Nicholas Hutchison: Co-Founder of BookThinkers - Using Books To Make Progress In All Areas Of Life

Louis:  [00:00:00] You are listening to Episode 35 of the Louis and Kyle Show with Nicholas Hutchison from Book Thinkers.

Nicholas: I mean, there are dozens and dozens of examples of things that we've implemented directly from Books into the business that have worked like dozens and dozens of them.

And so when you look 10 years from now at whatever kind of massive behemoth business Book Thinkers is, it's not going to be a question of getting lucky. It's going to be a question of how many Books did we apply?  

Kyle: Hello and welcome to the Louis and Kyle Show an interview podcast where Louis and I share the best of what we learn in the areas of entrepreneurship, investing and health, through conversations with inspiring mentors,

Louis: In this Episode, we talked to Nicholas who runs the Instagram page called a Book Thinkers and the related accounts Book Think hers for women and Book Thinkers, family.

He has aggregated the largest nonfiction Book community on Instagram, what's close to a hundred thousand followers on the main accounts and probably North of a hundred thousand. [00:01:00] If you combine the accounts, I've just mentioned, he also runs the Book Thinkers podcast, which is one on one interviews with inspiring authors, or he goes into behind the scenes on the Books and the first 20 Episodes, he has amazing guests like Russell Brunson, Alex Banayan, and Robert Green and Grant and Elena Cardone.

In this interview, we talk with him about how he's grown and monetize that audience. And the importance and usefulness of Books. We also dive into his passion for travel and discuss what's the future of your Book Thinkers because of the amazing opportunities it's created for themselves by aggregating this large following of Book enthusiasts,

Kyle: Yeah. And I think that, you know, one thread through the tire conversation is just the idea of getting 1% better every day and the effects that has, in every area. And, you know, he does that in Books. He did that on Instagram. The, his shirt says progress.

Kyle: Everything that we talk about with them really, it all comes together with the idea of just getting a little bit better everyday.

Louis: Yeah. I, actually, actually, since we recorded this, I went [00:02:00] back in and listened to pretty much almost every Episode of the podcast. If I'm being honest, And he did one with Evan Carmichael. Who's the author of a Book called your one word. And I heard Nick kind of through that podcast, how he explains how his one word is progress.

And that's why shirts have that. And that 1% better every day. But anyway, that's, that's enough teaser, super interesting conversation. I hope you all enjoy it. And I know you will. So with that, I'm going to cut to the audio.

INTERVIEW BEGINS

Nicholas: Yeah, I'm excited to be here.

Louis: That was great to have you. I'm super excited for him to hear about Book Thinkers and what you've learned, interviewing so many incredible authors and just kind of immersing yourself in the Book world extremely deeply for a couple of years now, a real quick for the listeners who aren't familiar with you.

Can you introduce yourself? Explain what Book Thinkers is and tell us just a quick backstory as to how it got started.

Nicholas: Sure. Well, my name is Nicholas Hutchison. I am 26 years old and I consider myself a student of the world. I love learning from other people, people building on the truths that came before me and then sharing those with the world.

And so that's really my mission in life right now. I love making daily [00:03:00] progress in every area of my life and Books are a fantastic vehicle to make that happen. And so Book Thinkers is my business. I own it with my co owner Ryan. And over the last couple of years, we've done a lot of really exciting things.

We have a couple of different Instagram communities, one that has over 90,000 active participants followers. We also have a mobile application called Book Thinkers, smart retention. We have the world's number one nonfiction Book podcast. It's called Book Thinkers, life-changing Books. And so Book Thinkers is growing and providing more value to people each and every day.

And that's sort of where I am today.

Louis: You mentioned a lot that it's the Thinkers family. Can you explain kind of why you call it

Nicholas: That? I do. Yeah, because I get the most fulfillment from providing value to other people. If I can make other people. A feel a sense of progress in their daily life. And they can use Books to make their lives better.

Then that makes me happy and fulfilled. And I feel like everybody's a part of my family when that's happening. And so it's really a community focused [00:04:00] Instagram page. I'm not showing off and showing flashy things. I'm not displaying the money I'm making to everybody else. It's really about helping the audience become better in their daily lives and helping them reach their.

You know, unfulfilled potential and things like that. And so that's why I call it a family. And also the, you know, a funny story about family. I read a Book about branding very early on in Book Thinkers. And part of it said, Hey, you need to describe your audience in a specific way. You need to name them.

You need to form a community around something that you love for me, Books and Book Thinkers, and then allow your audience to take on their own name. And so I actually did a little survey at the time. I maybe had a thousand followers or something like that. And I said, do you want to be called Book Thinkers, nation Book, Vickers, community.

What's the name? And Mo the most people said family. And so that's how it came to be.

Kyle: Absolutely. And like you said, that what you want to do is provide value to these people and get them to the point where they feel like they're fulfilled. And you mentioned in our pre call that you had a very obvious this inflection [00:05:00] point in your life where you kind of changed direction and started going toward that, that place, where you're trying to take these people.

And you clearly accredit that moment, two Books. what was the Book or the Books that you accredit with having the biggest effect on that inflection

Nicholas: Point? Sure. Well, so a little background on that inflection point, I went from a place where I was very average or below average to above average, almost in every area of my life.

I mean, prior to the infant action point, which was these couple of Books we'll discuss in a second, I was very in fulfilled on a daily basis. I was kind of just going with the flow, doing what everybody else was doing. I was operating from a place of insecurity, uh, one hand with a lot of social anxieties and I felt the pressure to conform to what society wanted me to be like.

But then I was also operating. From a place of ego where I was getting a little bit of success in a couple areas of my life. And I was letting that ego dictate my decision making. And so I kind of had the worst of both ends there. And I took an internship with a sales company and my mentor of mine [00:06:00] at the time recommended a few Books because he said, look, if you're not fulfilled in the classroom, which I was not, I wasn't even showing up to class anymore.

Then. Why is that? And I said, that's happening too slowly for me. I'm not getting enough out of these classes because they're broken out over prior semester. And he said, well, these Books are condensing decades of information down into days. And so you can consume that information and all, all of those crazy lessons in a very short period of time.

It's efficiency. So I said, I like that. Let me challenge myself. And so I read a couple of these Books and it was pretty painful at first, but wow. Did everything change? And so the first Book was rich dad, poor dad by Robert Kiyosaki. And that Book represents a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

Well, but to me, it taught me the importance of financial literacy very early on, you know, we don't learn about money. In school. So we're not all on an even playing ground. We learn about money in the home. And so if your parents don't have the best money habits, you're not going to learn the best money habits [00:07:00] either.

And so I had a lot of insecurity about money. I went to business school. I didn't do very well school in the first place, so I didn't have a great shot at getting a great job or a great internship, like all my friends did. And so money was sort of a subject that I shied away from it first. But after reading that Book, I started to understand more about money.

And I said to myself, wow, I can contribute in these conversations. And I have now unleashed more potential in my future, what a brilliant thing. And this really small Book that costs like 15 bucks helped us solve so many problems in my immediate life. And so that's an example of one Book. I mean, I could go on forever about those early Books.

Um, I can give another example.

Louis: Sure.

Kyle: Can I say that it's just absolute, like. On the podcast, uh, pockets and a lot of podcasts. You know, that question is asked very often and even in my own life, my own personal mentors, that Book comes up over and over and over again, as something that caused [00:08:00] that inflection point in these people's lives.

And it's just really incredible that like Robert Kiyosaki wrote this Book 20 years ago and here today, like it's affected millions and millions of people's lives for the better.

Nicholas: Yeah, there are a lot of reasons why I think it's everybody's first Book. It's very simple. The language can be digested by about anybody that understands English.

And it's a short Book. It's not overwhelmingly long, like some of the more popular nonfiction Books might be. And so when you're recommending a Book like rich dad, poor dad, there's a good chance that somebody's going to read it because of how informal the language is and because of how short the Book is.

And there's also. Some very actionable stuff that you can implement immediately into your life in that Book. And so a lot of people know that the education, yeah, the system in the U S is somewhat broken and it's been that way for a long time. And so by creating sort of a decisive line in the sand there, and then allowing people sort of relief.

By identifying with them and then giving them some solutions. That's just a home run Book for a lot of people. And so [00:09:00] I think I've read the Book four or five times now, and every time my understanding of what he's trying to communicate to me changes, which is also very interesting. I

Louis: Totally, I completely agree with that.

It's something you had mentioned there is, you know, how it's actionable and this is a big thing. That's a part of your brand and your messaging that I really resonate with is behavior change. You know, it's not just sitting down and absorbing. As much possible information as possible, but it's actually developing a bias towards action and taking the ideas from Books and bringing them into your life.

So how do you personally make behavior change part of your reading process? What are your systems or your habits for encountering an idea or a question in a Book and actually making that something you experiment with and implement.

Nicholas: Great question. A lot of people major in minor. So we spend a lot of time doing things that don't have a big impact on our lives.

We spend 80% of our time only generating 20% of the results. And so reading can end up as one of those activities. Unfortunately, for a lot of people, I call them. Self-help junkies people who are reading [00:10:00] and not implementing. They're not changing their behavior. And so we actually did a study before I answer your question of our community nonfiction Book lovers, people who love consuming this kind of stuff, and 94% of them, so that they want to retain and implement more information from the Books that they're reading.

And so it is a big problem now for me, I listened to a podcast years and years ago on the science of success. One of my favorite podcasts and one of the guests at the time said that he removed his TV. And you replaced it with a Bookshelf. And so instead of watching TV, he would start to read these Books and then systematically like every five Books that he finished, he would go back and reread his notes from five Books or something like that.

And I thought, wow, that systematic approach to reviewing your notes. And it definitely will lead to more retention and more opportunities to implement the information. And so I started to do that manually. And so for the last couple of years I've been taking my Book notes. After I read a Book, I'm highlighting things.

I'm writing down notes during the process and I'll put it in an [00:11:00] Evernote doc. And then I would go back and systematically reread those Book notes, flex those neural pathways, strengthen my relationship to that information. And therefore I could spit it out on a podcast interview like this, or I could talk about it with my friends, but I can also identify more opportunities to implement those great lessons into my life.

And then. I was doing that, but I realized a lot of other people's stuff had issues and that system was not Bulletproof. And so we developed this Book, Thinkers, mobile application, which allows you to take away your top 10 favorite notes, put them into the application, turn on systematic reminders, and then Book Thinkers will push you notifications to come back and reread your Book notes at the right frequency.

Because repetition leads to retention. We want to retain this information, ingrain it in our subconscious, and then your subconscious will do the rest of the work for you, which is so brilliant. And that's how I'm doing it today.

Louis: I love that answer. I've actually kind of tinkered with a lot of similar systems in the past.

Some, you know, manually put [00:12:00] together space, repetition type stuff, similar to what you have in your app. And what I've done most recently actually is I've put together just a stack of flashcards of like, You know, it's meta. So it's one additional layer of abstraction upon my notes from Books. And it's like, from my notes from Books, what are the notes from my notes and kind of condensing that into something I can read through in like two minutes in the morning.

And if there's too many, I can kind of automatically separate them. But when I transition out a little bit into asking about your podcast, uh, you know, you've. Gone through years and years and all these, these Books behind you of spending time learning about authors and getting a decades of wisdom condensed into 500 pages.

But with your podcast, you've condensed decades of wisdom into 30 to 60 minute conversations. You've only been able to do that though with, with living authors. so I have a question. If you could only,

uh, one deceased author,

Nicholas: Who would that be? Hmm, that's a great question. I don't know that he was an author necessarily, but probably Leonardo DaVinci.

I found him fascinating. Walter Isaacson wrote an amazing [00:13:00] biography about him. And so it's very well documented, uh, journals and things like that. I would love to have conversations with him about those because he thought about things hundreds of years, before other people approach them. And I find that fascinating to intentionally cultivate.

His creativity, the way that he did with the approaches that he used. I find it so fascinating. So I'd probably choose him. He did write those journals, like I mentioned. So he's technically an author.

Kyle: Yeah. I also read, um, I of that Walter Isaacson biography and the sheer amount of things, then this guy was able to do in a period of time where people.

Like we're far. Like they didn't know what was, and I mean, he's tearing apart. Dabbers is drawing models of like the human brain. He's building bridges, building like these crazy, um, dams and the, in the middle of Milan. It's just, it's unbelievable. I wish that I had done some smart retention on that [00:14:00] Book, so it'd be able to go already, even better, but, um, Books have your podcast guests, the living ones recommended the most.

Is there any one common theme that you've been able to draw, uh, these top performing authors and people?

Nicholas: You know, I think that, I think that a lot of people, people look at historical work and they look at work that has stood the test of time.

And so I call those perennial Books, Books that will live forever because of the importance that they have in our modern day lives. And so we look forward into the future and we think people, generations from now will still be reading those Books. And so, you know, I don't have any specific recommendations that come to mind right off the top of my head, but.

You know, a lot of those people, a lot of the icons of industry, they look at icons of industry in the past, and that's sort of what they're reading. They're not reading modern day Books, Books coming out, you know, in today's

Louis: Age. That makes sense. Another question I have from, you know, your podcast and your interactions with all these authors is it's a natural thing for someone who spends years [00:15:00] reading Books to over time, get the thought, you know, maybe I should write a Book.

Uh, making all of your podcasts and having these detailed conversations with successful authors made you more or less eager to write a Book of your own.

Nicholas: Yeah. In, in certain ways sort of both answers. I mean, it makes me more eager because I can see on the other side of, of a successfully published Book, now, these people are impacting the lives of hundreds of thousands or millions of people.

And that feels very good. When you're going to sleep at night, you know, and those Books will last forever. They say, if you're, if you receive a certain amount of Amazon reviews, your Book will literally be purchased for the rest of time. And I think that that's a really important thing for a lot of these people.

They're leaving a positive dent in the world, but. I do ask them offline a lot of questions about the publishing process and it's vicious. There's a lot of uncertain, you know, even for some authors, like I just had James Alta chair on the other day and he's published 20 something Books and only two of them have been successful.

And that's a very scary thing to look at. Even with [00:16:00] somebody who has such a big social following and such a popular ball, a blog mechanisms for distribution, tens of millions of dollars in the bank and the Books still flops. And so it's not about the connections or the environment that you've set up for yourself.

Sometimes it's about the actual quality of the Book. And so I don't know, I'm that good of a writer, but I still, I still have in my gut feeling a Book that I want to write soon within the next couple of years.

Louis: No, that makes a whole lot of sense. I mean, I've kind of had the same thought, you know, you see all these authors and it's extremely expiring, but you do just an ounce of research into what it takes and you.

Can you realize that it's a, it's a big investment and that's why only so few people do it. I want to try that. I had to do a little bit of curation because you have such an expertise in a wide range of Books. So an X circumstance, who would you recommend X Book for? so the first question, uh, continuing the rich dad, poor dad deem, someone's interested in investing in real estate, which is another common theme on this podcast that kind of like to [00:17:00] talk about what would be the first Books.

You'd recommend someone go out and read it.

Nicholas: Well, I definitely would recommend starting with rich dad, poor dad. The second Book that I would recommend is a, is a lesser known Book. Yeah, it's called the heart of the deal and it's by Anthony lolli. And so Anthony and I connected and we were able to meet up in person and it was such a brilliant experience, but his Book is an introduction to multifamily real estate investing and also sort of, it's also sort of an autobiography of his story coming up from the teenage years, all the way to exiting his business.

And so. Understanding the full story, instead of just the techniques, I think sometimes has its own benefits. And then you get to follow the person and ask them questions if you can, and communicate through social media. And so Anthony is a very accessible person and I would recommend the heart of the deal.

That's a really good one. And then outside of Book recommendations, we talked about bigger pockets before I would highly recommend checking out the bigger pockets podcast and also their publishing arm. So bigger pockets is now published, maybe 10 plus Books [00:18:00] under their own brand. And they also represent a lot of other authors in the real estate space.

And so because real estate is so diverse in real estate investing has a million different opportunities. I would check out their Books and see if something resonates with you. They actually have a new Book coming out, I believe it's next month. And it's 25 unique real estate come up. Stories, all addresses in different real estate, investment methods and different stories from sort of the icons of real estate investing that are alive well today and have been guests on the bigger pockets podcast.

So that's another Book that I would recommend checking out and pre-ordering, I know that I just received my copy and that's one of the Books that I'll prioritize reading in the next couple of weeks.

Kyle: Yeah, bigger pockets just has so many free resources. That website has so many resources for anyone that wants to learn real estate investing in the, in the podcast.

We actually had somebody on, uh, name is Willie Brown is if you have a setback and you just he's a 20 year old, 21 year old guy who learned how to wholesale real estate by listening to the bigger [00:19:00] pockets podcast. And he listened to every single Episode. And when he was doing it, he made paper cranes.

Cause like, otherwise he wouldn't be able to focus. So he got all the way through and then actually ended up being a guest on bigger pockets. So it was a really cool story for him.

Nicholas: Yeah. That is a cool story.

Kyle: But while he dropped out, there are a lot of people that are currently, um, about to enter the real world.

You can graduate college. So, so what Books would you recommend to a smart driven college student, about to go out

Nicholas: There into the real world? Yeah, that's another great question. The first Book that I would recommend is a Book called deep work by Cal Newport. And in that Book, Cal says that essentially having control of your attention and being able to focus on one task for more than a couple hours is a differentiator for a college student because so many college students are coming out today and they don't have the capacity to focus.

They haven't trained that area of their brain. And so if you can sit down with somebody that's interviewing you and [00:20:00] articulately, describe how you can stay focused throughout the Workday and accomplish what's ever in front of you. That's, that's a differentiator in, uh, differentiator in and of its, I would also recommend sort of as a followup Book or complimentary Book to that in distractible, by NIR Eyal that Book teaches you how.

To basically remove all of the distractions. And then I think that that will enhance your ability to focus on your work. So those are two Books that I would really recommend as far as studying a third, I think would be limitless limitless by Jim quick is a new Book. It just came out this year. And Jim talks about the benefits of speed reading in that Book.

And so in all jobs, regardless of industry, regardless of expertise or degree, you have to do some reading. And so if you can accelerate. Your reading speed and get through whatever portion of your job requires research or reading, and you'll be able to perform more efficiently. And Jim also talks about smart learning and smart reading that Book and ways to retain and implement more information, which you guys know I'm [00:21:00] big on.

So that's the third Book recommendation that I throw out there. Yeah,

Louis: I, uh, absolutely make a Testament to the deep work recommendation. I've had a one or two monologues to say the least on this podcast about deep work. That's the Book that I've kind of read. I was kind of my rich dad, poor dad. One of the first Books I read when I started reading, that really changed things for me.

And I've read it four times or so, and I can definitely. Attest to exactly what you said. If you can have sustained focus concentration, which spoiler almost all of your competition in terms of people competing for the jobs, people competing for promotions will not have because they are perpetually distracted, perpetually, unable to sustain concentration for more than let's say 25 minute intervals.

You will double the amounts of work that they do, and they will seem natural to you. That's happened to every professional experience I've had so far because I've adopted that deep work ethic. Yeah, it's a

Nicholas: Fantastic Book. I

Louis: Actually got into it. The other thing about a and distractable, I got into a little bit of a Twitter argument today where I listened to your podcast today and prep for this podcast with near [00:22:00] aisle, a and you got into time blocking and on, on Twitter, went out and said that time blocking is one of the most overrated things.

Uh, was like, uh, I, for that,

Nicholas: Let me give you one more. Uh, is a lesser known Book, a less popular one. It's called flip-flops and microwave fish. And I don't remember the subtitle, but it's by Peter Yelowitz and it is essentially a textBook for entering the workplace and how to navigate workplace culture.

And so reading that Book, there's a lot of funny. Workplace experiences that he dealt with in the past that he did, but whether you're a remote employee or you're in and out trying to navigate that space for the first time, there's a lot of, to do lists to check off and a lot of little things that you probably wouldn't thought, you know, you wouldn't have thought about, even from the interview process, all the way out through, you know, navigating coworker relationships and things like that.

So that's a really good Book. That's an, I've

Louis: Not heard that one. You're definitely a you're right. About a theme. The that's awesome. You have to put it on in the show notes. Uh, a kind of twist on the curation question, uh, [00:23:00] kind of thought, you know, I'm a college student wanting to enter the world, or I want to start real estate investing and we've kind of adopted the habit.

Okay. Let's turn to a Book for the answer. Uh, there situations in which, you know, your identify a goal or there's something you want to do where you think, you know, maybe a Book isn't the right first step and there's another actually more high impact way to get moving towards that objective.

Nicholas: Well for, for a lot of people Books, aren't the answer in the first place, you know, there's auditory learning, there's visual learning.

Um, fan of reading a Books, but a lot of people learn better by watching videos in the first place, as far as situ situationally. Um, the stance that in the, you know, for almost, I think for every situation that you could possibly come lacrosse for any goal that you're facing, there is a Book that can help you get to the other side of that.

So I really do believe that. And if you ask me that question a little bit, I'll do my best to think of, think of a couple of situations, or maybe it isn't the best, you know, maybe some hands on situations as far as like engineering or whatever, but I really believe that a good Book can solve [00:24:00] every single problem.

Yeah.

Kyle: I mean, you're a good guy to believe that the branding and the, uh, the thing you've created, but so we talked briefly in our discovery call about your mindset of resilience that you've been able to build and how, you know, you're confident in yourself and your ability to make things happen in the world.

Like if everything goes taken away from you, tomorrow, Book Thinkers is gone. You're on your feet in a different country, you know, You said that you'd be confident that you could get back to where you are or, or even better. So what are the principles that you've learned and developed, uh, life that allow you to have the confidence, uh, of confidence

Nicholas: To be able to say that.

Sure. There's a great idea. Example where Jordan Belfort, the Wolf of wall street. He says that if you actually, he did lose everything. He went to jail for a little while and he came out in a couple, well, months later he was a millionaire. And so he was being interviewed about that process and he said, you know, I could, I could replicate that over and over and over and over again because I have the confidence, I have the swagger and I have the know how [00:25:00] now to do it.

And so I really believe that. To become successful in any area of life. You need to get over some uncertainties that you have about yourself. And so I was a victim of a lot of those insecurities for a very long time, but having surrounded myself with so many successful minds for so long, I really believe I have the tools and the methods and the principles and the strategies that I can apply regardless of where I am or in what industry to become successful.

And, you know, one of those is resilience like you talked about, but I think it's resilience over a very long period of time. So I'm a big fan of this principle called the compound effect. That's small steps, really small steps in the right direction. Over a very long period of time will lead to a fruitful place in life.

And that can be applied. Anywhere, there's this great example from the Book, the compound effect by Darren Hardy, where he says that if a plane is taking off from LA and it's heading to New York city, but before takeoff, you adjust the nose of the plane, just 1% [00:26:00] as that 1% compounds as it's flying across the U S it'll end up about 150 miles off course.

And so for me, one of the most successful principles or, or ways. To kind of reinforce my confidence in life is that I know if I make these little ones changes all over my life, in my health and my wealth and my communications with friends, family loved ones. And then you can kind of break down each one of those categories.

Wealth. If I make 1% improvements in my reading and my investing in my professional life and my income. Over time, you will become successful. It's just math. You know, Anthony lolli, who I mentioned before, who wrote the heart of the deal, he said real estate is sort of a dumb person's way to get rich because it's just math.

You just need to be able to show up over and over and over again and take those small steps over a very long period of time. And you will end up rich you'll end up financially wealthy. And so I think that we can apply that principle in every single area of our lives. That's one of the principles that [00:27:00] I think or values that I hold that I think leaves me with that sort of confidence, because whether it's a sales job, you know, whether you're.

In agriculture, whether you're in any random industry, in any random part of the world, you can apply that principle and become successful over time. And in our discovery call, I know we talked a little bit about, you just need to show up. It does get a little boring sometimes. You know, for me, I've read hundreds and hundreds of personal development Books over the last couple of years.

And a lot of authors talk about very similar subjects. And so there are things that. Are being reinforced for me, there are new examples that I get to use when I'm talking to guys like you, but for the most part, I'm reading repetitive content. It's not always super fulfilling, but I know at the end of doing this over and over and over again is the lifestyle that I truly desire that I truly want.

And so the resilience is. Is patience. Now the resilience is grit. The resilience is knowing and being connected. And then the fact that you just [00:28:00] need to show up over and over and over again and take these very small steps, seemingly insignificant when you do take them. But the result is massively disproportionate to be effort that you're putting in over time.

That last piece,

Louis: You kind of explained it to us from a James clear as kind of mastering the Monday and is being willing to conquer the boring things that are required. I've heard that explained in a similar way, as you know, taking like a blue collar work ethic where no matter what you just show up to work and put in the hours on whatever the problem is, I'm putting that blue collar work ethic applied to any type of problem and expecting results that way.

Uh, had the compound effect on this Bookshelf for probably 12 months. Uh, gotta maybe get it to read after that last explanation there,

Nicholas: I'll give you one more analogy from that Book that, that relates to this piece of the conversation. They say, if you picture a horse race, a horse wins by a nose, or maybe you could picture like NASCAR or something, a car winds by just a little bit.

But do you think that in the horse itself and the, you know, the guy riding it, they [00:29:00] get 10 times the reward. Compared to the horse that finishes in second, but did they put in 10 times the amount of effort? No, it was just a little bit more, but they get 10 times the reward. And so I think for a common listener, like any one of us, right.

We think, okay. Over a very long period of time, you don't need to work 10 times harder than other people. Like, yes. I love the 10 X mindset grant was a great guest. But if you just put in a little bit of extra effort, an extra phone call, an extra email, you reach out to one more potential guest. That's the difference maker.

It is those very small steps you win and you get 10 times, there are the reward you lose with just a little bit less effort and you get nothing. And so that's, that's kinda what keeps me going all the time.

Kyle: Yeah. I think for me, it's like you lose when you quit, you know, and if you keep going, you'll eventually see those results and it's actually.

The background of my phone is like a, um, curve. And it's like on this side of the exponential curve, whether it's flat, you know, it's pointing to [00:30:00] one spot on it. It says this is pointless. Cause like, Before you get to the point where you start to see these returns, you know, you feel like you're drudging through nothing when really you're building towards something.

But one thing I wanted to ask is like, you've read hundreds and hundreds of Books by all these authors and you're encountering a lot of the same idea. What's something that you recently encountered. So the very first time that you were like, you stop for a second, like, Whoa, this is, this is saying something.

I haven't read an

Nicholas: Hundreds of Books before now. Yeah, sure. I read a Book called the mastery of self by Don Miguel Ruiz jr. Recently. And I had him on the podcast and something that blew my mind was his introduction. He talks about something called the drama of the party. And so he says, imagine showing up to a party and everybody there is very drunk.

Very. Very drunk. And so you have a difficult time communicating with those people, right? They're at varying levels of intoxicated, but what you realize is that everyone else is intoxicated. So [00:31:00] you might try to spark, have a conversation with them. And they're just swinging back and forth between very emotional States.

They're not balanced whatsoever. And they just keep drinking and drinking and drinking. When you're reading a lot of personal development Books, this might happen in specific areas of your life. Right. Everybody else is very emotional. We can use politics as an example. It's very bipartisan in the U S right now you're either on the right or you're either on the left, right?

There's a very clear line in between them and people hate each other on both sides. And so if you're trying to communicate with people who are drunk at the party, they're going to react emotionally. They're not going to be open to what you're saying. And I find this in the personal development space all the time.

And so when he used that analogy as being aware or what we would call like, Whoa, could these days, you know, you can't just go out there and show this stuff off to everybody. You can't be trying to shove your knowledge everywhere. You need to realize that people are intoxicated and unless they're sober, they're not going to be willing to hear you out or have a sober conversation with you.

And so you need to [00:32:00] realize as a sober person, That everyone is drunk and that is reality. So go out and live your world. Don't get sued set when people react negatively, right? Let's say you make an error driving and somebody honks at you don't get mad at them, or somebody cuts you off. Don't get mad at them.

That's a representation of yourself getting off balance, realize everybody else is already off balance. Right. And so. I thought that was super interesting. And then he goes on in the Book to talk a little bit more yeah. About this subject. And he says that in your day to day life, if anything makes you emotional, right.

Kinda making you drunk in this term, if anything makes you emotional, you need to stop and reflect on that because any swing and emotion is where most of the error and unhappiness and the loss of fulfillment comes in your life. And so by. Stopping pausing, reflecting, journaling, approaching it all the time until it's solved when you get it.

So that other side, now you're living a balanced life. There's somebody who is using the term before resilient, right? Nothing on the outside is going to hurt you. The [00:33:00] stoic philosophy, aphorism, a more fatigued, which is the love of one's. Fate is just realizing that the world is as it is. And how you respond to it is all that you have control over.

And so I thought that drama of the party analogy, you know, being somebody who's super into this personal development stuff, whereas a lot of other people think it's like, woo. Sometimes that was very like, it was, it was a cool analogy to read the hadn't read it anywhere else

Louis: Before. I love that. That's a great way to contextualize something that I've definitely thought about a lot as well.

Cause I mean, You know, you think about all this stuff and not everyone wants to hear about it, and it's not necessarily such a bad thing. It's you find the audience for that and you don't be upset and you don't try to change people about it either,

Nicholas: But we've

Louis: Talked a lot about Books and, you know, Book Thinkers, as much as it is just you on camera, talking about Books and making great summaries and making great content.

It's also a genuine business. And I wanted to ask you a couple of questions, kind of about that side of things. Uh, behind the scenes growing an actual company. Yeah. So first in terms, focusing on the audience, can you talk a little bit about what strategy. And [00:34:00] philosophy you had for growing your audience and then, you know, kind of once you're seeing some success with that, how you approached monetizing that

Nicholas: Sure.

We'll use the Instagram audience specifically because that's our largest community and that's where I've spent most of my time testing different strategies to grow the audience. So when I first started the Instagram. I found it very, not depressing, but it definitely lost my energy when people didn't react in a positive way, right.

You only have a couple of hundred followers or maybe even a couple thousand followers, but you're not getting a lot of engagement in the community is relatively small. And I read a Book called crush it by Gary. It's the older version of crushing it. Right. And in that Book, he talks about the importance of an audience of one.

If you have one person. That cares about what you're doing, then you've already won. You're helping to impact at least somebody else's life. And you never knew who that person is. He uses the example in the Book that we over. We overvalued data. Sometimes we think because I'm not getting as many views as my competitor [00:35:00] because I'm not getting as many views as my other friends, I should stop.

But yeah. The value of your views is very hard to put a value to them, a person that is watching behind the scenes, if you could hold the keys to unlocking all of your potential and your growth. And so that thought early on helps me kind of push through that early phase, which was it. Wasn't very interesting, right?

You will, you want to talk about answering all of your comments and things like that as you grow your page, but for only getting one or two comments, it takes five seconds a day. And so pushing through that phase, realizing that as long as you're helping to impact somebody's life, keep going, keep pushing or brighter things ahead, right?

That same compound effect principle, you will gain momentum as you roll the snowball down the Hill. Right. It will get bigger and bigger. It just takes a lot of time. So that was one thing that I faced. And then another Gary V strategy or sort of mindset that I adopted was called the dollar 80 strategy.

And so very early on in my Instagram, I would get on two times a day in the [00:36:00] morning and in the evening, and I would search popular hashtags. So I'd search something like. Personal development Book. And I would go to the trending posts and I would leave a genuine comment, right. 2 cents. And so Gary V is dollar 80 strategy says, do that 90 times a day, hashtag look at the top nine, trending, leave your 2 cents on each one.

Repeat that 10 times. And now you have a dollar and 80 cents. And so I did that a couple of times a day, and that did a lot for me. It helped me understand more about the competitive landscape, what other people are finding value in what is creating a lot of engagement on other accounts, and also helped introduce me to new Books in my sort of area of expertise, which was Books and by commenting on other people's.

Posts and leaving genuine feedback. I was never like, Hey, follow me or check out Book Thinkers. It was more like, I really liked this Book or, Hey, haven't read it that before. Thanks for sharing a summary, things like that. It does give you the opportunity to get new followers because people might only get a couple of comments.

Now they get a [00:37:00] notification from this random page and they check you out and they say, Hey, do like his stuff follow. And so I did that. Yeah. Morning and night for a very, very long time. And that was a big strategy for me. Another thing that was very important with the growth of community was receiving feedback early on I a and B tested different types of content all the time I was coming up with new ideas.

I was trying new new styles of content. I was changing the format and layout of my page all the time. And I was pulling my audience. Instagram's a great tool for a business owner because you can throw a poll up on your Instagram story and. But do you like this type of posts better or that type of posts better and let people vote.

And so you get real feedback and then you can implement it. Or you can ask questions to do all the time, which was, what do you mean? I want more of, what am I doing or what am I not doing that you wish I was doing? What am I doing that you want more of that kind of thing, stuff. And so listening to the audience and really applying that.

And then also [00:38:00] getting, you know, here's another one to make a lot of friends in your space. You know, there are a lot of other Book accounts that help promote my content. I help promote their content. They give me great ideas. We have fantastic conversations offline. And so, you know, leveraging the network and always making sure that.

You're over-delivering on content by doing your homework behind the scenes. You know, that was another very, very interesting thing for me. The last thing that I'll mention, you know, because there might not be a ton of content creators out here. The last thing that I'll mention is I read a bunch of Books on branding.

One was called influencer by Brittany Hennessy. One was called Indigo from individual to empire by Laura bull. I read your one word and built to serve by Evan Carmichael. Those were great branding Books, in my opinion. Uh, plenty more, you know, down the line, but they all talk about the importance of identifying your purpose and being able to communicate that to you, your audience, when somebody shows up on your Instagram page, right.

Your layout, your bio, your name, your picture, it all matters. You're [00:39:00] trying to convert that person to a follower. And so by telling them in your bio, what they can expect to see on your Instagram feed will help you increase the chances that they're going to follow you. And that's also very important. You need to build out a legit brand, not just post random content all the time.

So those are a ton of strategies. I mean, I have a million more, but, uh, you implemented all of those, I know that you would, you would grow your page.

Louis: No, that's a fantastic primer on a social media marketing on any platform really. Uh, the followup question there, and thank you for sharing that in such great detail.

I'm going to have to relisten listen to that and document those one, two, three, four, five tips there. But, uh, second piece you're been extremely successful. You put your head down and did 90 and 91 80 for days and days and days and days and months until you had a substantial following. But how do you know, turn people into a business and kind of monetize the fact that you now are getting a lot of

Nicholas: Attention for this group?

I tell people all the time, you need to grow an audience first and then look for opportunities to monetize [00:40:00] it. No, the first way that I monetized Book Thinkers was, you know, it actually wasn't the community. It was the authors that sat above the community. And a lot of authors, they spend so much time, maybe years of their lives writing these amazing Books and then boom, they have no audience, nobody adopts the Book.

And so that's a very depressing feeling for a lot of these authors. And so. Author's first started when I had a couple thousand followers sending me direct messages saying, Hey, I'd love to send you a copy of my Book. Totally free of charge. Just give me your address. And if you want to post about it, post about it.

And so at the time I was like, Oh, I'm getting free Books in the mail. I don't have to spend any money on it anymore. And I'm networking with fun people. I'm having calls offline with them. We're talking all the time. All of these people are super successful. Like, Whoa, that's awesome. But then. One time. I got a message that said, Hey, how much do you charge for Book promotions?

I thought. Charged for Book promotions. I'd never even thought about I can get paid to read. And so I think I threw out a number, [00:41:00] you know, I gave him options because I do have a sales background. I know that if you give a couple of different options, some of them super unrealistic, but one of them very realistic, you're more likely going to get it.

So I think I said something like. You know, I'll do 40 bucks for a picture post, but 60 bucks for a video post. So I'm like extra 20 bucks. You get a video post. Yeah. And it was just over DM and he chose the video and I'm like, cool. I just got paid 60 bucks to read. Now. I was making a lot of money in my full time job, job.

And Book Thinkers is very much a side hustle at the time. So I'm like, am I ready reading if I can make a few dollars? Why not? So this is years and years ago. And then over time, I started to really figure out how to monetize the Book promotions. I realized that, you know, my audience does consist of a lot of people who consume these Books, but it also consists of a lot of authors.

And so there was a need that wasn't being met. I decided to step up and fill that void. And so I worked my way out, you know, all the way up to a bunch of money. And I won't say for a lot of Book promotions, I stopped doing them this year because I started to focus on my podcast and [00:42:00] reading for the podcast.

But you can make a lot of money, tens of thousands of dollars doing Book promotions on Instagram, just having a Book account. So I listened to the audience. I started to have conversations. I came from a place of understanding and I, I decided to fill that void, you know, the next way that I monetize the account.

Well, we've done a couple of things in between. The Book promotions and the mobile app, but the next really big way is the mobile application that we put out. As I said, 94% of the followers on my Instagram survey said that they had an issue retaining and implementing information. And so I looked at my system, I said, how can we replicate this in a way that other people can use it, mobile apps or.

Very accessible nowadays, and it doesn't cost an arm and a leg to build one anymore. And so my business partner and I, Ryan, we put the money together. We looked at maybe 20 different mobile app development companies based in Boston, which is where I live. We interviewed all of them. We created this little matrix across all the different qualities, [00:43:00] including price and location and timeline and things like that.

We picked one, we built the mobile app. We put it out. You know, and now we've got hundreds and hundreds of subscribers paying us for this service, but it's filling a void. As long as you can provide value and fill a void in somebody else's life, accelerate their path to maybe financial independence or something, then they'll pay for that.

So that's another way that we monetize the audience. We've done everything from e-commerce to other offline author opportunities and collaborations and stuff like that. I know

Kyle: You mentioned to us that the mobile, the application isn't complete in your eyes, there's still a lot on the table there in terms of your vision for it.

Can you share a little bit about like what you think it could be in the

Nicholas: Future? Yeah, well, today it's very simple. It's a tool in your pocket, right? You put your notes in, like I was saying before, and then it will systematically remind you. We don't have a huge database of Books to pull from yet. You know, we have some bugs that we're working through and little things that we're looking to fix, [00:44:00] but the foundation is getting set to grow the app and have.

You know, a million iterations moving forward that are progressing the opportunity for us to help people retain and implement information. And so gamification is one example, having badges within the app that you can earn for reading specific Books or an amount of Books. Um, some more social features to help the virality and the sharing from one person to another, like an activity feed where you can friend other people and you see what they're reading and you know what their notes are.

Maybe from other Books, you can compare yourself to other readers and see what, you know, what percentage of Books overlap, or you can kind of highlight some of your favorite Books, some more social sharing opportunities where you can generate some cool images right out of the app. Maybe your Bookshelf or something like that, share it right to social media.

And so things like that are definitely on the horizon and the idea, you know, Reid Hoffman who founded LinkedIn in his Book, uh, scaling. He talks actually it's actually in his [00:45:00] podcast, I think is where I first heard it masters of scale or something like that. He talks about the importance of putting out an MVP, a minimally viable product.

And he says, if you're not embarrassed by your MVP, you're too late. Because you need to put it out in an embarrassing stage, which, you know, we're not embarrassed of the app. It works. And it performs really well for what it's intended to do, but it's not all the way there yet, like we're discussing. So you need to put it out and collect legit feedback from the market.

Because if we went out there and tried to perfect everything I just said to you before we even put it out there, we wouldn't know if that's what the market actually wants. And so put out something the foundation and then build upon it. Using feedback from real users, real data, things like that. And so that's kind of the way that we did it and that's the way that we approached it.

And also by doing that, you put the MVP out, you collect working capital, and then you use that working capital to build the app. It becomes its own ecosystem rather than looking for outside investment or ways to accelerate the [00:46:00] growth using external money or external people. I mean, that's

Louis: Really kind of shows the beauty of.

The using your business as the backdrop for reading and applying everything you're picking up along the way, because that's another thing I'd mentioned to kinda my question earlier about, right. How do you find ways to apply what you are picking up in Books to life? And kind of the answer is just to do stuff like if Kyle and I have this podcast and all of a sudden I read a marketing Book, I actually have a sandbox to play it.

Yeah, exactly. Having a business or if, you know, if you're in a leadership role and you actually do manage people. It's not all that complicated to say, how do I apply all these ideas from these leadership Books kind of sounds like you really are genuinely informing that your business decisions and your technical decisions, uh, some of the Books that you've already mentioned just in this podcast.

I mean, not even to mention your social media strategy, which was just you're sharing. I read this and I applied it and it, and it works and you know,

Nicholas: Which story of my life. Yeah,

Louis: Exactly. Pretty simple formula at the end of the day. Uh,

Nicholas: Yeah. And [00:47:00] that, that's the behavior change piece that we were talking about, you know, I mean, that is the void that the app is filling and that's why we monetized it that way.

But behavior change from Books has changed my life. I mean, I'm reading these Books. I'm. Taking models from the Books and I'm applying them into the business. I mean, there are dozens and dozens of exams, examples of things that we've implemented directly from Books into the business that have worked like dozens and dozens of them.

And so when you look 10 years from now at whatever kind of massive behemoth business Book Thinkers is, it's not going to be a question of getting lucky. It's going to be a question of how many Books did we apply? Was it hundreds, you know? Yeah. And that's exactly what we're on that path right now. And going back to your other question about confidence, like I'm very good at implementing things directly into my life from Books.

Now that's also why I'm confident strip Book Thinkers away. Say we get sued and lose the entire business. That's fine. I have tons of other ideas going in my [00:48:00] head right now. And I can't wait to start implementing on those, you know, after Book Thinkers. So it's. It's always just constant motion and momentum.

That's

Louis: Great energy. Why not? But that's kind of mine that I just feel like I have to mention. Off topic, but on topic is how to take smart notes by Saki errands. If you're familiar with that,

Nicholas: I haven't read that. No, but it sounds like it'd be perfect for me.

Louis: Great Book on basically how on the idea of it's personal knowledge management.

It's kind of the, one of the Books that forms the backdrop for Rome research. Now that note take NAC, which is kind of blown up in the personal knowledge management space, and he talks about how. I mean, I'm about to get the whole Book somewhere here. Nicholas lumen is a German sociologists who basically didn't do any formal education past the bachelor's degree, but because he had such a great system for reading and applying ideas from Books, he wanted, he decided he wanted to become a researcher, ended up being one of the most prolific writers out of the university and getting an appointment, skipping all of graduate school because his process of reading and applying ideas, uh, again is [00:49:00] kind of what.

The app is built around, enabling people to do. It was just so efficient and so helpful. And to turning ideas into immediately. Actionable thoughts that the system just turn them into like one of the most prolific researchers ever a site that looks kind of inspiring me for the ideas. How do I remember what I read?

And one thing that you're doing really well from that, and I've kind of used similar tools like read wise, which is a great tool for showing you your highlights from boats on a regular interval, with the same goal of, you know, helping you remember what you read is highlights as a very passive process.

Uh, that leads to a lower amount of learning. Whereas something like your app know, I'm forced to out of mile and soul out of my own hands or whatever, come up with what are my 10 most important lessons. And that automatically makes them more impactful. And then again, reviewing something in the words that I thought of them is going to make me more likely to remember it as well.

So I'm really inspired and loves what you're doing. And I think you'll find in that Book that you're doing a lot of things. Right. But Michael gets some other ideas too.

Nicholas: Yeah, no, I, I appreciate the recommendation and, and yeah, that importance of [00:50:00] a defined cadence I think, is really important. And maybe it will be reinforced by that Book because.

You know, reviewing at a random interval absolutely is better than not reviewing it all. Yeah. But reviewing at a specific interval, we call it the forgetting curve. It's, you know, a popular scientific theory that States that the more you review something the longer the interval is that you'll be able to retain it.

So, you know, the Book Thinkers app, we push you or reminder a couple of times up front and then each time. After that, you know, the reviews are getting longer and longer and longer out because you are able to retain. And so you've got to flex those neural pathways a few times upfront, you know, and then you'll be able to retain for longer periods of time.

I

Louis: Mean, in those same methods can be applied to studying. And that's why flashcard systems that use that same algorithm are so popular with medical students or anything like that. Uh, but think we've, we've nerded out a good bit about, uh, PKM and space repetition. And I want to transition out into the bonus round and kind of talk about some additional passions you have that we haven't brought up.

Bonus Round

Uh, first [00:51:00] told us that, you know, is one of your two passions in the world and, you know, using the four hour work week and other similar Books, you've kind of had a roadmap for building. Book Thinkers to be a business that you're able to run virtually remotely, and it has enabled you to travel. So, first question is where is the favorite place that you've recently traveled?

And just, what about it? Many, love it so much.

Nicholas: Back in January of this year. So pre COVID, I went to Peru with my girlfriend for a few weeks, and I loved Peru as a country. Lima, Peru is totally underrated. I really enjoyed that city. It sits right on the water. You can use those little scooters and zip around the city.

They have amazing food. It's very inexpensive to travel to. Everybody was extremely friendly and Lima is one of them. You know, the, the area that we stayed in limos, one of many districts, I think they're like 15 or 16. And they say that most of them are not very safe. That's what you read about online, but it was a very safe experience.

We traveled all around. We did tons of excursions, you know, like [00:52:00] drinking tours around the city and things like that. So. Loved everything about that experience. And then we went from Lima over to Cusco, Peru. We took a train out to hogwash Kelly anthesis and we hiked Machu Picchu. We also did all the ink and Valley stuff and Machu Picchu.

It's very difficult to describe how positive and strongly energy is up there. I mean, I'm not. Somebody who knows how to articulate it very well. But sitting at Machu Picchu and looking around, knowing that it's one of the wonders of the world, the modern wonders of the world, feeling the energy, like wondering about how all of this got up there in the first place, you know, those massive stones that are razor cut fin that are sitting, you know, the stones don't even originate from that mountain and like everything about it was just fantastic.

And so. Spending a few weeks in Peru, I really came to love their culture and everything about

Kyle: It. That's amazing. And I know that you've done a lot of like adrenaline junky stuff. You've jumped out of planes and, um, diving all these things, but do you [00:53:00] have a one situation or story that sticks out to you as like the craziest or most dangerous that you found yourself in while traveling, or maybe even, I guess at home

Nicholas: Too.

Well, I went, so it's funny. I went skydiving this past weekend and it reminded me of how terrifying paragliding was. So I went paragliding in Metagene Columbia last year in 2019, and we went, we Booked it on maybe an Airbnb excursion or some bootleg diversion of Airbnb. And we went up and it was very sketchy.

Um, spoken any English. We are jumping off the side of a mountain. There was no like formal infrastructure setup or anything like that. And. The initial experience was fantastic. I mean, we ran off the side of a mountain and the guy on my back again, didn't speak a single word of English and we kinda like tripped our way off the side of the mountain.

And I was a little sketched out about that. The rest of the experience was beautiful. We're up. Like, I don't know how many thousand feet above Metagene, which [00:54:00] sits kind of down below sea level. And so we had beautiful views and we set up there for a while, but we had three false landings. The guy couldn't get control of the shoot.

And so we came in. And at some obscene speed and missed the landing. My feet almost knocked some other guy's head off that was down there trying to like help us land. And we circled around, missed again. We circled around, missed again. We circled around and we landed, but not anywhere near where we were supposed to land where you landed like 50 feet off in the wrong direction on a slope.

And I just thought to myself like, yikes, I shouldn't be doing this, but because of how crazy it was, it was a brilliant experience. And I'll give you one more. Um,  um, ATV trip with my friends in the mountains in Costa Rica, like miles outside of the S I mean, you know, tens of tens of miles outside of the city.

So we're in the middle of nowhere. And at part of this ATV trip, we showed up to a rope swing. I don't know if you guys saw this on my Instagram stories, but I have a video [00:55:00] where I walk on the bus platform where there's this rope swing and it's missing boards and it's not stable. And one of my friends who's with me, he's actually a structure structural bridge engineer.

And he's like, I would never step on that thing. And, you know, in a million years, but I'm like, 20 bucks. You don't even need to sign a waiver and you're allowed to drink during it, like, yes. And so there was nobody else there. And I did this rope swing and it was terrifying. Like the guy was joking around with us.

He's like, yeah. I mean, yeah, we don't have you sign a waiver because if you fly off into the woods, We're so many miles outside of the city that there's no way to even find you or get to a hospital. So like, what's the point I'm just sitting there, like, this is my kind of thing. And so legit, like a beer in one hand.

And my GoPro in the other, you know, get up to the platform, come shaking like a leaf and the little harness he puts on you has duct tape on it. And man, it was scary, but I survived. Well, that

Kyle: Gives me PTSD. Cause when I was 13, I had a similar [00:56:00] experience, um, rope swing and I wasn't fine. I broke my femur in

Nicholas: Half.

Kyle: Yeah. So anything about rubs, swings, jumping into water? Um, completely averse.

Nicholas: Yeah. And it was a weird rope swing. Like it went way out over the jungle and then it came back and you had to basically. You know, you were harnessed in, but you swung until you stopped. And then some guy like ran over and pulled the rope over to the side of the mountain and attached it to something.

And like, you could barely touch the ground and then he like unhooked you. And it was very, you know, very sketch, but I'm with you. I have PTSD about it

Louis: Too.

Kyle: That's hilarious. Well, moving onto a different question, we know that you're a Lakers fan. So, if you could put any five Lakers players from any of the past teams on, onto one team and watch them play, who would those players?

Nicholas: So I'm actually a Celtics fan. But I sent Robert, I had Robert I'll answer it's Celtics, but I [00:57:00] had Robert Green on my podcast recently who wrote a lot of very popular Books, including the 48 laws of power. And Robert is from LA and he's been a fan of the Lakers since the sixties. Now my dad is from Boston and he he's worked in the footwear and apparel industry forever.

And so. He had some friends at converse and he was very attached to like that Larry Bird, Boston Celtics kind of era. And so I mentioned that to Robert Green and we kind of went back and forth a little bit, you know, Celtics Lakers will probably be the NBA championship this year. And. I ended up telling my dad that story.

And he found an old magic poster that was super exclusive. That was like a very small converse rollout. And so I sent that to Robert Green after the podcast as a little bit of like, you know, will I see you in the championships kind of thing, you know, poking fun at him. Um, think account management after you film a podcast is really important with specific guests, but we can get into that later.

And, um, for Celtics. You know, it's tough. I [00:58:00] mean, for a long time, I was a really big basketball fan and like, I was very into basketball nowadays. I'm a little bit less into it. You know, those older players back in the day, like Larry Bird and Kevin McHale and Robert parish, I think. We're superstars of the sport.

And you know, that I grew up listening to my dad, talk about them. So I put them on a team, but then the new kind of big three, um, Celtics had with Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce, like those are also icons. So, you know, it'd be some combination of those six players probably. Well, my

Kyle: Bad, no offense.

Sorry. It's like someone called me an Auburn fan.

Nicholas: No, it's okay. Speaking of college football real quick, we were talking about Vince young before I think, or maybe I didn't mention it to you, but he was a Texas quarterback back in the day, and then he was drafted to the Titans and he was my favorite football player ever.

And, uh, lined up at dinner with him for next month, just to like hang out and talk. And I'm super excited. I think he was like, pick number three, maybe in the draft at the time.

Kyle: Going to dinner with Vince [00:59:00] young.

Nicholas: Yeah, no, he, uh, posted a video at the beginning of COVID on Book Thinkers. Wearing an old Vince young Jersey, because kidding.

At the time I was Vince Young's number one fan. I played a lot of Madden at the time. I don't play video games anymore, but I was super into it. And Vince was my guy. Like you had Vince young at quarterback. It's scrambling everywhere. You know, nobody can catch you. And so it was a lot of fun at the time.

And I mean, he was a superstar and, um, on the cover of Madden and everything. And so anyway, I wore his Jersey a lot and I wore it in a video earlier this year and somebody forwarded it to him or tagged him in it or something. Cause I didn't. And then he followed me and I was like, Oh cool, Vince young follow me.

So ID I'm dumb. And we started chatting a little bit. We went back and forth and you know, just came, became friendly over Instagram and um,

Kyle: Man. That's amazing.

Nicholas: Yeah. Yeah. And so I hit him up and I'm just like, you know, he just started a real estate business in Austin because that's where he went to school at Texas.

And I just messaged them on like, Hey, I'm going to be in [01:00:00] Austin for a few months. Would love to take you out to Darren. And he's like, sure, dude. And then he let me know that he has a Book that he's writing right now and asked if I knew any publishers. And so it just became a reciprocal relationship pretty fast.

Louis: That's fine. That's an incredible story. That's kind of applying the, uh, third door ethos. Yeah, which is actually the next question I wanted to ask you kind of on that same note of account management of past podcast guests, but also just getting them on the place show in the first place. I'd be lying.

If I said there, wasn't a great deal of overlap between some of the guests you've had and probably will have on some of the drink guests for Kyle and I. So what are some of the strategies you've taken for? Connecting with a lot of these high profile, high impact authors besides having a dedicated audience of a hundred thousand people that self identify as loving Books.

Nicholas: Yeah. Well that one helps. It helps a lot. Um, those, those listening that haven't read the third door, I know you mentioned it and you love the Book, but I would highly recommend that Book. I mean, Alex, Alex really takes you on a journey that that is applicable to your own [01:01:00] life. Yeah. There you go.

And, um, So some strategies that I, I use, I use as many channels as humanly possible when I'm reaching out to somebody, I think it's the first and foremost thing. It's effort. It's hard work. You've really got to get creative. And so start at the top of the funnel. Start with social media, you know, you could shoot a message to.

Every single person, uh, mean every single person that is involved with that person as well, but start with every piece of social media and then work your way to things like LinkedIn, find people that work for their business, send them messages with your podcast, media kits and your pitch and whatnot. I think that that one's worked for me really well.

I also fill out speaking forms on author's websites or potential guests websites. So I get pretty creative in that realm as well. And, um, I use friends and referrals a lot. If I know that two people interact and I look at a past podcast guest, I'm not afraid to ask, you know, Hey XYZ. I see that you socialize a lot with, you know, ABC, would [01:02:00] you mind making an introduction if, if you feel that you had a positive experience with me and that works all the time, like I'll use one funny example.

So I had a former Navy seal sniper. Brandon Webb on my show turned successful business owner, CEO I'm millionaire. And at the end of the show, I just asked a very simple question. Hey, do you have any friends that you'd like to introduce me to that? Maybe we'd like to come on the show and would find value.

Are you taking advantage of my audience? Because he had a great experience and he said, yeah, sure. There's my friend . So I had come on the show, come on positive experience. We built a lot of rapport and I said, Hey, come on, you have any friends, you know, since you were a referral, do you want to make any more referrals?

And he introduced me to James Alta and Jerrick Robbins. And then I have really positive experiences with them. Now, those four people are very tight with each other. And so when they meet up there, they'll have all been on my show. They'll strike up conversation about it. Maybe somebody else will be around and that kind of networking effect or the viral fights will take place without you being there as long as you provide [01:03:00] really good value.

So that's another strategy that I would recommend, but, um, the overarching theme here. The notes on your notes is that if you come from a place of value, first you offer value. You make sure that you understand what they're trying to accomplish in life and you align your messaging with that.

You'll be more successful. And so very easy comparison would be grant Cardone, grant Cardone. Doesn't really care that much about his mission. He cares about selling Books. He cares about the growing yeah. Real estate portfolio. So I'm going to help him sell Books and grow his real estate portfolio in my messaging.

Whereas somebody like  who I just mentioned, he cares about impact. He cares about helping people through tough times. I'm going to use that in my messaging. Those are two very, very different messages selling the exact same thing. Which is, I want you to come on my podcast. And so the blanket messages that I receive on Book Thinkers all the time for podcast interviews, or, Hey, you know, like I want you [01:04:00] to post something on your story and I'll pay you for it.

Like I can, Hey. You know, they don't even use my name or my handle or anything. It's so generic. It's like, did you even follow me? No. Most of the time I check them and they don't even follow me. So it's be very specific. And do your research. I think that's kind of like the overarching method and then blitz people a million miles an hour.

Last thing I'll mention on this subject is I had Heather Monahan on recently. She wrote a Book called. Confidence creator. And Heather was talking about how she got Gary V on her show. She said that she probably reached out in her best estimate 1000 times in different forms 1000 times, but guess what it happened, you know, it happened, she put on Google alerts, she saw that Gary V partnered with a new wine company.

She was in the wine industry. She reached out to their executives, provided them a ton of free value. And then in return, uh, Hey, if we could do anything, she's like Gary V I want him on my show. And so that's how it happened.

Louis: You, uh, caught my attention when you said Google alerts.

That's a [01:05:00] great idea for being the first to reach out when there's something exciting. It's Hey, you've launched a product, someone like Cal Newport, for examples, a huge dream guest for me. Uh, you can be the first person to ask when, you know, he's. You're on his email list and you're the first person to notice.

He's launching a new Book and you're the first to say, Hey, can I help you promote your new Book? Not, Hey, do you want to do your 75th podcast to talk about deep work? What she wrote in 2016? It's Hey, you're publishing this planner in November. Like how can I help you? But you also have to have the audience to catch that, that buffer somewhere, you don't have that channel already set up, like being on their newsletter or you just don't.

Maybe they don't have a newsletter, a Google alert. That's that's a great tip.

Nicholas: Yeah. Timing matters a lot too. I didn't touch on it at all, but yeah. Uh, been very fortunate with some of my guests coming on, you know, saying things for the 75th time because authors don't want to do that. But if you do catch them, when they have a new Book coming out, or maybe you're trying to get a real estate investor who just made a big deal or was just on bigger pockets or is promoting some program that he's selling, like that's the right time to reach out.

[01:06:00] And as I said, you're catering your message to that thing. And so that's why timing. I think it only helps accelerate your opportunity to get them.

Kyle: Absolutely. Uh, who to you, um, guests, some people that have alluded you or maybe seem impossible cause like the list of people that you've had on, for me, it seems impossible.

So like who is it? Like Dwayne, the rock Johnson, Donald Trump. Who are we really looking at?

Nicholas: Yeah, I did reach out to Donald Trump because you know, he wrote a sales Book and I was like

Louis: Out of the deals of classic.

Nicholas: Yeah. The rock would be fantastic. Right? He's just the coolest guy, the room. Um, couple.

So Tim Ferris, the four hour work week, you know, in a series of other Books that are all my favorites, I'd love to have Tim. We talked. During our prep conversation about how impossible to reach he is. Now, I've had a couple people on my show already that were in tools of Titans or tribe of mentors. I've had a couple people on my show that he's interviewed.

[01:07:00] And so the bigger that roster becomes, the more likely that I will accidentally bump into him one day, you know, talking about Alex benign as an example, like I've chatted with Elliot. Biznow Elliot has a Book coming out next year. If I can be. Elliot sky, you know, and then provide him tons and tons of value for a long time.

Eventually get invited to something Tim's sitting there, like that's the perfect time to bump into them. So Tim is like my, my dream guest. I think I want to be a lot like Tim in the future as well, where you kind of make your money and then you drop back. You provide value from behind a closed curtain and you don't let anybody in.

Like, that's kind of my head to life. Um, guest who actually has a Book coming out next month. Is Matthew McConaughey. I think he's like the coolest dude and he has a, his biography is coming out next month autobiography. And so I just reached out to his team. Fingers crossed is another really cool guy.

And he's one of my favorite actors. Maybe somebody like will Smith as well. You know, I love biographies and I love applying [01:08:00] sort of general life advice to personal development rather than a Book written specifically for personal development. So those are the stories that fascinate me. No. And we also talked about Ryan holiday.

He's absolutely one of my dream guests. And so happy I'm talking to him on Tuesday of next week. No, I found out

Louis: Today in his, his email that he, uh, investor in butcher box. So I'm gonna see if I can work that into a creative pitch. One day. I don't know what for us to get Ryan. I don't know. I have the litter box on the freezer, so my sister to hear that, but

Nicholas: I got forgotten,

Louis: But yeah,

Nicholas: All you gotta do is provide tremendous value to somebody, a butcher box.

And then they're going to say, what can I do in return? And you say, I just want to talk to Ryan just once. Just one time, let's

Louis: Get the CEO of butcher box on here, Kyle. Let's see if we can put it that way. We'll

Nicholas: Put

Kyle: This moment. Send it to Ryan. After that

Louis: We'll actually just find a sequence of all the clips where we've made mention of something that's in that, you know, police station kind of red yard diagram of how [01:09:00] we schemed it and we'll send them the whole explanation of the length we went through to make this happen.

And he was extremely scared or, uh,

Nicholas: This, clip will help. Hey, Ryan holiday, since we already had an amazing conversation, by the way, this is Nick at Book Thinkers, Louis and Kyle are cool dudes and you should be on their show. Perfect.

Louis: We might open loop

Kyle: Louis. We've got AI that we can, we can change on holiday to any name.

Got it. We're

Nicholas: Good.

Louis: Now all you have to do is have an amazing interview on Tuesday.

Nicholas: Yes. Yes. I need know. What's so funny is when I had Robert Green on, I mentioned. Cause cause Ryan worked for Robert for a while and I mentioned, Robert I'm like, Hey, I have Ryan coming on. And he was like, well, this better be a good interview.

Otherwise I'm telling Ryan it wasn't a good interview. And at the end he was like, Oh, I'll tell Ryan. It was great. So I've been working to get Ryan for a long time. You know, he's somebody who, who we talked about. It took a lot of creative, different angles and a lot of unanswered messages, uh, I got Ryan to accept.

[01:10:00] That's

Louis: Great. I think the other angle I might try to do is if we can work through the Alabama system, Our school. He's been a guest speaker here to the football team a couple of times. So that's our other potential route. We need to brainstorm

Kyle: Kyle. Absolutely. Nick Saban,

Louis: Nick Saban, to, it'll just, and then two, it will get a biography one day, plug into you to a story, the Hawaiian man, and there'll be sick.

Uh,

Nicholas: We are kind of.

Louis: Just rambling now and having fun brainstorming the future of podcast intersections, but where can people catch up with you? Uh, your call to action for any, and he really enjoyed your perspective and your commentary.

Nicholas: I would encourage everybody to go to Book Thinkers on Instagram.

It is the best place to find us and in the link. You know, and the little link that I built, uh, my bio, you can see a lot of the other things that we're doing. So it'll connect you to our eCommerce or our podcast. I'll connect you to other social media programs that we have going on our website, everything else, Book Thinkers.

So check that out. Um, Book Thinkers on Instagram, it's the best place [01:11:00] to find me. And I do, you know, I say this with caution, but I answer every single Instagram message, um, time. You know, sometimes it takes me a few days, but I try to get ahead of them. You know, I also have some people help me out answering them and they'll forward me anything.

Super interesting. So feel free to shoot me a DM. If you have any questions about Books, you know, we're starting to build out a little Book discovery thing as well. So you can check out on the website. If you want a Book recommendation, either scroll through my feed or go to the website, don't DM me and ask.

But for anything that's interesting, feel free to shoot me a message.

Louis: Oh, great. This has been awesome, Kyle, thank you so much for making this one happen. And Nick, thanks so much for coming on.

Nicholas: Yeah. Thanks guys.

Kyle: That wraps up our conversation with Nick also Book Thinkers. Um, said in the beginning, it's obvious to you now how this, this common thread of getting 1% better shows up in every area of his life. And it was just super interesting to hear him talk about his passions for between Books and traveling and, and the future of Book Thinkers in the future for him.

[01:12:00] What'd you think was.

Louis: No. I agree. I think it's such a powerful concept. How, you know, Books are just such a reliable way. They talk about this a lot on next podcast just to turn decades into days, right? That's what they say. If you need to learn about some area of improvement in your life, there's really not much better strategy.

Then finding the best Book on that topic and reading it. Yeah. Someone who spent a decade thinking about the exact problem you're trying to solve. Put all of their wisdom into a couple hundred pages that you can get through in a couple of hours. And when you do that over and over again, in every area of your life, you're going to see continuous progress.

And Nick's just such a beautiful demonstration of that and how he's applied that to his business problems, to his personal life, to his passions, to his finances and what he's been able to become because of that. So I was really encouraged by the conversation. I hope you all learned as much as we did, and if you did, yeah.

And want to be able to support Kyle and I and encourage us. To get 1% better, the best way for you to do that is. Subscribing on iTunes or leaving a rating or review. And if you ever have any feedback for us and want to say, good job, bad job, do this, don't do this, bring on this person [01:13:00] or open to it. So send us a message on social media, Instagram, FaceBook, Twitter at Louis Kyle Show or something similar that we've been around long enough now, or the search engines can find us with most combinations of those names.

So hit us up. If you have something to say, we appreciate it. Thanks so much for listening, seeing a week with the next day. Have a good one. Bye bye.