155. Igniting Change Through the Power of Literature with Nick Hutchison

💭 How has reading a book changed your life today?

Nick Hutchinson, the brains behind BookThinkers, joins the Leadership Project Podcast to discuss how listening to a business podcast during his everyday commute to internship propelled him to start his own business that bridges authors with lifelong learners.

In our conversation with Nick, we examine the journey of igniting change through literature by integrating reading into your everyday life, prioritizing content that resonates and applying the lessons learned. We discuss strategies for selecting impactful reads, like sifting through Amazon reviews for genuine insights, and the simple yet life-changing swap of scrolling time for reading time. It's about choosing quality over quantity and letting books solve specific problems or develop the skills you need.

Download this episode to discover how consuming literature can dramatically fuel growth and success.

Time Codes:
0:00 Introduction
5:33 How BookThinkers Started
14:14 SMART Goal Framework
17:30 Choosing Which Books to Read
22:23 Time Management Techniques
28:17 Navigating The Downsides of the Self-Help Industry
31:24 Confirmation Bias
37:19 Rapid Round

🌐 Connect with Nick:
• Website: http://www.bookthinkers.com/ & https://nickhutch.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bookthinkers/
• Get a customized book recommendation from Nick by sending him a direct message on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bookthinkers/ & https://www.instagram.com/nicklovesbooks/

📚 You can purchase Nick's book at Amazon:
• Rise of the Reader: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CGXZ5WJ9/

Book Mentioned:
The 4-Hour Workweek Book by Tim Ferriss

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:26

Hey everyone and welcome back to The Leadership Project. I'm greatly honored today to be joined by Nick Hutchison. Nick is the driving force behind an organization called BookThinkers and BookThinkers. com, an organization that helps authors to market their books and maximize their impact. He's also the author of a book called Rise of the Reader, and that's what I wanna unpack today. He's a lifelong learner and, as leaders, we are lifelong learners, and there's lots of material out there. There's self-help, there's leadership books, there's all kinds of things that can help us learn and grow, but only if you're very intentional and you have an approach to how you might get the most out of those books.

Mick Spiers: 1:08

So today's focus is going to be on learning and growth, but how we use books to help us learn and grow in the most effective way, and I'm really looking forward to today's discussion. I'm sure I'm going to learn a lot, and I hope that you will as well. So, Nick, without any further ado, I'd love it if you could describe a little bit about the role that books have played in your life. I want to know the backstory. How did you get to this point where you're such a voracious consumer of content, and how it's changed your life and what led you to form BookThinkers and think about what you do today.

Nick Hutchison: 1:44

Well, thank you for the opportunity, Mick. What might surprise anybody that knows me today is that when I was growing up, I was not much of a reader. So, when I was young, I was more of the athlete stereotype, not much of the academic. I mean, you really couldn't even pay me to pay attention to a book when I was young. And that behavior, that attitude that I had carried all the way through my college experience as well. So going into my senior year of college, of university, I took an internship at a local software company and my boss, Kyle, he said something to me one day. He said, Nick, I know you commute about an hour each way in the car, and he said listen, listening to the same playlist, the same music for the 1000th time. It's not going to get you closer to where you want to be in life, but the right business podcast might.

Nick Hutchison: 2:30

Now, up until that point in my life, I thought I knew everything. I thought I was hot stuff. Like I said, you couldn't pay me to read a book and I certainly did not want to listen to two people talk about what they did to become successful on a business podcast. But what was interesting about Kyle was that he did embody the person that I wanted to become and he paid attention to these podcasts. So I thought I would give it a shot and, like I mentioned, I was commuting about an hour each way and so five days a week that's about 10 hours of listening time. So I was listening to 10 or 15 business podcasts per week, listening to how people became successful, and what was really interesting about those podcasts and about sort of the headspace that I was in at that time was that I noticed most of them were giving at least some credit for their success to the books that they were reading.

Nick Hutchison: 3:15

And, just like your show, Mick, a lot of people were talking about their favorite books or it was a question kind of in like a rapid fire end of a podcast or something.

Nick Hutchison: 3:23

So I started to hear the same names over and over and over again books like Rich Dad, poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki or the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R Covey, and so I started to take notice and I started to become familiar with this content, even though I still wasn't reading yet. And one day I just sort of realized that if I was deliberately choosing not to read these books which I was then. I was also deliberately choosing to live under my potential and as a very competitive sort of insecure young man that didn't sit well with me. So everything changed when I went to a local bookstore and I picked up about 10 books and I went back to that internship and I got to read for a couple hours every single day and I have not looked back since. So that's sort of the origin story for how I discovered my first couple of books. It came from podcasting and I was fortunate enough to read a lot during that first summer.

Mick Spiers: 4:16

There's three really interesting things I'm hearing there. Nick, I'd love to play back to you. The first one is a lot of people do want to learn and grow and they want to change their current situation, and one of the things that they'll often say is they don't have time. And yet here you are, using your one hour commute as that ability. You've got nothing else that you can do at that point. What can you be doing it? And sometimes it is fun to just listen to your favorite tunes on Spotify. Whatever the case may be not saying not to do that, but is that an opportunity to learn and grow during that one hour commute? So I thought that was great.

Mick Spiers: 4:48

The second one is you could see something in this mentor of yours that's given you this suggestion going. Well, you know, that's the kind of person that I want to be, and they do this. And not saying that you should mimic the behavior of those before you, but you can learn from the behavior of those before you. So if you want to be a transformed person, if you want to start being a little bit more like someone else, why don't you start picking up some of their habits? And the third one doubled down on that, because then I'm hearing you say that you're listening to these podcasts of successful people and they're saying the seven habits had an impact on their life and you're going well, why haven't I read it? And then you're putting that into action. So I love that. I love that that's where you're going with that. How does the journey then transform to book thinkers?

Nick Hutchison: 5:33

Well, I started reading these books and all of the books that I started reading. At first they were about personal finance and investing, financial literacy, and I went from shining away from those conversations at school I went to business school to leading those conversations my final year. So I graduate, I actually took a full-time job with that same software company, but I was rebellious by nature. I always knew that I wanted to start my own business, and so my friend Alec and I, we were looking for ways to start our own business, ways to create money, ways to make a million dollars, the whole thing. And we were taught in some of these early books that we were reading that businesses solve problems. That's how you get paid. And so we were always on the lookout for different problems that we were facing, and something that started to happen to me as I was reading all of these books and talking about them with everybody was I would get asked the same questions hey, what's a great book for leadership? Hey, what was your favorite takeaway from Rich Dad, poor Dad? Hey, do you think Seven Habits is worth reading? And so Alec and I my friend Alec and I were talking. We said what if we started a business where we just documented all of our favorite takeaways from these books, put them up on a website somewhere and then we could refer people to that platform so that we don't have to answer all these questions manually. So that was kind of idea number one. Then one of my childhood friends, derek, he sort of got involved and he said what if we allowed other people to document their favorite takeaways from these books and make recommendations and sort of build out their own book profile? So we went down that path for a little while. Again I'm working a full-time job. Bookthinkers is a side hustle and we're trying to build a website and a mobile application that allow people to organize their favorite takeaways from books and maybe an activity feed like a social media platform that's just focused on nonfiction and personal development books.

Nick Hutchison: 7:18

Long story short, that platform ended up failing. The company that was building the app went out of business. We spent tens of thousands of dollars, hundreds of hours of our time and a couple of years really trying to build this thing and it didn't work. But even though it was an obstacle, there was an opportunity that presented itself because, in anticipation of releasing this technology, I started reviewing books on social media. I started posting about the books I was reading so that when the app was available, I had an audience to sell it to. So, even though the app fell apart, the audience continued to grow. So my two friends, Derek and Alec that we all kind of went separate ways, they started to focus on different things.

Nick Hutchison: 7:56

And I continued to build this audience because, as I was recommending books, people would come back and they'd say, Nick, I found this book on your platform, I read it, I implemented it, it changed everything, it eliminated my problem or it helped me develop a skill, and I found that that was very fulfilling. I enjoyed being a book matchmaker and a point of value for people. Then authors started to reach out to me and they'd say, hey, Nick, I love your book reviews. Can I pay you to review my book? And I thought, well, this is interesting. Not what I set out to do, but maybe there's an opportunity to help authors promote and market their books. And so that's what I started to do. I had an audience of hungry lifelong learners. I had authors willing to pay me to promote their books right. So now I'm getting paid to read as a side hustle and as every good business book would tell you to do.

Nick Hutchison: 8:45

I started to follow up with these authors and ask hey, is there anything else that I can help with? I have a degree in marketing, I'm in this sales position and I'm becoming good at selling. I have this growing audience. Let me be of value to you as an author, understand the problems that you're facing promoting and marketing these books, and let me try some things out. Can we get you on podcasts? Can I help you create content? How do people sell books on social media? And of course, from there I continued to iterate and collect feedback and change things and try things out and fast forward a few years. We have what we are today. So that's what happened. We wanted to build an app. It failed. Something else came out of the rubble.

Mick Spiers: 9:25

Outstanding, Nick. There's three really interesting things I'm picking up there as well. I'd love to play it back to you in terms of what I took away from that. The first one is that businesses do solve problems. That's what they're there for and that's what they all differentiate themselves. If you can solve that problem better than everyone else, you're a good chance you're going to be a successful business. The second one is if people have asked you the same question a thousand times, the world is trying to tell you something. They're trying to tell you that people see you as a credible thought leader in that area. Maybe pay attention when people are. If the same question keeps on coming up and up, maybe where your expertise and your gift lies. And the third one was trial and error, Nick.

Mick Spiers: 10:04

So what I heard in that evolution and the pivots that you've made along that, I'm going to say it's still aligned to this purpose of making books impactful and trying to solve that problem. But you had to pivot a little bit along the way. And then some of those pivots have actually been building blocks, building on each other. So starting with the reader, then going to the author, then connecting readers and authors together and then marketing, and it's kind of all the story that builds, but I'm going to say in the general direction of the same North Star. It's not like you turned left at Albuquerque and did something completely else. It was little trial and error pivots to get you to the destination that you're trying to get to. How does that sit with you?

Nick Hutchison: 10:44

I think that's perfectly aligned with what happened. My North Star is that the right book at the right time can change your life, especially if you can implement it using the strategies that we'll talk about today. But whether I'm making that recommendation or I'm supporting the author behind the scenes and their book is getting to the right reader, the outcome is still the same. So it doesn't have to come directly from me, it doesn't have to come from my network or social media. I could place an author on a podcast or I could help them create a piece of content that goes viral. People buy their books, they read those books and their lives change. So I believe in the power of personal development. I believe these books condense decades of somebody else's lived experience into days of reading, and there's no better proposition than that. Yes, personal experience is amazing, but if you could learn from the experiences of somebody else, all of their trial and errors, it's almost like a shortcut in life. So, yeah, I would echo back exactly what you said and I feel aligned with it.

Mick Spiers: 11:40

Brilliant, all right. So books do change lives, if done well, and let's get into that topic now. So we don't do anything in the world, we don't change unless we have some intentional action and this ability to learn and grow. And books do change lives, like you said the condensation of someone's gifts into a well codified and articulated manuscript. I think you're absolutely right. Now I'm going to challenge you a little bit, but I know that you've got some answers to these things I'm going to say right. So if you look at things like Glass's Pyramid, people say that you remember 10% of what you read, 10%. If you add that with Ebbinghaus's kind of forgetting curve, three days later you've forgotten most of it anyway. Even the 10% that you did pick up you've then forgotten. How do you turn books into, instead of just a joyful pastime where you enjoyed the experience, into an impactful thing that changes your life, where you truly get the value out of what the author is trying to share with you?

Nick Hutchison: 12:35

I think it's by taking action, and that's what I optimize for and that's what I teach. There's a great Napoleon Hill quote that says action is the real measure of intelligence. So it's not our goal to remember everything that we've read, but it's our goal to take very specific action implement what we've read. But it's our goal to take very specific action implement what we've read and what we're emotionally connected to, and change something. And once that change has solved the problem or developed a skillset for you, of course you'll retain it. So when I first started I think I had this backwards I was trying to retain as much as I could, and I would use that forgetting curve and I would say let's repeat this information every single day for the first week, then every single week for a couple of months, then every month for a couple of years and then every year for the rest of existence. And I was trying to optimize for retaining the information, but only if you can implement something. Does it actually change your behavior? You can't just internalize it, you have to take action. And so what I started to optimize for instead of retention over time was taking action and implementing the information. And if you implement the information, you will retain it, and so nowadays that's the goal.

Nick Hutchison: 13:44

What I like to start with when I'm opening up a book is I like to set an intention for each book that I read, and that intention follows the SMART goal framework, which I know most people are familiar with, but for anybody that's not. We'll run through it quickly. So in my version of this framework, s stands for specific. You want to have a very specific goal for each book. Remember, it's all focused on action, not retention. M stands for measurable. You want your goal to be measurable. You want to know whether or not the book served its purpose. We don't want to live with ambiguity, we want to live with intention, and intention is measurable in my world. A stands for attainable. You want to set a realistic goal, not make $100 million by the end of the month, but maybe find and implement at least two things, something like that.

Nick Hutchison: 14:30

R stands for relevant. You want to be emotionally connected to the information. You want this book to solve a problem or develop a skill set. You want to be emotionally connected to it so that you stay with the course. And then T is time bound. You want to give yourself a deadline for implementing the three actions that you're going to take from the book.

Nick Hutchison: 14:49

And so when you put all this together let's say you're reading a book on leadership you would say something like find and implement at least two leadership strategies that I can use in my coaching practice by the end of October. And now you'll write that intention on the inside cover of the book, that smart goal, and you'll read it each time you go through a few more pages so that your brain can filter for those potential strategies to implement and then you can take action on them by the end of the month. So our goal right from the get-go is to implement information, not really to retain it. I mean, I definitely teach some retention strategies in the book because I think it's important to really internalize and understand information, but I think when you're first starting out the goal is to act, not retain. Does that kind of make sense?

Mick Spiers: 15:34

It's really good, Nick. Let me play it back, what I'm taking away. So knowledge doesn't change the world. Applied knowledge changed the world. That's the big difference, that action orientation. And then there's that intentionality that I'm not reading this book to say I read it. I'm reading this book to find the nuggets of gold that I'm going to go and put into action. And coming back to. I've mentioned Glass's Pyramid before. That's where we know learning and grow happens. It's experiential learning. So I'm not just going to read the book, I'm going to go and try what the book inspired me to try, right. So it's not knowledge, it's applied knowledge and it's action orientation.

Mick Spiers: 16:09

But I love the intentionality, Nick. I love the intentionality, Nick. I love the intentionality. It's not just leaving it to chance. You're even scribbling those little notes what am I trying to get out of this book? And using SMART goals I think that's very clever for that, including making sure that this is aligned to where you're trying to go. It's relatable to you and the person you want to become. Now that leads me to a key question, Nick. I don't know the count. It must be billions, but let's say hundreds of millions. There are millions and millions and millions of books on Amazon. One of my favorite things to do is to go to a bricks and mortar bookstore, by the way, I just love the places, but there are shelves and shelves and shelves of books. How do you, Nick, decide what you're going to read next? That's question one.

Mick Spiers: 16:52

And the second one what advice can you give the audience, particularly if someone wants to do this but doesn't know where to start?

Nick Hutchison: 17:00

no-transcript Great questions. So question number one has changed and evolved over time how I decide on the books I'm reading Some general advice. I think when you're first starting, if you're brand new to this world of personal development and leadership and business and self-help, I think it's important to just dive in and read as many books as you can. A lot of people optimize for a book every two weeks that's 26 books a year or a book every week, that's 52 books a year. And I think that's okay when you're first starting because as you continue to read more you'll understand first principles, thinking like, what categories of personal development and genres are there, what's relevant to my life, what excites me, what types of writing styles do I enjoy, what authors do I enjoy, and just get that full experience and have a basic understanding of this industry so that then you can become a little bit more intentional as you grow.

Nick Hutchison: 17:52

So I started just by reading everything. I wanted to read all the classics. I think classics are classics for a reason They've stood the test of time and they've provided value to a lot of people. I wanted to read the bestsellers when I was first starting so that I could engage in conversation. And if you've read the Seven Habits and I've read the Seven Habits, then we have something in common and then we can work from a place to familiarity. I wanted to read about some of the most iconic people of all time Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein and Leonardo da Vinci so that I, again, I could have a point of reference in conversation with most people.

Nick Hutchison: 18:26

And then, as I started to grow and understand how the industry worked, I started to sit back and go through a personal inventory. Is there something that I'm dealing with on a daily or weekly basis that I could solve by reading a book about how to solve that problem or about how somebody else solved that problem? Is there a skill that I need to acquire to get to the next stage of my personal or professional journey, whether it's related to health or wealth or happiness or relationships? And again, I would read from a point of reflection and I would identify an opportunity for growth or to remove a problem, and then I would start to read from there. So I think when you're first starting, again, quantity probably matters more than quality. And then, as you grow and you start to understand how this industry works and about how books work and you start to implement them. It becomes more important about quality and again it's really about solving a problem or developing a skillset.

Nick Hutchison: 19:20

And I'll say one more thing about solving problems. You are right, there are a lot of books. I mean about 100 billion people have lived on planet Earth. 100 billion Millions of them have written books Hundreds of millions. And what's unique is that thousands of those books are probably irrelevant to the same problem that you're dealing with today. So how the heck do you find the right book to solve your problems? There are a number of places to go, including BookThinkers. You can always DM us.

Nick Hutchison: 19:46

We have a wide experience reading and recommending books, but as you start to browse sites like Amazon, there are all sorts of fun little tips and tricks that I recommend in my book. For instance, I recommend ditching the five-star reviews and ditching the one and two-star reviews. Typically those are written from a place of emotion and they don't provide much constructive criticism. They're either just yay, this book was amazing or this book stinks.

Nick Hutchison: 20:10

I think the real gold sits in the three and four star reviews. That's where you find reviews written from a place of logic. People will typically expand a little bit more because they care. They've put some thought into why they're reviewing the book with three or four stars. They'll say here's my expectation, here's what was delivered, here's what was missing, or this book was awesome. But as I continue to learn more about the author, it just felt like they were trying to sell me into a course or whatever the expectation is that they're writing about. So that's a great place to go, amazon. You can browse by genre, browse by subject they're really good with keyword searches and then from there, look at the reviews and you can find what you're looking for.

Mick Spiers: 20:52

Yeah, I love it, Nick. So, what I'm hearing there, or I'm picturing in my head, is this funnel that is getting progressively more intentional and sharper as you go, and I'd love that. First thing you said and that is not to overthink it just start, just get started, because if you do start with, I'm going to find the perfect book before I start reading. You'll never start, you'll just get into analysis, paralysis, you'll know lots about book titles and you wouldn't have opened a single book. So just start. I love that. Also, I love this thought of starting with the classics, or starting with role models, people that you've aspire to be or think highly of.

Mick Spiers: 21:21

Yeah that's a great place to start, and then I'm seeing this funnel get sharper and sharper as you get to know a little bit more about yourself, a little bit of self-awareness of what am I trying to get better at, what problem am I trying to solve? What strength am I trying to double down on All of those things. I heard you getting more and more intentional as you went. And then, yeah, of course, you can use things like reviews, and I love your tip around three and four star reviews. It's 100% true. The emotion of the five star and the one star review. That's exactly what that is. Yeah, really good, nick.

Mick Spiers: 21:53

All right, next one, come back to time, and I'm going to borrow something I just saw on your website here, but I just think it's the perfect way to ask this question. You spoke about something like ditching 15 minutes of scrolling and replacing it with 15 minutes of reading. A lot of people say there's going to be people that don't know where to start, and then there's other people that will say I love reading, I just don't have time. What are your time management techniques associated with ditching the scrolling and starting the reading?

Nick Hutchison: 22:13

Yeah, at first, I love asking people this question. I love to say if I paid you $10,000 to read a book by the end of the month, do you think you could do it? And that same person that just told me they don't have time to read they're like well, I could read five. So it's not a question of whether or not you have the time, it's a question of whether or not you value reading enough to prioritize it. And so time management 101, focus on high impact activities and automate, delegate and eliminate low impact activities. So again, instead of trying to find time to read, just replace a low impact activity like scrolling on social media or watching Netflix or sports with reading a great book. So there's a technique that I talk about in the book and I'll give the math example here, because it's pretty fascinating If you can replace 15 minutes of scrolling social media in the morning and 15 minutes of Netflix in the evening Not the whole thing, I'm not a robot but just the first 15 minutes of your Netflix or HBO or whatever you're watching with reading a great book.

Nick Hutchison: 23:14

That's 15 plus 15. That's 30 minutes of reading per day. If you're just starting out, 30 minutes of reading is roughly equivalent to 20 pages. Let's say, if you could do that Monday through Friday, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, that's 100 pages a week and, just like you know, these books are mostly 200, 250 pages on average these days. So just by replacing 15 minutes of social media in the morning and 15 minutes of Netflix in the evening, five days a week, it's 100 pages a week. That's a book every two weeks or two and a half weeks.

Nick Hutchison: 23:46

That's 20 to 26 books over the next 12 months that you can read, by replacing something that's mostly meaningless with something that could serve your future self and get you closer to where you're capable of going in life removing problems, developing skills and I like to think about problems like this sometimes too. If you deal with a problem on a daily basis over the next 30 years so 365 times 30, you'll deal with that problem 11,000 times. Was the Netflix worth it? Was the social media worth it? Or could you spend $20 in a few hours of your time reading and implementing a book about how to solve that problem, spending the next 50 days implementing it and then avoiding that pain the next 10,950 days? That's how I think about it. Life is easier than you think it is if you read and implement the right books, and so 15 minutes once or twice a day has the potential to change your life. It really does.

Mick Spiers: 24:41

Really good, Nick. I want to come to now, prioritized action, because I think you're dancing around this right now and I want to focus on this for a bit. With all of that content out there, we stand a chance because you're talking about action, orientation that you don't just read the book, you implement what you took away from the book. There's a chance that we end up being overwhelmed, right? So if we picked up the seven habits of highly effective people, we've already got seven things to try.

Mick Spiers: 25:11

Let's pick up the 21 irrefutable laws of leadership from John C Maxwell. Now we've got 28. I could keep going. You get the idea. If we read a hundred great books, there's potentially 700 plus great ideas for us to implement first, and we're not going to do any of them. We're just going to get overwhelmed and we're either going to try too many things at once and do a bad job or we're just going to not do anything because it's like I don't know where to start again. I'm now smarter, but I don't know where to start again. How do we filter down the action orientation that you referred to earlier into deliberate actions that build habits, that build change in our lives?

Nick Hutchison: 25:42

That's a great question and in my book, rise of the Reader, by the end of the book I hope the reader builds out this entire ecosystem of reading implementation, which includes activity trackers, accountability groups and a whole bunch of other things to reinforce that action taking. And again, we can dive into a little bit of that in a few minutes, but here's what I'd like to say. Let's say that I'm reading $100 million leads by Alex Hormozy. It's a book that a lot of people are reading in the world of business and service-based businesses right now, and I set the intention find and implement at least two lead generation strategies from my business book thinkers by the end of October or something like that. Maybe, once I'm done with the book, there's 10 or 15 potential actions, 10 or 15 different lead generation mechanisms that I can implement. What I'll do is I will rewrite all 10 or 15 of those and I'll try to simplify them, really look at them and reflect on them as a separate activity once I'm done with the book and I'll say what 20% of these can lead to 80% of the change that I'm looking for.

Nick Hutchison: 26:43

Not every potential action is created equal. Some of them have more leverage, some of them are easier to implement. And so, if you can take the time to analyze that list and then say here are the two or three things I'm choosing to implement from this book, that's attainable, it's a realistic action and by simplifying and prioritizing you'll take better action. You'll keep that momentum moving. Continuous action is where it's at, not analyzing for the next six months and trying to implement everything at one time. So, yeah, I think typically 20% of the potential actions from a book are going to be worth more than 80% of the change, and those are what you want to focus on Because, again, it's realistic and you won't get overwhelmed.

Mick Spiers: 27:29

Really good, Nick. That's a great bit of advice around how to focus and make those prioritized actions. And it's the actions and the reinforced actions, because I'm hearing you pull back your sheet out again and go, oh am I on track with that? So it's the action and the reinforced action. That's what builds the momentum and builds the change in whatever it is that you're trying to change in your life or your business, whatever the case might be. Really great advice, Nick. I love it.

Mick Spiers: 27:47

I want to now come to sorry to say it, I'm going to come to garbage here. How do we filter out the garbage? And I'll be a little bit less blunt now when I say garbage. There are a lot of, I say, poorly written books or poorly thought through books out there. That's true, but what I'm saying is things like in fact, you said something about this on your website around situational awareness, or you're reading an advice book from someone whose circumstances were completely different to yours. How do you filter out things that are not relevant, are not going to help. You are not what you need to be doing right now.

Nick Hutchison: 28:19

Yeah, in the book I have an entire chapter dedicated to navigating the downsides of the self-help industry, because there are some. There are snake oil salespeople who are just out there to make a buck and not really out there to help you, and there's all sorts of confusing narratives and situational awareness that you could implement to sort of solve some of these things. So there are a number of tools I think that you can use to sort of understand a little bit more about who an author might be or whether a book might solve your problem. But I'll give an example.

Nick Hutchison: 28:49

I was listening to a podcast one day where Tim Ferriss and Ryan Holiday were talking about reading, and Ryan said life is too short to read a bad book. Now, up until hearing that podcast, I was somebody who was optimizing for a certain number of books per year, not action. And so I was like well, what do you mean? I mean I read every single word of every single book, even if it's a bad book. And Ryan, while he's talking about this, he introduces to the listener something he calls the rule of 100. So he says you take the number 100 and you subtract your age, so I'm 29. 100 minus 29, that's 71. He says that's how many pages you have to read before you can determine whether or not a book is worth your time. So for me, as a general rule of thumb, I try to read at least 71 pages, because the older you get, the less you have to read because of the wiser you become. Right, if I was 55, I'd only have to read 45 pages in that scenario. And so I think what Ryan's trying to get at is yes, life is too bad to read a bad book.

Nick Hutchison: 29:48

If you're realizing that an author is scammy, if you're realizing that a book is not credible, if you're realizing that it's poorly formatted and there are spelling mistakes or something like that, maybe you could put it down before 71 pages. But give a book a shot. There have been plenty of books where I was through the first couple of chapters and I thought, let me just get to 71 pages so I could put this down, and I ended up finding that the book was of value to me and did offer something. It just wasn't in the first couple of chapters. There's this idea you're always three feet from gold. So I try to give a book a shot. If anything, I've gotten better at eliminating bad books before I start them. And again that happens in that Amazon review analysis, researching the author a little bit, looking at their social media, getting in the comment section, seeing what people have to say, and I think it's important to eliminate a bad book before you start reading it, if you can.

Mick Spiers: 30:38

Yeah, okay, really good. I like that approach and I think you're right. Give it a chance, but also, don't waste your time if you're finding it well. No, this book is a masked version of selling me a product or whatever. Yeah, no, I really like your advice here, Nick.

Mick Spiers: 30:54

All right, I want to come to bias now, and specifically confirmation bias. Right, so, if we're going to learn and grow, we need to keep an open mind, but we're also human beings and human beings are very susceptible to confirmation bias. You and I could read the same book. The words are all there, but we start reading the things that confirm things that we already believe, and not necessarily picking up what the book is trying to tell us that might be different to what we already believe. So, that ability to maybe unlearn something that we already believe, to open our mind and to hold space for a new concept to come into our mind that might be different to what we thought in terms of how the world works. How do we park our bias? How do we keep an open mind? How do we learn and grow?

Nick Hutchison: 31:36

This is a subject that I'm passionate about, but I'm also still learning, so I'll say that to preface my answer. I've become aware of this more and more because of the Joe Rogan podcast. So Joe Rogan is a podcaster over here in the US. I mean, he's podcast number one, millions of downloads per episode, and he interviews a wide variety of people and he tries to keep an open perspective. He tries to remain curious, neutral and unbiased. He'll interview somebody on the extreme left of the political spectrum and then follow it up with somebody on the extreme right. He'll interview somebody who runs a carnivore diet and promotes it on social media, and then he'll interview a vegan and talk about their perspective. So he's always trying to understand a wide variety of perspectives, remain neutral and just pick and choose what's applicable to his life and what excites him.

Nick Hutchison: 32:27

And so I've tried to replicate some of that behavior in my own reading. For instance, the first book that I ever read was Rich Dad, poor Dad, by Robert Kiyosaki. It's a financial literacy, personal finance book, and Robert Kiyosaki really advocates the use of debt as you're growing a financial portfolio. Well, on the other side of the spectrum, his enemy is Dave Ramsey, who says debt is the worst thing on the planet, right? So here I am. I'm trying to read both perspectives and remain neutral, understand why they think the way that they think. I mean they both think they're right. They're both very wealthy, so maybe there's something I could pick and choose from both sides, and that's something that I've tried to implement, again, in my own reading behavior. I think it's important to stay curious, to remind yourself that there are people figuring this thing out called life in very different ways, and they all are doing it efficiently and they all think they're right. Sometimes they're citing the same resource material, but just reading it from a very different perspective, and you can sit back and read both and be neutral. So that's what I try to do.

Nick Hutchison: 33:30

As far as confirmation bias goes, again it's just trying to observe your own behavior from a third-party perspective. I spend a lot of time. This gets a little woo-woo for some people, but I meditate, I practice mindfulness, gratitude, I journal and, again, I try to look at my own behavior from a third party perspective. I try to spend time with people that I don't necessarily agree with or that view the world from a different perspective. I have two different accountability groups that I participate in, and the people that make up those groups don't view the world from the same lens, and so they'll challenge things. They'll ask me challenging questions, and I think all of that just leads to a better life. Really, I think it does.

Mick Spiers: 34:10

I love the Kiyosaki and Ramsey example. It's exactly their dichotomy of opposed views and yet both successful. That's wonderful. I love the word curiosity and I love the last word you just used then, which was the word lens. So getting curious and go oh, that's interesting, and ask a bit more, Tell me more about that, as opposed to just instantly forming a view. So the curiosity and where the word lens comes in is then cognitive empathy. So if you're reading someone's counter view and someone else's counter view, try and put yourself in their shoes and go. How did they reach that conclusion? What made it true for them? Under what circumstances would it not be true for you? Under what circumstances would it be true for you? But that cognitive empathy of looking at the world through different lenses, you might start seeing. Oh, okay, now I see what Kiyosaki was talking about. Oh, I can see what Ramsey was talking about too, because you've actually put yourself in their shoes and seen the world through their eyes. How does that sit with you?

Nick Hutchison: 35:04

Oh, it sits with me well, I would say. I mean I've read some very extreme examples of this, but I think they make sense if we don't emotionally react to them. I think they make sense if we don't emotionally react to them. So if you had been born into Nazi Germany to Nazi German parents, you would probably have Nazi viewpoints, right, that's somebody else's situation in a different place, that they grew up in a different time. But you kind of have to understand that we are a victim of circumstance in some situations and that leads to we're nurture and nature. It leads to specific viewpoints.

Nick Hutchison: 35:36

And if you can kind of remove the emotional reaction and just view things logically, you can understand how certain people came to certain understandings of the world. And that's just how it happens. I mean we've had some, you know, some things happen in the world recently, like as of this week, that are upsetting and a lot of people have died, and you kind of have to understand that both sides think they're right and that's okay. That's just how the world works. So the same thing happens with the books we read and the podcasts that we listen to and the things that we teach people. I mean, what I'm saying today might be completely wrong from another person's perspective, that's okay. I'm just out here trying to be of service and of value to a younger version of myself who wishes he had these reading techniques available to him and it would have accelerated his journey. Doesn't mean it's right for everybody else's journey, it's just the one that I'm on.

Mick Spiers: 36:22

Look, our thoughts go out to everyone in the world that's been impacted by the recent events. But I do want to double down on what you said. Both sides think they're right. Both sides think they're right. So in any argument that you have, whether it's in the workplace, in your home life, down the shops, whatever the case may be at the start of every argument, both sides think they're right. And if you remember that, it'll help you learn and grow and become a more rounded person. So, yeah, thank you so much. I really love that, nick.

Mick Spiers: 36:49

All right, this has been really enthralling. Thinking about how we make books more intentional, right, so books do change lives, but they change life through intentionality and through action. This has been a wonderful set of tips on how people can do that. Nick, thank you so much for sharing that. I'd like to now take us to our rapid round, and I'm going to say all of these questions are really interesting for you, someone that's consumed so much content very intentionally. What's the one thing that you know now that you wish you knew when you were 20?

Nick Hutchison: 37:26

That failure is beautiful. I mean, I was brought up in a traditional US public education system that penalized failure and taught us to avoid failure at all costs, right In front of a classroom while you're taking tests. But what I've realized over the last 10 years I'm 29. So over the last nine years is that almost all of the success that I have today. We could talk about what that means if you want to, but all of the success that I've had today has come as a result of reflecting on failure and iterating and changing and moving forward and not stopping, and the resilience and the grit and everything else. And again, failure is a beautiful thing and we should run full speed and we should just expect it to be part of the process. And I think back then I was so shy and timid and I wanted to avoid failure and minimize risk and that was the wrong way to optimize.

Mick Spiers: 38:09

I want to reflect back to you, like thinking about things that you've shared in this story today and in this interview today. Failure is beautiful, love it. It's when you learn from that failure and when you implement that learning. So when you, it's that action, orientation again that makes the difference. Yeah, so the failure is beautiful, is beautiful when you've learned from it and you act on the results. Absolutely Really love it. Yeah, really good. Now I think this is an impossible question for you, but I have to ask it. It's my format. What's your favorite book?

Nick Hutchison: 38:38

Rise of the Reader by Nick Hutchison. No, I'm just kidding.

Nick Hutchison: 38:41

Oh good one that's my favorite book right now. It's the one that I talk about the most. My favorite book of all time is the Four-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. I think most of the life that I live today is a result of having read that book. Tim taught me that reality is negotiable. You can design a life that is uniquely fulfilling to you, and he gave me the outside encouragement to understand that you don't have to fit within society's box. Society's expectations don't apply to everybody, and Tim gave me the power to understand that that could be true for me.

Mick Spiers: 39:13

Yeah, I love. It All right, very good one. Next one what's your favorite quote?

Nick Hutchison: 39:16

From that book reality is negotiable. In fact, I loved it so much that I got it tattooed on my wrist.

Mick Spiers: 39:23

Wow, Okay, for those that are seeing the video, you can see a tattoo. For those on the audio, he's literally got that tattooed on his wrist. Very interesting, okay. Well done, Nick. This has been really interesting for me. I've learned a lot and I'll come back to that in a moment. I'm sure there's going to be people in the audience that are resonating with this. They may be people that want to start a journey of learning through reading. They may be ones that want to re-enter the world of reading and they've struggled with their habits. Or they may even be authors who love hearing what you're doing in terms of connecting readers to authors and marketing books, etc. How do people find you and take advantage of your services?

Nick Hutchison: 40:01

One of my favorite ways to interact with people is book matchmaking. So if anybody wants a custom book recommendation from me because they're getting re-energized or they're thinking about reading in a different way or they want to start their journey, dm me, direct message me at bookthinkers on Instagram Bookthinkers. Maybe you could throw it in the show notes and tell me about a problem that you're facing or a skillset that you want to develop or something in between. I'll probably ask some clarifying questions, but I will end up providing a custom book recommendation and I will act as your accountability partner and follow up with you to see if you've read it. So, again, it's one of my favorite things to do. I care about impact and this is one of the ways that I know I can create it for somebody who's confused and, as a result, not taking action, by reading a great book and from there, with the links in our bio, you can find access to everything that you need.

Mick Spiers: 40:50

Awesome. We will put that link in the show notes. I think that's a wonderful thing that you're doing there. What a great service, Nick, and a great way for people to find or refine books in their lives. Now I meant what I said just before. Everything you've shared today really resonated with me, and even as someone that does consume a lot of material myself, you've made me stop and think and reflect on whether I am maximizing the impact that I get from books, and reflect on whether I am maximizing the impact that I get from books to have that intentionality and to have that action orientation. So, I personally feel richer for having this conversation, Nick, and I know that the audience will as well. So, thank you so much for your time today, for the gift of your wisdom and your insights. We really appreciate it.

Nick Hutchison: 41:29

Yeah, thank you very much. And listen, gratitude is one of the central themes in my book. We didn't really talk much about it today, but adopting a mindset and an attitude of gratitude has been very important for me. So I just wanted to take a moment and express some gratitude for you. I love the format of your show. I love your cadence, your patience, the way that you ask questions, the way that you recap after I'll answer something and summarize it for your audience, but also for me to show that you're listening, and so you said playback a few times. I thought that was a really fun way to talk about sort of summarizing information. So, thank you for the great show, the opportunity to provide some value. I hope somebody in the audience today uses what we've talked about to improve their reading and, as a result, their lives.

Mick Spiers: 42:12

Thanks, Nick, just wonderful.