The Quarterback DadCast
I’m Casey Jacox, the host of the Quarterback Dadcast. As fathers, we want to help prepare our kids—not only to enter the professional world but to thrive in each stage of their lives. Guests of this show include teachers, coaches, professional athletes, consultants, business owners, authors—and stay-at-home dads. Just like you! They share openly about failure, success, laughter, and even sadness so that we can all learn from each other—as we strive to become the best leaders of our homes! You will learn each week, and I am confident you will leave each episode with actionable tasks that you can apply to your life to become that ultimate Quarterback and leader of your household. Together, we will learn from the successes and failures of dads who are doing their best every day. So, sit back, relax and subscribe now to receive each episode weekly on The Quarterback Dadcast.
The Quarterback DadCast
The Path to Emotional Intelligence and Forgiveness - Nick Hutchinson
This episode explores the intersection of personal development and fatherhood, highlighting Nick Hutchinson's lessons as a new dad. Nick is the visionary force behind BookThinkers, a growing seven-figure marketing agency that seamlessly bridges the worlds of authors and readers.
In just over 7 years, he has organically built a platform that reaches over 1,000,000 people each month. Nick's podcast, BookThinkers: Life-Changing Books, is a global top 2% show that features captivating interviews with world-class authors such as Grant Cardone, Lewis Howes, and Alex Hormozi.
With discussions on gratitude, emotional intelligence, and the importance of kindness and forgiveness, Nick shares how these principles lead to a more fulfilling parenting experience. The conversation emphasizes that investing in oneself as a parent is crucial for fostering a loving and supportive environment for children.
• Importance of gratitude in parenting
• Personal development as a tool for better fatherhood
• The balance between structure and flexibility in raising children
• Modeling kindness and forgiveness as essential parenting values
• Nick’s insights on his literary journey and book recommendations
• Practical strategies to leverage reading for personal growth
• The transformative power of vulnerability and self-investment in parenting
To learn more about Nick, you can follow him on LinkedIn or Instagram (@bookthinkers)
Please don't forget to leave us a review wherever you consume your podcasts! Please help us get more dads to listen weekly and become the ultimate leader of their homes!
Hi, I'm Riley and I'm Ryder and this is my dad show. Hey, everybody, it's Casey Jaycox with the quarterback dad cast. Welcome to season six, and I could not be more excited to have you join me for another year of fantastic episodes and conversations really unscripted and raw and authentic conversations with dads. If you're new to this podcast, really it's simple. It's a podcast where we interview dads, we learn about how they were raised, we learn about the life lessons that were important to them, we learn about the values that are important to them and really we learn about how we can work hard to become a better quarterback or leader of our home. So let's sit back, relax and listen to today's episode on the Quarterback Dadcast. Well, good morning everybody. This is Casey Jaycox of the Quarterback Dadcast. We're in season six and every time so far I've said that it feels freaking fantastic because we're doing something right. I still can't believe it, but it's true.
Speaker 1:And now we're on YouTube, everybody, if you can see this crazy ball dude you're staring at, you also see a dude with a hat on backwards and his name is Nick Hutchinson, and I found Nick actually got connected through his team, through the wide world of LinkedIn and what really made me stop and want to talk to Nick is just how he communicated, how the team communicated, and one. As a guy who loves to read, I've proved that football players can put sentences together and can read without scratching sniff or braille, but we can. Everybody Heavy sarcasm, but he's the CEO and co-founder of a company called Book Fakers. We're going to learn all about that. He's the author of Rise of the Leader, best-selling author on Amazon. He's a speaker as well, boston native, but that's not why we're having him on here. We're going to talk to Nick the dad. We're going to learn how he's working hard to become the ultimate quarterback, or leader of this household. And so, without further ado, mr Hutchinson, welcome to the Quarterback Dadcast.
Speaker 2:Casey, I'm excited to be here and I'd love to ask you the first question today.
Speaker 1:Shaking it up, let's okay.
Speaker 3:Let's see what you got.
Speaker 2:Shake it up a little bit. As you highlighted, I'm a big fan of books and, as you highlighted, you are a big reader. So I'm curious what was the best book that you read, let's say, over the last 12 months? What comes to mind first? Probably Cat in the Hat. Cat in the Hat.
Speaker 1:I'm joking.
Speaker 2:Classic, something that I still can't get through. No, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1:Maybe not the last book I've read in the last year or so, but whenever I need some good reminders of good books, I think of Malcolm my, I'm like malcolm gladwell. I think of lencioni. Uh, I just love the way they write from it's like a um non-fiction, but it's like story like, fable like, and it's relatable and the characters are yeah, they're made up, but like, but they're like. In lencioni's work it's, it's very applicable and I think of like my journey in corporate america. I I can relate back to so many of that at that time. So, yeah, Patrick Lencioni.
Speaker 2:The Five Dysfunctions of a Team is an amazing book, and I love that parable style of writing as well. I think sometimes when I tell people, oh, I read about business and personal development, they assume that's entirely nonfiction. But that's not true. There are wonderful books like the Go-Giver by Bob Berg and John David Mann. Siddhartha, which is a spiritual fable, but it teaches life lessons. That's by Herman Hesse. And then books like the Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni another great example of a fable, but it's actually a business book. And then you also mentioned Malcolm Gladwell. He's one of my favorite authors as well. I started my reading journey somewhere early in my reading journey I started to listen to a lot of Malcolm Gladwell's books, and I love the way that he can take data and stories that already exist out there and then just add commentary around what they mean and how we can apply the lessons from them. And I mean he's truly, he's a brilliant human being I always love. Every time he puts out a new book, I try to read it.
Speaker 1:Have you heard?
Speaker 2:of Michael Gervais. Michael Gervais, I think so it sounds. Really he sounds familiar.
Speaker 1:So Michael Gervais is an author, he's also. He's a former guest and probably one of my bigger guests in season one. He he had a company with Pete Carroll out here in Seattle. They come compete to create and he has a podcast called finding mastery and he actually had Malcolm Gladwell on his show. They did it live in LA, I believe he's in LA and it was fantastic, and him and Gladwell they did. It was actually borderline a little tear, jerk a little bit, because he talked about his dad, malcolm talked about his dad and so, malcolm, if you're listening, we'd love to have you on the show. Brother, I'm a big fan. So if it not, that he's probably gonna listen, but if he does, hopefully he'll his people will reach out. But yeah, he just I mean outliers is fantastic, um tipping point blink um, they're, they're so good.
Speaker 1:But real quick thought. Before I get us back on track here, though you said Bob, yeah, the go-giver. So I've read that. Fantastic, it's funny. I, one of my keynotes I did maybe two years ago, three years ago that was they'd always used that and so, but they gave me a chance and and they brought. So I wrote a book called when the relationship, not the deal, and my buddy was a CRO out there and he goes you gotta give this guy a chance. And so I went out there, spoke and, um, it was, it couldn't have gone better. And um, so, like now they use Bob's book and then my book for, like, new hires and uh, so obviously super humbling to hear hear that. But, um, but I actually connected with Bob online, shared that story with him, thanked him, just said I was honored to be in the same room as you and he connected back, which I was kind of surprised, but it was a pretty cool experience to be part of.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll tell you a quick story about that book and about Bob Berg, and this just highlights, you know, I think, how great some authors are like Bob. So when I was in the process of graduating from college this was back in maybe 2015, I graduated in 2016,. I had just gotten into the world of personal development books, but anyway, I was interviewing with a bunch of companies, didn't know where I wanted to work yet, and so I went to this one company in the financial district of Boston and I remember going up the elevator, went to like the 35th floor or something, and there was this huge office and I was interviewing for this job and I noticed the guy had a bunch of red books behind him Like his bookshelf was full of the same book, and so I brought it up. I said hey, I just got into the world of reading. Why do you have 50 copies of that red book right there? And he said it's called the Go-Giver. Have you heard of it? I said no, and so he slid a copy across the desk and he said when you come back and you accept our offer, I'd like you to give the copy back. He said, but between now and then, why don't you go ahead and read it. So I read the book and I loved it. The Go-Giver is such an amazing story. It has five core lessons. I won't spoil it for anybody, but you could read the book in a day and it'll just make you feel like a million bucks. So I didn't end up accepting that job. I actually reached out to the guy on LinkedIn, offered to send him back the book. He didn't want it. It was just kind of a tactic that he used to see if people would follow through and read the book. So a little bit after that would follow through and read the book.
Speaker 2:So a little bit after that, maybe six months later, a year later, I'm living down in Florida and I look up Bob Berg and I notice he lives in Florida. So I reached out to him. I thanked him for writing the book and I said hey, if you ever want to meet up for a coffee, I'd be happy to come down and see you. Now, my knowledge of the Florida geography was not great at the time. I was all the way up in Jacksonville and Bob lived all the way down in Jupiter, florida, and he said something like sure, let's meet up tomorrow morning at a Dunkin' Donuts in Jupiter at 7 am and I thought, ok, yeah, let's do it. And then I look it up and it's like a six hour drive or something like that. So I literally drove throughout the entire night to go meet Bob Berg for coffee. So I literally drove throughout the entire night to go meet Bob Berg for coffee and he stayed for hours talking with me about the concepts of the book, asking me questions, and I'll wrap up the story by saying this Three or four years later, I started my own podcast, the Book Thinker's Life Changing Books podcast, and I invited Bob to come on and he jumped on that call and it was as if no time had passed.
Speaker 2:He started asking me all these intimate follow-up questions about really detailed subjects that we talked about years before that, three, four years before that. And it just goes to show like some of these authors, like Bob, they genuinely care, they genuinely listen. They're not writing books just to sell and promote and market themselves and speak on stages. They want to create an impact and when you get a chance to tell them about the impact that they've created, it changes them. So, anyway, bob is just. I'm such a fan of his, so I'm happy that I got a chance to share that story. Thank you for giving me the space. Yeah, you bet, man. If you ever want to interview him on here, I'm always happy to reconnect you guys.
Speaker 1:Well, let's let's wait till you go through this journey to get on the next 45 minutes or so, and then, if you still want to do that, I, yeah, I'm always when guests want to introduce other people. It's, it's humbling, and I, I I'd love to talk to him, obviously, just because awesome, yeah, cool, well, we always start out each episode, nick. Now that we're eight minutes into it, we're going to restart it in. Tell me, what are you most grateful for as a dad today?
Speaker 2:I am most grateful for my son. My wife and I we just had our first baby, about 10 weeks ago, and every single day I wake up and I have the chance to spend time with him and look at him and observe him and interact with him, and I think it's just one of the I don't know. It's one of the I don't know. It's one of the best things that's ever happened to me in my life and I'm just so grateful for him every single day. And, by the way, gratitude has been a major theme in my life over the last 10 years or so, and so I do practice gratitude out loud in front of him every day and I tell him that I'm grateful for him every day. Even though he might not be able to absorb what that means fully, yet you know he could feel that energy.
Speaker 1:Solid dude. Yeah, I, I, uh, I have a gratitude practice as well. Every morning I write down gratitude. Usually it's kind of the same line. I usually start. I say God, thanks for waking me up today.
Speaker 1:I'm happy to, I'm so excited to connect people. Like I mean, I write some other stuff but like sometimes people want to say, yeah, it's kind of corny, but whatever reason, for me it actually subconsciously brings a smile to my face without even knowing it and it just gets me in the right. And I'm such a habit discipline goal guy that like I can't not do it now and I won't. And in my mind I'm so now wired that I'm like I can't go work out yet, I can't start email yet. I have to go get the gratitude done. So I'm ready to go and it just, really, for me, sets the right tone for the day.
Speaker 1:But for me, what I'm most grateful for today, I'm grateful that we're recording Nick in December, as you know, but this episode will come out in January, february next year and during the holidays holidays I get my son home from, uh, from college, which is a fantastic. Tonight my, my daughter has a high school basketball game, so grateful I get to watch her compete and um, it's just like a really, really fun time to have noise in the house. And even last night my son, his girlfriend, had buddies over. I mean, I woke up at midnight, go, you know, take a little midnight leak and all of a sudden I might.
Speaker 1:The alarm's not set my god, there's lights on like, oh, this is awesome, they're still here at the house, it just they're watching a movie hanging out, and so I'm just grateful for the the noise in the house that the kids are here and um, that's on the other side of your parenthood. You're just, you're just starting this. But, bro, I remember when I was right at your stage and my neighbor two doors down said, yeah, I just enjoy it Cause it goes fast. I remember thinking to myself, like can I just enjoy this? Like what are you talking about? Like that was yesterday. I can still see her telling me that. Uh, and you'll probably remember, like I remember I was on that dude's podcast.
Speaker 1:He told me like let's go fat talking about this one day, because a great quote I heard from somebody says you know that the days, the days are long, but the years are fast, you know, and it just, it just flies by. So, anyway, it's actually kind of exciting because I've actually talked to some new dads as of late, which is fun. I mean a lot of times we've had a lot of wise dads. Obviously, the episode came out today Mike Weinberg, sales expert, sales guru, I mean some freaking wisdom bombs on us, which I am really excited people listen to that episode, which will obviously be out by the time this comes out. Bring us inside the Hutchinson Huddle. Talk to me about how you and your wife met and for what we can share about your son. He's only 10 weeks old, but tell us a little about him.
Speaker 2:Sure, I met my wife geez like seven years ago or something like that, at a bar in Boston. So I was out with the guys. It was New Year's Eve, she was out with a couple of her friends and we just we met. You know, we just our groups kind of talked to each other my friends are talking to her friends and we connected that night. And what's unique about our story is we went different directions. After that night for about two years I moved away. I was living in Florida for a little while, which I mentioned before.
Speaker 2:I got a Facebook message from her one day and it said hey, you popped up on my For you page or my Suggested Friends page. I thought I would reach out, how is everything going? And we ended up on a first date and the rest is history. My wife is amazing. I'm so happy that we ended up together. She makes me a better person, I make her a better person. So it's a very symbiotic relationship and we decided to start trying for a family earlier this year and here we are at the end of 2024.
Speaker 2:Our baby is about 10 weeks old, as I mentioned, and he's been the love of our life. We have such an amazing young man already. He sleeps really well, he's smiley, he doesn't fuss very much. So I know that that's subject to change. I get that advice from a lot of people. As you get used to one version of your baby, just expect another one is right around the corner. But we're just so grateful for the baby we have today. My little bragging point so far is that he's already sleeping for anywhere between six to eight, sometimes eight and a half hours during the first stretch each night, and yeah, I know it's not normal.
Speaker 1:Don't jinx it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know, I wish I had some real wood around me. I don't think the desk is real.
Speaker 1:I knock for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know what? And one of the things that I did to prepare for this was I read a lot of parenting books. I read a lot of books about the birth process and about early childhood development and there was a through line which was if you have calm, stable parents who are organized, you're going to have a calm, stable kid. That a lot of these times, when babies are first developing behaviors are caught, not taught. So if there's a lot of nervous, chaotic, disorganized energy, the baby is going to replicate a lot of that. So we were really conscious to bring him into a calm, loving environment and I don't know if that's directly related to how great of a sleeper he is so far, but we really focused on making sure that we would set up an environment that would enable us to feel good and calm and safe, so that he would feel the same way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the schedule was our best friend and you know we had friends that just like, oh, got to be flexible. I'm like, no, no, you don't like, for us it was. We were so regimented with that like I mean, obviously sometimes you got to break it, but schedule created consistency, just like when we you go to work, hey, hey, give me an 8 30 workout. Perfect, I'll see you at 8 30. Hey, I gotta, I gotta work from 8 to 5. Great.
Speaker 1:Now, my, I know like we were setting expectations. He understood what to expect. He knew that. You know, lunch was this time, dinner was this time and you think, exactly like behaviors are caught and taught. And if I'm freaking out and dropping f-bombs and gd bombs, he's gonna, he's gonna be scared, but staying calm and I totally agree with that guidance you got, or read, and um, that the other, that schedule for us was the best advice. That could we follow it and you know we'd go to, we could go to restaurants and our kids weren't acting like, you know, hell's angels and freaking out and running around. They were well behaved and you know, but that's because that's how we taught them at home. We didn't allow them to run around the house at dinner table like no, this, this is dinner time for kids.
Speaker 2:Just a fun observation on that. In the world of personal development and business reading, of which I'm in all day, every day oftentimes you hear that money is a multiplier. So if you're not a good person and you get a lot of money, it'll only make your life more chaotic. But if you are a good person and you're focused on impact and charitable contributions and things like that, as you get more money you'll become a better person. And I almost feel like having a kid is sort of the same way, Like if your lifestyle is calm and organized, having a kid will only force you to be more calm and more organized. But if you're chaotic and your household's a mess, it'll only amplify that. So having a kid feels like an amplifier, in the same way that they say money is an amplifier.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and a lot of those things you just talked about are choices. We have control over those things you just mentioned and a lot of times people don't think you do, but I'm big into the power of the word. I will except my. I teach with like the work I do as a like sales leadership coach, and so many times I find people use anxiety-based language. Like I need to be, I need to get organized, or I gotta have to start being organized, or I, I, I should really get my kid on the schedule then do it. What's stopping you? Like some, there's people out there that do it and if you need help, ask for help. And so I think, like I always, like I always in my mind, I've trained myself to realize there's always seven way levels, way above any level I'm ever at, like whoa, that person's a beast, or that man, that guy's a great dad. How did he think about that? I never thought about that.
Speaker 1:And so you surround yourself with people who are doing things you like, maybe want to do. I love, love, like the power of curiosity and asking them questions. And when I know I'm not my best version of a dad I want to be I've, I like I work hard not to get defensive. I work hard not to say like man. Is that your best version of you, dude? And then just ask for help. Well, it's my wife, um, which sometimes dads don't want to do because our ego, male ego, gets in the way. But sometimes I think, like Ryan Holiday we've talked about him before Ego is the enemy Great book, where, when you embrace vulnerability, when you embrace humility, when you embrace curiosity as a dad and just from a growth perspective like those are my mind, my experience, 48 years of life those are superpowers. I totally believe that.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I think so too, and you just brought up Ryan Holiday. I wanted to tell you a little bit about the intersection between Stoic philosophy and parenting that I've experienced so far. One of Ryan's books is called Stillness is the Key, and there's a word in there. It's an ancient Greek word, ataraxia, which I actually have tattooed on my left wrist, and it translates to stillness. And so one of the biggest changes that I've made in my own life over the last 10 years and I think it's helped me become a better parent so far is focusing on stillness.
Speaker 2:You know that space between an input to my brain and my ability to react to it and get a little bit more processing time between that input and the response. You could call it emotional intelligence, you could call it maturity, you could call it mental processing time, whatever you want to call it, and I've tried my best to be less emotionally reactive and more logical and it's really translated to the parenting side of things so far. I mean, I just I read and heard so many horror stories of young dads just at their wits end all the time. You know there's just like the kids crying, can't put them down, can't figure out what's wrong, not sleeping and I didn't want to be like that. So I really focused on making sure that I could process with logic and less emotion, and so far, so good.
Speaker 2:You know, I haven't had any of those moments yet and I think it's because, I mean, really for 10 years I've been practicing some type of daily meditation or gratitude practice. But that's been really helpful so far. You know, I think working on myself has helped me become a better parent. You know, and I know I'm only 10 weeks in, so there's probably people rolling their eyes like, oh yeah, you just wait, buddy, but it's um. You know, it's the same in business and the same in your relationship. I think it can translate to parenting.
Speaker 1:Well, I think there's probably some truth in both of that. There's probably some truth in people that like, oh, that's a young daddy, what are you talking about? But there's also some truth in truth in wool. If you're going to roll your eyes, what are you doing to help yourself? What are you? What are you doing to look yourself in the mirrors of dad? What are you doing to look yourself as a, as a husband, as a, as a friend, as a co, like one of my friends, kind of Matt Miller.
Speaker 1:He was a former guest. One of the most fantastic things I took out of his episode was he asked his kids and wife a question. He said tell me how I can be a better dad this week. Tell me how, tell me how I can be a better husband this week. And he did. It wasn't just a BS, it was like no, he wanted to know.
Speaker 1:And so sometimes, like dads, like, try it, like you'll surprise your kids, like dad, you all right man, you on drugs, like what's going on with you, Like.
Speaker 1:But if you're curious and you want to get better and cause you have a choice. Like life, like the old Ferris wheel, or life goes a little fast, it might just fly right by you whatever that quote is but like, sometimes just slowing down to to ask a question on how we can get better as a dad. It's just you know, and every episode I've done Nick is is different, and this is definitely one that we're. This is why we don't have a script. We're going to go all over the board here, but I'll bring us back, cause I want to learn more about you and how you were got into what you're doing. But I hope that, like, just because I might have older kids and you doesn't, I can't learn from you. Like there's every generation is going to teach us something, so I hope that people are taking notes, like I am, and and um, as you listen to this cause I may take notes every episode and I feel like so that's before.
Speaker 2:I'll say it again it's like I get free therapy through every episode, um, but anyway, I want to go back in time, nick, and I want to learn about you, nick the kid, and I want to learn about how Nick's parents impacted you and what were some of those core values that you were taught that you'll bring into your son's life. I will address that question. I just want to highlight that I'm taking notes as well, so I wrote down what can I do to be a better dad this week, and I would imagine that as my son Levi grows over the next few years, I'll get some very interesting answers from him, maybe like three or four years from now. Dad, you could be a better dad if you brought me to the park more often or something and just see how that matures.
Speaker 2:So I'm going to start asking that of my wife and of my son and just see what comes up. Okay, so I had the best childhood ever and I have the best parents ever. I'm happy to brag about that. I grew up in sort of a white picket fence environment in the suburbs of Boston, massachusetts, kind of middle class, upper middle class family. We always had presents under the tree and we never worried about where food was coming from. My parents instilled a lot of work ethic in me when I was younger, but also unconditional love and support.
Speaker 2:My dad's dad was in the military, and so my dad brought a lot of that kind of disciplined energy to our household. Things were pretty strict. For instance, I never heard my dad swear, not a single time. My entire childhood I mean from the time that I was born until the time I went to college I literally did not hear a swear word come out of his mouth, and it was also not acceptable for us to swear. He used to say people who swear aren't intelligent enough to find another way to say what they're trying to say. He's like use your brain. So that was kind of the energy that he brought.
Speaker 2:And then my mom. Just on the unconditional love side of things, it was so hard to think about disrespecting her in any way, shape or form because she was stern, like we had values. We went to church every Sunday. You know, we were good people, we were altruistic, we were giving, but at the same time there were rules and you would just feel so bad even thinking about crossing those rules because she was just so loving. How could you do that to her? So I really love both of them. I love what I learned from both of them and whether it was the encouragement in school or the encouragement in sports, they were always praising our effort, not our results. It's just so many of the things that I read about in these parenting books. I'm like you know what my parents did. That, and oftentimes I'll hear friends of mine who are starting to have kids. Now that I'm 30 years old and a lot of my friends are kind of in the same stage of life. I am, you'll hear. You know I'm going to do things differently. Here's what I'm going to do differently, and I keep telling people I'm like you know, I'm trying to just replicate what my parents did. That's what I'm trying to do so.
Speaker 2:Today. I'm the oldest of four boys. I'm 30. They're all in their late twenties and we're just like the tightest family unit that you can get.
Speaker 2:We still try to meet up almost every Sunday for a family dinner, and our new families are coming together for that. We do holidays together. There's never any animosity or bickering or differences in views. We're always curious and open and willing to talk, and my parents have shifted more into a friend role. This last Christmas my wife and I gifted them tickets to talk, and my parents have shifted more into a friend role. This last Christmas my wife and I gifted them tickets to Iceland and we brought them to Iceland with. Us, got to hang out with them for an entire week as friends, not as a parent-child relationship.
Speaker 2:And so one of the reasons that I want to have a big family is because I want to recreate, when I'm 60, what my parents have today, which is a group of loving, supporting children who are all independent and doing really well, but still come together and form that family unit. And so I'll get off my soapbox now, but I'm just. You know, when I look back on my childhood, it was full of a lot of love and a lot of support and a lot of rules that I now look full of of a lot of love and a lot of support and a lot of rules that I now look at in hindsight with a lot of respect.
Speaker 1:Well, your dad, uh, he, he might've liked my dad, but he probably wouldn't like my my dad, he could drop some amazing GD bombs, nick, like some amazing GD bombs. And that would be like. And so that was one thing I said I would try not to do is I would not yell G, god damn it, casey, like it was. I mean he would make us laugh. And then, unfortunately, my um, my uncle, uncle Don, rest in peace, and my uncle Don passed away two days ago and, uh, my cousin sent me a text. When I found out cause he was, uh, he let me know and I was like, oh, cause he was. I mean I kind of lost touch cause we're living different parts of the world, but my uncle was, so he was such a loving guy. They helped me in life, helped my dad in life, helped all you know.
Speaker 1:Just, I don't know a lot of positivities I have from my relationship, but my cousin sent me a text that just said God damn it, casey. And in all caps, and we were laughing and so like. But to your point, let me like, yeah, I mean, drop enough bombs in front of your two-year-old. I don't, I don't encourage that, I mean, and you wonder why they they drop. They drop swere words at recess like is that the person we want to be? Probably not. I mean, I don't want to judge anybody, but for our family that's not something we want. And now I have an 18 year old and a 16 year old. Now my son drop an F-bomb and he hooks one out of bounds on the golf course, which sometimes I do too. So I give him some grace.
Speaker 2:But well, tell me what Real quick Casey on that subject. It's interesting because a lot of the people that I study and a lot of the people that I look up to and I consume their content, for instance, they're very free with swearing. Guys like like Gary V would say that the more you swear, the more transparent you are and therefore the more people um can like or the faster people can build trust with you. So, like there, there's some evidence actually out there to support that people who swear more often are actually more trusting and trust.
Speaker 1:I actually believe that too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll say what it did for me, was it?
Speaker 2:It created an awareness, like I was never allowed to swear in front of my parents and neither were my friends.
Speaker 2:So if I had people coming over to my house, I didn't want to support my dad or, um, I didn't want to disrespect my dad or my mom, so I would have to tell people hey, at my house you can't use bad language.
Speaker 2:Now I was off swearing and having loose lips, like when I was at school or in front of them. But now that I've matured a little bit, I think that that constant feeling of being on edge around my friends and my parents at the same time hoping that they weren't going to slip up or that I wasn't going to slip up yeah, it might have been a little bit stressful when I was younger, but that emotional intelligence or that level of awareness has translated into the business world in a positive way. I feel like I'm a little bit more articulate as a result of having to find alternatives to swear words, and I'm also a little bit more aware of how I'm coming across in front of other people, because I was always conscious of it. So, yeah, it was a strange kind of dynamic in the household, but there were definitely some benefits.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I think I mean I want to go back to your pops with it, but I think, like when you, sometimes, if we overthink as humans, it's not genuine and authentic and people feel it and they sense it right away. And so I love I was on a podcast this week about authenticity and and we talked about like you know, I always when I speak I'll say this is kind of like a corny dad joke but the number one reason to be yourself is everyone else already taken. So no one's perfect, we're all flawed. That's the one thing we have in common. Um, uh, even the people that seem perfect, they got flaws.
Speaker 1:And so, like I think, as soon as everyone comes to that level of agreement and grace and trust and realness, then I think this allows us to like you as a dad or husband or business person or often, whatever your job janitor we all got gifts, everybody and so, like I think we can just really focus on being yourself. Whether it's so you dropped an F on an accident, whoopsie daisy. Like I think we can just really focus on being yourself. Whether it's so you dropped enough on an accident, whoopsie daisy, right, but I think, like just getting back to that kind of maybe to your word or Ryan Holiday's stillness like just being present in the moment and realizing I'm gonna be my best version of me and if I'm not, I'll give myself some grace and I'll try to get better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think. All amazing lessons. So what did your?
Speaker 1:tell me what your mom and dad did for work.
Speaker 2:My dad has always been in the footwear and apparel industry, so for ages zero to 18 or 19, he worked for Adidas, which was always really cool because I matched a little bit too much. I had a little bit too many options in the wardrobe, right. I was always getting samples of things that never launched and you know, I had too many Adidas tracksuits for a kid my age, too many different matching shoes. You know I had every Adidas superstar color option that you could have, right, those shell toes, like not just white on white or white with black stripes, but white with blue and red and green and orange and like it's just so many options. Because it was all free and because my name is Nick and I wasn't allowed to wear Nike, I would get picked on every once in a while from kids. They'd call me Nike because I was always in Adidas.
Speaker 2:But my dad, although he worked for companies like Adidas, he always maintained his own book of business, so he'd always represent a few additional brands as well. He was sort of an independent contractor to companies like that and so he was a sales guy, conversational, charismatic, I mean. Even till this day that's the first thing people say when they meet him that are my friends or family, They'll say oh wow, your dad's easy to talk to, so he's just a friendly, kind of upbeat, positive person and loves sports. So that was a big kind of tie-in to the athletic footwear and apparel industry is. He was always at our games playing sports with us. That was a big overlap with what he did.
Speaker 2:My mom was in retail management, so she's worked for a bunch of different companies. But when I was younger she worked for companies like EMS, which is an outdoor sportswear company, and Hallmark, the greeting card company. So she would always manage either a handful or maybe dozens of different retail locations for different brands in sort of a management position, and so with her there were always stories about like hiring and firing what is that like and what do you look for in candidates? And that also gave me a lot of good structure for how I should present myself, because she was getting a lot of good data points. So, yeah, that's what they did.
Speaker 1:Love it. So military grandpa Yep, Strict stern. We're not dropping F-bombs in the house. We've got to make sure our friends are not like idiots. But you want to be a kid? You ever heard of the story? Todd Marinovich Sounds really familiar. So Todd Marinovich is, I'm not saying your dad was like this, but like he was so strict, couldn't have a candy bar, couldn't eat soda, like the dude was like trained to be like a Von Drago from like Rocky IV and he played in playing quarterback for USC.
Speaker 3:But then he got to college and then just went off the rails and went bananas. Hi, I'm Betsy Robinson, ceo of Tier 4 Group, a women ownedowned and diversity-certified technology recruiting and executive search firm that connects exceptional talent with extraordinary companies in 43 states across the US. At Tier 4 Group, relationships are at the heart of everything we do, whether it's with our clients, our candidates, our vendor partners or with each other. Our mission is to go beyond transactions and create long-lasting partnerships. We don't just help companies find talent, we help them find the right talent, and that starts with truly understanding our clients and candidates. It's not just about filling roles. It's about fostering success for the long-term. This is the recipe for success that's landed us on the Inc 5000 six consecutive years and has us outpacing our competition across the country, and I'm thrilled to support Casey Jay Cox's podcast.
Speaker 3:Casey's philosophy aligns perfectly with ours, prioritizing relationships over transactions. His insights on building trust, empathy and connection resonate deeply with the way we do business at Tier 4 Group. We were honored to have Casey as our keynote at our 2024 kickoff, and all of our new hires read his book Win the Relationship, not the Deal, when they start here with us. So if you're looking for a partner who values relationships as much as results. Visit us at tier4groupcom or connect with me, betsy Robinson, directly on LinkedIn and, while you're at it, keep tuning into Casey's podcast. You'll walk away inspired to strengthen your own relationships, both personally and professionally, and as Casey always says, and professionally, and as Casey always says, stay curious.
Speaker 1:So how did you like not do that? Like in, in, like completely? Like you know, maybe you accidentally get around the wrong crowd. Your parents sound like fantastic people but like for for parents that are like I'm like, wow, I want to keep my kid in that zone, but then if I'm too strict then maybe he's going to rebel or she's going to rebel, and then all of a sudden, now I got more problems on my hands. Maybe talk about how did you navigate that as a kid?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, I think this'll be interesting because I haven't really thought about this before, but we can explore it in real time. There was a, there was definitely an expectation set by them that their rules applied to their house, and although they'd like us to consider their rules outside of the house, they knew that they didn't have control. So out of the four of us boys, I'd say three of us stayed in line outside of the house most of the time, and then one of my younger brothers was a little bit more of that rebel. I didn't personally feel the need to rebel for a couple of reasons, I think. Number one there was that unconditional love and openness and conversation, and I didn't want, I didn't feel the need to rebel.
Speaker 2:It wasn't like you can't swear or else you're going to be grounded forever. It was like you shouldn't swear because it's not a good thing to do. It wasn't like this is our way or the highway. It was just like we're trying to raise good, solid, moral and ethical people, and there was also kind of a church backbone and component to that too. Also, they were, you know, they were both successful and level-headed in their own right, and so I looked up to them, I wanted to be like them. But that idea that outside of the home they don't have control, you know, and at the time, like there weren't every little kid didn't have a cell phone, so it wasn't like they had this overarching kind of big brother like third eye watching you all the time. So I think, in the freedom of my own time and space, like you know, I probably rebelled in my own little ways here and there, but I didn't feel the need to that's.
Speaker 1:That's really I love what your parents did. That's a really well way to say they, they, they controlled what they could inside the home but realized they couldn't control outside the home. You're going to write one thing down. Everybody write that because, like, one thing I talk about is expectations and agreements. Expectations, I'm sitting in our head, but if we don't have an agreement of what's going to happen, then it's not an agreement, it's just an expectation. I'm going to probably set myself up for false frustration and I'm going to then be a not a good version of myself and I think like that. I had to learn that as a dad because sometimes early when my, when we get like get together to go like this and I can see it, and then all of a sudden, oh, they called a blip, they called a blitz. I wasn't ready for that coverage and sometimes you got to be flexible as a parent. I'm learning that the hard way, um, but I think, being able to talk about it and realizing that back again, we're not all perfect, but we out, we can get a little bit better tomorrow. But I love what your parents said because that that took grace, that took trust, that took maybe some forgiveness, some. You know trust for sure, and kudos to you guys for not. You know doing too, too. You know taking it too far, cause in the end I think you know I've had done episodes of all different things, from youth sports to business, to life, I mean anything you can think of we talked about, which has been you're going to be one of 280 something dads that I've talked to and, um, in this journey there's so much that we don't have control over, like so much, and we try to control it, um, but we don't, and in the end, they're not going to be who we think they're going to be. They're going to be who they're going to be, and I think that's the one thing I keep learning to tell myself, like it's their life, not mine. I can help push them, I can help support them, I can help ask questions about what they want to do, but it's their life.
Speaker 1:And, like Mike Weinberg said, one of my favorite things he talked about, this episode I was going to say came out today, one of December 12th. His daughter was like a stud, architectural student, crazy smart, went to like this most high end architect school and then, two years in, she's like you know what I'm out and, like so many parents would have probably freaked out. It's like what? No, you're the smartest kid ever. We spent all this money you got to do. He's like I know I can tell you're not happy and then the end isn't that what we want. It was like just a happy kid, who, who is respectful, who is nice, who shows up to work on time. And if you leave somebody, like, what a stud, what a nice kid, what like? We want our kids, we want our friends and our people saying that about our kids. And that's really what I kind of like when I'm trying to do with this podcast to just help us all remember that as much as we got, we think we have cool jobs at times.
Speaker 1:Our kids don't care. They don't everybody. What they care about is hey, does mom and dad love me? Can they get me to practice on time? They open can, uh, can I go talk to them? Do they trust me? Um, do they forgive me? Um, are they always yelling at me? Are they on their phone? We go to dinner, um, do they? Do they say they're going to show up to my concert and then they're late? Um, like things that we have control over. So I think that's like I'm. My hope is that we can drive in more of that emotional intelligence into dads to realize there's the things we have control over can make a huge impact in your life, your marriage, how you father your kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there are so many things that I want to share and respond to. The first is this subject of control. When I was in my late teens and early 20s, I struggled with a lot of ego, and I think a lot of that stemmed from being a little bit of a control freak, wanting to have control, or the insecurity of who I was without control. And so as I got into Stoicism, which I'm bringing up again, one of the core tenets of Stoicism, which is this ancient philosophy it started in ancient Greece and then moved to Rome and now there are Stoics all over the planet but one of the core tenets is understanding the difference of what you have control over versus what you don't. And that was really difficult for me to understand at first. But then I started to observe the world and I started to realize that a lot of the things that would upset me, that I would get angry towards or that I would emotionally react to in a negative way, were things that I didn't have control over. Obvious example is the news. You know you get on the news it's all negative and divisive and a political candidate that you don't want to win wins, or something happens on the other side of the world that's sad, like a tsunami or something, and it makes you upset. And now these things that you literally have zero control over are affecting your emotional state, and I started to realize, well, that's kind of goofy, why would I let an external reality that has nothing to do with me impact my internal reality? And so, as I continued to study stoicism, I realized that a lot of ego is tied to that sense of control, or at least it was for me. And if I wanted to be a more positive person, if I wanted to be more logical and less emotional, I'd have to start to understand that and practice it. And then in Stoicism there's this concept of amor fati, which is Latin for a love of one's fate, and it's a Nietzsche concept, friedrich Nietzsche. And he takes it a step further and he says after you've distinguished what you have control over versus what you don't have control over, you should actually view everything that's external as either neutral or maybe even positive, and so you should love your fate, however it unrolls. If you don't have control over something, view it in a positive way. And so how could you view a tsunami on the other side of the world in a positive way? Well, you could focus on gratitude, you could be grateful that you weren't impacted directly by the tsunami, and so you start to shift your perspective a little bit. I also wanted to highlight one other thing, and we'll see if I can tie them together.
Speaker 2:You talked about forgiveness briefly, and my grandfather on my dad's side, who, like we talked about, was a military guy.
Speaker 2:He was a full colonel in the US Army and towards the end of his life, sort of as he was losing it a little bit, he had these Sudoku puzzles and my grandmother and I guess my dad and his siblings found this book of Sudoku puzzles after he had passed away and he had written the same three words on every page.
Speaker 2:So he wasn't playing the game anymore, he was just writing these three words kindness, forgiveness and tenderness, and so Write that down again Kindness, and so I get kindness, kindness, forgiveness and tenderness. And those were the opposites of how he was perceived and the end of his life. As he contemplated his entire life and as he faced his mortality, he realized that he should have been a little kinder, he should have forgiven more and he should have been a little bit more tender in his communication style. And so, while discipline and having a rigid kind of strict personality as a parent can lead to a beautiful life. I think that sometimes you need to balance those with the opposites and that control piece you have control over forgiveness you do, you have the ability to forgive.
Speaker 1:Yeah and so on. Yeah, have you heard? Have you read the book um forgiveness by Richard case? No, so it talks about it's a little bit as a spiritual tendency note to note to it, but it talks about it was really impactful for me in my late thirties. So forgiveness takes you just me, I mean sorry, it just takes me If I so let's say you pissed me off.
Speaker 1:I'm like God, nick, I would have a hole. I can't, I can't. And if I let you frustrate me more, that's on me, that's not on you. So if I say you know what, nick, I forgive you bro, and you're like who cares? I'm like I know, but I'm just like, no, I'm forgiving you, it's out of my body.
Speaker 1:Now reconciliation takes you and me, and that's the big difference, that's what the book's about. And so, like no-transcript. And there's people in your life you're not supposed to be around. Embrace it, own it, control it. And for me, forgiveness is like no one wakes up in the day thinking man, I hope that I frustrate every single person I talk to, and if I do, god, what a great day. Or I hope I let everybody down today, like no one thinks that way, right. And so when bad stuff happens, we have a choice to either say Ooh, like when your kid messes up, or your wife does something that's frustrating, or your partner, whatever it is like. Have some forgiveness, some grace, some forgiveness, and watch your your back to your word stillness, watch your happiness in your life go up. Versus always blaming anger, looking for the worst in people. That goes from like a mindset of scarcity to abundance quickly, and we've covered a lot today, brother.
Speaker 2:Can I add another comment on forgiveness, real quick.
Speaker 2:Do it In the beginning of one of Don Miguel Ruiz's books. It's either the Four Agreements or the Mastery of Self. He talks about how humans are one of the only animals on the planet that can act and then think about it a thousand times again later. We're the only animals that punish ourselves for things that happened in the past. Now, yeah, we're the only ones maybe with human consciousness. But the idea that you did something years and years ago and you're still paying for it every day because you haven't forgiven yourself right, there's forgiving externally, but there's also forgiving internally it's kind of goofy. And so once you start to think about that, yeah, you know the weight. As you forgive yourself, the weight starts to disappear and as you forgive others, the poison stops entering your body. You know there's that. Saying like holding onto a grudge is like drinking poison every day and hoping the other person gets sick from it. So it's irrational. When you think about these metaphors, it just frees you up to be a better person totally just frees you up to be a better person.
Speaker 1:So good, spot on um, okay, what would be? Um? I usually ask dads like what was? Uh, you know what would be a, an area, your dad game that you maybe you know it's not quite where you want to be, you're such a younger dad, but I'll ask anyways, in the in the 10 weeks that levi's been around, has there been something? Yet you're like, you know what? That side of nick showed up and I don't like that side of nick and I'm gonna work hard.
Speaker 1:And it pops up again and for me, nick I'll leave my witness here my dad was really, really impatient. I'm super competitive and sometimes the opposite of competitive is impatience, and so I have to. I work hard on that all the time and I've kind of given my life, my wife, green light to coach me, like, like when I, when I, when that side of Casey comes out, we like, hey, we don't want that dude here, you know. And so it's like and it requires me to check my ego I'm like yep, okay, I got you and maybe I'll remove myself from the room, do what I got to do to get, okay, dad's back. Sorry guys, that was not not me, but like for you time yet or a side of Nick the dad that you're going to work hard on to make sure that he doesn't show up.
Speaker 2:Yes, so far now I have a lot of flexibility, since I work from home, but I also have a lot of commitments, because I'm a small business owner in a growing company with about 10 people on the team now, and so there's a lot of moving parts and we're towards the end of the year. So I've had some long working days and sometimes I'll wrap up work and I'll think to myself I should have been a little bit more present today. I mean, my son is literally in the same house that I'm working. I could have taken a little bit more time to go be present with him, and so I know it's early, but that's something that I'm catching myself with and trying to be a little bit more conscious of.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you a quick story as a younger dad. So when I was third, when my son was maybe one and a half ish, I would get to work in corporate. I'd leave at like six so I'd leave him before he wakes up. I'd get home at like 645 and he'd go to bed at seven and I was our. I was a top performer at this company for 10 straight years. Nationally. I left as the firm's all time leading salesperson history company. I'm like who cares? No one cares. The company's still in business, right, I tell myself that often to stay grounded.
Speaker 1:But at that year and a half mark I remember like just being miserable. I got to a point where I wasn't talking about it, I wasn't asking for help. And I remember finally going to my boss and shout out to Angela Veronica, I go and this is not working. She's like what are you talking about? She goes I'm literally yeah, like you guys love this. I'm making you guys tons of dough, it's thriving business, things are great. But Casey, I'm going to see Ryder like 15 minutes a day. That sucks. And she's like what do you do about it? I'm like I don't know. I'm asking for help and so we ended up talking through it. She's like why don't you leave it? Why don't you leave it for every day? I'm like, yeah, it doesn't work for a bank. No, no, no offense to the banker. The bank doesn't. Like we're using the staffing consulting business. And there was like trust the team. Like I'm like I trust the team. She's like you're leaving a four. There's this thing called a cell phone. If we need you we're going to call you.
Speaker 1:But from five to seven, take family time. And Nick, when I did that for my career went to levels I never thought were possible. Because I was present, I was able to trust my team, I was able to delegate, I was able to get really, really clear with what I expected, with agreements. Now, all of a sudden, I trust other people. Their careers went through to do.
Speaker 1:You know, it was like this, like amazing time in my life, but I was now some people might be rolling their eyes at me like, oh sure, it must be nice. Well, it took effort and time and focus and clarity and great messaging and some days I wasn't always my best but like high percent of the time, I got family dinners, I got time with my, my wife and my son and my daughter, I could go to you, know sports, I could coach, um. So I don't, I think, cause those one. The cliche is true, we don't get time back. So I maybe I share that with maybe a little, hopefully, maybe some inspiration as a younger dad knowing that there's being present is possible.
Speaker 2:I know some people don't agree with that. I do. It just takes a choice and a mindset. Yeah, I think it's wonderful advice. There's a program I'm a part of right now for business owners called Strategic Coach, and one of the first things they tell you and they say you're not going to believe this up front, but you will learn it the fastest way to double your income is to take twice as much time off. And you think, well, how's that possible? And it's through what you highlighted, casey. It forces you to delegate, it forces you to systemize and it also helps you to rejuvenate and be more present during the calls that matter the most the highest leverage, right, the 80-20 stuff. But I think that's wonderful advice and thank you for sharing it.
Speaker 1:You bet dude. Well, so, um, if you were to summarize what we talked about before, we learn more about book thinkers, and we're gonna, cuz we talked about a lot and this episode's gone all over the board, which I fricking love. There's no script, there's no. It's just about being curious and listening and asking great questions and learning more about how we can be the best dads we can be. But if you were to summarize, nick, what we talked about that dads can take from our conversation, they can apply one, two or three things in their life that you believe, through what we talked about, they can be the best quarterback or leader of their home. Tell me what comes to mind.
Speaker 2:If we were to summarize things, it's the importance of personal development. It's the idea that you can learn from the experiences of other people and you can apply those things to your own life. And to be the best dad possible is to be the best version of yourself possible. I read a book called 10 Rules for Resilience recently. It's a parenting book on mental toughness by Joe DeSena, and he talks about how there's an epidemic of unhappy, unhealthy kids and that stems from unhealthy, unhappy parents. And so it's.
Speaker 2:You know, it's the metaphor we've all heard on the plane If the plane's going down, you've got to put your own oxygen on first so that you can help the person next to you. And I think that in this world of personal development, self-help is not selfish. In fact it's altruistic. When you help yourself and you focus on yourself and on improving your emotional intelligence, then you will, as a result, be a better dad, Not by focusing on improving your kid's performance, but improving your own performance. It seems like that's the central through line for a lot of the things we talked about today.
Speaker 1:Spot on dude, it's interesting. When I wrote my book in 2020, we talked about today. Spot on dude, you know it's interesting. So when I wrote my book in 2020, like the phrase self-help I actually don't like. What I like is self-investment, and so I tried to get Amazon to put me, put it in its own category, creative category. Like hey, beat it, dude. But I'm like, if you again like I think we've talked a lot about perspective and mindset, self-help is, oh, I'm broken. How about self-investment? Why wouldn't you invest in your business, but why wouldn't you invest in yourself, just like exercise or reading? And what I love about this, nick, is you're a younger dad. But if a younger dad is not too proud to work on oneself, why can't we older dads not work on ourselves?
Speaker 2:Teach an old dog some new tricks, 100%.
Speaker 1:Let's go, teach us, teach us young buck like help us, help us, help us. You know, and I and I love learning. I'm addicted to it. I love, um, I love, I. Just it fills my tank. I love surrounding myself with people that make me feel uncomfortable and I'm like, wow, okay, that's what the next level looks like. That dude or she was fantastic, um, okay. So book thinkers people will be like what, what the heck is this book thinkers? You got a great Instagram following. You got great work. You're doing. I think I'm inspired by, by folks like at your in your stage life, cause you're, I think you're articulate, you. You, you believe what you do matters. You take what you do serious. It shows through. So tell us some more about the business. How can people learn more about you? And then I'd love for you to talk about your book too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, amazing. I'll give a little backstory. I was not much of a reader growing up, despite the fact that my parents did read a lot to me. When I was younger I fell into the public school system and I think in a lot of ways that pushed me away from reading, being judged on my opinions for books through the lens of my teachers and being told what to read instead of choosing what books to read, et cetera. So I was introduced again to the importance of personal development and reading in my early twenties by a mentor of mine named Kyle. He was at the software company that I was interning at and he told me hey, nick, you're commuting an hour each way to work five days a week. That's 10 hours a week in the car. He said, listening to the same song for the 500th time is not going to improve who you are.
Speaker 2:The right personal development podcast or book might. So I started consuming a lot of this information, and it started to change every area of my life. As I admitted before, in my early 20s I had a lot of ego issues on one side of the spectrum and a lot of insecurities on the other, and so that was a confusing way to operate. But I started to read and implement books by people who have figured out how to navigate these subjects, and so, as my life started to stabilize and as my mental headspace started to improve, I started to think I've got to get a lot of my friends and family to start considering the same type of material, and so I started sharing the books I was reading on social media, hoping that my friends and family would start looking at the books that I was reading and maybe consider reading them themselves. And before you know it, I had developed a little bit of a following other lifelong learners, people interested in reading and implementing books to improve their lives. So, to make a long story short, as that audience of readers got bigger and bigger, I had authors reaching out to me asking if I could help promote and market their material and that's really when the business was born and if I fast forward until today, we've now got 10 people on the team.
Speaker 2:We support hundreds of authors a year through services like short form video production, where we fly out and help the authors turn the concepts from their book into video that they can use to positively influence people on social media. We offer podcast booking, where we place authors on shows to tell their story and sell their book, and then we also offer social media book reviews, as you alluded to. I mean today we reach hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions of people in a month through our social media platforms just by sharing books, so we can move some copies that way too. And to wrap up my side of things, over the last few years because we're serving so many readers, I started to hear a lot of the same questions hey, nick, I'm reading these books, but I'm having a tough time implementing them.
Speaker 2:Why is it my life changing? How do I take notes? How do I retain more from the books that I read? And so I decided to write a book that answered all of those questions, since I couldn't find one out there. It's called Rise of the Reader Strategies for Mastering your Reading Habits and Applying what you Learn. So that book is for personal development junkies that want to get more out of every book that they read because there's an opportunity cost to not leveraging the strategies that I talk about in there.
Speaker 1:It's so good. There's a phrase that hit me. I don't know where I heard it, but a book is a book that goes on a shelf, but a book becomes wisdom when you start applying it and which means and this is like self-plug, but I don't mean this to come across like an egomaniac, but just through the editing process, I'm sure you, maybe you, went through this. You can let me know if you did or not. But like so, I've read my book probably north of 10 times, either just from editing process or when I work with somebody in coaching perspective. Maybe I'll reread a chapter, reread a part, all of a sudden, like, oh, and I learned from myself, which means I'm flawed just like them when I have gaps, and like, I think, like the best books in my mind, my experience, are like reminders.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like accountability partners.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we need to be reminded of these types of things. So I think it's a really, really cool idea. I'll make sure that's linked in the show notes and I huge congrats to you. I know the effort it took to write a book, the discipline, the hard work. So congrats to you, congrats on the success of that book and I hope that we can send a few more folks your way when they listen to this episode and, hopefully, a few more followers to BookThinkers.
Speaker 1:We hopefully can get a few more dads or moms or grandpas whoever's listening invest in themselves and, instead of spending 15 more minutes on you know, spend 15 more minutes on Facebook, maybe spend 15 more minutes on eight pages a night and see what happens to your life. Because I know someone who I read every night and it's I usually read, like I mentioned, like nonfiction, but I'm in this fiction book, but, yeah, I think it's so important. So I think what you said is really, really impactful. All right, if people want to find you, what's the best way? How can I send them to you? What socials are the best way to connect you?
Speaker 2:Our most vibrant community is on Instagram at BookThinkers spelled just like it sounds and what I love to do is play book matchmaker. So if there's anybody listening to the show today and you're like, okay, I get it. Books can change lives, but I'm not sure where to start, and I've already read Casey's book and maybe I'll read your book, nick, but I'm looking for something different. Shoot me a DM on Instagram, tell me a little bit about yourself. What problems are you facing, what skills are you looking to improve, and I'll provide a custom book recommendation to you. It's one of my favorite ways to provide a positive impact for our community, and best place to do that is on Instagram.
Speaker 1:We will make sure that homework is in the show notes, everybody. I think that's a fantastic idea and he will do it. I know it. We both follow the mindset of serving people and serve a mindset I call it the boomerang mindset, where I throw boomerangs. I serve people like Nick just talked about, but I don't keep score. I don't think Nick's going to keep score either, so hold them to the fire. Everybody follow up. And then, um, when you, when you see this episode, go live on uh, instagram or LinkedIn, leave us a note. Um, tag him on LinkedIn, tag someone else in the in the comments of the post so we can get more people reading. I think it's very, very cool. All right, now it's time to go into lightning round. Lightning round I go random. I'm going to show you the hit, the effects of taking too many hits in college. Not bomb hits, nick, but football hits. Your job is to answer these questions as quickly as you can. My question, my, my challenge, is to make you laugh.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 1:Are you ready?
Speaker 2:I'm already smiling a little bit, so all right. But yeah, I just laughed at myself too.
Speaker 1:Okay, true or false, the best quarterback ever in New England history New England Patriots is Steve Grogan. False, true or false. Tom Brady should have. I mean, tom Brady wore a neck roll False. Do you know what a neck roll is?
Speaker 2:Yeah, like the.
Speaker 1:The horse collar, you know shoulder pads What'd you? Say Remember Steve Grogan as a kid.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do Remember the neck roll, I do. Yeah, like the little thing around the back of the pads.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so good, I'm glad you remember that. Okay, tell me, if I went into your phone right now, what would be the one song that the people that work for you'd be surprised you listen toire by Creed. Okay, there we go. If you went on vacation right now, just you and your wife. Sorry, levi, you're staying home, buddy, where are we going?
Speaker 2:We're going to Medellin, columbia.
Speaker 1:Wow, okay, I love that If I was to come to your house for dinner tonight, what would we have?
Speaker 2:Chicken and rice almost every night.
Speaker 1:Your favorite comedy movie is Favorite comedy movie is maybe Step Brothers. Just touch the drum set.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:That is fantastic.
Speaker 2:Touch the drum set.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what is the best piece of advice you wish you would have learned early in your life?
Speaker 2:Don't worry, it's all going to work out, okay, I?
Speaker 1:like that, um, what is the best piece of advice you wish you would have learned early in your life? Don't worry, it's all going to work out. Okay, like that, um. If there was to be a book written about your life, tell me the title Enjoying the passage of time.
Speaker 1:Okay, now enjoying the passage of the time. Nick is killing it. It's. It's crushing your book, it's crushing my book, it's crushing Bob Berg's book, every book. It's like absolute killing. So now Hollywood's found out about it. They want to make a movie. You were the casting director. I need to know who's going to star you in this new, critically acclaimed, hit new movie on Hollywood.
Speaker 2:Well, I guess it depends on when this happens, but maybe Justin Bieber I mean, we're both tatted. He's a good looking guy.
Speaker 1:You could be a Biebs. I was thinking Biebs or like a Wahlberg, just being a Boston guy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that would be funny to have him. My wife's looking at me Two minutes. Yeah, mark Wahlberg. Yeah, matt Damon, somebody like that Solid, okay, last question Let you out of here.
Speaker 1:Tell me two words that describe your wife Beautiful and patient. Here we go, lightning round's over. I think I laughed more of my own shenanigans, which is I think I lose. Nick, this has been fantastic getting to know you better. I appreciate your time. I appreciate the conversation, all the wisdom at the ripe old age of maybe 30, 31, but you're inspiring man. I think what you're doing teaches us all that there's so much knowledge out there, but just take some time and commitment and focus and I think when you do that, you will be a better version of yourself. You'll be a better version of a dad out there, which is what we're trying to do is create better leaders of homes. So, brother, appreciate you, appreciate all the information you shared with us today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you for hosting a show that positively impacts every single person that listens to it. And yeah, parenting, like we've talked about, it's a skill set and skills can be improved, and so you can learn from the experiences of others, and your show is a great platform for that. So thank you for being a positive light in this world and I had a lot of fun today.
Speaker 1:Appreciate it, man, all right, take it easy.