The Bigger Stage w/ Matt Stone

Most founders don’t have an ideas problem. They have an action problem. Jason Durkee, President of Idea Development in Tokyo, shares what it really takes to grow a business past its first success. Jason Durkee moved to Japan for university, joined a corporate training startup while still in college, and in 2003 founded Idea Development in Tokyo. More than 20 years later, his firm serves 130+ clien...

Everyone told Mylena Maulepes not to bother applying to Harvard. She applied anyway. Now she helps companies beat burnout by fixing how the work is designed, not by asking people to be more resilient. -- Everyone told Mylena Maulepes not to bother applying to Harvard. She was Brazilian, English wasn't her first language, and she already had offers from other schools. She turned them down and appli...

A former ABC News correspondent explains why AI didn't kill earned media — it made it the asset most founders are ignoring. T.J. Winick on how ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity now decide how you're described, the reporter's playbook for getting covered, and how to turn a crisis around in a single news cycle. SHOW NOTES  For twenty years, T.J. Winick built stories from the inside — six of them as a...

Jacqueline Wales stopped believing in "fearless" a long time ago. After a financial collapse at 54 wiped out the life she'd built, she excavated a different idea — fear isn't something to kill or outrun, it's data. In this conversation she breaks down Fear Intelligence, the F.E.A.R. framework, the TEDx talk that nearly broke her, and the one question she puts to CEOs that nobody else asks. For any...

A 20-year banker walked away from a senior VP title to buy a 33-year-old mom-and-pop HVAC company that wasn't even for sale. Eric Light on calculated risk, a brutal first year, and the rule he's built two careers on. -- Eric Light spent nearly two decades in banking, working his way up to senior vice president, embedded in the Chester County, PA business community — exactly where he was supposed t...

Bobby Umar has done TEDx five times. In this episode, he breaks down how to actually get accepted, what makes a talk land, and the leverage move almost nobody makes after the applause dies down — plus the night he walked off the TEDx stage mid-talk and why he did it on purpose. SHOW NOTES: He walked off the TEDx stage mid-talk — slides broken, screen blank, audience watching. Then he went back out...

From tech lawyer to Warner, Meta, and CEO of Merlin — now Chief Commercial Officer at Suno. Jeremy Sirota on never being the smartest person in the room, the book he'd never talked about, and why AI can't help you if you've got nothing to say. FULL DESCRIPTION  "I've never been the smartest person in the room. So I've always had to pull at something else." Jeremy Sirota has a career that refuses t...

Millions of people drive, deliver, and hustle to power the American economy — and most of them are invisible to the financial system that's supposed to serve them. Ricky Michel Presbot, co-founder and CEO of Ualett, decided to do something about it. In this episode, Ricky shares how a failed early venture, a cab ride from JFK, and a chance encounter at a funeral led to the creation of a bilingual...

What do you do when the most important problem you can solve is also the least glamorous one? Duncan Barrigan spent 8 years helping build GoCardless into a global payments unicorn — then walked away to tackle something most founders walk right past: getting businesses paid. Not sexy. Not shiny. Just a $100 trillion problem that's been solved the same way, by humans, for 6,000 years. In this conver...

Pat Miller spent 20 years on the radio under a name that wasn't his. He went on the air as "J Pat". He was forced to cheer for the Green Bay Packers while his actual loyalty stayed with the Chicago Bears and Cubs. He programmed a country station he didn't connect with. And the whole time, he was getting really good at being someone else. In 2018 he walked away. No six-month runway. No clients line...

Leadership consultant John Durso shares a deceptively simple exercise that reveals what your values actually are — not the ones on your website. Most leaders can't actually name their real values. They list the words on their website — honesty, integrity, loyalty — and call it a day. John Durso says those aren't values. They're table stakes. In this episode, John walks Matt through a deceptively s...

Kate Joynt co-invented a product nobody was searching for. Then one influencer post took her Amazon sales from 25 a day to 800 — and EZ Outlet landed in Home Depot. Full Show Notes Kate Joynt is the founder and CEO of EZ Outlet, an electrical outlet extender now sold at Home Depot, on Amazon, on Walmart.com, and featured twice on NBC's Today Show. She didn't come from consumer products. She came f...

He built the largest painting company in Southeastern Pennsylvania. Then he let go. Kevin Nolan on identity, succession, and the happiest chapter yet. Kevin Nolan started with a paintbrush, a roommate, and a college student's ambition. Forty years later he'd built the largest residential painting company in Southeastern Pennsylvania — and done something most founders never manage. He actually let...

What if getting comfortable being unscripted actually requires more preparation, not less? Meridith Grundei has coached speakers at Amazon, Google, Pfizer, and Sotheby's — and her answer might change how you think about every stage you step onto. Meridith reached the highest levels of improv — including teaching at the famed Second City in Chicago. These days she takes everything she learned in th...

What if the key to success isn't about doing more — but giving up the right things? David Kalinowski has spent 30 years building Proactive Worldwide, a global competitive intelligence firm operating across 62 countries. But in this conversation, we leave the business strategy behind and go somewhere more important — the inner game. David's third book, The Sacrifice Paradox , draws on 101 real stor...

Nina Froriep grew up in Zurich being told her job was to become an interesting wife. She moved to New York at 23 and never looked back. What followed was 30 years of figuring it out: film sets, production companies, forced pivots, mentors who saw something in her before she saw it herself — and eventually, a second act helping coaches and consultants show up on LinkedIn. This is a conversation abo...

Most founders obsess over revenue growth. Very few talk about what growth does to the person leading it. In this final pre-launch episode of The Building Business Relationships Show , Matt Stone sits down with Theresa Cantley , growth architect to CEOs and founders, for a candid conversation about the internal side of scaling a business. Theresa shares stories from both ends of the leadership spec...

What do high-performing CEOs, professional athletes, and founders quietly struggle with behind the scenes? In this episode of Building Business Relationships , Matt sits down with Jen Boyle , founder of a high-touch lifestyle management company serving high-net-worth families and executives across the U.S. What begins as a story about fixing a scratch on a hardwood floor becomes a powerful metapho...

As AI-generated messages, outreach, and content flood the market, founders are facing a new challenge: It’s getting harder to tell what’s real—and who to trust. In this pre-launch episode of The Building Business Relationships Show , Matt Stone sits down with Zvi Band , founder of Contactually (acquired) and Relatable, to explore how AI is reshaping relationships in business—and why trust is becom...

As AI reshapes how work gets done, leaders everywhere are focused on tools, speed, and productivity. But there’s a more important question we’re not asking enough. In this pre-launch episode of The Building Business Relationships Show , Matt Stone is joined by Al Dea , host of The Edge of Work podcast, for a timely conversation about leadership, trust, and the human side of AI-driven change. Rathe...

For years, we’ve been told that more followers, more content, and more visibility would lead to more business. But what if that story is backwards? In this pre-launch episode of The Building Business Relationships Show , Matt Stone is joined by Heidi Medina , a five-time entrepreneur and conversation-first business strategist, to challenge one of the most common myths in modern marketing: Follower...

Most businesses don’t fail because of bad strategy. They fail because the real conversations never happen . In this pre-launch episode of The Building Business Relationships Show , Matt Stone is joined by Michael Gansl , a seasoned entrepreneur and principal at Voice of Reason Consulting, for a candid conversation about the hidden relationship dynamics that quietly make—or break—companies. Michael...

Most leaders spend years refining strategy—but far less time asking whether they’re building with the right people . In this pre-launch episode of The Building Business Relationships Show , Matt Stone is joined by Jamelle Lindo , executive coach, international keynote speaker, and founder of Paradigm People Development, for a grounded conversation about why alignment, emotional intelligence, and h...

We often talk about “business relationships” as if they’re different from real relationships. They’re not. In this pre-launch episode of The Building Business Relationships Show , Matt Stone speaks with Michael Allosso , a communication expert and former theater professional, about why relationships are happening all the time—and how presence, curiosity, and self-awareness shape trust in everyday...

In this episode: The career moment when being seen changed everything Why audiences decide emotionally before logically How presentations become relationships—or barriers The difference between partnership language and relationship language Why EQ is replacing IQ as the leadership differentiator Guest: Mike Verret Chief Presentation Officer, Verret & Associates Vapresentations@gmail.com https:...