In this solo YouTube video, Nick Hutchison answers a frequent question from his "Book Thinkers" audience about how he decides which books to read. He outlines six primary sources of inspiration: (1) Instagram book accounts that focus on nonfiction, personal development, psychology, and philosophy, which provide reviews and create a fear‑of‑missing‑out effect; (2) his close friend group, whose members all read personal‑development books and challenge each other to grow; (3) other titles by authors whose work he already values, citing Robert Kiyosaki and Ryan Holiday as examples; (4) books referenced within books he’s reading, especially in nonfiction works like Tim Ferriss’s collections; (5) podcasts that regularly recommend books, such as The Science of Success and BiggerPockets; and (6) direct promotions from authors and publishers, which can surface high‑quality titles from lesser‑known writers. He notes that he maintains a large “to‑be‑read” list (around 500 books) and continuously reprioritizes it based on these six channels. He invites viewers to suggest additional sources and asks for questions, ending with a friendly sign‑off.
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Hello, Book Thinkers family. I hope everybody is having an amazing day. Today's video is going to answer a question that I get asked all the time, and that question is, hey Book Thinkers, how do you decide what books you're going to be reading? There are really 6 places that I draw inspiration from, and number one, not surprisingly, is Instagram. I follow a lot of amazing book Instagram pages. They're all focused on nonfiction, personal development, self-help, psychology, philosophy, all of the same stuff that I'm reading. And they provide written reviews, they provide video reviews. I love consuming that kind of content. Now, not only does it provide me ideas for what I should be producing in different styles for pictures and videos and things like that, but it also provides me books that I should be reading. If 4 or 5 of those book Instagram pages, which I find to be extremely credible people— I know that they like the stuff that I like because I'm consuming their content all the time— if they're telling me that there's a good book out there, a new book or something that's trending right now, I'm going to get it. You can bet that. Now there's also a little bit of fear of missing out. If everybody's talking about it, I want to consume it too. That means it's popular for a reason. There's probably some good stuff in there. Number 2, my personal friend group. You know the saying that says we become the average of the 5 people that we spend the most time with? Well, the 5 people that I spend the most time with outside of Instagram, my friend group, my core friend group, they're all reading personal development books. And there's a reason for that. We want to challenge each other, we want to push each other, we want to make sure that our friend group is rising. We rise together, and we really like that. Number 3, authors. If there's a good book that you read and the author has written multiple books, you should check them out. A lot of people overlook that. So something— well, a good example, I guess, would be Rich Dad Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki. Raise your hand if you've read that book. Well, we've all read that book, right? Well, Robert Kiyosaki has written a dozen other books. Why haven't we all of those. I've read a couple of them, and I'm kind of guilty of this. It's a little bit hypocritical, but I love reading books written by authors where I find value in one book that I've read. Something like a Ryan Holiday book. If you've read Ego Is the Enemy, you're probably gonna like The Obstacle Is the Way, or many of his other books. That's just one example, but I find a lot of inspiration from that. If I read a good book, I'll buy their other books as well. Number 4, And it's kind of in that same vein, but if you read a good book and the author references other books within that book, it happens all the time in nonfiction, you should pick it up. Tim Ferriss is a good example of that. In Tools of Titans or Tribe of Mentors, he asks the people that he's interviewing what books have had a big impact on their lives, and I'm over there circling them, going on Amazon, buying them immediately. I love consuming books that credible people read. Number 5, podcasts. I was a big podcast guy before I was ever on Instagram, so I'm talking 3 or 4 years ago, right when I started my reading journey. The first podcast that I ever got into was called The Science of Success, and it was hosted by Matt Bodnar. And Matt Bodnar would talk about these amazing books like Mindset by Carol Dweck and so many others. And I'd sit there, I'd pause the audio, and I'd write it down or whatever the case was, but I was always getting books from those. And then today I listened to the BiggerPockets podcast. It's a real estate investment show, and the 2 co-hosts ask every single person that they're interviewing, what's your favorite real estate investment book? And also, what's your favorite business book? And a lot of my inspiration is drawn from that. If credible people are recommending these books, you should be reading them too. And then the last place, promotions. I have authors and publishers reach out to me all the time and they say, hey, Book Thinkers, or hey, Nick, I would love for you to read a copy of this book that I've just published or that I'm publishing on behalf of X author. We'd love to get a copy into your hands. Now, between— well, I think in the US every single year there's somewhere between 600,000 and 1 million books published every single year. There are a lot of books that don't make it onto the Amazon trending lists or that don't make it onto Instagram, onto these popular Instagram pages. So you can find a lot of value by listening to those people. And a lot of books that I've read that I've found a ton of value in were small-time authors publishing their first book, and they reached out, they sent me a copy, and I read it, and I'm like, wow, that was an amazing book. So that's really the 6th and final place that I draw inspiration from. I hope that you found some value in this video today. I hope it gave you another lane or 2, another avenue or 2 to discover and find your next read. There are probably 500 books on my to-be-reading list, but I'm always shifting and prioritizing based on those 6 categories. If you have any questions for me or any additional places that you think I should be looking to find my next read, let me know. And with that, I hope you have a great day. All right, bye.
