Ever wondered why some people transform their lives through books while others barely remember what they’ve read?
The difference isn’t intelligence—it’s intention and system.
I’m joined again by Nick Hutchison, founder of BookThinkers and author of Rise of the Reader. Nick’s journey from a self-described “jock” who avoided books to a thriving entrepreneur built on reading is both inspiring and practical.
What sets Nick apart is his systematic approach to reading for results:
- How to set intentions before opening a book to activate your reticular activating system and uncover exactly what you need.
- A step-by-step multi-sensory process for retention—highlighting, rewriting, digitizing, and teaching—that makes insights stick.
- Real-world examples of how a single book helped him increase his business’s average deal size from $1,000 to $10,000.
Whether you’re an avid reader or haven’t picked up a book in years, this episode will give you the tools to turn pages into progress and books into breakthroughs.
As Nick reminds us, “the pain of discipline weighs much less than the pain of regret.”
Tune in now to discover how to make your reading habit one of the most powerful levers for change in your life.
Thank you for tuning in! If you feel led, please subscribe & share the show to others who you believe would benefit from it.
Keep in touch below!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Do believe the right book at the right time can
change somebody's life,especially if they use the
techniques that we talk about inthis book, Nick what's one step
that I can take today to becomea more diligent reader that
will allow me to unlock mygreatest powers?
(00:28):
unlock my greatest powers.
Build an accountability groupwith your most motivated friends
and meet with them on a weeklybasis to talk about the books
you're reading and the actionthat you'd like to take.
By having other people hold youaccountable, you're far more
likely to take better action,and we are the average of the
five people that we spend themost time with, so you might as
well grow with your friendsinstead of grow away from your
(00:49):
friends.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Do hard things.
Help one person, be good and dogood, live a life of discipline
and you will always win.
You have all the tools that youneed to succeed.
Welcome to win today that youneed to succeed.
Welcome to win today.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
(01:09):
My name is Ryan Cass and I amyour host.
My purpose in this world is tohelp push people further and
harder than they believepossible and become unshakable
in what matters most to them intheir lives.
Every week, you're going tolearn from either myself or
renowned expert in their field,and we're going to unveil pieces
of our playbook to help you wintoday.
Please, if you love this show,subscribe and share it with
(01:30):
somebody that will benefit fromit.
Let's dig in what's up everyoneand welcome back.
I'm really excited to bring backa previous conversation that I
had with Nick Hutchison.
He's one of my friends and thefounder and CEO of BookThinkers,
in addition to that author ofRise of the Reader, and Nick and
(01:51):
I have gotten to know eachother much better since our
original interview.
He's been helping me out on thebusiness side and he's actually
I'm his running coach, so it'sbeen awesome to continue to
build a great network of peopleall over the world that are
doing amazing things, and thereason why this interview is
(02:13):
coming back out is because a lotof what Nick and I talked about
, I believe, is even morerelevant today, in the world
that we're living in, whichfeels a bit divided, but more so
it feels as if folks areoperating on headlines and
(02:35):
opinions instead of useful andgrounded information, and I
believe one of the best ways wecan combat that is by reading
more, being more informed, byintentionally choosing books
that sharpen our thinking, buildour understanding and equip us
to lead better lives.
(02:56):
Nick and I had an in-depthconversation about the
importance of reading, how toapply what you learn and how
books can literally change thetrajectory of your life, and I
believe that message is worthhearing again, and his tips have
really helped me become abetter reader and absorb
(03:19):
information more efficiently.
And one thing I really love ishow he talks about creating
intentions of what you want toget from a book or how you want
to apply a book before you startreading them.
So, with that, enjoy thisconversation with Nick, and it's
my wish and call to action thatthis isn't something that
(03:42):
inspires you to pick up a bookthis week, be more intentional
about what you read and how youapply it, so that you can be
more informed, more grounded inthe things that are deemed as
most important in your life.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
(04:26):
Through any circumstance or toknow, what should I read at this
point in time so I can solveproblem XYZ?
You mentioned that books curedyour pain.
So if we learn a little bitmore about Nick, the human
versus the businessman, what'sthe genesis of all of this?
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Well, you highlighted that I wasn't much of a reader
growing up, which is true.
I embodied more of the jockstereotype.
Going through high school andsort of early college, I was
never somebody that lovedacademics, studying homework,
test taking, sitting in class,and so, going into my senior
year of college, I took aninternship at a local software
(05:02):
company and it was a salesinternship.
An internship at a localsoftware company and it was a
sales internship, and my boss atthe time, kyle the director of
sales, he was sort of forced totake me on a couple of local
sales trips and so I'd spendsome time with him in the car.
We'd drive around New Hampshire, massachusetts, some longer
drives.
I think one time we went to NewYork and instead of talking to
(05:22):
me, he would put on businesspodcasts.
This was completely new.
I had never consumed aneducational podcast before.
But he told me that thesepodcasts had made him successful
.
And he was successful, made alot of money.
That's what I was focused on atthe time.
That was the lens through whichI saw success at least, and so
(05:44):
I had about an hour commute thatsummer, where I was living, to
and from this internship, and soI started to listen to a lot of
podcasts, and all of theseshows followed a similar format.
There was a host like you, ryan, who would interview a guest
like me today, which is fun howit's come full circle.
You, ryan, who would interviewa guest like me today, which is
(06:07):
fun how it's come full circle,and the guest would talk about
what they've done to becomesuccessful.
And so many of those peoplegave at least like a little bit
of credit to the books that theywere reading or had read, or a
lot of credit.
And so here I am every singleday listening to people give
credit to books, yet I'm notwilling to read them.
I mean, that's kind of goofy,and so I just.
(06:29):
I think the original motivationwas that I just sort of got hit
with the realization that if I'mchoosing not to read these
books, I'm choosing to liveunder my potential, and that was
a scary place to be.
I'm not willing to replicatethe behaviors of the people that
I want to be like.
So that was sort of the originstory.
(06:50):
And then, to go a little bitdeeper, I'll just finish by
saying that at that time in mylife I was operating from a
place of ego on one side of thespectrum that would represent
itself at the expense of otherpeople.
And so towards the end of highschool and definitely throughout
my college experience, I wouldsort of like all eyes on me,
(07:13):
like it had to.
I had to have the attention, Ihad to be the coolest guy in the
room, I had to be throwingaround the most weight in the
gym, I had to be the whatever.
But then, on the other side ofthe spectrum, I had a lot of
insecurity issues, whichprobably drove a lot of the ego
behaviors.
But I was very insecure aroundmy ability to communicate
(07:36):
effectively and I was veryinsecure about what I was going
to do post-college because I'min business school yet I don't
understand the language of moneyor investing or personal
finance.
I had no financial literacy andso I'd shy away from these
conversations and it created aversion of me who would just get
(07:57):
that feeling in your gut andwalk away from conversations
that could help me.
And so I started to readpersonal finance books and very
I was able to remove a lot ofthat insecurity.
And then I was able to readbooks on communication and sales
and those sorts of subjects andalso remove insecurities.
(08:17):
And then I started to readabout service and purpose and
remove ego.
So that was a long introductionto your question.
We can go a few layers deeperif you want, but that's sort of
the origin story.
And you know, I went to a localBarnes and Noble, picked up a
few good books and the rest ishistory.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
I love that, so, and what I love about books, and I
started right around college aswell with as I started studying
these leaders and being on thismission to break this systemic
trend of alcoholism in my family, and so I started looking at,
well, what makes the people likeWarren Buffett and Richard
(08:56):
Branson and Tony Robbins andElon Musk?
What's the secret sauce?
What are they doing?
That's different.
What's the secret sauce?
What are they doing?
That's different.
And one of the common threads Ifound, besides writing their
goals down, is they arevoracious readers.
They are constantly consuminginformation and by doing that,
(09:18):
we all possess the power tocreate the person that we want
to become.
And books give us those answers, those tools, those solutions
to create those transformations.
You were somebody that what Iheard is you would shy away from
(09:43):
conversations and thencompensate for that by well,
maybe I can't talk businessabout with you, but I can look
like the toughest, meanest,strongest guy in the room.
Is that accurate?
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Yeah, absolutely Especially in small groups.
Never in a big group, but yeah,definitely in small groups.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Yeah.
So what was that first book orfirst set of books that you
picked up?
And when you made that choiceto start reading books, the
first few pages that you flippedthrough, did you ever have this
?
Or moments of man, screw this,Like this isn't, I'm not
(10:25):
changing fast enough or were youhooked right off, right off the
bat?
Speaker 1 (10:30):
The first book was Rich Dad, poor Dad, by Robert
Kiyosaki, and I was hooked rightoff the bat because the book
was solving a problem.
And right in the beginning ofthe book he says something that
sort of I think it hits home fora lot of people and it's one of
the reasons that's a lot ofpeople's first book.
He says that the subject ofmoney is not taught in the
(10:53):
public education system and, asa result, you learn at home, and
so poor and middle-class kidslearn poor and middle-class
money habits by observing theirparents, and only the rich kids,
the select few, grew up in arich home.
They learned the rich moneyhabits, and so the wealth gap
continues to separate itself.
(11:13):
And right there I'm like, yeah,I don't talk about money at
home.
Now, I love my parents andthey've done very well.
I actually have like theperfect parents, but we didn't
talk about money.
And so here's this guy, RobertKiyosaki, who's condensed
decades of lived experience inthe worlds of finance and
investing and millions ofdollars worth of experience into
(11:36):
a book that costs $20 and onlytakes a few hours to read.
And so, yeah, right off the batI was hooked and I just, you
know, I didn't really know whatI was doing.
I sort of wish that I read Riseof the Reader first.
It's kind of why I wrote thebook for people, so that they
can get more out of the booksthey're reading.
But yeah, I was in there, man,and I think sometimes people do
(12:00):
tend to turn away from the worldof personal development if they
choose the wrong book first,and that's a problem.
Like if you choose a book thatwill solve a problem or help you
build a skillset that you needto create for a job or something
like, you'll stay in there,you'll be hooked and thank
goodness that's what happenedfor me.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Yeah.
So right book, right time.
Rise of the Reader is the rightbook that listeners should pick
up a copy of.
Here In the book you detail howwe can choose the right book
and really you provide aninventory that we can take
(12:42):
before we just go to BarnesNoble aimlessly and pick the
book that has the coolest coverand maybe one quote from a New
York Times or Wall StreetJournal review.
So how do we pick the rightbook?
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Yeah, I think there are a series of questions, like
the personal inventory, that youcan go through, and the first
one is have you recentlyexperienced any pain related to
a problem that could have beenavoided if you had understood
something more efficiently ormaybe had developed a skill set
to help you overcome thatproblem?
And so if a book can help yousolve a pain, you'll stick with
(13:21):
the book right.
That's the example that we justtalked about.
I'm experiencing all of thisinsecurity in and around my
college experience because Idon't understand the subject of
money.
So now I'm going to read a bookthat will give me that language
so that I don't have to beinsecure anymore.
It'll remove a lot of that fear, a lot of that pain, and help
(13:41):
me for the rest of my life,because we're all forced to play
the game of money right, and ifyou don't understand it, you'll
get left behind.
You don't have to bematerialistic to understand the
importance of food, water,shelter, and so that's a great
first question.
There are a number of otherquestions.
Will you be attending an eventwhere there's going to be a
speaker, and if you read theirbook, could you have a better
(14:04):
understanding of who they'regoing to be.
Are there any idols of yoursthat have had books written
about them or have they writtenbooks?
You know it's a great place tostart as well, because
oftentimes biographies orautobiographies they play like a
movie in your mind and you'llstay in the content and continue
to read because you're reallyinterested in the person that's
(14:25):
being written about or theperson that wrote the book.
You know popular books they'repopular for a reason, and I
think that the longer a book hasbeen around and the more copies
it's sold, the more lives it'simpacted.
And you know, books don't sellfor no reason.
They sell because they'rehelping people or they're super
(14:46):
entertaining in the world offiction, but nonfiction books
they only do well if they'reuseful.
And so those are some places tostart.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Now digging a little deeper.
What if it doesn't always comefrom pain, like I would envision
for you and in your inventoryprocess, it likely stems more
from okay, what problems do Iwant to solve or where do I want
to take my business next?
(15:16):
Can you dive a little deeperinto your personal inventory and
what's that decision processlike for you?
Speaker 1 (15:22):
now, in the last few books that you've read, yeah,
there's being reactionary, sosolving a problem and then
there's being proactive, soreactive or proactive.
And I think a proactive examplecould be who do you want to
become in the future and what'sthe difference between where you
are now and where you'd like tobe?
You know, what skill sets canthat person implement to improve
(15:44):
the likelihood of whateversuccess means to them?
And so, as far as my businessis concerned, I'll give you a
legit example.
Last year I last year withBookThinkers we were growing,
but very slowly.
We had experienced somebottlenecks with our average
deal size and really theservices that we could offer our
(16:07):
authors, and so I thought Ineed to improve our average deal
size.
How am I going to do that?
What additional services shouldI be offering?
I mean, I didn't even knowwhere to start with that.
So I started to ask around anda friend of mine recommended a
book $100 million offers.
Now, this is not a reactivequestion, this is a proactive
(16:29):
question.
I want to grow and I think theaverage service, the average
deal size, is hurting ourbusiness right now and I want to
improve that right.
So I'm being proactive.
And somebody recommended $100million offers by Alex Hormozy.
So I get a copy of $100 millionoffers.
I set an intention for the bookthat I'd like to find and
implement at least two newstrategies that can help me
(16:51):
build bigger services atBookThinkers by the end of next
week, or something like that.
That intention for the book issomething we could talk about.
I like to follow the SMART goalframework specific, measurable,
attainable, actionable, written, relevant, time bound.
So I'm going through the bookand there's an exercise about
journaling every single way thatyou could possibly help your
(17:13):
ideal client, and so I'm goingthrough these exercises.
He has questions that you canask that can help you think
bigger and outside of the box.
I'm going through everything andI find a service and it's 10
times bigger than my averagedeal size in terms of revenue
right off the bat, and I thinkyou know what this might be.
It.
I mean I journaled,whiteboarded, for hours and I
(17:36):
found something that I thoughtwas interesting and I started
pitching it to existingcustomers that hey, would this
be useful to you?
Have you ever thought abouttrying this?
Have you ever thought abouttrying this?
And the first person that Icalled literally said to me hey,
nick, I have on the back of anapkin on my desk I have call
Nick about and then listed thatservice and so it was sort of
(17:57):
just this awesome moment thatsolidified or sort of reinforced
that I was on the right path.
But that's an example of beingproactive and trying to close
the gap between where you areand who you know you can become,
and for me that's happened athousand different ways, but
that's just an example forbusiness revenue.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Yeah, I love that book, by the way $100 million
offers, and that's one that Ioften talk about with my team in
my corporate role.
We're standing up a fairly neworganization at the Boeing
company and with that there aresome folks who are still a
little skeptical as to thebenefits of the organization.
(18:37):
Why should we utilize you?
I often tell the team thatwe're here.
Let's make offers so great thatthese people would be silly not
to utilize this team, becausewe provide services XYZ, and
(18:57):
when you come visit us, here arethe benefits that you can
expect to see after you go backinto your normal role.
It's so interesting that booksor people that we often look at
I talked to my mentor one of mymentors about this a lot.
(19:18):
When we see or hear somebodythat sounds really impactful or
admirable, I often ask thequestion I wonder what chapter
of what book that person isspeaking from right now.
Because books give us so muchpowerful language and ideas and
things that again you extractedsomething from an amazing book,
(19:41):
a hundred million dollar offers,and now the result of that was
what?
What was your average dealprice?
Where'd you?
How much did you bump it up?
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Back then our average deal size was was about1,000
per customer and we bumped it upafter a little bit of iteration
to $10,000.
And so it was a 10x.
And the promise that, as youknow, alex sort of makes in his
book and in the content is that20% of your customers are
willing to pay five times more.
(20:14):
And if you charge five timesmore, you'll have the same
revenue, but you'll only beworking with 20% of the
customers more.
And if you charge five timesmore, you'll have the same
revenue, but you'll only beworking with 20% of the
customers, and so you can spendmore time and attention and
provide a better service.
So we sort of did that samething but doubled it, and now
it's changed.
I mean, I've continued to gobigger and better and follow
Alex's recommendations andBookThinkers is continuing to
(20:37):
grow as a result of that bookand it's.
It's also so funny that youmentioned like I wonder what
chapter of what book they'rethey're talking from, because so
much of Alex's content comesfrom other books that I've read
and he'll make reference of themsometimes.
But uh, you know I can, you canfollow the chain backwards in
time you can follow the chainbackwards in time.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Yeah, Like if you had to summarize Nick Hutchison in
a few books.
Like, what books would you sayrepresent you the most?
Like if, if, if someone, forpeople that know me really well,
they would tell you atomicomicHabits Can't Hurt Me and
Everybody Matters.
By Bob Chapman.
(21:24):
Like if I had to pick three.
But, thinking about that, whatbooks speak through you the most
?
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Yeah, it's a cool question.
I haven't thought about thisbefore.
The Four-Hour Workweek by TimFerriss, both professionally and
personally, the Daily Stoic byRyan Holiday and Stephen
Hanselman, and Built to Serve byEvan Carmichael those are the
(21:56):
ones that come to mind rightthere.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
And what elements from them?
Just to extract a few fromfour-hour work, week and daily,
stoic and built to serve like,make up who you are, yeah this
is a cool question.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
I might have to steal this one or borrow it.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Hey, well, look here, you know, it's not just what
chapter of what book is somebodyspeaking from, but who is
speaking through that person?
Yes, absolutely.
And you know, and even thethings that I hear on podcasts.
Other podcast hosts like hmm, Ilike that one, I really like
the most recent one you had withAnton Gunn.
(22:36):
He's a local guy here inCharleston, so take it.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
I look forward to hearing it.
But, yeah, continue.
Well, all right, I'll do alittle bit of a deep dive.
So the four hour work week byTim Ferriss why?
I said personally andprofessionally, so we'll go
personally first.
I read that book and I realizedthat each of us is capable of
designing a life that's uniquelyfulfilling to us.
Tim says that reality isnegotiable.
He says that the new rich, theydon't value money, they value
(23:07):
time and mobility.
And so when I read that book, Iwas working a corporate
location dependent nine to five,and within a few months maybe
about six months, I had takenthat job totally remote, and I
was traveling internationallywhile working and I started to
(23:28):
develop this love forinternational travel that I
still have today.
My wife and I have been to 25countries together over the last
five years, sometimes for up toa few months at a time, and so
if Nick isn't the book guy, he'sthe travel guy.
But professionally, Tim talksabout the art of delegation
(23:50):
optimizing a task and then youknow, eliminating it, delegating
it, systemizing it, whateverthe case is and I've done that
in my business I mean, I do sortof a quarterly energy audit
where I look back at a week'sworth of activity and I try to
say did that activity give meenergy?
(24:12):
Was it neutral or did it takeenergy from me?
And I try to eliminate ordelegate or automate that was
the word I was looking forbefore Anything that's neutral
or takes energy from me.
I only want to do things thatmake me happy.
And I only want to do things.
And, by the way, that doesn'tmean you can eliminate
everything.
That means you have to findsomebody else that it brings
(24:33):
energy to, because that'srelative.
So I love the four hour workweek.
I travel because of that bookand I built a remote business uh
, that brings me energy as aresult of that book Number.
And Tim Ferris is like myspirit animal from a distance.
He doesn't know who I am, but Ilove everything he does.
Um, number two, yeah, not yetExactly Um.
(24:57):
So that was the four-hour workweek.
What was the second book that Isaid?
I don't even remember.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
The second one was Daily Stoic.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Yes, the Daily Stoic.
So I was originally gifted myfirst copy of the Daily Stoic by
Ryan Holiday from my friendAlec and he said, hey, let's
read this every single day inthe morning, jump on the phone
and just chat with each otherfor a couple minutes about it.
And we held that routine for alittle while.
It never really took off, but Icontinued reading the book
(25:26):
myself.
The subtitle of that book issomething like 366 Meditations
on Wisdom, Perseverance and theArt of Living, and each day you
just read one page.
And each day you just read onepage.
So it starts with a quote froman old Stoic philosopher,
(25:47):
somebody like Marcus Aurelius orSeneca or Epictetus, and then
Ryan Holiday will take thatquote and he'll expand on it and
make it relevant to today'slife.
So in that book I learned allabout this beautiful, actionable
philosophy of Stoicism, and Iwent on to read another hundred
books related to it, or 25 booksrelated to it, and there are
certain subjects that I'vetattooed on my body Memento Mori
(26:07):
, we're all going to die.
Amor fati, the love of one'sfate, Ataraxia, stillness.
You know, these are all thingsthat I love so much that I
tattooed them on me and they'vechanged the way that I live.
They've made me much morelogical, less emotional, and you
know you mentioned can't hurtme Like Goggins is such a stoic
(26:32):
human.
He has total control over hisbody.
I mean, he gets a littleemotional sometimes but he's
able to control himself and it'sit's such a beautiful thing
he's.
He's a great representation, Ithink, of what stoicism can look
like in a human.
And then the last book that Isaid was built to serve.
I'll try to be brief, but inthat book Evan says your purpose
(26:55):
comes from your pain, which issomething we talked about before
.
Your purpose comes from yourpain, and so so many of us try
to serve our younger self.
I've written this book, Rise ofthe Reader, to serve the
younger version of myself, whowanted to close the gap between
where he was and who he knew hecould become.
And he figured it out, you know.
(27:17):
But if he had read this bookfirst, he would have figured it
out a lot faster and and gonethrough less hurdles.
And that's what's beautifulabout reading about other
people's experiences.
Like, failure is an amazingteacher, but other people's
failure is also a great teacher,and you can avoid some of the
pain yourself from the comfortof your living room, you know
(27:38):
navigate obstacles moreefficiently.
But back to the book.
Your purpose comes from yourpain.
Prior to reading that, I had areally difficult time
articulating my purpose, who Iwanted to serve, how I was
serving them, and Evan helped meanswer every one of those
questions.
And today service to othersmeans so much more to me than it
did back when I was full of egoand had to be the center of
(28:00):
attention.
So Evan sort of connected allthose dots and I suppose that's
why I answered that questionthat way.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Yeah, that's beautiful and I love of each was
profound and I love the builtto serve.
I believe that the best gift wecan give is to give back, and
(28:30):
even you can see right behind methat of the things that I
preach, help one person.
If we want to change the world,preach.
Help one person.
If we want to change the world,start by helping one person,
and that could be by giving themone book, because then you
never know the transformationthat's going to occur in that
one person, and then imagine allthe lives they impact.
(28:50):
So just by helping one person,you'll never really know the
true impact of it, because thenthat person can go on to help
five people, 10 people.
If we look at this, even look atyou, nick.
You've read a few books and nowyou're reaching millions of
people, and it's the smallestactions that have the greatest
(29:19):
impact in many cases.
Going back to what youmentioned about selecting a book
, you said something interestingthat I haven't heard before uh,
when before you started ahundred million dollar offers
and that that's that you set anintention prior to reading the
book and, if I heard youcorrectly going back, you picked
(29:42):
up that book with twointentions that are rather the
intention of adopting two newselling strategies.
For simple terms.
What is that process foradopting an intention before
reading a book, so as we thinkabout picking up the next book
(30:06):
and having one more hack toretain some more knowledge from
that book.
What is that process?
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Sure.
Well, I just did a fun littleunboxing thing for the book
thinkers instagram, so I have astack of new books next to me.
I haven't read any of these yet, but I'll just talk about the
process from scratch.
So here's a book called amazonads for authors unlock your full
advertising potential.
And what I would do is I'd readthe title, I'd read the
(30:38):
subtitle, I'd read the back ofthe book, I'd look at the table
of contents and then I'd askmyself what's the goal for this
book?
What problem is it solving?
What skill is it helping meimprove?
What's the intention here?
And as I start to build theintention, I do want to follow
the SMART goal framework, soI'll just kind of skip ahead
(31:00):
here for a second.
A good intention for a book likethis might be to find and
implement at least twoadvertising strategies on Amazon
that I can implement by the endof next week.
That's specific, it'smeasurable too.
It's attainable, actionable.
It's not like I need to make amillion bucks through
(31:21):
advertising next week.
I'm just looking to find andimplement two strategies it's
written down on the inside cover, which I'll talk about, and
it's relevant to my life, andit's time bound.
I want to do it by the end ofnext week, if you can, then add
a little bit of extra flavor andsay, because, if you can, then
add a little bit of extra flavorand say, because, because I
know my book can serve mycommunity, because I know that
(31:45):
it's not the best written booksthat perform well, it's the best
selling books that perform well.
Because I wish I had access toRise of the Reader when I was
younger.
And so you add a little bit offlavor.
Then you write that intentionon the inside cover of the
reader when I was younger, andso you add a little bit of
flavor.
Then you write that intentionon the inside cover of the book
so this one's fresh, because Ihaven't read it yet.
But I'll write that here andI'll read it each and every time
(32:09):
I crack open this book and reada few more pages, because then
my brain can filter for thosetwo actionable strategies.
If you just read a book randomly, you're going to find a bunch
of random things that excite you.
But if you read a book withintention, you're going to find
exactly what you're looking forand you're far more likely to
take action on something that'sspecifically related to your
(32:31):
intention than you are somethingrandom.
A little bit of extra contextOur brains have this cool
function called an RAS, areticular activating system.
It's like the brain's filter.
You say yellow car.
You walk outside, you see ayellow car.
It's not random, they werealways there, but you're
filtering for them for the firsttime.
(32:52):
And so if you filter for twostrategies that you can
implement to improve youradvertising on Amazon by the end
of next week, you'll filter forthose when you're reading
through the book.
Last thing I'll mention isreading and note-taking are two
totally separate activities anddon't multitask.
(33:12):
So when I'm going through thebook and I'm looking for those
two things to find and implement, I'll highlight them quickly.
And I'm looking for those twothings to find and implement,
I'll highlight them quickly andthen when I'm done with the
chapter or sometimes done withthe book, I'll go back and I'll
rewrite them, reflect on them,think about them Totally
separate activity from reading.
You don't want to ruin yourmomentum and at the end of this
book I might have like 30 or 40ways that I can improve my
(33:36):
advertising on Amazon and I'lllook through that list and I'll
say what 20% of these activitiescan lead to 80% of the change
that I'm looking to make.
I'll try to narrow it down,make it more realistic to take
action.
So it might not be two, but itwill be at least two and that's
sort of the process for buildingan intention and the reason
(33:57):
behind it.
So you talk about systems likeI try to be very systematic with
my approach so that it'srepeatable and it's manageable
and I can look for opportunitiesfor improvement.
We all know that Peter Druckerline like what's not being
measured can't be managed, andso you've got to measure
something so that you can manageit that you can manage it.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
I absolutely love that.
That's brilliant.
And thinking through that, andas you were saying that I was
thinking through, well, what doI do before I pick up a book?
And I'd like to believe I'mfairly methodical.
Don't just pick up a coollooking cover fairly methodical.
Don't just pick up a coollooking cover Typically it's off
of research and reviews orsomeone recommended it and I'll
(34:48):
I'll grab a book, for instance,the.
The last book I just purchasedis a Ryan holiday book and, if
I'm not mistaken, um, failure isthe way or the obstacle is the
way, and I purchased that bookwith.
I purchased that book because,from what I read and understand,
(35:10):
it talks about a lot of peoplethat we often, that we admire,
and how obstacles really shapetheir way of being and they're
the reason why they are wherethey are today.
And in a lot of my speeches Italk about how the greatest gift
I ever received was those earlyobstacles that you and I were
(35:33):
talking about before we started.
And it's this podcast existsbecause of coming up through an
alcoholic family and breakingthat systemic trend of
alcoholism.
So I figured, well, if I readthis book, then I'll have some
better language to create in myspeeches about other notable
(35:54):
people who have convertedobstacles into triumph, but I
haven't actually written thatintention down.
So I love that practice and youtake my questions, I'm taking
your intention practice.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Yeah, do it, man.
So I think a good intention foryou might be to defined and
familiarize yourself with atleast two other people's stories
that you can reference whilebeing on other podcasts or
speaking by the end of next weekor something like that.
And you might find 10 or 15examples, and then you'll look
at the list and you'll go whattwo or three of these, what 20%,
(36:35):
really drive home the point andexcite me?
And, man, you follow thatsystem, you're going to hit the
nail on the head, you're goingto find the two, you're going to
familiarize yourself with themand the book will have done its
service for you.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
I love it.
That is awesome, nick.
That is awesome, and I alsolove the reference to reticular
activating system.
Is I had to guess maybe youbecame familiar with that or
became re-familiarized from itby reading Power of One More by
Ed Milet.
I know you had referenced thatrecently on Measure of Success
(37:13):
podcast, but he references theRAS, the R-A-S, and a lot of
people talk about it, but it'sextremely powerful.
Now there are a lot of booksbehind you, there's a lot of
books behind me and more behindthis banner that I have up For
people that are.
(37:34):
People can be well-read andoften not retain much knowledge
from books.
I love this Instagram post youmade where you're given a speech
and you reference who's readthe Seven Habits, and I'm sure
almost every hand in that roomwent up and I'm sure a lot of
ears are perking up right nowbecause a lot of people are
(37:57):
familiar with that book andprobably have read it.
And then you asked who can namethe seven habits of highly
effective people and there wasonly one hand that went up in
that room and there may be notso many ears perked up right now
that are listening to this.
So reading gives us knowledgeand power, but what are some
(38:18):
best practices to actuallyretain the knowledge that we are
gaining, or should be gaining,in each of these books that
we're picking up?
Speaker 1 (38:28):
I think the fundamental truth here is that
repetition leads to retention,and there are a whole bunch of
different directions to go offof that fundamental truth, but
repetition leads to retention.
You have to strengthen a neuralconnection, a new pathway, so
(38:50):
that it doesn't dissolve overtime, and you have to access it
frequently enough to sort oflike cement that connection and
be able to access theinformation when you really need
it for it to become part ofyour subconscious.
So, going back to reading abook, I like to rewrite my
biggest takeaways from the book,first on a piece of paper, on a
(39:11):
yellow notepad, and the act ofwriting the information down a
second time.
That's a form of repetition,and you're using other senses.
You're feeling the pen, you'refeeling the paper, you're
analyzing the book with yourother hand, and then I like to
rewrite my biggest takeaway, assort of the 20% that I'd like to
(39:32):
take action on, into an onlinenotebook like Evernote.
Again, now I'm typing.
It's a different form ofrepetition and I like to plug my
biggest action items into myactivity tracker Again, another
interviewing the author.
And so by having to repurposewhat I've learned, summarize it
(40:06):
and then teach it.
That's another form ofrepetition.
It's also a form of reworkingthe information so that I can
talk about it in a simplifiedway.
It's another form of repetition.
Repetition leads to retentionand I'm not purposely repeating
that so many times, but it isfunny that it's happening.
Repetition leads to retention.
(40:26):
I want everybody to retain thefact that that's happening and
it would be a little bitdifficult to explain, but it
essentially says that over time,the likelihood of you being
able to recall information goesdown unless you review it again.
(40:49):
And each time you review theinformation, the time that you
can retain it increases.
So by systematically reviewinginformation daily for a while,
then weekly, then monthly, thenbimonthly, quarterly, biannually
, annually, you're far morelikely to retain that
(41:10):
information.
So I think that's the core of it.
If you can add a little bit ofemotion, if you can take action
on the information, yourretention goes way up.
If you teach it to other people, it goes way up.
But it's all about repetitionand try not to make that
practice dry.
You know, speak things out loud, speak them with confidence,
(41:31):
teach them to other people,bring it up at the dinner table,
talk about it with friends,host an accountability group,
teach your peers, have a podcast.
All of those are forms ofrepetition, and repetition leads
to retention.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
So what I heard is, with the books we're reading,
the pages that we're scanningthrough, extract that and then
disperse it again in a varietyof different formats, whether
it's I'm telling you something,or we've even thrown out a few
things from from books thatwe've learned from here and
(42:10):
we've we've taken some reps juston this in this discussion
right Between a hundred milliondollar offers between the three
books that you mentioned andwhat you gained from it.
Now you're even more likely, ormore able, rather, to share
more learnings from Daily Stoic,from 4-Hour Workweek, from
(42:32):
Built to Serve, from Can't HurtMe, from Atomic Habits.
So this is live examples.
We've actually you and I havehave created a live example here
, but I love that that.
Write it down, share it, talkit, look at it again.
I started making flashcards formy favorite books and so when I
(42:55):
go back and look at it, I'm like, oh, you know what?
Maybe I'm not going to read thewhole thing right now, but what
are the four to five things IfI open up this cover that I can,
that I that I want to know, orthat I would want someone else
to know about this book, evenbefore I, maybe even before I
just want to recommend it tosomebody, so I love that that
your repetition leads toretention tension.
(43:27):
Now, nick, ultimately notultimately, but when someone
purchases Rise of the Reader andthey read through it, what is
the transformation or outcomethat you ultimately want people
to experience, or that youenvision people to experience,
after they finish the book?
Speaker 1 (43:45):
I hope number one that people realize they're
capable of doing more, ofbecoming more, of serving more,
of earning more, of beinghealthier, of being happier, of
being more fulfilled.
We all have more potential thanwe give ourselves credit for.
More fulfilled we all have morepotential than we give
ourselves credit for.
We live in a society that likesto put a lot of constraints,
(44:05):
and so I hope this book frees upthe minds of everybody that
chooses to read it, and that'san exciting thing when you can
position that the right way.
You know, I'm excited each andevery day that I'm capable of
doing more, and I love to makeprogress against that future
self.
Serve my future self.
Number two I'd like people torealize that books are a great
(44:27):
vehicle for closing that gapbetween where you are today and
that ever-growing version of youthat you're capable of creating
, and I'd also like people torealize that if they choose to
live under their potential, theyrisk living a life full of
regret, and that's a really sadplace to be.
I mentioned it so many times,I'll mention it again.
(44:50):
One of my favorite books the TopFive Regrets of the Dying by
Bronnie Ware.
She's an end-of-life palliativecare nurse.
She spends the last few monthsof people's lives with them and
through conversation she learnsthat most people end up
regretting the lives thatthey've lived.
And the number one regret isthat they regret living a life
(45:12):
based on other people'sexpectations of them and not
what fulfills them as a uniqueindividual.
Working a nine to five just tomake money in a job that you
hate because other people tellyou to do it, that type of thing
.
So I'd like people to walk awayfrom the book, understanding A
they have more potential.
B books can close that gap.
And C if they don't close thatgap, they might end up
(45:35):
regretting it.
And the pain of discipline likethis is a Goggins type thing.
The pain of discipline weighs alot more than the pain or sorry
.
The pain of discipline weighs alot less than the pain of
regret, and you don't want toend up regretting that you
didn't try more, do more,experiment more, live a little
bit more.
So those are kind of the threemain things.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
Beautiful man.
What's present for me is I hearthat this book really allows
you to see what power we trulypossess, because I believe that
the only person that can reallystop us or really the only thing
in this world, nick, that canstop any of us is ourselves.
(46:19):
Nothing else thing in thisworld, nick, that can stop any
of us as ourselves.
Nothing else.
And your book, and even in thisconversation, I believe it to
be true for people to see that,wow, by making these choices
about the type of knowledge I'mgoing to consume and seek out, I
can create this person that Ihave in my head, that maybe
(46:43):
before I thought there's no wayI could be that person.
That's only meant for thesepeople that grew up in this
neighborhood or had thisupbringing or so on and so forth
.
And your book is something thatallows people to see that, no,
you can.
You can be whatever you want tobe.
And also your last point andwhen I tell people, my greatest
(47:07):
fear is is meeting the personthat I could have become you
know we go through this life andmaybe you work all the way up
the corporate chain and then,depending on on what you believe
in you, you're about to enterthe gates of heaven, or you're
going wherever, wherever youbelieve the universe is going to
take you, and then you meetthis person that was really
(47:30):
inside you the whole time, like,oh, you were supposed to launch
this platform that reachedmillions of people, that showed
them the power of books and howto retain knowledge and and and
how to create this, thislifestyle, that that you always
dreamed about, but you decidedto play it small and do this,
(47:53):
and so I love your, your way ofbeing, I love your mission and
what you're doing with this book, and can't wait for people to
pick up a copy.
Nick, what's one step that Ican take today to become a more
diligent reader that will allowme to unlock my greatest powers?
Speaker 1 (48:17):
Build an accountability group with your
most motivated friends and meetwith them on a weekly basis to
talk about the books you'rereading and the action that
you'd like to take.
By having other people hold youaccountable, you're far more
likely to take better action,and we are the average of the
five people that we spend themost time with, so you might as
(48:39):
well grow with your friendsinstead of grow away from your
friends.
Speaker 2 (48:44):
Beautiful and last one, and likely the most
difficult one, nick, what's onebook besides yours that we
should all read to enhance ourmindset?
Speaker 1 (49:06):
The Go-Giver by Bob Berg and John David Mann.
That book teaches the readerthe reciprocal relationship
between giving and receiving.
I think so many of us fall onone side of that coin or the
other, but there's a greatmiddle point.
For so much of my life I took,took, took.
I was a go-getter and I wasn'tgiving.
And then I went far too much inthe other direction, of course,
corrected a little bit too much, and I was just trying to give,
(49:29):
give, give and I wasn't open toreceiving.
But there's a beautiful balancebetween both of them and that's
outlined in that beautiful book.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
I love that book.
It is beautiful.
Had the opportunity to have Bobon the podcast and he's.
He's amazing.
Nick, how do we keep up withyou and the book and all the
amazing things that you're doing?
Speaker 1 (49:52):
You can check out book thinkerscom or book
thinkers on Instagram and I'llthrow this out to your audience.
If anybody wants to DM me andtell me about a problem they
have or a skill they want toimprove, I'll make a book
recommendation and follow upwith you and see if you've read
it, and book matchmaking is likemy favorite thing to do.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
I love it.
Well, everything will be linkedin the notes.
Folks Pick up Rise of theReader and support Nick and tune
into BookThinkers.
He's got some of the Reader andsupport Nick and tune into
BookThinkers.
He's got some of the mostpowerful, inspirational thought
leaders and authors in the worldthat are appearing on his show
every week, and a lot of whatwe're talking about in the books
(50:35):
we're referencing are inabundance on Nick's podcast, and
when you check out Nick andRise of the Reader, you are
going to have the tools to wintoday.
Thanks so much for tuning in.
Do believe the right book at the right time can
change somebody's life,especially if they use the
techniques that we talk about inthis book, Nick what's one step
that I can take today to becomea more diligent reader that
will allow me to unlock mygreatest powers?
(00:28):
unlock my greatest powers.
Build an accountability groupwith your most motivated friends
and meet with them on a weeklybasis to talk about the books
you're reading and the actionthat you'd like to take.
By having other people hold youaccountable, you're far more
likely to take better action,and we are the average of the
five people that we spend themost time with, so you might as
well grow with your friendsinstead of grow away from your
(00:49):
friends.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Do hard things.
Help one person, be good and dogood, live a life of discipline
and you will always win.
You have all the tools that youneed to succeed.
Welcome to win today that youneed to succeed.
Welcome to win today.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
(01:09):
My name is Ryan Cass and I amyour host.
My purpose in this world is tohelp push people further and
harder than they believepossible and become unshakable
in what matters most to them intheir lives.
Every week, you're going tolearn from either myself or
renowned expert in their field,and we're going to unveil pieces
of our playbook to help you wintoday.
Please, if you love this show,subscribe and share it with
(01:30):
somebody that will benefit fromit.
Let's dig in what's up everyoneand welcome back.
I'm really excited to bring backa previous conversation that I
had with Nick Hutchison.
He's one of my friends and thefounder and CEO of BookThinkers,
in addition to that author ofRise of the Reader, and Nick and
(01:51):
I have gotten to know eachother much better since our
original interview.
He's been helping me out on thebusiness side and he's actually
I'm his running coach, so it'sbeen awesome to continue to
build a great network of peopleall over the world that are
doing amazing things, and thereason why this interview is
(02:13):
coming back out is because a lotof what Nick and I talked about
, I believe, is even morerelevant today, in the world
that we're living in, whichfeels a bit divided, but more so
it feels as if folks areoperating on headlines and
(02:35):
opinions instead of useful andgrounded information, and I
believe one of the best ways wecan combat that is by reading
more, being more informed, byintentionally choosing books
that sharpen our thinking, buildour understanding and equip us
to lead better lives.
(02:56):
Nick and I had an in-depthconversation about the
importance of reading, how toapply what you learn and how
books can literally change thetrajectory of your life, and I
believe that message is worthhearing again, and his tips have
really helped me become abetter reader and absorb
(03:19):
information more efficiently.
And one thing I really love ishow he talks about creating
intentions of what you want toget from a book or how you want
to apply a book before you startreading them.
So, with that, enjoy thisconversation with Nick, and it's
my wish and call to action thatthis isn't something that
(03:42):
inspires you to pick up a bookthis week, be more intentional
about what you read and how youapply it, so that you can be
more informed, more grounded inthe things that are deemed as
most important in your life.
Thank you so much.
Thank you so much.
(04:26):
Through any circumstance or toknow, what should I read at this
point in time so I can solveproblem XYZ?
You mentioned that books curedyour pain.
So if we learn a little bitmore about Nick, the human
versus the businessman, what'sthe genesis of all of this?
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Well, you highlighted that I wasn't much of a reader
growing up, which is true.
I embodied more of the jockstereotype.
Going through high school andsort of early college, I was
never somebody that lovedacademics, studying homework,
test taking, sitting in class,and so, going into my senior
year of college, I took aninternship at a local software
(05:02):
company and it was a salesinternship.
An internship at a localsoftware company and it was a
sales internship, and my boss atthe time, kyle the director of
sales, he was sort of forced totake me on a couple of local
sales trips and so I'd spendsome time with him in the car.
We'd drive around New Hampshire, massachusetts, some longer
drives.
I think one time we went to NewYork and instead of talking to
(05:22):
me, he would put on businesspodcasts.
This was completely new.
I had never consumed aneducational podcast before.
But he told me that thesepodcasts had made him successful
.
And he was successful, made alot of money.
That's what I was focused on atthe time.
That was the lens through whichI saw success at least, and so
(05:44):
I had about an hour commute thatsummer, where I was living, to
and from this internship, and soI started to listen to a lot of
podcasts, and all of theseshows followed a similar format.
There was a host like you, ryan, who would interview a guest
like me today, which is fun howit's come full circle.
You, ryan, who would interviewa guest like me today, which is
(06:07):
fun how it's come full circle,and the guest would talk about
what they've done to becomesuccessful.
And so many of those peoplegave at least like a little bit
of credit to the books that theywere reading or had read, or a
lot of credit.
And so here I am every singleday listening to people give
credit to books, yet I'm notwilling to read them.
I mean, that's kind of goofy,and so I just.
(06:29):
I think the original motivationwas that I just sort of got hit
with the realization that if I'mchoosing not to read these
books, I'm choosing to liveunder my potential, and that was
a scary place to be.
I'm not willing to replicatethe behaviors of the people that
I want to be like.
So that was sort of the originstory.
(06:50):
And then, to go a little bitdeeper, I'll just finish by
saying that at that time in mylife I was operating from a
place of ego on one side of thespectrum that would represent
itself at the expense of otherpeople.
And so towards the end of highschool and definitely throughout
my college experience, I wouldsort of like all eyes on me,
(07:13):
like it had to.
I had to have the attention, Ihad to be the coolest guy in the
room, I had to be throwingaround the most weight in the
gym, I had to be the whatever.
But then, on the other side ofthe spectrum, I had a lot of
insecurity issues, whichprobably drove a lot of the ego
behaviors.
But I was very insecure aroundmy ability to communicate
(07:36):
effectively and I was veryinsecure about what I was going
to do post-college because I'min business school yet I don't
understand the language of moneyor investing or personal
finance.
I had no financial literacy andso I'd shy away from these
conversations and it created aversion of me who would just get
(07:57):
that feeling in your gut andwalk away from conversations
that could help me.
And so I started to readpersonal finance books and very
I was able to remove a lot ofthat insecurity.
And then I was able to readbooks on communication and sales
and those sorts of subjects andalso remove insecurities.
(08:17):
And then I started to readabout service and purpose and
remove ego.
So that was a long introductionto your question.
We can go a few layers deeperif you want, but that's sort of
the origin story.
And you know, I went to a localBarnes and Noble, picked up a
few good books and the rest ishistory.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
I love that, so, and what I love about books, and I
started right around college aswell with as I started studying
these leaders and being on thismission to break this systemic
trend of alcoholism in my family, and so I started looking at,
well, what makes the people likeWarren Buffett and Richard
(08:56):
Branson and Tony Robbins andElon Musk?
What's the secret sauce?
What are they doing?
That's different.
What's the secret sauce?
What are they doing?
That's different.
And one of the common threads Ifound, besides writing their
goals down, is they arevoracious readers.
They are constantly consuminginformation and by doing that,
(09:18):
we all possess the power tocreate the person that we want
to become.
And books give us those answers, those tools, those solutions
to create those transformations.
You were somebody that what Iheard is you would shy away from
(09:43):
conversations and thencompensate for that by well,
maybe I can't talk businessabout with you, but I can look
like the toughest, meanest,strongest guy in the room.
Is that accurate?
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Yeah, absolutely Especially in small groups.
Never in a big group, but yeah,definitely in small groups.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Yeah.
So what was that first book orfirst set of books that you
picked up?
And when you made that choiceto start reading books, the
first few pages that you flippedthrough, did you ever have this
?
Or moments of man, screw this,Like this isn't, I'm not
(10:25):
changing fast enough or were youhooked right off, right off the
bat?
Speaker 1 (10:30):
The first book was Rich Dad, poor Dad, by Robert
Kiyosaki, and I was hooked rightoff the bat because the book
was solving a problem.
And right in the beginning ofthe book he says something that
sort of I think it hits home fora lot of people and it's one of
the reasons that's a lot ofpeople's first book.
He says that the subject ofmoney is not taught in the
(10:53):
public education system and, asa result, you learn at home, and
so poor and middle-class kidslearn poor and middle-class
money habits by observing theirparents, and only the rich kids,
the select few, grew up in arich home.
They learned the rich moneyhabits, and so the wealth gap
continues to separate itself.
(11:13):
And right there I'm like, yeah,I don't talk about money at
home.
Now, I love my parents andthey've done very well.
I actually have like theperfect parents, but we didn't
talk about money.
And so here's this guy, RobertKiyosaki, who's condensed
decades of lived experience inthe worlds of finance and
investing and millions ofdollars worth of experience into
(11:36):
a book that costs $20 and onlytakes a few hours to read.
And so, yeah, right off the batI was hooked and I just, you
know, I didn't really know whatI was doing.
I sort of wish that I read Riseof the Reader first.
It's kind of why I wrote thebook for people, so that they
can get more out of the booksthey're reading.
But yeah, I was in there, man,and I think sometimes people do
(12:00):
tend to turn away from the worldof personal development if they
choose the wrong book first,and that's a problem.
Like if you choose a book thatwill solve a problem or help you
build a skillset that you needto create for a job or something
like, you'll stay in there,you'll be hooked and thank
goodness that's what happenedfor me.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Yeah.
So right book, right time.
Rise of the Reader is the rightbook that listeners should pick
up a copy of.
Here In the book you detail howwe can choose the right book
and really you provide aninventory that we can take
(12:42):
before we just go to BarnesNoble aimlessly and pick the
book that has the coolest coverand maybe one quote from a New
York Times or Wall StreetJournal review.
So how do we pick the rightbook?
Speaker 1 (12:58):
Yeah, I think there are a series of questions, like
the personal inventory, that youcan go through, and the first
one is have you recentlyexperienced any pain related to
a problem that could have beenavoided if you had understood
something more efficiently ormaybe had developed a skill set
to help you overcome thatproblem?
And so if a book can help yousolve a pain, you'll stick with
(13:21):
the book right.
That's the example that we justtalked about.
I'm experiencing all of thisinsecurity in and around my
college experience because Idon't understand the subject of
money.
So now I'm going to read a bookthat will give me that language
so that I don't have to beinsecure anymore.
It'll remove a lot of that fear, a lot of that pain, and help
(13:41):
me for the rest of my life,because we're all forced to play
the game of money right, and ifyou don't understand it, you'll
get left behind.
You don't have to bematerialistic to understand the
importance of food, water,shelter, and so that's a great
first question.
There are a number of otherquestions.
Will you be attending an eventwhere there's going to be a
speaker, and if you read theirbook, could you have a better
(14:04):
understanding of who they'regoing to be.
Are there any idols of yoursthat have had books written
about them or have they writtenbooks?
You know it's a great place tostart as well, because
oftentimes biographies orautobiographies they play like a
movie in your mind and you'llstay in the content and continue
to read because you're reallyinterested in the person that's
(14:25):
being written about or theperson that wrote the book.
You know popular books they'repopular for a reason, and I
think that the longer a book hasbeen around and the more copies
it's sold, the more lives it'simpacted.
And you know, books don't sellfor no reason.
They sell because they'rehelping people or they're super
(14:46):
entertaining in the world offiction, but nonfiction books
they only do well if they'reuseful.
And so those are some places tostart.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Now digging a little deeper.
What if it doesn't always comefrom pain, like I would envision
for you and in your inventoryprocess, it likely stems more
from okay, what problems do Iwant to solve or where do I want
to take my business next?
(15:16):
Can you dive a little deeperinto your personal inventory and
what's that decision processlike for you?
Speaker 1 (15:22):
now, in the last few books that you've read, yeah,
there's being reactionary, sosolving a problem and then
there's being proactive, soreactive or proactive.
And I think a proactive examplecould be who do you want to
become in the future and what'sthe difference between where you
are now and where you'd like tobe?
You know, what skill sets canthat person implement to improve
(15:44):
the likelihood of whateversuccess means to them?
And so, as far as my businessis concerned, I'll give you a
legit example.
Last year I last year withBookThinkers we were growing,
but very slowly.
We had experienced somebottlenecks with our average
deal size and really theservices that we could offer our
(16:07):
authors, and so I thought Ineed to improve our average deal
size.
How am I going to do that?
What additional services shouldI be offering?
I mean, I didn't even knowwhere to start with that.
So I started to ask around anda friend of mine recommended a
book $100 million offers.
Now, this is not a reactivequestion, this is a proactive
(16:29):
question.
I want to grow and I think theaverage service, the average
deal size, is hurting ourbusiness right now and I want to
improve that right.
So I'm being proactive.
And somebody recommended $100million offers by Alex Hormozy.
So I get a copy of $100 millionoffers.
I set an intention for the bookthat I'd like to find and
implement at least two newstrategies that can help me
(16:51):
build bigger services atBookThinkers by the end of next
week, or something like that.
That intention for the book issomething we could talk about.
I like to follow the SMART goalframework specific, measurable,
attainable, actionable, written, relevant, time bound.
So I'm going through the bookand there's an exercise about
journaling every single way thatyou could possibly help your
(17:13):
ideal client, and so I'm goingthrough these exercises.
He has questions that you canask that can help you think
bigger and outside of the box.
I'm going through everything andI find a service and it's 10
times bigger than my averagedeal size in terms of revenue
right off the bat, and I thinkyou know what this might be.
It.
I mean I journaled,whiteboarded, for hours and I
(17:36):
found something that I thoughtwas interesting and I started
pitching it to existingcustomers that hey, would this
be useful to you?
Have you ever thought abouttrying this?
Have you ever thought abouttrying this?
And the first person that Icalled literally said to me hey,
nick, I have on the back of anapkin on my desk I have call
Nick about and then listed thatservice and so it was sort of
(17:57):
just this awesome moment thatsolidified or sort of reinforced
that I was on the right path.
But that's an example of beingproactive and trying to close
the gap between where you areand who you know you can become,
and for me that's happened athousand different ways, but
that's just an example forbusiness revenue.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Yeah, I love that book, by the way $100 million
offers, and that's one that Ioften talk about with my team in
my corporate role.
We're standing up a fairly neworganization at the Boeing
company and with that there aresome folks who are still a
little skeptical as to thebenefits of the organization.
(18:37):
Why should we utilize you?
I often tell the team thatwe're here.
Let's make offers so great thatthese people would be silly not
to utilize this team, becausewe provide services XYZ, and
(18:57):
when you come visit us, here arethe benefits that you can
expect to see after you go backinto your normal role.
It's so interesting that booksor people that we often look at
I talked to my mentor one of mymentors about this a lot.
(19:18):
When we see or hear somebodythat sounds really impactful or
admirable, I often ask thequestion I wonder what chapter
of what book that person isspeaking from right now.
Because books give us so muchpowerful language and ideas and
things that again you extractedsomething from an amazing book,
(19:41):
a hundred million dollar offers,and now the result of that was
what?
What was your average dealprice?
Where'd you?
How much did you bump it up?
Speaker 1 (19:54):
Back then our average deal size was was about1,000
per customer and we bumped it upafter a little bit of iteration
to $10,000.
And so it was a 10x.
And the promise that, as youknow, alex sort of makes in his
book and in the content is that20% of your customers are
willing to pay five times more.
(20:14):
And if you charge five timesmore, you'll have the same
revenue, but you'll only beworking with 20% of the
customers more.
And if you charge five timesmore, you'll have the same
revenue, but you'll only beworking with 20% of the
customers, and so you can spendmore time and attention and
provide a better service.
So we sort of did that samething but doubled it, and now
it's changed.
I mean, I've continued to gobigger and better and follow
Alex's recommendations andBookThinkers is continuing to
(20:37):
grow as a result of that bookand it's.
It's also so funny that youmentioned like I wonder what
chapter of what book they'rethey're talking from, because so
much of Alex's content comesfrom other books that I've read
and he'll make reference of themsometimes.
But uh, you know I can, you canfollow the chain backwards in
time you can follow the chainbackwards in time.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Yeah, Like if you had to summarize Nick Hutchison in
a few books.
Like, what books would you sayrepresent you the most?
Like if, if, if someone, forpeople that know me really well,
they would tell you atomicomicHabits Can't Hurt Me and
Everybody Matters.
By Bob Chapman.
(21:24):
Like if I had to pick three.
But, thinking about that, whatbooks speak through you the most
?
Speaker 1 (21:30):
Yeah, it's a cool question.
I haven't thought about thisbefore.
The Four-Hour Workweek by TimFerriss, both professionally and
personally, the Daily Stoic byRyan Holiday and Stephen
Hanselman, and Built to Serve byEvan Carmichael those are the
(21:56):
ones that come to mind rightthere.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
And what elements from them?
Just to extract a few fromfour-hour work, week and daily,
stoic and built to serve like,make up who you are, yeah this
is a cool question.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
I might have to steal this one or borrow it.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
Hey, well, look here, you know, it's not just what
chapter of what book is somebodyspeaking from, but who is
speaking through that person?
Yes, absolutely.
And you know, and even thethings that I hear on podcasts.
Other podcast hosts like hmm, Ilike that one, I really like
the most recent one you had withAnton Gunn.
(22:36):
He's a local guy here inCharleston, so take it.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
I look forward to hearing it.
But, yeah, continue.
Well, all right, I'll do alittle bit of a deep dive.
So the four hour work week byTim Ferriss why?
I said personally andprofessionally, so we'll go
personally first.
I read that book and I realizedthat each of us is capable of
designing a life that's uniquelyfulfilling to us.
Tim says that reality isnegotiable.
He says that the new rich, theydon't value money, they value
(23:07):
time and mobility.
And so when I read that book, Iwas working a corporate
location dependent nine to five,and within a few months maybe
about six months, I had takenthat job totally remote, and I
was traveling internationallywhile working and I started to
(23:28):
develop this love forinternational travel that I
still have today.
My wife and I have been to 25countries together over the last
five years, sometimes for up toa few months at a time, and so
if Nick isn't the book guy, he'sthe travel guy.
But professionally, Tim talksabout the art of delegation
(23:50):
optimizing a task and then youknow, eliminating it, delegating
it, systemizing it, whateverthe case is and I've done that
in my business I mean, I do sortof a quarterly energy audit
where I look back at a week'sworth of activity and I try to
say did that activity give meenergy?
(24:12):
Was it neutral or did it takeenergy from me?
And I try to eliminate ordelegate or automate that was
the word I was looking forbefore Anything that's neutral
or takes energy from me.
I only want to do things thatmake me happy.
And I only want to do things.
And, by the way, that doesn'tmean you can eliminate
everything.
That means you have to findsomebody else that it brings
(24:33):
energy to, because that'srelative.
So I love the four hour workweek.
I travel because of that bookand I built a remote business uh
, that brings me energy as aresult of that book Number.
And Tim Ferris is like myspirit animal from a distance.
He doesn't know who I am, but Ilove everything he does.
Um, number two, yeah, not yetExactly Um.
(24:57):
So that was the four-hour workweek.
What was the second book that Isaid?
I don't even remember.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
The second one was Daily Stoic.
Speaker 1 (25:05):
Yes, the Daily Stoic.
So I was originally gifted myfirst copy of the Daily Stoic by
Ryan Holiday from my friendAlec and he said, hey, let's
read this every single day inthe morning, jump on the phone
and just chat with each otherfor a couple minutes about it.
And we held that routine for alittle while.
It never really took off, but Icontinued reading the book
(25:26):
myself.
The subtitle of that book issomething like 366 Meditations
on Wisdom, Perseverance and theArt of Living, and each day you
just read one page.
And each day you just read onepage.
So it starts with a quote froman old Stoic philosopher,
(25:47):
somebody like Marcus Aurelius orSeneca or Epictetus, and then
Ryan Holiday will take thatquote and he'll expand on it and
make it relevant to today'slife.
So in that book I learned allabout this beautiful, actionable
philosophy of Stoicism, and Iwent on to read another hundred
books related to it, or 25 booksrelated to it, and there are
certain subjects that I'vetattooed on my body Memento Mori
(26:07):
, we're all going to die.
Amor fati, the love of one'sfate, Ataraxia, stillness.
You know, these are all thingsthat I love so much that I
tattooed them on me and they'vechanged the way that I live.
They've made me much morelogical, less emotional, and you
know you mentioned can't hurtme Like Goggins is such a stoic
(26:32):
human.
He has total control over hisbody.
I mean, he gets a littleemotional sometimes but he's
able to control himself and it'sit's such a beautiful thing
he's.
He's a great representation, Ithink, of what stoicism can look
like in a human.
And then the last book that Isaid was built to serve.
I'll try to be brief, but inthat book Evan says your purpose
(26:55):
comes from your pain, which issomething we talked about before
.
Your purpose comes from yourpain, and so so many of us try
to serve our younger self.
I've written this book, Rise ofthe Reader, to serve the
younger version of myself, whowanted to close the gap between
where he was and who he knew hecould become.
And he figured it out, you know.
(27:17):
But if he had read this bookfirst, he would have figured it
out a lot faster and and gonethrough less hurdles.
And that's what's beautifulabout reading about other
people's experiences.
Like, failure is an amazingteacher, but other people's
failure is also a great teacher,and you can avoid some of the
pain yourself from the comfortof your living room, you know
(27:38):
navigate obstacles moreefficiently.
But back to the book.
Your purpose comes from yourpain.
Prior to reading that, I had areally difficult time
articulating my purpose, who Iwanted to serve, how I was
serving them, and Evan helped meanswer every one of those
questions.
And today service to othersmeans so much more to me than it
did back when I was full of egoand had to be the center of
(28:00):
attention.
So Evan sort of connected allthose dots and I suppose that's
why I answered that questionthat way.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Yeah, that's beautiful and I love of each was
profound and I love the builtto serve.
I believe that the best gift wecan give is to give back, and
(28:30):
even you can see right behind methat of the things that I
preach, help one person.
If we want to change the world,preach.
Help one person.
If we want to change the world,start by helping one person,
and that could be by giving themone book, because then you
never know the transformationthat's going to occur in that
one person, and then imagine allthe lives they impact.
(28:50):
So just by helping one person,you'll never really know the
true impact of it, because thenthat person can go on to help
five people, 10 people.
If we look at this, even look atyou, nick.
You've read a few books and nowyou're reaching millions of
people, and it's the smallestactions that have the greatest
(29:19):
impact in many cases.
Going back to what youmentioned about selecting a book
, you said something interestingthat I haven't heard before uh,
when before you started ahundred million dollar offers
and that that's that you set anintention prior to reading the
book and, if I heard youcorrectly going back, you picked
(29:42):
up that book with twointentions that are rather the
intention of adopting two newselling strategies.
For simple terms.
What is that process foradopting an intention before
reading a book, so as we thinkabout picking up the next book
(30:06):
and having one more hack toretain some more knowledge from
that book.
What is that process?
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Sure.
Well, I just did a fun littleunboxing thing for the book
thinkers instagram, so I have astack of new books next to me.
I haven't read any of these yet, but I'll just talk about the
process from scratch.
So here's a book called amazonads for authors unlock your full
advertising potential.
And what I would do is I'd readthe title, I'd read the
(30:38):
subtitle, I'd read the back ofthe book, I'd look at the table
of contents and then I'd askmyself what's the goal for this
book?
What problem is it solving?
What skill is it helping meimprove?
What's the intention here?
And as I start to build theintention, I do want to follow
the SMART goal framework, soI'll just kind of skip ahead
(31:00):
here for a second.
A good intention for a book likethis might be to find and
implement at least twoadvertising strategies on Amazon
that I can implement by the endof next week.
That's specific, it'smeasurable too.
It's attainable, actionable.
It's not like I need to make amillion bucks through
(31:21):
advertising next week.
I'm just looking to find andimplement two strategies it's
written down on the inside cover, which I'll talk about, and
it's relevant to my life, andit's time bound.
I want to do it by the end ofnext week, if you can, then add
a little bit of extra flavor andsay, because, if you can, then
add a little bit of extra flavorand say, because, because I
know my book can serve mycommunity, because I know that
(31:45):
it's not the best written booksthat perform well, it's the best
selling books that perform well.
Because I wish I had access toRise of the Reader when I was
younger.
And so you add a little bit offlavor.
Then you write that intentionon the inside cover of the
reader when I was younger, andso you add a little bit of
flavor.
Then you write that intentionon the inside cover of the book
so this one's fresh, because Ihaven't read it yet.
But I'll write that here andI'll read it each and every time
(32:09):
I crack open this book and reada few more pages, because then
my brain can filter for thosetwo actionable strategies.
If you just read a book randomly, you're going to find a bunch
of random things that excite you.
But if you read a book withintention, you're going to find
exactly what you're looking forand you're far more likely to
take action on something that'sspecifically related to your
(32:31):
intention than you are somethingrandom.
A little bit of extra contextOur brains have this cool
function called an RAS, areticular activating system.
It's like the brain's filter.
You say yellow car.
You walk outside, you see ayellow car.
It's not random, they werealways there, but you're
filtering for them for the firsttime.
(32:52):
And so if you filter for twostrategies that you can
implement to improve youradvertising on Amazon by the end
of next week, you'll filter forthose when you're reading
through the book.
Last thing I'll mention isreading and note-taking are two
totally separate activities anddon't multitask.
(33:12):
So when I'm going through thebook and I'm looking for those
two things to find and implement, I'll highlight them quickly.
And I'm looking for those twothings to find and implement,
I'll highlight them quickly andthen when I'm done with the
chapter or sometimes done withthe book, I'll go back and I'll
rewrite them, reflect on them,think about them Totally
separate activity from reading.
You don't want to ruin yourmomentum and at the end of this
book I might have like 30 or 40ways that I can improve my
(33:36):
advertising on Amazon and I'lllook through that list and I'll
say what 20% of these activitiescan lead to 80% of the change
that I'm looking to make.
I'll try to narrow it down,make it more realistic to take
action.
So it might not be two, but itwill be at least two and that's
sort of the process for buildingan intention and the reason
(33:57):
behind it.
So you talk about systems likeI try to be very systematic with
my approach so that it'srepeatable and it's manageable
and I can look for opportunitiesfor improvement.
We all know that Peter Druckerline like what's not being
measured can't be managed, andso you've got to measure
something so that you can manageit that you can manage it.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
I absolutely love that.
That's brilliant.
And thinking through that, andas you were saying that I was
thinking through, well, what doI do before I pick up a book?
And I'd like to believe I'mfairly methodical.
Don't just pick up a coollooking cover fairly methodical.
Don't just pick up a coollooking cover Typically it's off
of research and reviews orsomeone recommended it and I'll
(34:48):
I'll grab a book, for instance,the.
The last book I just purchasedis a Ryan holiday book and, if
I'm not mistaken, um, failure isthe way or the obstacle is the
way, and I purchased that bookwith.
I purchased that book because,from what I read and understand,
(35:10):
it talks about a lot of peoplethat we often, that we admire,
and how obstacles really shapetheir way of being and they're
the reason why they are wherethey are today.
And in a lot of my speeches Italk about how the greatest gift
I ever received was those earlyobstacles that you and I were
(35:33):
talking about before we started.
And it's this podcast existsbecause of coming up through an
alcoholic family and breakingthat systemic trend of
alcoholism.
So I figured, well, if I readthis book, then I'll have some
better language to create in myspeeches about other notable
(35:54):
people who have convertedobstacles into triumph, but I
haven't actually written thatintention down.
So I love that practice and youtake my questions, I'm taking
your intention practice.
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Yeah, do it, man.
So I think a good intention foryou might be to defined and
familiarize yourself with atleast two other people's stories
that you can reference whilebeing on other podcasts or
speaking by the end of next weekor something like that.
And you might find 10 or 15examples, and then you'll look
at the list and you'll go whattwo or three of these, what 20%,
(36:35):
really drive home the point andexcite me?
And, man, you follow thatsystem, you're going to hit the
nail on the head, you're goingto find the two, you're going to
familiarize yourself with themand the book will have done its
service for you.
Speaker 2 (36:51):
I love it.
That is awesome, nick.
That is awesome, and I alsolove the reference to reticular
activating system.
Is I had to guess maybe youbecame familiar with that or
became re-familiarized from itby reading Power of One More by
Ed Milet.
I know you had referenced thatrecently on Measure of Success
(37:13):
podcast, but he references theRAS, the R-A-S, and a lot of
people talk about it, but it'sextremely powerful.
Now there are a lot of booksbehind you, there's a lot of
books behind me and more behindthis banner that I have up For
people that are.
(37:34):
People can be well-read andoften not retain much knowledge
from books.
I love this Instagram post youmade where you're given a speech
and you reference who's readthe Seven Habits, and I'm sure
almost every hand in that roomwent up and I'm sure a lot of
ears are perking up right nowbecause a lot of people are
(37:57):
familiar with that book andprobably have read it.
And then you asked who can namethe seven habits of highly
effective people and there wasonly one hand that went up in
that room and there may be notso many ears perked up right now
that are listening to this.
So reading gives us knowledgeand power, but what are some
(38:18):
best practices to actuallyretain the knowledge that we are
gaining, or should be gaining,in each of these books that
we're picking up?
Speaker 1 (38:28):
I think the fundamental truth here is that
repetition leads to retention,and there are a whole bunch of
different directions to go offof that fundamental truth, but
repetition leads to retention.
You have to strengthen a neuralconnection, a new pathway, so
(38:50):
that it doesn't dissolve overtime, and you have to access it
frequently enough to sort oflike cement that connection and
be able to access theinformation when you really need
it for it to become part ofyour subconscious.
So, going back to reading abook, I like to rewrite my
biggest takeaways from the book,first on a piece of paper, on a
(39:11):
yellow notepad, and the act ofwriting the information down a
second time.
That's a form of repetition,and you're using other senses.
You're feeling the pen, you'refeeling the paper, you're
analyzing the book with yourother hand, and then I like to
rewrite my biggest takeaway, assort of the 20% that I'd like to
(39:32):
take action on, into an onlinenotebook like Evernote.
Again, now I'm typing.
It's a different form ofrepetition and I like to plug my
biggest action items into myactivity tracker Again, another
interviewing the author.
And so by having to repurposewhat I've learned, summarize it
(40:06):
and then teach it.
That's another form ofrepetition.
It's also a form of reworkingthe information so that I can
talk about it in a simplifiedway.
It's another form of repetition.
Repetition leads to retentionand I'm not purposely repeating
that so many times, but it isfunny that it's happening.
Repetition leads to retention.
(40:26):
I want everybody to retain thefact that that's happening and
it would be a little bitdifficult to explain, but it
essentially says that over time,the likelihood of you being
able to recall information goesdown unless you review it again.
(40:49):
And each time you review theinformation, the time that you
can retain it increases.
So by systematically reviewinginformation daily for a while,
then weekly, then monthly, thenbimonthly, quarterly, biannually
, annually, you're far morelikely to retain that
(41:10):
information.
So I think that's the core of it.
If you can add a little bit ofemotion, if you can take action
on the information, yourretention goes way up.
If you teach it to other people, it goes way up.
But it's all about repetitionand try not to make that
practice dry.
You know, speak things out loud, speak them with confidence,
(41:31):
teach them to other people,bring it up at the dinner table,
talk about it with friends,host an accountability group,
teach your peers, have a podcast.
All of those are forms ofrepetition, and repetition leads
to retention.
Speaker 2 (41:47):
So what I heard is, with the books we're reading,
the pages that we're scanningthrough, extract that and then
disperse it again in a varietyof different formats, whether
it's I'm telling you something,or we've even thrown out a few
things from from books thatwe've learned from here and
(42:10):
we've we've taken some reps juston this in this discussion
right Between a hundred milliondollar offers between the three
books that you mentioned andwhat you gained from it.
Now you're even more likely, ormore able, rather, to share
more learnings from Daily Stoic,from 4-Hour Workweek, from
(42:32):
Built to Serve, from Can't HurtMe, from Atomic Habits.
So this is live examples.
We've actually you and I havehave created a live example here
, but I love that that.
Write it down, share it, talkit, look at it again.
I started making flashcards formy favorite books and so when I
(42:55):
go back and look at it, I'm like, oh, you know what?
Maybe I'm not going to read thewhole thing right now, but what
are the four to five things IfI open up this cover that I can,
that I that I want to know, orthat I would want someone else
to know about this book, evenbefore I, maybe even before I
just want to recommend it tosomebody, so I love that that
your repetition leads toretention tension.
(43:27):
Now, nick, ultimately notultimately, but when someone
purchases Rise of the Reader andthey read through it, what is
the transformation or outcomethat you ultimately want people
to experience, or that youenvision people to experience,
after they finish the book?
Speaker 1 (43:45):
I hope number one that people realize they're
capable of doing more, ofbecoming more, of serving more,
of earning more, of beinghealthier, of being happier, of
being more fulfilled.
We all have more potential thanwe give ourselves credit for.
More fulfilled we all have morepotential than we give
ourselves credit for.
We live in a society that likesto put a lot of constraints,
(44:05):
and so I hope this book frees upthe minds of everybody that
chooses to read it, and that'san exciting thing when you can
position that the right way.
You know, I'm excited each andevery day that I'm capable of
doing more, and I love to makeprogress against that future
self.
Serve my future self.
Number two I'd like people torealize that books are a great
(44:27):
vehicle for closing that gapbetween where you are today and
that ever-growing version of youthat you're capable of creating
, and I'd also like people torealize that if they choose to
live under their potential, theyrisk living a life full of
regret, and that's a really sadplace to be.
I mentioned it so many times,I'll mention it again.
(44:50):
One of my favorite books the TopFive Regrets of the Dying by
Bronnie Ware.
She's an end-of-life palliativecare nurse.
She spends the last few monthsof people's lives with them and
through conversation she learnsthat most people end up
regretting the lives thatthey've lived.
And the number one regret isthat they regret living a life
(45:12):
based on other people'sexpectations of them and not
what fulfills them as a uniqueindividual.
Working a nine to five just tomake money in a job that you
hate because other people tellyou to do it, that type of thing
.
So I'd like people to walk awayfrom the book, understanding A
they have more potential.
B books can close that gap.
And C if they don't close thatgap, they might end up
(45:35):
regretting it.
And the pain of discipline likethis is a Goggins type thing.
The pain of discipline weighs alot more than the pain or sorry
.
The pain of discipline weighs alot less than the pain of
regret, and you don't want toend up regretting that you
didn't try more, do more,experiment more, live a little
bit more.
So those are kind of the threemain things.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
Beautiful man.
What's present for me is I hearthat this book really allows
you to see what power we trulypossess, because I believe that
the only person that can reallystop us or really the only thing
in this world, nick, that canstop any of us is ourselves.
(46:19):
Nothing else thing in thisworld, nick, that can stop any
of us as ourselves.
Nothing else.
And your book, and even in thisconversation, I believe it to
be true for people to see that,wow, by making these choices
about the type of knowledge I'mgoing to consume and seek out, I
can create this person that Ihave in my head, that maybe
(46:43):
before I thought there's no wayI could be that person.
That's only meant for thesepeople that grew up in this
neighborhood or had thisupbringing or so on and so forth
.
And your book is something thatallows people to see that, no,
you can.
You can be whatever you want tobe.
And also your last point andwhen I tell people, my greatest
(47:07):
fear is is meeting the personthat I could have become you
know we go through this life andmaybe you work all the way up
the corporate chain and then,depending on on what you believe
in you, you're about to enterthe gates of heaven, or you're
going wherever, wherever youbelieve the universe is going to
take you, and then you meetthis person that was really
(47:30):
inside you the whole time, like,oh, you were supposed to launch
this platform that reachedmillions of people, that showed
them the power of books and howto retain knowledge and and and
how to create this, thislifestyle, that that you always
dreamed about, but you decidedto play it small and do this,
(47:53):
and so I love your, your way ofbeing, I love your mission and
what you're doing with this book, and can't wait for people to
pick up a copy.
Nick, what's one step that Ican take today to become a more
diligent reader that will allowme to unlock my greatest powers?
Speaker 1 (48:17):
Build an accountability group with your
most motivated friends and meetwith them on a weekly basis to
talk about the books you'rereading and the action that
you'd like to take.
By having other people hold youaccountable, you're far more
likely to take better action,and we are the average of the
five people that we spend themost time with, so you might as
(48:39):
well grow with your friendsinstead of grow away from your
friends.
Speaker 2 (48:44):
Beautiful and last one, and likely the most
difficult one, nick, what's onebook besides yours that we
should all read to enhance ourmindset?
Speaker 1 (49:06):
The Go-Giver by Bob Berg and John David Mann.
That book teaches the readerthe reciprocal relationship
between giving and receiving.
I think so many of us fall onone side of that coin or the
other, but there's a greatmiddle point.
For so much of my life I took,took, took.
I was a go-getter and I wasn'tgiving.
And then I went far too much inthe other direction, of course,
corrected a little bit too much, and I was just trying to give,
(49:29):
give, give and I wasn't open toreceiving.
But there's a beautiful balancebetween both of them and that's
outlined in that beautiful book.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
I love that book.
It is beautiful.
Had the opportunity to have Bobon the podcast and he's.
He's amazing.
Nick, how do we keep up withyou and the book and all the
amazing things that you're doing?
Speaker 1 (49:52):
You can check out book thinkerscom or book
thinkers on Instagram and I'llthrow this out to your audience.
If anybody wants to DM me andtell me about a problem they
have or a skill they want toimprove, I'll make a book
recommendation and follow upwith you and see if you've read
it, and book matchmaking is likemy favorite thing to do.
Speaker 2 (50:12):
I love it.
Well, everything will be linkedin the notes.
Folks Pick up Rise of theReader and support Nick and tune
into BookThinkers.
He's got some of the Reader andsupport Nick and tune into
BookThinkers.
He's got some of the mostpowerful, inspirational thought
leaders and authors in the worldthat are appearing on his show
every week, and a lot of whatwe're talking about in the books
(50:35):
we're referencing are inabundance on Nick's podcast, and
when you check out Nick andRise of the Reader, you are
going to have the tools to wintoday.
Thanks so much for tuning in.
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