Latest / The Heart-Led Business Show / Turning Books Into Real-Life Results with Nick Hutchison

Transcript

Turning Books Into Real-Life Results with Nick Hutchison · The Heart-Led Business Show

• 0:01
  Speaker: Welcome to The Heart-Led Business Show, where compassion meets commerce and leaders lead with love.
• 0:09
  Speaker: Join your host, Tom Jackobs, as he delves into the insightful conversations with visionary business leaders who defy the status quo, putting humanity first and profit second.
• 0:20
  Speaker: From heartfelt strategies to inspiring stories, this podcast is your compass in the world of conscious capitalism.
• 0:29
  Speaker: So buckle up and let your heart guide your business journey.
• 0:36
  Tom Jackobs: Ladies and gentlemen, gather around the microphone and the earbuds.
• 0:39
  Tom Jackobs: Get those ready, get those warmed up, because we are about to dive deep into some heart-led business talk.
• 0:46
  Tom Jackobs: And we have the wonderful Nick Hutchison, who is a best-selling author, keynote speaker, and founder of Book Thinkers, and the host of the number one book club on Skool.
• 0:58
  Tom Jackobs: And he's helping ambitious readers read less and apply more, which is what we all need.
• 1:04
  Tom Jackobs: And then he turns the world's best books into real-life results.
• 1:08
  Tom Jackobs: So I can't wait to have this conversation with you, Nick, and welcome to the show
• 1:11
  Nick Hutchison: Thank you so much.
• 1:12
  Nick Hutchison: I'm excited.
• 1:13
  Nick Hutchison: Let's provide some value today.
• 1:15
  Tom Jackobs: Absolutely.
• 1:16
  Tom Jackobs: You know, I've always, um, struggled with reading books, not reading, but reading books on a regular basis.
• 1:24
  Tom Jackobs: And so this topic really excites me because, I do like to read, but I just don't do it as much as I want to.
• 1:32
  Tom Jackobs: I always have a goal of doing a book a month, but I would love to learn how to read less and apply more, so I can't wait to dive into this.
• 1:40
  Tom Jackobs: But of course, the first question I always ask is, what's your definition of a heart-led business?
• 1:47
  Nick Hutchison: Motivated by positively impacting the world, and the founder is serving the person they once were.
• 1:54
  Nick Hutchison: So for me, in my early 20's, I was a confused person.
• 2:00
  Nick Hutchison: I was really insecure on one end of the spectrum and a little bit too arrogant and full of ego on the other end of the spectrum.
• 2:09
  Nick Hutchison: That was a confusing place to be.
• 2:11
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 2:11
  Nick Hutchison: And over time, I used books to help gain more self-confidence, but also value positively impacting the world, and being a little bit more empathetic and grounded.
• 2:22
  Nick Hutchison: And so now I'm helping people connect to the books that can help them solve their biggest problems and build their biggest confidences.
• 2:29
  Nick Hutchison: And so that's what a heart-led business is for me.
• 2:32
  Nick Hutchison: It's somebody who's motivated by positively impacting the world, and they're doing that by serving the younger version of themselves.
• 2:39
  Tom Jackobs: That is the first, part of that definition.
• 2:42
  Tom Jackobs: The like serving the younger side of yourself, which I love that because we think about the younger one of us is probably a lot of the people that we're surrounding ourselves with.
• 2:53
  Tom Jackobs: So by serving the younger people, we're...
• 2:55
  Tom Jackobs: or younger version, we're serving the, the other folks that are around us all the time.
• 3:00
  Tom Jackobs: I love that.
• 3:00
  Tom Jackobs: That's beautiful.
• 3:01
  Nick Hutchison: Yeah I've got a mentor named Rory Vaden, and Rory has a famous quote.
• 3:05
  Nick Hutchison: The actual quote is,"You are most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were." And so when you ask me the question,
• 3:13
  Tom Jackobs: It's true.
• 3:14
  Nick Hutchison: that's what came to mind.
• 3:15
  Nick Hutchison: It's, you know, we're, we're all best positioned to serve the person we once were because we've overcome problems, we have value we can share with that person, and there are a lot of versions of our younger self that are out there looking to overcome the same challenges that we already have.
• 3:30
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah, 100%.
• 3:31
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 3:32
  Tom Jackobs: So tell us a little bit about your journey into the book club, but more importantly, like having that heart-led business mindset.
• 3:43
  Tom Jackobs: How'd that come about?
• 3:45
  Nick Hutchison: Well, I read a statistic recently that kind of scared me, Tom.
• 3:51
  Nick Hutchison: There's a researcher out of UC Irvine named Gloria Mark, and she's been studying attention span for over 20 years.
• 4:00
  Nick Hutchison: And in 2004, she found that the average person would spend about two and a half minutes on a screen before they'd move on to the next screen.
• 4:08
  Nick Hutchison: Well, today, 20-ish years later, it's 47 seconds, which represents a 70% decrease in our attention span over the last 20 years.
• 4:19
  Nick Hutchison: So you can only imagine where it'll be 20 years from now.
• 4:23
  Nick Hutchison: And I believe that the best way to lengthen your attention span and maintain control over your own thinking is by reading a long-form physical paper book.
• 4:37
  Nick Hutchison: But to your point, we all, we all have this desire to read more or to read more books at least, but it's difficult.
• 4:46
  Nick Hutchison: And so I created the book club as a way for ambitious readers to be held accountable to that goal of one book a month inside of a group.
• 4:56
  Nick Hutchison: And there's also a great study out of Dominican University that says simply by writing a goal down, you're 42% more likely to achieve it.
• 5:04
  Nick Hutchison: And then you even double your likelihood of that if you share weekly updates with a group of people who hold you accountable to it.
• 5:12
  Nick Hutchison: And so what better format to do that than a book club, right?
• 5:15
  Tom Jackobs: That is brilliant.
• 5:17
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 5:17
  Tom Jackobs: And so you advocate for the physical reading of a book, a physical book, page turner.
• 5:23
  Tom Jackobs: What about like, Kindles or, or e-readers like that?
• 5:27
  Tom Jackobs: Is that somewhat acceptable?
• 5:30
  Nick Hutchison: Yes, absolutely.
• 5:31
  Nick Hutchison: Certainly better than audiobooks.
• 5:34
  Tom Jackobs: Okay.
• 5:34
  Nick Hutchison: And I can give the science as to why, but
• 5:36
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 5:37
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah, please.
• 5:37
  Nick Hutchison: Well, look, I mean, depending on the person and depending on the science that you read, somewhere between 60 to 80% of the inputs to our brain at any given moment are visual.
• 5:48
  Tom Jackobs: Yep.
• 5:49
  Nick Hutchison: So by default,
• 5:50
  Tom Jackobs: I believe that.
• 5:50
  Nick Hutchison: if you're only listening to something, you're at a disadvantage.
• 5:54
  Nick Hutchison: And to make it even worse, we know we don't listen to audiobooks with a notebook and a pen, right?
• 5:59
  Tom Jackobs: I don't know.
• 6:00
  Nick Hutchison: We listen to audiobooks while w- while we're multitasking.
• 6:02
  Nick Hutchison: We're in the car, we're at the gym, we're doing chores, we're doing busy work.
• 6:06
  Nick Hutchison: So the likelihood that you form enough of an emotional connection to an audiobook input to actually internalize it or take action on it is pretty low.
• 6:16
  Nick Hutchison: It happens, but for me, I still love audio as a medium for learning.
• 6:21
  Nick Hutchison: I just listen to biographies, autobiographies, memoirs, or fiction books that I'm not trying to use, right, or implement directly.
• 6:31
  Nick Hutchison: I'm just trying to satisfy a curiosity or have some fun.
• 6:35
  Nick Hutchison: Now Kindle books, to your point, I think Kindle is a great way to read.
• 6:39
  Nick Hutchison: I just, I love turning the page.
• 6:41
  Nick Hutchison: I've got sort of like a visual memory, and I love to remember exactly on the page where something was.
• 6:48
  Nick Hutchison: I love the visual reminder of the book on my shelves.
• 6:51
  Nick Hutchison: And so, yeah, they're a little less convenient to travel with.
• 6:54
  Nick Hutchison: I, I typically get caught in the airport with some pretty heavy backpacks, but I just love physical books.
• 7:01
  Tom Jackobs: Well, I think some airports have come up with a book exchange maybe.
• 7:05
  Tom Jackobs: Like I've maybe you've heard about that, maybe I dreamt about it, but that would make sense, right?
• 7:09
  Tom Jackobs: You have the...
• 7:10
  Tom Jackobs: You buy and, resell and give away a book.
• 7:14
  Nick Hutchison: Yeah.
• 7:14
  Nick Hutchison: Yeah, absolutely.
• 7:15
  Tom Jackobs: So you're not weighted down.
• 7:16
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 7:17
  Tom Jackobs: And that's cool.
• 7:17
  Nick Hutchison: No, it's true.
• 7:18
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah, absolutely.
• 7:19
  Tom Jackobs: I think a lot of people are visual learners.
• 7:22
  Tom Jackobs: I, I know I am.
• 7:23
  Tom Jackobs: And so when, listening to a book, usually, you know, like exercising or driving or something like that, I will have to rewind a couple times and just...
• 7:31
  Tom Jackobs: And, and, you know, you're listening at 2X usually.
• 7:35
  Tom Jackobs: Like, so it's like,"Er." So of course you're not capturing everything.
• 7:39
  Tom Jackobs: But, yeah, I like to go back.
• 7:41
  Nick Hutchison: Yeah, look, they are more convenient, certainly.
• 7:44
  Nick Hutchison: So I can appreciate that.
• 7:46
  Nick Hutchison: And I do believe that listening to a great prescriptive audiobook, even though the chances that you're going to implement it are pretty low, I think it's better for you as a human being than just listening to the same song or radio station for the 10,000th time in a row, right?
• 8:03
  Nick Hutchison: If your goal is to make change, solve problems, build skills, satisfy curiosities.
• 8:08
  Nick Hutchison: But the best version of the reading experience, in my opinion, is monotasking, focusing on one thing at the exclusion of everything else.
• 8:20
  Nick Hutchison: And if you can layer those inputs together by reading a physical book and having the audiobook playing in the background at, at 2X speed, by the way, so it keeps you inside of the book and it's not going so slow that you deviate and you lose your attention, I think that's a great multi-sensory experience.
• 8:39
  Nick Hutchison: You've got the touch of the tactile book.
• 8:42
  Nick Hutchison: You're, you're flipping pages.
• 8:43
  Nick Hutchison: You're reading and leveraging the visual input.
• 8:45
  Nick Hutchison: You have the auditory experience.
• 8:49
  Nick Hutchison: Maybe you burn a candle or something to get smell in there.
• 8:52
  Nick Hutchison: You probably won't taste your book, but that's okay.
• 8:54
  Nick Hutchison: Maybe you have coffee.
• 8:55
  Nick Hutchison: And so you get fully immersed inside of the experience and and you have a better chance of internalizing what you've read.
• 9:02
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 9:02
  Tom Jackobs: Well, you know, there is a, a certain scent that books have that is just so, memorable.
• 9:09
  Tom Jackobs: You know, you walk into a library, every library has that same kind of paper smell to it, which is...
• 9:15
  Tom Jackobs: I, I actually enjoy.
• 9:17
  Tom Jackobs: It's like,"Ah,
• 9:17
  Nick Hutchison: I do too.
• 9:18
  Tom Jackobs: A book." Yeah.
• 9:19
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 9:20
  Tom Jackobs: But I don't know about tasting.
• 9:21
  Tom Jackobs: You could get your fiber in if you're eating the pages of, of your books, so.
• 9:25
  Nick Hutchison: I have, I think one time on video a few years ago for, for a social media clip, I maybe ripped a page out of a book with my teeth or something, but I don't think I swallowed it.
• 9:36
  Tom Jackobs: Oh.
• 9:37
  Tom Jackobs: Awesome.
• 9:37
  Tom Jackobs: So tell me how did you get into, or what's your journey in terms of getting into having the book club and doing what you're doing today?
• 9:46
  Nick Hutchison: Well, when I was growing up I was not much of a reader, Tom.
• 9:51
  Nick Hutchison: I was more of the athlete stereotype, not really much of the academic.
• 9:55
  Nick Hutchison: I was always capable of doing the work.
• 9:58
  Nick Hutchison: For example, I took AP Calculus in high school, but I had a 0% homework average and still passed the class, right?
• 10:05
  Nick Hutchison: I was one of those kids who didn't reading
• 10:07
  Tom Jackobs: Oh Jesus.
• 10:07
  Nick Hutchison: Or applying themselves was necessarily cool, and so I focused more on sports.
• 10:12
  Nick Hutchison: I played football, I wrestled.
• 10:14
  Nick Hutchison: And that, that behavior, that kinda attitude with me into my college experience as well.
• 10:20
  Nick Hutchison: But everything changed when I took an internship going into my senior year of college at a local software company.
• 10:27
  Nick Hutchison: It was a sales internship.
• 10:29
  Nick Hutchison: And my boss
• 10:30
  Tom Jackobs: Oh, cool.
• 10:30
  Nick Hutchison: At the time, Kyle, would bring me on these local sales trips, and he would play podcasts where successful people would be interviewed, and they would share how they became successful.
• 10:41
  Nick Hutchison: And I was fascinated by this.
• 10:42
  Nick Hutchison: I'm a third year going into fourth year business student, and no one told me that the world's most successful people were giving all their secrets away for free on podcasts.
• 10:52
  Nick Hutchison: And so that summer, as I commuted to and from the internship, started to listen to podcasts on my own.
• 10:59
  Nick Hutchison: And over the first couple of weeks, I recognized that so many of these successful people were giving at least some credit for their success to the books that they had read.
• 11:09
  Nick Hutchison: I started to hear the same books talked about, personal development classics like"Think and Grow Rich" by Napoleon Hill,"How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie,"The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen Covey.
• 11:24
  Nick Hutchison: And I realized that if I was going to live up to my potential, I had to shift from a non-reader to a reader.
• 11:33
  Nick Hutchison: And so I went to my local Barnes Noble.
• 11:36
  Nick Hutchison: I went to the nonfiction business and personal development section.
• 11:39
  Nick Hutchison: I grabbed 10 books, which was a lot of
• 11:41
  Tom Jackobs: Oh, wow
• 11:42
  Nick Hutchison: money for me to spend at the time as a broke college student.
• 11:45
  Nick Hutchison: I went back to the office, and every day as I wrapped up lunch or as I wrapped up my workday, I would read.
• 11:51
  Nick Hutchison: And I, I really became passionate about these books almost overnight because I started to solve problems, build skills, satisfy curiosities, leverage the decades of life experiences that these authors were condensing into days of reading.
• 12:09
  Nick Hutchison: And the, the long story short here is that I started sharing the books I was reading on social media just because I was passionate about them.
• 12:17
  Nick Hutchison: I built an audience of readers over time.
• 12:20
  Nick Hutchison: Because I had access to so many readers, I had authors knocking on my door asking if I could help promote and market their books.
• 12:27
  Nick Hutchison: So today, Book Thinkers, my marketing agency, I actually have 20 people working there helping hundreds of authors a year promote and market their books.
• 12:36
  Nick Hutchison: But now I'm getting back to my roots, which is serving readers, helping readers get connected to the right books, and helping them implement those books, which is why I started book club, you know, almost 10 years after my reading journey started.
• 12:51
  Tom Jackobs: Oh, wow.
• 12:51
  Tom Jackobs: Awesome.
• 12:52
  Tom Jackobs: And so talk to me about the business then that you're in and what's making that heart-led?
• 12:58
  Nick Hutchison: Yeah Well, I mean, it's kinda connected back to the first answer.
• 13:02
  Nick Hutchison: I was a, a young 20-year-old kid full of insecurities and arrogance, and I was looking for a better life.
• 13:11
  Nick Hutchison: I was looking for more certainty and self-assurance and confidence and a way to serve, and I found that by reading and implementing books, by getting connected to these authors who are just trying to make the world a better place by sharing their greatest life lessons and trying to make a positive impact.
• 13:29
  Nick Hutchison: And so books changed my life.
• 13:30
  Nick Hutchison: They really did.
• 13:31
  Nick Hutchison: They've made me healthier, happier.
• 13:33
  Nick Hutchison: They've made me wealthier.
• 13:35
  Nick Hutchison: They've made me more spiritually connected.
• 13:37
  Nick Hutchison: I have better relationships now.
• 13:39
  Nick Hutchison: I'm positively impacting the world.
• 13:41
  Nick Hutchison: And so I realized that I could do that in a one-on-one situation by recommending a book, or I could do it at scale by helping authors more effectively reach the people that they are best positioned to serve.
• 13:55
  Nick Hutchison: So when I say that we serve hundreds of authors a year, we serve hundreds of nonfiction business and personal development authors that are just trying to make the world a better place.
• 14:06
  Nick Hutchison: And writing a book is not the same skill set as marketing a book.
• 14:10
  Nick Hutchison: A lot of people love writing.
• 14:12
  Nick Hutchison: They love impact, but they don't love the promotion and marketing, so we help scale their impact.
• 14:18
  Nick Hutchison: We help scale their reach.
• 14:20
  Nick Hutchison: That's how it's heart-led.
• 14:22
  Nick Hutchison: It's because I know that there's somebody out there that could use that book, but they're currently unaware of it because the author is too insecure to post on social media, or they don't understand the technology, or they're not well-connected enough to make it happen.
• 14:39
  Nick Hutchison: And so BookThinkers, as a business, as an agency, my team will help step in and help them build better content, get connected to the right resources, influencers, podcasters, et cetera.
• 14:51
  Nick Hutchison: And so all of these-- You know, I think about people as, or readers as people with problems, and I think about authors as people with solutions, and we're just helping connect them at scale, even though our fingerprints are one or two steps back in the process.
• 15:07
  Nick Hutchison: Like, it's not obvious that an author was on a podcast or that their social media content was created because of BookThinkers, but we know that it's happening behind the scenes.
• 15:17
  Tom Jackobs: Oh, that, that's really, that's fascinating.
• 15:19
  Tom Jackobs: That taking a, you know, I'll call it a hobby, you know, of learning to read, or not learning to read, but reading more books and getting in, you know, deep into the, the personal development piece, and then building a business off of that.
• 15:33
  Tom Jackobs: I love when people do that, when founders, like, find the solution within themselves and then take that out to the world.
• 15:40
  Tom Jackobs: That's, that's very, very cool.
• 15:41
  Nick Hutchison: Yeah, it all happened by accident, uh, which is the best part.
• 15:45
  Tom Jackobs: Exactly.
• 15:46
  Tom Jackobs: I think the best businesses happen by accident.
• 15:49
  Tom Jackobs: 'Cause they're not, manufactured, but it's kind of organic and it just happens, and it's what people want.
• 15:54
  Nick Hutchison: I think you're right.
• 15:55
  Nick Hutchison: I think one of the biggest differentiators between the agency that I have today and so many of the other businesses that we either partner with, compete with, just kinda run into in, different ways, is that we didn't look at the author landscape and say,"There's a lot of money to be made here." Like, I didn't understand the author landscape at all when I started sharing the books I was reading on social media.
• 16:20
  Nick Hutchison: I never thought much about the author.
• 16:22
  Nick Hutchison: I was only focused on the reader.
• 16:24
  Nick Hutchison: And it was only over time, through inbound requests with authors asking if I could help them, that I started to understand that industry.
• 16:34
  Nick Hutchison: And so you're right, like I, you know, I came from the reader side.
• 16:37
  Nick Hutchison: I came from the, the people that we're trying to impact.
• 16:41
  Nick Hutchison: And you're right, I think that's made a big difference.
• 16:43
  Tom Jackobs: So in building the business and, as we all know, building businesses is difficult to say the least.
• 16:49
  Tom Jackobs: And building a heart-led business I think has its own unique challenges as well.
• 16:55
  Tom Jackobs: What have you found to be probably the biggest challenge that you've had to overcome having a heart-led business versus one that's just focused on making as much money as possible?
• 17:07
  Nick Hutchison: That's a great question.
• 17:09
  Nick Hutchison: One of our core values as a business is unreasonable hospitality, which is also the title of a book by Will Guidara.
• 17:17
  Nick Hutchison: It's an amazing book.
• 17:18
  Nick Hutchison: All of our core values as a business are actually book titles, which is kind of fun and unique.
• 17:24
  Nick Hutchison: And unreasonable hospitality, at least in my definition, is always doing the right thing, trying to go above and beyond for our clients in every situation.
• 17:35
  Nick Hutchison: And so a couple of our services, Tom, behind the scenes, they have a minimum three-month commitment because it takes a few months for our services to actually start to see an ROI.
• 17:48
  Nick Hutchison: And so we know that when people hang around for a few months at a minimum, they start to see the impact of the work that we're doing, and therefore they'll stick around longer.
• 17:57
  Nick Hutchison: So it helps us as a business, but it also helps them see what we're trying to do.
• 18:02
  Nick Hutchison: Every once in a while, there will be a customer of ours that has a change in their financial situation.
• 18:08
  Nick Hutchison: Maybe business isn't going super well, maybe, uh, something's, something's happened in their health or whatever that kind of inhibits their work.
• 18:18
  Nick Hutchison: We're the type of business that says,"Hey, although you signed a minimum three-month agreement and you're only two weeks into the contract, we understand life happens.
• 18:28
  Nick Hutchison: Of course, we'll let you out of it.
• 18:30
  Nick Hutchison: We never want you to have to spend your last dollar or think about us as an inconvenience." And I know a lot of people in the business space that would hold their customers to those contracts.
• 18:40
  Nick Hutchison: We're not like that.
• 18:41
  Nick Hutchison: We don't want to be like that.
• 18:42
  Nick Hutchison: And there are many other situations, but because you asked about kind of making the most money versus being heart-led business, like that's a very clear example of we will sacrifice money to make sure that we're doing right by our customers.
• 18:55
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 18:56
  Tom Jackobs: I, I love that.
• 18:57
  Tom Jackobs: And that's, to me that gets to the heart of having a heart-led business.
• 19:02
  Tom Jackobs: And it also brings up a challenge as well in terms of how do you balance that then with obviously, you know, 20 staff members, they probably like to get paid, uh, at some point.
• 19:14
  Tom Jackobs: So how do you balance then, you know, some of these, you know, issues that come up while still knowing that you need to make a profit, you need to pay employees, you need to get paid yourself, pay off investors, all that?
• 19:27
  Nick Hutchison: Yeah, that's a great question.
• 19:28
  Nick Hutchison: Thankfully, we've never taken an outside investment, so that relieves a little bit of stress.
• 19:32
  Tom Jackobs: That's good.
• 19:32
  Nick Hutchison: But you're right.
• 19:33
  Nick Hutchison: I mean uh, on a biweekly basis when you've gotta pay 20 people and you know they're using that money for their families and paying off their own debts and living their own lives, it's a, it's a certain weight.
• 19:45
  Nick Hutchison: I'll say that we, as a business, as a business owner, I've always loved the idea that no matter how many times you've read Aesop's fable,"The Tortoise and the Hare," the tortoise always wins.
• 19:57
  Nick Hutchison: So slow and steady, never, never getting overextended, making sure that when we bring somebody on, there's already kind of plenty of business, plenty of opportunity for them, plenty of margin so that we are not getting overextended.
• 20:13
  Nick Hutchison: And so I'm, I'm grateful to say, and again, it's not because, not because of anything special, it's really just because of patience, that since 2017 when we legally registered the business, and then really in 2021 when we started adding staff, we've never had a situation where we can't make a payment or we have to ask a team member to go without the money that we owe them.
• 20:37
  Nick Hutchison: So I think it's just slow and steady, never growing too fast, never compromising our values, always making sure that, uh, we're, we're operating with our team and our customers in mind when we, when, you know, when we make a staffing decision.
• 20:52
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 20:52
  Tom Jackobs: That's great.
• 20:53
  Tom Jackobs: And I had a, a mentor once tell me that the, the first day that you can't make payroll is the first day that you're going out of business.
• 21:00
  Tom Jackobs: Oof.
• 21:01
  Tom Jackobs: Which is...
• 21:02
  Nick Hutchison: I think that's true.
• 21:04
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah, it's a correlation there, I'm sure.
• 21:06
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 21:07
  Tom Jackobs: So we talked about challenges.
• 21:09
  Tom Jackobs: How about good things that have happened from being heart-led versus just being, profit-driven?
• 21:16
  Nick Hutchison: I've got a crazy story, and oftentimes
• 21:18
  Tom Jackobs: Love it.
• 21:18
  Nick Hutchison: I tell this, people say,"No way that really happened like you tell it." But it did.
• 21:23
  Nick Hutchison: So a few years ago, 2023, I was on my honeymoon.
• 21:28
  Nick Hutchison: We were traveling throughout Europe, my new wife and me, and we were in this tiny little city outside of Dubrovnik, Croatia.
• 21:38
  Nick Hutchison: When I say tiny little city, Dubrovnik is actually a tiny little city.
• 21:42
  Nick Hutchison: It only has a population of 42,000 people, so the little village that we were at probably had a population of 500 people.
• 21:50
  Nick Hutchison: And we had just arrived at our hotel.
• 21:52
  Nick Hutchison: We put our bags down.
• 21:53
  Nick Hutchison: We went to the hotel buffet, and we had a pretty poor food experience.
• 21:58
  Nick Hutchison: Now, on my honeymoon.
• 21:59
  Nick Hutchison: I'm trying to impress my wife.
• 22:01
  Nick Hutchison: She loves food.
• 22:02
  Nick Hutchison: I was too tired to go out, so we opted for this hotel buffet.
• 22:05
  Nick Hutchison: It did not please.
• 22:07
  Nick Hutchison: And so after the buffet experience, we went out to hunt for a restaurant to eat at the following night.
• 22:13
  Nick Hutchison: Well, after about a half an hour of walking into this little village, we come across this beautiful restaurant that sits up against the sea.
• 22:22
  Nick Hutchison: I'm talking glowing lights, clinking wine glasses.
• 22:25
  Nick Hutchison: Every table's full.
• 22:26
  Nick Hutchison: The servers are flying around with great-looking food.
• 22:29
  Nick Hutchison: Like, this is the spot.
• 22:30
  Nick Hutchison: My wife says,"I want to eat here tomorrow night." But we look at the host stand, and there's a line of about 20 people, and they look like they've been there for a little while.
• 22:40
  Nick Hutchison: So instead of waiting, we continue to wander around.
• 22:43
  Nick Hutchison: Maybe we find another spot.
• 22:45
  Nick Hutchison: Maybe we find a bar, have a drink, come back a little bit later, make a reservation.
• 22:50
  Nick Hutchison: And so we go off, we find a really cool bar, we sit down, we get lost in conversation.
• 22:55
  Nick Hutchison: We're talking about our future together, and we have another drink.
• 22:58
  Nick Hutchison: We talk about the beauty of Croatia, we have another drink.
• 23:02
  Nick Hutchison: We talk about our last stop, we have another drink.
• 23:04
  Nick Hutchison: And all of a sudden we realize a few hours have gone by.
• 23:08
  Nick Hutchison: So I call the server over, I hustle to sign the bill.
• 23:12
  Nick Hutchison: I leave a big tip, right?
• 23:13
  Nick Hutchison: Trying to give the universe some positive karma, like I hope this other restaurant is still open.
• 23:18
  Nick Hutchison: We run back through the cobblestone streets.
• 23:21
  Nick Hutchison: My wife's in heels, so that was funny.
• 23:23
  Tom Jackobs: Oh my gosh.
• 23:25
  Nick Hutchison: We get back to this restaurant, but unfortunately it was closed.
• 23:28
  Nick Hutchison: I mean, the chairs were up on the tables, the lights were off.
• 23:31
  Nick Hutchison: There's nobody there.
• 23:33
  Nick Hutchison: And I was kind of faced with this situation, trying to impress my wife, who was unimpressed with my food choices so far.
• 23:40
  Nick Hutchison: And I come up with the brilliant idea, because remember I told you I'd had a couple of drinks.
• 23:45
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 23:46
  Nick Hutchison: I come up with the brilliant idea because of that liquid confidence that I'm going to break into this restaurant and I'm gonna write my name
• 23:52
  Tom Jackobs: Oh, such a bad idea.
• 23:53
  Nick Hutchison: on the guest list for tomorrow night.
• 23:55
  Nick Hutchison: Because
• 23:56
  Tom Jackobs: Actually, that is a good idea.
• 23:59
  Nick Hutchison: If our name's on the list and we show up, they have to let us sit, right?
• 24:02
  Nick Hutchison: So I was kind of hoping that the door wouldn't actually be open, Tom.
• 24:06
  Nick Hutchison: So I go up to the door and I grab the handle and I give it a little push, and it opens.
• 24:11
  Nick Hutchison: And so now I'm faced with, do I go inside?
• 24:13
  Nick Hutchison: Do I run away?
• 24:14
  Nick Hutchison: Like, what's gonna happen?
• 24:15
  Nick Hutchison: What if I get in trouble?
• 24:16
  Nick Hutchison: But anyway, I go inside of the restaurant and I step into the light, and immediately there's a guy about 20 or 30 feet back putting away silverware, and we just lock eyes.
• 24:27
  Nick Hutchison: And I'm just, you know, fight, flight, or freeze.
• 24:32
  Nick Hutchison: I just freeze.
• 24:33
  Nick Hutchison: Like I, I don't know.
• 24:34
  Nick Hutchison: I don't know.
• 24:34
  Nick Hutchison: I'm just standing there looking at him, imagining maybe he'll disappear or he won't see me or something, but we're, we're directly making eye contact.
• 24:42
  Nick Hutchison: And he starts to say something, and I think he's about to yell at me in a language I don't understand or call the police.
• 24:49
  Nick Hutchison: But instead he says,"Hey, I know you." Now I'm, again, I'm kind of buzzed.
• 24:54
  Tom Jackobs: What?
• 24:55
  Nick Hutchison: Like, does he really know who I am?
• 24:56
  Nick Hutchison: We're in the middle of this little village on the other side of the planet.
• 24:59
  Nick Hutchison: And so I, I'm like,"Does he think I'm Tom Cruise or something?" And he says,"You're Nick from Book Thinkers."
• 25:07
  Tom Jackobs: What?
• 25:07
  Nick Hutchison: I got goosebumps every time I think about this story.
• 25:11
  Nick Hutchison: And, I had the weirdest response.
• 25:13
  Nick Hutchison: I said,"How do you know that?
• 25:15
  Nick Hutchison: Prove it." And he said, he said,"Dude, I've been listening to your podcast and following your book recommendations on social media for years." And immediately I'm just like: Oh, my goodness.
• 25:28
  Nick Hutchison: I mean, what are the chances of this?
• 25:31
  Tom Jackobs: Hey.
• 25:31
  Nick Hutchison: I'd come to find out his name is Tony.
• 25:33
  Nick Hutchison: He's working summers in Dubrovnik to help pay for a side hustle that he's planning to start because of the books that he's read.
• 25:39
  Nick Hutchison: But he's from a neighboring country.
• 25:42
  Nick Hutchison: And but there's not a lot of work opportunity where he's from, so he goes to Croatia.
• 25:47
  Nick Hutchison: And, uh, and he, he starts to tell me about all of these really intimate details, things that he's learned, book recommendations that he's had.
• 25:56
  Nick Hutchison: I mean, he even references things that I've, uh, I had only posted on Instagram stories from years prior, like collaborating with authors and stuff.
• 26:04
  Nick Hutchison: So he's a, he's a real fan.
• 26:06
  Tom Jackobs: Wow.
• 26:07
  Nick Hutchison: He tells me about the books that he's read and how they've changed his mindset and everything like that, and I'm just in awe, and so is my wife, Rachel, because I had told her about a couple of things like this that had happened in the past, but nothing to this, to this level.
• 26:21
  Nick Hutchison: And so You know, it, it really, it, it warmed my heart in a lot of ways because at that moment in time, I was wondering, like, I'm getting all these social media impressions and followers, but am I actually making a difference?
• 26:35
  Nick Hutchison: And here I meet this kid on the other side of the planet who never, by the way, had liked a post, commented on a post, sent me a message.
• 26:43
  Nick Hutchison: I had no idea the impact I was having until I broke into his restaurant in Dubrovnik, Croatia.
• 26:50
  Nick Hutchison: And to kind of put a pin on that story, since I know I've been talking for a few minutes, he says,"You know, unfortunately, we're all booked for tomorrow night, but let me reach out to my boss and see what I can do." And he made a table available.
• 27:03
  Nick Hutchison: We go back the next night.
• 27:05
  Nick Hutchison: We have the greatest restaurant experience ever.
• 27:07
  Nick Hutchison: I mean, they bring over great appetizers and entrees, fresh fish and wine and desserts.
• 27:13
  Nick Hutchison: And then at the end of the night, I mean, we meet the whole staff.
• 27:17
  Nick Hutchison: At the end of the night, Tony, who's just a busboy at this restaurant, by the way, pays for our whole meal, which understanding
• 27:25
  Tom Jackobs: What?
• 27:26
  Nick Hutchison: his situation is, is one of the most humbling things somebody's ever done for us.
• 27:30
  Nick Hutchison: And he handed me a letter, a handwritten letter in an envelope, and he said,"Don't open this until you leave Croatia." And he said,"I'm, I'm a little nervous about what I wrote.
• 27:42
  Nick Hutchison: I kind of poured my heart onto the page.
• 27:44
  Nick Hutchison: Don't open it until then." And so, um, we're on the plane leaving Dubrovnik a few days later onto the next stop, and I open up the letter, and it's five pages of handwritten, basically testimony for why I should continue creating content and the impact that I've had on this guy's life.
• 28:01
  Nick Hutchison: And so I went home and I-- you know, after our whole honeymoon trip, and I thought,"How could I, how could I deliver value back to him?" I mean, the letter that he wrote will keep me going for the next decade, right?
• 28:15
  Nick Hutchison: That's how much impact it's had
• 28:16
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 28:16
  Nick Hutchison: On me.
• 28:17
  Nick Hutchison: But how can I have more impact on him?
• 28:19
  Nick Hutchison: then I remembered he said his favorite book of all time was"The Millionaire Fastlane" by MJ DeMarco.
• 28:26
  Nick Hutchison: I happen to know
• 28:26
  Tom Jackobs: Mhm.
• 28:26
  Nick Hutchison: MJ.
• 28:27
  Nick Hutchison: So I reached out to MJ.
• 28:28
  Nick Hutchison: I told him the story.
• 28:29
  Nick Hutchison: He signed a couple of books.
• 28:31
  Nick Hutchison: I shipped them all the way back to Tony's home country, to his parents' house.
• 28:35
  Nick Hutchison: And when he was wrapping up that trip, um, or, or his summer work in Dubrovnik and he went home, he got those books, and he just, you know, again, he was so happy.
• 28:44
  Nick Hutchison: Sent me a great message.
• 28:45
  Nick Hutchison: So that's, that's a heart-led story, in a lot of ways, obviously, but, like, it's just, it's kept me going for the last few years in a big way.
• 28:55
  Tom Jackobs: That, that is an amazing...
• 28:56
  Tom Jackobs: I'm getting goosebumps just hearing that story.
• 28:59
  Tom Jackobs: That is, that is amazing.
• 29:00
  Tom Jackobs: And, and just a really great testament to, you know, for podcasters and for authors and, and for influencers that you don't know always what the influence it is that you're having on other people, because not everybody does the post, the like, and the comments, and it's, it's always nice to hear that.
• 29:19
  Tom Jackobs: That's, that's very cool.
• 29:20
  Nick Hutchison: Yeah, feedback, I mean, y- you're right.
• 29:23
  Nick Hutchison: Impact is only felt through feedback.
• 29:26
  Nick Hutchison: And so here's a fun message for your audience, Tom.
• 29:28
  Nick Hutchison: If anybody's still listening to this crazy conversation, reach out to Tom.
• 29:34
  Nick Hutchison: Let him know what you think about the podcast, how it's impacted you.
• 29:38
  Nick Hutchison: Because you're right, as a creator, sometimes you feel like you're pushing out value into the void, into the vacuum.
• 29:44
  Nick Hutchison: You're not really sure if anything's really landing or coming back.
• 29:48
  Nick Hutchison: And, and you only get to know that through this tiny little one percentage of people that decide to review the podcast, write you a note, send you a message on LinkedIn or something like that.
• 29:58
  Nick Hutchison: And, and so that's a little call to action for the audience.
• 30:01
  Nick Hutchison: Reach out to Tom.
• 30:02
  Nick Hutchison: Let him know what you think of the show.
• 30:04
  Tom Jackobs: Awesome.
• 30:05
  Tom Jackobs: I appreciate that, Nick.
• 30:06
  Tom Jackobs: And I can't believe our time has gone quickly today as well.
• 30:10
  Tom Jackobs: But tell us, how can people learn more about the book club and, and you in general?
• 30:16
  Nick Hutchison: Well, Tom, I'd love for you to put a link in the show notes below for people to learn a little bit more about the book club.
• 30:22
  Nick Hutchison: You can go to skool, S-K-O-O-L, skool.com and just search Book Thinkers in the little search bar.
• 30:30
  Nick Hutchison: You can find our book club.
• 30:31
  Nick Hutchison: You can join it.
• 30:32
  Nick Hutchison: Each month we are reviewing one book together as a group through weekly calls and leveraging my reading and implementation structure.
• 30:41
  Nick Hutchison: And then we're actually inviting the authors in to do a live Q&A.
• 30:45
  Nick Hutchison: So the month that we're recording this, September, we have Jim Kwik, who's the author of a new book called,
• 30:50
  Tom Jackobs: Wow
• 30:51
  Nick Hutchison: "Limitless Daily." Next month we have Vanessa Van Edwards, who has her newest book,"Conversation." In November, we have Robert Greene, who is launching his newest book,"The Law of the Sublime." And so we have these amazing celebrity influencers, thought leaders coming in and having private fireside chats with our community.
• 31:11
  Nick Hutchison: And we're just, we're having such a fun time.
• 31:14
  Tom Jackobs: Oh, that's amazing.
• 31:15
  Tom Jackobs: Very cool.
• 31:17
  Tom Jackobs: And then, if there are authors that are listening, and I know there probably are, how can they learn a little bit about the agency and, promoting their own book with your help?
• 31:26
  Nick Hutchison: The best place to go is bookthinkers.com, spelled just like it sounds.
• 31:31
  Nick Hutchison: And we have information and testimonials and case studies about everything that we do.
• 31:36
  Nick Hutchison: And there's a little Book a Call button so you can meet with our team and tell them a little bit about your situation and see if one of our services might help you out.
• 31:45
  Tom Jackobs: Awesome.
• 31:45
  Tom Jackobs: Well, cool.
• 31:46
  Tom Jackobs: Well, I encourage everybody to do that.
• 31:48
  Tom Jackobs: So Nick, thank you so much for sharing your stories today, sharing your wisdom of your heart-led business.
• 31:53
  Tom Jackobs: I really appreciate it.
• 31:54
  Tom Jackobs: It was absolutely fascinating for me as well.
• 31:56
  Tom Jackobs: I love that story of Dr- Dr- How do you...
• 31:59
  Tom Jackobs: Dr
• 32:00
  Nick Hutchison: Dubrovnik.
• 32:02
  Tom Jackobs: Dubrovnik.
• 32:03
  Tom Jackobs: The story in Dubro- Dubr-ah.
• 32:05
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 32:06
  Tom Jackobs: I, I will be going there and, and messing up the name of their city all the, all the time, so that's amazing.
• 32:12
  Nick Hutchison: For any"Game of Thrones" fans, uh, Dubrovnik For any of you who are Game of Thrones fan Dubrovnik is actually the site that they filmed a lot of stuff.
• 32:20
  Nick Hutchison: So it was really cool through that lens as well.
• 32:22
  Tom Jackobs: And I've heard Croatia is just absolutely beautiful as well to visit.
• 32:27
  Nick Hutchison: Yeah.
• 32:27
  Nick Hutchison: Best of, of Italy and Greece, but for half the cost, so I recommend it.
• 32:32
  Tom Jackobs: Yeah.
• 32:33
  Tom Jackobs: And half the people too, I am sure.
• 32:35
  Tom Jackobs: Well, awesome.
• 32:35
  Tom Jackobs: Nick, again, thank you so much for spending your time with us today.
• 32:39
  Tom Jackobs: I really appreciate you.
• 32:41
  Nick Hutchison: Yeah, I had a great time.
• 32:42
  Nick Hutchison: Thank you, Tom.
• 32:43
  Tom Jackobs: You're very welcome.
• 32:44
  Tom Jackobs: And thank you listeners for tuning in today, wherever you might be tuning in, whether that's YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.
• 32:52
  Tom Jackobs: We really do appreciate it.
• 32:53
  Tom Jackobs: And check out all that Nick is doing down in the show notes, so make sure you're checking that out.
• 32:58
  Tom Jackobs: And while you're down there, if you don't mind sending me a comment or maybe even a review of the show, that just helps spread the word about The Heart-Led Business Show and helps those that might be struggling with their business, wanting to know,"Should I make a profit or should I be heart-led?" And let them know that they can do both.
• 33:14
  Tom Jackobs: And until next time, lead with your heart.
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: You've been listening to The Heart-Led Business Show, hosted by Tom Jackobs.
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: Join us next time for another inspiring journey into the heart of business.