143: Five Things I Learned in My 30s that You Need to Know

27:52Nick Bare:and I remember the day when I found out I passed that patrol. Everything went well. It was smooth. The ranger instructors told me I was a go. I was a pass. And as long as something didn't go wrong from that point until the end of the school, I was going to graduate. I was going to get my tab. It was one of the most emotional experiences of my life because the pressure that I was holding onto to earn that tab so that I could then graduate the school,

28:30Nick Bare:get to my platoon in Fort Hood, Texas, walk through those doors and meet those men for the first time, them looking at my shoulder and seeing the Ranger tab and having the bare minimum of trust and competence that I deserved and earned up until that point. It by no means gave me influence or leadership respect yet, but I at least had the bare minimum of trust and competence based off of the work that I did. And I've applied that mindset to everything I've done since. because I look at the people in my life who I follow, who I'm influenced by, who I want to be led by and that I will make behavioral changes based off of their influence.

29:35And those people have a few things in common,

29:39Nick Bare:but two of those, I can trust them and they continuously work to build trust and maintain trust. Trust isn't one thing that you get once and then you forget about it. You have to constantly and consistently keep building trust. And you do that by being a servant to others, by serving others, servanthood, and then being good at what you do, being competent.

30:10Nick Bare:If you do a certain job, we have the obligation and responsibility to be really good at that job. Invest our time, invest our money, invest our resources, invest our energy, our effort into being good at that thing. If you don't prioritize, and I've had to learn this, if you don't prioritize building and maintaining trust and being good at what you do, your lid, when we go back to the law of the lid, your lid of leadership and your effectiveness in all things you do in life is capped. And if you don't build and maintain trust and you don't have competence in what you do, your effectiveness on a scale of 10 might be a two or a three as a leader, which means then your effectiveness to perform and help others create impact, lead people, it's well below that.

31:14Nick Bare:as a leader, you are going to be held to a higher standard. And there's different levels and echelons of leadership that you may experience over the course of your life. The reality is that if you want to be a leader, you are going to be held to a higher standard and you must be willing to accept the fact that that is just part of the responsibility of leadership. So lesson number two, build and maintain trust. You do this by putting people first, others first, caring, listening, having compassion, working for people and becoming competent at what it is you do. whether that's being a really good dad, a really good husband, a really good business owner, a really good doctor, a really good car salesman, a really good video editor, whatever it is, trust and competence.

32:24Lesson number three, protect your priorities

32:28Nick Bare:being home, marriage, and family. Protect your priorities. Going to go to the book, page 224. What is required of me? So John Maxwell states that he has these three R's and those R's are requirement, return, and reward. And he says, I believe that to be effective, leaders must order their lives accordingly to these three questions. All right, here we go. What is required of me? We're all accountable to somebody for the work we do, an employer, a board of directors, stockholders, the government, and so on. We also have responsibility for the important people in our lives, such as our spouse, children, and parents.

33:25For that reason, any list of priorities must begin with what is required of us. The question I ask myself is, what must I do that nobody can or should do for me? As I've gotten older, that list has gotten shorter and shorter. If I'm doing something that's not necessary, I should eliminate it. If I'm doing something that's necessary but not required of me, personally, I need to delegate it. It's the first question to ask, what is required of me? Second question, what gives the greatest return? As a leader, you should spend most of your time working in the areas of your greatest strengths. Marcus Buckingham and Donald O.

34:08Clifton have done extensive research on this subject, which you can read in their book, Now Discover Your Strength. People are more productive and more content when their work is within their natural gifting and strengths. Ideally, leaders should get out of their comfort zone, but stay in their strength zone. I love that. I firmly believe that. that ideally leaders should get out of their comfort zone, but stay in their strength zone. Why? Because there's the greatest return. What's the practical application for this? Here's my rule of thumb. If something I'm doing can be done 80 % as well by someone else, then I delegate it.

34:49If you have a responsibility that someone else could do according to that standard, or that could potentially meet that standard, then develop and train a person to handle it. Just because you can do something does not mean that you should do it. Remember, leaders understand that activity is not necessarily accomplishment. That's the law of priorities. And the last R is reward. Tim Redman, president of Redman Leadership Institute, observed, there are many things that will catch my eye, but there are only a few things that will catch my heart. Life is too short not to do some of the things you love.

35:27I love teaching leadership. I love writing and speaking. I love spending time with my wife, children, and grandchildren. I love playing golf. No matter what else I do, I will make time for those things. They are the fire lighters in my life. They energize me and keep me passionate. And passion provides the fuel in a person's life to keep him going.

35:54Nick Bare:Protect your priorities.

35:59Nick Bare:something I wrote down here your home is the foundation that allows you to go out and conquer all of life's battles and ambitions and I strongly believe that if you protect your priorities in my case it's home marriage and family if you protect those things and you create boundaries to protect those things.

36:31Nick Bare:The success of everything else you do in your life depends on it. It's like the lull of the lid in terms of leadership. I know and I've had to learn this a hard way. Trust me. If I don't take care of my priorities being my home, my marriage, and my family, my ability to be effective in all other things in life, whether that's my work, leading my team in my business, making money, my fitness, ambitions and goals, my health. I know that if I don't prioritize my home, marriage and family, I don't take care of those priorities. the effectiveness of everything else in my life will be below the effectiveness of my home.

37:28Nick Bare:Everything in your life depends on protecting those priorities. Right now, I just recently started reading Pastor Joby Martin's new book. It's called Stand Firm and Act Like Men. It just came out a few days ago. and I just started it this morning. I love it. I can't recommend, I'm speaking to men specifically right now. Men, go follow and listen to Pastor Joby Martin and especially read his new book, Stand Firm and Act Like Men.

38:17As a man, speaking to men,

38:22Nick Bare:we have the responsibility to protect and lead our home. That is one of the most important things of our lives. Protect and lead our home. Protect our home, protect our family, protect our marriage, protect our children, protect those relationships, that goes back to being a servant leader, selfless servant, putting our family, our home, our marriage, those relationships above ourselves and above anything else we want for ourselves.

39:05Nick Bare:Priorities of my life, God, family, everything else. and I know if I put those things in that order, God, family, and everything else, I can be an effective leader, and I can be effective in many other areas of my life, but if those things are out of order in any way, if it's God, work, family, if it's family, God, work, if it's work, family, God, all of those combinations, I am instantly less effective. We have to protect our priorities. We have to, because everything else depends on it. And honestly, that comes to building your inner circle. So let me go back to the book for a second.

40:13who are you drawing into your inner circle? This is page 138. Most human beings have some kind of inner circle, people close to them who help to make or break them. However, many people are not strategic in choosing them. Few people give enough thought to how those closest to them impact their effectiveness or leadership potential. We naturally tend to surround ourselves with either people we like or people with whom we are comfortable. But people who bring nothing more than fun or easiness will not help you to be successful. You see it all the time with certain athletes who transition to the professional ranks and with entertainers who achieve professional success.

41:01Some plateau or self-destruct because their inner circle is composed of people who are not helpful or even harmful to them. So who are they? Anyone who is going to be an integral part of your life needs to have good character and share the same values as you. When I invite people onto my team or consider them for my inner circle, I expect them to have integrity, possess a positive attitude, value excellence, show flexibility, exhibit loyalty, and value people.

41:39Nick Bare:Now, some people hearing that are going to take that the wrong way.

41:47Nick Bare:If you take that for what it is, face value without context and perspective, what this book and these words are not saying is, if someone doesn't help you succeed, you should get rid of them. if someone doesn't help you make more money or level up in your professional life you should get rid of them that's not what that's saying but the people you surround yourself with they are either going to push and inspire you or they're going to pull you back down one of my favorite analogies and maybe it's a metaphor it's the crabs in the bucket analogy, which I've actually only recently heard about somehow, some way.

42:41Nick Bare:But the crabs in the bucket analogy, say all of you friends, you and your friends are crabs and you're in this bucket and you come from a group of friends who gossips, who's negative, who wants comfort, who wants ease. and you are afraid to leave that group. Well, you become awakened and you see this opportunity to grow and pursue these new ambitions and have a better attitude and just do better things, more valuable things and create true impact and change. And you try to get out of that bucket. You're a crab. you start crawling out of that bucket. But you don't want to leave those people who are so comfortable with you and are familiar and they're fun.

43:39Nick Bare:So you slowly start to climb out of the bucket. What's going to happen? And this happens with crabs. One crab tries to climb out. The other crabs will pull that crab back in the bucket. those people sometimes will pull you back down into where you were the way you were thinking what you were doing

44:04Nick Bare:who you surround yourself with that inner circle you build that is so vitally important and i would say that this year ever than ever before i've truly learned the value of that

44:21Nick Bare:A few months ago, committed my life to following Jesus Christ. I was saved, completely transformed my life and my purpose and the true joy that I have been able to experience. And I have found that I've had to be very intentional with who is in my inner circle because it's really easy to go back to your old ways depending on who you surround yourself with. So I'm very careful who I have and keep my inner circle now because I've seen this light. I've experienced this light. I don't want to lose that light. I have the fear of God. But if you surround yourself with the wrong people and you keep this wrong inner circle, around you, you can be distracted and you can go back to your old ways.

45:25Nick Bare:The way that you protect your priorities, you protect your home, your marriage, your family, it starts with creating boundaries in and outside of your life and in and outside of your home. But also, how are you curating and being intentional with that inner circle to ensure that you have stability, you have strength, and you're maintaining those priorities. You're protecting those priorities. Lesson number four, balance is not broken. It's maybe just mismanaged. Go into the book, page 237. There is no success without sacrifice. Every person who has achieved any success in life has made sacrifices to do so.

46:16Many working people dedicate four or more years to their lives and pay tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to attend college to get the tools they'll need before embarking on their career. Athletes sacrifice countless hours in the gym and on the practice field, preparing themselves to perform at a high level. Parents give up much of their free time and sacrifice their resources to do a better job raising their children. philosopher poet ralph waldo emerson observed for everything you have missed you have gained something else and for everything you gain you lose something life is a series of trades one thing for another leaders must give up to go up that's true of every leader regardless of profession effective leaders sacrifice much that is good in order to dedicate themselves to what is best.

47:08That's the way the law of sacrifice works. Effective leaders sacrifice much that is good in order to dedicate themselves to what is best. That's good.

47:26Nick Bare:I share that because

47:31Nick Bare:I believe that we sometimes confuse sacrifice for balance. Of all the lessons that I've learned, I have the most notes written down on this one.

47:50Nick Bare:Because I think a lot of people like to throw shade at the term balance because balance gives off the perception that you may be able to do many things, but none of them can be exceptional because you're working on so many things. You're trying to balance them out. So the default conclusion is that balance doesn't exist for high achievers, but I would actually disagree. I used to be someone, especially in my early and late 20s, who was influenced by hustle culture and the work, work, work mentality and that balance is for the weak.

48:40And I think that I've just reshaped the word balance

48:45Nick Bare:in my head, in my mind. And I just look at it differently now. Every day isn't going to be balanced. every day looks different. There are days where my schedule and calendar is jam-packed from the time I get to the office until the time I go to sleep. I mean, it's from one meeting to a call, to a podcast, to a training session, to going to a lesson with my daughter, to a dinner to podcast prep to all of these things, nighttime routine. I mean, some of these days are jam-packed and it's nonstop. And then there are days where my schedule is later. And I have one meeting on the schedule, which allows for more rest and flexibility and just creative time.

49:43Nick Bare:So none of my days ever look the same. There's variation from day to day.

49:54Nick Bare:and even every season isn't going to be balanced. There are seasons of life where my schedule is jam-packed, and there are seasons of life when it is not. I have more flexibility. Right now, for example, I am an Ironman prep, and that requires a lot of sacrifice because time is limited, energy is limited. Outside of my time with family and work and training and my time spent with God and prayer at church, in the Bible, there's not time for anything else, anything else. I say no to everything. But that is required in seasons of focus.

50:49Nick Bare:and the reason I've just had this slight mindset shift around the word balance is because I see so many people, and I've been here before where I embrace this hustle culture, anti-balance life, and there used to be a lot of pride behind that for myself, and what I found that I was doing in that pursuit is I was sacrificing the wrong things. And I intentionally put this lesson, balance is not broken, it's just mismanaged after protecting your priorities. Because I have had seasons of life where the season is unbalanced, but also there's these negative consequences that I'm experiencing because I am sacrificing priorities and I'm emphasizing the wrong things.

51:53Nick Bare:And that can and will get you to certain places. You can succeed, you can achieve, you can receive, you can win, you can make more money. But the process is pretty painful. And at times it creates more harm than actual good.

52:12Nick Bare:you know a few weeks ago i recorded a podcast with dr kyle gillet and we talked about reds which is relative energy deficiency in sport and i think this this paints a pretty good picture in terms of like there are going to be days or even short periods of time where your life can be unbalanced. But if you have a chronic long-term approach to an unbalanced life, that's when you start experiencing these significant negative consequences. So REDS is relative energy deficiency in sport. And what happens when athletes experience REDS typically happens with athletes because, and especially endurance athletes, because they are expending so many calories.

53:08Nick Bare:They're burning up so much energy through training. And they sometimes are unintentionally not eating enough to keep up with their energy expenditure. So in the beginning, not a big deal. A few days, maybe even a few weeks, they're not eating enough to make up for what they're burning. So performance starts to decline, energy levels decline, mental clarity declines, sleep starts to decline. But as this compounds over longer periods of time, weeks, months, even years, it turns into what is called REDS. and now these issues become chronic where it disrupts the immune system. It disrupts the endocrine and hormone system.

54:02Nick Bare:Bones become brittle and fracture or break. Muscles tear or sprain. The individual can't sleep anymore. It's just like it's a bad place to be but it's happened because there's been this unbalanced ratio of too much caloric expenditure, not enough caloric intake over a long period of time that creates these negative consequences. Well, the same thing can be applied to your life. There will be seasons and times of sacrifice and unbalanced schedules and focus. And that's okay. Sometimes that is required. But if it's managed or mismanaged for extended periods of time, that's sometimes when life starts falling apart and becomes destructive.

55:06Nick Bare:I would argue that the balance isn't possible. Approach is a myth. I would say that my life is pretty balanced right now outside of Ironman prep.

55:22Nick Bare:My focus is not on too many things. My focus is on, in my opinion, the right amount of things where I can spend time with God. I spend a lot of time with my family. I spend a lot of time on my personal fitness goals. I spend a lot of time in my business. And outside of that, I'm not pursuing much else. And it feels like, to me at least, I am spending the appropriate amount of time on those things. Now, from an outsider looking in, it might look unbalanced because I'm not going on trips or vacations, or I don't have much leisure time and I'm not watching TV series and we're not going to dinners frequently because my diet is very dialed in based off the training that I'm doing right now.

56:15Nick Bare:But based off of me and my family's priorities, my life feels pretty balanced right now. And it's just a mindset shift of what do I prioritize and what I want to focus on in this season. Now I wanted to share this. When I used to really buy into the balance isn't possible myth,

56:46Nick Bare:2019, we were in the thick of building this business. BPN was much smaller. We had three, four employees at the time. And I bought into life can't be balanced. So I spent all of my time, energy, bandwidth on building the business, creating content, doing what had to be done. It was a time of sacrifice. and in 2019, early 2019, my mom got diagnosed with stage four ovarian cancer and it progressively got worse and worse and worse and I should have in retrospect I should have gone home more often to see my mom. My family was still back in Pennsylvania. My brother and I were in Texas, but we were so consumed with what we were building.

57:53Nick Bare:And we were willing, I was willing to sacrifice a lot in order to spend more time on the business. I went home one time to go visit my mom from the time she was diagnosed with cancer until the time she came back home with seven days left to live on hospice. I believe she was diagnosed in January. I came home for a weekend in April. And even when I was home, I was still filming YouTube videos for the business, distracted. And then the next time I came home was early June when she was in the ICU, came out of the ICU, went to hospice, passed away a few days later. in June of 2019. Because I bought into that balance isn't possible myth.

58:54Nick Bare:And my priorities and my focus were off. And I think back to those times and I realized, no, I could have done things different. I should have done things different.

59:14Nick Bare:But I was willing to sacrifice things then that I no way or by any means would sacrifice now. But I bought into this balance isn't possible lifestyle scenario in myth. And lesson number five, impress less, impact more. I had to learn this one the hard way

59:48Nick Bare:you know when I I started the business in 2012 I've shared this story many times before but it never gets old I told my dad we were going to make a million dollars that first year and he said Nick if it was that easy everyone would do it and I said I'm going to prove you wrong and we didn't do a million dollars in 2012. We didn't do it in 2013. We didn't do it in 2014. We didn't do it in 2015. We didn't do it in 2016, but we did it in 2017. It took us five years to cross the seven figure revenue mark. And because the business wasn't growing initially, I started creating content on YouTube and documenting everything in 2014, two years after starting the business.

1:00:37and that slowly started to help drive revenue and awareness and build a business and

1:00:44Nick Bare:I started spending a lot of time creating content in 2014 up until today and you know part of creating content was doing these fitness preps documenting the journey training for marathons and triathlons and ultra marathons and all of these things. And in that pursuit, in that process, I don't want to say I lost myself, but I started trying to be more impressive than anything else during that process. impressive in terms of striving and trying to accomplish more and not just accomplishing more, but showing that I was accomplishing more, showing off things and

1:01:53Nick Bare:just receiving validation of my worth through a place of insecurity. being the need to impress. I believe that the need to and want to impress people comes from a place of insecurity. That is the desire for validation.

1:02:23Nick Bare:And I think that's what majority of social media is used for right now. you know would most people do the things they're doing in their life if social media didn't exist like would people be doing the things that they are striving towards to accomplish and achieve if they couldn't post a photo of it to share with the people they know but the many people they don't know and will never know personally to receive validation. And social media is the source in many ways for insecurity for many people. And there's a book I read about a year and a half ago. It's called Half Time by Bob Buford. Talking about how for many people, the first half of your life is focused on success and you experience this halftime moment where it shifts from focusing on success, which is sometimes driven by the need to impress people to then significance, which is impact.

1:03:37Nick Bare:We impress to become popular. We impact to lead through influence. And something I heard a few months ago was we should focus on building our life for our eulogy as opposed to our resume. And I love that. What are people going to say about you, your character, your values, when you are dead at your funeral? Build your life from that foundation as opposed to building your life for what your resume said you did. Where you worked, how much money you made, what your title or position was. And we're going to go to the book for some reinforcing material on that there. It's called A Lasting Legacy. What do you want people to say at your funeral?

1:04:39What do you want to see happen after you're gone? What do you want your legacy to be? These may seem like odd questions, but they may be the most important things you can ask yourself as a leader. Most people never consider it. And that's not good because if they don't, their lives and leadership can take a different direction from that of their greatest potential and impact. If you want your leadership to really have meaning, you need to take into account the law of legacy. Why? Why? Because a leader's lasting value is measured by succession. We do a lot of things in our life.

1:05:19Nick Bare:I'm doing a lot of things in my life to become stronger, to become better, to build and develop. But what I've learned over time, especially in my 30s, is that the strength that we are building, the strength that I'm building, the skills, the perspective, the wisdom, is actually not for me. It's not for us. It's for the people we are called to serve and lead. Impress less, impact more. This goes back to the first lesson I learned at its foundation. Leadership is servanthood. Our purpose, one is to live a life following Jesus Christ. And it's not to impress, but it's so we can create impact. We can leave legacy.

1:06:20Nick Bare:And we do that by humbling ourself, being proud of what we've done, what we're doing, who we're becoming, but leaving our pride behind. Impress less, impact more. Those are the five lessons that I wanted to share with you guys. Five things that I learned in my 30s that I need you to know. And again, I want to reinforce that I do believe we are all called to be leaders. And if we build and develop stronger, more equipped, more competent, confident, and better leaders in this world, this world will be a much better place. I can promise you that. But we got a lot of people who want to be popular,

1:07:19Nick Bare:but not a lot of people who want to have leadership influence. Leadership influence facilitates the change that we all want to experience. And instead of sitting back, looking out and saying, well, who are those people? Who is that? Who's going to do it? You're that person. Be that leader. Leadership is servanthood. Build trust and become competent. Protect your priorities, your home, marriage, and family. Balance is not broken. It's just mismanaged and impress less, impact more. Thanks for tuning in, guys. Appreciate you. Love you, as always. And go one more.

1:08:18We'll see you next time.