Backstage w/ Matt Stone

Matt Stone Enterprises
  • 5.0 (6)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Daily

A backstage pass to The Bigger Stage, where host Matt Stone covers the behind-the-scenes lowdown on his journey to build The Bigger Stage brand, business, and show, and the business and life lessons he's learning along the way. mattstone.substack.com

  1. 1d ago

    Nobody Wants a Fan Base of Bots

    The New York Times found hundreds of AI-generated doctors, healers, and wellness influencers on social feeds — convincing-looking people who don’t exist, selling supplements to real consumers. Matt’s not here to pile on about how dystopian that is (it’s dystopian on its face, and there’s more coming). He’s interested in the opportunity hiding inside it. If the feed is filling up with synthetic humans, then being a real, accessible, meet-you-in-person human becomes the scarce thing — and Matt thinks that’s exactly where the next real leaders get built. Which brings him to a correction of his own thinking. He used to believe you could skip the messy work of community — just do the podcast, grow the YouTube channel, collect the followers. He now thinks that was wrong. A million subscribers isn’t a million fans; plenty of people click subscribe without being all in on you. Community is the thing that turns an audience into a fan base, and it takes real feeding: showing up, telling the truth, apologizing when you blow it, creating actual chances to connect. He also opens with an entrepreneur who inspired him — a Japanese founder who built a health food brand against heavy family pressure and is now bringing it to the US, with the unmistakable energy of someone who will simply never quit. The questions to sit with: what are you building, what’s your intention behind it, and which community would be best served by it? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mattstone.substack.com

    Nobody Wants a Fan Base of Bots

  2. 2d ago

    How to Look Two Inches Tall

    Matt watched the World Cup final this weekend (under mild spousal duress — he’s the first to admit soccer isn’t his sport) and came away far more struck by what happened after the whistle than during the match. Watching the trophy ceremony footage, he saw a masterclass in the wrong instinct: a stage that belonged to the winning players, and a guest who wouldn’t leave it. He’s careful to say this isn’t political commentary — there’s plenty of that already — but he couldn’t let the leadership lesson pass, because it was that clear. The principle underneath it applies to every stage you’ll stand on this week, including the sales call, the team meeting, and the panel nobody’s filming. You can hold every title, command real power, and still look about two inches tall the moment you try to take a spotlight that isn’t yours. The inverse is just as reliable: graciousness, making room, highlighting others, and stepping off when it’s not your time is what makes a person look ten feet tall. Matt calls it quiet power — it lives in the pauses, in the message, in the inclusivity. He also notes we’re all unusually attuned to this, having grown up on playgrounds with the kid who took all the credit, which is why even small versions of it register. The week’s question: how will you make someone else shine? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mattstone.substack.com

    How to Look Two Inches Tall

  3. 5d ago

    The Response, Not the Catastrophe

    Matt just stepped out of a recording with T.J. Winick — a broadcast journalist who spent two decades at ABC News (Nightline, Good Morning America) before crossing over to help companies build and defend their reputations — and he’s still buzzing from it. The through-line of Winick’s book Reputation Capital is deceptively simple: reputation is an asset you accumulate over time, like money in the bank, and when trouble hits, it’s rarely the catastrophe that destroys a brand. It’s the response. As Winick puts it, the best-managed crises are the ones you never heard about — which reframes PR from a monthly retainer for press hits into something you build early, strategically, and authentically (right down to how you show up in AI search through third-party validation). But the part that lit Matt up is bigger than crisis management. Whatever business you’re in, you have a shot at thought leadership — and thought leadership just means helping people make sense of a complex, sometimes scary world. Own an HVAC company? You have a real perspective on energy prices, climate, even the metals in your supply chain, that could help someone understand why things are happening around them. The catch is that you usually can’t see your own leadership potential until someone helps you pull it out. So Matt’s takeaway lands where the week has been pointing: let yourself be interviewed, find the right partners, and let them draw the stories out of you like clay on a wheel. His weekend question: what conversation could you have that reveals something genuinely useful to the people you serve? (Recorded through the Canadian-wildfire haze blanketing New York — Matt sounds a little under the weather, and says so.) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mattstone.substack.com

    The Response, Not the Catastrophe

  4. 6d ago

    The Stage Is Already in Front of You

    For anyone who keeps saying “I need to get out there, I need to do a talk” and hasn’t yet, Matt has a short, direct nudge. The stage you’re waiting for probably already exists — you’re sitting in it. He tells the story of a networking group he’s part of, where he was invited to give a ten-minute talk to twenty-eight people in a room with the same croissants, coffee, and fruit basket as always. Same room, same meeting — but it had grown more vibrant since his first visit, and it hit him: this was a bigger stage than it used to be, without ever changing rooms. That’s the whole reframe. A stage isn’t a TEDx spotlight or a conference hall of 10,000 (which, let’s be honest, is usually a couple hundred). It’s any place where familiar, friendly people gather regularly and trust each other — a low-pressure room to work your material, ask for real feedback, and get better every single time. Matt did the talk differently than ever before, got great feedback, and it still wasn’t perfect — which is exactly the point, because you just keep doing it and keep refining. He closes with a practical on-ramp for the person who senses they’ve got a story but can’t quite grab it: let yourself be interviewed, watch it back, and pull the story out like clay on a wheel. The takeaway to carry into your day: treat the world as your stage, and step onto the one already in front of you. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mattstone.substack.com

    The Stage Is Already in Front of You

  5. Jul 14

    MattGPT

    Matt’s back with a warning he’s aiming squarely at himself as much as anyone: creative atrophy. He uses AI tools constantly and says so plainly, but he’s noticing what happens when you outsource the thinking rather than the tasks — the posts all start to look the same, the output looks fine, and the muscle quietly wastes away. His half-joking name for the alternative is MattGPT. He has a brain. He intends to use it. So he offers three things he does daily to keep the fire lit. Get quiet — turn off the podcasts, the music, the YouTube, everything — because silence is oxygen for a fire, and cut the oxygen and the fire goes out. Let your mind wander, not chasing shiny objects but stepping through a Narnia-style doorway into a place of wonder and memory. Then ask yourself questions, because as his mentor taught him, your brain will focus on whatever you point it at — you just have to leave the browser open long enough for the answer to come back. He also makes a case worth hearing on why storytelling isn’t actually a trend (it has never once not been relevant), why “brand” mostly just means reputation, and how much of the in-and-out chatter is driven by social media marketers doing their job. Plus a tease: a new partnership he’s excited about, coming in the next couple of weeks. The question to sit with: what will you do today to take your brain to the gym? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mattstone.substack.com

    MattGPT

  6. Jul 9

    Forget the Hero's Journey

    Matt’s back after time away for a family loss, and he returns with something useful: a dead-simple framework for building a story on the fly. He’s skeptical of the elaborate storytelling models making the rounds on LinkedIn — the Pixar method, the hero’s journey — because nobody actually constructs a story in real time out of those. What he reaches for instead comes from an unexpected place: ten years running high-impact feedback conversations with leadership teams. His insight is that feedback and storytelling are chasing the same goal — not just to be absorbed, but to inspire action. The shorthand is DAP: Describe, Appreciate, Prescribe. He walks through all three. Describe the facts to set the scene and invite people in — concrete detail is what makes a workplace a listener has never entered suddenly feel familiar (everyone’s stood at a water cooler). Appreciate those facts — the meaning, the judgment, how you felt, the insight you drew — which is where the real value lives. Prescribe what it means going forward, for you and for the person listening. Land all three and your audience can see themselves in the story and imagine acting differently because of it. Matt closes on the law that ties it together: a story has to be memorable to be actionable — because if they forget it, they won’t do it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mattstone.substack.com

    Forget the Hero's Journey

  7. Jun 30

    Stir the Broth

    Matt’s been thinking about the distraction economy — the way modern work fragments your attention before a single idea can fully form. The Microsoft data is brutal (knowledge workers interrupted roughly every two minutes all day), and it’s the enemy of the thing Matt cares most about: a deeply developed story. He reaches for a metaphor from his years in Japan — great ramen broth isn’t fast. Someone stirs a giant pork bone for hours and hours, tasting and tending until the flavor goes deep. The best stories, the best ideas, come from exactly that kind of patient simmering, and we now live in a system that fights us on it at every turn. Then comes the twist worth sitting with. AI feels like relief — your taxed brain hands off the work and gets back something complete and instant. Matt uses these tools every day and says so plainly. But the danger is real: lean on them too hard and you stop stirring your own broth, stop throwing your own clay on the wheel, stop building the muscle that makes the thinking yours. His bet for what’s next is that protected, quiet, tool-free space to read and write will be the differentiator for anyone building something with real meaning underneath it. The closing challenge: how will you carve out — and fiercely protect — the time to show the true depth of your thinking? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mattstone.substack.com

    Stir the Broth

  8. Jun 29

    Tell Me a Story

    Subtitle: Matt resets Backstage around its real purpose — and shares the storytelling shift that made a bored panel remember him for the rest of the day Description: Backstage is changing, and Matt’s being upfront about why: he changed the name before he changed the show, and now it’s time for the style to catch up. Going forward this is a sharper daily dose for founders, entrepreneurs, and leaders who’ve realized their personal stories are a real business advantage — with a warm nod to the legacy audience of friends and family who’ve been here since it was a personal journal. Then he gets to the actual lesson: how to tell a short story that lands. The proof is a panel he sat on years ago, bored stiff by a by-the-numbers format, who decided to answer his question with a story instead of a list — and watched the whole room wake up. People brought it up in follow-up meetings for the rest of the day; the story traveled beyond him. Matt’s point is that storytelling is a muscle, not a gift: it takes practice to keep stories accessible and to drop into that mode with energy, clarity, and presence. A practical, slightly reflective one on why “you know what that reminds me of…” beats “trend number one is…” every time — and a closing challenge to notice what makes you pay attention to someone else today. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mattstone.substack.com

    Tell Me a Story
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About

A backstage pass to The Bigger Stage, where host Matt Stone covers the behind-the-scenes lowdown on his journey to build The Bigger Stage brand, business, and show, and the business and life lessons he's learning along the way. mattstone.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Matt Stone Enterprises
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    273
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Matt Stone Enterprises, LLC
  • Show Website
    Backstage w/ Matt Stone

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