we look at like our parents and our grandparents who worked for the same organization for their entire career.

Yeah. Like they were loyal and committed to an organization. And it's rare to find someone who lasts more than 18 months and a job anymore. And everyone says they're loyal. Everyone says like, I'm here. But then the next opportunity shows up. Yeah. And people always have one foot in, one foot out to be available for the next opportunity.

So, well, that being said, I'm curious, like how you guys ended up on commitment and what you were seeing in the world or culture that drove that. I don't know if you've heard of the book, Anxious Generation, but it's like. I've heard of it, but I haven't read it. Oh, you have to read it. It's a lot. It's a beautiful. It's also hard to read as a parent. So prepare yourself. Yeah. It kind of just talks about the side effects of technology. And like, you know, there's an app for everything. Everything's customized to you. It's the swipe right culture. And, you know, you read it. He just talks about what happens as a result of technology and what has happened psychologically. And it kind of ends it with some prescriptions for what like schools can do to alleviate this for kids. But we were looking at it. We're like, okay, well, we're parents who have kind of lived through this. What takeaways are there for us to fight against this anxious generation as we are raising our kids at home? What can we do as parents to fight against the anxious generation?

And I mean, I think marriage is such a powerful analogy in so many different ways. But like, when you are committed to something as you've been with your business, as you've been with your marriage, or you've been with so many things, in your life. Like in our marriage, try as I might, I cannot change Sean, right? I can't force that. And if I'm committed to the marriage, I can't change the marriage. So then the only thing left to change is me.

And we kind of live in this world on Instagram where it's like, you know, the self-improvement, wake up, take an ice bath every day at 4 a.m. That's how you're going to get better. That's how you're going to grow, challenge yourself. It's like the commitment of marriage and some of these higher worthy things in life, that is the, I mean, that's the most challenging, most self-help, self-improvement thing because I got to look at Sean every day and say, okay, I can't change you. We're not changing the marriage. So what can I do to bring us into alignment here? And I think that's a really amazing way to approach life where it's like, okay, like I can improve. It gives me some agency to. make change and to improve things, to steward the things in my life, because I can show up and say, what can I do today to be better? And you've seen it in your time in the service, like, you know, we got to play pretend Navy SEALs for 10 days on that special forces show.

Do we have to talk about that at some point? Don't even know. That's the biggest fan. You guys. When I, we'll get through it. Okay. So good. When a Marine shows up to the recruiter's office and signs the paper, he's, he's, a Marine, technically. He gets to wear the uniform and call himself a Marine. But there is a gap between who he is and what the heart of a Marine is. And so it's this process of commitment. You're on

this path to slowly close that gap of like, hey, this is where you are. This is where you want to be. And it's up to you to make that change to slowly bring that into alignment day by day by day. And it's like, to me, that is the antidote to the anxious generation where you're like, man, there are, there is so much excitement in the variety of life of like, oh, the next shiny object, the next cool business opportunity, the next place to travel. But if you can't enjoy what's in front of you right now, you'll never be able to enjoy that other stuff, you know, you'll never, you'll never be content. And I think it's like you put your head down, you change your definition of freedom from I can do anything I want to. I can do the things that mean the most to me. That's a good place to be. I think you said it beautifully.

I think we landed on commitment because we're seeing in all the numbers the largest amount of people who have anxiety and depression and they feel lost and there's so many options. And there's just more noise in the world than ever before. And I think people don't know how to find direction. And we have shared and we have ourselves gone on a mission for the past 10 years to find some of the greatest thought leaders and mentors and therapists and psychologists and who specialize in that area.

And we did it for ourselves and for our marriage and for our family. And when people started asking us or saying in comments, they'd be like, if only I found a guy like Andrew, I would have a good marriage. Or if only I won an Olympic medal, I'd have a beautiful life like you guys have. And we just kind of got tired of saying, that's not how it works. So we wanted to take all the resources that we've learned. and map it out and say this is what worked for us and maybe it might work for you. And the through line was always from every therapist in the world and every thought leader,

it was you should probably just stick with this and figure out how to make that work. And you're going to find the joy and the fulfillment on the other side of that hard work. Yeah. Yeah, coming from like your younger selves being, you know, an Olympian and professional football player, you obviously applied commitment to your early careers to achieve such high success. But then after those careers, did you fall into these rhythms and habits

of lack of commitment? Like wanting spontaneous and flexibility. What was the awakening moment of, hey, I think we got this wrong? Oh, 100%. I feel like I wandered aimlessly through life for probably 10 years before I started rebuilding my life back together. And I think it was, I was so rigid and I had so much direction. I had so much commitment for so

many years. When I was done with that, I was like, I don't want that anymore. I don't need that to be happy in life. And so I tried to prove myself wrong. Like, if I have the freedom and the whimsy to just do what I want on a daily basis, it can be fun. And you can still have a beautiful life. But I think we both kind of did that after our careers for a while. And I will never forget. it we've talked about it on podcast before, but a couple of years into marriage, we sat down on January 1st to write down our goals in life. And I thought it was interesting that we both had these blank pieces of paper and we wrote down every category of our life of our personal goals, our marriage goals, goals with friends and business and finances. And everything that

we wrote out looked completely different than the life we were living. Like completely different. We wanted such different lives than the beautiful lives we were having, which were fun. And you were playing in the NFL and there was so much stuff. And it made us think that this aimless wandering wasn't actually leading to the life we wanted because we would look up paper and be like, how do we get that? And so when we intentionally started redirecting our life and our choices on a daily basis to go in that direction, it seemed like we were feeling more fulfilled, more purpose driven, more joy. And then the commitment kind of started getting easier because on a daily basis we'd start saying no to things that seemed more like.

like a distraction to the overall urging goal than it was just like an impulsive way to have a little fun that day. I wrote down one of my favorite quotes. This is the very beginning. You guys wrote a lot of people see settling down as settling for less. And I'm like, oh, yeah, I talk to so many just like young women who I hear like, we have a neighbor. And she's, she's so sweet. She's 19. And she's like, I want to settle down. She goes to TCU. And she's just like, she's such a delight and she's ready. She's so mature and beyond her years and she's like, I just want to settle down but all of these guys like, they're like, ah, you know, when I'm 40. And I feel like that's such a trend right now. And if I could change anything, I wouldn't because our life is beautiful.

But if I could change anything, it'd be that I would have found him sooner. Right? So we could have just started building this sooner. Like, why wait? If you find your person, if you find your passion, like explore it together. But I think that is just so good. Because I think, nothing could be further than the truth. Settling down, I think, is everything. Yeah. Not settling for less. Yeah, that's, I highly resonate with that.

I still have some friends who are like in the dating world, and it's a tough time to do that. And I mean, for me, I think of my career, when I have failed to commit well, it was my rookie year in the NFL, where in college I was like so dialed in, all through high school and college, I was dialed in on like this was my focus in life was to be the best I could be and juice every ounce of potential I had in football.

And then I got to NFL and I just wigged out and I like had to, I just distracted myself with as many things as possible. And spoiler alert, it did not work out well for the first four years. And I was making a mistake not because I had made like the wrong choice. It was just because I wasn't making any choice at all. And I was kind of just, you know, doggy paddling, tread in water through life. And that's not a good way to be. I think in that dating world, people will say, oh, I'm not ready yet to settle down. And I'm not trying to force you into anything that, like, you know, people say it with kids too.

We're not ready to have kids yet. It's like, well, the readiness doesn't come after the commitment. You'll never be ready. The readiness does not come before the commitment. The readiness comes after the commitment. You know, it's like you say we're doing this. This is the path we're walking. And then you start the preparation process.

And it's like... You figure it out. Yeah. And yeah. I think that's... That, to me, is just such a missing ingredient where people are like, I'm not ready. I don't have the career I want yet or haven't traveled the world yet. It's like, dude, you get to travel with this person.

We get to be together all the time now. And that is so much more fun than the whimsy or the, you know, trying to... wait for me to explore all these different things before we settle down. I did an interview with a younger girl yesterday who is probably in her 20s, so technically a different Gen Z. And she was all bought in on everything. And she's like, but how do I know that whatever I choose, I'm not settling in that whole thing?

And I remember telling her, I was like, I think that's just like this weird fear-mongering trend that people are trying to preach. Agreed. Because whatever you choose, you can make it incredible. But you have to be okay with then, like, tuning out the rest of your choices and saying, I chose this one, now I need to make it great. Absolutely. Because she's like, how do I know that if I choose this guy and not that one, that one was the right one?

I was like, neither of them are the right one. Right. You have to make the right one. And you have to figure out how to do that. Yeah. But I think it's just the cultural way of speaking about things that people. that people are really trying to preach that you have to wait for the perfect one.

And that's just a lie. Yeah. I forget what I was reading and I heard this quote. And I was talking about how people are having, they're waiting to get married until later and waiting to have kids until later

because they view those commitments as the capstone to life. Oh, yeah. Justin. Oh, yeah, Justin early. Yeah. That's amazing. He's one of it for this. Yeah.

And people view that as the capstone to life, but it's actually the cornerstone to life. And I even took a note of this of what you were just talking about, or asked couples have been together for decades. And they will tell you that the deepest joys often come after the commitment. Yeah. Not before. Yeah. And that rung true to me a lot. And something you mentioned a little bit ago of like,

when you're, you're struggling in a relationship. You often ask yourself a question, what's wrong with them? What's wrong with the relationship? What's wrong with the marriage? Instead of like, what's wrong with me? How do I change? Instead of expecting change from them or us. And if I'm being very honest, like that, when you said that,

that wronged true to me because that used to be me. Like we'd be struggling in our marriage. Oh, yeah, but same. And I'd think, why doesn't she change? Why doesn't this marriage change? Instead of, why don't I change? Because I was prideful and lacked humility in that situation. But when you said that, I was like, oh, I feel that one.

That can anybody, if they're honest with themselves, we can all say that we felt that. And we all still do. Absolutely. I mean, we're not here to preach that we have figured everything out. These are like on our best days, the things that we do in practice. And we still find ourselves doing that. why can't you just not do whatever, put your nasty socks on my dining table, okay? Yeah.

The Justin Early, that's such a good way to put it. It's not the caps on the cornerstone. I had the opportunity to go back to school and I did this dissertation, this study on how becoming a parent actually influences positively or productivity and business. Like there's all these theories out there where if you are able to do home life well, like, If you have a marriage that's thriving, if you have a family that's thriving, there's certain things that prepare you in for the business world. You can communicate well. You can manage well. You can schedule well.

You can prioritize well. And it's like these are all transferable skills to business. And I think a lot of young guys out there are like, oh, well, you know, I got a, they don't understand that it's a, it's a preparation to like when you are learning deeply one thing, which I think family is a great place to start, then it positively affects so many different things in your life. And it's amazing. I have to brag on my husband. That was something else that he did solely for this book

and for like just wanting to make it as good as possible. He went and got his doctorate in psychology just to write the book. Casually. He's like, I think I'll be able to understand how to write the psychology side of this better. And I was like, who does that? That's amazing. That's awesome. Yeah, that was fun.

That was fun. Did you enjoy that process? It was good. I mean, it was based out of this maybe like deep insecurity that, oh my gosh, people are listening to me. And I better, I don't want to just be slinging hot takes online. So like, let me get this and like dig in a little bit. So, you know, learning how to cite studies and all the statistical side of it, it was really good. So I'm glad I did it.

You wrote basically a second book on the side of it, though, the amount of stuff you wanted to put in the book, which was impressive. Yeah. There was a long list of things that didn't make the cut. I don't mean to keep quoting your own book to you, but... I love it. Like, as you bring that up, it reinforces mastery and depth of commitment. Like, writing this book obviously was a commitment. And we oftentimes think that if I commit to this one thing, there's an opportunity cost of, well, I'm an expert here, but it doesn't have practical application to X, Y, and Z.

Yeah. And, you know, as you guys are talking about mastery, you say deep mastery can offer you a sharpened set of mental tools, such as attention control, pattern recognition, and resilience that can support learning and problem solving across new unfamiliar territory. Yeah. I've experienced that myself. I like deep mastery in fitness or training in entrepreneurship has been very applicable to marriage. parenting and leading young men. So you don't become like a one-trick pony with mastery and depth, but you truly can become like this Swiss army pocket knife.

Oh, yeah. I think if you find mastery in something and you do unlock that kind of depth in one thing, it shows you this whole other side of a world that almost gives you the motivation to then go find it somewhere else. and if you can figure out those tools of like learning mastery and something which is such a gift it becomes for lack a better word of drug to find somewhere else because it's it's really special i i there there's kind of two competing things going on here you have like i don't know if you've ever heard of the dunning kruger effect where it's like this mistaken if oh you're an expert at one thing and you assume that you're an expert at everything yeah so that's like the

the counterpoint to this, but there's another, another thing called FAR transfer, which is what you're talking about, like the ability to understand that if you know one thing deeply, in some ways you have a toolkit to know many things deeply. Like, you have the practice of knowing things well. And it's like, you know, there's advice out there where it's like, instead of reading a hundred books, you read one book a hundred times. Like, you know, it's a great approach to the Bible. Or I think a Kobe Bryant too, he was talking about like when you when you really focus on your craft, the world becomes your library and like you start seeing that so many things relate to for him basketball. For me, it was football. And it's like, oh my gosh, I see that that ballerina and how

how graceful they are and their movements, how smooth they are. Like, oh, maybe I can incorporate that into how I'm moving around a defender. Or I'm understanding this artist and how he's thinking about this problem of like communication and it's like okay now I can take that into the huddle and it's like you start being able to connect so many different things when you know one thing well and I think a lot of people don't get like they don't understand that that you're building a toolkit as you're as you're building depth yeah one of things we always say is the way you do one thing is way you do everything 100% and I had DJ Shipley on the podcast a few weeks ago Navy SEAL dev grew operator the tip of the spear.

And I asked him the question, what separates tier one operators from everyone else? And he said, commitment to the craft. Like, these guys have committed to their one craft. And you would think, like, oh, these tier one operators

are only good at going in and conducting a raid and pulling this high value target out of the middle of nowhere where he's trying to hide from. the last place you would look. But you look at Navy SEALs

and everything they touch after their time in the military is like insane. It's gold. Because the way they do one thing is the way they do everything. There is crossover application. So true. Yeah.

I wrote down here, I think this kind of applies to this, but you all said in the book that choosing one path creates a shocking sense of peace, which I related to that. Because for me personally, I don't necessarily think I'm a master

one specific thing like you three but you are but I will say I've spent probably the last decade since we've been together when I'm married to someone like this right I'm like well I gotta find how many times you hear me say I have to find my one thing I have to find my one thing

and it's been a conflict in our marriage because he's like no you don't you can be multi-passionate like just you don't you don't but I fought against it so hard and I've tried so many different things that haven't ended up working out. And it's been an insecurity of mine. But I will say I'm in a season right now where I feel like the Lord put something on my heart for me in the future.

And I'm really excited about it. Spin Studio, a worship-based spin studio, which I'm really excited about. And yeah, it's going to be awesome. But it kind of came to me a few months ago when I was kind of in a motherhood rut. I'm like, I'm bored. You know, like four and a two-year-old, like, there's got to be something for me outside of this, you know. Sometimes one doesn't feel like enough. It just, you feel guilty about it. And I was just in prayer one day asking God, like,

well, what do you have for me? You know that I love to be creative. Like, just give me something. And he gave me this awesome vision of the spin studio. But in that, I feel like he was telling me right now, like, focus on your kids. Like, that's your one thing. Like, be a mom and pour into your family,

serve your family. And since I heard that, it's like, God knows me so well, right? He knows I need something, like a little, like low-hanging fruit in the future to get me through. But instead of focusing on the studio now, I'm focusing on being a mom. And since I've made that just like, that's my lane right now, so much peace. So much more clarity. And I think there was something else in the book you guys said about every choice I didn't have to make was like dropping a heavy bag. I didn't realize I've been carrying.

And I felt that too. It's like once I'm like, okay, no more pressure to figure it out right now. My one thing is being a mom. And just being there, being in that, so much peace. So that really resonated with me. I'm glad. Yeah. It's taken us a long time to figure that out to you.

But I feel like that's also the pressure of just social media and all the noise. We hear so many people preach to us every single day that you should keep your options open. Yeah. You should constantly be looking for the grass is greener, the thing that's going to be better. Yeah. One foot in, one foot out. And you see these people navigating what looks to be a hundred different things on social media. like flawlessly when embracing one thing that you love and just saying this is my thing for right

now and being able to like tune everything out truly feels like freedom. Absolutely. Like it is the greatest feeling in the world to not have those distractions. Yep. And when you can so easily say no to all of the extra distractions, it makes life feel a lot more peaceful. Absolutely. The word conviction comes to mind too where it's like, uh, like only Stephanie can

know, is this the right thing? Is this the right thing for you to build the spin studio right now? Absolutely. Yeah. Or not. And it's like maybe it is. There's no right or wrong answer, but it seems like now you have a high amount of conviction that like you are right where you want to be with your family.

And I look at the change in the two of you. It's like that doesn't happen without Stephanie's conviction and what she's doing and like showing up every day and focusing on that one thing. So it's pretty exciting to think about. But like I do think a lot of people get. persuaded and like thrown off course because they're like, oh, well, you know, I'm doing the family thing. And then someone's like, well, let me, let me see if I can hire you or here's an opportunity. And like that they don't have enough conviction to just say, no, I'm planting my feet right here. And I don't know, almost having the awareness or have thought through like, okay, I'm doing this for maybe it's a fixed amount of time or maybe it's so the kids are a certain age.

But it's like you got to be able to defend your choices and like and say, no, this is right where I need. to be. Yeah. Yeah. Steph's probably going to say I've said this a million times on a podcast before, but it's actually very applicable to this. It's the power of having a vision and values. And I read a book, I think two years ago. It's called Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0. And chapter four is the vision chapter. And it has three sections of a vision. It's your core values, your purpose, and your goals. your core values don't change more than once every 100 years. Yeah.

And then your goals are like 10, in a business case, 10 to 15-year targets. But the reason the core values are so important is because it makes saying yes and no to things very easy. I mean, let's talk about this in the book, the power and importance of values. and since we have laid out our family values, which are done this, we've done in the family and in the business, it's made what we say yes to, a very easy yes,

but also what we say no to, a very simple no. There's no gray, and it's made life simpler, not necessarily easier, but simpler. And I take for the first time in over a decade, I've actually experienced peace

in this past year, which has been, I know. It's like, I haven't had this amount of lightness or just like shoulders coming down and she can probably attest to it in a long time. But it's taken a long time to get here. But it's like so values are not like these lofty terms that I used to, you know,

and someone's like write a business plan. Yeah. Google business values. Yeah. Pink ones sound good. Yeah, honestly, which he's like part of the military army values. But then like you've actually get into the importance and granular, like level of true values and they're game changers. Yeah.

What are your family values? All rooted in Christ. Love that. Following Christ. I mean, we were just looking, you guys talk about how like January 1 you make like your goal to the year. We were we were just looking back at, was it last year? I think what I found 2023s, they were silly. 23, like, family goals.

And they were, like, so different than would they be right now. Yeah. But all of our values and purpose and mission is now rooted in following Jesus Christ. And it is shaped the trajectory of our lives. And we, but me, more specifically, don't walk around with, like, white knuckles in trying to just hold on everything. Yeah. It's palms up. And, you know, I just had Pastor Noah Heron from Way Church in Nashville on the podcast.

And he talked about the difference between a man-made mission and a God-given assignment. He said, when you're on a God-given assignment, it feels like you're running downhill. We're like, it's still hard, but it's a little bit easier. Things are just falling into a place. And I feel like things are just falling into place in our life right now. It kind of comes through with how you're talking to. I feel like just like even the presence of how you're communicating is different. And you're just like you're more here.

I'm born again, brother. What a time. I will say when we did like this intensive a few years ago, is that after Drew or is that after Jet? Jet. Okay. So three years ago, four years ago. And we defined our family values.

It changed our whole household. Because like you said, everything became. simpler when it came to, does this align with how, like what we truly believe in or not? And when we stick to that, it feels peaceful. I think people can get confused, though, as I did before we've done so many sit-down sessions with counselors and workshops and online courses about this. Because for me, it was always confusing in business. People were like, oh, the most important thing you got to understand is like what your values are. What does your company stand for? And it's like, okay, sweet. People say that about family too it's like you gotta come up with your family values and i kind of thought it was

this googling process of what what values should i choose like it's a kind of obligation of oh yeah these are honesty is a good term yeah i like that one let me pick that one but i've since come to understand that the values are like what makes nick nick and stephan stephan and Andrew Andrew. And then as a family, it's like, what is our identity? Like, what makes our culture different than anybody, any other family? It's like, what makes an east and east? And so our values, our faithfulness, togetherness, curiosity, generous stewardship, and playfulness. And it's like, now when I think about those five words, I'm like, that is, that's, those are descriptors of who we are. Like, that's our operating system. It's not, it's, yes, part aspiration.

of what we're striving to be. Because we could always have a little more awareness that draws us closer to playfulness, you know? And like when we're being playful, it means that we're not white knuckling things. We can always be a little more curious. So it's something to strive for, but it's also literally who God made us to beat.

And like not everybody shares that people used to get so annoyed of me in the locker room because like Andrew's always messing around. Like I would do the work, but I would be playful. through it all. And it's like, not everyone's like that. You don't need to be like that. That's how I was made and you're different, you know, and it's kind of like this process of uncovering who God made you to be. And it's really exciting. It takes a while to build that awareness. But once you do, it's like, oh, sweet, baby. Now I get it. Like, this is who I'm made to be. That's going to raise strong,

competent kids, too. I feel like confused parents will raise confused kids. So I think, yeah because until you have kids I don't know if we would have sat down and had the conversation what does our family stand for? Yeah, we serve others but let's go deeper with that what does that mean?

Who do we serve? Why do we serve them? And I think if you can lay that out so clearly that brings so much clarity to your kids, you know? And that's our why. Even the uniqueness in our household with like our values

and like what makes our five unique has already rubbed off on our kids. That's awesome. So much so that, like, we host part of like generous stewardship and like togetherness. We host people at our house five times a week. And there's... It seemed to be the bears. Yeah, you have to come over.

But so much so that now our kids, if someone's not at our house, they're like, well, who's coming? Amazing. Like, what can I get for them? And what can, and they're just so used to hosting and they love it so much that it's now become a gift that they cherish. Yeah. And if someone's not coming over, our kids will even start going through live. And they're like, well, Mom, call those people. Call the neighbors that we met yesterday.

And it's really sweet to see how things that we value are now getting passed on. Yeah, that's a win. Yeah. That's awesome. It's fun. It's like in just an early's book, he talks about the difference between hosting and entertaining. Yeah, huge. And that really resonated with us.

Yeah. Yeah. We love hosting. We love having people over. In the past, it's been, we call it hosting. But in the past, I feel like it has been entertaining. It's like, clean the house, table set. Oh, you'll see that's not us anymore.

Oh, yeah. No, we get it now. And now we almost like it when we show up at places and it's not perfect. Yeah. You know, that's hosting. That's opening your home and just letting people into your world. Yeah. Yeah.

We do pasta night every Saturday and we do burger night or like grill on night every Sunday. Y'all did? Was it for Easter? What was it? It was a dinner all day. You were sitting on the ground. What was that? What was that for?

Christmas. Andrea. Christmas. Oh, yeah, the Bethlehem dinner. The Bethlehem dinner. That was amazing. I can't take any credit for that. But it was so cool.

I'm like, we need to steal that. So she recreated basically how they would have eaten dinner, you know, in Bethlehem. And she did all these like baskets, pretty much that she would line up and covered with a napkin. And then all of everybody just eats with their hands. Yeah. And it was all candlelit. Yeah. And it was, our kids thought it was the most magical day.

Yeah. It was like so simple. I fit it right in. I always eat my hands. I'm not joking You were just at dinner And I got a steak and baked potato And they wrote my steak out

And it was cooked or it was cut You know sliced I mean I didn't touch the whole baked potato steak like I eat all my hands You ate the baked potato Just right there And I tore in half and I ate it like a sandwich

Dude I get a steakhouse Good baked potato Yeah It's amazing Oh yeah Where are you from? Pennsylvania originally Okay

Central Pennsylvania I was from Iowa. I was like, not many people love baked potato, but I love a baked potato. We had this place in central Pennsylvania called Hosses. Okay. Has everybody ever been about Hosses? No. It's like one of those spots where you go, you get like the salad bar. It's $9.99 and you can add a steak on for like $2.99. Add a steak on? Add a steak for $2.00. Oh, yeah. But you had to get a salad bar to be able to get the $2.99 steak. This was like post-church Sunday lunch all the time.

So you guys live obviously very struck. structured lives. Yeah. And you talk a lot about in the book, Joy. My question is, how do you make space for joy? Someone asked you all that. Someone asked you this within the audience at one of your tour events. How do you make space for joy?

I'd love for you guys to touch on that, but even more specifically, Sunday's Day of Delight. I'm very curious about this day and how it's structured and how you're you guys live and pursue it. Yeah, we kind of catch some slack every now and then because we were like, ah, you're so rigid and so structured. There's no spontaneity. And are, like, are you worried that you're losing the whimsy of life? And I used to be so unstructured. And I realized that I was so irresponsible with my time when I didn't have it scheduled out and intentional. I'm on my phone. I'm scrolling through Netflix. I'm like, you know, just messing around. And you do enough of that. you look back on it and you're like wow i i accomplished nothing i did not get any closer my goals

what what did i just do with three months of my life that's like when i got released from the chiefs for the first time that's what i sat on the couch for three months and i watched tv i was like a sad guy and then and then at some point i was like oh this is not the way to live and so now it is it is our goal to have as full a day as possible i want my schedule to be not busy not crazy um But full. From start to finish, wake up at 5.30, work out for an hour. That's on my calendar. Date night on Thursday night on our calendar.

It's like be intentional with how you're spending your time. And for me, putting it on our little phone calendar allows me to slowly progress through the day doing the things that I want to accomplish. And we have daily rhythms, weekly rhythms, monthly rhythms, and annual rhythms that have like slowly compounded into getting us closer to the life we want. And you can have spontaneous moments though with structure. Because like on our calendar every Friday night, we keep open for like a big family activity. Yeah.

We don't schedule what that is. But we know each week it's like, oh, what are we going to do? We get so excited about this block of time that's been protected because we've actually structured it that way. It's family time. Yeah. Yeah. What are some of the things you guys do?

Like we'll go, right now the rodeos in town in Nashville. And so we're so excited. We saw it today and we're so excited to take our kids to the rodeo. We're like, they're going to love it. But like we know that that was a protected. We know we're free on Friday, you know, for that. We'll stay at home and do nothing or have a movie night or go get ice cream. It's random, very random things.

But you never know what it is. And so you can find spontaneity there. And even with date night on our calendar, it just says date night. That's how we are too. And so there's spontaneous moments in that. I'm like, what are we going to do for that? What do you want to do? We have the next five hours or four hours or whatever we've blocked off.

So I don't think structure gets rid of it. I think structure actually protects it. I love that. The romance, I mean, again, back to marriage as an analogy, it's like date nights aren't, it's not on the calendar because it's like scheduled as romance time. But putting it on the calendar gives you. the possibility of there being some romantic connection, you know, of whatever level. And so it's like, it's all about unlocking your calendar and giving space to give things a possibility to happen,

whether that be a breakthrough in business. Like, hey, I'm going to work, you know, these hours as I run my own business or, you know, let's give our family time to have fun moments together. So every night we do family dinner, like Sean said, every Friday night is family. time, whatever happens. It's like, that's just, we're giving it space to have potential for all these magical moments that people think come from whimsy, but rather come from routine. Yeah. What do you think some of the negatives of commitment are that no one talks about? Like, some of the things I wrote down as I was reading the book was like, there is sacrifice and opportunity cost that comes with commitment. But like,

I'd say even more specific to me, and I'm curious where you guys stand on this. If you aren't careful, commitment can create collateral damage to other parts of your life. So, like, from me, for me, for example, I've, for years committed to these fitness press. And people praise me. Like, dude, you are so disciplined. You are so structured. You are so committed to everything you do. and they see the early wake-ups and the nutrition dialed in and the training,

but they don't see, you know, what it's doing to me in my relationship, and my marriage, and the family. So how do you navigate the collateral damage that can come with commitment if you aren't careful? There's sacrifice to every yes, and you have to figure out what those are and try to figure out what those are potentially before you make a commitment. A lot of that will kind of unfold after you commit to something. But I think that's kind of the progression of our book starts at values. So that if you can figure out on the front end what your priority list is,

then by the time you're making a commitment and looking at what those sacrifices are, you could potentially forecast that is this commitment going to jeopardize my list of priorities? is this feeding the number one priority or the number 10? And if it is number 10, how can I protect one through nine? And I do think within the process of the book, we try to emphasize protecting your priorities and your values over everything and making sure your commitments align.

So I would say that would go into the chapter where we talk about like necessary endings or pruning where make sure your commitment's aligned with everything else. And if they're not, those are ones that we look at and say, is it worth what the sacrifices are and the collateral damage? Yeah. And if it is, great. You know, you're aligned with the values of what you're doing.

If it's not, you should probably look at it and not reconsider, but figure out either how to fix that or look at pruning it. I mean, there are a lot of good ways to live a good life. And I don't think everyone needs to be married and have kids and do all that. I think that's been so fruitful for us. But I understand that some people aren't tilted that way, which is great. What is important, and there's a saying that goes, everyone ends up somewhere in life. Some people end up there on purpose.

And it's like, okay, so go through the core value thing, walk through your priorities. Maybe those change slowly over time. that's fine. But we also talk about this idea of mentorship and surrounding yourself with people who understand what your priorities are, what you're trying to build in your life. And they could say, hey, Nick, you, like, first of all, you're married. Like, you know that and you have kids, and we know that's a priority for you. And we're going to hold you accountable to that. It looks like you're training seven hours a day on your bike and maybe you're only with your kids 20 minutes a day. That might be worth reevaluating.

You have outside perspective kind of poking around, challenging you on a frequent basis. Mentorship for me has been massive. And I have a men's group to me who always challenges me. And it's like they kind of can slowly redirect as I'm airing. And that's huge. We've also, I would say approaching things like that too, understanding that you can, I don't want to say change your priorities because like where a priority should be concrete. but we can go through phases of life where we say,

this is actually worth the sacrifice for X period of time. Is that a month? Is that 10 years? Is that whatever it is? Could be like a sprint. For sure. Yeah. But you can also say, if you go to your values, just to give your example, right,

if we're talking through that, if you go through your values and you say, my family is top priorities, like God and family are my top priorities. So then I'm really interested in doing that. that means my priority is my family, we should have a conversation with our family and say, is this commitment now worth every family's person's buy-in?

And if it is... I failed there many times. We all have. We all have. Absolutely. But we've all taken on things where... And I think that's where you learn

and that's where we have learned and we try to openly communicate this in the book is we have both taken on commitments that sacrificed priorities. Yeah. And it wasn't until we were all the way in it that we were like this, something doesn't feel right. And I don't know what it is. And it takes a lot of self-reflecting and a lot of time to figure out, I think my scales got unbalanced.

And how can I protect it next time? Because I remember our first year marriage. I went on tour. I was on the road for months. He was bouncing around the NFL. We were both just driving, like, full steam ahead our ambitions and our careers and didn't realize until four months. in, we're like, this doesn't feel right. We're newly married.

We're not spending any time together. I can't support you. Like, this is really difficult. And so I think by learning trial and error, you figure out the scales went a little too far on one side. How can I protect it next time? Yeah. Necessary endings by Dr. Henry Cloud. Yes.

Is maybe my favorite book of all times. That's probably your most recommended book. I hear you recommended to people so much. I read that book when we were living in Nashville in 2023. And it was a very challenging time for our family, in business, with people. And I don't even remember how I came across the book, but I started reading. There's certain books I read. I'm like, I needed this right now in my life.

And then I read trust by him next. I was like, this is exactly the book I needed next. So you talk about necessary endings in pruning. Like, I know for a fact, this is a hat tip to Dr. Henry Cloud. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it makes me think of how I operate. And I am terrible at saying no because I feel like, oh, man, I love the opportunity.

I love the excitement. I love the challenge. I love like, hey, you want to run a marathon? Heck, yeah, I do. Yes, I do. But the best way that I found... The only retrieval energy. Everything.

The most effective way for me to say no, though, it's to say, I'm sorry, I can't, I'm already committed to something. You know, man, it's like back to the awareness and the conviction of that, it's like, for me, as I hang up the cleats in this season from competition, it's like, man, I'm committed to, I got three kids, age six, four, and two. They are changing so much every day, and I think that change will slowly plateau, and I want to be as present as possible in these next four or five years. And so I'm already, I can't do the marathon. I'm already committed to this and this phase. And it's, to me, it like brings so much clarity and simplicity to saying, oh, no, like, the opportunity is exciting. Yes, but, but I can say no to this because I know where my priorities lie. Yeah.

Here's a quote that really resonated with me in the book. It's on that note. There's a difference between being in the pros and being a pro, between occupying. a roster spot and owning the responsibility that comes with it. One is about presence. The other is about posture, mindset, and daily habits. I read that like three times in a row. So spot on. Yeah, I was in the pros. I was not a professional football player. You look at a guy like Tom Brady and they talk about their daily routine. I just had the opportunity to hear Drew Breeze talk and he's like every aspect of his life. So his priorities are dialed in and his schedule reflects that.

He's a man of faith. He's a family man. But then he was walking through his work schedule during the season. And everything is oriented around football. And I look at how I was. I look at how I was and I was not that way. I was just in the pros. And it's like, I think you can apply that to the family life too. It's like, are you just showing up? Are you just in survival mode? Like, are you just on the roster of your family? Or are you engaged with the things? Are you orienting your life and your schedule around where you're at? And I have tried not to be passive again ever since I learned that lesson. Is that a commitment issue or is that a I just don't care or not. This is not my thing issue. I think it was a commitment issue where I at some point was more committed to other things in life.

Like, oh my gosh, I love making videos. I was learning about how to edit and what cameras to you. and digging into the cult. I was so committed to YouTube in 2015 during my rookie year that it came with the sacrifice of football commitment, you know? And I ultimately had to rebalance those scales through a painful process.

But yeah, I mean, and I didn't do it well. I think it was both. I think it was a commitment issue because the passion and the joy wasn't there. You felt out of love of football. You liked the idea. of making it in the league for 15 years. You had a dream of playing,

but there was a passion that had exited. And I think in our chapter, that fully inspired by Dr. Henry Cloud, we wrote that after interviewing him, I think it was after you started realizing that you were having a hard time committing to football and the skills were being, tipped in a different direction, you took a step back and you're like, why am I doing this?

Yeah, you might have more insight on that than I know in some ways. As like an, it's, it's, it's, I think it takes a lot of time to reflect on things like that. But as a viewer, you loved college football. You had a joy about you. And that light went away in, in the NFL. It became, you became, you became, your overthinking. That's when your yips came out. That's when you started spreading.

yourself more thin and having plan B's and not committing to it. And I think those types of signs are where you need to step back and say, why am I not committing to it? Am I just afraid of failure? Am I afraid of rejection? Do I still love this? If I do, I need to figure out how to commit to it fully. But if the joy and the full love of whatever that hobby is is gone, that's when you need to reflect and say maybe it's my time to move on to something else. I appreciate that. That's good. The amount of times I had conversations, I was like, we need a sport psychiatrist.

We need to dial in this routine, baby. What are you on fire for right now? What's lighting you up? Well, we've got chickens now. You're chickens? Do you eat the eggs? We're about three weeks away from their eggs. We had them since they were born.

Nice. That's exciting. I... What about a highland cow? Are you guys going to get a highland? Yes. Don't say it, Nick. Don't say you got to.

You got to. I learned that they have to have a friend. Otherwise they're too lonely. Yes, we're getting those. We're getting goats too. Nice. All of them. I'm just so excited about our kids right now.

I just like, I feel like we're in that phase of life right now where I just want to be home with our kids. Yeah. Your kids are at awesome ages. It's the best. I mean, ours are too. Yeah. We're still a little in it. And then we want to have a third.

So we're going to go back in it. But yeah, I feel like y'all are out of diapers? Are you? We're in the process. Okay. Yeah. I can't believe. Yeah.

What are we going to do? We're not buying a million diapers. That is going to be a weird day. It's coming not shortly for us, but. Okay, really quickly, I want to talk about special forces. This book was written a long time right before y'all were on the show. I love this show so much. I love this show.

I loved it before y'all were on it, and I made him watch it with me. And I was like, he's a military guy. He's not to like this show. You liked it. It's great. It's great. And when I saw the y'all were going to be on it, I'm like, they're going to the end. And you both did.

You made it to the last episode, right? Yeah. Interrogation. You guys crushed it. So if you had to add a section in this book about your time, did anything perspectives on commitment to change from your time on that show, like, oh, that was so fun to watch you guys. I love that show. I think the coolest part about that show that you don't get from even watching it is the four special forces guys that lead it. They run the show. It is not a show. It is an experience that's filmed. So the cameras cannot intervene at any point. A lot of it is filmed by security footage and gopros. But they are in full instructor mode. And they don't show the hard stuff, which is funny, which is frustrating.

I got annihilated. Oh my gosh. I got crushed. Physically and mentally and emotionally, yeah, in all different ways. And it was, what, 10 days? Yeah. Ours was 10. Yeah.

We did, we did, the last day, again, they don't show it. It was 18 hours of interrogation. Gosh. With a bag over your head. No way. With no race. But to answer your question, I think if I was going to add a section to the book,

it was really fascinating because they try to make you quit, you know, and they're doing hard physical challenges. They're yelling at you. They're all up in your face. They're putting you in uncomfortable situations, whether that be, you know, in the tent with rats or the ridiculous bathroom situation was like... They don't show it.

A tent with rats? Oh, they don't show. Oh, no, like that's where we slept. Like, it's where we slept. Like in the burying. Okay, I'm sorry. Yeah. No, that's a crazy.

idea, though. Yeah, it was like that is next level torture. Okay. But it was like, it's just, if you just stayed and you didn't get, if you didn't get swayed by those different distractions that they were thrown your way, it's like, they're not going to, they really don't kick you off the show. Like, it's a, you stay until you tap out. Yeah. Everyone could win, right? Everybody. Everybody could stay. And they actually want you to, like the four instructors try very hard to, they, they exploit, they figure out your weakness on day one. They're very good at that. And they exploit it as hard as possible,

individually for each person. But it's just to stay. I think the big thing that I noticed from day one, different amongst everybody, was the people who went into it saying, I'm here for 10 days. And the people who said, should I leave today or should I leave tomorrow?

Or am I going to make it to day three? Or they just tormented themselves. Yeah. Yeah. Having even the option to leave, we took away from ourselves. We just said, we're here for 10 days, baby. Yeah. I'll see him on day 11.

That's what got you there. That mindset is so powerful. I did this race in 2023. It was a last man standing race. No, no, no. And from the beginning, there was this guy who there were rumors that he ran Moab 240 the year before. And you can just tell he was a stud.

And I ran up to him. going on the race and you're trying to figure out like who's going to go the furthest. I said, hey man, like, how far are you trying to go in this race? And he just looks at me very calmly and says, the whole way, brother. I love that. And instantly, I was like, I'm out. It crushed, it crushed my like confidence. This dude is, he's going to die out here.

So I got to 100 miles and I dropped down and he ended up winning it. A hundred miles. Well, we just hosted a race, a last man standing race on our ranch in April. They went 306 miles. Insane. Crazy. Crazy. Straight?

Yep. Every hour on the hour, 4.2 miles. It's like an e-mom. That would take me an hour. If you finish a minute 48, you get 12 minutes of rest until the next loop. It's crazy. It would take me an hour turn four and have fun. I don't think I would make the cut off.

I got your next event to host. This is my favorite thing I ever did. my favorite athletic competition. The one. Oh, yeah. It was called the Eternal Run. Okay. There was no starting line and no finish line.

They gave you a pace to run at based off of some benchmarks. Like you ran a mile and then they measured your heart rate and they like kind of understood your threshold. So they gave you a pace per mile to run. It was, I think it was 40% or 50% of your mile time. My mile time that I couldn't go slower than was like 9. Yeah. 9.05 maybe. So like pretty reasonable.

But then the race is. on the Utah Salt Flats. And so you're just in this abyss. And you can run anywhere you want. There's no course. There's no path. It's just who can stay out there the longest. You don't hold this pace.

You don't get a watch. You don't get music. You don't get nothing. The only thing is they had every athlete had an IFB. And base camp would tell them when they started dropping under their pace. And you had three warnings. You had a watch that told you your pace. you had to stay with your pace.

Yeah. But it didn't track your time. It was locked on that screen. How far did you go? I ended up going 16 miles, but I was like, so we're on the salt flats and it's like a really soft sandy kind of like crunchy. You'd sink every like every step you took. Maybe like you'd sink an inch.

And so it's like super energy consuming. But having that mindset of like I'm not going to I'm not going to quit until my muscles literally cramp. Like it's a. it's a dope way to approach life where it's almost the opposite of like the day traders of the stock market where they're riding every second that's a high low my gosh we're up or down I'm like you know you're you're like so urgently attached to what's happening and it's like okay we're we're crushing it yeah I'm on I'm riding that high or no we're crashing we're low it's like no I'm looking at the

long game you zoom out and the trend is going to be up you know and it's like don't don't stop until you until the game is over or like I'm going the whole way or it's like it takes the edge off of some things and I think about that in our marriage it's like okay the this we just had another argument and am I going to be shook by that and say oh no is this the end or am I going to say oh no like I'm going to zoom out we're trending up like this ain't over until until we're both dropped on the ground you know so that race is really fascinating because it was a sports psychology data research event um And the interesting part was since there was no course of any kind and there were no markers and there was no start line and there was no finish line and there was no way to measure what you were doing.

He didn't know how many miles he was running. You could only know your pace and that was the only marker to know. A lot of the guys were trying to measure based off of like the sunrise and sunset, how long it had been. Nobody's talking to you. You can't listen to anything. It's like how long can you just be in your mind? That's horrible. I think the lady, it was a lady who rang.

She was long, an ultra marathon runner. I think she went like 12 hours. Yeah. But it was, it was mentally the craziest thing I've ever seen people do. I mean, the race I did that last band standing was of all the races and competitions I've done, mentally the hardest. But it's the definition of commitment. Yeah. Because there is no finish line.

That is, I can do that. But like the run that you did, like, you have to go to a certain headspace and mindset of, I don't know when this is going to end. Say you do a marathon. Okay, I have 20 miles left. Yeah. I have 15 miles left. I have 10 miles left. It's like that provides some sense of peace and satisfaction.

Okay, I'm getting closer. But in the race you did, like, you don't have that. that mentally is so challenging. Yeah. It's a fun challenge though, you know. The whole way, brother. No, the whole way. The whole way, brother.

I'll never forget that. It's so epic. Insta, I was like, oh. Oh, man. That hurts. Gosh. Well, guys, I really appreciate it. You guys come on on the show.

Super excited about your book. Thank you. As we've already shared, we're very impressed. Thank you. And I think it's going to be a leadership piece. like I said, that influences behavioral change for all the right reasons. Yeah. Well done.

Yeah. And I feel like this is kingdom work you guys are doing because I feel like even though this wasn't a faith-based book, my mind kept going to it because it aligned with the Bible. The Bible is all about commitment and faithfulness and endurance. And so much of that was in this book. So well done. Thank you. Thank you.

We're excited for you guys. Thank you. It was awesome. Appreciate that. Yeah. Until next time. Thank you.