Episode 30

#30 - Jay Acunzo: How to Be the Best Speaker in the Room

What happens when your entire business gets destroyed in 3 days? Jay Acunzo, storytelling expert and former head of content at HubSpot, shares the messy reality of reinvention and how he discovered his most defensible advantages. We explore why people follow you for YOU (not your content), the psychology behind authentic storytelling vs. performance, and Jay's frameworks for escaping the "commodity cage"—including why you should focus on being their favorite instead of being the best. Plus: the simple 4-part story structure that actually works and how to "ladder down" your ideas to create deeper connections.

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https://jayacunzo.com/

https://linkedin.com/in/jayacunzo

https://jayacunzo.com/newsletter

Check out Jay's podcast, "How Stories Happen" wherever you get your podcasts

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TOPICS DISCUSSED:

  • Getting "punched in the mouth" by unexpected events often forces necessary reinvention that turns five-year plans into 30-day survival plans
  • Ask yourself "What am I the best at doing in a room of 100 people?" to find clarity about your unique strengths and defensible advantages
  • The messy, unglamorous parts of reinvention are where you actually find your best ideas and truest self
  • People don't follow you for your content—they follow you for you, which means your imperfections are often what create the strongest connections
  • Use "tactical vulnerability"—share imperfect, human aspects of your story that are relevant for building connection or illustrating a point
  • Stories need four building blocks: status quo, tension, turning point, and resolution (remember the itsy bitsy spider)
  • Don't just share expertise—escape the "commodity cage" by developing a unique premise or perspective
  • "Don't market more, matter more"—focus on resonance (how much people care) over reach (how many people see it)
  • "Don't be the best, be their favorite"—people make emotional choices and rationalize them later
  • Move from being an expert who shares information to an explorer who asks questions and launches investigations
  • "Ladder down" your ideas: start with an easy reframe, then your core premise, then the best-case outcome
  • Bringing conviction to your ideas and learning to package them effectively creates a defensible position in a noisy world

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 Why Jay decided to dedicate this chapter of his life to storytelling and speaking

09:00 How Jay reinvented his business after everything burned to the ground

14:57 The emotional toll of pivoting your business

18:20 How to find your best ideas to share

21:41 The trap of being a meta-creator

23:43 Being an expert vs. an explorer

26:30 Imperfection and building a connection with your audience

33:25 AI and the Milli Vanilli Effect

37:54 Being authentic vs being performative

49:38 The truth about what makes a great story

52:34 The biggest mental block holding you back from becoming a great storyteller

55:32 The secret to incredible storytelling/the secret to guarantee people remember your ideas

1:01:30 How to take your public speaking and storytelling skills to the next level

1:04:30 Parting words

SOCIAL LINKS:

Website: https://coreywilkspsyd.com/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@coreywilkspsyd

Substack: https://substack.com/@coreywilkspsyd

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreywilkspsyd/

Twitter: https://x.com/CoreyWilksPsyD

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coreywilkspsyd/

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/coreywilkspsyd.bsky.social

Disclaimers: The content provided is for educational, informational, and entertainment purposes only. Nothing here constitutes personal or professional consultation, treatment, diagnosis, or creates a professional-client relationship.

Transcript

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

One of the first things I wanted to ask you was of all the things you could dedicate this chapter of your life to, why are speaking and storytelling the things that you've chosen?

Jay Acunzo (:

It's a really great question. There's an internal reason and an external reason. And they're both very clear to me at this point. So I'm about to turn 40. I've been an independent contractor, consultant, creator since 2016. And I've kind of been through a really hard period of reinvention along with having my kids halfway through that experience. Being a professional speaker, I got punched in the mouth pretty hard.

at the beginning of the pandemic and lost a business that I worked incredibly hard to build, ⁓ which was both lucrative and fulfilling for my soul. I lost that business in three days and I knew I didn't want to claw back, ⁓ to where I was because I wanted to have our second child. wanted to stay at home more. ⁓ I was getting fatigued by being on the road constantly and earning a living from stages. You know, I could do without all the things leading up to the speech and following.

Right. love being at the events. love working with clients and attendees and giving speeches. I was so done with everything else about it. And I knew I was going to like build up some kind of at home business unit to first supplement, then replace that. And the world was like, no, you're not. There is no building up to be had. We're going to tear it all down in an instant. Good luck, buddy. And I couldn't repeat like the ramen years, the lean year or two I had leaving my corporate job.

I worked in SAS, then I worked in venture for a year or for three years. ⁓ I couldn't repeat the lean years cause I had a mortgage. had one kid and one on the way. And so it was a really tough period of reinvention, but in my bones, this is the internal reason I'm a storyteller. I'm a public speaker. Like it, I like to joke that I feel like podcasting is my old friend. I'm very comfortable with podcasting. love pod. I've done so many episodes and so many guest appearances. Podcasting is my old friend.

But public speaking is my hell yeah friend. know, those friends that walk in the room and you're like, Jake's here. Hell yeah. This is going to be great weekend. That's public speaking for me. And so it's like in me and, and excites me and there's like a depth to it. But then externally, it's one of the most defensible things, perhaps one of the last few that become your strategic unfair advantages to convey a message, to separate from the noise, to do things that feel like very uniquely you.

that others also probably can't do or do as well as you. And I remember I thought to myself, well, if I'm not gonna be a speaker, let me do all these things that have nothing to do with public speaking for two or three years. I don't know why I did that, Corey, but I lurched around for a time. And then finally I asked myself this question, like, if I'm in a room of 100 professionals, creators, entrepreneurs, executives, what am I the best at doing in that room of 100? And it was all things public speaking, giving it, talking about it, teaching it.

I'm not the best speaker in the world, but I'm often the best speaker in the room. And also the most impressive people in my network are the most impressed by that coming from me. And I had no services about that. had no, you know, storytelling mastery course. had no public speaking accelerator. had no one-on-one services for these things. And so I sort of got out of my own way and found clarity after a

tough period of reinvention by asking myself like, what am I the best at doing in a room full of 100 people? Or what are the most impressive people in my network most impressed by coming from me? And it just so happens that my answers very much overlap with what's in my bones and also what this moment requires of communicators and creators.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

So you're talking about reinvention and you know, things happening that are beyond your control. think COVID, there are a lot of bad things about COVID for sure. But one of the good things about COVID was, well, two of the good things. One, it pushed a lot of people out of their comfort zone because a lot of us got fired or lost a lot of revenue.

Jay Acunzo (:

Yeah.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

Right? Like I myself, I got fired during COVID because of COVID related layoffs. Like I got the email from like the COO of my company and I was basically like, Hey, everybody loves you coworkers patients. Cause I was, I was doing therapy and I was like at the top of my field, there were only two people above me in my company and they were both my bosses. So I was like, I'm specializing in addiction treatment in rural Appalachia. have supreme job security. I've got the doctorate like,

Jay Acunzo (:

Yes.

Hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

I spent, I sacrificed 12 plus years of my life to get to this point. I'm golden. Right. And, and I got that email and they were like, look, everybody loves you. You're great paperwork's awesome. You're seeing plenty of people. Here's your 30 days notice you're fired because I was at that particular moment, I was a remote employee and they were like, Hey, we're forcing everybody to come back into the clinic because you're exclusively remote. You're fired. And for me, man, with like,

Jay Acunzo (:

Sure.

Mm-hmm.

Wow.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

the way therapy works is I could be anywhere in the world and do therapy and do like a remote session with you. But you as my patient had to physically be in the state I was licensed in. And you and I, we've talked about this off camera and things because you've got experience with this. but the issue was like, I've, basically, I couldn't practice therapy anymore because in order for me to get re licensed in the state I was living in would have taken me four to six months. So was like, I spent 12 plus years of my life.

Jay Acunzo (:

Yeah, right.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

to do therapy, I thought I had supreme job security. I finally was at the pinnacle of my career and I can no longer practice therapy. What do I do? Right. And I, and I hear that from so many people who have since become entrepreneurs that are like, Hey, I got fired during COVID. So one, I think that was actually a blessing in disguise for a lot of people who like I myself, I realized I was burnt out at that point in the therapy world.

Jay Acunzo (:

Right.

Hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

But I also knew that like I had a five year plan, but getting fired, turned my five year plan into my 30 day plan. Cause it was like, all of a sudden I got to figure shit out. Right. And that's such a common story. But, the, second piece is because of like the, like lockdowns and just like the isolation aspect of it, a lot of people finally for potentially the first time in their lives had

Jay Acunzo (:

Yeah, right. Right. I so get that. Yeah.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

a multi-day multi-week period where they could just, they had a break and they could just sit and think and say, is this what I want? Is the trajectory I've been on the trajectory I want to continue being on? Right? Cause so many of us, just, get caught up in like taking action. We don't necessarily think about what direction is this action taking us.

Jay Acunzo (:

Yeah.

You know, I'm laughing because I was with you right up until you said the word break. in the pandemic for me, there was no moment of introspection. There was no moment of peace. had an 18 month old in a small apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts, no outdoor space to call our own. My wife is a very, career focused person. She's actually a psychology PhD. She's a researcher and a professor here in the Boston area. And, ⁓

We, and you know, I have been very career driven as well. Like we both met working for Google. She left business. I became an entrepreneur later and I have never felt so out of touch with my own inner monologue in a very specific way. Then during the pandemic years, I could not see forward both because it was blurry and I just felt like I wasn't daydreaming. I wasn't being aspirational or ambitious at all. However,

I think I did some of my best writing during the pandemic, not because I had mountains of free time, but because I was kind of forced to like set aside my own BS and just write from the heart. And I'm someone who considers myself someone who does that anyway, but I was like, I have no more sorta Fs to give. I'm going to say what's in my soul and what's in my heart publicly. So I'm with you. Like it's hard to judge that moment as one thing or another thing. Like

of my year to the very end of:

So yeah, it's hard to say that was this one moment. I can characterize it one way.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

when it comes to your, again, just reinventing yourself, what was that process? Right? Cause like my thing, man, is like a lot of us, we, we kind of gloss over some of the details after we've gone through something. And I think that piece is the piece that anybody who is in the middle of that or will come across it. That's the piece that nobody ever gets, right? Cause we're all like, yeah, I reinvented myself. And then this is the epiphany I had done.

Jay Acunzo (:

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

For sure.

Mm-hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

But it's that process of like, like fundamental, like what the fuck did you go through? Like what was your internal process that you had to like just sit there and sit with it and think, okay, everything's kind of on fire right now. Suddenly everything is going to zero or suddenly the floor has been pulled out from under me. Like how did you just psychologically, like how did you deal with that in the moment?

Jay Acunzo (:

Yes.

Yeah.

emotionally and mentally, I was a complete and total mess. mean, I was angry. ⁓ you know, thanks to my wife, I sought out a therapist and, ⁓ you know, she, her field of study was a CBT cognitive behavioral therapy for folks unfamiliar. And, ⁓ you know, I was able to take care of myself a little better than the average bear. ⁓ but I was one grumpy bear and let's put it that way. And,

You know, I don't know if it's because I felt like, I worked so hard and I'm owed something. Maybe there was a piece of that, but I think more than that, I'd finally found a way to marry what I felt like was the overlap of something I'm great at something I love. felt like creative self-expression or art and something that had a financial component that could support me and my family. And that was keynote speaking. and that had been ripped away. And after moments of, you know,

stress and anxiety and anger. I was like, I got to get back to it. I can't, I can't take a beat. I can't lie on the couch. have to find a way to claw back revenue. And so I lurched around and the first thing I tried was launching a, almost like an industry publication. I called it marketing show runners. And the idea was, well, I'm a podcaster as well. And I know how to communicate through that medium. More of us are virtual, more podcasts on the way video series, et cetera. know how to construct and run shows. I've done that.

professionally for clients, working with brands as big as Salesforce and GoDaddy and all the way down to tiny startups and consultants and creators. I've sort of either for fee or for free talked about and build shows, including for myself. All right, I'll educate the market on how to do this. And I sold a couple of cohort based courses on how to run a show, how to create a show and host a show and all these things. And that kind of saved my year, the first year of the pandemic.

And then it was like, you know what, I don't want to be the podcast guy. I don't want to be the show runner guy. This is interesting, but maybe it's fleeting as a trend or I'm too wedded to something. Tied up in a medium specifically. And I'm much more interested in the horizontal, like the personal transferable creative skills that light me up. Public speaking being one of those. mean, it serves you everywhere you go storytelling, messaging, creativity more broadly. So I don't want to be tied to that one thing.

I also don't love the model of like building an audience and throwing sponsors against it and, know, having inventory and maybe that leads to, I don't know, an annual event. Like I didn't want to build a trade publication. Really. I was just reacting. So I sunset marketing show runners and I'm like, what the heck do I do now? And I started reaching out to brands and trying to do little consulting projects and, know, pretty heavily activated my network to try and go back in house.

ity organization in Boston of:

None, none management philosophy. Like I don't want to manage people. What am I doing? Like I want, I want to feel the flower on my fingers. I want to do the work. I don't want to manage people and sit meetings all day. This is a mistake. And so the summary of all this Corey is like, I was not seeing myself nor any kind of business model, nor the market or audience I wanted to serve clearly. And so I just grabbed that and reacted to a lot of things, which I don't think makes me alone, but that that's the ugly reality. That's the gray area.

You know, there's the gold plated version of it, which was like got punched in the mouth. And I kind of like powered through and now, my gosh, these two clarifying questions of me in the room or my most impressive network that helped me figure it out. I'm going to sell a one-on-one and one to few services around speaking storytelling and differentiating your message. Great. And I'm having a great year, but the reality is you pick up so many bumps and bruises and really scars.

along the way that, you know, it's not glamorous to talk about, but it's real. And my favorite storyteller ever was Bourdain. So he was the one who waded into the gray openly in his storytelling. And thank you for prompting me to do the same.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

Dude, I love that, that, that depth and candor. Cause like it's the messy real shit that is sorely lacking, ⁓ especially online. Sometimes you'll see that in like a memoir or something, but unless you're reading memoirs, you don't want to do it. And I just,

Jay Acunzo (:

Wait, hold on. Are you

suggesting that social media kills nuance and removes the gray and isn't conducive for big strategic ideas? no.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

but we

optimize for that. We optimize for pithy little bits, right? And like, my thing is, man, I love that you said all that because I, so again, I got fired during COVID and then I was like, well, I can't do therapy anymore. I guess I'll become an entrepreneur. So like I literally Googled, how do you start an LLC? And like, and it just, you know, I kind of like, I self-educate, right? But the other issue with that was

Jay Acunzo (:

Yeah, sure. We've all been there.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

I, and I think a lot of people who entered the quote unquote creator economy during that time had a lot of false positives because during COVID was like the golden era of CBCs of cohort based courses. So you could just spin up even a mediocre CBC and make good money because everybody had like, you everybody was stir crazy. They just wanted that socialization. They may have had extra money and you, you saw this just, you know, boom.

of CBCs. But then that quickly turned into like CBC fatigue and there were only a handful of people who were still around in like two years and even all of them eventually spun down the CBC model and they moved to like membership to share. Right. And I think that, you know, when you're trying to figure this, this stuff out, whether it is being a quote unquote creator, entrepreneur, thought leader, any,

Jay Acunzo (:

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, right.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

whatever term you want to put to it, putting yourself and your ideas out into the world. You never see how messy it was for everybody else. You only see how messy it is for you and you compare your messiness to their refined present version. And I think that's very, I,

Jay Acunzo (:

Yes.

I love that you said that. Yes. Yeah. I did a

whole behind the scenes, like very highly produced, like four part series with a video collaborator called Arbez Films. And I know the founder and she and I worked together on some social videos and I said, Hey, you know, I'm, I'm sunsetting the podcast that really drove my speaking and my first book, which was called unthinkable. And I was launching this new show that I've now hosted for a year called how stories happened.

And I knew what I wanted to do was like workshop stories and real work with thought leaders and authors and speakers, or have people who are at kind of a later stage, entrepreneurially come on and basically just share or redo a signature story from a speech or a book or an opener or whatever. So we've had people from, you know, as known as Seth Godin and as up and coming as like a new client of mine and everybody in in between take you closer to the storytelling craft and process.

than a generic advice show would. And so I was like, I'm going to make this it's in line with my business now, but I know the process. I'm familiar with the process of developing a new project like this. I've done enough in my career. have this body of work. I want to showcase just how much of a shit show it is, just how much of a mess it really is for people even like me to go through that. Cause to your point, what do we get access to version 80 version 800? We don't get version one or eight.

We don't get the micro moments where they're slogging through the mess. So what I wanted to show in the behind the scenes series was we called it how, how stories happen. Happened. Cause I can't resist with language like that. ⁓ but we, we basically showcase the mess because I wanted to say, listen, this is after years of me doing this. You can't escape the mess. However, whether it's a creative project like that, or what you're talking about, like your career.

It's actually the mess where you find your best. It's actually where you find, if you're writing something, it's like, the turn a phrase there that I kind of stumbled on by writing. That's interesting. Or, I thought it was going to be this. It's actually this that I'm trying to say or create. Like what worries me is we're so kind of like, it's so available to find somebody's blueprint or strategy deck for you or pristine advice, or you so cheap to access an AI tool to like

allegedly skip the messy parts that what you're doing is outsourcing your self discovery, outsourcing the hacking away at the jungle that allows you to find your best. helps you find sharper clarity. It helps you find better ideas. It helps you find your truer self. And in a very micro sense, it helps you find that little turn of phrase that you repeat everywhere that caused people to go, my gosh, I should check out Corey. I should work with Jay. And so it's in the mess that you find your best. And I wish people would approach the messy parts with more confidence and joy.

instead of think, it must be a problem with me. And then they think that because they don't get everyone else's mess, but we're all going through it.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

Exactly. And like, that's my thing is it's very disheartening for a lot of people when they're in the mess or they only see their mess, but they don't see anybody else's. And I'm not saying everybody should like trauma dump or some shit online and be like, Hey everybody, this is I'm going through. Right. But my thing is

Jay Acunzo (:

No, no, no.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

One of my friends, he he's, he's also really into storytelling and things. And he talks all the time about learning to mine your stories, like digging down and finding the stories that have always been there that maybe you just haven't really considered sharing or considered that they're worth sharing. And I think that with, with messiness, I think so much of your messiness can become part of your message for other people that that's why I wanted to kind of talk about this messiness and how it relates to storytelling and shit. Cause you know,

I think a lot of us believe we have to create this perfect version, this perfect veneer, whatever, before we hit, we hit publish, right? Before we put ourselves in ideas out there. The issue with that is people aren't perfect. So when you try to come across as perfect, people can't connect with you. People are imperfect. Therefore people connect with imperfection. So like,

Jay Acunzo (:

Mm-hmm, right

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

you know, when I talk about growing up poor or, know, obviously I have an accent, I'm covered in tattoos, you know, I cuss a lot. These are all quote unquote imperfections ⁓ relative to professionalism and this, this, this pristine version you're supposed to have on like LinkedIn or some shit. And, or like when I talk about how like, look, I got fired and then, know, within my first year I made like, I had a 27 K month, which was more than I made an entire year when I was on internship.

Jay Acunzo (:

Yeah.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

But I also had like three or four months where I made zero money. And I was like, what the fuck is happening? Like, how do you go from 27 to zero in the mat in a matter of like a couple months? And it was that boom and bust thing. There were a lot of other issues, but, that false positive like, this is what, this is what I should do. Right. And then you kind of, get into the trap of being a meta creator where you're a creator who creates for creators to help them create of like, I'm a marketer that teaches marketers how to market.

Jay Acunzo (:

Mm-hmm.

Hahaha

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

Right? I'm a coach that coaches coaches on how to coach, right?

Jay Acunzo (:

I'm, my gosh. my God. I'm my friend.

I'm liver literally later, ⁓ next month giving a speech at a creator economy conference. It's a speech about speaking. And I make a joke in the opener that I was like, they asked me to speak about speaking, which I thought was kind of meta, but then they responded to my concerns by saying, Jay, it's the creator economy. 75 % of the people here are creators who create content for other creators who create for creators. And I said, fair enough, let's do this.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

And that's the thing is like, and you know, and I've gotten caught up in some of that sometimes too. And I definitely think that part of that is the, the, the advice to teach to somebody two steps behind you. But what that creates is this eternal blind leading the blind almost. And then everybody just keeps talking about the same thing over and over again, because as soon as you, start to learn about business, you're like, well, I guess I'll talk about business. And then you're that.

the business person that hasn't run a business, but you teach other people how to be a solar printer. It's all thing and go ahead.

Jay Acunzo (:

Yes. I, yeah.

Yeah. No, I was going to say I w when I see that happening, all I see is people getting stuck with one kind of communication style, which is the wall of smarts. You see this in speaking, you see this in messaging, you see this in content marketing, you see this in being like literally any faction or subsector of content creators. When your business depends on you sharing your expertise, but you fail to realize that expertise has been commodified. What do you do?

You either press harder and sensationalize more. You lace it with more clickbait because you're not sure what else to do. Or on the other extreme, you might stop. Right. And in the middle, you have these people who just latched themselves to a hamster wheel and they're like, I just got to create more content, which is mediocre, but at greater scale. And I'm like, who does that serve? Nobody involved in this equation. I think the alternative to what you're describing is instead of trying to

you bring expertise everywhere. Let's not diminish the power of expertise. It's foundational, but it's found everywhere. So you bring expertise everywhere, but don't act like or assume the posture of an expert. Assume the posture of an explorer, where you go, this isn't feeling right to me when I observed the industry, or why do we do it that way? Or I'm not sure this, like you start asking questions that my friend Andrew Davis, another author and speaker,

He says, you ask questions Google can't answer, and then you launch a quest to investigate. Like that idea we need more of, which is like, why are you hosting this podcast? One version of this is I'm just going to share more walls of smarts every episode. Another is I am supremely interested in this question and I'm going to go investigating it. And after you do that for a time, you start to package up your perspective into a really succinct sounding line or two.

that represents a before and after moment, the conventional wisdom and your wisdom, how they used to understand it, how they'll forever understand it now. And I call that a premise. And we see this everywhere, like very famous premises, like Simon Sinek, people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. Maya Angelou, people will forget what you did, people forget what you said, they'll never forget how you made them feel, right? Those are like really famous examples of premises. But there are these refreshing reframes on a familiar topic.

So we need to embrace like the topics you explore as a communicator or a creator does not differentiate you. And you're not going to out expert someone else. You're not going to out volume someone else, nor should you try. I mean, fine, I guess if you want to, but you're going to make some choices that actually repel business and really burn you out. So while what you explore is commodified, how you see your topic, that's different. And we don't really get in touch with that. And we don't really try to crystallize that. And we don't turn our expertise into IP.

Right. This big idea, this premise, and then all the thinking behind it and around it. But I actually think the model that we should be looking at is much more like the big concept author or yes, keynote speaker or world I came from, where you have this singular premise that you work and work and work and work until you can say it really crisply and people go, my gosh, that blew my mind. Like in a single line. And then you use that concept to create a whole platform of impact.

So you can keep wall of smarts and people and kind of be either more obnoxious to stand out or just more generic. And the source of that general advice doesn't matter, or you can matter more so you can market less. And I think that that's the decision a lot of us are facing right now. That's frankly why I exist. It's the only reason I have a business is people are starting to feel that pain.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

I really liked that. And that's my thing. One of the things I tell people all the time, because you know, I do more for me, a creator is somebody who creates something. So whether you are a speaker, a founder, a YouTuber, a podcaster, a coach, consult, whatever, to me, you are a creator because you create things. Yeah. The thing that I tell creators all the time, especially more traditionally,

Jay Acunzo (:

Mm.

Yeah, the verb matters.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

content creators, which is controversial for a lot of people is people don't follow you for your content. They follow you for you. That's the biggest issue. A lot of people really get tripped up on is because they think, well, this is my niche now, or this is the public facing persona I've created that I now have to like shoehorn myself into. But this version of me took off five years ago. I have since evolved as a person.

Jay Acunzo (:

Mm-hmm.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

My

interests, my obsessions, my skills have all evolved, but I feel like I can't share this piece with the algorithm with my audience as if your audience is a homogenous mass. Right. And it's like anything you've ever said, almost somebody else has said it like at its core, somebody else has already said, right? Like everything's a remix. There's, there's no new stories under the sun, right? There was one story and then everything else remakes from that story. And if you look at anybody,

Jay Acunzo (:

Ha.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

that you follow, you don't follow that person purely because of what they say. Part of it is you feel a connection to that person. And the reason most of the time you feel a connection to that person is somehow related to an imperfection or a messy bit. And that's my thing is like, you shouldn't go over the top to be messy, but I do think it is a disservice to you and the people you're trying to serve.

Jay Acunzo (:

Okay.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

for you to try to round all of those corners of yourself, because those are the things that people are going to connect with the most.

Jay Acunzo (:

Yeah.

Right. You know, it's funny, there's so much that rhymes from my like in-house corporate jobs in content marketing, because I kind of, benefited greatly from and got frustrated a lot because of the rise of content marketing in my career. Then I get out and start doing the independent thing and the creator economy becomes this whole thing. And I'm like, we're just retreading similar steps to what corporates just went through with content marketing, who themselves were retracing similar steps to what media companies did digitally for the rise of digital media.

And the reason I bring that up is, ⁓ I kind of feel like there's this process or wave of like, Hey, they did this and that made me feel good. Then you try to understand the meta. it's like, I'm not going to copy Corey because Corey is Corey I'm Jay, but if I can figure out the structure and the reasons why that worked for Corey, not just what works because that, picks off the

You know, lo-fi thinkers, the people who believe in magic secrets, right? It's like, Hey, I did it and you can too. No, I want to know why that worked. Right. that's interesting. That's why it worked. Now let me repurpose the structure or the reason why over to my world, my specifics. Right. So that's like a healthy form of learning, I think. But then what happens is now you start to try and scale it. And so people then like productize or weaponize this stuff. And in content marketing's rise, that was share helpful content.

And be the or the organization that they choose instead of interrupting the content with your advertising, be the content that they choose. Okay, cool. So I need to out help my competition, but then it became this game of like posturing, like, look how helpful we are instead of genuinely trying to help the audience. And so it became like weaponized. And I see that all over the internet today. Right? I mean, look no further than these like overly sensationalized social media hooks. Right. And it's like, right idea, wrong execution.

You know, it's like right idea, open, strong, intrigue them from the start. Think about open loops, wrong execution. can 10 X your business in 10 seconds with this one simple hack. Who does that work on? Very low FI people, right? I sell services for a non-trivial amount of money. So my services, you know, and also I work on non-trivial pieces of your business. I can't show up and sound trivial. Like I need to be substantive. The channels we play on are rewarding that, right?

So you kind of have this like recurring game of we see somebody do it. Then we go, interesting. Corey has benefited from telling stories involving imperfections. So I need to start finding my imperfections. Right. And then I'm going to turn around and teach others a system for creating imperfections. Right. And I'm like, now we've lost the script. Like, so we're seeing that play out in every tactic and every sense.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

Yeah. And one of my kind of pet theories is that you're also going to see people start to intentionally, ⁓ add typos and grammatical errors to their posts to try to prove AI didn't write. Right. Cause like, thanks.

Jay Acunzo (:

Yeah. Yeah. We're focused on all the wrong shit. We're focused on all the wrong shit.

Someone goes, Jay, I was like, you know, critiquing AI, which by the way is like apparently an offense to people. don't understand. I will never understand this. Why are you so defensive when I critique a technology that you can purchase for a small fee on a monthly subscription basis from a giant company that you don't work for and will not financially benefit from? Why, when I critique AI, is it like I'm critiquing you?

I can explain it. I'm sure you can better because you understand the psychology, but I'm like, it's a tool, man. It's a tool. And in the post, I forget what I said, but they were like, I look forward to competing with you because I'm all about AI and you're saying you only sparingly use it. I look forward to competing with you. And I responded and I'm like, I am so sorry. If that's how you took my message, I guess the compete with me, you're going to rename yourself Jay Akonzo. You're going to have back pain and bad dad jokes.

Everywhere you go, like I'm like, that's the big difference here. It to your point. My friend and handily sums it up best. All this ranting we're doing your from line should matter more than your subject line. That's in handily. Like that's where we're going here. It's like, there is no competition. It's I want Corey or no one I'm arriving because of your taste and your vision and who you are, your premise, how you explore it, your IP. I'm not putting you on a spreadsheet up against 17 other options.

So like some people are trying to compete as a commodity and I'm trying to escape the commodity cage as are my clients, as is my audience, as are you, as are a lot of people. Like don't, the problem is you've been commodified if all you do is share expertise and competency and services and content. Like you need to escape the commodity cage. That's the first step.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

I really liked that. And you know, with the, with the AI thing, right? Everything when the first comes out, it feels, it seems like it's a panacea. It's going to like be a cure all, but I think a lot of people, and you can build an audience of, know, like you said, like sort of, you know, lo fi kind of things. Um, and detrevores, uh, would be the fancier term for it, but,

Jay Acunzo (:

Ooh, tell me more.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

So a detrevor is basically a shit eater. They're like bottom feeders, like bottom drillers, like a detrevor is just, they eat detritus. And it's like, like if you ever seen like a fish tank, like the little, the fish are just like suckers onto the glass. That's like a detrevor. Like that is the fish that eats the shit of all the other fish. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Detrevor. Yeah. Yeah. So

Jay Acunzo (:

ahahaha

You mean they devour a feculence for you Severance fans out there?

Yes.

They subsist on detritus.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

you're going to create, you're going to attract an audience of people who, who are looking for a miracle cure, who are wanting, you know, the same thing repeated to them over and over again, who bookmark this hyper dense infographic that they're never going to use. Right? Like it is the whole thing. It's a version of virtue signaling, but with AI, you can build an incredible quote unquote personal brand, huge audience, also the ship, and you never actually do much work other than prompt engineering.

Right? That's completely, that's a completely viable way to do things right now. And it will only continue to become more viable, but that effectively turns into like the milli vanilla effect, right? Where you're going to attract all these people. And then at some point they're going to realize, I don't know this person. This person has never actually shared themselves.

Jay Acunzo (:

Yeah, right. That's the

Mark Rubin. I combined Mark Cuban and Rick Rubin into one person. It's an exceptional investor and also executive producer, Mark Rubin. No, Mark Cuban was saying that. Like face to face is going to be a huge, huge component of a lot of people's businesses because of the milli-vanilla effect online.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

And that's the thing is just like it, like virtually in a day there, ended because suddenly it, it came across as inauthentic. And that's my thing is as soon as feet, people feel taken advantage of, of I put my trust in you only to realize you weren't you. It is incredibly hard to rebuild trust that has been broken or lost. And for me, man,

Jay Acunzo (:

Yeah, of course. ⁓

Totally. Yeah.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

I write under my name. Everything I do is under my name. Even like my creator alchemy stuff, like it's still creative alchemy with Corey Wilkes or doctor or whatsoever. The reason I do that is every time before I post anything, it has to go through the filter of, I willing to put my reputation on the line to hit publish? That has been an incredible filter for me to make sure I'm only putting things out that I have conviction are worth sharing.

Jay Acunzo (:

Sure.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

They're not always serious. Sometimes it's like a funny little thing, but it's always like, this is an extension of me that I hope will connect with other people in some way rep. Cause early on I did the typical thing of like, okay, this is my, I got this brand name. I got this logo. I hired this professional designer to make the logo. All of my shit has to come from this brand. This like perfectly, you know, manicured thing. And I very quickly realized

Jay Acunzo (:

my goodness, I love this.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

I was trying to shoehorn anything I was trying to say through the voice of this brand. And I was like, I can't, I absolutely can't do this. It's like wearing khakis and a polo going to work. I hate wearing khakis and polos. That's why I wear pajama pants or gym shorts now. It's like, it doesn't feel like me. And when I don't feel like me, I can't bring all of me into the conversation. So I have to realize what I need personally.

Jay Acunzo (:

Yeah.

Right.

You

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

in order to show up fully in everything that I do. And that is one of the things is I have to be able to fully be me. And I think that a lot of people are afraid to fully be themselves because to be fully yourself also means to embrace your imperfections and be willing to share some of that vulnerability with other people, which is terrifying and just it's very exposing.

Jay Acunzo (:

Mm-hmm.

Can we, let's parse this a little bit because I have a real problem with the word authenticity and a problem with the, people deem as the sort of enemy of authenticity, which is they talk about being performative and I get what they're, they mean it pejoratively. There's a, there's an actual meaning under both of these words, but we just say these words that are now losing meaning, authentic and performative. I'm a performer. I am performing right now. I perform on stages. I perform through my writing. I perform when I'm over coffee with a prospective client or an existing client.

I love performance because what you learn to do is use your most defensible assets to serve the audience better, to keep your promises to them better, and also serve your own cause better. And those defensible assets are your perspective, your literal voice, your figurative, like your tone of voice, your stories, your style. And up on a stage, I know how to almost puppeteer myself. When you give a lot of speeches, all of a sudden you have a talk track going in your head for the speech.

And then there's a second narrator that you can control, which is about how the speech is going and micro moves you can make in the room to react to something or customized to the room or whatever. Right? Like I know here's what I'm saying and how I'm going to deliver it and perform it. But also I'm like, Ooh, this is going terribly. I should do this differently. Or, wow, this is going great. Or, Hey, there's a curtain behind me. I'm going to use that as a prop. That happens after you've really internalized your speaking.

But people take speaking to mean, the content of the slides or the performance on the stage. I'm like, kind of, but there's also this other thing that's hard for me to articulate, which is, you using all the gifts and ideas and things about you consciously, strategically, and practicing it consciously and strategically so that eventually it becomes subconscious. Like it's, it seems effortless, but it took a lot of effort to get to the point where it seems effortless, right?

ad. Why? Because I'm alive in:

because I have tiny kids and I very rarely feel like the best of me, all these other reasons, but you didn't hire me to show up less than you hired me to deliver a service of some kind. Now that might mean a literal consulting or coaching service or an accelerator you're taking from me, or it might mean I want Jay to be awesome. Cause I'm an attendee at an event and I'm now watching him speak. And so I'm much more focused on that. I'm much more focused on how can I be of use? How can I keep my promises because I'm a professional.

And now I want to be able to draw upon all of me, but consciously and be like, Nope, setting that aside. OOP, got to amp that up. Yep. That's going to be as is. That's the type of authenticity I want is like, you're able to draw upon or be comfortable with your imperfections. Friend of mine, Ron tight says it's just being comfortable with your imperfections. That's authentic, right? It doesn't mean I'm going to shove my imperfections or moments of vulnerability at you. So I think that's an important nuance.

⁓ This idea of like performative bad authentic good. It's like, well, what do we mean by those things? Really? I think that matters

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

For sure. And I think that the issue people get tripped upon like with being performative is oftentimes performative implies a fake of like you're being over-dramaticized and you're distorting reality to a misleading degree sometimes, but being performative, like performing and exuding a presence that you're doing on purpose in order to move people or to do this or to that.

That's very different, right? And like, you know, we contain multitudes. The person I am in my little private group chat with my friends I've had for 20 years, that is the reason we would probably never be able to get elected for politics, which at this point is a low fuck bar. But like we say fucked up shit in the message, right? In the group chat that I still say it like now is the low bar, but, it's like the jokes and the, the super dark twist of humor that we share in that group chat.

Jay Acunzo (:

Hmm.

wouldn't matter now anymore.

Yeah.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

not

something I'm going to make a YouTube video about, right? The person I am with my fiance, very different than if I'm giving a speech or something, right? However, I am my most authentic self in each of these. The difference is,

Jay Acunzo (:

Yeah, totally.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

given the context, what is the most authentic version of me in that moment? Because we contain multitudes, right? You are never the exact same person ever. Like you go to library versus a club, you're the same person, but based on that context, you're, you know, nobody's twerking at the library or like, you know, or checking out, you know, it's, shit like that. Hopefully I don't know. I don't know what the library is, but for you, but I look at it as like what I call tactical vulnerability. Tactical vulnerability for me is

Jay Acunzo (:

Right. Yeah.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

What is an aspect of my own story, my own experiences that is a little vulnerable is a little imperfect is a little very human that is relevant tactically in this moment that I can use to either build a connection with this other person to illustrate a point that or to create a metaphor that this person will leave with and it can like they can apply to their life. It isn't trauma dumping. It isn't

being fake. isn't, you know, Hey, feel sorry for me. And I think that like, like you touched on, like, that's a really, really important nuance when we're talking about being a performer, but also being authentic. And how do we bring our most authentic selves to the situation in so far as we need to, to affect the change we're trying to affect. That's a very deep conversation that I don't see people have.

Jay Acunzo (:

Correct. Yes.

Yeah, I mean, let's marry two ideas from two thinkers. quote a lot, Anthony Bourdain and I were glass, Anthony Bourdain. Um, he talks about like being the type of person who thinks that your story is worth paying attention to. And I don't think he meant like my, my story written in all caps. Like a lot of people say like, need to tell my story. I'm like, no, you tell lots of stories. Like, and yeah, tell your backstory, but that's one of many stories you tell possibly informed by or inspired by your life. Like my story, what do you mean? Um, and so.

When he talks about, says, it's who thinks that you could tell a story that people would pay for, would pay attention to, would return after the commercial break for, or would pick up the book and, and read it. That's not rational thinking. He calls you, you have to be a monster of self-regard. And he wasn't decrying that he wasn't critiquing that he was saying like, what you need to do my friends is be a little delusional that you can. That your stories are worth telling and that you construct them out of a place of generosity. Right?

⁓ so I want to marry that idea to something else that hourglass said, which is great stories happen to those who can tell them. What he means is not the only people who are struck by lightning or launch a billion dollar business had some inherent gift for storytelling. That's not what he means. Of course. And anyone who hears that line isn't assuming that I hope what he means is stories don't happen to you. Life happens to you. And then you put your butt in the chair and craft those memories and moments into stories.

And in the crafting of the story, you immediately out of necessity, because there's no other way, become inauthentic. You could have the greatest intention. You could want to report exactly what you saw, beat for beat. You could want to be the best documentarian in the world. And you are still inauthentic because you've put a lens and distance and time and a different setting involved in the audience, watching that on camera from their couch. And they weren't there.

I can tell the story of Corey as a signature story in my next keynote. And it is I'm compressing a lifetime into my runtime. We are using all the tools, the great and powerful tools of creativity and storytelling and production to convey not exactly a transcript of my life, but meaning. And I am much more interested in how to convey and create meaning than I am in how to convey exactly what happened, exactly how I'm feeling in this moment, whatever.

If it calls for that, I'm going to, yes, I'm going to show you and help you feel how I'm feeling. Cause you know, that's what's missing in many stories is you think it's about something newsworthy. No, it's about something noteworthy and then how you felt about it. Right. Tell something. Here's what happened. Reflect on it. Here's what happened next. Reflect on it. And so we got to get out from this idea that like, ⁓ okay. Corey and Jay are people I respect and I heard vulnerability. heard authenticity. I heard bring all of myself. So here's a picture of me crying.

because of something terrible that happened in my life on LinkedIn and some kind of motivational caption. That is not, not what we're saying. What I'm saying unfolds in the minutia. I'm like, I'm working with a client right now and she's telling a story. the opener of her speech is about, her friend and her wedding dress. She's, she's in the, ⁓ the fashion industry and her, she's got this awesome premise that, ⁓ fit in fashion isn't technical. It's relational. And I love that. That's her refreshing reframe on a familiar topic.

And so I'm working with Alison on our speech and she's got this opening story about her best friend, Rachel. And she was talking about the opening lines were something like, six years ago, ⁓ my friend, Rachel and I, my best friend and I, had to make a choice. And it was one those choices that can make or break your friendship, maybe even your friend's life. And then she pivots to the line. We had to pick her wedding dress. So that's the content delivered flatly. And she gave me a rehearsal, which was flat. And I said,

How do you feel by that opening line and the pivot to the reveal that it's about her wedding dress? And she goes, I'm a little worried that I'm misleading the audience. Like I was building up this monumental thing that could make or break a life. And then I say, it was her dress. And I was like, point taken. Don't get stuck in the middle. That's what a lot of people do. They get stuck in the middle. like, you either need to deliver it literally in flat and risk what happens if you do, or you got to go all the way in your performance and execution speech or otherwise.

I was like, what you got to do is build up that tension more, be in on the joke and be like, six years ago, my best friend and I had to make a choice. It was one of those choices that once you face it with a friend, you're never the same again. And if you choose incorrectly, it could destroy a friendship. Nay, a life. We had to choose her wedding dress. Who gets it? You get it. You get it. Right. That's a much better. Now that is wildly.

hilariously inauthentic. That's not what happened, but it's how it felt. Right? So if you're drawing your authenticity from the action of the story, wrong move, my friend. If you're drawing it from how you felt about the action of the story or the lesson you derive from it, now we're talking. That's what you want to do.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

I love that so much. And like, it kind of makes me think of, uh, I think Derek Sivers, talked about the difference between being useful and factual is like, for example, you might, you know, you've probably heard that like porcupines can throw their quills. They can't, that is not factual, but it is useful to believe to a certain point because it keeps you from fucking with porcupines. Right. And it's like, obviously you don't want to lie to people, but like you said, like it doesn't have to be factual to be true.

Jay Acunzo (:

Mm. Right. Yeah.

You ⁓

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

And I think that's a really, really key pieces. you said, it's like telling a story period, conveying chronological events isn't a story, but it's what we think is a story.

Jay Acunzo (:

Correct.

Yes. my goodness. Okay. Now this is great. I mentioned I miss the feel of the flower. If I worked as a manager at a corporation, this is the feel of the flower. Let's get into it. So we've been learning story since we were kids. And then we communicate just like a series of actions and call that a story as adults. And, what's sort of missing is a level of imagination. That's a different hour long conversation between us, but, ⁓

A lot of people will just say this happened, then this happened, then this happened. I'm like, those are series of facts or statements. That's not a story. A story has four building blocks. And the way to remember it is to remember the itsy bitsy spider. If you want to be a better storyteller, just remember the itsy bitsy spider. There are four parts of that story. The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout. Down came the rain and washed the spider out. Out came the sun and dried up all the rain and the itsy bitsy spider did the damn thing. Right? Like that is the four parts. Number one.

Status quo. This happened. Number two, tension. Something threatens the status quo, which means it's threatening the desire that the protagonist or character had. So here's the status quo. There's a character in a setting, in a place, and they want something. Then there's a threat to that something or a question, an obstacle, a setback. That's the rain coming out. But then third, there's a turning point, something you didn't expect or something surprising or refreshing, or maybe something dire.

But either way, good or bad or both, the turning point forces your character to persist despite the tension or to resolve it. So you have the status quo. Where did it begin? What did they want? Et cetera. Action, action, action, the tension, the obstacles, the setbacks, the questions, the tension, the turning point, which addresses the tension and improves the forward action. And then the resolution. The it's a bit, the spider went up the spout again. And if you just remember the building blocks.

My advice to you is take any memory or moment from your life and just word vomit on the page. Be completely unfiltered and bad. And then look at that maybe after a little break and then find the four building blocks. Cause then you can decide to play from there. Then you can build. You're like, Ooh, I need more details of what happened in that moment of tension or wow. There is no tension here. It's not really a story. It's like tension is the carbon element for storytelling. No carbon, no life, no tension, no story.

And so this is not like some kind of gift you were given at birth. This is a craft and like any craft you can learn to master it. But ultimately what I just gave you that four part kind of building block structure, it's scaffolding. Like eventually the scaffolding falls away and you just have Corey's tower. You just have like the cathedral of Nancy. You just, build what you're going to build the way you're going to build it. And over time you do it more and more naturally, but you can always return to the scaffolding if you need to get better.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

In your experience, I know we'll kind of end with this question. In your experience.

What is the biggest mental block that holds people back from telling the story only they can tell?

Jay Acunzo (:

There's this paradox that all communicators face. And it's really acute when you start telling stories, the paradox is if you want to connect deeper externally, you have to turn deeper internally, meaning it's not the action of the story that makes it great, makes it connect. And we think that we think a story is like this giant dragging a club through the earth and we walk out of our homes and it clubs us on the head. And we're like, I got a great story. I sold the company for a billion dollars.

I have this massive trauma in my life and now I have a story or whatever, right? We get into the mode of like my story or newsworthy story, but the best storytellers don't need to experience anything extraordinary because they know how to find and imbue meaning into the ordinary. Right. And so, but that has to require that internal reflection. Like first you have to be a noticer of things. Then you have to feel those things. Then you have to construct both what you notice and how you felt about it.

into a story. And especially when we think of the storytelling as part of our marketing, part of our livelihood in some way, we hold that at arm's length. Like we communicate in clip art, which is like, I went to the store or my bad boss, that's clip art. You know, they can picture a boss in their head, but I got to create theater of their mind here. I need more vivid description and more emotional detail and a resonance with them. So we go one level down. We communicate in stock photography. We're like, it's my surly boss.

He had this mustache that he loved. He always wore suspenders. He never listened to a soul. Okay. That's still kind of generic stock photography, right? What's a, what's a vivid story, right? Like give me the actual, vivid story. I worked with this surly boss, always wore suspenders. No one could ever give him any feedback on literally anything, work or life. He was just so quick to shoot everybody down. We just couldn't stand the guy. Here's the best part. He had this mustache. He was really clearly proud of the left side was always longer than the right.

So anyways, old left-leaning Larry walked into my office one day. Now I've given you three or four lines and you've created a whole world involving the character, what he's wearing, what he might sound like. I've enrolled you as a co-director, not the audience, right? Because I had to go deeper internally. How did I feel about that guy? What did I sense? What do I remember? What indelible images do I have that I can convey? So it's a paradox. If you want to connect deeper externally,

You have to turn deeper internally. We can't do that by numbing ourselves and stuffing every moment of our lives with a screen or following a checklist. We have to get in touch with how we really feel about something and then convey it publicly.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

I love that so much. I have so many other things I want to talk to you about, but we, I was gonna say, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Would love that. I've saw so many other things. Residents overreach, build IP over the, over just, you know, creating content. Don't be the best, be their favorite dude. I fucking love these like just little pithy, just like conic bits of you because like it's just, it's a great example of like, it's possible to distill your part of your messaging, your positioning down to these like very relatable, uh, memorable.

Jay Acunzo (:

I'll come back. I'd love to get back.

Hahaha

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

just phrases that I fucking love because it's like, I agreed and believed each of these, but you just, you you distilled it to a three words half the time. Fucking love it.

Jay Acunzo (:

Yes.

Let you know what, let's, let's

hang for a few more minutes. Cause I think what you just touched on really matters. Do you want to try that? You just mentioned all these. I actually call that laddering down where you're trying to get deeper with someone and create a deeper connection, but you got to meet them where they're at. And they're at the surface level understanding or surface level relationship with you even. Right. And so what you can do to develop a sharper message, a more influential platform, even a better speech or a better podcast episode, ladder down your ideas.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

Okay, sure.

Jay Acunzo (:

by trying to find three distinct phrases. The first phrase meets them at the surface. They start on the ladder down into the depths of your thinking. And you want to give them some kind of simple reframe that changes their focus slightly in a way that's obvious that they know they want. You are a leader. You're going to give them what you know they need, but you got to ensure they want it. So you need to secure little moments of agreement. You do this in a speech. A speech secures little moments of agreement, beat to beat. People miss that. So their speeches fall flat. You're creating an argument.

to adopt your thinking as their own, right? So the first, I would say to the world, don't market more, matter more. That's a simple reframe. You are already marketing. You are already marketing a lot, maybe. You're already thinking, I wish I mattered more. And when I say that immediately, you're like, I agree. Now that might be profound in and of itself. I hope it sounds relatively useful, but everyone's kind of like, yeah, no shit, Sherlock, right? But it's still like, yes, okay. You're speaking my language. Don't market more, matter more.

And it's somewhat differentiates me from say people who preach like create more content at scale or take one big asset and chunk it into tiny little clips. Right. Don't market more matter more. We're going to rethink our focus very slightly on the surface. You're going to start down this ladder with me. I follow it up by saying, and here's how here's my premise for my whole platform. The next phrase down the next rung of the ladder. Once I get that initial moment of agreement is think resonance overreach.

If you want to matter more, so you can hustle for attention less. If you want more of your work to work, you don't have a reach problem. It's not about getting in front of more people. It's about ensuring everywhere you show up, they deeply care. Reach is how many see it. Resonance is how much they care. By the way, resonance is what sparks action. Action is what leads to revenue. So if you want revenue, what's required isn't reach. It's actually resonance that's required for revenue. So that's my entire platform's premise. It's the how of it all.

The way I see my topic of marketing and mattering is think resonance overreach. Now, if I just led with that, some people will agree. Some people will debate me, but I need to start with a moment of agreement that shifts your objective and focus slightly. Then I can take you one rung down to my premise. Think resonance overreach. The third rung down is how do I extrapolate out from my premise? What is the best case outcome of embracing my premise, my assertion for how this should go for you?

If we're on board and you work with me or you adopt my ideas and use them in your own life, whether I hear from you or not, the best case outcome, the peak of the mountain you're marching towards, don't be the best, be their favorite. Everyone's trying to project on the best on the academic right choice. That's not how people pick. They make emotional choices and they rationalize later. You're not the number one in the category. You're not the academically correct answer to their problems. You need to tap the personal emotional reasons they would care.

Don't be the best, whatever the heck that means in our work, be their favorite, their personal preferred pick for a specific purpose. That is the most defensible outcome of your marketing. That is the peak of mattering more. You matter so much. You've resonated so deeply that you're their favorite. Don't be the best, be their favorite. That's hard to get on board with if I just came out and said that and that alone. So I need to construct an argument for that. So I go up one level and I go, the how you're going to focus on resonance more than reach. Why? cause you're marketing a lot.

Maybe you should matter more instead of marketing more. you hustle for attention less. So those three phrases are my entire platform summarized and it's actually a process. It's three rungs of the ladder from the easiest yes to the best possible outcome that might take some parsing if I just said it too soon. So you can't, you got to get the argument right.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

I love it so much. like, the reason, you know, I wanted to have you on is because you are real. You are no bullshit. And like, you're not afraid to like disagree. Like even, even on today's show, like you, you effectively dis like respectfully disagreed. You're like, Hey, with the authenticity thing, like I think it's actually this over here. Right. And we, ended up, we, agree, right? We just, have like very slight little perspectives, like, but we're both agreeing on that. Right. And I love that that is

Jay Acunzo (:

Yeah, yeah.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

just who you seem to be like you are real. You are honest. You, you aren't a yes, man. You aren't a lemming following whatever quote unquote best practices are supposed to be. You embody your own IP that you've built and honestly, man, like, personally, like the fact that the concept of don't just create content, build IP fundamentally shifted how I approach everything that I do. And I'm eternally grateful for you for just that.

Jay Acunzo (:

Yeah.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

one fucking phrase, right? Like, like, like legitimately, man, like I'm very grateful. Um, and I'm, I'm glad that we've been able to, to build some of a relationship, you know, from online to now talking, um, on and off, you know, over a quarter call. Um, I deeply appreciate the work you do and the time, you know, we've been able to spend together. Uh, you are launching another cohort to help people do things like this. Correct. Can you tell us more about that?

Jay Acunzo (:

Thank you. Thank you.

Yes, correct. Yep.

Yeah. I mean, ⁓ I work with pretty experienced people, folks who are not just beginning and trying to find a way to like start sharing stuff. People who've been sharing things a while. I like to joke, like you've done a lot of things now you're trying to be a thing. ⁓ and so for the past couple of years, taking all my IP to use the phrase that you said you appreciate, ⁓ taking all the IP I've had with clients and my own speaking and trying to find a way to work in a cohort setting.

t at the beginning of August,:

big events season. And I think more to the point of like everybody, whether you're going to give webinars, keynotes, or no talks, but you just want to be a better communicator. Fall tends to be when we're like, all right, I'm back in the saddle. Like, how do I do this thing that I was trying to do before? And so that's coming up at the beginning of August. It's a public speaking accelerator for very ambitious, but busy professionals.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

And then where can people go to find out more about that?

Jay Acunzo (:

Just go to jaykunzo.com,

subscribe to the newsletter at the top. That's where early bird pricing is happening. And I'll start to put out more visible and public signals once I open it up to non-subscribers. So if my subscribers get the first crack at both the discount and the cohort, if I can fill the cohort with my email list, great, I will.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

Awesome. And then I'll have links in the show notes of everything. And then the last thing you also have a podcast. Can you tell us more about that real quick?

Jay Acunzo (:

Thanks. Appreciate you.

I do.

Yes. I mean, if you liked what I was doing, like it's a bit spider stuff and the laddering down and all this nerdery, I do that both in solo episodes, but also with other exceptional storytellers of all kinds, but people who use their storytelling and messaging and their public speaking for a cause, a business or a cause. And so we get really close to the weeds. I'll go back to that phrase, feel of the flower. That's what that show is for is like hearing people in action.

sharing stories, dissecting them, sharing messages, how did you come at that? How does it work, et cetera? My goal is to help people bridge this gap from learning story, which is very easy, to actually being a storyteller, which requires more of you and more of the minutiae, not just some pristine playbook that somebody gives you. So it's a really close look at the craft. Seth Godin shared a story.

that he's written about several times and then like chopped it up and made sense of it with me. I'm pretty sure that guy's been on 10,000 podcasts and has never done that before. So I'm really proud. The show's called How Stories Happen.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

Fantastic. Any parting words?

Jay Acunzo (:

Keep making what matters. There's a lot of people who are compromising away what they feel truly matters, their ideas, et cetera. Like everyone's like, what works on a channel? What works out there? What do they want me to say? What do you have to say? It's hard to show up as a commodity, just doing everything that everyone else is doing. Cause you not have to shout louder, hype harder, race faster. That's hard, but it's also hard. It's, it's just as hard to say I have conviction around my ideas. Now my hard work is what stories do I need?

What messaging gets people to see what I see? What, you know, three rungs of the ladder gets them down all the way with me. Either side is hard, but only one side feels like it fulfills you and only one side is defensible. And that's bringing conviction to your ideas and learning to package and communicate your ideas to resonate. Like I call that inside out thinking. We need more inside out thinkers. We need more high conviction communicators. We have enough mediocrity being produced at scale.

Corey Wilks, Psy.D. (:

love it so much. was literally taking notes as you were talking today. So I really hope people enjoy this episode. Jay, dude, thank you so much for taking the time. I very much appreciate it. And I would I'd love to have you on again. We'll we'll make it happen. All right.

Jay Acunzo (:

Such, such a fun conversation, man. Let's do it. We'll go deeper. Yeah.

About the Podcast

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Creator Alchemy
Psychological insights to transform your business, your life, and yourself.

About your host

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Corey Wilks, Psy.D.

Psychologist and Coach sharing psychological insights to help you transform your business, your life, and yourself. Check out more resources at https://coreywilkspsyd.com/