How Can Neuroscience-Driven Messages Improve Your Engagement? with Aurora Winter

Episode Notes

Transcript

Karin Conroy:

This is Counsel Cast part of the Legal Talk Network, and I’m your host, Karin Conroy. When you face a complex case outside your expertise, you bring in a co-counsel for next level results. When you want to engage, expand and elevate your firm, you bring in a marketing co-counsel. In this podcast, I bring in marketing experts who each answer one big question to help your firm achieve more. Here’s today’s guest.

Aurora Winter:

You are going to love this podcast episode. We are going to talk about entrepreneurship, neuroscience, and how to turn words into wealth and launch as a thought leader. I’m Aurora Winter and I’m today’s guest and I am the author of Turn Words Into Wealth, thought Leader Launch and a half a dozen other books. And I’m a successful serial entrepreneur who has grown several seven figure businesses in completely different industries. So perhaps I know a little something that could be helpful for you.

Karin Conroy:

Aurora, that was such an interesting and unique intro. I don’t think anyone has started that way and I just loved that. That was amazing. Thank you for that. Usually people start, and honestly, I feel like there’s just in the intro alone, there’s a lot that we can kind of talk about and unpack there, but well, I’d say 98, 90 9% of the time everyone starts with themselves. I am so-and-so and this is why I’m important, but you started more like speaking to that listener. That was so cool. I love that. And then I’m a Media coach.

Aurora Winter:

There’s like everybody starts their talk with their name and people zone out what’s in it for them. You got to tell people immediately the value that is going to be

Karin Conroy:

Provided. Exactly. Why am I listening to you? Let’s start with that first and then tell me who you are. Exactly. And honestly, I’m going to come back to this probably a handful of times in the episode because I think that’s a mistake. So many people get wrong in a lot of different executions, so we’ll come back to that. But the title for the show today is How can Neuroscience Driven Messages improve your Engagement? So I was going to put some stuff about your law firm’s website engagement in there or something else, but that title is just getting way too long.

Aurora Winter:

So we’re just going to

Karin Conroy:

The engagement in general. First of all, I love neuroscience. I love this topic. I love getting into what’s actually happening in the brain when we’re using certain words and how can we do it better? But then also the end goal in mind is engagement of some type, whether we want them to take some action, we want them to just be connected, whatever that means at the moment. So not only what’s happening scientifically, but how can we make it better? So thank you so much for being here To start,

Aurora Winter:

One thing I’d love to just launch with is very common mistakes. So how neuroscience works, it’s very easy. There’s three steps to excellent communication, and the more educated you are, the more likely you are to do it wrong. I love this.

Karin Conroy:

I love this. So I had an episode with Celeste Hadley on and she did a similar, and it was all about how smart lawyers get communication so wrong. And so I feel like after you’re done with this episode, go over there because it’s a different conversation and it wasn’t a bash, it was that your brain is overactive and more likely to make a mistake. Please continue.

Aurora Winter:

Well, the mistake comes from just not understanding neuroscience. So after you listen to this podcast, you won’t make that mistake again because you’re going to be smart enough to understand what I’m saying. So I’m going to make it really straightforward for you. Most people make the mistake not just lawyers, but most smart people make the mistake of assuming that the message sent is the message received. I love that. And this is totally incorrect, and it’s not in alignment with how the brain actually works. When you’ve gone to university, you’re basically trained to give the cerebral cortex or give the full intellectual fancy dancey delivery. Well, if you’re a litigation attorney, you probably know that doesn’t work. But in any case, in most communication it doesn’t work because an easy metaphor to remember and understand this is if you send somebody you don’t know an email with no subject line, but an Excel spreadsheet attached which might have something, a virus, are they going to open it? No, they’re not going to open it. And that’s what we do when we launch into step three of communication before missing step one and step two,

Karin Conroy:

I love that.

Aurora Winter:

It’s easy to remember, right?

Karin Conroy:

Yeah, well exactly. And I was just going to add that I was walking through the target parking lot with my daughter who’s 12, and this lady comes up and she’s trying to hand me a business card and she saw me with my daughter and she said, I do these great parties or events or I don’t remember exactly how she’s phrased it. And I was just like, no thanks. And my daughter knows that we love to throw a great birthday party, but I said, she may be the best person around to throw parties and she may have exactly what I’m looking for, but I am not receiving her message this way in the middle of a target parking lot where I just got out of my car and I’m like, did I lock my car? Is my first thought because you’re approaching me in this really awkward, uncomfortable moment and it doesn’t matter what your messages that you’re trying to send to me because it’s wrong.

Aurora Winter:

Well, it’s not aligned with somebody who throws good parties, should have social awareness. So she was out of context triggering your midbrain, which is the alert to social cues and status and appropriateness of exchange. So she was out of harmony there, which actually was completely out of alignment with being a good party thrower. But that’s the second step. The first step is to appeal to the croc brain and the croc brain is the most ancient part of our brain. It’s the ancient reptilian brain and it simply wants to know very quickly, should I run away? Is this something tasty? Is this something I’m going to have a nice snack or something sexy or something interesting or something a little bit dangerous that I need to pay attention to, but not so dangerous? I need to shut down and go into fight, flight or freeze. So it’s alright to be a little bit like five mistakes or three mistakes people make when they’re communicating that is triggering a little bit of, oh, I need to pay attention to this.

You can also offer a benefit Thought leader launch. The title of the book is Appealing to the Crock Brain Thought Leader Launch. The subtitle is Seven Ways to Make Seven Figures With Your Million Dollar Message. All of that is Crock Brain or this other book Turn Words Into Wealth Blueprint for Your Business Brand and book. You know what category? I’m promising turning words into wealth? That’s Crock Brain. Oh, well look at the awards on this book. It won outstanding nonfiction book of the year award and there was a winner of a bunch of other awards actually, as you can see on the back. That is the second step is the social brain, the mid brain

Karin Conroy:

In that positive way, the first step is either like fear flight or whatever, but in a positive way it’s you’re giving them the morsel of a tasty something that’s going to appeal to some future desire. So it’s the words into wealth like converting, you’re wanting to read this book because I want to make more money or that thought leader or idea where that’s a goal of theirs. And so you’re really appealing to that lizard brain driven future goal thought. Is that right?

Aurora Winter:

That’s right. Put very intellectually Karin. So the lawyers will follow. There are more things to pay attention to than a person or any animal could pay attention to. Therefore we have to have a filter mechanism. Should I pay attention to this? And it used to be a matter of survival because processing information through your brain takes a lot of fat, it takes a lot of calories. So you literally, your survival back in the old days, survival depended upon quickly filtering, pay attention, don’t pay attention. So that’s all the crock brain is. It’s oh, this is worth paying attention to or I’m going to run away or I’m going to ignore it. So you have to pass that first filter. Does that make sense?

Karin Conroy:

It does. And then how do those titles of the book accomplish those?

Aurora Winter:

It’s letting people this turn words into wealth is a big bold promise.

Karin Conroy:

Okay. But then you’re also supporting the promise with those validation, the awards and yeah.

Aurora Winter:

Okay. So thought Leader launch, it’s a big bold promise. And then seven ways to Make Seven Figures with your Million Dollar message just expands on it. Both of those, all of the titles are crop brainin. The awards are mid-brain. So the second filter is social proof or social appropriateness as you did not experience with that person who approached you in

Karin Conroy:

Target. In

Aurora Winter:

Target. So social proof is the second filter, and this happens so quickly, it happens far more rapidly than what we’re talking about. Social proof is happening right now by me being on your podcast because you are saying, Aurora is somebody worth listening to and me choosing to show up on your podcast says, Karin, is somebody worth listening to. So we are exchanging social proof right now, but awards or accomplishments or name dropping falls into this social proof. And this happens very quickly because again, our survival depended upon not being outcast. So who else thinks this idea is cool? This person is cool, that’s why referrals are always great. Or I’ve worked with these reviews or big companies, so manage the social proof very quickly.

Karin Conroy:

Lemme ask a question about that though because I feel like this goes wrong a lot of the time and they lead with that. So the first thing you see on, I tend to, my brain goes to a website first of all, and the first thing you see is either the reviews or worse in my mind all these dollar signs. And they think that is the social proof of we’ve won this many millions of dollars for our clients, this kind of a case won us $10 million and whatever. Or they lead with all of the logos of the media placements they’ve had. Why is that wrong and why should you not lead with step two as you were describing?

Aurora Winter:

Well here we definitely have to give a shout out to your detailed, wonderful article that you wrote, how to Write an Effective Attorney Bio, which you go into depth in it on conroy creative council.com. And then finding article. It’s a lot of how to write an effective attorney bio. Well, I don’t like to use the word wrong, but it’s maybe suboptimal because why you need to first answer the question, why should I care? And also it’s a little bit tricky with money actually. If you think in ancient times and if you were a crole or if you were just a human being 500 years ago, money is very abstract. Money is not solving a problem or life, it’s not something to eat, it’s not something to mate with. Money is intellectual, it doesn’t actually resonate as strongly as you might think. So I’ll share in a minute, I’ll share a simple solution to that, which is how you frame the result.

But first you have to tell a story about it. And then when you do it in the hero’s journey story structure, which I’ll share in just a sec, it will make it much more meaningful and valuable. So I think the reason why that generally doesn’t work is you haven’t engaged enough. What’s in it for me? Why should I care? And it can be off-putting if you think the person that you’re dealing with only cares about money, because then they’re not going to see you as a human being or as somebody whose problem should be solved, but they’re going to see you as somebody

Karin Conroy:

To rip

Aurora Winter:

Off.

Karin Conroy:

Yeah, right, exactly.

Aurora Winter:

Alright, let’s finish the third step and then we can go on

Karin Conroy:

Step one, the lizard brain and appealing to that sort of base core need in your brain. Step two is supporting it with social proof. And then step three,

Aurora Winter:

You don’t even necessarily have to support that particular outcome with social proof. You just need to be somebody that other people think is all right. And then the third step is to deliver your message. So then you have the opportunity to deliver the core of your message to the cerebral cortex, but you need to do it in small chunks as we’re doing in a podcast, as you would do it in a conversation instead of 11 minutes about me. And then you get to say something and there is a reason, there’s a neuroscience reason that most Ted talks are 20 minutes or less. The brain can really only listen attentively for a maximum of 20 minutes, then the brain gets tired, then people are just waiting to talk, they’re not really listening, which is kind of different. I want to hear what you have to add to that. And then I can deliver the promised hero’s journey structure. So the

Karin Conroy:

Third, the message, which is what most people think they lead with. So most people are kind of getting this upside down. They start with either or maybe just completely discombobulated. They start with maybe some of those dollar signs. And especially on their bio pages, they’re starting with where they went to law school and lists after list of the cases they’ve gone through. Sometimes we’ll have the lists so long that we have to kind of have an expansive section that goes on and on, and then they think about the social proof sort of section. And then they may think about the message, but then that’s where it gets confusing and they can’t quite figure out how to pull it all together because I think part of the reason is they’re doing it backwards. So if you do it in this sequence, then how do you provide the message on the homepage so that it follows the right sequence in the way you’re describing?

Aurora Winter:

Well, you’re quite right to emphasize sequence. The sequence really does matter. So I’ll teach a couple of story recipes or communication hacks that people can learn from just listening to this podcast and then they can do it themselves. And if they want more help and they want one-on-one media coaching, they can contact me and we can go from there. So my favorite one, my background is a film and television writer producer, and I’m award-winning screenwriter and award-winning producer. So I like movies and books and the hero’s journey is the most classic structure that you see in most movies. We are drawn to that structure because it’s so engaging and it’s so meaningful. But this is a very easy structure and anybody can do it. So I recommend

Karin Conroy:

You see it in every Disney movie especially, and it’s so just very blatant and it’s just this recipe for every kind of story told for well before Disney.

Aurora Winter:

So if you have made a lot of money for your clients for see if you can use this structure to tell the story of it or use this structure to tell the story of other cases or even your own story. So always see, can I fit this into the story structure of the hero’s journey, because that is one of the most powerful ways to tell a message. And so rather than to be clear who

Karin Conroy:

Is the hero in the story, is it your client or is it you?

Aurora Winter:

It’s probably you. The turning point of the story. Okay? We always start with the end in mind. And if the end in mind is to engage a client or whatever your end in mind is, the turning point of the story is what you’re selling. So if you are an attorney and you are selling the ability to deliver results for your clients, then the turning point in the story will be they engaged you and you did your X, Y, Z, and the result was amazing. But if you start there, you’ve left all the drama

In the cutting room floor, so to speak. So don’t do that. So a story structure is very simple, and Tony Robbins, when he tells his signature story, he does this. If you start listening for it, you’ll hear it everywhere, everywhere. So Tony Robbins is stories, something along the lines of, I came home one day to my studio apartment that was in Venice Beach that I was sharing with women that I wasn’t even in love with because I couldn’t pay the rent. And there was eviction notice on the door. I like, ah, I ripped that eviction notice off I entered, I flicked on the light. Power had been shut off. There’s no power because I didn’t pay the phone bill. There was nowhere to wash my hands. I didn’t have a sink. We only used the bathtub to wash the dishes. And I just got so angry my life had reached the bottom pit in a studio apartment with a partner I didn’t even love and I can’t even pay the rent or keep the lights on.

So I went for a run on the beach and I just ran and ran so fast I couldn’t stand my life anymore. And then I realized I had to do something differently. And I stumbled upon this idea for neurolinguistic programming, that is his turning point. And then it summarizes when I applied neurolinguistic programming in my life, everything changed. And now I live in a castle. I’m married to the woman of my dreams. I make millions of dollars a year, I consult with presidents and I’m worth whatever, $8 billion or whatever he’s worth. So that kind of story structure is what you want to consider. Well obviously honoring not violating anybody’s confidences, but nonetheless, a lot of these things are public record. So can you tell the story that way? Can you tell your own story that way? Can you tell your client stories that way? And can you have several stories with different turning points, but the different turning points might sound like, oh, and then the day I hired, whatever your name is, changed the thing.

Yeah, John. Yeah. Or when I had dealing with this problem and it got worse and cost more and more money and we were going to go bankrupt and then we did X with your law firm. And the result was, the other mistake people make in this story is they go from the turning point and then they go on a long explanation. You really want to compress it. So it should be like on, when I hired Aurora as a media coach, everything changed. I got on podcast and radio TV and published my book, and then everything changed. So you want to compress it, think the

Karin Conroy:

Right, but I think one of the most important things you were talking about that I don’t want to gloss over, is to not skip the first part of the story.

Aurora Winter:

Everybody wants to skip the paint. Yeah. Well there’s

Karin Conroy:

Some song that says let’s skip to the good part. And it’s the good part as far as your message goes is before that about how you can connect to them in this moment of need because that’s what they’re reaching out for you. If they already have got to the good part, they don’t need you and they’re not doing the search and they’re not reaching out and thinking about how they need you. And so if you skip over that, then there’s no connection there.

Aurora Winter:

Exactly. Right. Because the good part is only good in contrast to the bad part.

And as entrepreneurs, as lawyers, whatever you do, we solve problems. So the solution without the problem is only half of the equation. You need to describe the problem and also agitate the problem, which means make it more clear. What are the costs and consequences to your client of not having that problem solved? Who is suffering? The client is suffering, their business is suffering, their wife is about to have a or husband about to have a nervous breakdown. Call the stakeholders in this equation, paint the picture of the costs of the problem so that when you solve the problem, then you can in contrast paint the wonderful contrasting solution. Problem solved.

Karin Conroy:

As you were saying that, I was just going to say one of the best examples I have seen in the many years I’ve been doing this is a criminal defense attorney that I used to work with, and she did it’s high stakes issues. And her messaging was all about I understand what’s at stake. And it was, you may lose your immigration status, you may lose your family, you may lose. And she phrased it in a way that I understand what’s at stake. I’ve done this before. I can help you through this. But it started out with this is what’s at stake and in a very kind of serious and bold way. But then you move through to basically, I’ve got your back, I’ve done this before. I’ve got the experience to do this. And I felt like that was a masterclass in expressing it in the right way. Because in that practice area, it can very easily go real dark and real wrong, where I’ve seen police tape and handcuffs and they’re all just kind of talking about the way that it can be done in the way that does not appeal is just focusing on those real bad moments instead of the outcome. Well,

Aurora Winter:

Everybody likes to feel understood. We want to deal with somebody who has humanity as well as expertise. So that example is a beautiful example of creating empathy, creating connection, creating a bridge of understanding. The thing one needs to be careful about is never to shame the person. So your example of when some go too far is probably triggering shame. So you don’t want to say it or express it in images in a way that would make somebody afraid or shame to put their hand up and say, that’s me. Right, right.

Karin Conroy:

Yeah. Okay. Alright. So what are some, let’s talk more specifically about the messaging and how we can take those stories and those examples that you were describing through those three steps to actually make it really work for whatever the goal may be. Whether the goal is to, maybe it’s a branding goal, but usually it’s some kind of a conversion, whether it’s a phone call or whatever. How can we take these ideas and the neuroscience and translate them into our messaging so that it’s just working better?

Aurora Winter:

Yeah. Well, a couple of things on that. Translating it so it’s working better, I would recommend data. So analyze what you’re doing and track and measure what works, which is very easy to do. If you’re promoting any posts on Facebook, for example, or sorry, meta or X, you can track and measure results. So for example, you want to leverage the crock brain with something short and snappy. So a story is not necessarily short and snappy. You could call it the problem. You could also use a myth bust. Here’s another little recipe that I can give you. So the myth is X, the fact is not X is a great recipe and it’s very catchy because if you say a myth that is common, I dunno, the myth is that a lawyer costs too much money. The fact is a bad lawyer costs too much money or whatever. Oh, I love

Karin Conroy:

That. Yeah, that’s great.

Aurora Winter:

And then they’re like, whoa, wow. And then I’ll click to find out more. A myth bust is a great thing to do, or another little short recipe. I mean, I’ve got lots of recipes in the book, thought leader launch as well as in the book, turn words into wealth. But these ones are easy enough to share quickly. Another one that really works in marketing is how to do X without Y. So how to X is a desirable result without Y. So in my case, it might be how to write a book without actually typing a word. I interview people and help them create their books.

Karin Conroy:

Yeah, awesome. Okay. Alright, so let’s go back to the neuroscience of it. How do you take that message then and make it really stick in the brain so that now they’re not looking at your website or your ad on Facebook or Meta or wherever, but they’re all of a sudden maybe a week or a month or however long in the future, realizing now that thought has become a need and how do you make it so it pops back up in their brain more easily?

Aurora Winter:

Stories are the strongest way to do that. The hero’s journey story structure is the most powerful way to do that. But there are other story structures to do that. A common mistake is to assume that data is memorable. Data is not memorable. People remember story. So I’m going to tell you a data point that you might remember, but the value of adding a story to anything is shocking. There was an experiment done. They put a hundred objects on eBay with a story or without a story, same objects, just they added significance with a story. And the result was that with a story, the objects sold for 27 times more, 27 love times more. That’s the value of a story.

Karin Conroy:

Well, and especially eBay, because I feel like that’s such a marketplace where you’ve got the comparison, you’ve probably got the exact same object, whatever it is as you’re scrolling through. And so you can say very measurably that it was clearly the story. And I don’t think people, that’s not a place that I would think, oh, I really need to draft a story around this. Whatever it is I’m selling, I would’ve thought I need to give the specs and the details and the link to the source and what the original value was and all of that data that you’re talking about.

Aurora Winter:

And if I just said to you, a story adds value, that’s an abstract point. But when we have a little story, people might remember it this way. So the story simply added significance. For example, pot mtss. So there were Potts for sale with or without the story. The story might’ve been something like these were my grandmother’s pot mtss, I remember she made me chocolate chip cookies when they smelled so good when I got home from school. And I have such fond memories of these Potts. Now that story adds significance. It’s not a pitch. It’s not saying we’re coming over with the grandma to make the cookies, but it added significance and its significantly added to the perceived value, to the emotional value of the pot mitz. And it’s sold for that way. They’ve done

Karin Conroy:

27 times,

Aurora Winter:

27 times. It’s in the book significant objects. If you really want more details on that, what this reminds us is whenever we do have a dramatic number, embed it in a story and it’s far more likely to be remembered. I mean, one of the reasons Tony Robbins is so popular is because his story is so memorable. You want a story memorable enough that is so clear that other people repeat it.

Karin Conroy:

Yeah. Okay. So that actually queued up exactly what I was thinking about asking next, the people repeating it. So going over towards reviews and testimonials, where does that go wrong? What are the mistakes some people make in terms of reviews, testimonials, that kind of thing. And then how can that be done in a way that, like you were saying, with these stories that is more memorable and really has more impact?

Aurora Winter:

Well, one of the things I liked about your article, how to Write an Effective Attorney bio is being abstract. It just doesn’t land. So the best or an amazing or dedicated or these words don’t really mean anything. So they need to be embedded in a story. So where reviews are not working hard for you is, oh, he was the best attorney to work with, or she was the best. What does that mean? What does that even mean? Interestingly, like a skeptical review can be very powerful. I was so worried about working with a lawyer. I really thought that was going to just cause all of these problems, and I couldn’t whatever, problem, problem. And then I hired this Bob or Barbara and I was so blown away by the results. And in fact, it’s like a mini heroes journey. She put a little mini heroes journey.

So a skeptical testimonial with a little story in it can be super powerful. The other way to get a great testimonial, and I know that you might have some constraints on that, is to when somebody says something nice, grab your phone if you’re with them and just say, oh, would you mind repeating that? And could I share that? Usually people, when they’re on camera, everybody’s used to that. They’ll gush. They will gush for paragraphs, but if you ask somebody to write one for you, they’ll clam up and they’ll shut down. And so then if you get their permission, you can even say, and do I have your permission to share this while a video is still recording? And they’ll say Yes, and then you’re good to go. And you can just take part of that and type it up and just take the most interesting sentence. And the third way to get a good testimonial is to say, what was one thing that stood out to you from working with me? What was the best thing about attending this event? What was the most surprising thing about this? What was the most valuable thing? So just ask them one thing and that will help them catch the point,

Karin Conroy:

Right? Yeah.

Aurora Winter:

And then chat. GPT is your friend. So you can go into chat, GPT, you can put in some bunch of rambling information about who you are and the client case or whatever you want. And say, spit out 10 reviews and it’ll give you 10 options, and maybe half of them are pretty good, or you need to tweak them a little bit. And then you can email them to your client or whoever would give you a review, maybe a colleague or another attorney and say, I would love to have a comment from you. You can say anything about working together, but here’s a start. Feel free to modify or write something else. And most people will just go, oh, thanks. It takes to a five second job instead of a five minute job.

Karin Conroy:

Exactly. One question about the first suggestion you had in terms of the mini heroes journey. What are your thoughts on saying that we had all these negative experience with other firms or some other company or whatever, and then landed with this firm? Is that perceived as really negative and being negative towards those other firms? And how does that land?

Aurora Winter:

Oh, I wouldn’t name the other firm.

Karin Conroy:

Sure. Yeah, no, definitely not. But to say we tried this firm and it didn’t work, and here’s maybe a reason or two y

Aurora Winter:

From a neuroscience point of view, that is a great testimonial.

Karin Conroy:

Okay, great. Okay. I

Aurora Winter:

Can only speak as a neuroscientist and communicator. I’m not an attorney.

Karin Conroy:

Right? No, absolutely. Yeah, definitely don’t use names. But just to say, we tried this and had a problem with X and we tried a different firm, not named and had this other problem, and then we landed with this firm and it was amazing, and here’s the reasons why. But

Aurora Winter:

With testimonials in general, the more you tell, the more you sell. So it’s not good to put from a happy client. It would be better to say from Susan, and it’d be even better to say from Susan Jacobson, and it would be even better to say from Susan Jacobson, who was the CEO of blah, blah, blah company.

Karin Conroy:

Yeah. Okay. Awesome. Well, it is time for the Thought Leaders library. Our website has a curated collection of all the top books from our guests that are definitely things you want to check out because there are so many good options in there. These are books that each guest has kind of put some thought into what you should be reading. So what’s the book that you believe every lawyer should have on their bookshelf? Well,

Aurora Winter:

I want to recommend this book by my client, Michael Stockham, who is a litigation attorney. It’s called I Love It, confessions of an Accidental Lawyer. I helped him publish and promote this book. It’s got almost 3000 reviews on Amazon. Oh my gosh. It’s just taken off. People love this book. He’s now working on a series of nine illegal thrillers with the Jake Fox ties. That blind is going to be the first one coming out later this year, but this book is available now on Amazon. Confessions of an Accidental Lawyer was inspired by a true story. So it was a lot of fun working with Michael. He’s such a talented writer and communicator, and he’s a great lawyer as well. I

Karin Conroy:

Just want to point out on the front that you’ve got all these nice trust indicators with the awards and it’s got a nice cover that’s very clear, but then you definitely right in the top corner have some of those trust indicators you were talking about earlier.

Aurora Winter:

Exactly. It was a finalist for the American Fiction Award. For example, trust Indicators on the back from literary Titan. Confessions of an Accidental Lawyer by Michael Stockham is exceptionally. So I think this is a very good read

Karin Conroy:

Confession to

Aurora Winter:

An accidental lawyer. Of course, I think people should also read my books Turn Words

Karin Conroy:

Into Well, oh yeah, definitely. We will link to all of those on the show notes and in our library. Aurora, what is one thing that works

Aurora Winter:

Well? I think what really works is to double the amount of time that you are spending thinking about and practicing communication. For example, I’ve launched multiple successful businesses in different industries, but if I was to track why did the yacht sales company, the film company, the coach training company, and the publishing company all work, the one common denominator was communication. So Steve Jobs practiced for three weeks before an Apple launch. So don’t be telling yourself you’re too busy to double down on communication. The most valuable asset you have is how you communicate, and I want to give everybody a 90 day challenge that’s aligned with that. I think this will change your life if you do it. So read every day, just it could be for five minutes, write every day. It can also be for five minutes. And then once a week, review what you have written and what you have read, and just notice that if you keep complaining about the same thing, maybe you should stop complaining about it. Just accept it or change something. And reading is so valuable, you learn things and the more you learn, the more you earn. So that’s the 90 day challenge. Do that for 90 days and then let me know how your life changed.

Karin Conroy:

I can’t tell you how much I agree with that. Reading is a major part of my life. Obviously. I have this whole book review section because I really, it’s like one of my main core philosophies in life that this is just how we connect as humans. And you have experience as a human that you couldn’t possibly have ever had reading a book about some fictional person from 300 years ago. That’s just not going to happen in your lifetime. So getting inside that experience in the brain and really having the visual understanding of that is you’re not going to experience that in any other way other than reading. So not to mention all of every other topic that could possibly be out there that is going to just expand your life and your brain and your human experience. So I do think though, that we go through phases in our life. When I had young children, my brain didn’t have space for that, so I had to retrain my brain. And I literally started with the five minutes. So there’s a million habit trackers out there. Start with five minutes. You’re never going to only read for five minutes. Let’s just be real. It’s like exercising. You just say, I’m going to show up for five minutes. And then all of a sudden you’re into some part of a chapter and you’re like, okay, maybe three more minutes.

Aurora Winter:

Exactly.

Karin Conroy:

And then you’re just training your brain. But you start with the five minutes a day, five or 10, I think I started, and then all of a sudden it’s just you’re off to the

Aurora Winter:

Race. It becomes a habit,

Karin Conroy:

Which is

Aurora Winter:

The key thing. Exactly. Right. And then it reaches everything that you do. And books are such a great investment of time because somebody may have put a decade of their experience into the book. Absolutely. Their

Karin Conroy:

Whole life sometimes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I couldn’t agree more. I also have a big, if people get me started about libraries, and I do everything on a Kindle, which I started during Covid and I was opposed. But I don’t spend money on my books either because I read way too many. And so I love the libraries. Libraries

Aurora Winter:

Are great.

Karin Conroy:

So coming back to the episode, what’s a big takeaway that you’d like, everyone? I mean, we covered a lot of ground here. So what’s a big takeaway and a memorable piece of valuable information that you’d like people to get just from this episode

Aurora Winter:

In general? I would love people to just the next week, pay attention to the words that are coming out of your mouth and how other people are communicating. Just witness it. Don’t necessarily change anything, but just notice, because if you are bored while you’re talking, probably the other people are too. And maybe you have an awareness. Oh gosh, Aurora told me not to start with step three, and I just started with step three. Again, the person has no clue what’s in it for them. I haven’t delivered any social proof and they’re glazing over, and I spoke for more than 20 minutes. Those are things that are X nays from a neuroscience point of view. And then after you’ve observed that, also notice when you pay attention to videos or to podcast or somebody’s communicating and see, oh, they did a myth bust. Oh, they did a hero’s journey. Oh, that was a signature story. Oh, that was a problem. Agitate, solve. Oh, I see the structure. I can do this too. And then after you’ve done that for a week, choose one of the things that I’ve suggested. Maybe the myth bust. That’s easy. And just do one every day. Do a myth bust. Yeah.

Karin Conroy:

Spend your five minutes of writing, doing that. Exactly. And I feel like this comes full circle because this comes back to your intro and how you started with that. You started not saying, I’m Aurora Winter and blah, blah, blah. You started by saying, you’re going to want to listen to this episode and here’s why. And then you gave a couple sentences about that and then introduced yourself, which is the recipe.

Aurora Winter:

That’s the recipe. That’s

Karin Conroy:

It. That was perfect. So what you need to do, I feel like is rewind this episode. Go back to the first two minutes and listen to that again.

Aurora Winter:

Thank you for that,

Karin Conroy:

Karin, that little part.

Aurora Winter:

There you go. And so it doesn’t take more time to communicate more effectively, but it takes an awareness of what is the neuroscience of it. And most of your listeners are really smart, really educated people. It’s not their fault. They haven’t studied neuroscience, but read turn words into wealth, read, thought Leader, launch Study neuroscience, and maybe you’ll 27 x year income. There you go. That’s it.

Karin Conroy:

There we go. Awesome. Aurora Winter is the founder of Same Page Publishing, but also the author of the books that we’ll link to on the show notes. Such a great episode. Thank you so much for being here. That was amazing. Oh,

Aurora Winter:

You’re so welcome, Karin. It was really fun.

Karin Conroy:

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Counsel Cast podcast. Be sure to visit our website at Counsel Cast com for the resources mentioned on the episode and to give us your feedback. If you enjoyed this episode, I would appreciate if you could rate and review the podcast on Apple and subscribe to your favorite podcast platform. See you on the next one.

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