How Stories Happen
Jay Acunzo
What does it take to resonate? On How Stories Happen, experts, entrepreneurs, and business leaders dissect their signature stories piece by piece. We explore how they found and developed their ideas, how they might improve even still, and how they use a story to show up with greater impact and influence. Hosted by Jay Acunzo.
If growth is hard, you might need your "idea before the idea"
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 + STORYTELLING: Subscribe to my newsletter and learn more about me at jayacunzo.comWork with me one-on-one: jaya
“Is this ANNything?” Ann Handley Returns to Work Out New Drafts
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 touch on my white whale of public speaking, the big no-nos when opening speeches, and how we have evol
“You can’t make pottery without clay” | Elise Hu dissects her TED Talk
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 Forever 35. And if that’s not enough, she also co-founded the LA-based podcast production company, Reas
How to find powerful stories everywhere | Jay Baer, hall-of-fame speaker & NY Times bestselling business author
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 brings one of his oldest, most proven stories to the show -- and we learn the two psychological concepts
"It's not effortless, it's intentional" | Mike Ganino, keynote director & author
We’re told to steal from those we admire, but so often, we mimic the wrong things. It’s not WHAT someone does but WHY they do it (and why it works for them) which we ought to model in our own creative work and storytelling. Once we find that, we can intentionally master the craft. And this work is about exactly that: intentionality. It’s practiced. Until it looks effortless (even if, for a long while, it wasn’t).In this episode, Mike Ganino shares a story about his childhood and falling in love
“Little nuggets take your story furthest” I Veronica Romney - Author, Entrepreneur, and Marketing Leader
What does the psychology of family systems have to do with being a good storyteller? Well, according to Veronica Romney, a lot. Understanding identity and how people define theirs can make or break your ability to stand out, resonate, and earn passionate fans.In this episode, V shares the story about a funeral unlike any other. In fact, it’s 18 years in the making. It even made the news, and it reveals a major lesson about modern marketing. Throw in a Harley-Davison superfan riding his motorcycl
“Great stories are ownable” | Ron Tite, keynote speaker and agency exec
How do you make a story truly come alive? You pace things down and focus on the small details. Everyone else might want the big, flashy story, but your most effective (and ownable) stories are from noteworthy moments, not newsworthy events.In this episode, Ron Tite puts on display his otherworldly mastery of public speaking and performance. He takes a (relatively average) hotel and uses a series of interactions with the brand to make you laugh, feel inspired, and transform how you think about cu
Whisper
A special bonus story and a crucial question to guide your 2025. This episode was handcrafted for you by Jason, with love.
"Specific moments make it feel real" | Natalie Taylor, B2B marketing leader
When we communicate with business results in mind, whether we work in-house on a team or we ARE the business, it's so common that we omit specific details. We want to rush to stuff things full of our ideas and make our value clear instantly. The thing is, only when we slow our stories down, include specific details, and describe one or two tiny moments, do others start to care.Because the goal isn't to say everything all at once. The goal is to find the touchstones of the story that bring it all
"The personal is more universal than we think it is" | Sarah Stockdale, CEO of Growclass
Welcome to one of the more inspiring episodes of the show! Entrepreneur and growth marketing expert Sarah Stockdale is one of the most nuanced, capable, and generous voices in the industry. When she shows up, she resonates, no matter what she's creating or where she's appearing. Today, both of us commiserate over being dedicated parents learning to be parents, informed citizens struggling with so many things in society, and being public voices with pressure to deliver ... all at the same time.Th
“Now is the time to double down on your story” I Shez Mehra, creative entrepreneur and DJ
This is a special episode of the show. I’ve partnered with Intuit Mailchimp as part of a limited series called B2B Storytelling Stars. You can watch as I coach 3 marketers and experts on group calls and 1:1s, helping them craft their premises, messages, and stories. Get all 6 videos plus a storytelling template, free and ungated, at https://jayacunzo.com/starsTo cap off the series, each storyteller will appear on How Stories Happen for their very own episode, featuring the story we began develop
The 2 questions (and a quote) that helped me most in 2024
As another year comes to an end, we often reflect backwards, because hindsight is 20/20. But what we don’t often realize is that sometimes when you have that clarity of sight, you'll want to close your eyes, rub your temples, maybe let your head fall to the table. Because you’re amazed at how you just… couldn’t… see it. That was me, all year long, but I finally see clearly again, and I want you to avoid the same frustrating slog I endured between 2020-2023.That’s why in this solo episode I’m sha
"Your brain is a straight line machine" I Melanie Deziel, author and speaker
Signature stories aren’t just stories you tell a lot. They’re stories you’d sign your name to. In this episode, author and speaker Melanie Deziel shares a story that went from nerve-wracking to heart-wrenching the more she told it, as she found ways to tell it her own way (and as new details emerged from the story).Mel is my cofounder in our Creator Kitchen membership, and this interview was part of the miniseries that helped me pilot How Stories Happen. The thing is, when you pilot something, y
A repeatable system for stronger ideas and stories
"You have a real gift," we say to our storytelling heroes. But do they? Storytelling is a skill. Communicating with greater impact is a craft. It’s not something anyone is gifted. It’s something we all can master.Today, it’s just me, Jay. Hello! I’m trying a solo episode, sharing my favorite trick for stronger ideas and stories.Be forewarned: this trick involves sharing your thinking publicly. Not “building in public,” as many like to talk about doing, but by aerating your thinking to sharpen it
Designing a New Signature Talk Beat by Beat with Justin Moore (Founder of Creator Wizard, Author of Sponsor Magnet)
It's time for a new edition of "Is This Anything?", the miniseries where friends and clients join me to work out new drafts and ideas for upcoming pieces and projects. In this episode, I help Justin Moore design his signature talk, beat by beat.Justin is the founder of Creator Wizard, which helps creators secure more and better brand deals to grow their businesses. Through trainings, coaching, and his signature course, Justin has made a name for himself in the creator economy.For both his book a
Seth Godin Dissects a Signature Story
Today, it's a total treat as the one and only Seth Godin takes us into how he thinks about storytelling and the intersection of strategy and story, and then we hear him dissect a signature story. Plus, Seth and I trade stories in the back half of the episode—business storytelling nerdery on full display.Seth is a world-renowned storyteller and thought leader, a legendary keynote speaker who helped disrupt the format, and the bestselling author of more than 20 books, including Purple Cow, The Pra
“Is this ANNything?” Ann Handley and Jay Acunzo Work Out New Drafts
This week, we’re joined by our first-ever recurring guest. The brilliant Ann Handley (WSJ bestselling author of Everybody Writes and globally touring keynote speaker) joins us for a very special episode of “Is This Anything?”, the mini-series, where friends and collaborators join me to work out new ideas, unproven drafts, and hidden ideas to see if it is, in fact, anything.But because it’s Ann, we’re renaming it Is This ANNything. Get it? Do you get it? (If you didn’t like that, you’re really no
“We’re both the heroes and the villains in our own stories” | Chase Jarvis, Photographer + Entrepreneur + Author of Never Play It Safe
Why is candor essential for a good story? How brutally honest should you actually be in sharing a story with the world? The great Chase Jarvis brings us into his story of self-discovery, with the many twists and turns his professional career has taken, as he works through how to best tell that story ahead of his next book tour. Starting in second grade when his entrepreneurial spirit was snuffed by his teacher, Chase works to find acceptance by pursuing the “best” path forward, before realizing
"If all knowledge is experience, all wisdom is framework" | Laura Gassner Otting, Keynote Speaker & Author
What is a super-story? And how can you flex yours to fit different audiences, mediums, or conclusions? That’s what we dive into today with powerhouse storyteller, Laura Gassner Otting.Laura takes us into a small story about her first time decorating a Christmas tree with her husband’s family. Initially horrified by the chipped ornaments and tattered boxes, she grew to love these mismatched decorations. It’s a story about finding meaning in often unexpected, imperfect places—and it's full of call
Working out a new TED Talk with Simone Stolzoff, Author & Journalist
Go inside the development of a brand new TED Talk, as Jay offers notes to friend Simone Stolzoff on his v1 draft. Simone is the author of The Good Enough Job and a journalist whose writing has been featured in The New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, and more. This is the first episode of a new bonus episode of How Stories Happen called "Is This Anything?" which we'll occasionally run in our off weeks. During this miniseries, you'll hear Jay and friends actively de
“A perfectly competent character is boring” | Nat Eliason, Author & Essayist
Telling stories about your life feels fraught. How do you weave together a story that is deeply personal to you and others, contains the right amount of tension without being too dramatic, and feels both gripping and accessible for your audience? In the case of our guest today, Nat Eliason, his story is about the moment he went from investing hundreds of dollars to having $10 million of his own money on the line, plus more than $100 million of others under his purview, when the whole system was
Is This Anything? with Simone Stolzoff, Author & Designer
You know how a comedian will test out new material, and turn to their colleagues and ask, “Is this anything?” Welcome to a new bonus episode series—aptly named just that (Is This Anything), that will run on our off weeks from the traditional show, where a guest and I will take their ideas, put it under a storytelling microscope, and find out if these ideas have legs. So what do you get? A front row seat on how the pro’s develop and evolve their stories.So for this episode, meet my friend, Simone
What it takes to craft a signature story | Susan Boles, CFO, Business Strategist & Podcaster
What should you include or omit to ensure your stories carry your message, resonate with others, and deliver something that could only come from you? That’s the challenge we encounter today. In this special episode, Jay is joined by a favorite client, Susan Boles, to work through a draft of a signature story, which emerged on the back of their months-long work together developing Susan’s premise of “calm is the new KPI.” They apply Jay’s Align-Agitate-Assert structure, and they find the
To tell stronger stories, understand yourself first | Ryan Hawk & Brook Cups, Coauthors of The Score That Matters
Storytellers often face a paradox: to connect deeper externally, you have to turn deeper internally. You have to know yourself and get more honest with how you think and feel than others might be comfortable doing themselves. That often means we have to stop caring what people think of us quite as much.In this episode, we meet Brook Cupps and Ryan Hawk, coauthors of the book The Score That Matters. We talk about how they collaborated on their book together and how they use stories to in
“You have to work against people assuming they know how this goes” | Danielle Bayard Jackson, Author of Fighting for Our Friendships
How do we compress our lifetime into their runtime? When we’re asked to explain our backgrounds and bios, we need a structure, some practice, and a few anecdotes at the ready. Because our story has to pull triple-duty: clarify who we are, build credibility, and teach whatever it is we’re there to teach.In this episode, author, PR agency founder, and friendship expert Danielle Bayard Jackson reveals the simple way she responds to that simple question: “How’d you get here?” Together, we b
“I could tell this story in 1950 or 2024” | Scott Monty, Exec. Coach and Speaker
While everyone scrambles to learn the new trends and act like a futurist, it’s the folks who understand what parts of this work are timeless – because they’re based on human nature – that are most powerful of all. Storytelling is one such thing. It’s been a constant throughout the history of humanity. Why? Because although the world changes in many ways, human nature is one thing that doesn’t change much at all.So says our guest today, Scott Monty, and it’s part of what makes Scott such
“Words can do WHAT?! Are we serious right now?!” | Tucker Bryant, Poet & Keynote Speaker
How do we craft a metaphor that works? More importantly, perhaps, how do we ensure the metaphors we use pivot to the audience to teach them something in their lives or work, without them getting lost? Do we overtly explain the lesson? Imply it? Some combination? It’s a delicate dance, and few do it like Tucker Bryant.Tucker isn't just a keynote speaker; he's a poet who has taken the stage everywhere from corporate boardrooms to major conferences, importing what he knows from the world o
“We congregate around emotional stories” | Rand Fishkin, CEO of SparkToro
The hardest question to answer when we show up publicly might be the simplest question we receive: “Tell me about yourself.” Who are you? How’d you get here? What’s your story?We then face a choice: we can make the story about us, or we can make it about the thing we’re there to say. We can make our own stories about the audiences we wish to serve, and we can do so without feeling like we’re bragging and even without any newsworthy moments in our past.Meet Rand Fishkin, cofounder and CE
“How do we all sign our work?” | Ann Handley, Author & Keynote Speaker
When so many people are excited to create a higher volume of content, shouldn’t we think more about what gives our work greater power? That’s what our guest today understands better than most, and she draws that power from everyday moments she hunts out, like a squirrel finding nuts in the yard.Meet Ann Handley—she’s a best-selling author, a pioneer in content marketing, and a popular B2B speaker with a knack for imbuing ordinary moments with extraordinary meaning.Ann reveals her mornin
“A story needs a job to do” | Michelle Warner, Business Designer & Strategist
Our guest for this episode is rarely online. But when she is, she’s telling small stories with big meaning.Meet Michelle Warner—she’s a business strategist and consultant who architects business models and marketing strategies for clients who sell high-priced services. She also hosts the podcast Sequence Over Strategy—an idea that represents her entire platform’s differentiated premise, and one the story she brings to us today reflects.Michelle has founded multi-million dollar startups,
“The only way to figure out a story is to tell it” | Andrew Davis, Keynote Speaker
I know a ton of storytellers and creators and entrepreneurs, but I know exactly zero other people who have learned how to do what they do from both legendary news broadcasters and Kermit the Frog.Meet Andrew Davis. He is a powerhouse business speaker who’s given speeches in 35 different countries, at more than 50 events every year. He speaks to audiences ranging from marketers and entrepreneurs to plumbers and physicians — and there may not be a storyteller who is this craft-driven and
Introducing How Stories Happen: Business Builders Dissect Their Signature Stories Piece by Piece
Welcome to How Stories Happen, a show for business storytellers focused on standing out easier and resonating deeper through substance and stories, not hollow stunts. Each episode, an expert, entrepreneur, or world-class communicator breaks apart a single story piece by piece, sharing how they developed it and how they're using it to grow their brand and leave their legacy. Hosted by Jay AcunzoAs Ira Glass said, “Great stories happen to those who can tell them.” He doesn’t mean worthy t