 This is StartupStorefront. Books can change your life, yet 23% of Americans say they didn't read a book last year. Books can provide entertainment, a portal into an imaginary world, or a series of cheat codes for leveling up your life. It's almost entirely because of the last point that our guests today graded book thinkers, a community of readers and authors centered around the positive power of personal development. We even witnessed firsthand the stickiness of this topic, as in this episode with Nick Hutchinson and Luke Gifford, the conversation begins on the journey of book thinkers and quickly flows into a discussion of self-development and improvement. In this episode, we discuss why Luke is selling his house so that it doesn't become his coffin, the opportunity costs for not leveraging social media, and Nick and Luke's top takeaways from interviewing some of the world's most renowned authors, including Grant Cardone, Lewis Howes, and Guy Ross. All right, welcome to the podcast on today's show. We're talking to book thinkers team. Thanks guys for coming. Either one can take the question. What is book thinkers people don't know? Sure, we're a company that loves the positive power of personal development books. And so we make book recommendations to people that can help them solve practical problems that they're facing. And we also help authors get their hands in front of the right people as well. What made you want to get into it? Were you like just someone who as a kid maybe, like for me, books were always like a window into a new world. Or for me personally, like coming from Peru, as I just told you, it's something like you really don't understand America at all when you're new to it. And so it's like, how do I figure out this game? And so people like Warren Buffett, obviously become icons in terms of, let me read his book, and then there's a whole host of them, right? Like a better for you, how to figure out what's America like? Capitalism, what was your thing? Were you just always like, you know, I was I was actually the jock stereotype growing up in school. I was not an academic. And what happened was I took an internship at a local software company when I was in college and my mentor at the time, my sales mentor, he recommended podcasts. OK, yeah. So I'd run my own house painting business in college. I realized that I was one of those kids. OK, got it. I was the bottleneck. And I knew that there had to be somebody that I could go learn from. So I took this internship. My sales mentor at the time recommends podcasts. And I had about an hour commute each way to this internship that summer. And so I was listening to a lot of business podcasts. And all of the guests were recommending books. And so one day I went to my local Barnes and Noble. I grabbed a half a dozen books from from the recommendations that I was getting. And I started to devour those books and everything changed. Just for context, what year was this? This was 2015. OK, 2015. And what what podcasts are like really the ones that you're enjoying? And maybe you still listen to today. Sure. Well, the original one that I got hooked on was called The Science of Success was hosted by a guy at a Nashville named Matt Bodner. I don't even know if it's still. That's so wild. I didn't I didn't I did not know that about him. And that's like the one of the first podcasts I've listened to as well. Let's get this. Welcome to the first day. Oh, let's go. This is what the journey is about. Discovery process. Wow. All right. So you're getting motivated. You're listening to all these podcasts and it's working. You're reading these books. And then at some point, something has to say, there's got to be people like me. Maybe they don't have time to read the books. Let me start to synthesize this information. What's that next little little step and how you turned this thing into a business? Yeah, well, I was a business student that wasn't around business book culture. It didn't exist at my university. Interesting. OK. And so when I was sharing these books with kids at school, friends, family member, nobody was interested. Yeah. And so I started to share those books on social media with the hope of monetizing it at some point. OK. I didn't really know how links or what. Yeah, we were going. So I had a friend at the time who started book thinkers with me. He's no longer involved. His name's Alec. And we'd meet and we'd whiteboard on weekends and we'd say, how can we monetize our love for reading? And we came up with this original idea that didn't end up working out of creating a website where you could categorize the books that you were reading. You could list your biggest takeaways and then it would set automated reminders so that you could review the information. What was the friction there between the market and what you created? We were not tech guys, so we outsourced everything to a company in Argentina and that company fell apart and we just said, let's toss this idea. We didn't find product market fit very well. We didn't know how to pick up the pieces. And we were recent college graduates without much money. And so what started to really take root was the social media following that we were building in anticipation of this app and website. Twitter at that time, right? Twitter, Facebook? It was Facebook first. And then it was Instagram around 2017 when it started to grow. It's funny that you're saying this. When I was in college and then after I was reading, I would try to read like 52 books a year. So I was just like, ham. And they were always, it's always nonfiction. It's always better for you. It's always self development. I don't have any imagination. If someone tries to, you couldn't pay me to watch Harry Potter, Star Wars, I loved real life so much. I don't have any interest in trying to put me into some fake universe. I love real life. And so it's weird for me, right? But at some point, I think I was reading all these books and then I would just write two paragraphs and all my friends would say, hey, what books I recommend? And I would say, this is them. And then sure enough, a week later they would say, what are the key takeaways from each book? I'm like, so you're not gonna read the book. But here's my new word document at the time. And here's, you know, this is the takeaway. Nick has some great, I guess, ideas around summaries and how he feels about that whole world. Well, I think it's hard because it's like your summary, right? And I think it's your lens, which is not like any other. And so I think people to do themselves a disservice a little bit when they ask me, like, hey, what's the cheat code? And I'm like, well, here's what I heard. But I don't know what you, you know, that's the issue. Well, on that point real quick, there's a book called The Art of Learning by Joshua Waitskin. He's a martial arts champion, but also a chess master. So the movie Finding Bobby Fisher was written about Joshua Waitskin. And he says that you have to study a subject so intensely that it becomes part of your subconscious and that your subconscious can identify opportunities for you on your behalf without you having to consciously do anything. And you can't achieve that state without studying the information yourself. And so that's why these book summary apps, they reach out all the time about sponsoring us or this or that. And I just can't get on board because there is no shortcut. You have to study the information. You have to read all of these strange examples and case studies in order to actually understand like what you're gonna learn. And so I totally agree. Now, our pages represent an opportunity for book discovery, not book replacement. You know what I mean? Yeah, right. Let's talk about when you first, so in Argentina, the thing doesn't work out cool. And then what is the next thing that you decide to move to? Yeah, social media starts to grow. And so our following starts to grow and grow and grow. And authors would reach out and say, hey, can I send you a copy of my book for free? Now I was paying for these books. So that was a step in the right direction. And then it evolved into, hey, your audience is my target reader. How can I pay you to promote this book? And so that was the first form of monetization outside of affiliate links that actually started to create real revenue. And at the time, it's just a photo, right? And so what would you do? Would you just take a photo of like the book and then this long paragraph? Oh, maybe, yeah, the book, yeah, okay. Yeah, we would do photos of the books. Videos help so much. Videos did end up changing the business. People listening, you should go to your Instagram because first of all, kudos to your team. I mean, really good stuff. And your videos are very captivating. You're very captivating. And I love all the synopsis that you, I mean, it's really great. And so people should check you out on Instagram. Okay, so then they're paying you on Instagram. What are you seeing that maybe is a value you didn't really understand about what you had? Yeah, the audience is everything. Attention is king, right? It's the new currency. Yeah, I mean, I'll just chime in really quickly there because something, when they first started Book Thinkers, I think they had like five or followers or something and at the time I actually owned a coffee shop and my business, it was just, it was a struggle. It was a struggle. So I was starting to, I didn't, I wasn't a reader at all. Where was your coffee shop? Lexington, Kentucky. Okay. I was in Lexington, Kentucky, yeah. I had it for six years. She had the bourbon instead. I know, but probably for sure. I was just struggling and I don't even, I don't even remember exactly how I stumbled upon his account, but Nick was posting a bunch of books and I saw a bunch of business books. I'm like, okay, well maybe if I read one of these books, you know, it'll be helpful. So I reached out to him. I had exchanged a couple of DMs and then before he knew it, I had like ordered like five books and just started just absolutely devouring them. I think that one of the first ones, I can't remember exactly because it was such a busy time in my life, but I think one of the first ones was Start With Why. And although I look at it now and it's a little bit of a simplistic book, it was such a turning point for me that I was just like, started to open my mind to different ways of thinking. And that's something that I think like, especially in the early days, that was like the big value that book thinkers brought was the ability to share these books and then people would buy them. I mean, like because they trust, and to this day, I mean, people still reach out to us for recommendations all the time. And how did you guys get linked up? So at that point, maybe you reach out, you go, hey, look, I have an idea, come to my coffee shop. Literally, so I just basically, we just kept talking over the years and I think the first time we met was in 2020, maybe or 2021? End of 2020. Yeah. And he was doing like a road trip during COVID and everything. My shop at that point, it was just, it was so difficult. Yeah, it was a very hard time. But we just met up in person for the first time. We had kept up a lot of conversations. We met up at some restaurant in Louisville and just had a conversation then. It wasn't about working for him or anything, but that was just always like, I'm not open, right? Like that line was just kind of always there. And we just always kept up a nice little friendship. And eventually I closed down my coffee shop and that's actually when I went up to Canada and did the whole, I did a whole CPG thing up there with Cold Brew and did that. And then I came back to the States and had no idea what to do with my life. That's the best, by the way. Yeah, it was a really wild time for me. Yeah, and then from your perspective, were you still working at a certain point? And then, okay, so what was the moment where you had to like leave your job or maybe you had enough interest and money per se? Yeah, there's this really interesting different type of path that I took. So I was working full time at this software company at a school. Still in sales. Still in sales. And I was doing really, really well for them, which made it hard to leave. And there's a moment during COVID, we're talking late 2020, I think around the same time that I met up with him, I called them and I said, hey, my business is growing, Book Thinkers is doing really well, I wanna give it a shot. I don't wanna look back and regret this, so I'd like to resign. And the CEO of that company at the time said no. He said, why don't we reduce the heroin, bro? It's the heroin they give you to forget your dreams. This is it. The drug dealer doesn't want you to leave. No, this is your life, this is where you're gonna thrive. What was interesting though is he actually proposed a great alternative. He said, reduce your working hours, down to five hours a week, fill the rest of your time with your dream. And that way, if your dream doesn't work out, you can come back and I don't have to worry about the paperwork. And the reason was because the company had recently been acquired by a VC and he didn't wanna ruffle any feathers. You were a top performer. Yes. So I actually, for a long time through 2021, worked zero hours a week, kept that job as a part-time thing, kept the insurance and everything like that. And so book thinkers became a full-time job without it really being a full-time job. And so I think there's this notion sometimes that you have to cut off your job and every once in a while, you can find a unique scenario where you just, instead of the side hustle, taking five hours and your full-time job and taking 50, you just kind of switch. Yeah. But I went through Y Combinator, people always, this is the question that, well, when do I know? And the answer is always, you know when you know. It's like a baby. It's like, you'll know when it needs more attention, right? Your company's the same. It's like, you'll know when you finally can quit your job, but you're totally right. It's always so different. Yeah, it's always so different. And Gary V, I watched a video of his way back in the day and he said, find a full-time job where you can learn skills that will transfer to your side hustle or your passion. And that's what I had. I had a sales job at a tech company. It was growing like crazy. And I was involved in some really cool deals and I had a lot of fun mentors and all of that transferred to book thinkers, which is great. It's funny you mentioned Gary V. So when people ask Gary V what books does he read or what podcasts he consumes, the answer is zero. And I have since taken his approach. Like not recently, well, maybe in the last year or so, like I've just given up on books as a whole. And I don't really know why that is, but I just got bored with them I think. I was just reading. It's not like the same ideas over and over again. And like different colors. Didn't you feel like once you got it, you got it almost? Because I agree, I feel like I've been in that, I don't know that mode or phase two, though I still very much love books. And I still, I mean, I still read a ton of books, mostly because I have to, but I also enjoy learning new perspectives. But it's interesting, like I was actually just, I had a conversation with my wife a couple nights ago, actually it was about looking at all these really successful people. And I'm like, a lot of these guys didn't start reading until after they were successful, which is really wild. And we just had a conversation with- That's weird. It is weird. That we had a conversation with Alex from Mosey was yesterday. And he was just saying this kind of the same thing. He's like, yeah, I kind of, you know, I went into sales. I did a lot of sales. I did 4,000 sales before I even picked up my first sales book. Wow. So I guess like if someone said that to me, I would say something like, do you feel dumb? Like, do you feel like if you had picked up that sales book first, maybe you'd have 8,000 sales? I mean, I don't know. Here's what he said. He said, you have to have an experience to attach your learning to. Okay. And then that experience has to be ongoing so that you can consistently make iterations as you're reading and applying these books. Because there are so many people, here's a good example. They read books about dating and they visualize themselves going up to a girl this year, but they never know. They never actually. Let's dive in on that. It's a common example though, because the anticipation of doing it sometimes gives you that dopamine release and then you never actually go forward and do it. And so you're reading books about communication and dating and stuff like that and you never actually do it yourself. When I got into, it's funny, when I got into real estate development, all I did was read books. So I decided I moved to LA. I was at a tech company and moved to LA. Really had no idea what I was gonna do. Woke up one day, I told my wife, I'm gonna go be a real estate developer. She's like, you know nothing about that. I was like, yeah, I know, but I'm gonna figure it out. So I started downloading all these audio books, because real estate, it's like medicine in the sense of there's all these esoteric terms. Every industry has their weird terms. So I was like, I gotta go learn the language. So that's my first step, learn the language. And I was like, okay, how do I model, model in the sense of Excel modeling these deals? And I was like, I'm not really that. I mean, I'm pretty good at Excel, but I'm not great. Turns out there's a bunch of companies out there that'll sell you a model. So I bought a model for like 200 bucks from this guy and then I just started modeling. Like I would go to LoopNet, which is like the Zillow for commercial real estate. And I would just, I would run an analysis. I'd go, this is the buy price. This is how much rent is the market. And I would just do this for probably like two weeks straight just over every single deal. And then from that, I got comfortable with modeling a deal, knowing what worked financially, what didn't work. And then it was like, that gave me the confidence to then go out and do it in real life. But that was the first time ever that I had started with the books and then moved to practice where everything else I'd ever done in my life was always, I don't know, I'm like dumb enough to try. But that's, it's a crazy, weird story. How many people though go through that process and they never end up investing? I mean, probably more than anything. It's terrifying jumping off that, you know, because the problem is this, right? So it's like, there's an art in getting to the top of the diving board and then there is a totally different experience to jump off. Jump off, yeah. Yeah, it's like, oh, I didn't know I was afraid of heights but now I do. You know what I mean? It's like this weird thing. And so it's almost like this. Because now all of a sudden it's your ass in the line whereas before it's you are removed, like your dating example. It's like out there in the nether regions and then all of a sudden when you're confronted with it face to face, it becomes this whole other monster that you are now tasked with confronting in a very tangible way that you just weren't before. That's why I cold plunge because it's like, I think it's like the hardest thing I'll do all day to some extent. Yeah, eat that frog, Brian, Tracy type of thing. So it's like, great, I love it for that. What are some of the things that when you think about your business, like really stick out to you in terms of how social media has changed the game for the authors, for you with video. And specifically what I wanna drill into is probably the shortcomings you see of some of these authors and things that your business is helping them with but I want you to just give us a window into that. Yeah, a thousand percent. Well, I think first things first, there are billions of people that use these social platforms every single day. They're consuming content, they're looking for inspiration and opportunity. Some people are just looking to have fun and smile but other people are looking to improve their lives. And so I always tell authors at the very start, if you're not leveraging these platforms, there's an opportunity cost because your competitor is selling their books to these people. So you have to get on the platforms, you have to leverage them. We were just filming with an author named Stephen Pressfield. He's had a couple books, sell a million copies and he doesn't really leverage social media that much but he started writing 30, 40, 50 years ago. He's an older guy. And so nowadays, if you're not leveraging social media to sell books, there's a huge opportunity cost because you can get attention, you can go viral on TikTok and get hundreds of thousands of impressions by filming a 30 second video. And that doesn't happen naturally or organically in other mediums like paid advertising. It's not gonna happen. Yeah, so if I'm you like just in this conversation, I'm thinking I'm gonna go put these publishers out of business. I'm gonna start my own publishing company because at this point you have the relationships. You could probably offer them better terms. So what we're doing right now is helping self-published authors mostly promote and market their books more efficiently. And that's because the traditional publishers, by the way, the traditional publishers are a customer of ours. They'll pay us to help promote their author's books because they're great at the pre-launch stuff. They're great at the launch stuff and then they drop the ball. Because that's the antiquated business model of sorts. You know, they've probably been doing it for decades now but this new thing comes around. They just like, we'll let someone figure it out. That's not us and we can subcontract them or hire them to promote our stuff for us. Wait, so would you do it? Do you have any interest in doing that? In starting a publishing company? Yeah. We've talked about it in the past. I don't think right now. It could be an iteration of what we do in the future. And when you talk to these authors, is there a way where you could use the content to make a compilation or a mashup on certain topics? Because at some point you have so much of a library that it feels like you could say, hey look, this is how all these authors think about this one idea. Can you do that or are there like limitations on using their content? Sure, no, I think we could do that. Yeah, I mean, we're always trying new things and shaking it up a bit. I mean, when we go to film with an author, we start with like looking at their book and we're like, okay, how can we turn this book into like just 100 to 200 pieces of unique content? And then we look at, you know, what's trending now? What topics are hot and how can we pull those out of this book and what are they an expert at? What are they good at? And we try to relate all those things. So it's something that, yeah, it's just like always evolving and changing. And I think like Nick was saying, Book Thinker says changed quite a bit over the years and we're very open to that. We're very open to a new iteration, maybe even in the future it is publishing. Like I don't know, but we're open to that. We're just, we're very big, you know, that we always say the right book at the right time can change your life because we wholeheartedly believe that. Like that happened to me, that happened to him, and all- What was the book for you? Oh, I think like the- The books. Yeah, there's been several throughout my life, but like I said, I started with Start With Why, just because it just like growing up I had never read books like that. Like I grew up in a very, with a very religious background, the books I read were super heavy and theological that I didn't understand at all. So I thought all books were that way and I just never even tried to read any other book because it was like, I don't understand what this is. I don't know what this means until I picked up the Start With Why and like I said, it was a really simple book but that one just opened my eyes to the world of books and like what this could mean and then I just started devouring them. One of my favorites, I always go back to it is Principles by Ray Dalio. Yeah, great book. Such a great book, it's long and thick but man, that book helps me just clarify my thinking in so many ways and I don't know why, I don't know what it is because I talk to people and they're like, yeah, that book didn't do anything for me and that's another thing, you know, it's a very personal experience. The books are just a very personal one. A book that worked really well for me might not resonate with you. I love Ray Dalio, people don't know. Like if you work for him, it's basically like you have a baseball card, the baseball card says what you're good at, what you're bad at and then when they form teams, they basically put together teams, it's like everybody by committee and so it's like if you're a left-handed pitcher, you know, they're probably gonna have a left-handed batter on that team and Ray Dalio, I just always believed in giving people a scorecard but in this weird American culture specifically in California, you can't do that because then it's like, oh, it's a microaggression or like why are you doing this to me and so there's this weird thing where Ray Dalio is just like, no, like if you're bad at something, you should know. Right, like in sales, it's like, I ran a sales team and it was like, I would just video them because if I didn't, they would say, oh, I didn't do that, I didn't say that, I didn't start sweating in that moment. I'm like, bro, what are you talking about? Like, what's with the video? I don't have to, and so the video helps but it also improves, right? It's like you get better infinitely faster. Because I think people so often like they take this, I know I have and I still do struggle with it but you take it so personally, because we're so afraid of making mistakes and we're so afraid of being criticized and that's just throughout America, I mean Europe, like it's everywhere, like we're just so scared of it that we don't want it and that was the big thing that Ray Dalio did for me. He opened my eyes to this new way of thinking. I'm like, oh, criticism is okay because if somebody tells me I'm bad at something, I can get better and maybe I don't have to agree with that person because they're actually not good at that thing that they're telling me, like I don't want to take sales advice from somebody who's never sold, right? But somebody who's sold a lot, I'm fine with taking advice from them, like somebody like Nick who's sold a lot, like if he's telling me, hey, maybe change it up here, change your tone of voice here, okay, I'll listen for sure. What are your top books if you have a short list or even maybe one or two, I don't know. Oh, it's impossible related to what subject. I'll tell you the books that changed my life the most. So the first book that I ever read during that summer internship was Rich Dad Poor Dad. I'm sure you hear that a lot. Iconic. That book is a good place to start. It's 200 pages, the font size is nice. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of aha opportunities for people who grow up in a poor middle class family and he's inviting, he's friendly, the language is easy and so, yeah, it's a great book to start with. And as a result of that book, I actually ended up investing in a couple multi-family projects. Oh, there you go. And so that book opened up so many doors for me. And then the next book that was super life-changing for me was The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. Great book. So as a result of that book, I've worked from 20 countries over the last couple of years. What was your takeaway on that book? Just curious. So many, reality is negotiable. You can design a life that's uniquely fulfilling to you. Got a tattoo of that, by the way. Yeah, I do. Nice, nice. My takeaway on it was like, at the time I was a civil engineer, so it was like my first job when that book first came out. And I was like, I really don't need to be here 40 hours. Everyone is so slow and I am so efficient. This is the internal mind working. And then I read the book and I was like, oh, I could just outsource my job and just say, hey guys, I'm gonna be here at home, I'm sick, and then just be at the beach while Homeboy in India is working on my engineering. Yeah, why not? And it started making me think in that. So that was my takeaway. That's why I was asking, because we all have different takeaways. So I was like, that was mine specifically when it came to The 4-Hour Workweek. Yeah, and that book, he says, earn in dollars, spend in pesos, and compensate in rupees, which is the Indian currency. So outsource. Yeah, and I think the other thing for me in that was that everything can be put into a system and it should be optimized first, and then you can automate, delegate, or eliminate the stuff that you don't wanna do. And so I think of book thinkers, we try to audit internally every once in a while and say, what should we outsource? What should we eliminate? Or are there systems that can be put in place here? And all of that stems from Tim and that book. Is there another book? So The 4-Hour Workweek? Yeah, The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy was the next really big book for me, and that teaches you that small steps in the right direction over a long period of time can lead to disproportionately positive outcomes, so exponential growth. And that's what happened with our social media following. The same activities eventually lead to more followers per activity, as an example. Yeah, when it comes to all the authors, how many authors do you guys speak to on an annual basis? We work with about 100 in terms of money exchanging. And he duds, and he just fucking, eh, this guy, this dud, or they're just not fun to work with. There's definitely been a few. Yeah, there's definitely been a few. I'll say this. This guy razzed one of them. Tell me, guy razzes one of them. Worst show ever, how I built this. We did interview Guy. I saw that. You know what's funny about the clip? With you? And I don't know. So we're different people, you and I. But in the clip, he said something, he goes, you know, I think the entrepreneur, like some people are born with it. And then he alludes to something like, but if they're like us, they're not. Like he made this claim about you and him saying, we weren't born with it. I picked up on that as well. And I watched that, and I was like, if that was me, I'd be like, talk about yourself, guy. Don't lump me into your bullshit. I had a cringe moment when I watched it. There are definitely duds. Did you feel that way or no? With him? Sounds like he didn't. I've never listened to his podcast. I listened to one or two episodes in advance of that show. I think at that stage where we interviewed him, so that clip is actually from an older podcast, although it was posted recently. Sometimes we interviewed people in the early days to borrow their credibility, you know, to grow ourselves. And I think he was probably one of those people. He enjoys that show. Yeah, I mean, it was so interesting this comes around to your podcast. Like I enjoyed that show up to a point. And then it's just like. Same. This is so good. And it's like. It's like. All of a sudden you started hearing the same kind of narrative again and again and again that just wasn't realistic at all. There was nothing about what these people were showing. I'm like, this is .001% of people. It's got to be. This doesn't happen all the time. And you start to notice this pattern. I think I enjoyed it early on in my entrepreneurial journey because I didn't have anything else. I didn't know anything else. And it was cool seeing like, oh, there's these people. They're like me and they're super successful, like awesome. But then as you start to listen to it more and more, you just start to see this really, I don't know, this story and this narrative that is not realistic. When we first started like analyzing that one specifically, what I realized was that there's an orchestra. Like it's really like a television show. It's like watching Yellowstone, right? It's a drama. And as soon as I realized that, it ruined it for me. I was like, oh, this is theater. And that's why the stories are bad because the stories have to fit the theater. So it works from an entertainment perspective. I view it like Rich Dad Poor Dad. It's a good intro to the subject. But then if you wanna keep learning, you gotta move on. You gotta leave how I built this because it's not going to give you the knowledge and insight that you're going to need in a real world application. You're such a how I built this basher. Our whole pie is so bad. Yeah, yesterday, as Luke mentioned, we interviewed Alex Hormozzi. And that guy, if he read Rich Dad Poor Dad, he would just, I mean, he'd get nothing from it, right? He would just laugh at it. This is so basic, it's useless. But in 2018, when I first started to make some good money from doing book reviews, I didn't know better. I accepted any book that came my way as long as somebody was willing to pay for it. And so there were a lot of duds back then. Now this was prior to us launching the podcast. I was just doing book reviews. And there were books with spelling errors in the intro. A lot of bad, self-published books. And so now what we've done over the last couple of years is we're better at weeding those out before we interact with people. So we're not going to entertain somebody who isn't on podcasts all the time and try to interview them for our show. What's nice about authors is they know their information. They have a bank of stored information that they can always reference. Who's your dream guest, somebody that you're just dying to get on? Mine was Alex Hormozzi. Mainly because he helped book our business incredibly. And I just love all the value he gave, especially early on. I feel like he gave so much value with everything. I was like, dang, that's right on. Dang, that's right on. Dang, that's right on. Every single time. And I was definitely a little starstruck. It was the first podcast that I was literally shaking before, which was wild. And I was like, I don't know what to do with this. I'm going to be able to talk. I don't know. But you got on there five minutes in. And he was super, super awesome. For me, that was a peek. And actually, another guy we're working with, which is today, Louis House. I mean, I love that guy. And we're going to be working with him, which is really cool. So those two guys. It's a good question. I used to think Tim Ferriss. And I think I'd be less overwhelmed or anxious to do that interview now, just because we've worked with so many people that he's worked with. And I haven't listened to his show as much as I used to in the last couple of years. The person that I focus the most of my energy on in terms of a podcaster, you asked what podcast do we listen to? Earlier is Joe Rogan. Now, Joe's not an author. We only interview authors right now. We'd probably make an exception. But I consume a lot of his content. And so I think he's, right now, he'd be my dream guest. What about you guys? This is a two-fold question for me, because I think Malcolm Gladwell is garbage. So I would love, because here's why. Let me unpack this for you. Malcolm Gladwell, the argument I have with Malcolm is he takes these really dumb concepts. Like, who cares? But he'll create an idea. Like, it turns out, watching television at 4 p.m. lowers your lifespan. And then he goes and finds data to blow your mind with. And I just hate the fucking concept. I want to talk to him like, Malcolm, how bored are you? Go for a walk. Let's solve real-life problems. You're so intelligent. He's so intelligent, right? Like, I agree, he's an intelligent guy. Let's build a story that we can change actual lives, all right? The 10,000 hours thing, complete bullshit. But it doesn't matter, because we all believe it. And so we're all going to put in our 10,000 hours, and there's some level of data. But I, and so I just want to talk to him about like, let's work on a book that solves real problems so that you can take your intellect and apply it to things that the world needs. So he's at the top of your list because you want to confront him. Because I want to debate him. That's cool, I like that. I want to debate him, because I think we can make the world better if I just, and I'm not, look, he's probably never going to listen to me, but the point is, because he has a business. You know, he's done well creating this thing. You would be surprised by how many people you can actually access and get. I mean, I am like continually blown away by the people that we're having conversations with. Like we were just in Steven Pressfield's house. I mean, there's some people that might not know who that is, but in the nonfiction book world, he's like, he's a God. And it's just like, blows me away. So I'm just like, don't count yourself out. You could probably get him on. No, I like, I know people who know him, and we could probably do that. But to me, it's like, it's just like, am I really about to be a very hostile part? Or it's like, you know, we're, no one is who I am, and I'm here debating a legend in the world's view. But anyway, that's someone I would have on just because. But if it's for the betterment of society in the world? Like my whole thing is like graduate. Like my whole thing is like graduate. Like, okay, cool, you've done this thing. We all know you have wonderful graduate. What's the next thing? Show me an evolution. Show me your next, show me your next theater. Show me you can do more, right? And I think that thing with Malcolm, that's the thing that gets me Did you read The Bomber Mafia? Yes, I did. I did. That's a different type of book. I was just thinking that when you were on your whole rant, I was like, I think he has graduated, but I think he's stopped. Can you call it a rant? Sure. Oh, okay. The Bomber Mafia, yeah. It's a familiar, it's a familiar true, if you listen to the podcast enough. Malcolm, we love you Malcolm. Yeah. But I think that it's you, you stopped because he wasn't fulfilling that need. But then he did evolve, you know? Who's your guest of choice? I would go with Malcolm too, but for a different, I'm a Malcolm fan. That's right. You are a big fan. So who's the other side? Because you said it's a two-sided thing or maybe you didn't have another person. I'm trying to think in terms of who, you know, recently I really fell in love with Dr. Gabor Mate, Gabor Mate. Actually, he was on, Tim interviewed him. And so he's like a therapist, but what he really gets down in the heart of is like, he has really good perspectives on humanity and how everything is a function of us caring for each other. And so his whole belief is like, there wouldn't be prisons if we just help people deal with their traumas. And he has countless research to suggest that's true. He has some research to suggest that women in particular who say yes all the time or just very loving at some point is usually because they went through some trauma as a child, specifically sexual abuse. And most of those women haven't, like they've embraced that moment and they don't wanna let it out. And so they sort of just shelter it. And that leads to cancers of like very specific varieties. And so what I love about, I guess the philosophy that he's trying to bring is that there's a level of data. He actually talked to Tim. This was the craziest thing ever. So he talks to Tim and they're having like, you know, they're just opening up to each other. And I guess they've had sessions together. And so this is during a potluck. This is on YouTube, you can go watch it. And at some point the doctor says, but Tim, you know why you do that, right? And Tim says, okay, are we opening up right now? And he's like, I think your audience deserves that basically. And Tim was molested as a child. And this is the moment like he opens up. And I'm watching this on YouTube at like 11 o'clock. I'm thinking, I'm just gonna watch five minutes and I'm gonna go to bed. And now I'm just deep in, I'm like, oh my God, Tim. Like I feel bad for Tim. And then Tim talks about how the doctor has helped him. But he's also really aware of the trauma and the little, like the reasons he does certain things that impact his life, his business. And so it's really powerful actually. So I ended up not sleeping at all that night cause then I finished that at like 1 a.m. Then I went and downloaded the book and I finished the book by four in the morning. Oh wow. Yeah. And so it was like that level of like, oh my God, I gotta read this guy. And so I just think he, his philosophies are really inspiring to the world. I saw you meant Grant Cardone. Any cool tips from Grant, Uncle Grant? Yeah, Grant's awesome. So we've interviewed him twice, once online and then once in person. I'll tell you what, Grant in person, he gives you his full attention. Eyes are on you, nothing else in the world matters. Two or three times during my interview with him, his team said, hey, come on, we gotta go. Next engagement, next engagement. He said, who pays the bills around here? I'm having a phone conversation, leave me alone and then eyes are locked back on you. And so it was cool to get that level of attention from him and he seemed so genuine. When he walked through the sales floor in his building in Miami, everybody claps. Like they love him. And so that culture is very different than what you see on social media. He's caring, he's paying attention, he's in your face. And then you get the Grant with the jet in the background. Like that's a different- Don't be a little bitch. Yeah. Note to self, we gotta clap for you every time you enter. Yeah, the clapping is, you could almost make that a weird take on, like a reverence of like cult-like quality. You could, maybe there is a little bit of that. But I think every great leader or founder will have that. Like there's an aspect of them if they could start a call if they wanted to. I think something that's interesting, just cause it's fresh on our mind is Grant had a line, I don't know if he said it to me or if it was in one of his books, but he said, if you don't have a pick a number, if you don't have a $250,000 offer, then nobody can spend $250,000 with you, right? So increase your ceiling. Have it on the paper. Every once in a while somebody will buy it. And so we're just with Alex yesterday. Alex spent something like $150,000 to get mentored by Grant for a couple of hours. And one of the lessons that Alex always talks about is you have to have a grand slam offer. You have to have something that like you smirk a little bit when you say it, just because it's that unreasonable. And I think both of those guys just think in such big volume. We were just at a conference out in Salt Lake City and there's one of these speakers that got up and he talked about basically just the abundance of mindset. And while we were there, like it unlocked a lot of things for myself in just in giving. And I made like a huge commitment to sell my house and move like all this stuff because like you realize that you get stuck. You get stuck in thinking really small and then you're just afraid to make a move because you're afraid that oh, the worst of the worst is gonna happen. And all that knowledge and everything just kind of got unlocked for me. I was like, okay, I'm in such a scarcity mindset and staying where I'm at because I'm like, I'm very comfortable here. I can pay my bills, but then there's the flip side of that where you're not growing anymore. You're just stuck. And that's a very scary place to be because I remember I told my wife this I was like, this could be my coffin. Oh, let's go. I fucking love that shit. I know. And it's just like, if you think about it, it's true that- What did she say? She was like, we are getting this house. I love that. We are getting out of here. I love that. This could be my, I'm gonna drop that on my life tonight. She's gonna be like, this is a good coffin. Yeah. Do you know what I'm saying? It could be. I mean, like you could have a bigger coffin. And it's like, then it gets down to like, what do you want out of life? And all this stuff. And I just was like thinking I want more experiences in my life. And I just don't want to be stuck around small minded people, which I'm very much around right now. And like working with people like Nick and the guys we're surrounded with now I'm elevating the people I'm around. And I just want to continue to do that because I've been so stuck. I've been stuck in this little place for so long around people that think really small. The people that just complain about this everyday stuff. I'm like, this guy, this stuff doesn't matter. Yeah. Like it's, you're complaining about the weather. You're complaining about this thing. Let me ask you this. This is something that I think about all the time. It's so in your scenario, right? Let's say you're at a hometown wedding and everyone's thinking small. You're there, you've achieved some things. The thing that always that I think about all the time is like, if I could say like two sentences to somebody and they, and it changed their life. Like I think about this all the time. All right, so whether it's like employees, whether it's people you work with. But it's like, man, if I could just say a couple words, if I could just pluck words from the English language and it would get them to understand. Like what is that? Like that thing, it drives me crazy instead of the process of like 40 books, 10,000 hours, a little Malcolm. I mean, I think it's like one of those really simple things that it's like take action on your dream, whatever that is. Like just go after, if you want to be an actor, go try it, go try it. Like I just, I tell people that all the time. I mean, at this point I have disrupted way too many people's lives because I'm always telling people to go do what you want to do. I'm like, why are you doing that? Do they still like you? Oh yeah, I have like long-term friends. I just gave a bunch of money to a friend who's like pursuing his dream because I'm super excited about it and just like I'm just helping him out. But. What a guy. That was one of his conference. He stood up at this conference and said that to the entire room. Because I had been wanting to help this guy for a long time. How much money are we talking about? Like hundreds, thousands? Not hundreds, I mean thousands. I mean, yeah, thousands. Tens of thousands? There we go. Tens of thousands. To like start a company? Yeah, basically. And it's something that was like, it was on my heart. So you're an investor. You didn't give him the money. No, no, no, I gave it to him. I gave it to him. I said, I don't want anything back. I just want you to, I just want you to pursue your dream. Because I believe in people so much and when people have a passion for something, I'm like just go after it. I don't care what it is, just go after it. And the worst case, the worst case you fail and I always tell people this, especially that I'm good friends with them, worst case you fail, come sleep on my couch for a couple months a year or whatever you gotta do to get back up. So you give them the option. Yeah, then they're not afraid, right? Because like, See why I asked you to join the business? That's often like the problem that people are, they're just so afraid, they're afraid of failure and they're afraid. Like for me, man, I'm gonna get teary eyed here, but like when I think of failure, it's like, especially when I was younger, like I didn't have any fallbacks. I didn't have, like I love my parents, but they weren't gonna be a fallback for me. So it was like, I had nothing. It was like, I had to succeed in some way, or I was going to be homeless. Do you love that about yourself today though? Yeah. You have to, right? Yeah, I do. I think it's, I often like, I don't give myself enough credit because I'm always like, I don't know. I just, I don't give myself credit. Bro, I always tell people this thing where it's like, if you had that story or if you had parents that neglected you or abuse or whatever or you had no backstop, you're a unicorn, you're LeBron. So many people would have folded. Like, frankly, if the odds were against you like that, I will say like, you're a legend. That's why I feel like I've kind of folded like at the place I'm at in this comfort zone because now I'm afraid to like do the, go try and get to the next level. That's the inner drive. I love that. I love that. It's scary because again, it's like, I get rid of this house. All of a sudden like whatever, bills might go, I don't know what happens, but all of a sudden it's like, now I'm put in this position, I have to make more money. Yeah. Like I have no choice. Figure this out. Yeah. Good thing the world allows for that. Yeah. You can always go make more money. Yeah. My core beliefs are like, the mouse will always find the cheese and sort of the maze. And so then I'm like, okay, so now it's a human, not a mouse. And so what cheese do you really want, right? Is it like a slice of cheddar? Is it some like fine brie or whatever it is, right? Like you get to decide because it's your maze. And some people, it takes them six months and people take them six years, but I think the human will always, generally speaking, find the reward. That's a good core belief I have. Well, recently I saw a video, like what reward are you going after? The question was, would you trade places with Warren Buffett? He's worth a hundred billion dollars. Exactly. So the answer is no, right? So time is worth more than money. For sure. But most of us don't think about that. We trade 40, 50 hours a week of our time for money that isn't gonna help us build our dreams anyway, for the most part of your work in the traditional nine to five thing. Yeah. So that's really my story. So my story, so I lost my father when I was really young. And so when that happens to you, my whole life has always been about solving for time. I've never had any interest in money. I've just always wanted to be the dad that kids says, hey, don't go to work today so we can go to wherever. Kids are us, Petco, the zoo, outside. And I'm like, no problem. Cause I don't have a boss and I've solved for time. So that's what my whole life has been all about solving for time. Right, but I didn't have a second choice. I didn't have a backstop. There was nothing new country, new rules, new language. And so for me, like that's been the journey of like, all right, cool. Let's just constantly solve for time and then just keep thinking bigger and bigger and bigger. All right, let's go back to book thinkers. This has been amazing. How do we graduate? Like what's on the horizon for book thinkers? What's the thing? Well, I think one of the biggest realizations that we had last year was that we don't need to be the ones making the book recommendations. We can support authors and help them reach their target audience more efficiently. And that's a much more scalable model because we're not the bottlenecks. Like our social pages aren't the bottlenecks. And so that was a really big thing for us. It helped us grow a lot last year. And so I read this book back in the day called Built to Serve by Evan Carmichael. Have you guys heard of it? No. He's a YouTuber, a couple of million subs focuses on entrepreneurship. He has this framework called who, why, how. So he says your purpose comes from your pain kind of like serving your younger self. And so my purpose is progress. Like I feel fulfilled when I go to sleep if I've made progress in my health, my wealth, my happiness or if I've helped somebody else make progress in their health, their wealth, their happiness. Why? Because I went from full of ego and insecure to focused on impact and very secure. And books helped me make that jump. And so who, why, how? Well, the how, I thought it had to be us. I thought we had to make those introductions. We had to make it happen. But if we can support authors, help them create better high performance content for social media or interview them in a way that creates vulnerability that they're not typically showing, they can connect with more people themselves and we're giving them those tools. And so I think right now that's what we're focused on. We're just focused on working with really amazing people, helping them tell really amazing stories. And what will it look like in a couple of years? I have no clue. We write our goals in pencil right now because it's changing so fast all the time. Yeah, I think the thing that kind of will remain the same is that we want to give people the ability to leverage the knowledge that's available to them so they can live better lives. Like everything you want to do, everything you want to learn, it's all out there. All the information is there and then you just have to gather that information and then like you did, just implement on it. So would you ever do a course or is your approach more a one-on-one type thing? I think a course is a natural step in the right direction. He brings it up all the time. For the authors? For the authors, yeah. And we'll focus more on the reader side too. So I'm going to put out a book later this year. It's already done pretty much. And it'll focus on how to retain and implement more information from the books you're reading because it's a big problem in our community. You're reading and not applying, reading and not applying. But on the author side, yeah, I think we'll put out courses on how to leverage social media more efficiently to sell books essentially. Let's end with favorite books. My favorite read last year was $100 million offers by Alex Hormozzi. Amazing. Added a lot of money to our revenue last year. And he provides amazing value. So I'll just put that out there. If you're a business owner, especially if you're a service-based business, $100 million offers is incredible. I've never recommended that book to somebody and had them come back with anything other than whoa. I mentioned principles earlier. That's definitely one of my top ones. And then $100 million offers too. I love that last year. Two votes. Two votes for it. So it's excellent. You should read it if you haven't. That book is freaking fire. And then one more because this book, I've gifted this book more than any other book because it added literally $50,000 to my account. And it'll continue to add more, which is I Will Teach to Be Rich by Ramit Seti. Maybe it's a little basic, but for somebody who doesn't know anything about finance, like me, I didn't know shit about finance. So literally that book, I just took that book, it's a little dense, but I just took that book, read the things in it, and then just started implementing the things in it like immediately. And over the course of two years, it added literally, I added $50,000 to my account. So that book is, I'm always gifting that book. And then you helped a friend. That's quite the review. You helped a friend. Then you helped a friend with some money. Yeah, exactly. And mine is Boomerang by Michael Lewis. I've really recently gotten into him. I've seen the movies that have been based on like the Big Short, Money Ball, but Boomerang is basically a follow-up to the Big Short in that he went around, like the Big Short was focused on the U.S. economy and how it collapsed. Boomerang was how that reverberated around the rest of the world in Greece, Iceland, all over. And he's kind of similar to Malcolm Gladwell, and he's a great storyteller, but he dives into such depth and it exposes in the inner workings of the financial systems all around the world that kind of made me look at how everything is connected in a new way and see things for, okay, I wasn't aware of this problem, but the trickle-down effect makes sense once you're aware of the origin point. And so, I definitely am going to be getting more into his other books now. I love books like that. That can open your eyes to new perspectives. Yeah. So while that you just mentioned Greece and Iceland, because those were the two countries that we just talked about in our last podcast. Yeah. And you're going to Iceland. Yeah, and I'm going to, well, that's why we brought up Iceland, yeah, on Iceland next week. But it's just so funny that you brought those up. Well, his argument was, or what he showed in the book was that Iceland was a nation of fishermen, and then all of a sudden they learned that they could become a nation of bankers and with basically borrowing foreign currency against their own with the expectation that their currency would rise, and then it was like arbitrage. They'd borrow money from another country, and then their risk would rise, and all of a sudden they could pay it back and then have interest on their own. But when theirs crashed, basically the entire island just went bankrupt because they were at a house of cards and fell. No, I love that. Well, I'll throw one more out there that isn't talked about so much. One of my top five favorite books of all time, Bar and None, is Vagabonding by Rolf Potts. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I read that book and then started to travel a lot, and it's less expensive than you think, and you can discover, as he says in the book, whole new continents with inside of yourself, because traveling to a country where you don't speak the language like you did, you embrace discomfort every second of every day, and you're forced to think on your feet, and that's a growing experience for everybody, so I highly recommend that book. That's awesome. I think mine's the Almanac of Naval Ravicanas. That's a great one. We had Eric on the podcast, and that's also probably, I'm gonna end with, the dream interview would be Naval. I just love how he synthesizes information and gives it to you in like 10 words. Yeah, and that's like, I feel like Alex Ramosy does a pretty good job at that, too, and that's why I like him, because I'm like, you're just simplifying this down. It's a real gift. Yeah, it is, because it's like, you're taking these super complex ideas and distilling them down to us. Well, they both use Twitter. That's the common thread between them. You're forced to condense your thoughts into it. I don't like Twitter. It's interesting hearing you say the things that you like about Naval, and what you have always tried to achieve when you're at a wedding or whatever. I think, if I'm gonna break it down, the reason you like Naval is because he's able to achieve what you're trying to do. What do you achieve at a wedding? Like in terms of saying two sentences to someone in order to inspire them. Yeah, because my wife and I, and this is just a general principle for people, it's like, you just continue to get uncomfortable, right? And so, if $100 is a lot to you, go spend 200. If once that becomes a lot to you, go spend 500, right? Change your credit card alerts from 50 bucks to 100 bucks to 1,000 bucks to $10,000. Fly first class, go to that five-star hotel. Because once you're there, it'll make you think so differently. And so, it's a principle my wife and I bought in on a long time. We've been married eight years. So from the jump, we've just always were like, let's go to these, we're in our early 20s. Let's go here, we can't afford it. Fuck it, we'll figure it out. And now it's like, we look back and we're like, ah, that was, remember that? Remember how weird that felt at the time? There's a point of like always just boostering your financial IQ, right? And just continuing to get. Yeah, change the environment that you're in. Yeah. It's like that, getting out of your comfort zone. That's why I keep saying it, but like the house I'm in, I just, I love that. I need to take a step and get out of it because I will, I'll just, I could just stay there comfortably for the rest of my life. Or where can people find you guys? This has been amazing. The number one spot is on Instagram, at BookThinkers. Sooner website. Yeah, it's Sooner website. But yeah, check us out on Instagram and if you're struggling with something that you feel like is unique to you, reach out with that problem and we'll provide a good book recommendation that can help you take steps to solving it. That's what we love to do. I love it. Thank you guys for providing a service to the world coming on the pod, sharing the story. So good. This was a great conversation. Yeah, thank you guys. Appreciate it. If you made it this far, I bet you loved the episode. So you should join our YouTube channel membership for only $2.99 a month. 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