The Nick Bare Podcast - Archive - Harnessing The Power Of Deep Work To Be More Creative And Original | Alex Rodriguez & Jordan Utter

Episode Date: April 11, 2022

Everyone is creative in some way. Some may create art. Some create food. Some create businesses. For all of us, we are the creators of the life we want to live. For many of us, being creative can come with some resistance. The choice to be original and forge your own path can be one of the most difficult parts of the creative process. In this episode two members of the BPN Media team, Jordan Utter and Alex Rodriguez, join Nick on the show to talk all about what it truly means to be original, and shed some deep insight into how you should view originality and creativity. As they share with us, by eliminating distractions and working deeply, we can eliminate creative barriers and be more creative, original, and productive. More Resources: BPN website: www.bpnsupps.com Nick’s website: www.nickbare.com Nick’s Instagram: www.instagram.com/nickbarefitness Nick’s Youtube: www.youtube.com/user/barelifenutrition Follow Us On Social Media! Instagram: @thebareperformancepodcast Facebook: The Bare Performance Podcast Twitter: @BarePerformPod

In this episode of the Bear Performance Podcast, I think one thing that I've, like, realized lately is creative work, deep work. Again, it takes a lot of pushing against this resistance. And I think when that resistance comes, you start to look everywhere for inspiration. Fuel? Yeah, for fuel. And that's where, like, people are uncomfortable sitting for an hour without their phone, without any kind of inspiration, you could call it, that I think. a lot of people maybe deem as influence or distraction. I think a lot of times we're looking to be like inspired to keep pushing or we get stuck on an idea and we're like, oh, I just need a little

inspiration from like Instagram. Like let me just go see if someone's posted something similar and see if I can fill this gap, find a solution or make a decision. And people are uncomfortable sitting for an hour doing deep work and making hard decisions and working through the resistance. Welcome back to another powerful episode of the podcast. I'm your host. Nick Baer, founder and CEO of Bear Performance Nutrition. Every week we bring you insightful stories, knowledge, and inspiration to help you reach your full potential in life, fitness, and business. If you enjoy the message we're promoting in this podcast,

we would greatly appreciate it if you would leave a rating and review on the platform you're listening to. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on future episodes that embody the Go One More Mindset. All right. So I've had this concept on my mind for the past couple months and it's growing deeper and deeper and deeper through my blood and my veins. And I've wanted to have this conversation about creativity and what is creativity without originality. And who better to bring on this podcast this episode than the creatives BPN. So we got Alex Rodriguez, brand director and Jordan Utter.

media director. What up? What up? Welcome back, boys. Do it. Welcome back for you. This is my first one. Hey.

His debut. It's a big day. Hey, Rod. That's right. All right. So, I'm going to be referencing in this episode a lot, a book called Deep Work by Cal Newport. And I was just telling the guys earlier that I first picked up this book when I was on vacation with

my wife a few months ago. and I quickly realized while reading this book that as I'm reading deep work, I'm sitting by this pole in Cabo, and I realized it was sitting, sitting in and kicking in so easily is because I eliminated noise in my life. There were no distractions. there was no busy work. I was sitting by the pool next to my wife. I wasn't stressed. I was relaxed and I could almost take inventory of my life.

And it allowed me to break past these moments of shallowness into moments of depth. And after reading deep work, I started to realize and notice more things around me. I was more aware. And I kept thinking of this. concept of my morning runs of creating more and consuming less. And I've applied that approach to a lot of things in my life in terms of social media, things I'm doing at home, my family life, right? Like, if we focus on creating and less on consuming, there is this huge response to what we can go deep into. And that's what I think we really need to cover.

this episode is the power of depth, how to reach levels of depth, and eliminate this, this shallow thought process. There's time in place for shallow. Yeah. There's more time in place for depth. Yeah. So my first question for you guys, that was a little bit of an intro, but the quote, it is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation. As professional creatives. What is the power of that quote to you? Well, we were discussing it a little bit yesterday when you sent the questions

and I think you will see it a lot nowadays that people think originality comes from something that has never been done before. And I think Jordan and I agree, we discussed this, but like, originality is actually your perspective and kind of adding your perspective to the conversation of whatever it is that you're making.

So I think sometimes people don't create or don't have like that preconceived notion of like, I can't share my perspective because no one's going to listen. But I think that's actually where originality comes from, is bringing your perspective to the table. And I know we're going to kind of dive into other people taking on your perspective and making it their own. but that's kind of where it starts to having a strong conviction of I have something to share, have something to create that comes from me.

And with that in mind, nothing is really original. Some things are new perspectives that we see. They're like, oh, I never thought about it that way or I never seen anything done that way. But we are so influenced by everything that I don't know that there's anything that is created that is completely and totally,

and totally original. It came from something, you know? So I think if you lean into the concept of, I want to be original, you're never going to go anywhere. You're never going to say anything. You're never going to create anything because you can't. Nothing is original. That's kind of my concept and my perspective on originality.

I don't know. Yeah, that's super good. Yeah, I agree as in maybe. not ideas and concepts, there's very few things that probably have never been done before. So for it to be completely original, it's a really tough debate. Like Alex said, I think we're all from the time we're born for all of our life, we're influenced and inspired by things of our environment, people, places. Now we have the overload of social media, which is very hard to get back to originality.

but I think we as people are original. I think who we are, there's only one of us. We are unique. We have a perspective and a way of looking at things in the world that is original. But maybe a concept and ideas, very hard to find things that are original. I don't know if I would venture to say maybe nothing is original, but I would say most things at their core very, very deep down, we're probably influenced or inspired by or taken just a piece of something that we were influenced

by at some point in our lives. But I feel like us as people are original. There's only one of us. It's like that, that's what I was saying. Like your perspective, no one else has that. Yeah. Because no one else has lived through what you've lived through. No one grew up or you grew up had the opportunities you had.

And what you make of all of those things, that can influence everything you make or everything that you set your mind to or you create, whether it's something like a design or a video or like a book or a workout program, it all has your perspective. That's where the originality comes from. Yeah. But at the core, yeah, I think most things have been influenced by something else. Well, if you think about that, that concept of we're all born unique. And when you're born, there's no influence at that point in your life. The day you are born, everything is brand new. And we are shaped and molded based off of our culture,

the people were surrounded with, our environment, things that happen in the world. Like, if you were born in the 90s, early 90s, and you experienced the attack on the world trade centers, that changed you as a person and your perspective and the way you think. And based off when you were born, and what you experienced, what you saw, where you're born, your family, that shapes and molds who you become.

So I'd be curious if everyone was born on their own little island or bubble and you never, you never experienced culture and conversation or trauma and all these different things, what would your perspective be and how limited would it be? That's a great question. That's a great question. I think that's where the mental side comes in. Because no one can see what's inside of you. No one can hear what's inside of you.

And mental toughness and creativity go hand in hand. Because I can be influenced by what's around me. But if I have strength mentally to contain my perspective and my thoughts and not let it be shaped but what's around me, then I am going to be able to create things that are new and feel new, feel like a new take on something. Because I have this mental, like almost blind. of like I have a very strong conviction about something about how to make this video or how to make

this graphic and we keep going to that because that's what we do. But I think it can be applied to anything. If you have kind of that mental toughness, it comes in a play so much. Yeah, this has been something that I feel like I've been obsessed with lately is like the question of how do I get back to my truest self? At like what point along this journey of life did I get lost in the noise, especially with the rise of social media and things at our fingertips. And that's where this book, Deep Work, really brought to light that for me as well, is how do we get back to like our truest self and have this imagination and childlike creativity when we weren't so influenced or heavily invested into consuming around us?

And that's where I love like what you said of like been really trying to consume less. and then to piggyback off what you said, it requires work to get back to that. Or to find that, it takes work, mental toughness, solitude, not just riding the momentum of everyday life. You definitely have to be intentional about it. And that's a scary thought of losing your true self. Yeah.

And I think there is a point of no return where I honestly believe that most people don't know who they are anymore. Absolutely. And they lose sight of who they are and they have focused more on who they want to be. And that's influenced by what they're consuming. Yep. Like we talked about before recording, like what has triggered or stemmed this thought recently, recently being the last couple months, almost years, is just like my observation of consuming

of what I see on social media or in the world. And people don't know, they don't know what their true self is. So they replicate and I don't even say steal, but they use so much inspiration from what is out there and they're consuming that they attach that to themselves. Clear example. Like say I make a post on social media. And this post is stemmed from or created through my thought

process on an early morning run. And when I think of something on an early morning run, it's not just one run. It is run after run. It's weeks. It's weeks of me thinking out the same thing and building on top of. And like if you want to visualize it, like I'm running in the morning. And it's a very slow, easy pace. And I start painting this picture, day one of this situation or the scenario or this part of my life.

and then by the time the run is done, that thought process is over. But the next day when I run again, I pick up where I left off and I'm exploring the ends and outs, the caves, the trenches, the highs and lows. I'm just exploring this like map that I created. So by the time I bring it to words or write about it or talk about it, I'm exposing just a small percentage of what has been navigated in my brain for. for hours and hours and hours. And it has a lot of meaning and intention behind it.

And then when someone goes and kind of rips that off and uses the quote and puts my words into something else and it loses the intent, it loses the impact, I'm not mad, but I'm almost disappointed in the fact that... It's tainted your thought process in a way. Yeah, it's not. It's the intent is lost. and I've just seen so much lack of originality that I want to go back to that.

I think one thing we've done really good at BPN is we stay in our lane. Yeah. Is that we consume to a certain extent, but we have these blinders on where we are creative heavy, consuming a little bit. Like we keep a pulse.

Yeah. Consuming allows you to keep a pulse on what's... Stay relevant. What's relevant and what's there. But once you go to two, heavy on consuming and less than creating, you, you lose that true self. Yep. And that's like something that you've been challenging is on like not going so wide that you can't go deep. And I think I was like kind of simmering on that thought and also like

looking at other lessons I've had throughout my life. But like one of my mentors growing up in the creative field and like, you know, starting to be a graphic designer and all of that, one of the biggest advice he gave me was like I stopped digging holes and start digging wells and he was like you being young and like trying to figure out what I liked

to create and how I wanted to create it. It's a part of the process but he saw very early on in my career that I was just constantly like exploring something for a little bit and then I would move on to the next thing and he was like there's

you might find water in a hole but if you keep digging, then it'll become a well. That you'll never, you know, that water in that little hole, like eventually might go dry. And that's when you go trying to find another one. But sometimes when you dig something, you know, people that dig holes for, you know, finding water or even like oil, they find that very first, like kind of sign of like oil or water or whatever it is. But they have to keep digging in order to like find the well of it. So I think the older I get, that's kind of my focus is.

I already have all the tools I need and everything around me is enticing me to try to go and dig a new hole. But I am already standing somewhere where I've built whatever I'm doing. So I just need to keep digging here. And that's been like a huge challenge for me as a creative. Like how can I dig deeper where I'm already standing? I mean, you suck the well dry. You stay in that well until it's, you know, nothing's left. Yeah.

But then it's like kind of like a metaphorical concept, but like you think about it, if you dig deep enough and the rain comes, you'll always have water to drink from. Like, so it's almost like a double ed swords. Like people think that they have to constantly be looking for sustenance in all these places when they can create something that sustains for. the long term. You know, that's what they used to do. They used to dig a hole, fine water, dig a well, then they would build around it.

And they would have water forever because it would keep giving, you know? So I think that's a concept that a lot of people don't have an idea because it just keep digging little holes everywhere. That's great. And yeah, I feel like kind of going back just because this is kind of our space, like when I think of BPN and in our media, there's been so many times that we could have of dug a little hole here. Let's jump over here because we know people will like this.

I tell the team all the time, I'm like, listen, we live in a world where you can essentially create almost anything and someone out there is going to like it and praise it. But is it, one, true to our brand and true to ourselves? And do we want to celebrate and are we proud of it? Because you can, yeah, like you said, you can jump between all these holes and get a little bit of here, get a little bit of that here. But like we're trying to dig and dig and dig and say like, true to our hole, our well.

Our lane. Yeah, our lane. So that's really cool. That was deep, man. That was great. That was a great metaphor. It's definitely taking me through a lot of time. And I think practically for people listening,

it doesn't have to be anything hard. You just have to do something over and over again. I feel like you're a great example of that. Like longevity is what digs that hole into a well. Like doing something over and over again, like earning, you know, doing your reps basically. That's what it is. It's nothing, anything crazier than that.

But again, it goes back to what you said. People are just jumping from one thing to another. Yeah. I had this one acquaintance in the fitness space when I first, like, started out. And I saw this person and they would start a new business every single year, if not, multiple times a year. But they wouldn't just start a business. business and build it and then start another and build it. They would start a business, go all in, and then stop, and then start another one and go all in and stop. And what they would

do is they'd have these little holes. And they wouldn't go deep in these holes. They'd stay shallow, but they kept going wide and starting something and stopping and starting something and stopping. And if you apply it to building a business, you have to know who your market is. You to know who your customer is, who's your audience. Who are you going after? And we've been, we've been victim to this. Yeah. I think most brands are where you try to expand your market, which it makes sense.

Like, it really does. How do you grow a business? You reach more people. But there's this balance when you're trying to reach more people and you're not going deep within those audiences or markets. You're not winning anywhere. Your attention, what you said, I think that was like super, super, challenging and know how I share it with Jordan.

Like, we are at the same time trying to bring more people in because we always want to invite more people to what we're believing is VPN and can be in their life. But at the same time, we want to keep the retention of the people that are already committed and are with us, you know, and love our products and follow the journey and everything. So I think that piece of it is like the balance. It's so hard to like cast the net out. but also like realize like you already have people that you're like almost responsible for. I feel like there's a responsibility piece of it where we have the responsibility to not forget

about the people that are like already with us, you know? If you look at marketing, marketing is typically described as a funnel and the top of the funnel is bigger and the bottom of the funnel is it's very small. And the goal with a marketing strategy is to bring more people into the top of funnel. that's acquiring a cold new audience. And as they come into that funnel, they move down towards the bottom. And maybe when they come into the funnel,

they see an ad, they like it, they click on it, they come to your website, and they slowly start moving down that funnel. If you are a shallow-based business with no depth, no message, no mission, no quality product or people,

once they get to that middle of the funnel, that customer, they're going to identify it. They're going to realize there's nothing here. It's just another piece of crap. And they're going to leave. But what happens when you build things the right way and you have depth and you're hyper-focused on this market is you can cater to them and your attention for a long-time customer

and sales and a brand is it skyrocketed. That's kind of what we've been trying to do, I think. One of the things that I told Jordan earlier this year and we had in conversation about the beginning of the year and just like our intentions of what we wanted to do. It's like we need to get to a point where we're making stuff and it feels not, I don't think the right word is boring, but it feels repetitive to us,

but it feels fresh to someone else. Because we have to feel that like pacing in the cadence of like, don't lose that. Like, I think the two words that came to mind used in conjunction are patient endurance. Yeah. We talked about that a lot, being patient for an extended period of time. Yeah.

And drilling it in. Don't get bored. Don't get, not bored, but don't get like sidetracked because something didn't land that one time. Yep. And I think having that conviction of like we set out to do a plan and we're going to execute it. And if it feels monotonous to us, we know that it's not. We've been looking at plans and, you know, you have a plan to do something. You studied it.

You're like, looked at it. It's going to feel a little like, oh, like redundant. to you, but see it through. The way we serve our people is by seeing it through. And if we don't see it through, then that's when people are going to be confused. Like, what is your intention? Why are you doing this one day and this the other day? We're trying to stay the path and finish, you know?

I think it's what you've done the last 10 years with VPN. Like, it's obviously grown and it's changed and it's adapted, but you've always given whatever, whenever we've turned that boat a little this way, it's, we're all in. We're all in on that. We have to see it through. we have to give it the investment in the time, because if we just, again, keep digging little holes, like we're never going to build anything.

Yeah, not chasing the engagement, not chasing, like, the likes. And I think there's, and it's a balance, you know, and it goes back to that word balance, but, like, taking that feedback and applying it, but not letting it, like, stir you away from a plan. Yep. I mean, the creative space is, it's very complicated. It's complex.

It's subjective. It's objective. And I think a lot of people believe they're not creative. I mean, I think we've all been there where you've heard people where you've probably said it yourself. I'm not the creative type. I'll never be there. I mean, clear example with me, I started creating out of, necessity to build the brand.

You're the first creative of BPN. Let's be real. I was and I was the first and the least creative. But I used to tell myself that where I said, I am not a creative person. I would tell people that I'm not a creative person. And I didn't think I was creative because I'd never experienced what I didn't know what creative felt like, looked like, was supposed to feel like. So when I first started doing it, like everyone else, it's uncomfortable and you're bad and you suck at it.

Right? It'll beat you down. It will beat you down. I mean, I remember filming my first couple of videos, like I was telling you guys, or creating something in Photoshop for BPN where you have this fear of not being perfect. And I remember filming my first couple of videos where I got the camera, it had to be lit perfectly, exposed perfectly. framed perfectly. I remember my vlogs. If I started filming with a 50 millimeter lens,

I made myself film the entire vlog with that 50 millimeter lens. I wouldn't change lenses throughout. And I got so paralyzed by the analysis of trying to be perfect and creating that I was stuck. And I was so burnt out and frustrated and exhausted. I'd love to hear when you guys first started creating, why you started creating what that felt like. Because I know there's people listening out there that they believe they're not creative. They believe or think they never will be creative. But the reality is that everyone is creative.

Everyone is creative or can be. That might be a controversial thing to say. But I think I strongly believe that. I think whenever people ask me, you know, be like, oh, you work at BPN, like, oh, you work with Nick. I'm like, yeah, like, Nick's super creative. I use that word to describe you because you are. And I think that's like a lot of people have decided to believe, like, oh, I can't create anything.

But creativity is not reserved to, like, design or a video. It's anything. You're creating your life. Really, every day you wake up and you create your life based on decisions you make. So I think from my own journey of becoming graphic designer, now brand director, a lot of it just started from a place of I needed to make decisions and I needed to learn how to make decisions. And what came naturally to me was to decide on a graphic just because I always been the creative type and like artistic type. I grew up going to art classes my whole life. And then went to college and it was like a natural decision to go to that route and that degree.

But on the core of it, waking up every day, the reason I decided to be creative was because I needed to learn how to decide to do something, put it out and accept feedback. And if it doesn't land, it doesn't land and grow from it. And that process is what cripples people and not being able to. create. They don't, they don't know how to make a decision for themselves. That's where the whole originality conversation comes into. They don't know how to make a decision for themselves. So they're taking someone else's decision because it worked for them and then they're just copying it. So personally for me, creativity has taught me how to decide. And the truest, like, simplest, sense of everything.

It has nothing to do with a graphic or Photoshop. It's just waking up every day and having to make all these decisions throughout my day. Creativity helped me to do that. It doesn't make sense if you say it that way, but it does to me. So it's almost

it's a choice more than it is a technical skill. Right. And that's why I say for you. I think it is a character trait that you have because you put the reps and you made the choice to make the videos and to make your thumbnails by yourself

and to like make a logo for a product label and all those decisions led you to a point where now I think you have really, really strong creative perspective that you give to us and you obviously give towards a brand because you put in the reps. So it is a choice.

And that's, I think most people think that creativity, again, is reserved to like designing something, painting something, drawing, making a video, whatever. But creativity is what do you make with what's in front of you and the choice to go after it and how you can use the tools in front of you to live your life.

People sometimes have to get creative with their money. Like, how am I going to make $100 last me a whole week? That's creativity and its core sense, like having decisions that you can follow through. It's almost, first thing that comes to mind is like, creating is a choice that, like, facilitates emotions. Yeah. Even from, like, a financial standpoint or changing your life choice and perspective.

Yeah, you can let, like, that scenario of, like, someone that, you know, there's obviously, not everyone has the blessing to not worry about money, you know, we know that. But also, it teaches you perspective of, of, like, I can choose to make decisions. in my life that even if I fail or even if it doesn't land, I still get to make this decisions. And I have that freedom to do it. And no one told me that I needed to wake up today and go to work. I decided to do that. Because if I don't show up today, you're going to be like, where are you? Or like, Trey's going to be like, where are you? So everything is a decision. And creating that rhythm is something everyone is invited to. Do you think that creativity is best influenced when there's a lack of resources?

Jordan, what do you think? Yeah, because I think creativity is a decision, but I think it's also a solution. And so it can be a decision on, you know, the front part, but then when that decision maybe doesn't go as planned, it's finding the solution. Like we talk about all the time, we talk a lot about don't bring problems, bring solutions with our team. Absolutely. I think you're like the perfect example of used to worry about what lens you were going to use. And honestly, probably a lack of resources. You probably had two lenses at the time. You're like, it's a 50 or this one. I'm using the 50. You made a creative decision. But yeah, you still do that now with the business. And that's where I love how you talked about creativity is in anyone. Like if you're an accountant, you are going to be creative of how you structure your day to make sure you get all your work done.

You can be creative in your morning routine. You can be creative in how do you get your kids to soccer practice? I think creativity comes from meeting a need and finding a solution. So that lack of resource could be, you know, I know we talked about financial, but that could be just lack of time, lack of, you know. Education, your location, like where you are. I feel like it's always a solution. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. When did you start creating? Why? Yeah. Man, creativity, again, going back, it took me so long to accept that I was creative. I grew up, an athlete, did not go to art classes, never held a camera, very ever or very rarely drew or anything like that.

Art class, not my jam. So I love that. And I love telling the story because hopefully it inspires people to kind of embrace the creativity. It's in them because even when I started to pick up a camera, it wasn't like, I'm a creative now. It was like, I just really love doing this. And like, oh, I'm kind of good at it. And oh, now I'm like able to make some money off of it. Like, this is cool.

And it took, but I still looked at these videographers, photographers, and I was like, they're creative. Like, I just grew up an athlete. I don't really know what I'm doing, but it's fun right now. But then I kind of had this perspective shift of everyone's creative. Like, again, I looked around and I was like, growing up an athlete, growing up someone that didn't go to art class, like, I was still creative on the field, on the basketball court. My mom was creative on how to get me to every practice. Like, I started to see all these ways people were creative in my life. And then I was like, cool, for this season of my life, video holding a camera is just my mode of creativity.

But I can almost bet in 10 years, it's maybe. be going to be something completely different. Like, you probably won't be designing all your life. Right now, creativity is attached to Alex being a designer. Not even, not as much as a used to fading way. Creativity for Nick used to be attached to him being a YouTuber or a vlogger. Now it's how do I grow VPN? How can I make a very wise creative decision and find solutions today?

So yeah. And again, I love the word like conviction. Like I feel like creativity, just video was a mode to, kind of feel this conviction I had of, I want to create that. And I'm going to do it. But it took me a long time to accept that I was creative. Yeah. It was a big perspective shift for sure. I'm really hung up on the thing you said about, everyone is a creator of the life they want. And when you throw that out there saying, you can have whatever life you want, there's always be pushback of someone else saying, oh, it must be nice to be able to have those choices.

And my argument back to that as we're wrapping up the last couple of segments we talked about is if you have a lack of resources, you have a greater opportunity to be a better creative. Create more with your life. Because when you have an abundance of resources, you're not forced into creating. And sometimes that is the best way to do it. And the issue with creating without originality or intention is that you're not creating the life that you want. You are creating the life that someone else might have that looks from what you see is the life that you want. But until you're in it, you don't know what that looks like or feels like. And you're not utilizing

and the resources that you have or that you don't have to make your own life. And you are not able to discover really potential. And I know that's another conversation we've been having behind closed doors and meetings, but like people having what, like, all you have is all you need already. And that potential is already there. If you don't explore what that is on your own, then you're never going to know yourself and you're not going to create the life you want. And I know like the listeners might be like, well, you don't know what I've been through or like the hardships and stuff.

And, you know, I feel like there's empathy and there's a lot of understanding that we can all agree that we can have. Because again, not everyone has all the opportunities. But like you said, when there is a lack in your life, there's an opportunity to create. There's an opportunity to create whatever is wealth, a better life for your kids, for yourself. build something new, a new idea, a new business. There's an opportunity. There's a hole. There's a gap.

There's something that can be filled. So you can choose to look at it as a, you know, curs or like something bad, but you can as an opportunity, see it as an opportunity. One of the things we've done at BPN, I don't say recently, but it's been,

there's been more focused and it's evolved more recently. And this has been through talking to mentors and people who have been there and done it. And I'm learning to this process as well is when I refer to the marketing and media department, I refer to it as the marketing and media department. But in reality, those are two completely different things. Marketing is one thing. And media and creative is another thing.

Now, they need to operate independently, but they also have to work together in coordination through campaigns and product launches and building the brand. And where I'm going with this is marketing operates mainly off of a pulse

through an audience or a customer but it's data driven. And then media and creative is more so telling a story, a message. There is a qualitative response in measure, there's some objective data in there as well, but it is more so a look and feel. Yeah.

Now, my question for you guys is, as creatives or creators in a subjective art or coming from a subjective background, you make something, there is feedback, people either love it or they hate it or they're in between. And that's the feedback you get. and Alex, you come in from Adidas, you've experienced this too before, but when it's applied to business where there's now an objective measure that your subjective art is being judged on and evaluated on, what does that transition feel like and how do you, how do you respond? Good, bad, ugly. Like, what's that, what's that like? That's a current lesson.

Absolutely. That we're figuring it out. learning. I think it does you have you, it's a challenge that you have to take on and I'm sharing this like with everyone that's listening

and you and Jordan it is an ongoing lesson for me just because I think whenever I create something it becomes almost an extension of like my person like who I am and I'm creating this thing so. Meaning there's like an emotional attachment

to it? Yeah there is and I think there is a healthy way to have an emotional attachment to it and also be able, and I mean, when you're going to have an emotion towards something, there's going to be negative and positive emotions that you have towards it. And a lot of it comes from those things that we talk about dopamine and serotonin. We probably touch on a little bit, but the positive emotions that come from it don't go away because something doesn't work.

The negative emotions that come from it, are a lesson to apply and to challenge your creative muscle. So both of them can coexist. And one doesn't have to cancel the other one. But it is a lesson that you have to actively choose to walk into. Every time we do something, the possibility is there for there to be negative and positive emotions. I think the positive sometimes comes mostly internally from yourself because you're

proud of what you did. So you give yourself that positive reinforcement. I personally feel like I give myself that positive reinforcement because I'm proud of what I did. And then it is mature. It's maturity to be able to then go to other people and be able to accept whether it's a positive reinforcement of what you already feel or a negative new feedback. So that's a lesson that I've like I've been learning of the objective side of the business is just as valuable as the positive side of the story in the subjective story we're telling about the business too. Yeah, and I think when you put your work out there for someone to tell you whether it's working or not based on certain metrics, you become vulnerable.

And when you become vulnerable, if your identity, is wrapped up in that work, you'll crumble. But if you can look at that work in your identity, not be wrapped up in it, you can take good positive feedback, apply it where you see fit, but also, like you said, no in your heart. Like, it's still good work, but I can make it better to meet this department's goals as well. And I think that also leaves me the next point where it's so important to do things that are absolutely no pressure.

and a lot of people call them passion projects. I think it's so important to do things outside of work that no one's going to look at and say that's good or not or this is working or not. Just making things for the sake of making things and being proud of it and making it the way you want it, those are the two things that come in mind for me. And in the moment that the objective part comes in,

you have to exercise selflessness. Because it has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with other people. And that's where if your identity is wrapped up in it, you will take it to heart and think that your work isn't good and start to second guess everything. And we've learned. We've been learning. Yeah. That makes complete sense about passion projects.

Yeah. I think no matter what you're doing, you need a passion project. Clear example is when I was in the Army, BPN was kind of my passion project. It was on the side. It was just me, really. No one was telling you how to run it. No one, yeah, no one's telling me how to run it. If I failed, I lost.

I failed. But there weren't employees and team members and families that were being affected. So I could take more risks. And it was all kind of just, it was a passion. And then as BPN has grown, there's now like this weight that comes with it. That's what you were saying. And I was like, oh my gosh. Because I don't know that I was like ignorant to that.

I think we all know that all the decisions that you're making. And even I think to the granular level that everyone's making here, we all know that it's not for us ultimately. Yeah, it's bigger than us is what we always say. But hearing you say, like, from your mouth, like, I'm making decisions because I have people that I'm responsible for. That was really just not eye-opening, but I was like, dang, like I cannot get upset or feel personal about anything that I'm making

because it's not for me. You know what I mean? That was really eye-opening for me to hear you say that. Yeah, I think it's where you mature in that regard, but also I feel like that's where you see the power in. Like your morning run is exactly, I think, the perfect example of, it's not a project, but it's a time that no one else can touch. Your thoughts, no one else can look at your thoughts

or what you think about or what comes out of that run and judge it. or allow whatever they're measuring it off of to tell you if it works or not. Do you think that's important to, I mean, I know you say it was important, but like the balance of like taking care of yourself first so that you can take care of other people. Absolutely. Right. If it's like on a plane with the mask, yes. It's like if you don't put your mask on first,

you can't help the person next to you. Yeah. If you don't take care of yourself in terms of making money, eating well, sleeping, hydrating, like all the things that build value in your life, you are useless to the people around you. And once you let go of your personal health and your personal goals or your passions and your thoughts,

you're just hurting the people around you. It goes back to like the well analogy. Like if you didn't dig deep enough, then you're not going to be able to eventually, supply for other people. Right. So like one of the quotes in deep work by David Brooks is that great creative minds think like artists,

but work like accountants. Wow. And we'll dive into that, what that means, but another quote by Neil Stevenson in here. And this is going to talk all about how to reach levels of depth in your thinking. He said, if I organize my life in such a way that I get lots of long, consecutive, uninterrupted time chunks, I can write novels. But as those chunks get separated and fragmented, my productivity as a novelist drops.

And, I know, Jordan, you read this book. And some of these entrepreneurs, business owners, artists will go away for days, weeks, or months with, no plan, but just to reach levels of depth in their minds. And one of the responses in that book was, in this book, how can you afford to do that? How can you afford to go out for two weeks every year and just do nothing and just think? And someone responded to that and said, how can you afford not to? And one of the things that limits creativity is distractions. If you're trying to create,

if you're trying to create your life, if you're trying to create the job you want or a business, you can't do it in 10 minute chunks here and there. You have to set aside hours, days, weeks, months, 10 years. Yeah. Right? And really allow yourself to go deep. What does it look like for you guys?

Like, what does the BPN creative process look like? No, I love that. And this book has definitely changed my perspective a lot. And it's almost asked you to be a little counterculture or think different than what the world wants you to think or what you, the way that you think you're being productive. You know, to me it was the hours I was putting in how busy I was. And I feel like everyone's busy now. And so for me going into the new year for the team, I knew to that, to that point, it was how. How can I not afford to every week have time of just solitude, silence, and to think, similar

to your morning, you know, morning runs, and bring very valuable, deep concepts to the business. And I think we've pushed everyone, everyone on our team to do that. We've really been putting things in place to, like, to think deeper and take time away. and not make decisions that are like brash. Yep. And so, yeah, and I think we live in a world where it's how much can we do, how quick can we do it, how many boxes can we check today? Awesome, productive day.

But in reality, that's all, as the book deems, it shallow work. And shallow work is low value, low impact, not thought-provoking work that makes you feel like you're being productive. And I think I spent a lot of time. I think a lot of people spend a lot of time in that state because that's kind of, of the cadence and the rhythm in our world is very shallow, but also moving very quickly in asking you to be surface level. And going back to the beginning of our conversation, it takes work to like take a step back. It takes mental toughness to take a step back to protect your time, to set boundaries and know that if you make one good decision in that two-hour chunk,

it could have way more impact than eight hours of checking and answering emails or, you know, just very low impact work, very shallow work. So for me, it was making the intentional decision to set aside time for deep work, knowing that that's the best investment I can make for BPN myself and in my life outside of BPN. I'm just better because of it. And yeah, I love it. It's really changed my perspective a lot. on a lot of things.

Yeah. No, I think personally, a lot of what I see in, just in general in the industry, not like the supplement industry, but just like the creative industry. A lot of the work is very start,

finish. And I've talked this concept out with Jordan of like, my work is compounding over time. And when I finish something, I just finished for that task that I needed to do. But next time I start again, I'm picking up from where I left off. I am creatively not like calling it. I finished something.

It's like, no, like my work is constantly moving forward with me. And I'm not starting from scratch. Because I actively decided that I'm not going to start from scratch every time I do a project. So the thing on our team, the approach we've had has been very like, you know, take a step back. And we're not looking at our work

for BPN as like a daily thing or like, oh, what are we going to post today? Or what are we going to send today? We're not also not going back like, oh, what are we going to post this week? We're also not going back. We're going to post this month. We're actually thinking about like quarters and years.

And I think you also live in that space of like ahead, like maybe like three years ahead. ahead, which I'm not there, but I think having that foresight of like, if I just focus on, like, creatively what I need to do today for the next like eight hours that I'm here in the office, when I leave, I might have a checklist done. But tomorrow, am I going to have to go back to the start line and like start from scratch? And then I have to like get in it and like get motivated and like get creative. I'm building on what I did yesterday. I am deciding today to pick up the work I did yesterday and move it forward another day

and move it forward another day because I had plans for the next year that I want what we're doing to look X, Y, Z. Because we talked and we said, hey, like even for our campaign that we're running right now, we sat down and we said we never ran a campaign for a whole year. We need to be able to do that and to stay true to our convictions and push the ball forward every single day. So I think that's what the book, you know, mostly is about it. Like, those daily, like, work outputs look great on paper, but they have no substance. They don't have a plan. They're just a checkbox.

We live in a distracted world. And I don't think most people realize how distracted they actually are. Lost in the noise. Yep. Lost in the sauce. Lots of sauce. Lots of sauce. I look back at when I was in college and I remember my, my apartment at the time, probably 1,100

square feet is the apartment I started BPN. I had five other roommates in there with me. And I couldn't study there because it was, it was loud. There was always stuff going on. So I'd go to the library and I'd get one of those little cubicles in the library and I'd bring my snack, I bring my water, probably like my branch chain amino acids. and I would start reading my microbiology textbook and studying, but I have my phone next to me. So I read a page, hop on my phone for a little bit, read a page, hop on my phone, read half a page, hop on my phone,

and then I was just on my phone. And it was this distraction. So going into the woods maybe for two weeks is one thing. But if you have distractions that you're bringing with you, that ruins the entire intent behind it. One point in my life where I really learned the power of limiting distractions in deep work was the four and a half months I was in Ranger school. I had no phone.

I had no access to the outside world, no communication, no media, no nothing. We should do that at BPN for four months. I just see what happens. I mean, we would reach 2006, like 2026, that, that goal then we would reach in a year. Because when I was there, all I thought about from the time I woke up to the time I went to bed is how do I graduate this course? How do I accomplish the mission? How do I help the people around me?

That's all that mattered. I had like blinders on. I wasn't caring about where I was eating that night. I didn't care about what my friends were doing. I didn't care about the news or social media. It was great. It was, I was so powerful in my thoughts. And I still reminisce about some of the deep thoughts I had when I was in that school.

And just like the, they were rich thoughts. It only to describe it. There were these rich thoughts that had so much intent and meaning behind them. And I experienced that there. And when you experience that once of how deep you can actually work and think, you realize how distracted we are. Yeah. Yeah, I don't remember who said it, and I'm probably going to butcher it a bit,

but kind of just to the point I was talking about, too, is a minute ago, is our thoughts are the only thing that no one else can touch that we own. It seems like, like what goes on in our head, the world can't touch that. And so I feel like, but when you don't set time aside to sit with those thoughts and find them in their truest self, and those thoughts are influenced by the world and distracted, then they're not true to you. But like you said, it was like you had the richest thoughts.

It was because no one had a hand on those thoughts. It was just you didn't know what was going on the outside world. No social media. You weren't seeing what a friend was doing on Instagram and then thinking about what you're going to do later tonight. Just there, present. In your thoughts, no one else can touch that. it's so powerful because anything else,

most anything else in our life people can look at and have some kind of judgment. But it's like one of the last things we have that no one can touch. Yeah. And well, we don't take care of it. That's the crazy part. We allow so much noise in there, which is just why there's so much shallow work in the world

and surface level people. It's boundaries. Yeah. Think people believe that they have to be available for everything. Yeah. and you don't have to be available for everything or everyone. And those boundaries, honestly, it really is what sets apart a lot of people that get a lot done because you might text them and they don't text you for like a whole day.

And it's a negative thing or days. Or it's a negative thing. You know, it sucks. You know, you really truly see how the world has made it such a negative thing not to be available. Like if you don't slack someone back in five minutes, they're at your desk wondering, hey, just see, did you see my Slack? Or like, you know, whatever, yeah. But that concept of that, I think taking back the power to say, I'm not available. People always joke about me, having my phone did not disturb all the time.

I pretty much keep it on to not disturb all the time. And now Apple has this thing where you can like do the work. Which allows me to have the boundaries to say if Nick text me or Trey text me or Dorn text me is going to come through. But no one else. In that list, I appreciate it. But having those boundaries and we've had even that conversation of like social media, like who has access to you? And but it also is internal. It's like it's a personal decision.

Like what has my attention and how can I put boundaries in front of me so that I can work? and work towards creating the life that I want. That's why I love this podcast studio so much is that I've had some of the best conversations with people in this room because it's walls, it's a door, phones don't come in, and it's people having a conversation. And years and years and years ago, before phones were a thing, I'm sure a lot more conversations on a regular basis were like this

and you didn't have to lock people in a room to do it. Absolutely. Yeah. And, I mean, I remember growing up when I got my first phone. I remember I was in, I think I was in high school. And I was in sports. My parents gave me this brick Nokia phone. I had like this snake game on it. Yeah. And I looked at it. I said, I don't need this. And I threw it in a drawer. I didn't touch it for like a year or two. I got my first phone and I was just like, what's up, girl?

Texting, texting women. Oh, yeah. I don't even know if you can text on that Nokia brick. You just play snake all day. I came a few years after you. Phones were a little more developed once I got it. You got I had like the razor. I was actually a little after that.

Oh, wow. The phone like right before the iPhone. I had the razor. It was like my second phone. You had the razor? Preston had the razor. But now like I saw a post from, I think it was Dr. James, Nicol Antonio.

I think it was like yesterday. And it highlighted the fact that now when people stand up from wherever they're at, it could be their bed. It could be the digital. dinner table or their desk at work, why is it just to go to the bathroom, we have to take our phone in with us? That's wild.

That is so wild. It is a distraction. Yeah. Yep. And going back to this podcast room, there's conversations that are so rich here because they reach depth and there's focus and there's eliminated distraction. I love going to dinner, for example, right? I love going to dinner.

And what I love about going to dinner is I like the environment, like the atmosphere. I love great service. I love good food and good cocktails. And the appetizers. Big appetizers. You guys know a big appetizer fan. I can't believe you left that out. I don't even know if Nick orders like an entree like his dinner.

I can't tell you the last time I've gone to dinner and not order an appetizer. If I ever go to dinner or someone and they don't, I'm like, hey, you want some maps. Like, no, I just want entree. You're like, what? Like, you can go right now. I think when we go to dinner now, we don't even, I don't even, I don't even, look at the appetizer because I'm like, Nick's just going to order five things times two for like five people. I don't even ask anyone anymore.

I just give us all the apps. Yep. But I love going to dinner. And I love the experience. What I love about the experience is you're sharing drinks, you're sharing food with people, and you can have some really good conversations. Now, there's two type of dinners that you go to. You either go to a dinner where it's all surface level conversation. And I don't enjoy those, really.

But like some of the best dinners ever been to is when you get in some deep conversations. And sometimes when I go to dinner with people and they've never been to a dinner where you actually try to have a deep conversation, they're like thrown back and almost uncomfortable. And my thought process is, why aren't we having these conversations? Why aren't we trying to talk about these deep, meaningful things? And a few months ago, Christian Huff and Sadie Robertson were in town. And Christian was on the podcast and we went to dinner to lone, some dove on my favorite places downtown Austin and that was one of those dinners where we had one of the best conversations ever it was just like a really meaningful deep conversation and i left

that feeling filled and i searched for that i love having these conversations that break past service level i don't want to talk about the weather i don't want to talk about covid i don't want to talk about masks. Politics. I want to talk about some meaningful stuff that I want to know more about you. I want to tell you more about me. And let's talk about something that is just impactful. Shout out Christian. He's the reason that I have a time living on my Instagram now. It's like 30 minutes a day or something. And it pops up and it says one more minute, 15, yeah, one more minute, 15 more minutes or turn off for the rest of the day where you can extend your time. and he talked in a podcast about he's like strict. When that pops up, done.

Doesn't matter if it's noon or 8 p.m. So shout out, Christian. So that doesn't surprise me that you had that experience because, yeah, he inspired me to do that as well. By emplacing boundaries. Placing boundaries. And I think that's where it becomes like a game almost of the tools are there for you to place boundaries too.

But people ignore that. they want to be a victim. They're like, oh, it's taking my time away. There's boundaries that you can access. But I do like the thought that you're saying of like, it goes also there. Like, I'm not going to hang out with the people that take away from my life. I'm going to hang out with the people that add to my life.

Because that's how, then I have confidence. I remember you left that dinner and you couldn't stop talking about it like the next day because it left you so. like filled. And that helps you have the confidence then to come to work and dig deeper in your own life because you saw someone else and they showed you how they're digging deep in their life. But people that you leave a dinner and you feel like they took something away from you, they never dug anything. They're actually digging in trying to dig in your hole to get stuff from you to hear how you did this, how you accomplished this. And,

And then you leave that meeting and you're like, man, that was not fun. Feel drained. Feel drained. Because all they wanted was to hear how you crack the coat or whatever. People that walk into meetings or dinners like that where they're looking to add value are like the best people to have around. And I'll go back to dinner with those people time and time again. So in the beginning we kind of talked about it. And it was how to use inspiration to create.

and how do you use inspiration but also ignore it to be original. Wow. And there's also a quote in this book that when I was reading this on that vacation with Steph, I got to this point and I took a picture of this page because it really sunk into me. It hit home. And it's that there's this popular notion that artists work from inspiration, that there is some strike or bolt or bubbling up of creative mojo from who knows where. But in fact, perhaps

a single best piece of advice I can offer anyone trying to do creative work is to ignore inspiration. Why? Why, Jordan? That's amazing. And when I think of inspiration, the first thought is getting inspiration when you're trying to develop a concept or an idea. But honestly, I think what's even more important is once you have that idea, the inspiration you're seeking to keep pushing forward on it. I think one thing that I've realized lately is creative work, deep work, again, it takes a lot of pushing against this resistance. And I think when that resistance comes,

you start to look everywhere for inspiration. Fuel. Yeah, for fuel. And that's where people are uncomfortable sitting for an hour without their phone, without any kind of inspiration, you could call it, that I think a lot of people maybe deem as influence or distraction. I think a lot of times we're looking to be like inspired to keep pushing. Or we get stuck on an idea and we're like, oh, I just need a little inspiration from like Instagram.

Like let me just go see if someone's posted something similar and see if I can fill this gap, find a solution or make a decision. And people are uncomfortable sitting for an hour doing deep work and making hard decisions and working through the resistance. And so, yeah, my first thought when I heard that was, it is almost the inspiration of ideas and drawing inspiration. But honestly, I feel like we're almost the bigger problem that I've faced. Personally, I don't want to speak for others,

is the inspiration once the process has begun to see it through and to not look, to not look for these little doses of, you know, inspiration. Like, you keep you going, fuel. I think it fuels a great word. It's like almost you try to find inspiration to confirm what you feel is the right decision. Or like easily fill a gap or make a decision for you of like, oh, that person's done something similar to steal a little of this part and I don't have to think about it. You know, I don't have to do the deep work to work through it.

Yeah. And then there's a whole other conversation of inspiration from a concept level, empty notepad level of where does the idea. come from. So, yeah. I think you can look at inspiration in those kind of both lanes of like something to keep you going. But I think the word there is, if you are looking for that as very fleeting and you have no concept of discipline. Yeah. Because inspiration can only go so far.

Goes back to it. Discipline. Like, can you stay the path and finish something you said you would do? But then the side of concepts and things that are, you know, good to see as out in the world that have been executed. Inspiration is good because then you can see what discipline applied looks like. And obviously when you look at work, you're probably going to look at the best workaround. And we throw out names of brains we like and we see the work that they put out. And if you look at it in a shallow way, you'll just see the pretty, the,

but if you look closer, if we were to sit down with those creatives and ask them, then they would just probably say it was hard. Like, we had to be at the shoot at 4 a.m. to get this shot that you saw in a magazine that looked pretty. The discipline side of it that they executed, and that's the inspiration. The look and the feel and the output is just the shallow.

That's not what you want. You want to look closer, look deep, keeper. When I look at brands and what they're doing and I look at work that's out and about, I am inspired, but I think I'm inspired because I feel like I can look past the pretty and look at the work. I can like tell like, oh, this took a lot of work. And the people that worked on this came out on the other side. And obviously, is out and about, it's out in the world. They saw it through. They stuck with what they thought. It was a good decision. And they did it. So they had discipline. There's inspiration through the appreciation of the process. Yes. Absolutely. It's the process.

And people, that's where, like, we have the differences of people that get inspired by the pretty, by the runs, the thought, the five-minute thought that you put on Instagram. But they don't see the other side, the weeks and the things that happened. And that's where the inspiration needs to come from. And it takes work to get to that place because you probably have to dig into someone's life and ask questions or really be more objective about it, not just like, oh, that looks great. I want to do that next. That's why my morning run thoughts,

it's that when you first start running, like Alex, you are diving into the running space right now. I got the bug, I guess. He's a hybrid athlete. I'm a hybrid athlete now. He's got the bug. And you see someone running or talking about running, he's been running for years.

And they talk about the solitude. and how I can recheck these deep thoughts and it's peaceful and it's filling and there's this desire behind that you're inspired to go do this and you go and do it and you realize or think this guy's full shit there's no solitude here

your knees aren't feeling any solitude right now. The runner's high I'm like when is that happening because my knees are hurting. I'm my knees are aching. But there is there's an appreciation in the process to get there where it's cool in a sense that just because you go run for your first couple times

doesn't mean you're going to get the reward that running can provide. But if you stick to it and you keep showing up and you keep doing it, you will eventually get the reward. So there's some work that's required to get there. And I think that's when you finally feel that, you really connect with the running community and what they're saying because you know, oh, this guy's talking about the solitude he's experiencing.

I know there were hundreds of miles logged prior to that moment to reach that level of depth. I think it's why people are so inspired by like your typical things like nature and other people is because people at a surface level look at mountains and these huge trees and they're inspired and it's majestic and it's beautiful. but when you think about how those were formed and built over thousands of years and why they look that way and the work isn't the best term for it, but how they were molded and formed into that, then you feel that deep appreciation for it. Same with people. Honestly, for me, I get inspired by people probably more than anything, especially like older people. Love talking older people because you're like, this guy's lived 80 years of life. Okay, why is he still so happy? What's like the secret? How much has he been through and the work he's put in to remain happy and healthy or maybe he's beat down? Like the ultra runners are similar. Like why are they, you know, why are they so chill? And it's like running is, I just ran yesterday. And that was terrible. I do not feel chill today. But yeah, I feel like it's why people are so inspired by nature and other people is because on a deep level. Is because you think of how it, how did it get there? It's not the enemy.

Inspiration is not the enemy. It's how you decide to engage with it, how it can become an enemy. Yeah. Because we could just be making things that look like the next thing that we like on the side. But I think we are choosing to look past that and enjoy the process of figuring it out. I like the thought of thinking of older people, like you said in that sense. Yeah. I love it.

I remember sitting in mine, my grandparents' kitchen growing up. This tiny house. My mom and her brothers grew up in this house with my grandma and grandpa. You had a mullet, huh? I had a mullet when I was inspired by my dad. Just bring the mullet back. Bring it back. I don't think I could try.

CEO with a mullet. My hair grows a little funky now, but I might give it a try. But I'd sit in my grandparents' house and I'd watch my grandma and grandpa. This is my mom's mom and dad. And I was inspired by them because they were hardworking older people. My grandpa had a garden in his backyard that would feed us all on Sundays after church. Our church growing up was about a mile and a half from my grandparents' house. So we'd all get a church.

And then after church, we'd go to my grandparents' house. My grandpa would make cheeseburgers on the grill that he would burn to a crisp. He'd make homemade French fries that he grew the potatoes. in his backyard. And then all the toppings for the burgers, tomatoes, lettuce, onion, everything was grown in his garden too. And there'd be fruit and all this stuff. And I was inspired by the life that my grandparents had.

Not by the fact that they didn't have a lot of money. I was inspired by like the cars they had or the house they had. But I was inspired by the life they created and the depth that they reached in those years. And by no means, was I going to use that inspiration to go recreate the life that my grandma and grandpa had? No, but it inspired me to instill the values that they taught me growing up in the lessons to be the person that I have become over time. So I do love the concept of being inspired by older people. Yeah. And it's amazing.

The people that are ahead of you. Yeah. I think when I, in my own like kind of world of like inspiration, like that's, those are the people that I'm like looking to. And people ask, that's a common question that people ask like designers or videographers or like whoever. Like, oh, who's like your inspiration? I'm like, I don't have like a person or like I just feel like I'm looking at people that have gone ahead of me and they're still like kicking. Like that's the inspiration. because they made it past

like all the sexy stuff. They pushed past it and they're like still doing it. I'm inspired by people who don't hang their hat on their prior accomplishments. I've been thinking about this a lot on my runs lately in the morning

because people ask me the question why do I wear a hat every day? And I was trying to think of something witty to respond to it. I don't hang my hat on my accomplishment. Exactly. That's what it was like. I'm not ready to hang my hat yet. It's a sign of work, right? Like hats used to be a sign of like you were out like working and

sweaty. You had the stuff. You had the sweat stains. Yeah. This hat's got it right here. I know you do. Yeah. There is a weird pride in a hat that has like some sweat stains and stuff. You ready to work. You're like, this thing stinks, but you still put it on every day because you're like, I hope someone smells it because they're going to know the work that was put into it. My hats always smell. And they have a specific stink. I'm just glad you shower. So yeah. That's rare. Yep. But I look at people that are older that are still pushing forward. They're still creating.

They're not hanging their hat on what they've done in the past. They might be 70 years old and they're talking about what they're doing right now or what they're talking about what they're doing next year or the year after. They might not be starting a business or starting a new career, but they might be taking their grandkids on this trip. Or they might be building a garden in the backyard so they can bring their grandkids over for dinner after church. on Sunday. But I always admire people who

don't stop and hang that hat, but they just keep pushing forward. Do you think that it's safe to say that those people did deep work in their life to get there? They did deep work and they're still doing deep work. Yeah, I read something the other day and it was like the three things that lead to happiness or why people are happy in one of those.

Like number one was they have a project to work on. And I think when you, using old people, an example because we're on the topic, when you look at old people that haven't hung their hat and say, well, that's it. And I don't know what I'm going to do now, but they still have a project to work on. You could probably find a better term because, like, taking grandkids to the museum is a project for them that day. Responsibility. Yeah, a responsibility. Something that requires them to. Oh, ownership. Yeah. Yeah. To take responsibility to do

a bit of deep work, it leads to happiness. And I feel like with people that have nothing going on and I've hung the hat and I made it, like, they become miserable and you see it. And older people is just kind of the example we're using now. But, yeah. I do want to talk about like this psychology of being creative or being a creator. And as you guys know, like the book I'm reading right now is the molecule of Moore. It was recommended by Kat. Yeah, got to read that one too.

I got to read all the books. Has Kat been on the podcast? Yeah. She's next. Yeah, Kat will be next. That's going to be the most downloaded, easy. Kat Thomas is working with VPN now and is doing an amazing job. She recommended this book to me.

And the molecule of Moore, I started reading it when Steph and I were gone this past weekend. And instantly amazed by this book. And the next tattoo I'm getting is the dopamine molecule, actually. Let's go. Because of this book. That's dope. It talks all about the... Oh my God.

It's a serious podcast. That's dopamine. It talked all about dopamine and how much dopamine controls everything we do. And we have this dopamine control circuit where the best way to describe it and they describe it in the book is, say, for example, at the end of this table here is a slice of pizza. Just came in from 600 degrees.

It's one of those big slices. It's like, there's, like, there's, a fan behind it and it's blowing the smell of like the pepperoni into our face. It wouldn't be sitting there long. It wouldn't because of the dopamine desire. So you see that pizza and you start to desire it. You want it. You are thinking about what it's going to taste like and the experience.

And this dopamine desire, it's sent off. And a lot of people will go grab that pizza and eat it. But then there's also another type of. dopamine called dopamine control that kicks in that once that dopamine desire kicks in, say for me, my mind says, oh, it smells good, I want that so bad. But then dopamine control kicks in and says, yeah, but will make me feel good? Will it help me reach my fitness goals? Will it help me run this sub 250 marathon at the end of May? Probably not. So I don't, I don't consume it. But dopamine controls so much of what we do, the decisions we make, what we desire, what we control. What we control.

And it has an impact on our entire life. The things that we create, the things that we want to accomplish in our life, and going to school and learning about graphic design and creating, what did you guys discuss in terms of the psychology of how to create to make people desire a certain thing? Yeah, I don't think people are aware how, like, psychological it is graphic design in the world. I think you can take a step back even after this podcast and think about all the things you enjoy and the things that attract you. And there's a psychology behind decisions that were made for you to feel that way about that. Now,

that's where the responsibility part comes in because some people use that for the wrong thing. And some people use it in the right way. I think that was like a huge, huge eye-opener for me. It was a senior year of school at LSU in a graphic design major. And we had like psychology, like basics of psychology. It wasn't like anything crazy, but it was mostly applied to graphic design in how design choices that you make. They're very small can really have a huge impact in how someone reacts to what they're seeing. From the colors that you pick and how the colors make someone feel to the weight of the fonts or photos and how they're placed and used, they're all kind of creating a path for someone to either exercise their

dopamine control or the other one. What was the other one? Desire. Desire. Dopamine desire or control. So the path is what a consumer doesn't realize that companies have over them and everyone. I mean, we can get into it, like politics, everyone. There's so many decisions that are made. I look at, I mean, I have that knowledge because of my class, but like, even when there's like, when the presidential campaigns come around, I can look at the campaign graphic design

and see the decisions that were made in order for someone to be more drawn towards one versus the other. And there's clear decisions that are made. And there's people that all they do is that. That's what they do. they make these decisions. So I think it is an interesting topic and a challenge, I think, for everyone to think about

how they make decisions, they can control and desire something because someone already put that in front of them. Someone already decided, hey, we're going to put this in front of the person, and it's now up to you to have that strength to say, I don't need that right now, or some things are not negative. Like, you just consume them. But there is a lot of psychology behind it.

Yeah, it's pretty wild. This book, The Molecule of More, and I highly recommend everyone check it out. It was a great book, but it ties into all this stuff in terms of creating and distractions. in terms of dopamine makes you anticipate and want something, but then once you get it, it's not as good as you thought. Like the example they give in the book is say you're wrapping up your lunch and or you're on vacation. You're on vacation and there's not much going on.

You're just sitting on the beach all day and you're wrapping up your lunch. And what do you start thinking about next? Dinner. And then you get to dinner. about dinner for those like four or five hours. And you finally get to dinner and then you're like, yeah, whatever. You wrap it up dinner. It wasn't really fulfilled. And you already start thinking about breakfast. And the problem is that dopamine makes us anticipate and want the next thing, the future, but we're not living in the here and now. And that's what makes deep work so hard for a lot of people

is that we can't experience and appreciate the here and now, we are anticipating the next thing. Later on in the day, our next accomplishment, the next job we get, the promotion. Say, for example, in an ultramarathon, you're anticipating the finish line the entire time. And you can't be in the here and now. I experienced that in Rocky Raccoon.

And that's what is the challenge to go reach, levels of depth, especially in creativity, is you have to be able to focus on the here and now and how that affects the future. But if you're focused on the future and the anticipation of you can't create levels of depth required to make impactful creative content. Yeah. We talked about celebration, right? I think that's some that me and Jordan been talking about how we have to be able to take a second to celebrate the work that has been done today. And that doesn't have to mean like with our party or anything, but acknowledgement of, hey, we did what it needed to do today.

And in that celebration, actually, you were able to also take stock of the things that you didn't do. But for the most part is like a moment to say, hey, we pushed the ball forward. okay, now we can move on. But if you don't take a second to be present today and to celebrate and to be acknowledge what you did today, then you're just going to be, you know, moving on from hole to hole, basically. You don't finish the job that you started.

The Army does a really job with AARs after action reviews. Yeah. Like you finish a mission and you talk about what went right and what went wrong. And you sustain what went right possibly and you improve. on what went wrong or where you can improve upon to get better moving forward. But if you finish something and you instantly jump into the next instead of reflecting on what happened prior to, you can't grow from that. Yeah, really interesting thought you hear a lot in ultra marathon is be where your feet are.

And that's why the prep for my 100K was like super transformative in every area of my life because every run I would kind of think that. And especially on race day, it was like, like be where your feet are or run the mile you're in. Love those two phrases. But I've carried that over into work as well. And like Arod said, like our team super motivated. They have trouble stopping.

We're good at reflecting, but we're good at reflecting on, all right, what went bad? What can we improve on onto the next project? And we had a hard time finding joy in the process and in the chaos and then celebrating when the job was done. and then, you know, then reflecting and what went wrong, what can we improve. But, yeah, I feel like ultra was super transformative for me in that regard to, like, just being present in the midst of the process and the chaos and then celebrate when it's over. But know that that wasn't the finish line, you know, along the way.

So, yeah, it's a really cool thought. That, and that, I think it's the dopamine control. Yep. Like, you're deciding how you're going to let this positive experience. affect you. You're not just like going to enjoy it and it be an empty enjoyment. Like you said, desire is just like, oh, you know, I got it. It was cool. I think seeing you run now to ultras in person has been like that kind of context of inspiration. Like I've seen in person put past the work. I know you work every day and you're like run and you prepare. But when you're

there. Like the people see it's like the recap. They see like the video at the end. But being there and seeing you both run the Rocky Raccoon was like, yeah, like this is inspiration, you know? This is this is dopamine control. You chose to step into it and it was not an empty desire. It was like it made me better. It made you better. It made you better. Have you noticed it might be off topic, but a difference in your mindset or what what the workouts give you from? I'm lifting and running. I noticed for me when I started running, it felt like I had a lot more control over dopamine and was more patient and almost like kind of humbled me.

And after the run, I wasn't just like, I got a pump and my ego's boosted. And I feel like I can take on life. It was like, oh, that was really, it was more grounding. And then I feel like when I lift, it's more of this like short term burst of endorphins. And almost like, yeah, just kind of like, it boosts you up. but then it quickly, you know, an hour later, you're like back down. Yeah. Have you noticed a difference in what lifting versus running is done for you?

Completely different. Yeah. I don't even think you can compare the two where it's like lifting for me is a feeling. And that feeling is like a contraction. I feel strong. I feel powerful. I feel like, ugh. Yeah.

You know what I mean? I just feel like that. And there's no depth to it. really like I don't I'm not thinking about these deep things during my lift I am having fun with it I'm throwing some weight around and that's what I get out of it but when I run there is intention there is clarity um I forget I don't I don't even think about running my body just does it on its own and um I've run the same route pretty much every single day at this point same time of the day so like my mind just kind of shuts off or in a sense turn

on. My body shuts off. My mind turns on, but two complete different things. Yeah, I feel like that may be why we are seeing such a big shift, like at least within our community of people that either love running and lift a little. And it's like, oh, I like this kind of just like boost and get me on a high and ego, you walk out of the gym like, you know, and then a running is very grounding. But then vice versa, we have a lot of people that do lift and do more functional workouts that are, again, kind of quick hitters. But then when they run, it's like, wow, that was really humbling and grounding. And I feel like I was just in my thoughts.

And it was painful, but I pushed through it. I learned a lot about myself. You're kind of like going through that now. Coming from like doing crossfit workouts to running. It plays into the dopamine because I feel like for CrossFit, I get a lot of dopamine because I know for like 10 minutes I can choose to engage on something. And I'll get, I'll be on the ground after that 10 minutes. And I know, oh, I did what was supposed to do.

But it was very short-lived. Because when I'm done, I feel like I'm back at square one. But for running, it's different. It's like every time I've been out running, I feel like I am building something. I'm controlling the good feeling that I'm feeling here and there while I'm not hurting. I'm choosing what to do with that and how it fuels me and how it makes me a better person or makes me a better athlete. So I do feel like you say running and lifting or running in another sport is different. Running is completely different than any other sport, I think.

All the runners probably will say that. It allows you to reach depth. And in the day, depth is what sparks creativity. I don't think you can have creativity or be a creator without depth. And when you try to avoid it and you choose shallow, a lot of other parts of your life will become shallow. And you see that how it transforms your life and it transforms your work and what your potential can possibly be.

So gentlemen, I appreciate you coming on. Of course. Thanks for having us. I had the conversation. I enjoyed it. That's great. Thanks, guys. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Bear Performance Podcast.

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