The Bigger Stage w/ Matt Stone

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 applied anyway. A few months later, an email arrived at work: "Welcome to Harvard." Mylena started out as a mechanical engineer on a truck engine line, went on to earn a master's in industrial-organizational psychology at Harvard, and came home to Brazil with a better question. Companies keep asking how stressed their people are. She asks what's making them stressed in the first place. In this episode: - The night she gave up the sure thing to take a shot at Harvard - Why an engineer's habit of asking "why" became her edge in psychology - Why well-being spending isn't moving the needle, and what does - Crocodiles in the pond: fix the environment, not the swimmer - What younger generations want from work, and why founders should pay attention - Selling culture work to numbers-first buyers - What her eight-month-old son is teaching her about leadership - The mentor who believed in her before anyone else did Chapters 00:00 Cold open 00:46 Meet Mylena Maulepes 04:28 The girl who wanted to fix engines 08:01 Why engineering wasn't enough to lead 11:08 When everyone says your dream is too big 13:25 "Welcome to Harvard" 18:06 An engineer in a psychology world 23:25 Stop fixing people. Fix the work. 25:46 Crocodiles in the pond 28:18 What's actually working 29:13 What clients ask for vs. what they need 32:20 Selling culture work with numbers 36:05 Becoming a mom, and a new lens on work 40:13 Why you need a mentor 45:35 Advice for your bigger stage 47:12 Where to find Mylena Follow Mylena LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mylena-maulepes Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mylenamaulepes TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@maulepes If this episode was useful, share it with a founder who's trying to build a team people want to stay on.

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 correspondent for ABC News. Now he helps founders survive the same machine he used to run. His argument in this episode cuts against the grain: AI didn't make earned media less important. It made it the asset most founders are ignoring at exactly the wrong moment. For decades, being found meant ranking on Google — SEO, a clean website, owned channels, with press coverage treated as a bonus on top. That's flipped. The people you want are now asking ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity the questions they used to type into a search bar, and those tools don't crawl your website or read your press release. They synthesize answers from published, credible, third-party coverage — which is earned media, and it's now the raw material AI uses to describe you to the world. T.J. calls it GEO: generative engine optimization. From there, he opens the reporter's playbook from the other side of the desk — why a story that can't answer "why should anyone care?" in the first ten seconds dies on the spot, how to build a hook reporters can't ignore, and why authenticity beats polish every time. We get into the crisis case study at the heart of his book — the employee fired for using a weapon against a robber — and what it takes to turn a story like that around without spinning. We close on how any founder can become a genuine thought leader, and exactly how to vet and hire the right PR partner. In this episode: Why AI search made earned media more valuable, not less (GEO explained) The client who moved a $20K/month Google Ads budget into PR — and why How reporters actually choose stories in the 10 a.m. editorial meeting The hook: timeliness, tension, data, and finding a "real person" The rule of seven and building an omni-channel narrative Newsjacking with a contrarian take to get picked up fast A crisis case study on empathy, truth, and the one-news-cycle goal How to find, vet, and hire the right PR partner About the guest: T.J. Winick is the founder of Essex Strategies, a Boston-based strategic and crisis communications firm, and the author of Reputation Capital: How to Navigate Crises and Protect Your Greatest Asset (Berrett-Koehler), winner of a 2023 Independent Publisher Book Award. Before crossing over, he spent two decades in broadcast news, including as a correspondent for ABC News across Nightline, World News, and Good Morning America. — 📘 Reputation Capital: https://a.co/d/0dTRDwvl 🌐 essexstrategies.com 🔗 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tjwinick/ 📱 TikTok @tjwinick · Instagram @essexstrategies 🎙️ The Bigger Stage — conversations with founders and builders. Subscribe wherever you listen.

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 founder staring down a bigger stage, this is about making the fear the thing that moves you forward. -- Jacqueline Wales built a career on a move most people never learn: don't kill the fear, read it. At 54, she watched the life she'd built vanish in the 2008 crash — fortune gone, four kids still looking to her. Most people would call that the end. She called it research. What she excavated became Fear Intelligence, the work she now brings to founders, CEOs, and executive teams worldwide. In this episode, Jacqueline and Matt get into the difference between being fearless and being fear smart, and why she now calls the first one a fantasy. She walks through her F.E.A.R. framework — Face, Explore, Act, Rise — and the idea underneath all of it: fear is data, not disaster. Read it, and it becomes the sharpest signal you have. We also get into: - The TEDx talk ("Unleash the Power of Fear") that nearly broke her — the dress-rehearsal that fell apart, and what she did the morning of - Why "what other people are thinking is none of your business" - The four fears every founder carries: inadequacy, rejection, uncertainty, and loss - The question she puts to CEOs that stops them cold: what decision are you avoiding right now? - The 90-second rule for catching yourself before fear runs the show - Why the world feels more afraid now — and where to point your attention instead - Black belt at 49, CrossFit at 63, and the driver behind all of it Her closing message is the whole episode in one line: analyze the fear, notice the fear, and do it anyway. — CHAPTERS — 00:00 Cold Open 00:00 Welcome to The Bigger Stage 02:47 The Signature Red 03:23 Fearless Is a Fantasy 04:16 Fear as Data — The F.E.A.R. Framework 06:40 You Weren't Born Afraid 11:21 The TEDx Talk That Nearly Broke Her 19:20 The Physical Tells of Fear 29:14 Black Belt at 49, CrossFit at 63 30:30 The Question CEOs Never Get Asked 36:32 The 90-Second Rule 40:07 Why the World Feels More Afraid Now 46:18 Where to Find Jacqueline 51:00 Analyze the Fear. Do It Anyway. — ABOUT JACQUELINE WALES — Four-time author, TEDx speaker, and a black belt who earned it at 49. She teaches Fear Intelligence not from theory, but from the floor she had to climb up off of. Website & free Fear Intelligence Assessment: https://fearintelligence.co Daily Insights email: sign up at https://fearintelligence.co LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacquelinewales/ — ABOUT THE SHOW — The Bigger Stage is a show for founders, operators, and builders — conversations about the moves that get them to bigger stages. Hosted by Matt Stone. New episodes on a rolling basis. Follow the show so you don't miss one.

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 to stay. Then he bought an HVAC company. It wasn't a detour. Eric took everything he'd built — the relationships, the trust, the front-row view of how hundreds of businesses actually work — and bet it all on Precision Air Heating & Cooling, a 33-year-old shop in West Chester that technically wasn't for sale. In his words: "One day I was a banker, and the next morning I woke up president of this company." He and Matt get into the calculated-risk framework Eric used to coach owners for years and now lives himself, the brutal first 90 days, why he still gets out of bed "a little bit scared" four years in, and the rule he's built two careers on since 2008: chase honest, passionate, successful people, and the business follows. If you're a founder sitting on a leap you haven't taken yet, start here. -- CONNECT WITH ERIC Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericlight/ Precision Air: https://precisionairhc.com ABOUT THE SHOW The Bigger Stage is the show for founders, operators, and builders chasing a bigger vision. Follow in your podcast app so new episodes land automatically.

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 and delivered the talk that became one of his best. Bobby Umar has stood on the TEDx stage five times, coached founders and executives on how to turn their story into stage-ready authority, and built a 25-year speaking career out of four careers that didn't fit. In this episode, he walks through what actually gets a TEDx application accepted, why most pitches get rejected, how to mine your own life story for the idea worth pitching, and the three-part framework almost no one completes: land it, deliver it, leverage it. You'll hear: What separates a TEDx idea that gets accepted from one that gets ignored How to turn your life story into a pitch-ready TEDx concept Why the application itself is where most people lose the opportunity The full story of the night Bobby walked off a TEDx stage — and why How to build buzz around a talk before it's even live Where founders should be putting their energy beyond TEDx in 2026 Bobby Umar is a 5x TEDx speaker, Inc. Magazine Top 100 Leadership Speaker, and two-time LinkedIn Top Voice with 1,000+ keynotes across four continents. Connect with Bobby Umar: Website: https://raeallan.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobbyumar/ Substack: https://substack.com/@bobbyumar