158: How A Simple Morning Routine Can Lead To A Life Of Freedom And Success | Michael Chernow

28:51Things get really awesome. You want to celebrate, you want to mourn. A lot of feelings are hard. Feelings in general are just hard, whether it's coming from family or business or friends or death, whatever it is. And human beings, I believe, are conditioned And especially now to not want to feel. We are looking for comfort. It's just what it is. There's been great books written about it recently. You know, I don't know if you've read The Comfort Crisis or, you know, but there's where for whatever reason, we want to be warm. we want to be fed and we don't want to have to lift up heavy things right or you know run fight yeah fight it's just and um you know the one thing i've done every single day since i've made the decision to put a plug in the and stop using substances was pray.

30:00It's the one thing. I've done a lot of other things. A lot of consistency, but the one thing I have been unbelievably consistent with without fail is prayer.

30:12Nick Bare:When did that first action of prayer evolve and turn into a relationship with God? It's a great question. honestly recently like years recently or months months recently where I really believe I

30:36I never thought of meditation as listening right and I've been meditating on and off for years now but I was talking to my therapist um, six months ago and she's Christian and she, we don't really, you know, it's like kind of church and state, right? Like we don't always, you know, talk about, um, God in, in therapy session, but, you know, she said to me, she asked me a real, a question that like, I kind of got, I kind of got stumped, right? She was like, what is your relationship with God? and I was like, I mean, I pray every morning and my life is great, not without its faults and challenges, but my prayer.

31:26And she's like, so let me ask you a question. She said, if you were in a relationship and you were just the only one speaking, like what do you think the other person in the relationship would feel? if you're the only one talking. Because right now your prayer in the morning, like you're the only one talking. You know, you're not giving God a chance. It's talk. You're not receiving. You're just talking. And so I was like, wow, that's a really interesting perspective, you know? And so about six months ago, I started meditating and journaling on this idea that it's gotta be a two-way street. And I didn't really understand that because I, you know, I'm, I'm, I don't, my wife is a self-proclaimed atheist.

32:22And so it makes it really difficult because I try my best because how, you know, how, how powerful God has been in my life. I, but she is just adamant about her belief and I'm fine with that. Right. I'm not trying to force or convince or whatever her to wanna start looking at God the way I do. But I don't go to church, right? Like I've been doing, I've been like YouTubing my way through this thing. And so she had proposed that I, after my prayer, I sit in silence for two to three minutes just to receive. And then throughout my day, instead of something hard comes up saying, God, I'm going through this brother, like just receive.

33:13And that has begun what I believe to be the chapter two after 20 years of talking a lot. And now also kind of understanding that that meditation practice is also an opportunity for me to listen. I love to hear that. What I've learned through my walk in faith is

33:39Nick Bare:there is religion and there's faith. And religion is the study of people and culture and systems and beliefs. But faith is a relationship with God. It's truly believing. and that relationship is a two-way relationship. There's the speaking and there's the listening. And I do a lot of my prayer in the sauna in the evening and it is like 15 minutes of intense prayer. And I can feel the Holy Spirit talking back to me, answering my questions. things just come to me and you know are you in scripture are you in the bible at all yet i've like started i mean i read i just started in the beginning of the year reading jesus calling which is a really cool book and it kind of like gives me an opportunity to focus on certain verses uh that um simplifies the Bible for me.

34:48I have not read the Bible and it's definitely something, so I'll also say that for the first 19 years of recovery, I came up through the 12-step programs. And in the 12 steps, they are strategically, they strategically present faith, relationship with higher power in such a way that it doesn't turn anybody off because lots of people have trauma around religion. If you grew up in a really religious, very strict household, that might've been what propelled you to want to drink later on in life or use later on in life. So they basically say, this is an opportunity for you to create a higher power of your own understanding.

35:40Doesn't matter what it is. For me, for a long time, it was water. I was like, I want to have something to believe in. Water keeps me alive. If I don't have water in my day, I'm parched. If I don't drink for a few days, I'm dead. So let me just use something as this ability to have a understanding of something that's going to help me stay alive. And if this is what they're saying. I need to stay sober, also known as alive for me. Water seems like a good one, you know? And so, but over the last year and a half, I have, and it's not like I've been on a journey looking for it, but Jesus Christ has been showing up in my life in abundance.

36:28I mean, so much so this might be a little woo-woo, but we're on the topic. So I'll just share the story. I was driving in Utah about four months ago with a buddy of mine who's also Christian. And we were just, you know, we were talking about life and, you know, Jesus Christ and things like that. And we were driving and I looked up and Utah is amazing. I mean, it's a beautiful, it's just beautiful country. It's just, there's mountains everywhere. And I looked up and I saw Jesus and I like had to pull the car over and it was just bizarre. Like it was, you know, I'm not the guy. That's going to be like, oh my gosh, you know, I just saw Jesus, but I did.

37:12And whether it was a figment of my imagination or it was a sign for me to start walking that direction,

37:21Nick Bare:I saw Jesus, man, you know? And I've met a number of people that have just been talking to me way more about that. And so if I have subliminal reasoning to wanna lean a certain direction that there's no downside towards, I lean. And so it's a new thing for me, but it's become certainly some, like my prayer has now gone from God to Lord Jesus. I love that. Yeah, there's nothing woo about it. You know, I would encourage you like lean in to those feelings and God calling you. Because in a lot of situations and circumstances, I found myself in the past of resisting that calling. Because to be honest, I didn't want to be that guy.

38:20Nick Bare:And when I surrendered everything to him, changed my life completely. completely uh i mean my life in the last year is not the same life it was a year ago i've only recently in the last couple months committed my life to following christ and i went all in and surrendered everything and in the word and if you're interested i'd love to share some some resources with you after this yeah like books that i've read how i've gotten started reading the Bible and being in scripture because scripture is, it's the truth. It's the word. And it has transformed my life, my joy, my peace, my rest that I've never experienced my life before, my relationship, my marriage, me as a father or a leader, a husband.

39:13Nick Bare:There's a good Bible that I read that I highly recommend. It's John Maxwell's Leadership Bible. and throughout scripture it'll have these little blurbs throughout from John Maxwell who's one of the best business leadership coaches mentors in the world and it translate scripture to leadership principles and how to apply it to your life or your business your family I'll send you a copy of this bible and it's absolutely amazing you know I kind of like I look at this topic as if I really just sort of peel back the onion and say, okay, whether you believe it or not, even if there's a slight chance as an ambitious, smart human being, that you have support from this being that is almighty, all you have to do is connect to it.

40:15believe that that is with you and within you, helping you make decisions, helping you get through things. Not going to fix your life. Not going to pull you out of a burning building necessarily. But there's an opportunity to work with, live with, enjoy grace. Grace, right? Like, why would you not do that?

40:45Nick Bare:Yeah. You know, I mean, your life is saved by faith through grace. Christianity is the one religion and belief where you are not judged based off of your actions, but based off of your faith. And that's because of grace. It's pretty amazing. And I found that when you align your priorities in life of God, family, marriage, and then everything else, life works out. It's not gonna be all rainbows and butterflies. I mean, you still are going to suffer and there's still hardship and you're not resistant to all the other obstacles and hardships of life. But when things are in those priorities, it makes life restful peaceful filled with joy and purposeful and you're never alone never so I think that's the big one right like if anything you can you can have faith that you're not you're not doing it alone I would encourage you like I'm still new on my walk, but use me as a resource because I've had people in my life who very strong believers, people here at BPN, very strong believers that took me under their wing and mentored me and guided me, gave me the resources, the tools, the insight.

42:30Nick Bare:And it was so helpful. So if you need any help along the way, reach out. The only one semi hurdle I just have to, and I've talked to people about this, is the fact that my wife battles with it. She just doesn't have the... My wife and I are, I mean, I'm blessed. I want to just preface by saying that. Like I've been married in April. Oh no, excuse me, April, July. Will be 20 years I'm married. Congrats. Thanks. and I met the woman in my dreams, you know, 21 and a half years ago, right after I got sober and no one ever would have pinned me as the guy that was going to settle down at 25, right? But I met this woman and she's never seen me have a drink.

43:22She's never, you know, I've never used a mind altering substance and we're very different, like super duper different. and she knows, I mean, you know, she used to, when I used to work super late at night and when we first started dating, I told her that I, you know, I'm recovering in sobriety. I pray every morning and I pray every night. I train my ass off because at that point I was, you know, when I got sober, I was introduced to Muay Thai kickboxing, which ultimately saved my life along with God and, you know, the 12 steps. But I used to get home late at night because I was working in the restaurants and I would get home at three o 'clock, sometimes four o 'clock in the morning and I'd be so tired and I'd get on the floor of the bathroom in prayer position, I'd say my prayer and I'd fall asleep just like that.

44:14And she used to wake up in the morning, go into the bathroom and I'd be on the floor in prayer position sleeping. And she'd be like, wow. And I'd be like, this is who I am. This is who I am. And so she knows the guy I am. She has the whole time. but you know things evolve right like my faith has evolved my you know and and and i'm feeling really confident about these signs that i'm getting i just can't not and so the hard the hard part though is is you know she's not comfortable in that world and so the advice i was given was just like keep doing what you're doing don't push shove convince coerce and then hopefully one day, maybe never, but maybe one day, you know, Jesus will show up in her life and she'll follow.

45:09But like, don't stop doing what you're doing, you know? Find the medium, find the balance, right? Like you don't have to talk about God or Jesus or scripture at the dinner table, you know? So that's kind of like where I've just like hung my hat on that and I'm like, you know, this is so, it's powerful for me, you know? Because I can't tell you it's the thing, but I can tell you it's the thing that I've done consistently since I've gotten sober. And by the way, like before I got sober, I flatlined, I was dead. I died, I overdosed on heroin, dead. And I came back. And to think that I'd lived 10 years in this dark, like weak place of hiding and running and lying and cheating to be able to go from death to two weeks later, a life that is just so unbelievably different in such an incredible way that there's so many people that are struggling with addiction.

46:15I mean, everybody's saying, oh man, alcohol sales are down 50%. America's not drinking anymore. And I'd love to believe that to be true because it is true. There's less alcohol consumption, but it's because this is what's keeping people from drinking because they're at home on their couch, not moving. Now, do I think it's better than getting wasted and probably committing crimes and doing bad things like that? Maybe, but this is almost as bad. I agree. It's almost as bad, right? Mind wasting, time wasting. I invested in a new phone that I can't wait to get. I get it in February called the Light Phone 3.

46:59Dude, I've been thinking about buying the Light Phone. Do it, dude. You and me will lead the charge. I'm doing it. I love that. I'm doing it. I'm going to leave this at the office. So this will always be at the office because I have to be on social media. Similar to you, you've got VPN and you've got your brand. And they work so well together, but you have to be active. right? Like people are expecting you to be active. And so I have to do that, but I don't have to do that when I'm at home. And having this thing just like, it's like this thing lives the best life out of all human lives because this thing gets so much attention.

47:44This gets so much attention. and typically when something really cool is going down, the first experience that, the first thing that gets to experience that is like this. Like, we're on this podcast, man. I want to capture this moment. I got to get a, I mean, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna get a great picture of this. But at the end of the day, this thing should not experience my kids play at school before I do.

48:15Nick Bare:I agree. Yeah, I've had that same idea actually is to buy the light phone and keep my iPhone at the office and use the light phone at home. Because the truth is we are weak individuals and people. I even have apps downloaded on my phone that block my social media apps from certain times. But you know what I do? I go into those apps and I turn them off. I know, man. I'm like, what am I doing? I know. I'm better than this. I know. I know. It is the greatest addiction that we all have. And I actually love that you say that. The world is raving that alcohol sales are down. And they are. But it is because we are glued to our phones day in, day out.

49:09Nick Bare:First thing that's done upon waking, and the last thing that's done before closing our eyes and going to sleep. it is horrible. I mean, I walk around, you know, we were at an event in Pittsburgh this past weekend. And we were talking to people, we were getting photos with people. And individuals kept walking in between where we were standing and getting photos because they're walking like zombies looking down at their phone, not knowing what's in front of them. Walking into us, walking through the line. Oh my gosh. We're all dead. Well, the commitment that I made last year, which I've stuck to, which I'm proud of is, and it just came to me.

49:55I was on the train in New York city and I was on the train, a packed train. And I just like looked up from my phone and I like looked across and there was like someone on their phone. And then I had someone on their phone, someone on their phone, someone on their phone, on their phone. On their phone, on their phone,

50:10Nick Bare:on their phone, on their phone, on their phone, on their phone. No one in the train outside of a few people in their 50s and 60s were looking up. Every 100 people were on their phone. And it dawned on me, we don't experience life anymore. We question why there's this like male loneliness epidemic. We don't experience life because we expect, we want a constant flow of stimulation and dopamine from our phones we don't look up imagine trying to run a race not looking up well life is a race whether it's a marathon or a sprint different times different seasons if you're looking down there's no shot you're gonna win zero chance bar none the person who's looking up they got a shot yeah so i just i made a commitment on the train, no phone.

51:09Waiting on a line for anything, no phone. In a social environment that I don't know many people are, easiest thing to do, boom, pull out your phone, hide behind that thing, no phone. I do not pull out the phone. Experience with my wife and kids, no videos, not doing it. I want to be there, I want to be present. I just want to experience it. And we're so like, we want to like, Like how many pictures do you have in your phone? Probably 8 ,000. How many times do you go back and look at all those pictures? Only when I'm flying. Okay, so like we rarely go relive those experiences, right? There's some thing that's kind of, we believe that capturing the moment is like going to optimize our lives, optimize the experience.

52:02We'll be able to look at it. And yeah, there's definitely great times for that, right? Like, but at the end of the day, I've got 21 something thousand videos on my, I mean, photos on my phone. And I just, the only time I really go back and look for those, look at those photos, and this is sad, but it's a fact, is if I'm trying to create a carousel on, for a - Yeah, I relate to that. You know, like that's when I'm like scrolling those photos,

52:29Nick Bare:right, to try to create a great carousel for Instagram posts. Yeah. anyway we're on a tangent but have you you know coming from a historical background of addiction which I want to get into do you see similarities between the addiction of your device your phone and substance addiction that was two decades ago yes absolutely unequivocally worse worse because it's widespread and totally acceptable do you feel that the tools that you were provided in substance rehab apply to technology addictions there are 12 step programs for technology addictions that's wild without a doubt it's the demise of humankind I just I just, I believe it.

53:31Like I would, right here, right now, if somebody was sitting here, some decision maker and said, Chernow, give me your two pinky toes right now. Cut them right off. I will eradicate cell phone use. Everything will go back to communication in person, conference call, writing a letter. I would do it. I swear to you right now, I would do it. I would cut them off right this second and I would deal with the pain 100 %

54:07because I'm trapped. You're trapped. When I'm on a plane, I look around and I see people watching movies and I can't do that. In my mind, I'm like, no, no, no. You got to work. You have emails to catch up to. You'd be a constant, like it is a constant for people in business that have been blessed to be able to have some success and leading teams. There's never not a moment in time as an entrepreneur where I am not required to respond. Required. Doesn't turn off. Like I'm sitting here right now and thinking about this. I'm like, oh man, I'm going to, it's my favorite place to get work done on a plane.

54:55but why can't I just watch a movie man you know like if I didn't have an email the biggest deals in history were done prior to email Rockefeller got real rich without email you know like how can we do that what can we do like how can we kind of slow it down

55:15Nick Bare:I don't know if you can at this point we're expected to be so accessible and responsive I know when I get out of a podcast or from a busy day, I open up Slack in email and everything's bold because that means there's unread messages and then it's playing catch up. And I don't know how we go back to being human, human, unresponsive, inaccessible. I think it comes down to, and this is really hard, but setting really hard boundaries. Even going back to the earlier conversation of, hey, I'm going to bed at 9.30. And that means that before 9.30, I have to do X, Y, and Z because part of my evening rhythms and routine to be asleep at 9.30, to wake up at anytime early in the morning to start my morning routine.

56:16And that requires setting boundaries

56:19Nick Bare:with people, with ourselves, clear expectations. When it comes to work and social relationships and technology, it's really hard to set boundaries. I don't know why because we do it in other parts of our life. Well, what I did at Creatures of Habit is once I saw, I was able to pivot out of the restaurant business and create this new business where the busiest time of my day was not between 7 o 'clock and 7 p.m. and 11 p.m., which was the busiest part of my day as a restaurateur, I said to the team, hey, I'm not going to start emailing expecting you to respond earlier than 8.30 in the morning. I will not, I might, I might start banging out emails early if I have like a deadline or if I have something, but I don't expect you to respond earlier than 8.30 in the morning.

57:20Similarly, I close my computer every single night at 5.30. I do it. Committed, I do it. And it was hard for me to do that because I was like, dude, are you really a nine to five guy? And then it dawned on me. Nine to five is done for a reason. Nine to five was created to not only have a life of work in a condensed period of time because eight hours is probably the right amount of time to have your focus in full throttle without diminishing returns on either end. But it also gives you an opportunity to do what life was really presented to us for, which is to love. We are love beings. It's really, really hard to love the people around you when you're stuck in an email.

58:09Chase. So 5.30, I shut the computer every night. I get to the, I walk to my truck, get my car. I really, really try to decompress on the drive home. Right before I pull up into the house, and this is something that I've done, and I'll tell this story because this is like a really, really, very pertinent to this conversation. But right before I get to the house, I create a buffer for myself because the energy that I have, I have a lot of energy and I'm a hard charging guy, very much like you. there's a difference in the energy between being a hard-charging dad and a hard-charging business person.

58:50My hard-charging business person is the opposite of the energy that I want to introduce to my kids as a hard-charging dad. As a hard-charging dad, it's all love. As a hard-charging business person, it's discipline, right? And so I get to my house at about 5.55, dinner's on the table every single night at six. My wife is incredibly punctual. It's my favorite part of the day. Sitting down at the dinner table with my wife and kids. Pull the truck halfway up the driveway. I shut the thing down. I close my eyes and I do about three minutes of breath work. And it'll be either box breathing or I'll do the double inhale, long exhale.

59:31Or if I'm really fired up and amped up from a crazy day at work, I'll do both. I'll do four or five rounds of box breathing. And then I'll do four or five rounds of the double inhale, long, slow exhale. and it really calibrates me. It brings me back to baseline. It just does. And so anybody that's listening, like if you're struggling separating business and family and you walk in and you sit at the dinner table and you're just completely not there, I'm not here to say that it's going to fix that problem totally because there's definitely times where I sit down at the dinner table and my wife won't be talking to me and I'm just looking at her like totally lost in space on other things.

1:00:07But it definitely helps. It helps. in the beginning of the pandemic, probably 2021, 2022, I was not doing that. And I was just starting creating, you know, I just kicked off Creatures of Habit. And it's a new business for me, completely new business. I'm learning on the fly. I'm like literally YouTube in my way into creating a D2C brand. And so I'm under a lot of pressure. I've raised some cash and I just like want to, I want to succeed. And so I'm just like, I got to get it in. And I pulled a truck into my driveway, shut it down, and I pick up my phone. And I'm just like, I got to get these last few emails out.

1:00:49Right? And I'm doing that as I'm kind of like walking into the house. And at that point, my kids were probably six and four. And my son, I get into the house. I don't I don't acknowledge anybody. And I'm kind of like replaying this story, kind of like looking at it from above, right? Because this is, I can only imagine what it felt like. And I'm walking in and I throw my bag down and I know that dinner's ready. And I'm like, just trying to like bang it out. And my older son, Finn, walks right next to me and he goes, daddy, daddy. And I didn't respond. He says, daddy, daddy, I want to tell you something.

1:01:27And I just didn't respond. I'm like on the email. And he says, dad. And I look over and I'm, I say, dude, don't you understand that I'm doing something right now? And I watched his face crumble. And

1:01:46I just couldn't believe that I had the part of my language audacity to take the one thing that my son wants in life. The one thing. He doesn't want my car. He doesn't want my bank account. He doesn't want my job. He doesn't want the fancy house or the title. Only thing my six-year-old son wants in life from me is attention. That is it. that is all he wants he wants me to hug him he wants me to teach him he wants me to lead him he wants my attention period done nothing else and I took it from him and it makes me emotional to say that because

1:02:32it's just it's insane that I thought that that was okay and so from that day after I was able to reflect on that a little bit, because it sounds a little dramatic, right? Like, oh my God, I told him to leave me alone. I'm finishing up this thing. But it was such a burst of failure for me as a dad because my relationship with my father was absolutely terrible and there was no attention. It was really sad. and it changed the way I see my leadership as a dad. All my children want is my attention, period. That is all they want. And it's crazy to think that way, but it's just a fact. They love getting a Lego set.

1:03:24They love going skiing and going to Mexico. But I guarantee you, if you were able to get in the brain of the child, looking up at his father, all that stuff can go to the wayside as long as his dad is paying attention to him. And so that story is, I think, super relevant because I think we do that a lot in our lives. And yes, it was so powerful for me with my kids because there's nothing I love more in life than being a father. If you were to look at my childhood, you would say if you had to bet, if it was a betting man, he'd say, oh, he's going to be a terrible dad based on the blueprint that he was given.

1:04:14And somehow, some way I've been able to, well, I know how I'm sober and I have faith and I met the woman of my dreams that supports me.

1:04:25But if you looked at my childhood and you had to make a prediction of what my father ship skillset would be, you would never say that this guy cares about the attention for his kids.

1:04:40Nick Bare:If we're not intentional with the way we show up, especially, I really found that transition from leaving the office and work to coming home. If you don't intentionally create that time and space to kind of download. And as you walk into the home, walk in with a new temperature, you will carry all your problems from work and the day into the house. And one of the best things my wife has ever said to me was as the leader of the household, you are like a thermometer. You control the temperature, whether hot or cold. And if you come in from work into the house hot, if before you got there, everything was comfortable, that thermometer is going to go hot right away or cold right away.

1:05:37Nick Bare:So whatever you bring into the house, just know like the rest of the day, the rest of the night, that is the temperature of the household. Totally. And it's tough. It's tough going from a hard day, an exhausting day, a stressful day. And I'll do the same thing. I'll drive home. I'll try to disconnect chill get in the driveway park and before I go in ask myself how am I going to show up as a father how am I going to show up as a husband and I try to bring all this new energy in because if you're not intentional with the way you show up you will bring all that crap from the day into your family totally and I think it's super relevant to hear from a lot of my audience's younger new dads.

1:06:29Nick Bare:And it's tough. Whether you're a business owner or not, trying to manage and build a career and take care of your family and lead your family and be professionally driven, but also personally content. Doing both at the same time while raising a family and being a dad and being a husband and being a leader. It's not an easy time. it ain't just going to happen on its own passively. So I, on my drive over, I was listening to your podcast about discipline, commitment, and consistency.

1:07:08And, you know, I think that there's this, when people hear the word discipline, most people kind of cringe a little bit, right? Because we think discipline is militant. Discipline is hard. discipline is punishment, right? And what I've learned is that discipline is freedom, right? I think Jocko Willink says this. I actually have it tattooed on my hand because of how powerful when I read that book, Discipline Equals Freedom, I was like, okay. But when he says it in his book, discipline in my opinion is the greatest gift human beings can have and the beauty of discipline is that it's free and it's and it's available for all of us it just is and running a business being a great dad and a great husband taking care of yourself and staying fit and eating well and like that requires discipline.

1:08:21It's free. It's just free. Like a lot of the time we have a, we, we can't get out of our own way, you know, in my opinion. And I've helped so many guys over the years come out of the darkness and start to see the light when it comes to recovery and sobriety. And sometimes I just want to shake them and be like, dude, all you got to do is do it. Like stop asking questions. Stop trying to find an easier way. All you got to do is do it. That's it. Like, how do you start? You got to do it. You got to do it. Like nothing is coming on a platter. No one is going to take you, walk you across the line. And I know it's so much harder than you just got to do it.

1:09:11But at the end of the day, that is a fact. It's simple. It's simple. And what I have, like, I've kind of created this philosophy called the three C's, which I think kind of help paint the picture.

1:09:30Because, you know, just because it's simple or just because it's simple does not at all mean it's going to be easy. Exactly.

1:09:41Nick Bare:They're very, people assume they are synonyms, simple and easy, but they can be very contrasting. Totally. So I think that the number one most powerful skill to master is commitment. I think everything and anything you want to do that you'll want to tell stories about as you want to tell your grandkids about requires commitment. It's the number one. The cool thing about commitment is that it's really, really hard, especially if it's a big change. Commitment is like one of the hardest things. Long-term commitment is very, very tough. But the cool thing about commitment is that commitment breeds faster than any other thing you can do.

1:10:35Commitment breeds confidence. It just, it blossoms confidence. Because once you understand this concept that, oh, wait a second, I can commit to this? Like I can do this? I can stop drinking for five days? I can go to six days. I can go to six days. I can go to seven days. Wait, he did tell me to like go outside for a walk after the seventh day. I'm going to go outside for a walk. Well, walking makes me feel good. I'm going to commit to the walk and I'm not going to commit to the not drinking. And then before you know it, you start to begin to understand how this commitment breeds confidence component.

1:11:19So you got commitment, breeds confidence. And then once you, and I'm not talking about in an egotistical or a conceited cocky way, confidence. I'm talking about just like starting to feel good in your own skin. Starting to feel like you are, whether you win or lose, you have the ability to execute.

1:11:42Nick Bare:Stand firm in what you believe and what you accomplish and what you know you are capable of. Yeah, it's not, it's confidence in the most, humble way possible. Totally. So this commitment, breeding confidence piece is where, you know, you can live for a long time, right? Like years. And then ultimately with enough confidence and enough trying and failing and trying and succeeding, you begin to develop courage. And there's a lot of courage that's required for commitment, but there's a difference between courage that you're confident about and courage that you're like, all right, I'm going to die if I don't do this.

1:12:27Confident courage is what people write books about.

1:12:31Nick Bare:That's really good. That's boldness. It's knowing that you have done enough of the thing to be able to step through the next door. You've been here enough. You've done, you've been consistent enough. You've gotten feedback enough that you're willing to, wanting to, and have been encouraged to by just organic feedback from others and from your outcomes that you can then go open a business, that you can then go run a triathlon or do a triathlon, that you can then go run 100 miles. you don't know if you're going to finish that 100 mile race but you've run 10 miles enough to say you know what I'm going to go for this going from never running to 100 miles rarely ever happens maybe David Goggins might be the first guy to ever do that but that succession commit breeds confidence and then ultimately they write books about courageous people all the time.

1:13:51I really love that courageous confidence.

1:13:58Nick Bare:And like, as you were saying that, I had like these images come into my mind. So I'm just gonna try to like describe what's like going on in my mind right now. Do that. There's like three words or three descriptions. One, confidence. Two, courage. And three, selflessness. And I think those three things, I think that's what makes a man a man and what separates a boy from a man. Being a selfless servant and leader, being confident and being courageous. Because you can be confident without being courageous, but that lacks boldness. You don't know what you stand for, what you believe in. You are wavering in conforming to the world.

1:14:59If I think of like the men I respect

1:15:02Nick Bare:and look up to the most in the world, they're selfless servants and leaders. They are very confident but they're courageous, they're bold. They're unapologetic with what they're doing, what they speak into, what they believe in. And I think if not just men, but more people put those three characteristic traits on a board and look at those every day, how do I become more selfless? How do I breed more confidence? How do I be more courageous? we would have more success and we would have greater contributing members of society in this world that aren't trying to conform to what is worldly or normal or accepted but what is renewed reborn, reimagined transforming this world into something great that spoke to me a lot cool courage is powerful I mean if you are when I think of courage really funny enough the vision that I think of is the gladiator the movie you know it's one of my favorite movies of all time love that movie so much and it takes a certain kind of person that is willing to go out and face whatever is on the other side of the door.

1:16:51This notion or the buzz of soft men, men being softer, it's inevitable. We're given way too many creature comforts, right? We're just, there's too many ways to not be less courageous, right? Like you don't have to get up. You know, when you think about consistency, only until like the last maybe 100 years or so, right? Maybe 150 years. Human beings were doing the exact same thing every single day. It wasn't like weird to like wake up at the same time, get out into the fields and work, have lunch at the same time, eat the same thing, have dinner at the same time with the family, go to bed at the same time because if you didn't get up, your chickens and your cows weren't going to get what they needed to get.

1:17:54you know this last 150 maybe 200 years of introduction of some waiver in the human evolutionary track has taken us out of this ability to feel and do like it would there was never like a question about like oh how do i if there's something I really want to do, how do I do it? You do it. You just do it. If that means, how do I get in great shape? Simple, right? Doesn't mean easy. You got to change the way you're eating and you got to move your body in ways that you have not been, you have not moved it before. Typically with some sort of resistance training and getting a certain amount of steps in on a daily basis.

1:18:53If you just do that, anybody listening, anybody's curious about how to get in the best shape of their life, change the way you're eating,

1:19:07resistance train five days a week, four days a week, and walk 10 ,000 steps a day if you can. If you do those three things, that's it. That is the solution to that question, that problem. People ask me all the time, how do I get in better shape? Like, what should I do? It has nothing to do with the plan you're on. It has nothing to do with somebody, some great trainer coming into your life and telling you what to do. It's change the way you're eating. Walk 10 ,000 steps a day and lift weights three to five days a week. That is literally. And if you don't even have a plan, if you just got into the gym and literally YouTubed, give me five exercises to do today, go on to, yeah, I know we're talking technology, but like go on to ChatGBT and say, hey, give me five things to do today in the gym that's going to help me on this path.

1:20:08It'll give you a bazillion. That's all you got to do. How do you start a business? you start connecting with as many people that are doing what you want to do as humanly possible. And if that means that you got to go on social media and just start cold DMing people, I promise you 20 of them will say no and one of them will say yes. You just got to do it. People are like, well, what do you mean you just got to do it when it comes to business? I'm like, any way that you can get closer to people doing the things you want to do, you got to go. Yeah. have the courage to do it commit to the 20 DMs a day you'll gain a lot of no's every no is getting you closer to it yes yeah it is simpler now

1:20:58Nick Bare:more than any time ever in the history of the world to succeed and I said this on a recent podcast and I believe this fully and people are going to hear it and they're going to say no no no no it is actually in order to be successful in anything, anything, it is quite simple. It is hard. It is challenging. It's not easy, but it is quite simple. You referenced chat GPT a little bit ago. You can literally go on chat GPT and you can prompt it with a few questions. You can have a meal plan. You can have your macros. You can have your workout plan. You can have a blueprint for building a business. You can have a full business plan.

1:21:38Nick Bare:You can have a marketing plan. I mean, you can have your layout for a book that you want to write. It is simpler now more than ever before to succeed. There are no excuses anymore with AI. Blessings and curses. When we both started our first businesses, we didn't have the blessings of chat, GPT, and AI. It was just figuring it out. So I do strongly believe that there is no excuse now to not be successful in whatever it is you want to be successful in. The reason you're not successful, the reality is you're not willing to do the work. I do want to talk about your entrepreneurial journey because I do want to contrast between the brick and mortar restaurants and what you're now running as a D2C CPG brand.

1:22:35Going back to when you first started your first restaurant, I want to know how you went from early to late teens addiction, sobriety,

1:22:55Nick Bare:and then having the confidence and the courage to start that first restaurant. well I guess I'll preface by saying I think I I really do believe that some people are born with an inherent need to discover curiosity gene I think that really at the core is what an entrepreneur has I agree with that you know it's an itch it's an itch right like one of my favorite things to do with my sons in the summertime and the spring and in the fall too, is to like walk out into the woods and just lift up rocks and just see what's under there. You know, snakes and salamanders and frogs. And like, I'm just ferociously curious.

1:23:44I can't tell you why, but I just haven't. I always have been. I'm a very curious dude. Like, I just want to know about you. I'm like, when it comes to people, you could put me anywhere. my wife absolutely hates this but I am just making friends everywhere I go because I'm curious I want to know people I want to I want to you know like I'm just very curious and so from an early age you know I my we grew up in a tiny little apartment my mom my father my sister and I it was really really tight quarters my father was you know he was physically sick and he was verbally and physically abusive and he was also mentally ill.

1:24:24So I, you know, it was a tough situation. What that did for me though, was it, it, it made me want to look elsewhere for the things that I was trying to get at home. So I was constantly sharpening my EI skills, right? Like I knew that if I wanted to go to my friend's house and sleep over because I'd much rather sleep there than sleep at home, I needed my friend's parents to like me. and I remember so clearly in first grade sitting at Ross Delafield's house in his apartment and they had dinner around the table and I was invited over to have dinner and I had never had dinner around the table before but my family never once did that and I was like, wow, this is cool.

1:25:05Like they're all having dinner together talking about their day. I was like, I want more of this and I said, man, I got to figure out how to get Danny which is his dad and I forgot his mom's name. I got to figure out how to get Danny to like me. So I invite me to sleep over so I can do this more. And it just like that sort of started to hone this skill for me of like understanding people, understanding where I would be successful when it comes to developing relationships. And I know it sounds crazy as like a first grade, but this is like really the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey of, of connecting with humans at scale.

1:25:43I mean, I think that's kind of like what my superpower passion is. I think with most entrepreneurs, founders, you can identify those traits and characteristics and superpowers early on.

1:26:00Nick Bare:Maybe not in real time, but similar to you, like me growing up, I was displaying these characteristics and abilities that would prove to be strong skill sets for my entrepreneurial journey. So I think you can, you can see these things developing at a young age. Totally. I mean, yes, I, I, I do. I had a podcast before the Creatures of Habit podcast called Born are made. And it's because I'm incredibly curious to know if Nick Bear was born with the ability to do what you've done or if you were made over time through intentional. I mean, I do think it's probably a combination of both. It's a combination of both when you get to the level that you're at.

1:26:55But I do think it's very, very, I do believe that there is an inherent component to it. I agree. You know? And so when I was a little kid, you know, if I had toys that I wasn't using anymore, they didn't like collect dust in the corner of my room. I would ask my older sister to come downstairs with me and I lived in Manhattan. So I was like, I lived on a busy street in Manhattan. I would set up a blanket at like five, six years old, sheet, a blanket. I'd lay it out on the corner of 87th Street and 2nd Avenue and I put all my toys out on it and I'd sell them for a buck. And I got like, once I got that, like the taste of blood, you know, of like making a transaction at a young age, I was just all in I wanted to I was like collecting cards collecting comics going to the comic book store buying a$5 grab bag of comics taking a comic out that I wanted to read and then standing in front of the store this young kid I'd be selling comics for a buck you know like I just always had this make do create grow mindset anyway I can relate to that yeah like I just felt like this I was like it was a good feeling when I was able to like have a win like that, you know, at a young age.

1:28:02And so I also gravitated towards sports. So I was an athlete as a kid and I loved winning that way. You know, like I really was like, I became very passionate about hockey. I played a lot of hockey, whether it was street hockey, I ended up getting into ice hockey. But around 12, 13 years old, it just got really ugly at my parents' house where I grew up, you know, in our apartment. And it was just bad. It was violent. My father and I became very violent with each other. And he was home sick on permanent disability, essentially a hoarder. And I just didn't want to be there anymore. I just didn't want to be there.

1:28:39Child services were involved because the cops had been called a number of times. Eventually, at around 13 years old, I started to drink and smoke pot. I was already smoking cigarettes. And, you know, I, at that point I really mastered the skill of making my, or convincing my friends' parents to like me. So I was never at home. I barely stayed at home. I was always sleeping out. And so at 15, it got, you know, it was the straw that broke the camel's back. Child services basically showed up at the house. My father and I got into a fight. They said to my mother, look, you know, this is unsafe for your child here.

1:29:19Either he's going to have to go, your son or your father. One of them has to go. We can't, this is too, you know, it's too dangerous. And it put my mother in a very uncomfortable position because my mom was also abused and scared of my dad. So I made it easy on her. And I said to her, hey, tell the child services people that, you know, we're going to figure this out over the next 24 hours. I'm going to leave. How old are you at this point? 15. 15. Yeah. I was like, I'm going to leave. You know, I'm, I mean, it's kind of crazy to think about a 15 year old kid, but I was basically like, you know, I'm going to be okay.

1:30:05I've been doing this a long time now. It's not like I'm like for the first time sleeping out of the house. I was like, but I'm much happier to leave than have to have you deal with, you know, the crazy guy. And so I did. I left and stayed in high school, but I moved out. And I was really, at that point at 15, I was fully, you know, addicted to drugs and alcohol. Are your parents still alive? My father passed away a long time ago. He passed away 25 years ago. So not long after I moved out five years after. Do you still have a relationship with your mom? Yeah, yeah. My mom and I have a relationship.

1:30:42I love my mom. You know, she's been through a lot. You know, she hasn't been dealt the easiest hand.

1:30:51And she's, you know, she's got a lot of stuff, but I love her to death. And I do my absolute very best. I have a tattoo on my arm here. It says, bless you, change me. One of the most, my grandmother used to say this to me all the time. And she was my father's mother. and she was the most influential person in my life, my grandmother from little, little kid. She was just the most wonderful grandmother ever. And she felt so sad that my dad was the way he was. She obviously didn't know what to do, but she was a very spiritual person. And I used to call her and be like, grandma, like, this is so bad.

1:31:28And she used to say, honey, I know, but there's nothing you're gonna be able to do to change your dad. the best advice I can give you is every time you know you're going to walk into a situation with him and it's not going to be fun, just have a saying in your head and say, bless you, change me. And I was like, always say that, bless you, change me. And I think that that is like, if you can live your life like that, where like you're not going to allow someone's way of living, someone's thought processes, someone's actions, someone's thoughts, to impact you, and you're also not going to try to project the way you live onto others and get disappointed because chances of them taking the bait on that are slim.

1:32:20If you can say, you know what? Bless you. If I want to feel good in this situation, the one that's got to change is me. And so I practice that with my mom. I'm not going to change her. She's setting her way. She is who she is. And I love her. If I want to be able to manage her, like where I don't get frustrated when we talked, the only person I got to change is me. And so that's been powerful for me. So I moved out. I was crazy. I was running the streets in New York, using drugs, selling drugs, getting into trouble, being a, I was just a, I wouldn't wish me on any parent. I just wouldn't at that stage in my life.

1:33:01I mean, I was, I was a real rebel and I was terrified. I was scared. So I drank a lot and I did a lot of drugs and I was not a tough guy, but I pretended to be. You know, getting into fights and doing all this stuff that like, you know, if my son was doing, it'd take all the power for me not to just, you know, grab him, throw him in the car and like drive far, far, far away and hold him in a house with me for like a year

1:33:28Nick Bare:and just watch him. Just not let him do what he's going to do. And this is not some like small town in Texas. This is the streets of New York City. Yeah. So there's real stuff going on there. Oh, I mean, I was, you know, I got pistol whipped, duct taped, tied up, thrown in the bathtub, you know, robbed, you know, bad. It was bad. Yeah, I can imagine. It was ugly. So I lived this really, you know, but by the way, I should just say that, like, in the beginning, it did save me. Like, I was suicidal at 12. I was, like, put into a mental institution because I slit my wrist in front of my father. thinking that he was going to come and save me and love me and give me a hug and tell me he loved me.

1:34:08And he like kicked my ass and they put me into a pain with me because they thought I was like, I didn't really want to kill myself, but I was ultimately cry for help, you know? But the alcohol and drugs came, you know, shortly thereafter. And I really do believe like blanketed that period of my life where I was like, like actually able to feel okay. Got you out of it. Got me out of it. So, you know, all through my teens, I was working in restaurants, working in nightclubs. I graduated high school. I actually did a year of college. And from like, my father died when I was 20. It was a wonderful excuse to just continue to just get crazy and get worse with my addiction and dive deeper.

1:34:53And people around me were kind of like, oh, his father just died, you know? In my mind, I was like, this is a perfect excuse for me to just go double down on it. And so from 20 to 23, it was just dark, just super dark. I hated myself, truly hated myself. People loved me. They did. I mean, I am who I am. I care about humans.

1:35:24Nick Bare:was one of those classics uh the only outside bright bubbly personable but the inside dying dying dying and and then when the when the drugs shifted from predominantly like alcohol and cocaine to heroin, which was like the last six months of my addiction years, I was genuinely dying. I didn't think so. If I really think back on it, like I was still working. I mean, I always had a job, legit job, always had a job in a restaurant, but I was dying. Late July, summer 2004, New York City. I was with this woman in this apartment. We were, you know, using heroin for probably three days straight, sleeping, getting up, using, you know.

1:36:23And I had just used some heroin. I was sitting on the edge of the bed. I was naked. I looked, there was a mirror at the head of the bed and I was sitting on the edge of the bed. And I remember like it was yesterday. And I looked to my right and I saw my reflection in the mirror. and from my forehead to my toes, I was white like this, kind of like this. Like I had been pale and looked gray and green, you know, in my face, my hands. I've seen my hands. Like I remember my hands would get super pale. I had never seen my chest, my stomach, my legs, everything just white like a ghost. And it scared the daylights out of me.

1:37:00And so I jumped up, blacked out, face plant, dead. I OD'd. and I remember her shaking me, grabbing me and I kind of remember coming to, call the ambulance. She was terrified, didn't want to call the ambulance. She somehow got me into the bathtub. She like dragged me into the bathtub and threw me on my back in the bathtub and then just turned the cold water on. She was terrified to call the ambulance. She didn't call the ambulance. I could have very well just died in that apartment but the cold water was on my chest and I remember like sort of coming in and out of consciousness and then finally I came out and I got back into that bed and I lied in that bed for a couple of hours, shaking, shivering, terrified, just terrified thinking that I just, she was like, you stop breathing.

1:37:52I started to feel a little bit of life come back into me and I remember walking, I left the apartment at like four or five in the afternoon, walking west on 13th Street towards Avenue B and I had said to myself, dude, this is the bottom of the rope. Like you cannot do this anymore. You must stop. You just died. It does not get worse. It doesn't get worse. You will die if you continue doing this. You just did. and I got to my apartment and I couldn't stop. I couldn't stop. Four hours later, I was right back at it. Using it again? Yeah. I couldn't stop. And so I have such empathy for people that are addicted to drugs and have an addictive personality and their family, their friends, the public are just like, how could you not see this?

1:38:56Can't you just, it's not easy it's really hard when you when you walk around with a force field a feeling force field when you when you've when you've taken enough action to to dig a deep enough hole where you're just never not covered in dirt and you have this ability to just numb that out you're dirty as hell you haven't showered in years you're just covered in dirt in this dark dark hole, but there's this way to forget about all that for just a period of time. You just want to continue forgetting because you don't know that there's a way to find a branch or find a vine that you can just start pulling yourself out.

1:39:43Anyway, I went on a two-week death march, had basically said to myself, this is how you're going to die. You don't have the balls to kill yourself. Just get it done with the drugs. Just do as much as you can. Just get it done. And somehow, someway I didn't. I didn't die. The morning of August 2nd, 2004, I came to in my room after being up for about three or four days. I'd slept 16 hours. I blacked out. And I remember right before that, there was a real conversation I was having with myself about just jumping out the window. But I just didn't have the courage. I didn't have the courage to do it.

1:40:29I didn't really care about anybody else. I didn't care about myself. I just didn't have the balls to end it that way. I'm so grateful that I didn't have the courage to do that. But came to, and I remember the sun coming through the window. And I'd slept through work for the umpteenth time. called my boss said frank i'm sorry man he's like mike come downstairs i lived upstairs from the bar that i worked in and he said uh mikey i love you and he was he really did you know he was like my surrogate dad at the time you know and i was like he hired me two and a half years before so and everybody like i said like people loved mikey the bartender you know people loved being around me.

1:41:16I mean, I was like, I was a guy I am right here, but I was just fun, but just scared of life.

1:41:26Nick Bare:And I just used all these substances. I knew people like this in college who were the life of the party. Everyone wanted them around when it was time to party. But then when it wasn't time the party no one called these people right and these people were in a dark dark place and i can see how you you find yourself in those situations where you need to keep being the life of the party because that's when people want you and need you and invite you back so it's your identity and it was also the only people that i associated with right because a lot of people around me were doing the things i was doing right because they just were like i wasn't i wasn't hanging out with, you know, the guys going to the gym.

1:42:13So anyway, I remember the sun coming through, Frank calling me up. I went down to the restaurant. He told me he loved me, but he told me he had to fire me. He's like, you're dying, dude. Everybody knows it. You're, you know, like you need help. You need to get sober. And so many people have said that to me over the years. I mean, I was in outpatient rehab when I was 16, you know, for whatever reason, when Frank said that to me that day, I just heard that word sober like an echo chamber. It was like, and I begged him for my job because it was the only thing kind of like tethering me to like any semblance of life, right?

1:42:51Everything outside of that place was just debauchery and ugly. And he said, look, you know, if you get sober, I won't let you work behind the bar. I will not let you work in this restaurant at night. But if you get sober, you can come here and clean the restaurant with the porters at 8 a.m. And you call me when you get here. If you're a minute late, you're fired. If I find out you have a sip of alcohol, you're done. Drugs of any kind, I'll know. I'll find out. You're done. And I went back upstairs. Sun was still coming through the window and it was God right there. God just showed up just right then and there, right through the window in my bedroom.

1:43:30I felt, I just don't know what happened, but I got the grace of God showed up in my life and told me to make a phone call. And I called my friend, Karen, told her I was ready to get help. She called her friend, Marcus, her boyfriend, Marcus. Marcus showed up and saved my life.

1:43:49Nick Bare:And I haven't had a single sip of alcohol or a drug since that day. That's amazing. Yeah. And so Marcus introduced me to wellness. He was this weird wellness guru covered in tattoos, hardcore Muay Thai kickboxer, showed up, listened to my story, asked me to tell him my story and wrote this plan for me that day. And he said, you know, this is going to be a very structured plan. You don't seem like the kind of guy that can manage structure right now. And he's like, You don't have to do this. But if you do, success is inevitable. Success, you have no idea. You're 23. You haven't even begun. You start doing these things now, you'll live a life way beyond anything you can imagine.

1:44:38And I wanted to believe him. And I think the thing that Marcus did for me was he was a really cool guy that I want, out of right away, his energy, the way he looked, the way he listened to me, I wanted to impress him. I wanted to be like him. I wanted him to pat me on the back. And I think that is really also a very key element for people in sobriety or people that want to get sober, trying to find, finding someone who they really want as a mentor.

1:45:12Nick Bare:An aspirational mentor. An aspirational human that they can sit with. And then I decided that I wanted to go back to school about a year after I got sober. So I was going to go to culinary school and really open up a restaurant. And so I went back to culinary school while I was doing the culinary arts program. Cornell had partnered with the French Culinary Institute to create a restaurant management program, which is like Dave Cornell's got the best hospitality program in the country, arguably the world. And so they came together with FCI. They offered one scholarship. the scholarship was to write a fully baked business plan and submit it.

1:45:50And, you know, if you, if they thought it was good enough, you know, whoever, they were going to give a full scholarship to one person. And I wrote the plan. I don't know how many other people wrote the plan, but I got the scholarship. And so I spent a little, two and a half years there. When I graduated, I started writing a plan and like a real business plan. and I spent a year working on the plan, and I convinced my old friend Daniel to come back to New York and do this with me, and at this point, I'm like 27,

1:46:29and I've been working at Frank since I was 20, so all the regulars at this restaurant have kind of seen me go from this young, fun, party animal kid to getting sober to meeting a woman. I got married in 2007, that like basically that year that I graduated, I got married. And then going back to school. Anyway, these guys saw the arc. That's cool to see. The evolution. I put a plan in front of all these regulars, business plan. And 14 of them wrote me$25 ,000 checks. And that's how I started the meatball shop. All the guys that watched me sort of grow at Frank, the restaurant, invested in the business.

1:47:11And so we opened up the meatball shop and it was just crazy. It was gangbusters. You know, we projected to do like a million bucks

1:47:20Nick Bare:our first year. We did 4 million and - Is that with one shop? One store. Yeah, a thousand square feet all in 38 seats. It was nuts. I was checking out the Instagram of the meatball shop and it made me instantly crave meatballs. Is it still, is the menu, is the operations, is the vision still intact today from what it first started as? It's very different. Because you're no longer operational in the meatball shop, correct? No, I sold the majority of my equity at meatball shop in 2014 and then started Seymour's, which is my second restaurant concept. I kept equity in the business because I love the business.

1:48:06But Daniel, my partner, and I just couldn't see eye to eye. We had a couple of things happen that was pretty tough for us to navigate together. Partnerships are really hard. That's what I've heard. Yeah, they're hard. And we had an opportunity to really do a deal that would have changed our lives and still owned a significant piece of the business. And I couldn't convince him that that was the right decision. And when I knew that, the two of us had started. We each invested 20 ,000 bucks of money that we'd saved. and we had an opportunity to sell, you know, 60 % of the business at a$45 million valuation that would have changed our lives drastically.

1:48:43Yeah. And he thought it was worth more. I told him, I was like, dude, you're nuts. Like, you're crazy. This valuation is way inflated. And he was like, we have a store in construction. We have a store in negotiation. Seven months down the road, we'll open up that store. Six, you know, 10 months down the road, we'll have another store. And I'm like, Dan, the business is worth like 25 million. These guys want the business. They want it. They want to spread these across the country, man. They want us to say yes to the deal. And it's the same guys that did Shake Shack, David Swinghammer and Ken Fox from Stripes Group.

1:49:22Anyway, couldn't convince them. I knew that that was my cue to like go create again because that just didn't make sense to me. I was like, dude, in three and a half years, you will have turned 20 ,000 into 10 million personally.

1:49:40Nick Bare:Come on. Great return. Dude. And still owning 15, 20 % of the business. Yeah. I think it's the downfall of many entrepreneurs and founders is, you know, in this period of time, your business may be worth X. and at any period of time, you can say, yeah, but one year from now, three years from now, five years from now, 10 years from now, it'll be worth X plus. That is always the case, potentially. What's your goal with Creatures of Habit? Do you want to build for it to be a legacy family company or is it something that you're building to sell? I'm building it to sell it. I know now at this point in my career that I really, really love community, culture, brand, creativity, connecting.

1:50:40And I think those are at their peak within the first 10 years of building a business. And I could be wrong, but from my experience, specifically in the world of restaurants, what I saw was I went from one restaurant to six restaurants and sold a bunch of equity. I went from six restaurants to 13 restaurants. And what I learned was my role as the founder, CEO of the company was real estate deals, managing construction crews, and leading management meetings. That was the brunt of my job. leadership meetings, managing construction crews, and doing real estate deals, dealing with landlords essentially.

1:51:33And I was like, that's not what I signed up for. I signed up because I love being with the people. I love being with the people. I was like New York City's youngest restaurant guy, like owner, right? Like if you saw me in the restaurant and you didn't know who I was, chances are you thought I was a server or a bus boy. And I was down with that because I was always serving bus and tables, you know, because I loved it. I love it. I spent many years as a technician before I was a, you know, there's an unbelievable book that I always love to suggest aspiring entrepreneurs to read. It's called The E-Myth Revisited by a guy named Michael Gerber.

1:52:10I've never heard of that one. Great book. Basically, he describes this idea that like, just because you're a technician does not mean you are going to be a great owner. Just because you're the greatest plumber at the plumbing company doesn't mean that you're going to be the great plumbing company owner. It's true. If you are going, and it also clearly defines what partnership has to be in order for it to be successful. If you're going to go into partnership with someone, you need to have a very, very clear delineation of labor. You need to know very clearly what you are going to do, very clearly what your partner is going to do.

1:52:48And there needs to be a boundary between the two of you that is deeply respected. Deeply, deeply, deeply respected. And if that boundary starts to get crossed and if someone thinks they're doing more than the other person, you start valuing your roles to their role. It's over. It's just over.

1:53:07Nick Bare:Resentment is birthed in destruction and erosion from there is just chaotic. But I can imagine the brick and mortar space is just it's different from e-com, CPG, but yeah, tougher. More overhead. I think the human capital component of it makes it really, really hard. Because at any given time, 10 to 15 % of the people are not having a good day. It's just life. You're lucky if 10 % of your life is awesome. I mean, if you only have 10 % of your life, that sucks. Most of the time, I would say 85 % of my days are great where I'm happy. 15%, right? Just like can't shake a shitty feeling, you know? And so at any given time, you got to know that 15 % or something like that of your team is having that day.

1:54:00And every time that a guest or a customer comes into contact with someone like that, they tell their friends that they had a shitty experience,

1:54:09Nick Bare:you know? And so, you know, and in the restaurant business, dissimilar to e-com where I don't know. I mean, we have how many different opportunities to market? How many different marketing strategies? How many, you know, you've got so many ways to get in front of people and the restaurant business, they got to walk by. You know what I mean? They have to walk by your place or you've got to have some kind of local PR thing that hits. And it's a live close by to use the product or service. So the only way to efficiently market in the restaurant business is through offering the greatest experience.

1:54:51It is, you know, when people used to ask me in the world when I was kind of like had evolved a little bit in my role as a restaurateur, people would say, what do you do? And I know it sounds corny, but it's just way more fulfilling to me to say, I'm a memory maker than I own restaurants. Because what do I really do? I make memories for people all day long. My number one priority, number one goal as a business person is to create a memory that you tell your friends about. That's all I'm trying to do. And the memory comes from great service, good food, cool environment, good music, good lighting.

1:55:31You know, it all is kind of like a medley. Yeah. You know, and, you know, like, I think where the things get hairy, and this was for me, when my role became far less about the hands-on, boots-on-the-ground stuff, leading the business with a P &L just never sat well with me. And when the money guys get involved, because they did in my businesses, all they care about is what that piece of paper says. and I used to say like we used to start our board meetings with the numbers and I'd look around and I'd say hey guys I'm just going to say it again this never happened a guest walked into our restaurant looked around smelled all the smells and said gosh I wonder what the P &L is like in this place you know never not happened one time and you're prioritizing the one thing that the guests never, ever come into contact with or think about.

1:56:42And the only sign of success for us is if they walk out the door 10 % happier than when they walked in. It's only got to be 10%. It's not a big, it's not big. Your number one priority is the paper that you can really make say anything, right? You can project it to say anything you want. The truth is in the experience. And that's what's tough for me.

1:57:16Nick Bare:It's the battle between the subjective feedback versus the objective feedback. Objective feedback and results will tell a story, but the solution isn't often objective in itself. It's a subjective problem-solving approach. That said, I really believe that I am more aligned in Creatures of Habit than I've ever been in business before because Creatures of Habit is... And it's given me an opportunity to really share some habits and tools that I've used in my life that's only brought me joy and happiness. Foundational wellness. My habits almost killed me. And then they created me. and I like I just know that habit like habit is everything the same decisions over and over again people are like oh that's so boring I'm like no no not when you're getting better every time yeah there's power in it there's power in habit power in consistency commitment ritual I mean it's been powerful in my life and I mean it's fundamental it's a principle I mean if you do something for the first time, you're not going to be great at it.

1:58:54But if you continue doing it, you're going to get better at it. It's just the way life is. And that is why ultimately habits work. Because, you know, I think in the beginning it's hard and then it becomes a chore. And then you continue in the chore phase long enough, it becomes a habit and then habits you know could last forever especially if you're intentional about them because you'll just you will see that you will get better and better and better I go to the gym training for me is you know life it's like it's life I I wouldn't know what to do without it it wasn't always like that yeah you know what I'm saying like Like going to train in some way, shape or form is just not even a thought.

1:59:49Like, oh, am I going to do it? It's just, I do it, you know?

1:59:55Nick Bare:It's part of your day, part of your life, non-negotiable. Yeah. You know, it's cool to see, witness and now hear this story and see where you started and the journey to where you are today and the highs and lows and everything in between. I think it's an inspiration to a lot of people of, you know, you look at someone at where they're at in a point of time and you probably think, oh, I know exactly how this person got here. You have no clue. No clue. And I'm sure now you don't even recognize the person you are and what you've accomplished compared to the person you were at 17, 18, 19, 20 years old, almost dying from overdose.

2:00:42Nick Bare:but the journey is like so beautiful and so rewarding and it's a reminder to everyone of no matter where you're at today it can change tomorrow never too late man never too late it's amazing brother thank you man but i appreciate you coming on man and sharing the story and just insight into what it's taken to get to where you are today thank you man it's really powerful thank you for having me and dude you you've been such an inspiration you know i mean just in in all things. You know, I, when I, when I also, you know, I see what you've done with this brand and you've done, it's just, it's, it's, it's like, and I'm sure you probably have a lot of things to say about this, but just like for a guy that's just coming into this industry, you know, four years in and, and, and just seeing how you've done it.

2:01:30The community that you've built, dude, is just incredible. I appreciate that. It's incredible. Thank you. And also hearing you talk about God, right? Like that's inspiring for me. I would encourage you to lean in and be unapologetic,

2:01:47Nick Bare:be courageous and bold in that walk. Because in my opinion and in my walk since committing my life, it has been the best decision I've ever made. and it's put all the pieces that I've been trying for years to just match together. My life was this puzzle where I just cannot finish the puzzle. I could not put it all together. Putting God above all other things allowed me to sit back and start to move some of those puzzle pieces back to where they belong. Now things make sense because there's the truth, There's the way, the only way. So I'm pumped to hear that you're on this journey. And like I said, if I can be a resource in any way.

2:02:42I'm going to knock on your door, man. Let me know. I appreciate you having me on, dude. Thanks, man.

2:02:58you