Harnessing the Transformative Power of Reading for Personal Growth with Nick Hutchinson (EP 112)

Unlock the secrets to a transformed life with Nick Hutchinson, the mastermind behind BookThinkers and author of "Rise of the Reader," who joins us for a riveting discussion on the life-altering power of reading. We start off by examining the profound influence of Darren Hardy's "The Compound Effect" on our lives, setting the stage for an exploration into how tiny, consistent efforts can lead to monumental personal growth. Nick shares his journey as a voracious learner, detailing how his passions for travel, health, and biohacking are fueled by the knowledge gained from books. The takeaway is clear: reading is not just for entertainment—it's a vehicle for expanding our horizons and enriching our lives in unimaginable ways.

Are you setting goals that truly propel you forward? This episode is your roadmap to converting reading into concrete results. Nick Hutchinson extols the virtues of SMART goal-setting, a system he ardently applies to his reading habits to transform insights into tangible outcomes. We confront the typical roadblocks that hamper progress, such as fear and insufficient planning, offering sage advice on surmounting these hurdles. By spotlighting actionable strategies, we make the case for bridging the gap between absorbing knowledge and leveraging it to scale personal and professional heights.

Finishing off with a flourish, we celebrate essential reads that redefine financial freedom and lifestyle design, including "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" and "The Four-Hour Workweek." We also shine a light on Nick's latest contribution, "Rise of the Reader," poised to guide avid readers in enhancing their literary expedition. Instagram's bustling book community also gets its due, as we discuss how Nick's BookThinkers and his personal page meld book wisdom with lifestyle zest. Join us for this intellectually charged dialogue—perfect for anyone eager to stoke their reading passion and chase a life rich with purpose.

Get Nick's Book, "Riser of The Reader": https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Reader-Strategies-Mastering-Applying/dp/B0CQ8TTSQD

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

Welcome to another episode of Playing Injured. We have Nick Hutchinson, who is the founder of BookThinkers, also has a podcast BookThinkers. He's had Grant Cardone, brian Tracy, patrick Davis, ryan Holiday, robert Green, just to name a few some of the huge guests that he's had on his podcast, and then he's also an author. Rise of the Reader is his new book. And, nick, how are we doing today?

Speaker 2: 0:38

Josh, I'm doing well. Man, Can I ask you the first question today, even though it's your show?

Speaker 1: 0:43

Yeah, I would love it. First time since half.

Speaker 2: 0:49

When I ask you what's your favorite book of all time, what comes to mind first?

Speaker 1: 0:56

I think the first book that comes to mind for me is the first book that I kind of took seriously in personal development, which is the Compound Effect. It's one of my top five. Hearing Hardy, that was kind of the first book. Going into my senior year in college I had some mentors who recommended that book. That was the first book that I kind of took seriously in the personal development realm. That's the book that I think of. That's probably what got me into personal development. A few books that I've read this year Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, wild at Heart, I read this year as well. Those are probably some of my favorites. It's kind of some biasing you know recency bias but yeah, compound Effect is probably the one I would give you as my all time favorite.

Speaker 2: 1:58

Well, thank you for indulging my curiosity. The Compound Effect is one of my top five favorite books of all time and it's created a tremendous amount of behavior change and changes in perspective, and I mean it changed my life, right? That's what these books do, so we have that in common, which is cool.

Speaker 1: 2:16

Yeah, and man, you know it's crazy. Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm like man, I need to go back and read that, Because that was probably when I read that. It was probably about maybe six years ago 2017 maybe and I'm a totally different person, totally different experiences, and I know it would probably feel a little bit different for me reading that today. Compound you know compounding over time. I've seen so many things of how compound interest, compound habits of going to the gym, compound you know saving small amounts of money over the course of every month, what that looks like, and it is the eighth wonder of the world for sure.

Speaker 2: 3:06

Yeah, it really is. I could probably grab my book and see, because in all my books I date them when I read them each time, so I could probably see how many times I've read that book. But I've read it at least a few times, probably originally in 2017 or 2018. So probably right around the same time that you read it. And yeah, for me it's represented itself in so many different areas of my life, mostly on social media and like in business. But you can leverage the compound effect to get started in anything and I actually I referenced that book in my book Rise of the Reader a couple of times. I actually have a title chaptered, the compound effect, to give credit to Darren Hardy for what he's done for me, man, because like a 1% change is easy, we can think about it, it's manageable, we have enough momentum to take that first step.

Speaker 2: 3:56

And so I think that's what holds people back with this whole 10x big thinking mindset is that it's not realistic behavior change but 1%. Everybody can do that.

Speaker 1: 4:06

Yeah, 1%, and I think the scariest piece is that it can also go against you too. The compound effect goes against you, no matter how small. We think bad habits are, yeah, but scrolling on Instagram unproductively it's a lot that goes into it. But man, who is Nick Hutchinson, how does he spend his time today? What does that look like?

Speaker 2: 4:33

Born and raised on the Boston Massachusetts area, like we were talking about before. You're going to have to come out and visit at some point. I'm 29 years old, but if you include all of the books behind me, which condense decades of somebody else's lived experience and greatest life lessons in today's of consumption right, I'm thousands of years old. That's how I like to say it to people. Like you mentioned in the beginning too, I started a company called BookThinkers back in 2017. And that's how I spend most of my time these days. I just got married this year. Congrats, yeah, thank you so much.

Speaker 2: 5:10

So I spent a lot of time with my wife. We love traveling internationally. That's my biggest passion outside of books. So we visited over 20 different countries in the last five years together, sometimes for up to a few months at a time. So I'm like one of the digital nomad types. And then also I love health, fitness, biohacking, sports all sorts of subjects like that. Man, I'm just on this. I'm like a student of life. That's probably the best way to sum it up. I just I love life. I love everything about life. I love exploring new subjects and learning and adopting and trying things and being a guinea pig, and I just can't get enough of it.

Speaker 1: 5:46

Yeah, you know it's crazy. I would love to call myself an avid reader, right, but I know it's folks out there who read more than I do and over the years I say I'm a reader for sure. But what I've learned with reading? It makes life more exciting. The more knowledge you have on so many different subjects, it makes everything interesting. It's almost like folks don't find football, for instance, interesting because they don't understand the game. Folks don't find things like biohacking interesting because they don't understand what biohacking is right. So the more you learn and more it makes life exciting. And that's what I really love about reading, about listening to different podcasts. It opens your mind up and makes life more fun.

Speaker 2: 6:41

Yeah, that's so true. There's a. There's a biblical reference there too. It's called the Matthew effect and it basically says like the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. And you could reframe that to like the more you learn, the more you want to learn, the more you're capable of learning and the more you find learning fun. And if you shut that off and the compound effect takes route in the other direction and the momentum spirals downward away from your like future reality, like the best reality that you could have, the same thing happens like things become less interesting to you. But you're totally right. I mean, once you understand the game of football, it does become infinitely more fun and interesting to you. That's a cool way to look at it. I like that.

Speaker 1: 7:28

Yeah, you know, there's just things that I've learned over time. It's like once you can actually understand things, it makes it more interesting, right? If you know people talking about finances and stuff like that, that can be intimidating to folks, but the more you kind of learn and engage with it, it becomes more interesting and it makes me think. You know, I was looking at. You know some of your content in different speeches. You talk about having intentions when you're learning. Right, and I'm super guilty of this. I opened up a book and I'm just reading it because it is cool. Somebody has told me to read it. I'm listening to a podcast because you know it's trendy. You know I go to a leadership conference and I have no intention or agenda of what I want to get out of this conference, and that's something that I want to grow in for sure. Talk about that Kind of having an intention when you're looking to learn different things.

Speaker 2: 8:31

Yeah, well, we'll fix it right now. Yeah, let's fix it let's fix it.

Speaker 2: 8:36

So here's what I teach people in my book Rise of the Reader. Yeah, I teach people to set a smart goal for each book that they read. So for anybody in the audience that's not familiar with smart, it's an acronym that stands for specific, so your goal needs to be specific. You need to know exactly why you're reading each book and what you're looking to get out of it. M stands for measurable the legendary management guru, peter Drucker. He says what's not being measured can't be managed. So you need to know whether or not you've effectively hit your goal or not. It needs to be measurable.

Speaker 2: 9:09

A stands for attainable, so you need to set a realistic goal. We're talking about the compound effect. So many times people set an unrealistic goal and therefore they don't take any action. But if you set an attainable goal, something that is realistic, you're far more likely to get off the couch and get things moving right. R stands for relevant, which means you're emotionally connected to the outcome. Sometimes people read books because, well, they don't know why they're reading the book right. But if you're emotionally connected to the outcome, like it's gonna help you solve a specific problem that you've identified or build a specific skill that you know you're weak in and that's holding you back and you're emotionally connected to implementing it, you're more likely to take action. And then T is time bound, so you wanna give yourself a deadline to take action as well. Parkinson's law says that a task will expand to the amount of time that you give it, and so you wanna give yourself a deadline to take action.

Speaker 2: 10:04

And so when I'm teaching, like, how to set an intention for each book, you read. What I'm really looking for somebody to do is check off those five boxes. So let's say I was reading the compound effect by Darren Hardy for the first time, I would ask you why you love the book, get some context, maybe flip through the Amazon reviews, get a good description from cover back cover, and then I would set a smart goal, something that has action built into it, like find and implement at least two ways to incorporate the compound effect into my business by the end of January. So that's specific. I know exactly what the goal is. It's measurable After I'm done implementing it. Did I implement at least two things into my business related to the compound effect? It's attainable.

Speaker 2: 10:52

I didn't say like make a million dollars by January. I just said find and implement two things I'm emotionally connected to it because I love my business and I care a lot about leveraging the eighth wonder of the world. And then, time bound by the end of January, so I give myself a deadline to finish it, and what I'll do is I'll write the intention on the inside cover of the book and then I'll review it every time I read another chapter, because I wanna share my goal with the book, so that it can share the information back with me. And what I mean by that is that our brains have this reticular activating system like a filter, and so you could absorb the entire book or you could filter for just the information that you can apply directly into your business and achieve your goal, and everything else gets filtered out. And that's what setting an intention does for us in the reading process. And you can apply that to any books on personal, finance or business or health, nutrition, mindset, a biography, it doesn't matter. You can set a goal for everything.

Speaker 1: 11:53

Yeah, being intentional about almost everything, yeah, you actually get something out of it. I couldn't tell you how many books I've read, even some of my favorite books, for instance the compound effect. I can give you a few things, but it's like, okay, have you really implemented this into your life? It's like, oh, okay, I guess I haven't necessarily gotten anything out of this book of just hey, this is a good read, that was a great movie, wow, but I didn't take any action on it. But I think, because I didn't have any intentions to take action, I just wanted to read something. Let's see if we get something, let's see if I get something out of it, and so I think that's huge. I think that's huge having some type of intention, and I guess at least they're taking action right, how do folks take action? Is it a lack of fear? A lot of times, action comes down to some type of fear or, I guess, some type of lack of planning. How have you seen folks kind of lack that action piece?

Speaker 2: 13:08

There's a fun little. That's not a graphic, it's just like a statement I have in my book where it's like no books plus no implementation equals no change. Books plus no implementation also equals no change. So it's only books plus implementation that creates behavior change. And like it's pretty basic when you say it like that, but you're right. Most people consume this content, choose not to take action on it and, as a result, people sometimes get mad when I say this, but as a result, the books are closer to a form of entertainment than they are education.

Speaker 2: 13:48

Because it's time being spent visualizing all this great stuff. You're getting hit with dopamine the whole time. You're like, well, that's crazy, and then you don't do anything with it. So, as a result, it's more like entertainment and people. Also, you mentioned going to conferences and stuff too. If you go to a conference and you don't have an intention for why you're there, you're not filtering for something. As a result, you're just taking everything in like like during your from a fire hose. It's impossible to implement because, like every speaker spoke on something totally different. You're excited by all of it and, as a result, you don't take any action. Yeah, and so you spent the money, you spent the time like.

Speaker 2: 14:25

I'm guilty of this too, by the way, because I read probably like a couple of hundred books before I started to like really focus on this stuff. So one of the best well, one of the kind of the OG books in the personal development space is Thinking Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, and there's a quote in that book that says action is the real measure of intelligence. So it's not knowledge that's power, right, it's the application of knowledge that's power. That's like another way to say it. So I have all sorts of things in my book that help people take better action. Right, it starts with a great plan. You mentioned it's a lack of planning. It starts with a great plan. You set a smart goal for each book that you read. And then I have entire chapters around building an activity tracker. That was originally modeled, actually, from the one that Darren Hardy talks about in the compound effect. It's just kind of on steroids and it's it's beefed up, it's modern, and I have a template in the book that everybody can download and replicate and create their own tracker for. But the activity tracker is important because if you're not measuring something you know, it's hard to put it into action. And then I have another entire chapter about an accountability group. I think one of the best ways to implement information is to have accountability and to teach it to the people in your accountability group and then have you hold and then have them hold you accountable to implementing it and you give them access to your activity tracker. So it's this whole like little system that I've built out. So those are some things on preparation.

Speaker 2: 15:59

You also mentioned fear and I think there is a lot of fear. Fear represents itself in tons of different ways, right, but if you chunk a goal like if you chunk a goal down to something that's super manageable, like what's the easiest first, most basic step that you can take in the right direction today, compound effect again. Then you get a little bit of momentum and you just do that 1% thing every day for a little while and then you start to get to know the area. It becomes more interesting to you, you start to understand it more and then you can take bigger steps. So I think that you can remove fear and anxiety by creating certainty, and certainty you can create by chunking things down to very easy, manageable steps.

Speaker 1: 16:45

Yeah, small bites, small steps, not getting into the stress zone, but getting kind of stretching yourself and over time. You know, you look and you track these goals and you look back and like, wow, okay, I've gotten this much better over the course of six months. You know, it's interesting. You talked about accountability because we let ourselves down so easy. It's crazy If you have a group chat setup with folks you say, hey, we got to wake up at 5.30, get to the gym by six, you'll be more inclined to wake up and do it, versus you tell yourself like, yeah, I'm going to get up at 5.30 and go to the gym by six. It's so easy to just hit the snooze and like, ah, you know, I'll get there at seven. Seven is okay, I can have a quick 30 minute workout, quick shower and I'll be good. So it's crazy. The power of having an accountability group is so crazy.

Speaker 2: 17:41

Yeah, it is, and a lot of people like I love talking about this accountability concept because everybody wants accountability partners but nobody like wants to set up the structure and like invite their friends and stuff, because there's always like a little bit of insecurity, I think, around personal development, like our people into it. So whenever I'm talking about accountability, I love to have a group that meets on Zoom once a week and that's the framework that I teach. So you meet on Zoom once a week with maybe two or three friends and you guys just chat for an hour, hour and a half about the things you're focusing on, the things that you're trying to implement from the books you're reading the conferences you're attending the podcast that you're listening to, and how do you go find those people? Even if you don't have people that are into reading the same books, you can still hit up a friend and be like hey, remember when you said you were going to run that marathon a couple of years ago? Like, I know you didn't end up running it because you got hurt or whatever, but I'd love to hold you accountable to running goals again and in exchange, I'd like you to hold me accountable to this business idea I'm pursuing and start to have more mature conversations around business and personal development.

Speaker 2: 18:49

And if you don't have anybody in your network like that, then get in the comment section of your favorite influencers, like having Carmichael, for instance. He has this whole movement makers community and everybody's like minded. They love personal development, they're growing businesses, they enjoy their lives, their podcasters, those sets of people would love to meet with you every week for a couple of months and see if it's going to work. So I think there's no excuse not to build those accountability groups. And I think that, yeah, just like you said, if somebody's waiting for you at the gym, like you're so much more likely to get out of bed and go, and if you choose not to build accountability group, like it is hard to rely just on your own discipline, yeah 100%, and then you kind of find your tribe that way too, through an accountability group.

Speaker 1: 19:38

you kind of start to find some really dope people along the journey, some friends of folks who are going in the direction that you're going and speaking of that, like for you, we, obviously we can see that you've read, if folks can see. You know your background. You got a bunch of different books color coordinated. You got the yellows with the yellows, the blues with the blues, everything is perfect. Whites with whites, blacks with blacks, reds with red. Everything is color coordinated. I love it Even got, you know, stoic statues and different things like that. It wasn't always like this for you, right? I want to kind of take it back to the beginning of the journey when you started to get Into personal development, into reading. What does that look like for you along the way?

Speaker 2: 20:34

Yeah, I was telling you before you pressed record that I wasn't always into these books. So when I was growing up I was more of the athlete stereotype, not really much of the academic. So I focused on sports, I focused on the gym, I focused on hanging out with my friends and you couldn't have paid me to read a book or do my homework back in the day. And that behavior sort of continued with me through most of my college experience, like I was in the gym every day, I was going out, I was having fun, I was not in the classroom. And all of that changed for me when I was going into my senior year of college.

Speaker 2: 21:11

I took a summer internship at a local software company. This is a sales position. Because I was told by my professors like, hey, you have to go get some real world experience if you wanna go find a job after school. And so I found this company at a career fair and I started up like right when that, right when summer hit and my boss at the time, the director of sales, kyle I owe a lot to him because he saw some unfulfilled potential in me. I think he saw this young 20 year old kid kinda know it all little bit arrogant and he recommended podcasting. He said hey, nick, I think that you should listen to some of these shows where successful people are being interviewed. I listened to them and I learned a lot and I liked Kyle, like he was a fun guy, he was fit, he's in the gym, he's going out, he's having a good time and he's into personal development material, which I nobody in my friend group was reading this kind of stuff or listening to podcasts.

Speaker 2: 22:06

So I had a one hour commute each way, five days a week. So I was in the car for 10 hours a week and I started listening to all types of podcasts and I found the most value in the ones where successful people are being interviewed and they talked about what they did to become successful. And very quickly I noticed that so many of those people gave at least some credit for their success to the books that they were reading. And I heard the same names over and over and over and over again, the same book titles, and so one day I just sort of realized that, if I was choosing to ignore the advice of the people who have done what I want to do right, they're giving credit to books and I'm not willing to read a book because I don't think it's cool or whatever.

Speaker 2: 22:50

Then I was also choosing to live under my potential and I was definitely too competitive for that. So I went to my local Barnes Noble. I grabbed probably about 10 books and the rest is history. Man, for the last 10 years I've been reading like 50, 60, 70, sometimes more books a year and it's my full-time job now. But yeah, that was kind of the initial experience. It came from podcasting and then it went right into books.

Speaker 1: 23:16

Yeah, and was it anything, I guess? What got you kind of addicted to it in a way where you developed a company out of it? You developed a book, Rise of the Reader. What got you to the point? Was it something you saw yourself? Was it some changes that you saw along the way? What got you into it to the point where you developed a company for me?

Speaker 2: 23:41

Yes, I mean there were steps to this, right Steps to any addiction, I suppose. So I guess, like the first hit, I was a business student that didn't know anything about money and I knew that I needed to understand the world of money in order to be successful after graduation. But it was just this weird subject that I would run in the opposite direction instead of embrace. And so I'm in business classes business statistics, economics, like finance classes and I'm like barely skating by, I just don't understand the material and, for whatever reason, I just didn't want to invest in it. And you had kids, the high performing business kids, talking about the companies that they secured a job with after school and how much money they're making and they're managing the investment funds and stuff, and I just like I don't know, I just shied away from it.

Speaker 2: 24:35

So some of those first books that I read, they were on personal finance, investing, financial literacy, money, real estate, and by the time I went back to school I went from insecure and like shying away from those subjects to leading those conversations. I knew so much more than everybody else around me because I wasn't learning from professors, I was learning from the world's most successful money managers, right? So I kind of wondered, like right after that I'm like, what other areas of my life can I go from insecure to like understanding more than anybody else I'm around, and I just became addicted to that. And then I started to realize that books solve problems. Insecurity is just one form of a problem, but books solve all types of problems and help you develop all types of skills. So I started to read about ego, like I was definitely dealing with some ego issues. So I started to read books on like narcissism, books on stoicism, books on emotional intelligence, books on awareness and meditation and mindfulness, and I started to deal with some of the ego issues that I had and I started to operate from a place of logic instead of emotion and I had more processing time and I felt more in control. And then I started to read books about my insecurities. I had a lot of public speaking sort of like social anxieties. I cared way too much about what other people thought of me, I cared too much about judgment, and so I started to read books about fear and confidence and overcoming those things.

Speaker 2: 26:13

And to kind of wrap up this tangent, I was in a sales internship and I was starting to succeed. I think a little bit as I started to grow and they offered me a full-time position as I got ready to graduate, and so I dove into books on sales, marketing, communication, persuasion, negotiation Like I was learning from the world's best teachers for $20 a pop and applying those things directly into my business and, as a result, receiving money. Like I was working in a sales position and I was able to go from intern to entry-level sales guy within a few years, director of sales because I was able to outperform everybody. Not anything to do with my own original intelligence, I was just leveraging what other people had already figured out and written about. You know what I mean. So that money piece became addicting too.

Speaker 1: 27:07

Yeah, and it's honestly Most folks. They stop reading Once the actual curriculum of school is over with, they stop reading. And, jim Rhoam, I'm sure you noticed. But formal education makes you a living. Self-education makes you a fortune, and it's not just a fortune of money. He talked about all these different subjects that had nothing to do with money, right, ryan Tracy, I know he's been a guest on your show, the Million Dollar Habits right, I love that book. But what I love most about the book is that goes into like childhood, and it goes into, like, the different fears we have and why we have those fears. It's different habits that we can develop over time. It's so many different things that have nothing to do with money. That grows you as a person, and then the byproduct of that ends up becoming money, and so it wasn't just the money you were getting, it was the person you were developing into that then made you be able to get compensated for that, and so I just think it's so crazy to hear all these different subjects you went to work on yourself.

Speaker 2: 28:26

I did, and I had a lot of work to do, that's for sure, and I still have a lot of work to do 100%. But, just like you're saying, the more you learn about something, the more it interests you. And reading books by itself is a humbling experience because you realize, every time you pick up a book on a new subject, you realize there's this entire complex universe or industry that you were previously unaware of, that millions of people have dedicated their lives to understanding. And it's like, yeah, it's humbling, man, there's so much like every time I read a new book there's more. I realize that I don't know, and so, like my world becomes smaller every time I pick up another book. But I love that.

Speaker 2: 29:11

I saw a Carl I think it was a Carl Sagan video recently where he was talking about, even if you read a book a day for the rest of your life, it's only this much of the library. And then he turns and there's like this massive library and it's just, I don't get intimidated by that, I get excited by that. There's just so much to do.

Speaker 1: 29:29

Yeah, 100%. And so, man, having you on the show is the perfect time because obviously, the new year is here in the next few weeks and I know for me personally, right, being more intentional about my learning is something that I wanna grow in, right, and I think that so many other folks is like, hey, this is my new year's resolution. Long list of different things. Right, just by reading and becoming more intentional as a reader will help folks a long way. So, nick, first of all, I wanna appreciate you for coming on the show, but also, too, I wanna end the show with kinda, that first question. You asked me, out of all the books you've read, what is your favorite book and what books would you recommend folks to read along with your book, and where they can find it at?

Speaker 2: 30:33

Ah man, because I've read so many books it's so hard to give a favorite. I sort of have. I would say if I've read 500 books, I probably have a top 5%, like 25 favorite recommendations, but I'll give like two or three real quick. So the book that got me started was Rich Dad, poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki, and that was the first book I decided to pick up. So if anybody is listening or watching today and you're not currently a reader and you want a good place to start, I think either the compound effect, which we've already talked about, or Rich Dad, poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki are two great places to start In.

Speaker 2: 31:14

Rich Dad, poor Dad, robert Kiyosaki kinda starts the book by saying that money as a subject is not taught in school, which is unfortunate and I have some issues with that, but it's taught in the home and that creates some issues, right, because if you grow up in a poor, middle-class family, you learn poor or middle-class money habits, and so the cycle gets perpetuated and the only way to break out of that is by learning from rich people, and those people are hard to access, so you have to read their books and then you can adopt a mindset of rich, financial literacy, which is a totally different game. So I love that book as a great place to start. So that's one of three. The second book I think the book that's created the most lifestyle change for me is the Four-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. Have you read that one, Josh?

Speaker 1: 32:06

I haven't read it. I need to read it, though, but have a heart it's so good.

Speaker 2: 32:12

Yeah, I'm covered in tattoos with positive affirmations or messages from the books that I've read, and I have one of my right wrist from that book, the Four-Ever Workweek, and it says reality is negotiable and it's a constant reminder for me that I'm capable of designing a life that's uniquely fulfilling to me, even though it doesn't follow society's kind of normal pathway in here in the US, which is kind of a funny pathway right Like nine to five until you die. Maybe then you can enjoy your life at 65, but you'll have a bunch of debt and you're not gonna be physically capable of doing anything anyway. Like I hate that idea. So, starting my own business and traveling the world and building my dream life like I had to fight that societal narrative a lot, and so it's a good reminder for me to constantly check in on that. And Tim teaches you how to escape your nine to five and build your dream life in that book and then the third one that I'll throw out there for anybody that runs a service-based business that's listening today, I read a book at the beginning of last year called Hundred Million Dollar Offers by Alex Formosi, and when you wanna talk about ROI from books, check this out.

Speaker 2: 33:28

I read that book at the beginning of last year and so the book cost $20. Took me a few hours to read it and then a few more hours to implement it, and I was able to change some things in my agency, like change the way that I offered, change some dollar values around, different pricing models and whatnot, and I was able to add an additional six figures of revenue to my business within a couple of months. So whenever people tell me like oh, books are a waste of time, I don't have time for that, I'm like do you have time for $100,000? You know cause that can happen. It takes a lot of work, right, it was probably the 400th book that I read, but like I got there, you know. So that's a really good book on business pricing and offer creation and stuff.

Speaker 1: 34:17

I love that and then tell folks about Rise of the Reader.

Speaker 2: 34:20

Yeah. So my new book, Rise of the Reader, just dropped November 1st and it teaches you how to get more from the books that you're reading. So today we talked about a few things that I talked about. In the book smart goals for each book, you read how to build an accountability group, how to set up an activity tracker. I have tons more stuff like that in there. If you're listening to this and you prefer audio, there's an audio book as well. If you don't hate my voice, I did read it and, but it's available. Kindle, paper bag all that good stuff.

Speaker 1: 34:51

Okay, perfect, I love it. So, audible Amazon any social media handles for you where folks can find you. Continue to follow your content, yeah.

Speaker 2: 35:01

Instagram is sort of where I live. I mean, we're on all the social platforms as a business, but on Instagram, at BookThinkers, that's our business page and there's a community of over 100,000 readers over there, so you can get a new book recommendation every day and check it out. And then my personal Instagram is nicklovesbooks at Nicklovesbooks, and over there it's more of a mix of like travel content with like biohacking and some book stuff. Yeah, I love that.

Speaker 1: 35:31

I love that. Well, nick, I appreciate you, and, man, reality is negotiable, and so I think a lot of things right. We talk about social media and I was just talking to one of my friends about this is that we get so caught up into it where we can all be influenced to thinking the same right, we eat the same, we dress the same, we think the same. And if we could put our head into more books, more learning, being a little bit more intentional about our living, reality does become negotiable. So, nick, I appreciate you coming on this show and, man, I can't wait for folks to hear this.

Speaker 2: 36:16

Yeah, grateful for the opportunity.