Nicole Laino
Hello, and welcome to the limitless entrepreneur podcast. I’m your host, Nicole Laino. And I am here with a very special guest, Mr. Neil Gordon, Neil helps experts become the face of a movement. He works with executives, influencers and thought leaders and has helped them get six figure book advances, and seen on shows like Ellen and Dr. Oz, and double people double their speaking fees among so many other things, Neil, I’m going to kick it over to you to just kind of fill in the gaps there and tell them a little bit about you and your story. But I’m so excited to have you welcome to the show. Well, thank

Neil Gordon
you, of course, for having me, Nicole. And I’m very excited to be here as well. And in terms of who I am, and my background, because I have a background in book publishing and communication and language. The next thing I’m supposed to say is, well, I loved reading as a kid, and I always had my face in a book and I went to Duke University as an English major and graduated with a 4.0 and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that is so completely not the case. I actually hated reading. From the point I got my first book report in second grade, my dad would always say as soon as reading became work, you just stop doing it. And that’s exactly what happened. And I still got good grades, thankfully, and I graduated from college with a 3.5. But throughout all of that I never read anything. And the first time I took the SATs, I got a 330 verbal score, like my incomprehension was nothing. I mean, that was like the fifth percentile. I mean, it was terrible. So when I graduated from college, I moved to New York City, I needed an escape from the subways. And in the last year or so I started to flirt with reading a little bit of like light fiction. And then a buddy of mine gave me a book called A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving. And that book just so completely, it was just such a mind bender, I just couldn’t deal with my old worldview of what I thought the world was before I read the book. And then after reading it, because of the way things unfold for the main character, it just shattered everything I thought I knew. And I then spent the next couple of years immersing myself and reading everything I could by John Irving and other authors, I started reading nonfiction. And on the other side of all of that, I became rather discerning about what gave language its power. And I got my job at Penguin, the book publishing company a couple of years after that transition. And that got me off into the whole world of communication as all

Nicole Laino
so interesting, I love it. You went once learning became once reading became work, you are out. And it is interesting, like I wonder if you just have that rebellious side where it’s like, don’t tell me what to do. I don’t want to be told I want to find things I want to explore on my own is that in your genetic makeup, you think or

Neil Gordon
you know, once I once I was done with the corporate world, and this is a number of years ago now I very much got that kind of independent streak in me just nobody can tell me what to do, but me kind of thing. But honestly, Nicole as a kid, I did what I was told other than reading, I always did my work. I never studied. Here’s the thing, I never applied myself to anything that didn’t come easily. And so thankfully, homework and easily and taking tests came easily. But I never studied for anything I never read. And part of it, I think was just probably an undiagnosed attention deficit. I’m guessing because like, you remember school, they didn’t give you the most gripping fiction to read it was these, these old books that nobody cared about except in school?

Nicole Laino
Yes, I agree with that. And I had a bit of that kind of rebellious streak, too. I loved learning, but I don’t tell me what to learn. Don’t write, I want to find it on my own. Or I want to, you know, have it be given to me by somebody who cares about what I’m reading and not an assignment. I have, like, kind of a bucking authority issue. I think I do now, too.

Neil Gordon
Yeah. That’s why you’re an entrepreneur. Right?

Nicole Laino
Well, yeah, yeah. We don’t always look like rebels our whole lives. But it’s kind of there, though, underneath the surface, showing up in little ways. So you talked about, about how you became discerning about language and its effect on on the world and just on the way that it makes people behave. And that’s kind of what I’d like to at least start with in this interview is, you you have, you have two ways of looking at things where you have an unique look on an elevator pitch, and on getting that down to and how you introduce yourself how that can really be impactful and not sound like this canned speech, or just credentials. And then you have something else you call the silver bullet method which these two things I think I see them from, you know, looking at your work, they seem to go very well hand in hand. But it’s really about, about distilling things down to something that’s so bite sized, but so powerful. And I was wondering if you could kind of talk about, about either one of those to start out with, and we see where we go from there.

Neil Gordon
Yeah, for sure. I think the best way that we can look at this is from something that happened to me a couple of years ago, where I was going about to go to a conference, and for three days in New York City, and the night before, there was a happy hour arranged by one of the attendees, and optional thing just to meet everyone beforehand. And, and I went to that, and I got there in on the earlier side, so there was only about eight or 10 of us, before the main crowd got there. So we were all standing in a circle talking as one conversation rather than breaking off into our own separate conversations. And, at one point, the ringleader, the happy hour just turned to me said, what do you do Neil? And I started talking. And 15 seconds later, I was interrupted, because everyone started talking to each other. And that probably sounds kind of rude. I’m guessing it’s like, Oh, my God, they interrupted my elevator pitch kind of thing. But what I haven’t told you is the reason why they interrupted me is because of something I said that got them so excited that they actually just suddenly had to start talking about it right then and there. And that was the thing that you identified a moment ago as the silver bullet like concept. And so the promise of this approach, and one of my best headlines on entrepreneur, ever calm for entrepreneur and one of my best headlines was how to craft an elevator pitch that gives people chills in under 20 seconds. And that’s why it’s a good headline, it makes you curious. Now that could happen. So here’s what usually happens. And someone asks, what do you do or something like that, and he’s like, Oh, I’m gonna give my elevator pitch now, right? What most people do is that they just start listing, they give their title, or they give what their job is or what their company is. And then they list all the things that they do. Right, and you mentioned a moment ago is like just listing credentials or something like that, right. And that’s the kind of thing, this is who I am, this is what I do. This is why I’m proven to be good at what I do, or something like that. But effective communication values the recipient, over the sender. Okay, the most effective elevator pitch isn’t about holding your stuff, like what your credentials are, and what you do, and all of that the most powerful elevator pitch is about empowering the other person to somehow live a richer life in that moment, but in the context of your expertise. And so how do we do that? Instead of what will someone asked what do you do, instead of just saying, Oh, well, I’m a this and I do this, this, this and that. Instead, you could talk about the problem that your company or your expertise ultimately solves the other people care about. Right? And so look at it this way, like when we’re talking about communicating in general, I might say, many people who are an expert are struggling to communicate their message in a way that attracts other people to it, to get other people to care about it. So that they want to go deeper and do business with them. That’s a problem that experts might have, like, oh, yeah, I do need to attract more people, I need to get my message out there, I need to spread the word. Right. So that’s a problem that other people care about solving. And then the next thing you can say, after you’ve established the problem, is talk about the typical and flawed ways people try to solve that problem. And so what most people do when they’re trying to communicate is they do the show up and throw up. They just do the, oh, this is everything that I this is everything that I do. And these are all the different talking points and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so, when you’re starting the elevator pitch, you start with the problem. And then you identify the typical solutions, because what you want is to show them, why the myths that you’re busting the other things that people have to do, why they don’t work, because that steers them to thinking yeah, I’ve tried those things and it just doesn’t work. I’m still stuck, I still have this problem. And then you get to what you identified and what I call the silver bullet, which is your secret sauce. In one sentence capturing the how you solve a problem in a way that gets people to think Oh, I get that now I see how that I couldn’t work. And that’s when they start to get chills. And it’s also the moment in that story at the happy hour when people all interrupted me to talk about it because I gave my silver bullet. And there’s like, oh, yeah, that’s so true. And all that. And for the record, it’s something I’ve already said. I said, Well, what do you do? And I was like, Oh, well, with experts and public speakers, they’re trying to get their word out. And they’re trying to spread the word, but they’re struggling to get people to care about their stuff. And what they often try to do is just provide as much information as they can about their stuff and about them. But effective communication values, the recipient over the sender. And that’s when they interrupted me, it’s like, Oh, my God, it’s totally you have to make it about them, not about yourself, and blah, blah, blah. And then finally, they said, so what do you do nails like, oh, well, I help public speakers and entrepreneurs, and other kinds of experts to transform their message so that people come up to them in droves wanting to work with them.

Nicole Laino
And I love all of that. And I think that one of the hardest things for people to do is get things down to that like that, that bite size, little that elevator pitch. And, and making it about the sender, first of all, take some pressure off of you to have to because I think where a lot of people get stuck is we say the word expert. And we start thinking, what we view who we view as an expert, which is probably somebody we hold in very high regard. And then we say you start comparing ourselves to them. And whether we’re doing it consciously or subconsciously, you know that but but that can get, you know, you might feel great about it one minute, but then you let it sit for a little while, and then you start getting nervous about it. And just thinking about all the other people who do this thing, or, you know, I’m not as good as them, and we get a little tripped up. So at least putting me I was an actor. And one of the things my acting teacher used to say, if you put your focus on the other person, right, it’s impossible to be self conscious. If you thinking about the other people, if you’re thinking about who you help, and you’re leading with that, you’re, you’re putting your attention on the other person on the person that you help on the person you’re talking to, and trying to make a real connection with them, which I think gets missed when we’re trying to just sit there and, you know, give our resume and make it sound. So, you know, so captivating that people will just be like, I want to work with you right now. Because you said you do this, which doesn’t really happen. So can you talk about how you break that down with people? And how can they find their unique special sauce? Are we really just looking for are we looking for the mistake that people are making, and we’re flipping it around? Meaning like most people are doing this, but I have this is my unique take. And that’s kind of your your end, punch to your elevator pitch.

Neil Gordon
You know, it’s very perceptive that you said that, Nicole, because that’s exactly where I like to start with my folks. And that night. I like to encourage them to get well frankly, I mean, kind of judgmental about the rest of the world around them met. There’s this moment in the movie money pit where at the beginning with Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill and Jonah is a fictional character who’s describing to Brad Pitt’s character what them they say money Pac Man Moneyball.

Nicole Laino
Tom Hanks, and Shelley Long. Just have that vision of him literally in the hole in the house at the end of that up at the end of that movie, but yes, Moneyball, I know exactly what you were talking about.

Neil Gordon
That is so funny. I’ve been talking about Moneyball a lot lately. I think I just needed to pressure myself for some Hey, so Moneyball, that’s really what we want. Moneyball with Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill. And Jonah is describing the Moneyball model to to Brad and he just says there is an epidemic failure in how most baseball teams are managing their teams. And he says that what they think they need to do is buy players, but what they really need to do is buy runs. And so the whole movie is about this system, where even if they’re not the flashiest players, if they get on base, and they score, that’s what matters because that’s how you win the game. And I had been talking about the importance of highlighting the mistakes that other people make, like you just said, even when I rewatched Moneyball like last year, I think I rewatched it I was like, oh my god, I never even realized that Jonah is doing exactly what I hate. So I’ve just been talking about Moneyball ever since. And usually for the record, I usually call it Moneyball and not money. And so that’s such a fertile ground for finding the uniqueness of your idea is that you cite what you see as the epidemic failure in what other people are doing or think they need to do. The myths that you need to buy Last. And when you get that it doesn’t guarantee that that’s the only way to find your idea. But it’s a really good starting point. It’s something that you and I can talk about here, right now episode and say, this is a good place to start. Because the very nature of uniqueness is that it’s contrasted with everything else that’s around it. And so that’s how you start.

Nicole Laino
So just just to play a little game, because I think examples help, I’m trying to, I’m thinking about, like, you’re making me think about the way that I present things and the way that I put my message out in the world. And one of the things that I say, and, and this is one, and I can say that when I, you can tell me if I’m off with this, but it feels good. And you feel like you’re onto something when you approach it this way, because you are taking conventional wisdom. And you are saying I think about this differently, I see this differently, I have the results to back this up. And there’s a there’s a level of confidence that comes from finding a new way thinking out of the box that everybody else is in. And one of the things there’s been a lot of talk about limiting beliefs. Everybody talks about limiting beliefs. I talk about them here all the time, we have limiting beliefs, and they they affect our ability to operate out on the world. Yeah. But the problem with limiting beliefs is it’s a very conscious thing. And we’re talking about subconscious beliefs. And it’s actually not the beliefs the I would say it’s not the beliefs that are holding people where they are, it’s the emotions that are attached to the limiting belief. Yeah, it’s the it’s the emotional connection we have to the thoughts that we have. So you can’t erase the thought, until you deal with the emotion. Right. So I get it. And I don’t know if I’m phrasing it the right way, or doing it in a way where it’s a true silver bullet. But I know when I when that came to me when I kind of when I understood that I started working with that approach. It changed the way that I changed the way I delivered my message. Yeah.

Neil Gordon
Yeah, for sure. And what you are hitting on there, Nicole, I mean, first of all, I want everyone to notice what Nicole did here is that found a very clear contrast, and that what most people are doing to overcome their internal obstacles, or however we might phrase this is that they focus on limiting beliefs, and finding a way to invert those beliefs or something like that. But the real way to tackle the darker, or more limiting aspects of how we show up in our work in our life, is to first deal with the emotions associated with it. And so it’s this very clean contrast, not beliefs, but emotions or feelings, or whatever it is, you call it. And so the silver bullet might be something like the key, like, what would you say is the outcome is like, like freeing, like, what would you say? Is the promise of this work? Is it a matter of finding finding your your confidence as an entrepreneur? Is it more a matter of like, what would you characterize the the larger promise of this work to be?

Nicole Laino
It’s breaking past your upper limit, and, and so your next level of success, so when you can clear the emotion, you’ve now released the glue holding you to all of these beliefs, thought patterns that are keeping you in a pattern, which is keeping you where you are, when you release the emotion attached to it. That’s true freedom from the way of thinking that kept you in this spot. And you’re free to move on.

Neil Gordon
Right? So then Exactly, okay, that’s beautiful. So a silver bullet could be like, releasing emotion shatters the ceiling. That or like breaks the limits, if you wanted to have like a less colloquial way to put it or something like that. But it’s like, where you can even play around with the contrast in the sentence itself is that we break through our limitations, not by addressing our beliefs, but rather clearing our emotions like that. So these are all potential contenders for these are all contenders for your silver bullet, because the most important thing is that the idea comes across. And the language like a silver bullet, just so that everyone knows is like cause and effect sentence. It’s like taking an action leads to an outcome. Right? So when I asked what is the promise, and it’s like, breaking through your limits is a great promise of this kind of work. And so what is the action that leads to that outcome? And so that’s really what the secret sauce like statement is, it’s cause and effect.

Nicole Laino
Now, silver bullets, this whole this whole framework, would someone have multiple silver bullets, and this would be if you were giving speeches, you work with public speakers, you work with helping develop public speakers, is this something that you would have in good speech, there would be several silver bullets that are kind of punctuating throughout your speech? Is that how you use these or I mean, I’m thinking the applications are, there’s many that is that one of them how you would have somebody kind of working a talk around and come up with silver bullets to sort of grab people and help punctuate the the idea.

Neil Gordon
Yes, public speaking is one of the most well fitted applications for this concept. And what’s interesting is that there’s not, I like to say that the only hard and fast rule of communication is that there are no hard and fast rules. But I do tend to steer people toward a certain kind of model in using the silver bullet in their speaking. And that what I see in a lot of speeches is, someone might have like five concepts that they want to get across to their audience, here are five steps or five things you need to do to do this or something like that. And I see it all over the place. And I am not really a fan of that approach to a keynote speech, for example, because it’s just kind of like, I call it a puddle jumper, where it’s just like, I’m going to talk about this, then I’m gonna talk about this, I’m gonna talk about this, it’s just kind of this even keeled thing. Whereas if you had one silver bullet, and your talk was about leading up to that, you could use things like mysteries, and stories that haven’t yet been completed. And, and tantalizing questions, and you could actually lead up to a single silver bullet. So it’s almost like a climax in a movie. But because the silver bullet is so potent, if you have all this anticipation and build up, then you can actually deliver on what you’ve been building up to. Whereas if you have just kind of like a standard way of communicating, and you have all this anticipation, and you say, then it’s going to be a letdown. So you create that juice, that kind of thing that gives people chills in that cause and effect sentence kind of way when you do that. And it’s really empowering people, oh, wow, I get it. Now, you can justify building up in that way. And it keeps people on the end of their seat edge of their seats, and all of that. And so you would have one and sometimes when I give a talk, I’ll have one big climactic silver bullet. And then at the very end, I’ll explain how you could use it in practical steps and tips and stuff like that. But then at the end, I’ll have a little story that captures the bigger idea, perhaps, and maybe a broader silver bullet that encompasses everything. So it’s not a hard and fast thing, like I said, but that’s one example of how you might structure a talk using this technique.

Nicole Laino
I like how you, you kind of pointed out something that I think a lot of people think they need is we get very into what I consider sort of a cheap kind of way of approaching speeches and content of the the list the five,

Neil Gordon
write a listicle? Yeah, yeah. And

Nicole Laino
I mean, I get how I get how it gets people to click on on an article and things. For sure. But but when we get into when you know, the goal with being a speaker with putting your message out there and truly having a message is to really change people’s perception. change people’s thought pattern and have them see something a different way like that book did for you. All those years ago, you’re freaking out shattered your worldview and put you on a completely change your trajectory for your life. Like that’s the power of a message is that it can truly have people turn. So So I love this, is that really what you do with with people when you are working with them on a public on public speaking? And on developing a talk? I’m supposing where you come up with that one concept that do you think it’s better to be focused on that one thing you’re building, you’re building that case the entire time you hit them with it? And then at the end, you’re summing up and hopefully hitting them again?

Neil Gordon
Right? Yeah, absolutely. The larger impact that this work tends to have on the people with whom I work in particular is that they get like a signature talk, that they can go and give to all sorts of different audiences and adapt it lightly. But that same essential idea winds up being pervasive throughout all those different talks. Now, that’s not to say that you can only have one silver bullet, and only one talk, I actually just gave a talk to a staff of a community college recently, which didn’t talk about the silver bullet at all. It talked about that thing that I mentioned at the beginning of the elevator pitch around framing everything in the context of a problem that your audience cares about solving and how to influence people using that technique. You have a background in corporate America, I believe, and, and back then you might have seen people who struggle to get a voice at the table kind of thing. And so that technique is very helpful. framing things in the context of the problem that the audience cares about solving is an idea unto itself, that can be very helpful and very powerful to spend 3045 minutes just talking about that. So you can have multiple silver bullets, and I even have kind of organized them almost hierarchically in my in my own messaging. But in terms of one body of content, I do tend to encourage people just to have that one big lightning bolt moment. Because that’s where you cut through the noise, that are having a bunch like five different things all in one, especially if you’re at a conference. And there are like three or four other speakers that are seeing that day. You’re there’s the conference is already noisy, then just have the one thing, the one idea, one takeaway, and you’ll be Oh, I really liked her, she was, Oh, she was the priorities person or she was the consistency person or whatever it is.

Nicole Laino
Right and makes you memorable. Rather than you just being sweet giving this watered down message to try to give more where you actually end up giving less impact. The goal should be impact, not quantity. One last question for you. You work with public speakers? This is what you do. What can anyone with thoughts and with a message be a public speaker? Or who do you see as being the most successful at this in this field?

Neil Gordon
It really comes down to one word. And that word is impact. And anyone be a public speaker, can anyone be an expert, it really comes down to does that person have a positive and meaningful impact through whatever expertise or message that they share. And so I like to say that the value of our message isn’t based on what we say, or even how we say it. But rather what our audience does once we’re done saying it. And so the idea there is that whether you’re an introvert, or this big, larger than life, personality, or whatever, as long as you’re having an impact, and your audience is somehow positively affecting their own life in a meaningful way, they’re taking actions that are somehow enriching their life. That’s where you get to be the speaker. It’s not based on your personality. It’s not based on your history. It’s just based on can I get up there and say something? Or if you’re in written form, can I write something that if people consume it, their life, vibes will be the better for it? That’s what matters.

Nicole Laino
So if you’re listening, and you feel that poll, and you feel like this is something that I want to get out in the world, you should certainly look up Neal and reach out to him because he can help you put that together. And, and maybe give you a little bit more courage about putting it out there. I think that having a framework or having help and, and seeking out assistance in this type of thing, I think can really help people because probably once they get their first one out there, there’s that feeling of I can do this. This is a possibility for me. And I’m, it’s addicting when you start impacting people, and you start having a message land, and it changes people’s lives, and it changes the way people think kind of can’t imagine not doing it anymore.

Neil Gordon
Bye, right? That’s right. It’s just stops being about whether you can do it and just about having to do it. It’s not even a question anymore. This just has to happen.

Nicole Laino
Well, Neil, thank you so much. This was such a valuable conversation and i i I love all the the tangible takeaways, but there’s so much that I think will sit with people and make an impact and keep staying in their mind and changing the way they think about how they approach their content, what they’re putting out there and and possibly doing a talk of their own. So tell the listeners where they can stay in touch with you. How can they how can they get more of you. And if you have anything that you want to promote?

Neil Gordon
Well, I would say that a really good place to go deeper is I have a public speaker quiz. And it’s right on my website, Neil can help.com. And you can also go directly to Neil can help.com forward slash quiz. And it’s a fun loving way to figure out what is the most captivating way that you could start a talk. So you can get people interested right away. And there are these cute animal metaphors. I use Ted famous TED speakers as examples of these animal types and all of that. And it’s just a fun loving way just to get started and look at what is it about me that’s going to be the most captivating on stage and in other contexts as well. And just going forward from that point.

Nicole Laino
I love that. I love that. And we will link all of that up in the show notes so that you can find that easily. We don’t have to worry about writing that down. We’ve got you and Neil, is there anything that you want to leave the audience with before we close out?

Neil Gordon
I mean, really what it comes down to for me is making sure everyone knows that your value is driven by your impact. And when you think about when you have those darker moments that you’re not even sure if you should be doing a thing. Just consider the ways that you had an impact and the ways that you the way in other people’s lives were transformed as a result of the actions you took. And then dare yourself to not move forward with that mind.

Nicole Laino
I love that very, very well said. Well, thank you so much, Neil, for being here. This was a true pleasure. Thank you for listener if you are still here listening with us till the end, I thank you for making it all the way through and for being a loyal listener of the show. And remember, you are limited only by the limitations that you accept. And when you stop accepting those limitations, that is when you become limitless. We’ll see you on the next episode. Thank you