The Nick Bare Podcast - Archive - The New CEO of BPN

Episode Date: January 9, 2023

Episode #161 In this episode, Nick sits down with BPN’s newly introduced Chief Executive Officer, Kat Thomas. The two go in-depth behind the decision to name Kat as CEO, Nick’s new role within the business he founded, and how this transition happened so naturally. Key discussion points include: - How service and positive impact toward a mission are more important than outcome-driven goals, such as job title.  - The life of a founder and what it requires to bootstrap a business, building from the ground up. - Why ‘brand’ matters and how BPN serves to change lives through the power of messaging and quality supplementation. What makes the best brands different? And how can you apply the lessons of two experienced business founders? Nick and Kat’s conversation will encourage you to go all in on your health, business, and life goals. Read more on our BLOG: http://www.bareperformancenutrition.com/blogs/content/the-new-ceo-of-bare-performance-nutrition Resources: BPN Website - Supplements and Apparel: www.bpnsupps.com Nick’s Website: www.nickbare.com Nick’s Instagram: @nickbarefitness Nick’s Youtube: www.youtube.com/user/barelifenutrition Follow Us On Social Media: Instagram: @thebareperformancepodcast Facebook: The Bare Performance Podcast

All that building a business is is getting better today than you were yesterday. And I used to leave a folder on my desktop. It was called Proof of Progress. I used to put like an old purchase order in there. I used to put a picture of a guy who helped pack palates at 2 o'clock in the morning that I gave him 20 bucks to skip his lunch break because we needed to get it done in time for the truck to pick it up. And then whenever I got super, super down, I would go into that folder and I would just like look at that screenshot of that purchase order. and I'd be like, wow, $1,000 of blueberry mush.

Last week they ordered $10,000. And all of a sudden in your brain, you're like, despite the challenge that I'm feeling today, checking that showed me every single day. Like, we're making progress, even though it doesn't feel like we're making progress. Welcome back to another powerful episode of the podcast. I'm your host, Nick Baer, founder 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. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of the Bear Performance Podcast. On today's episode, I have BPN's new CEO, Chief Executive Officer Kat Thomas. Hello, how are you?

Welcome back to the show. Thank you, sir. It's my first time doing a one-on-one. First solo. First solo. Missing my buddy Josh Holly over here. Katz put on the podcast a few times. Every time it's been with Josh,

it would be talking kind of business ops. retail stuff. Today there's a lot to unpack in this episode. We're going to do our best job through this conversation to give context and detail and also educate the listener on a scaling business, on an organizational structure of a business and why sometimes a founder like myself steps down and out of the CEO role. So for the last decade plus, I mean, this past August we celebrated 10 years in business, I was in the CEO role. And it's funny because, you know, when you start a business,

you're typically a business of one, you're one person. And in the beginning, you're really proud of that CEO title. So I remember like being a brand new business owner, entrepreneur, and having CEO like in my bio of my social media platforms. And then like the older you get, the more you experience business, you look back at those times and laugh because, yes, you were the CEO,

but like you had one person that was part of your business. And I've learned a lot over the last years, the last couple years, the last two, two and a half years specifically of building this brand and where I want to be operating in the business. business and it's changed a lot but I've learned so much and I think the time we're living in right now specifically in terms of BPN I've learned what's going to take it to the next level

and it's putting those things in place to get it to the next level and part of that is you being the CEO and we made this official what a month ago ago yeah made it official a month ago to the team and now are put into the world. That's it. So how are we feeling? Feeling good. I think the best thing about situations like this are they've happened naturally and organically. I mean, when I initially met you probably would have been actually about a year ago,

came down to Round Rock and had some conversations really just to learn about the business and see if I could help in some form of like an advisory capacity as someone who's, you know, been a founder. and helped scale a business before. And I think the really unique thing was I was immediately drawn to the culture here at BPN. And I immediately knew upon kind of walking the campus that it was something special. And so all this happened very naturally. We kind of have gone from an advisory sort of role into kind of a chief revenue role to kind of join the leadership team. And then, you know, you and I had some candid conversations about what's next.

and I think it's important to note that, and I said this to you before the podcast, I never said to you, hey, Nick, I want to be CEO. This is something where you said, I am a creator at heart, I'm a visionary at heart, and I would love nothing more

than to be able to lean into that more and that it would be great if I could step into this role to open up capacity so you could lean into what you do best. And I think that these relationships are the best relationships, when they happen naturally and organically and incentives are aligned.

I mean, I don't think it could have happened more naturally than it did. I vividly remember just over a year ago when you came to visit BPN for the first time. And it was me and Josh. He met you. You met here and we did a tour. Yep. And initially you came on an advisor role. and quickly realize the value that you could bring to the business

based off of your knowledge and experience and just the high performer that you are. And when you came on as an advisor and started operating, you were operating out of Dallas and then commuting to Austin. And then we both quickly realized, you were pretty much operating full time from day one. It was much more than being an advisor.

And then you came on full time as BPN's chief revenue officer. And I think it's really important to note that, you know, when I started the business in 2012, I didn't plan on being a creator. It wasn't until 2014 that I started creating content out of survival because built the business, started the business, realized I had supply, but there was no demand.

Yep. So my first instinct was I need to create some sort of demand, and that was for me through social media. So I started documenting just my journey online. And that was what turned me into a creator. Yep. And then I built the brand through a creator lens, because that's where my passion was.

Like I love creating. I love brand. I love storytelling. I love like building an emotional connection through a brand, through a business and a product or a service and then making this impact. That's what I love doing. But out of just, you know, natural habit, I had to operate in this executive role for a long time naturally. Yep. You know, and I was, I was trying to balance.

for years being a creator and then being an operator in the business, being the CEO. And it was absolutely perfectly fine until it got to a certain level. And BPN got to a certain level and a certain size where I started feeling guilty for creating content because it was taking away from my time as CEO and leading a team and, you know, both of those responsibilities come with a lot of responsibility

and obligations. And when I say this was the most natural way possible, like you started as an advisor and you came on

full-time, official full-time as chief revenue officer, and then once we started implementing ELS, which we can talk about, that's when it was just like clear as day

where there was never even like a decision I had to make. It was, well, based off this new structure we built in, let's be honest, Katz CEO, and I need to move into a marketing and creative role. It's like my role right now is I'm leading all things creative in marketing. This transition does not change my role in the business, my active role in the business at all. It doesn't change my hours, doesn't change my involvement.

It just changes my focus. Like my primary focus now is creative and marketing. And I can really hone in on that and move the need on the business where I'm most passionate about and where I think my strengths truly are. Yep. And then it makes sense to put someone whose strengths best serve that CEO role, that person, that role, and that is you. But I think we should explain like what EOS is and how we got to this point because for me that's what it literally was just like, turning a page and the answer was theirs, this is what we got to do.

Yep. Do you want to talk about EOS? Definitely. So EOS stands for the entrepreneurial operating system. And I think the first thing that's really important to notate is look at CEO, look at CFO, look at chief creative officer, look at CFO. None of these roles are more important than the other role. And if anyone tells you that that's the case,

then they probably don't have an incredibly like high functioning team. So I do think that we need to harp on the fact that you're not going anywhere. We're just putting you in a position that allows you to lean into your strengths. And you are an absolutely phenomenal visionary. And you have this unique ability to see what you want to create and then move the needle consistently every single day to the point where then that idea becomes a reality. And that's what a true visionary is great at doing. And what we realized when we dove into EOS was you read this book and you see what a visionary is and you see what an integrator is. And the visionary is big picture brand.

They have the vision. They have control over the mission, the ethos, the feel, the vibe, the community, everything like that. The integrator owns the P&L. They own the P&L. They own the data. They own the management. They on the due diligence. And all of those things that come with blocking and tackling within a business.

and what we quickly realized was we were the best team when you would basically provide the vision and I would basically go and get it done. And that's when we're both able to lead into our strengths of you as a visionary and me as an integrator and an executor. And honestly, since we implemented that, there's been a lot of clarity on roles within the company. And I really think heading into 2023,

that's going to become really kind of one of our superpowers is our ability to have this true accountability chart and really hold people accountable within the company for their particular roles and functions. So it's been powerful. Yeah. There's a, there's a, there's a few different functions of EOS. Part of that is the way you structure the organization with a accountability chart. and that comes with a visionary, like you said,

an integrator and then your executive team, and you break that structure down throughout the business. It also changes the way you set objectives, big objectives, then micro-objectives that lead towards that big goal, and then also the way you hold meetings. And all of those structural changes have been very beneficial for the company. My question for you is, when you came and visited BPN for the first time

and you walked in the doors, what was your intent then? Like what kind of a involvement did you expect to have and how did that change in those first couple of weeks and months at BPN? Because, I mean, what I've seen with you joining BPN, and you probably do this, you've probably done this in a lot of other things in your life,

why you're where you're at today is you find these opportunities that you want to go all in on and then you do and you really own every part of it because when you started at BPN you really took ownership it was literally just like where can I lean in and help and move the needle there was no ego it's just like how do I help what did you see here at BPN that made you say I'm going all in it's a great question I think I think we're very very very very very very very very similar in that we're both extremists in everything that we do. And when we commit to something, we can't go partially in. Everything that I've ever done in my life, when I've jumped, I've jumped full bore.

And that stems from, you know, getting into college and getting a scholarship to college so that I could go to the institution that I went to, to getting a job in finance and working my ass off in the internship to ensure that I actually got a job offer at the end to, you know, even founding like my own company or rather co-founding out in California. I mean, that was the hardest time of my life, but I went absolutely all in. And when I came to BPN, I'll be honest, I never expected to jump back into a company. I think it's very challenging to be a founder and then to subsequently join another organization. because when you found your own company, you control everything.

When you jump into an organization, you're essentially relinquishing control. But when I came to BPN, I was so blown away by everyone talks about culture. Everyone wants to be great at culture. Very few organizations are great at culture. And everyone markets it as their X factor, but I've seen very few incredibly high-functioning team cultures. And when I first showed up at BPN, one, just how you carried yourself, the humility that you expressed, I actually, like, very much connected with you because I was like, he's such a low ego guy.

And you expect, it was the first time I'd met you, you expect as someone who has a social following, you expect there to be ego attached to that. and you're incredibly low dominance and you're incredibly low ego. And I saw kind of similarities in our kind of personality types in that regard. And then every single person that I met in the building looked me in the eye, shook my hand, was just a genuine person. And it was really remarkable because you can sense these things. You can walk into buildings and you can be like, are they showing face or is this actually,

real and I was blown away by the people. And I think I said this when we spoke to kind of the team and we first announced that I was going to be CEO, I would never represent that every single person in this building is like the highest IQ person, like the highest educated, the absolute expert in everything, PhDs, higher education, master's degrees, MBAs. I would never represent that. But what we do have is we have incredibly self-aware, incredibly emotionally intelligent people. And when you put that together,

it becomes a very high-functioning team. And I kind of made the analogy when we initially announced this to the team. I used Herb Brooks in the 1980 Olympic hockey team. Herb Brooks, when he was essentially drawing a roster for that 1980 team, he was not going to say, I want the absolute MVP and stud in every college program. Because that would be really easy to do. He personality profiled them.

He assembled the highest functioning team to execute on the task at hand. And I think that that's something that you've done a phenomenal job at. You have assembled a very capable team with incredibly low ego that has the ability to execute and move the needle together. And I think that that, as we had into 2020, is going to continue to be our X Factor here at BPN. I've thought about this a lot recently of me being in your situation, of going to work for another company in the future

after being a founder of a company myself. And I think this is why we get along so well and we see things very similar. because like when you found and bootstrap a company, it's really fucking hard. And a lot of people will never understand. Like when you say it's hard, they don't know what that means.

You know, you don't know the next week if you're going to have your company anymore. You don't know how you're going to eat sometimes. You don't know if you can pay people. You can't grow because you don't have enough money to pay people. So you just do everything yourself and you work yourself into the ground.

And that's just part of it. Like you have to go through that mud to get to a certain point. Absolutely. And when you get out of it, you never really truly feel like you're out of it. Yep. Even today, I still feel like

we're still struggling and I'm still like doing whatever I've got to do. But a founder understands that. And you understand the journey that I've gone through these past 10 years and I try to think of like what would it take for me to join another business in the future

as I kind of think of you like coming in and taking full ownership and like submerging yourself in BPN and that's why like I know you're all in because for me I wouldn't go all in on a company unless it was like the right company and if it was

I'd go all in like I would jump in head first and swim as hard as possible. And that's what I see with you. And I think that's like we have this conversation a lot of as we're building our team in the future. Like we want founders. Yeah.

Because we understand how founders operate and function and think because you have to be resourceful. You have to have this owner mindset. Yep. And you have to go all in. And when you have people that do that, they don't have to be the smartest all. time. Exactly. But they will work their ass off to find a solution. I think it's also,

I always think of it. Founders always put the business in front of themselves. It's almost like a, it's a service personality type. In order to get a business off the ground and go zero to one, you have, the business trumps all. And, you know, we don't have to go like super, super deep into it, but at least like for for me, I had like physical ailments that were a result of work. It was like I co-founded the company in 2015. I developed a heart condition by 2018. I went through, you know,

I developed blood clots, went through vasco-thoracicallate syndrome, had my first rib removed, had multiple rounds of angioplasty and venoplasti. And the first thing that started that avalanche of problems was a heart problem. and the heart problem, I've got no family history or genetic foundation of a heart problem, right? And so, you know, Johns Hopkins consensus is, well, could have been the fact that you didn't sleep for five years, you know, that you were going to bed at midnight, waking up at 250 in the morning, you know, over a period of time. It could be just the stress. It could have been a multitude of things. But either way, I tell that story because it's an example of how my physical body quips.

before my brain would. And that's like what a founder is. Now, I don't want that story to be put on a pedestal because I don't think it's healthy, and I would never encourage a founder to allow it to get to that point. But I do think that's important to share, because it does show how extremely committed you have to be to make something happen.

And I think that that's really powerful, because I think society likes to think that they're committing and likes to think that they're going all in. But being a founder, like it's a different level of commitment. And I think only founders can really empathize with that, if I'm being honest. I agree.

I mean, there's so many businesses that start every year. And when I got started, you know, when I started my business, I'm sure the same thing happened with you. People told me, you know, not every business makes it. So it's okay to fail. To fail.

And if you try this and if it doesn't work, it's okay. Yep. My family told me this. So in the back of your head, you're kind of like, so you're telling me it's like, it's okay if I put forward an effort, but that effort isn't good enough and it just doesn't work.

And then when you get started, you quickly realize, oh, this isn't gross. at the pace that I expected or anticipated. Maybe I'm just not cut out to be a business owner. Right. Maybe it's just not for me. I thought this early on.

And then you put forth a little bit more effort and you see a small win, then a little bit more effort, more effort, more effort, and quickly. Like, all you do is think and eat and sleep and train thinking about this, this thing that you started, like your baby, your business. and then you quickly realize once you get through some of these hurdles, why other people stopped at these previous obstacles because they were grueling. But once you get through these, I mean, you build this level of confidence.

And that's why, again, I respect the fact that you're a founder because when someone pushes through these obstacles, it is going more in a nutshell. When you go through the journey and you get punched in the face and get kicked down and there's obstacles and there's walls and you're navigating all of these circumstances and you get through, it's because you persevered. Yep. And that's what you need to build a business. And that's why I'm so confident with you being CEO, it's, you know, we've had this conversation off the podcast many times. but I don't have to worry about

is the business going to grow at the most effective rate possible? I know you're going to kick ass and truly own it. And if it's not growing at the rate that you're happy with, you're going to do whatever it takes to get it there. And that's a founder mentality. And that's how we also talk about, like, this world that we live in, we're surrounded by brands. We're surrounded by companies.

We have a special appreciation for bootstrapped, entrepreneur founded businesses. And there's no shade against, but there's also businesses that are fundraised and they have private equity from the beginning behind them and they bring in these big executives

with all this experience. And they build a business that may not be profitable, but grows at a rate that's sustainable because they have unlimited cash flow. Yep. Those are two different business models.

One, we both respect, but one more than the other possibly. Definitely. And that's kind of where we're coming from. Yeah. I think it's important to note that those two businesses, they both go through their own trials and tribulations, right?

So if you're a venture-back company, you have to answer to a board, for instance, and you have venture capitalists who sit on those boards and they maybe have opinions that they hold very, very highly that you have to respect and it's their money. And there's a whole slew of other problems that comes with being a venture-backed business that doesn't come with being, you know, an owner-operated, entrepreneur-operated, founder-operated business that's bootstrapped, that's profitable, that's trying to just

reinvest profits for growth, right? But both businesses have their fair share of challenges. But it is a, it is a journey that, you know, I'll be. be honest, I got to a point in the founder journey where, you know, people are so inspired by the outside. It's this very interesting thing where when you start it, people say you're moronic. Why would you, why would you, you, you were set? All you had to do was just stay in your seat and don't fuck up and you'll have a phenomenal life. Well, life to me was a lot more than that. I was looking for fulfillment, right? And then you get to this point where you start it and people

are like, you're moronic, the number of people who are like, mush, what a horrible name. Like, that's just horrible. And it's like, it sounds gross. Why would you ever name a food mush? You know, there's so much criticism. And then you get to this point where you start to gain traction. And then there's all of this admiration. But then inside, you're 100% struggling. It's an insane, to your point, you're worried about cash flow. You just don't have the resources is necessary to like, really you can't hire because you don't have enough cash, so you're just doing everything and working every single hour of every single day. You're making sacrifices, not seeing family, missing friends' weddings, all of those things.

But everyone from the outside is like admiring you, but you on the inside are 100% struggling just trying to get by day by day. And then you get to this point where like everyone thinks you've like made it because you're in a thousand doors or 5,000 doors or 10,000 doors and you're just like, you have no idea how much work this is. And I think your post yesterday really resonated this idea of like, I've put everything in my being into this over the past 10 years. It's true.

You have to. It's the only way you stay alive. But that experience 100% changes a person. And you will never look at the world in the same way. It's kind of like the Steve Jobs quote, the idea of once you realize that no one in the world is any smarter than you, that's when you can actually change the world. And that's what the founder journey kind of teaches you.

And then if we can kind of sit in our seats and share the experiences that we had with the rest of this team, but also protect them from like the challenges we've experienced, then they get to grow tremendously as persons and professionals. And that is what leads to incredibly successful businesses. I mean, I've told this team the same thing for years. And it's that my goal for everyone here is that at some point they leave BPN and they start their own business.

And they build it bigger than BPN. I want everyone here to take what they're learning. And that's why I always tell everyone, like, you have such an amazing opportunity here. Ask questions. Learn. Dive into things that you're not a specialist on. Learn as much as possible.

Because at some point in your life, if you want to, you have the opportunity, the experience, the skills to go do and go build. If that's what you want to do. I'm not trying to hold things back from people here. That's what we're not trying to do.

It's like, we want to develop. We want to give you the tools and resources is to experience this because to what you said, I couldn't imagine where I would be today if I didn't spend the last 10 years building a business in terms of personal growth and development and perspective and the way I viewed things

and relationships and conversations. I don't know what I'd be doing. To be honest, I'd probably be a chicken farmer. That was the plan originally. You'd be a very successful chicken farmer. I did chicken farmer. But this journey has been extremely, extremely hard, but it's taught me so much that I want so many people to experience.

So I think with like all the struggle that we're talking about in this podcast, the call to action still is you should go do this. Yep, absolutely. You should go start something. It's not going to be the right time. You're not going to have enough money. You're not going to have the experience or the tools or you're not going to know the people or the connections

or you're not going to know how to do anything. But if there's something you want to start and do and you want to build a business and you want to bootstrap it and you want to learn, you want struggle and hardship, you should go do it. Yep. Because we both started there

and look at where it gets you a decade later. Absolutely. And there is something to be said for almost being naive and just jumping. You know, I think like in hindsight, if you and I knew what we knew today, and then someone said, okay, you have to start back at square one,

feel like, oh, man, because you know what you're going to run into, all of the challenges that you're going to go through. But when you don't know anything, you don't know what you don't know. So it's so much easier to just, like, jump, and then in the moment, you tackle it just day by day.

You just block and tackle every single day until you eventually start to make progress. And that's like a really powerful lesson because all that building a business is is getting better today than you were yesterday. Getting better today than you were yesterday. And I used to leave a folder on my desktop. It was called Proof of Progress.

And I used to just screenshot so many things. I used to put like an old purchase order in there. I used to put a picture of a guy who helped pack palates at 2 o'clock in the morning that I gave him 20 bucks to skip his lunch break because we needed to get it done in time for the truck to pick it up. All these different things. And then whenever I got super, super down, I would go into that folder and I would just look at that screenshot of that purchase order and I'd be like, wow, they ordered

$1,000 of blueberry mush. Last week they ordered $10,000. And all of a sudden in your brain, you're like, despite the challenge that I'm feeling today, checking that showed me every single day. Like, we're making progress, even though it doesn't feel like we're making progress. And those are like the little lessons that I'd love to be able to share with everyone here. And you've done such a great job. You're a great storyteller in that you very often give people stories of, like, hardship

within the company, you know, years two, years, three, years, four, years, five. And it's really great for people to hear because it does help give. them perspective that what we have today is a function of the hardship that you went through yesterday. And that's a very, very powerful message for employees. Do you think there's a correlation or a common denominator in the business based off of the amount of people who have been involved in team sports earlier on in their life? Because we have football players, prior military, we have baseball players, you are lacrosse.

Do you see similarities in a team function today? I definitely do. I wouldn't say that you necessarily need to be a team athlete in order to be successful in a team culture. What I will say is in recruiting, there's a higher likelihood that the team athlete is going to be a better culture fit than the non-athlete.

And I think they're, you know, I'd kind of said this story to you earlier today. And it was when I was nine years old and I was playing ice hockey. I played ice hockey my whole life, grew up in upstate New York, like huge part of kind of the culture up there. I was nine years old. We had just elected captains and assisted captains. And they were voted by teammates. And I think this particular year I was voted like assistant captain. we were sitting at a courtyard Marriott at kind of the free continental breakfast.

And we were talking about, you know, who got votes and who didn't and things like that. And a girl who was not necessarily a great player got a large number of votes and like just missed becoming an assistant captain. And at nine years old, I was like basically said to my coach, you know, why did she, get votes, she's not a good hockey player. My coach snapped at me. And it was the first time that any coach mentor in my life had delineated between the difference between leadership and being the MVP. And as a kid, I always assumed that if you were the best player on the field, if you were the best player on the ice, if you were the best person in the classroom, then that naturally made you a leader. and what that coach taught me that day was that leadership and being the MVP are not positively

correlated. You can be the MVP, but that doesn't make you a leader. And you can be a leader, but you don't have to be an MVP. And I think what team sports teaches you is know your role and own it. And so, you know, whether or not you're on the field and you're in a more supportive role or whether or not you're in the field and you're like the goal score, every single role matters. And being able to know what your role is within a company and then own it to the best of your ability, that's what's really, really powerful because that is synonymous with low ego.

And then low ego is synonymous with being a great team player. And then being a great team player is synonymous with being a high functioning culture. So for me, that was a big, like, check for me. I carried that with me through life. I think even in college, I thought I was like a true leader. And I look back and I'm like, you weren't a true leader. You were just worried about trying to be the best player that you could be on the field. But I think what's interesting about leadership is when you don't seek it out, that's when it comes naturally.

Like I didn't come into BPN saying, I want to be a leader of BPN. I came into BPN saying, I want to help. I want to move the needle in the business. I want to help ensure that the employees feel supported and that they have the resources they need to do the best job that they possibly can. And so that's where I inserted myself. And then what naturally happens is you are then perceived as a leader.

And then people come to you with problems and you help them solve their problems and it helps move the needle on their job and inherently the business. But that, to me, is one of the most powerful lessons of leadership is just because you're the MVP, it doesn't mean you're the leader. So don't focus on being a leader.

Focus on moving the needle within your role and doing your role to the best of your ability. And leadership will naturally follow. People will naturally follow you at that point. It's very interesting that from an early age, we're taught that the MVP is a leader. If I look back at football or baseball or ice hockey, the team captain was always the best player.

Yep. It was like a forward or, you know, the best. He's taking the face off. Hit her, like, yeah. They were leading the team. And sometimes they had the most of the time, 90% of the time, they had the largest ego. And the worst attitude.

They were assholes. Yep. I mean, I can think of two people come to mind right now. Don't say their names. In sports, they were like the studs. And they were our team captains and they were so mean to me. Because I was not the best athlete growing up. And it's so odd that we teach people, we teach kids that from an early age,

which then you probably see years later of people graduate college, not saying they want to like build a brand or build a business or they want to move the needle for this organization sometimes people graduate college and say I want to be a CEO. Yep.

I want to be like a CFO. They just want the title based off of the ego and the accolades that come with it, but not the responsibility that drives that function in that role.

Yeah, it's, it's pretty crazy when you think about it. It goes back to our school. comment. I was like, all right, should we just start a school? Because it's like, here I am 32 years old, remembering a story from when I was nine years old that was arguably like profound in my life. But like what would have happened if I didn't have sports to humble me? Like what would have happened if I didn't have the coach who was like, you're wrong when everyone

else was saying like, you know, great job. You're a great player. You're going to do awesome. Go forth and conquer. Like we need to put people in our kids' lives that force them to think differently because that's the only way that we can ensure that we're actually going to have true leaders that enter society. I think the leader that you're talking about who ended up, who was the all-star who ended up as like the captain or the assistant captain and they were, you know, not maybe a nice person. That's the same person that's still a high ego person in society. They're super there may be in a leadership position, but they're in a leadership position because they're an incredibly dominant person and they're incredibly power hungry and they, there's a direct correlation

between their self-worth, their ego, their power. And like, that's not true leadership, right? Like, true leadership is serving people. Like, the way I said this to every single person in the team when we announce this to the company, it's like, I'm here to serve you. Like, if I can serve you every single day and ensure that you have the resources that you need, ensure that you have the guidance that you need, you know, ensure that if you want to do some form of professional development, that we, like, support you in that,

that we support you in your physical endeavors, knowing that they're going to trickle into your mental well-being. Like, if I can do that, and we just have a team of 43, incredibly strong, self-aware, emotionally intelligent, physically, mentally, spiritually well people. That's so powerful. But what happens is, like, we have to serve them.

That doesn't happen by us coming in here with incredibly dominant personality types, you know, kind of dictating what people are doing. That comes from us empowering them to do the best job that they can in the roles that they're in. And that's something that's very, very different. And I wish that society talked more about that type of leadership. versus what we see, which is this kind of power-hungry leadership.

If you would have asked me a year ago, how we'd be ending 2022, me leaving the CEO role was not even on my radar. It was not even a thought. And I've always said this, but I would sacrifice growth in terms of revenue at BPN to maintain culture. And the reason that moving out of the CEO role

for the longest time was not even on my radar, was not even a thought, is because I didn't know of anyone who could come in and lead this team and maintain the same type of culture that we have here at BPN. Because we are a brand of people. Internally facing people that work

and are on payroll in this building at BPN, and then our community. There's a huge culture emphasis, and everyone feels it as a part of it. Everyone knows it once they see it and they feel it and they experience it. There's something different here that you just don't find in every other company.

And for the last couple of months, before we made this decision, where I was struggling was I knew that I was holding the company back by staying in that CEO role because I knew that my, like I am a brand, I was a brand CEO, a creative focused CEO.

And I knew that I could move the needle for the brand the most by hyper-focusing on creative and marketing. but as I was operating the CEO role, I couldn't do that. And some of my other responsibilities in terms of working with those teams and developing those teams and creating content to grow the brand was starting to neglect other parts of the business. And I was very aware and conscious of this. And I think it happened at the perfect timing where I wanted to hyper focus on a part of

the brand that I knew was my passion and my strength and could move the needle the most. And then we had the perfect person to move into that CEO role, which was you, that maintains culture, that maintains brand image and you get the brand. You understand the brand. Your mind thinks the way that our brand thinks. that's why when we go back to say this was such a natural transition. I thought, honestly, like, it would feel a whole lot different for me than it did. I thought there would be this like, oh my gosh, did I just do that?

But there wasn't. It was like a, okay, Kat, your CEO, I'm going to go lead marketing creative. Let's go crush it. And it was just like that. and I think that really shows how strong our leadership team is and is truly a group of people who are so invested in the brand and the success of it. There's no ego that we're all here to work together

and operate in our strengths and grow at a rate that we're not sacrificing culture. And I think this transition has facilitated all of those aspects. It takes, I mean, you deserve a tremendous amount of kudos as well. Just being self-aware and also just being such a natural born leader. I think we need to also acknowledge that BPN has an in-house media team of over 15 people, which is very unique to a consumer brand, right? There's a lot of CPG companies that outsource a lot of creative or outsource a lot of media

or outsource social or content creation or all of these things that really allow BPN to be a powerful brand and reach the audience that we reach and have the loyal community that we have. So I do think BPN is very unique in that that in-house media team requires a tremendous amount of requires high quality leadership and direction. And that's something that not a lot of consumer brands require. And so I think one of, and this is synonymous, one of the conversations that we've already had,

but there is no one more capable of leading a team of creatives than a creative himself. And I think that this is also where we have to acknowledge, there are different types of personality types within a company. Someone who sits in the operation side of the business versus someone who sits in the media or creative side of the business, they're just different personality types. And they work differently, their brains work differently, they project managed differently. If you personality profiled them on like a workplace Big Five or Gallup Strength Finder,

they would be, they're different people. And that is great. And the fact that we have both of them under one roof is incredibly powerful. But in order for us, to reap the greatest benefit out of this entire creative conglomerate or this media team, we need to have the right leader in place. And that leader is you, and there's no one who's more capable of leading that team than you, and there's no one who's more capable of extracting the power of the creative coming out of that team than you. And so that's kind of where this whole thing started was if we're going to reep, if we're

going to go all in on community, and we're going to lean into community-based events. and in real life, and we're going to continue to build up our social following through YouTube and through Instagram and through the podcast, then we need to have the right creative leading that. And I would never represent that that person is me because, like, that's not my strength, but that person is you. And so then all that happens is then we backfill the role. And it's like, what type of personality type do we need who can maybe spearhead more

operations, more finance-based, more sales-based, revenue growth, retail and that person is kind of me. So all we're really almost doing is we're kind of just breaking the company and saying, Nick, you got this whole creative marketing media side and Katz got this whole operational finance sales revenue side. And really a lot of it ends up with we have to work together. And the strength in this setup is our ability to work collectively, cohesively align incentives and ensure that every single move that we make in the business is for the best interests of the business, our mission, our vision, our ethos, our people. And that's something that has been very natural for us. And I think that that's what makes it

super high functioning. One of the books I read earlier this year was 15 commitments of conscious leadership. And one of those commitments is operating in your area of genius. And all too often what happens is people who are high achievers, they take it as a challenge of, oh, this is not my strength. I'm going to make it my strength. I'm going to make it my strength. Yeah. So I'm going to spend time and I'm going to learn and I'm going to read and I'm going to talk to mentors and I'm going to try and yes, I'm going to fail in the beginning, but I'll get better. as you spend six to 12 months trying to make this weakness your strength, you just wasted six to 12 months of your business's growth opportunity.

So one of the things that I had to do was like, where is my area of genius? How do I best, and this goes back to the founder mentality, how do I best serve this company and where do I need to operate to best serve the organization? And that's what's guided a lot of these decisions. and that's why I feel so right is it's just being very aware of where can I help the most because I just want to see this thing succeed.

That's all I want to do, and that's all I want to see is, you know, it's so interesting. And I was thinking about that this morning at our leadership L10 meeting. It's so weird to look back 10 years ago and I was sitting in my college apartment packing orders and doing everything my own

on this little laptop in this 10 by 10 foot room in Indiana, Pennsylvania. And now today it's we get all these people who are so invested in believe in it just as much as I do which I'm so grateful for. But the fact that I get the opportunity now

to hone in on what I'm truly passionate about and where I think I can help the most I'm very appreciative of but all I want to do is see this thing succeed you know and when you when you start something you have like no chance for you shouldn't have any chance for it to get to a certain level but through trials and tribulations it does

so now like how far can we push it and who needs to be in place doing what to give us the best chance to thrive absolutely And that's what we're at right now. I'd say also, I mean, give yourself credit. It's already a success, right? It's just a matter of the really unique thing about BPN is it sounds lofty,

but we're truly changing people's lives. And it's this idea of everyone's like, okay, it's just supplements, right? But it's like, no, it's the supplements and the habit can actually change your life, right? Greens and reds, maybe reduce the amount of snacking that happens in the afternoon because it levels out your blood sugar. And then all of a sudden, you're not snacking in the afternoon. So then you're at a calorie deficit of 400 calories a day. So then you're kind of dropping a couple pounds. So then when you go for your run, you used to run two miles now. Maybe you run three miles and three becomes four. And it's this idea of these small incremental changes that you make in

your life can ripple outward and actually have profound effect. done consistently over a period of time. And so not only is BPN and are you in particular changing people's lives through the content providing inspiration and motivation to take people on their own wellness journey, but the supplements are the tools that they need to accompany them on that journey. And so, you know, when we go to these in real life events, the number of people that have these profound stories, these aren't just a like, I ran a 330 marathon and then I ran a 325 marathon.

These are like, I lost 200 pounds kind of stories. It's crazy. It is crazy. And I have never seen so many so consistently. Like every single event is like profound change. And I think that's the, power of like the brand. That's the secret sauce. That's a differentiator between just traditional, you know, CPG brands. Like BPN, you, the team, the community, the products are

100% without a doubt changing people's lives. So it's already a success. The goal is how do we empower more change with more people? And I think that that's all we're trying to do. Right? The growth journey of BPN, yes, we have a P&L, and yes, we want to hit certain revenue figures, and yes, we want to be profitable to a certain extent. And there's all this data that comes with that. But at the end of the day, we're just trying to bring more people into the fold of the BPN community to ensure that we have more impact and in hopes that that impact is lasting impact, that can also be carried throughout generations, this idea of a parent going on a journey. They build these healthy habits with their kids, and then their kids carry the torch throughout their lifetime of health and wellness. And that's, that is very profound when you think about that, because it starts with a singular product, right? It starts with the greens or it starts with the pre-workout or it starts with a multivitamin, but the impact can span generations and can be actually profound. And that's why I like love this space because I see how singular products

can create lasting change. Well, I've said this before. You know, when you think about what you want to be known for when you die one day, hopefully that's decades down the road. Fingers crossed. But I don't want to be known as,

oh, Nick Barrack, like I was a beast. He ran a lot of miles and lifted a lot of weights. I don't want to be known for that. That is part of what I do. Yep. To facilitate. a mission and a mindset and a message.

But I do, being me and this company, I want us to be known as role models in the space of facilitating this change, this positive change, and changing the way people think and act and perform and treat others. And I think it's what part of this whole podcast is for too. It's to be a role model, this specific episode, to be a role model for other business owners or founders or people who are struggling with the growth and scale of their business is

you have to consciously be aware of eliminating ego. And if you truly want not yourself to succeed, but this thing that you've built, this company and this organization that affects more than just yourself, but lots of people, if you wanted to make a bigger splash, a bigger impact and help more people, you have to put the right person

in the right place to give yourself the best chances of success to change the world. And like you said, it sounds lofty, but to us it's not. It's definitely not. It's very realistic. When we go to these events,

when we have these conversations, I mean, the 10-year anniversary is a clear example. I probably thought to 10 people who lost over 100 pounds and now have, like, control their life again, running races. They're running races with their spouse who also lost weight. They're having this

huge impact on their family and their kids and their future kids. It's, it's very heavy. It's powerful. It's very, very powerful. And when we have these events, I'm like, holy shit, this is, this is why we are doing what we do. We need to do more. Like, Kat, Josh, we need to hire more people. We need more creatives. We need more content. more people need to find this message because it's helping so many. And that's like what I want BPN to be known for is it's a role model in the industry that is notorious for not being a role model. And I think that's what we're doing very well.

And that's what we're going to continue to do in the future. Absolutely. That's very, very well said. It all started with you too, though. Like to be a role model, there has to be vulnerability. And I think that's something that you've done so well over the course of your journey. It's something that I, you've done far better than I have. You do a better job at asking for help or at stages of this company have done a better job at asking for help than maybe I'd, honestly, than I did during my finder journey.

I kind of just like power drive forward and like hit under a rock for a while. But I think that that's where it's so powerful is like we are never going to represent ourselves as experts. We're founders who only know what we know. We have experiences that we've learned from. We can, you know, look at pattern recognition and draw conclusions or problem solve, things like that. But both of us will be the first people to. admit that we don't know everything or figuring it out and we're doing the best job that we

possibly can with the resources that we have available to us at this point in time. And I think that that vulnerability is what differentiates you and what differentiates BPN because we live in a world of self-proclaimed gurus where everyone gets on a podcast and they say, I know everything and I'm the fucking shit. And it's like, I don't know anything and I'm not the fucking shit. And I'm trying to figure it out. And I think that that's something that you and I have always connected on where it's like, we don't know what we don't know. We're doing the absolute best job that we can. We will never be outworked, but we're literally just doing the best job we can at this moment in time. And I think that the BPN community really appreciates that authenticity and that vulnerability

in a world that's full of everyone saying, I got it all figured out, I know exactly how to do this, and follow me because I'm the expert. And it's like, if you want that, that's not me. But I'm the first person to be like, hey, guys, I don't really understand how this works. Hey, I don't really understand how this works. Hey, can you tell me how to do this? But I think that's what's really, really powerful. And that's what makes this community as authentic as it is.

That's why I want to shake people sometimes. Because, you know, we hosted an event here a few months ago. It was a pop-up outside of BPN. And this guy came up to me and he asked, what do I got to do to build something like this? And he pointed into the building. And I was like, I wanted to shake. him and say, dude, you have everything you need.

Yep. Like, I have nothing that you don't. I knew nothing when I got started. And there's still so much that I don't know. But it's just showing up and putting in the work and attaching yourself to good people. Yep. And when you do the right thing and you choose a hard right over the easy wrong and you find other people to join your tribe who have that same mindset and you, you know, you find other people to join your tribe who have that same mindset. and who want to work hard and do good things,

when you bring more of those people together, it is this force that is unstoppable. And in the beginning, you can't build this group that large sometimes. You got to slowly build it. But it begins with the first person. And I look back and I will do this for the rest of my life, but everyone who has joined BPN as an employee has a very unique story. I know all of their stories of how they joined BPN.

And it was one at a time. We didn't go out and hire 20 people in one month. It was literally we went from three to four to five to six to seven and so on and so forth. And we always hired for are they a culture fit? They believe them what we're doing. Okay, well, they can learn. In the beginning, you know, we weren't hiring based off experience. We were hiring based off of buy-in.

But that late. that laid the foundation of who we are, what we do, why we do it, and culture was always super strong. And once we built that foundation, if anyone came in who wasn't a culture fit, we didn't ever have to fire them. They left on the round.

Yep. They could see it. It's like there's something about this crew that I don't have or want, so it's not for me. And there weren't many, but there were a few people like that. But I think that's really important.

Early on, it's how you build it strong. Definitely. I think that the hit on the people thing once more, it's also not just the people within the organization, but it's the relationships with the people outside the organization that help move the organization in the right direction. And by that, I mean also like relationships with vendors. You know, even as a founder,

there were so many people who I relied on in a founder journey from guys working in warehouses, packing pallets, that like if it weren't for them, if it weren't for the guys who could like, you know, when I ran out of boxes that could run boxes in 24 hours and like get them delivered to me, if it weren't for like the truck drivers, like, holy cow, like let's give a shout out to like all the truck drivers who move all. of the products around the U.S. Like the idea that they drive five, six, seven hundred miles a day

and they do that three, four times a week, and they literally pick up stuff in California, and they drive to the East Coast, and then they drive back, and they do it all over again, and that's their job. It's not easy work. And I think what this team at BPN does

really, really well is we also take care of our outside vendors and really focus on maintaining quality relationships. relationships with all of them because we're only as strong as the relationships that we hold there. And what a lot of people don't realize is, like, you know, BPN, we're not manufacturing the product, right? So we work with manufacturing partners who make it for us. Now it's our, we work with them on our formulations and work with them on stringent testing and efficacy and quality of ingredients and all of these things.

But at the end of the day, it's their teams with hundreds of, of people working on a line, getting paid an hourly wage, that is what allows VPN to have products that get shipped in land in consumers' hands. And it's like maintaining those relationships and ensuring that those people feel valued and are taking care of. That also is so powerful. And what a great life lesson. I think how I talk to like grocery store attendance, how I talk to random people that you run into on random errands throughout the day, how I talk to waiters and waitresses. I was always polite, but I am like so, so, so polite and appreciative now more than I ever have been in my life because I know how hard that work is. And at the end of the day,

like relationships and people are what keep these things moving around. And so we take care of our people internally, but we also do our best job to work with partners who take care of their people as well. And that's what ensures that the business has a super strong foundation as we continue to grow. I can't stand people who disrespect waitresses and waiters. That's part of our hiring process now. Take them to lunch and dinner and see how they treat. Treat waiters and waitresses. I will literally, I will judge you forever based up the way you treat someone in the service industry. Toccova's had a really good ad that I saw a few weeks ago

that I wish I would have thought of because it was so good. Ticova's is a Western boot company based on of Austin, Texas here. And the ad was, it takes 200 steps to build a pair of boots so you can take one step and I thought of that same thing in regards to a BPN product and I think

sometimes we as consumers ourselves don't appreciate the process that goes into building something and what we actually get to pay for that product that's why I will never argue price on a product because I know it goes into the process

from the conversations with suppliers and manufacturers to the amount of hands that touch the raw materials, the manufacturing lines, and the raw material testing, to being shipped to our headquarters here and fulfillment and marketing and everything that goes into this product

that we get to buy at a reasonable price and consume or wear, whatever it is, I will never argue price because I know what goes into producing that product. And I have such an appreciation for all the things. steps that go into. But that Tocovazad made me think of, you know, as a consumer sometimes, we think of, well, I want to buy this bottle, for example, that's next to me.

And I want to pay this because it's, it's just a bottle. It's just a plastic shaker bottle with a logo. But even this had so many steps that were required to make it happen. And I think sometimes we forget that these don't grow in trees. Yeah. There's a process. We should also be super proud of the brands even being able to get it to the consumer at $39.99.

There's a lot of work. There's a lot of negotiation back and forth with every single raw ingredient, with the trip from a foreign nation with a raw ingredient to, you know, mush was a really interesting one because you had coconut from Sri Lanka,

vanilla from Madagascar, oats coming in from Canada, almonds getting grown locally in California, states in California, but also in the Middle East, if you want to go there. And so what you don't realize is all of these raw ingredients,

they come with not just supply chain risk, but they come with, you know, geopolitical risk. And it's the same thing with some of the underlying ingredients in BPN products. There's so much complexity to moving raw ingredients around the globe. And we've built a supply chain that's arguably like hyper-globalized, that it's very, very complex to move things globally.

And we can't just go locally and get these ingredients and then mix them together locally and then send them out to a consumer. these things come from all over the world. And so even like the timing that goes into it and getting all of the raw ingredients, getting all the raw ingredient testing done, it's like so many people work so hard behind the scenes here at BPN

to ensure that the label is here and done, the container, the lid, the scooper, the 10, 15, 20, 25 ingredients, all have gone through raw ingredient testing. I've all been mixed. I've all been dosed out. like have then gone through post product testing, have then shipped, have then arrived, have then been fulfilled.

It's like, if we actually broke it down, I think consumers would be like, oh my gosh, this is a steal. Yeah. Like what a bargain I'm getting this for. And then the value that it provides to your life. And I do hope that we can continue to lean into that messaging because I think it's important as a way of educating customers on what supply chain looks like and what the complex.

of supply chains, the complexity of logistics, all of these things and why things are priced the way they are. And we've touched on it, but we can definitely go a little bit more granular. And it would really help raise awareness as to why things are priced the way they are and why that we should be so thankful that it lands on the shelf for $39.99 and not $79.99. There is a reason. There's a formula, based off our pricing model. Yeah. it's not random and it's not to see how much money we can get. There's a minimum requirement based off of margin that we need to hit to keep the business alive.

Keep the business alive and growing at a healthy rate. Well, I think this was an amazing episode. Yeah, this is fun. It was a great conversation. We'll definitely have to have you back on the show. Thanks, Nick. Talk about a lot of things, but, you know, like I said, a year ago,

I would never expected having this conversation going into 2023. But I could not be more excited and proud and grateful for where we're at today,

for you joining the team, for you taking complete ownership and running with it. And, you know, being a founder previously, treating this like it's your your baby as well. That's one thing that I always,

I was always hesitant of to move out of this role, but I know that it's in the best hands possible. So I appreciate that. I appreciate you. Appreciate you. And thank you for the opportunity. I don't,

I don't take it lately. And I probably don't say it enough, but I mean, this has definitely been one of the most rewarding parts of my professional career. I think if you bring it full circle, you know, when you're a found,

you kind of just enter into whatever role the company needs for someone in another company to kind of observe the value and then say, I want you in this role. That's like a very different way to get into a role. And it's definitely been incredibly rewarding for me. And I mean, you guys have opened up your hearts to me. And this team, I think, is very, very special. and I'm super appreciative of them, you know, accepting me and following me and really giving me a chance and giving me kind of their all in.

So I don't take that lightly when people invest in me. And so, like, my only hope is that everyone feels that this too is one of the most rewarding parts of their personal and professional journey. That's the goal here. Well, ladies and gentlemen, Kat Thomas, CEO, Bayer Performance Nutrition. Thanks all. appreciate you. We're out. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the Bear Performance Podcast.

Please leave a rating and review on the platform you are listening to if you enjoyed it. It helps us to grow and reach more people with the intent of changing lives through the Go One More mindset. If you are ready to take your health and performance to the next level, head over to BPNSubs.com to take the first step.