Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the podcast.
Today's episode is a question and answer that I prompted on Instagram a few days ago.
Some really good questions and things that I've wanted to touch on but haven't been able to find a way to naturally and organically incorporate them into an episode up until this point.
I was just talking to Matt, who is the podcast producer, runs the entire show.
And there's a lot of conversations that I have on a daily basis, whether that is talking to the BPN team or in one of our leadership or brand meetings.
I'm on a call with somebody or a group of people.
And when I leave these meetings or these calls online, I typically just take notes of things that were said or thoughts that I had that I wanted to retouch on at some point.
They left a lasting impression.
And this episode is one of those opportunities to incorporate some of this content.
Like this morning, for example, we had one of our all hands meetings with the BPN team.
And we do this Once or twice, sometimes three times a month here at BPN.
And this morning, which is a Thursday, the team arrived at 9.30 AM.
We kicked off a team lift, which was awesome.
We all went into the gym together.
And we threw down.
Everyone was training in their style.
We had people doing strength workouts.
Me and some of the guys did a back and biceps workout.
There were people on treadmills.
Oz is training for his first half Ironman.
So he was on his bike doing an hour endurance bike session.
There were some high rocks circuits going down.
So we trained for an hour and then Eric from El Hombre Taco pulled his truck up behind HQ, served tacos to everyone.
And then after that we had about an hour meeting talking about some initiatives we're working on here at BPN and just some thoughts that I wanted to share with the team.
And some of those things that I share with the team are incorporated into today's question and answer.
I also had this realization this past month and I just felt called to share this.
It's been an observation at most, but I think what's been so interesting, or one of the things that's been very interesting about building this organization and sharing my life online since 2014
I've been documenting everything for the last 12 years.
I started BPN in 2012.
And as many of you know, those first couple of years were brutal.
In 2014, I picked up a camera and decided that my last resort to try to grow this business was just to start documenting and creating content.
And I filmed everything.
And I had no clue where to get started.
But I just started filming my workouts, what I was eating behind the scenes of building the business, my experience as an infantry platoon leader, at the time stationed at Fort Hood, leading a platoon.
And that changed the entire trajectory of my life, truly picking up that camera.
And I spent the last 500 on my name on a Canon T3i, a 50 millimeter lens, a Rode microphone.
And I was editing on my laptop at night with all the compiled footage I had from the previous day.
And I've shared a lot over the last 12 years.
Everything we've done to build the business races preps competitions training, meeting Steph, getting married, having kids.
You know everything documented, everything.
And I've shared it in real time, which is unique.
You know, typically when someone shares their life, it's a reflection of of the time, the past.
Someone might share a journal or write a book or make a film, a documentary.
But in this case, with myself and BPN, we have been sharing in real time, as it's been happening, what we've been learning, experiencing and winning losing succeeding, failing along the way, in real time.
So oftentimes what I hear from people is you know, I thought Nick was focused on X, Y and Z and now it's this or here's the next Nick Bear chapter or era.
Or even sometimes I hear, that what I'm doing is flip-floppy.
One year I'm focused on strength training and the next year I'm focused on endurance training.
One year I'm sharing certain leadership principles that I'm implementing and the next year I've eliminated those leadership principles and I'm trying new things.
And while it might look flip-floppy from the outside, looking in It is just the evolution, the growth, the transformation that I and we are experiencing in real time.
That is a pro and con of sharing growth as it's happening with everyone.
Growth, learning, scale, transformation, it is not linear.
It is not neat.
It is not perfect.
It is messy.
It is messy the entire way through.
And I've loved that we've been able to share that in real time because you can watch the transformation.
You can watch the growth.
I oftentimes go back and watch old videos from 2017, 2018, 2019.
And it's so amazing to, But at the same time cringy to, watch what we were doing, what we were saying, what we thought we knew how ignorant and naive we actually were.
We thought we had it figured out.
It's humbling to say the least.
But that's one of the best parts about documenting the last 12 years is that we get to go back and relive it and rewatch it.
And so humbling.
There are moments in time historically that we thought, I thought had it all figured out.
I knew everything prideful ego driven and then quickly humbled, and have come to realize that you never have it all figured out.
You never arrive.
It is this consistent transformation and growth that is so awesome, because you have the realization that growth doesn't ever stop.
It doesn't have to stop.
It keeps happening.
Like right now, as I'm sitting here talking to you, I'm 35 years old.
This summer in August, I'll be 36.
In 20 years, I'll be 55.
What am I going to learn and experience and how am I going to grow and adapt in these next two decades?
My daughter will be almost 24.
My son will be almost 22. college, post-college, like what's life going to look like?
But more importantly, like how am I going to grow as a man, as a father, as a husband, as a leader?
That's exciting because where I'm at right now, if you make yourself really small and humble yourself, where I'm at right now is is so naive and ignorant to where I'll be in two decades.
The wisdom that I'm going to gain, the wisdom that we get to experience over time is powerful.
So I just wanted to share that, just that realization and observation in this last month.
That drives a lot of just what goes on above my eyes and my brain on a daily basis on some of these early morning runs.
Just thought provoking and producing.
So diving into the question and answer that was opened up on Instagram.
The first question I'm going to address is, and I thought this was a great question.
Who is someone that has left a lasting impression on your life?
And I've been asked this question before.
And to be honest, I never had a really strong response.
I don't know why.
But a few weeks ago, we were back in Pennsylvania for the Pittsburgh Marathon kickoff run.
Because we are.
BPN is the on-course nutrition sponsor and partner of the Pittsburgh Marathon on May 3rd.
So I'd love to see as many of you guys there as possible.
We'll be out there for the Pittsburgh Marathon.
A few weeks ago, there was a kickoff run in Pittsburgh that we were at.
And because where I went to school, Indiana University of Pennsylvania also where I started BPN is about an hour from Pittsburgh.
In this town called Indiana Pennsylvania, we made the trip over to IEP while we were there.
And it was the first time I was at IEP since graduating, 2013.
And we went and saw, and I showed the team the apartment where I started BPN out of.
We walked around college campus and we went to the Army ROTC building where I participated in the Army ROTC program.
I commissioned out of IUP as a second lieutenant in the Army.
Spent a lot of time at that building.
It's called Pierce Hall.
Lots of memories about Pierce Hall.
And just...
The people that I was surrounded by on a daily basis and the instructors, the cadre being on the Ranger Challenge team, PT just a lot of great core memories.
A lot of character defining and developing moments in that building.
And as we were walking around Pierce Hall, I had this realization and I was talking to the camera.
We filmed the video there.
We launched on my YouTube channel a few weeks ago.
And I had this realization that there was an instructor.
There was a cadre member there by the name of Captain Engove at the time.
And he had a remarkable impact on my life.
Captain Angove was the epitome of the hybrid athlete before the hybrid athlete was a thing.
He was such a strong leader and role model and mentor and athlete.
I mean, he was a stud at PT.
Tall, jacked, strong, fast, crazy endurance.
We'd show up for Ranger Challenge PT at 6 a.m. and he was already done with a 10-mile run.
He already did one training session before we even showed up for morning PT.
And I would I would watch him train throughout the day.
He would find these just moments, these pockets of time during lunch after work, in between PT and breakfast, to get in additional training sessions or work on himself personally and professionally.
The definition of, if it matters to you, you will make time truly a stud athlete.
But even more important than that, more than being an athlete, a great role model, mentor and leader.
Extremely positive and optimistic.
His energy was electric.
He changed the thermostat, the temperature of a room that he walked into.
And he never let you see him tired or annoyed, distracted, or stressed, even when he was.
He was, at that point in my life, the best leader mentor, role model that I ever experienced, up until that point.
And still until today, I mean like... someone who had such an impact on my life.
And I don't know if I I recognized it or realized it in the moment or even the the years shortly after, but being back at Pierce hall and and being able to reflect on those years, like realizing the impact that captain Ango had on my life.
He, he.
He demonstrated what it meant and looked like to be a man, to be a leader, to be a selfless servant to others, to bring the energy, the tone shape, culture and an environment.
And I believe he was extremely instrumental into the man I am today.
Left a lasting impression on my life forever.
I'm extremely grateful for that and for him.
And one of the reasons I share that is because I want to have that same type of impact on people in my life.
Friends, family, coworkers, peers, people that work with and for me.
It's a responsibility that we have.
We can shape and shift the trajectory of somebody's life, not necessarily for for what we tell them to do or things that we give them, but for the example that we set.
Captain Angove set a really strong example for me to model and live by physically mentally emotionally, spiritually you know, very holistically was it was a a excellent leader, mentor and role model.
The next question was, what are some red and green flags when hiring and building a team?
And this past week I had the opportunity to speak to an entrepreneurship class at the University of Tennessee.
And there was a similar question asked when I was speaking.
So a few notes to share.
Sometimes you won't know you're making the right hire, the right decision with a person, with people, until months later.
You know, everyone's going to put their best foot forward during the hiring process.
You have to trust, but verify. do your due diligence, ask the right questions.
And I was talking to Trey Freeman, who's our brand director yesterday about this.
And he shared with me the three C's.
And I believe these are super important.
It is competence, character, and chemistry.
And he was provided this insight when he started hiring people from a mentor of his.
When you go into the interview and you start evaluating someone if they're right for the role but also right for the organization, the culture, do they have the competency?
Do they have the skillset?
Do they have the ability?
Do they have the experience?
Do they have the resume?
Can they do their job and excel?
Truly, are they a specialist in the role that you were hiring them for?
Competency, essential.
Second, character.
Do their beliefs, values, goals, and purpose align with the culture and the organization?
If not, it's going to be a really hard, nearly impossible fit.
Character has to match.
It has to be there.
And chemistry.
Do they fit in?
Do they vibe with the team?
Can they hold conversations?
Are they collaborative?
You have to have a strong chemistry amongst the people to have a strong culture and organization.
Competency, character, chemistry.
The three C's.
And like I said, sometimes you won't know if you made the right hire until months later.
We have hired people before who on paper, absolutely perfect.
And they passed the competency, the character, and the chemistry test during the hiring process.
And even for those first couple of weeks and then months, but then something changes.
Oftentimes, not all the time, but in our case it's been pretty rare that we've experienced this.
But true character is exposed over time with how people handle success and failure, when they're hungry and fed, strong and weak, rested and tired, tested and tempted.
Let's take this back to ranger school a little bit.
When I was going through ranger school in the beginning of that course everyone was ambitious, was driven, could work through hard challenges, could meet the physical requirements.
Tough, tough individuals.
But the longer that school and that course went on, people became hungrier, more tired desperate, restless.
True character started to become exposed with certain people.
We got to a point in the mountain and Florida phase of ranger school, which is the second and third phase, where each phase begins with a week of techniques teaching you the skills and the tactical requirements in which you will be evaluated on when you go into the field.
And then, after that first week of techniques, you go into your field training, where you are evaluated based off of your ability to execute a mission within the leadership position that you are given.
And it's hard to lead people.
Harder to lead people the deeper you get in that school because they are tired and they're hungry.
And before you go into the field, they give you all of your meals, all of your MREs, your meals, ready to eat, and you throw all of them in your rucksack.
And we would eat, you know, typically in the field once a day.
You know we'd eat like two of our MREs when we reached the patrol base in the middle of the night.
Eat your food, bed down for a little bit and then start the mission the next morning.
Well, what ended up happening was people weren't rationing out their food and they were eating more than they were supposed to.
So towards the end of the time in the field, they were out of food.
So we had people who were stealing MREs out of other people's rucksacks And it became this big issue.
Lack of integrity.
Character, true character was exposed.
They got hungry.
They ate the food they weren't supposed to.
They ran out of food.
So they stole other people's food.
Became a big issue.
The deeper we got into the school.
True character is exposed over time with how people handle success and failure hungry and fed, strong and weak, rested and tired, tested and tempted.
So what's a green light when hiring?
Like I said, competency, ability, it's fundamental.
A green light is someone who shows humility over pride and ego and, Like I talked about in a recent podcast, pride is your greatest enemy.
Humility is your greatest friend.
A red flag for me is someone who thinks and has the perception they have all the answers.
They have it all figured out.
A red flag is someone who has a hero mindset.
They're going to solve it all and they're going to do it all by themselves.
They're not a team player.
They're not collaborative.
They have all the solutions.
Another red flag, which is a more long-term red flag.
You're rarely going to identify this early on, but maybe in some situations.
One of the books I'm reading right now is by John Gordon.
It's called The Energy Bus.
I highly recommend it.
And John Gordon talks about energy vampires.
A red flag is an energy vampire.
If you identify someone as an energy vampire, you got to get rid of them ASAP.
We have had energy vampires here at BPN over the years and they have either been let go or they have self-selected to leave themselves.
I have found that oftentimes when you have a really strong culture, the culture polices itself.
An energy vampire is an individual who sucks the life or energy out of you and your goals.
Behavioral signs.
They often play the victim, refuse to take accountability, are consistently negative, demand attention and use guilt to manipulate situations.
The impact is is you end up spending time with them too much time and it leads to severe exhaustion, anxiety and feelings of being drained.
You might hear this and think, wow, that's an extreme.
Do those people actually exist?
Yes.
Yes.
Everywhere.
Everywhere.
Energy vampires exist and they suck the energy and life out of everyone they are around.
You have to get rid of energy vampires.
And, like I said, you might not identify that as a red flag early on, but eventually, if you do, if you don't get rid of it, it's like a cancer and it overtakes your entire organization.
And it's extremely dangerous and detrimental.
So those are some of the red and green flags that we've identified when hiring or even post-hiring.
Question number three what fitness advice do you have for new fathers and how to balance training with a change to a routine?
I'll be very honest.
When Charlie was born, who was our first child, I struggled with this.
And it took me a long time to adapt.
As someone who is very rigid and structured with routine, I did not want to break my routine.
Routine for me has always been comfort, consistent, and it makes me feel good.
It makes me feel like I'm doing the right things.
I'm checking off Things to do in a routine allows me to stay on track.
Having a child definitely disrupted my routine.
And what I've learned over time is that I have to, we have to place our responsibilities over our routines.
So some of my best fitness advice for new fathers how to balance training and being a father in your new routine is It's to have a plan, always have a plan, but you have to be okay with that plan getting disrupted and going out the window.
This is one of the reasons I wake up at 4.30 a.m. every morning to either run or lift.
Most days, our kids don't wake up until 7 or 7.30 a.m., most days, but not every day.
There are days where I wake up at 430 am I start getting ready to go for a run and one of our kids is in a sleep regression and wakes up before I go out for that run, or shortly after I start running and I have to come back home or not run.
And this used to really hurt me and anger me and stress me out because I had a plan.
It was part of my routine.
That plan and routine was disrupted.
And it sounds so selfish to say that, but it took me some time to have grace for myself and to realize that our life responsibilities especially our family, our spouses, our kids are much more important than that five mile run that I was going to do.
I can find time later in the day.
And if I can't find time later in the day, maybe I'll do it at night.
And if that doesn't work, I'll do it the next day.
I'll get back on track.
One day isn't going to disrupt and ruin all of my fitness progress.
But I have a plan going into every day and I wake up extra early at 430 am so that I can be running or lifting by five, done by six 615, have breakfast, do my Bible reading, get caught up on some work most days before our children wake up.
But some days it just doesn't go as planned.
And you got to give yourself some grace and be okay with that.
One of the ways that we stay on track within our household with fitness and nutrition, and I want to have Steph on the podcast here soon to talk about this, our morning routine and what works for us based off of the season and chapter of life that we're currently in.
But I'm constantly trying to find ways to be more efficient, to make our lives easier and less stressful.
Example if I wake up at 430, I'm training by five, I'm done by 615.
Breakfast is done by 645.
The kids aren't up yet.
I know what we're going to be making for dinner that night.
Yesterday is a good example.
I knew we were going to be making baked sweet potatoes and chicken and broccolini for dinner.
So I try to find these small pockets of time to be more efficient, to make the day easier.
The more complicated and chaotic it becomes.
So before the kids woke up, I was done with all my stuff.
I diced up all the sweet potatoes.
I marinated the chicken, threw it in Ziploc bags.
I cleaned up all the broccolini and got it set up.
So we just had to throw it in the oven when we got home at night.
Everything was prepped.
So when I came home later the day and Steph picked Charlie up from school and we're all getting ready for dinner, it was super simple.
We threw the diced sweet potatoes on a pan, threw those in the oven, threw the marinated chicken on the grill, threw the broccolini in the oven the last 20 minutes and dinner was done in 40 minutes.
All the prep work was done, seamless.
We could sit down at the dinner table, have a family dinner, and it made our lives easier.
So it's planning, preparing, finding these small pockets of time to be more effective and efficient.
But at the end of the day, responsibilities outweigh routines.
And you got to be okay with the plan going out the window and and give yourself some grace.
But what I found is that it can't be an excuse for why you don't train, why you don't work out, why you don't eat healthy, because they are both doable.
But I received this Instagram message last week and I wanted to share because I think it's a really important message for parents, especially new parents, new fathers.
And the summary of this Instagram message was that there was this dad and they had one kid and he wanted to start training for an ultra marathon.
That was very time consuming.
And they had a second kid on the way and he asked me the question and just the way that it was positioned, will this second kid coming ruin my ultra marathon prep?
And I read that, I was like, ah, I hope you didn't mean it that way.
But that's placing routine above responsibility.
That's having your priorities misaligned.
There's no way that a kid can and ever should ruin a fitness prep, because the kid, the child, your family is much more important than the race, the competition, the fitness prep.
Okay, fourth question.
What are some important leadership lessons you have learned in the last year?
I love this one.
I have a few that I'm going to share.
Some that have been shared with me from mentors, advisors that I have.
Some that I came across in reading, listening to podcasts, audio books.
The first one is that Our inner circle often needs more than we think.
And our outer circle often needs less than we think.
Our inner circle, the people in our inner circle, this might be two to six people.
The people in our inner circle need us more than we think.
And the people in our outer circle, the world, people we aren't closely connected with, maybe acquaintances, people who follow us on social media.
They need us less than we think.
It's important to prioritize our time and energy to the people closest to us.
And if you spread yourself too thin, you can't go deep and narrow and create significant impact on the people within your inner circle.
And the reason I think this is a really necessary leadership principle and lesson, and I'm at fault of this myself.
It's really easy that when the people who are within our inner circle typically and generally are spatially close to us on a daily basis,
So, because we see them, we're around them.
It might feel like we are giving them the attention they need and desire, but we're just in their presence.
We might not be asking them, like, how are you really doing?
Do you need help?
What can I do to support you?
Like truly having those conversations because it feels like we are with them in their presence.
So we're giving them what they need.
And the people who aren't closest to us, that aren't in our inner circle.
They're in our outer circle.
Our time and energy might be directed and prioritized to them because we automatically think that our inner circle is good.
Go check.
Said good morning, saw them, I'm around them, I'm in a meeting with them, I had breakfast with them, so on and so forth.
But the reality is that our inner circle, the people who are closest to us, who are the people that you could call at 3 am and say I need your help.
And they get out of bed, throw their shoes on, hop in the car and drive over to your house right away.
That's your inner circle.
Our inner circle often needs us more than we think in.
Our outer circle often needs us less than we think or believe.
Second leadership lesson is that there's no upside at all to burning a bridge other than a very short-lived emotional victory.
I was just talking to the BPN team about this in our all hands and why you should never fight hatred with hatred, but we should fight hatred with love and compassion and care.
I myself have burned bridges in the past.
In most cases because I was prideful and my ego was driving my emotions and And it was a very short-lived emotional victory
Somebody hurt me or told me something that I didn't want to hear, even though it's true.
And I responded in a way that burned a bridge.
And for me, in the way that I responded, it was a win.
Ha, take that.
That's emotional immaturity.
There is nothing more hateful and unprofessional than emotional immaturity.
The way that you start something and the way you end or transition out of something are both equally important.
And many will begin, fewer will commit, less will persevere, but the strong will finish.
Finish well and finish strong.
Never burn a bridge because the only win, the only victory is a very short-lived emotional one.
You also never know when you're going to have to walk back over the bridge that you burned previously.
I've experienced that on both sides of it many times in the past, and it never feels good.
You really got to swallow your pride and arrive with the most utmost humility possible.
The third realization and leadership lesson is accepting the fact that we are not in control of the world.
I heard this from a Tony Robbins podcast recently.
He said, we are not in control of the world.
We're not and never will be.
So don't even try to be.
But we are, however or we do have however, have the ability to influence it through positive leadership.
We can influence the world, but we cannot control the world.
We can only control what is above our eyes, our minds, our thoughts, our perspectives, our ideas, our opinions, the way that we show up with either positivity or negativity.
We can't control the world.
We can influence it.
The only thing we can control is our thoughts, our minds above our eyes.
And he ended with freedom comes from growth and not from control.
This can be applied professionally and personally.
There have been many times in my life where I'm stressed, back is pressed up against the wall.
I want to white knuckle and just control every part of my life.
And whenever I do that, things get worse.
Because I learned that I don't have the ability to control every part of my life.
There are things that we are completely out of control.
We cannot control the world.
We can influence it.
But freedom comes from growth, personal professional growth, not from control.
And the last important leadership lesson I'll share that I learned last year.
This was shared with me yesterday, actually from a mentor.
Probably my favorite one I'm going to share.
A man or woman on a mission has dirty feet and a battered back.
This is also something I shared with the BPN team.
I'll reference a Lewis Howes quote.
People without purpose in a meaningful mission are dangerous people, not only to themselves but to those around them.
When someone is on a mission, they know who they are, what they believe in, what they stand for and where they're going.
That's how you create culture.
That's how you create a tribe.
That's how you create community.
That's how you create a movement.
And when you stand for something and you're bold in that, it also means that you don't stand for other things.
And that's going to rub some people the wrong way.
And that's okay.
Okay.
When you're on a mission, you have dirty feet and a battered back.
A man or a woman on a mission.
Visually, the way that I see it, they're dredging through mud and thorn, bushes and uncharted territory.
And there's thorn bushes that are cutting them.
And there's brush and thicket and trees.
They're breaking through.
And there's no path.
There's no road in which they are going.
They are leading.
They are trailblazers.
They are pioneers on a mission.
And people are going to see this And if they don't align with who you are, what you believe in, what you're pursuing, where you're going, how you're getting there, they're going to stand behind you and shoot arrows at your back to try to bring you down.
And there's that man or woman on that mission, pushing through the mud, pushing through the brush, making a path trailblazing, and people behind just battering the back of them.
And that's okay.
You got to accept that.
Someone's got to do it.
If not you, then who?
Being bold, standing for something, knowing who you are and where you're going.
It's going to attract the right people and it's going to deter the wrong people.
What else could you ask for?
Next question is what has changed the most in the way that you and the BPN team operate the business over the last couple of years?
There's a lot of things that we have changed, but I will focus on the fact that we have defined and shared in BPN and been disciplined within our execution of our vision focus, alignment and systems.
Years ago and I've talked about this before the vision of BPN was in my head and I would loosely share it with the team.
But as the organization grew, the team grew, our initiatives grew, our responsibilities grew and became more complex.
I learned how necessary it is to define your vision and then share that vision.
Vision is made up of three components, core values, purpose, and goals.
Core values and purpose don't change anything. more than once every 100 years.
Goals are 10 to 25-year targets.
I learned this from chapter four of BE 2.0, which is Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0.
It's a book by Jim Collins.
If you haven't read chapter four, the vision chapter, it's extremely important.
But defining our vision is And defining it by core values, purpose and goals, and sharing that with the team has been extremely beneficial.
It has created focus.
It has allowed us to say yes to the right things, but more importantly, no to the wrong things.
And it has created alignment within the entire organization and team.
One of my favorite quotes from Greg Chrishell actually is all about having focus.
He talks about some of the habits that leaders make, the bad habits that leaders make that can destruct their ability to lead in an organization.
And one of those is that leaders do too much.
And he says, Doing too much doesn't just rob you of energy, but it suffocates your productivity.
One of the things we've changed in the last couple of years is just focus, doing more with less.
And we have a handful of key initiatives for 2026, and we're hyper-focused on those initiatives.
And we say no to a lot of things a lot of opportunities, but also a lot of distractions so that we can stay focused, because you and your team can only do so much.
You can only do so much.
And if you spread yourself too thin, you don't just rob yourself of energy, like Craig Urschel says, but you suffocate your productivity.
We have given projects and initiatives more time and attention to maximize their effectiveness.
And, to be honest, we used to set ourselves up for failure by taking on too much, doing too much and not giving projects and initiatives enough time to breathe and really do them right.
And we fell into this bad habit for years.
And I felt like we could never get out of it where we threw so much onto our marketing calendar.
We had events and product launches and initiatives and campaigns and all these different things.
And we thought we could handle all of them within a given year.
But when push came down to shove, I mean it was back up against the wall, just like trying to keep up month after month after month.
And we finally realized okay, we are unproductive because we're trying to do so much and we're exhausted at the same time.
We're exhausted and unproductive.
So we made a change.
Do more with less.
I'd say one of the other changes that we've implemented and this has come with hiring more specialists as opposed to generalists is we've implemented more specialists effective systems into the business.
I think there's.
There's a point where you can over systematize a business, where it becomes a robot and it's just like everything is automated.
I don't think everything should be automated, but building appropriate systems within a business allows for better communication collaboration, productivity.
Having the right amount of systems in a business is important.
There's a difference between being busy and productive.
I recently had Colonel Ed Arnston on the podcast and we were talking about this.
I don't think we shared it on the actual episode, but we talked about it off air.
It's this concept around what he called unpurposeful activity.
And it's something he's identified and eliminated over his 20 plus years of military leadership and service.
And it's when people spend their time doing too much of unproductive activity.
And it's detrimental to the individual, but also the organization.
So vision focus, alignment systems and then eliminating.
Identifying and eliminating unpurposable activity has been game changing to the way we operate BPN the last couple of years.
Next question is what disciplines do you and Steph have around technology and or your phones?
I thought this was a great question.
I think it's safe to say many of us struggle with a technology phone addiction.
And I even, I hate to admit it.
And I think back to growing up in the 90s.
I was born in 1990.
It's like late 90s, early 2000s before the iPhone was a thing.
I mean, I remember when text messaging first became a thing and that was a distraction. to us.
Now we're carrying around small computers in our hands on a daily basis.
I remember in high school, our house growing up was like the house to be at.
My friends would sleep over in our basement almost every night, every summer.
There'd be like six of us.
I would sleep over in the basement.
We'd have Halo parties.
So we would link up all these different Xboxes and play Halo.
We'd play capture the flag outside.
We'd ride our bikes around town.
We were always outside.
And we had this one friend who, who was dating this girl and they were texting all the time.
It's when texting first became a thing.
And we'd always get mad at him because he'd always be on his phone texting.
And it was even before phones had the full screen of all the letters.
It was like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0.
And each number had three letters, so you have to press the number on the phone to pull a different letter up.
I mean, text messaging back then took forever.
You know if, like one was ABC, you pressed one three times to get C to populate on the screen for the text.
And we get so mad at this.
One friend for always being on his phone texting can only imagine now what it's like for groups of friends to get together in high school, if they do, and what role phones and technology play.
I'm really fortunate and grateful that when I was in middle school and high school, phones just weren't the distraction that they are today.
But they're a distraction to all of us.
It's pretty disgusting.
I always say at some point in my life, I'd love to get to a point where I have a flip phone again.
Right now, based off my role in the business and just what I do for work, I don't know if it's doable.
But that's the vision for myself in the future, in my family.
We get back to living off flip phones again.
There's this one phone actually I've been thinking about buying.
It's called the Light Phone.
And essentially all you can do on it is text, call.
It has a calculator, has like a notes section, maybe a calendar.
And I think directions and music, like you can import songs onto it.
I've been thinking about buying that and maybe leaving my iPhone in the office and then using the light phone when I'm home, on the weekends, the mornings, the evenings, because I hate the fact that my phone steals my presence.
And we can incorporate disciplines and boundaries as much as possible, but we are weak humans and we will find ways to break those boundaries.
But some of the disciplines that Steph and I have around technology and phones something that we've recently started doing actually is utilizing this app.
It's called AppBlock.
We use it for our phones.
So what we do right now is and we recently started incorporating this we do a weekend social media fast program.
So we turn on this app and within the app you can set timelines and schedules, essentially to be able to use certain apps in your phone.
So right now, the way we have it set up is that we can't access any of the social media Saturday and Sunday on our phones.
And then during the week.
The way I have mine set up is that I can't access social media on my phone from 4 pm until 730 pm.
I typically leave the office at 4 p.m.
And then we get the kids down around 7.30 p.m.
So my social media is blocked during this time.
This is family time.
And then It also is blocked from 9 p.m. until 6.30 a.m.
This is Monday through Friday.
So I have accessibility on social from 7.30 p.m. to 9 p.m.
If I have to check stuff, upload something, but not until 6.30 a.m. the next morning.
And I've had to activate this mode within that app.
It's called strict mode, where you can't just turn the app off.
You have to open up the app.
You have to wait five minutes for it to deactivate.
It's ridiculous, like the type of boundaries that we have to incorporate to keep ourselves from being addicted to technology, social media,
But it is what it is.
We have found that the weekend fast is amazing for just our presence and our attention on the weekends.
And we're going to keep doing that.
And then using the scheduled blockings during the week has been beneficial as well.
And activating strict mode so we don't go in there and turn it off.
But other than that, we don't watch much TV, movies, or television.
It's not that we don't want to, but we just really don't have time to.
By the time we get the kids down, Normally in the evening, we get the kids down, 7.30, 8 p.m.
We will sauna and then shower, get ready for bed.
And we try to be asleep by 9.30 p.m. most nights.
So we shoot four.
So there just really isn't time for movies and TV shows and series or any of that kind of stuff.
And to be honest, when I'm on social media, I actually don't consume much content on social media.
I'm posting and engaging with my content, VPN's content.
But when I do consume content on social media, it is for recipes, right?
I get a lot of recipe ideas and inspiration.
And I just love seeing the creativity that people incorporate into their food and cooking and things that we can easily incorporate into our meals for the family.
That is quick simple healthy, nutritious and delicious.
And the last question I will touch on.
This is in response to the Ironman film that we released on January 29th 2026.
It was called The Last Dance.
The question is, are you done with races, preps, and fitness competitions forever?
And not necessarily.
I'm sure at some point I'll get the itch to prep and trained for a competitive marathon time again, or maybe an ultra, or maybe a high rocks, who knows.
But the intent of that film, the message that we wanted to get across, the message that I wanted to share, is that for the last seven, eight years now, I've gone from fitness prep to fitness prep, to fitness prep, marathons to Ironmans, to ultras, to bodybuilding competition, to high rocks, to marathons, to ultras, to Ironmans.
For the last seven to eight years, it's been prep to prep to prep.
And we document these preps and we film all of it.
And it's extremely... time demanding, energy demanding, doesn't just take away from my physical and mental energy, but it takes away from my physical and mental energy for my family and the team.
And I love training.
I love competing.
I love racing.
But I found that my identity is, became rooted in performance, in these preps, in achieving.
And I didn't want that any longer.
I didn't need that to be my identity any longer.
And I learned a lot of these last seven to eight years.
I love training.
I love training.
I'm still getting after it every day.
This morning, I ran five miles and And then I lifted with a team.
Like I said, during the team lifted, a back and biceps workout.
Health, fitness training, doing hard things, pushing myself will always, for the rest of my life, be foundational fundamental, instrumental.
But the chapter and era of me going from race to race to race, competition to competition, to competition, Because my identity was rooted in those preps in the performance, is over.
Not to say that I'll never do a prep again or a race again or a competition again, but I don't need them to justify my worth and who I am.
Because I know who I am and what I'm rooted in is much greater than the fitness prep, the competition, the race.
I find myself needing those things to consider myself worthy of anything.
And I see a lot of athletes and other people, other men doing the same thing.
And I wanted to be a leader and a role model to share that you don't need the race after race, after race, the prep after prep, after prep, the performance constantly to be worthy of anything.
And this film, The Last Dance, was a story in showcasing the transformation, the renewing of my mind, of my soul.
In this realization, the work doesn't stop.
It's not slowing down, but it's not sacrificing my time and energy physical and mental for the prep, because there's other people that deserve that energy, that are much more important and prioritized in my life.
So that's why it's called The Last Dance.
Not saying I'm never doing a race again, but in the near future, it's not on the schedule.
It's not a priority.
I got some other goals I'm pursuing at the moment.
So I hope you guys enjoyed this one.
I appreciate you sharing and asking questions. that facilitated and sparked some of these responses.
Love you guys.
Appreciate you.
And as always, go one more.
