An inside look at the unconventional choices of quality-obsessed creators – and the memorable things they made as a result. It's a show about trusting your intuition and your craft more than best practices and blueprints. Since 2016, Unthinkable has inspired creators to ship more personal, powerful work. In the era of AI and endless commodity content, that type of work is now urgent. Hosted by Jay Acunzo, founder of the Creator Kitchen.
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Bonus - How Stories Happen #3 - Ann Handley, Bestselling Author
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🟢 Dear Unthinkable listener: Thank you SO much for your support over the years! I invite you to find and follow the new show, How Stories Happen, in your preferred podcast player in just 2 taps right here:https://episodes.fm/1736586770 Every episode, an expert, entrepreneur, creator, or communicator dissects a single story or draft piece by piece. …
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Bonus - How Stories Happen #1 - Andrew Davis, Keynote Speaker
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🟢 Dear Unthinkable listener: Thank you SO much for your support over the years! I invite you to find and follow the new show, How Stories Happen, in your preferred podcast player in just 2 taps right here:https://episodes.fm/1736586770 Every episode, an expert, entrepreneur, creator, or communicator dissects a single story or draft piece by piece. …
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Keep Making What Matters | Follow My New Show, How Stories Happen
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Find and follow How Stories Happen in your favorite podcast player, or visit howstorieshappen.com to learn more about the show and find the appropriate link for you. Every episode of the show, we’re dissecting stories and drafts with incredible storytellers to understand how they found their ideas, how they developed their work, and how they’re usi…
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Going Streaking: the Relationship Between Creative Ambition, Quality, and Consistency
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Why do we constantly underestimate how long something will take in the short-term? In other words, we tend to over-estimate just how much we can achieve right now. Then, when we think long term, the reverse tends to happen: we actually UNDER-estimate what we're capable of achieving over time. Today, we want to know more about the promise of a popul…
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As Ira Glass said, "Great stories happen to those who can tell them." This idea says everything we need to know to develop stronger stories in our work, so we can stand out easier and resonate deeper. But we're asking the wrong questions and searching in the wrong places. Let's rethink some things together... For the full transcript of this episode…
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The Difference Between Forgettable and Favorite
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The story of a surprisingly dynamic and captivating idea from a (sometimes) bland and boring space -- and what we can learn about crafting more resonant work. What does it look like when an organization, project, or individual’s work resonates so deeply that they have passionate fans and loyal followers who declare them a favorite? This week we sta…
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No matter your craft, when you develop an idea, a project, or a key moment within a piece, the power of what you're sharing tends to start with the same question: Can you be more honest with yourself? In this one-shot episode, a dense dose of a single idea that can help us become stronger storytellers and produce higher-impact content, so we can ge…
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Create to Find Your Answers (Overcoming the Gap)
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We want to make things that matter. To our careers, companies, and communities. When THAT is our aim and THAT is our driving belief, and yet our work comes out feeling like THIS? The way it is right now? Oof, that can cause all kinds of existential crises or at least panic-induced researching and debating and analyzing and asking. It's time to get …
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Twas the Night Before Launching (2023)
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Have a wonderful holiday season and a beautiful start to your 2024! Back in the new year with more... UNTHINKABLE IS TAKING A BREAK -- BUT DON'T UNSUBSCRIBE We're back with more soon. In the meantime... BECOME A STRONGER STORYTELLER: Subscribe to Jay Acunzo's free newsletter, Playing Favorites, and learn what it takes to stand out easier and resona…
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Signature Stories is a miniseries where world-class business storytellers take us inside one important story and dissect it with us. It's like Song Exploder meets storytelling for our work! In our sixth and final episode of the series, bestselling author and Hall of Fame keynote speaker Jay Baer brings one of his oldest, most proven stories to the …
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Signature Stories: Simone Stolzoff
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Signature Stories is a miniseries where world-class business storytellers take us inside one important story and dissect it with us. It's like Song Exploder meets storytelling for our work! In our fifth episode of the series, a globetrotting, bestselling, keynote-giving, smart-opinion-having, big-idea-distributing author takes us inside what was ul…
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We interrupt the current series to bring you this message. Find and share this rant in essay form. Subscribe to Jay's free newsletter to become a stronger storyteller. (Sent every other Friday, these essays help you get off the content hamster wheel, escape social feeds, and get the perspective and frameworks you need to write and speak with greate…
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Signature Stories: Amanda Natividad
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In this episode, we're joined by Amanda Natividad, the VP of marketing at SparkToro, who shares a story about the time she met her marketing hero: her now-boss, Rand Fishkin. Amanda is a former tech journalist and also a former test kitchen cook for the LA Times. She writes the newsletter The Menu which includes marketing advice and delicious recip…
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Up next in Signature Stories, we're joined by Jenny Blake, author, speaker and podcaster. She's written three books and hosts the wildly popular podcasts "Free Time" and "Pivot." Jenny sits down with Jay to share a story about a walk with her dog. Jay and Jenny unpack how we can pull out moments of meaning from a small interaction, and how to resha…
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Signature Stories: Michael Bungay Stanier
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Up next in Signature Stories, we're joined by Michael Bungay Stanier, speaker, coach and author of the wildly popular book "The Coaching Habit" and the brand new book, "How to Work with (Almost) Anyone." Michael sits down with Jay to share a story about a very bad job. Jay and MBS dive into how to use open loops, comedy in storytelling, and craftin…
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Up first in this mini-series, Creator Kitchen co-founder and author Melanie Deziel sits down with Jay to share a story about her time as the first-ever editor of branded content at the New York Times. Jay and Mel dive into the messy reality of crafting resonant narratives -- and using them to serve an audience and build your business. Throughout th…
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What is taste? And once we understand it, how do we use our own taste? In this one-shot, Jay dives into they days before dating apps to find something unexpected - Bryan Cranston showing us just want the power of having taste can do. *** KEEP MAKING WHAT MATTERS: 1. Learn more about Jay's 1:1 coaching and collaboration: https://jayacunzo.com/accoun…
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Writing matters... a lot. You don't need us to tell you that. But what happens when you feel like you can't write? Yes, on this episode we're talking about writers' block - what it feels like, how it shows up, and how we can tackle it once and for all. SHARE THE SHOW: Help others find Unthinkable in their favorite podcast player by sharing this lin…
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In this episode of Unthinkable, why formats matter so much. If you want listeners to stay engaged, for readers to finish an article, for your whole experience to resonate deeply, then we need to go beyond grabbing attention to genuinely HOLD it. Today, we focus on why formats are mission critical to creative work, and how you can search them out fo…
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How to Define Quality | One-Shot #24
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How you define quality is contextual, it's in the eyes of the beholder. In this one-shot, Jay breaks down the three questions we each need to ask to define quality - Who is it for? What is it for? How will I know if it's working? - and then shares the two habits that can help us to create quality content. *** KEEP MAKING WHAT MATTERS: 1. Learn more…
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In marketing today, there's the widely used, noisy way to market yourself and your business, but then, just maybe, there's a calmer, quieter, perhaps more effective way. Stories from one of the world's most surprising speakeasy lounges, based in London, as well as one of Jay's favorite marketers who doesn't show up much publicly -- least of all on …
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Beware this Storytelling Advice | One-Shot #23
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A list of steps isn't helpful if you're facing the wrong way. That's why in this one-shot, we try to pivot the right way... as it relates to story. Jay unpacks three common misconceptions about how we understand story and why it's actually more important to understand how to be storytellers than to understand story. *** KEEP MAKING WHAT MATTERS: 1.…
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MINI-Series: Copywriting with Margo Aaron
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In a 4-part Mini Series, we're unpacking how we create little pockets of resonance. Through conversations with sound designers, copywriters, comedians, and creatives, we are mapping out how we can create work that can make audiences feel connected, validated, and seen. First up is a conversation with brilliant copywriter Margo Aaron who walks us th…
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In 2016, Pharrell Williams dropped by NYU's Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music to speak to a class. There, he met a young Maggie Rogers and sampled her song "Alaska." His reaction, captured on camera, went viral. This is a relatively known moment on the internet. What's not known is just how the words Pharrell shared and the element he noticed…
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If you're going to reject conventional thinking and instead trust your intuition, you'll find yourself sharing tons of ideas with others. But this can feel scary, like our ideas are secrets we'd prefer to keep inside. And when someone shoots them down, we assume they just don't "get it." But what if the point of sharing our ideas is NOT to get the …
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What Do You See When You See an Elephant? | One-Shot #21
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Any story you find can serve your cause -- if you know how to mold it and change it appropriately to tell it your way, for your specific goals. Today, the four things we can change in any story we find to tell it better. "Better" doesn’t mean more epic or popular. It means more purposeful, more customized to your specific situation and needs — your…
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Song Exploder Exploder (ft. Hrishikesh Hirway)
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Hrishikesh Hirway is a musician and creator/host of the popular podcast Song Exploder. The show has a simple but powerful premise: each episode, a musician breaks apart a single track and, piece by piece, tells the story of how it was made. He's interviewed Madonna, Billie Eilish, Rick Astley, Lorde, U2, Yo-Yo Ma, and plenty of lesser-known artists…
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Fine, I'll Talk About AI | One-Shot #20
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In this shorter, monologue episode, we explore how we arrived at a place where so many creators view AI tools like ChatGPT at a killer robot coming to beat down their doors and crush them and why we worry that these tools are greater masters of our craft than we are. We're obsessed with only one part of the craft, and it's the same part AI is getti…
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To be driven by creativity is to become a walking, talking collection of contradictions, but one conflicting notion sits at the center of the intertwining thoughts and emotions in our work -- the jumble, if you will. Today, we dive into that jumble to try and find an answer to this mysterious yet ubiquitous contradiction at the core, and it leads u…
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The Best Thing to Do Is The Right Thing
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For years, the promise of content marketing far exceeded its reality. But more than ever, brands -- even in B2B, the more "boring" cousin to consumer businesses -- are creating content that gives us reason to believe: creativity, community, and capitalism and not only co-exist, but for-profit can be used for-good. Today, the story of In the Works, …
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How to Write and Speak with Greater Impact | One-Shot #19
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In this shorter, monologue episode, we learn from storytellers like Kazuo Ishiguro and Ira Glass just what it takes to speak and write in ways that instill the urge to act in others. Why would anyone pick you or stick with you? Why would they refer you to their peers or friends? What makes something truly resonate beyond simply holding your attenti…
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In this story, we hear from Chris Lavigne, the head of production at video software company, Wistia. His story helps reveal what it really means to build a big, meaningful body of work -- no matter where you work -- and how, maybe, the worst thing you can do is focus on the expectations of others. Instead, what if your entire aim was something else…
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How to Tell Gripping Stories About the Seemingly Mundane | One-Shot #18
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One-Shots are monologue episodes complementing our longer-form narratives, which all seek to explore ideas like resonance, storytelling, and creativity in our work. Today, we learn how to tell stories about the seemingly mundane details in our lives. For a full written version of this episode, read the original story. REFER A FRIEND Love the show? …
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This story is a surreal, escapist journey into the true story about how the Savannah Bananas became exceptional by being the exception. This minor league baseball team has majorly passionate fans -- with more social media success than some of the biggest teams in the Major Leagues, and a plan to disrupt the MLB itself. This story is told through th…
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An Ode to the Asterisk | One-Shot #17
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One-Shots are complementary episodes to our longer-form narratives, which all seek to explore ideas like resonance, storytelling, and creativity in our work. As we continue our exploration, we have to stop to appreciate the tiniest mechanic that enables us to tell stories with the biggest impact. The more we master open loops, the more gripping our…
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In this episode of Unthinkable, the story of two marketers and community leaders, Andrew and Pete, of the brand ... Andrew and Pete! They were heading down that now-familiar creator path of digital fame and fortune -- the speaking, the books, the followers -- when they decided to leave that behind. Instead, they've been helping OTHERS conquer fears…
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Special Episode: Jay on 2 Pages with MBS
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Which books have shaped minds & changed lives? 2 Pages with MBS is described as a show where "brilliant people read the best two pages of a favorite book … a book that’s shaped them and changed them. Listen as authors, leaders, activists, academics, entrepreneurs, change agents and celebrities dig into the ideas that matter the most." This is the e…
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10 Questions to Ask Creative People | One-Shot #16
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In this One-Shot, a list of better questions to ask others to learn from them (whether you want to hire them or publish their thinking) than the typical conventional wisdom provides us. Interviews are too important to drift through them, unhinging our brains in favor of the basic questions that yield basic answers. We need to dig deeper. We also ta…
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MINI-Series: Sound Design with James T. Green
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In the fourth and final MINI-Series episode, we learn from sound designer, artist, and brilliant documentarian James T. Green about their philosophy and practice around sound design and creation. James is the founder of the studio Molten Heart, and their work has been heard in 99% Invisible with Roman Mars, The Met, Pop Up Magazine, and more. By un…
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MINI-Series: Jokes with Matt Buechele (The Tonight Show, Netflix)
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Creativity doesn't mean BIG, and so we're exploring the tiniest pockets of the created work -- small bursts of making, or projects that fit neatly into the nooks and crannies of the internet. Today, joke writing and comedy songwriting with Matt Buechele. Matt is a writer, musician, and hilarious human who's performed original songs for Netflix comm…
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MINI-Series: Illustration with Haley Weaver (Haley Drew This)
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Resonating deeply doesn't require us to do anything big or expensive. The MINI-Series explores four types of created work that don't take up much space -- but still carry tons of meaning to those who encounter it. Last episode was about copywriting. This episode: illustration, featuring Haley Weaver of the wildly popular instagram account, Haley Dr…
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MINI-Series: Copywriting with Margo Aaron
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In a new 4-part Mini Series, we're unpacking how we create little pockets of resonance. Through conversations with sound designers, copywriters, comedians, and creatives, we are mapping out how we can create work that can make audiences feel connected, validated, and seen. First up is a conversation with brilliant copywriter Margo Aaron who walks u…
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Maker monsters often creep in at the least opportune times, drag us backwards, convince us of defeat, fill us with self-doubt, so where do we go from here? And what does that mean for our creative, professional work? We hear from Smithsonian’s Sidedoor podcast host and producer Lizzie Peabody and poet and keynote speaker, Tucker Bryant, about how t…
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Learn more about Elevate and apply here: https://jayacunzo.com/accountability-group-for-b2b-marketers-creators The first group begins work April 11. MORE DETAILS: Achieve your creative goals with small working groups of B2B creators and marketers, led personally by me, Jay Acunzo. 8 weeks of guided work on your existing, most important projects, wi…
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In this one-shot, Jay reflects on a childhood writing lesson that continues to impact how he approaches his work today. SHARE THE SHOW: Help others find Unthinkable in their favorite podcast player by sharing this link: https://pod.link/jay SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTER: https://jayacunzo.com/newsletter Every Friday, I send a new idea, story, or fram…
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A story about a writer and entrepreneur with an audacious mission driving the organization he helps lead. Together, cofounder Stew Fortier and his community-led business Foster is helping writers who care about turning their ideas into timeless writing, not viral hits that quickly fade. They're here to fight back against the hollow noise, to develo…
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New Rockstars vs. Conventional Wisdom
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In this episode, we hear from the founder of the media company New Rockstars, Filup Molina, and their first head of operations, Holiday Kinard, about how a small team of creative people operating out of one tiny room established themselves as just part of the viewing experience alongside the Marvel Cinematic Universe. You can find New Rockstars on …
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In the second installment of The Concept, we learn about the idea of learned helplessness, which causes us to hit our ceilings as creators or even refrain from pursuing an opportunity, never attempt to overcome a challenge, or simply avoid asking for help. We learn how learned helplessness forms in the brain -- and what it DOES to our brain -- thro…
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Nothing Is Boring (And You Can Too)
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Patrick Campbell is cofounder and CEO of the software company ProfitWell, which sells tools to help subscription businesses (SaaS and DTC) reduce cancellations and optimize pricing and ultimately earn more revenue. Their media team -- a small group of about 6 full-time employees and a few freelancers -- has been setting the B2B marketing world on f…
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Suzy Batiz calls herself CEO to more conservative crowds, but PEO to everyone else. To define PEO, however, would be to make more than a few people blush. The Poo Executive Officer. Suzy is the founder of Poo-Pourri, a toilet spray that solves the problem of bathroom smells in a way that runs counter to conventional thinking. But more than the hila…
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