Nick Bare Reveals How To Get Jacked & Run Sub-3 Marathons ft. Sahil Bloom

All right, everyone, what's happening? This is Sam. So on today's pod, I did something very selfish. So I've got these two friends. One is named Nick Bear. So you probably have seen Nick on Instagram or on YouTube. He's got millions of followers. And he owns this company called BPN, Bare Performance Nutrition. They do something like sixty million dollars a year in sales. So he's a really successful entrepreneur, but he's like a fitness fanatic. So he looks like a bodybuilder, but he's runs the marathon in like two hours and thirty nine minutes, which is A freakish time, but it's also freakish considering how big he is. And then we have Sahel Bloom, who's another buddy of mine, who's really popular on social media on Twitter. He's a writer. You probably have seen him all over the place. And

I just nerded out on fitness with these guys. We also talked a little bit about business. So we asked the typical questions like where do you guys spend your money? How much do you spend each month? Where do you like to invest your money? Um We talked about Their companies and how they're growing. And we did a lot of business stuff, but most of this was about fitness. And I just asked them all the fitness questions that I had. I had a bunch of listeners send me questions.

And I think it was a great time and it was really fun to learn about what these guys are doing for training. Hopefully inspire you. So anyway, check out the pod. I feel like I can rule the world, I know I can be what I want to I put my law in it like a day so on a road, let's travel. So I I tweeted out that you guys were coming on and I got a bunch of questions. They range from personal finance, fitness, business, all types of stuff. I wanna ask you guys both a couple of questions. I'm gonna start Which

I'm gonna start with one that sounds like the hardest, but I actually think it's the easiest'cause you answer this all the time. And I'll preface this by saying I've seen your your father in videos, I've seen your brother in videos, and I've seen you in real life. And so I think I know what the answer is.

'Cause I know the genetics that you come from. But someone said. Generally curious. How can Nick be natural given his performance? Please press him on this.

And so you constantly get asked if you're natural. I know you've answered it constantly. But just humor me for because this was a a very uh a lot of people ask this question. I am natural. And

I used to address these these Call outs and questions and Claims all the time. 'Cause I would get defensive. in it. Like it was all the time. It's been like that since I started creating content.

I even went to the extent of sharing blood work every month. I was going in blood work every month and I would share it on my videos during my bulk and my cut. And people like Oh he's faking it. He's fine he's finding workarounds. I'm like guys. So I finally have gotten to a point where I'm just over addressing.

Yeah. The questions and the claims and the hate around it. And I'm just gonna do my thing. Like even in this last marathon, people were like He's using EPO.

What is that? Like blood doping. I'm like what amateur what amateur athlete you know that's running marathons, run marathons, is taking EPO and blood doping. But then you're like How do I How do I get that? Does anyone have a guy?

I'm like I'm like who like where do you get EPL? I don't even know where you'd you you'd get that. Um I I mean I've seen you uh in real life. You you just have I think you're just a freak genetically. And and I I would be honored if someone asked if I was on uh a bunch of stuff. That would make me feel wonderful. Also, by the way, like my um

My thing with this always is like I have a few friends who everyone says this about. They're like oh they you know, definitely not natural. And I just know for a fact that that person has just outworked me in the gym on a daily basis for the last like ten fucking years. Excuse my language. And not by like a ton, but by a little bit. Every single day for ten years. And that adds up to something Insane and it looks like a totally different human being. So like when I see a dude

It has way bigger shoulders than me or way bigger chest. Like I know that they probably did that extra set or they did the extra two reps that I was just like, Oh, six is good and stopped. And so like I just don't I th I think it's such a cop out when people freak out about like oh are you natural or not? The reality is like sometimes they don't.

Because genetics are real. Like for example, like genetics are like Definitely a real thing. Like the the bare genetics. Or Solid.

Dude, your dad ran like a sub six mile. I don't remember what age he is, but he was some you know, he was a grown man. And he still was huge. Like you got and then I saw your brother. Your brother looked like he competed in the strongman games. I mean, you guys are just huge. Yeah, so my my dad's sixty. My uncle, his brother's fifty seven. If you saw both of them with their shirts off.

After running they've still both run marathons, half marathons. I mean six pack abs. Chizzled arms and shoulders. They don't take anything. They're not they're not on TRT or any of that stuff. There's like farm boys who grew up in central Pennsylvania.

Milking cows and and bailing hay. Dude, listen to this. So Sahel texted me. I I I nerded out with them. I go I go, dude, I just hung out with Nick Bear. Um, and and it was amazing and Sahel was like, Yeah, he's you know, he looks great, whatever. But how tall is he? And I was like I'm Pretty sure he's my height or just like an inch shorter. Uh so he's pretty tall.

And I sent him this picture. And I remember in that photo, I think I think Nick, you were at like your weakest. You're about to run a marathon. I was at my strongest. And our squats and bench were like almost the same. I think you did five pounds ahead.

And um You just like looked. So much better. And I you know, we are like this sucks that like we're kinda comparable, I guess, in terms of strength. But like

He just he just has it. He just has it. Like you d you just you just have whatever it is that you just you look Good. Uh I appreciate that. Genetics are real. Ari's laughing at me. Tan helps, Sam. You got you, Sam, you got to give a tan, man. You're too pale to uh you're too pale to have good looking abs. That's genetics, man. It's that's another genetics of photos. He just has it. And so I don't know. Everyone everyone in the comments are gonna make fun of me that I'm just like flirting with you, but you know, I'm just saying what people think. Genetics are like a a real thing.

You can take person A, person B Different genetics, same work ethic, same diet, same training program. And you're not gonna get the same results. People people send me messages all the time, they're like I eat exactly what you eat. I train exactly the way you train. I run exactly the same miles as you. Well, you don't look the same.

Oh yeah, because genetically we are not The same. Like we have different DNA. So it's gonna have different results. It doesn't mean you shouldn't eat right and train. And and try to Do your best.

But like I will give I will give genetics the credit they deserve. But also I am one of the most consistent people I know in terms of training. in recovery. And diet. Like my diet is

Dialed in. I still enjoy myself. Like me and my wife will go For dinner, I'll get some drinks, I'll like Order the whole menu and try everything. I love food. I'm a big foodie. But

My my diet ninety percent of the time is Still regimented. And dialed in. I'm eating my meals when I'm not hungry. I'm eating my meals when I know I need nutrition to fuel workouts.

Like it is for me. A lifestyle that I truly Love and embrace. Are you like that style? Are you as dialed anything? Yeah.

I mean I'm just like I I probably have a similar wiring to you, Nick. Like I'm I kind of have like a obsessive personality. And so when I when I commit to something or dive in on it, it's gonna piss off everyone around me because I'm like If we were traveling during the day and I get home at ten PM but I had a six mile run to do, I'm going out at ten PM and have to go hit the run. Yeah. And it's not a question. And like if I get home at

Midnight. But I'm the type of person that wakes up at four and gets in my cold plunge. I'm waking up at four and getting in my cold plunge. And uh I'm I feel the same way as you in general on the genetics thing, although I will say like when people say Oh, I do the same workouts as you. I run the same miles. I did the same thing. I call bullshit.

I I just don't like I've I've trained super hard my whole life, but there are people that I just know have trained harder than me because I know like in the back of my mind, I know for sure that like I could have probably done two more reps on something, but I like was working out on my own in my in my home gym and I just like took it easy. And that two reps.

Compounded over five years makes a difference. Um to the point I'm like time being a lever. And so I'm honest enough with myself on some things. Where Like with running?

I post all my stats. And so There's no hiding, right? Like If I'm gonna post my chorus, you know, screenshot or whatever on my Instagram from any run workout, I can't hide from whether or not I put in the right amount of effort on that workout. But

Lifting I can totally hide from it. Like I'm not sh you can't see all the stats exactly on what I did and how many reps I hit or whatever it was. And so It's also just like The accountability Um that comes with sharing things publicly on your progress.

That I feel like for you, like you've been basically doing that for s what, six, seven, eight years. Like you've been showing your process in public. And the accountability that comes from that, that people are out there waiting, like, oh, what's Nick's next thing? What's he going after? Is he gonna hit his goal? That adds a whole lot of fire. Like when you're running sim and you're struggling mile twenty and you're like This isn't for this isn't for me. Like I I have a million people out there that wanna see me get this two thirty nine done, so I'm gonna go do it.

I mean that's that's why We included a small clip in the video after that race was over. But that's why these When you hit your goal in a race. Or you hit your goal on anything, it feels so good when you hit it'cause you know the work that went in.

And all I kept saying after I got across that finish line at CIM. I kept saying Man, I'm so fucking proud of that. I'm so proud of that one.

Because like you know all the work that goes into it. the early mornings, hitting your workouts, making sure you hit your your paces. Making sure you fueled properly the night before those big workouts. And when I was at like mile twenty. I knew I was I was running sub

two forty. Like I I just knew I was on pace. Like I can hold on for another six miles. I could feel this lump just like forming my throat. It's getting emotional. So I was thinking, man, all this work, like

This is why I did it. I'm holding six oh five paces. At mile twenty with six miles left, like home stretch. And when you finally hit that goal. And it's because of the work he put in.

Like there is nothing. That replaces that. My um My Dad and I have been really close my whole life.

And I play baseball in college, Nick, in case in case we we hadn't talked about that. And um When I had to retire'cause I was hurt. The hardest thing was telling my dad. Um,'cause so much of our relationship had been built around the sport and built around

you know, him coming to all my practices, taking me to all my lessons, all that stuff over the years. And he told me at the time, like I don't care. I'm gonna be there to cheer you on and whatever your next thing is in life. And

At my marathon. Uh he surprised me. And flew out for it. And I remember like those last six miles.

I was hurting so so bad. And all I was thinking the whole time was like I gotta get to my dad. He's at the finish line, he's there waiting for me. And when I cross the finish line And I had done it. I'd gone sub three. He was standing there. And I like

broke down completely. I like all of the emotion that you hold in from that. you know, from trying to get to something or like struggling through it, hitting your goal. Um that emotion, like it's completely unparalleled. Like nothing I've ever experienced in life. Just that that rush.

I think that's why people keep signing up and And doing races or signing up in committing to hard things is'cause when you finally accomplish it. It's like uh I referenced this.

part of this book all the time'cause I think it's so applicable, but in Tim Grover's book Winning. He talks about achieving your first win. And when you achieve that first win, no matter what it is. It builds this little Ounce of confidence.

So then you sit down to achieve another win, but that win is Larger. And more ambitious and it requires more work, more effort. But when you finally get it, it builds more confidence.

And you keep applying this thing over years and years and years. And you keep pushing out what that win is and could be. through the process of succeeding and failing and winning and losing You build this massive amount of confidence. Where you finally get to a point thinking

Oh, I can actually do whatever I want to do. That's a really powerful position to be in. That's why I always say There's no such thing as a loser who wakes up at five AM and works out.

Because It is so hard to do. And if you are losing in life and you're not happy with where you are Get up early and work out. I hate when you say that. You piss me off so much when you say that because I get out of bed at seven or eight, but I'll be doing stuff until one AM. Whenever you see that, I feel so guilty. But that is I'm not saying it on the other end that you can't win. I'm saying if you're not happy with your position in life, one of the biggest reasons is that you need to change your self identity, right? Like you need to start identifying as a winner. Exactly what Nick said. Like you need to create evidence that proves to yourself that you're a winner.

And waking up early and working out. is the easiest way to do that. And like it still sucks, but if you do that for a week You immediately are like, Oh wow, I can do that. That's one hard thing that I do. I'm like you start to change your brain chemistry around who you are as a person. Dude, I feel so shitty. I'll wake up.

I'll look at Instagram. And I'll be like, All right, I just got up at eight. And then I see Nick posts and it's like I think on Saturday or something. It's like Dude, he just ran eight miles.

Just ran seventy two miles at a six fifteen pace. And fed his daughter a great meal. Yeah, like it does all this prime even away, but I in my head I'm like That bitch is going to bed at nine, though. I'm a I'm a fuck between Ted and Ted and what I am. I am I am a morning person. I am not a a night owl by any means. But now now my daughter's born and she's getting older.

If I don't wake up at five And work out. There's a chance it's it might not. Get done. Like

Right now we're going through the sleep regression. Where she's waking up at the oddest times and screaming her head off in the night. It's like last night, woke middle of the night. Gave her a bottle. Put her down. She didn't want me to leave her room, so I ended up sleeping the rest of the night next to her crib.

My alarm went off at five. I was like All right, here we go. Went downstairs, went through my routine, went out for my run. Uh. There's nothing that makes me more sick to my stomach than morning air. Um let me ask you guys let me ask you guys a uh a quick question. Um

Uh this will be uh it's meant for Nick, but Sal, I want to hear your answer too. Nick covers all fitness and diet stuff extensively on his channel, but I wanna know his monthly burn. So where uh what he spends his money on and where he puts his money, invests his money outside of BPM. So investing wise At this point in my life, I haven't gotten to a point where I have any personal interest in investing. So I just hire a financial advisor and he takes care of all of my investments for me. Maybe at some point I'll actually be curious and explore that curiosity, but like

I work with a guy. We make index funds probably. Yeah, I'm just like Take this money, put it where you think it's gonna make me some money. Uh other than that

I mean, most of my money that I'm spending is either going towards My mortgage investing back into the business, my personal brand. And mainly food. To be honest.

Like Just groceries. Maybe like It's hard to say'cause we'll do like one

big grocery haul week and I go like every other day to the grocery store. I'm going like these exclusive like butcher shops here in Nashville. It's like maybe I spend Two thousand twenty five hundred dollars a month. on groceries, but then we're going out to dinner and like

When we go out to dinner, it's We want every appetizer, every entree, we're gonna sample stuff, get a few cocktails, like We that's our thing is we love Sure. Experiences like that.

And we'll do some big vacations every year. Like, I'm not going out and buying A lot of materialistic things right now. It's more so on experiences. So you haven't gotten on the no alcohol train, Nick? Nope.

Uh To be honest, I I I really have no interest on the The no alcohol train, like I'm not a big drinker.

But like if me and my wife are going to Date night on Thursday,'cause Thursday's our date night night. I'll get One drink, maybe two drinks, but I really really never drink over two drinks.

Ever. Wait, do you drink South Hill? I'm the same way as Nick. Like I I um I think like when it enhances the experience with the person you're with. Uh

I love it. And then I just I've cut all like drink by myself at home. out of my life. Yeah, I don't do any drinking by myself. But like if if I'm with a group of people

And We're having like a an old fashion or opening a bottle of wine. I do think it enhances the experience and conversation's always good and it lighten the mood a little bit and Just allows you to

Relax. Wha what's your style? What's your answer to that question? What do you what do you do? You do it your money the same thing I do. You just are in Vanguard index, right? Yeah, I mean we were like I was much more fun with my money when I was in my private equity days. Uh

'Cause then it was like I don't know, I was just like freewheeling in my twenties doing whatever the hell. And then we had a kid and I was like, I should probably start just being really boring with this. And I feel like you influenced me in this. Like we're in this group chat all together. With a bunch of uh Absolute degenerate. And They all like sling their money into the most degenerate stuff and they're always texting the thread like this is the best known opportunity.

aluminum or a million dollars of some some shit that I'd never even heard of. And without fail, by the way, like six months later, it's at its all time low. Like this thing just absolutely tanks. Yeah, it's stupid. Or the little short stuff or whatever. I don't even know what it they do, but it's like these the terminology that I don't even understand. I mean it goes back to like The fundamental thing is like you should spend more time figuring out how to increase your income versus like what your returns are investing from the vast majority of people because that's a much bigger weber for your long term financial wealth.

Oh, that that's what I did for more. I just I just focused on How to make more money. How how to build revenue streams. And then it got to the point where like

I was finally ready to start investing and I was able to invest. Or put away a lot of money a month. That I didn't need to Spend or or have liquid. Yeah, and it's just like I just like to not have to think about where that is, though. Like yeah, I I do that too.

I just want it to sit in like I basically want it to just track an index and just go sit there. But uh to the burn question, Sam, we probably spend like, I don't know. twenty, thirty a month or something like that. Um all in on everything. And groceries probably similar to similar to Nick. We probably spend Three to five a month.

Um, on food. I don't even know. I don't know what my monthly spend is at the moment. But maybe twenty, but I can see why New York would be significantly higher. But I You're about to get on the uh North East grind, right? Yeah, I'm thinking about moving up there and I'm looking at the difference in prices and like it's it's uh it's pretty meaningful compared to Texas. Uh

Yeah. A going to the city? So my in laws live uh around in this in Manhattan and I frankly hate Manhattan. I like Brooklyn, but I have a newborn and I think that we will likely do the most bougie thing on earth. But um there's a town called the Westport, Connecticut. It's next to Greenwich, Connecticut. So

You could say, I'm gonna move to Gr Greenwich, Connecticut, which is like Cleague. Clay tennis courts and White skirts and shit like that, but I think we're going to, yeah. But we like I I'm testing it out. So I rented a place for uh a few weeks uh in late January. just to see what it's like. And I'm looking at what the rent is and like

a comparable home to where I am now'cause I don't want to buy at the moment. It's like twenty grand a month in rent. I mean, it's just like crazy. Uh so the biggest reason, by the way, that Sam's not saying for why he's moving here is because it's like twenty minutes from me and we have a long term plan of my son Roman and his daughter Naomi uh starting to build the uh the Par Bloom Empire here. So we need to like start cultivating it early in their in their young years. Yeah. I'm okay with that. Uh we're we're just planning ahead. Um let me ask you guys another question. Um

Uh w uh this is a two parter. So What it what do most people get wrong about health and fitness? What makes you want to Nick, what makes you want to throw your computer out the window when people say it online? And the second thing is. Um, would love an honest assessment of time requirements and what's the best bang for your buck for workouts because a lot of us listening. are entrepreneurs and we don't have a ton of time. Um so what's like the best bank for your buck? So it's a two parter.

I mean the the like I can answer Both probably in one answer. I think most people think that they need to spend like an hour running a day and an hour strength train training a day. So everyone thinks they have to spend like

Two hours training a day. I think you could easily split that. Forty five minutes to an hour a day. Split between strength. And endurance training.

And get Like a really, really solid workout. But I think you have some sort of You have to have some sort of level of cardiovascular conditioning. As well as strength in your programming. When you say cardiovascular, do you mean like hit?

Like a like a sixty minute berry's or do you mean like a like a berry's boot camp class or something like that, or a body weight thing, or do you mean Walking or do you mean zone two, steady pace stuff? I'd say it's a mixture between Zone two, zone three,'cause most people, to be honest, aren't spending their time in zone two. Zone two is actually like super low.

Which is like what, a hundred and thirty beats per minute for like a thirty year old? Yeah, it's it's It's low. Most people are not Doing any zone two training.

So I'm what's the benefit of zone two, though? Aerobic base building. But what's that mean for does that make me live longer? Does that make me less likely to have a heart attack? What's it do? All those things helps. Uh cardiovascular health.

It helps build your aerobic foundation so that you can Utilize oxygen more efficiently. Like you're not gonna go run a sub three hour marathon. by just doing speed work. You need that aerobic base building where your body is learning how to utilize the oxygen at a more effective and efficient

Right. But then using fuel sources. Appropriately alongside of. So like I'd say a split between You probably want

Just talking about cardiovascular conditioning. Seventy to eighty percent of that training being your aerobic. Zone. Whether that's zone two, zone three. Which is like lighter.

So you're walking, hiking, jogging, something like that. And then twenty to thirty percent of your Cardiovascular conditioning is more hit. You go to a Barry's boot camp.

You can go do like a My wife does Soul Cycle. Like a soul cycle class. hop on your Peloton. Go do some sprints.

Speed workout, something like that. Where the heart rate is getting elevated. uh lactate threshold type stuff. So if you split your Your cardiovascular training between

Aerobic zones and some high intensity interval training. And then you have compound movements, strength training, you're doing some Some heavier movements, working with free weights, barbells, machines. Stuff like that.

You don't need to spend two hours every day. You can spend Forty five minutes to an hour. No, four days a week. Five days a week. I personally love the train so I

I'm working out. Every day a week. Doing something move my body. For strengthening, what do you what do you say? It's like do you tell people like do the five by five or like what what's your s suggestion? Just squat, deadlift.

Bench? I uh what do you do? I mean, there's a lot of different ways to approach it. Like right now, I personally enjoy the push pull leg split. Which is a A three day split that you can do. Three workouts a week or you can do

Six workouts a week. So like a push day would be All pushing movements. Maybe chest focused. Shoulders.

Triceps. Pushing being Upper body. And then a pool day would be Back.

Biceps. Movements like Rose. All upper body again. And then your lower day is Um lower body.

Legs, quads, hamstrings. Glutes. I like starting every strength workout with some Some warm up. movements and then going into a

a heavy working compound movement exercise like a Barbell squat. You do a deadlift. You can do a hex bar deadlift. Bench press or dumbbell. Chest press.

And then having some accessory movements alongside of that. To support the development. Of the muscles that you're utilizing for those big compound movements. That's the way I like to approach.

cardiovascular and then strength training. I don't personally like to mix the two. Like the the crossfit approach. I've never fallen in love with that. Like when I'm strength training, I like strength training.

I wanna Doing my cardio? I like cardio. But I don't I don't like like doing them together. I like when they're Separate and distinct. And separated.

Now, moving on to I think we're Like what irks me about the fitness space. I actually made a post about this yesterday. 'Cause everyone going into a new year is gonna have new

training and diet goals. And everyone thinks that like there's this new thing. That they're gonna do that's gonna change their life, it's gonna change their body, it's gonna change their health. So January first starts.

People are thinking I need to do something new. What shall you? I'm a new carnivore. Now I'm gonna do keto. I'm gonna I'm gonna go like strictly bodybuilding. No, I'm gonna just like just gonna run.

So people go to these extremes. thinking it's like the magic pill they haven't tried yet. That's gonna unlock this hidden potential that was just Disguised by everything else they were doing previously. And the reality is that like that's not going to change.

Anything if it does, like the the changes are Incremental. Or what makes this compounding change in your life and your fitness is your health is just being consistent with Eating better.

Drinking more water. Moving your body. That's why everyone's talking about getting in more steps. You're getting in more steps, you're just being more active. Going to the gym on a regular, consistent basis.

It's creating creating habits and routines in your life that help you facilitate These healthy habits on a consistent and regular Routine. Sean was telling me that he was talking or he saw the guy who started a slice. It's like a piece pizza app.

He was like between January first and January eleventh our sales slump. And it goes on January twelfth, that's national quitting day. And he goes, We see all time high sales on for people ordering pizza because everyone from their New Year's resolution is giving in on January twelfth. That's where that's where it ends. Eleven days. That's wild. We owned a ton of uh Planet Fitnesses, uh back in my PE days and that like first ten days of the year is like rainmaker season. Like you're just sitting there just like watching the fees pour in like

Praying to the rain gods for all the money that's coming in. And then inevitably those people just don't end up going to the gym. It's a pay. Yeah, they still buy it. Planet Fitness makes it a Planet Fitness business model. Dude, they make it a topic cancel like Yeah, and that you get you get like ten thousand members for a gym and maybe like You know.

five, ten percent of them actually like regularly use it. So the equipment doesn't have to get refreshed that often. It's like, I mean, it's an incredible business model. All right. Here's a question for Sahel. So We didn't even mention this, but Sahel Sahel, you mentioned that you were a baseball player. I was a runner all through high school and college. The baseball players were usually the douches who made fun of the runners because of our shorts. And about a year ago you got into you got into running.

You made all these grand claims about these times that you were gonna run. You said you're gonna break eighteen into five K, you're gonna break through I was like, You're an idiot, dude. You don't know what the hell you're talking about. Turns out you were completely right. You nailed all of it. You you you crushed it and run eight. And someone asked What the biggest so so at this point, by the way, you're a pretty like You're like a pretty successful runner for like in the weekend categ in the weekend warrior category. You're like top uh top in that category. Uh which is uh sounds like

A left handed compliment. That's not what it that wasn't supposed to be that. It was that was a compliment. I take that that was a compliment. Someone said, What's the uh biggest surprise Sahels learned from getting more into running? Honestly, it goes back to what you said. Like when I was um When I was in high school, like I thought runners were nerds. Um and in my mind it was like the nerdiest sport. Like I couldn't imagine running or like being into run. I was like, Oh, it's not, you know, it's not a team sport. Like it's not It's it doesn't seem hard, whatever.

And I have developed unbelievable respect. for endurance athletes and for runners from having gone through this because I mean a a few reasons. First off, the training is so many hours and so monotonous. And you have to fall in love with the long, slow runs. Like it you know, in baseball, it was all intensity. So you can get excited about

you know, like a really fast sprint. uh you know, I was a pitcher, so like a bullpen session or whatever. But with running, like if you're gonna be a marathoner, you have to love the twenty two mile at a like eight thirty pace, just zero fun. Like you have to fall in love with that and be willing to do that over and over and over again in order to become

A great amateur or to become elite, you know, like on next level and above. And you have to do it consistently over a long period of time. And then the second one is just like The mental fortitude to pull through a race. Is badass.

Like it hurts so bad. I mean, I would argue that the five K is the most painful. Like I did So my my PRs were the two fifty seven marathon. Which was painful. But in like a Your legs are cramping kind of way, where you just need to like

Grit your teeth to the finish. I ran the four fifty nine mile, which honestly didn't hurt that bad because it was too short to hurt. Like it was just it was over before it could really start to hurt. It was like you're breathing really fast, but didn't hurt that bad. But the 5K Which I ran seventeen fifty two. was like Excruciating pain.

Absolutely like the last five laps of that were the most miserable experience maybe of my life. Um, just like past your lactate threshold, awful. And the mental fortitude that runners have and that endurance athletes have to grind through that. I now like I no longer think runners are nerds. I think it is legit badassery and especially when it's like a runner that has body weight on them.

I think it's unbelievable. Well the the the The runner Like the The runner has evolved over the years too.

Like now Running's become so popular. In the past couple years. It's it's Do you think it's because of people like you? I mean, I think I think that you've created like a huge trend of these like It's it's now macho to be a runner.

Yeah, I I do think that Like COVID and the pandemic definitely contributed to a lot of that where gyms closed down. And this is why a lot of my content actually started growing is because I was pumping out running content for like a year and a half.

before the pandemic hit. And then pandemic hits, all these gym close. People have nowhere to To Work out and train.

And they ate it for their physical health, but also their mental health. So people start running and looking for running content. And my content blew up during that time because everyone was looking for

You know, people who are focused on strength now transitioning and evolving towards running. But I I mean I think Running has become cooler because there's a different look to running now. Like you can carry more weight, you can look like a bodybuilder, you can look like a strength athlete. And

There's these different parts of running That exists. Like The ultra scene has come up and I didn't know what ultra running was years ago. And you have like these Badass disruptive races. Like have you guys heard of the Speed Project?

No, it's that. No. So the speed project is like this underground race. That happens. And you start in LA

And it goes to Las Vegas. There's no spectators, there's no rules, you just get there as fast as possible. And it's a relay race. So you have a team of I say like

Maybe six people. I think it's like three hundred miles. And someone has to be running all the time. Shit. But it's like super disruptive. Really like aggressive.

in your face look and feel it's badass. And then you have races like have you guys heard of the Barclay marathons? No, what are these? Dude, you guys you guys need to go watch this documentary like tonight. It's called Where Dreams Go to Die.

Oh, I have seen this. And this race happens in Tennessee. It's I think there there's Five loops.

And It's run by this guy named Laz. And You can't have a GPS watch. You don't have

Uh Like any sort of sense of where the route is. You're given a map. And the map has points on it. There's no trail. And you're given a bib number. So say your bib number is 13. On this map, you have to go find all these points.

Before you come back to the checkpoint. And I each point on the map is a book and you have to pull out the corresponding page with your bib number. and bring it back to Laz after each loop.

to be able to go out and start again. And I think there were like Six years where no one finished, no one won. Yeah, it's like fifteen runners in thirty eight years. Dude, that sounds like a pain in the butt. I I'm not trying to learn how to read maps. I just want to look at it. Like by the way, like running to to Nick's point, running has definitely changed in public perception. Like I just More and more now. I'm like

I used to think Oh okay, lifting. Like deadlifting to me. I'm like, Oh, it's so primal deadlifting. Like you gotta pick a car up off of your wife or off of your kid. Like you gotta get it up off of them in order to save their life. And now I I add running to that where I'm like If you can't Go run like

Super fast. To go call for help when someone's in trouble. Like that's super prime ultimate. Like you gotta pick the car up and then you gotta go run two miles to cut get help from like the nearest aid station. We had Scott Galloway on. Uh Nick Scott Always is like big successful entrepreneur or whatever. And he um

he said something that was a was brilliant. He's like a he's like a poet. He's really good with words. And he said, um He goes, My fitness regime. I wanna be able to Kill and eat most everyone in a room or outrun them. Uh I like that.

That's great. I love that. That sounds very like a very practical way to to exercise. I I enjoy that. Have you seen Theo Vaughn on Joe Rogan talking about Uh who he would eat in a plane glass. If you if you haven't seen it, it's like one of the funniest Theo Vaughn clips I've ever seen. Um Let me uh all right, I'll ask one or two more.

Uh the the so someone asked you guys um Do you guys religiously stick to your programming? And do you ever Create the programming yourself. It really depends on for me like what I'm training for.

If I have a very specific goal Then my training program is specialized. To get to that specific goal. So for my my marathon prep. Working with Jeff Cunningham.

Like he would give him uh work outs. For The week. And I would hit those workouts. to a T, I won't miss or skip anything.

I mean there there's been times where Jeff is accidentally sent me my workouts with wrong paces. And I look at him like Oh shit, this seems fast.

And I go out and hit him. He said, What are you doing? I'm like, you sent this over to me. He's like, oh, that's a typo. So like If you s if he if you send the program when I'm in a a prep

I'm doing whatever you tell me to do. But outside of that, I have a lot of flexibility. Like today I woke up and I was thinking How does my body feel? How far do I want to run? I went and ran ran ten miles.

Sometimes in the middle of the run, like two to three miles in, I'd I decide how far I'm gonna run based off my feel. That's called auto regulation. So you adjust your training programming. Based off your recovery and how you're feeling and how well you slept and all those things. So a lot of my training now is flexible, but it's not as rigid because

I don't have a specific Competition goal. At the moment. What about you, Sahel? I need someone else to write the programs for me. Otherwise I don't take'em seriously and I need to pay for them. Um, I've found, because when I pay for something, I take it way more seriously. So

My um My marathon training, I had no program. I was just running with my neighbor, um, Brian Mazza, who's also a I I know Nick knows him also. Um Like a fitness influencer and

uh personality that was really into hybrid training as well. So I started running with him. Had no program. And then Uh, I got connected on text with Nick and I was like, Nick, I want to run a sub three hour marathon. What's a workout I should do? And Nick replied and was like Try doing this. And it was

I don't think I'd run over like sixteen miles at the time, by the way. And nickriplied it and said, twenty two mile run. It was six miles easy to warm up and then it was four rounds of Three at six thirty with one at seven ten float. He was like if you can do that, you'll feel good about being able to run sub three. And I had never done I mean, I had not come close to that, but that weekend I had the same thing as what you said with your trainer, Nick, where like

I was like, all right, I gotta go do that, I guess. And so I went out and hit that. Um, and then I started following Nick's marathon program as a result. Um That got me through it. Wow.

Um, I I do the same thing, by the way. I've got a a guy that does my programming here in Austin his name's Jesse at Central Athlete, and it's expensive. I think I pay four hundred dollars a month. Um and I only I I do everything that I'm told because I'm paying money for it. And if I won't take it seriously if I'm doing it. Or I wouldn't

go my intensity would be lower. I'd be like, dude. I can't do this. It's like well, Jesse told me I have to do it, therefore I will do it. Um all right, last question. You get nutrition coaching too. I get nutrition coaching. Yeah. I use my body tutor.

Um, it's basically a service. When I was like really into it, I would call them for five minutes every single day. And they would be like, All right, what's the plan today? Where like you you have like a quarterly plan, you're like I wanna lose weight, gain weight, I don't wanna eat this, I do wanna eat this, whatever. And then it's like all right, what's what's your plan today in order to hit your goals? Um and you and they you'd have to like show them and then they review your My Fitness pal every night and it's like All right. You're you're Doing

You're doing everything according to plan. So it kinda guilt guilt me into doing it, but it also teaches me like Like I didn't know that you had to get Um gram of protein per body. pound or per pound of body weight. Like I didn't know any of that shit.

And so they like educated me. Um Tra tracking nutrition can be super beneficial for people just getting into health fitness and just teaches them about serving sizes and Macronutrients and total calories.

Well, I started weighing my food after I saw Nick you did it on some of your videos. You were like And I thought weighing your food was like cumbersome, but like I just saw you like just have a bowl on top of the scale and when you were pouring the chicken in there, like I just need about half a pound and you just pour it in there, I'm like, Oh, cool. That was really simple and easy. He just poured it right into the bowl and put it in microwave and it was like very easy thing to track. So I started doing it after I saw your videos actually. Yeah, I don't I don't track my nutrition right now, but I still weigh my food.

Just for like Serving size. Allocation. Yeah, and now I know but now I just buy like like if I buy red meat, I buy it by the pound and I know that a pound of red meat reduces to point seven and I know what's in point seven of uh, you know, ground beef or point seven of chicken and so yeah, that's how I do a lot of it now, uh for weighing

Last question. Um This is from me. I'm actually curious, who influences you guys and what sources do you turn to for like Like for example, there's this guy, um What's the guy on uh I think his name's Bio Lane on Instagram? What's his name? Norton.

Lane Lane Norton. So like I like He's like, you know, New York Times did an article where they're like now everyone has their own fitness guru who they trust. And so like Huberman is like A guy for someone. Nick, you're a guy for someone probably where I'm like If they say this, I do what they say.

Who are your your gurus, your fitness guys that you trust for health and nutrition, and what sources do you use? Lane Norton is definitely One for me. Uh what I like about Lane

is like if anyone's ever saying something and it seems so ridiculous and bold and new and fresh. I will literally go over to Lane's platform and wait for him to r do a response because he typically does. I love his carnivore stuff and like the guy who says like vegetables are bad for you. Like it's great. Yeah, Lane has like a really

Holistic. science based approach to Health nutrition. He also has a really good app called Carbon. That is great for people who want to

track their nutrition and and reach their fitness school. Like fitness wise I follow Lane. I listened to some Huberman stuff. I'm typically just like I don't I don't have one person I'm I'm following for

Fitness and nutrition. I'm kind of just like having a pulse and feeling what's out there and then If I hear about something, I'll go do my own research. So I'll read the actual articles and peer reviewed literature to see what do you use for that? H have you heard of I've been using perplexity for that. It's been kinda cool for it's like a Chat GBT for studies.

Interesting. Perplexity? Yeah, I have it bookmarked here, Perplexity, and it's uh Uh they do a bad job of explaining what it is But it they basically review tons of different studies. So you don't have to read all of them. And so you can ask you can ask it a question of like, Is as per tame.

proven to give cancer. And I'll say, like, Well of all these studies, here's what it here's what they here's the summary. I'll check that out. Lane Lane has one called Reps. I also use examine.com. Same.

Love them. Ex Examine.com is really good. And then I'll just go like the pub web. PubMed and just like Read the the articles there. From like fitness, that's where I'm like pulling a lot of my Info.

Outside of fitness. Um Just like audio books. Like whenever I'm running, I'm typically listening to an audio book. Yeah, that's crazy to me. That's c insane to me that you do that.

You ca you can't do that? Dude, no. Like A, I don't pay attention and B like Yeah. Like you usually what I like to do is uh I like when I go for a run, I know how many uh I like beat uh

beat per minute songs, uh you know, songs that are a certain beat per minute and so my stride will go to that that beat per minute. You know what I mean? Which is typically like Like around. eighty beat or eighty five beats per minute. I used to do that. When I first started running, I would do that.

But yeah, I'll listen to an audio book. And like Ten miles. I forget I'm running for 10 miles. I just I listened to an audio book during the marathon. I did the exact same thing.

What? I listened to uh The Martian, Andy Weir's uh The Sci Fi Dude, you guys are so weird. That is so weird to me. Dude, you know what book I I just finished up that like I can't recommend enough? It's called Trust by Henry Cloud. If you guys haven't

Read that yet or heard of it? It's I mean maybe it's just hitting me at like the right time in my life. But it is a powerful good book. What is it? It's all about like how to evaluate Relationships.

And trust. How to regain or rebuild trust. When you've been betrayed. What to look for? In in in trusting someone.

A lot of the times we think that trust is someone who just like won't lie, steal, or cheat. So like we'll hire people, we'll bring people onto our team who meet those requirements. Oh, they don't lie, still or cheat, I can trust them. Well, can we trust them in the capacity of the role that we're expecting them to Perform.

Dude, this is serial killer shit that you could listen to a self help book uh while you're like While you're like Running a marathon. I think that's so weird. Uh like I would read those. You you went no headphones for the marathon, right, Nick? Yeah, yeah. I I did no headphones.

That's what ballers do, Sahel. Like if if you I grew up going to cross country will definitely give you shit. Yeah, if you like go to a cross country practice or something and like you go run with headphones on. Like the the hardcores will Totally mock you. But I do it anyway,'cause I'm like This is fun for me. I'm doing what I want. I'm not gonna be hard.

When you uh if you publicly state you're gonna hit some sort of like goals, um, the running like the the running hardcores will definitely Talk crap and troll you until you post proof that you actually did it. And then you kind of like have earned enough clout. Like I sort of feel like Everyone made fun of me for getting into running and then I like posted some actual verifiable stats and now you you know now I'm like a solid amateur and people can't really make fun of you anymore. So now you've like you've like earned the respect of the crew, like the cool kids in the in the cafeteria. So now like they can't come beat you up. So that's a real thing that actually happens, yeah. What's your what's your answer to that? Um what's my answer to uh where I go to? Yeah.

And who influences you and who's like your your person? I mean, I grew up, um so my baseball training, I was the first client of this guy named Eric Cressy. who has now become pretty famous. Um, he's the performance coach for the Yankees, but is now like the major leageball strength guy, like trains Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, all of like the who's who of baseball. Dude, I feel like a baseball guy is the worst person to get fitness advice from. That's like the fattest. No, he was like the um he was the first guy to like really bring strength and performance to baseball. So it was that. It was like the fat guys or the steroid era guys who were just meatheads and he brought

Like true performance training to the sport, which now is like the real driver of why every guy through miles an hour Like guys are hitting absolute tanks all the time. Like he was really the pioneer of that. I mean he's been on like Tim Parris' podcast. He's really, really big time and a close friend. Incredible. Uh, and then there's this guy, Ben Bruno, who is like a celebrity trainer. Um

Pretty big Instagram presence. And he's more of a like Stuff for regular people to actually implement in their life. um training and um I I just love that stuff'cause it's kind of a cool blend of the like more extreme things that I like doing with the

actionable stuff that people can actually take as advice. Yeah, Ben Bruno. He's got like the uh Like the everyday rip guy vibe. He he's super, super strong functionally. Um and trains like insane legit celebrities out of like a

Hundred fifty square foot gym in his garage. Yeah, here's him with just some Timberlink. Yeah, Timberlake is like one of his one of his good friends, rolls up there and trains with him. He's he's incredible. Um and then on diet stuff, there's this guy, um Zach, I think Ruchelot is how you pronounce his last name. He's like the flexible dieting lifestyle. is his Instagram handle and he just posts like Insane macro recipes, basically. Um, things that are like delicious, but don't completely screw up your diet. And I just I nerd out on that kind of stuff.

He's he's Austin, Texas based. Yeah, he's Austin based, yeah. Dude, Nick, do you probably know like half these guys, I would bet. I kne I know Zach. I know Zach personally. You know who else is really good?

For a general health information, health and fitness information. Information for people just getting started is Jordan Siet. Jordan. Yeah. Jordan side. So Jordan was an intern at Eric Cressy's gym. So he Jordan is my year in high school. He went to Lincoln Sudbury High School, which was like our rival high school. And he was an intern at Cressy's gym when I was training there. So I've known J Jordan since we were like

We were killed. Yeah, yeah, he's he's he's got good stuff. By the way, uh use Gary Vee's trainer. Oh yeah. I saw that. I just went to this guy, the flexible dieting lifestyle, and I'm I'm like typing all this in as you guys are talking, and I'll I'll do a little flex. I go to file this guy and it says Follow back. Oh yeah That's awesome. Zach, it's awesome. The protein ice cream recipes are like the best thing in the world.

Yeah, he This is a great Instagram. This guy kills it. Do you have a cre do you have a creamy at home? Ninja Creamy? I do. Oh, it's the best. One of our best purchases, my wife and I, like every Saturday. The Ninja Creamy, you can make like protein ice cream with it.

They were like they got popular Based off of TikTok. early on and they like were sold out for months. And then they finally came back on the market and we purchased one. Well, I used to do that. So what I do with your so uh BPN

So I like to do uh A scent protein with just water. And then I use BPN to like eat. And so like for example, I'll mix it with some type of liquid and I'll microwave DPN. And it's almost like I'm eating like um

I d I don't know. I mean it's like a dessert. 'Cause you gave me the key lime pie one and then you gave me a birthday cake one. And I think the birthday cake one is discontinued. And I would just we would microwave it and just eat it and it was like a a souffle or something. Now I guess I'll use BPN for this creamy. Sam. I will change your life right now.

Two cups of whole milk. Like Fair Life Whole Milk. A scoop of BPN vanilla. Uh maybe like two tiny little packets Stevia. And some uh sugar free vanilla pudding mix.

Freeze it overnight. Put it into the Ninja Creamy. And it is literally identical to like a vanilla McDonald's McFlurry. Really. It comes out insane. And then you can put a couple like Oreo thins in there and get like a legit McDonald's McFlurry that has like forty grams of protein. And is great for you. Shoot. This is awesome. I'm like literally writing all this down and I'm

I just add the creamy to my cart. It will change your life. I'm not joking. It is it is pretty wild. I I did it my first time and like I only Mixed it once and it came out. I was like, What's this? Yeah, you gotta go twice. Completely different thing. Sa after like one more mix. Light ice cream setting once.

Open it up, pour like a tiny uh like a tablespoon of whole milk in and then blend it on light ice cream again and it makes the perfect consistency. All right. I literally just bought it off Amazon, the creamy, and I'll uh I only have uh I gotta get uh BPN vanilla now because I only did chocolate, birthday cake, and key lime pie. Um You can do it with whatever flavor you like. I just think the vanilla base is so good. I want to hear about this two thirty nine though. I'm gonna nerd out on this. Yeah, so Nick, w you're trying to run two thirty nine now for the marathon, right? No, I just did. So You just did. At CIM, which is the California International Marathon. That was December third.

I ran a two thirty nine twenty. And when I went into that prep. I was shooting for a sub two forty five. And s and sub two forty five is about a six fifteen minute per mile pace. ended up doing six oh five minute per mile pace for all

twenty six point two of those miles. Can you just walk through your progression on the marathon stuff?'Cause I feel like I've seen a video so I I mean I only I started running in March and someone mentioned your name as soon as I started getting into running as like the person That was pioneering this whole idea of like hybrid athlete, whatever. It's kind of become like an invogue thing now, but basically a guy that can be both jacked and fit in cardio things.

Not CrossFit like actual, you know, strength related stuff and then and then running. And I remember seeing a video of you Like a four hour marathon, maybe. Um, and your progression from that to running maybe sub three for the first time. Can you just walk through like what your progression has been from start to finish on the different marathons you've done?

Yeah. Well, first off when when You and I first started talking and you said you wanted to do a a sub three for your first marathon. I thought he was crazy when he said that. Dude, so did I. I was like, Man, that's that's I think I even told you like That's a bold move. But you did it.

So c congratulations on that. Um But yeah, my my my marathon Progression. So my first marathon was in two thousand eighteen. It was about a year after I got out of the military.

And what's funny is the day I got out of the military, I said I would never run a day in my life again. And about A year later it was during my first marathon and here we are like thousands of miles later. But two thousand eighteen Austin Marathon I ran a three fifty seven. Which was just an absolute dumpster fire.

But you weighed like two twenty five, right? I was like two twenty five. I didn't have a a training program. I was a bodybuilder, like I was just I just wanted to be as big and yoked as possible. Rand this marathon.

After mile sixteen I hit the wall, it was just all downhill from there. A year later, I sign up for the Austin Marathon again. Same training program. Which was lack thereof. And I ran a four hour, fifteen minute marathon. So I I

ran eighteen minutes slower than the previous year. And then after that I signed up for my first Iron Man. Train for an Iron Man. Did Iron Man Florida Actually started to learn what it takes to build endurance.

And get better at endurance events and racing. You broke twelve hours in that one? Yeah, I did my Iron Iron Man of Florida in 1128. But I ran the marathon. In four hours and four minutes.

So the reason that was so kind of significant was I look back at my previous two marathons. I was like, Man, after I just Swam. And biked.

And then ran. I was able to run a pretty decent marathon. So I told myself I want to run sub three, and that was the goal. And I I I posted this online, I said I'm doing a sub three hour marathon. And

The internet trolls and activity just blew up. I mean there are forums on Let's Run, there are forums on on on Reddit. Everyone was like, This guy will not run a sub three hour marathon. So then I signed up for the Austin Marathon again. I I followed a training program. It was a better prep.

But even in my head, I was like, I'm not in sub three shape. But at the starting line, I told myself you can mentally out will anything. If it just like I can mentally overcome the physical weakness that I have to run the sub three hour marathon.

And what's sub three? Is sub three six fifty per mile? I think six fifty one is like two fifty nine fifty nine, like if you sneak in under one second. And the only reason I know that is because of exactly what Nick said about mine that everyone was like, dude, there's no way. So I knew in my mind like I just have to keep this under six fifty one, my watch base, and I'm gonna be fine. See, I like banking time. So I always like I like

saving time so at the end if I need it I I have it. Which is the opposite of what like real runners tell you to do. I did the same thing, by the way. Like I went out way too fast and then was just like hanging on for dear life, doing the math in my head of like Okay, if I run like a ten minute mile here, I'm still gonna make it. I'm still Because there's the like they call it the wall. The wall is basically I think it's like when you burn eighteen hundred or twenty two hundred calories or something like that and you start going into what's it called, where you like start using muscle as energy, I believe, or uh Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and that's when that wall is where you're like, I can't go any further. Usually that's in like mile twenty, right?

Yeah, ranges. Yeah, based on the individual of like Your conditioning, your experience. glycogen stores how how fast you burn through your body's energy. So I went out that Austin marathon with a gold running sub three.

I went out Way too fast. And within the first six miles, I knew I wasn't gonna do sub three. Like I in the first six miles I was done for. The Austin marathon is not flat. It's it's hills, it's

It's like a horrible PR course. No one PRs that I know of. At the Austin Marathon. So then the remainder of that race I was just holding on, ended up running Three twenty four. So twenty four minutes.

Over. Sub three. Everyone on the internet that doubted me loved it. And I went into another training block immediately after that race was done. I actually did a real prep this time.

had a really solid coach, Jeff Cunningham. And I ended up running A marathon a year later. In two hours, fifty six minutes, twenty seven seconds.

So that was the first time I went sub three. Then a year later I did the Buffalo, New York marathon. In two forty eight. And then

Just recently, December third. Two thousand twenty three. I ran at two thirty nine twenty. Which is a six oh five. Pace.

What weight were you? I was 195 pounds. Oh my God. That's ridiculous at one ninety five. And when you're ridiculous at any at any body weight, but it's insane at one ninety five. Were you still squatting and benching while you're I mean, were you still strong? I I I took a lot of time off. strength training during that.

Prep. So for like thirteen weeks. leading up to that race, I was still lifting Here and there. But I wasn't lifting legs heavy.

I wasn't lifting even upper body really heavy. I was just getting some movement in just to maintain and feel good. But the priority was Was running. Because what a lot of runners don't realize is like So two thirty nine that's

That's impressive. That's very impressive. But it's more impressive that you're doing it at your body weight. That is that is that is like out of this world. I um I got dinner one time recently with uh this guy named Josh Kerr. Do you guys know who Josh Kerr is? Unless you're a running n nerd, you don't know who he is, but he won the world. He won the world championships recently in the fifteen hundred meter He's like a three forty five miler. So one of the fastest milers ever, whatever.

But it's Pretty big for a Miler. For a normal human being you think he's skinny, but for a Miler, he's big. And I started talking to him and I was like, You're pretty big, uh, how'd you do this? He goes, Man He's from uh Scotland, I think. He goes when I I came to America when I was seventeen to go to college.

And I was training for the mile and I But I wasn't used to having fast food and like having restaurants open twenty-four hours a day. And so I got fat like my first semester there, and I weighed two hundred pounds. And I broke the mile when I was seventeen or eighteen that year, when I weighed two hundred pounds. He goes I think I own the world record for the fattest sub four mile. And like

Two hundred pounds for like just a guy who's six foot, that's not huge. But run that time or the time even that uh you're running, or even Sahel, you're pretty big too. For running those times with that weight. That's just like inconceivable. Not only because it's hard, but what's inconceivable is that you're not getting hurt running

fifty to eighty miles a week leading up to it. That's what's like in my mind the most impressive part here. Yeah, I mean when I first started running, I I had a lot of injuries. Just because my my body Mechanics weren't Super efficient.

So I've had Knee injuries. Uh Quads. Ankles, shins.

Calves like Everything. But now as I've I've run. Longer with more miles.

My body has become pretty efficient at Form and function. And I rarely get injured anymore. Unless I do like um an ultra marathon. I had two um

You know, from my training, I just had two like random life lesson type things from the running that I'm curious, Nick, if you've experienced these. One was Before my marathon, I was trying to figure out like how to Just like mentally take on Um the goal of running sub three for it and how to think about like

If I'm six miles into the race and I realize I'm not gonna hit it, how to make sure I still finish the race and don't just like mentally completely lose it. And this marathoner told me That For every single race or anything that you're going after. You wanna have basically three goals. He was like you have your A goal, which is the main thing you're trying to hit.

And then you have a Beagle, which is like Just slightly worse. And then you have a C goal, which is just like finish the damn race. And you can always like you lock in on your A goal from the start. But if you start falling off that and realize you're not gonna hit it, you need something to fall back on that keeps you motivated when you're in it. And so you have your B goal and then the C goal is just get to the finish line.

And I have taken that and like run with it in every area of life now. Like no matter what it is, if you have a fitness goal, like a daily fitness goal, you want to, you know, run every day and work out every day. It's good to have that A goal. But the reality is that like Shit hits the fan sometimes. Like your kid is up all night, or you know, like you have a problem at home or something at work pops up. And so having that idea of like what is the B goal, maybe it's a slightly lower version. And then the C goal is like, I'm just gonna go for a walk. and get fifteen minutes of movement in. That has helped me so much in terms of just like

navigating the vagaries of life that inevitably hit when you know you're not gonna have your perfect day every single day. Yeah, I mean it's like the mindset of Like all or nothing. It's like you see so many people At every marathon, every race. It's very applicable to anything else in life, but like you see these elite runners go out

And as soon as they fall off of pace. They drop out. They just fall to the side. And I was actually talking to Ken Rideout a few weeks ago when he was on Uh my podcast.

And now he lives right down the road from me here in in Nashville. But He was telling me when he did Kona Iron Man years and years and years ago.

During the race he realized he wasn't gonna hit the time he wanted. So he just dropped down to the race. And he him and his family traveled to Hawaii for this race, so there's a lot of time, effort, energy, money going into it. You drop down to the race. And he said it was like his greatest regret ever.

So he he forced himself to go back the next year for for redemption is to prove to himself that He could do it. But I think the The feelings and the emotions and just

Everything that's created when you quit something and drop out because you weren't on pace for that egg goal. I mean that's like self destruction. That hurt so much more than Not actually finishing the race. The other thing that's funny to me about

uh all runners that I feel like they've gone through. You said it like with your first marathon or uh when you left the military, you were like, I'm never gonna run again. I'm done with this. It's like um it's like women after they have um after they have babies, there's like that chemical that gets released that makes them forget how much it hurts going through childbirth. I think the same thing happens with running. It just is like a little more delayed. Like when I finish my marathon I was like Fuck this. I'm never running another marathon about like that was the most painful thing I had ever experienced. Like the last six miles, I wouldn't wish that on my worst damn enemy in the world.

And then like two weeks later. I'm like, hmm, like which one should I sign up for next year? Like I gotta go two forty nine. I gotta do this. Yeah, I mean it's I'm the same way with ultras. Like I finish an ultra and I'm out for two weeks, I can't walk, my like toenails are falling off. And I talked to my wife, I'm like, This is this was stupid. Why did I do this?

I'm useless. I can't help out at home. And I find myself signing up for their Ultra. Shortly after. Dude, your ultra documentary was so good. I I remember I like had I subscribed for like the premiere. So I was like sitting at my T V waiting for it to come out. It was an hour long about Leadville, I think, right?

Yeah, it was so good. I remember I was like one of the first ones. I was like, All right, it's coming up at this time, Sarah. Let's sit down and watch it. And What's crazy about you is like There's this whole thing where These

People who want to talk in cliches are like every media or every company should be a media company, yada yada yada. And the thing is they mostly suck at it. You're actually one of the few guys. That has Like your supplements, they meet I don't know what the grade is, but you know, I know uh I've talked to you and I've talked to other people about it and your competitors will be like, Yeah, BPN they they meet this particular grade. They are of high quality. But you all so you nailed that, the supplement thing.

But then you also are nailing the media thing. And no one else or very few other people are doing that, where they're you're actually really nailing it. It's almost you could argue that your media is even better than the supplements because supplements like I don't know how the industry works, but it seems like yeah, they're like these five are great. But your media is awesome. I appreciate that.

You had like it looked like you had three or four guys following you around the whole time. Your wife is there. I feel like I know her because of of the videos. And then she was following you on Instagram or and talking about your splits. And these guys had these beautiful cameras. It was just like it was a great documentary. How many views did that have? The Leadville doc now has I think

One and a half million. It was so good, man. It was so good. Are you Did you come up with that storyline or do you just hire good a good team? That's my creative director, Jordan, in house here. Where's he from? Jordan

It's from Ohio. Geographically. But he was just when I met him He was employee number four. At BPN.

And he was filming for another YouTuber. When I met him. As a freelancer. And I was looking for a videographer at the time because this was two thousand nineteen. At the time I was still filming and editing all my own videos. That's crazy. That's a shit ton of work.

I mean all I did, all literally all I did. Was work. And Two thousand nineteen was the the first time I was able to Bring someone on, but I was looking

for like over a year for the right person. I would fly people down, they would stay with me and meet'em, we'd film something. It just didn't feel right, so I didn't pursue it. Met Jordan. Felt right. He moved down.

Creative director. He led my content for a while, then he went and led BPN's content for a while and now he's back. work on directly on my content again. But he came up with a storyline.

The The whole production The scouting The editing process. Obviously we had a lot of guys on the team supporting that. editing and and filming and and production, but Jordan led that

That project. We just launched. The last man standing ultra that he led and created with Ian Rodriguez here on my team.

And we posted the CIM race video. Monday. But yeah, Jordan is a super talented Creative. What's your how much are you spending per year on a team for content and Are you able to are you tracking the ROI or is this just like a thing where you're like

I'm I'm pretty sure it's working. It's a I'm pretty sure it's working. I mean our our media team Is I mean with video just videographers, photographers, we have

Ten. But then we have our s social team and A lot of my Business decisions. As like

As an entrepreneur, one thing I've learned And I think we were talking about this when when you were on my podcast a few months ago. Is that I make a lot of my decisions and I've made a lot of my decisions in business. Based off of

Intuition and gut feeling. I never looked at The PL, I never looked at the balance sheet. If I had this feeling that it was working and I could feel momentum and I had a pulse on it.

I was just like keep Keep spending, keep hiring. Then finally at one point I I hired operators, a CFO, a CEO, and they're like Hey, we gotta put some some

But like all of my decisions in business have been Intuition. Gut. If it feels right, I'm gonna do it. I have a I have a feeling there's gonna be an ROI. I might not be able to measure it. But

I can subjectively tell if it's gonna work or it is working. Is it separate at all? Like the Nick Bear Fitness platform and your personal social media, is that separate from VPN as like a functional entity, or are the people like the videographers the 10 people? Is that all under BPN? Yeah, the whole process has has

changed significantly over the last couple years. So originally it was all one team. And then at one point we separated out. Where I have now have the Nick Bear fitness business.

And then the bear performance nutrition business. So they were like two separate teams. And the Nick Bear fitness business is your app. Right. Your app and your channel. Yeah, it's like my my content.

My IP Uh My my channel My training app. Stuff like that.

I used to do brand deals, I don't do any brand deals anymore. Dude, Hoka should have been paying you like Seven figures a year. I bought Hocus because of you'cause I saw I was like, Oh, big guy wears Hocus. Hocus is the thing. The amount of the amount of Hoka Ren Cons I sold When I first started running.

Has to be absolutely ridiculous. So Just talking about the separation. We separated out Nick Bear fitness team and BPN team for a while. Really it

It made no sense. Uh what we were doing and why we're doing it. Just I just thought it was the professional move to take in that next step and stage of business. Now we've brought it all. Back into one.

Entity. I still have the Nick Bear Fitness business, but Everyone that is working on media is on BPN payroll. is a BPN team member. And all the content we're creating.

Is in the hope of building The supplement business. Now the teams are separated working on different projects. Like I have my creative director, Jordan. Who's leading my content? Ian who's working on my content.

Everett, who's a podcast producer. And then we have videographers creatives that are working on just BPN stuff. But there's definitely crossover. And the lines are Blur.

Blurier than they used to be. Do you think that dings your valuation if you ever wanted to sell the company because it's so tied on to You I don't know if it it dings the valuation, but I definitely think that

A process and a sale would come with a whole lot of structure. A lot of I P Well IP. Negotiations and possibly

Issues. Um I feel like it's less than you think, actually. I um I was always impressed. So I had actually taken BPN supplements before knowing you and had no idea who you were or that you were involved. They had just like popped up as one of the supplements I was taking. That's not the bulk, you think? Do you think somehow that's the bulk of customers? Honestly, I have no idea. I just remember like back in my private equity days, we looked at um

On it, you remember that brand? I don't know if it's still around. On it was selling and it was like they had a huge exit. Well, it was so tied to Joe Rogan and what was his name, Aubrey. Marcus um Yeah, Aubrey Marcus. And that was like when we were looking at it. private equity guys, like that's their biggest fear is like, oh how involved are these two guys? Like is it a key man risk? All this stuff. And then ultimately they ended up getting to an amazing exit with somebody

And you know, they put guardrails around it. They get like key man insurance or whatever it is. Um But I I would I'd I mean, I'd be interested to find out, actually like run a survey of your customers, like what proportion actually end up coming through you and your media versus now just like the flywheel is spinning, SEO is there. Um, and the business kind of just, you know, is self propagated. Well, that's been the fear with my businesses, which is I don't want to make it

me. I wanna make it its own thing. But Me Or Nick or Sahel, like That gets initial base, but it's like at what point do you

When do you make the transition? And it's a that's a challenging There's a I don't know the answer to that question, and I'm afraid of the repercussions of making the wrong. Making the wrong choice, you know what I mean? Yeah, I that that's been

A topic of discussion for the last couple of years with us. And trying to figure out how to navigate that. And for a while. I kept leaning into okay, well let's separate In the hopes of

Building BPN away from myself. So that it's separate and distinct and can stand on its own. But what I've I found By doing that. Is the separation

created this loss of Vision. And brand? So I've kind of just like Flipped my whole thought process on that.

and said, Screw whatever happens in the future and I'm gonna lean fully back in and I don't care really how it affects valuation or the end process anymore. I'm just gonna build a brand that I'm really proud of and the way I want to build it and whatever happens, happens. And if someone comes knocking on my door in the next couple of years and says like

Hey, we love what you're doing. Let's talk, but if you don't like it. You know, I just want to make sure I'm enjoying the process and not building a business based off of KPIs and Milestones.

And I bet you're I mean I uh I have no idea. I've never seen you comment on this, but I would I would have to assume the app that you have. How much did you charge? Fifty bucks a month or something? Uh it's nineteen ninety nine a month.

So I would have to imagine That's doing well too. Right? I mean I I make

Much more money outside of BPN that I make personally with BPN. Yeah, I mean I I think it's killing it. Sile, have you ever thought about doing it? Yeah, I mean that type of business model is incredible, right? It's just like the ultimate

Scalability. And you know, as your personal brand it just for you As you think about reinvesting cash flows into your brand building. It just makes uh it m it makes it so much more dynamic because you can run

all of your media stuff at break even if you want to. Like you can just reinvest all the cash that you're generating from YouTube ads, from the app, from any of those things into creating better and better content. and create this massive flywheel and just count on B PN as the like long term upside bet. Yeah, but if I had a bet, I'd I bet you Nick, if I had a bet. Nick has probably been even though his net worth has skyrocketed. I if I had to bet, you'd live you've lived relatively poor compared to the net worth that you've created, cash flow poor. And now you probably taste this and you're like

Okay. Finally I can afford like uh to live like I wanna live, as opposed to just living on eighty thousand dollars a year. Yeah, I mean for the first time. I I didn't take any money out of the business for the first

Five years. What do you get like just like a like a army or you get like a military stipend or something? Yeah, so it worked it it worked well because Started the business two thousand twelve. Two thousand seventeen is the year I transitioned out of the army.

So I actually had to start paying myself then, me and my brother. He moved down from Pennsylvania to help us build a business. We signed our first Warehouse lease that year. It was the first year we hit seven figures in revenue. And it was also like the most challenging year my entire life because

I didn't know anything about Financing inventory. I didn't know anything about leveraging debt. I didn't know anything about Taking out Yeah.

business loans or utilizing lines of credit. Cash flow is an absolute nightmare. The only money I thought I had to spend. was the money that was in the bank account. We had no terms with manufacturers.

Like two thousand seventeen was Arguably the the worst and hardest year of my life, but also the best year of my life that if I could go relive any year. Right now, it'd be that year. That's insane. That's one thing, by the way, like just the the time frame on all of this.

I feel like people don't appreciate time as a lever for growth. on anything, um as much as they should. And actually like people in fitness and athletes understand it better because they understand that like growing slowly as the game and just getting better slowly. Like when I look at your YouTube channel And go to most popular videos.

A bunch of these videos, like you've been at this for years and years. There's like six year old video, four year old video. three year old video, like eight year old video, the 10,000 calorie cheat day challenge. Like some of this stuff, you've just been at it. And I know you just said it. you were editing these, like you were actually on the ground spending the like hundred hour weeks doing this stuff for a long, long time. It wasn't like you all of a sudden popped up and had this unbelievable, you know, production quality that you have today. So I I also just think like appreciating time as a lever for growth on these fronts is

Incredible. That is one One thing that's been Uh a powerful skill. For myself over this last decade plus is just

The consistency? At which I've just Kept doing the thing. But even the one thing Sam and I talked about When he was on my podcast.

I think you're you're going to do like a speech. And you you're back in like the green room before going out to the speech and you're talking to all these high worth individuals who are super powerful. And they're all sitting there super insecure and scared or nervous and like

Like, holy shit, these people aren't any More secure, confident, or better than me. And I think once you realize that That I have all the skills that I need to take Whatever is I I want to take to the top.

I just have to apply it. 'Cause I used to think and I went through this phase where Like okay, I'll get this business, I'll get this thing to this this level. But at some point I'm not gonna be smart enough. So I'm gonna have to outsource people to come in and and take it from where I build it.

to where needs or can go. And sometimes you do that, but You don't have to and I've realized it. There's no one smarter than me that's gonna take this business to the level it needs to go.

I just have to be super consistent. at this approach for a long period of time. And it's gonna pay off in dividends. But you did hire a CEO, I think what are you, a year into that? A little over a year. Yep. How's that?

It's been great. I mean The the main reason I wanted to step out of the CEO role and I I wasn't actively looking to hire a CEO. But Cat came into the business.

First it's kind of just an advisor. And then she joined as the chief revenue officer. Leaning into More operations. And then we just had a conversation one day. I was like, hey, would you ever want to be CEO?

'Cause I really just want to like focus on creating content and brand building. And She's like Yeah, if you want me to B C E all B C E L. So we made the switch.

Because the business got to a point in a size where I wasn't spending my time on the things that I was passionate about anymore. I'm spending my time on People management. And

lawsuits and retail and Finances and P and L and balance sheets and I was like This is all like super critical important stuff, but I don't love it. I wanna focus on what I love and that's creating content, that's building brands, that's

getting people jacked up. It's talking about the products. It's working on new product innovation. And that's why I wanted to make that change. Which she's been like. much harder than I thought it would be. And I'm only now a year

in of that transition. Really finding my lane. But this last year for me has been An interesting one. Dude, and it's hard. So I I have a CEO too. We'll be at one year

In a couple of months. And it's hard because You want to be a good I don't know what it's called a good partner with your CEO where you want them to make mistakes and you want them to ha you know, put their flavor and stuff'cause you gotta let a CEO do that. But then at the same time you're like

But I already did all this and I can tell you what the outcome of this is gonna be or Uh you know It's just like Ye it's really it's a it's a ha it's like getting married

Where you and but not living together right away. And so you get married and then you move in and you're like oh you're Fucking Quit leaving the cap off the toothpaste and it's like well no you can't like bitch about little stuff. You gotta let them do what they want to do. You know what I mean? It's like kinda weird. It's like a it's like a weird it there's it's a weird thing, but you have to learn how to like manage each other and it's and it is a challenge. But when it works, it's hard it's a it's the best.

At any point did you feel the need to jump back into the CEO? Roll? Well, in my when I get pissed off, I'll be like I gotta do this. And then I'll get like end of week or end of month updates and I'm like, Oh my God, Jordan is so much better at me than all these things.

And I and and also like I would have done this different, this different, this different. And those three things I probably would have been wrong about. So like The the name of the game isn't being right a hundred percent of the time. The name of the game is being right for the right things most of the time. And I just had to like kinda like have empathy and put myself in his shoes and that helped a lot, but Uh

No, like when I on a bad day when I get pissed off, I'm like I should do this and then Ninety nine percent of the time I'm like You are more talented than I am at so many things. I cannot do this. I think sometimes too when you're when you're far removed from the position for an extended period of time, you forget all the bad things you have to used to deal with.

Yeah. You only remember the good. Like, man, I kind of miss this and then you get exposed to all the the things The bad things that you don't miss. No You got it. You run with it. It also kind of I just before you jump forward from that, Sam, it um

It also differs greatly w between Like a true business operations endeavor and a creative endeavor. Like you couldn't step away and truly have a CEO just like running your content apparatus because it would lose It would lose the like the Nick soul that is in it. That's in every single piece of content that exists. You can like build your team around it, but you actually being in that creatively. Um I think is so key. There was this um

I think like it was Jerry Seinfeld um did a interview with I think it was like the Harvard Business Review. And they uh they asked him about the fact that him and Larry David basically like wrote every episode of Seinfeld and after nine years they had basically burned out. And so the show just had to end because they had burned out on doing it. And the Harvard Business Review was like Could you have hired McKinsey uh to come in and like help you find a better model and design something? And Jerry Seinfeld said, Who's McKinsey?

And they said, It's a consulting firm and Seinfeld responded, Uh Are they funny? Uh Yeah, and basically his point was You don't like I don't need them if they're not funny because the efficient way of doing the creative thing is actually the wrong way. And what he said is the right way is the hard way. The show was successful because they did it the hard way. They micromanaged every single detail of the creative process and they really had their soul in it. And so I think that like

your creative success and what has allowed all your businesses to thrive. are also fundamentally tied to the fact that you have your soul in every single piece of content that you guys are putting together. Yeah, I I agree with that. I I think sometimes entrepreneurship and building a business and and founding a company. From the

outside looking in, like people make it seem Easy. So it's romanticized and everyone's like, Oh, I could start a business. I could do it. And then you finally do it. And like you have this passion around everything you're building, but then it gets hard.

And it gets challenging and then it grows and then You know, your passions are sidelined for the priorities other of the For other parts of the business. But it's just maintaining that consistent work ethic, even when you're working on things that you truly weren't passionate about in the beginning, but you know.

It drives business and leads you to an ultimate End goal. Well, Guys, uh, I appreciate you coming on. Uh, it was a little impromptu, but this is fun. I just like hanging out with you guys and and learning. Um, Nick, uh

Sahel, I'm close to Sahel, so I don't have to say this to him, but Nick, I've uh I've looked up to you for uh a while now and I appreciate you doing this. Sahel, I appreciate you doing this too. This is awesome. No, thanks guys, appreciate the opportunity. Alright, that's the pod. I feel like I can rule the world, I know I could be what I want to

I put my law in it like my day song On the road less travel never looking back

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