“Is this ANNything?” Ann Handley and Jay Acunzo Work Out New Drafts
This week, we’re joined by our first-ever recurring guest. The brilliant Ann Handley (WSJ bestselling author of Everybody Writes and globally touring keynote speaker) joins us for a very special episode of “Is This Anything?”, the mini-series, where friends and collaborators join me to work out new ideas, unproven drafts, and hidden ideas to see if it is, in fact, anything.
But because it’s Ann, we’re renaming it Is This ANNything. Get it? Do you get it? (If you didn’t like that, you’re really not gonna like this episode…)
First, we discuss a story we co-wrote on Threads, sharing back and forth posts to build on each others’ previous ideas. Read that story here (you need to click into the first Thread for the threading to make sense. Oh, Threads…)
Then, we share drafts of our newsletters, each at different stages, and workshop improvements.
It’s a refreshing look at two prolific writers and speakers (and one bestselling author!) in the middle of their process.
Read Jay’s final newsletter version here. (Ann has not written the draft publicly as of this episode’s publish date.)
Listen to Ann’s first appearance on How Stories Happen as she dissects a published piece: “How do we all sign our work?” - Episode 3 with Ann Handley
Find the Show in Your Favorite App:
Episode Resources:
⚫ Learn more about Ann at her website and subscribe to her newsletter
⚫ Follow Ann on LinkedIn and Instagram
⚫ Buy Ann’s book, Everybody Writes
🔵 Subscribe to Jay Acunzo's fortnightly newsletter at jayacunzo.com
🔵 Join Jay's membership program for business storytellers and service providers, the Creator Kitchen
🔵 Follow Jay on LinkedIn, Instagram, or Threads
🟢 Produced by Ilana Nevins
🟢 Cover art designed by Blake Ink
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ABOUT JAY:
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Jay Acunzo is an author, speaker, and differentiation-and-thought leadership consultant on a mission to help you make what matters to your career, company, and community. He's an advisor to experts, execs, and entrepreneurs who want to resonate deeper with others, not just reach them. To do so, he helps you turn your expertise into IP and your IP into differentiated messaging, exceptional speeches, and celebrated creative projects, equipping you with the communication techniques and power of today’s top thought leaders—because he believes in standing out through substance and stories, not hollow hype.
A leading voice in B2B content marketing for many years thanks to his roles at brands like Google and HubSpot, companies like Mailchimp, Salesforce, Wistia, and GoDaddy have turned to Jay to strengthen their storytelling, while dozens of individual authors, speakers, consultants, and service providers hire Jay as their dedicated thought partner and exec. producer to help develop their premise, IP, speaking, and shows.
Jay lives in the Boston area with his family as a proud Yankees and Knicks fan. In the 60 seconds per week he's not creating stuff for work or making his kids laugh, he likes to shoot hoops, sip nice bourbons, cook with his wife, and daydream about telling stories like that of his storytelling hero, Anthony Bourdain.
Full Transcript:
(This was created using Ai and may contain some errors.)
Jay Acunzo: This is how stories happen where entrepreneurs and industry experts dissect a signature story piece by piece. We hear how they found it and developed it, how it might get better, and how they're using it to grow their business and audience. As Ira Glass said, great stories happen to those who can tell them.
Stories don't just happen to you. It's a craft, and if you master that craft, everything has the potential to be a great story. You don't have to experience anything extraordinary when you can find meaning in the ordinary. As always, I'm your host, Jay Azo. Welcome back to the show. It's time for another edition of, is This Anything, the series where friends join me to work through drafts new material and unproven ideas together Today, it's our first repeat guest on the show.
The one the only, at least I think so. I haven't checked LinkedIn. I. Ann Ley Ann is the author of the Wall Street Journal bestseller. Everybody writes the second edition. By the way, I maybe had a little bit of feedback on the cover that made it into the final cut, so that's pretty cool. Go check out the second edition of everybody writes.
Ann is a globally touring keynote speaker, a giant in the marketing space, albeit I'm taller than her, so you know, no hard feelings Ann. Today we are gonna workshop a couple of drafts of our newsletters. Anne's is not even at that stage yet. It's just some notebook writing, a couple of paragraphs worth of things rattling around in her brain and now out on the page in her notebook.
How is she planning on turning that into a story? What is she gonna present to us today? What can we do to improve it? And maybe advance it towards being a published piece, and then I'll reciprocate with an example. Then I bring to the table a story that feels close to final, but it has some holes. I'm not quite sure some of the parts that lead to teachable insights or useful insights for my readers on my newsletter.
By the way, you should subscribe to Ann's newsletter@anneley.com and mine@jconza.com. Alright, let's ask the question of each other and, and me asking the question to each other and out to you. Is this Can we just talk about our threads interaction and what we did there? Because as you said, at the end of it all, it was the most fun you'd had in a long time using social media, and I completely
Ann Handley: Yes, 100%. It gave me such joy that I have not had on social media. I don't even know since when, like, I wanna say, since Facebook was fun. What is that? 15 years ago? It felt very early Twitter. When it was just kind of random and chaotic and what, and like anything goes wild west in a good way.
Jay Acunzo: I mean, what we did was for the, you know, one or two people that didn't catch it. Everybody else totally got it. I went on a vacation with my family. while sitting by the pool, this adorable like bow up in her hair, curly haired 2-year-old, you know, like gaps in her mouth and frills on her little bathing suit.
She came toddling over to where I was sitting with my three-year-old and five-year-old. And just, you know, that's what little kids do. They just walk over to you and just exist near you. They're not there with any agenda. Like maybe she was interested in something but she just like walked over and was like, I'm here now.
And was so cute. And as a parent. I like appreciated it and I was like, what's your name? Or you know, like, I want to engage her a little bit. And the mother was in the row of beach chairs in front of us along the pool patio and she looked so scared and mortified that her daughter did this. Two other parents, right?
These are not total strangers without kids or anything. And we weren't doing anything important. It sucks that she felt that way. And so I wanted her to be. like to allay any concern that she had and feel like she could approach almost like cause I saw in her like this societal, cultural like, mandate that as a parent, your kids don't bother anybody else.
Like, I think born of the 1950s as children are meant to be seen, not heard, right. And I just didn't wanna do that. So I, I posted on threads this mini story about that, I started it with her apology, like, sorry, you know, and then I talked about what happened in the post, and then I ended it by saying I smiled as warmly as possible.
It's fine. I'm Jay, what are your names? And then you responded and created a scenario where the woman was Meryl Streep. I like didn't know what to do with that at first. And then you texted me and you're like, please continue the story. And I'm like, what are you talking about? What story? so you started that.
So thank you for that. I don't know where that came from with you.
Ann Handley: so here's the thing. It's, you know, you told this little story you, you know, you turned it into a, a kind of lesson like when we apologized for things that we don't really need to apologize for or something like that. But the thing that struck me about that little vignette that you shared, the little child coming over to you and the way you ended it it left me wanting more, hi Amm Jay, what are your names?
And I thought, what are their names? It was just such a. It just felt like one of those stories that I remember from school where we would sit around in a circle and somebody would write a sentence and then it would pass your paper and it'd go to the next person who would write a sentence. And so I just thought, you know what?
Who is that person? Let's invent it right here. And then I was afraid that you were gonna jump in and be like, oh, ha ha, no, it wasn't Meryl Streep. I don't know why I thought this, Jay. I mean, I should have given you more credit,
Jay Acunzo: all you did was alert me that you responded and then said, please continue the story. And it turned into like five or six replies each, or I don't know how many, like, it was a little mini story. So I'll drop a link in the show notes for people listening and if this clip goes anywhere, I'll share it with the link too.
But it was such a delightful,
there was a metalevel benefit to it. Like underneath the fun I was having was like. Oh right. How do I like keep something going off the back of like written words, like I was wandering around doing the bedtime routine here at home, thinking about.
What is the storytelling structure that the South Park guys always talk about? It's like, however, and, but, or something like, I started overthinking it and I was like, is how do I keep this interesting? How do I keep it going? And then like literally I was like, oh, I should open my eyes and just continue doing bedtime.
And I was like, oh, this, these children are so fricking adorable. Like, oh, okay, I should like somehow weave that in. 'Cause there was a turn in the middle of it where Meryl Streep was like, don't look in the little girl's eyes. it could have gone into a horror show. But what I turned it into was like I was sucked away from all the distracted thoughts in my head and planted back in a mindful moment, hearing the waves, feeling the sand, then all of a sudden back out into the ephemeral nature of thought, thinking about my daughter and her growing up and all that, and we like landed it in a beautiful place.
So it was like this insane exercise in like forcing you to keep something going that you didn't yourself set up.
Ann Handley: Yes. And the other thing I liked about that was, well, two things. One of the things you already said, which is didn't overthink it. , I approached it just as a very much a yes and exercise. Acknowledge what Jay said, and then add your own something to it. you know, how do you actually make it fun and funny and interesting, and hopefully it'll lead somewhere.
But I was also fully prepared for it not to lead somewhere, because it may not have been, it may have just been a fun 20 minutes that we spent on threads going back and forth. So yeah, I think setting my own expectations that it doesn't need to be anything. It could just be a moment of joy and levity, which again, I think is important to bring to your work.
it delighted me so much because I felt such joy in that small moment of connection with you and with anybody who is following along.
You know, the hundreds of thousands of people who are following that interaction on
Jay Acunzo: I think it tipped over a million. I think we, I think, you know.
Ann Handley: think just the, the joy of creating, that's what fuels me as a creator. I need to find those moments in my life and amplify them as much as I can. And it was just such a delight to have that moment in a public way. Normally, I don't have that moment in a public way. It's just me in my notebook.
Jay Acunzo: For me, a lot of the pressure has increased as I've had kids bought a house, went through the pandemic, where like more of the things I'm doing feel like they have to work and more of the knowledge I have on social media is of what works or people tell you and profess to know what's being squeezed out of that world.
And also my reality of just having less time and energy in my week overall is where's the pocket for play? wHere's the. Slowing myself down, which is something I know you believe in, or going analog, right to write Ha and a log. You get it. And a log is this. And anything
Ann Handley: Writes itself.
Jay Acunzo: I, I wanna make sure that before we get too deep into the episode, we lose a third of the listenership or more.
So that's, that was check. Um. No, but like I don't, I don't really do, I used to be a serial tinkerer, not side hustler, just side maker side. I'm gonna try something and throw it away or you know, save it in a folder somewhere. It's never gonna see the light of day. And I just found that the act of doing that was good for my soul, good for my skills.
You know, maybe it didn't go anywhere, but it got me to the next thing. Or maybe it just delighted me and you know, reminded me. Of a past version of me, I'm actually writing in my newsletter this week a story called The Guy Who Routinely Saves Me, and it's about a past version of me that I think about a lot when I find that life is lifeing hard, where.
I had a little espresso bar behind my apartment building years ago, and I would go a couple times a week, like at 7:00 AM and I would write basically to no one. I'd publish it to a blog, but I had no readership. But it was the most joy I think I've experienced, maybe ever writing, and it was because of.
The feel of my fingers on the keys, the, really thin wood, uncomfortable [00:10:00] stool I would sit on, like, I'm nostalgic for that somehow. Or like they use light roast coffee. I can still taste it. I'm just back there. As soon as I start describing one of these details and the thing contained in all that was this feeling of like, I'm making purely to make. And in a weird way, that also then serves your agenda ridden making as well. But you have to kind of keep the two separate.
Ann Handley: I like that a lot. I think that you need to be more intentional as you evolve in your career. One of the things that happens as you evolve in your career is that you have more eyeballs on you very often. So you have more newsletter subscribers, you have more social followers, and there is this pressure to almost conform to what you know will.
Delight those people, that audience, like I know this is gonna kill as a newsletter topic and I know that this is going to get a lot of engagement on LinkedIn. And so I think it's incumbent on us as creators and as people who really need to feed our souls as well as an audience, is to find those opportunities where it is just about you.
I think that's why the thread thing felt so special. 'cause as much as we're joking about, you know, a million people saw it, the reality is threads is so small right now, and our, our followers are relatively tiny there compared to the rest of social. and so just doing it in that place felt a little bit safe.
it doesn't need to be as public on, um, like on a. On a social platform. But I think just looking for those moments where you can just, , create for the joy of it and just to feed yourself, it's, it's harder to do as your career advances and you know, again, as you get more attention.
And so I think you need to be much more intentional about finding those moments.
[00:11:51] transition
Jay Acunzo: I feel more isolated as a maker and a communicator and a professional now than I ever have before, and I have miles to go, yet in my career to develop a bigger platform to.
Do all the things I want to do. And, it's just been harder and harder to find like my tribe, like of peers, you know, like I love big industry events where I get to speak because then like you are there and Melanie's there and whoever else, I get to be like, oh, we all kind of get it at to varying levels or degrees, but we're kind of like all on the path at least.
And then I go back home and I'm much more advice giver than advice getter. And even a lot of my networking calls where either I reach out to the person or I agree to talk to the person, it's just ingrained in me so much that I can't help myself. It's kind of icky. It's like I just start giving them advice.
I was like, no, no, no, wait. That's, we're just here to catch up. So like, it's hard, it's been harder for me and this is a hidden agenda of this show to chop it up with peers. But that's where I feel like the good kind of brain hurt. So like, I guess my question is like, how do you. With your position publicly, like get that?
Ann Handley: I mean, the truth is that I, I tend to be kind of a solo. Is is like a solo collaborator, a thing like, I, I don't know. what I wrote this morning, I'm going to collaborate with a future self on, I, I have never been great at, at work shopping stuff in a group. Like I've never been part of a writer's group.
I've never, , workshopped anything out loud because I need to figure out. My own point of view, my own perspective and what I wanna say and how I wanna say it first. Yeah. But now that I'm saying that I get a lot out of conversations with, you know, a few select people in our circle, like you included. you know, I agreed to, last time we did a podcast together, for example. It was just so much fun and I felt so buoyed after that that, you know, maybe I need to explore that a little bit more.
Maybe it actually would benefit me in ways that I'm not even realizing now. because I do think that those little sparks of connection with another, like-minded creator is, um, is so valuable. But I can't say that I've actively fostered that around me. Um, and part of it is honestly just a function of time.
I feel like I'm always pressed, always running, which I've tried to push against and to slow down. It's just, it's hard. It really is.
Jay Acunzo: Yeah, we're moving our VIP tier of the creator kitchen, further up market, in both price and, and who is included because we don't want a ton of people. We want it to be very vetted for folks like us that feel on an island or feel like, you know, my problem isn't, what should I create? It's, I'm going there, I'm making something already.
Or maybe I'm scoping the idea, but like. I feel no fear in pushing forward, at least a little bit, but I want someone else to be an idea combatant and confidant, or I don't wanna ask what's the right way to do x? I wanna know how you did that, and then I'll take from it what I need. You know, I don't need the blueprint at this point.
I need. And need Ann's story about how she did something similar or even something different. And then I can kind of go, oh, that's interesting. I'll take this, that, or the other thing from it. So there's like different questions I find myself asking at this stage, and I don't feel well served by an internet that's basically all advertising revenue based, meaning the 1 0 1 level tips and tricks kind of stuff is what monetizes best for these channels. So they subtly and sometimes not so subtly encourage people to basically post that kind of stuff. So what you're left with is.
Where's the 3 0 1 level thinking?
Ann Handley: Right, right. Exactly. Like a mastermind for creatives. I could
Jay Acunzo: Yeah. So we're trying to create that right now out of our VIP list, but it, it honestly is a profoundly selfish endeavor because yes, I think it'll help a lot of people, or not a lot, but the right people. But it's also something I've lacked, haven't been able to pull it together in a way that sticks. So I think another reason I appreciated our back and forth so much on threads was like. I'm chopping it up with somebody that I could learn from.
Ann Handley: yeah, same honestly. you've just made me wonder, actually, you've made me ask myself, is that something that I, I. Could potentially find value and I don't know.
Jay Acunzo: But you did bring up an interesting point in the way you do it now, which is. You gotta put, maybe it's imperative for people who have more experience and traction to put more space in between the stages of creating something so that you know, yes, there'll be stronger than the average bear just putting down the draft, editing it right after and shipping it.
But your future self is that collaborator, and you're gonna have to walk away from it for a beat. to then, you know, you with fresh eyes is like, you know, another person almost. It's like you don't want to ship the thing right after you draft it 'cause you are so strong at what you do. And so you need that space more so than somebody who might be a beginner.
Ann Handley: that is absolutely true and I think that feeling like I am able to go back to my stuff that I wrote, you know. A week or two, a year or more ago. Um, and I automatically like start to workshop it with myself. And so that's what I'm always anticipating whenever I'm writing. I know that, that even if I think it's amazing right now, this happens to me a lot actually when I'm, um, when I'm writing my newsletter, for example, which is very story driven.
So when I'm writing that newsletter, I think it's so good, oh my gosh, this is great. I love this so much. And then I have an impulse to immediately send it to my editor. But I don't allow myself to do that because I know by this point that in the morning future me is going to say, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Like, what are you doing here? Look at this. You know? And that happens all the time. , but. It's 100% true that you, as much as I am proud of something that I created today, I know that future me is going to be kind, but also is going to help me enormously.
So I try to rely on her.
[00:17:43] transition music
Jay Acunzo: Okay. So we are gonna work out unproven material. We're gonna work out ideas in this miniseries as part of the show. And. what I think I wanna do today is I'm, I'm literally looking at a draft of my newsletter. I have a story that'll probably end up with a callback at the end of the draft, but I have not finished the draft. I almost like went through story upfront moments of teaching, both of which needs work and there's no ending. So I'll, I'll probably just read out the story as I have it written now and I'd love to punch it up or change it.
I'm happy to start unless you know, are you gonna, I think you said you're gonna plan, you plan on bringing something from your notebook. Right.
Ann Handley: Yes.
Jay Acunzo: Okay, so I mentioned before the idea of this piece. I think it's important to know where this is heading so we can improve the story. 'cause it's intentionally setting it up. I. Have been all over the place with vacations and home life, but also doing a bunch of projects like away from the newsletter.
So I wanted something that felt at least easy to think about, if not easy to write. And so I've been saving in my notebook for years now, this list of about, I don't know, 15 ish things, which the title of the note is, immutable Truths of and in parentheses, my. Creativity. It's just like things I feel like are inescapable.
No matter what I make, no matter how good or bad I am at the thing. Like, keep this in mind Jay. This is, this is true, at least for you, about making stuff about creativity and I've never shared it publicly and. It's a direct line. The reason I like this note is not just the things in it. It's a direct line back to a time in my life where I had not really staked my career or business or income on my ability to create content, build an audience, and find ways to monetize that audience.
I was working a day job and just writing on the side for fun, and I need to visit that guy many, many times. So the title of the piece, separate from the title of the note, the guy who routinely saves me. That is a version of me from years past that I need to keep alive in spirit.
Ann Handley: Hmm.
Jay Acunzo: So that's like where this is going is the story is visiting this guy and then I wanna lead into, and here's the list of immutable truths of my creativity.
You know, may it serve you kind of thing. Alright, so here's what I have written. This is a draft, be brutally honest, what's working, what's not. [00:20:00] I'm a little nervous.
I've
Ann Handley: I know. I can sense that. I
Jay Acunzo: Uh, all right, here we go.
Ann Handley: I feel like I'm watching Jay on stage for the first time.
All right. Just
Jay Acunzo: we go.
[00:20:09] WHOOSH
Jay Acunzo: The guy who routinely saves me, there's this version of me I often think about and he brings me back from the brink when life gets hard, when the kids aren't sleeping or they tantrum regularly when my schedule gets blown to bits for some reason or another, or the news finds a way into my eyeballs a bit too much.
When my work isn't hitting the way I hoped it would when I wake up to yet another 92 degree day in Boston, and it throws me into existential crisis about the earth and future generations, and literally every time I move, I make, and then the aside here, do I add one more scoop of coffee grounds to make this pot stronger, or is that terrible for the planet when life is lifeing hard?
I think about this version of me. I'm in my late twenties sitting in a tiny espresso bar in Cambridge, mass at 7:00 AM The place is just a half a block behind my apartment building. I'm sipping the caffeinated product of grounds I find slightly too bitter. After spending an amount of money I find slightly too high and I'm there to write to no one.
And I'm overjoyed. The cafe known as Dwell Time is no more, but that version of me remains. He has to remain. Otherwise, I don't know how I'd persist, given the nature of this world and the work I'm doing in it. That guy had an audience of zero. Okay, fine. Maybe three. My mom, my dad, and a friend of my mom's from work even still, I'd roll out of bed at 6:30 AM Float Into Dwell Time and cash in my 401k for a coffee.
Seriously, why? That's when the best bits would begin, the feel of my claws on the keys. And I actually wrote this hat tip to the great, an handly on my show for that reference. The hammering of my heart as I try to type fast enough to get out what's in my head before it blends into the steam around the baristas.
The unbelievable irresistible adjective inducing feeling of hitting, publish and cementing my ideas into the public record. For who? Exactly? For me. It was all for me. That feeling from that version of me in that moment in time when I was just making to make, damn do I need to keep that guy alive in me?
Now what about you?
[00:22:11] WHOOSH
Ann Handley: Okay.
Jay Acunzo: that truthfully came pouring out of me in nearly one go. It was like, I don't know what to write. I'm just gonna try and visit this guy and see what comes out. I have not thought about it any further.
Ann Handley: Okay. I. Is this anything? Yeah, that's definitely something I really resonated with the way that you put me into the story right away because you say it's not, you know? Yeah. Because the, the kids, the home life, like, not everybody has kids. Like, not everybody has those kinds of pressures, but.
Jay Acunzo: life's to us all.
Ann Handley: Life, right, exactly. Reading the news too long and then you start to worry like, you know, the existential crisis of that extra coffee scoop. Like, that's so relatable. So I like the way that what you did there is essentially pull the reader in immediately, even though it was a story about you. , so I think that was really, really solid.
I think I had a couple of questions that came up in my mind as you were reading. Do you want me just to tell you what they are? Go
Jay Acunzo: Oh yeah. I'm gonna write these down.
Ann Handley: Okay, good. so when you talked about how. Uh, a coffee that was slightly too high. ,
Jay Acunzo: Oh yeah, no, it was, uh, grounds that are slightly too bitter at a price that was slightly too high.
Ann Handley: I think in general, like I love the word play of that. I think you could just punch that up with a little bit more playfulness. It feels a little bit too, um. Like, you have some fun asides, like your little, your little asides in there, very j like that's a j that's a hallmark of Jay's writing.
but I think just punching it up in with some fun playfulness. So, you know, is the slightly too bitter is a taste in your mouth slightly too high is like, like I want it to feel more visceral than
Jay Acunzo: Mm. That's really good
Ann Handley: I want something else. Like, you know, the price is a little bit, you know, hard to take too or something like that.
Jay Acunzo: Ooh. Yeah. Like, okay. Okay. Slightly too bitter at a price point that's even harder to swallow.
Ann Handley: Yeah, exactly. Like connect the two things. The point about, um, blending into steam, like trying to get stuff out before it, like evaporates. I think you wanna use the word evaporate in there. Like, the blending into steam thing didn't land for me. Like So again, just adding a little bit more vibrancy and just punching it up a little bit to make it a little bit more playful. I also am wondering about the name of that place, dwell Time, which is what we all want as content creators. We want people to dwell with our content. Like the whole notion of dwell time, like measuring that in an email and measuring it on your website.
I think that there could be a fun little connection that you could pull in there.
Jay Acunzo: Yeah, that's interesting. Do you feel like I could go over, I mean, I do this you know, we're all in the business of kind of creating characters, whether it's like an actual person or personified individual or animal, but, or like, you know, tent poles, touchstones, callback opportunities like describing the cafe or the coffee itself.
I have a bunch of those in there. My first question when I read it was like, oh, I think I'm doing it too much. I think I'm going too hard at like, the setup. Maybe like the placing you there setting.
Ann Handley: I think you could tighten it up. I think it's a little bit long, especially that first part, I think you could almost make that just a single sentence. I like the life is lifeing too hard thing. I, I think that's. You know, that's, that's a sense of playfulness. Like the word play is fun on that. I mean, I don't know if you do this later in the piece, but I also would love to know like a little bit about, so you said what year was this? Like the, two
Jay Acunzo: I didn't say what year. I said I was in my late twenties, which would put it at 10, 10, 10 years ago. That decade ago.
Ann Handley: right.
Jay Acunzo: Just a year ago, Ann.
Ann Handley: yeah, just so it was like last year, 18
Jay Acunzo: I'm so tired.
[00:25:37] Marker
Ann Handley: It might be kind of fun to explore the idea of younger Jay, like, you know, like physically, like what's the, is your physicality any different? Like can you throw a line in about that,
Jay Acunzo: Oh, that's
Ann Handley: younger self? And I don't know whether you do that. Like, I don't know that you need to do it in the setup, but maybe subsequently in the piece might be, there could be a fun opportunity there.
Jay Acunzo: about my posture or. You know, actually this is true. It's like I mentioned before this, I remember distinctly this sort of paleish, you know, almost beige wood, , seat, really uncomfortable. Like, were I to do that now? I'm either staying there for the rest of my life or I'm in a world of hurt when I get up.
I would literally write like frozen in place for I don't know how many hours, or maybe just an hour. Either way I could do it if I was frozen in place for even five minutes at my age Now in that seat, I'm not gonna have a good time.
Ann Handley: exactly. Like, and so I think what that does is it brings into relief the difference between, it just reminds the reader constantly, you know? New Jay versus Old Jay, you know, you know now Jay versus former Jay. So I think the more you can, you can do that because I, I pictured you immediately in this, in dwell time.
But I pictured you now, like, I think you need to paint the picture a little bit. And there's also an opportunity, I think there for just a little bit of humor, a little bit of color, just a little bit of playfulness as well.
Jay Acunzo: Yep. Okay, cool. So let me just visit the ending with you and then I wanna hear your draft. For writing for who? I actually did like this. I was like, oh, okay. That's how I pivot back to the thrust of the story.
Like this unbelievable, irresistible, and this is a very me thing, adjective inducing feeling. It's like I always wink and nod to the fact that I'm writing sometimes,
Like it's the unbelievable irresistible third thing I can't think of. 'cause I hate rules, lists
Ann Handley: Yes. That's
Jay Acunzo: you know, like that kind of
Ann Handley: do, right?
Jay Acunzo: So unbelievable irresistible adjective inducing feeling. It's also an acknowledgement that, I have been overwriting this a little bit, or one could overwrite things, or even this line contains too many adjectives, but I know that, so let me acknowledge that. I don't know. I pivot, you know, cementing my ideas to the public record.
For who? Exactly. For me, it was all for me. That feeling, that guy, et cetera. All the ways I'm saying it, like it's basically I'm just making to make, and damn do I need to keep that guy alive in me? Now what about you? That's the line. I was like, I need to leave it with you for a moment. Then I put a a DCUs.
Your favorite and mine, the three asterisks in a row. The DCUs. That's the line Break the visual line, break the three asterisk. So I put a DCUs and then I pivot to talking in more plain language about, uh, one's career or work. So I How do what, what, what about the ending there? you know, I'm literally just like handing it off.
Like, I need to keep that guy alive in me. Now what about you?
I like the fact that you turn it over to the reader, that you're challenging the reader in a way, but when I heard that, I read it as maybe this is just me being a little bit too literal as a former editor, but what about you?
Ann Handley: Do you wanna keep that guy alive too? I think you need to make it clear that, You know that's why I think you should create more of a character like, who's Young Jay sitting in the, like, you know, think about your young Jay. You know, think about your, so I think maybe make it super clear that it's not like, what about you as a throwaway line?
Jay Acunzo: Uh, that's why I brought it up. 'cause it felt like, not cliche, but
yeah. Generic.
Ann Handley: Right. A little more impactful might be something like, you wouldn't do this, but something like, challenge the reader. Think back to a time when you were this way, you know, or something like, I think you need to make the, make it really clear like .
What, what were you like and how do you tap into that? What about you? Feels like I just told a story about me and it's kind of like, what do you think about me? You know, it just was,
you know, it just, it didn't land for me as much as I think it could. If you make it crystal clear that I'm gonna be talking about you and I, I want you to think about your past self as
Jay Acunzo: Right, right. I love this and you too listening can get free editing advice from the great Anne Ley author of Everybody writes, if you start a show masquerading as a desire to Get Better Yourself.
Ann Handley: Oh my goodness.
Jay Acunzo: I, this is amazing. I took all sorts of notes. I want to hear your idea. What do, what are you sitting on?
[00:29:55] music?
Ann Handley: All right, so I actually have two there. It's not nearly as fleshed out. I am not [00:30:00] sure where it's going, and that's why I wanted to share them with you. I have two one's about a, a chipmunk and one's about being on an airplane. The one about the chipmunk. I feel like I talked about squirrels last time I was on the
Jay Acunzo: You did. And I'm like, oh good. Another rodent reference for
Ann Handley: Yeah. And I have a yeah, I have like a low key fear that everyone of your listeners is gonna think, what is Ann's weird obsession with rodents and small animals?
Jay Acunzo: We write what we know. You're literally staring at your very green tree ringed yard, right? Like, I mean the airplanes thing, I'm sure you would do it well,
so I'd be curious to hear that idea first to like. Relate to it. I guess 'cause I think if you travel a ton like you do, it changes your perspective on travel a little bit.
Ann Handley: All right, here we go. We're gonna do the airplane story. It does not have a title. I don't know where it's going. It's true to the title of this show, which is, is this anything? I don't know if it is.
set up is I'm in Puerto Rico
[00:31:03] WHOOSH
Ann Handley: on the flight, on the way here, the flight attendant offered me an avocado omelet or chia pudding with fruit. I chose the omelet, then she turned to the guy next to me. He chose the omelet as well. Oh, sorry. She said, we just ran out like one second ago. I said I would trade because I said over-explaining that I actually had considered the chia.
The man waved his hand in my direction without looking at me. Oh, no, no, no. I insisted. Finally, he relented. The flight attendant thanked me. He did not. The chia pudding was the best. It was very chia forward with some sort of not too sweet fruit berry, maybe dollop on top that added a nice tart bite, plus fresh fruit on the side.
Absolute heaven, but I ate it angrily. One bite of fresh fruit. Now with the bitter aftertaste of rude neighbor who did not acknowledge my kindness. My large ass, my generous spirit.
I read in the New York Times how when you're traveling you're marooned in a zero world. The flight cabin is a temporary neighborhood populated by temporary citizens with nothing in common except for one thing.
We need to pass the time without incident and we need to get out of here. We're untethered from reality high in the air, literally parallel to life, but separate from it. But don't the same rules apply In the zero world, isn't it nice to acknowledge a kindness?
Do we do nice things for others because we want to be recognized or because the act itself is enough? Or maybe sometimes we just really want the chia pudding after all?
[00:32:46] WHOOSH
Ann Handley: So here's my question about it. I thought about it as a way to talk about human behavior is always the same, whether it's in an airplane or on the ground.
Like I'm guessing that that guy is the guy who, , is the kind of person who is rude to servers, who is rude to the Uber driver, who does not tip as well as he should. There is this sort of notion in life that you know, when you are in the air, that people somehow behave more rudely. But what I think is true is that people behave exactly as they do in the, in the real world.
It's just that the stakes are higher. So maybe you see it in a sharper relief.
Jay Acunzo: Yeah, that's making me think about so much going on in the world of. Like publishing to the internet, like, um, a social media algorithm, uh, the advent of ai, et cetera. Insert trend or thing here where we talk about it as if it sits separate from the nature of a person or people overall. Right. But like I.
Is this bringing out the worst in people? is this creating an excuse to be bad or is it bringing out the badness that you would've had from that person elsewhere? You just didn't have access to it? Or, you know, I immediately thought about. That debate I have in my head, which is, a friend of mine and yours, Kathy McPhillips, chief Growth Officer at the Marketing AI Institute. She was a guest, uh, we call 'em guest chefs. You are a guest chef. The guest, uh, lecturer inside the Creator kitchen today. And she was like, yeah, the people using AI to like spam social media posts with comments.
Are doing that and it's terrible, but they were doing spammy things before the advent of AI, people creating crappy content at great scale. Were doing that before ai, and maybe this is throwing it into sharper relief, but it's sort of like, but bringing out or a continuation or exaggeration of what they already were.
So my head automatically went to those things.
Ann Handley: Yeah. Yeah. I really
Jay Acunzo: hunting for the larger, so what of it All right, as I
Ann Handley: No, that's exactly what I, what I wanted. It was, um, I, because I wrote that and I, I, I was thinking to myself exactly like, is there something here? And my default is always to go to marketing too. So basically if you're agreeing with the idea that people behave in the air exactly as they do on the ground, it's very, it's easy to draw an analogy of like, well, it's very similar to say AI or, I was thinking before you said ai.
I was thinking about, I. people who like you can get great results by just relentlessly spamming an email list. Right? But what, what's the diminishing return of that? Of course. Um, and so I think the same is true, that same impulse with, creating with ai.
Jay Acunzo: like annoy the many to convert a few is a lot of people's marketing strategy and it's a bad one. Right? That's my perspective.
Tom Webster, Of the podcast industry, you know, veteran in podcasting. that's his title, Tom Webster, of the podcast industry. no, he, he works, he's a partner at a research and, and industry firm called Sounds Profitable, does a lot of research on the audio industry, and Tom has talked about non-response bias of like some people who did not.
Engage with that, because you could be like, look, I got all these responses. Yeah, but also you did that terrible thing in view of tons more people that chose not to engage or tell you, Hey, don't do that, or that I don't like that, or whatever, you know? And then you have non-response bias wherever you gather quantitative data, but also qualitative as a researcher, it's the same when we show up as public voices.
You know, people are like, well, no one seemed to be bothered by that, but there's a lot of people who you. If you don't have access to, there's no proof, right? But they are in fact put off by your behavior or whatever. So I don't know if that plugs into this at all. but I just thought that was an interesting idea of like, people are rewarded for bad behavior sometimes because of not, they don't realize non-response bias is a thing 'cause you're leaving a wake of destruction that you don't quite see immediately by being a bad actor.
Ann Handley: right. Yeah, that's true. and then, you know, he was rewarded with the omelet, which just, you know, fries me.
Jay Acunzo: Yeah. I had a couple questions on like more of the story elements, like separate from the insights you're extracting from them. So like.
Ate it angrily. That was interesting. Um, I almost think of like a cartoon Ann, like three bites and it's down with like a couple of like colorful circle crumbs. Like it's a cartoonish imagery of like, and it's out like what I kind of wanted.
It did evoke something but it didn't feel like it was there yet. Like pull that thread. I think I like that vibe and that you could do other things that you might not describe as angrily.
Ann Handley: you know what, one of the things I was thinking about doing is in that paragraph, when I say I ate it angrily, it's too short and I'm not letting you feel just like how I felt. So I thought of a, I ate it angrily, and then I say one bite of fresh fruit now with a bitter aftertaste of the rude neighbor who did not acknowledge my kindness, my large ass, my generous spirit.
So I gave you the opening and I gave you the, the final, but I needed, uh, to bring you through. So every bite, what am I feeling? So one bite, and then I'm like, gonna have an imaginary conversation with my neighbor. You know, it wouldn't have killed you to say thank you for that.
Number two, that avocado honestly looks a little off. You deserve that. Like, I, I need to put you there beside me as I'm taking bite after bite. So it's not just that I ate it angrily, because it's too, that's not a story, that's just a statement.
Jay Acunzo: the nitty gritty, the forward action of like the bites reveals
Ann Handley: There's no action in there. Right? And let you into my head.
What I'm thinking as I'm eating this, it's not just that I ate, and then afterward it was that aftertaste, what happened in the middle. So, you know, again, this is like a notebook. This is just the bones of it. My next step for this would be like me writing longhand and then, and then I would take that and, and work through it in, um, you know, online. So that's when I think I would add a lot of that color and a lot of that. I would realize that the pacing there needs to be, I need to slow it down. I need to let people feel what it's like to be buckled in a seat 32,000 feet in the air next to this ingrate who is chomping on his, still still fired up about that.
Jay Acunzo: it's funny 'cause it, I think about like, when you know how to drive a car, you're not consciously thinking about all the moves it takes to drive a car. You can kind of like. Very fluidly like react, like get faster or slower as either you see fit or as the world around you throws variables your way.
And I kind of feel like that's something that even in the piece I read, I'm figuring out the, like, did I slow it too? Did I slow it down too much? And there I'm in the coffee shop and I'm sitting and, and drinking and all these things, or. Am I going through that too quickly? Right, and like we just decided the inverse for you.
Maybe it's like you move through it too quickly. So like pacing it up, slowing it down to then give people more details, which puts them in the story. And then also lets them fill in their own details. I think that's like one of those calibration things that does require for me the [00:40:00] space we talked about earlier.
Like I gotta leave it at least a beat to notice that
Ann Handley: Like I wrote this back in May, um, and it's been in the back of my brain as something that I might wanna pick up at some point. But also it's part of my process. I don't write longhand every little thing, like I might write a note. Pull this out or more here, you know, but I don't write, like when, when I tell people that I write longhand, they're always like, oh my God, that sounds like it's not that.
It's just like I write, or I read the bones of what happened, but then when I translate it, my, in my second draft, so the one that I type, the one that I fire up a Google doc or, or uh, or word or whatever I'm using that day, um, that's when I start to. build the, the story more richly because I don't record all that in the notebook.
It just would take me way too long. And you know, I don't, I don't have that kind of time. Nobody does. And that's what I mean about like future Me now sees that, that I rush through that. I need to explain it a little bit more.
Jay Acunzo: Yeah, but you gave future you enough to, to know what to do with it, right? Versus too little and you that detail's lost the time. I think one of the details that probably has a whole world behind it. Whenever you brand something, I feel like that's in inescapable as a creative, but Zero World, the idea of Zero World.
I, I'm very excited to see where you take that. Why did you name it Zero World? That was a question on my mind, and I know again, if you flesh it out, that would become more clear. But I'm just, as we pull that thread, where, where does that take us? Why the name? What is Zero World? What Goes On in Zero World?
Ann Handley: So the zero world is actually not mine. It came from the New York Times. That's why I said, I read in the Times how when you're traveling you're marooned in a zero world, in a kind of zero world. And I, this is not word for word from the piece, but it's just, it's stuck in my head. The idea of a zero world where you're suddenly thrown together with the your fellow citizens.
Your fellow community for a very short period of time, and somehow you all need to get along. The New York Times talked about how they, they talked about it through the lens of flight delays, and it just about how, like, that feels like you're sort of all in this together and you're, you're driven by this single need to get out of this airplane.
Jay Acunzo: Yeah.
Ann Handley: But I reinterpreted it and thought about it more broadly. I think of Zero World as not just the not, it doesn't just happen in delays and it doesn't just happen when you need to get out of there, but also you want it to be without incident. You wanna have a pleasant experience. You want to talk to the person beside you or not, you know, depending on what kind of person you are.
So we all have our, our proclivities around how we like to experience a zero world. And so I wanted to just. Talk about that a little bit, like test it a little bit. I love the branding of that too. I wish I could say that it was mine, but but it wasn't.
Jay Acunzo: No, but you also then get to introduce if there is, 'cause you described it as it's parallel to life,
So there's an opportunity, I think, to take us down to the ground, with whatever other world exists there. Or maybe there's another version of being in Zero World where you opt out of it.
While in it to exist in a different mental state, like, I don't know if that's a thing. I do know it's one of the more visceral ideas, even if it's not something you coined as the insight of the story becomes clearer, that insight might be more attainable to your reader or understandable to the reader or whatever. If you then encourage them to embody a different world.
[00:43:21] Marker
Jay Acunzo: I don't think these episodes will answer. Is this anything? Yes, it is something like, do something with it. I think it's meant to just like literally put on display the fact that this is, this is how stories happen.
Ann Handley: yeah, I mean this is just aerating it. I don't know. It's been sitting in my notebook for a couple months now and I'm like, I don't know, maybe I'll use it at some point.
I was just gonna say there, there will be a trigger at some point that will, that I will remind me.
And it won't just be trauma related. It could be anything. It could be when you're feeling like you're in that, that weird place where you're suddenly there's this little community happening and there's a clear hierarchy of, you know, pilot flight attendant us right? Or, um, you know, us, postal person and then you know, us. It's like we're all sort of. We're at the whim and the mercy of whatever is going on.
We have zero control. That's the piece of it that, that I think that to me feels like it's a zero world. Like it's a, there's a, a sort of, um, there's a lack of gravity. There's a weightlessness to it. You know, that's how I related to that. That's not how the New York Times set it up, but that's how I was thinking about it.
Jay Acunzo: that's making me think of maybe there's also a zero world in the world of work. 'cause that's ultimately what we, we both speak and think about. transporting it from travel, which is serving as the metaphor to. What? I don't know.
[00:44:37] transition music
Jay Acunzo: I feel like my, my next move on this is really, really easy, which is it's already a draft.
It's already sitting in, you know, the form it's sitting in and there's incremental changes to make. What I like about what you talked about there is like, you know, will you write this tomorrow or not? I don't know, but you might run into something that brings this story back to you. It reminds me of hosting a podcast where you're like.
I think good podcast hosts and producers are thinking of the show has a distinct premise, one hopes, and then you go, so why am I talking to, you know, Sam? Because Sam is awesome, but a generic show about how people are awesome. Not gonna cut it, or how experts are experts, even though everyone tries to do it that way.
It's like Sam is here to illuminate this theme or big question that relates to our show's ongoing journey, right? So you kind of like know you wanna talk to Sam for a while and then you wander the earth and you go, oh. That big question that popped from, I don't know, where a conversation, an observation, your subconscious would be the perfect thing to try and figure out more information behind.
When I talk to Sam, right, I kind of feel like idea seeds are like that too, or idea threads. You're like, I don't really know what this is gonna lead to. And then you're wandering the earth and you're like, ah. I think that moment or bit. Is actually the best way into trying to understand this thing over here.
Ann Handley: Exactly, and I, I think that speaks to just the importance of paying attention, of creating a practice for yourself, of writing down what happens to you of, of stories. I mean, this book I have probably about. I don't know, 40 of them at this point. And a lot of it I don't use, but the practice of tuning into my life and the what's going on around me, and then recording it and writing it down, which is key, gives me a vast repository that I, I may or may not use.
Um, and I just think it helps you think about what is a story, what is interesting to other people, It's not just about observing, it's not just about looking up from your phone, but it's about having the, the discipline and the practice to, to write it down. I wrote that story the next day, um, because my practice is that, you know, I landed in Puerto Rico, I'd go through customs, you know, the whole thing.
So and then I went out to dinner with friends. Like I didn't have time to, think about that. It wasn't until the next day that I wrote it down, and so you don't have to do it immediately. But I think just, I knew in my brain when that happened that. I'm gonna write about this tomorrow, and that's what I collect is, is, uh, I talked about this last time, just about collecting those stories from moments in ordinary life.
Um, I, I usually can recognize it now. I couldn't always, like, a lot of times I would sit down early in my efforts to build this practice and I would think I don't have anything to write about what happened yesterday, and I'd have to think about it, but now I'm very good at. Recognizing a moment when it happens.
I see that spark and I almost feel something within me and I think, Hmm, that's it. And I was like, listen, you bastard, you're going in my notebook tomorrow,
Jay Acunzo: Yes. What a gift. Though he didn't know it, but thank you to that guy. The takeaway here for me is, it's a lot easier to cook consistently. 'cause you gotta, you're gonna make dinner every night when you have a well-stocked pantry and a well organized kitchen, and you have, you have everything there that you need.
Will you use, you know, that, uh, canned tomato or avocado, or will you use that kumquat? I don't know, but like, eh, you were intrigued by it. Like, let me stock that right. And honestly, I let a lot of the things that are in my pantry. Probably go to waste, and that's sad and I shouldn't do that as much with actual food.
But when it comes to ideas, it's like, okay, future me is telling past me something which is either, hey, not right now, we haven't found it. Or That was good for the habit of capturing these things and stocking the pantry, but that's actually something we're gonna let go by the wayside 'cause it's not lighting us up or doesn't seem to tie to our message or something like that. So we're all in the business of like cooking up those dishes. And the precursor to that is like, you gotta keep a well-stocked kitchen.
Ann Handley: exactly. Yeah. Good analogy.
Jay Acunzo: Thanks. That's all I do. If I don't speak in 75% analogies, I don't get a return on my degree.
Ann Handley: Mm. That's amazing.
Jay Acunzo: So you have to come back for the next iteration of a miniseries. It's like, or as where we come up with analogies to describe things, bat around the analogies, pick the one we like the most, and then pull it way too forward.
Ann Handley: I think we kind of did that here with this story, didn't we?
Jay Acunzo: A little bit. I think we, I think we've figured it out. I don't know how to land this plane. Oh, there we go.
Ann Handley: Oh
Jay Acunzo: World. Look at that.
Ann Handley: Wow, wow. Amazing.
Jay Acunzo: How Stories Happen was created by me Jay Acunzo, and it's produced by Alana Nevins.
Cover Art by Blake, Inc. You can work directly with me as your dedicated executive producer and advisor as I work with clients on their differentiated public positioning. How do you develop a premise and all your surrounding IP and a specialty of mine developing your signature talk? I work with experts, entrepreneurs, authors, speakers, business storytellers of all kinds to help differentiate your message and your thought leadership usually in the form of a speech.
You can also read my newsletter, which is about storytelling, resonance and differentiation@jayacunzo.com. Until next time, as always, keep making what matters. When your work matters more, you need to hustle for attention [00:50:00] less. . See ya.