Win Today
Win Today is a performance enhancing podcast filled with actionable insights and inspiration to come out on top in life. Through captivating interviews and solo episodes, a powerful tool is created and given to listeners to be able to push through any situation in life.
Hosted by Ryan Cass, he delivers messages that align to his purpose of helping people establish a foundation for sustained success, break trends of adversity, and chart desirable courses for life. Win Today!
Win Today
#218 | Right Information, Right Book, Right Time: How To Actually Retain & Apply Information From Powerful Books Ft. Nick Hutchison
Ever wondered why some people transform their lives through books while others barely remember what they’ve read?
The difference isn’t intelligence—it’s intention and system.
I’m joined again by Nick Hutchison, founder of BookThinkers and author of Rise of the Reader. Nick’s journey from a self-described “jock” who avoided books to a thriving entrepreneur built on reading is both inspiring and practical.
What sets Nick apart is his systematic approach to reading for results:
- How to set intentions before opening a book to activate your reticular activating system and uncover exactly what you need.
- A step-by-step multi-sensory process for retention—highlighting, rewriting, digitizing, and teaching—that makes insights stick.
- Real-world examples of how a single book helped him increase his business’s average deal size from $1,000 to $10,000.
Whether you’re an avid reader or haven’t picked up a book in years, this episode will give you the tools to turn pages into progress and books into breakthroughs.
As Nick reminds us, “the pain of discipline weighs much less than the pain of regret.”
Tune in now to discover how to make your reading habit one of the most powerful levers for change in your life.
Thank you for tuning in! If you feel led, please subscribe & share the show to others who you believe would benefit from it.
Keep in touch below!
Do believe the right book at the right time can change somebody's life, especially if they use the techniques that we talk about in this book, Nick what's one step that I can take today to become a more diligent reader that will allow me to unlock my greatest powers?
Speaker 1:unlock my greatest powers. Build an accountability group with your most motivated friends and meet with them on a weekly basis to talk about the books you're reading and the action that you'd like to take. By having other people hold you accountable, you're far more likely to take better action, and we are the average of the five people that we spend the most time with, so you might as well grow with your friends instead of grow away from your friends.
Speaker 2:Do hard things. Help one person, be good and do good, live a life of discipline and you will always win. You have all the tools that you need to succeed. Welcome to win today that you need to succeed. Welcome to win today. Thank you so much for tuning in. My name is Ryan Cass and I am your host. My purpose in this world is to help push people further and harder than they believe possible and become unshakable in what matters most to them in their lives. Every week, you're going to learn from either myself or renowned expert in their field, and we're going to unveil pieces of our playbook to help you win today. Please, if you love this show, subscribe and share it with somebody that will benefit from it. Let's dig in what's up everyone and welcome back.
Speaker 2:I'm really excited to bring back a previous conversation that I had with Nick Hutchison. He's one of my friends and the founder and CEO of BookThinkers, in addition to that author of Rise of the Reader, and Nick and I have gotten to know each other much better since our original interview. He's been helping me out on the business side and he's actually I'm his running coach, so it's been awesome to continue to build a great network of people all over the world that are doing amazing things, and the reason why this interview is coming back out is because a lot of what Nick and I talked about, I believe, is even more relevant today, in the world that we're living in, which feels a bit divided, but more so it feels as if folks are operating on headlines and opinions instead of useful and grounded information, and I believe one of the best ways we can combat that is by reading more, being more informed, by intentionally choosing books that sharpen our thinking, build our understanding and equip us to lead better lives. Nick and I had an in-depth conversation about the importance of reading, how to apply what you learn and how books can literally change the trajectory of your life, and I believe that message is worth hearing again, and his tips have really helped me become a better reader and absorb information more efficiently.
Speaker 2:And one thing I really love is how he talks about creating intentions of what you want to get from a book or how you want to apply a book before you start reading them. So, with that, enjoy this conversation with Nick, and it's my wish and call to action that this isn't something that inspires you to pick up a book this week, be more intentional about what you read and how you apply it, so that you can be more informed, more grounded in the things that are deemed as most important in your life. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Through any circumstance or to know, what should I read at this point in time so I can solve problem XYZ? You mentioned that books cured your pain. So if we learn a little bit more about Nick, the human versus the businessman, what's the genesis of all of this?
Speaker 1:Well, you highlighted that I wasn't much of a reader growing up, which is true. I embodied more of the jock stereotype. Going through high school and sort of early college, I was never somebody that loved academics, studying homework, test taking, sitting in class, and so, going into my senior year of college, I took an internship at a local software company and it was a sales internship. An internship at a local software company and it was a sales internship, and my boss at the time, kyle the director of sales, he was sort of forced to take me on a couple of local sales trips and so I'd spend some time with him in the car. We'd drive around New Hampshire, massachusetts, some longer drives. I think one time we went to New York and instead of talking to me, he would put on business podcasts. This was completely new. I had never consumed an educational podcast before. But he told me that these podcasts had made him successful. And he was successful, made a lot of money. That's what I was focused on at the time. That was the lens through which I saw success at least, and so I had about an hour commute that summer, where I was living, to and from this internship, and so I started to listen to a lot of podcasts, and all of these shows followed a similar format. There was a host like you, ryan, who would interview a guest like me today, which is fun how it's come full circle. You, ryan, who would interview a guest like me today, which is fun how it's come full circle, and the guest would talk about what they've done to become successful. And so many of those people gave at least like a little bit of credit to the books that they were reading or had read, or a lot of credit. And so here I am every single day listening to people give credit to books, yet I'm not willing to read them. I mean, that's kind of goofy, and so I just.
Speaker 1:I think the original motivation was that I just sort of got hit with the realization that if I'm choosing not to read these books, I'm choosing to live under my potential, and that was a scary place to be. I'm not willing to replicate the behaviors of the people that I want to be like. So that was sort of the origin story. And then, to go a little bit deeper, I'll just finish by saying that at that time in my life I was operating from a place of ego on one side of the spectrum that would represent itself at the expense of other people. And so towards the end of high school and definitely throughout my college experience, I would sort of like all eyes on me, like it had to. I had to have the attention, I had to be the coolest guy in the room, I had to be throwing around the most weight in the gym, I had to be the whatever.
Speaker 1:But then, on the other side of the spectrum, I had a lot of insecurity issues, which probably drove a lot of the ego behaviors.
Speaker 1:But I was very insecure around my ability to communicate effectively and I was very insecure about what I was going to do post-college because I'm in business school yet I don't understand the language of money or investing or personal finance. I had no financial literacy and so I'd shy away from these conversations and it created a version of me who would just get that feeling in your gut and walk away from conversations that could help me. And so I started to read personal finance books and very I was able to remove a lot of that insecurity. And then I was able to read books on communication and sales and those sorts of subjects and also remove insecurities. And then I started to read about service and purpose and remove ego. So that was a long introduction to your question. We can go a few layers deeper if you want, but that's sort of the origin story. And you know, I went to a local Barnes and Noble, picked up a few good books and the rest is history.
Speaker 2:I love that, so, and what I love about books, and I started right around college as well with as I started studying these leaders and being on this mission to break this systemic trend of alcoholism in my family, and so I started looking at, well, what makes the people like Warren Buffett and Richard Branson and Tony Robbins and Elon Musk? What's the secret sauce? What are they doing? That's different. What's the secret sauce? What are they doing? That's different. And one of the common threads I found, besides writing their goals down, is they are voracious readers. They are constantly consuming information and by doing that, we all possess the power to create the person that we want to become. And books give us those answers, those tools, those solutions to create those transformations. You were somebody that what I heard is you would shy away from conversations and then compensate for that by well, maybe I can't talk business about with you, but I can look like the toughest, meanest, strongest guy in the room. Is that accurate?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely Especially in small groups. Never in a big group, but yeah, definitely in small groups.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So what was that first book or first set of books that you picked up? And when you made that choice to start reading books, the first few pages that you flipped through, did you ever have this? Or moments of man, screw this, Like this isn't, I'm not changing fast enough or were you hooked right off, right off the bat?
Speaker 1:The first book was Rich Dad, poor Dad, by Robert Kiyosaki, and I was hooked right off the bat because the book was solving a problem. And right in the beginning of the book he says something that sort of I think it hits home for a lot of people and it's one of the reasons that's a lot of people's first book. He says that the subject of money is not taught in the public education system and, as a result, you learn at home, and so poor and middle-class kids learn poor and middle-class money habits by observing their parents, and only the rich kids, the select few, grew up in a rich home. They learned the rich money habits, and so the wealth gap continues to separate itself. And right there I'm like, yeah, I don't talk about money at home. Now, I love my parents and they've done very well. I actually have like the perfect parents, but we didn't talk about money.
Speaker 1:And so here's this guy, Robert Kiyosaki, who's condensed decades of lived experience in the worlds of finance and investing and millions of dollars worth of experience into a book that costs $20 and only takes a few hours to read. And so, yeah, right off the bat I was hooked and I just, you know, I didn't really know what I was doing. I sort of wish that I read Rise of the Reader first. It's kind of why I wrote the book for people, so that they can get more out of the books they're reading. But yeah, I was in there, man, and I think sometimes people do tend to turn away from the world of personal development if they choose the wrong book first, and that's a problem. Like if you choose a book that will solve a problem or help you build a skillset that you need to create for a job or something like, you'll stay in there, you'll be hooked and thank goodness that's what happened for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So right book, right time. Rise of the Reader is the right book that listeners should pick up a copy of. Here In the book you detail how we can choose the right book and really you provide an inventory that we can take before we just go to Barnes Noble aimlessly and pick the book that has the coolest cover and maybe one quote from a New York Times or Wall Street Journal review. So how do we pick the right book?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think there are a series of questions, like the personal inventory, that you can go through, and the first one is have you recently experienced any pain related to a problem that could have been avoided if you had understood something more efficiently or maybe had developed a skill set to help you overcome that problem? And so if a book can help you solve a pain, you'll stick with the book right. That's the example that we just talked about. I'm experiencing all of this insecurity in and around my college experience because I don't understand the subject of money. So now I'm going to read a book that will give me that language so that I don't have to be insecure anymore. It'll remove a lot of that fear, a lot of that pain, and help me for the rest of my life, because we're all forced to play the game of money right, and if you don't understand it, you'll get left behind. You don't have to be materialistic to understand the importance of food, water, shelter, and so that's a great first question.
Speaker 1:There are a number of other questions. Will you be attending an event where there's going to be a speaker, and if you read their book, could you have a better understanding of who they're going to be. Are there any idols of yours that have had books written about them or have they written books? You know it's a great place to start as well, because oftentimes biographies or autobiographies they play like a movie in your mind and you'll stay in the content and continue to read because you're really interested in the person that's being written about or the person that wrote the book. You know popular books they're popular for a reason, and I think that the longer a book has been around and the more copies it's sold, the more lives it's impacted. And you know, books don't sell for no reason. They sell because they're helping people or they're super entertaining in the world of fiction, but nonfiction books they only do well if they're useful. And so those are some places to start.
Speaker 2:Now digging a little deeper. What if it doesn't always come from pain, like I would envision for you and in your inventory process, it likely stems more from okay, what problems do I want to solve or where do I want to take my business next? Can you dive a little deeper into your personal inventory and what's that decision process like for you?
Speaker 1:now, in the last few books that you've read, yeah, there's being reactionary, so solving a problem and then there's being proactive, so reactive or proactive. And I think a proactive example could be who do you want to become in the future and what's the difference between where you are now and where you'd like to be? You know, what skill sets can that person implement to improve the likelihood of whatever success means to them? And so, as far as my business is concerned, I'll give you a legit example. Last year I last year with BookThinkers we were growing, but very slowly. We had experienced some bottlenecks with our average deal size and really the services that we could offer our authors, and so I thought I need to improve our average deal size. How am I going to do that? What additional services should I be offering? I mean, I didn't even know where to start with that. So I started to ask around and a friend of mine recommended a book $100 million offers. Now, this is not a reactive question, this is a proactive question. I want to grow and I think the average service, the average deal size, is hurting our business right now and I want to improve that right. So I'm being proactive. And somebody recommended $100 million offers by Alex Hormozy. So I get a copy of $100 million offers.
Speaker 1:I set an intention for the book that I'd like to find and implement at least two new strategies that can help me build bigger services at BookThinkers by the end of next week, or something like that. That intention for the book is something we could talk about. I like to follow the SMART goal framework specific, measurable, attainable, actionable, written, relevant, time bound. So I'm going through the book and there's an exercise about journaling every single way that you could possibly help your ideal client, and so I'm going through these exercises. He has questions that you can ask that can help you think bigger and outside of the box.
Speaker 1:I'm going through everything and I find a service and it's 10 times bigger than my average deal size in terms of revenue right off the bat, and I think you know what this might be. It. I mean I journaled, whiteboarded, for hours and I found something that I thought was interesting and I started pitching it to existing customers that hey, would this be useful to you? Have you ever thought about trying this? Have you ever thought about trying this? And the first person that I called literally said to me hey, nick, I have on the back of a napkin on my desk I have call Nick about and then listed that service and so it was sort of just this awesome moment that solidified or sort of reinforced that I was on the right path. But that's an example of being proactive and trying to close the gap between where you are and who you know you can become, and for me that's happened a thousand different ways, but that's just an example for business revenue.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love that book, by the way $100 million offers, and that's one that I often talk about with my team in my corporate role. We're standing up a fairly new organization at the Boeing company and with that there are some folks who are still a little skeptical as to the benefits of the organization. Why should we utilize you? I often tell the team that we're here. Let's make offers so great that these people would be silly not to utilize this team, because we provide services XYZ, and when you come visit us, here are the benefits that you can expect to see after you go back into your normal role.
Speaker 2:It's so interesting that books or people that we often look at I talked to my mentor one of my mentors about this a lot. When we see or hear somebody that sounds really impactful or admirable, I often ask the question I wonder what chapter of what book that person is speaking from right now. Because books give us so much powerful language and ideas and things that again you extracted something from an amazing book, a hundred million dollar offers, and now the result of that was what? What was your average deal price? Where'd you? How much did you bump it up?
Speaker 1:Back then our average deal size was was about1,000 per customer and we bumped it up after a little bit of iteration to $10,000.
Speaker 1:And so it was a 10x. And the promise that, as you know, alex sort of makes in his book and in the content is that 20% of your customers are willing to pay five times more. And if you charge five times more, you'll have the same revenue, but you'll only be working with 20% of the customers more. And if you charge five times more, you'll have the same revenue, but you'll only be working with 20% of the customers, and so you can spend more time and attention and provide a better service. So we sort of did that same thing but doubled it, and now it's changed. I mean, I've continued to go bigger and better and follow Alex's recommendations and BookThinkers is continuing to grow as a result of that book and it's. It's also so funny that you mentioned like I wonder what chapter of what book they're they're talking from, because so much of Alex's content comes from other books that I've read and he'll make reference of them sometimes. But uh, you know I can, you can follow the chain backwards in time you can follow the chain backwards in time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Like if you had to summarize Nick Hutchison in a few books. Like, what books would you say represent you the most? Like if, if, if someone, for people that know me really well, they would tell you atomicomic Habits Can't Hurt Me and Everybody Matters. By Bob Chapman. Like if I had to pick three. But, thinking about that, what books speak through you the most?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a cool question. I haven't thought about this before. The Four-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss, both professionally and personally, the Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman, and Built to Serve by Evan Carmichael those are the ones that come to mind right there.
Speaker 2:And what elements from them? Just to extract a few from four-hour work, week and daily, stoic and built to serve like, make up who you are, yeah this is a cool question.
Speaker 1:I might have to steal this one or borrow it.
Speaker 2:Hey, well, look here, you know, it's not just what chapter of what book is somebody speaking from, but who is speaking through that person? Yes, absolutely. And you know, and even the things that I hear on podcasts. Other podcast hosts like hmm, I like that one, I really like the most recent one you had with Anton Gunn. He's a local guy here in Charleston, so take it.
Speaker 1:I look forward to hearing it. But, yeah, continue. Well, all right, I'll do a little bit of a deep dive. So the four hour work week by Tim Ferriss why? I said personally and professionally, so we'll go personally first.
Speaker 1:I read that book and I realized that each of us is capable of designing a life that's uniquely fulfilling to us. Tim says that reality is negotiable. He says that the new rich, they don't value money, they value time and mobility. And so when I read that book, I was working a corporate location dependent nine to five, and within a few months maybe about six months, I had taken that job totally remote, and I was traveling internationally while working and I started to develop this love for international travel that I still have today. My wife and I have been to 25 countries together over the last five years, sometimes for up to a few months at a time, and so if Nick isn't the book guy, he's the travel guy.
Speaker 1:But professionally, Tim talks about the art of delegation optimizing a task and then you know, eliminating it, delegating it, systemizing it, whatever the case is and I've done that in my business I mean, I do sort of a quarterly energy audit where I look back at a week's worth of activity and I try to say did that activity give me energy? Was it neutral or did it take energy from me? And I try to eliminate or delegate or automate that was the word I was looking for before Anything that's neutral or takes energy from me. I only want to do things that make me happy. And I only want to do things. And, by the way, that doesn't mean you can eliminate everything. That means you have to find somebody else that it brings energy to, because that's relative.
Speaker 1:So I love the four hour work week. I travel because of that book and I built a remote business uh, that brings me energy as a result of that book Number. And Tim Ferris is like my spirit animal from a distance. He doesn't know who I am, but I love everything he does. Um, number two, yeah, not yet Exactly Um. So that was the four-hour work week. What was the second book that I said? I don't even remember.
Speaker 2:The second one was Daily Stoic.
Speaker 1:Yes, the Daily Stoic. So I was originally gifted my first copy of the Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday from my friend Alec and he said, hey, let's read this every single day in the morning, jump on the phone and just chat with each other for a couple minutes about it. And we held that routine for a little while. It never really took off, but I continued reading the book myself. The subtitle of that book is something like 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance and the Art of Living, and each day you just read one page. And each day you just read one page. So it starts with a quote from an old Stoic philosopher, somebody like Marcus Aurelius or Seneca or Epictetus, and then Ryan Holiday will take that quote and he'll expand on it and make it relevant to today's life. So in that book I learned all about this beautiful, actionable philosophy of Stoicism, and I went on to read another hundred books related to it, or 25 books related to it, and there are certain subjects that I've tattooed on my body Memento Mori, we're all going to die. Amor fati, the love of one's fate, Ataraxia, stillness. You know, these are all things that I love so much that I tattooed them on me and they've changed the way that I live. They've made me much more logical, less emotional, and you know you mentioned can't hurt me Like Goggins is such a stoic human. He has total control over his body. I mean, he gets a little emotional sometimes but he's able to control himself and it's it's such a beautiful thing he's. He's a great representation, I think, of what stoicism can look like in a human.
Speaker 1:And then the last book that I said was built to serve. I'll try to be brief, but in that book Evan says your purpose comes from your pain, which is something we talked about before. Your purpose comes from your pain, and so so many of us try to serve our younger self. I've written this book, Rise of the Reader, to serve the younger version of myself, who wanted to close the gap between where he was and who he knew he could become. And he figured it out, you know. But if he had read this book first, he would have figured it out a lot faster and and gone through less hurdles.
Speaker 1:And that's what's beautiful about reading about other people's experiences. Like, failure is an amazing teacher, but other people's failure is also a great teacher, and you can avoid some of the pain yourself from the comfort of your living room, you know navigate obstacles more efficiently. But back to the book. Your purpose comes from your pain. Prior to reading that, I had a really difficult time articulating my purpose, who I wanted to serve, how I was serving them, and Evan helped me answer every one of those questions. And today service to others means so much more to me than it did back when I was full of ego and had to be the center of attention. So Evan sort of connected all those dots and I suppose that's why I answered that question that way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's beautiful and I love of each was profound and I love the built to serve. I believe that the best gift we can give is to give back, and even you can see right behind me that of the things that I preach, help one person. If we want to change the world, preach. Help one person. If we want to change the world, start by helping one person, and that could be by giving them one book, because then you never know the transformation that's going to occur in that one person, and then imagine all the lives they impact. So just by helping one person, you'll never really know the true impact of it, because then that person can go on to help five people, 10 people.
Speaker 2:If we look at this, even look at you, nick. You've read a few books and now you're reaching millions of people, and it's the smallest actions that have the greatest impact in many cases. Going back to what you mentioned about selecting a book, you said something interesting that I haven't heard before uh, when before you started a hundred million dollar offers and that that's that you set an intention prior to reading the book and, if I heard you correctly going back, you picked up that book with two intentions that are rather the intention of adopting two new selling strategies. For simple terms. What is that process for adopting an intention before reading a book, so as we think about picking up the next book and having one more hack to retain some more knowledge from that book. What is that process?
Speaker 1:Sure. Well, I just did a fun little unboxing thing for the book thinkers instagram, so I have a stack of new books next to me. I haven't read any of these yet, but I'll just talk about the process from scratch. So here's a book called amazon ads for authors unlock your full advertising potential. And what I would do is I'd read the title, I'd read the subtitle, I'd read the back of the book, I'd look at the table of contents and then I'd ask myself what's the goal for this book? What problem is it solving? What skill is it helping me improve? What's the intention here? And as I start to build the intention, I do want to follow the SMART goal framework, so I'll just kind of skip ahead here for a second.
Speaker 1:A good intention for a book like this might be to find and implement at least two advertising strategies on Amazon that I can implement by the end of next week. That's specific, it's measurable too. It's attainable, actionable. It's not like I need to make a million bucks through advertising next week. I'm just looking to find and implement two strategies it's written down on the inside cover, which I'll talk about, and it's relevant to my life, and it's time bound. I want to do it by the end of next week, if you can, then add a little bit of extra flavor and say, because, if you can, then add a little bit of extra flavor and say, because, because I know my book can serve my community, because I know that it's not the best written books that perform well, it's the best selling books that perform well. Because I wish I had access to Rise of the Reader when I was younger. And so you add a little bit of flavor. Then you write that intention on the inside cover of the reader when I was younger, and so you add a little bit of flavor. Then you write that intention on the inside cover of the book so this one's fresh, because I haven't read it yet. But I'll write that here and I'll read it each and every time I crack open this book and read a few more pages, because then my brain can filter for those two actionable strategies.
Speaker 1:If you just read a book randomly, you're going to find a bunch of random things that excite you. But if you read a book with intention, you're going to find exactly what you're looking for and you're far more likely to take action on something that's specifically related to your intention than you are something random. A little bit of extra context Our brains have this cool function called an RAS, a reticular activating system. It's like the brain's filter. You say yellow car. You walk outside, you see a yellow car. It's not random, they were always there, but you're filtering for them for the first time. And so if you filter for two strategies that you can implement to improve your advertising on Amazon by the end of next week, you'll filter for those when you're reading through the book.
Speaker 1:Last thing I'll mention is reading and note-taking are two totally separate activities and don't multitask.
Speaker 1:So when I'm going through the book and I'm looking for those two things to find and implement, I'll highlight them quickly.
Speaker 1:And I'm looking for those two things to find and implement, I'll highlight them quickly and then when I'm done with the chapter or sometimes done with the book, I'll go back and I'll rewrite them, reflect on them, think about them Totally separate activity from reading.
Speaker 1:You don't want to ruin your momentum and at the end of this book I might have like 30 or 40 ways that I can improve my advertising on Amazon and I'll look through that list and I'll say what 20% of these activities can lead to 80% of the change that I'm looking to make. I'll try to narrow it down, make it more realistic to take action. So it might not be two, but it will be at least two and that's sort of the process for building an intention and the reason behind it. So you talk about systems like I try to be very systematic with my approach so that it's repeatable and it's manageable and I can look for opportunities for improvement. We all know that Peter Drucker line like what's not being measured can't be managed, and so you've got to measure something so that you can manage it that you can manage it.
Speaker 2:I absolutely love that. That's brilliant. And thinking through that, and as you were saying that I was thinking through, well, what do I do before I pick up a book? And I'd like to believe I'm fairly methodical. Don't just pick up a cool looking cover fairly methodical. Don't just pick up a cool looking cover Typically it's off of research and reviews or someone recommended it and I'll I'll grab a book, for instance, the.
Speaker 2:The last book I just purchased is a Ryan holiday book and, if I'm not mistaken, um, failure is the way or the obstacle is the way, and I purchased that book with. I purchased that book because, from what I read and understand, it talks about a lot of people that we often, that we admire, and how obstacles really shape their way of being and they're the reason why they are where they are today. And in a lot of my speeches I talk about how the greatest gift I ever received was those early obstacles that you and I were talking about before we started. And it's this podcast exists because of coming up through an alcoholic family and breaking that systemic trend of alcoholism. So I figured, well, if I read this book, then I'll have some better language to create in my speeches about other notable people who have converted obstacles into triumph, but I haven't actually written that intention down. So I love that practice and you take my questions, I'm taking your intention practice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do it, man. So I think a good intention for you might be to defined and familiarize yourself with at least two other people's stories that you can reference while being on other podcasts or speaking by the end of next week or something like that. And you might find 10 or 15 examples, and then you'll look at the list and you'll go what two or three of these, what 20%, really drive home the point and excite me? And, man, you follow that system, you're going to hit the nail on the head, you're going to find the two, you're going to familiarize yourself with them and the book will have done its service for you.
Speaker 2:I love it. That is awesome, nick. That is awesome, and I also love the reference to reticular activating system. Is I had to guess maybe you became familiar with that or became re-familiarized from it by reading Power of One More by Ed Milet. I know you had referenced that recently on Measure of Success podcast, but he references the RAS, the R-A-S, and a lot of people talk about it, but it's extremely powerful. Now there are a lot of books behind you, there's a lot of books behind me and more behind this banner that I have up For people that are.
Speaker 2:People can be well-read and often not retain much knowledge from books. I love this Instagram post you made where you're given a speech and you reference who's read the Seven Habits, and I'm sure almost every hand in that room went up and I'm sure a lot of ears are perking up right now because a lot of people are familiar with that book and probably have read it. And then you asked who can name the seven habits of highly effective people and there was only one hand that went up in that room and there may be not so many ears perked up right now that are listening to this. So reading gives us knowledge and power, but what are some best practices to actually retain the knowledge that we are gaining, or should be gaining, in each of these books that we're picking up?
Speaker 1:I think the fundamental truth here is that repetition leads to retention, and there are a whole bunch of different directions to go off of that fundamental truth, but repetition leads to retention. You have to strengthen a neural connection, a new pathway, so that it doesn't dissolve over time, and you have to access it frequently enough to sort of like cement that connection and be able to access the information when you really need it for it to become part of your subconscious. So, going back to reading a book, I like to rewrite my biggest takeaways from the book, first on a piece of paper, on a yellow notepad, and the act of writing the information down a second time. That's a form of repetition, and you're using other senses. You're feeling the pen, you're feeling the paper, you're analyzing the book with your other hand, and then I like to rewrite my biggest takeaway, as sort of the 20% that I'd like to take action on, into an online notebook like Evernote. Again, now I'm typing. It's a different form of repetition and I like to plug my biggest action items into my activity tracker Again, another interviewing the author. And so by having to repurpose what I've learned, summarize it and then teach it. That's another form of repetition. It's also a form of reworking the information so that I can talk about it in a simplified way. It's another form of repetition.
Speaker 1:Repetition leads to retention and I'm not purposely repeating that so many times, but it is funny that it's happening. Repetition leads to retention. I want everybody to retain the fact that that's happening and it would be a little bit difficult to explain, but it essentially says that over time, the likelihood of you being able to recall information goes down unless you review it again. And each time you review the information, the time that you can retain it increases. So by systematically reviewing information daily for a while, then weekly, then monthly, then bimonthly, quarterly, biannually, annually, you're far more likely to retain that information.
Speaker 1:So I think that's the core of it. If you can add a little bit of emotion, if you can take action on the information, your retention goes way up. If you teach it to other people, it goes way up. But it's all about repetition and try not to make that practice dry. You know, speak things out loud, speak them with confidence, teach them to other people, bring it up at the dinner table, talk about it with friends, host an accountability group, teach your peers, have a podcast. All of those are forms of repetition, and repetition leads to retention.
Speaker 2:So what I heard is, with the books we're reading, the pages that we're scanning through, extract that and then disperse it again in a variety of different formats, whether it's I'm telling you something, or we've even thrown out a few things from from books that we've learned from here and we've we've taken some reps just on this in this discussion right Between a hundred million dollar offers between the three books that you mentioned and what you gained from it. Now you're even more likely, or more able, rather, to share more learnings from Daily Stoic, from 4-Hour Workweek, from Built to Serve, from Can't Hurt Me, from Atomic Habits. So this is live examples. We've actually you and I have have created a live example here, but I love that that. Write it down, share it, talk it, look at it again.
Speaker 2:I started making flashcards for my favorite books and so when I go back and look at it, I'm like, oh, you know what? Maybe I'm not going to read the whole thing right now, but what are the four to five things If I open up this cover that I can, that I that I want to know, or that I would want someone else to know about this book, even before I, maybe even before I just want to recommend it to somebody, so I love that that your repetition leads to retention tension. Now, nick, ultimately not ultimately, but when someone purchases Rise of the Reader and they read through it, what is the transformation or outcome that you ultimately want people to experience, or that you envision people to experience, after they finish the book?
Speaker 1:I hope number one that people realize they're capable of doing more, of becoming more, of serving more, of earning more, of being healthier, of being happier, of being more fulfilled. We all have more potential than we give ourselves credit for. More fulfilled we all have more potential than we give ourselves credit for. We live in a society that likes to put a lot of constraints, and so I hope this book frees up the minds of everybody that chooses to read it, and that's an exciting thing when you can position that the right way. You know, I'm excited each and every day that I'm capable of doing more, and I love to make progress against that future self. Serve my future self. Number two I'd like people to realize that books are a great vehicle for closing that gap between where you are today and that ever-growing version of you that you're capable of creating, and I'd also like people to realize that if they choose to live under their potential, they risk living a life full of regret, and that's a really sad place to be. I mentioned it so many times, I'll mention it again.
Speaker 1:One of my favorite books the Top Five Regrets of the Dying by Bronnie Ware. She's an end-of-life palliative care nurse. She spends the last few months of people's lives with them and through conversation she learns that most people end up regretting the lives that they've lived. And the number one regret is that they regret living a life based on other people's expectations of them and not what fulfills them as a unique individual. Working a nine to five just to make money in a job that you hate because other people tell you to do it, that type of thing.
Speaker 1:So I'd like people to walk away from the book, understanding A they have more potential. B books can close that gap. And C if they don't close that gap, they might end up regretting it. And the pain of discipline like this is a Goggins type thing. The pain of discipline weighs a lot more than the pain or sorry. The pain of discipline weighs a lot less than the pain of regret, and you don't want to end up regretting that you didn't try more, do more, experiment more, live a little bit more. So those are kind of the three main things.
Speaker 2:Beautiful man. What's present for me is I hear that this book really allows you to see what power we truly possess, because I believe that the only person that can really stop us or really the only thing in this world, nick, that can stop any of us is ourselves. Nothing else thing in this world, nick, that can stop any of us as ourselves. Nothing else. And your book, and even in this conversation, I believe it to be true for people to see that, wow, by making these choices about the type of knowledge I'm going to consume and seek out, I can create this person that I have in my head, that maybe before I thought there's no way I could be that person. That's only meant for these people that grew up in this neighborhood or had this upbringing or so on and so forth. And your book is something that allows people to see that, no, you can. You can be whatever you want to be.
Speaker 2:And also your last point and when I tell people, my greatest fear is is meeting the person that I could have become you know we go through this life and maybe you work all the way up the corporate chain and then, depending on on what you believe in you, you're about to enter the gates of heaven, or you're going wherever, wherever you believe the universe is going to take you, and then you meet this person that was really inside you the whole time, like, oh, you were supposed to launch this platform that reached millions of people, that showed them the power of books and how to retain knowledge and and and how to create this, this lifestyle, that that you always dreamed about, but you decided to play it small and do this, and so I love your, your way of being, I love your mission and what you're doing with this book, and can't wait for people to pick up a copy. Nick, what's one step that I can take today to become a more diligent reader that will allow me to unlock my greatest powers?
Speaker 1:Build an accountability group with your most motivated friends and meet with them on a weekly basis to talk about the books you're reading and the action that you'd like to take. By having other people hold you accountable, you're far more likely to take better action, and we are the average of the five people that we spend the most time with, so you might as well grow with your friends instead of grow away from your friends.
Speaker 2:Beautiful and last one, and likely the most difficult one, nick, what's one book besides yours that we should all read to enhance our mindset?
Speaker 1:The Go-Giver by Bob Berg and John David Mann. That book teaches the reader the reciprocal relationship between giving and receiving. I think so many of us fall on one side of that coin or the other, but there's a great middle point. For so much of my life I took, took, took. I was a go-getter and I wasn't giving. And then I went far too much in the other direction, of course, corrected a little bit too much, and I was just trying to give, give, give and I wasn't open to receiving. But there's a beautiful balance between both of them and that's outlined in that beautiful book.
Speaker 2:I love that book. It is beautiful. Had the opportunity to have Bob on the podcast and he's. He's amazing. Nick, how do we keep up with you and the book and all the amazing things that you're doing?
Speaker 1:You can check out book thinkerscom or book thinkers on Instagram and I'll throw this out to your audience. If anybody wants to DM me and tell me about a problem they have or a skill they want to improve, I'll make a book recommendation and follow up with you and see if you've read it, and book matchmaking is like my favorite thing to do.
Speaker 2:I love it. Well, everything will be linked in the notes. Folks Pick up Rise of the Reader and support Nick and tune into BookThinkers. He's got some of the Reader and support Nick and tune into BookThinkers. He's got some of the most powerful, inspirational thought leaders and authors in the world that are appearing on his show every week, and a lot of what we're talking about in the books we're referencing are in abundance on Nick's podcast, and when you check out Nick and Rise of the Reader, you are going to have the tools to win today. Thanks so much for tuning in.
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