898 Aurora Winter:

Melinda Wittstock:

Coming up on Wings of Inspired Business:

Aurora Winter:

It’s so often that the message sent is not the message that is received. There are three areas of the brain that you need to address in every communication. Whether you’re pitching to raise capital, you’re creating a video for social media, or you’re starting off your podcast episode is, first off, you want to appeal to the croc brain. The croc brain, or the ancient reptilian brain is the first filter: is this interesting? Is this valuable? Is this new? Is this sexy? Is there something surprising? Is this a little bit dangerous? If it’s too dangerous, then you trigger the fight, flight, or freeze, which you don’t want to do. But if it’s too expected or there doesn’t seem to be anything to learn or of anything of value, then there’s no attention. So, attention is the first thing that we need to capture. The croc brain is basically clickbait.

Melinda Wittstock:

The most successful entrepreneurs are first class communicators, able to easily intrigue and engage potential customers, team members, partners and investors in their mission and solution. Yet all too often we make it harder for ourselves by not understanding the neuroscience of persuasion. Aurora Winter is a serial entrepreneur, author of Turn Words Into Wealth, award-winning screenwriter, and master communicator who shares her secrets of how to craft compelling messages, the importance of active listening to understand your audience, and how to use storytelling to add meaning and create win-win opportunities.

Melinda Wittstock:

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock and welcome to Wings of Inspired Business, where we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. I’m all about paying it forward as a five-time serial entrepreneur, so I started this podcast to catalyze an ecosystem where women entrepreneurs mentor, promote, buy from, and invest in each other. Because together we’re stronger, and we all soar higher when we fly together and lift as we climb.

Melinda Wittstock:

Today we meet an inspiring serial entrepreneur who combines the best of Silicon Valley with the best of Hollywood to help entrepreneurs and thought leaders grow their businesses with memorable messages and best-selling books for multiple streams of income and impact. Aurora Winter is the founder of Same Page Publishing and the author of several award-winning fiction and non-fiction books, including “Turn Words Into Wealth: Blueprint for Your Business, Brand, and Book,” and “Magic, Mystery, and the Multiverse.”

Melinda Wittstock:

Aurora shares her secrets for effective communication and storytelling, including how to understand the neuroscience behind how we process information – from grabbing attention, to building trust and connection, to delivering a compelling core message. We get deep into understanding why the message sent is usually not the message that is received, and how our brains work to process information. We also discuss the increasing role of AI in communication and publishing, and why AI may make a great assistant but cannot replace the unique essence of human creativity and lived experience that makes for truly great storytelling.

Melinda Wittstock:

Aurora will be here in a moment, and first:

[PROMO CREDIT]

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Melinda Wittstock:

Understanding the neuroscience of communication is crucial for crafting effective messages that grab attention, provide social proof, convey your core idea, and attract customers and investors to your business.

Melinda Wittstock:

The key is understanding how to communicate in a way that connects with people’s brains. Today Aurora Winter shares hacks like Myth Busting and the Hero’s Journey and breaks down her “Spoken Author” structure: Engage the croc brain, appeal to the midbrain with social proof, and only then deliver your core message to the neocortex. An accomplished author and award-winning screenwriter, Aurora shares why mastering the art of storytelling is vital in sales, marketing and fundraising, as it adds meaning, builds rapport, and can frame conversations in your favor.

Melinda Wittstock:

Aurora shares lessons from her own entrepreneurial journey, from founding a successful yacht charter business to becoming an award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker with her company Random Harvest Productions, to founding Grief Coach Academy, to now running Same Page Publishing, where she helps entrepreneurs “turn their words into wealth” with best-selling books that create multiple income streams. We also get into how to master your entrepreneurial mindset, and stay adaptable and resilient to achieve your goals.

Melinda Wittstock:

Let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Aurora Winter and be sure to download the podcast app Podopolo so we can keep the conversation going after the episode.

[INTERVIEW]

Melinda Wittstock:

Aurora, welcome to Wings.

Aurora Winter:

Oh, it’s great to be on the show with you, Melinda.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, I love the sound of turning words into wealth. Who doesn’t? And this is your current focus. You’re a serial entrepreneur. You’ve done lots of things, but let’s start there.

Aurora Winter:

Absolutely. I love to help people turn their words into wealth.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. Well, tell me, how do you do that?

Aurora Winter:

Well, first off, it starts off by understanding the neuroscience of communication. Most people, especially well-educated people, actually don’t understand how to communicate. We’ve been taught the wrong way. The more educated we are, usually the worse we are at communicating because we just don’t understand how the brain works.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s my story. Because you know your things so well, and all the detail, and it doesn’t necessarily land. Right?

Aurora Winter:

Exactly right. It’s so often that the message sent is not the message that is received. And in university, you know, we’re taught to make all these presentations and have it all worked out in a five-page document, and that’s way too long. So, the way the brain works, really, there’s three areas of the brain that you need to address in every communication. Whether you’re pitching to raise capital, you’re creating a video for social media, or you’re starting off your podcast episode is, first off, you want to appeal to the croc brain. So, we just did that by saying, hey, we’re going to help you turn your words into wealth. The croc brain, or the ancient reptilian brain is the first filter, and it looks, is this interesting? Is this valuable? Is this new? Is this sexy? Is there something surprising? Is this a little bit dangerous? If it’s too dangerous, then you get to trigger the fight, flight, or freeze, which you don’t want to do. But if it’s too expected or there doesn’t seem to be anything to learn or of anything of value, then there’s no attention.

Aurora Winter:

So, attention is the first thing that we need to capture. The croc brain is basically clickbait. It’s the subject line on your email. It’s the first image on your social media. It’s the title of a book, like, turn words into wealth that is appealing to the croc brain. It’s saying, what is the benefit? What are we talking about here? So that’s the first thing that we need to do. And it’s very much like when you’re speaking, whether you’re pitching to raise capital, you’re talking on a podcast, you’re talking at the front of the room. You’re leading a meeting.

Aurora Winter:

You really need to start off with, what are we talking about here, and why does it matter? The second part of the brain that we need to address is the mid brain. This is the social part of our brain that’s looking for who else is involved, who is the messenger who believes in this messenger. So, people basically equal proof. The social midbrain is being triggered right now because Melinda thinks I’m worth talking to, and I think Melinda is worth talking to. So that is some kind of social proof. But, for example, the book Turn Words into Wealth has been endorsed. It was the outstanding nonfiction book of the year in its category, which is publishing, and it’s won several awards.

Aurora Winter:

That appeals to the midbrain. Right.

Melinda Wittstock:

And then when I say, I was awarded AI Pioneer of the Year, and so I would start with, okay, like, your voice is your value, you know, what would it be like if every podcaster could easily support their families and their dreams just by speaking their truth into a microphone? Right. Your voice is your value.

Aurora Winter:

Your voice is your value. That’s crack brain.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. Okay.

Aurora Winter:

And by the way, and the award is mid brain.

Melinda Wittstock:

Exactly. What’s number three?

Aurora Winter:

And you can do those two things so quickly. So, the number three is where most people make the mistake of starting, and that’s where you get more deeply into your message. You’re basically talking to the neocortex there, the intelligent part of people. But here’s the interesting thing about the neocortex. When you trigger the analyst brain, which you can do if you have too many numbers, and you’ll trigger a more engineer or analyst kind of brain, which is the no part of the brain. But if you tell stories, stories sell, stories engage, stories can be repeated, stories are memorable. So how can you add more stories? And then I recommend that people break up the neural cortex or the core of their message, into three-to-five-minute segments and allow the other person to respond or react or ask a question. I mean, unless it’s not a setting that does that, so that you have little pieces, even if you’re speaking at the front of the room delivering a keynote, you can break it into pieces.

Aurora Winter:

So right now, we’re doing the piece. What are the three parts of the neuroscience behind memorable messages? In the second, we’re going to do another piece. But the other thing to notice is that the brain, to really pay attention, is very expensive to the brain. And so, the brain really doesn’t want to pay full attention. Most people are not really listening when you’re talking. They’re just waiting to talk. So, try to deliver your message as quickly and concisely as possible, and know that after about 20 minutes, people need a break. They just can’t listen fully that long.

Melinda Wittstock:

You know, it reminds me of a great book, and I’m sure you’ve read it. It’s called Pitch Anything.

Aurora Winter:

Oh, I love that book.

Melinda Wittstock:

This book really revolutionized my thinking, and I think it’s very important for any, any woman listening to this podcast right now that’s trying to raise money or close a big deal or whatever.

Aurora Winter:

Yeah, Pitch Anything by Oren Klaff is an excellent book. I really like that book. He’s an excellent resource for pitching to raise capital. In my book, turn Words into Wealth, I call them million-dollar messages. So, I give some examples of million-dollar messages to give models and templates for people to follow so that you can do this. You can do this, too.

Aurora Winter:

We can all become better communicators. And what I like to say is that most people are familiar with the 80 20 rule, that 80% of the income that you generate, for example, comes from 20% of your activities. Well, I like to do that twice. So, 20% of 20% is 4%. So, 4% of your activities will produce about 64% of your income. In that 4% is learning how to communicate more effectively. So, an example would be Steve Jobs practiced for three weeks before his apple pitches. Where to stand, where to pause, what to say.

Aurora Winter:

If it’s worth his time to practice for three weeks before a big pitch, perhaps all the listeners would benefit by spending a bit more time planning and practicing how to communicate.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, gosh, this is so true. So, I have a quick question for you, because I remember when I read Oren’s book, and it was really revolutionary, and I was sort of thinking, okay, but is, are there different rules, slightly different rules for women? Yes, because if you take that blueprint and do it and you come off like Oren, right, in this whole power dynamic thing, that could necessarily might not work as well for a woman.

Aurora Winter:

There were a couple things in his book that I was, I wouldn’t do that kind of uncomfortable feeling. One of the things he says in his book that I think is really true, that women can do as well as men, is to frame the conversation. So even before the pitch or meeting or presentation starts. How can you add status to yourself so that it shifts the listening even before you open your mouth? So that’s one of the reasons I love to help people become published authors. The root word of the word authority is author. So, one of the ways to shift the conversation is become an authorization, mail them your book before the meeting, or become a podcaster, and send them a link to your latest podcast that shifts the status of the presenter. Women can do that as well as men. The thing that I didn’t think I would do, which I can’t speak for all women, I can only speak for myself, is I felt like I wouldn’t be comfortable lying quite the way that he admitted to doing.

Aurora Winter:

You know, I think there was one point where he had, I don’t know, a dollar 69 in his bank account, and he really had to close the deal. Exactly.

Melinda Wittstock:

And couldn’t. There’s so much ‘fake until you make’ in the way men go about, you know, entrepreneurship, I think it’s much harder for women to do that.

Aurora Winter:

Yeah. In fact, I helped one of my clients, Lois Sans DeGarde is her name, write a book called Start with Collaboration. It’s actually number one in its category today. I don’t know what it’ll be when this airs. It’s number one in women in business and number one in strategic planning. Number one is something else that I forget, and that’s more the female way is collaboration is thinking win-win instead of win-lose. But all of us can benefit from learning how to tell stories better.

Aurora Winter:

And I think that where men with more testosterone have more of a pushing energy that can work for them, women can have more of a pulling energy that can work for us. So, a great way to pull is by telling a story and engaging people with the takeaway message of the story.

Aurora Winter:

I’m very interested in what is the data behind what I’m up to. Like, can I find a story, or can I find evidence about how important it is to be able to tell stories? I stumbled across a book. It’s called Significant Objects. And they wanted to find the answer to this question as well. What they did is they took 100 distinct and different objects and put them on eBay with a story or without a story. And the stories were written by professional writers, by journalists like yourself, Melinda, or somebody like me who’s a published author. But they were also written by just ordinary people. So, there were a bunch of different kinds of stories, and the stories were not, you know, buy this.

Aurora Winter:

It’ll change your life. They were just stories that added significance. So, for example, if one of the items was a pot mitt, the story might be. I remember, you know, coming home from school and my grandmother making chocolate chip cookies for us, and she took them out of the oven with these pot mitts. And every time I look at the pot mitts, it makes me smile. That adds significance to the pot mitts. So, stories add meaning. Human beings are meaning seeking creatures, and the result was that the identical objects with a story versus without a story, the ones with a story sold for 27 times more.

Aurora Winter:

So, if you’re not focused on adding significance by sharing a story, you could potentially be missing out on 27-fold of income.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s an incredible statistic.

Aurora Winter:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

You know what’s interesting, one of the things that I learned way, way back as a journalist, it reminds me of this, is if there was a big natural disaster, if you wrote about the statistics and the millions of people that were without power or this or that, it was kind of the statistic that blew past people. But if you wrote about a specific person struggling with a specific thing and the story of that and that kind of hero’s journey or whatever, then it would literally land, you know?

Aurora Winter:

Exactly right.

Melinda Wittstock:

Journalism 101.

Aurora Winter:

Exactly right. Well, the fact that you have training as a journalist gives you a really big edge, not only for podcasting, but for everything that you do, because you know that. But I think this is something that every woman can do. Add a story. Don’t just say the facts. Think about what story would illustrate the point. And, you know, I can give a couple of story structure hacks here. You mentioned one, which is the hero’s journey story structure.

Aurora Winter:

So, I like to teach people’s story structure so that they have immediate value that you can take away right away after you’ve listened to this podcast, invite you to, you know, write down a couple of these things and add a story. You know, as Belinda was saying, you know, instead of talking about the statistics of the disaster, talk about one specific person and how they were impacted. I’m a screenwriter, and so I have a lot of training in the hero’s journey story structure, but we all, we all know this story. It’s, how can you make yourself the hero of a story or your clients or the people whose lives you are changing? So, the hero’s journey story has a very specific structure it’s a crisis or a problem, then it’s continued by a struggle. Usually, you would say three kinds of struggle so that people can really understand how important it is for the hero to reach the. The turning point or the holy grail.

Aurora Winter:

Then there’s the turning point. The turning point is what you want to point to. The turning point is usually what you are selling, and then you have the happy result at the end. It’s kind of like an upside-down top hat. So, I’ve listened to Melinda on other podcasts, so she does this beautifully. So, it’s something like, you can probably do it better than I can, but the crisis is people in podcasting can’t find support. Listeners can’t find the right podcast to listen to. And then the kinds of struggle, you know, that podcasters stop hosting podcasts because they just can’t find advertisers or get listeners.

Aurora Winter:

Other people are, you know, looking for results, and they can’t find the podcast. So, she would have more examples of struggle, and then lots of struggle. Lots of struggle.

Melinda Wittstock:

And then the burnout and frustration and, like, money left on the table and, with such valuable messages lost. I mean, you know, there’s so many different things. And when you talk about any individual podcaster on that, on that journey, I mean, even a fan, I used one once. It was so interesting. I was talking to this podcast fan who actually had to create a spreadsheet with her friends on Google Drive to figure out what podcast recommendations to make. You know what I mean? Right?

Aurora Winter:

Yeah. Okay. So, there is a good example. And then the turning point would be the app that you have created, which I struggle to pronounce. How do you pronounce it again?

Melinda Wittstock:

Podopolo.

Aurora Winter:

Thank you. Yes. And so, these people find Podopolo, and the happy result is the podcast is podcaster is thriving. They have their listeners. The listeners are happy because they found the right podcast. Everybody’s happy. So how can you, the listener, turn everything into a hero’s journey story? I’ll give you a couple other story structures. But, for example, with me, with my business at Stanley Page Publishing, the average first time author takes three and a half years to write their book.

Aurora Winter:

They struggle with a blank page. They struggle with what to say. They struggle to get it published. They struggle to win awards. They don’t know how to promote it to become a number one book. Like my clients books start with collaboration is today. And the turning point for them could be my method, which I call the spoken author method, where I interview people most people have no problem talking, and the happy result is their book is done in months instead of years. And my company, same page publishing, is devoted exclusively to best-selling, award winning books.

Aurora Winter:

So, all of my clients get awards and get bestselling books. And so, everybody’s happy. They grow their business, they grow their reach, they make a bigger impact, and they’ve done it by talking, which is super easy for them.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, that’s just genius. Yeah, because everybody has a book in them, actually. You know what I mean? But it’s just that, that procrastination of. Okay, well, I’ll get to that when I can, but, you know. But yeah, we all need help.

Aurora Winter:

Well, most people have a book in them. You’ve got several, I think.

Melinda Wittstock:

I think I have a few. I mean, I do, actually. And I know that. I know that we have to talk after this podcast, by the way, and so, okay, so the spoken author method.

Aurora Winter:

It relates to the neuroscience of how people actually think. So, when we are trying to think by ourselves, it’s much more difficult than when we are thinking with somebody actively listening. When somebody is actively listening and asking you questions and is really engaged, it’s natural to communicate in a much more effective method because you’re communicating with one person in a sequence that makes sense, that’s engaging and fun, and it pulls the best out of the speaker with that active listening, and it changes the result. So, it’s not only that it’s faster and more fun, it’s different because in my experience, it’s. It brings out the best, it brings out the gold. So anyway, everybody can use this hero’s journey structure for whatever your business is, and you will have many heroes journey. You’ve got your own, which has got multiple times where you’ve overcome struggles. But also, if you’re helping clients or patients, how, what are their individual stories? What were their struggles before you helped them with some turning point? What was their result? And just turn.

Aurora Winter:

Have these things practiced and ready in bullet points so that you can pull them out and share the stories.

Melinda Wittstock:

Wonderful. That’s great. So, we’ve got two. You’ve got the hero’s journey, the spoken author method. What are some other structures?

Aurora Winter:

Another simple structure is the ‘myth bust’. As a journalist, I’m sure you’re very familiar with this. This is so easy for everybody to do. So, you want to pick up a common myth in the regular everyday words. Don’t get fancy. Just speak the regular everyday words that people say. And then the brain gets a little jolt of dopamine when you say it exactly the opposite way. So don’t get fancy rewording it.

Aurora Winter:

So, an example would be, the myth is ‘it’s too late’. The fact is, it’s never too late. Right? So, the myth is men do everything better than women. The fact is women do everything better than men. You know, whatever the myth is that’s commonly out there, can you bust it?

Melinda Wittstock:

Right? Yeah, that’s. That’s great. I’m actually witnessing this. I mean, you know, just for full disclosure, this podcast is being recorded on July 25, and I’m just watching the messaging of Kamala Harris, for instance, how he’s turning, you know, where, where, say, Trump would be attacking her as laughing or cackling. Kamala has been turned into make America laugh again.

Aurora Winter:

Smart.

Melinda Wittstock:

Laugh is a great thing. Like, what’s wrong with laughing? We need more laughing in our society. Right? So, is it?

Aurora Winter:

Exactly.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s a myth bust.

Aurora Winter:

That’s basically a myth bust. So, basically, you take the energy. It’s like aikido. If we want to liken it to martial arts. You take the energy and instead of blocking it, you twist it around you. So that can be really, that can be really fun.

Melinda Wittstock:

Ah, yeah.

Aurora Winter:

And it’s very easy for people to do so. For example, I’m working with client on a book called the Vitality Solution, and it’s about iv vitamin therapy. But she was told, the doctors told her that she had six months to live. So, the myth is doctors are always right. The fact is doctors are not always right. So, when she was given the story that she was in a wheelchair, she was like, had Alzheimer’s like, symptoms. Couldn’t hardly string a sentence together. Her children were looking at her like, uh oh, we got to say our goodbyes.

Aurora Winter:

And the doctors told her, you know, you’ve only got six months, and there’s nothing we could do. But she wasn’t willing to take that laying down. So, she tried everything she could think of, including fasting and mindfulness and iv vitamin therapy and changing her diet. And she’s still alive today, and she’s writing a book to help other people recover from devastating diagnoses like that. So, you can use a myth bust and then a story. I gave you a little story, and that becomes something. Oh, that’s interesting. I want to find out about that book.

Aurora Winter:

The vitality solution.

Melinda Wittstock:

Amazing. And so, Aurora, you have been a serial entrepreneur since you were pretty much just out of college.

Aurora Winter:

I mean, pretty much.

Melinda Wittstock:

And so, I imagine you’ve learned a lot of these things along the way, just, you know, personally, and now help people with them. But I want to go into your backstory. I mean, you started out in the boating business.

Aurora Winter:

What is the common thread between all the businesses I’ve run? I think the common thread is actually communication. I’ve just noticed in my own life that it was my passion and my words that created wealth, which is why, you know, most recent book is called Turn Words into Wealth. So, yes, I started in the boating business with my husband. We were fresh out of college. We didn’t have any money at all. In fact, we were in debt. He was $14,000 in debt, and I was only like, I had a few hundred bucks in the positive on my bank account. So, I’m like, you are bringing debt into this marriage.

Aurora Winter:

But he was a boater, and I was not. I was kind of a little bit terrified of boats, but he had the skill of being a boater, and I had the market feasibility, you know, strategic brain. So, we realized we could start a business with no money by offering to do the marketing and help people who had boats and just moored in the marina get some charters from them. So, most people only use their boats a few weeks of the year, and the rest of the time they’re just sitting there, oh, my God.

Melinda Wittstock:

Owning a boat is like the most expensive thing you can.

Aurora Winter:

It’s an expensive hobby. So. So we quickly grew a six-figure business, which was great because we didn’t have, we didn’t have any money, and that’s what we were looking to, to pay the bills. And then I noticed that where we were, which was in Vancouver, BC, Canada, they were offering fantastic tax benefits if you invested in rental real estate. So, I asked the million-dollar question. I’m like, I wonder if we could do this with renting boats. We invested $20,000 with lawyers and accountants and discovered the answer was yes. The way the bulletins or the tax bulletins were written, they applied to rental of other properties besides real estate.

Aurora Winter:

It could also apply to a boat. What happened then is we then sold boats into our own charter fleet. It was much easier to sell boats because people got huge tax benefits. They got a 7% investment tax credit. They could write the boat off at 33 and a third percent per year. So, if you purchased $100,000 boat, you got 7000 off your taxes. Year one, you can write off 33,000, year two, et cetera. It made a huge difference.

Aurora Winter:

And plus, on top of that, they had the rental income from renting the boats, so that doubled our profit margins from 12% to 24%. And it created a barrier. Other charter or yacht sales companies could have copied us, but they didn’t. So, we became the largest yacht dealership in western Canada and had a multimillion-dollar business. So that was me thinking outside the box. Yes. But I was also trying to solve the problem of, how can I add more value? Or how could we add more value? So, everybody listening, like, how could you add more value to whatever you’re up to? So, in this case, I added the additional value of tax benefits. I added the value of doing the research through the lawyers and the accountants so that they had.

Aurora Winter:

That I could pass those documents on to people and they could share it with their lawyers and accountants and make sure that they understood how the tax law worked. And then we created a brand-new fleet. So, we then sold the charter company for six figures, and we’re just two kids in our twenties still because it had a brand-new fleet, and that made it one of the best charter companies around.

Melinda Wittstock:

So that’s incredible. And then you went from there into the film business. Okay, so I’m curious, when people do these big leaps into something completely different, what was the spark that turned you into a screenwriter, and how do you build Random Harvest Productions?

Aurora Winter:

Well, thanks for asking, Melinda. Actually, I’ve always wanted to be a writer, ever since I was nine years old. And I read the book The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by CS Lewis.

Melinda Wittstock:

I love that book. I was, too. As a kid, I was fascinated by that book.

Aurora Winter:

I know. I loved that book. And I remember, actually remember the moment my little nine-year-old hand reached up on the library shelf to touch the last book in the Narnia series, which is called the last battle. And I felt such a strong flood of emotions, of anticipation that I was going to read this delightful book, but also anticipatory grief, because it was the last book in the series. Oh, no. And I realized in that moment that writers are like wizards with just dots of ink on white paper. We can transport the reader to another place in time, even somewhere imaginary, and that we can actually even do that after we are dead, that it’s like a seed.

Aurora Winter:

A book is like a seed that germinates when somebody reads it. And I just thought, wow, there’s nothing more incredible than to be that kind of a wizard. So, at nine years old, I decided I was going to do everything I could to become a great writer like CS Lewis. And in fact, I have just published a fantasy trilogy for young adults. It’s called Magic, Mystery and the Multiverse. Actually, this has come out more recently than Turn Words into Wealth. And the first book in that series won the Reader’s Choice award, best book for teens, as well as several other awards. And I’m launching the second book, which is called the Secret Multiverse Academy on Kickstarter right now.

Aurora Winter:

And the third book, Multiverse Mayhem, is coming out later this year. So, I’m living up to my nine-year-old aspiration to do something like Cs Lewis.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s incredible. So, tell me about some of the films that your production company made.

Aurora Winter:

Okay, so, yes, back to the production company. That’s kind of a funny little story. The part of it that’s not funny is my husband died suddenly when he was 33.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, my goodness. I’m so sorry that I just can’t. My heart goes out to you. I can’t imagine.

Aurora Winter:

It was. Yeah, it was like being run over by a truck, like broadsided, like, wow, what did that come from? He died suddenly, which is somewhat of a blessing, I suppose. It’s hard for people to watch their loved ones fade, but it did give me post-traumatic stress. And we had a four-year-old son, well, who’s all grown up now. So, I was writing screenplays at the time. I’m an award-winning screenwriter as well. I wrote a TV movie called Eli’s Lesson, which is a fun family movie that’s often aired around Halloween because it’s got a Halloween theme. And a friend of mine was like, you’re moping.

Aurora Winter:

You need to come to this film party. I’m like, I don’t want to go out. I was depressed, understandably. He’s like, no, get your shoes on. Come to this party. So, I went to a party in Vancouver for film people, and I just was kind of sitting at the bar because I didn’t know anybody, and I wasn’t really feeling like my normal extroverted self. And the person sitting beside me, who I had no idea who it was, said, you know, oh, tell me what you do. And I told him about the screenplay that I was writing.

Aurora Winter:

And as I was talking about the story I was writing, which was called Lost Rituals, I got all animated and excited because I, you know, I got excited about things. And he’s like, wow, that’s a good story. You should represent the province of British Columbia and pitch that at the Banff Film and Television Festival. I’m like, who are you? And it turned out I was talking to the head of BC film. Anyway, so I pitched that screenplay at the Banff festival, and that led. There’s a few more parts in that story, but anyway, it led to a bidding war for that movie with spelling, television, and various Canadian and LA producers vying to option it. And my agent Fielding offers on my behalf. And that led basically to a six-figure result of me working for Canada’s largest film and television production company at the time was called Atlantis Films.

Aurora Winter:

It’s since merged with Alliance and keep on mergers and acquisitions. Change names. Anyway, so then that led me going to various film television production company, sorry, festivals like Cannes. And there I met a partner to launch this film company with, which is called Random Harvest Productions. We went on to make eight films. As I mentioned before we started recording, we raised $5 million, approximately $5 million, using the EIS tax shelter scheme. So once again, thinking, how can we add more value? How can we use tax incentives to bring something extra to the table? And we did that. And then that funded eight films.

Aurora Winter:

So that was a fun story there. And then I went on to do a few, a few other things, including launching the Grief coach academy, because I really wanted to help other people recover from grief more quickly and easily than I had. In our culture in North America, we act like death as a surprise and only happens to other people. We’re just so ill informed about it. And that leads to people suffering much longer than they need to. On average, people, according to studies, suffer five to ten years after a devastating loss, such as the loss of a child or husband or even a career, not just a job, but something that they had their identity attached to. And five to eight years is just way too long for people to have this sharp downward spiral when, with a more proactive approach, I think they can recover much more quickly. So, I created a systematic approach for people to get through grief, and the result was in a matter of months, sometimes even weeks, people had processed the bulk of their grief and were able to, if not be happy, at least find meaning and purpose in life again.

Aurora Winter:

When there’s no meaning, suicide is the next step, right? So, you don’t have to be happy all the time, but you do need to have meaning. So, for me, I had meaning looking at my little four-year-old boy. I had to get my life back together. And anyway, so the grief coach academy is now run by Audrey White, who is doing a lovely job and helping people through grief because I’m one of these restless people and I’m on to the next thing with same page publishing, helping people with their books.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, what an incredible story, Aurora. I mean, it’s true that we do all, as human beings, need meaning. And I think it’s one of the reasons why, you know, just going back to the whole storytelling, when you feel part of something that’s bigger than yourself.

Aurora Winter:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

I’m curious your thoughts. We live in such a weird, disconnected world at, at the moment. Like, social media is supposed to bring us all together, but it’s actually divided us.

Aurora Winter:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

People are in their own little kind of news deserts or filter bubbles or with just that lack of connection. And I think it’s making people go a little crazy.

Aurora Winter:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

And yet we have more in common than not. And so how can story be used to bring people together? I think that’s one of the driving things that makes me really, in terms of my own meaning for Podopolo, over and above, like, yes, let’s put power and profit into the hands of creators and let’s do all these things. There’s this bigger mission.

Aurora Winter:

Exactly.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. And meaning. And as an entrepreneur, really understanding, like, what your meaning is, what your purpose is, is a thing that’s going to get you through all the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. Because entrepreneurship is not easy.

Aurora Winter:

It’s not easy.

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s so much that goes wrong, like, a lot of the time. Right. So how navigate through that? So, what have been some of the biggest, I mean, you obviously mentioned one massive one. I mean, the death of your husband at such a young age, what have been some of the entrepreneurial sort of challenges and struggles and things that you’ve had to deal with, some of the challenges and how you’ve overcome those oh.

Aurora Winter:

So many, so many challenges. And I’m still a work in progress and hopefully still evolving. I think I’ll share a more recent kind of epiphany and something I’m really leaning into now, really caused by Covid. So Covid was a setback for my business. I was in the event business before Covid, and it was kind of ironic. So, I was actually hosting an event in February 2020 in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, which is a beautiful UNESCO heritage site. It’s sort of got that European flavor with the cobblestones, and then it’s got, you know, all the bright colors and the fantastic art of the Mexican culture. And there was a pyramid.

Aurora Winter:

We were touring a pyramid. So, I was with my peeps doing an event. I’m like, I love these events. I’m going to do like three or four a year. This is great. And then Covid hit. So, I had to pivot my business as so many people did.

Aurora Winter:

But what was really good about it is that’s when I went, okay, well, what am I really trying to do with my life? And what are some dreams that I have not given myself time or permission to do? And that’s. It was because of COVID that I’m like, you know what, Aurora? You had this dream since you were nine years old to write a book a little bit like the Narnia series. When are you going to do that? Why are you putting it off? And I realized I was putting it off because I didn’t have certainty if that would make money or if people would like it or if I would be able to do it. And I’m like, okay, well, that’s just all B’s. Like, I don’t want to be on my deathbed going, well, I really didn’t do that life dream. So Covid, which was a setback, helped me lean into what do I really care about? What do I want to do with my life? What are the regrets that I want to avoid? So, I decided to do write the fantasy book magic mystery in the multiverse of the fantasy trilogy with that name as my art project. And I told myself, it doesn’t need to make any money. It can be my art project.

Aurora Winter:

I can invest in the beautiful cover design and invest in an editor and a proofreader and just enjoy the process without always friggin’ turning everything into a business. And who knows? People really like it. It’s a new book, and I’m known for nonfiction, so it’s my first fiction book, although I’ve written tv movies and such not. But that was years before, and it’s already got thousands of readers and lots of great reviews on Amazon. The second one’s coming out of right now. We’re coming out in September.

Melinda Wittstock:

We have all these challenges in business. Like, the pandemic is a great example where you have something that’s beyond your control. And we were talking in the context of storytelling, how to take an energy instead of blocking it, let it through. I’m thinking of the Bruce Lee book. Be like water, right? Yeah, in that case. So, with the pandemic, I mean, it was kind of an opportunity. Everybody had a choice. Yeah, you kind of go with it.

Melinda Wittstock:

Like, what can you take from this? It was a chance to really sit and be honest and evaluate your life. Like, what do you actually really want? Because literally there was a pause. You could kind of fight against it. Right. And, you know, what were you going to do? And so, I think a lot of businesses blossomed, actually during that time. A lot, you know, there was, like, anything, there was good and bad about it, but at the end of the day, it’s a choice. Like, how are you going to react to, you know, failures and all the little micro failures with a new company where you’re trying to figure out your product market fit? Like, will people actually pay you? Like, what price? Or, like, what’s the killer feature? What’s the this? Or how do you tell the story? There are all these micro failures along the way, and then there’s some other really bigger ones or bigger challenges. I don’t know, lawsuits, like, whatever.

Melinda Wittstock:

All the stuff that happens, you know.

Aurora Winter:

Well, how did Covid affect you and your business?

Melinda Wittstock:

Well, it was interesting. I had sold my kind of previous technology business, Vera feed, and I was in this kind of middling thing. It’s around the time I started the podcast. And with this podcast, I had a whole bunch of other little revenue streams around it, including, like, you know, an online summit, like a little membership thing to help women entrepreneurs. And I was kind of, like, coaching, and I was doing all these things online. I didn’t really love it, but, like, I don’t know, it was kind of a cool thing to be doing. And that spawned into these really, you know, luxury retreats for high performing entrepreneurs. So, I had a similar thing where I had this retreat and and the resort that wouldn’t release our deposit.

Melinda Wittstock:

And like, oh, my God, it was just like a nightmare and all that kind of stuff was going along. But I had had the idea for Podopolo had been sort of percolating through kind of 2019. Like, something has to be done with this industry, right? It’s a really fragmented industry. It’s got, it’s growing, it’s huge, but there’s all these disconnects in it. What can I do? Like, what is that? So that had been kind of in the back of my mind, and I think once the pandemic really hit, it was like, okay, I was looking around. I wasn’t seeing anyone doing it. I had been innovating in AI since 2010, I had created one of the first ever kind of crowdsourcing apps using AI to try and figure out the relevance and reliability of user generated content. I’d been doing all these different things, and meanwhile, I won lots of awards for all my media businesses, right, and shows I’d created for the BBC and, you know, all this kind of stuff.

Melinda Wittstock:

And I just realized I was the ideal person in a way that combined this deep technology background with an award-winning content background. It’s like, this is what podcasting needs. So, there was a lot of introspection. I was on a big personal growth or spiritual journey as well, which is before. I just really used that opportunity to get very clear about my purpose. What I had that was unique, how to really, you know, focus that on something that I really cared about, really got to work on that. And then, like, you know, by 2021, you know, the first line of code, you know, was being written on this.

Aurora Winter:

You know, that’s great. I should talk to you maybe offline about BBC because my fantasy series Magic Mystery in the Multiverse, I met with BBC Fast Forward at another Banff Media Conference that was just a couple of weeks ago, and BBC is interested in turning it into a series, and they’re willing to invest about a million pounds.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, amazing.

Aurora Winter:

I know. So now I need to just cobble together the rest of the financing. So, you might have some thoughts on that.

Melinda Wittstock:

I was on the news side. So going way back in the nineties, late nineties, I was an anchor for BBC World television. But then I was often in New York, you know, covering the UN or doing different things or covering the US elections. And I spent about two years traveling back and forth between New York and London, and it was really born of just my lived experience because the BBC wanted stories only about fat people and guns related to the US. Really? Really? Not kidding.

Aurora Winter:

They have a stereotype.

Melinda Wittstock:

Certainly did. Right about, you know, and I was like, wait a minute. There’s so much more to this country. This is crazy. And I’m Canadian as well, I’d lived at the two extremes, living in both New York and London of my own culture, in a way. Right? And I was like, wait a minute.

Melinda Wittstock:

I really would like British people to actually understand, you know, America better, right? And then meantime, the Americans had this attitude about Britain. It was all the royal family or, like, all this kind of stuff. And, like, Britain is just so much more than that.

Aurora Winter:

You know what I mean? Right. Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

I had this idea for this news magazine, and I figured out a way to pitch it, create it for next to no money out of the BBC bureau in New York. That show, grew that show to, like, a 20 million daily audience.

Aurora Winter:

Wow.

Melinda Wittstock:

Congratulations on, like, a zero budget. Like. Like, our set. Like, we invested in lighting, you know what I mean? But otherwise.

Aurora Winter:

Otherwise, got to have good lights. Absolutely.

Melinda Wittstock:

You know, but it was.

Aurora Winter:

It was.

Melinda Wittstock:

It was cheap and. But it was good, right. And it had a really interesting sensibility and a lot of fun and humor to it. Like, we take. We got the rights to, like, hockey, and we just show, like, little snippets of hockey fights.

Aurora Winter:

That’s very Canadian of you.

Melinda Wittstock:

And I was doing that at the same time that I was hosting ABC News, World News Now, which is their overnight show, which I was doing with Anderson Cooper. So, I was just doing a lot of stuff, and it was really my entrepreneurial spirit and such, but that was kind of like the attitude that I’ve always had. It’s like, oh, God, I’m just going to launch a show. How hard can this be? And I remember I have that same problem saying, you can’t do that. Like, you’re. What makes you think you can go, why not? Like, you know? Right. And so, it’s always been like that.

Melinda Wittstock:

I just don’t see why you can’t do things.

[PROMO CREDIT]

Wings of Inspired Business is brought to you by the new podcast, Zero Limits Business Growth Secrets. Join me together with Steve Little – serial entrepreneur, investor and mergers & acquisitions maestro – as we explore the little-known 24 value drivers that spell the difference between a $5m business, and a $50mm even $500 mm business. That’s Zero Limits Business Growth Secrets, produced by Podopolo Brand Studio at zerolimitsradio.com – that’s zerolimitsradio.com and available wherever you get your podcasts.

Melinda Wittstock:

And we’re back with Aurora Winter, master communicator, serial entrepreneur, author of Turn Words into Wealth, award-winning screenwriter, and founder of Same Page Publishing.

[INTERVIEW CONTINUES]

Aurora Winter:

I would love to talk a little bit about AI. So, in the industry, you asked about business setbacks. Covid was a recent one. I mean, there’ve been many earlier, but AI is a very big deal in the publishing space right now, and people are, generally speaking, terrified. And we haven’t got your experience with AI since you’ve been in this field since 2010. So, I’ve recently been confronted by this and had to decide, where am I going to come down on this hot topic, at least for authors and publishers. So, one of the podcasts that I really like, I don’t know if you’ve interviewed her yet, Joanna Penn, she’s got the creative pen podcast, and she’s very AI positive, and she’s like, you know, the genie’s out of the bottle.

Aurora Winter:

Let’s see how we can use it to help ourselves with tasks we don’t like, like marketing or just brainstorming, marketing copy or this and that. And so, she’s quite open that she is. She calls herself an AI assisted artisan author, and I was on her podcast recently. On July 1, it aired on the Creative Pen podcast. It was great. Great chat, but not in the podcast. She shared with me that when she came out as AI positive. Sounds like a disease.

Aurora Winter:

She lost 25% of her podcast listeners. She’s got a huge podcast. Yeah. So, there’s haters out there. So. And recently, I launched the second book in the Magic mystery in the multiverse on Kickstarter. I’ve been working on these books since 2020. It’s taken me four freaking years.

Aurora Winter:

If I wrote it with AI, it would have been a whole lot faster. I didn’t make any declaration that I was using AI, and that was too hot for Kickstarter, and they suspended that campaign because I didn’t give them whatever they wanted. So now I have a new Kickstarter campaign for the same book, which goes on and on ad nauseam about all the ways that I use AI. So, for example. But none of them are in the book. But, for example, I run the manuscript through something called authors AI, which gives you, in a couple of minutes, a structural analysis of the story. Like, best-selling books have a heartbeat, and about every 10% of the book, they’ve got a turning point. So, it’s not just the three act turning points that you may be familiar with from the hero’s journey or from watching movies or I’m familiar with from screenwriting.

Aurora Winter:

But you need to have this 10%. So, if you have an 80,000-word book, every 8,000 words, you need a heartbeat. So, you can quickly analyze your manuscript by putting it in authors AI, and you can see, oh, well, maybe this has got 12%. I need to tighten that. You know, you could just, it just gives you information that you, I think.

Melinda Wittstock:

Where AI is going to be most impactful, because like any, any tool, right, there’s good and bad. It’s. It’s like AI is both a knife and a weapon.

Aurora Winter:

Right. Right.

Melinda Wittstock:

And so, it depends on how it’s applied and how it’s used. So, the best-case scenario is it’s used, as you’re describing, where it’s an assistant to help you so you can be in your unique genius. Yeah, I think AI can in any way replace human creativity. Because think about this for a moment. I mean, large, the large language models, you know, all the training data and whatnot, these things are all historic.

Aurora Winter:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

Right. You can’t take training data from the future because you don’t know what the future is. And so, there are sort of potential weaknesses there because if you’re adding, for instance, one of the biggest problems is adding bias. Right. Because it’s what goes into it kind of is what comes out of it.

Aurora Winter:

But also, garbage in. Garbage out. Exactly.

Melinda Wittstock:

But also, what you ask it to do. But it is very powerful. I mean, the way Podopolo, for instance, uses AI on the marketing side with GenAI, like this podcast here right now, this transcript and like hundreds of millions of episodes in Podopolo are instantly transcribed. And you can actually understand line by line, what’s going on in the sentiment, the conversation. You can identify Internet Advertising Bureau keywords. You can do this, you can do that, but it also can learn your voice and turn it into, you know, your social posts or a word book to make what you learned actionable or like all these different things.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, there’s that kind of repurposing engine, right?

Aurora Winter:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

Saves a lot of time for people. Okay. And then you can, you know, and it continues to learn. And that’s cool. It’s helpful. Right. Saves time. But the other area and the really powerful one is really on just the insights, like what you are learning from these data sets.

Melinda Wittstock:

So, you can look for patterns and data. You can also be an assistant. You can also train it to help you with whatever you’re working on. But it will never, I don’t think it will replace that. Just human uniqueness, like the human soul and what comes from that and our unique experiences.

Aurora Winter:

Exactly. Our soul and also what matters, like we talked earlier in this show about, it’s important to have meaning in life. So, one of the things that’s really meaningful to me, whether I’m publishing or helping people publish fiction or nonfiction, is how is this going to make a difference? So same page publishing is devoted to bestselling, award winning books that make a difference. So, for example, I think it’s obvious how nonfiction can make a difference. It solves problems. So, turn words into wealth solves the problem of how do you communicate effectively? Or my book, marketing fast track, helps you fast track marketing or thought leader launch helps you launch as a thought leader, or start with collaboration, teaches you how to collaborate. But a book like the fantasy series mystery in the multiverse also has a somewhat hidden objective because it’s got to be entertaining and fun and fast paced, and the characters have got to be great. But I think that fiction can also change reality.

Aurora Winter:

The examples would be something like Star Trek Gene Roddenberry created a wonderful series in 1966, but it had a progressive view of the future, promoting diversity, equality. And some of the things seen in that series, like automatic doors and handheld communication devices, are now ordinary. But the fact that they had Ohura, a black woman, on the bridge deck, they didn’t make a big deal of it. It was just obvious. It just was normal. And that can really make a difference. You know, even songs like Roar by Katy Perry can inspire us. Or the Matrix, the movie.

Aurora Winter:

But one of the books that really moved me and moved many people is 1984 by George Orwell. And I don’t claim to be George Orwell, but Magic Mystery in the Multiverse does have a theme underlying it about censorship. So, the evil people are censors, and in terms of censoring people, because that’s what was happening in 2020. And that made me really mad that people are getting canceled for just asking questions, wanting data.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. The combination of, like, big lies and propaganda and censorship. Right. Where you get to the point where it’s disempowering and it’s actually meant to make people feel they have no agency and to be kind of despairing and lose their power because you just don’t know what to believe. And, I mean, I have strong views about this, I guess, as a journalist because there’s so many shades of gray, you know, and anything that you’d report and such. So, like, you know, truth is so. Is so relative. But to be able to really have, like, a diverse culture where people’s people have agency. You need to have a climate that people are not in judgment. Like, just more curiosity, more respect and just listening and, you know, these sorts of basic kind of, like, they’re almost like character kind of issues to me.

Aurora Winter:

Right. Well, exactly. What if the other person has something valuable that you could learn or engage with? What if we’re curious instead of condemning? My hope is that the magic mystery in the multiverse series will provide an opportunity for teachers and parents and youth to think about. What do they think about free speech? Does that matter to them?

Melinda Wittstock:

Exactly. Exactly right. Oh, my goodness. Aurora, I could talk to you forever for a lot longer. You’re just going to have to be one of the guests that comes back. Okay, so let’s do that. I want to make sure everybody knows how to find you and work with you. There’s probably a lot of people listening to this that need books that definitely do want to turn their words into wealth what’s the best way?

Aurora Winter:

Well, I would love to help them create a book and launch as a thought leader and create those award winning, bestselling books that make a difference. If that’s you and you’re listening, you can go to bookcall.biz and book a call with me, tell me a little bit about what you’re up to, what you’re trying to do, and then I can see if I can help you. Or you can also go to same page publishing. Same page publishing. You can see a number of the different books that I’ve helped birth into the world. And you can also get a thought leader launch library absolutely for free. So, you’ll get a bunch of videos teaching you how to turn your words into wealth, how to create a million-dollar message, how to attract capital, clients and media coverage. It’s all totally free.

Aurora Winter:

And that’s available@samepagepublishing.com. or my website, which is aurorawinter.com. and of course, Turn Words into Wealth is available on Amazon or wherever books are sold.

Melinda Wittstock:

Amazing. Well, thank you so much.

Aurora Winter:

Thank you, Melinda. This was great. You’re very interesting to talk to, too. I love what you’re, I love your background. We have a lot in common.

[INTERVIEW ENDS]

Melinda Wittstock:

Aurora Winter is a serial entrepreneur, author of Turn Words into Wealth, and the founder of Same Page Publishing. Check out Wings of Inspired Business on Podopolo, the app where you can create and share your favorite moments with our viral episode clip feature, and join us in the episode comments section so we can all take the conversation further with your questions and comments.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s it for today’s episode. Head on over to WingsPodcast.com – and subscribe to the show.

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