At Just One Event...

Your Employees Will Learn The Secrets Of Hollywood Pitching:

• All great pitches rely on storytelling because it activates more parts of the brain than facts. It's best to work with this evolutionary reality and not against it. Here's what a good story does in a matter of seconds: bonds the listener to the speaker, activates empathy, increases engagement, and bypasses logic. 

• Because of it's incredibly efficiency in connecting with your listener, story is one of the best routes to "know, like, trust." Story also comes in many shapes and sizes, from a single word to an edge-of-your-seat 30-minute tale. 

• At its best, a good story not only engages and entertains but also builds a second story in the mind of the listener. This is the story of their future: the future they will have if they work with you. The fantasy of this future is more emotional than logical, and that's okay. Allow yourself to be a person who creates emotional experiences wherever you go. 

• To fully connect to your listener, you must become comfortable in your own emotions...in other words, charming, authentic, vulnerable, and confident. Ultimately storytelling asks you to become the best version of yourself. 

Keynote 1: What Hollywood Teaches You About Sales

The number one rule of filmmaking is believability. As such, the emotional truth of a film is more important than its factual truth (Jurassic Park is not factual, for instance). The script and the actors are the two main ingredients of a film, and also for life. Day in and day out, we're all acting and using scripts. If you want to generate more sales, you have to learn to act more believably and use different, better scripts. 

In acting, listening is more important than speaking. Before you launch into your pitch, you should be able to anticipate what the person across from you needs. This can change mid-pitch, in which case you pivot. Focus more on what they need than on your need to sell. And if you can figure out what emotions motivate them, you're years ahead of your competitors. Just like a lot of us gravitate toward certain genres of movie, we also respond better to certain genres of pitch. Some people need to be scared, some want to feel inspired, and some want to feel like the hero. If you can really listen to your client or investor and tap into their "genre," you're halfway to closing. 

Key Takeaways:

• Emotional truth beats factual truth
• Listening is more important than speaking
• All of us are acting and using scripts all the time
• Figure out the "genre" of pitch your listener wants to hear

Keynote 2: Achieving The Impossible With Creative Flow

As Albert Einstein said, "imagination is more important than knowledge." Although he is known as a world-famous scientist, his methods were often that of an artist, and his invaluable contributions were likely the product of a flow state. Whether you're in product, sales, or marketing, if your company is expecting the impossible from you, you need to learn how to enter flow. It's not a myth: it's an altered brain state that is measurable and re-creatable. Studies have shown people in flow can achieve results up to 500% above baseline.

In order to access a flow state, you need: freedom to fail; respect for your process; time to incubate; and an absence of judgment or shame. Ironically, this is the exact opposite environment of many companies. Leadership must create a place where employees feel safe enough to enter flow in order to get results 500% above baseline. Optimize your company for your employee's neurochemistry and hire people based on their ability to take ownership of their work and innovate, and who demonstrate high passion, curiosity, and absorption. You won't have a staff anymore--you'll have a fleet of geniuses who can enter flow on command.

Key Takeaways:

• Peak performance is linked to the creativity centers of the brain
• Entering a flow state can yield results up to 500% above baseline
• Flow needs freedom to fail, respect, time, and an absence of judgment and shame
• Optimize your company culture for this and watch your employee productivity skyrocket