Jay Acunzo helps mission-driven professionals become masterful storytellers. On this episode, he shares the elements of a podcast that help a show connect with their listeners. He also shares some tips on taking your audio experience to the next level.

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MYP fam what's going on.

My name is Hector Santistevan.

I am your host and I get way too geeked up about creating amazing podcasts that

can fuel your lifestyle and your business.

And I've been producing and promoting podcasts for almost a half decade now.

And this show is to help you learn the things that do and

do not work when it comes to marketing and monetizing your post.

And my guest today is Jay Kenzo.

And he's the host of unthinkable and a creator who has done exactly

what we were just talking about.

He spent the last several years, creating amazing podcasts, living in

an awesome lifestyle and building a successful business all alongside it.

And this interview talks about some of the realities that come along with

being a creator and how he's been able to navigate some of the challenges

that a ton of podcasters face.

And I think that you're going to be surprised when you hear what his best

tip for growing his show is, but enough rambling for me, let's get into today's

interview with Jay Kenzo host of one.

All right.

MYP fam.

Welcome Jay Kenzo to the show, Jay.

Thanks for joining us..

Thanks for having me.

Jay, your show is the unthinkable show.

And I'd love for you to give us the Well, first off, I love that it's a

show and a lot of people, I think, think of their podcast is just a

podcast, but I love that you put that in the title, that it is a show.

And so I'd love to hear eventually, if that's a part of it, if you think of it

as something more than just a podcast, catch us up on the show, how it got

here, you can share whatever you think is relevant, but you're killing it.

You're crushing it.

So, give us the backstory.

Thanks.

Every day is a struggle.

So let's, we can dive into the crushing and killing part cause I I'm here now

and I thought once I got here where I'm at, it would be a lot easier.

It turns out.

Nope, I'm just here now.

Cool.

What's next?

A lot of hard.

So let's just pause there.

Yeah.

The name of the show is just unthinkable and the Twitter handles

on thinkable show, but started in 2016, I was working for a venture

capital firm as their VP of content, running a show for their brand too.

And I just wanted my own personal laboratory for creativity.

And at the time being in marketing specifically content marketing, there

was a lot of commodity stuff because it's going to sound a lot like today.

Honestly, there's just a lot of junk content being published in high

volumes from brands and individuals.

And, I always wished that this phrase, content marketing, word content never

got its to, it was always about the marketing of content, not creating

something worth marketing, right?

The goal is not to grow followers.

It's to create something worth following

it's like it's actually, that's not the goal.

The goal is to serve people better and out pops, whatever metric you're looking at.

I wanted to create a show which questioned best practices specific then to marketing.

And so I started telling all these stories and doing these like high

production, narrative style episodes with multiple voices and sound design

and music, again, trying to treat it like my personal laboratory.

And over the years, as I talked to my audience, it kind of moved around.

It was like, well, you're an accountant.

Why are you listening to a show?

That's about marketing.

Oh, because you're, disillusioned by best practices.

Okay.

I see.

Maybe that is truly the thrust of the show, but not applied to

marketing, applied to the business world, applied to our careers.

Two and a half years later, I wrote a book called break the wheel using

a lot of the material from the show.

And a lot of what I learned that was about questioning best practices

and all the problems there.

Uh, The problems with best practices that is.

And so that's been the show for quite a while.

We sorta take a problem, take a big theme or big question that Google

can't answer and launch like a year's long investigation publicly.

And instead of having it be really tactical, how to it's very story-driven

show as a way of sort of being a Trojan horse, where in the moments where

you need inspiration or you feel like listening to something interesting

or uplifting or a story that helps you think critically about the world.

You know, I like to say I'm doing my best Anthony Bordain impression and my world

and my style when you need nuance and to weight into the messiness of your work.

And you'd like to elevate that.

Well, a tip, a trick, a hack, a cheat.

That's not going to cut it anymore.

So let me use this story as a Trojan horse, where you feel entertained, you

feel inspired, you feel your fields, but buried in that are important

insights or moments or space that lets you think critically about

what you're doing with your work.

That you can maybe shift your perspective and see the world better, which means

the next time you go to ship anything, you're going to show up better.

And so that's currently how the show runs.

I mentioned questioning best practices today.

We're exploring something else which is resonance.

Everyone's obsessed with reach.

I get it.

But residents is it.

Resonance is what matters.

Reaches a proxy, reaches a first step.

It doesn't matter how many people know you exist.

If they don't care, how do you create things people care about

and also that you care about?

I have no idea.

Let's go exploring.

Let's go exploring residents and maybe a book comes out of that too.

Yeah, what's interesting is the more that I've done this show, and I

started out being a tactics driven show.

I've realized that the real way to grow a show is just to create a better show.

unfortunately, I've just had to find lots of ways to say that and make that sexy.

So I want to come back to this resonance thing, but what I really enjoyed

about your show is you mentioned the high production of it, and

it is an audio experience and it's an hour long audio experience.

You do some shorter kind of, rants that are, more akin to what most

people from the business world might put together for their podcasts.

But I'd love for you to take us back to why you decided to put all of this

focus on the production aspect of it.

And, how you handled that?

Did you learn the sound design and kind of figure out how to do all this editing?

Was it an outsourcing thing why did you decide to do that?

And then how did you actually make that happen?

The show is really a Testament to what I think most of the creative world

needs to hear in many ways, which is it's a practice it's trial and error.

You know, You talk to some of the world's best and Some of them have

formal training, but none of them have formal training and no practice.

And they're successful.

At some point you've got to muck around, you got to make mistakes,

you've got to learn on your own.

And so I think I'm fortunate in that.

A lot of privilege in my life.

And a lot of supporting people in my life who gave me the confidence to say

that thing I love from someone I admire.

Yeah.

I want to make that instead of, oh, I could never write that's delusional, but

I think it's a useful form of delusion that, that creative people can harness

to say, I understand what great work.

But my skills do not allow me to bring it forth quite yet.

At least not to match what's in my head.

I read glass famously called this the gap.

There's a gap between your taste and your skills.

And the only way to close that gap is to do a lot of work.

So like the sound design.

it's still pretty crude in some instances.

And I look back and I cringe at recent episodes, but for the most

part, when I go way back in the catalog, I'm like this Was a blunt

instrument approach to adding music.

It was like me trying to prove to the world, look, we have

music, I have sound design.

I have production value.

It wasn't a tactful artful enhancing

well, Form of using music or sound.

And so how do you get better game tape?

You do a thing, you consume it as your audience might.

I love going for a walk and in equal ways, celebrating the fact that I

made a thing and I wanted it to exist.

And now it does.

And also critiquing that thing and figuring out where do I get

bored or what sounded too cringy?

Where did I hit somebody over the nose?

A little bit too much.

It's like somebody said something sad and I played somber music.

Was that appropriate or not?

So it's just.

Extrapolated out over a long period of time.

So I think it's those two things.

And I think we need to embrace that tiny little incremental

improvements, episode to episode or rep to rep whatever you're creating

extrapolated out over lots of time.

That to me is how creative people get better.

And I have miles to go.

I mean, I am not even in the territory I want to be in, but I am definitely

not in the territory I started in.

And it's just one step after another.

That's it?

There's no.

Was there a moment where you realized that it could go anyway, either

where you realize that you had come a long way with regards to sound design

so many people they interview someone, maybe they do some basic leveling with

audio and they throw it up on there.

But.

Adding sound effects or adding these different things.

Was there a moment where you go like, oh, this is kind of cool or, wow.

I really have to learn, because I'm not where I need to be.

I think it's when I started thinking in sound or thinking in aural, I mean,

a U R a L moments instead of voice.

I'll give you an example.

We did an episode called gravy, which is about actually a beer brewery in

Vermont called the Alchemist brewery.

And they have a very famous IPA called heady topper.

At least if you're in new England, like I am, it's very famous here, heady

topper, and they experienced quite a bit of tragedy as a business . Their brew

pub totally flooded in a freak storm.

There's no floods in their area of Vermont and it happened to them.

And I thought to myself, like if this were a movie or a TV show, like it'd be kind

of cool to have a black screen for a time.

And you hear the sounds of the storm.

Then you hear sounds of like things crashing and breaking, and then you hear

like some music kind of come in and it starts ominous and then it fades out.

And what you start hearing before you see any visuals are birds chirping,

almost like to suggest, the dawning of a new day and the sun coming out.

And my first words I remember as a narrator were something

like it's weird, isn't it?

The morning after a bad storm can seem really nice.

Like last night, a portal to another time, just opened up and dumped out a bunch

of debris and broken branches and stuff.

And it doesn't quite match the feeling you have walking out into that sunny day.

Like the destruction.

Yeah.

Because I wanted to create that dichotomy of like this isn't a revered brand in

their space and they have passionate fans.

It seems like it's going well.

They had such a terrible moment and like, let me mess with that tension a

little bit, but through sound instead of just my voice and my voice will come up.

And that episode was years ago and I've repurposed it so people can

find it not too buried in the feed.

And it was that moment.

I feel like that kind of defines the difference between me being like

a soundboard operator on a morning show with like the cheap sound

effects, like a car horn beeping or something, or a duck quacking.

And me trying to actually like use sound and music to help tell the story.

Yeah, it seems that I'm drawn to podcasts and audio because I never had

the face of the good looks for Instagram.

So always eliminated a medium or an obstacle.

Right?

I think one of the guys from Radiolab, he said at podcast movement

the other day that like, that's your job to put that together.

The listener's job is to create that image.

But what you're saying, and what I'm hearing is that outside of voice.

That's one tool.

That's one element that you can use, but within sound, you can use

music, you can use sound effects, you can use these different things

to heighten or enhance the experience that you're trying to give to your.

Yeah.

A lot of people, they take sound and music and they treat it like chocolate drizzled

onto whatever it is they're making.

And sometimes chocolate does not add anything to this other times.

It's a great addition, but if what you're drizzling onto Is crap.

You just have some chocolate he crap, and this is what I did early on.

It's like, I wanted you to know unlike all the business shows that I compete

with, or you might categorize me like people understand genre, right?

So it's like, unlike the genre that I occupy expect something different,

hopefully that means better to the listeners I'm trying to serve.

And I was trying to just basically tell them that, albeit I didn't

say It out loud, but that's really what's coming through.

When I listened back to like early sound designer.

But also what was coming through was like the intention was

to get to where I'm at today.

But my current intention is to get to where I want to

be, in six years from now.

So it's a constant process.

And I've had the good fortune of interviewing and chatting with some

really, really good sound designers, like folks that have done stuff for like 99%

invisible and, shows of that caliber.

They have some heuristics.

A lot of it is just going to made up.

Like I talked to James T.

Green recently, and they have something called muxture muxture.

Mux is the shorthand for music and production, mux and texture.

So it's like a mixture music, texture.

And they were explaining to me like some heuristics that have guided

them through this sound design experiences over the years, but even

James is it's profoundly feel and listening back and trying things on.

It's like trying to get the right fit of clothing onto your body.

The body is what you need to start with an understanding of what are you

saying and why, what's the content?

And then what you're trying on with the clothes.

It has to fit somehow.

And sometimes you've got to try on a bunch of shirts before you nail it.

And sometimes you have an idea of your style and sometimes you don't.

Right?

So there's like a little bit that you can do before.

But a lot of it is you got to put on the clothes and people do is they wear

cartoonish, outlandish Hawaiian shirts when it's not appropriate to do so.

Like that's the addition of music and sound when maybe the

story itself didn't warrant it, you don't necessarily know what.

Yeah.

It sound your main tool to effect that resonance that you're talking about.

No.

And I'm fascinated by the fact that we started this way

and spent so much time on it.

Cause I almost never talk about this publicly I mean, maybe

it's a big piece of the show and the way people latch onto it.

That's great.

grateful . For me It's it's narration it's story.

It's.

And so the, like my shows are written.

And a lot of the moments you're hearing me hopefully sound improv.

There's some moments you're like, Jay's reading a script here, but there's some

moments where I'm riffing and I'm either riffing off the script or the words

themselves are being delivered like an actor would off, taking the script

off the page and putting it publicly.

So yeah, I think a lot of this is truly the story.

It's actually the combination or interplay, I should say, between the.

Not just the topics I'm exploring, but how like the hook, the Y the

premise of the show, and then the story structure, like how I'm actually

increasing tension or adding questions on your mind, and then resolving them.

And then the undulation, the movement up and down of that tension, spiking tension

relieving, simple stories revolve around one question or one moment of tension.

No story means there is no tension, but complicated

production has a lot of moments.

I'd love to drill down into that because I found that.

I do a lot of work in interview shows.

And a lot of times, obviously mine is an interview show, but

a lot of the production that I do is for interview shows and

there hardest shows to both edit.

And I would imagine listen to, are the ones that lack that story.

And they lack that arc and they go all over.

I've been working with our hosts to incorporate, or to at least

have a sense of the story arc when they are doing interviewing.

But how, can podcasters, who are maybe, they're doing interviews or they're using.

How do they blend a story or, give this kind of arc that you talked about

with a lot of times the conversation.

Think of the most gripping conversations you've ever had.

I mean, think of the most gripping interviews you've ever heard,

like you're so immersed in it.

And I think what people don't understand is like the structure to a great interview

is not intro 40 minute interview outro.

That's not a plan.

That's not a structure.

Nor is it walking into that 40 minutes with research.

That's.

Plan either.

What is the arc?

What is the flow?

You'll hear great interviewers every so often say we're going

to get to that in a little bit.

It's like, oh, they have a plan where you hear them.

Like, say like, that's the next section?

Like, oh, they have sections.

You don't know what's there every storyteller, whether it's implicit

and by gut feel because they've done it or they're great at it.

Or they've planted out every storyteller, interviewer, et cetera.

Communicator has good structure and it's on us to get better

too steal that structure.

I call this performing an extraction, go to your favorite thing in the world.

Doesn't matter if it's there or not.

If it's segmented, like it's on the screen, like a sports talk

show, they say, show you the segments, or it's hidden from view.

It's one end to end interview or one end to end episode or story.

Try to jot down in your notebook.

Here's the timestamp of that moment.

Here's what they do.

And let me guess it, why that advanced the story?

Why did that grip me?

What service did this do to the audience?

And so when I needed to find a structure for unthinkable, I took a notebook.

I sat down with my favorite storyteller.

I've mentioned him already, Anthony Bordain.

If you follow me around in different interviews, I can't stop talking

about the guy because I think he does these gray areas, stories really well,

and probably didn't have a recurring structure, but I needed one to guide me.

So I just stole what I thought was a structure under one

of my favorite episodes.

And so when you have that plan, You now know in the interview, even

if you're not telling kind of a narrative story, but in the interview,

you're going to ask questions that raise or resolve that tension.

Right.

And it could be the dramatic performance or lead up to the question, which is

something that is under utilized by a lot of interviewers, or it could

be the ordering of your questions because you have a purpose and you

have a plan, but without that, you're completely exposed to the guests.

Not performing, not showing up.

And when the guest does that, when they're not telling stories, they're not

gripping or when the flow of the interview is bland, that is not the subjects

fault as a host and an interviewer.

That is your fault.

It's your show.

So you have to guide the experience.

So how are you guiding it?

If you can't tell me that you have work to do before you head to the next.

Yeah, this is great stuff.

In affirms my research here.

I think you're just telling me how great of a host I am with my plan here,

Jay, the next section that I wanted get into is you're coming up on, maybe

a thousand episodes, maybe more over all the shows that you've worked on.

What are some, what I would call the non-negotiables or, the things that

you have systematize or, the things that are kind of in the ethos of that

are built into all of your episodes that you make sure that you just make sure.

I think what you're getting at is like, what are the elements necessary to

bring that episode to life, but better.

Well, There's standards that you have.

There's standards whether it's through storytelling or in production that you

have in your head that, we're gonna make sure that we do this because

this is what leads to creating.

right.

A show that creates resonance.

what do you feel are those elements that you kind of, make sure in

there to create that residence?

Sure.

I always said that the best interviewers you could just

tell them the premise of the.

Literally no other content necessary or context or research, they could

deliver something amazing because they could figure it out on the fly and

the missing piece for so many folks, especially folks who are building

shows to support their careers, or, maybe they're an independent creator.

Like I am, or they work in house as a marketer, so many

people don't have a premise.

They just talk topics with experts.

The premise is that hook.

It's that angle it's that arc right?

X, Y pitch it, this is a show about.

Unlike other shows about X and admit there are some, or at least

some content about your topics.

You don't own those topics.

Unlike other shows about X only, we Y like this is a show about

creativity in the workplace.

Unlike other shows about creativity in the workplace, only we explore

how resonance actually works so we can create more resonant work, too.

Right.

That's a crude kind of not planned out X, Y pitch for my show.

So that's the first part you're not going to head into an interview and

elevate that interview unless you know what the premise of the show is.

If I white labeled it, how will I know it's your show?

Because everyone's trying to talk topics with experts.

And even if you niche down, even if it's like, this is about servant leadership

for B2B SAS executives, with more than 20 years of experience in Toronto,

the next person that comes along and says, I just want to do that show.

There goes your differentiation.

It's a very thin moat that someone can just step over.

So it's gotta be this perspective you have on what are we talking about, but

how are we approaching those subjects?

What's our angle into it?

What is our hook?

Our style, our belief we're interrogating our hypothesis that we have.

And then on the episode level, you get to walk into that as a very

informed producer or editor or host because you're pressing that person

or those topics through the lens.

That premise.

So it pops out something original because unlike that appearance

of that famous person elsewhere, they appeared on your show.

Your show explores something very specific and different in a different way.

How are you going to create an original that's, how don't concoct a gimmick, press

them through your unique lens, your unique premise and out pop something original.

So before you go into any episode, that's a non-negotiable is like,

is this actually developed.

Cause if it's not, that's the work people think it's about booking

better guests or technical setup that stuff's actually really easy.

The best, most important thing you can do is develop your idea, develop an

actual premise into IP intellectual property that can drive and support

a whole show and create something that quite frankly could grow.

It's a lot easier to grow something that's growable than

try to like get a dud missile.

Yeah, the show is unthinkable with J Kenzo and your 157 episodes in You

can find it everywhere, but I'm actually excited to have this conversation now

because I believe it was recently launched a program or an offering to kind of help

people go a little deeper with this.

Do you want to talk a little about that?

Yeah, I have two things on offer.

I have podcast course called global shows, which is on the navbar my website.

And I also am starting small working groups of no more than nine creative

people focused on B2B marketers and B2B creators who are working with me

getting one-on-one support and one to few support over an eight week span

to work on their actual projects.

So it's not like video course.

That's what my course is.

That's not what this elevate group is.

The small working groups is an accountability experience, I guess, where

I'm working with them live to elevate their work not specific to podcasting,

but of course I get a lot of podcasts.

Jay, this has been a fantastic interview.

We'll link all that up in the show notes here.

Is there anything else that you feel should be said that we didn't.

No, for us, I thank you for letting me talk about my projects.

Don't go hiding in a course or like sign up for my accountability group.

Cause you're like, well, this will solve my problems.

Like the most important thing you can do is establish a practice, like

the way you serve yourself better.

And also me and you, Hector is like, after listening to them, Take the

energy that hopefully you have right now, don't make something and make it just a

little bit better than the last thing.

Like the momentum problem is most creators problems.

So solve that actual problem.

Stop hiding by following another expert or listening to another

show or buying another book.

Even if it's mine go make better stuff.

And if you're doing that consistently and you run into a blocker, unbelievable, we

have so much information, knowledge, and people available to us at our fingertips

to get you unstuck, but unless you're constantly and consistently shifting.

The only real problem you have is to consistently ship.

So start there

Yeah, go make what matters.

I think Jay said that somewhere on his website or something.

I wrote it down.

It was brilliant

thanks for hanging out with us.