PODCAST · business
Unthinkable with Jay Acunzo
by Jay Acunzo
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.
Episodes
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Bonus - How Stories Happen #3 - Ann Handley, Bestselling Author
🟢 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...
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Bonus - How Stories Happen #1 - Andrew Davis, Keynote Speaker
🟢 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...
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Keep Making What Matters | Follow My New Show, How Stories Happen
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…
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Going Streaking: the Relationship Between Creative Ambition, Quality, and Consistency
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....
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How to Find Great Stories
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…
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The Difference Between Forgettable and Favorite
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...
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Be Honest | One-Shot #26
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...
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Create to Find Your Answers (Overcoming the Gap)
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...
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Twas the Night Before Launching (2023)
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…
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Signature Stories: Jay Baer
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...
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Signature Stories: Simone Stolzoff
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,...
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Fighting Endless AI Junk
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…
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Signature Stories: Amanda Natividad
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…
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Signature Stories: Jenny Blake
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…
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Signature Stories: Michael Bungay Stanier
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…
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Signature Stories: Melanie Deziel
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…
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Tasty | One-Shot #25
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...
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Writer’s Block (Maker Monsters 4)
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...
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Fun with Formats
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...
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How to Define Quality | One-Shot #24
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...
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Speakeasy Business
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...
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Beware this Storytelling Advice | One-Shot #23
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…
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MINI-Series: Copywriting with Margo Aaron
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...
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You Are Wu-Tang | One-Shot #22
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...
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In on the Secret
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...
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What Do You See When You See an Elephant? | One-Shot #21
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...
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Song Exploder Exploder (ft. Hrishikesh Hirway)
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,...
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Fine, I'll Talk About AI | One-Shot #20
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...
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Welcome to the Jumble
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...
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The Best Thing to Do Is The Right Thing
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...
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How to Write and Speak with Greater Impact | One-Shot #19
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...
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Expect the Unexpected
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…
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How to Tell Gripping Stories About the Seemingly Mundane | One-Shot #18
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…
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Going Bananas
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...
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An Ode to the Asterisk | One-Shot #17
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....
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Working Bravely
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…
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Special Episode: Jay on 2 Pages with MBS
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…
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10 Questions to Ask Creative People | One-Shot #16
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...
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MINI-Series: Sound Design with James T. Green
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...
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MINI-Series: Jokes with Matt Buechele (The Tonight Show, Netflix)
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...
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MINI-Series: Illustration with Haley Weaver (Haley Drew This)
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...
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MINI-Series: Copywriting with Margo Aaron
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...
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Maker Monsters
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...
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Announcement from Jay
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…
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In the Margins | One-Shot #15
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:...
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Foster the Signal
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...
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New Rockstars vs. Conventional Wisdom
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…
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The Concept: Learned Helplessness
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…
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Nothing Is Boring (And You Can Too)
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...
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Smell Like You Mean It
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...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
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.
HOSTED BY
Jay Acunzo
CATEGORIES
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Unthinkable with Jay Acunzo have?
Unthinkable with Jay Acunzo currently has 220 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Unthinkable with Jay Acunzo about?
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...
How often does Unthinkable with Jay Acunzo release new episodes?
Unthinkable with Jay Acunzo publishes regularly with 220 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Unthinkable with Jay Acunzo?
You can listen to Unthinkable with Jay Acunzo on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Unthinkable with Jay Acunzo?
Unthinkable with Jay Acunzo is created and hosted by Jay Acunzo.
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