How Stories Happen Jay Acunzo

Our guest for this episode is rarely online. But when she is, she’s telling small stories with big meaning.
Meet Michelle Warner—she’s a business strategist and consultant who architects business models and marketing strategies for clients who sell high-priced services. She also hosts the podcast Sequence Over Strategy—an idea that represents her entire platform’s differentiated premise, and one the story she brings to us today reflects.
Michelle has founded multi-million dollar startups, raised capital the traditional way, and generally followed “the blueprint” for business growth before burning out and finding a new path forward. She is an independent consultant and educator who doesn’t need to rely on social media for growth.
What I admire about Michelle is that she’s designed her life and work in a certain way—she’s intentional, genuine, and carefully curates anything she elects to spend time on. These characteristics are reflected in her life, in her work, and in the way she tells stories.
In this episode, we dissect one of her signature stories she recently sent to her newsletter. It was well-received, but the ending needs work, and she recognizes there are some structural problems with the story. We work on that together to turn this into a signature story she can take with her everywhere, and we identify the job this story does for her audience and her business.
You’ll get a deep look at the small changes that you can make to a story to communicate with greater impact.
Jump into the conversation: (03:39) Meet Michelle (17:40) Michelle’s Story (21:28) Dissecting the Story (23:04) First, Last, Favorite
Resources:
⚫ Listen to Michelle’s podcast: https://www.themichellewarner.com/blog/sos001
⚫ Check out Michelle’s website: https://www.themichellewarner.com/
🔵 Follow Jay: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayacunzo/
🔵 Subscribe to Jay’s newsletter: https://jayacunzo.com/newsletter
🔵 Learn about Jay’s coaching and consulting: https://jayacunzo.com/
🟢 Created in partnership with Share Your Genius: https://shareyourgenius.com/
🟢 Cover art designed by Blake Ink: https://www.blakeink.com/
🟢 Find and support our sponsors: https://jayacunzo.com/sponsors

I know a ton of storytellers and creators and entrepreneurs, but I know exactly zero other people who have learned how to do what they do from both legendary news broadcasters and Kermit the Frog.
Meet Andrew Davis. He is a powerhouse business speaker who’s given speeches in 35 different countries, at more than 50 events every year. He speaks to audiences ranging from marketers and entrepreneurs to plumbers and physicians — and there may not be a storyteller who is this craft-driven and obsessed with telling amazing stories in the worlds of business, marketing, and customer experience.
Andrew hosts a popular video series called the Loyalty Loop on YouTube, and he’s had a long career crafting stories of all kinds, including jobs as a producer for NBC and a writer for the news legend Charles Kuralt.
As an entrepreneur, Andrew has built and sold a marketing agency, produced docuseries for brand clients big and small, and authored multiple books about marketing and customer experience.
In this episode, we dissect one of his signature stories. It's been with him for almost ten years, and he can customize it across audiences and projects to arrive at basically any insight he needs to teach. It’s a rare look at how a true master of the craft executes the tiny things that create a big impact both for his audience and his business.
Jump into the conversation: (06:27) Meet Andrew (14:18) Andrew’s Story (22:38) Dissecting the Story (39:02) First, Last, Favorite
Bonus Video:
🎨 Watch a video animation of Andrew’s signature story:
https://jayacunzo.com/blog/how-stories-happen-episode-1-andrew-davis
Resources:
⚫ Follow Andrew: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drewdavishere/
⚫ Explore his speaking: https://www.akadrewdavis.com/
⚫ Watch the Loyalty Loop: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeegDFQqmxjBUpr5FCHzlpsKVyeEmPuf3
🔵 Follow Jay: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayacunzo/
🔵 Subscribe to Jay’s newsletter: https://jayacunzo.com/newsletter
🔵 Learn about Jay’s coaching and consulting: https://jayacunzo.com/
🟢 Created in partnership with Share Your Genius: https://shareyourgenius.com/
🟢 Cover art designed by Blake Ink: https://www.blakeink.com/
🟢 Video animation by La Hacienda: https://www.lahacienda.media/
🟢 Find and support our sponsors: https://jayacunzo.com/sponsors

Welcome to How Stories Happen, a show for business storytellers focused on standing out easier and resonating deeper through substance and stories, not hollow stunts. Each episode, an expert, entrepreneur, or world-class communicator breaks apart a single story piece by piece, sharing how they developed it and how they're using it to grow their brand and leave their legacy. Hosted by Jay Acunzo
As Ira Glass said, “Great stories happen to those who can tell them.” He doesn’t mean worthy things only appear to those who are already masters of the craft. He means, this is in fact a craft. But if that's the case, shouldn't we learn storytelling by getting closer to the actual crafting? Enough theory and technique. This show puts on display the posture, process, and practice of incredible business storytellers.
Storytellers don’t experience extraordinary things. They know how to imbue meaning into things that are ordinary.
How do stories happen? They don’t. Life happens. Then you turn that INTO stories. I guess you could say great stories happen ON PURPOSE.
I’m your host, Jay Acunzo. I’m an author, speaker, and podcaster, with more than 15 years of business storytelling experience. I’ve held marketing and editorial roles at Google, HubSpot, and ESPN. I’ve consulted Fortune 500 brands and hosted documentaries and podcasts for exciting startups, and I’ve traveled the world imploring builders of brands and communities to bridge the gap between what best practices claim you have to do and what your intuition is urging you to try.
In all of that, I’ve spotted a problem with the way we learn story: it’s an abstraction. It’s external to us. We start seeking answers “out there,” when in reality, that’s not how stories happen. You don’t experience the extraordinary. You see meaning in the ordinary. EVERYTHING is inspiration in the hands of an effective storyteller. To understand that is truly the difference between “learning story” and actually being a storyteller.
Join me in an original series where world-class storytellers break apart their signature stories and piece by piece, share how it was made, how they used it to support their cause, and how it might still get better. Because stories aren’t snapshots of life. Stories are built with intention. This show puts that intentionality on display, from inception to development, marketing and selling to growing a following or changing the world – everywhere being a storyteller empowers you to lead.
You’ll walk away thinking more about the power of your words and less about the volume of your content.
It has never been more urgent to become an effective storyteller, so you can stand out easier and resonate deeper than all the mediocrity flooding our world.
Join us as we explore How Stories Happen.
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SUBSCRIBE TO THE NEWSLETTER:
💌 Playing Favorites is the newsletter from Jay about resonance, storytelling, differentiation, and getting off the content hamster wheel to make things that matter more (because when your work matters more, you can hustle for attention less).
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WORK WITH JAY:
✅ Jay consults entrepreneurs, execs, and expert-based businesses to help them develop stronger IP—your premise, storytelling, frameworks, and pillar projects—so you can differentiate easier and resonate deeper. You can't own your audience, but you can own an idea in their minds. Learn more about Jay's consulting and coaching.
👋 You can also book Jay to speak to your organization or event. He's given keynotes in 25 states and 3 countries and delivered talks to audiences as big as 4,000 marketers and as intimate as 40 CEOs in a room, with clients including Harvard Business School, Zillow, Blackbaud, Dometic, James Hardie, Fidelity, 
📚 You can also explore Jay's books. Jay writes business books with soul and story at the center, including Break the Wheel: Question Best Practices, Hone Your Intuition, and Do Your Best Work (2018) and The Creator