Books, Business, and Balance - Nick Hutchison - Built to Finish - Episode # 015

Welcome to Build to Finish. I'm your host, Steven Pivnik. Join me each week as we explore the journeys of audacious goal setters. This includes experienced founders, CEOs, and entrepreneurs sharing pivotal moments that propel their success. We'll also be talking with endurance athletes who push the limits of physical and mental ability. This show is brought to you by Acrisis, offering tailored, high-impact advisory services To help founders get to their finish line with a strategic acquisition or majority investor recapitalization. Let's get started. Welcome back to another episode of Built to Finish. Today's guest is a visionary behind a rapidly growing 7-figure marketing agency that bridges the gap between authors and readers. He is also the host of a globally top 2,000-rated podcast called Book Thinkers: Life-Changing Books. where he interviews world-class authors like Grant Cardone, Lewis Howes, and Alex Hormozi. In addition to being a marketing expert, he's a bestselling author and speaker. He is currently the founder and CEO of BookThinkers. Nick Hutchison, welcome to the show.

I'm excited to be here. And we should also note that you have been interviewed on the BookThinkers podcast. And so it features some pretty cool authors.

I love to be in the list with Grant Cardone and Alex Hormozi. Thank you for mentioning that.

Yeah. Well, listen, I'm excited to be here. You are somebody I've looked up to since I met you, and you've influenced me to do a lot of cool things like sprint triathlons and all sorts of stuff. So yeah, excited to dive in.

Thanks, Nick. Thanks for mentioning that. Yeah, I missed it in the introduction, but I should mention that as of last year, you are now officially a triathlete and also a father. So congratulations on both of those.

Yeah, thank you. It's, uh, it's been a wild ride in all of the best ways. And so not only did I complete a couple of sprint triathlons because of you last year, but I signed up for 3 more, and I'm— I even signed up for an Olympic this year. So I'm working my way up.

Yes, I, I love it that you're taking the path that I took because I hear about so many people that hear about triathlon and go straight for Ironman. And I think that is such a poor decision to make that you should take it slowly but surely, you know, increase your distances, increase your endurance, and work your way into Ironman. So thank you for not, not jumping all into the Ironman world and doing an Olympic next.

Yeah, you know what, you actually, you've had a big impact on the way that I train. I mean, something I've heard you say so many times, both in person, in your book, and in your content on social media is the idea of not fast, not last, right? So, you're not training to the point that you will get injured as part of the process. And part of getting injured is committing to something too fast. But you're also not aiming to be last, right? So, you're still pushing yourself. You're still trying to make progress. You're still doing your best, but not at the expense of your body. And I'm taking that same approach. So, maybe 3 years from now or something, you might hear me Doing a couple of Ironman events, the full-distance triathlons. But so far, sprints and Olympics for me.

Well, when you're ready, and I'm sure it's just a matter of time, and when you're ready for Ironman, let me know which one you sign up for, and I'd love to be there with you. Racing, that is, not just supporting. I mean, both racing and supporting.

Yeah, no, that would be a lot of fun. And you've also inspired me to kind of view endurance events as an opportunity to travel with my family because you've done so many cool Events. I mean, I remember you telling me about one in Austria.

That's my favorite.

I just think that's the coolest thing. So I will, uh, we'll do one together and we'll do one somewhere really fun.

Fantastic. I'm, I'm going to hold you to that.

Yeah. Good.

All right. So back to you for a second. I love your book, Rise of the Reader. It's such a compelling title. Can you share the inspiration behind the book and what message do you hope readers walk away with?

Sure. So over the last 10 years or so, I have read and implemented hundreds of personal development and business type books. I love reading as a way to improve my life. So when I pick out a book, I'm looking for a specific problem that I want to solve or a specific skill that I want to acquire, a specific person that I want to learn from or about, or a perspective that I'd like to diversify and learn a little bit more about how other people see the world. And so as I started reading and implementing these books, and as they started to change my life, I started to share the books I was reading on social media. And that's really the origin story of Book Thinkers right there. And so as that audience just got bigger and bigger and bigger, I accidentally became an expert on books. Now, I never intended to be the expert on books, but once you have a large audience where you're talking about one specific thing, it just kind of happens. And so, Steven, I was getting hundreds and hundreds of similar questions about the reading process. People would ask me, Nick, how do I retain more from the books I read? Every time I read one, it excites me, but then I forget what I read 2 weeks later. Or, hey, how do I take more action on the books I'm reading? Again, they excite me, but my life doesn't seem to change. Of course, I would answer every single person that asked a question, and I just realized over time that It would be more efficient to document all of those answers inside of a book. And that way, every time somebody asks me how to improve their reading process, I could just send them a copy of Rise of the Reader. And so that's sort of the origin story for the book. And it's been a wild ride now, you know, so many thousands of people have read it and I've heard some great testimonials.

You definitely read more than anybody I know. You're probably the next 10 people combined don't read as much as you do. Um, do you ever read for entertainment? Or, and if I'm assuming the answer is yes, and what or who do you read for entertainment?

That's a great question. There, there are periods of time where I read for entertainment more than others. Right now is not one of those times. And I think, you know, it's funny, I have this kind of romantic idea in my head that one day in the future when I've checked all of the boxes, crossed all the T's, dotted all the I's, I'll probably move fully into entertainment. So a lot of fiction and fantasy and all of the classics. But at this point, I'm reading for practicality and strategy. I'm solving problems and building skills. So not, I would say only about 5% of my reading is for entertainment. And I love going back. This is going to sound goofy for anybody that knows me really well, but I love going back to some of the stories that I read when I was much younger, before I fell out of love with reading. So the first thing that comes to mind is a series called Del Toro's Quest. It's a young adult kind of adventure series set, you know, knights and dragons and monsters and all of that kind of stuff. And it's very easy reading, but it was a series that I loved when I was in middle school. And so last year I went back and I reread that whole series just for entertainment. And Yeah, it was a lot of fun.

Yeah, I'm sure you appreciated it from a totally different perspective reading it as an adult, right?

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And by the way, sometimes people when they hear me talk, they think, oh wow, this guy just, you know, he just reads business books. He's probably not a lot of fun. Like, I see so much value in reading for entertainment and I see so much value in other forms of entertainment. It's just with a lot of my extra time, I enjoy reading and implementing nonfiction books. And so I'm just a little bit unique like that.

Well, I'll be the first to say you are a lot of fun. You know, we've hung out as part of working together and yes, you are a wealth of knowledge on the business and personal development front, but you're also a lot of fun.

Well, thank you. Yeah, we've shared a drink together and I'm sure we'll share many more.

Exactly. So speaking about business books, right? There's so many that come out literally on a weekly basis. It's really hard to come up with anything new these days, right? Everybody just comes up with a, you know, catchy title and a different approach. What is your advice to readers to like to go through, you know, this incredible amount of, you know, output that's being produced and to select something that's really going to be meaningful in their lives?

Yeah, I think that process starts with some awareness. I think instead of reading the next book you see on social media or the next book on the New York Times bestseller list, or the next book that your friend recommends to you, slow down and do a little personal inventory for yourself, right? What problems are you facing in the next couple of months? What skills would it really benefit for you to acquire? And as you get more selective I think your scope starts to narrow a little bit. And now instead of reading a business book, you're reading a book on scaling your business. And maybe it's a book on scaling your tech business. And maybe it's a book on scaling your tech business in the education industry. And I think the farther you can go and the more clarity you can get around what problems you're solving or what skills you're looking to build, the books will start to identify themselves. And love 'em or hate 'em, Amazon is the best place to look at book reviews because they have the most data. And so one of my favorite tips to give to everybody when looking at books on platforms like Amazon is to toss out the 5-star reviews and toss out the 1 and 2-star reviews.

Interesting.

Because typically those are, yeah, they're written from a place of emotion, right? They either love the author or hate the author. And I think the reviews are a little biased sometimes. Where you really get the valuable stuff is in the 3 and 4-star reviews. And that's where you might see something like, hey, I bought this book because it promised to solve this problem. And while it did for the most part, here were some of the things I didn't like about it. And you get well-thought-out constructive reviews. And so go niche, go narrow, get really focused on what you're trying to solve. And then as you're looking through reviews, In books of that category on Amazon. That's my favorite tip.

That's a great tip. So going forward, I'm not gonna read 5-star reviews anymore. I'm going straight to the 4s and the 3s. That's where the gold nuggets are.

Now, as an author, it stinks to see a 3 or 4-star review, but oftentimes that is where you get really good feedback.

Agreed. Totally agreed. I did not like the few that I received on that level, but It looked that people definitely took the time to write what they felt versus a lot of my friends that I just asked to give me 5 stars, which we all do.

Same here.

So I know that in response to all your followers' questions about advice on how to retain knowledge from a book, you just actually send them the book. So provide us like with just a little teaser, just, you know, 1 or 2 tips and tricks on how to really retain And more importantly, how to apply the knowledge that's shared in a lot of these great books. Yeah.

Now I have so many recommendations, but the one that I like to share on podcasts like this, because it's usually very clear for people, is I like to set a SMART goal for every book that I read. And SMART is an acronym typically used in the business world for goal setting. It stands for specific, Measurable, attainable, relevant, meaning you're emotionally connected to the goal and it's relevant to your life. And then time-bound, you give yourself a deadline to take action. And so that's not a new concept for most people listening to today's show, but applying it to the books you read typically is a new concept. And so let's use Built to Finish, your book, as an example. Let's say that somebody heard you on my podcast or they saw your book somewhere and they thought, hey, I'd like to do an endurance event sometime soon. Let me read this book and see what Steven Pivnik is all about. Instead of just cracking the book open and starting your book, which would be a great option, but there's a way to do it better. You stop, you slow down, and you set a SMART goal. Something like, I'm looking to find and implement at least one strategy that I can use to complete a triathlon in the next year. Now that's specific. I'm looking for one strategy. It's measurable. At the end of the experience, did I implement at least one strategy to do an endurance event in the next year? It's attainable. I didn't say do, you know, a full-distance Ironman triathlon. I just said a triathlon, an endurance event. Yeah. It's relevant because that's why I picked up your book. Like, I'm excited about endurance events. And then it's time-bound. I said in the next year. So I gave myself a deadline to take action. And I think when you read with a little bit more of an intention, right? You set a SMART goal, you build a specific goal for the book. You're so much more likely to take action on what you've read. And so that's an example of what I teach in my book, Raz of the Reader. And it's just, you know, everybody can kind of tell the theme. It's getting more Focused on what you're looking to get out of the material you consume.

Now, when I read that in the book, I thought that was brilliant because in the business world we hear SMART all the time, right? But to apply that type of methodology to a book, I think is ingenious and it's really valuable because then you truly do walk away with something versus you putting it down and picking up the next one.

Yeah, thank you. I heard a great piece of advice after I had written the book about TED Talks. Somebody told me the most successful TED Talks are 80% familiar and 20% brand new. And so you typically take a concept that is familiar, like SMART goals. 80% of the audience knows about SMART goals, but the 20%, the brand new, the thing that nobody in the audience has done is apply that SMART goal framework to the books they're reading.

Right.

And so although I didn't design the book to follow that, it was validating to hear it because yeah, you know what? It is brand new for a lot of people to combine those 2 things.

That's really interesting. So a big bonus to your book is the section at the end where you offer, you know, tips and tricks and excerpts from all, from some of your favorite books. Excerpts aside, you know, what 1 or 2 books have really shaped you personally and professionally?

Going back in time a little bit, I think the first book that got me jumping out of my chair like, wow, life can be so much better than it is, and I'm excited to go live it, was The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss. Now, Tim Ferriss is an investor, he's an entrepreneur, he's a health nut, right? A biohacker. He's an author. He's many things. And in this book, The 4-Hour Workweek, he kind of kicks off by talking about the new rich. He says the new rich, they value time and mobility over material wealth. They look for flexibility. They want to delegate. They want to create freedom in their own lives. They want to ditch the 9 to 5 and design a life that's uniquely fulfilling to them. And at the time when I read that, Stephen, I was working a full-time software sales job. I was in a cubicle, in an office, 5 days a week from 9 to 5. And I just thought, I wonder if an alternative version of life actually exists. And then he goes on in the book to explain exactly how he built the life that he has. And I followed him step by step. I mean, I even traveled internationally and went to some of the same places he went to by myself just to experience it. And so, that's an example of implementing a book. I mean, a lot of people use The 4-Hour Workweek as an example of a book that's not realistic to implement, and I just don't think people tried hard enough, right? So that's one of the business books that has truly changed my life and is responsible for the way that I live today. And I'll give one more example of a book that I've read more recently. In the last year or so, I've gone through the book 10X Is Easier Than 2X. by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy about 4 or 5 times.

I just finished it last week.

What did you think?

I thought it was great. My favorite part of that book, and I'm sure you can share a lot more of it, was when they interviewed Michelangelo about how he sculpted David. He's like, that was easy. I just took a piece of marble and I took off everything that wasn't David. So if David was my goal, I just took away everything else. So if you could, there's so many different applications to that concept. If you want to be an Ironman, take away everything else in your life that's not Ironman related, which is completely extreme, but I think listeners will get the point.

Yeah, I think so too, right? You begin with the end in mind, and that's one of the habits in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. And so you can take it to the extreme, but I love that lesson too. To me, that's representative of the idea that success is sometimes subtractive, not additive. So a lot of people think, I just need to do more, more, more, more, more, more, more. But then you realize a lot of very successful people, I mean, you included, you need to remove— you need to start saying no a little bit more often. You need to remove the obstacles, and then, you know, the David will reveal itself out of the marble, which is just so cool.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, saying no is so much easier said than done. I remember a time where I felt so overwhelmed and underwater with so many different things, I actually started tracking how many times I said no in a week, and it actually gave me a dopamine hit, right? When I had an opportunity to do something and I said no to it, like, oh my God, that— what a great decision. And it felt so rewarding to, you know, turn things down and say no to various projects or opportunities that people don't really appreciate how powerful no is sometimes.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And that book that we're talking about, I think, is a better fit for somebody who's maybe a few years into business. They have something that's working, they're looking to scale it, they want to grow. You know, whereas I think when you're first starting out a business from scratch, sometimes you've got to say yes to every opportunity that comes your way just to keep your head above water financially. But yeah, as you start to mature a little bit, which I'm sure a lot of the people listening and watching to this podcast are wanting to grow their existing businesses, like, 10x is easier than 2x is such an amazing resource.

It definitely is. It definitely is. Well, so when you started BookThinkers, which is a great service, which we'll get into in, in a little bit of detail here, what were some of the biggest challenges you overcame from a startup and launch perspective?

Oof. My business was an absolute mess in the first couple of years. So one thing that was helpful for me was that BookThinkers started as a side hustle. And one of the original ideas for monetizing the business was actually to create a mobile app that readers could use to retain and implement more from the books they were reading. And so I got together with a couple of friends, we invested tens of thousands of dollars, and we spent hundreds of hours of our time outsourcing the build of this mobile app to a company in Argentina, of all places. And not only did we do no product market research or look for any potential customer fit or survey anybody, we outsourced the build to this company and then they went out of business. And so we were left tens of thousands of dollars in the hole, hundreds of hours of our time spent on this project. None of us had a technical background at all, so we were all just fully outsourcing this thing. And then we come to find out that not only did nobody want it and the company that we hired to build it went out of business, but at the same time, like there was no way to monetize it either. Like we thought through maybe affiliate income or something. So it was just a complete mess. And we dedicated, you know, a year, 2 years of our lives to building this thing out. And so I had to pick up the pieces. You know, and one of the things that you talk about in your book actually, and you talk about it both in terms of endurance events, like physical endurance events, but also the endurance event of running a business, is that obstacles happen and you need to be able to ebb and flow with them. And when you expect failure as part of the process, it doesn't surprise you as much. It doesn't knock you off course as much. And so that's one of the tough lessons that I learned early on is that failure is part of the process. Yeah, I thought I was going to make $1 million overnight and that it was going to be super easy just because I tried. No, that wasn't the reality, but I did learn a lot during that process. I learned a lot about what people don't want in the reading space, and I learned a lot about what type of business I can't run successfully. So anyway, that was a challenging experience for me, but it's grown and evolved in so many other ways since then.

That's awesome. I mean, you're definitely not alone. I think the vast majority of entrepreneurs have this feeling of this, you know, great new idea and they feel that if I build it, they will come. And the vast majority of the time they do not come because I think entrepreneurs don't listen enough to the market. Like you listened to the market, you had your followers asking you questions and therefore when those questions became so repetitive, you felt that there was a great market opportunity for the book.

Yes.

Contrast that with most entrepreneurs that think they have this, you know, great new idea that they want to bring to market, and then they spend countless dollars and hours doing it, and then they realize, oh man, that's not exactly what the market wants. So it happens more often than not.

Yeah, it really does. And books are such a great example of that because if you write a book and it's not differentiated from anything else that's out there, right? It's the 2,000th leadership book uploaded to Amazon that month, right? It's like, and nobody asked you what your thoughts on leadership were. You just wrote the book anyway. It's like, okay, that's going to be really hard to sell. But if hundreds of people are asking you very similar questions and you scour the internet and you can't find a resource to send them other than what you have in your own head, now that shows there's an opportunity. And you could apply the same thing to business. So I think, yeah, starting off with a really clear need and then making sure that the market actually needs it, you know, do I wish I started that way? Of course I do. But hindsight's 20/20 and it was a great learning experience nonetheless.

Always is, always is. So now that you've evolved and pivoted and have, you know, several years of, you know, track record behind you, what is the Book Thinkers, you know, comprehensive offering right now to the marketplace, to the author marketplace? marketplace?

Yeah, so today we offer a variety of marketing services to nonfiction and personal development style authors. So you're a good example, uh, people who have condensed decades of their knowledge in a specific subject into a book, and that book solves a specific problem or helps somebody build a specific skill. Oftentimes our clients, they also use that book as a lead mechanism for some type of backend product or service like coaching, consulting, speaking, courses, or some other type of business. And we sort of do that 3 different ways. One is through short-form video production where our team flies out to the author with the cameras and the lighting, and we help them turn the concepts from their book into either 50 or 100 short educational videos that they can use to grow across all the different social platforms. Sell books, and ultimately generate leads for their business. Number 2 is a podcast booking service where we place them on a guaranteed number of shows every month to tell their story, to sell books and generate leads for their backend business. And then the final service is our social media book review package. That's where I read the author's book cover to cover, and then I share it a number of times across all of our social media channels. And we've got Hundreds of thousands of followers across the different platforms. And we also have a podcast where we interview authors. So there are a number of different ways that we can bring exposure into the right ecosystem and help kind of amplify an author's message.

I think it's a really, really great and unique service that you offer. I'm a very satisfied customer. So thank you for— I don't know how you found me, but I'm assuming there's a way to find you authors. Thank you for finding me. And I'm a very satisfied customer. If anybody wants to see an example of some of BookThinker's work, you can just follow me on Instagram @stephenpivnik, and you'll see the majority of my short 30-second business video clips are a product of Nick's company's work.

Yeah, we had a lot of fun filming with you, and I'm sad to say that I'm not at most of the filmings anymore. Unless I'm friends with the author.

That means you're growing. That's a great thing.

It is.

Yeah.

But my team is amazing. In fact, I think they're much better than I am anyway at producing the right quality content. And oftentimes I'm just a bottleneck in the process. But yeah, they're amazing at what they do. And by the way, you're amazing at what you do. You share so much great value. And if anybody listening or watching to this show hasn't followed you on Instagram, I highly recommend that they do.

No, thank you. I appreciate that. And this is another great piece of advice for entrepreneurs. A lot of, especially early-stage entrepreneurs, they really feel that if it needs to get done right, they need to be involved. And that is a surefire way to really slow the growth of your company. So kudos to you for recognizing that you've got the right talent in place that can do the job that you used to do solo. and trusting them and empowering them to do it. And as a result, I mean, I've seen the work that they produce and you see it and you're super satisfied with it.

Yeah, and that's not an easy step to make. At least it wasn't for me. I mean, I had a bunch of different people say, Nick, the man who can do the work of 5 people is not as great as the man who can get 5 people to do the work for him, right? And it's just, it's a conversation about delegation and leadership and And kind of like, you know, submitting is not the right term, but like just allowing your team to do it. In the book Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell, he says 80% done by someone else is 100% freaking awesome. And I agree, it really is.

I love that comment. Wow, we definitely swim in the same circles because that's the book that's queued up for me to listen next.

Oh, good. Yeah, that's a fantastic one. And you'll appreciate that I had a chance to meet Dan at a Brand Builders Group event of all places. And yeah, he's, man, that book is fantastic.

Yeah, I'm really looking forward to listening to it. I've heard something recently that I wanted to run by you. I think you're the best person to run this by. A lot of people like me and you and millions like us read voraciously, like one after another, after another, after another. The advice I heard was stop, Pick one book and live that book for a year without reading just one after the next, after the next. What is your reaction to that comment?

My reaction to that comment is that I have a few different thoughts. My first thought is this. Generally speaking, when you're first getting into the world of personal development or business, I say read as many books as humanly possible and don't really worry too much about implementing that because you don't have enough awareness to know what books, what styles, what authors, what genres, what problems, what skills you're truly looking to read about. And so I think read all of the classics, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, read all of them. And then as you mature and as you gain more self-awareness, I think the less you read and the more time you spend with each book, That's a positive behavior change. And so the extreme version of that for a mature business professional who's really clear on what problems they want to solve or what skills they want to build could end up reading and implementing one book. And that could be more impactful for them if it's the right book than going through 52. So yeah, I think gradually over time, as you mature and as you get more clear, slowing down and focusing more on a single book Is a positive thing. That's my initial reaction.

No, I knew I would get a great commentary from you on this comment, because when I first heard it, you're literally the first person that came to mind. I'm like, oh my God, this is interesting. I gotta run this by Nick and see what he thinks. But that's great advice.

One final comment on that. You know, a fun thing, a fun idea is that you can never read the same book twice. And so what I mean by that is, If you space the book out a little bit, like there are some books that I've read 10, 15 times, and every time I read them, I'm reading through a new set of eyeballs, right? There's a new version of Nick Hutchison that's reading the book with new problems and new experiences and a new perspective. And so I can find something different in the book. I try to read books like The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho and The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz. Every year, and every year I find something different. And so I think reading 1 or 2 or 3 or 4 books many times has become part of my habits. And there's just so many different ways to slice the cake or cut the cake or whatever the saying is. And that's one of them.

Totally agree. So is there anything new around the corner that we can expect out of BookThinkers as far as a service offering or A new idea that you're bringing to market?

Yeah, you know what, we're always experimenting. We're always kind of expanding like an accordion and trying out new things and then compressing like an accordion and getting back to the basics, right? So Rory Vaden at BBG, he always says diluted focus gets diluted results. But as an entrepreneur, and I know you're the same way, we get excited by different things and we want to try them out. And some of them work and they stick and they stay with you. And they get kind of brought into your core service offerings. But a lot of times those things don't stick and you've gotta shed them and get back to the fundamentals. And so last year we tried a few new services. The one that seems to have a lot of potential and one that we're still exploring is stepping into the speaking world. So all of the authors that Book Thinkers represents in some way, shape, or form, whether it's a transactional one-time video engagement or some type of ongoing relationship, Everybody can speak. Everybody can provide value. Everybody can show up and serve a younger version of themselves or a lesser experienced version of themselves at a business. So for example, like there's so many people that you can serve with your message, and I know that you've spent time working on your public speaking. And so if I came to you and I said, hey, I'd like to represent you in a non-exclusive way, Every time I get an opportunity that meets your minimum thresholds in terms of revenue and any other constraints you have, we book it, can I have a percentage of it? And you go, heck yeah. And then we work outside of the standard system. That's what I'm finding. You know, the speaking world is full of like an old boys club mentality. It's really hard to break into the bureaus and the organizations and associations that book so many of the speakers. But we're finding that there are so many small businesses out there, you know, we'll call it like the $2 to $5 million a year in revenue type businesses that are dealing with legitimate problems like employee turnover and retention and employee mindset and culture. And if we could find a way to get into those businesses that are not actively looking for speakers, but when presented with cool speakers would love to hire somebody. At a reasonable price to come in and boost morale. I think there's a real opportunity there, especially for some people that we represent. So that's a service that we're trying out right now, and I think that, I think it'll probably stick.

I think it will as well. From, I'm learning more and more literally on a monthly and quarterly basis about the entire speaking world. Everything you just said is totally true, and it's challenging for new speakers, you know, to break in. And I think this will be very well received by your existing customers and new customers. Kudos for recognizing that niche.

Yeah, we'll have to continue chatting about it. And then there's so many great upsell opportunities for our clients on the backend, like workshops or consulting engagements. You know how it goes, you're in that world and it's tough to break in. And if there was a more effective way to do it, kind of scrappy and playing out of bounds a little bit, maybe Book Thinkers can be that agency.

Yep. Great. Awesome. Well, good, good luck with all of that.

Thanks.

So I get asked this question all the time, or at least I used to when my kids were younger. So I'll ask it of you now. Now that you are an entrepreneur, a triathlete, and a parent, how do you personally balance those 3? Because they, each of those require an inordinate amount of time.

Yes, they do. And it's, you know, I've implemented so many amazing lessons from all of the mentors behind me. And for those that are just listening today, I've got hundreds and hundreds, maybe over 1,000 books behind me. And some people have navigated that balance more successfully than others, and those are the people that I choose to learn from. So, an example of something that I do on a regular basis is I audit my calendar. I go back a couple of weeks in my Google Calendar and I look at the events for an entire week, and I'll mark things red that took energy away from me and my family. I'll mark things yellow that were kind of neutral. You know, maybe necessary. I enjoy doing them, but not that much. And then I mark things green that brought me a ton of energy and that brought my family a ton of energy. And then I try to delegate or eliminate or automate all of the things that are red and yellow consistently so that I am only focused on the highest leveraged activities that truly bring me joy and energy. That way I can show up my best self when I lace up my running shoes, Or put my swim goggles on, or when I close down the laptop and I work with my family or spend time with my family. The last thing I'll mention, and this one, this was kind of an aha for me recently, is that as a business owner, we just need to realize that we're always going to have more work to do. Like, you can never fully check off every single box and say all of the tasks that I could possibly do are now done. And so once you recognize that, then you have the awareness to close your laptop and go, I'm at peace with that. I'm okay with that. I know there are some unanswered emails and fires that I could be putting out right now, but it's more important for me to spend time with my family and I can get to those tomorrow. And that's been a big one for me is just kind of accepting that there's always going to be more work to do.

I love that. I love that. That is such great advice for entrepreneurs and business owners at every single level. That's, that's one of my new favorite lines now. There's, there's always more to do. It's, you're, you're literally, you're literally never done. Literally. Yeah. So last question for the aspiring authors out there. I'm sure there's so many people out there that think they have a book in them and that have been putting off the authoring project forever. What advice would you give them to actually get their project off the ground?

My advice, and we talked a little bit about this earlier, but Survey the people in your community and see what questions are they asking of you the most often. And as you answer those people, keep the responses kind of like a little swipe file. Every time you get a question and every time you give a thoughtful response, file that away somewhere and you'll start to see themes. And those themes turned into chapters and those chapters eventually turned into an entire book. And so really analyze the market, see what people need, And don't be the 2,000th leadership book on the same subject in the same month uploaded to Amazon, because if that's you, it's gonna be really hard to differentiate yourself.

Fantastic advice. Fantastic advice. Nick, you've given the listeners and readers so much information. This has been so beneficial, as I knew it would be, to readers, to authors, and to entrepreneurs. So thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

And, and thank you for hosting it. Just a note for everybody in the audience who's still listening. Number one, thank you for making it this far. And number two, if you haven't, reached out and rated this podcast, please do. You know, Steven has had such an amazing impact on you, probably if you're listening to this, but also people like me. As you could see, I'm literally spending, I don't know how many hundreds of hours a year training for events that Steven got me hooked into. So, and also my business is better off and a whole bunch of other stuff. So, take this information seriously and show some support because it takes a lot of work to build a podcast like this. So, thank you, Steven. Thank you to the audience. And I had a great time today.

No, same here, same here. So I just want to echo that. Thank you for everybody that is listening, that, that is listening and watching. If you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe. If you found anything in this episode that would be useful to somebody else, please do share it. And again, thank you very much for tuning in today. That's a wrap for this episode of Built to Finish. Thank you for tuning in. For show notes and more details, head over to podcast.stephenpivnik.com. Special thank you to our sponsor, Acrisis, offering tailored, high-impact advisory services to help founders get to their finish line with a strategic acquisition or majority investor recapitalization. Catch you next week.