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This One Habit Will Transform Your Life w/ Nick Hutchison
145 Plays5 months ago
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Nick is the founder of Bookthinkers and author of the book Rise of the Reader. We discuss strategies to get the most out of our precious reading time.
His book, Rise of the Reader: https://amzn.to/3X7UQX2
Instagram: www.instagram.com/bookthinkers
Nick's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nicklovesbooks/
Website: https://www.bookthinkers.com/
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Transcript
Introduction and Book Launch
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome back to the Connecting Minds podcast, Christian Jornoff here. Quick reminder, folks, if you want to live longer, increase your longevity without eating low carb or calorie restriction or avoiding carbohydrates or the Blue Zones nonsense, my book, How to Actually Live Longer Volume 1 is available on Amazon. Grab yourself a copy.
Nick Hutchison's Journey
00:00:21
Speaker
And today's guest is a very interesting individual because he basically, at least from my perspective, he took something he loved and he built an awesome business out of it. His name is Nick Hutchison. He is the founder, CEO of Book Thinkers. And Nick, thank you so much for coming on the show, bro. Yeah, I'm excited to be here,
Book Recommendations and Insights
00:00:48
Speaker
Christian. Can I ask you the first question today? Of course.
00:00:51
Speaker
What is the best book that you read last year? And we have to exclude the writing and publishing of your book. So I'm always curious. It helps me, helps me understand you a little bit more. Oh my God, bro. Like you just put me on a major spot because I can't even remember.
00:01:10
Speaker
Because from, I'm just looking around to see if anything, if anything. I bought a ton of books in, when we got the apartment, I had more space. I bought like a couple hundred books. But last year I was mostly reading my thick textbooks. I really, maybe I'll remember by the end of the show and I'll let you know. What about you? What's the best book you read last year? I was afraid you would ask me that.
00:01:37
Speaker
I read about 100 books last year, and many of them created a big impact for me. But when I think about the best book I read last year, the best book I read for the first time was probably Be Useful by Arnold Schwarzenegger. I mean, that man has, from my perspective, the highest dream to reality ratio out of anybody that's ever existed. And so the book teaches how he visualizes, which I think is really cool, but also
00:02:07
Speaker
be useful is all about applying action to your visualizations. So when you think about somebody that grew up in rural Austria and house with no running water that goes on to join the military, move to the US become the world's most successful bodybuilder, then transition into another industry.
00:02:25
Speaker
Movies, and he ends up getting paid $10 million a movie in Hollywood, even though nobody can understand him and he doesn't fit the narrative. Meanwhile, he's building successful businesses on the side, and then he transitions into government and runs one of the largest standalone economies on the planet. The governator. Yeah, you think about, yeah, exactly, the governator.
Book Thinkers' Origin Story
00:02:46
Speaker
So you just think about that trajectory, rural Austria, no English, house without running water, to where he ended up.
00:02:54
Speaker
and it's all about being useful. So I draw inspiration from stories like that.
00:02:59
Speaker
Yeah, bro, that is amazing. I think, and this will probably tie into what we will discuss today, I think being able to take your ideas, your dreams, desires, goals, visualizations, and manifest them into reality, I think that is the missing sort of link, the missing piece that most people out there are struggling with. So maybe that's actually, I think that would be a great segue into your story. Can you tell us
00:03:27
Speaker
how, tell us a bit about your story, you know, like how you were growing up, how you got into reading and all that stuff. And then how, and when you translated that into the book thinkers business. Sure. I'll be as brief as I can be. So feel free to cut me off if I start rambling. Sure.
00:03:45
Speaker
What might surprise most people listening or watching today, given the fact that I have a thousand books behind me and I built a business called Book Thinkers, is that I was not a reader growing up. I was not a great academic. I was always an athlete. So I played football, American football, and I wrestled. And I cared a lot about sports and my time in the gym, not much about the books that I was supposed to read for class.
00:04:10
Speaker
And that attitude of, I'm too cool to read books, right? The jock stereotype over here in the US. I carried that with me through most of my college experience as well. But everything changed for me when I took an internship going into my senior year of college or university
Growth and Impact of Book Thinkers
00:04:27
Speaker
at a local software company. It was a sales internship.
00:04:31
Speaker
and my boss, Kyle, at the time, I think he recognized what I could call unfulfilled potential. I was a little rough around the edges, a little cocky, a little arrogant, a little bit too much of a know-it-all. And he said, hey, I think you could benefit from listening to business podcasts.
00:04:46
Speaker
because I was commuting one hour in the car each way, five days a week that summer. So 10 hours a week in the car. And he said, listen, man, the world's most successful business people are having conversations for free, sharing all of their greatest secrets. And you can listen to these to and from work and you can get better at your job and make more money. Listening to the same song or the same playlist or radio station for the 500th time isn't gonna get you closer to where you wanna be in life.
00:05:17
Speaker
but the right podcast might. And so I started listening to shows, and what I realized very quickly was that a lot of these successful business people were successful because they were reading and implementing books. And they were all mentioning the same titles, right? All the classics, Thinking Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Covey, and the list goes on.
00:05:39
Speaker
And so how did I get into reading? I just realized one day that if I wanted to be successful, I needed to replicate what successful people were doing and they were reading books. And so that's how I got into it. You know, I just started reading and implementing books on sales and marketing and the rest is history.
00:05:57
Speaker
I love it, man. I love it. While you were talking, I think I remembered which book, the best book I read. I think one of the best books probably in my library, and I'm sure you will agree, is Robert Greene's The Laws of Human Nature. I was listening to that book
00:06:14
Speaker
on repeat on Audible for months and months as I was going to sleep when my wife was pregnant back in I think 2021 so but then last year sorry that was 2022 god I bought it I bought the book in 2022 it was just gathering dust on my shelf then finally last year I started popping in and out of it and oh and then the other really good book I read you let me know if you read this one is a Kibalian
00:06:42
Speaker
No, but i'm familiar with it. Yeah that one bro. That one is really good very
00:06:48
Speaker
That's kind of like, you know, the secrets of the universe, behind the scenes type of thing, right? Yes, yes. It's a really, it's the kind of book apparently they say, when you're ready, it somehow appears for you, right? And I also had that book for a couple of years before I actually cracked it open. And yeah, it's, you have to be ready for it, but it's very interesting. All right.
00:07:13
Speaker
Yeah, well, I have spent some time interviewing Robert Greene. We did an episode on the 48 Laws of Power. And Robert Greene is one of my favorite authors as well.
Impact of Reading on Personal Development
00:07:25
Speaker
He spends a decade researching and studying and understanding something before writing about it. And that's special. I mean, I think he's released six books and they're all instant New York Times bestsellers. I don't know if anybody else has done that.
00:07:39
Speaker
And what's cool about the 48 Laws of Power is that it's the most
00:07:43
Speaker
banned, B-A-N-N-E-D, banned book in the US prison system. So that's just like a cool badge of honor to have. Wow, I had no idea. Yeah. What's interesting, I think yesterday or the day before, I went to his Instagram for whatever reason. I think I clicked on his profile from your book thinkers Instagram. And I heard him saying he's had a stroke recently or something.
00:08:12
Speaker
He had one back in, I want to say 2020. So I actually interviewed him post-stroke, but he was doing okay. Oh my God. How old is he? Like 17? Not even 70, right?
00:08:25
Speaker
I don't think he's 70. I think he looks older than he is. He's one of those people. My guess is he's in his 50s, late 50s, early 60s, somewhere in there. Well, when I saw him, I was like, bollocks, he didn't get my book on time because this, dude, we have to get this in his hands. Can you, can I, I mean, I don't know how we, I want to send him a copy
00:08:52
Speaker
do you think you can you can tell him and then I don't know how to do it but he doesn't even have a copy of my book but we can work on it I'll tell you this I
00:09:03
Speaker
I'm not that famous, but I received 25 books a week in the mail because who knows where my address is and how it got out there and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I can only imagine how many books Robert Greene gets. We can try. I know his assistant pretty well. Oh, nice. Let's try. Luca, and then I can send one to you because I want to hear him or I can send two to you and you can send one to him, whatever. Yeah, I did send him after I interviewed him, I sent him
00:09:31
Speaker
So he's a big basketball fan and he grew up in the Celtics versus Lakers era. There's a big rivalry there back then. And my dad has a lot of memorabilia from that period because my dad, I guess, similar age as Robert Greene. And so I sent him some of that stuff so I can get your book there. Yeah, man, let's try. You never know. So when did you start book thinkers?
00:10:00
Speaker
So here's kind of what happened. I started reading books and I went from a non-reader to obsessed with reading almost overnight. And so for about a year, I would identify a problem in my life. I would go out and find somebody who solved it and I would read their book and apply that solution. So I started knocking out problems. I went from financially illiterate
00:10:23
Speaker
to leading discussions on money. I went from shy and insecure in certain areas of my life to super confident. I went from, I wasn't able to communicate effectively to communicating with certainty. And so I started to just thing by thing by thing, knock it out. And because I was talking about books so much, my friends and family were basically like, hey, listen, good for you, not into it.
00:10:50
Speaker
You should start posting on social media, just talking about the books you're reading and see if anybody else is into it. And so that's how it started.
00:10:59
Speaker
I had a couple of ideas on how to monetize my love for reading that failed that didn't really come to fruition. But what did happen was that I started sharing the books I was reading on social media and people found the books I was reading interesting. And so I built a following very fast. That was 2017 2018 2019 through those couple of years, I went from no audience to like 10s of 1000s of followers. And
00:11:25
Speaker
Yeah, there was nobody doing it back then, which was fun too. No such thing as book talk or bookstagram, like it didn't exist. That's amazing. Yeah, actually.
00:11:35
Speaker
Whenever I'm on Facebook scrolling through the feed, which isn't that often, I promise, I get there's one, I don't know, I never follow anything that the feed shows me, but there's somebody that reads books and then gives you like 10, 15, 20 points from the books that are really good. So sometimes I see like a kid's book or a parenting book, I'll send that to my wife. I don't even have time to read those, but I think
00:12:03
Speaker
What's your sort of take on businesses? There's straight up businesses and apps that do that. What's your take on these kinds of businesses where they will summarize like a two, 300 page book? Do you think there's actual value out of that? Or do you, I don't even know if I should be asking this question, but do you think there's value in actually digging into the nitty gritty of the author's entire work?
00:12:26
Speaker
I think that the value in a book summary app or business comes from discoverability, not from replacing reading. So I think a tool like that is a great 15 or 20 minute summary that tells you whether or not that book's gonna solve your problem, but it doesn't replace the act of actually reading it. So one of my favorite books is called The Art of Learning, written by this guy Joshua Waitskin.
00:12:55
Speaker
Oh, he mastered multiple areas of life. Not only was he a chess master at a very young age, but he was also a mixed martial arts master. So he mastered the physical but also the intellectual. And he talks about a form of learning.
00:13:11
Speaker
called form to leave form or numbers to leave numbers where you study a subject so intensely that your subconscious fully understands it and then can act on your behalf or identify
Effective Reading and Knowledge Retention
00:13:24
Speaker
opportunities to act on your behalf. So think about
00:13:28
Speaker
You're in a mixed martial arts match. You don't have time to think about every potential move. You just have to do it. Or if you're playing chess, you can't individually analyze thousands of moves. Your subconscious has to say, based on my full understanding of this game, this is what to do. And you trust your intuition.
00:13:46
Speaker
That's the level of learning. Robert Greene would call it mastery, for instance. That's the level of learning that I think truly transforms our life. And you're not going to be emotionally connected to a book summary in the same way that you will become emotionally connected to an entire book that has case studies. An author identifies a problem, talks about their journey solving it. You get to a resolution, you get to reflection, you get to action items. That's
00:14:12
Speaker
mastery, not a book summary. So that's my take. What about you? What's your take? I would probably agree with you. Speaking of mastery, I've also listened to the audiobook of that, man, I don't even know how many times, could be 15, 20 times over the years. I found Robert Greene's book work way, I think it was like in the mid-naughties. So Jesus,
00:14:39
Speaker
I guess 20 years ago, maybe 2008, that time period, I guess. That book has helped me to get over some humps. For example, when I was writing my book last year, it took me five months to research, write, edit, and publish it.
00:15:04
Speaker
And anytime I felt sort of despondent about the insurmountable mountain I'm climbing.
00:15:11
Speaker
Will I even get there? I just would remember, I actually had the book somewhere here, and I would kind of glance at it once in a while, just because I haven't tidied up this area, you know? And it would remind me, it was like, oh yeah, what about all those people that, you know, did two degrees just to start working and honing their craft? You know, they spent five, 10, eight, whatever, 10 years, only to begin beginning, you know, that kind of way. So it has really helped me, and I agree that we really, to truly,
00:15:40
Speaker
transform ourselves we really have to go deep we can't just skim we can't be like bees from flower to flower because you're just you might collect fun facts and tips and whatever but tips don't create transformation you need to do the deep work I agree yeah you need to do the deep work and
00:15:58
Speaker
That's why book summaries, you know, that's my version of a, of a get rich quick scheme, you know, Hey, read 52 books, 20 minutes a week. Yeah. No. So they have value, which is, do I want to read this book? Let me get the 20 minute cliff notes version first. By that time I'll know whether or not the book is going to solve my problem.
00:16:21
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's my take. I forgot the name of the app. I did try it for a while ages ago, maybe like 2018, 2019. Probably Blinkist. Oh yeah, Blinkist, yeah. So I remember reading a summary of a book I had read. I can't remember what now. And that summary was like complete BS. I'm like, this is not the book. This person read the same book that I read. That's not completely irrelevant what they're talking about.
00:16:46
Speaker
Yeah it's also subjective so tell me what's your kind of plan for book thinkers now in the future there's so much so many options for growth.
00:16:56
Speaker
Yeah, so I'll tell you where we're at today. Between full and part time, I've got 10 people on my team. We help hundreds of authors a year right now promote and market their books. We do short form video content for authors where we fly out with the cameras and the lighting and we help them turn books into social media content to build their brand and generate leads for their back end, right? A lot of these authors, they're writing books, but they're also doing coaching, consulting, speaking, courses, whatever it is.
00:17:25
Speaker
We do podcast booking, so placing authors on relevant shows to talk about their books. And we do social media book reviews. We've got hundreds of thousands of followers across our platform. So where is the business going to be in the future? My goal is to help authors get their books into the right hands. Because I do believe that the right book at the right time has the power to change somebody's life permanently. And so we're growing a lot.
00:17:53
Speaker
year over year and we're just gonna continue to focus on optimizing the business and providing even more value. I don't know honestly what it's gonna look like in five years because the social media and podcasting landscapes will change but I will change with them and just continue to provide as much value as possible.
Reading Strategies and Habits
00:18:12
Speaker
I'll also just kinda wrap up my answer by saying that I'm being invited to speak more and more
00:18:20
Speaker
sort of business conferences early to mid stage, young professionals, hundreds of people in a room looking to learn how to up level their own business or coaching or whatever. And I've been starting off my talks like this. Raise your hand if you've read the seven habits of highly effective people and everybody in the room puts their hand up because it's a classic. And then I'll say, now keep your hand up if I can call on you.
00:18:44
Speaker
And you can name the seven habits and every hand goes down and everybody chuckles. And so where I'm finding my personal brand is growing is in helping people retain and implement more from the books they're reading, the conferences they're attending, the podcasts they listen to. Because as my friend Kevin Horsley says, what is the use of reading or learning anything if you can't remember what you've learned?
00:19:08
Speaker
If the information vanishes from your brain, so does its value. Yeah. So I want to teach people how to use these books to change their life, not just as like a little vanity metric like, Oh, I read 50 books is here. So that's, that's kind of my future as a personal brand too. Yeah.
00:19:24
Speaker
I love that because I'll tell you, when we got our apartment a couple of years ago, I put in a bookshelf downstairs and I'll start telling my wife all my plans. I'm going to have a bookshelf there, a bookshelf there, and she's like, you must be freaking crazy. None of this is happening. That one bookshelf is all you get and don't overfill it. So I told her, but baby,
00:19:50
Speaker
When people come over, how will they know I'm better than them if I can't show all my books? So it definitely does seem like it can become a vanity metric, not just how many books you have, but how many you've read. But I admit myself,
00:20:06
Speaker
I go back to books, even my natural medicine and the chronology books, all these other more textbook type books. I'm reading something over the course of a year, maybe three, four times, the same few pages. And every time I go back, it's like I'm reading it for the first time.
00:20:23
Speaker
Even I feel like, and I use all these new tropics and whatever else, I'm not retaining as much as I'd like to retain. And I find myself, I'm not reading as quickly as I'd like to. So maybe we can unpack some of you. So just for the listeners, I think I missed saying it, but Nick is also an author of a book called Rise of the Reader. I apologize for, I had that in my list here of things to say. So you published Rise of the Reader, I think a year and a half ago or so, was it?
00:20:51
Speaker
A little less than a year ago, actually. So it launched in November of 2023. Tell us about that book and maybe some of the strategies you can share in there.
00:21:03
Speaker
Sure. So here's the background on the book. As I built my community posting book reviews on social media, 99% of my revenue and income comes from authors helping to support authors. But 99% of my audience are the people looking at my book reviews and making purchasing decisions. And so over the years, I've had
00:21:24
Speaker
hundreds, maybe even thousands of people ask me very similar questions, just like we talked about, Christian. Like, hey, Nick, I'm reading all these books, but I'm having a hard time taking action on what I've learned. Or how am I supposed to take notes? Or what do I do with my notes? How do I remember more from the books? And so I decided to research this subject very heavily so that I could be of value and answer these questions.
00:21:46
Speaker
And I wish there was a book I could have just gifted to everybody or said, go read this, go read this, but I couldn't find one. So I decided to write it. And it's a book on books. It's a book on how to retain and implement more from the other books that you're reading, because
00:22:02
Speaker
If you don't take action on what you've learned, if you don't truly internalize it and remember it, I'd argue that these books become closer to a form of entertainment than education. What's the difference between Nick playing video games and watching Netflix and Nick reading and forgetting books? Nothing. They're just entertainment. So Rise of the Reader.
00:22:25
Speaker
The subtitle is Strategies for Mastering Your Reading Habits and Applying What You Learn. And I tell everybody my journey going on this process of using books to truly transform my life. There's a wonderful Napoleon Hill quote that says, action is the real measure of intelligence.
00:22:43
Speaker
And so it's not as we know jokingly. And by the way, I have a big bookshelf, so I do the same thing you do. It's not appearing smart. It's taking action on what we've learned using those books to design our dream life, to be happy, healthy, and wealthy all at the same time.
00:23:01
Speaker
And that's intelligence. That's using books to change your life. So I'm happy to go into some strategies if you'd like, but that's kind of why I decided to write it. My first question would be I actually bought, I have like four or five different books on speed reading and kind of learning techniques and stuff. And I always, I keep saying I'm going to spend one or two weeks just focus on learning to speed read.
00:23:26
Speaker
And everything will be better then. And then for some reason I started, I just, maybe I don't believe it's possible. So what's your kind of take on that and how quickly do you read your books? Cause I mean, a hundred books in one year, that's two per week. That is, I mean, now it's, I guess it's kind of half your job now. If it, when it's your business, it's your job. So maybe that you have, you would devote more time, but give us some, some, um, some tips on how you do it and how we can start reading more and retain more.
00:23:55
Speaker
Reading is a skill set and each skill set can be broken down into a series of different actions and philosophies and theories and tactics and strategies. And if you improve them individually, cumulatively, you'll have improved the skill. So reading is a skill everybody can speed read if they want to.
00:24:16
Speaker
I choose not to implement most of the speed reading techniques that I've learned because it takes the joy away from the process of reading in my experience. And in order for something to be sustainable, you need to enjoy it. And so yes, I can speed read. I can do things like remove sub-vocalization.
00:24:39
Speaker
Sorry, I'm just shutting that off. I can remove subvocalization, meaning I won't read it to myself and my eyes will do the reading without repeating it back to me. Now, most speed reading techniques preach removing subvocalization because if you're reading to yourself, you can only read as fast as you can speak, which is a lot slower than you can actually read.
00:25:02
Speaker
Let me just say this, I don't enjoy it. I enjoy sub vocalizing to myself. I enjoy reading every word, not every other word or putting margins on my page and only reading the center of each paragraph. Like those things work.
00:25:16
Speaker
But to me, that takes the joy out of the process. So what do I optimize for? Enjoying the passage of time. I want to enjoy my learning as much as possible. And so do I read five times faster than I did 10 years ago when I started this journey? Yes. But that's just a process of repetition and reading 500 plus books in the last 10 years, not by speed reading.
00:25:44
Speaker
I know that was a little rambly there, but I think for the audience, you've got to enjoy it for it to be sustainable. And for me, speed reading is... I think you're muted. Oh, no, I lost you for a second. We're good.
00:26:00
Speaker
Yeah, I totally agree. The whole point is to be intentional with what you're doing. Again, it's like if you're only reading and not retaining its entertainment or escapism, but if you're just trying to consume as much as possible,
00:26:18
Speaker
Then it's the books becomes kind of like information becomes a commodity and you're not reading it just to accumulate information. It's like you said earlier. Actually, you said it very well. It's if you have a problem find the book that solves that problem and then internalize the rationale behind how that problem is solved. And then like you said Napoleon Hill's quote.
00:26:40
Speaker
put it into action. I think that's where we're stopping ourselves. We can just read normally, enjoy the process. Now, what are some strategies you have for getting more out of the books that we read? Here's my favorite strategy to teach people. This is probably the best preview of my work. It's all around being more intentional.
00:27:09
Speaker
So defining what problem are you looking to solve? What skill are you looking to build? What area of life? What curiosity are you looking to satisfy? Those are three great places to start. What skill are you looking to build? What problem are you looking to solve? What curiosity are you looking to satisfy? So that's being more intentional, right? I think that most readers have intention deficit disorder. That's highlighted in my book a lot, a little play on words.
00:27:38
Speaker
We're reading books because we see them on Amazon and they're trending, or we saw them on Instagram, or we heard about it on a podcast. And it's not going to solve any problem, but it's popular, and so we read it. That means we're not emotionally connected. Our intention isn't strong enough, and so no, we're not going to take action on those books. It's kind of like reading a book summary. It's not as meaningful.
00:28:02
Speaker
So once we define the problem or the skill that we're looking to build, this is the home run point. Set a SMART goal for every book that you read. SMART is a goal setting acronym often used in business. It stands for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time bound. So specific means you need to know what problem you're looking to solve or skill you're looking to build. Measurable means you need to know whether or not the book was successful.
00:28:32
Speaker
So you need to set a measurable goal. The management guru Peter Drucker says, what's not being measured can't be managed. You need to know your baseline and the outcome you're looking for. A stands for attainable.
00:28:45
Speaker
So that means you need to set a realistic goal. If you read a book on starting a business, set a goal to take two steps, not to build a million dollar machine next month, right? Because if our goal is too big, we won't take action. R stands for relevant. You need to be emotionally connected to your goal. You really need to get emotionally connected to the problem that you're looking to solve, define it,
00:29:07
Speaker
you know, really dig into that pain and then visualize the solution. Get emotionally connected to the book working for you. And tea is probably the most important part. That's time bound. Parkinson's law states that a task will expand to the amount of time that we give it. We all remember being young and the teacher says, Hey, you have two weeks to do the project, but it's due on Monday morning in two weeks and we all do it Sunday night. So
00:29:33
Speaker
instead of having an undefined goal, meaning we're probably not gonna take any action, give yourself a deadline. So I'll just use one example. With your book, I would say something like, find and implement at least one strategy for living longer by the end of May. Because I wanna be around for as long as possible. I wanna have energy and I wanna watch my kids and my grandkids and maybe even their grandkids
00:30:03
Speaker
you know, be healthy and happy one day. And I'm going to write that intention, that smart goal on the inside cover of the book. And I'm going to read it every single time I read another chapter, because our brains have this beautiful reticular activating system, it's like a natural filter. And so if you tell your brain, I'm looking to find and implement at least one longevity strategy, by the end of May,
00:30:27
Speaker
Everything else is gonna melt away and just those potential actions are going to reveal themselves And that's where the magic happens. Remember Napoleon Hill says action is the real measure of intelligence So remembering a cool quote or a cool statistic It's not going to change your life but implementing one thing from your book one new change or strategy or behavior That's where the magic happens. So set smart goals for each book that you read
00:30:55
Speaker
Except in the case of my book, you're going to get at least a dozen and you'll be able to implement them all in May. And you are absolutely gonna, you know, get to 90 without even a freaking sniffle or a, you know, Creek. So, but that's my book. I can't guarantee other books. Maybe, maybe Robert Greene's books can, but you know, bro, I don't know if I told you this, but.
00:31:22
Speaker
And I know the science on this is a little iffy, but I did a chronological versus biological aging test recently. Did I tell you about this? No. So the company is called Elysium Health. They were just acquired for like a billion dollars. So it's as legit as it can be for today's day and age. And chronologically, I'm 30 years old. So I was born at the end of 1993.
00:31:50
Speaker
At the end of this year, I'll be 31 years old. But it came back as 22. So just like you, I'm into the biohacking. I'm into longevity. I'm into slowing aging as much as possible, which is why your book is going to be exciting for me. And it works. And unfortunately, one of my brothers, who has a very similar makeup to me, but different behaviors,
00:32:17
Speaker
He took the test with me and he's chronologically 27, but it came back as results 31 biologically. So, um, I did that, you know, to see if the stuff I'm doing works, but I also got him to do it as a little test just to make sure it didn't tell everybody that they're younger than they really are. Yeah. Yeah. It's good to, I had one client, um, uh, last, last week, uh, we, he wanted to order the same lab test.
00:32:47
Speaker
twice just to make sure the lab are giving us real data, right? So it's good to do these kind of tests. By the way, if you want, we can actually do some cool lab work too, because, you know, to be perfectly honest, I don't know this company and what this test is about, what they measure. Is it like biomarkers or is it like, you know, telomeres or whatever? But, um,
00:33:11
Speaker
I have a bunch of really awesome state-of-the-art tests with the best labs in the world that we can run. And we can see not how old you are, but are there any imbalances that are going to be contributing to dysfunction, degeneration, faster aging, disease processes. And then with that data,
00:33:35
Speaker
I can give you a little tips and tweaks that you can incorporate into your life. And bro, then it will be fun to do that for, let's say, six months or a year and then rerun that test. I don't think you could age back beyond 22 though, just putting it out there. I think that's already amazing.
00:33:57
Speaker
Yeah, you're probably right. But listen, I'm obsessed with all this stuff. And I love experimenting. And I love data. So I'd be happy to try some of those things, depending on cost. And yeah, you're right. Like I've done some genetic methylation testing and hormone testing. And I do blood work regularly. And, you know, I just like you, I think that biology is an information technology. And we should try to understand as much as we can.
00:34:24
Speaker
Well put bro, well put. All right. So, okay. So you have some methods for note taking while reading. Can you, do you use digital devices or do you use more like pencil paper? What's your kind of take on the best ways to do that for greatest retention?
00:34:43
Speaker
You know, my first tip is actually to speed up the reading process a little bit and that's not to stop and take notes too much while you're reading. If you see something that might solve your problem or build your skill, quickly highlight it, circle the page number, but don't stop your flow.
00:35:01
Speaker
because we have read too many productivity books to think that any type of multitasking is actually efficient. And when you think about reading as almost like a passive visual experience,
00:35:14
Speaker
and note taking and reflection and implementation as a multi-sensory, you know, you're taking notes, you're kind of reflecting, you're thinking, you're implementing, which is a movement. They're different activities. And if you pivot back and forth between reading and note taking slash reflection and implementation, sometimes that makes the process really clunky. So my process is read the book all the way through, highlight
00:35:42
Speaker
and quickly note things that you wanna go back to. And then your second pass through the book, only reread the things that you've highlighted or circled, which shouldn't be more than a couple dozen things.
00:35:54
Speaker
And that second pass through, you're not really reading, you're reflecting and you're taking notes and you're thinking, you know? So that's kind of my process. And like I said too, you know, I used to just, like I remember reading Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill for the first time and having over a hundred notes. That's not realistic.
00:36:14
Speaker
And most of them were just quotes or fun things that would make me sound smart. They weren't actions that I could implement. So like you said, reading your book, there are 12 things that you should implement at least. And I think that that's the lens that we should be reading and implementing these books through. And the other thing I'll say is normally what I do, let's say I find 12 things in your book that I want to implement, I really try to limit myself to one or two at a time. And so I'll write them all out on a yellow legal pad,
00:36:44
Speaker
Here are the 12 things that I could implement. And then I'll do a quick 80-20 analysis. What two or three things interest me the most, are the most cost effective, have the lowest barrier to entry, are going to drive the most change, excite me, whatever it is. And then I'll just choose a few things out of the 10 or 12 or 15 that I could implement. And that's how I take action. I take action small steps in the right direction from everything that I read.
00:37:12
Speaker
That's amazing. Love it, bro. What's your take on digital versus physical books? I think that at the end of the day, the results are pretty much the same. They each have unique benefits. For instance, I love physical paper and having the books in my environment for a few reasons. It's tactile. You can write in the margins.
00:37:39
Speaker
and I love that. I love having the books on my shelves because they're almost like trophies that remind me of problems that I've solved and skills that I've overcome. I love having them in my environment. I think that they are like play bigger triggers. They're environmental cues that reinforce the person I'm becoming. But I do have a coach
00:38:00
Speaker
friend of mine who says that reading a paper book is like using a paper map when traveling and a Kindle is like using a GPS because he says in a Kindle you can highlight and export your notes, you can take notes in real time, you can carry a thousand books in your pocket, you can look up definitions in real time and there's a whole bunch of other benefits.
00:38:23
Speaker
You know, they're both great. They're both great. I agree. I also have like at least 100 books on Kindle and I stopped a long time buying them, but I have some really thick, I have some very thick digital ones from El Xavier to do these thousand page, you know, medical textbooks and whatever else. And those things are just horrible to hold for like, you know, 20 minutes. Or if you put it on a flat surface, then you were like crooked and stuff. So.
00:38:49
Speaker
Yeah, I think immersing yourself in both is the beauty of the modern world. We have all of these different multimedia. For example, before doing podcasts on health topics, I'll copy stuff out of books into a whole big old thing and then I just go over my notes. So yeah, absolutely agree with you there. So as we wrap up, I know you have a hard stop. What
00:39:14
Speaker
You have a lot of tips in the book, so they're related to health, wealth, happiness. What gems can you pepper into the discussion today from the book? You know, sometimes I read authors that are really heavy in the philosophy of things and not in the action or experience. And so I wanted to prove to everybody that I really do implement something from every book that I read. And so what I did in the second half of my book is I highlighted
00:39:44
Speaker
35 healthy habits that I've implemented, 35 wealthy habits that I've implemented, and 35 happiness related habits that I've implemented from the hundreds of books that I've read. And I detail the case that the author is making, my experience implementing it, and then some bonus tips and tricks and stuff that I think people could check out.
00:40:08
Speaker
And that's sort of like a choose your own adventure. You can flip through, you can try these things out, and then you can do the further reading if it ends up working for you. And so in the healthy section,
00:40:19
Speaker
There's a lot of stuff on improving your sleep. For instance, I sleep on an eight sleep mattress pad. It's a cooling mattress that gets down to 55 degrees Fahrenheit. I don't know what that is Celsius, but it sort of mimics that cave environment. And then it actually increases in the middle of the night to help you transition from deep to REM.
00:40:40
Speaker
And then it finishes off a little bit higher in the morning. Now I wear an aura ring. I do my sleep tracking and the changes going from a normal mattress to a cooling mattress.
00:40:54
Speaker
I mean, man, my sleep is so much better than it ever has been. So there's tips like that in there. Then in terms of wealthy habits, most of that is productivity related. So I've tried out a lot of different productivity techniques to be more efficient and get more out of my workday. So there's a whole bunch of great stuff in there, including the Pomodoro technique and stuff like that. And then in the happiness related habits, I'll give one that I think is pretty unique that I sort of discovered by combining a few different techniques.
00:41:24
Speaker
And that's, I record a gratitude time capsule every Sunday. It's a one minute video where I pull out my phone and I record the best things that happened in that week. And I just recap them real quick. Hey, I had a great podcast with Christian. We talked about longevity, whatever. And at the end of the year, I have 52 one minute videos. So I can watch an entire year's worth of gratitude in under one hour.
00:41:52
Speaker
And if I'm ever feeling off, I can always just flip back to a random week. And sometimes I go, wow, I can't believe I was so happy with that thing and never turned into anything, but like pretty cool just to kind of look at how I progressed and changed and what I'm focusing on over time. So that one's really fun. Yeah. I was going to ask about the, the aura stuff. So by the way, do you ground yourself when sleeping?
00:42:18
Speaker
Yeah, I'm actually on a grounded mat right now, and yes, I do. Yeah, I would have been surprised if you said no, to be honest with you. I would have been like, no, this can't be right. Yeah, the order ring, man, that thing was amazing for me.
00:42:35
Speaker
I talk about it in the book. It was back in early 2019. It was telling me almost every day, take it easy, take it easy. I'm like, this technology is broken because I'm coming from a software quality assurance background from a previous lifetime.
00:42:53
Speaker
And then I did a hormone test. All my androgenic hormones were really bad. And then my cortisol was sky high at night and whatever. And then I did a stool test and I had parasites and stuff going on. So I was like, this aura thing in hindsight was freaking amazing in the things that can help you catch. Like some guys are talking about a glass of wine wrecks my deep sleep. So
00:43:17
Speaker
Yes. By the way, for me, Aura will literally say, did you drink last night? Wow. It knows because I will, my heart rate will be significantly higher. I'll have way less deep sleep and I'll almost never have any REM, funny enough. Wow. If I, because if I wake up at a normal time, I'll miss my REM window, which is always super late for me, like late in the morning. So yeah, man, alcohol, which I still
00:43:46
Speaker
drink from time to time. Oh my goodness, it ruins my sleep. It's so bad. Absolutely, bro. You know about taking charcoal though, right? Yeah, I have a whole stack that I'll take... After alcohol. ...during and after drinking. Smart. So I don't have hangovers anymore, but my sleep quality still falls through the floor. It's terrible. Absolutely.
00:44:14
Speaker
All right, Nick, so as we wrap up, bro, is there any any other thing you wanted to cover on this podcast that we didn't talk about? I'll end by saying this. I genuinely believe that there is a book to solve every single problem that we face as human beings. And they're available most of the time for twenty dollars, twenty euros and a few hours of our time.
00:44:41
Speaker
And if we choose not to solve these problems and live under our potential, we have to take ownership of that. You have to put down the phone, you have to put away Netflix just for a little bit and watch how fast you can live up to your potential and live a better life. I've heard it said that this math is pretty scary. If you're dealing with a problem on a day-to-day life that you've become familiar with and you tolerate, over the next 30 years, you'll deal with that problem 11,000 more times.
00:45:09
Speaker
So take a day, take a week, take a month, fix the problem, get rid of it, whether it's in your relationships, your health, your fitness, your business, whatever, somebody else has the solution, might've taken them two decades to figure out, but they've detailed it in a book for you to read in a couple of hours. There is a book to solve every problem. There's no excuse for us to live under our potential. So that's my final message for everybody.
00:45:33
Speaker
dude, that's so beautifully said. And I talked to prospective clients and they fill out a little form before they come to me and I asked them, you know, how long is this or these issues have been a problem for you? And sometimes they'll say nine years, six years, 15 years I saw the other week. And I'm like, why are we living and suffering like this for years and years and decades? Why don't we
00:45:58
Speaker
you know, mobilize ourselves. I think it's, first of all, it's knowing that there is solutions. I think a lot of us are living in where we are living lives, where we just think that's the way it is. You know, look at all these books on relationships, on how to have a happy marriage. If you're truly unhappy, maybe that's a place to start digging in, you know? I agree. I agree. And if you're aging too fast, get Christian's book.
00:46:24
Speaker
I was going to say it, but I appreciate it. Thank you, brother. All right, Nick, thank you so much. Before we let you go, can you tell the listeners where they can find you, find your book, connect with you on social media and everything else?
00:46:37
Speaker
Here's my favorite thing to do. If you've listened to the conversation today and you're like, you know what? I should be reading more books. There are problems that I could solve, but I don't know where to start. Shoot me a DM on Instagram at book thinkers, spelled just like it sounds, book thinkers. And tell me about the problem you're facing or the skill that you wanna build and I'll provide a custom book recommendation to you. It's like my favorite thing to play, book matchmaker.
00:47:04
Speaker
And yeah, you'll be emotionally connected because you're going to solve a problem or build a skill and that's how you get hooked. That's awesome. All right. We have the links in the episode description. Nick, once again, thank you so much for joining us today. Yeah, I appreciate you, man. Thank you. Thank you.