Well Said

Cuore Collective
  • 5.0 (6)
  • Marketing
  • Updated Weekly

We're Pia and Kelly, co-founders of Cuore. We met at Amazon new-hire orientation 13 years ago, sitting at different tables, and ended up desk neighbors on the communications team. We've spent our careers obsessed with how words change what happens next, in boardrooms, in hallways, in the text you reread three times before sending. Well Said is our podcast about connection as a human skill. We talk to coaches, chefs, journalists, and founders about what actually helps people reach each other when it matters. If you care about trust, communication, and saying things that land, this is for you.

  1. 1d ago

    Why "The Best PR Is Invisible" Just Stopped Being True, with Pia and Kelly

    The first PR firm Kelly ever worked for had a mantra: the best PR is invisible. Then, Pia and Kelly built a decade at Amazon on it. In this episode, they say it out loud one more time and come to the conclusion: it isn't true anymore. Pia and Kelly are the co-founders of Cuore and spent years as communications executives at Amazon, the people writing the words nobody sees. Now chief comms officers are reporting directly to CEOs, executives are expected to be digitally native, and the frontline employee has become the face of the brand. They walk through what that shift actually costs the people living it, and what it means if you're deciding when to bring a communications partner into your own business. They also answer the questions listeners keep sending them, including the one nobody warned them about: what changes in you when you start putting yourself on camera. In this episode: • When to bring in a comms partner for a crisis, and why "early, early, early" isn't a cliché • Why pulling comms into a product launch too soon can waste everyone's time • The "good judgment police" role Kelly's Amazon teams played, and the cost of playing it too well • What the WSJ's reporting on comms leaders in the C-suite gets right about the last twenty years • Why the Kardashians are a masterclass in being everywhere all at once, and what brands should take from it • The line almost every guest on this show has repeated, in different words • What Pia learned about her own limiting beliefs from a year of filming New episodes of Well Said every other Wednesday. Subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts. Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 01:28 Two months into filming, and what they've learned 01:57 The executives who say they want a podcast 03:30 "A human having a human experience" 04:04 What Pia learned about her own limiting beliefs 04:56 When are you actually ready for a comms partner 05:37 Storytelling matters as much as the business plan 06:14 Crisis comms: early, early, early 06:59 When comms gets pulled in too early 07:15 "Go write a release," three weeks out 08:10 The WSJ piece on comms leaders reporting to CEOs 09:41 Digitally native CEOs and selling through social 10:54 The relationship economy and the trust economy 11:58 The good judgment police 13:57 Out of the shadows 14:10 "The best PR is invisible," and where it still holds 15:38 The Kardashians, everywhere all at once 18:22 The frontline employee as the face of the brand 19:02 The Amazon driver who danced to the door

  2. Sep 8

    Clothing Allows You to Communicate Before You Say a Word | Ryan Wood, Apparel Designer

    Ryan Wood spent sixteen years deciding what hangs on the rack at Urban Outfitters and The North Face, and he'll tell you plainly that a lot of it ended up in a landfill. He walked into the Well Said studio wearing a beat-up trucker hat. Ryan is an apparel designer and merchant, most recently the founding head of men's product at Quince, and he's in the early stages of building athletic wear that doesn't look like everyone else's. Kelly and Pia get him into the mechanics of clothing as communication: what a hidden zipper and a cheeky line on a care label actually do for a customer three months after the purchase, why he takes inherited military jackets apart and stitches them into something wearable, and how vintage became his grown-up version of hunting for buried treasure. The hat turns out to be his father's, from his years on the Blue Angels design team. It's one of the few fond memories he has of a complicated relationship, and it's the first of three things he'd grab in a fire. In this episode: - Why clothing is the front line, and what it says before your mouth opens - The Boston Red Sox hat test for anyone who insists they don't care about fashion - What he does with the clothing people inherit and can't wear or throw out - Why individuality disappears the second you walk into a gym - The case against polyester from someone who spent a career selling it - How Urban Outfitters stays relevant forever and why J.Crew couldn't - Where to start if you've never thought of getting dressed as communication New episodes of Well Said every week. Subscribe on YouTube, and follow on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Find Ryan on Instagram @ryyywood Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 01:16 The clothing people inherit and can’t wear or throw out 02:46 Remaking his mother’s shirt so she could wear it 03:26 What clothing conveys that words can’t 03:51 Clothing is the front line 05:29 What clothes do for connection 06:02 The story behind the hat 07:34 The hidden details nobody asked for 08:48 Designing for everyone and for the one who notices 10:05 Vintage as buried treasure 13:11 Why Urban Outfitters stays relevant and J.Crew didn’t 15:27 Merchandising as storytelling 17:05 Why everyone at the gym looks the same 19:08 Rather be uncomfortable than look like everyone else 19:30 The case against polyester 22:41 What his closet says about him 23:50 Microdosing the us-ness 24:47 Three things he’d grab in a fire 25:55 Where to start if you’ve never thought about it this way 27:51 Rapid fire round

  3. Sep 1

    The Checklist That Tells the Surgeon to Ask for Help | Dr. Robert Cho

    Dr. Robert Cho operates on children's spines with Pearl Jam playing. When the monitors show the electrical signals between a child's brain and spinal cord starting to drop, the first thing that happens is not medical. The music goes off. That is the signal to everyone in the room that a checklist is coming, read out loud, together, off the wall. And one of the steps on that checklist is for Cho, the most senior person present, to pick up a phone and admit he needs help. Cho is an orthopedic spine surgeon with offices in Beverly Hills and Brentwood who has done over a thousand scoliosis surgeries on kids and adults. His argument to Pia Arthur and Kelly Cheeseman is that calm under pressure is not a personality trait, it is something you script in advance, and that trust works the same way. He reads the t-shirt before he reads the chart. He gives every patient his cell phone number. He opens every operation by telling the room that anyone can stop him at any point, because he knows the story of the copilot who could not bring himself to tell the pilot they were flying into a mountain. In this episode: • Why the phone-a-friend step is the most valuable part of the checklist, and what an outside voice with a low heart rate can see that the room cannot • The ego burden of asking for help, and how putting it on paper removes it • Reading the t-shirt: earning a child's trust in the few moments you get • Why most patients he sees never get operated on, and how telling them so builds trust • The surgeon who threw a scalpel into the wall, and what that does to everyone else in the room • What actually happens in a parent's head the second they hear the word surgery • The one word he thinks should be banned from every doctor-patient relationship • Why a confidently wrong AI reminds him of an old-guard surgeon • What "well said" means in an operating room, and the pet peeve about reading the scan first Timestamps: 00:00 Intro 01:40 Welcome to Well Said 02:14 What a pediatric spine surgeon actually does 04:45 Getting the call from the OR in the middle of the day 07:39 The Alec Baldwin scene in Malice, and the surgeon god complex 09:32 What surgeons can learn from pilots 11:43 Projecting calm as a leader 15:13 The environment you create in the room 15:49 Earning a child's trust in the few moments you get 17:44 Why he doesn't sell surgery 20:16 Go home and think about it 20:44 What happens in a parent's head the second they hear surgery 21:56 The patient who saw seven surgeons before him 25:48 Why a confidently wrong AI reminds him of an old-guard surgeon 28:46 The note-taking tool that saves him two hours a day 30:16 Self-driving cars, robots, and what's next in the OR 31:26 The most accurate medical show on TV 35:42 How he tells a parent their child needs surgery 39:43 The demands on doctors, and why patients deserve more 42:54 What a scared patient needs from your first sentence Subscribe to Well Said for new conversations on connection as a human skill. Watch on YouTube, listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

  4. Aug 25

    How to Pitch Without Trying to Win the Room | Steve M. Cullen @ All Together Now

    Steve M. Cullen has presented roughly 200 times a year for two decades. He'll tell you privately that a pitch is warfare, that his mother's retirement is riding on it, that the fundamental job is to be the freshest person in the room. Then he walks in and refuses to pitch at all. Steve is a creative director and the founder of All Together Now, a studio whose entire tagline is "good ideas and sunny vibes." His work is turning companies into stories, which mostly means convincing people that something that doesn't exist yet should exist. Kelly and Pia get him into the mechanics of how that actually happens: the craft skills he built by taking apart campaigns and films line by line, the Eminem lyrical-construction exercise he ran on advertising for years, and why the difference between winners and almost-winners is that winners write it down. The back half turns inward. Steve talks about trigger journals, memento mori, the stoic virtues he actually uses, and the nightly 6pm debrief he gives his cat, which is how he discovered he'd been telling himself he'd failed 12 days in a row. In this episode: Why creative direction isn't salting the soup, it's deciding what to make with everything in the kitchen How Steve prepares a competitive pitch so the outcome is decided before he arrives The reason he runs a working session instead of a presentation What a trigger journal is, and how to start one this week• Why winners write their goals down The signature question he's asked clients for ten years, and where it came from The one word he's banned from his vocabulary New episodes of Well Said every week. Subscribe on YouTube, and follow on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Find Steve's studio, All Together Now, on Instagram.

  5. Aug 18

    The Mediator Who's Spent 30+ Years Finding the Real Fight Behind the Lawsuit | Angela Reddock-Wright

    For 30+ years, Angela Reddock-Wright has sat between people who cannot stand each other. First as an employment litigator, then as a workplace investigator during the reckoning that followed MeToo, and now as a full-time mediator. Her conclusion after thousands of cases: almost every workplace dispute is a communication failure wearing a legal costume. In this episode, Angela shows Pia and Kelly the work. Why a wage or employment complaint is rarely about wages or the employment, and almost always about "you don't value me." Why she barely mentions money in the first hours of a mediation. What separates an apology that resolves a case from one that blows it up. And how a picket line she was taken to as a seven-year-old in Birmingham, Alabama ended up defining a career spent bringing two sides to the same table. If your job involves the conversations people call for help with too late, this one's a working method. Chapters 00:00 The core of almost every case01:07 Birmingham, Alabama03:53 Her grandmother's picket line06:44 Why conflict is rarely about the conflict07:04 35 years in, and the entertainment career that never happened08:00 Litigator, investigator, mediator10:06 "It's an issue of seeing people as human"11:08 The wage complaint that means "you don't value me"12:11 San Jose nurses, and two sides who are both right13:47 The layoff from the manager's side15:57 The executive who asked her to deliver a message17:14 Why California mediations keep both sides in separate rooms18:47 Why she barely talks about money20:11 What makes an apology land23:03 Settlement versus transformative mediation24:33 Compton to Brentwood, at 1530:26 The Sweet 16 that became a life model31:15 One lesson for every student32:48 Rewriting SAG-AFTRA's policies after MeToo36:24 Where the pendulum is swinging now 41:26 Rapid fire45:54 Where to find Angela

  6. Aug 11

    The Secret Behind Writing a Newsletter to 15,000 People Every Day for 5 Years | Ryan Weiss

    Ryan Weiss learned the most important thing he knows about communication while dangling from a 40-foot rope in a monkey costume. He was a swing in Wicked, handed a track he'd had 45 minutes to learn. So before the curtain rose he told the entire cast the truth: I don't know what I'm doing. If you find me lost, grab me. The stage manager called it unprofessional. Ryan calls it the beginning of his real career. Seventeen years, a daily email to 15,000 strangers, and a new iHeart show later, he coaches founders, creatives and public figures through what he calls Emotional Fitness. His central claim is uncomfortable: most of us are experts at avoiding everything happening inside our own bodies, and that avoidance is what we've been calling anxiet. In this episode: Why anxiety isn't a feeling at all, and what it actually isThe term Oprah told him could save the worldThe Wicked story that reframed not knowing as a professional assetWhy he thinks "only surround yourself with light" is a recipe for failureThe Instigator/Inquirer exercise for conversations that usually end in a slammed doorWhat people actually need when they're suffering (two things, and advice isn't one)How Ryan builds a life by asking instead of forcing: "See my hands? I'm sitting on them." Subscribe to Well Said for new conversations on connection as a human skill. Watch on YouTube, listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

  7. Aug 4

    How to Make Anyone Feel Safe in the First 60 Seconds with Naz Perez

    For 14 years, Naz Perez has done the near-impossible: getting the most famous, most media-trained people on earth to drop the script. She landed Will Smith's first sit-down after the slap. She made Steven Spielberg laugh in ten seconds. She asked an NFL star a question no one had asked him in nine seasons. On Well Said, the person who interviews everyone gets interviewed, by two communications veterans who spent a decade building scripts at Amazon. Naz's craft is the opposite: safety, energy, and what she calls giving versus taking. A Forbes Trailblazer, cultural conversationalist, and Bachelor producer turned red-carpet host, she breaks down how real connection actually works and why the words you say matter far less than whether the other person feels seen. It's a masterclass in human connection from someone who does it for a living, with the highest-stakes humans alive. Highlights: The 60-second move that makes anyone feel safeWhy every exchange is either giving or taking energy and how people feel whichThe "soaking" ritual she learned taming wild mustangsHow to ask a question no one has ever askedWhat getting a layoff letter after her biggest interview taught herWhy putting people on a pedestal quietly kills connectionHow to deliver hard news so people feel seen, not blindsided Follow Well Said with Pia Arthur and Kelly Cheeseman for conversations on communication, leadership, and connection. Watch on YouTube, listen on Spotify and Apple.

  8. Jul 28

    Why Your "Safe" Corporate Job Is the Riskier Bet | A Q&A with Pia and Kelly

    For over a year, former colleagues have been sending Kelly and Pia the same questions. How did you actually start Cuore? How did you land your first client? How did you know it was time to leave a stable career and bet on yourself? In this Q&A episode, they turn the mic on themselves and answer all of it. What comes out is an honest look at the leap most people only think about. Kelly shares the "stop being half in" conversation with Dave Clark that pushed her to commit, and Pia retells the breakfast-taco talk with her dad, who called corporate stability "a false sense of security" and warned that the right partnership comes once. They get specific about the parts nobody warns you about too: the comp and HR expertise you undervalue until it's yours to build, learning taxes across two states, setting boundaries when the work never technically ends, and doing every single task yourself, right down to the printer paper. If you're a mid-career professional wondering "could I do this?", this is the episode that answers. You'll walk away with a clearer picture of what starting something actually looks like, why side quests matter more for achievers than they think, and what it means to raise the next generation to see more than one path. Listen now, and subscribe to Well Said so you don't miss what Kelly and Pia get into next. Timestamps: • 0:00 — Two years in: why old colleagues keep reaching out • 2:17 — Landing the first clients before you had any proof points • 5:22 — The "stop being half in" push from Dave Clark • 7:08 — Pia's dad, breakfast tacos, and "a false sense of security" • 9:33 — What nobody prepares you for: comp, equity, and HR • 13:27 — Running your own business means you do all the tasks • 16:11 — Learning to set boundaries when the work is yours • 19:02 — What their kids are learning from watching them bet on themselves • 21:26 — Side quests, and why drivers and achievers need them most • 25:24 — The gift of being naïve: Pia's one-way ticket to New York

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Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
6 Ratings

About

We're Pia and Kelly, co-founders of Cuore. We met at Amazon new-hire orientation 13 years ago, sitting at different tables, and ended up desk neighbors on the communications team. We've spent our careers obsessed with how words change what happens next, in boardrooms, in hallways, in the text you reread three times before sending. Well Said is our podcast about connection as a human skill. We talk to coaches, chefs, journalists, and founders about what actually helps people reach each other when it matters. If you care about trust, communication, and saying things that land, this is for you.

Information

  • Creator
    Cuore Collective
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    24
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Cuore Collective
  • Show Website
    Well Said

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