With Eric Bartosz, founder of Bar40 and author of “Bar 40, Achieving Personal Excellence”, a book that shares the tools and framework behind a unique 52-week program to help anyone reach their peak potential and achieve previously unreached goals.

Eric shares the story behind the creation of Bar 40, how it has helped him to consistently create his most powerful year, as well as some mindset tools and tips that will help you tackle your goals this year. You’ll learn about the framework of Bar 40, how it will help you to create goals and hold yourself accountable, and why it can be used by anyone, including even if you have previously failed to meet goals that you’ve set for yourself. You’ll hear about the power of checking in with your future self for guidance, as well as how to prioritize ourselves with everything that’s going on. 

We cover so much that this interview has been split into two parts. Be sure to join us tomorrow to listen to part two as well! It will be a great way to kick off the new year!

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Biggest takeaways (or quotes) you don’t want to miss:

• Learn about the origins of Bar40 and what Eric has accomplished with this program!
• Hear why this program will work for anyone, including even if you haven’t been able to accomplish your goals in the past.
• You’ll hear about Eric’s method and recommendation of checking in with your future self for guidance to help keep you on track and make incrementally better decisions
• And so much more!

Check out these highlights:

3:30 The beginning of Bar40.

18:30 How do we prioritize ourselves in the midst of everything else that’s going on?

30:13 A goal is nothing without a plan.

39:06 How Bar40 provides the perfect narrative.

How to get in touch with Eric:

On social media:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericbartosz/

FREE GIFT FOR LISTENERS:

Book your FREE Bar40 coaching session here. Just mention the Guts, Grit and Great Business Podcast. Open to the first twenty listeners who respond.

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Eric Bartosz is the founder of BAR40 and author of BAR40 ‘Achieving Personal Excellence’. BAR40 is a unique 52-week program that provides the framework and tools to help anyone reach their peak potential and achieve previously unreached goals. Core components include a customized fitness program, diet modifications, personal accountability practices, habit creation and elimination, mindfulness practices and daily strategies for achieving continuous personal excellence. Also included in the book is a 52-week training journal that provides space to track all key activity areas. BAR40 is designed to help you supercharge successful outcomes in your life and it delivers amazing results.

Learn more about Eric here.

Imperfect Show Notes

We are happy to offer these imperfect show notes to make this podcast more accessible to those who are hearing impaired or those who prefer reading over listening. While we would love to offer more polished show notes, we are currently offering an automated transcription (which likely includes errors, but hopefully will still deliver great value), below. 

GGGB Intro 0:00
Coming up today on Guts, Grit and Great Business.

Eric Bartosz 0:03
So what would your future self want you to do right now? And that is such a powerful filter to be living your daily life by like saying what should I do in the real time that I’m going to make my future self proud and if you’re able to get in the habit of letting that be the lens that you make your decisions through, I’m telling you and you know, listeners might be scratching head saying, I don’t know about that one. Try it. You know, it’s unbuttoned. It’s a habit that you can’t shake.

GGGB Intro 0:37
The adventure of entrepreneurship and building a life and business you love, preferably at the same time is not for the faint of heart. That’s why Heather Pearce Campbell is bringing you a dose of guts, grit and great business stories that will inspire and motivate you to create what you want in your business and life. Welcome to the Guts, Grit and Great Business podcast where endurance is required. Now, here’s your host, The Legal Website Warrior®, Heather Pearce Campbell.

Heather Pearce Campbell 1:12
Welcome to Eric Bartosz. I’m so excited to have you here. I feel like I personally have a lot to benefit from what we’re about to talk about. COVID and work life balance. Certainly exercise has struggled during this time, I’m home with two little people. But for those of you listening, you are in for a treat. So Eric Bartosz is the founder of Bar40 and author of Bar40. Achieving personal excellence. Bar40 is you as a unique 52 week program that provides the framework and tools to help anyone reach their peak potential and achieve previously unreached goals. Core components include a customized fitness program, diet modifications, personal accountability practices, habit creation and elimination, mindfulness practices and daily strategies for achieving continuous personal excellence. Also included in the book is a 52 week training journal that provides space to track all key activity areas. Bar40 is designed to help you supercharge successful outcomes in your life and it delivers amazing results. Eric, I love this. I’m so excited. I mean, I’ll be honest, the 52 week thing is a little bit intimidating. But I am still so excited about this.

Eric Bartosz 2:35
Well, thanks so much, Heather. I’m excited to hear and I appreciate you having me on and do not let the 52 weeks scare you off. And believe me, it goes by very quickly, one way or the other 52 weeks goes by fast as we all know. So it’s we could talk a little bit about the reasoning behind the duration. But there’s there’s a method to the madness.

Heather Pearce Campbell 2:56
Oh, I believe it will. And I’m sure people have heard this phrase before. But the years are short, and the days are long, right? And I think in COVID people can particularly relate and I’m home, like I said with two children, and some of the days definitely feel very long. And yet the months still feel short, you know, a month flies by and it’s like holy cow. How did that happen? And so I know the same is true with our years. But Eric take, for people who are listening, take us back to how you got started in, you know the personal excellence world and how like, how did Bar40 get birthed?

Eric Bartosz 3:33
Yeah, sure. Thanks. So that’s a question that comes up all the time. Like what is? What is Bar40? What does that mean? So yeah, we’ll start with that. So the bar is from Barbados, that’s my part of my name. And the 40 is goes back to when bar 41st started, which was my 40th birthday. So the kind of the origin story, if you will, and this is back in 2015, when the whole thing first came about. So I was with a bunch of friends. And we were in a, I think we were in a bar at the time. And we are talking about a bunch of us returning 40 in the coming months. So we’re talking about what you can do for your birthday. And it was this wild weekend, it was this excursion it was this trip, and they all I mean, everything sounded awesome, but extremely just kind of event-centric of, you know, a racetrack. So all like really cool ideas. But for me, I was like, man, I really want my 40th year to be much more than an event. I want it to be something like super memorable. And like I kind of not that I was hung up on the age of 40 as being old, but I did see it as kind of like the gateway to a little bit of middle age, right? I mean, we’re not going to live forever and you know, half of my life if I live to 80 and that’s 40 and all the other stuff was kind of running through my head. So my thought was I’m gonna make my 40 year like the best year of my life, like it’s gonna be the ultimate year in it. A lot of people make these plans and they’re just kind of like wishy washy, but especially when they’re made in a bar with a bunch of guys at two o’clock in the morning. But I mean, literally, I was writing stuff down on a cocktail napkin, I was like, This is what I’m gonna do. So I’m gonna do so in the light of day, I started to really give it some thought, and what is the ultimate year mean, to me, this is what I was thinking back then. So I knew that I wanted to get in better shape, I wanted to change my diet around I wanted to get back into running, I was always a kind of an active runner, but after my daughter was born, and I’m gonna blame my daughter. So after my daughter was born in 2009, I put on some baby weight, I don’t know how you guys put on baby weight to for everybody listening that it does happen. So like over and she was born in 2009. So I had gained some weight, I wasn’t loving the way that I looked. And I knew that I was eating kind of poorly, I was running less. And just like all these things that could be tightened up in my life that I felt like kind of slipped a little bit. So I wanted to take that 40 a year, and really dial in all the things in my life that felt like they were kind of, you know, nothing was crazy, but just collectively, it just was making me I think fall short of my potential.

Heather Pearce Campbell 6:15
So parents everywhere who are listening to this, they first of all, they know exactly what you’re talking about. Bells are going off, like

Eric Bartosz 6:22
We all have kind of had that happen, because it doesn’t happen overnight, right. And these things just kind of gradually creep up. And then the next thing you know, you realize, so I’ll give you a perfect example of that. I kept a running journal forever, you know, so I looked. So I said, I want to get back into great shape. So I went and found a photo of myself that I liked the way that I liked the way that I look. I’m just gonna be like super candid in here because it, it’s something I think everybody can relate to. So I found this picture. I’m like, I like the way that I look in this picture. And I looked and I was like 24. So that would have been like the year 2000. Right? So then I go back to that running journal. And I’m looking in my running journal from the year 2000 month of October, whatever it was, and I see my weight is like 163 or 165. And I was like, okay, that’s what I gotta weigh, I gotta weigh 165. So then I go, like, I literally got on a scale, which I haven’t weighed myself years, literally years. And my weight was 209. Right? So I’m like, Okay, oh, you know, that’s like 44 pounds. So I was like, Holy moly. So there, you know, one of two things is going to happen, I was either going to recalibrate my goal and say, like, I’m not gonna go crazy, or I’m just gonna be like, I’m gonna stick to this target. So that was that, by default was the genesis of a diet plan, I needed to come up with diet plan that was going to have significant results, but simultaneously, be sustainable. I it’s not like anybody can say, All right, I’m just gonna eat celery and carrot sticks for the next 52 weeks. And because it’s just not going to work, you know what I mean? So I came up with this, some different plans as far as my diet that related to enhancements and modifications. And I started reading books like crazy, all these different diet books and all this stuff like that, and the fitness plan I came up with. And again, at this time, I traveled a ton for work. So I didn’t want to I knew what didn’t work was me having to go to a gym to work out because I knew that like, I would go to a gym when I was around. But if anything came up in my schedule that would disrupt it, I would end up skipping the gym. So I needed to come up with a plan that was going to be sustainable no matter where I was. And so that mentality created the concept of bodyweight exercises, which I could do anywhere I could do in a hotel I could do on the road when I was traveling. And so that became kind of the start of what ultimately became the Bar40 Fitness component, which is largely bodyweight exercise centric, which we can all do. So that became part of that. And then part of my thought process was what in addition to this losing weight, and getting in better physical shape, what would make this year in my mind and looking back the ultimate year for me the best year, it was like, I’m going to come up with three things that for whatever reason has have not happened in my life yet, like three bucket list goals that haven’t happened, then I’m going to set those three goals and try to achieve those. So that became part of the Bar40 methodology of setting these three goals that you’re going to achieve. And so after, I’ll kind of skip ahead with my personal year but at the end of this year of my doing this ultimate year from my 40th birthday, like it was just so unbelievably mind blowing, like from start to finish at the end of it. I had lost that weight. I was back to running. I ran more miles that year than I’d ever Run, I started this bodyweight exercise regiment that was just really, really effective as far as getting the results that I want it to get without ever stepping foot into a gym. Again, nothing against gyms, if gyms are your thing, it’s more like creating a routine that gets you physically active on a regular basis. And these goals that I wanted to achieve, I did that too. One of them was becoming a firefighter, which was a lifelong dream where I live in Pennsylvania, it’s all volunteer fire departments, for the most part. So I did that, I went to the Fire Academy, I became like a legitimate firefighter. It’s just like, I was just so on fire at the end of my personal year that I was like, whoo. And I, all the people around me like friends and family, like, they’re like, What is going on? I’m like, I’m telling you, I think I’m onto something here. And at the end of that year, I kind of I keep a journal anyway. But during that year, I was keeping a journal of everything that was going on. So at the end of that, and again, this is back in 2016. At the end of that I kind of compiled all my notes, and I came up with what was roughly the framework of Bar40. And it was a template and a design for a 52 week program that really anybody could put to use in their own life to achieve like these complete game-changing results, that’s going to help you achieve your personal best year ever. Because it’s all every Bar40 journey is a self-guided one. It’s not like a what makes it unique is that unlike a lot of programs out there that make a certain assumption for the reader or for the participant that you’re at a certain level. And that can be on either end of the spectrum, right? Some of these programs, assume that you’ve done 20 Iron Man, and that you’re like a world-class Olympian. Some of them make the assumption that you’re just like a sedentary couch creature that never leaves the house. And if there wasn’t, they all have a set point. But Bar40 really is designed around each individual’s person’s preferences, and it’s tailor-made, which is why it’s so effective because I really do believe that it’s designed around what is going to work in people’s life. And that relates to diet and fitness and goal setting. And the goal setting is a huge part of it. But at the end of that year, I had this framework, which I refined over the next few years of working with guinea pigs in my own life that you know, anybody that would say to me, I wish I could, anything that starts with I wish right is like, I’m gonna pounce on that, right? Like, Oh, no, no more wishing, well, I’m in the results. Business in business is booming, right? We’re gonna make something happen. You’re no wishing is like, right in that same category as someday, right?

Heather Pearce Campbell 12:42
Right. Or I’m gonna, I’m gonna try. No, there is no try. So really quick, can I back up? Because I mean, I’m so fascinated by this. And I love the part about being at the end. And having had all of the results happen. When you set out to design the program, and actually to just take yourself on this journey. Man, it sounds like maybe you already lived somewhat. In the fitness world, you were a runner, like you knew or thing or to talk to me a little bit about like, what information or background or knowledge you brought into this? Or was this just literally like you dove in headfirst created this all from scratch? Right? Because some people might be like, Oh, well, you know, he had all of this long-standing fitness knowledge. And, you know, it was really about optimizing what you already knew, which maybe is fine, or people have been missing pieces of the journey because you know, they don’t have your background.

Eric Bartosz 13:36
No, totally, totally. It’s a great question. So I was always a runner, but that was kind of the extent and part of what was going on with me, I knew that I was just like eating a bunch of bad food. And I had recently taken this class that I was finishing my MBA at the time, and just one class was all about mindfulness mindset. And one of the books that was in the class was this book called on target living. And it is by this author named Chris Johnson and I was fascinated by this book and he had this thing in the book which was called a food target. And in that was basically everything was based on substitution there was a good better best of anything you could possibly imagine that you would be eating on any given day. And I was looking at that so if you’re into ice cream, move towards a frozen yogurt and move towards like a sugar-free fat-free frozen yogurt so just eating what you satisfying that same urge, but just doing it in a better way. So I started doing that. That was like the extent of my nutritional background at the time. I was like, Okay, I won’t have onion rings, like a baked potato. It was very, very basic elementary stuff and oh, you know, over time, I got a little bit more dialed in on as far as some of the nuances of how to eat better and stuff like that. But no, there it really no the Bar40 diet methods. is really based around. And the book is packed full of tips on how we can still live our life but just do minor adjustments every day. Much like compounding with a financial segment just they build and build and build to all these little changes every day ultimately makes such a huge difference. And that certainly relates to the diet and the exercise. Right? So a lot of people say your say you’re starting from zero, you have you don’t really do anything right now. So you start with walking, right? So one of the main questions that I tend to get with regards to Bar40 and fitnesses, like, like, What do I have to do every week to be you know, in the Bar40 Fitness thing, and, and there isn’t a there isn’t any right answer except do what works for you. So if you’re into yoga, or if you’re into biking, or if you’re into walking or running, or swimming, or dancing, or Pilates, or karate, there’s a tennis, it doesn’t matter, right? It would be the goal is to increase your weekly activity level at your activity of choice. So a lot of people are like, well, I can’t do that. It’s not runnings, not for me, so I’m not going to do that. So it’s not and a lot of programs really are specific towards certain activities. This one is not so you take what you like, and you do more of it. And if fitness is one of your goals, and people do Bar40 for different reasons, everybody has different motivations and what your ultimate year would be head, it would be different than what mine would be or anybody else. So what your priorities are, fitness isn’t necessarily a priority for everyone. It seems to be in my experience, having done this for a while, most people do have some sort of goal in their life that involves becoming more physically fit or healthy, which are so closely related, you know what I mean? it, so that tends to be one of the goals. And diet tends to fall into that, too. Because we when we eat better, we tend to feel better. It’s the fuel source, right?

Heather Pearce Campbell 17:04
Well, as much as we want to sever right sometimes paying attention to our physical health, we all know optimizing our life involves optimizing our health, right? So it’s not really something that any of us should try to ignore. Yeah, to leave out want to leave out.

Eric Bartosz 17:21
And it’s so crazy too because so often we do we sacrifice our own. We kind of, especially when we have children, right, we become so externally focused constantly about thinking about everything that’s going on in their life that we end up kind of playing, we get we end up on the back burner of our own things every day. And that involves diet, you were just like, Oh, yeah, I’ll just eat whatever, whatever is handy.

Heather Pearce Campbell 17:47
Yeah, well, my sisters, and I joke, they all have kids, I’ve got two sisters and several sister in laws, but like, we literally can get to the end of the day and be like, Oh, my gosh, I drink coffee today. And I didn’t eat, you know, and you get so busy, like working and feeding kids and, you know, jumping from and especially right now during COVID. So for listeners who are hearing this conversation, and you know, we’re still going to be in the midst of COVID I just think it’s so relevant, because we have I mean, especially for parents of kids, and particularly small children. We have so many constraints and demands on our time for those of us that are working, that are homeschooling that are, you know, have no childcare. I mean, it’s, it’s really a challenge to figure out how do we prioritize ourselves in the midst of everything else that’s going on?

Eric Bartosz 18:35
Yeah, no, no question about it. And obviously, COVID is something that comes up in all of our conversations every day, no matter what. And for the foreseeable future. It does. And overwhelmingly, one of the reoccurring topics that come up when I’m having a conversation with people is that they feel like we all can’t help I have this feeling that things really kind of like out of control, right? If you turn on the news, or the media, I mean, we’ve got this pandemic that has just completely upended our lives, it’s derailed our schedules, we’re working from home, the kids are at home, they’re not in school, we don’t know what’s canceled, we don’t know what tomorrow brings. So this great cosmic agent of chaos has descended on our life in March, and has completely thrown all of our plans out the window. So that feeling of it’s almost like a feeling of helplessness to a certain extent, where like all these variables that we can’t do anything with, and Bar40 obviously it goes way predates COVID by years, but just in a weird, serendipitous way it it works so well with gaining control or what we can, this structure that we can put into the lives that suddenly we have this tool and this resource that it’s made. The book itself is made to be used every day. It’s got a 52 week 365 day journal. In it, that is really designed to be this daily structure for ourselves that we have daily goals, we have daily objectives, there is a part in that it says it’s daily successes. We’re all you know, we all beat ourselves up so often right? Like, Oh, I should have done this differently. Or I could have done this, if I did this. This is daily success. So catch yourself doing something, right, because we all do a million good things a day too. But we tend to not always see those. So in the journal, it’s actually a capture device where we write down every day three things I did, right. So, you know, you look back at the end of the week, there’s like, looks at least 20 things that you did, right that week that not only that, but it’s it’s kind of positive reinforcement. And that creates the habits, right, so Bar40, if nothing else, is geared around habit formation, and elimination, and that’s part of the 52 weeks, the methodology behind it habits take a while to form as we know, and they take a while to be kind of overwritten in our daily program. So that duration is just so effective in creating these new habits. But getting in that habit of using that journal every day, it adds this, this layer into our life of Alright, I’ve no matter what’s going on, around me externally, at least I’ve got this plan every day. And it’s an analog thing. It’s not, it doesn’t need Wi Fi, or Bluetooth or cell connection. Or it’s it’s not zoomed, or teams or anything like that.

Heather Pearce Campbell 21:36
It’s like freeze in the middle.

Eric Bartosz 21:38
Yeah, golden days, right, I got this book, no matter what you’re gonna be like on our hurricane outside, I got my book. It’s just such a, I mean, I’m a little bit biased, because I’ve been using a journal for 20 years. So this particular version, I’ve created it based on all the best attributes of the journals that I’ve used over the years a fitness journal, which, you know, it’s a spot to record what you did that day for activity, it’s got a spot for diet notes that you want to put in there, it’s got that daily success, it’s got the goals for tomorrow, it’s got notes to your future self. And I’ll just take a minute right here to talk about that. Because we all have this, like hardwired tendency for mental time travel, right? Typically, it presents itself where someone, when we probably all done it, saying like, oh, if I could go back 20 years and do this differently, I would do this, or if I could just say to myself, 25 years ago, do this, don’t do that. Like that’s impossible, we cannot do that. But we can still satisfy that deep craving to mentally time travel, but we just have to shift it forward. So this is what I write in the book, we need to get acquainted with our future self, right. So if we can get ourselves mentally in a position where we’re in our future self, saying, if I can say to myself 20 years ago, this is kind of got to stick with me here. But if you can get into that mindset, and save myself 20 years ago, that’s your present self. Right? So what would your future self wants you to do right now. And that is such a powerful filter to be living your daily life by like saying, what should I do in the real-time that I’m going to make my future self proud if you’re able to get in the habit of letting that be the lens that you make your decisions through? I’m telling you, and you know, listeners might be scratching heads saying, I don’t know about that one. Try it. You know, it’s it’s unbuttoned. It’s a habit that you can’t shake. You don’t I mean, it’s how we interact with other people, our career decisions, what we’re eating, it’s just such an amazing mental time travel technique that works. So so well, as far as impacting how we, how we make our decisions on a daily basis. And that’s why in that journal, there’s a note to your future self, where you kind of write-ahead in as a little mini version.

Heather Pearce Campbell 24:03
Well, I love that there’s, there’s a version of that exercise that I was introduced to, there’s a woman named Tara Moore, who wrote a book on women’s leadership called Playing Big. And she teaches, you know, leadership workshops. She has a facilitator’s workshop that she does, where people can actually train based on her materials. And it’s brilliant because it has an exercise just like what you’re talking about. It’s a, you know, maybe a 15 or 20 minute meditation. But once you have this clear picture of who your future self is, right, and they want to like you want that future self to embody all of the things that you deeply care about, and that you’re trying to build into your life. And I think when we can actually hold that vision in our minds, I agree that this is so powerful because when you have questions or you have stumbling blocks, or you have something that comes up, you can literally time travel right and ask your future Like, what would you do about this? How would you address that? Like, what advice do you have? And being in conversation in that way, I think creates like it streamlines the path to more powerfully living a life truly in alignment with what we want versus kind of making decisions willy nilly. And just based on how we feel in the moment, and what some of the ways that we can impede our own decision making.

Eric Bartosz 25:26
Yeah, it’s so true. It’s almost like developing like a mentorship program with your with your wisest self.

Heather Pearce Campbell 25:31
Yeah.

Eric Bartosz 25:35
And it’s, it’s so true, because, you know, think about how often we’re just in this reactive state every day, right? Even during COVID, where a lot of people you know, technically they have more free time than ever, but it still fills up. It’s like, I think it’s called like Parkinson’s syndrome, but the task will fill the allotted amount of time but you know, if think about how often we ask somebody, how’s it going, what’s up? How’s everything? Like these two words? crazy busy, right? It’s like the default response is crazy busy, you know, busy has become a kind of like a badge of honor. And a lot of ways. It’s such a strange thing, though. Because busy is, we used to have this pet hamster named sprinkles, cupcake, Bartos and sprinkles would spend like every waking minute on this treadmill, there was never a busier hamster. You know what I mean? constantly on that wheel. Just running, running, running is not a productive way to spend our days. But so many of us, you know, we say we’re busy. But busy is not productive, right. So like part of Bar40 is getting into this daily habit of maximizing productivity. That’s what the best year ever, which is kind of a tagline of our 40 is really made up of 365 best days ever. Right? So every day needs to, you know, and this is the habit that we get into right every day needs to be significant. And it needs to matter. And it needs to be important to you. Because I mean, this is where I found myself years ago, like running around like crazy, especially with this corporate gig that I had where bounce out of bed in the morning running around, you know, especially then my daughter was younger, get her to school, do stuff, go to work, come back, try to get a run in like fold a bed, like I don’t know what happened. I know another day went by, and another week and another month, but I was just living day to day today in the moment without nevermind future self, you’re just completely in putting out fire mode. And everything is you’re just constantly on the defense. And that is not a strategic way to live our best year and to get because we all have these life goals, right. And we’re not just going to, in most cases, we’re not just going to randomly..

Heather Pearce Campbell 27:56
Accidentally achieve those.

Eric Bartosz 27:58
Yeah, we got it, we’ve got to have a little bit of a plan. And that’s kind of cliche, we all know that we need a plan to get to a goal. But what we don’t always have the tools to put those steps and processes in place. And that’s that’s kind of where the Bar40 methodology comes in. Because every goal that we have, can be broken down into these bite-sized chunks. And I think this is where it’s easy to get kind of lost in the sauce a lot of times because we see a task or we see an objective or a goal. And it just looks like such a huge mountain to try to climb that we don’t even know where to begin, right. And sometimes it’s analysis paralysis, where to stare at this thing and say, I don’t even know I don’t even know how to, I don’t have a start. So you know, Bar40 that again, I come back to that journal, because we can start to write steps. These are the things you know, this goal has these 10 steps that we need to achieve, break it down, mark them off, like we’re gonna start breaking this thing down, everything has a process path to get to zero to finish, and then that is very self-perpetuating. As far as the momentum we start to feel and see the results happening. And again, that 52 week runway is so important. And I get back to your original thought like 52 weeks is a long time. It goes by so fast. It’s such an exciting, dynamic time because you’re seeing results and you’re seeing these long-held goals and priorities start to come to life. And here’s kind of the secret about bar 40 even though it’s a 52 week program, and this is kind of the fine print, the best year ever, it becomes your best life ever, right? Because after 52 weeks, you’re not going back to those old, old ways of doing things. Not a 52 year plan because you can you know, your initial reaction to 52 weeks is the same as everybody’s like oh a year I’m not sure if I’m in for that. It’s that’s a long haul. But it’s so critical to understand that when it’s done, you don’t revert back to going it’s not just like well better get it done.

Heather Pearce Campbell 30:02
Doing the old way back to the old thing. Well, and there are a couple of things that I think are really important about this one. Yes, the importance of setting goals, reaching goals. But you know, a goal is just a goal. It’s not a plan, right? So it sounds like your system helps people, create their own plan, live the plan, be accountable to the plan. And you know, even the small piece that you mentioned earlier about recognizing where we’re having success, I feel like as human beings, we can get so busy in the doing and get caught up in like, you know, the 89 things left on the list that we don’t always slow down enough to take the time and acknowledge what’s going right, and where we’re having success. And our minds really need that, especially to stay committed to a path, right is to see like, Oh, I am being successful. Here’s how I’m being successful. To have that continue the momentum help us continue that forward?

Eric Bartosz 31:00
Yeah, no question. It’s absolutely true. And I put in, you know, there’s a section in the book about mindset, but well, that’s what I was gonna say, as far as the, it’s so reliant on personal accountability, right, this is such a big thing within our own lives. And when we get when we start to, like really dig into owning these things that we commit to. So when I talk about goals in the book, I use that smart acronym to write specific, meaningful and measurable real-time. But it’s got to kind of pass those tests and become a goal that you want. It’s just kind of a litmus test. If it doesn’t make one of those things isn’t check off the box, it’s probably, you know, give it a second look, because it may not be a great 52 week goal, but that person you know, so there’s that expression, responsibility is ownership of tasks. accountability is ownership of the outcome, right? So this personal accountability journey of Bar40, you own that ultimate goal of what you want your future self as in one year, what you want that future self to be what is the final? And that’s something everybody can start right away? What do I want one year me to look like? What will I be most proud of doing? In these 52 weeks that if I can picture myself? October 13 2021? What would I have loved to say I did it I finally did it, I did this, I did that whatever it may be, it is learning Spanish or maybe it’s running a five K or doesn’t matter. It’s important to you. And yeah, then you start to understand what those goals are, what it takes to achieve those what components need to happen, break them down, what goals, many goals within the goals, and it’s the whole process. And it lets you take control over instead of these nebulous ideas of maybe someday I’d like to it would be cool if all these vague concepts, none of that, right, we’re going to boil it down to these three things. And we’re going to, we’re gonna engage, we’re gonna execute on these three things.

Heather Pearce Campbell 33:04
Real in the deciding so and I have a couple of questions for you one around the role of mindset and this process, because I mean, for those of us who even have dipped a toe into the personal development world, like mindset is not a small piece of it, right? It’s like a whole piece. How do you say my one question is like, how do you prep and support people with mindset along the way, and then the, you know, also this idea about taking control being more decisive saying, Here is what my priorities are right? Also leads me to the question about and I know we talked about this briefly before, about becoming the CEO of your life, right, not letting life happen to you, but you deciding and taking charge. So talk to us a little bit about mindset, right? How you coach people on it, or prep people on it, how mindset is addressed as part of the program or the book. And then also this concept about, you know, becoming the CEO, not and especially for those of us right now who feel a little frazzled during COVID feel like we’re in that reactive responsive phase and not really implementing the structure that we need part because some of our structure has fallen away, some of our support systems have fallen away, but reevaluating that with a CEO mindset.

Eric Bartosz 34:20
Yeah, totally. It’s such a unique thing because it’s difficult that the CEO analogy is really effective, I think because it lets you become much more objective about the things in your own life that normally they’re so intertwined that you can’t separate yourself out from it. So and again, a lot of this stuff is their mental exercises that are designed to help give people the results. So the CEO of your own life, you have to think about your life as a company, right? So there are certain tasks that need to happen and there are certain departments right every large company’s got all these different departments, these different departments, some can be performing above expectation, some are underperforming. Some have a couple bad characters in them that you know that you need to have some realignment conversations with, like all of these things that you would find that any company large or small happened in our own lives instead of departments in the company, there are aspects of our life. So when you’re in, we have that CEO hat on, and you kind of step back and I and again, I’m a visual person. So a lot of times I have it on paper. As far as every day, I’m a big list guy as the bar 40 book would tell you. So my list looks kinda like a plus sign every day, I’ve got one for one list, everything to do with my house, and my family and all the stuff that’s going on, you know, my daughter’s soccer, all that stuff, right? Then there’s one list, that’s everything to do with Bar40. There’s one list that has to do with all the fire department stuff that I’m involved in. And there’s one list that has to do with all this ancillary stuff with regards to the day to day business. And all four things are running simultaneously. But they’re kind of like four different departments. So the CEO of your own life concept, take any, you know, this is the part to take some work, but taking the emotion out of a lot of these things and looking at it just in black and white. So will this take habits, right? And this is where some cool calculations have to come into play. habits are like employees, right? So for me, and this is a really slippery topic. For some people, I’ll use drinking, right? So I used to drink I don’t drink anymore, not because I had some like radical thing. I just looked at it very cold and calculating and said drinking for me is no longer adding significant benefit versus the downside. Very, very black and white.

Heather Pearce Campbell 36:54
You know this topic, I think is super, I mean, even if you just pick up the news on any given day, you see like, drinking is up like we’re in the middle of COVID. Right? Drinking is up drug use. Like there’s a lot of those vices that are upright and, and people that did not drink heavily before are drinking heavily as a coping like it’s very, very relevant. So I’m super glad you brought this up.

Eric Bartosz 37:17
Yeah, it’s really kind of startling to see that, you know, the statistics. And I certainly anecdotally have spoken to let me just preface this by saying, everybody hold on your chairs. But art of the real Bar40. The true Bar40 is a 52 weeks sober challenge, though, that it’s 52 weeks no alcohol whatsoever. And some people like head for the hills as soon as they hear that, you know, that’s probably half the people were like, what I’m not drinking? I’m not doing that. And then half the people are like, yes. Like, there are so many people that I talked to that, that have wanted to either eliminate altogether, they want to reason.

Heather Pearce Campbell 37:54
To reason they want something they can commit to.

Eric Bartosz 37:57
They and it’s so funny. Like, I get into these conversations with people all the time, because that 52 weeks over the challenge in Bar40 is something that lends itself to the conversation. So people end up talking about drinking like it pours out of them. Literally, they’re like, I’ve wanted to stop drinking, and it’s almost like a confessional thing. I think I’ve literally heard it all when it comes to drinking, and I get it because it is a and there’s like a stigma around drinking. There shouldn’t be it’s, you know, people get addicted to an addictive substance. When somebody quit smoking and somebody’s smoking around them, they don’t try to bully him back into smoking. It’s like Hey, good for you. You stop smoking. But alcohol is funny. It’s like the most effective mass-marketed drug in the history of the world literally.

Heather Pearce Campbell 38:42
Social activity, right?

Eric Bartosz 38:45
Yes, we’re bombarded by it right every ad every commercial shows like you know, young, great looking people having this right.

Heather Pearce Campbell 38:52
Hot people do it.

Eric Bartosz 38:54
Yes. Oh, somebody vomited on their iPhone in the backseat of the car. You know, I mean, it doesn’t give, it gives the highlight reel of drinking, it doesn’t give the reality doesn’t.

Heather Pearce Campbell 39:03
Give the low lights. Yeah.

Eric Bartosz 39:06
It gives a real sizzle reel. But there are so many people that love the idea of Bar40 because it provides the perfect narrative. So when you, you’re at a bar, or a restaurant or a wedding or any event that involves drinking, and you’re drinking seltzer, or whatever, your drink of choice, and somebody inevitably comes up to you and says what you’re not drinking. So here’s my personal experience with a lot of the folks that have struggled with this. They want to slow down or stop drinking, but their overwhelming concern to the point of shaping their own behavior is that fear of the social interaction with someone in that situation in that moment, where they have to explain why they’re why and again, power of alcohol marketing, but they have to explain why they’re not drinking.

Heather Pearce Campbell 39:54
Right. And it is a fascinating concept. Like when you present it that way. It’s like what is it fear that they will be perceived as judging everybody else who’s still drinking, right? Like now they’re the bad guy, it is really interesting.

Eric Bartosz 40:08
That’s part of it. I could literally talk for hours about this one time, because it’s so it’s fascinating. And most people can relate to it on some level. But people come up with these like wild excuses. So like, they’ll say, like, Oh, I’m on medication, or I’m sick, or like the doctor.

Heather Pearce Campbell 40:25
No.

Eric Bartosz 40:27
Or some reason, that’s like a very temporary reason, this is why this doesn’t work. So then the next week, they see that same person again, and they come up with a different excuse. They’re all these like very short term solutions to the long term goal of just not drinking. So that’s why a lot of times people just end up bailing out of the whole initiative to not be drinking, because they just find themselves not wanting to have that conversation. That is so often the case. So with Bob.

Heather Pearce Campbell 40:55
Do you have a section in your book that teaches courage?

Eric Bartosz 40:59
There is a section here’s the Bar40 book, there’s a section of drinking, about drinking in here because, and I write for all the people that really want to stop drinking, it’s such a shame that their ultimate goal is just constantly sideline because of their concern of other people’s reaction to that. But Bar40 provides the perfect, it’s not a cover story. But when somebody says, How come you’re not drinking? Now people are able to say, Hey, I’m doing Bar40. It’s an old program. Yep. It’s enhanced nutrition. It’s a fitness program. It’s basically trying to avoid sugar. It’s the ultimate year. And one of the things is a 52 weeks over challenge. And it’s so it kind of buries the headline, and it shifts the focus in perspective away from just the simple black and white statement. You’re not drinking. No, you know what I mean? Right? Oh, and I’ve had this comment. Well, I’ve had this conversation a million times myself, because I don’t drink at all. So every time if I’m somewhere where people don’t know me, it’s like, Hey, you know, you’re not drinking. So I love it, you know, because I would love talking to people vote about but I’m not Eliot Ness, I’m not trying to read the planet of alcohol. If somebody is interested in alcohol is such it’s a toxin. It’s it’s a carcinogen. It ruins your sleep, and it makes you gain weight, it saps your energy, it changes your brain chemistry, there are a million reasons not to drink. The only reason any of us do drink is that we like the feeling if you stop liking the feeling, all the reasons not to drink, just overwhelm it. And then it’s easy to move away from it. But yeah, I won’t get too far into that. But it is a really interesting section. And to answer one to get back real quick, and I’m keeping an eye on time. But to get back real quick to your other question about being the CEO of your own life and creating the mindset aspect. One thing I will say in the bar 40 books, that is such a broad topic, there is a suggested reading list, which in the journal, every four weeks, a new title appears as a summary. And so there are 12 books that I recommend reading in conjunction, which is basically one new book every month during your 52 weeks. And in my mind, I’ve certainly read them all. But I think they’re best in class titles of all these different segments. And a lot of them are related to mindset. And so by the end of the bar 40 years, you’re going to end up reading these 12 awesome books and people you know, some people are like, well, do I have to spend a million dollars on these books, every one of the books is available used on Amazon for around five bucks. And they’re all around 300 pages. So that just means reading 10 pages per day for that month, and you’re going to finish that book. And if you’re not drinking, the amount of money you’re going to spend on booze and ice. I recommend anybody. go online and find just Google alcohol cost calculator. And if you’re honest and put in what you normally spend a week, especially at home, if you’re just buying bottles of wine or whatever, it’s going to blow you away how much you spend annually on alcohol, so heat anybody listening, don’t worry about the extra five bucks a month on a paperback that you’re gonna get a lot, a lot from.

Heather Pearce Campbell 44:16
Alrighty, well, we are going to hit pause. Turns out this conversation goes longer than most of my typical episodes. And so we’re actually going to split this conversation into two, back to back episodes where Eric gets to do a deep dive into several additional topics, including some really important ones that we cover in the second half, like sleep, which is a drastically underrated element of our overall well being and health. But I’m super excited to be able to continue this conversation tomorrow. So stay tuned, you’ll get the rest of the conversation with Eric and we cover some additional elements of Bar40 what it means to be a CEO of your life, you know, additional stuff around mindset and habit change all very, very important stuff, especially in the midst of COVID. So, big thank you to Eric for everything that we’ve covered today. Stay tuned, we will see you for part two.

GGGB Intro 45:20
Thank you for joining us today on the guts, grit and great business podcast. We hope that we’ve added a little fuel to your tank, some coffee to your cup and pep in your step to keep you moving forward in your own great adventures. four key takeaways links to any resources mentioned in today’s show and more see the show notes which can be found at legal website warrior comm slash podcast. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and if you enjoyed today’s conversation, please give us some stars and a review on Apple podcast, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts so others will find us to keep up the great work you are doing in the world and we’ll see you next week.