Aurora Winter On Story, Healing, And Wealth

Wendy & Rich 0:01
Coming to you from the Freedom Federal Credit Union Studios, Hartford County Living presents, Conversations with Rich Bennett. Today's guest

Rich Bennett 0:28
is our Rura, who is the most known winner. And believe me, you're going to want to lean in for this one. She's an award-winning, best-selling author, a former TV producer, a media coach, a ghost writer, and a seasoned entrepreneur who knows how to turn ideas into real impact. Rura blends her filmmaking background with neuroscience to help people share their stories in a way that actually moves the needle. So if you've ever thought about writing a book, building your brand, or creating new streams of income that come from your own message, this episode is definitely for How you doing? I am saying it right, right? 

Aurora Winter 1:15
Rura! Rura, are you. 

Rich Bennett 1:16
Rura! 

Aurora Winter 1:17
Doing just great and I'm looking forward to helping the listeners and watchers turn their words into wealth. 

Rich Bennett 1:24
One thing I, I should have never done. I don't know if you ever heard the comedian Dale Jones. 

Aurora Winter 1:30
No, 

Rich Bennett 1:30
If 

Aurora Winter 1:30
not. 

Rich Bennett 1:31
you ever get a chance watching, but he talks about how he grew up in a rural area. God, look at this. I am getting tunched out of the area. And he keeps saying he says, "I can't even say, rura, rura, rura, rura, rura, rura, rura." 

Aurora Winter 1:48
You know, that's a hard word to say. 

Rich Bennett 1:49
It is. That's I should never watch that before I introduced you. 

Aurora Winter 1:58
It's 

Rich Bennett 1:58
like, uh. 

Aurora Winter 1:59
To a stir, for sure. 

Rich Bennett 2:01
All right, I want to start back before we get into 

Aurora Winter 2:04
story. 

Rich Bennett 2:04
the 

Aurora Winter 2:04
But you know what you do. 

Rich Bennett 2:05
go ahead. 

Aurora Winter 2:06
I 

Rich Bennett 2:06
What I do, 

Aurora Winter 2:07
Story about that. Cause what you just did is charming. And I think most people try to always be perfect. And 

Rich Bennett 2:15
you can't be. 

Aurora Winter 2:15
instead what you did is you leaned into, Oh, I said it wrong. And then you talked about it a little bit. So 

Rich Bennett 2:20
think. 

Aurora Winter 2:20
I always Like if you, if you flub a line or if you get distracted because the FedEx day comes to the door instead of ignoring it, pointed out because it makes you human. And 

Rich Bennett 2:33
it's 

Aurora Winter 2:33
we 

Rich Bennett 2:34
life. 

Aurora Winter 2:34
beings love to connect with other human beings. It's a little a little mini story. People want expertise, but they want it blended with humanity. So what 

Rich Bennett 2:43
Yes, 

Aurora Winter 2:43
you just did was charming. It was 

Rich Bennett 2:46
oh, 

Aurora Winter 2:46
authentic. And I felt more connected to you. And I'm sure the listeners did too. 

Rich Bennett 2:49
Well, thank you. Now you got me turning red. 

All right, before we get into the story telling and everything, I always like to have our listeners. And I know you've been on probably thousands of podcast, but everyone each one's different. Um, but it's, I think it's always important for the guest to know who the listener is. So and I always like to ask this question back in high school. You know, cause nowadays you're supposed to have a career path, but back. 

Aurora Winter 3:27
That's a flawed idea 

Rich Bennett 3:28
Yeah, 

Aurora Winter 3:28
if I heard one. 

Rich Bennett 3:29
back in high school, what was it that you wanted to do when you 

Aurora Winter 3:34
school? 

Rich Bennett 3:34
got out of 

Aurora Winter 3:34
I always wanted to be a writer from the age of nine. 

Rich Bennett 3:38
Really? 

Aurora Winter 3:39
I love books I'm enchanted by books. I remember when I was nine years old pulling down, going to the school library, and taking down the last book in the Narnia series by CS Lewis. 

Rich Bennett 3:52
Uh-huh. 

Aurora Winter 3:52
And the last book is called The Last Battle. And when my hands, my little line your old hands touched the spine. I felt such a chill in my body because I felt like anticipatory grief because it was the last book in this amazing series. But also anticipatory joy because I got to read one more book in the series. And in that moment, when my fingers touched the spine, I realized that authors are wizards. With just ink with just ink on white pieces of paper, we create portals that open up minds open up worlds or make even imaginary places feel real. And in that moment, I decided I would do whatever I could to become a great writer like CS Lewis. Decades later, I'm still working on it. 

Rich Bennett 4:42
Did you write for the school newspaper or anything? 

Aurora Winter 4:45
I wrote for the school newspaper. Yes, I did. In fact, I still remember one of the perhaps your daughter, who's a teacher, would connect with this. I was a vice president of the student council, you know, kind of athletic, sort of smart. So I did well in school. And there was a boy in one of my classes that I had just a passing acquaintance with. Didn't know him very well, but he committed suicide. 

Rich Bennett 5:13
Oh god. 

Aurora Winter 5:14
And I was devastated because the show to kudoo would like what if, you know, I had made more of an effort to be friends with him. What was he struggling with? I didn't know, but I hadn't asked. I hadn't made a point of seeking him out. He didn't actually even seem depressed. It wasn't it wasn't like wearing it on his sleeve. 

Rich Bennett 5:32
Right. 

Aurora Winter 5:33
But I wrote an article for the school newspaper about that. And, you know, that incident and others like it make me really realized we have the power to impact other people far beyond what we know. 

Rich Bennett 5:46
Yeah. 

Aurora Winter 5:46
And that it is important, you know, to give a smile, when you're driving your car, somebody's walking across, looking, you know, distracted, but they look up at you smile at them. You never know that might mean the difference between that person taking their life that day 

Rich Bennett 6:02
Yes. 

Aurora Winter 6:03
or not. So I do my best to show up in a way that will make a difference. And I think we all have more power to make a difference than we know. 

Rich Bennett 6:11
I agree with you 110%. And that's something I try to, I've always told my kids it's when you see somebody always smile. 

Aurora Winter 6:20
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 6:20
Or say hello. Even if you don't know them, and they, I do that all the time. If I'm grocery shopping store, wherever it doesn't matter. We, I'll never forget my wife and I, we went somewhere like hours away and we were hiking. I saw this guy on the chair, and I just started talking to him. And 

Aurora Winter 6:38
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 6:38
my wife never understood that. She's don't understand. And my daughter can't understand either. Now, my son will do it. But they're like, why do you just talk to total strangers? See? Why not? 

Aurora Winter 6:49
It can make a difference. 

Rich Bennett 6:51
Yeah. 

Aurora Winter 6:51
Plus, you know, I also like to play a game with people when they're at my events. And the game is for everybody to circulate and just play the game in your mind. Like, what if this person? Actually, it can hold a secret that would change my life. And it's about you have to be like a little, a little sleuth or a discovery person or a gold digger to pull out. What is the goal that they they're, they're holding, they don't know, it's the secret for you, 

Rich Bennett 7:22
Right. 

Aurora Winter 7:22
but you have to find it. And you know, if you play that game, it's kind of true. If you, if you're up to something, if you want to, you know, lighten people with a smile, or if you want to change the world, you know, usually it's, it's through other people. You know, they're commonly known the six degrees of separation. You know, we're only six steps at most away from people who make a difference. And when 

Rich Bennett 7:45
Right. 

Aurora Winter 7:46
we're up to something and we let people know what we're, what we'd like to do, they can, they can say, Hey, well, I know that person or I know a person who might know that person or whatever the case may be. So I like to, I 

Rich Bennett 7:59
I 

Aurora Winter 7:59
suggest, 

Rich Bennett 7:59
like 

Aurora Winter 8:00
play 

Rich Bennett 8:00
that 

Aurora Winter 8:00
that game. 

Rich Bennett 8:02
I like that idea. I'm going to have to try that. 

Aurora Winter 8:05
All right. You try it. 

Rich Bennett 8:07
At the next time, yeah. All right. So your, your journey, your, your professional journey, um, actually started in a place of deep loss. If I'm not mistaken. 

Aurora Winter 8:19
That's right. That's right. 

Rich Bennett 8:20
you, but you 

Aurora Winter 8:20
So I tell 

Rich Bennett 8:21
turned it in, yeah, because you turned it into purpose, right? 

Aurora Winter 8:24
I, this is a good thing. This is a very smart thing to do is to turn it into purpose. So I like to teach people how to create their million dollar message. But what I want to say is everybody has more than one story. So I'll tell you one of my stories. So my, my, I, I fell in love at college. 

Rich Bennett 8:44
Okay. 

Aurora Winter 8:45
My, my husband, to be an I, we're so madly in love that we're like, we quit our, we could hurt our jobs or the first jobs that we got out of college. And we had to start a business. So we started a business mostly so we could be together. And we're like, we had no experience, no money, no credentials, but we're very optimistic. So we started a business, we thought for sure this business was going to be a success. But that was not so successful. We're ended up eating rice and beans. What we started was a business that you could start with basically no money. 

Rich Bennett 9:17
Okay. 

Aurora Winter 9:18
We were managing other people's boats, so people own boats. They don't use them that much. 

Uh oh. We're, we're, we're not, uh, the credit card bill is mounting. What are we going to do? So we then we thought, oh, we know the problem is our location. We're on Vancouver Island, we're at a beautiful resort. It's got a nice marina, but there's no foot traffic. It's like out of the way. Okay, so we decide, ah, we know we can solve this problem by moving to Vancouver. So we've got a much more expensive office on Granville Island. We continued managing renting boats. The problem was we had more or less 10x star expenses, but we only two x star revenues. 

Rich Bennett 10:14
Oh God. 

Aurora Winter 10:15
Hmm. This is still a problem. We haven't solved the problem. And then like, okay, credit card debt is going up. We're like, this is not manageable long term. And we're neither of us are wealthy families. So our parents had lend us $2, 500. And that was all we were going to get. And that was already spent. All right. So then I'm like, okay, well, we need to do something different. Um, I looked around and I thought I saw what was happening in real estate. And in real estate at that time, you could buy an apartment or a house and you could rent it out, but there were huge tax benefits. So 

Rich Bennett 10:50
Okay. 

Aurora Winter 10:51
I thought, you know, if we could do that with boats, because we're renting out boats, that could be the breakthrough that we need. Okay. So we spent $20, 000. We didn't have totally maxed out this 

Rich Bennett 11:01
Oh 

Aurora Winter 11:01
credit. 

Rich Bennett 11:01
God. 

Aurora Winter 11:02
Friendering out with lawyers and accountants. If it could be done, because everybody said no. And that was the days before chat, TBT when you could reach research stuff. Um, so after $20, 000 we had the, what I thought was the million dollar idea. And this was a way for people to have the boat that they wanted and have the government pay most of it. 

Rich Bennett 11:22
Huh. 

Aurora Winter 11:23
So that seemed like, like that should work. I was so convinced that would work. But unfortunately, you were fortunately I come from an academic family, I studied economics, my father's an economist. So I created like this 80 page document that explained everything. 

And when people came into our office, you know, in Grandville Island, and asked about, you know, tax shelter benefits of owning a boat, I enthusiastically buried them with data. And the poor people were like, I know she's smart and excited about this. Way too much information so they kept leaving. And my husband said, this is not working. And I'm like, why isn't it working? And this is a million dollar idea. But I didn't have the million dollar message. 

Rich Bennett 12:12
Here's 

Aurora Winter 12:15
what he said to me that it made the penny drop. He's like, well, people now really want to become tax experts. They just want a boat. And they want somebody else to pay for it. Preferably the government. 

Rich Bennett 12:25
Right. 

Aurora Winter 12:26
He said like most people only use their boats five weeks a year anyway. And the penny dropped. I'm like, that's it. That's it. The message is five weeks of son, fun and tax shelter. And he's like, that's unusual. That's a surprising son fun and tax shelter. It doesn't like it's surprising. It's unusual. It could work. That message resulted in $3 million of boat sales in one week. 

Rich Bennett 12:55
One week. 

Aurora Winter 12:56
One week. We got on the cover of magazine. We got on the radio and people understood it. Instead of giving them this 80 page and say, copidia, we have them as beautiful brochure with pictures of boats, and people having fun and a little tiny little PS about the numbers. That experience taught me such a profound lesson because I learned that it wasn't about working harder. It wasn't about a better location. It wasn't about burying people in information. It wasn't even about a really kick ass idea. It was about the message. So seven words, five weeks of son, fun and tax shelter produced $3 million 

Rich Bennett 13:40
in 

Aurora Winter 13:40
one week. And we became the largest yacht dealership in western Canada. And instead of having to discount boats to sell them because we're competing head to head with every other yacht dealer, we could sell boats at full retail. So we doubled our profit margins from 12% to 24%. So that experience changed my life before the experience that you're talking about, which I will also talk about, if you'd like, and it just drove home that so many of the things that we think matter, don't matter. And that instead, if you just lean into creating a powerful, concise, surprising, shocking message, 

Rich Bennett 14:23
can 

Aurora Winter 14:24
change everything. 

Rich Bennett 14:25
I love 

Aurora Winter 14:27
that. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 14:28
No question about that though. Did you pay back to $2, 500 with interest? 

Aurora Winter 14:37
I hope so. I don't need-- know, the funny thing is we used that $2, 500 to buy a rescue powerboat because we mostly rented 

Rich Bennett 14:47
You 

Aurora Winter 14:48
sailboats, and we thought we need to rescue people. If we need to rescue people, that would be helpful. But that boat--there was a huge storm, and it sunk. 

Rich Bennett 14:57
It-- Oh my 

Aurora Winter 14:57
It was still in the Marina. It was still, 

Rich Bennett 15:01
god. 

Aurora Winter 15:01
like, more with the docked lines attached to it, but it was, like, three feet underwater. So that was-- That was not so good. And that was earlier. So that was the boat was underwear--whater our business was underwater. Anyway, so now what I do is I help people create those breakthrough messages, those million-dollar messages, that maybe seven words will turn into three million dollars for you. 

Rich Bennett 15:30
I'm sorry, I just said-- 

Aurora Winter 15:32
You're seeing that 

Rich Bennett 15:33
I 

Aurora Winter 15:33
boat. 

Rich Bennett 15:34
am. I have seen the boat. Oh my god. Actually, how long did you and your husband have the boat 

Aurora Winter 15:42
business? Dude, we have the boat business. Five or six years. We started off chartering the boats, and then as we sold that company-- Pacific West Charters, and we kept the other company--the hot sales companies, Pacific West Hot Sales-- And then, we made a bunch of money as 20-somethings, we built our dream home on the lake in Whistler. Life was good. I went back to my dream of being a screenwriter, we thought we have a beautiful, four-year-old son, we've got our dream home on the lake, we were beyond the normal success for 20-somethings. 

Rich Bennett 16:20
Right. 

Aurora Winter 16:20
And then my husband died. So just when you think that life is good, it changes, and just when you think life is bad, it can change the other way too. So my husband died suddenly when he was 33, and I was 31, and our son was four. So as you can 

Rich Bennett 16:39
30. 

Aurora Winter 16:40
probably imagine, yeah, he was so young. 

Rich Bennett 16:43
Wow. 

Aurora Winter 16:45
Yeah. I felt like Humpty Dumpty. I felt like I'd fallen off the wall, and my life had smashed into a million pieces. And I didn't even know if I wanted to pick them up again. 

Rich Bennett 16:55
Yeah. 

Aurora Winter 16:56
But I had a four-year-old son looking up at me, and I needed to get my life together to help him. 

Rich Bennett 17:04
Right. 

Aurora Winter 17:04
And so I actually took me, most people don't know this, but the average time it takes somebody to recover from a devastating loss like that is five to eight years. 

Rich Bennett 17:15
Mm-hmm. 

Aurora Winter 17:16
most people go through this really extended period. And you know, five to eight weeks is about the amount of time you get support from your friends, maybe five to eight months from your family. 

Rich Bennett 17:27
And 

Aurora Winter 17:27
But 

Rich Bennett 17:27
some, 

Aurora Winter 17:27
meanwhile, 

Rich Bennett 17:28
that's never recover. 

Aurora Winter 17:29
Some people never recover. At the average is five to eight years of suffering. Anyway, after my decade of suffering, I published a book called From Heartbreak to Happiness. And I thought, this is the recipe to help other people know, if I went from Heartbreak to Happiness, you can too. It was my diary of healing Dr. Wayne, Dire endorsed it. And I really, in my name, they thought, that's enough, it's a book, they can help them. But people wanted coaching. They wanted support. And I thought, I'm going back to being in the film business. But I didn't really want to turn grieving people away because they could really be quite desperate. So 

Rich Bennett 18:06
Right. 

Aurora Winter 18:06
I started coaching just a couple of people. And then one week, two young widows who I was coaching said almost the same words to me in the same week. And when I get the same message twice, I pay attention. And the message was, after a coaching session, they said, "You helped me more in that one hour than my therapist has helped me in one case for six years, in another case for two years or six months. And I'm so grateful. Can you teach me how to coach people through grief, like you just helped me?" So I realized, oh, I had thought. I am a quick study, but I make mistakes. I had thought that grieving people just wanted help through their own grief. But when I got that message the same time in the same week, I realized, oh, grieving people or some of them would like the opportunity to turn their tragedy into something meaningful by helping other people. 

Rich Bennett 19:09
Yup, 

Aurora Winter 19:09
So I shift it from trying to get people through grief, talking to me one in one and get them through it as quickly as possible, to building the grief coach academy community where people would join for a year, they would have connection, they would have community, they would heal their own grief, but then they would have a chance to practice the coaching skills that I taught on each other when they became fast friends. And it was so cool because people reconnected with meaning, with purpose, with joy. 

Rich Bennett 19:40
right, 

Aurora Winter 19:40
They seemed to age and reverse by like a decade. So I got the pleasure of seeing that. I got the joy of making a bigger difference. But also, once again, I noticed that the message really mattered. 

Rich Bennett 19:55
yeah. 

Aurora Winter 19:55
So in that case, at that time, maybe people still think this, but at that time, people were like, if somebody's grieving, they're like, ah, run away. They're a leper. Like people didn't know how to talk to people who are grieving. 

Rich Bennett 20:10
They don't. 

Aurora Winter 20:11
They don't. So I wanted to share some simple ways to talk to somebody who's grieving. And they also thought of somebody's grieving they're mentally ill, they need to see a therapist. I'm like, really, if you're not grieving after somebody dies that you love, then you're probably have something 

Rich Bennett 20:29
that you probably 

Aurora Winter 20:29
to 

Rich Bennett 20:29
need 

Aurora Winter 20:29
long with you. 

Rich Bennett 20:30
That's right. Yeah. 

Aurora Winter 20:31
Right. But grief. I wanted to... Here was my message. Grief is a normal and natural reaction to loss. And if you get support and coaching through grief, you can heal much faster, maybe 10 times faster. Without support, people on average suffer five to eight years. That came from data. And with the coaching that we do, you know, people suffer, well, usually it would be five to eight weeks. But even five to eight months, it was a lot faster. So that message actually didn't just launch the grief coach Academy. It launched a movement of people who were inspired by my message. Grief isn't a normal and natural reaction to loss. Suffering for five to eight years is just too long. That's freaking do something about this and created a community and a business. So there again, just a few words made a world of difference. 

Rich Bennett 21:29
What year did that start? Was that... 

Aurora Winter 21:34
Well, let's see. What year did that start? I was about a decade after my husband died. So that was about 2001. 

Rich Bennett 21:42
Oh really? 

Aurora Winter 21:43
Okay. So it's been a while. I've I've launched a bunch of different 

Rich Bennett 21:45
Well, here's a 

Aurora Winter 21:47
things. 

Rich Bennett 21:47
here's a thing. Because to me, I think you may have been probably one of the very first ones to do something like this 

Aurora Winter 21:54
because... Yeah, it was the first 

Rich Bennett 21:56
the... 

Aurora Winter 21:56
one. I was 

Rich Bennett 21:56
Okay, because I know when we lost our first daughter and that was in 2000, 

Aurora Winter 22:02
there 

Rich Bennett 22:03
was nothing. There was nothing. I mean the hospital had a little grief support. Actually, it wasn't even a group. I think they did a tree or something. That was that was all. You had to rely on family and friends. 

Aurora Winter 22:15
And those poor family and friends are well-meaning, but they don't have any training 

Rich Bennett 22:19
now. 

Aurora Winter 22:20
So 

Rich Bennett 22:21
they don't... 

Aurora Winter 22:22
And yeah, I was the very first one. Now there's a bunch of companies that train people, how to coach people through grief, because I popularized it and I'm "Oh yeah, it's follower Rura." Okay, then a Rura has to go on and do something else. 

Rich Bennett 22:33
The other thing is too. Because with grief... God, we talk about addiction a lot. A lot of people have lost people in addiction. 

One of my co-hosts, Wendy lost her daughter to that and 

Aurora Winter 22:50
the 

Rich Bennett 22:51
grief is that we've talked about a lot. There's really... There's more out there now. And I think you may be the second person I've had on it mentioned grief coach, which is important. 

Aurora Winter 23:07
It is important. Okay. Well, here's the thing. I did go to therapy and I also went to church support groups. But I really found that the church support groups supported grief, non-recovery. And what I acknowledge and appreciate about therapists, I mean, they can give you medication and they can explore the past and they have got great skills. I'm nothing against them. But coaching is more about building the future. ya know, and people who are grieving in my experience, yes, they need to review the past somewhat, but then they also need a plan for the future. And the other thing, ya know, I really like Victor Franco's book, which you, I'm sure, have read man's search for meaning. Maybe you can't be happy. Oh, we'll talk about that in a second. You know, maybe you can't be happy in the aftermath of your daughter's death or your son's death 

Rich Bennett 24:00
Right. 

Aurora Winter 24:00
or your spouse's death, but you can choose meaning, and meaning will get you out of bed. Meaning will help you recreate a life that's purposeful. 

Rich Bennett 24:12
It does. 

Aurora Winter 24:13
Yeah. I, 

Rich Bennett 24:16
I, I, I mean, yeah, granted I was. 

I was pissed. I'll be honest 

Aurora Winter 24:23
Oh. 

Rich Bennett 24:23
with ya. I was, I was mad, God, and everything, but then I, it was a quick turnaround from me. I believe that. happened for a reason. She was still born, but 

Aurora Winter 24:37
It 

Rich Bennett 24:37
I believe it happened for a reason that we're thinking is my parents were separated at the 

Aurora Winter 24:43
time. 

Rich Bennett 24:43
And it brought them back together, it brought the family back together. And to this day, you, next was in 2000. Yeah, 2000 June 23rd 2000. To this day, I think she's my guardian angel. I think she is sitting over me and, you know, I pray to her every morning, I have a little angel. I was able to put in her hand, but it makes me feel so much better now. I mean, I get up in the morning and I do that, and I feel good. 

Aurora Winter 25:15
that's great. 

Rich Bennett 25:16
You know, 

Aurora Winter 25:16
That's wonderful. 

Rich Bennett 25:17
Yeah. And boy, he's like, how can you start the day? Happy. 

Aurora Winter 25:24
Well, here's the thing. I, I, I celebrate that. Yeah. So every day is a choice between fear and 

Rich Bennett 25:30
say, 

Aurora Winter 25:30
faith and you 

Rich Bennett 25:30
yes, 

Aurora Winter 25:31
faith. The other thing that is really paradoxically good about grief, is that it, it's so easy in our culture to get all absorbed with it to do list and paying the mortgage and making more money and buying a bigger house or a bigger car. Before you know it, you've gotten get a whole trapped up in an ego's meaningless quest 

Rich Bennett 25:54
or. Yeah, 

Aurora Winter 25:55
meaningless quest, but when death brushes by with the death of a spouse or a child or even the death of a career or a hope or a dream. It, it kicks 

Rich Bennett 26:07
it 

Aurora Winter 26:07
you, 

Rich Bennett 26:07
does 

Aurora Winter 26:07
it kicks you and reminds you you don't have forever. 

Rich Bennett 26:10
Now 

Aurora Winter 26:10
we don't have forever and it reminds you and invites you and challenges you not to be complacent, but to do something meaningful with your one beautiful precious life. 

Rich Bennett 26:20
Yeah, oh, yeah, we all agree. I mean, I, I still do. I mean, I, it seems like death's around brand, your time. But even, I think one of the hardest ones for me was when I lost my brother. 

Aurora Winter 26:35
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 26:35
And that was even harder for me than my daughter or my, or even my parents. You know, when they passed, but my brother was always my idol. And I looked up to him. He was my best friend. That one hit me hard. 

Aurora Winter 26:49
But 

Rich Bennett 26:50
again, it took a couple days, it didn't take five, eight years or whatever. It took a couple days, but I realized I kept saying to myself, and I convinced myself, and I believe it's true. No, I don't want to talk about it longer in pain because I saw his pain that he, he had all the time, and he just, he wasn't there longer in pain. I still think he's here because sometimes I feel somebody smack me to back it here for some, 

Aurora Winter 27:18
I, 

Rich Bennett 27:20
I was, 

Aurora Winter 27:23
well, I agree. Hey, I wanted to see, well, I thought we were going to talk about, turn to wealth, but I'd like to tell a story that may help people who are listening who are dealing with grief. 

Rich Bennett 27:32
Absolutely. 

Aurora Winter 27:34
Okay. So this is written up in my book from heartbreak to happiness, which is my intimate diary of healing, but it's so vivid in my mind. It was actually two years after, to the day, after my husband died, and I was still grieving. I went to bed, like on the anniversary dates, you know, you think, you think profound or upsetting thoughts. Anyway, my husband came to me that night in a dream, which is the only way that he could, and I was so pissed off. We're sitting, you know, in an airport at those stupid plastic tables they have at the airports. 

Rich Bennett 28:13
Uh-huh. 

Aurora Winter 28:14
I, I pounded my fist on the plastic table in the dream, and I'm like, how could you? Like, how could you abandon me? And how could you leave our son without a father? And they asked me three questions, and they changed my life. question was. Well, if you had it to do all over again, would you still marry me? And I thought about all the good times, I'm like, yeah, I'd still marry you. And then he asked me the second question, he's like, "Well, if you had it to do all over again, would you still have our son?" I'm like, absolutely, he's the light of my life, he's my joy and blessing. And then he asked me the third question, and this is the one that changed my life, he said, "Given those two answers, would you want to know that I would die young?" "Wow!" "Wow, hit me and in the dream I just was gobsmacked and I had to take a breath and then I searched my heart, and I discovered the answer was no." 

Rich Bennett 29:20
"Yeah." 

Aurora Winter 29:21
"I would not want to taint the joy that we did have with dread." 

Rich Bennett 29:25
"Right." 

Aurora Winter 29:25
"And that changed me, that one dream gave me the gift of being able to accept his death as if I had chosen it." 

Rich Bennett 29:35
"Wow." 

Aurora Winter 29:36
"And that made all the difference." 

Rich Bennett 29:40
"Yeah, I think I would have answered the same way." 

Aurora Winter 29:44
"Yeah." 

Rich Bennett 29:44
"It's like, why?" Because if you didn't know, you would be like the overprotective wife. 

Aurora Winter 29:55
"Yeah." 

Rich Bennett 29:55
You would-- "You would wrap him up in a freaking bubble or whatever if you could." "Wow, wow." 

Aurora Winter 30:06
"So again, that shows the power of a story, that was a gift, I think." "That was a visitation I like to think my husband is an angel." 

Rich Bennett 30:16
"Yes." 

Aurora Winter 30:16
"You know, for me." "But that shows the power of asking powerful questions." Like, he didn't tell me what to think or feel. He just asked three questions, and when I've shared this dream with other people, it has shifted them. You know? And so you can ask yourself these questions or ask anybody you care about similar questions and make a difference that way. That's the power of words to change our thinking. At that dream, change the trajectory of my life, because I stopped grieving and started dealing with the cards I'd been dealt. 

Rich Bennett 30:55
"Mmm." "Wow. Now, with, and I'm sure he's come back to you in your dreams, 

Aurora Winter 31:03
"Yes." 

Rich Bennett 31:03
you're not pounding that table anymore, are you?" 

Aurora Winter 31:07
"I'm not pounding that table, no, true." 

Rich Bennett 31:10
"I have to admit, that's one thing I do love. I love going to bed because the loved ones that we have lost, they're still in our memories and we see them in our dreams." 

Aurora Winter 31:23
"Yes." 

Rich Bennett 31:23
"And there's a lot of times, it is so realistic." I mean, there's times, I mean I literally can smell either my brother or my father. 

Aurora Winter 31:38
"Wow." 

Rich Bennett 31:38
"Yeah, it's like, not granted. I'm in the house, I bought the house that we all grew up in. 

Aurora Winter 31:44
that... 

Rich Bennett 31:45
Maybe 

Aurora Winter 31:45
"Okay." 

Rich Bennett 31:46
"I don't know." 

Aurora Winter 31:47
"Probably, they're... 

Rich Bennett 31:48
"Yeah." 

Aurora Winter 31:49
"It's bear." 

Rich Bennett 31:49
"It could be. It could be." What was the book you mentioned? 

Aurora Winter 31:55
The book I mentioned from Harteburg to Happiness? 

Rich Bennett 31:58
"No, not that 

Aurora Winter 31:58
one." "The other one." 

Rich Bennett 31:59
"The man 

Aurora Winter 32:01
"Oh, man's search for meaning by Victor Frenkel. It's 

Rich Bennett 32:04
never heard that." 

Aurora Winter 32:05
a... Oh, you definitely, I think, would benefit from reading it." It's a really... I avoided reading it for years because when I tell you the log line, you're like, "I don't know if I want to read that." It's about his time in Auschwitz. 

Rich Bennett 32:19
"Oh, 

Aurora Winter 32:20
"And 

Rich Bennett 32:20
wow." 

Aurora Winter 32:20
he 

survived the Holocaust." "But what he..." And he was a therapist, I think, before he went in, or a doctor... I think he invented a new arm of psychotherapy afterwards. But he noticed that in Auschwitz, as soon as people gave up hope, they would die within 24 hours. He could see the people who would live versus the people who would die. 

Rich Bennett 32:47
Oh, 

Aurora Winter 32:47
And 

Rich Bennett 32:48
wow. 

Aurora Winter 32:49
he survived partly because he helped everybody else. So he had more meaning. His wife was taken from him because, you know, they separate the sexes. He lost his whole family. 

Rich Bennett 33:00
Oh, good. 

Aurora Winter 33:02
But he chose to believe that he would be reunited with his wife. And he also... He wrote, you know, things that he... He wanted to put in a book later about his new understanding about human psychology. And I think he wrote it on toilet paper, and that was stolen from him. 

Rich Bennett 33:20
Oh. 

Aurora Winter 33:20
But anyway, he was determined. But he would remember what he wrote, and then he would publish a book and he would help others later. Which he did. So man's search for meaning by Victor Frankel is a very profound exploration of the value of meaning. Like I think in our culture, we can be a bit trait about happiness. 

Rich Bennett 33:41
Right. 

Aurora Winter 33:42
You know, you want to be happier. Well, what does happiness mean anyway? Like seeking pleasure can lead to addiction or can lead to other short term behaviors that sabotage you or your family or those you care about. But meaning is a more sturdy word, I think, to do something meaningful. 

Rich Bennett 34:02
Yeah. 

Aurora Winter 34:03
Is a good goal. Whether or not you feel happy every moment, I think is kind of irrelevant. It's normal and natural to have dips and flows and your emotion and how you are feeling. But true happiness is rooted in making meaningful progress towards a goal that you have decided is meaningful. 

Rich Bennett 34:25
I'm going to have to get this book now. I mean, I love reading books, like, 

Aurora Winter 34:30
I think you'll, I think you'll send me an email. 

Rich Bennett 34:32
Yeah, I absolutely will. And here's the weird thing for father's day, my daughter-in-law, future daughter, I'm just going to say daughter-in-law 

Aurora Winter 34:44
got 

Rich Bennett 34:45
me and I thought my son got it as a joke, but he got me a book about Jim Jones. Oh, you're the cult leader. 

Aurora Winter 34:53
Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 34:53
I had everybody drink the Kool-Aid. 

Aurora Winter 34:55
Yeah, what what had you learned reading that book? 

Rich Bennett 34:58
Oh, number one, that he was smart as hell. 

Aurora Winter 35:01
Uh-huh. 

Rich Bennett 35:02
He was very smart. But oh, I'm still reading it, but I am, I'm just sucked into it. And very manipulative. Yes. 

Aurora Winter 35:13
Yes, 

Rich Bennett 35:14
but when it came to business, he, he was very smart. He knew how to work people, he knew how to work things. And yes, so books, it's, I, it's something again. This is something I've always told my kids. I don't care how evil somebody is. There's a good side to them somewhere. And I always mentioned Charles Manson. Yeah, because he was a hell of a songwriter. Yeah, I mean, I think he helped who was Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. 

Aurora Winter 35:43
Oh, yeah. 

Rich Bennett 35:44
With some songs. Yeah. So yeah, very. 

Aurora Winter 35:46
Well, the really cool thing about books is you can learn so much without actually having to meet Charles Manson or. 

Rich Bennett 35:53
Yeah, because I definitely 

Aurora Winter 35:54
You're saying you wouldn't 

Rich Bennett 35:55
did. 

Aurora Winter 35:55
want it. You wouldn't want it in your loving room. Many dollars, you can 

Rich Bennett 35:59
decade, 

Aurora Winter 35:59
get a decades of somebody's experience. It's the highest value thing to do with your time. I mean, podcasts are really great. But in books, people have taken the extra time of taking out all the fluff. So the amount that you'll learn per word that you read is incredible. 

Rich Bennett 36:20
You're listening to conversations with Rich Bennett. We'll be right back. 

I've got to tell you about something that's seriously impressive. My girlfriend, Chris recently tried M sculpt Neo at living well health care in Ogton, and the results, absolutely incredible. I'm talking visible muscle tone and fat reduction all without stepping foot into a gym. M sculpt Neo is a non invasive body contouring treatment that builds muscle and burns fat at the same time. It uses advanced technology to give you the equivalent of 20,000 crunches or squats in one session. You heard me right. 20,000. Living well health care in Ogton isn't just another wellness center. It's run by Dr. William Clifford who's been helping people feel and move better for decades. If you're tired of working out with our seeing results, or just want to kickstart to your fitness goals, this is the move. Check them out at living well health care Ogton.com again, that's living well health care Ogton.com. Tell them Rich and Chris sent you. Well, and that's what you're doing now. You're helping people tell their stories, right? 

Aurora Winter 37:45
That's right, at samepagepublishing.com we help people create books and videos that really make a difference. So yeah, I think first place people can start is by reading Turn Roots into Wealth, which they can actually get the ebook for free. If they'd like it for free, they can go to Turn Roots into Wealth.com and learn about how to turn your words into Wealth in seven different ways to make seven figures. And then what I do at samepage publishing is we actually are devoted to creating best selling award winning books that make a difference and that are worth talking about. Our typical client is, you know, already an expert or a leader in some area, but they're too busy to get their book written and they realize, oh, it would be much faster and more fun. 

Rich Bennett 38:30
But 

Aurora Winter 38:31
to have Aurora and her team help me create my book, help me create my videos, and help create those messages that really move the needle. Because the thing is, it's actually, as the story that I told at the very beginning with the yacht sales company, like the idea was great, but until we had the right message, we were 

Rich Bennett 38:51
yeah. 

Aurora Winter 38:51
stalled, we were struggling. But once the message clicked, like we got three million dollars in a week, like it grew to the largest yacht dealer ship in western Canada, doubled our profit margins. So most leaders, experts, entrepreneurs, people are up to something, they're up to something, but they're not necessarily wordsmiths. 

Rich Bennett 39:10
Right. 

Aurora Winter 39:10
They haven't necessarily nailed their message yet, and the difference between this sort of kind of good message and a nailed message can be millions. 

Rich Bennett 39:20
What made you decide to start doing this? 

Aurora Winter 39:23
Uh, as usual, I see a problem that I've just solved, and then I want to help other people, so I started helping people with their books in 2015, but in 2020, when COVID hit, 

Rich Bennett 39:35
Uh-huh. 

Aurora Winter 39:35
I really leaned into using what I call the Spoken Author Method, so I interview people, it's easy and fun and fast for people to talk about their areas of passion, their life story, their areas of expertise, and then turn that into books. But what was weighing on my heart is that I noticed so many, so many, the average first-time author spends three and a half years writing a book. 

Rich Bennett 39:59
Wow. 

Aurora Winter 39:59
Three and a half years is a very long period of time, and then what would really make me so sad is they would drop the ball right at the finish line. They didn't have the right title. They didn't have the right subtitle. They didn't have the right cover. They didn't, um, I like to say, you know, if you put yeast in bread, it rises, 

Rich Bennett 40:18
right? 

Aurora Winter 40:18
You just need a little yeast, a little bit makes a world of difference. They didn't add yeast to their book, so it was flat. And the yeast that I'm talking about is telling stories that engage people, telling stories that are memorable, and also letting people know, hey, if you'd like more help, here's how I conserve you, and here's how to get a hold of me. So you want to add stories about the clients that you've helped, the lives you've transformed, and you want to let people know what it is that you do. Can they hire you as a speaker? Can they hire you as a consultant? Are you somebody who helps, I don't know, in my case, take conversations and turn them into books. So I felt so sad that people didn't apply for awards, they didn't launch their books, and there's so many books on Amazon, especially now that AI is come out and chat GPT and other things have come out. But a book without any awards, without any sales, without any reviews, is going to hurt your brand, not help it. People make the mistake of thinking the book is the last step. It's not... 

Rich Bennett 41:26
No! 

Aurora Winter 41:27
Exactly. It's the first step. It's the appetizer that leads people to you and your business, or you and your podcast, or whatever you're up to. And it's the first step in having the number three search engine, which is Amazon, showcase what you're up to to people around the world so they can... They can come to know you while you're sleeping, 24/7, your book can be working for you. Around the world to bring your ideal client to you if your book has the right title, and the right subtitle, and if you don't drop the ball when you publish it, it makes me so mad, people with 

Rich Bennett 42:04
Oh. 

Aurora Winter 42:05
one or two reviews from their mother and their 

Rich Bennett 42:08
Uh-huh. 

Aurora Winter 42:08
husband. And they think the book is going to help build their business and their brand. I'm so sorry. It's 

Rich Bennett 42:13
Nope. 

Aurora Winter 42:13
doing the opposite. Ha ha ha. You are agreeing with me if you got such stories 

Rich Bennett 42:19
Oh, 

Aurora Winter 42:19
as 

Rich Bennett 42:21
this is something that, excuse my language, but this is always piss me off whenever 

Aurora Winter 42:26
tell them to. 

Rich Bennett 42:27
I get authors on. And I see it a lot with local authors, and if some of you local authors get mad at me, that's fine, but you know I'm right. 

Aurora Winter 42:36
Ha ha ha. 

Rich Bennett 42:37
They don't market it. 

Aurora Winter 42:40
They don't 

Rich Bennett 42:41
market it. And I like to term author, Pernor. 

Aurora Winter 42:45
Exactly. 

Rich Bennett 42:45
If you write a book or even if you have somebody write a book for you about you, it's a business. 

Aurora Winter 42:51
It's 

Rich Bennett 42:52
market it. Get out there. Get on podcasts. Promote it. Talk about it. And the other thing is, and I see authors do this a lot. What if they release another book? It's like they forget about the first book. 

Aurora Winter 43:06
It's like a baby. You know, the publishing of a book is like the birth of a baby. 

Rich Bennett 43:12
Yes, 

Aurora Winter 43:12
You don't abandon it. When it's been born, you have to feed it and nurture it. And once it grows up, it will, it will more than pay you back and 

Rich Bennett 43:21
yes. 

Aurora Winter 43:22
bring. But if you abandon it, it could be still born. You know, you. 

Rich Bennett 43:25
Yeah, 

Aurora Winter 43:27
yeah, that's 

Rich Bennett 43:27
don't, 

Aurora Winter 43:27
just crazy. 

Rich Bennett 43:29
oh, I don't understand it. And the other thing is too is, and I have somebody else on a walla good that actually helps people right through their own book. I do believe everybody's got a story to 

Aurora Winter 43:43
And 

Rich Bennett 43:43
tell. 

Aurora Winter 43:43
I think so. 

Rich Bennett 43:45
And if you own your own business, to me, your face is part of the brand, or at least it should be. 

Aurora Winter 43:54
Absolutely. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 43:54
Why not get your story out there? I mean, there, I, oh, 

Aurora Winter 44:01
Well, we agreed. Here's what I. Here's what I, 

Rich Bennett 44:04
y'all need a car, Roora and help calora, 

Aurora Winter 44:08
good and book. 

Rich Bennett 44:08
Oh, 

Aurora Winter 44:09
this and book and business breaks your call for 

Rich Bennett 44:11
I'm sorry. Go ahead. 

Aurora Winter 44:12
free. 

Rich Bennett 44:14
I'm good. I have gotten. 

Aurora Winter 44:15
Ah, I love. 

Rich Bennett 44:16
I 

Aurora Winter 44:17
love your fashion. Here's the thing. Your message needs to be heard. Not enough to have a message. People need to read it or hear it. So what I love to do with people is really help them create their brand so that they have weekly messages at minimum weekly messages going out. I love to do that with YouTube videos, YouTube is the number two search engine, Amazon's the number three search engine and uh, GEO just becoming a new SEO indexes both Amazon and YouTube and another thing. So, uh, 

Rich Bennett 44:56
EO? 

Aurora Winter 44:57
Generative engine up to my station or AI search. 

Rich Bennett 45:01
Oh, okay. Is that also like the voice activated ones and all that since it's 

Aurora Winter 45:05
Yeah, I like the voice. 

Rich Bennett 45:06
all. Yeah, okay. 

Aurora Winter 45:07
You want to be, you want to be found. 

Rich Bennett 45:09
Right. 

Aurora Winter 45:09
So here's the thing, most people, they do it completely backwards. 

Rich Bennett 45:13
Yeah. 

Aurora Winter 45:14
Your, your book is really just the process of distilling and condensing your wisdom into a format that is useful for other people. 

But it's like a seed. It only germinates when it's watered with attention. 

Rich Bennett 45:30
I love that. 

Aurora Winter 45:32
So you want to water it with attention and you don't have to wait for your book to be published. So what I recommend, uh, we actually are using AI to help us create some really amazing videos. Actually, bit of a, in the side like I also have a fantasy series for young adults, because of course I fell in love with the Narnia series by C. S. Lewis. So I started the magic mystery and the multiverse and there's three books in that series and we have. Don't 

Rich Bennett 45:57
yell at me, but I love Narnia, but never read the books by love the movies. 

Aurora Winter 46:02
Ah, okay. Well, then you'd like to go to Anna's S series on YouTube 

Rich Bennett 46:07
Okay. 

Aurora Winter 46:07
because we're making little short animated like book trailers for the book. And it's so much fun. 

Rich Bennett 46:14
Don't. 

Aurora Winter 46:14
So much fun. 

Rich Bennett 46:16
That's 

Aurora Winter 46:16
Anna. 

Rich Bennett 46:16
another thing that I think all authors should have as a freaking book trailer. 

Aurora Winter 46:21
Yeah. Well, I think they should have one every week. So 

Rich Bennett 46:24
I love that even more. 

Aurora Winter 46:26
Whatever your message is, whatever you're up to, I think you want to have a combination of ongoing content. Think you're ongoing weekly content or daily, but let's say weekly to not be too aggressive is more like a newspaper or a magazine. 

Rich Bennett 46:42
Okay. 

Aurora Winter 46:43
The thing with the newspaper is once you've read it, it's yesterday's news. It goes in the trash. Same with the magazine. Maybe you keep a magazine a little bit longer. That might like be a nice video, but after about a month, it goes in the trash. Your book can last for generations. So you want to have legacy IP, which is your wonderful book, but then you want to be talking about the content that's in your book and refreshing it with new things that happen that relate to that themes in your book. You know, on podcasts or your YouTube channel or on your social media. And here's the really cool thing about video, is a recent study by Metta showed that people remember videos statistically after 0.25 of a second. So there's a lot of value in video, but unfortunately you have to keep producing it every week. Unfortunately, or unfortunately, as the case may be. So I like the combination of let's create a legacy book that could last for decades. Maybe generations that you'll be really proud of that has the essence of your message. And then let's even before the book comes out, let's start talking about that on podcasts or create your YouTube channel. Like James Clear, who wrote the book Atomic Habits. He started writing that book, I think in 2012 and it was published six years later in 2018. So when he started writing about it, he had a weekly practice on his blog. He went from zero subscribers when he started writing the book and started talking about habits in 2012, zero subscribers. And then he built up to 400,000 subscribers by the time the book was launched. and it stayed, atomic habits stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for five years. But he spent a whole, he spent six years writing it and six years increasing his email list. But he also spent the whole year before the book came out, going on podcasts, mailing copies to influencers so that by the time, and then he asked people to release the podcast, you know, the week that the book came out or the month that the book came out. So he created so much demand. This is what everybody is well served to do. With my clients, I recommend at least three months between when the book is finished and when it's published. So we can apply for awards, get your own podcasts, get the buzz going. Obviously, I'd love to have longer. I'd love to start the person's YouTube channel at the same time that we start interviewing for the book. Because you want to think brand. What is the difference between having a brand or not having a brand? The difference is if you have a powerful brand, people will search you out by name. People will say, Oh, I heard Aurora on Rich's podcast. I love Rich. I like Aurora. I want to talk to Aurora. Not I want to talk to some general, you know, ghost writer or I want to 

Rich Bennett 49:38
write 

Aurora Winter 49:38
some messaging strategist, but I want specifically to talk to Aurora Winter. That's the value of a brand. I mean, you've got a great brand, Rich, you know, people know about conversations with Rich Bennett. You've been doing this for years, right? You've got a great following. You're top three percent of podcasts. People, you know, your voice and your passion and the things that you care about. And they don't want to just listen to any old podcast. No, they want to listen to Rich's podcast. That's a brand. 

Rich Bennett 50:09
I 

never understood why people, and I actually got one of my co-hosts about this. Yes. Wendy, I'm calling you out again. Because she started her nonprofit, and I told her, I said, you need to get out. You need to put your face out there. Especially, I think, especially with a nonprofit. 

Aurora Winter 50:34
Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 50:35
yeah. People want to put a face to it. 

Aurora Winter 50:38
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 50:38
Too many people, and I'm sure you've seen this with businesses, they focus on their logo. 

Aurora Winter 50:46
gosh. 

Rich Bennett 50:46
Oh 

Aurora Winter 50:46
That's so irrelevant. 

Rich Bennett 50:48
But, but am I right? It's like 

Aurora Winter 50:50
You're 

Rich Bennett 50:50
that's what they're folk. 

Aurora Winter 50:51
right. They focus on their logo and their colors on their logo and what's going to be on their t-shirt. But here's the thing, over 90% of consumers, one advertising that feels like a story. 

Rich Bennett 51:02
Yes. 

Aurora Winter 51:03
And people will spend studies show, like, 25% more if they trust that brand. There is loyalty built up. And people will share stories. Almost 70% of consumers say that brand stories influence their purchase decision. So don't worry about your logo. Don't worry about your stories. 

Rich Bennett 51:24
Well, you see this, like, I want to say like with Amazon, you know, when you purchase something from Amazon, they'll, they always ask you for to review it. But one of the things they always encourage are videos. 

Aurora Winter 51:37
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 51:38
About it. And I'll be honest with you. If I'm going to buy something, I look at the reviews, but I look at the videos too. 

Aurora Winter 51:45
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 51:45
I watch. I want to know how easy is this thing to use. 

Aurora Winter 51:49
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 51:50
They make a big difference. And, and I'm glad you did mention the book trailers. great. Because I think that's very, very, very, very important. And you mentioned ChadGVT. I just had a young lady on, who released her book and she even told me she used ChadGVT to create the trailer. She did create a movie trailer for 

Aurora Winter 52:10
Okay. 

Rich Bennett 52:10
it. And it's awesome. 

Aurora Winter 52:13
Well, that's 

Rich Bennett 52:13
And I got a yell at her and told her to do it weekly, especially since she embarrassed me out during the podcast. 

Aurora Winter 52:19
Oh, no. 

Rich Bennett 52:21
Yeah, I have some people that for some reason they like to try to embarrass me. I don't know why 

Aurora Winter 52:29
I don't know if that would a good thing to do to those of the podcast 

Rich Bennett 52:32
surprised. 

Aurora Winter 52:32
that you're on. I wasn't Here's the, here's the cool thing. Just a little data point and everything shifting with AI. 

Rich Bennett 52:40
this 

Aurora Winter 52:40
So 

Rich Bennett 52:40
will 

Aurora Winter 52:41
be a 2026 but 2025 we have the video ads running on Amazon for Magic Mr in the Multiverse. And we're getting a seven times higher click through rate than for text ads. So video is really cool. Actually, the, the videos on YouTube. Anna's a series that are about the fantasy series have a 12% click through rate on cold traffic, which is incredible. 

Rich Bennett 53:12
Now, 

Aurora Winter 53:12
really high. So video done right videos really work. 

Rich Bennett 53:17
So that and the book what magic mystery 

Aurora Winter 53:20
book 

Rich Bennett 53:20
and the multi 

Aurora Winter 53:21
is called the first book is called magic mystery and the multiverse and 

Rich Bennett 53:26
Is 

Aurora Winter 53:26
it 

Rich Bennett 53:26
that the one you wanted to write when you were a little kid since 

Aurora Winter 53:28
yeah. 

Rich Bennett 53:29
your kid? 

Aurora Winter 53:30
Okay. Yeah. Exactly. But seeing as I have a background of film and TV, we're also doing the video version of it. 

Rich Bennett 53:37
I was gonna ask, did you write the screen? Would that be a 

Aurora Winter 53:42
Screenplay, 

Rich Bennett 53:42
screenplay? 

Aurora Winter 53:43
that'd be... 

Rich Bennett 53:43
Did you write screenplay for it? 

Aurora Winter 53:45
No, I haven't written the screenplay yet, but we are making these videos every week, which is really a lot of fun. 

Rich Bennett 53:51
All right, well then, in that case, I want to ask you a trick question. 

Aurora Winter 53:55
Who's 

Rich Bennett 53:55
the main character in 

Aurora Winter 53:57
The main character is Anna Zest. You can see her on 

Rich Bennett 54:01
it? 

Aurora Winter 54:01
the 

Rich Bennett 54:01
Z. 

Aurora Winter 54:01
cover, the girl on the cover, and the woman on the cover is the evil queen, and the boy on the cover is her younger brother that she has to rescue. And there's even a little dog who can see Pito in the... 

Rich Bennett 54:15
Okay. Anna Zest, I like that name. 

Aurora Winter 54:18
Who 

Rich Bennett 54:19
would... If you couldn't pick anybody to play Anna Zest, who would it be? 

Aurora Winter 54:23
Oh gosh, I really should have an answer to that question. I gotta find a young actress, you could play her because she's she's only 16. So, 

Rich Bennett 54:32
Do 

Aurora Winter 54:32
you 

Rich Bennett 54:32
yourself, 

Aurora Winter 54:32
know... 

Rich Bennett 54:33
you look 16. 

Aurora Winter 54:34
Oh, 

I don't think so, but thank you for the compliment. I'll take it, I'll take it. I'm a 

Rich Bennett 54:41
Aurora 

Aurora Winter 54:41
le... 

Rich Bennett 54:42
AI. AI could make you 

Aurora Winter 54:44
I 

Rich Bennett 54:44
look... 

Aurora Winter 54:44
know AI. 

Well, you know, the magic machine, the multi-versus, basically is kind of like Harry Potter meets Dr. Who. 

Rich Bennett 54:54
No, oh really? 

Aurora Winter 54:56
Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 54:56
yeah. Oh, 

Aurora Winter 54:57
it's fun. 

Rich Bennett 54:59
Oh, you know, the funny thing is, I don't read books like that Harry Potter doll, but I'm a big fan of Dr. Who. I watched Harry Potter with, I think, the first movie. 

Aurora Winter 55:10
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 55:10
But something like this, I could get into. I love Dr. Who. 

Aurora Winter 55:15
I love Dr. Who too. 

Rich Bennett 55:16
Oh... 

Aurora Winter 55:17
Longest running scripted series ever. 

Rich Bennett 55:19
Yes. Oh. 

Aurora Winter 55:20
So... yeah, and it's it's quite a lot of fun. And I wanted to have like a... Yes, I know the hero's journey. And it's, you know, it's Luke Skywalker, it's Harry Potter, but I wanted to have a girl as the lead protagonist. And it's a little bit like the Narnia series. I think that C. S. Lewis's books, they're great adventures, they're totally entertaining. There's nothing in them knocking you over the head to say, "You should be a better person." But they do invite you to be a better person, and I hope my do the same. 

Rich Bennett 55:53
Oh, I'm sure, I'm sure they are. How many books have you written total? 

Aurora Winter 55:57
I've written 10 books, myself, not counting the ones that I shelved or grossed, or that I wrote as a ghost writer. 

Rich Bennett 56:06
I've 

Aurora Winter 56:06
written a lot. I have more than the 10,000 hours of writing for sure. I've also written 30 screenplays, one of which was made, Eli's Lesson starring Good Old One. I push up Jack Pallant, so don't know if 

Rich Bennett 56:18
him. 

Aurora Winter 56:18
you remember 

Rich Bennett 56:19
Yeah, oh my God. 

Aurora Winter 56:20
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 56:22
Yeah, I'm an old western geek. 

Aurora Winter 56:26
Oh, well, Jack Pallant, he's like right up your alley 

Rich Bennett 56:29
Yes. 

Aurora Winter 56:29
then. He was a great guy, and that was a great experience. He took me out for blueberry pancakes to acknowledge and celebrate that I wrote the script 

Rich Bennett 56:39
movie. 

Aurora Winter 56:39
for the 

Rich Bennett 56:39
Oh, wow. Wow. Alright, so I love to hear feel good stories. So can you share a feel good story then, especially since you were talking about storytelling. Of somebody that you've actually helped with telling their story? 

Aurora Winter 56:58
Oh, so many to choose from. Okay, well, here's one that's that's top of mine, because I'm going to be speaking to him tomorrow. So one of my clients is a litigation attorney, but he always wanted to be a writer, but he was too busy being a litigation attorney. So he really thought his dream of being a writer was going to be still born. But then he read my book, Turnwards Into Wealth, and he connected with me on Zoom, and we had a chat, and we're working together. So first, he told me his life story, and he had thought it going to be like a non-fiction business book to discourage people from becoming lawyers. But instead, we turned it into an inspired by true story book, and I used my screenwriting background to structure it like a movie. So it was all beautifully structured as a book, but also it could be turned into a movie, and that became his first published book. It's called Confessions of An Accidental Lawyer. And he was blown away by the response. 

Rich Bennett 58:01
I was going to say, I'm sort I'm just the title 

Aurora Winter 58:04
Ah, well, it came to me he wanted to call it a "merthless troll." I'm like, "I'm 

Rich Bennett 58:10
already. 

Aurora Winter 58:10
sure I can 

Rich Bennett 58:10
Huh? 

Aurora Winter 58:10
come up with a better title than that." Yeah, confessions of an accidental lawyer. This was what happens. People come to me with one idea and then by the time we dig into it, it becomes something much better and completely different. Anyway, he was blown away that his book won the American Fiction Award and about a dozen other awards 

Rich Bennett 58:26
Wow. 

Aurora Winter 58:27
and it has now got approximately 3,000 reviews on Amazon. And he loved the process of writing with me so much that now we're working on a series of legal thrillers about the fictional hero called Jake Fox. So, Jake Fox, look it up on Amazon. And now he has... Well, we're going to have nine books in the Jake Fox series. We've got the trilogy is almost done. And he's got three million pages read over a hundred thousand readers and the books are attracting like thousands and thousands of readers and he's he is an award-winning best-selling author. It's no longer a broken dream or a stillborn dream. It's happening right now right here. So, I think he's a great book, his books are great to read if you like John Grisham or James Patterson, the legal thrillers. He's got so many reviews, I think 3,000 or something like that, but what's happened is his identity has shifted because he's no longer somebody who wanted to become a writer who never did it. He is a best-selling award-winning writer. And here's the really cool thing. He hasn't made millions from his books yet because you really need a bunch of books make a bunch 

Rich Bennett 59:54
of money 

Aurora Winter 59:55
as a fiction writer but the curious thing that's happened is he's a very good litigation attorney, but when companies have a problem that needs a litigator they look at maybe a dozen attorneys and everybody looks the same. They're qualified, they've got a grey suit, they've got a blue tie, they all look the same except my client Michael Stockholm, he doesn't the same because he's an award-winning best-selling author. He appears on radio, he appears on podcasts, he has a YouTube channel, we've, you know, got, we've done book trailers of his books, he's got a whole interesting thing going on. So, the end, his company has ended up getting over seven figures of new business because people want to work with the interesting litigation attorney who's also a best-selling author. This is something I didn't, didn't know if that was going to happen, I wasn't expecting that. 

Rich Bennett 1:00:53
Right. 

Aurora Winter 1:00:54
But this is the value of having a brand. Like all the other litigation attorneys are kind of commodities, they're sort of interchangeable, 

Rich Bennett 1:01:02
Mm-hmm. 

Aurora Winter 1:01:02
but Michael Stockholm has a brand because he's the one that's also a best-selling legal thriller author. That makes him interesting and interesting is more valuable. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:13
And I guarantee you his clients won't autograph copies of his books now. 

Aurora Winter 1:01:17
Absolutely. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:18
Even the people he beats in court, well, can I at least get a autograph? From you. 

Aurora Winter 1:01:23
right. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:23
That is all 

Aurora Winter 1:01:24
Yep. For 

Rich Bennett 1:01:24
I love that. 

Aurora Winter 1:01:25
sure. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:26
And see, people don't realize how 

important getting your story out there is 

Aurora Winter 1:01:33
yeah 

Rich Bennett 1:01:34
in a book form gives just proves the meaning of the power of the pen is definitely 

Aurora Winter 1:01:42
more power. The pen. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:43
Sort. 

Aurora Winter 1:01:44
Absolutely. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:46
God. People get your story out there. Okay. 

Aurora Winter 1:01:48
Story out there. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:49
So before I get to my last question, which I don't know what it's going to be, 

Aurora Winter 1:01:54
things. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:54
two 

Aurora Winter 1:01:55
I don't know what it's going to be either. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:58
know that's what makes it even more interesting. 

Aurora Winter 1:02:00
I 

Rich Bennett 1:02:01
Two things. Number one, tell everybody how they can find you. And number two, add anything that you would like to add. 

Aurora Winter 1:02:08
Okay. Great. The easiest way to get the most value for me, for the least amount of time and zero money is go to turnwords into wealth.com. You get a free copy of this book and some videos that explain how to turn your words into wealth. You do have to give me your email address though. But if you don't want to give me your email address, you can get free content every week at my YouTube channel, which is strategic basics. Every week I give a nugget of information I turn breaking news into business breakthroughs. There's a lot about books about stories, about messaging, about building your brand as totally free, and you don't even have to give me your email. So good. basics on YouTube if that's more of your cup of tea. Or if you want to see some fun that can be had with animated videos, go to the Anazesse series on YouTube. Also free, also you don't have to give me your email address. But then if you would like more help and you're already up to something but you'd like that to stilt into a book or into videos, you can go to samepagepublishing.com because I come on the same side, samepage as my clients and you can get a free business breakthrough call at book. call. biz, book. call. biz. 

Rich Bennett 1:03:22
I'll make sure I have all of those links in the show notes too. And those of, 

Aurora Winter 1:03:27
Yeah 

Rich Bennett 1:03:27
I 

Aurora Winter 1:03:27
Rich. 

Rich Bennett 1:03:27
just remember all you that are listening, if you go to the YouTube channel, yes, you don't need to add your email and, but, but please subscribe to her 

Aurora Winter 1:03:37
Exactly. 

Rich Bennett 1:03:37
channel. And when you get the books, if you order the books, make sure you leave a full review. 

Aurora Winter 1:03:46
Thank you. 

Rich Bennett 1:03:47
A full review on Goodreads, Amazon, Bars and wherever you can leave reviews. 

Aurora Winter 1:03:52
Thank you. Yeah, only one person in a thousand leaves the review, and it's such a shame because you put so much love into 

Rich Bennett 1:03:58
book. 

Aurora Winter 1:03:58
writing a 

Rich Bennett 1:03:59
I know. 

Aurora Winter 1:04:00
Nobody gives you any reviews. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:01
I, 

Aurora Winter 1:04:02
Thank you. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:03
I have a goal for 2026 because as much as I, and I, every time I have an author on, I push that at the end or at any time doing the episode. I'll push for people to leave a review. I'm very bad at it. So 

Aurora Winter 1:04:19
I always leave a review. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:21
I, 

Aurora Winter 1:04:21
book, I'm, I'm right away giving them a review. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:24
my 

Aurora Winter 1:04:24
I never leave anything less than a forced-hour review because they don't need know if I didn't like the book. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:31
Right. 

Aurora Winter 1:04:33
But if it's a good book, I'll leave a four or five star, if I hated the book, I'll just say 

Rich Bennett 1:04:38
One of the things I'm going to do next year is actually go through and start leaving reviews for these because I mean, I get, I get a lot of authors on, and they all send me copies of their books. 

Aurora Winter 1:04:48
nothing. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:49
So I got to find the ones even that my daughter took and read 

Aurora Winter 1:04:51
them. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:52
And then once I finish the studio, that's why you see the green screen behind me. I'll have, I'll have shells with all the books of the guests on there. 

Aurora Winter 1:05:01
Oh, that would be really now. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:02
Yeah. So. 

Aurora Winter 1:05:03
Well, here's the cool thing that most people may not know is you can leave a five-star review or a forced-hour review and not even add any words. It just takes two seconds. And that really does help. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:14
Oh, and I'm the type that I like to, I like to write why? 

Aurora Winter 1:05:20
Well, I think writing 

Rich Bennett 1:05:21
I 

Aurora Winter 1:05:21
why, 

Rich Bennett 1:05:21
will not leave a bad review though. I won't, 

Aurora Winter 1:05:24
yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:24
I never leave a bad review. It's either four or five star review. 

Aurora Winter 1:05:27
Yeah, skip that if it's like two star tone. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:29
All right. So. This, 

Aurora Winter 1:05:32
this, crutch 

Rich Bennett 1:05:32
this, 

Aurora Winter 1:05:32
the author for weeks. Really? 

Rich Bennett 1:05:35
All right. Here's the question. And what I know it's not a question. You got to pick the question. 

Aurora Winter 1:05:41
it. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:41
Pick Pick it between one and 100. 

Aurora Winter 1:05:45
Nine. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:46
Why does everybody always pick a low number? Why number nine? 

Aurora Winter 1:05:50
That's my favorite number ever since my dad. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:53
Oh, 

Aurora Winter 1:05:53
nine times table. Yeah, my dad taught me the type table. And I'm like, that is so cool. Like three times nine is 20. 

Rich Bennett 1:06:01
Oh, okay. 

Aurora Winter 1:06:02
If you add two plus seven, it's nine. You know, it works up till ten. I'm like, that is so cool. 

Rich Bennett 1:06:09
That was probably a fifth grade thing. And I'm not smarter than a fifth grade or so. This is actually a good question. 

Aurora Winter 1:06:16
Okay. 

Rich Bennett 1:06:17
What's the most significant realization you've had about yourself in the past year? 

Aurora Winter 1:06:28
Wow. Well, I think the most significant realization is actually happening as we speak because I'm realizing that who I am is a quick start, early adopter, easy to pivot. And every time I see a problem and I solve it for myself, then I want to solve it for other people. So for example, the anazest series of animated videos, we only just did three. It's only been out for two weeks, the third one is coming out today. But I'm so excited about it. And we figured out how to do something that I think is groundbreaking with technology that was only released in October. 

Rich Bennett 1:07:11
Oh, wow. I forgot about that. 

Aurora Winter 1:07:12
last month Sora 2 was released 

Rich Bennett 1:07:15
Yeah. 

Aurora Winter 1:07:16
and I have my son works for me as my CTO. He's a video game designer. 

Rich Bennett 1:07:21
Oh, 

Aurora Winter 1:07:21
So he, I've got the messaging skill, but he's got the skill to quickly use anything tech. And so together we're creating these really killer videos. And I'm like, I want to help people create videos as well as books. So I don't know, but that is just something I notice about myself and I'm kind of leaning into that instead of going over you want to start something else new like some people are really good at maintaining a business. I'm not that's not me. I'm a person who's very good at spotting a good idea and making it grow. So I love helping my clients create strategic messages and strategic branding and strategic business plans. So I'm just going to lean into that. 

Rich Bennett 1:08:04
And I want to commend you on something because I've talked to several people on here and especially authors. You mentioned AI or chat GPT and it puts a bad taste in their mouth. And I always tell people that especially since it's been around forever, embrace it, learn 

Aurora Winter 1:08:26
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:08:26
how to use it and you're doing And 

Aurora Winter 1:08:30
yeah, 

Rich Bennett 1:08:30
I have I have to commend you for that because you're not afraid of it. 

Aurora Winter 1:08:35
What's the point of being afraid 

Rich Bennett 1:08:37
Thank 

Aurora Winter 1:08:37
point is lean into whatever's new lean into it and be wise in how you use it. Use it for what it's really good at like Sam Altman said. Now chat GPT is like newly graduated intern who has a PhD but zero world experience. 

Rich Bennett 1:08:53
you. 

Aurora Winter 1:08:53
Right. So you want to delegate things that an intern with a PhD can do to that person or that entity or the chat GPT. But don't delegate your story, your voice, your sense of humor, your wisdom, your life experience, your client relationships. Like don't delegate that stuff. Yeah. But it's super fast at checking for typos. So yeah, delegate that. 

Rich Bennett 1:09:19
Well, and the thing is, too, you're seeing it. Well, Google's got its own, Bing's got it's own and you're even seeing new search engines coming out, which is strictly it's all AI. Technically, isn't that what search engines were before? 

Aurora Winter 1:09:34
Exactly. We were all using AI. We just label it that way. 

Rich Bennett 1:09:38
Yeah, I just wish AI would help me grow here overall. 

I want to thank you so much. It's been an honor and a true pleasure and the door is open. Any time you want to come back on the doors, because I know I could talk to you for hours. 

Aurora Winter 1:09:56
I loved connecting with you Richard. 

Rich Bennett 1:09:59
It's 

Aurora Winter 1:10:00
been awesome. 

Rich Bennett 1:10:00
It's all thank you. It's been a blast and now I got to go watch some videos of Anna and 

Aurora Winter 1:10:07
at the end of the last 

Rich Bennett 1:10:08
Anna's 

Aurora Winter 1:10:08
and I. And a zest 

Rich Bennett 1:10:09
and a zest. And a zest. I was going to really say anesthesia and an a zest. I just how did you come up with that name? 

Aurora Winter 1:10:16
They're they're short. They're like only two minutes, three minutes each. So they're super short. Well, I wanted a name that people could connect with. But I wanted I wanted she's spunky. She's feisty. So zest kind of goes with that. 

Rich Bennett 1:10:30
So she's like the carbon copy of you. 

Aurora Winter 1:10:35
Shhhh. 

Rich Bennett 1:10:37
Or our thanks so much. 

Aurora Winter 1:10:40
Oh, thanks Rich. I appreciate it. 

Rich Bennett 1:10:44
Thank you for listening to the conversations with Rich Bennett. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and learned something from it as I did. If you'd like to hear more conversations like this, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. And if you have a moment. I'd love it if you could leave a review. It helps us reach more listeners and share more incredible stories. Don't forget to connect with us on social media or visit our website at conversations with Rich Bennett dot com for updates, giveaways and more. Until next time, take care. Be kind and keep the conversations going. You know, it takes a lot to put a podcast together, together. And my sponsors help add a lot, but I also have some supporters that actually help me when it comes to the editing software, the hosting and so forth. There's a lot that goes into putting this together. So I want to thank them. And if you can please please visit their websites, visit their businesses, support them. However you can. So please visit the following full circle boards. Nobody does charcuterie like full circle boards. Visit them at fullcircleboards dot com. Sincerely, Soyer Photography. Live in the moment, they'll capture it. Visit them at CincerelySoyer.com. The Jabitown Lions Club. Surveying the community since 1965. Visit them at www. jopitownlinesclub. org. And don't forget the 'e' at the end of Jabitown, because they're extraordinary.