Why They Resonate

Very excited for this one, my friend: I'm releasing a recording of a coaching call I had with entrepreneur Michelle Florendo, who runs a business called Powered by Decisions. You'll hear us walk through frameworks you can use to turn messy or scattered thinking into a clear and differentiated premise Michelle can use to strengthen her messaging and thought leadership. First, I share a primer on pr...

It's one thing for a solopreneur with a microphone to tell you to trust your own lived experiences to differentiate, resonate, and tell stronger stories. But what happens when there are millions of dollars at stake and millions of viewers consuming your work?  Meet Jordan Geary, an Emmy Award-winning producer and storytelling expert. As the Senior Creative Producer of Current Series at Sesame Work...

If you’re an expert in something, chances are, you share content about that something. But so does everyone around you. Merely sharing your expertise makes you a commodity. I can get it anywhere, and I guess you’re anywhere. That’s why I routinely say, you need to stop creating content and start creating IP. Your IP is built on top of your premise, the core idea informing the rest, but more expert...

One of the hallmarks of great business storytellers is something called the catalyst story. They don't just shove their expertise at you like a wall of smarts. They take you on a journey. Often, in a speech, a book, or even just a single piece or post, they can retrace their own journey of discovery to ensure the audience cares and understands. Because you might be at letter Z of your understandin...

There are 2 books I recommend most often to others who say they want to be a stronger storyteller: one is from a world-famous legend, and the other is from our guest today. It's Jessica Abel, author of Out on the Wire: The Storytelling Secrets of the New Masters of Radio. This exceptional book just celebrated its ten-year anniversary. This book takes you inside the storytelling processes of the ma...

Advice from experts feels like it's getting aggressive. This is why, and also what we can do to show up better. Happily, this is the difference between constantly pushing and hyping and, instead, actually communicating in ways that get a positive, passionate response despite the noise. MY MESSAGE TO YOU: Don't market more. Matter more. (<-- what we want, i.e. our new focus) Think resonance over...

We're presented with a lot of false choices in our work: Quantity or quality? Revenue or social impact? Sweet or savory? But few false choices are more worth challenging than this: Are you more emotional storyteller or data-driven communicator? Our guest today is the perfect person to challenge this assumption. It's Tom Webster ! Tom is a legend in the podcast space. He’s a partner at Sounds Profi...

What ideas haunt you? What can't you stop thinking about, you care about it that much? As public voices and experts, we all have those ideas that chase us around and color how we see everything. The thing is, our audience might not "get it" the way we do, nor care. So we have to work overtime to show them why they would. This in turn creates a sense of urgency in the audience: to care, share, subs...

Today, experts, consultants, and others who share advice content and thought leadership concepts need to embrace a tough truth. Our guest is the perfect person to help me deliver it.  Erin Halper is the founder of the community business for independent consultants, The Upside. In our episode, we talk about vulnerability in storytelling and how to navigate it well, and we look at a signature story...

Looking back on my own career as a speaker, storyteller, and communicator across projects and mediums, I realize: every time I developed a signature story capable of resonating with others, I went through the same process. It wasn't intentional, but it worked. Today, I want to codify that process into a more conscious process you can follow. I'm calling it Six-Way Stories: 1. Make a messy draft. 2...

How to resonate with better clients and buyers—people with experience and taste who hire you for everything that makes you unique.  This is different than almost everything the owners of search engines, social networks, and AI tools have taught us. So we first need to unlearn a lot of what's popular on the internet today. *** ABOUT ME, JAY ACUNZO: Strategic Storytelling & Speaking Advisor to E...

Steve Pratt has spent a lifetime earning attention, from his time working for "the MTV of Canada" (Much Music) and as the co-creator of the most popular podcast in Canada, then as the cofounder of Pacific Content, which created podcasts for DELL, Charles Schwab, Zendesk, Slack, Atlassian and more. Steve is a past client of mine, as I helped him develop his keynote speech associated with his book,...

There's a big difference between people hearing your words and understanding you. There's an even bigger gap between understanding and caring. How can we communicate in ways that ensure others care about our ideas, our messages, our businesses?   In this solo episode, a look at two moments involving two very different communicators: Roy Kent, the character from Ted Lasso, and author and speaker Se...

This episode is a total blast and tour de force from one of the world's foremost business communicators, Dorie Clark! Dorie is a Wall Street Journal bestselling author, a contributor to the Harvard Business Review, a communication coach and mentor for world-class leaders, and a keynote speaker who has consulted with or spoken for Google, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, Yale University, and the World Ba...

"Reworking in Realtime." That’s a phrase I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. How often do you get to sit with a peer, a colleague, a mentor, a coach, and go through something to improve in realtime? Why don't we? Athletes do it. Comedians. Musicians. Filmmakers. We should too, and lately, on my YouTube channel, I've been building a playlist of publicly available coaching calls to put the proces...

Lessons from 20 years of storytelling through my writing, speaking, podcasting, videos, and most of all, from my Grandma. *** IMPROVE YOUR SPEAKING + STORYTELLING:  Subscribe to my newsletter and learn more about me at jayacunzo.com Explore my services: jayacunzo.com/services Book me to speak: jayacunzo.com/keynotes *** CONNECT: Follow me on LinkedIn , Instagram , or Bluesky This episode was produ...

AI and people both run on LLMs. AI has large language models. People have little life moments. But mostly, we don't draw on our LLMs confidently or consistently enough. Neal Foard does, and that's made him one of the most exceptional (and viral) storytellers in the business world.   Neal joins me today to lay it all out: we talk about constructing stories, practicing and rehearsal, and how to shap...

In this special bonus episode, I take your questions about public speaking. We talk about the craft, but also the way we can better approach our speaking as a marketing strategy and approach, how to think about whether to charge for public speaking (and how much), and a lot more! Whether you've got a speaking engagement coming up, give tons of talks each year, or you're just thinking about becomin...

This episode, we do something a bit different. I’m joined by the brilliant messaging strategist and pioneer of the message design industry, Tamsen Webster! We fully nerd out on crafting messaging and the elements that help you create stronger speeches, better stories, and a more effective message for your entire platform.  Tamsen in not only a leader in the field of message design, she’s also the...

A technique for our work found in an incredible moment between John Mulaney and David Letterman. This is a solo episode from me to share something you can apply to your work right away to become a stronger storyteller, to differentiate your message, and to generally compete on the impact of your ideas NOT the volume of your marketing. *** IMPROVE YOUR SPEAKING + STORYTELLING:  Subscribe to my news...

It's hard to show up publicly at times, sharing your work, giving of yourself to others. It can be even harder given the places we mostly show up online today. But Brad Montague is here to lead a joyful rebellion—one for creatives, artists, and humans of all kinds, both kids and (in Brad's terms) former kids. And here's here to show us that celebrating failure is part of the process of doing meani...

In this solo episode, I share a storytelling concept I'm calling "the idea before the idea," which helps solve issues of growth and audience traction. *** REGISTER FOR MY NEXT BOOTCAMP: Design My Signature Talk is a virtual intensive where I help you develop and nail your next talk and elevate your speaking all year long. Register now at jayacunzo.com/signaturetalk *** IMPROVE YOUR SPEAKING + STOR...

This week, I’m joined by my favorite recurring guest and the star of our “Is this ANNything” mini-series, the brilliant Ann Handley. Throughout this mini-series (usually called “Is This Anything?”), close friends and collaborators join me to work out new ideas and unproven drafts to see if it is, in fact, anything. Today, Ann and I start by discussing the first time we were paid to speak, then we...

In this episode, we go inside the delivery and construction of a popular TED Talk! Elise Hu gets real with us about the preparation and challenges that go into taking complex ideas and molding them to fit a tightly delivered speech. Elise is an award-winning journalist, podcaster, and ‌author based in Los Angeles. She’s the host of TED Talks Daily , Accenture’s Built for Change , and a co-host of...

Inspiration is everywhere -- if you're paying attention. Today we’re resharing a slightly modified version of an episode I used to help pilot How Stories Happen, back inside my old show called Unthinkable. (You’ll hear me reference the “miniseries,” which is what I used to craft this show and test various elements.)  In this episode, bestselling author and Hall of Fame keynote speaker Jay Baer bri...