Going All-In Is the Only Way to Build a Thriving Business

The following is adapted from Twenty-Five Hours A Day.

Today, my company Bare Performance Nutrition is a seven-figure business with a thriving brand and community of followers. But if you had gone behind-the-scenes several years ago, you would have seen a very different company. 

I ran the world headquarters from a small house in Texas, and space was short. The garage was filled with pallets and pallets full of supplements and other products. The living room was chock-full of shaker bottles. We didn’t really have a kitchen. It was filled with boxes and boxes, stacked on every surface and the kitchen table itself. We slept on couches and air mattresses dropped pretty much wherever we could find space.

We skipped meals. Sleep was hit-or-miss. Some days we went without it at all, and regardless, we took as little of it as we could. I can remember editing and uploading video footage until 3 a.m., then grabbing an hour of sleep before starting it all over again. I was so tired that I’d head in for PT, and instead of showering or eating breakfast, I’d collapse in my truck and sleep until 9 a.m., when I had to be in the office.

What turned things around? What helped us move out of that living room and into a warehouse? There’s only one thing that fuel a business’ success: going all-in. 

More Than a Slogan

I was all-in, and when you’re truly all-in none of that stuff matters, not the sleeplessness, not the cramped living conditions, nothing but the hunger to succeed. Going all-in is the thing that pushes passion and desire over the top.

All-in is the epitome of embracing opportunities to be uncomfortable and to chase the exhaustion and elation that come from being dedicated to making your company a success. There’s nothing magical in that thinking. It’s a mindset you could adopt for yourself right now. Imagine what your life would look like if, instead of dreading the pain and work that achieving whatever it is you’re chasing requires, you reveled in it.

It might be easy to think I’m giving the same old advice everyone gives, like some lame life coach telling you to “get out of your comfort zone.” What I’m suggesting is more than about making yourself uncomfortable. Going all-in actually suggests the need to seek out hard things. It means transcending discomfort and embracing the idea of bearing any burden, accepting any pain and suffering, whatever it takes to achieve your dream, whether that’s to start and build an amazing business or establish yourself in a new career.

A lot of people think they know where their limits lie, and they think they know when they’re giving their all at something. But until you learn to break the limits of your own mental and physical capabilities, you’ll never realize your full potential. If you don’t know where your limits truly are—and believe me, they’re a lot further out there than you think—then you don’t know how to operate at your 100 percent.

All-In Means No Excuses

In the beginning of the company, I thought I could dabble. I didn’t realize that when you start a business, it becomes like your baby. It becomes a part of you. It didn’t take me long to realize the foolishness of trying to dabble. 

We didn’t progress as a company until I finally said to myself, “I’m going all-in.” Doing that gave me the fortitude to do whatever I needed to make the company work. There were no excuses I could fall back on. Once I went all-in, anything that wasn’t directly related to the success of the company—sleep, food, a life outside the company—became secondary. 

Then, things started to change, things started to pay off. I wasn’t looking for excuses anymore at that point. People say it takes three years to grow a business. I used to comfort myself with that idea as the company floundered in its first few years, but the reality is that I wasn’t all-in, and used that timeline as an excuse for my own failings. 

All-In Creates Clarity

One of the things going all-in does is it brings clarity. You see your situation for what it is, and you’re able to solve problems in ways that you might not if you had no skin in the game. Going all-in removes the safety net of Plan B. There’s no looking back. You’ve made your decision and now it’s time to devote every scrap of energy you have into making it a reality.

While before, a little detachment from the business, where I allowed the idea of failure to creep into my mind, would have been my crutch. Once I went all-in, though, failure was no longer an option. My crutch instead became operational planning. 

There are a lot of decisions I needed to make as I grew the business, and as we grew, the stakes for each of those decisions rose. My way of dealing with those risks is to double down on planning, research, and market evaluation. It’s all a way to mitigate risk, make it smaller. There will always be risk in anything you do, but if you implement systems and mitigate that risk, you’ll sleep better at night.

All-In Replaces Escape Plans

When things are running smoothly, that worries me. It suggests we aren’t pushing hard enough. Problems come with growth, and no problem says to me that we aren’t growing, and not growing fills me with more fear than the specter of the next crisis. Everyone around me knows this—I’m happiest when I’m beat down and exhausted from the work, and when the pressure is on.

I don’t want to be the guy who loses it when things start falling apart. I want to be the guy who stays calm while everyone else is losing theirs. Going all-in gives you the space to step back in times of crisis, look at the big picture, and begin addressing the obstacles in front of you.

This mindset paid dividends when the company hit (many) speed bumps along the way. As problems arose, especially in the beginning, it would have been so easy to quit, and to see each problem as the end of the world. You have to realize that any new venture has growing pains, but growing pains are good. It means you’re growing. You have to see the future, how things will be better in a month, or a year. 

Going all-in replaces escape plans with the steely resolve to see your way through to success.

Passion Is Your Fuel

Going all-in is not just about making the kind of money you might have dreamed of making your entire life, or buying your dream home, or driving that super-fast car you always wanted. Going all-in is about pursuing your life’s passion. The thing that fulfills you. The thing that gets you out of bed in the morning, that drives you to be a better person, to change the lives of those around you, and leave an everlasting impact on the world.

All-in commitment pushes fledgling businesses forward and keeps great ones growing. Without passion, drive, and commitment, your business will cave at the first sign of setbacks. When you’re fueled by your passion, it’s like burning the boats on the beach and forcing yourself to find a way forward to survive. The only way to create progress is to throw yourself into your business with everything you’ve got. 

For more advice on going all-in, you can find Twenty-Five Hours A Day on Amazon.

Nick Bare is the founder and president of Bare Performance Nutrition, a seven-figure supplement company with a focus on high-quality products. Nick has a Bachelor of Science in Nutrition, served four years active duty as an infantry officer in the United States Army, and completed US Army Ranger school. He completed a 150-mile ruck march to not only raise money for Hurricane Harvey victims, but also test his mental and physical strength. Nick, who lives in Austin, Texas, has built a community of hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.