The Key to Unlocking Personal Transformation

KATHLEEN: Hello everyone and welcome to the journey of an awakening Spirit. This is Kathleen Flanagan, your host and we are streaming on the bold Brave TV Network.

KATHLEEN: The purpose of the show is to help you realize you are not alone, you are in control of your life. It does not matter what your lot in life is or where you came from.

KATHLEEN: We have all felt pain, suffering, hurt, abandonment, loneliness, hopelessness, et cetera.

KATHLEEN: This show helps you to take those dark moments and turn them around and create a whole. No, you, we were taught to be a certain way, act a certain way. Conform to society being socialized is not a bad thing, but it puts constraints on us.

KATHLEEN: The guests I bring on the show are telling you their story of where they came from, the obstacles they overcame and where they are today. They are sharing the tools they use to recreate themselves and their life. Some of the guests are still in their process beginning a new process, comfortable in their process or even reinventing themselves.

KATHLEEN: They are giving you tools that you use to get to gain insight into themselves to take control of their life and become the person they are today on podcast dot Kathleen M Flanagan.com is a list of the guests that have been on the show with their contact information.

KATHLEEN: I am aware that you may resonate with one or several of them. My desire is that this becomes a community where you have access to the people you wish to align with and utilize the tools that they have as well as the tools being offered on Kathleen and flanagan.com.

KATHLEEN: I am a certified coach who can help you reach your dreams. I help you learn how to rely on and believe in your unlimited potential and power. I already know that you've experienced experience, flashes of intuitive knowledge and big thinking that has you wondering just how far could you go if only I'm here to help you stir up th that innate knowing and self trust already still instilled deep in your soul.

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KATHLEEN: Nick Hutchinson stands as the visionary force behind book thinkers, a growing seven figure marketing agency that seamlessly bridges the worlds of authors and readers in just over seven years. He has organically built a platform that reaches over a million people each month.

KATHLEEN: Nick's podcast book Thinkers. Life-Changing Books is a global top 2% show that features captivating interviews with world class authors such as Grant Cardone Louis, Ha Ha Hows and Alex Her Mozi through the use of his platform, Nick has helped hundreds of authors expand their reach to hundreds of millions of readers and drive significant revenue growth as part of their book campaigns.

KATHLEEN: His expansive expansive services include short form video production, podcasting, podcast booking and social media brand building.

KATHLEEN: Now, Nick has dedicated his life to helping millions of readers take action on the information they learn and rise to their potential through his books, speaking and personal brand as a whole. This was the inspiration for his new book, Rise of The Reader where he dives into the strategies for mastering your reading habits and applying what you learn.

KATHLEEN: Welcome, Nick.

NICK: Excited to be here. Thank you so much, Kathleen.

KATHLEEN: You're welcome. So why don't you tell the readers the readers our audience a little bit about your journey of becoming an awakening Spirit of where you came from to where you are today.

NICK: Well, what might surprise anybody that could see my background today with the 1000 plus books is that I was not much of a reader growing up. In fact, I was almost against reading. I was the typical kind of athlete stereotype, not really much of the academic and that behavior that attitude carried with me through most of my college experience as well.

NICK: But my awakening moment came when I took an internship at a local software company, it was a sales internship and my boss Kyle at the Time he recommended that I start listening to podcasts actually. So I had a one hour commute each way, five days a week.

NICK: So I was spending a ton of time in the car. And I started to listen to all types of podcasts where successful individuals from a spiritual perspective, but also from a financial perspective, from a health perspective were being interviewed. And I quickly realized that so many of these people were giving at least some credit for their holistic success to the books that they were reading.

NICK: So I started to read personal development style books around the age of 20. And there's a great metaphor in one of Don Miguel Ruiz Junior's book. And the master of self.

NICK: And he says, imagine you're at a party and everybody at the party is drunk, you're the only sober one there and everybody's swinging from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other just blabbering on gossiping about nonsense and you can't communicate with anybody, right? Because they're drunk. They can't really understand what you're saying.

NICK: And that's sort of how I felt when I first got into the personal development space, I felt like a veil had been lifted. It was a sobering moment for me. There was all of this untapped potential and a roadmap to achieve it. And so that's kind of my story. That's really the first time that I started to become awake to these types of things.

KATHLEEN: When you started to become awake. What was the next step that you took to where you are, where you wrote your book? The rise of the readers, how you started taking those books and then applying them in your life.

KATHLEEN: Because a lot of times people and I was guilty of this in my younger days of taking the books, read them and like, oh, that was good but not really knowing how to apply those. So, what were the steps that you took to do that?

NICK: Well, a number of things happened so feel free to stop me at any point here. But I started reading these books and very quickly it was overwhelming. I mean, there were so many books to read and I was forgetting all the information and I was just trying to check boxes and get on to the next one and read as many books as I could.

NICK: And I felt like there was an endless list of books that I needed to read. So once I started to realize that it was only by applying information that had actually changed my behavior, I started to slow down and become a little bit more intentional with the information I was consuming.

NICK: Although I was reading these books and experiencing some success in my professional roles and battling with ego and becoming a better person. My friends and family still didn't really want to read these books. Right.

NICK: So I turned to social media and I started to post about the books I was reading there and I think that that audience that started to form, that were receiving my book recommendations, ask me follow up questions, that type of thing. They were starting to hold me accountable to figuring out how to retain and implement more from these books. I mean, so many of them started to look to me as almost like a a book guru, right?

NICK: Like that had all the book recommendations that had all the book secrets about applying information, which I didn't. But because there was such an inbound demand for that knowledge of how to retain and implement more from books, I researched it and I figured it out and I found out, right?

NICK: And I through trial and error, I built all these frameworks combining different techniques and strategies that I found all over the place. And so it happened over the course of years right through trial and error. And you know, just my own recognition that information was going in one ear and out the other. And that wasn't very useful for anybody.

KATHLEEN: When let me think about this, I wanna frame this when you created those frameworks, did you just test them out on people to see? And is that how you started to modify and tweak because eventually that led you to where you are with reading the book and how to take that on?

KATHLEEN: Was that part of it? Is that in your journey of the creating the frameworks that you were tweaking for yourself and then applying it to people to see if it was working for them.

NICK: Yes, absolutely.

NICK: You know, in so many different formats and varieties over time. But yes, you know, I, the software company that I was working at back in the day, we would sell this very complex piece of B to B software and then it would go through a period of implementation where the company would meet with a coach and go through a bunch of training sessions and they would have homework and they would practice.

NICK: And over the course of 234 months, they would implement the software that we were selling. And so I started to do the same thing with the books that I was reading, I would put each book through an implementation period and I would apply all these different strategies and frameworks and tips and tricks.

NICK: And I would try things out on myself and I built a couple of accountability groups with some of my friends that had started to get into reading or people that I met online through Instagram.

NICK: And we would test these things out and I would collect feedback and we would iterate and change things around. So the original inspiration funny enough came from that company of putting things through an implementation period.

NICK: And I noticed that the companies that would go through that implementation period and take it seriously, they would succeed with the software that they were spending tens of thousands of dollars on sometimes more.

NICK: And those that didn't, those that kind of like played around with it didn't take it too seriously. They would end up failing and wasting a lot of money and time. So that's sort of how I started to think about it with the books that we were reading.

NICK: And, you know, I realized that if you read a great personal development or spirituality book and you choose not to take action on anything that you've learned, it's closer to a form of entertainment than it is education, right? There's no difference between a great book and Netflix or scrolling on social media if you don't do anything with it, right? So yeah, that became, how do we optimize for taking action?

KATHLEEN: Well, we're gonna go ahead and take a quick commercial break.

KATHLEEN: Welcome back, everyone.

KATHLEEN: This is Kathleen Flanagan, your host and we are streaming on the bold Brave TV Network and I have Nick Hutchinson in the room with us and he is talking about the implementations that he was creating with how to utilize spiritual books, personal development books and something I got out when you were saying Nick was how the organization that you were working for, created implementations, which helped you to be able to implement what you were doing.

KATHLEEN: So I mean, what a beautiful gift that was given to you to show you how to do that. Because I know a lot of people and myself included when I was younger because it made sense of what I was reading. But that didn't mean I knew how to implement those tools.

KATHLEEN: I didn't know that I had those paradigms that were stopping me and things along those ways and with the implementation because I know when people start growing and evolving and actually trying to apply the principles, their paradigms are going to come up and they're going to hit that brick wall. What do you recommend when they have that wall come up?

NICK: Yeah, I go back to the fundamentals. I think slow and steady wins the race. I think if you can take one or two things from every book that you read and slowly make progress with attainable goals, things that are realistic that aren't overwhelming that don't cause you to procrastinate or turn back and run the other way, right?

NICK: When the wall pops up, I think that's how we overcome those obstacles. I've learned over time by interviewing a lot of successful people and reading a lot of books that the roads to success and failure are the same road.

NICK: It's just that successful people, they're driving slow, they see the obstacle pop up, they can navigate around it and they just continue taking small steps in the right direction. But it's when you're flying fast and the obstacle pops up and it's a tall brick wall. Right? And, you don't know what to do. So you turn and run in the other direction. I think that's where you get in trouble.

KATHLEEN: So, what do you recommend when somebody has fear come up? Because a lot of times fear is gonna come up because they're coming up against something. They don't know, they have no knowledge whatsoever. It's just something that comes up and then they're like, you know, they're in this death grip. What do you recommend when people come into that situation?

NICK: I am a big fan of slowing things down and operating from a place of logic and less emotion. And so when I'm faced with a bunch of fear, I actually have a number of tattoos that help me with this. So I have a tattoo on my left wrist. It's an ancient Greek word that says anorexia and that stands for stillness.

NICK: And so whenever I'm faced with something that causes an immediate fear reaction, I actually look down at the tattoo. I slow things down. I focus on my breath and I try to get to a place of logic instead of emotion. Logic is rational. Emotion sometimes is irrational and it causes you to do things that otherwise you wouldn't do if you were operating from a clear headspace.

NICK: So that's kind of step number one for me and I've been able to cultivate that as a default response over time again, by just focusing on stillness, I practice meditation on a daily basis and a number of other mindfulness related activities. And so today, right, 2024 I'm a lot more, again, logical and a lot less emotionally reactive than I used to be.

NICK: And that's a practice. That's a learned skill that I've just cultivated over a long period of Time. The other half of this equation I think is that as you grow in life, you come to realize that the fear and the failure, it's never going to go away. It's part of the process and when you expect it to happen, it's less surprising.

NICK: I think about this through the lens of failure a lot. You know, as a business owner, there are fires that I'm putting out every single day in my agency and they used to surprise me and stress me out and cause sort of an emotionally negative reaction. And over time I realized they're going to pop up. It's part of the process.

NICK: That's what you get when you sign up to live life or be a business owner. And then they don't surprise you as much. So those are a couple of the things that I think about again, just stillness operate from a logic, not emotion, mindfulness, you know, and just expect that they're going to happen so that they don't surprise you.

KATHLEEN: Are, those are good. I like those cause I have a couple that two of my favorites are I make an appointment for Friday at three o'clock with fear.

KATHLEEN: I give it three days and say we're gonna have a meeting at three o'clock and it stops the fear when I'm like, when it's really gut wrenching and it's like at me at the throat and when I do that, what I've done is I've acknowledged the fear. It's like, ok, I get it. You're here to protect me.

KATHLEEN: So let's just have a meeting about this. And so then I can just kind of divert my attention. Get back to where I'm going because fear is now like, ok, well, she acknowledged me. That's all I want. And then Friday at three o'clock, it's a no call, no show.

KATHLEEN: And that's one of the things that I enjoy. And the other one that I think is another good one is what is my future self look like? Who is the future self? You know, as long as I keep my eye on where I want to be and who I want to become that helps to, for me to minimize fear as well because right here right now, who knows what's going on inside my body or what's coming up?

KATHLEEN: But that is that who I want to be? No. So I always like to acknowledge it and keep moving very similar to what you do because we do sometimes we just have to acknowledge fear. There's a reason it's coming up.

NICK: Oh, I think so too. Yeah, I love your point. There. It reminds me of Tim Ferris, one of my favorite authors. He talks about this fear setting practice where you do imagine the worst case outcome.

NICK: So something pops up like you're about to walk on stage and you have that like your heart's beating and, and you're nervous and the anxiety is overwhelming. You get a pit in your stomach and it's like, what's the worst case scenario? Oh, I fumble a few words or I forget a few lines and I babble on for a few minutes.

NICK: Like that's not that bad. I'm still here to serve the audience. And then, you know, I mean, the real worst case scenario is like you pass out or something, but it's not life threatening. Like at the end of the day, you're going to be OK and it will make for a good story.

KATHLEEN: That's exactly true. I've done that where back in 2011 it was a very challenging year for me. My mother had passed and there was a lot of things happening in my life that I was barely hanging on with my life. And so what was the worst case scenario for me living in a buick down by the river?

KATHLEEN: That was like the worst case scenario. So I got into it. I really went down that road because what else could happen to me because I, I couldn't pay my rent. At that point, there was lots of things I was asking for help.

KATHLEEN: I was asking people saying I can do this, that type of thing. And so I lived it and I felt what it would be like to live in a buick down by the river because I know people have done it and they're still alive today and they're fine and they're prospering and you know, it was part of their journey.

KATHLEEN: So when, when I thought of that and really felt it, it was like I lived it and then I accelerated my growth because by the end of the year I was close to making $100,000 a year where, you know, eight months before I couldn't even pay my rent.

KATHLEEN: So what was that saying? It was a motivation factor because I lived what it was like and I wasn't going to stay there for any length of time, you know. So I get what you're saying on that because it's, there's a lot of truth in that.

NICK: Yeah. And what you're highlighting too is that fear can be a great motivator. I mean, there are obstacles, right? But there is a way through the obstacle and often times it's an opportunity and I think that sometimes people who live without fear, right, who take no risks, they live sort of a complacent life. And so a little bit of fear spices things up every once in a while.

KATHLEEN: I think so too. I definitely think so too because fear, fear is a great motivator. And my motto in life is you have nothing to fear but fear itself because I've always been afraid of whatever.

KATHLEEN: And I've always gone off and jumped off the skinny branches of the tree and I'll never forget I was sitting at my kitchen table and I was watching the squirrel on the roof of the deck and you could see he's like, there's the tree here I am. Can I make it? And you could see the squirrel literally thinking about this. And I'm looking at that squirrel, don't you dare, don't you even think to do that?

KATHLEEN: Because I was, this is where I was at. Ok. I was watching, actually watching myself. And so that squirrel, he decided he was gonna take a flying leap to the tree, got on the skinniest branch he could get and he just went back and forth. Go whoa, whoa, whoa.

KATHLEEN: And then went right down. And what was that? That was so symbolic of where I was in my life because that's what fear does.

KATHLEEN: That's when you take that chance, that's what it's gonna feel like that you're unstable, but you're hanging on, you got something solid and then you just go down and it's like, ok on to the next, I mean, it was a, that was such a transformational experience because of where I was out of my thinking watching a squirrel do that.

KATHLEEN: So, don't think animals don't do that. I mean, look at the birds, they sit there and play chicken in front of the, on the street until you come up. Right.

NICK: That'll be the title of your next book, Squirrel Jumps or something like that.

KATHLEEN: I know. I know. But their messages and that's how.

NICK: Oh, yeah. No, I love it. I love it.

KATHLEEN: These are definitely messages and that's what I have to look at because a lot of times we think we're so alone and isolated in this world and we're not, we are constantly being sent messages. We just don't know how to read those messages. We don't even know. We're not even paying attention to our environment to know.

KATHLEEN: I mean, there's seven birds flying across you. There's a reason, there's seven birds, there's a reason, you know, or you see an eagle or you see a mouse or you see something, if they're all.

NICK: Mess this morning, I was on a walk with my dog and I've been walking my dog at this park, same park that goes along a river for, I don't know, a year and a half straight. And today I saw a bald eagle and there are no bald eagles in Southeast Massachusetts, not where I live. But, it's just funny that you mentioned the eagle and I was thinking about it and I was like, I wonder what this means today.

KATHLEEN: What is it?

KATHLEEN: Animal speaks is the book I'll get that and may send a copy and send it to you because that's a very profound message because actually, we have an eagle that's over here. And I was really surprised when I saw the eagle over here and then one time I actually had a hawk on my front porch.

KATHLEEN: That was profound. Yeah. You know, they're sitting, it's sitting right there on the railing of your front porch. So of course you go out and you get what's the message here?

KATHLEEN: But those are, but that's part of the journey. I mean, this is part of those journey of looking at that because you become conscious of your environment and I think that's partly what you're saying with your books and the implementations that you're doing is be conscious, be present, be here now because the past is gone and the future hasn't arrived.

KATHLEEN: So the only way to really know what's going on in your life is to be present and be conscious of what are you thinking? What is coming up for you? I mean, I sit there last week, I was like, I have this persecution complex. I'm like, where the hell did that come from?

KATHLEEN: You know what I mean? And I'm like, OK, you gotta look at this because there's a reason this stupid little thoughts coming up don't know where it came from.

KATHLEEN: But if you feel it, pay attention to it and look at it because there's a message coming in and people just dismiss things like that. I didn't get into it. I didn't, I haven't figured out what it is yet but it's there and I'll find the answer. I'm not worried about it.

NICK: Yeah. No, I'm sure you will. I think, I think awareness is again, it's a learned skill. It's something that you can cultivate and you can practice with and you can improve over time. And again, I practice a 20 minute meditation every single morning. For the most part. I have my days where I miss it.

NICK: And I think about thinking and I think about my life and I think about myself and I try to stop thinking, and I try to be in the present moment as often as possible. And I, what I try to optimize for this, this was my sentence last year was enjoying the passage of time. And that's what I try to optimize for.

NICK: I try to be in the present moment. I try to enjoy the passage of time. You know, I do things that bring me life that bring me energy and I avoid things that take my energy away and that get me thinking too much about the past or thinking too much about the future. I try to be right here.

KATHLEEN: Yeah, I love it. We're gonna go ahead and take a quick commercial break.

KATHLEEN: Welcome back, everyone. This is Kathleen Flanagan, your host and we are streaming out the bold Brave TV Network and we have Nick Hutchinson in the room with us today. So Nick, tell us what you did with this implementation and then how you created your agency from it? I mean, was it just from the social media that there was a demand for this or how did that unfold for you?

NICK: Sure. So I started posting the books I was reading on social media and networking with other book readers and as my audience continued to grow, two things happened. So I kind of have two different audiences. One, I have an audience of readers, people who want to retain and implement more from the books that they're reading.

NICK: They're looking for new book recommendations. They're looking for strategies to get more from those books. And that's why I decided to write my book, Rise of The reader strategies for mastering your reading habits and applying what you learn. Because again, I believe that these books, they condense decades of information into days of application.

NICK: But it's only by implementing the material that you change your behavior and your life improves I think there's a book to solve almost any problem. So that's why I wrote the book. Now, my agency actually helps authors promote and market their books more efficiently.

NICK: And I started that piece that side of the business because as I built my audience, authors started to reach out to me and they'd say, hey, Nick, I love your book reviews. Can I pay you to review my book? And I thought, well, of course, you can, I'm reading for free right now might as well try that out.

NICK: And the logic is that I have an audience of engaged buyers and they have a book that needs to be promoted. So that's how I started the book marketing piece of my agency. And as I continued to read more books on sales and marketing, I tried out all sorts of things at that intersection of social media and books.

NICK: And now we do podcast booking and short form video content production and a whole bunch of things. So yeah, there's kind of like two audiences almost, there's the readers who need help retaining and implementing and then there's the authors who need help promoting their books.

KATHLEEN: Well, I know that I'm definitely there I got my third book finally came out. So it's a trilogy and it's taken quite a while to get this out. So I'm, I know that I'm gonna be starting that phase and I have no clue.

KATHLEEN: Because I haven't even launched any of the books I've sold them, but I haven't launched or done any of that because it was way too overwhelming for me at that point because this is my journey of becoming an awakening Spirit and it's what we go through as we wake up and evolve and pay attention to our world. What are we thinking? You know, because I wanted to be a better person.

KATHLEEN: And when I got the third book published and I had to reread it. I was dumbfounded at what I wrote. I couldn't believe the pain and the suffering that I went through in that third book because I was hanging on for dear life. This is when my mother had passed at that point too. So there was a lot of various things going on.

KATHLEEN: I don't know how it's gonna be received at this point. But the whole point that was so fascinating to me about this book. The third book was when the light came on, you could see it, you could see it in the book. And it was, every time I went through the book, I had to go, I was like, oh, I have to bring this out to the world.

KATHLEEN: I mean, that was always, it was like, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not bringing this up. This is too personal, this is too private. And then it's like, yes, I have to. And what's interesting is realizing that this book is for, it was written for the people, this is for them because of where we are today.

KATHLEEN: This book was written for today. That's why it took so long to get out. And I'm not exactly sure how to bring this book out forward. So, I'm open and might have to hire you to look into what look like for me because as authors, we don't necessarily want to come out in the world.

KATHLEEN: I mean, we're authors, we like to be by ourselves, we like to write, we like to do all of our little stuff. We don't want to be out in the world and yet here we are, we're coming out in the world and we have to deal with it, right?

NICK: Yeah, I like to say that launching a book is a team sport and every player has a position that they thrive at and that they're very good at, right? And so writers write and book marketers market books and I think they're different positions and I think they require different skill sets and most of the time different people. So let the writer write, let the book market or bookmark, Robert Kiyosaki.

NICK: Yeah, Robert Kiyosaki in the back of his book Rich Dad, Poor Dad. He has this little thing where he says, you know what I've never received any awards for being the best written author, but I have received plenty of awards for being the best selling author. And so I think writing a book is half of the equation. I think selling the book is the other half actually selling.

NICK: The book is sometimes the bigger part of the equation because you can write something life changing, super meaningful, very deep awakening. But if nobody reads it, then it doesn't, it doesn't change any lives. I mean, it changes your life as the author, as you get to go through the experience and reflect on it and build on it and articulate it in a better way.

NICK: But yeah, book marketing is not easy. And I'll say this too. There are 1000 ways to promote market a book and people have become best sellers, 1000 different ways. We're only really good at two or three things, but they've become our secret sauce and for anybody that lives at that intersection of social media and nonfiction books, like that's definitely our sweet spot makes sense.

KATHLEEN: And I know that, I mean, I've got awards on the first book and I'm applying for awards on the second book right now. So we're, I'm moving, I'm doing what I know I can do. Let's just say that. You have to be comfortable too.

KATHLEEN: I mean, sometimes we just have to be, feel a little bit comfortable and it was too overwhelming just writing that book and how long it took to get the book out and the struggle in the second book, I hated it.

KATHLEEN: And I contacted my editor and I said, I don't know what that woman did. I have no idea what she did, but I fell in love with my second book. Finally, it was like, oh my God, I finally know I finally like this book.

KATHLEEN: When something's missing and you do, you need, people say you need an editor and you do need an editor because sometimes they help you to bring and articulate what you need to do because I could sit there and I remember talking to John and saying something's missing in my book and I say it's not finished and he's like, well, I know, but I wasn't going to bring it up to you because I figured you would pick it out.

KATHLEEN: And I said, yeah, I picked it out. So then I had to go ask and say, OK, you got to tell me who is this person and why was he here? And what did he do for me in this? And then this whole dialogue comes out, right?

KATHLEEN: Because there's such a creative process in writing as you know, I mean, yours is not quite like what mine is, but it doesn't matter. There is still a creative process. There is, pulling something out of your head and bringing it to life. I mean, this is a birthing process.

NICK: Yeah. One of my favorite authors. His name is Steven Pressfield. He's written a few fiction books, historical fiction and then he's written a few traditional nonfiction books and his nonfiction books all have the central theme of overcoming resistance. Like you wake up in the morning, you know what you're supposed to do.

NICK: But why is it so difficult to do it? And it's self created, you've got to realize like the resistance to writing comes from within. But anyway, one of his kind of complimentary messages is that he, he talks about the muse as like this third party consciousness and it has ideas and it wants those ideas to flow through you as the vessel.

NICK: So you do need to open yourself up to that whatever you wanna call it, universal consciousness or Spirit and let those ideas pour through you onto the page. And sometimes, like I remember, I read him a quote from his book on one of our interviews and he's like I wrote that really, he was like, that was pretty good.

NICK: I don't remember writing that and it's like, sometimes who knows who wrote it. You know, it's some version of yourself or it's some version of this universal consciousness that I mean, it'd be hard to articulate what it is. Right.

KATHLEEN: Right. And in my book, when they were doing the editing. They said, you know, we know when spirits coming in because I have a lot of messages that Spirit actually wrote through me in the book. And they said we always knew when Spirit came in, we never had a problem. I mean, it was like, we didn't have to edit it.

KATHLEEN: We didn't have to punctuate it. We didn't have to do anything and you could tell the tone of the voice was so different when, from you to them, it was like, it was so clear and I'm like, and John, who is my editor was an engineer. I think he was.

KATHLEEN: And so he was struggling with the fact that I could listen to Spirit and hear these things and he wanted to know, how can I do that? And I said, well, you just have to listen John, I mean, what do you feel? And he says, well, I get like a sense of well being I said, well, then that's the message that's coming in.

KATHLEEN: You got to listen and find what works for you because we all get those messages one way or another. We're getting messages and we just have to figure out what it is. I can hear, I can feel I could do all sorts of things.

KATHLEEN: But it took a while for me to realize when it was me and when it was not me kind of thing but it's about learning and evolving like what you said and studying the books that I studied, helped me to be able to start listening to what is my voice and what is Spirit voice, so to speak, my higher self, the angel, whatever I want to call that, that's that innate, knowing that quiet, still voice.

KATHLEEN: And where is it coming from? Because if it's coming from here, that is not Spirit. But if it's coming from my heart or my solar plexus, then that's a different story because those messages come from different places.

NICK: Yeah, they do come from different places. I saw somebody give a lecture recently who he said to the audience. He was like, here's proof that there is something else going on here outside of your own consciousness. He's like if you ask a question and you ultimately answer the question, why did you ask it in the first place?

NICK: He's like, are you all knowing or, do you need to go to an external place to find an answer? Because if you were all knowing, you wouldn't need to ask questions in the first place. So anyway, yeah, there's this balance between whatever you wanna call it, angel or higher consciousness or whatever Spirit and interacting and it's like a symbiotic relationship.

NICK: I heard somebody, one of my favorite books last year was called the Comfort Zone by Kristen Butler. She takes a different stance. She says you need to basically grow your Comfort Zone in a steady sustainable way, not just like jump outside of it.

NICK: But one of the things she said was like when she talks about manifestation, it's not a solo act. It's an act with whatever you want to call it, God, the divine universal consciousness, Spirit. And like you're co creating something with an external force. It, it's just a cool take on manifestation.

KATHLEEN: But it's true. I mean, it is true because we are co creators. And it took a long time for me to understand surrender because that's part of the co creation process. And when I finally got that word into my being into a way I could understand that part of it was just do what I can and stop when I stop. That's when Spirit can come in and send me the message of what's the next step because I don't know what the next step is.

KATHLEEN: So I've always said, do what you can and then wait for the end, wait for the next thing to come in because a lot of times that's what we have to do. Spirit can't just come in and do it for us. They have to see that you're willing to do it and then they come in and help us. Well, we're gonna go ahead and take a quick commercial break.

KATHLEEN: Welcome back everyone to the journey of an awakening Spirit. This is Kathleen Flanagan, your host and we are streaming on the bold Brave TV Network and we have Nick Hutchinson in the room with us today, Nick. What is one piece of advice you would offer our audience to help them move in a different direction to achieve their dreams or become a better person.

NICK: I would recommend setting a smart goal. Next Time you read a spiritual or personal development book, a self help book. And what I mean by that is take the the goal setting acronym smart and combine it with a book. So smart stands for specific measurable, attainable, meaning you set a realistic goal for the book relevant and time bound.

NICK: You want to give yourself a deadline to take action. This is one of my favorite recommendations for people because again, I want to help people take more action on the books they're reading. And so again, try that out, try setting a smart goal. Next time you read a book and review that goal.

NICK: Every time you read a few more pages, our brains have this beautiful natural filtering process called the reticular activating system. And if you share your goal with the book, something like I'm looking to find and implement at least one new mindfulness technique by the end of February. Right?

NICK: That's specific. It's measurable, it's attainable, it's relevant and it's time bound. You give yourself a deadline. If you review that intention, every time you read a few more pages, you will without a doubt, take more action on the books that you're reading. So that's one recommendation that I have for everybody.

KATHLEEN: Oh, I love that. What a great idea. I, I never even thought of something like that, but that's a beautiful concept of really taking some more value out of a book than just reading it.

NICK: Yes, exactly. I mean, these books, they can solve every problem that we have. They really can.

KATHLEEN: Right. I believe that. How can people get a hold of you?

NICK: Well, if anybody wants a custom book recommendation, it's one of my favorite things to do. I love to play book matchmakers. So people can head over to Instagram at book thinkers spelled just like it sounds book thinkers and tell me about a problem you're facing or a skill that you want to develop or area of life that you're curious about.

NICK: And I'll provide a custom book recommendation to you. And then we have links in the bio from there where you can get everything that you need.

KATHLEEN: Oh, well, thank you, Nick. I really appreciate you taking your time to come on the show today. I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation and we will

NICK: Yeah, you're welcome.

KATHLEEN: I hope that your day calms down a little bit. I know you still got another hour or so to go on your day. So I hope you enjoy the rest of your afternoon and again, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us today.

NICK: Yeah, thank you so much. Enjoy the rest of your day as well. And one of the big themes in my book, Rise of the Reader is gratitude. So thank you Kathleen for the opportunity to share, some of my messages and my my awakening moments with everybody.

KATHLEEN: Well, I appreciate that Nick. I appreciate it.

KATHLEEN: Well, I want to thank everyone for joining us today. And if you found any value here, I would appreciate it if you would go ahead and like and subscribe to my channel at Kathleen M Flanagan and also to send the link off to your friends and family. My books, Dancing Souls, the Call the Dark Night of the Soul and Awaken are available on Amazon and Kathleen M Flanagan.com.

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KATHLEEN: And by entering Brave TV into the coupon code and the prices will adjust automatically. The same applies to grandma's natural remedies.net and you will receive a 20% discount by entering Brave TV. Next week we have D Neil Elliott and we will be discussing the path to enlightenment and I will see all of you next Tuesday at 4 p. m. Eastern Standard Time right here and from my heart to yours. I hope you have a fabulous week.