Can One Sentence Change Everything? Neil Gordon on Story, Truth & Communication

What if a single sentence could change the way you communicate, connect, or make meaning of your life?

In this conversation, communication strategist and author Neil Gordon joins us to explore what he calls The Silver Bullet — one intentional, clarifying sentence that can move people, inspire action, and deepen connection.

Neil shares the personal story behind his book The Most Powerful Sentence of All Time — including the grief of losing his father, the emotional shutdown that began in childhood, and the moment during the pandemic when he reconnected to his own voice and feelings in a way he hadn’t in years.

We talk about:

•  The Silver Bullet and why one sentence outperforms advice or explanation
•  How contrast creates clarity in storytelling, messaging, and everyday communication
•  Grief, vulnerability, and the emotional journey that reshaped Neil’s work
•  Handling online criticism with empathy (and algorithm-friendly curiosity)
•  Why goosebumps signal that your message is landing at the emotional level
•  How one sentence shaped The P-I-G Podcast’s own mission

Neil offers simple but transformative guidance for finding your own Silver Bullet — whether you’re a parent, partner, leader, writer, or simply someone longing to speak and listen with more clarity and intention.

This episode is a reminder that words don’t just communicate — they connect, heal, empower, and become part of our living legacy.

📘 Explore Neil’s work: neilcanhelp.com
📖 Order the book: The Most Powerful Sentence of All Time

Chapters

• 0:00 The Power Of One Sentence
• 10:08 Meet Neil Gordon And His Fable
• 24:56 Origins Of The PIG Tagline
• 46:56 From Loss To Language
• 1:03:20 Bullying, Identity, And Social Media
• 1:22:36 Pandemic, Pivot, And Writing The Fable

Transcript

Kellie: 0:03

What if one sentence had the power to change everything? Today's guest has built his life's work around that idea. Neil Gordon is a communication strategist to CEOs, authors, and TED speakers. His fable, The Most Powerful Sentence of All Time, highlights what he calls the silver bullet, the one sentence that inspires action and helps people speak with clarity and conviction. He even inspired the core message of the PIG. Hearing the stories of others helps us create a more meaningful connection to our own.

Erin: 0:34

But like many of us, Neil discovered his during a chapter of deep loss. After his father passed and during the isolation of the pandemic, he found himself rethinking his story, his words, even the man he wanted to become. And that makes today's conversation so meaningful. This isn't about messaging or speaking. It's about the words we choose in the moments that matter most. Today we talk about storytelling, empathy, truth, and how one powerful sentence, the right sentence, can transform everything.

Kellie: 1:04

Welcome to the PIG, where we explore life, love, loss, and legacy through real conversations and meaningful stories with purpose, intention, and gratitude. We're Kellie and Erin, sisters, best friends, sometimes polar opposites, but always deeply connected by the life and love of the woman who taught us to be wise with our words, our mother Marsha. Neil.

Neil: 1:31

Kellie.

Kellie: 1:33

This is really a special treat for me because our history goes back to, gosh, I want to say it has to be 2013, 2014.

Neil: 1:45

Yeah, it was definitely, it was definitely in that mid-2010s time period. Sure.

Kellie: 1:52

Yeah. I, you know, I was writing a novel and I was working with an editor, and it's still at the surface, it's right here, you know, the coffee house effect. And that book will get written, but I had to go on a series of life journeys in order to finish that book. And you know everything that that book is about and the themes. And I remember I was working with that editor, and we finally reached a point where I knew that she wasn't the right person for me for this book, that I wanted to write it in the style of books like The Alchemist or The Traveler's Gift, uh, The Go Giver. And she helped me jump online and she isolated two or three people that she would recommend. And you were on that list. And I wrote to you and I told you exactly what I was kind of after. And you said, Wow, well, that's a coincidence because of your connection with the go-giver.

Neil: 2:53

Right, right.

Kellie: 2:54

And so we started working together.

Neil: 2:57

Yeah, and so so that our listeners know it's kind of a peripheral connection to the go-giver, admittedly, but I was an editor, a low-level editor at Penguin years ago. And toward the end of my time there in 2007, an agent sent me the Go Giver on submission. And I was almost the acquiring editor of that book. It's just that back then at Penguin, this is prior to the merger with Random House, we weren't allowed to bid against other divisions at the company. And so only one division could step up and do it. So it was out of my hands because they all worked it out and figured out that portfolio, the division that did wind up acquiring it, was going to be the one that put in a bid. And I left my job there not long after that, actually. So I never got to position myself as the guy who acquires fables and parables kind of thing, but instead decided many years later to write one. So there you go.

Kellie: 3:53

Well, we made an instant connection, and I remember saying to you when you were we were talking about what my idea was, you know, fab I wanted to write it in that fable and parable style.

Speaker 2: 4:04

Right.

Kellie: 4:05

And I said, to me, the theme of this book is the greatest lessons we have to teach others are the very ones we must also learn ourselves, which was a quote from our mother. And that really kind of solidified that connection. I remember you just grabbed a hold of that, like, oh, that's really it.

Neil: 4:24

Right.

Kellie: 4:25

So we started working together. We have worked together in different ways over the years. You've helped me with speeches and keynotes, and we've had a great time. And then when you wrote your own fable, which by the way, John David Mann said, who is the co-author of The Go Giver, right? The most engaging, illuminating fable I've read in a long, long time. The most powerful sentence of all time. And I loved being on your ARC team. I felt like that was such an honor. And that it was such great work. And it was right at the time that you were offering that workshop to those of us that were on that team that Erin and I were beginning to put the idea of the podcast together.

Neil: 5:13

Right. Right.

Kellie: 5:14

And so part of our work in that group, and I'm just we're celebrating you and how much you've actually helped us get to here was the assignment that you said, okay, think about something you're doing right now, and we're gonna write your most powerful sentence for that project.

Neil: 5:32

Right, right.

Kellie: 5:33

And I wrote, "Hearing the stories of others helps us create a meaningful connection to our own" and you said, "Add the word more." So we added the word more, and that's our tagline. So I feel like we've come full circle.

Neil: 5:50

Yeah, I have a new and I have a new career, just telling people anywhere just to add the word more to things, right?

Kellie: 5:57

So, anyhow, I just wanted to open with just recognizing that, celebrating you. I have an enormous amount of gratitude in my heart for all the work that we've done over the past decade. And I know there's more to come in the future. So thank you for being here today with us and sharing your life journey and your story, which ultimately ended up becoming this beautiful little fable that I hope everybody goes out and buys and purchases because it's so impactful to be able to develop a sentence like a mission statement that really just kind of defines your life, but also helps you be more persuasive in your communications with others, both personally and professionally. So I'm really looking forward to this conversation today.

Neil: 6:51

Thank you so much, Kellie. And I just want to point out, especially given the central significance of the themes around your mom and her impact on the both of you, how she was thinking in terms of the spirit of that persuasion technique that is the centerpiece of that of the book. She was already thinking in those terms. And then when you were putting together the concepts around the coffee house effect, that her impact on you just becomes a great example that I'm not just I'm not just feeding everyone a line that this kind of sentence is really good. It's like that's a living, breathing example of that technique and effect. So it's just it's great to see how it all comes together.

Kellie: 7:28

Well, she was pretty innovative. So it doesn't surprise Erin and I at all that you would actually have that reflection. So let's dive in. Neil, welcome to the PIG.

Neil: 7:40

Thank you so much. It's so great to be here.

Kellie: 7:43

I think it would be great to start with what the real turning point was for you. Maybe you can share some of your background and history. We heard a little bit about Penguin, but you were born in New York. That's where your family lived. And when you and I met, you were out in LA. You're back in New York now. So let's just that big turning point. I know your dad passed in 2019, and that just kind of exploded everything inside of Neil in a lot of different ways.

Neil: 8:12

Yeah. So finding a concise way to sum everything up is admittedly for me a bit of a task. However, I can look at it through the lens of my expertise around communication and persuasion didn't come from always being a bookworm and didn't come from always being a great communicator. It came from a lack of those capacities and an awkwardness as a child and coming from a household where there was screaming and yelling every day. And it just my my work today, I tend to think of it as a 180 from the environment I grew up in. It's like, how can we use communication not as a weapon but an act of service? And with that said, my father's passing in 2019 wound up being pretty significant because, in a way, here's what I remember. When when I was about 18, I felt I was sort of coming out of my shell a little bit because when are so many of us when we become 14, 15, 16, we withdraw. We don't want to talk to adults, right? And the tendency for me was just to retreat. This is in the early 90s with Game Boys and stuff, and I just wanted to do my thing and not talk to anyone. But then by 18, we had a uh birthday party, I think, with friends of the family, and I was there talking to people, and I felt very good about coming out of my shell. And my dad pulls me aside that night after we got home. He said, Son, every time I overheard you in a conversation, you were doing all of the talking. And that hit me like a gut, like a gut punch. It didn't feel good to think that I was that guy, and that not that I just changed everything all right away, but over the years, I which is the irony here is that being a guest on your podcast, you both are asking me questions and I'm doing a lot of the talking. But so much of my life I as an adult, I've looked to ask more questions and ask people to share their thoughts or tell me about what they do or what have you. Point is that that became the origin story of what I came to embody in my work, which is that effective communication values the recipient over the sender.

Kellie: 10:26

Powerful.

Erin: 10:27

I love that.

Neil: 10:28

Yeah. Make whatever you say, whether it's in conversation or it's the content you create, like the books and the speeches and whatnot that you put out into the world, make that into something that has value for others. And how can you make decisions and choices that are in service of that ideal? And fast forward, I mean, I developed a lot of stuff like the basis of the book, the technique that I call a silver bullet, the thing that defines the coffee house effect and other things we've talked about. That had already come up. And my dad was always my cheerleader. He he was the one person on the planet who was actually interested in what I do. The only time I someone's ever interested in what I do is when I would talk to my dad about it or when I'm on a podcast. So maybe that's why I make podcast appearances. People are so lovely, they're asking me questions and stuff about my job. And I'm like, well, cool. That's I'll take it. Anyway, my my point is that losing him was significant on many levels, but not only did I lose my cheerleader, it happened at a time when in the late in late 2019, I had a lot, a lot of momentum. It was a different time advertising through the meta platform, and people were a lot less averse to taking risks and stuff. And then the pandemic happened, and that really shattered a lot. Plus, I was doing stuff around public speaking, and there was just wild uncertainty in the public speaking world, as I'm sure you both remember. And so, with that said, I kind of swept a lot of my grief under the rug because I had so much to do going into 2020. And then a couple of months later, when that all fell apart and I was by myself in this apartment in LA, I just spent the next six months crying my eyes out, frankly. Sometimes like three or four episodes in a week, sometimes three or four episodes in a day. And it was just a lot, a lot of purging. But this is significant because in the years leading up to that, I wasn't crying almost at all. I cried a lot as a kid, as a little kid. That little kid in first grade who cried all the time. That was me.

Erin: 12:38

Right.

Neil: 12:38

Oh, that was you too, Kellie?

Kellie: 12:40

Oh, yes. I was the elementary school crybaby. That was literally my nickname.

Neil: 12:45

Oh, it was your actually your name?

Kellie: 12:47

It was, yeah. I was well known at Appleton Elementary School as the school crybaby. I've always worn my emotions on my sleeve.

Neil: 12:56

Yeah. Well, and I in a way, I'm kind of envious that you said always, because that wasn't the case. I shut that down when I was about 12 or 13. It just became too humiliating. And it took until my early 40s to start finding it again. I'm still working on it, but I'm much more fluid of a crier now than I was even 10 years ago. With all that said, losing my father became a really powerful catalyst for reintegrating that part of myself. And it's concurrent with a lot of healing, a lot of therapy, and some ketamine-assisted body work. Like it, yeah, I've been going all in on finding this stuff.

Erin: 13:37

Yeah.

Neil: 13:38

So there's no doubt that in the themes of loss and legacy, as you talk about it on this podcast, that yeah, his impact on me was undeniably significant.

Kellie: 13:49

What do you think really shut down that part of you that felt like you could express your emotions as a teenager? Was it being a boy? You know, Marcus and I talk about this a lot because and we grew up farm kids, so I actually had some ram ramifications for crying as much as I did and wearing my emotions on my sleeves. You know, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. I'll give you something to cry about. Was it that or was it something different?

Neil: 14:20

I can tell you the exact day it happened. Sixth grade, it was November, and I was just in a funky mood that day. And this is this was in the sixth grade that was in an elementary school, not a middle school. We were the oldest year in the school, and we still went up to recess every day. But by sixth grade, it was more just some kids played basketball, and other kids just kind of hung out, sat on the swings with a little bit of malaise and all that. And other kids like me would just kind of wander around not doing much, and that's how the kind of day I was, and I wasn't near my friends, and I said something about how my stomach was feeling bad, and just kind of used that as an excuse to go off on my own. And then as we were returning to the building, there were these two kids named Mike, both of them named Mike, and a lot of Mike's that I grew up with. I Erin, you might have you might have experienced that at that time period too, because I think we're about the same age, and it was just yeah, it was kind of bizarre how everyone was named Mike.

Kellie: 15:25

Well, Erin was gonna be John Michael or Michael John, and her middle name's Michelle...

Erin: 15:35

So funny.

Neil: 15:36

All right, and then there's actually people like there's women in like the south who are named Michael, like it's a it's a women's name in some parts of the country. It's just funny to me. Anyway, so one of the two mics just came up to me at the end of recess and said, Hey Neil, how's your stomach? And he just kind of playfully jabbed me in the stomach, which kind of thinking about it, that kind of was a dick move. But yeah, anyway, I don't know why, but it was just the exact not the wrong kind of attention that I wanted at that point. And for whatever reason, I just started crying. I don't know to this day, I don't know why that was my reaction. And then the other mic, not the one who had jabbed me, but the other one who I had been friendly with since second grade, just completely mercurial, complete 180. He just became the meanest, nastiest kid, just on a dime. My sense is that he was already pretty tired of me because at that age, becoming cool or not cool was a very clear dividing line socially. There was a like by sixth grade, we're developing that social caste system that plays out in junior high and high school. And I think on some level, he didn't want to be associated with someone who wasn't cool. However, that gave him the excuse, and the rest of the year he was horrible. And there were also a few other kids in that year who were bullies, and I didn't understand that it wasn't safe to be around those kids. Like I was still, I don't know if you both remember this, but first, second, third grade, you were friends with whoever. You were just friends with the kids around you. It didn't matter how you showed up, and all of a sudden it mattered, and it took me months to realize that I wasn't supposed to be around them. And so, you know, there was one of the kids, he was bigger, he just kind of picked up. I was a little kid, he just kind of threw me, picked me up and threw me on the ground and stuff. It was terrible. The larger point there, because we all have our bullying stories, is that uh crying wasn't safe anymore. It didn't end completely that day, but that was the beginning of the end. That was when it was very clear that feeling something was not okay. Because sixth grade is arguably it's sixth grade and seventh grade are in competition for the worst year of my life. And it wasn't anything other than kids are just jerks when they're 12. But but that that wasn't clear to me when I was 12 myself.

Erin: 18:02

Yeah, I think that that is the age that we start being aware of how others perceive us. I would I would venture to say that that's about the age when we start to start being able to recognize the judgment of others.

Neil: 18:21

Yeah. And that's a tough place. Yeah, it's a tough place. And think about what the kids go through now. If they have smartphones, they are exposed not just to the few kids in their class, but everyone everywhere.

Erin: 18:33

Yeah. I think about that all the time. Can you imagine? I mean, I'm so grateful for a lot of reasons that there was not social media when we grew up. But now thinking about all these things that we're talking about, right? Even as simple as that, the bullying, the judgment, and all of that. What these kids face now with the introduction of technology and fueling that is it's frightening, quite honestly.

Neil: 19:05

It really is. And it really doesn't seem like there's a very deliberate set of solutions being put out there to somehow steer this away and whatnot. It's funny, I have this solution that I've just come up with in how I handle trolls because I post on social media and I up until recently I didn't do it very consistently. But in July, I just decided I'm just gonna do this every day. I'm gonna do TikTok and YouTube and Instagram and Facebook and LinkedIn. Thank you, LinkedIn, for getting me 19 whole impressions on the videos that TikTok gives me 50,000, but I digress. With that said, people are absolutely committed to being mean and they're being trolls. And all I ever really knew to do before was ignore them and maybe even hide them if the platform allowed me to do that. But I realized recently I had a wonderful solution, or what I deem to be wonderful, is when someone says something. Something really mean and trolls my content. I thank them for boosting the algorithm because interacting on with comments is actually good for the algorithm. So, and I remember most of them just ignore they don't respond again because they don't know how to even process such a positive response to their mean spiritness. But this one guy just wrote me and said something like he's like, I am going to actively tell people not to subscribe to this channel, right? I'm just giving public speaking tips. There's nothing wrong with what I'm doing, but he was that committed. And I said, Oh, thank you so much. Your comment is really going to help the algorithm. And then he he wrote back, No problem, small fry. Like he was that committed to being mean, even when I was clearly not going to be affected by it. And it just gives us a profound demonstration of how what lengths people will go through to be mean for the sake of itself.

Kellie: 20:55

Yeah. And you know, for me, that comes from such a place of internal hurt. I was thinking as you two were sharing your dialogue, that that 12 and 13, that junior high, middle school age, because we were all part of that shift, right? From junior high to middle school, being the oldest kids to the youngest kids in the school, is such a time of identity. You know, I becoming your own authentic self. And I think that that has been so disrupted.

Neil: 21:26

Yeah.

Kellie: 21:27

Which is re ally sad by a lot of factors, but especially by social media, to the point where I see adults questioning who they are, their own identity, what value they bring to the world, simply because social media or the trolls and the mean people have a place to go and beat people up for no reason. That is their playground.

Neil: 21:53

Yeah. Yeah. And there is there is like we had playground monitors.

Kellie: 21:59

Right.

Neil: 22:00

I got into one that same year. One of the bullies just started a fight with me. It was the only time I ever got anything close to a fight. It wasn't much of a fight. And they put us on X's and we had to stand on the X's for the rest of the recess for fighting. And I I cried. The funny thing is, because I stood up to him, he started consoling me and telling me what a good job I did standing up for myself. I people are weird. Anyway, that whole moment is a great example of like in real life, if you're doing this in real time in with another human in front of you, that's going to be so much more emotionally significant for all parties involved. But tearing into each other on social media doesn't mean anything. It just becomes this mean-spiritedness for the sake of itself. And there's no standing on an X and consoling the person who stood up to you, kind of thing.

Erin: 22:49

Right. Well, yeah. And going back to it's so funny what you guys were just talking about about the playground because it is almost as hard as it was in dealing with bullies and all of that. It's where people just kind of, and especially boys, I know that's a generalization, but it felt like it was always the boys who were more rough and tumble and you know, kind of roughen each other up on the playground or having these fights. And that was a kind of established this pecking order, right? And so, you know, you could kind of beat the crap out of each other and then be like, good fight, you know, and and walk away. And through that develop some level of appreciation or acknowledgement of the other person. And we don't have that anymore, right? And people are these kind of keyboard warriors where they can say anything they want online. They don't have to back it up with anything, they don't have to look that person in the eyes and and have any sort of accountability for what they're doing, what they're saying, all of that. And so it gives people this inflated ego and well, I'll show you. Click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, you know, on their keyboard. And it doesn't solve any problems, it doesn't do anything except people are just mean for the sake of being mean, and there's really no ramifications for it, there's no accountability for it.

Neil: 24:22

Other than yeah, it just reinforces our own suffering. Sorry, Kellie.

Kellie: 24:26

Yeah, no, don't apologize. Have you both heard what Australia just did?

Neil: 24:30

I've not heard it yet. No.

Kellie: 24:31

No. Australia has passed a law that bans children under 16 from creating their own social media accounts. It was it's intended to protect children's mental health by reducing exposure to cyberbullying and harmful content. Exactly what we're talking about. I just heard about this the other night. Marcus shared that with me, so I looked it up real quick.

Neil: 24:55

It's so interesting.

Kellie: 24:57

Go Australia.

Neil: 24:58

Well, it's interesting because one of my favorite comedians is from Australia, and he tells a story in a very famous routine from about 10 or 12 years ago. It was all about gun control. And he talks about how in the 90s, in a place in Australia called Port Arthur, there was this huge massacre, and they said, No more guns, and they're like, All right, and they stopped having all the massacres and stuff like that. And so it's interesting that Australia, with admittedly being a very different country with a much smaller population and all of that, they seem to have a recurring theme of just having a blanket, no more of this kind of thing. And whether they're successful regulations or not, or policies or not, I I don't presume to know. But it's it's interesting the the cultural difference there because that would be very difficult to pull off, I think, in America.

Kellie: 25:54

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Neil: 25:56

Yeah.

Kellie: 25:57

So circling back from loss to language, of course. Your dad passed. I actually remember you and I were in touch. Um, we were working on some projects, I think, together during that time, or at least corresponding. We've stayed in touch all these years pretty closely, and um, that was a big momentum shift for you.

Neil: 26:20

Yeah, yeah. You know, it's it's interesting when I was January and February of 2020 went very well. They're historically my best months business-wise, and then March started out like that, and then of course by mid-month everything changed. Yeah, COVID. Yeah, what was interesting was that I was growing enough where I felt like I had the potential to do a traditional book deal. Like I was going to grow my audience to be large enough where that would be a viable project for some publishers. And coming from book publishing and being a acquisitions editor once upon a time, I understood what it took to be seen as a viable author in that regard. And so I rented an Airbnb before the lockdown started. And so I could work on a book proposal, and it was gonna be a standard how-to book on how to create basically how to use this concept of a silver bullet in a number of different ways, and it had the potential to be a good book. I mean, I am a book collaborator as part of my trade, so I was gonna ensure that it was high quality. And I remember the Airbnb booking was for right after lockdown started. So I remember never seeing the hosts, and the whole thing felt weird and unsafe because this was after we were supposed to be social distancing and sheltering in place and all that, but I still created it, but then I came back and I was like, I don't think this is gonna fly anymore, kind of thing. Because I was just trying to figure out how to keep moving forward in other ways. So I put that project aside, and I'm pretty sure that had what I described to you both earlier about taking the space to grieve and and process everything and start doing some deeper healing, had that not happened, I probably wouldn't have chosen to create a fable. It probably it was something going as far back as we've ever we've known each other, Kellie. I think that was on my mind as well in some way, and using the act of fiction to teach something. Because I I had loved The Go Giver, I had loved The Alchemist, all of those other books. And I I'm pretty sure that if I had just continued on the path that I was on in 2020, as much as it was nice to have all that momentum, it would have been certainly a less meaningful expression of the work. And so that winds up being to me what was professionally most significant about that time.

Kellie: 29:35

And you made a move, a big move during this time too, didn't you? Is this when you made the move to new back to New York?

Neil: 29:42

Yeah, early 21. Yeah. So we were still technically in lockdown by that point before the world started opening up again. And in 21, what's interesting is I started writing a parable in the spirit of this whole thing that was, I don't know if it ever would have had potential, but I remember working on the notes for that for a good seven or eight months. And then I was gonna go on this entrepreneurial trip in early November of 21. And then I got COVID and I couldn't go, but I was mostly feeling my symptoms were basically resolved by the time the trip happened, and I had blocked out two weeks from my schedule to go on this trip, and then I wrote a draft in four days. I thought it was gonna take me two weeks just to get halfway through a draft, but it turned out I just needed four days to write the whole thing, and then I put it aside, and then I did a day-long therapy session the following January, like two months later. And what's interesting to me is that some part of me knew that that was a nice attempt, but not actually all that emotionally significant to me. It wasn't really an extension of myself, and I was just trying to find clever nudge nudge wink way wink ways of just kind of referencing certain parts of my life, but doing something that even felt remotely autobiographical just didn't feel safe. And yet, what people who read the book will soon find out is that a large part of the story has to do with this ride share driver helping this small business owner to better position her stuff for this big pitch for her dream client. And it starts with their conversation in the car ride to the airport, where he's driving her to the airport and just helps her to find this silver bullet concept for her company, which is a loose interpretation of what actually happened in the mid-2010s. Around the time I actually met you, Kellie. I was moonlighting driving for lift. I just wasn't able to make a viable living back then doing this stuff. I didn't know anything about marketing back then. And there was some driving in the original version of the parable, but it the driver didn't need the job, he was just doing it as a social experiment. Anyway, it wasn't the worst thing ever, but it just really wasn't what the book was meant to be. And so I have this day-long therapy session in that January, and my therapist was like, Why don't you try writing this other concept? It seems important to you. And if you don't like it, you can go back to the other one or try something different instead. And so within a couple of days of that session, I started on the book that it actually came to be. Here's what it is I was too afraid to experience pain, which is so much is an issue for so many of us.

Kellie: 32:33

Yes.

Neil: 32:34

And so I insulated myself from the concept of the book because if people rejected it, it would be too close to rejecting me, and that would be too painful. And here we go. So that's how all of that emotional stuff, for lack of a more precise and technical term, wound up giving birth to what the book ultimately became.

Erin: 32:57

Wow, it's such a lesson in vulnerability and what we open ourselves up to, you know, what we create space for. And it's wild just to to listen to you and to hear how all of those things intersected each other, the loss, but then that vulnerable space, and how that affects even the thinking, not even just the act of writing, but even just being able to how do I want to word this? Just being able to, yeah, just the the whole creative process, I guess. Conceptualizing it. Yeah, yeah, from thought to paper, you know, just that whole process. And it's fascinating, actually.

Kellie: 33:48

Well, and I Neil, you and I know each other really well. And the book that I still intend to write, man, that really kind of was an arrow to the forehead when you said that. Because even working on this podcast, this project with Erin, I mean, this is vulnerable. It is authentic, it is raw. Like we are opening up our hearts and our emotions and our experiences and our childhood and our adulthood, you know, to people. And to and to just put that kind of work out there that's steeped in your own experience is vulnerable. And the coffee house effects, same thing. I mean, that's based on real life experience. And again, had to have more experience to get to the point of finishing it. But the concept of working on a project and putting it out to the masses and being afraid to face the rejection, because what does that mean about me?

Neil: 34:49

Yeah.

Kellie: 34:50

Is something at least the three of us here have all faced. And I would venture to say that probably a lot of people in the world have faced that, but not even recognized that that's actually maybe what's holding them back.

Erin: 35:04

Absolutely. And how that ties into what we were just talking about about kind of the internet trolls.

Neil: 35:10

I was about to say, right?

Erin: 35:13

And how that is absolutely less of a reflection about us and a true reflection of them. That's a yeah, you know, that's a I always say that's a YP, not an MP. That's a you problem, not a me problem. Yeah, right. And so, man, that in and of itself is a fascinating study on human behavior, right, Kellie?

Kellie: 35:41

Right, yeah!

Neil: 35:42

Yeah, to me, I find it inevitable that there are going to be mean people doing mean things no matter what we do. And on the one hand, we can self-regulate in the way that we say, Yeah, that's a you problem, not a me problem, like you said. And more tactically, maybe there's a way we can get their mean-spiritedness to boost our algorithm, right? It's like I mean, I I I make that reference in half jest, but only in half jest, because the truth is that people could be mean, and maybe there's a way to use it so that we can alchemize that energy a bit and turn it into something less hateful, yes, and and all of that. And if we're gonna put something out into the world, we can have some curiosity about all right, so when the mean stuff comes, how can I show up and how can I use it in some way? And it's not I'm not saying it's easy, but it certainly feels possible.

Erin: 36:40

I completely agree. And I was just going to reference our last interview, our last episode that we did with Rich Boerner. He said the exact same thing. He talked about kindness beginning with curiosity. And it was such a profound statement. And so I love that you just said essentially the same thing. That that spirit of curiosity is so critically important.

Neil: 37:11

Yeah, and and by the way, Erin, that winds up actually being a great example of the very thing that we've been talking about with the silver bullet. When you can take a simple action and it leads to a simple outcome, it's just very empowering. And so you can just say that curiosity leads to kindness or that curious that kindness begins in curiosity. It's just a simple idea. And the way you were able to integrate that and recall that from the previous episode and bring it right up to the surface here is a good example of its stickiness and a good example of the intrinsic value of that. So, I mean, that's kind of one of the pitfalls of having a conversation with me, especially in a professional space, is I'm invariably going to say, There's a silver bullet because it just has been showing up for 2,500 years, and yet people don't really take advantage of it as an act of persuasion.

Kellie: 38:06

Can we talk about that? Because as we've been having this conversation, I was thinking about Otto and Barbara, the characters in the book.

Neil: 38:14

In the book, yeah.

Kellie: 38:15

Otto was vulnerable enough to share his perspective and opinion, and Barbara was curious enough to actually absorb it and take it in. And I love in the book that you really do talk about the history of the silver bullet concept, something that you and I worked on way back when we were working. You know, what's the silver bullet of this speech? What's the silver bullet of this presentation? What's the silver bullet of this writing? And that it's been around for a very, very, very long time. You've just packaged it in a new, different, and innovative way for this time in our culture, in our society.

Neil: 38:59

Well, do you remember about 20 years ago when The Secret came out as a as a film? It was, and then the book came out right after, right? And everyone was in this personal growth space was talking about the secret. And the way that they were positioning the law of attraction was this age-old thing when looking back, it felt like it was. I mean, I'm sure that the law of attraction in some form or another worked and was like was a thing for so long. And a lot of it felt like packaging, right? A lot of it felt like how to. I mean, the woman who actually did the secret actually appropriated it from Esther Hicks kind of thing and all of that. And so this was this was like straight up a packaging job, not even a creation job, right? And I'm I felt a little jaded and cynical about things back then. This is prior to me understanding what the silver bullet is, of course. And I felt a little skittish around the idea that we're talking about something that's been around a long time, kind of thing. Because it feels like it could be a packaging spin kind of thing. But the truth is that I mean, when you look at ancient texts, these authors are saying silver bullets. Right. And you could go on to Goodreads and look at the most voted quotes of these ancient thinkers and stuff. And they're almost always a silver bullet. So it's just kind of funny that it really is this thing that's been around for thousands of years. And it's just a matter of a more conscientious communicator drawing on that and using it to be more persuasive in their work.

Kellie: 40:30

Which kind of goes back to the comment that you made when we were opening the show, and I shared the greatest lessons we have to teach others are the very ones we must also learn ourselves and our mother in the 80s and 90s, kind of capturing language in that way. And when I think of back about a lot of the things that we were taught as kids, they were packaged kind of like a silver bullet. One of them was capiche. A one-word silver bullet.

Neil: 41:00

Yeah, there you go. There you go. Yeah. I've only I've only ever gotten down to two words as a small silver bullet that I've ever conceived of, which was that scarcity sells. Right. And so I got I've done a number of three-word silver bullets over the years, but that one just for resale. I was like, wait a minute, that only needs two words. So some famous phrases that utilize this technique are happy wife, happy life, right? Which is the rhyme, of course, makes it very sticky, but it's also when you if you want a happy life, then you make your wife happy, kind of thing. And that's that's the same cause and effect kind of thing. And fortune favors the bold is another one that we've heard over the years. And so these are things that are being used. It's just most of the time people don't realize that it's a very predictable format and outcome that comes from using the technique. We're kind of running the gamut here, though. We're talking about getting vulnerable about loss and also getting very precise and technical about what makes a silver bullet what it is. Kind of funny. I'm not surprised. I knew that we were just gonna be all over the place. Yeah.

Kellie: 42:07

We're on the playground playing in the sandbox, you know. This is how conversations go. And we never want to cut any story short, right? Because every story has such meaning and impact. What do you want to share about the book, the fable, the characters, the silver bullet? Because we want we want people to get the book because we don't want to give it all away, but it is very powerful.

Neil: 42:34

Well, I appreciate your saying that, Kellie. And the thing that I really I guess I admit that I would love to talk about more is the fact that Otto, the silver bullet guy in the story, is starting off driving and is struggling in his life to make ends meet and all of that, and is very in very dark feelings and whatnot. I find that that felt like a big deal to be willing to put that out there because when I've had clients who have just started working with me and then they read the book after they started working with me, and it's like, oh, I guess you're auto. And I said, Well, I certainly inspired certain details in his life, but we are different and we don't share all the same biographical details, et cetera, et cetera. But we do have this rideshare driving to make ends meet thing in common. And I guess what I wish I could be asked about more is just finding the very nuanced ways to draw on my life without making it my life, because that wound up being something that here's the thing: it wound up being a great way to conceive of the story. But what I really liked in later drafts, and the reason why he stayed a driver, is that the silver bullet's power is in that it empowers without context. You don't need to hear anything else in order to hear it. And so when we look at your mother's concept, and I'm I'm not gonna get the exact wording right, but the idea being that the lessons we uh could you say it again for for me, Kellie? Sorry, could you just so that everyone knows what we're talking about?

Kellie: 44:12

"The greatest lessons we have to teach others are the very ones we must also learn ourselves."

Neil: 44:18

Yes, okay, great. People don't need to hear more than that in order to do something with it. Right. And so the thing that I really wish more people would ask me about, and which is why I'm so appreciative of the open-ended nature of your question, Kellie, is that I realized in a later draft that he needed to be a person of low status. He needed to be a person who was see perceived because uh service professionals, drivers, and food service people are unfortunately, I'm not saying that they deserve low status, I'm just saying that they're often perceived as being low status. And uh I realized that the potency of that choice lied in the fact that he didn't need to be in perceived high status. When we think of the go-giver, and the the main character goes to the mentor, uh Pindar, I think his name is, and he's got this palatial home, and he's just tremendously influential and very wealthy, and uh that is a person you want to learn from. Whereas in this story, uh, the mentor uh is in this low status position, uh, and the reason why the work uh why his work is credible, and and the reason why she decides to get his help is because of the intrinsic nature of the technique itself. If he was a high status person providing it, it would have distracted from the intrinsic power and potency of the technique because he gives her a silver bullet in that conversation to the airport, and she just has this mind-blowing epiphany around all of her life's work. And by the way, not in any way an exaggeration of what happened. I actually helped this commercial photographer once. I drove him 20 minutes and we found his silver bullet for his photography work, and he was really grumpy. And I remember like the comments you get in the app the next day are anonymous, but I knew who what he wrote, and he started the car ride really angry and pissed off about something. And then I just for whatever reason, I didn't let him off the hook and I made him talk to me, which today I probably wouldn't do. But back then I didn't seem to know any better, and I made him talk to me about his work and I helped him to find a silver bullet that his way of creating the best images was through prompting authentic moments, like surprising them. He would he would surprise them, and that made them authentic. And so I don't remember the exact wording, but the idea was by surprising your subject, you're going to get more authentic photos, and so that's what he did in his process. And he was just like just his mind was blown, and he walked away from my car. Yeah, exactly. He walked away from my car and he looked back at me with this kind of like shaking his head, like, what the hell just happened kind of thing? And it was so funny. And so, again, when somebody who's in this driving role can do something like that, and I'm I promise you, I'm not trying to make myself sound cool, but or or like that I'm like that I'm hot stuff or whatever. It's not about that, it's about the technique itself and how no matter who gives it to you, if it empowers you, it empowers you. If it gives you the epiphany, it gives you the epiphany.

Erin: 47:31

Yeah.

Neil: 47:32

So this is the thing that after the fact I realized, wait a minute, this is exactly who he needs to be, what he needs to be doing, I should say, because we need the low, low perceived status to elevate the status of the technique.

Erin: 47:44

Wow.

Neil: 47:45

I've never been able to say that to anyone before. And I appreciate the open. I and I honestly I didn't even remember to answer it when you first started asking my first, I started kind of rambling a bit, and I was like, oh, that's right. This is what I want to talk about. So I'm I'm actually quite grateful. Thank you for that.

Kellie: 48:00

Oh, you are welcome, and let's keep going with it. Yeah, I love how what you just described to me ties back so much to this podcast in the P-I-G, the purpose, intention, and gratitude. I just heard all of that in that story because the the purpose provides the clarity, the intention provides the connection, and the gratitude is the impact. And yeah, that's what I just heard. So my heart's just kind of fluttering, and I have goosebumps right now, too. So I appreciate that.

Erin: 48:33

Well, and it the the ripple effect of that is limitless. I mean, you have no idea then what that photographer went out and did and how his business was impacted and grew, and when he had that defining moment for himself, right?

Neil: 48:54

Right.

Erin: 48:54

When something like that, like you said, it doesn't matter who it comes from, right? But when you have that moment of clarity, and then you can you choose to step forward and actually do something with it, that's extraordinary. And you will probably never know the impact of your words on him, and then the action that he took in his own professional career, and maybe even in his personal life and growth. Like I mean, the the impact of that is probably very far reaching. The ripple effect of that is powerful.

Neil: 49:32

Yeah. And isn't isn't it remarkable how we will go through life not not knowing that and what a gift it would be to one day find out. I I listen to Conan O'Brien's podcast quite often. It's just a nice thing to listen to when walking, when I go on my long walks every day. And he's often spoken to how in the early days of his show, in the early 90s, early to mid-90s, they were constantly under threat of being canceled. Like it was constant, an ongoing threat to everything that he's doing. And he was unknown before the show. It wasn't like he would necessarily land on his feet if this show flopped, kind of thing. And he would find out later when talking to the younger generation of comedians like John Mullaney and all that, these people loved his show and thought it was the greatest thing. And he said on the podcast, like it would have been so nice to have known that back then, to know that this was actually impacting people. Right. And while we have much, a much better line of sight now with social media and the internet having so many lines of communication and so many ways to be in connection, at least virtually. We at least have a greater chance of learning these things. And yet there are so many things to your point, Erin. Like there's such a ripple effect going on that we might not ever find out about. I think there's a little sad about that. Yeah, sorry.

Kellie: 50:58

A little sad about not being able to know about the ripple effect.

Neil: 51:02

Yeah, yeah, of course. When you when you write a book and let's say you sell five million copies, you have a pretty solid idea that people are out there benefiting from the thing. But when you are going out there, I mean, other than reviews on Amazon and a couple of people who write you, it's like you could put something out there that has had a profound effect, but you just never happen to communicate with the person on like with whom had that experience.

Kellie: 51:29

Yeah, yeah. Just leaning into the human side that we never know, but celebrating the fact that we put something out there to begin with.

Neil: 51:39

Yeah.

Kellie: 51:39

And that that just in and of itself is really cool.

Neil: 51:43

Yeah, agreed. Agreed.

Kellie: 51:45

I think the connection between persuasion, positive persuasion, and presence is really cool. And I can see how that actually the same skills and the same process, I guess I should say, that's part of the silver bullet. I see how that ties into connection with healing within ourselves, within our relationships. To me, there's a there is a connection between how we use our words and what we say and how we encapsulate our message that can really create openness and peace and presence. It in the book, and the reason I thought of that is that I know what my personal work with you on silver bullets has meant to me and the people that I have shared that with. But I've also been able to recognize what it's meant for me being more present in my relationships, but that how even stating the silver bullet creates kind of pause and presence in other people. Does that make sense?

Neil: 52:57

Yeah. Well, it's interesting. Like you mentioned getting goosebumps before, and that's a fairly common response to let's say a speaker going up on stage and then uh providing a silver bullet like statement at a certain point in the talk. And that often happens is that someone gets goosebumps or chills or whatever what it might be. And my interpretation of that has always been that there isn't some sort of fake or feigned sounds good, but what does it actually mean kind of quality to it? It actually is intrinsic in its impact, which is the whole point why I've become so evangelical and and hung my hat on this seemingly minor thing, but it's not minor because it demands presence. To your point, Kellie. It's just like when you finally get something like that photographer did in that car ride, when it finally comes together, there's nothing fake about that. You're not pretending that it's good, you're not wanting it to be good, and so you kind of convince yourself it's good, kind of thing. It just it just feels right. It just feels right. It's I mean, there are other aspects of life where we can harness that and find that for ourselves, but this happens to be in communication and clarity. And when you find that for yourself or you see it happen for someone else, there's something truly gratifying about that.

Erin: 54:20

It's so cool. I just had this thought when you were talking about that of how goosebumps seems to be a really physical response, it's almost like a physical manifestation of an emotional impact.

Neil: 54:35

Yeah.

Erin: 54:36

I've never really thought about it like that before, but I had that thought when you said what you just said, and that's powerful.

Neil: 54:44

It's powerful, Erin, right? Because it's real. If if it's physically affecting you, then there's no faking that.

Erin: 54:52

No, you feel it.

Neil: 54:53

You can this is it's just your body is doing the thing involuntarily.

Kellie: 54:58

And so that's almost the thing that creates the presence is the recognition of, oh, I had a physical response to that. I hear that, Neil, because I follow your social and I love what you're doing right now with your clips from talk shows or movies and movies and stuff, yeah. Oh my gosh, I find myself laughing. I mean, it's it's it's been a really fun little, you know, as I take a break in my day and I pick up my social and I see your stuff, and I just find oh, such joy and laughter. You're so brilliant in how you, you know, use that to help people understand this is the impact moment. But your work is really about helping people create that impact moment. Erin and I just did a couple of episodes, a huge part of our work in our reconnection and really resetting our own relationship has been understanding who we are better, how we do what we do, why we do what we do. And we actually, I've been doing this assessment work for well over 20 years, but we're really integrating it into our work as podcast hosts and as sisters and in our own relationships. And you know that Marcus has done that work for over two decades now.

Neil: 56:14

Yeah.

Kellie: 56:15

And as part of that, we acknowledge that we are both very, very high eyes or high influencers. We talk yeah, sometimes incessantly. And we have to catch ourselves in that moment. This comes back to the beginning of our conversation about being the talker. And what your dad said is I hear you doing all the talking. And through my own development of emotional intelligence through the years, and I work on this every single day, is catching myself over-talking, over-explaining, because I tend to process and think while I'm talking out loud. But the beautiful part, Erin's raising her hand, we do this, of what you teach people is how to take all of those words and encapsulate it down into this. Distill it. Here's the power, here's the punch, here's the real message that you're getting after, and you don't have to have all those other words. It's not that we're gonna stop talking and having conversation. That's an important part of the process, but I love that aspect of your work. At least that's been part of the impact on me.

Neil: 58:13

And and for our listeners, what I think is kind of a fun little detail is that while most of my living is made from helping public speakers with their like putting together a keynote speech or a TED Like talk or what have you. What's funny is that I positioned myself doing that in 2017 with a webinar. That's how I turned things around. I fired myself from Lyft and created this webinar and it did very well right away. Had it not, I don't know what would have happened. But I created a webinar, and Kellie, you very generously gave me a very nice testimonial from our work and me helping you with a keynote once upon a time, like probably back in about 2016 or so. And I only had you and I think two other people who became who were case studies of public speaking specifically, because most of my work had been on book collaboration. And it was funny that it was enough because I had five concepts in the webinar, and one of the one of them I didn't use a case study, another one it was just a case study that was about something unrelated to speaking. But then I had you and two other people in that webinar, and that was all I had to share with people around public speaking success, but it still wound up being very compelling. That was just a fun side story because your testimonial was just very valuable at a time when I was really lacking in a lot of demonstration that this approach worked for public speaking. But my larger point, apart from the digression, is that it really from what you described, and when you did that kind of speaking, when you built strategically up to like this one simple concept and all of that, I remember this very well, actually. You you just got really good responses from the person up top and from the and you were invited so. Several times, if I'm not mistaken, to give that talk again right after. And it's just like we all have so much we want to share. We've spent a lifetime accumulating knowledge and insight and all of that and wisdom. And in certain settings, like giving a 15, 30, or 45 minute talk, what's more important is that you get to that one idea that you can integrate and internalize and move forward with. And the rest of it is just about dressing it up so that it really lands and sticks. And you were just wonderfully coachable about that. And it it just became a great example of what's possible with this kind of work and being persuasive in this way.

Kellie: 1:00:39

Well, thank you. I feel really honored to have had those experiences with you and that it made such an impact. For me, it was, you know, anytime I would find myself in a public speaking situation, we spend so much time thanking people and explaining who we are and giving our background. None of which needs to be said in those moments.

Neil: 1:01:08

Right.

Kellie: 1:01:08

Because that winds up being all about you going back to something we talked out pre about previously, versus being what's landing for the listener, which also came up in Rich Burner's episode, Erin, right? As a producer and as a radio host and a storyteller, that's what's always at the top of his mind. And that that is something very powerful that I learned from you was why are these people sitting in their seats and why should they be listening to you? What do you have to offer? And that's what comes first.

Neil: 1:01:45

Yeah, the unfortunate thing that I see among so many well-meaning people, and I emphasize well-meaning here, is they skip a step and that they have all the stuff that they understand and know. And then they just provide it kind of like raw content, like raw material. And while some of it has the potential to land and all of that, what I find is that without putting it through the filter of what you just said, Kellie, like how can this ultimately be a value to these people? Without that, we see a lot of people missing an opportunity to really have an impact and to connect with the people that are there to help. And so by just looking at our content through the lens of how can this ultimately impact the people I'm sharing it with, it just makes a huge difference. And obviously, there are principles and strategies that can really help make that happen. Like you just mentioned like spending time asking how everyone's doing and talking about themselves and stuff. You were a great example of the power of just opening with a really powerful line, which I know to this day. I remember this. Like I remember, yeah, it said a longtime friend of mine didn't know what to do. Right? That's it, right? And it was, and you just you just started with that line, and then all of a sudden, people are like, Oh, she started. I better pay attention.

Kellie: 1:03:05

Yeah.

Neil: 1:03:06

Instead of, oh, how are you? when people are still doing their thing and they're just looking for their tissues or whatever. And so it's like you you just went out there and you did the thing, and and people really responded well.

Kellie: 1:03:19

And starting with that line paved the way and opened up that space for the delivery of the information that's that concluded with the silver bullet.

Neil: 1:03:28

Right, right. At the end of the day, people are leading very busy, very harried lives. And if let's say you have a talk at a conference and you're one of five speakers they're going to hear from that day, and then you spend your 45 minutes doing five or seven or nine things that you teach them, then it just becomes nine things on top of the hundred other things they're learning that day, and it all becomes noise. But if you do the one thing, if you teach one concept, you begin, oh, I really, I really like that speaker who talked about the lessons we need to learn, kind of thing. Like that that's how they've internalized it, or for example, whatever the silver bullet might be about.

Kellie: 1:04:09

You know, another silver bullet that came out of our work together was clarity about who we are leads to authentic communication with others. Do you remember that one?

Neil: 1:04:19

Yeah, yeah, that's good.

Kellie: 1:04:21

Yeah, and I've used that in my work in health and wellness over the last easily eight years. In fact, I just gave a training last week where I used that.

Neil: 1:04:33

You did, yeah. That is so cool. That is so cool, Kellie. What a what a see this is like this is like the the ripple effect that the Erin you just mentioned, right? It's like I had no idea that you were making stuff that we did 10 years ago actionable, like in this year. I didn't know that until just now. That's amazing.

Erin: 1:04:56

For me, it's so cool. And I I'm sitting here listening and just watching both of your faces light up, and I'm like nodding in agreement, all these things. But for me, there's a really strong thread woven into this, which ties back to something that Kellie and I talk about in almost every conversation and on this podcast for sure, which is legacy. And how so often people think of legacy, their legacy as what they leave behind, but it's not. Your legacy is how you're living right now. And we talk a lot about the concept of living legacy. And for me, listening to all of this, there's such a beautiful tie-in between these words that are written and spoken, these truths, and how the message of that becomes your legacy. Doing the work that the two of you have done and finding these silver bullets and these key phrases, and for you to even just discover that you know Kellie's still using those key statements 10 years later, yeah, you are getting a glimpse of some of that ripple effect, which is really cool. But for me, Neil, that is your legacy being played out in Kellie's life and in her life's work, which is part of her legacy.

Neil: 1:06:39

And right, and the people she impacts.

Erin: 1:06:42

Exactly.

Kellie: 1:06:42

And what we're doing here, you know, I hearing the stories of others helps us create a more meaningful connection to our own. Neil, we probably repeat that on a daily basis, if not many times every week.

Speaker 2: 1:06:57

It's that's that's great.

Kellie: 1:06:59

It's the first thing people see on their website is yeah, that silver bullet.

Erin: 1:07:04

Yeah. And we say it in every episode, and even this morning, I was telling Kellie before we all hopped on to do this recording that I was just on my personal Facebook page today and saw this thing pop up from now. My algorithms are all based around podcasting and all kinds of things. But yeah, and grief seems to be a theme that is now very present in my social media algorithms. And so I saw a post this morning from somebody that I don't know and don't follow, it just popped up as a recommendation, you know how they do, that said we don't talk enough about the grief that occurs from losing people that are still here. Yeah. And my comment on that, because I in the moment took the moment to respond to that and said, We do.

Neil: 1:08:05

Yeah.

Erin: 1:08:05

And hearing the stories of others helps us create a more meaningful connection to our own. And so I invite you to listen to this podcast and to these conversations that Kellie and I are having. And so that was just today on social media, first thing this morning. And so to Kellie's point, yes. For me, it's become more than just a tagline. It's something that is living and breathing and impacting every conversation that we have, every outreach that we make, every guest that we invite on. It's taken on a life of its own. That statement in my life has become its own life force, if you will.

Neil: 1:08:47

Yeah. Yeah. And I'm hearing that in what you're describing, Erin, because it's one thing to have it as a tagline for a podcast, as a project that you've created and a thing you're putting out into the world. But this was you just showing up in the world, just placing a comment on social media. And what I imagine is that more than one person who read that stopped and thought about that for a moment, if not even outright made a concerted, concerted effort to internalize that in some way. Because again, it has the intrinsic potency. There's nothing else that needs to be said for it to have value to them. And you feel what I'm perceiving is you both feel a stronger sense of clarity around the impact you wish to have both through the podcast and beyond. And that's not bad for a sentence, is it?

Kellie: 1:09:36

Well, thank you for being part of our legacy here. That's really cool. I mean, that really brought it all full circle.

Neil: 1:09:45

Yeah. Yeah. Great. Yeah.

Kellie: 1:09:47

So fill us in a little bit on where life is for you right now. And if you have any lingering thoughts about, you know, these concepts of life, love, loss, and legacy that we've been talking about to get to where you are now in your life. You're married, you're living in New York, you're growing your presence in your book. I mean, life seems to really be going quite great, Neil.

Neil: 1:10:15

Well, I appreciate uh your your reflections on that, Kellie. I'm reminded of when I was a very young man, I was about 24, and I was pretty angsty and pretty, I was I was transitioning out of being a theater person around 99, 2000, and in 2001, I was pretty lost, but I had really grown attached to a very short-lived show that was in like the 99-2000 television season. It was called Freaks and Geeks. Did either of you watch that show? Do you ever hear of that?

Kellie: 1:10:51

I don't think I heard of that. No.

Neil: 1:10:52

Yeah. So this was a Judd Apatow production, and it was created by Paul Feig. Paul Feig would go on to direct a number of movies we've seen, like Bridesmaids and a bunch of other stuff with Melissa McCarthy and and and all the. I think he did the the female Ghostbusters too. Anyway, Paul created the show, and I had really grown attached to it. It was canceled much, much earlier than it should have been because it never had its day. And he was available online, like he had a publicly shared email address. So I was going through this kind of like, I don't know what to do with my own creativity kind of thing back then. And I had no direction and no focus. I certainly wasn't a communications person back then. And I wrote him this rather a rather emo email about is there any satisfaction after creating something of value? Because that's what freaks and geeks was to me. And it took him a while, but he actually wrote back and in a much longer email than I had written him, all about how to be a truly creative person is to always create. And I took that to heart. So what I've been dealing with now is that I did put this book out, and that was a major life goal. But now it's come and I'm out promoting it, and I'm doing what I can to get I want to get this into as many hands as possible. But I'm also working on a second book, and it's basically going to be a trilogy for me. And the the second book is a work in progress, and I haven't even started writing the third one yet, but it's daunting, even having gone through this already. This is an even arguably more ambitious parable, and I'm a bit scared of it. But I remember what he wrote to me, what is now almost 25 years ago, and remind myself that yeah, I have to just keep creating something from here on out. And this is this is what life is. And maybe it gets shared, maybe it doesn't, but I've got to keep doing it. And so for me, life right now is harnessing whatever it is, despite the fear and despite the tension I hold around it, harnessing whatever I can to put myself in front of the computer and make it happen or in front of the notebook too, because sometimes it's long hand.

Kellie: 1:13:13

Yeah.

Neil: 1:13:14

Anyway, that's where I'm at now. Yes, I'm working, yes, I'm doing all sorts of things, but the thing that means a great deal is to continue honoring that idea that to just keep creating regardless.

Erin: 1:13:25

That's beautiful and exciting because I can't wait to read the next book. That's for sure.

Kellie: 1:13:32

Well, thank you.

Neil: 1:13:33

I appreciate that.

Kellie: 1:13:34

I know, me too. As you think about the silver bullet and its application in everyday life, there are probably people listening saying, hmm, I wonder if I have a powerful sentence. Maybe the most powerful sentence I have to say is what I'm actually afraid to speak. What would you say? What would you recommend? What are your thoughts?

Neil: 1:13:57

Well, there's two ways that we can go. I'll offer my thoughts in both directions. On the more technical, tactical side, if you're looking to explore the silver bullet concept for yourself, my recommendation is to think about to find your idea and what it is and how you might frame it. Contrast it with the opposing viewpoints that you least approve of. So, because contrast creates clarity, which is something that's talked about in the book. And so I offer this to everyone that you are interested in finding this kind of clarity for yourself, then find that contrast. What most people believe is X, but I believe Y. And that just becomes a very fruitful place in which to explore one's own ideas. In the more nuanced, emotionally significant way. I will admit that I've I've encountered a lot of people who set out to work with me and flamed out. And I sense that it was because they struggled to believe that they had something like this in them. Okay. And I struggled to have a silver bullet for silver bullets for a long time. I knew the concept, but I didn't have one for myself. And I spent a year and a half fumbling around with it. And I gave a workshop with the one that I had at the time and it didn't land, and people didn't understand what it meant. And I felt like I a lot of egg on my face because the silver bullet guy didn't have a silver bullet. And two days later, I was taking a shower, and then the concept just hit me that people are empowered not by that which they know is true, but rather that which they believe is possible.

Erin: 1:15:35

Wow.

Neil: 1:15:36

This is about convincing others that change is possible. That's what this is all about. And it took a year and a half to find it. So there's no clear-cut way to ensure that this happens. But if somebody who does this for a living can't do it for themselves for a year and a half, then I hope everyone will honor whatever run, give themselves whatever runway they need to give themselves in order to find this clarity for themselves.

Erin: 1:16:06

That is really impactful and very beautifully and eloquently stated. When you talk about that for somebody who is looking for their own silver bullet, does that equate to what you or what other people may consider to be their kind of personal mission statement? Are those one and the same? Or is that different?

Neil: 1:16:33

You know, it's interesting. That's a that gets into a pretty nuanced place. Because in if we're going to get super technical about it, a silver bullet is a recipe. It's a secret sauce for how to solve some sort of problem. It could be a very broad, far-reaching problem, but ultimately it is here to codify how something gets done.

Erin: 1:16:56

Okay.

Neil: 1:16:56

And a mission statement to me is what we do. It's what our mission is this, it's what we do. So if we're going to get super, super technical, it's a statement that supports the how, and the mission statement is what supports the what. However, what I found is that I had some clarity a handful of years ago around a silver bullet for my personal life. It's not so much about how to give a talk or how to write a book or how to be a great communicator in general. It's more how I want to live an optimal life. And the silver bullet I came up with for myself is that the quality of my life will be defined by the quality of the feelings I have while living it. So my work is to optimize how I feel. And so technically the mission is to optimize how I feel. And a silver bullet got me to that clarity.

Erin: 1:17:47

Beautiful. Thank you for that. And thank you for that insight into the difference between that. That's something that I would love to, you know, yeah.

Neil: 1:17:57

It's very subtle.

Erin: 1:17:58

Dive in personally for myself.

Neil: 1:18:01

Yeah.

Kellie: 1:18:02

Right. Yeah.

Neil: 1:18:02

Yeah.

Kellie: 1:18:03

Maybe we can do a collaboration project. Yeah. Your personal silver bullet.

Neil: 1:18:08

There you go. There you go. What is what is your north north star for how you show up in the world?

Kellie: 1:18:14

Yeah.

Neil: 1:18:14

Yeah.

Kellie: 1:18:15

I like that. Well, Neil, you are showing up in the world in really remarkable ways. And thank you for all the different ways you've shown up in my life personally and professionally. I really appreciate the work that we've done together. I appreciate the friendship and connection that we have built over the course of time. And it's a real honor to have you here and sharing time with us today.

Neil: 1:18:43

The honor feels mutual. And I very much appreciate the unique and meaningful way that you're utilizing this medium to affect the lives of others. It's great to see.

Erin: 1:18:54

Well, thank you for that. For me, it's really fun to listen to you talk about the power of words and how words can change the story completely. And for us on this podcast, right, the PIG, for us, those words are purpose, intention, and gratitude. It is what drives everything that we do. And so I would love for you to share your PIG with us.

Neil: 1:19:31

And so this is like a word or two for each of the three concepts?

Erin: 1:19:36

It can be anything that you want it to be. And it can it could be maybe you have specific words, a P word, an I word, and a G word that really speak to you. Or it could be elaborating on what those words, purpose, intention, and gratitude, mean to you. Or you could completely take it in a different Direction.

Neil: 1:20:00

Yeah. Yeah.

Erin: 1:20:02

So it's really whatever speaks to you in this moment.

Neil: 1:20:05

I would say that the way that I integrate those concepts, I suppose, has to do with honesty with myself. And that if I am truly to optimize the second half of my life, I'm gonna be fully honest about the things I'm experiencing and not just the good stuff, but also the not so good stuff as well. And somehow find a way to honor that. That if I can integrate all of the elements of myself and be honest about those elements and allow each of them to be fully expressed, then I will experience a level of gratitude for the life I've lived in a way that I feel in the past was rather elusive.

Erin: 1:20:50

Thank you for that. And the integration is the perfect I word for you in that moment. So that's amazing.

Kellie: 1:21:00

I was thinking we could put Neil on the spot and have him come up with a sister silver bullet using the words purpose, intention, and gratitude.

Erin: 1:21:11

Oh now Neil's in the hot seat. I like it.

Neil: 1:21:15

It is it is only when we it is only when we are intentional about realizing our purpose that we will experience an authentic sense of gratitude in our life.

Erin: 1:21:29

Oh tie that up with a beautiful bow!

Kellie: 1:21:32

Drop the mic.

Neil: 1:21:34

This is like uh this is an odd audio medium, it's just that our listeners won't see the way like you guys kind of like like swayed around in your in your zoom zoom frames there kind of thing. It was just really funny to see that.

Kellie: 1:21:46

Whoa, yeah, that was a mic drop. That was great, Neil. Thank you so much. In closing, will you share with all the listeners how they can follow you, connect with you, get the book, hire you, work with you, whatever they want to do. Stay in touch.

Neil: 1:22:05

Whatever they want to do. Going to my website is the most central hub for achieving just about all of those things. Neilcanhelp.com. N-E-I-L-C-A-N-H-E-L-P dot com. And that's the handle or pretty close to the handle for all of my socials. And so I Instagram, I somehow lost track of my original NeilCanHelp handle. So it's Neil-dot-can-dot-help. But the others are just NeilCanHelp. And so that if you remember that, then you should be able to find me pretty easily.

Kellie: 1:22:35

Great. The books on Amazon.

Neil: 1:22:37

Yep. Books on Amazon and wherever books are sold online. And I'm sure some independent bookstores you can order it there too, if you really, if that's your thing.

Erin: 1:22:45

Thank you so much, Neil. This was incredible. So impactful. I was I took several notes and have so many thoughts and what a beautiful conversation. Yeah. Like agreed. Great time spent today. Thank you.

Neil: 1:22:59

Yeah, I I appreciate it as well. And like I said, anytime I'm asked a question that gives me a chance to talk about something I've not been able to talk about before is very much prized by me. So thank you for that.

Kellie: 1:23:10

And will you come back and join us again?

Neil: 1:23:12

Absolutely. You guys just tell me when the proper cadence for Neil Gordon returns is, and I will be there.

Kellie: 1:23:19

We can't wait.

Erin: 1:23:58

If something in this episode moved you, please consider sharing it with someone you love. A small share can make a big impact. You can also join us on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn and connect further at thePIGpodcast.com.

Kellie: 1:24:13

And if you're enjoying this podcast, one of the most meaningful ways you can support us is by leaving a five-star rating, writing a short review, or simply letting us know your thoughts. Your feedback helps us reach others and reminds us why we do this work.

Erin: 1:24:28

Because the P-I-G isn't just a podcast. It's a place to remember that even in the midst of grief, life goes on, resilience matters, and love never leaves. Thanks for being on this journey with us. Until next time, hogs and kisses everyone!