063 | RISE of the READER with Nick Hutchison, Founder of BookThinkers, and Author of Rise of the Reader

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I had a big ego, which I think came from sports originally and my desire for competition.

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And it would represent itself at the expense of other people.

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I wasn't really a lot of fun to be around back then.

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But on the other side of the spectrum, I had all of these insecurities.

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So it was a really confusing place to be.

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I was insecure about how I looked, how I spoke, how I interacted with people.

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Just almost everything in my life, I was way too aware of what everybody else was thinking or what I thought they were thinking.

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And so as I started to read these books, I started to solve a lot of those problems.

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I read about ego and narcissism.

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I read about insecurity and how to overcome fear and develop confidence.

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And so these books helped me overcome a lot of personal pain and discomfort.

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Your purpose comes from your pain.

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Everything that I do today, I'm trying to go help that younger version of myself overcome the pain and difficulties that he was experiencing by connecting him to the right books. I'm Nick Hutchison and I am Undone.

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Hey friend, I am so glad you're here. Welcome to another episode of Becoming Undone, the podcast for those who dare bravely, risk mightily, and grow relentlessly.

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I'm Toby Brooks, a speaker, an author, and a professor.

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Over the past two decades, I've worked as an athletic trainer and a strength coach.

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During that time, I've grown more and more fascinated with what sets high achievers apart and how failures can oftentimes be the necessary steps on our path towards success.

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Each week on Becoming Undone, I invite new guests to examine how high achievers can transform from falling apart to falling into place.

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This is your first episode, I hope you love it.

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Maybe you'll find value in these past 60 plus episodes and get inspired not just by today's guests but by a long list of high achievers who didn't let failure stand in the way of their eventual victory.

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And if you're a regular, let me just say thanks.

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I've learned a lot about achievement and resilience and grit in this past almost year now and I couldn't have done it without you.

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So honestly, thank you.

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I'd like to emphasize that this show is entirely separate from my role as a professor, but it's my attempt to apply what I've learned and what I'm learning and to share with others about the mindsets of high achievers.

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For Boston native Nick Hutchison, early experiences as a competitive athlete provided plenty of confidence and swagger, but as Nick tells it, much of that ego lived right at the surface.

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Deeper, insecurities and doubt lingered.

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At the suggestion of his boss at the time, he started listening to podcasts and audio books instead of music every day to and from work on his hour-long commute.

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It didn't take long before he started to develop and grow as a thinker and as an entrepreneur.

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An early business setback might have scared away a weaker person, but Nick managed to leverage it towards success, eventually founding BookThinkers, a growing seven-figure digital marketing agency that serves authors, and now releasing his first book, Rise of the Reader, earlier this year on Amazon.

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I hope you'll enjoy my conversation with Nick on episode 63, Rise of the Reader.

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This week we have a guest who has a new book coming out, Nick Hutchison, great to have you, welcome to the show.

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Yeah, Toby, I'm excited to be here, I appreciate the invitation.

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Yeah, so your book, Rise of the Reader, Strategies for Mastering Your Reading Habits and Applying What You Learn, launches November 1st, so we'll get into that.

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But most of my guests, I always start off with a little bit of a softball, what'd you want to be growing up and why?

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When I was young, I was fascinated with sports.

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In fact, growing up, I was not much of the academic, which people would assume, especially if they see the video version of this podcast, got like a thousand books behind me.

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I was more of the athlete.

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And so I loved playing basketball.

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And then in high school, I was a football player and a wrestler.

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So when I was growing up, I think the NFL was probably my number one dream.

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Awesome.

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So those dreams come from somewhere.

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So start at the beginning of your story, wherever that was, and we'll move forward from there.

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Yeah, I grew up in Boston, Massachusetts.

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My dad was always a big sports fan, and I'm the oldest of four boys, but all of us are within a five-year time span, right?

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So competitive, very competitive in every area of my life, especially sports.

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And I think that's where the dream originally came from.

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In fact, even during middle school, Mike Vrabel, former Patriot linebacker, he was neighbors with my parents.

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And so we would go to church with them on Sundays and during the off season, but during the season, I'd watch him on TV on Sundays.

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So it was just like being around this sports energy all the time, being the oldest of four boys, playing a lot of sports. I think that's probably where the love came from. And I still have that love today. I'm a competitive person and I love watching NFL football. Still one of my passions. Sure. You don't go from aspiring pro athlete to successful published author without several steps in between. From high school on, talk me through that transition and how this desire to both be an author and to help others really grew.

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Yeah, I did decide to go to college and get a degree in marketing.

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And going into my senior year of college, I took an internship at a local software company.

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It was a sales internship.

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And very early into that experience, my boss at the time, Kyle, we were talking about my commute.

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It was an hour each way.

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And he said, hey, Nick, listening to the same song for the 1000th time isn't going to get you closer to where you want to be in life.

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It's cool, it's good music, but try listening to some business podcasts.

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Try listening to what made people successful.

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Shows just like this, where a host would interview a guest and a guest would talk about what they did to become successful.

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And so I took him up on that and I started listening to these shows.

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And what I realized was that so many of the people that I wanted to be like, they were giving at least some credit for their success to the books that they were reading.

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And so I think I just had a moment which I can articulate better than what I probably could back then, but I probably had this moment where I realized that if I was deliberately choosing not to read these books, then I was deliberately choosing to live under my potential.

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And as a competitive guy, of course I jumped right into that.

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And I said, let me go pick up some of these books that I keep hearing about on these podcasts, dive into them and see what it's all about.

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So that didn't happen until I was about 20 years old.

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And I have not looked back ever since.

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That's great wisdom.

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I've frequently looked back at my own growth plan and it's really easy to get caught up in the resentment or the regret of not starting sooner.

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But there's really no replacement for starting today. I can't make up for what I haven't done yesterday, but I sure as heck can protect myself against tomorrow. And that starts with good books.

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So we talked a little bit off camera before the show started. You mentioned a quote, and I'd love for you to share that, but one of the focuses of this show is how great things can come from what appear to be bad things and how the end of a chapter doesn't necessarily mean the end of a story, how we can go from falling apart to falling into place.

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So talk me through the role that failure and circumstances not to your, maybe the way you would have scripted them, have shaped you and helped form you on your journey from young upstart in Boston to successful author.

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Yeah, there are many different points along my journey that we could probably dive into and explore.

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So I started reading these books really because I did feel there was a gap between where I was and where I wanted to be.

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I started listening to these podcasts for the same reason.

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Like when Kyle introduced me to the concept, it was like, oh, maybe that could fix some of these broken things in my life.

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And some broken things in my life at the time, I had a big ego, which I think came from sports originally and my desire for competition.

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And it would represent itself at the expense of other people.

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I wasn't really a lot of fun to be around back then, late teens, early 20s, big head.

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And put on the other side of the spectrum, I had all of these insecurities.

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So it was a really confusing place to be.

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I was insecure about how I looked, how I spoke, how I interacted with people, just almost everything in my life.

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I was way too aware of what everybody else was thinking or what I thought they were thinking.

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And so as I started to read these books, I started to solve a lot of those problems.

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I read about ego and narcissism. I read about insecurity and how to overcome fear and develop confidence. And so these books helped me overcome a lot of personal pain and discomfort. And so when I mentioned the quote before, I said, your purpose comes from your pain. Everything that I do today for my company, BookThinkers, that helps authors promote and market their books, to my book, Rise of the Reader, to our social media presence, which provides new book recommendations every day.

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I'm trying to go help that younger version of myself overcome the pain and difficulties that he was experiencing by connecting him to the right books.

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And just by constantly telling everybody out there who's experiencing pain on a daily basis that there is a good book that can help you overcome that problem that you're facing.

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I love this wisdom bomb Nick just dropped. Your purpose comes from your pain. It's a freeing and fantastic day when we can look back through the things we've endured and see the purpose they were creating or cultivating within us. All too often when we find ourselves down in the midst of our struggles it's difficult if not impossible to see that there's a plan unfolding and that all that suffering or even just the waiting, can change us for the better if we let it.

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Nick had done the work, and he's grown to understand that not everything that hurts is harming me.

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In fact, maybe just the opposite. Maybe it's prepping me to be more capable somewhere else down the road.

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And to add even a little bit more fuel to that fire, to anybody in today's audience that's not much of a reader, I read recently in a book that if you're experiencing something painful on a daily basis, if you go out over the next 30 years, you'll experience that pain 11,000 times.

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So 365, right, times 30.

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And so spend the $20 for the book and a few hours of your time to read and implement the book and solve the problem, right?

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That's what I did with those early books and that's what I'm trying to help people do with my community.

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So that's one example.

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My business today, we have 10 people on my team.

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We support hundreds of authors a year.

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But when it first started, it was a completely different model.

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I wanted to build a mobile application that could help readers retain and implement more from books.

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And as a young, blissfully ignorant, 20-something, want-to-be entrepreneur, my team and I invested tens of thousands of dollars of our hard-earned money, which was essentially everything we had, into building this mobile application, outsourcing the development, and it crashed and burned.

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It totally failed.

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It never came out.

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It never came to fruition.

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But through that experience, which was very painful, by the way, and took place over the course of 6 to 12 months, that experience has paid dividends. And I wouldn't have what I have today if I didn't go through that experience and learn that failure leads to opportunity and lessons and progress and all those kind of things. Absolutely. I think those are lessons we wouldn't have chosen, but lessons that stick for sure. And we'll dig in a little bit deeper and talk about reading and learning in a bit, but certainly when we can trigger, honestly, triggering the pain centers in our brain, sears memory.

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There are seminal events in our lives, and this is proven by neuroscience, how if we experience an interaction, if it gets heated and our boss doesn't have the emotional intelligence and they unload on us.

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And that amygdala fires up in our brain and we get an emotional response instead of a reasoned response.

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That sears that memory.

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And what I've taken from that learning is that just because it's uncomfortable doesn't mean I need to run away.

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And sometimes it means I need to lean in harder because some of my best learned lessons came through pain, like you said.

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So you're a young guy and you've got this book on mastering your reading habits, applying what you learned.

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Talk me through the genesis of this idea and where your lessons from this came along the way.

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As I started to build my community online, mostly on Instagram, where I'm sharing book recommendations on a daily basis.

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So as I'm building this community, people in my community are responding and they're DMing me, they're emailing me, they're asking to jump on a quick call, and they were all saying the same thing.

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Nick, we appreciate the recommendations.

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In fact, some of these books might even solve some of the problems I'm dealing with.

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But how the heck do I take information and translate it into results?

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So many people read these books, they get all excited, they take a bunch of notes, and then nothing happens.

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And so that's a problem that I identified in my community.

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And every time I'd respond to these people, email, Zoom call, write them a DM or whatever, a voice note, I felt like I was underserving them because I knew there was more to the equation than what I was capable of articulating at the time.

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So I was presented with an opportunity from a self-publishing services company to write a book.

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And I said, this is the book I want to start with.

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There was some, what do you call it, imposter syndrome in the beginning.

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I'm in my late 20s.

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Am I old enough to write a book?

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Do I have enough experience to write a book?

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But I was reminded that if I had something today that I didn't have 10 years ago, right, I was one or two steps further on the journey, then I could go back and teach that younger version of myself something useful. And so that's what I decided to do with this book. At first, I had to sit back and actually observe my own behavior. What am I doing when I read these books to implement them and create tangible results and change in my life. So that's what I did. I spent some time just reflecting on my own behavior. And what I did was I came up with a framework around scheduling reading time into your calendar, setting an intention for each book that you read, effective note taking and reading strategies.

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And then once you have these potential actions, how do you get them into your life?

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How do you build habits and behavior change that fully encompasses everything that you've learned?

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And so I've learned all sorts of things from online activity trackers to building accountability groups, to repetition algorithms, to reviewing information.

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And I just decided to pack all of that into a book so that if there is a young, motivated professional who wants to close the gap between where they are and where they wanna be, and they're already starting to read these books or listen to these podcasts or download these courses, that they could have better tools to take better action.

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And so that's what the book's all about for me.

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That's great.

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I had a conversation just this morning with a distraught grad student, I'm a professor by day, and grad school is a different animal than undergrad.

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And undergrad, for that matter, is different from high school.

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And this individual was really struggling.

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They had a rough summer but made it through.

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And now in the fall term, the load hasn't gotten lighter.

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The reading assignments have gotten greater.

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And they felt, I don't know why I even try to read the homework.

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I don't feel like I walk away having learned anything.

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It feels like a waste of time.

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And in that moment, I asked about strategies.

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And a lot of times we default into behaviors.

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Like what does studying mean?

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For a lot of students, it means I'm gonna sit down and read for two hours and 15 minutes in, I don't know, I have times where the eyes get droopy and the vision gets blurry and I've got to keep studying. At that point, I've recognized within myself, that's a waste. I've got to get up, I've got to move around. What would you say are maybe two or three of the biggest hacks you've discovered? You alluded to some of them, but For a young grad student who's struggling to be successful on exams, what are some tips we can whet their appetite with that's going to entice them to buy the book?

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Sure.

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It's a great question.

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And I appreciate this question because most of the time when I'm asked about it, it's not through the lens of a grad student who's struggling to study effectively.

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So we'll see what I come up with.

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I think number one, when you mention eyes get blurry, droopy, things start to fade out a little bit, that's typically because somebody is reading and studying when they have the lowest amount of energy.

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It's after an entire day of working, they're expense, and so naturally, their willpower is low, their energy is low, and they're ready to go to bed, yet they're forcing themselves to stay up and study.

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So what I like to do is think about your day.

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When do you have the most energy?

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If reading and studying this information is important to you, read when you have the most energy.

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So for me, I follow the same morning routine every day.

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I wake up, I go for a walk with my dog, I come back, I meditate, I go to the gym.

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And then when I get back from the gym, I have some caffeine and I read.

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That's when I'm at my highest energy because the exercise endorphins are pumping.

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I've just had some caffeine, which is a cognitive enhancer for some people. And I have a little bit of space and time and desire to read when my energy is at its peak, because it's one of the most important things that I do every single day. So I think that's variable number one. Are you reading with a mindset that's going to support you or detract from the actual information that you're studying? I've heard it said this way too, even the best cup of coffee in the world will taste bitter if you're in a bitter mood.

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And so you have to be in the best place possible to get the most out of the information.

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Another one that I'll throw out there, which is a little bit different, is that reading and note-taking are two completely separate activities.

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And we're taught that we shouldn't multitask, yet so many of us are trying to read and take notes at the same time.

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So what I like to do is set an intention for each book that I'm reading or a book that I'm studying.

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What are you trying to get out of it?

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What is the most useful information that you're about to learn?

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And then read without stopping.

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Don't stop and take notes and reflect on everything.

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Make little annotations within the book to come back and look at these later when you're going to take notes and actually reflect on the information.

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But read all the way through.

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And so if you're getting a little bit tired while you're reading or you're starting to daydream, it's probably because you're not reading fast enough.

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There's a great example in the book, Limitless by Jim Quick.

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He says, let's say you're driving through a neighborhood and you're going really slow.

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If you're just going slow, you can check out some of the houses, the mailboxes, the cars in the driveway.

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You can notice things other than the road in front of you.

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But let's say you were speeding really fast.

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Your eyes are glued to the road.

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You're going to focus on the road in front of you.

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And that's what happens when we're reading.

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If we're not using our brain's full capacity, then it has the capacity to wander off and focus on other things.

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But if we read faster and we stop trying to take notes in the middle and task switch back and forth, then we can stay in the book.

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And actually studies show that increases retention too, which is pretty funny to think about.

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That's phenomenal.

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I hadn't heard that.

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I will definitely have to do some reading up on that.

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Great tip.

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I think for a lot of my students, the notion that they're reading too slow is going to be quite a surprise.

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So that's two, you got one more?

00:20:21.539 --> 00:20:52.000
Yeah, absolutely. So when I'm done with my notes, not every takeaway from a book or from a textbook is created equal, right? Some of them are more important. They're more foundational, their principles, their values, their core pieces of understanding, and some of the other stuff is ancillary information. So toss those out the window. Don't try to study each piece of information that you read with the same level of excitement and emotion and enthusiasm.

00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:59.000
Like you said, when something is emotional, then our brain is programmed to remember it a little bit more efficiently.

00:20:59.000 --> 00:21:10.000
So just take the 20 percent of information that you've read that has the opportunity to lead to 80 percent of the understanding and double down on that, toss out the rest.

00:21:10.000 --> 00:21:18.839
So that's what I do with these personal development books, but I think that could probably apply to some of these subjects that your students are studying as well.

00:21:18.839 --> 00:21:20.160
That's great.

00:21:20.160 --> 00:21:36.119
So in the midst of COVID, so we have grad students who spent at minimum three of their eight semesters or so of undergrad with open book tests, with shelter in place, learn from home, remote learning.

00:21:36.119 --> 00:21:38.660
And I have seen a marked difference in their attention spans.

00:21:38.660 --> 00:21:41.460
I've seen this dopamine addicted.

00:21:41.460 --> 00:21:51.460
Just inability to focus and concentrate that I hate to blame everything on covid-19, but I feel like it's a stark difference from pre to post.

00:21:51.460 --> 00:22:05.900
Anything in what you've written or what you've learned that you would think is even more salient or maybe different in a post-COVID world than maybe before?

00:22:05.900 --> 00:22:24.700
I'll say this, reading anything, a textbook, a fictional book, a personal development book, but spending time reading a physical paper book will help you develop the skill and ability to perform deep work, to actually focus for extended periods of time.

00:22:24.700 --> 00:22:33.000
So just like you're highlighting, when you're reading on a screen, there's a lot of opportunity for distraction and notifications popping up.

00:22:33.000 --> 00:22:40.200
And nowadays on social media, people only give a video a half a second before they decide whether or not it's worth watching.

00:22:40.200 --> 00:22:44.319
We have this instant gratification mindset that I think is terrible.

00:22:44.319 --> 00:22:45.880
Really, I think it's terrible.

00:22:45.880 --> 00:23:00.839
And one of the ways that I try to combat that is by putting my nose down, reading a physical paper book, and practicing the skill of attention, practicing the skill of deep work, fully immersing myself in something with no distractions.

00:23:00.839 --> 00:23:06.200
And so do I think, is there anything related to my book, Post COVID-19?

00:23:06.200 --> 00:23:16.880
I think it's just the fact that reading improves your attention span and that monotasking, working on one thing at a time, is an undervalued skill set in today's society.

00:23:16.880 --> 00:23:17.880
Absolutely.

00:23:17.880 --> 00:23:21.880
You mentioned deep work, huge fan of Cal Newport and his work.

00:23:21.880 --> 00:23:28.920
I did a, it was an accelerator program, a business development program with a guy who admitted what he called the Palm Box.

00:23:28.920 --> 00:23:41.720
It was based on the Pomodoro effect where you physically locked your phone away to, there are apps, but we always know the workarounds and there's lots of ways that we can buy to ourselves and undo those things.

00:23:41.720 --> 00:23:47.339
So this was a physical lock box where you just put your phone away and you had to destroy it to get your phone out.

00:23:47.339 --> 00:23:47.579
Yeah.

00:23:47.579 --> 00:23:48.259
I'll show you.

00:23:48.259 --> 00:24:00.200
I know I stopped off camera real quick, but I, cause I just cleaned, but I have this kitchen timer and you can set the timer and then you press lock and you can't get anything out of it.

00:24:00.200 --> 00:24:04.920
And I also have the little Pomodoro for my 20 minute section.

00:24:04.920 --> 00:24:06.799
So yeah, I love what you're talking about.

00:24:06.799 --> 00:24:07.220
Yeah.

00:24:07.220 --> 00:24:16.660
So going back to your initial foray into this business venture and kind of the word of the year for 2020 was pivot.

00:24:16.660 --> 00:24:22.599
Everybody used the word pivot and how you had to change plans and move with agility in a new direction.

00:24:22.599 --> 00:24:27.000
You didn't shut the thing down, you went in another direction.

00:24:27.000 --> 00:24:31.980
What did that experience teach you as a learner and maybe even as an entrepreneur?

00:24:31.980 --> 00:25:01.259
What was very interesting about 2020 is that a lot of people were furloughed or fired or studying at home and socially distanced from everybody else, shelter in place, and I think that caused like a pause, like an opportunity for reflection, where a lot of people realized maybe for the first time that they were unhappy in the place that they previously worked, or that it didn't fuel their fire.

00:25:01.259 --> 00:25:12.220
And so our social media accounts where we were making book recommendations just went through the roof, because I think a lot of people said, how the heck can I improve my life?

00:25:12.220 --> 00:25:14.980
And books, those are an opportunity to do it.

00:25:14.980 --> 00:25:25.819
And all sorts of different services popped up, all sorts of people started to write books now that they are at home and had a little bit more time to focus on that side project that they've been working on.

00:25:25.819 --> 00:25:35.700
And it was an opportunity for us just to collect a ton of feedback, to understand, to see from our audience what they wanted, what they didn't like from the authors we were working with.

00:25:35.700 --> 00:25:37.920
We just had way more inquiries than ever.

00:25:37.920 --> 00:25:47.400
So it was an interesting time for my business because in the world of personal development and improving your life and study habits and things like that, there was no better time.

00:25:47.400 --> 00:25:50.500
So yeah, we pivoted and we added new services.

00:25:50.500 --> 00:25:51.839
I added people to my team.

00:25:51.839 --> 00:25:55.720
We started growing all different types of digital media service revenue.

00:25:55.720 --> 00:25:57.019
And yeah, you know what?

00:25:57.019 --> 00:25:59.359
It was an ugly time for a lot of people.

00:25:59.359 --> 00:26:09.839
And I think from a business perspective at least, we took advantage of it and looking back, it was a good time in a strange way for the business.

00:26:09.839 --> 00:26:11.339
No, completely understand.

00:26:11.339 --> 00:26:16.799
So a lot of textbook publishers have gone completely to digital versions.

00:26:16.799 --> 00:26:25.759
And you were mentioning the importance of a print copy and the kinesthetic process of highlighting that's not the same as a device.

00:26:25.759 --> 00:26:29.619
I can't get desk copies from certain publishers.

00:26:29.619 --> 00:26:34.359
They'll send me a code and I can log in and get the ebook, but they're moving away.

00:26:34.359 --> 00:26:37.619
So that's the direction we see the world moving in.

00:26:37.619 --> 00:26:42.700
What advice would you give to somebody who maybe they can't afford a physical copy textbook?

00:26:42.700 --> 00:26:49.559
Are there any strategies or tips that the e-learning space creates that the more traditional models don't.

00:26:49.559 --> 00:26:55.920
Yeah, there, there are definitely some benefits to reading in some type of e-device or in an e-format.

00:26:55.920 --> 00:27:00.880
For instance, being able to highlight copy paste notes, being able to look things up in real time.

00:27:00.880 --> 00:27:07.539
And there's so many great tools that integrate with e-devices to help you organize your notes and take better advantage of them.

00:27:07.539 --> 00:27:22.319
One of my friends started a company called Ecotext and they support a lot of these big textbook publishers, and they help colleges create communities around e-textbooks and things like that.

00:27:22.319 --> 00:27:29.240
Yeah, I think there definitely are opportunities to leverage those pieces of technology and get more out of them.

00:27:29.240 --> 00:28:06.200
I don't have a ton of experience with e-textbooks or anything like that, but I think naturally just for me, I would actually defend the paper by saying being forced to rewrite your notes is an act of repetition and repetition leads to retention Copy and paste is not an act of repetition, right? It's an automated set Repetition leads to retention. I learned this concept pretty well this semester. I just finished up my final exams this week I gave two as a professor and I took this semester allowed notes on exams, which for my old man brain was a bit of a challenge.

00:28:06.200 --> 00:28:10.599
I've discovered that I don't retain surface-level factual info the way I used to.

00:28:10.599 --> 00:28:13.519
But that may just be because I haven't had to for so long.

00:28:13.519 --> 00:28:21.799
Many can relate to the feeling of freedom that comes with finishing up school or a class and knowing you don't have to memorize and regurgitate information anymore.

00:28:21.799 --> 00:28:32.839
But I started this new degree back in May, and the three classes I had before this term all did allow a handwritten note sheet for use during the proctored exams.

00:28:32.839 --> 00:28:41.640
However, what I discovered was that merely the process of writing out that professor-approved cheat sheet served an important learning purpose.

00:28:41.640 --> 00:28:48.119
Matter of fact, most of the time in those previous classes, I didn't even reference the note sheet I'd written out.

00:28:48.119 --> 00:28:51.000
It wasn't the reference that I needed for the test.

00:28:51.000 --> 00:28:54.339
It was the repetition I needed for the preparation.

00:28:54.339 --> 00:28:58.180
As Nick points out here, repetition leads to retention.

00:28:58.180 --> 00:29:08.039
So armed with that info, even though the professor didn't allow cheat sheets for the tests I had to take this term, I still wrote them out, sometimes more than once.

00:29:08.039 --> 00:30:04.720
I just didn't and couldn't use them during the test, but the strategy paid off. Another handy trick I discovered this semester related to retention was that I also retype the notes for every lesson, even if the professor provided them in a copy and pasteable format like a PowerPoint. I found myself learning the info better by both writing it out by hand for the study sheet that I just talked about and in typing it out in my own notes. Then, and here's the cool part, armed with that info I took those notes and with a few carefully crafted prompts, pasted them into chat GPT to generate sample test questions that I could again repeat, test my knowledge, and aid in retention. Because just like Nick says, repetition leads to retention. So be a little bit more deliberate, maybe find a yellow legal pad and rewrite your notes and stuff like that could probably be one of my recommendations.

00:30:04.720 --> 00:30:27.359
And I understand it though, right? Because somebody creates a textbook once, there's no cost to delivering it if it's an e-copy, but the publishers, they have to order a ton of these physical paper books. Textbooks cost an absolute fortune to print. They're harmful to the environment in a way. And so that's probably why so many of them are going in that direction.

00:30:27.359 --> 00:30:28.359
Sure.

00:30:28.359 --> 00:30:30.299
I'm a nerdy college professor.

00:30:30.299 --> 00:30:35.700
So as I read a chapter, I'll prepare a PowerPoint as though I'm going to lecture with it, whether I do or not.

00:30:35.700 --> 00:30:41.940
But to your point, the kinesthetic process of building that out, I'm not just copying and pasting, I'm going through.

00:30:41.940 --> 00:30:50.500
And I found that's been a powerful tool for a lot of students, things like Quizlet cards or handwritten note cards might be another strategy that they could use.

00:30:50.500 --> 00:30:57.299
But I think the more passive it is, the probably the less effective it's probably going to be.

00:30:57.299 --> 00:31:15.000
Talk to me a little bit about how that process, whether it was that initial falling short or the business not really going the direction that you wanted it to, how would you say you're different as a result of going through seasons of your life that you wouldn't have chosen?

00:31:15.000 --> 00:31:25.000
I'm definitely more resilient. I think I'm actually more opportunistic, always looking for opportunities instead of obstacles or opportunities in obstacles.

00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:38.920
And I'll also say this. One of my qualms with the U.S. public education system, K through 12 at least, is that from my experience, we're taught that failure is a bad thing.

00:31:38.920 --> 00:31:48.359
You'll be penalized with your grades and maybe how other people look at you if you don't perform well on these tests, on these presentations.

00:31:48.359 --> 00:31:52.599
And for me at the time, that actually discouraged me from reading.

00:31:52.599 --> 00:31:55.819
I had this athlete stereotype thing going on.

00:31:55.819 --> 00:31:57.940
Reading wasn't the coolest thing in the world.

00:31:57.940 --> 00:32:02.099
And now when I don't perform well, I'm also being told that I'm not as valuable.

00:32:02.099 --> 00:32:03.839
And so that kind of stunk.

00:32:03.839 --> 00:32:06.700
And I think it turned me away from a lot of reading.

00:32:06.700 --> 00:32:16.119
What happens in entrepreneurship when you fail in business and then you learn and grow from it is you realize that failure is actually the best teacher.

00:32:16.119 --> 00:32:23.859
And you should be encouraged to fail as fast and as often as possible as long as you're willing to iterate and take constructive feedback.

00:32:23.859 --> 00:32:32.960
And one of the biggest changes is I went from like this fear of failure to seeking failure and opportunities for failure as fast as possible.

00:32:32.960 --> 00:32:35.559
And that's the world that I live in today.

00:32:35.559 --> 00:32:38.200
So yeah, I'm more opportunistic.

00:32:38.200 --> 00:32:42.240
I take advantage of obstacles, but I'm also more optimistic.

00:32:42.240 --> 00:32:52.720
I'm always looking for the best in each one of these opportunities rather than creating this false version of the future where I'm gonna get in trouble and be made fun of and laughed at and things like that.

00:32:52.720 --> 00:32:55.039
No, I just run at those things now.

00:32:55.039 --> 00:32:57.720
Yeah, that's great.

00:32:57.720 --> 00:33:11.480
What advice would you give someone who is in that space where learning doesn't come easy for them and it feels other kids are good students, that whole concept of the fixed mindset where I'm just, I'm not a good student.

00:33:11.480 --> 00:33:14.319
What advice would you give a learner in that circumstance.

00:33:14.319 --> 00:33:18.539
Yeah, maybe you read Carol Dweck's book on fixed versus growth mindsets.

00:33:18.539 --> 00:33:22.779
I'd say this, the brain is malleable and it will change slowly over time.

00:33:22.779 --> 00:33:26.420
If you feed it positive information and you consistently work on yourself.

00:33:26.420 --> 00:33:29.819
Sometimes they say comparison is the thief of joy, right?

00:33:29.819 --> 00:33:31.579
Comparing yourself to other students.

00:33:31.579 --> 00:33:40.039
But I think that comparison can actually create joy when you compare yourself to where you were a few years ago.

00:33:40.039 --> 00:33:45.279
And if you haven't made any progress in the last few years, slow incremental steps.

00:33:45.279 --> 00:33:48.720
I love a book called The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy.

00:33:48.720 --> 00:34:00.680
The author states that small consistent steps in the right direction, like forward momentum, as they compound over a long period of time, they will lead to this exponential progression.

00:34:00.680 --> 00:34:04.759
And that's a beautiful thing, but it happens very slowly at first.

00:34:04.759 --> 00:34:07.119
So start to work at yourself, right?

00:34:07.119 --> 00:34:08.360
How do you eat an elephant?

00:34:08.360 --> 00:34:09.360
One bite at a time.

00:34:09.360 --> 00:34:15.079
No matter how many times you read Aesop's fable, The Tortoise and the Hare, the tortoise always wins.

00:34:15.079 --> 00:34:18.400
Slow and steady, not anything crazy.

00:34:18.400 --> 00:34:26.599
There's a great example in that book, The Compound Effect, of a plane flying from Los Angeles to New York.

00:34:26.599 --> 00:34:43.400
And what they say is, if the nose of the plane is shifted just 1%, 1%, as it compounds across that 3,000 mile flight, it will end up about 150 miles off course by the end of it from a 1% change.

00:34:43.400 --> 00:34:59.019
So my advice to anybody who's down on themselves, their study ability, their ability to perform in the classroom compared to everybody else around them is, start to look for these 1% opportunities to change and watch that completely transform your life.

00:34:59.019 --> 00:35:09.820
I don't think we should compare ourselves, but if we are, blow past everybody else that's outperforming us today, because that's how it works, and that's how it's worked for me in so many different areas of my life.

00:35:09.820 --> 00:35:12.920
10 years of small, consistent effort.

00:35:12.920 --> 00:35:14.039
Yeah, love it.

00:35:14.039 --> 00:35:29.719
Very consistent with the John Wooden philosophy or even the Japanese concept of Kaizen where small, steady, incremental improvement, just 1% better every day and then that's when big things happen as Wooden would say it. So love the wisdom in that.

00:35:29.719 --> 00:35:38.800
All right, let's talk a little bit about the book. Who's it for? Where did the idea come from? You've alluded to bits and pieces of that, but tell us about Rise of the Reader.

00:35:38.800 --> 00:35:48.639
Yeah, so like I mentioned, people in my community have been asking me, hey Nick, I appreciate you putting out all these book recommendations, but how the heck do I take action on what I'm reading, on what I'm learning?

00:35:48.639 --> 00:35:50.920
I know you're doing it, what are you doing?

00:35:50.920 --> 00:35:55.440
And so I'd answer these people, but I always felt like I was underserving them.

00:35:55.440 --> 00:36:01.320
And so I decided to write the book on it, on taking better action from the personal development books that we're reading.

00:36:01.320 --> 00:36:06.420
And when I say personal development, a book that can be read and implemented to improve your life.

00:36:06.420 --> 00:36:11.480
So that includes a lot of philosophy, psychology, a lot of business, right?

00:36:11.480 --> 00:36:15.420
So sales, marketing, communication, negotiation, entrepreneurship.

00:36:15.420 --> 00:36:17.599
It includes health, right?

00:36:17.599 --> 00:36:21.679
So nutrition and mindset and all sorts of things, happiness.

00:36:21.679 --> 00:36:27.280
I focus a lot on gratitude and mindfulness and meditation and journaling and all these things.

00:36:27.280 --> 00:36:35.860
And so when we read books about these subjects, we've named a couple of them here, how do we take what we're learning and actually implement it into our life?

00:36:35.860 --> 00:36:38.960
That's exactly what my book is going to teach people.

00:36:38.960 --> 00:36:54.480
And so when I first started writing it, I didn't even know what the heck I was doing, but I took that time, like I said, from a third party perspective to observe my own behavior and write down all of these strategies and frameworks for getting more out of these books.

00:36:54.480 --> 00:37:15.940
Here I am, I'm 29 years old, but I feel if you include the books behind me, I'm thousands of years old, because these books condense decades of lived experience, biographies, memoirs, so many of these great personal development books, they condense decades of information and lived experience into days of reading.

00:37:15.940 --> 00:37:26.500
And so whenever I go to make a decision in my life, if I'm unsure of what to do, I can filter that decision through the mind or the frameworks of so many of the successful people behind me.

00:37:26.500 --> 00:37:34.139
Not just from a financial perspective, but from health and happiness and relationships and business and everything in between.

00:37:34.139 --> 00:37:35.860
Like we don't have to go at it alone.

00:37:35.860 --> 00:37:39.719
The best mentors in the world are written about or they've written books.

00:37:39.719 --> 00:37:40.880
And I just think that's so cool.

00:37:40.880 --> 00:37:47.679
And so my book helps you get more out of those books so that there's not an opportunity cost to each one that you read.

00:37:47.679 --> 00:37:48.519
Yeah, I love it.

00:37:48.519 --> 00:37:51.360
It's like an operator's manual for learning.

00:37:51.360 --> 00:37:52.199
Yes.

00:37:52.199 --> 00:37:54.659
So where can listeners find the book?

00:37:54.659 --> 00:37:59.639
Yeah, on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books A Million, a bunch of online retailers.

00:37:59.639 --> 00:38:08.320
And if you want to find the link directly, you can go to bookthinkers.com, that's our business website, or check us out, bookthinkers on Instagram, that's our reading community.

00:38:08.320 --> 00:38:15.860
So if you want to also get any personalized recommendations from me or anything, you can check us out on Instagram, that's our biggest platform.

00:38:15.860 --> 00:38:16.860
That's awesome.

00:38:16.860 --> 00:38:22.280
If you want to support your friends who are doing big things and publishing books, that's the best way you can do it.

00:38:22.280 --> 00:38:26.519
That's my word of advice for the day.

00:38:26.519 --> 00:38:27.519
Yeah, no, I agree.

00:38:27.519 --> 00:38:30.800
When you can, I've seen some videos like this and I agree with them.

00:38:30.800 --> 00:38:39.159
If you want to support your friends in their business, pay full price for their services. Don't ask for a friends and family discount because that's actually hurting them in the long run.

00:38:39.159 --> 00:38:40.719
Nick, it's been fantastic.

00:38:40.719 --> 00:38:42.480
I appreciate you dropping in.

00:38:42.480 --> 00:38:43.559
Look forward to the book.

00:38:43.559 --> 00:38:45.360
I have two last questions.

00:38:45.360 --> 00:38:46.360
This one's kind of an oddball.

00:38:46.360 --> 00:38:52.320
I love music and the emotion that it can convey.

00:38:52.320 --> 00:38:57.920
If we were to watch a montage of your life, what song would you want playing in the background and why?

00:38:57.920 --> 00:38:59.519
That's a great question.

00:38:59.519 --> 00:39:01.679
The Scientist by Coldplay.

00:39:01.679 --> 00:39:06.320
That song is slow, it's deep, it's like an anthem a little bit.

00:39:06.320 --> 00:39:08.039
It would cause a lot of reflection.

00:39:08.039 --> 00:39:19.199
And so I think if I was watching a montage of my life, I'd want people to slow down, be in the present moment, and think about what they're watching.

00:39:19.199 --> 00:39:28.760
And I actually listen to a lot of rap and hip-hop and things like that, but I think I'd like to slow it down and maybe go with some Coldplay or like some Maroon 5 or something like that.

00:39:28.760 --> 00:39:29.760
That's great.

00:39:29.760 --> 00:39:30.760
Love it.

00:39:30.760 --> 00:39:37.500
I put together a Spotify playlist of all my guests so that people can listen to what the guests do to become undone.

00:39:37.500 --> 00:39:40.199
This is officially the last question. You've accomplished a lot.

00:39:40.199 --> 00:39:44.800
Nick, what's left undone for you?

00:39:44.800 --> 00:40:04.139
When I think about the future, I don't really envision a future that's very different from the one I have today. More of the same as far as business and professional stuff goes, but I would like to build a big family. So I just got married earlier this year in May. What's left undone for me, children.

00:40:04.139 --> 00:40:06.679
And then one day, way in the future, grandchildren.

00:40:06.679 --> 00:40:13.300
I love my family, what my parents have built for us, and I'd like to replicate some version of that in my own life.

00:40:13.300 --> 00:40:16.820
And so that journey will start for us sometime soon, I hope.

00:40:16.820 --> 00:40:19.579
And I think that's what's left undone for me right now.

00:40:19.579 --> 00:40:20.420
That's awesome.

00:40:20.420 --> 00:40:21.940
Congratulations on your marriage, for sure.

00:40:21.940 --> 00:40:22.780
Thank you.

00:40:22.780 --> 00:40:26.059
I'm thankful to Nick for giving him his time and sharing his journey.

00:40:26.059 --> 00:41:17.000
And I hope, like me, you found some tips and tricks for learning as well as enlightenment and inspiration from this episode. For more info on today's show be sure to check it out on the web. Simply go to undonepodcast.com backslash ep63 to see the notes links and images related to today's guest Nick Hutchison. Coming up I've got former Marine One helicopter pilot John Ballinger, financial planner and father of triplets Paul Fenner, and a new check-in with Brennan Brooks and our first attempt at podcasting Better Every Week. So stay tuned. This and more coming up on Becoming Undone. Becoming Undone is a Nitro-Hype creative production written and produced by me Toby Brooks. If you or someone you know has a story of resilience and victory to share for Becoming Undone, contact me at undonepodcast.com.

00:41:17.000 --> 00:41:21.000
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00:41:21.000 --> 00:41:26.000
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00:41:26.000 --> 00:41:34.000
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00:41:34.000 --> 00:41:38.000
As always, thanks for listening and for all of your support.

00:41:38.000 --> 00:41:40.760
Thanks for listening and for all of your support.

00:41:40.760 --> 00:41:42.760
you