Unthinkable with Jay Acunzo

As I work on Season 4 of Unthinkable, I wanted to share with you one of the most popular episodes from the backlogs: The Bias to Act. Two incredible stories and some inspiring-yet-weird-yet-warm commentary (yanno ... like every episode). Hope you enjoy! In the meantime, be sure to subscribe to the Maker Channel wherever you get your podcasts. TMC is where we release experimental episodes for shows...

I'm hard at work making Unthinkable Season 4 AND writing my first book, Break the Wheel, due out this fall (2018). The book is inspired by and pulls from the first three seasons of Unthinkable! For now, here's an oldie but a goodie -- a sneaky-good episode from the archives. Enjoy! Subscribe to get one new story or idea every Monday morning about being better than best practices: http://bit.ly/joi...

As I work on Unthinkable Season 4 and the book relating to this show, called Break the Wheel (Fall 2018), I wanted to dip into the archives and resurface a sneaky-good episode. Enjoy! Subscribe to get one new story or idea for being better than best practices every Monday morning: http://bit.ly/joinunthinkable

A final treat and sign-off until next season. Thank you SO. FREAKING. MUCH. for supporting for my work, from speaking to podcasting and beyond! So much in store for 2018, and I'm grateful to you for your time, feedback, and love. If you haven't yet, be sure to subscribe to get my regular Monday emails: bit.ly/joinunthinkable

In the Season 3 finale of Unthinkable, it's time for a story and a battle -- a story about a runaway creative success that flies in the face of conventional thinking and a battle that all of us face whenever we aspire to be better than average in our careers. Finally, at long last, we blame one dastardly demon for our nasty habit of always taking the easy way out, the accepted route forward. Final...

How does your intent for your work change your results? If your goal is to build something big, does that increase the odds? Why, then, do so many stories about huge successes start out the same way: with a shrug, and a quick, "I just wanted to brew some beer." ? Today, we explore the story of The Alchemist, makers of the industry sensation, Heady Topper.  SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTER htt...

Most brand-created podcasts are -- how shall I put this? -- IMPRESSIVELY terrible. So, naturally, Steve Pratt finds total creative fulfillment in that industry. Obviously. See, to invent the future of an entire industry and collaborate with some of the world's top brands, Steve gets to crash through one barrier after another. And as he excitedly does so, his weapon of choice isn't massive budget,...

Suzy Batiz had sworn off starting companies. NEVER AGAIN, she thought. But one sniff and one conversation later, she was obsessed. Her curiosity took over, and a decade later, she's built a 300-million-dollar empire. And all of it started by trying to solve a problem none of us care to even think about, let alone build a career around. It's Unthinkable. LINKS TO KNOW: Viral video link Company webs...

Nobody actually takes risks, especially in business, so what if the key to doing better work is making unconventional paths seem SAFER than the best practice? That's exactly what Clair Byrd, Clark Valberg, and the team behind Design Disruptors did. They took a massive project in scope and found a way to make each step seem safer than the last. They built a refreshing, eye-opening project without e...

Looking for the video link? Scroll down! For now, a blurb on the episode: Unsurprisingly, one of the catchiest songs ever created topped the iTunes charts. It beat epic songs by Rhianna and Drake, and narrowly missed topping Adele and even Gangnam Style. Away from the charts, this song sparked a global movement -- merchandise and microsites, mobile games and parodies galore. One song and one video...

Scott Stratten looks every part a blacksmith. He's mastered a rare craft in our digital world today, but make no mistake -- he's a master craftsman. And while he may not work with any type of metal, he still forges his work with red hot fire. It’s Unthinkable. LINKS TO KNOW: Scott on Twitter: http://twitter.com/unmarketing   Scott's website: http://unmarketing.com   Scott's podcast: http://www.unm...

If there was a Yelp listing for every industry niche, "Headphone Brand" would appear with the most possible dollar signs. Big brands use bigger celebrities and spend some of the biggest ad budgets around to promote their products and, really, the emotion they want you to feel when you buy their products. Artists like Kendrick Lamar and Nicki Minaj, athletes like LeBron James, and brands...

We call the show "Unthinkable" because anytime someone uses their intuition, it feels like they did something crazy. Maybe they broke from conventional thinking -- that alone feels pretty unthinkable in many jobs and industries. Maybe they came up with an incredible idea in an instant -- that can be tough to understand from the outside looking in. Or maybe they did work that was exceptio...

What if intuition was actually the same as the kind of thinking we value in the business world, but it reaches full potential quicker? Wouldn't that be an insanely valuable skill? If you could instantly skip ahead of your peers by seven, 17, or 77 steps or pull from seven, or 17, or 77 sources of ideas ... wouldn't you want to figure out how that stuff works?! Wouldn't you cultivate it? Practice i...

The information age has a downside: Advice Overload. In the face of ubiquitous experts and never-ending best practices and how-tos and secrets, what if you trusted your intuition? Well, for starters, you'd need to focus more on your own context than all that advice. Luckily, today, we explore one question you can ask yourself to instantly make sense of all the advice in this Information Age. And w...

We use our intuition every single day to make decisions. So why does it still feel like a leap to trust it when it comes to the more meaningful stuff in our work? The answer is more complicated than you think. But your response can be a lot simpler than you image, too -- and that's great news if you want to do meaningful work.   SUBSCRIBE TO MONDAY'S EMAIL:  unthinkable.fm FEEDBACK & FOLLOWS:...

Last we spoke, we wondered why we don't trust our intuition more. I mean, it's with us at all times, telling us things. But we often feel like it's a LEAP to listen to our intuition. This week, we wonder: How do we cross that chasm? To help make sense of this, we revisit the story of Alec Brownstein, the Executive Creative Director at Dollar Shave Club, and his incredible side project, viewed by b...

Technically supposed to be taking a week off but ... I won't tell if you don't! Send your examples of conventional wisdom, pithy quotes-as-gospel, or popular best practices to jay@unthinkable.fm -- we might use them in a future show! Subscribe to the Monday AM newsletter at unthinkable.fm

Last week, we defined intuition once and for all. This week, we wonder: Why don't we routinely TRUST our intuition? We came up with a practical definition, but why can't we seem to make it practical in our daily lives? Why does it so often feel like a leap? To help make sense of this, we revisit the story of Neil Pasricha, a bestselling author, TED speaker, and the creator of the blog 1000 Awesome...

So we aspire to do something exceptional, and we can't stand all that average noise created by the endless "hacks" and "cheats" and "secrets" out there. So now what? If all that expertise is simply generalized advice that gets us to average, what can we use to go from average to exceptional? What can we rely on to get the rest of the way there?  Intuition. But what th...

After a year, we finally land on the common thread that ties us all together as listeners. Then, we revisit one of our most popular stories and find out some new things we missed last time. And we begin our march forward, week by week, to solve the biggest problem facing our projects, companies, and careers today. MIKE'S SUPER BOWL AD:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_3H_Y5QUWw SUBSCRIBE TO MOND...

Our our every-other-week series profiling names you know sharing stories you don't concludes with Amy Schmittauer. In this brutally honest and hilarious discussion, Amy talks about her parody of the Wizard of Oz, why she loves editing more than being on camera, and how she grapples with her early speaking careers. About the series: In an era full of content marketing thought leaders, we want to ge...

Remarkable stories of what happens when you embrace constraints, rather than fight for "creative freedom" (and an exploration of what the heck "creative freedom" even means). Stories today from First Round Capital (one of the premier venture capital firms in tech, with investments in Uber, Warby Parker, Blue Apron, Square, and more) and Soviet Visuals, a remarkable side project...

We continue our every-other-week series profiling names you know sharing stories you don't. This week, we get existential and emotional with one of the most creative content marketers on the planet, Doug Kessler. About the series: In an era full of content marketing thought leaders, we want to get behind the tactics and tips and understand what makes the PERSON break free of conventional thinking...

When we say the word content, MOST of us refer to the container -- a blog post, a video, a podcast. But the audience we aim to serve is after what's INSIDE our content -- the information, the education, the entertainment. So why the heck do brands and marketers spend so much less time focused on the stuff INSIDE the content they create? Stories today from Slack, the fastest-growing business app of...