Latest / Curiously Guided Podcast / Ep.99 | Resonance Over Reach: Tap into Your Creativity to Stand Out in Business w/ Jay Acunzo, Speaking & Messaging Strategist

Transcript

Ep.99 | Resonance Over Reach: Tap into Your Creativity to Stand Out in Business w/ Jay Acunzo, Speaking & Messaging Strategist · Curiously Guided Podcast

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Curiously Guided Podcast.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_01: We're your hosts, Mariah and Jay.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: Two online business strategists passionate about rewriting the rules to success within both life and business.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_02: This podcast started because we both felt frustrated by the lack of deep, meaningful, and transparent conversations around what it takes to actually run a business that we both feel good about.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_02: So we decided to create that for ourselves.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: We want our solo episodes and guest interviews to be examples of how you too can chase your dreams and go down your own rabbit holes, ultimately leading to a more sustainable and fulfilling life.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_02: We believe that curiosity is our superpower.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_02: And trusting the nudge is a muscle that's meant to be strengthened.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_01: Especially if we want to create a lifestyle that feels good from the inside out.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: So are you ready to open your mind and let curiosity guide the way?
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Let's take this journey together.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: We're so glad you're here.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_02: Now let's dive in.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, friends.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: We have a real gift of an episode to share with you today.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I'm very excited that we're wrapping up this season with my friend and past client, Jay Aconzo.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I made a website for Jay way back in 2021, and we sat down and kind of went through his brand position, and we put together a website that he is currently still using, and I'm very proud of.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_02: And he's just a cool human.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: He honestly is one of the first people that at the time he was working with a lot of podcasters, and that gave me the idea that I could have my own podcast.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_02: He's very has been in the business world, but is very in touch with how to be creative and how to be intuitive and how to actually do that in a way that works in a capitalist society.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_02: He's just a cool guy.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_02: He is the most driven by curiosity person I have ever met.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: He is leading with questions.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: He is sharing his journey, and he's not being too perfect about any of it.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I just think his energy and his approach to everything, and obviously his words, he drops a lot of really cool language in this episode.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: He mentioned gap time and maker monsters.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_02: There was like literally a million different rabbit holes that Mariah and I wanted to run down with him.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: So hopefully he'll be gracious again and come back and we can shoot some more in the future.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: But this episode is really um a great one.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_02: I think you guys are gonna leave feeling really energized.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's funny because I didn't know almost anything about Jay when we hopped onto the conversation and I was just taking a look at his website and trying to, you know, just get like a feel for him before we like hopped on.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: And like I feel like I could have had a four-hour conversation, shooting the shit and like feeding off of each other's rabbit holes and like where we each decided to, like, all three of us decided to take the conversation.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was feeling really inspired and like isn't it even as I'm listening to him, it's funny, being a podcast host, you have to juggle this ability to listen and be present so that you can respond and ask good questions.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: But your brain is also trying to absorb all of this information and you kind of want to see it through the lens of like your own business and your own life.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so I found myself kind of daydreaming when he was talking and just like reflecting on my business message and the way that I see things.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: And like, I can't wait to publish this episode.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_01: So literally I can just go back and listen to it.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be really, really inspiring.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: And like, I feel like, especially because of his background and how he got into entrepreneurship and like working at bigger businesses, it's just really, really fucking cool.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like to hear people be in that corporate marketing world and then still come to the same conclusion that I feel like a lot of us, like especially like me and Shay for sure, but I feel like a lot of you guys listening, like come to the same conclusion that we're all at where we're just like the old way of marketing fucking blows ass.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: Like it sucks so bad.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: And like, but sometimes we question, yeah, but these big businesses and these big corporations, they're doing it this way.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: So they must know what they're doing, and they have a whole team and they can figure it out, whatever, whatever.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: But then it's like we feel like there's so much like raw energy and transparency and personality.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: We feel like that's missing, but oftentimes we're just like, well, we can't because that's not the best practice and how to do that.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I feel like Jay's story and the way that he explains and like his philosophy in business is just a really good inspiration that I feel like we're all on the right track.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: These nudges that we're getting, this curiosity that we're feeling, keep following it.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not gonna give away too much more because we're gonna get into the episode, but I'm going to read Jay's bio.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: So Jay helps business leaders become stronger speakers and storytellers.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: After marketing roles at Google and HubSpot, Jay wrote his first book and earned a living from the stage as a keynote speaker.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: Each year, dozens of creators, entrepreneurs, and executives, plus brands like Malchimp and Salesforce turn to Jay to develop their messages, speeches, and stories.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: So without further ado, let's get into the episode.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, friends, welcome back to the pod.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_02: I am so excited today.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: I know I've said this several times this season, but there were a handful of people when Mariah and I started the podcast that came to my mind of, oh, I want to have a conversation with them on my podcast.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: And Jay honestly was number one.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_02: So we have uh Jay Akenzo joining us today.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_02: He's a past client of mine and um just honestly someone who I find incredibly inspiring.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: He's a really cool human, and I'm really excited to share his story with you all today.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: So, Jay, thanks for coming on.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: We appreciate it.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: That was incredibly nice of you.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I uh in teaching things the way I teach them about story and creativity.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: I have not experienced an intro to a podcast quite like the one that you and Mariah have, where we did like grounding meditation beforehand.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: We feel like we're in a good space here.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm in the business world.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people show up to podcasts really stiff, and I always come up with ways to coach people through that if they host a podcast.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: I have to add that one to my arsenal of what you can do to relax a guest.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: That was a good one.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, I'll take that.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're quite experienced in this world, but yeah, we love the the grounding meditation beforehand just to get everybody kind of on the same page.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: I appreciate that.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, well, if you don't mind, I just kind of want to get started with your origin story, Jay.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: You have a really cool, particularly how did you get into the online space?
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, I really liked your story when we were working together.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: And would you kind of just get us up to speed on what you're where you came from and what you're working on now?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, you can understand me through a very simple message right now, which kind of like retroactively it makes all of the background that I'm about to share snap into place.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think you can only understand yourself looking backwards like that.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: But my entire platform today is about the idea of resonance over reach.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's a lot of people trying to build a business, trying to uh get their cause out there, serve an audience well, and we're tipping too far towards being visible at the expense of being memorable.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so I talk a lot about resonance everywhere I go and teaching it through storytelling and message design, things like that.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it kind of tracks with my background.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like I started wanting to be a sports journalist, but very specifically because I love those feature pieces of athletes like coming out of obscurity and overcoming all these obstacles.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I basically loved stories about people, and sports was a microcosm of humanity.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what made me fall in love with sports at an early age.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I pursued that in school.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: But right when I left college, it was 08, and there was an economic crisis, the housing crisis, and I didn't want to move to a town no one heard of and cover a sport I didn't care about.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I moved to Boston because I got a job of all things in sales, very different than sports journalism, at a company called Google.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: And no one knew there was a Boston office.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: I would hand my business card out to people at tech events and they'd be like, Are you here from California?
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, no, we have a small but mighty office here in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I saw business as an even larger, but still ultimately contained microcosm of humanity, of places that need good storytelling, that need the, you know, the either the sports journalism, the columnists that I loved, or my favorite storyteller of all time, Anthony Bourdain, like that style of storytelling was so desperately needed in the business world.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: And lo and behold, along comes this new wave of marketing called content marketing.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: And when I left Google, I shifted into that field and sort of never looked looked back.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was the head of content briefly at HubSpot, worked for a tiny startup and a VC firm in similar roles.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: And ever since leaving corporate life behind in 2016, I've been a professional speaker, an author, and today a coach helping people with those things, people who have expertise.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to equip with the communication power and the messaging and the storytelling and the speaking power of these people we admire who show up on podcasts or give speeches, and you're like, I'm so gripped by this person, and where can I get more?
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I want folks who have expertise to have that ability because the internet is getting really shouty and really full of like grimy charlatans who just like leap out in front of you and want to coerce you.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I just think there's a better way to do your marketing.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just thinking about like, I feel like as uh people in the online business space, like what stories am I attracted to?
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Or like what marketing am I attracted to?
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's the marketing that doesn't feel like marketing.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's the marketing that feels raw and transparent.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: And like when Shay mentioned uh that we were gonna have you on the podcast because you so graciously said yes to our invitation, I was like eating up everything that you had on your website.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so we're gonna link to your website in the show notes.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's so good.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: A, the way I feel like you explain and really dig into the depths of like, I feel like what we're all craving, but especially like you were saying in the business world, where like it feels really fucking stuffy and it feels like there's only one way to do things.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: You gotta focus on the ROI, you gotta stay contained, you gotta do what works, you gotta follow the proven best practices.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: And it just like strips the human out of it.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then I feel like as business owners, business owners, we're so focused on that because like we're learning marketing, and I think that it is important to understand the foundations of all of this stuff because you have to understand the foundations in order to kind of like build momentum on top of it.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: But I find like what a lot of what happens to a lot of people, and this might happen to like the people that you work with, where it's like they get so stuck in those foundations or like following what other people are doing that they forget that like their juice is like what's inside of them.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: But then when you say that, you're like, sounds so lame, right?
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what do you mean?
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's not tangible.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how am I supposed to like pull this thread out of me and like then turn it into marketing?
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm fascinated by it, seems subtle.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Being a writer, of course, you're interested in words to a degree that you know maybe some business owners aren't, but I think this particular dichotomy really matters to building a business today, especially if you're heavily online and doing so.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: There's a very big difference between volume and power.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so the joke, it's not really a joke, I shouldn't say it that way.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I wrote a piece at the end of last year called the title was very simple because it was in line with the theme of the whole piece.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: It was a one-word title, which is like you know, not clickbaity at all, right?
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: It needs to be in line with the theme.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: The theme and the title was whisper.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the idea was what would you say if you could not shout at the market, if you could not increase the volume?
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because frankly, we don't really want to.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: The people who play the volume game, they get so tired, right?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: They burn out, they're on the hamster wheel, nothing is working, so they try to make it work harder.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: And at an extreme, what we see, we've all encountered like advice content from a marketer or an entrepreneur.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that advice content is getting bizarrely aggressive, right?
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's laced with sensationalism or overly promising hooks on social media to stop the scroll, or it's like, you know, 99% do this wrong or steal my simple playbook, or my colleagues wouldn't like that I share this with you.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: What's happening there is they're trying to force a commodity to stand out.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: But by definition, you can get a commodity anywhere, and the source doesn't matter.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: So now you have to reach your audience before everyone else does.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: You got to rank first on search, you gotta go viral, you gotta be across all these channels.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's exhausting because you're stuck in the commodity cage.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: Then there's those people that you encounter and they resonate so deeply, immediately and consistently, that it's like they could just say something that sticks with you and you think about 10 times a day.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to get in front of people 10 different times.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: You say one thing that they think about 10 times a day.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: So the question is what's the difference between a volume-based approach to marketing and increasing the power of what you say, of your ideas, of your words?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: So that simple question again is like, what if you only needed to whisper?
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what would you say, first of all?
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: And what would get better, easier, more effective, higher ROI?
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's been my obsession for a few years to come up with terminology, stories, frameworks, methodologies for basically making that shift.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: That whisper, I got goosebumps when you said that.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_02: I love that idea.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: That's such a cool idea.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm curious about um, you know, the people that you're coaching and working with as their the reason I wanted to have you on the podcast today is to talk about creativity.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: And uh Bri and I both grew up as quote unquote smart girls.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: I shared with you guys beforehand, you know, I had the art teacher that told me I wasn't good at drawing.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: So I just was like, I'm not a creative and I don't have access to any of these creative superpowers.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: I am a smart person and I have to stay with my logic in my brain.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I would imagine a lot of corporate clients are probably like that too, a little bit more on their like logic side.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: And what I really like about your message is that no, this isn't some magical ethereal thing that only certain privileged people have access to.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_02: We all have access.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: And actually, there's like a pretty straightforward way.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: It's not lighting candles and dancing in the woods, you know, it's kind of just showing up every day.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm curious about the people that you work with.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: Do they struggle with kind of like accepting like I can be creative and have this really unique thing to say?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: Is it hard to break out of the box?
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'll take that in two parts because it kind of there's one part like partway through working with a client where that question comes up all the time.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: So just to set the scene a little bit, people will hire me because they want a distinct message that differentiates their business.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: They are maybe they they think of their messaging as a speech and they're thinking about their speaking.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I get a lot of clients where I'm working with them as a business owner on their speaking, not just their messaging.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: So those tend to be the two things that, like very tactically speaking, that's what someone wants.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be a better speaker, or I have a big talk coming up for my business, and or I really want to nail my message or like that big idea that I own.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I call that big idea a premise, which is like, what is the defensible assertion, the defensible point of view that you are here to argue for?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's some kind of change you want us to make that if we made it, by the way, you would be the logical next step, the rest of your thinking, right?
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: I can say to somebody, uh, hey, you should, this is a phrase that's on my website, don't market more, matter more.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: And if I say a phrase like that, what I hope is it's rattling around your brain when I'm not in the room.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: And if you get to know me and spend time with me a little bit beyond that one line, and you go to a conference and there's 12 people around you, all of whom should know my work and I'm not present, you say, Yeah, it's like this guy Jay Aconzo says, Don't market more, matter more.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: And people go, Oh, I gotta check him out.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like that, that's what we want.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's the end game, is like we're not even there.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's like I'm Italian, which you can tell by the everything of me if you look at me for a second.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: But like, if I'm sitting at home, this is the Godfather, or I'm at the baptism of a loved one, right?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is the scene from The Godfather, you know, you have your lackeys out there doing the work for you.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine that.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine you're sitting at home relaxing, and there's a bunch of people doing the marketing for you, and that's the dream, right?
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so we're developing your big idea, we're developing your premise.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: What is that big defensible concept you want to own and be known for?
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then eventually we have to turn that into content.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it's right there where we move from like behind the scenes wrestling with an idea or a message with a client and out into the world that people go, okay, but you're asking me to be creative now, Jay, and I don't know what to do.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so the the message to people like that, whether you're in that process like a client is, or you're just trying to show up tomorrow and be more creative, or you have this head trash of I'm not creative.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: The idea here is we have to reclaim creativity for what it is.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: It is not the constant manufacturing of brilliance, it is the consistent pursuit of curiosity.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: Full stop.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're like, I don't know how to be creative, I'm like, well, what's the premise or message we just developed?
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: What do you keep saying?
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: Don't market more matter more?
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, Jay.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: What do you mean by that?
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay, I should write about that.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's a piece.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what I mean is we should prioritize resonance over reach.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I mean.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let me write a little screed on LinkedIn or a little post or a little video about that.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: All right, what's the next question that follows from that?
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: What do I mean by resonance?
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what is I say resonance, I say you should resonate deeper, and people go, of course.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: So we just accept it.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: What does that term mean?
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I should look in the sciences, maybe I should look in the dictionary, maybe I should just ask the next logical question.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's the pursuit of curiosity.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't look glamorous, it doesn't look big, it's certainly not big, and nor does it need to be.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's you're making assertions everywhere you go.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, you have one overriding assertion for your whole business, one premise.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: But even if not, you're saying things all the time.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: What's the next logical question that you have?
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: Be an investigator, not an expert.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's the switch.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's why it's accessible to everybody because that's what creativity is.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's the pursuit of curiosity, and we can all do that.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm over here just nodding along like a bobblehead.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I love this.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: Creativity is the persistent pursuit of curiosity.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like that allows us to switch the idea and definition of creativity in our heads to kind of like what Shay was saying of like creativity is painting.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: Why do we all have that perception of creativity?
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: And it's probably because that word was only ever thrown around in art class.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: In school, we only really have this container in which we use the word creativity in art class.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I feel like so often we think about that.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: And it's funny because I didn't have the same kind of like growing up uh type thing.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: My mom always told me that I was creative.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_01: She always told me that like whatever I touch turns to gold, all of that, which is very lovely.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's very nice words for me to have running in my head all of the time.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm very grateful for that.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: But for some reason, I only believed it when I was crafting, when I was creating something from the craft closet that I had in my house, or like I was a fine arts major in college.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_01: At least I started my college journey being a fine arts major.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember thinking, like, art is so subjective, creativity is so subjective.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want my bills to depend on if somebody likes the visual aspect of my creations.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so then I was like, and I'm also very strategic.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so I feel like it's like this thing that we do in our head where we're like, creativity lives over here, strategy lives over here.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: But like what you're saying is so helpful at being like, creativity is so much bigger than that, wider than that, because you actually can't really be strategic unless you're willing to look at a problem creatively.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: You're willing to look at a problem with curiosity.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite examples of creativity in action, and actually the structure of it.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: So let's set aside this need to be like, I'm gonna invent something that comes from the chest, like a lightning strike moment out into the world, and I'm a genius and I'm an innovator and I'm creative.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: Set that aside.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: Whether we have moments of that, besides the point.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: How do we make it a competency?
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: How do we make it a daily routine, right?
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: The John Cleese quote.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a gift, it's a way of operating.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: Or he says, Creativity is not a talent, it's a way of operating.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: So, what's the way of operating?
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he goes into it in his own way.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Here's mine.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: Boil it down to three words, which everybody who has a business can embrace.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody who thinks about strategy and should think about strategy can embrace.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's three words trial and error.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: And we live in this world where we want the answer to be handed to us from someone else.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: And we can go search for someone else.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: Guess who has access to all those answers, blueprints, and best practices?
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone else.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, you, I take what I when I work with a client, I take what I call an inside-out approach to finding a message, to finding a big idea, to crafting a story or a speech.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, how do you see this?
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: Forget the right answer because it doesn't exist.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: To your point, Mariah, it doesn't exist.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: How do you see this?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: I want the I joke, it's the two drink minimum version of you to start developing your company or your business's message or your personal brand's message.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: We can wordsmith later.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: I first got to dig to the root of your thinking and your perspective.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: What are you frustrated by?
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: What are you curious about?
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: How do you see it?
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: How would you rant at me after a couple strong drinks when you're not trying to couch it or sound strategic, right?
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: Start there with the good clay and we can massage it and synthesize later.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where frameworks and structures help.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: But it does start by being more honest with yourself.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that curiosity driven approach allows you to tap into that.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: And here's so here's my example.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody Should listen who's listening should watch the special on Netflix where David Letterman interviews John Mulaney because Letterman says, Listen, I have this premise, again, that word again, this premise, this assertion, for a joke, and I haven't been able to develop it.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: He was struggling with his creativity.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: He said, For many years, John, I drive around my hometown in Indianapolis and I'll see in the road a single shoe.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: And Mullaney instantly laughs.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: And Letterman is shocked because Letterman's like, Whoa, what?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Like I haven't been able to find the joke, and you're already finding it funny.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then very like effortlessly, Mulaney kind of calmly explains not what the joke is, but how he would construct it.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, how his creativity would unfold, where he goes, Yeah, because then you're asking, like, why is there only one shoe?
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then you can ask a question like, what would make someone throw a shoe?
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then you can create this like drama with like a you know family driving in a car, and like, what are they talking about?
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: And what will cause it to escalate?
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: And like, you know, what causes the dad in the passenger seat to get to the moment where he's like so done with this, and you know, he takes off a shoe and he's like throws it in the road.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: So like Mulaney didn't really tell you a joke in doing that, but the whole audience applauds because they saw the structure of how it unfolds.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: They saw like the code of the matrix running in front of their eyes, which is oh, all he did was start with a premise.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: So for Letterman, one shoe in the road, what's up with that?
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: For me, resonance overreach.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's my assertion.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think you should prioritize resonance overreach to grow your business.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then you just interrogate it.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: You just ask questions.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is an introspection for sure, that is often squeezed out of us because of endless best practices and all our gap time is looking at a screen in our pocket, right?
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: But if you can start asking piercing questions consistently, over time, let others declare you're innovative, you're a leader, you're creative.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: So that's like my absolute boil it down.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's what it looks like with John Mullaney, and that's how you should think about it.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's trial and error.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: And you do that already.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: Just do it on a deeper way, in a deeper way.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, what if you don't have questions?
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_01: What if you feel like I'm really shitty at asking questions?
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: Or like you can also get, I'm not saying they're shitty answers, but like the quality of your answers could depend on the quality of your questions, because I could be like, ugh, why do I feel like a piece of hot garbage today?
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_01: Instead of what is my body needing right now?
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's needing fresh air.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: So why don't we ask a better question instead of being sucked into like this rabbit hole?
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: So I guess like, yeah, do you have insight in terms of like how to ask the questions that give us something deeper than regurgitation of what we're already seeing?
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, obviously there's inputs from other sources, right?
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: There's the cliches of talking to your audience and being on social media and just watching the conversation unfold.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: There's tools at our disposal like never before.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, everybody should be using AI not to generate a damn thing.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's a wholly misinterpreted way of seeing generative AI.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's it's an it's an intern, it's an assistant, it's a researcher.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: It should not generate your work at all.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: Writing is thinking.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: Don't outsource your thinking.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: This is an episode for another time because I have six hours of material to combat this.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: But you should be creating an like an ideal customer or client avatar in AI.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then in that same chat stream, saying, okay, this is my opinion today.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: Here's how I'd explain it.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: Let me word vomit at this tool.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then say, what are the necessary questions that my persona would ask about this?
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Or what is missing about this?
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: So if what you're saying to me, Mariah, is I am so numb to the world.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: I am so stressed by my work that I have no questions to ask and I'm not curious about it.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: A, please can we please find a way to get you back on track?
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: Because I hope you find some intrinsic motivation pursuing what you're doing.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you're not like, well, the market could bear another design agency.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what got me into design.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like, no, remember why you started, sense your frustrations.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: That leads to curiosity.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: So A, let's get you back on track with understanding yourself and using who you are.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: But B, it's never been easier to get out of your head and into the world with good back and forth questions with an audience you can reach immediately or with this tool.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: With I use Claude, but use whatever you want, right?
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: So it's super easy to do that.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: But when you look at the best authors, speakers, and storytellers in business, they ask questions that seem silly.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like to the resonance overreach point.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: I've looked at the definition in the dictionary, I've looked at the science.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: That is a seemingly silly, even dumb thing to do, right?
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: I could be, and I often am because I have two tiny kids, exhausted and at wit's end.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not showing up well, let's say, to most of my days, especially during the winter time, which is like the when you have a bunch of kids at home, you your your winter season, you just rebrand that as sick.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's you get you get spring, summer, fall, and sick.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, I'm showing up poorly a lot of times.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm able to ignite that curiosity rather easily because I'm willing to ask the dumb questions.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what a lot of big thinkers do that have a ton of influence in the market, is they're like, but what do we mean by that actually?
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I keep saying that.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: Do we know the definition?
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't we do it this way?
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: If we keep saying we don't want this bad outcome, but we keep getting it, why?
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like those are silly, obvious questions that actually economic buyers think about.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because the economic buyer isn't thinking about how do I find yet another bullshit list of tips on LinkedIn where I can get a million of them and they're all lo-fi, right?
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: Either they know that stuff already, or they can use AI or Google and just find it at the top generated for them.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: They don't need you to tell them, how do I set up an Instagram account?
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: Right, which is basically akin to a lot of the advice we give out there.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: What they need is the deeper thoughts, which often means the basic questions.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: So good news if you show up and you're like, I'm exhausted, I'm stressed, I don't know.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: What is the dumbest question you can possibly ask about that?
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because that is exactly the question you should be asking, because it'll lead to profound breakthroughs in your ideas.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: And also your audience wants to know that too.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's a really silly counterintuitive thing, but it works.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm kind of pulling a thread of a thought here together.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_02: Creativity, I think a lot of us have this idea that like creativity equals perfection.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: Like I have this moment of genius strike, and it's gonna resonate with the whole world, and it's this perfect moment.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: But really, what you're saying is it's quite the opposite.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_02: Creativity actually can come through imperfection.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: It can come through asking the silly questions.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_02: And to your point, it doesn't come through moments of genius, it comes through putting in the reps consistently, showing up imperfectly, even when you're tired, even when you're at your wits in, even when you're brain of soup, and still putting the rep in for that day.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_02: And at one point, sometimes the genius just comes out and it'll shock you.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm curious for you, what does that look like?
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what is that?
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_02: I told when I'm when we had you on, I told Mariah, Jay is a prolific creator.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I am astonished.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_02: Every Friday I get a newsletter from you, and it is a full, well-developed essay.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, how does he?
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_02: And I know you're doing 10 million other things.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, how does he create at this level?
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm wondering, like, what does that practice?
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: Because I wake up in a funky mood a lot and I feel like I can't do anything.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_02: So tell me what that looks like for you.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: I love this question so much.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: I am also at this moment very grateful that you led before we hit record with the caveat that this is a cursed happy show.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because this is the moment where I'm gonna need that.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: So here's the thing.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: We're we're thinking to ourselves the words I'm sharing with the world, that could be on video, that could be written, that could be audio.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's marketing.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: You're sharing words, and you want others to both care about those words and take an action as a result of those words, right?
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like marketing's parlance is just two things the purview of you as a marketer or your marketing team if you have one, two things.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's earn trust, spark action.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: And oh, by the way, we get into trouble because we've earned insufficient trust and we start to demand an action and it's not happening for us, and then we try to press the action part harder, but we haven't earned the trust.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyways, if that's really what we're doing, our words are meant to show up not just in front of people, but to ensure they care and then take an action of some kind.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, how in the world do you expect to do that if what you're saying to them is the first time you've said that?
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like authors, speakers, comedians, the world's best communicators have a creative practice where they're working through material essentially.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast is wonderful practice for all the stuff I've had on my homepage for a while, in essays for a while, and it's gonna lead to new material.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: So that's part of it is like you have to actually practice delivering and embodying your message.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: The second part of this is to do that, have a creative practice.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like, literally put yourself on a deadline.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: So for me, it's every Friday I have a newsletter.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: How do I do that?
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's because I have a clear premise and I interrogate it.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: And you're getting the next attempt at me trying to understand something, not teach you something.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: That happens as a byproduct.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: But like this week, I'm talking about like why do so many podcasts, webinars, speeches, essays in the business world start with the weakest possible content.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: Or they start with the weakest possible content, realize it's weak, and then add a bullshit opening hook that is an appendage, doesn't seamlessly lead you into the actual content.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: Why do we suck at starting?
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: I just know that all my audience needs to hear about this.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: I care about this, I'm curious about that.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: If I want them to resonate, how they start is a big part of it.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'll write an essay about it this week.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm on deadline every week to ship it on Friday.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: So back to the cursing.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: People listening are like, I have imposter syndrome.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: Who am I to show up?
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: I have writer's block, I don't have ideas.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: I have, I'm I'm a perfectionist, right?
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and I have an idea, but I keep reworking it and reworking it and reworking it, or it bloats.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: Those are all maker monsters.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: And to your maker monsters, you say, hello again.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: You feel their claws, you feel their tentacles.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: Then you tie a chain around their waist and tie the other end to your own belt, and you drag them across your finish line because you are a professional and professionals rely on fucking deadlines, right?
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I say, Hi, writer's blog, hi imposter syndrome, hi perfectionism.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: You're coming with me because I'm a fucking pro, right?
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: Not because I get paid, not because I have a following, but because I have deadlines and I stick to them.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're a cold hard capitalist or a bleeding heart creative, that same message applies.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope we can agree either extreme can get on board with that.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Be a professional.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: That like that's my response is like, how do I do this?
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_00: Be a professional.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: Show up on deadline, don't miss your deadline, no matter how you feel.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_02: And if you guys haven't read The War of Art, it'll get you real fired up about this topic.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_02: But I think that um that's such a good thing to remember is I had this idea in my head that it's the creativity was just this magical thing, and like I don't get those moments, and I'm not that type of person.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_02: So the first time I heard you say, and I think I was reading War of Art around this time, um there's nothing really magic about it.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_02: It's actually pretty boring.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_02: It's actually I sit down every morning at nine o'clock.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_02: Ryan Holliday has a really good creative practice as well, if you guys like him.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I just show up and I see what comes up that day.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_02: And some days are shit and some days are awesome, but I'm a I'm a fucking pro, like you said.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_02: And like that, I think remembering that that creatives can also be fucking pros and not just like stoned in an apartment and having this epiphany.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: Like that was really cool for me to see like the professional and the corporate side of creative kind of like tied together.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think that was very liberating.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_02: And it helped me kind of detach this perfectionism.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_02: I think I kind of struggle with perfectionism.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_02: Just show up and see what happens and like let it be.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_02: And and how fun and freeing is that?
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like there's only one project really, it's your body of work.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so you're, you know, uh, I'll use the newsletter example here.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm working currently as we speak.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: I have it on a tab here.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm drafting Friday's newsletter.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I know all I'm doing is filing that away in my body of work.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it's my body of work, or if you want to call it something more powerful for the purpose of building a business, it's your platform of influence.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like you want influence, you want impact.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: Those are outcomes.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: What are the inputs?
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's that you show up on deadline.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, the magic for me happens in the mess, right?
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: We're like trying to skip the mess.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like, let uh Chat GPT draft something for us.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: And going, no, like the most useful ideas and even tiny little turns of phrases, it all comes from you mucking about, trying to figure it out, and then you have a breakthrough.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you can set up an apparatus for yourself, like every Friday I send my newsletter, every Wednesday I publish my podcast, or whatever it is for you, you give yourself enough structure that you actually uh oh, you know what it is?
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: Constraints.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like studies suggest that creativity is actually unleashed by constraints.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: So thinking outside the box is actually a mistake.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: If it's in fact, it's antithetical.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: The more resources you have, the less direction or clarity you have, the more your brain struggles and wants to insert more constraints.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: So if you can come up with your own practice, your own sort of marketing pipes, then when you're putting the water through those pipes, that's where the magic does happen.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I go back to a Bourdain quote where he's like, being a chef really helped him prepare for creating TV episodes where you learn to construct something and like something so temporary that you sort of put it on the counter before service and you have this one tiny golden moment where you go, hey, that's pretty good.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then you're on to the next, right?
• 35:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then as you build your body of work, you might have looking backwards, tentpole memories where you're like, that was freaking exceptional.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: But if all if you think that's all it is, you are in for a world of hurt because it's not, it's just fleeting golden moments within this very um, I don't want to say cold, but messy, ugly, unglamorous process or practice.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that's part of like what's doing society and online business owners in particular, such a disservice is that we're seeing everybody's like glamorous moments, like, look, I was speaking on stage or I was doing this, or like this is like the end draft of my messy middle whatever.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then we're sitting there comparing ourselves to it, even if we're not in the same industry, even if we don't have the same audience, we're just sitting there looking, consuming other people's things.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then people are then telling us, like you were saying about the difference between volume and power, where it's like people are screaming at us that like this is what you're doing wrong, and you're awful at this, and you should do it my way.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: And so then it's like you just continuously question yourself and question yourself and question yourself.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then part of their messaging is to try to make it as easy as possible so that you take action so that they don't actually need more trust from you.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because the trust is, oh, look, I'm just gonna let it be easy so you don't actually have to trust me very deeply because look, I'm gonna save you so much time.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: So then you try to take the action, and then you're sitting there comparing all of this to like their end goal or like them speaking too loud.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like there's so many different nuances happening here, and no wonder people aren't taking action.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: No wonder we're all sitting here beating ourselves up about like how much we're not creating, or like I just know uh in beginning of business, like I've been in business 10 years this summer, and I remember for the first five, I was like, why the fuck do I feel like I'm not making progress?
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then you sit there and you're like, am I even made for this?
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_01: Can I even do this?
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like I'm failing all of the time, all of the time, all of the time, when really like there's no way to get to sustainable success without that consistent failure and like that consistent missing the bullseye, because that's where you learn everything.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: But like with all of this loud marketing, they make us feel like we should have it figured it out already.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think a lot, I mentioned the phrase uh premise or premise development.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's a little bit of inside baseball.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's ultimately like, what is your big idea?
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: But you can't just have a bit, it's not a tagline.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_00: The difference between someone who has a clever tagline and doesn't lead to any business, and someone who has a big idea that they use to build a whole platform of influence is what they're doing fundamentally is they're constructing a core narrative argument.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: So we've been talking about big things, and I hope we're grounding them a little bit for people listening to like do these things.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: But fundamentally, message design, speech development, uh relating to somebody one-on-one, a prospect you're talking to or a small group, creating content on LinkedIn or Instagram, like it all comes back to like, are you just sort of like shoving a wall of smarts at people?
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because that was content for a while.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_00: That was marketing for a little while for online businesses, especially.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't work anymore.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's commodified stuff.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: How do you communicate in a way that's higher impact?
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, everything you do should be either implicitly or overtly arguing for your premise.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, as a keynote speaker, you learn this.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, for many years, I was that that was the main source of my income of being a business and marketing keynote speaker.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I talked about innovation and creativity and all these things, and it's a weird, wonderful way to earn a living.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: And then the pandemic was like tough shit.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then kid number two, I was like, Oh, I don't want to be on the road anymore.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so now I'm more behind the scenes as a coach and consultant.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: But when you develop a speech, the keynote speech is the big how-to-think speech, and you learn right away you can't just waltz up onto a stage and go, hey, everybody, you know that thing you're doing, the way you're doing it.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's broken.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: Stop doing it that way, do it my way.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: All right, that's my time.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: See ya.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: You have to construct an argument.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: And an argument begins, this like lawyerly logical explanation for why others should care about you and your ideas.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: It begins with a period of alignment, not challenging them, not making them feel less than, not preying on base or instincts, but going out to them and saying, Hey, you know how you have this goal for your work or your life?
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: And they go, Yeah.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, if they said no, we got problems because nothing that follows from my mouth is gonna matter to them.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I need to align with them.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's the hallmark of resonating.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: You got to align first.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: You have this goal, right?
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, great.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: And you're coming at it this way?
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay, cool.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now we're aligned.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: I've acknowledged your goal and your approach, your beliefs, your resource constraints, your reality.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, their next question is why not keep doing it this way?
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then you say, Because we have some problems with the current approach, here are the problems I've observed.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_00: And a real visionary leader says, and here's the underlying illness, right?
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like we're exhausting ourselves in marketing.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: You're doing this, that, and the other thing in your marketing.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm trying to say, and it's all caused by the fact that sharing your generalized expertise has been commodified.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_00: You are a commodity, and that is the problem.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then they go, Oh my gosh, I didn't see that.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a veil was lifted.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: Or they nudge their buddy, like if this was a real speech in a crowd, and they're like, Was Shay at our all hands?
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I've been saying.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: Can you please talk to my boss about this?
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like, so they're they're thankful, they're leaning in.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_00: You've created a need by agitating the problem.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then their next question, logically, is so what the heck can I do instead?
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then into that goes your premise, into that goes your message, the thing you're here to argue for.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: In my speaking, it's you need to stop creating content and start developing IP.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: You need a big idea and all the thinking around it that supersedes any one project, but informs all of them.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like you're out there communicating in all kinds of ways, content and conversation, message copy, all of it.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_00: You need to increase the power of that stuff, not the volume.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: The efficacy of it is the problem.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's a resonance issue, not a reach issue.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_00: Don't create more content, create IP.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: And now here's a story to show you what it looks like, and now here's a methodology to do it.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, in constructing this core narrative argument first, you then go out to your homepage, your social feeds, your blog, your newsletter, whatever you do to communicate, your client services, your prospects, sales calls, whatever.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: And you're way more potent in the way you communicate and way more capable of resonating.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: Not because you did anything big, unbounded, and you know, similar to painting on a blank canvas, but because you know this narrative structure.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_00: And now everything you do is exploring that argument and arguing for it and owning it.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: To me, that's the work that grounds all this creative stuff for people that might put it at arm's length is oh, okay, it's actually rather logical if I can put some constraints around it and construct an argument.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's like the lens through which I see all this stuff and it enables creativity.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, Mariah and I actually talk about that a lot, is that um a lot of this freedom comes through form, right?
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_02: If you give a creative a project with no parameters, they're gonna spin their wheels forever because literally every option is on the table.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_02: But if you add some constraints, you know, like I have to talk to these people, it has to be done in this time, it has to be done, you know, with this kind of vibe to it.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_02: That helps you um kind of focus in and get clear on like what's actually important.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_02: And so I we taught we started this conversation kind of talking about the logical people and the creative people, but really we can't have one without the other.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_02: And as you're talking, Jay, I keep thinking, like, I know you have been on this message for so long, but right now this is more important than ever because what you're saying is true.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_02: AI has changed the way the internet works.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_02: Mariah's an SEO consultant, she can talk about this all day long.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_02: It used to be enough just to truly educate.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_02: Here's how you set up your Instagram profile.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_02: Now my blog post ranks number one, I get found.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_02: Well, guess what?
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_02: AI can do that really quickly now.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: I loved what you said about I'm not leading with the intent to educate.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_02: I am leading with the intent to be curious and to ask questions.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_02: And the education is a byproduct.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_02: And so a lot of creatives right now are really worried about how do I stand out?
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_02: Businesses too.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, like HubSpot, all these people that build marketing plans on content strategy have to really rethink everything because the way we used to do it is not working anymore.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_02: And what will work is what you're saying, bringing that human intelligence in, going a little bit deeper.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_02: What can you do that AI can't quite do?
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I and now I'm thinking there was something on your website that I thought was so cool.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_02: You have a little seal somewhere that said, created with human intelligence.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, in the story there.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_02: I am kind of like, for me right now, what feels like creativity is AI.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_02: Like I've been on Claude this week, actually, and I'm like, holy moly, I have a million ideas of how what we could do with this.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_02: And and that is creativity for me.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_02: But at the same time, there's also a lot of constraints.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I know that it's not replacing.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_02: Can you kind of tell us your perspective of how the human still fits in now that AI is on the um screen?
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you show up like anybody else in your space, like I could white label it, remove the name and the logo and the URL, and this could come from anyone that you compete with or anyone else speaking about the same topics you speak about.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: If I can't tell it's you under there, then AI very well might be a replacement.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: But if you know how to bring forth your perspective, your stories, your vision, your leadership.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, all things that are really good for marketing and sales really does lead to revenue, then AI is your intern.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's wonderful.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's wonderful to have an intern like AI, right?
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so the way I frame this to people is like if you consider that humans and AI both run on LLMs, but only AI seems to be using theirs.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_00: So AIs have little have uh large language models.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_00: We have little life moments.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_00: And so to illustrate this point, I will literally go to Claude and I will say, Hey Claude, recount my memory of walking the beach in Connecticut with my grandfather when we encountered that fisherman catching sharks.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: Then use it as a metaphor to cement my message to my audience.
• 46:27
  SPEAKER_00: And Claude will respond, I do not have access to your memories in life moments and blah, blah, blah.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, huh.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, how about that?
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: We have been taught, and it starts in school, to be cogs.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_00: It it breaks my heart.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_00: We are taught to sit in lines, to raise your hand only when you have the answer to diminish our creativity.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, creativity is put off to the side as a trinket, as a nice to have, as a as literally, my daughter is in uh kindergarten.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_00: She calls it it's it's the special.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like you have gym, you have library, you have art class.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_00: And that also breaks my heart.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_00: Then we get into the workplace and we're seeking the right answer.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_00: And in most things we do, there is none.
• 47:10
  SPEAKER_00: And along comes all these self-proclaimed gurus professing to have them, and they prey on our baser instincts.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_00: And now we think we got to do it that way.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_00: And the market says, here to do that at greater scale, here's a technology enabling that.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: We have scanned all those people.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, the plagiarists took action and said, here's all this credit, uncredited, uncompensated work, and you can synthesize it.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's the statistical average of all the responses to your question that you're getting.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like congratulations.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_00: You can go be mediocre at scale if you generate ideas and generate content through AI.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_00: But the things that they don't access, these technologies, and also by the way, your competitors are the things that come from you.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I am not saying my message is not be more fully you.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like up on a keynote stage.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_00: No, I want you to be the best version of you for a keynote stage, the best version of you as a marketer, a sales leader, an executive, whatever.
• 48:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying just be you.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_00: Just be, I frankly think it's bullshit.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like, but use you.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: You have access to stuff, perspectives, frustrations, questions, stories that no one else has access to.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's the unfair advantage.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_00: And we are literally trained not to take that seriously and not to use it.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, congratulations to the people who refused to listen in school or rejected the big corporate norms that wanted them to be a cog, because now that skill set is the last remaining differentiator you have.
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_00: And we all need to treat that as urgent to use.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 48:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh thanks for explaining that.
• 48:39
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like it, it's just like a good reminder, right?
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because, you know, we can get lost in the sauce in some things.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then, you know, like depending on what mood I'm in or how much the sun is actually fucking shining on my face in Buffalo, which around right now is not Boston area.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_00: I feel you.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's it's it's rough out here.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_01: I am supplementing plenty of vitamin D, and everybody can mind their business on how much I am supplementing.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_01: But essentially, um, this it's really similar to the way that like I talk about SEO with people.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody's freaking out.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, like if people are using AI to generate all of this content and all of that, like they're gonna kick me out of page one and blah, blah, blah.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, AI, if you're just using it like you're saying, to generate content, it's all mediocre bullshit.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I go, when what's the point of creating content?
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm pretty sure it's to sell.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_01: I'm pretty sure it's to like get clients or to get your message out there.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I go, ain't nobody buying from AI generated bullshit because like there's no no like and trust from that.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I keep telling people, like, what matters more and more and more is your perspective, your tone, and the way that you explain things, the stories that you share and all of that, because people resonate with people.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that exactly like you're saying, it's going to matter even more, even like a very specific, like scientific SEO marketing strategy.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_01: Your perspective and your tone is the difference.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_01: We are done with the regurgitated bullshit.
• 50:08
  SPEAKER_01: I still need you to use keywords that people are actually typing in so we can get a little context here, so that these models can kind of like be the middleman and like drive traffic to you.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_01: But like in the actual copy itself, we have to remember who the fuck our people are.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_01: And we can't, but like back in the day with SEO, we used to be able to just like say whatever you wanted and then people would buy.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, AI is making us so much smarter.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's cool to kind of see the overlap and like what you're seeing in the business space and kind of like thought leadership is what you're really like inspiring people to do and untangle in a way, and like it's cool to kind of see that overlap in such a strategic marketing arena that I play in.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it does take some people outside their comfort zone when I say this next thing, but I I do believe it's true.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, which is that the days of like generic corporate blog content or generic, you know, even large corporations sort of hiding behind their social profiles with a logo, if it ever was effective, I mean I'm talking maybe 2012 to 15, though those days are long gone where like people care more about you and connect more with you.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my friend Ann Handley, wonderful author and speaker, she loves to say, and I just love this line, because in so few words, as a wonderful writer, of course, she could do this.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_00: She sums up so much about what we're dealing with as business owners, entrepreneurs, and marketers, where she's, you know, in this it's a metaphor using a newsletter or an email as an example.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_00: The from line matters more than the subject line.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the way I translate that is the who behind the words matters more than it ever does.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_00: And if that's not being conveyed, then you're on a spreadsheet compared against all your peers on price, on the logo soup on your site, what fancy customers have you served, or the case study that looks like exactly my industry.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_00: There's all these things you get into where you can't compete on price.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_00: Your funnel, if you're thinking in marketing terms, looks like a plate instead of a pipe.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_00: It looks like I got to increase the top of funnel because I'm losing everybody, right?
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I wish it was straighter.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_00: I wish it was a straight funnel.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's the holy grail.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we want.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so to me, there is this premium that we've always placed as marketers or business owners on sort of this evergreen catalog of content and web pages and stuff out there.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're we're acting a little more like media companies because we're producing so much content.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_00: But you know what media companies have that marketers and owners and entrepreneurs have not fully embraced?
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_00: Personalities.
• 52:47
  SPEAKER_00: They have talent, not as a compliment, like you're talented.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_00: Kudos if you are, but talent as a job function.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_00: The host, the speaker, the author, the byline matters so much more than ever before.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_00: That is the competitive edge.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_00: And like fundamentally, what we're talking about is the people.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_00: The human is that it's always been the case, but now it's just, I think lights are switching on among people that sort of put that at arm's length, or they're not like me, where they want to be out front.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm going, that's fine.
• 53:14
  SPEAKER_00: My message is probably not for you, but I'm here to say it might need to be in the coming years.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_02: Jay, wow.
• 53:24
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like I could talk to you forever about this, but I want to be respectful of your time.
• 53:29
  SPEAKER_02: I have a million rabbit holes I want to run down.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_00: But you two just shoved soapboxes at me, and you were like, stand on this one, Jay.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now stand.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_00: Do you like the rants I just get?
• 53:37
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_00: So good.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_02: And we could do individual episodes for each one, I swear.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_01: Podcast itself is like soapboxes.
• 53:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's what we like.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's the questions, and then like letting it rip.
• 53:49
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like is it's the best part of it because like you can hear where your mind wants to go.
• 53:55
  SPEAKER_01: And then like the shifting of perspectives and how each of us can take it and kind of go in different directions and then feed off of each other.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like that's the best part about communication.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_02: One part of in branding, and Jay, you and I talked about this, it's finding your super fans and letting them do the work for you.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_02: And it's so cool to see you here on the other side of that.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I love that metaphor you gave of like, if you're not even there, people are like, oh, if you heard that guy say market more matter or resonance overreach, like if that is happening, that's it.
• 54:25
  SPEAKER_02: And especially today, that is how you stand out.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_02: That is how you make real connections, build real trust.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_02: I talk a lot about trusts and sales too.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's a big missing piece in all of this.
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_02: So, what an enlightening conversation, energizing conversation.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_02: I am so grateful for your time today.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_02: But I want to ask you the question that I was most excited about because you are someone who leads with curiosity.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_02: What is sparking your personal curiosity these days?
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, uh 150,000 things when it comes to being a dad and and, you know, raising two children in 2025 America.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_00: But for work, I'm really curious about this pendulum that I'm personally swinging back towards, where I left behind the world of sharing tactics because I was a keynote speaker professionally, where it's about big ideas and paradigm shifts.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_00: I acquired the ability to explain that stuff in story and framework and things that serve me well even today.
• 55:18
  SPEAKER_00: But now the theme of my year, um, every year I said a theme, the theme of 2025, 2025, 2025 is how to pronounce words.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's my theme.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_00: The theme of this year, we'll just skirt around it entirely, is feel of the flower, where like I'm getting closer and closer to the actual craft of like when you do a thing, there's all kinds of techniques and nuance and magic to it.
• 55:42
  SPEAKER_00: And there's all kinds of ways to ground it and enable a business owner or a marketer or a leader who is not trying to give up those endeavors to do what I did and go be a speaker and author professionally full time, but should be able to communicate on par with those types of communicators.
• 55:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm getting really close, I'm publishing like coaching calls publicly, like fixing talks in view of the audience.
• 56:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm doing all these things where it's I'm just playing and having so much fun, you know, not talking about the philosophy of pizza, but being like, let me just feel this flower.
• 56:12
  SPEAKER_00: This is the where the good stuff happens.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's the it's in the construction of the thing that leads to the outcome.
• 56:17
  SPEAKER_00: Let's zoom in on that stuff.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm just I'm so interested in seeing like in this world of AI and a million experts and so much content being commodified.
• 56:27
  SPEAKER_00: How can we approach that stuff, the day-to-day stuff, in ways that actually transforms our message and our business, uh, accrues and earns influence and actually has an impact on other people.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what I'm curious about and driven by all year long.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_01: And we thank you for that because that's what we need.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I mean, it's cool to be like inspired and motivated and to be able to like have these mind-blowing moments.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_01: But I feel like what really changes the game on the day-to-day is like, how the fuck do I implement this?
• 56:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I understand the idea.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_01: I'm very smart.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like I can grab onto the idea, but it's more so like the integration process.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_01: And as a human, that it takes a little bit to switch up our routine.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's very hard to change our habits.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of that implementation and that integration phase where I feel like we need so much support to be able to figure out how does this fit into the life that I'm trying to build?
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_01: How do I prioritize this?
• 57:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I think your rabbit hole is fun.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm very excited for you to uh, I guess, figure, not figure it out, but like play more and share what you're learning as you're as you're navigating this part of it.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think that it's cool.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 57:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're welcome.
• 57:42
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 57:43
  SPEAKER_02: And how can we stay in touch with you, Jay?
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_02: How can we follow along?
• 57:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the I'm on the internet.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe some people have heard about that.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, think it's gonna be a thing.
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_00: Don't worry about it.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be good, it's gonna be big.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're on the internet, you can go to jayconzo.com where you'll find my freely newsletter resources that are free and ungated for people like your listeners to do the things we're talking about.
• 58:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my services are listed there, my podcast, storytelling projects that I did on a whim just to have some fun, all the things, jayconzo.com.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, cool.
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_01: We will put the link to Jay's website in the show notes below.
• 58:19
  SPEAKER_01: If you guys have a second and you're not listening to this while you're driving, pause the episode and just go read like the copy on his homepage.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_01: It is like it really, like, I'm not even trying to gas this dude up, like for real.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_01: It like is extremely inspiring and motivating.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I feel like it really gets to the core of like what a lot of us are craving.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so definitely check that out if you have some time.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_01: And but I think that's about it.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna make sure to leave the link to Jay's website in the show notes below.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_01: But I think we're ready to close this episode down.
• 58:57
  SPEAKER_01: So remember, friends, that you have the power to create whatever the fuck you want.
• 59:02
  SPEAKER_01: Follow the nudge, ask questions, and let curiosity guide the way.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_01: We'll see you in the next episode.