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Expect Chaos

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by Molly Magarik and Matt Krayton

10 episodes
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Podcast Overview

Join Molly Magarik and Matt Krayton on the Expect Chaos Podcast, where they explore life, leadership, and building resiliency through a variety of lenses. A little more about Molly & Matt: Molly is an accomplished executive and consultant with proven success across the public, nonprofit, and private sectors. Appointed by Governor John Carney as Cabinet Secretary of Delaware’s Department of Health and Social Services, she led 4,000 employees in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, while transforming service delivery and improving efficiencies. Drawing on her expertise in change management, leadership development, strategic communications, and budgeting, Molly now empowers leaders to drive meaningful change. A certified immersive meditation facilitator, she also holds a Master’s degree from Dartmouth College. Matt is co-founder M2Aspire. He founded a national public affairs, strategic communications and political consulting firm, Publitics, 14 years ago. He has provided counsel to campaigns, candidates, elected officials, executives, founders, organizations, and brands for over a decade. He worked with Biden for President in 2020 on special projects including creating collateral for celebrity and influencer endorsements including NBA star Ben Simmons. His work on the campaign was recognized with a Campaigns and Elections Magazine Stanley F. Reed Award. Matt is an innovator focused on keeping clients on the cutting edge. In 2022, under his leadership, Publitics launched InfluenceIQ™, a suite of tools for identifying and reaching nodes of influence with key messages, testing creative, modeling and building audiences and developing effective messaging. In 2024, he launched InfluenceIQ Labs™, a strategic investment arm of Publitics with a focus on supporting startups in communications, media, and AI, while providing clients with access to the latest technologies. <br/><br/><a href="https://m2aspire.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast">m2aspire.substack.com</a>

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12/18/2025

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Recent Episodes

Episode thumbnail for Radical Responsibility with Julie Cyvonne (Ep. 10)

March 31, 2026

Radical Responsibility with Julie Cyvonne (Ep. 10)

<p>Here are the finalized show notes:</p><p><strong>Radical Responsibility with Julie Cyvonne | Ep. 10</strong></p><p>Julie Cyvonne has a resume that looks like a highlight reel from the outside: three-year college grad, full ride to law school, barred in multiple states. And she was quietly falling apart.</p><p>What followed wasn't a clean narrative arc. It was years of sitting with something she was too afraid to name, and a moment clerking for a judge that broke something open in her. Her non-linear road eventually led to psychedelic facilitation for business owners and burned out people who have tried everything else. She's not here to sell you a framework or tell you what your path should be. She's a few steps ahead of you and she's keeping it real about everything it took to get there.</p><p><strong>In this episode:</strong></p><p>Why the clean pivot story is a myth</p><p>Sunk cost, identity loss, and what it actually feels like to change careers after you've already "made it"</p><p>Labels vs. tools: your attachment style, MBTI, human design chart, and Enneagram number will never do the work for you</p><p>What radical responsibility actually looks like in practice and why it's not the same as being hard on yourself</p><p>And yes… we admitted our studio lights have been sitting unused this whole time because perfectionism can be a form of self sabotage.</p><p>There's no predetermined path. No one is marionetting you toward the right answer. You are the artist and the creator of your own life and this episode is about what it actually takes to own that.</p><p><strong>Timestamps:</strong></p><p>00:00 Introduction to Julie's Journey</p><p>03:04 The First Big Pivot: From Law to Coaching</p><p>05:48 The Impact of Values on Career Choices</p><p>09:06 The Importance of Transparency in Business</p><p>11:57 Navigating the Messiness of Life</p><p>14:52 Finding Your Own Path in Business</p><p>18:02 Building a Business Around Core Values</p><p>21:00 The Process of Self-Trust and Authenticity</p><p>23:54 Taking Small Steps Towards Change</p><p>26:53 Embracing the Beginner's Mindset</p><p>29:55 Reframing Past Experiences</p><p>33:12 Choosing Empowering Narratives</p><p>34:47 The Illusion of a Predetermined Path</p><p>36:59 Radical Responsibility and Life Creation</p><p>40:20 Self-Sabotage and Limiting Beliefs</p><p>43:49 Awareness and Moving Forward</p><p>45:56 The Power of Labels and Identity</p><p>49:31 Navigating Feedback and Authenticity</p><p>52:57 Courage to Change and Self-Alignment</p><p><strong>Connect with Julie:</strong></p><p>Instagram: @juliecyvonne</p><p>Website: <a target="_blank" href="http://juliecyvonne.com">juliecyvonne.com</a></p><p>Podcast: The Inner Trip</p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://m2aspire.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_1">m2aspire.substack.com</a>

Episode thumbnail for Who's Writing Your Story?

March 24, 2026

Who's Writing Your Story?

<p><strong>Who's Writing Your Story?</strong></p><p>Molly Magarik & Matt Krayton  ·  Expect Chaos, Ep. 9</p><p>There's a belief most leaders carry (quietly, usually without examining it) that good work speaks for itself. If only.</p><p>In this episode, Molly and Matt dig into something they both wrestle with personally and see constantly in their clients and conversations with friends and peers: the gap between the story you think you're telling and the story everyone else is actually receiving. That gap is where trust breaks down, where teams lose direction, and where all the work you've done quietly disappears into a vacuum.</p><p>They explore three places that gap lives: the space between your stated values and what your actions actually show, the pressure to sand the edges off a messy nonlinear journey, and the background scripts running silently that shape everything you do without your awareness.</p><p>Silence isn't humility. It's just absence. And someone else always fills that space. Usually with a story that's less generous than yours.</p><p>The aspiration vs. action gap</p><p>The story your behavior tells, whether you authored it or not. Most leaders are shocked when they look at the distance between what they say they value and what their week actually reflects. A client story about a founder whose team couldn't sell a product they didn't understand, because the founder never narrated his own iteration process.</p><p>Why we sand the edges</p><p>The pressure to package a messy, nonlinear journey into a clean A-to-B story, and what gets lost when we do. When leaders hide the process from their teams, they don't just create a communications gap. They create a strategic vacuum that people fill with uncharitable assumptions.</p><p>"If you leave narrative gaps, your audience will fill them in. It's not an 'if.' They will. And probably not the way you'd want."</p><p>Silence isn't humility</p><p>Why the belief that good work should speak for itself actively undermines trust. The Biden administration's infrastructure gap as a case study. The difference between tooting your own horn and showing people you did what you said you'd do, and why the latter is a leadership responsibility, not a performance.</p><p>The stories we tell ourselves</p><p>The background scripts ("people don't take me seriously," "I'm not the kind of leader who asks for help") that shape how we show up without our awareness. Molly on Dr. Rich Callahan's advice from the Milbank Memorial Fund Emerging Leaders Program: your ability to succeed as a leader is in direct proportion to what you're willing to let go of from your previous role.</p><p>The theater of showing up</p><p>Why repetition matters more than most leaders want to believe. The cost of never celebrating the team's work, not just to external trust but to the people who sacrificed to get it done.</p><p><strong>Timestamps</strong></p><p><strong>0:00</strong>Welcome back + shoutout to Andy Emsler (Ep. 8)</p><p><strong>3:30</strong>Introducing the concept: showing the receipts and authorship</p><p><strong>7:00</strong>Gap 1: aspiration vs. action and the story your behavior tells</p><p><strong>13:00</strong>Client story: the founder who never narrated his iterations</p><p><strong>19:00</strong>Why we sand the edges and the pressure for a clean narrative</p><p><strong>26:00</strong>Silence isn't humility: the Biden infrastructure example</p><p><strong>34:00</strong>Nauseating repetition: why trust requires saying it again and again</p><p><strong>40:00</strong>The theater of celebration and what leaders owe their teams</p><p><strong>46:00</strong>Gap 3: the stories we tell ourselves and Dr. Callahan's advice</p><p><strong>53:00</strong>Closing curiosity questions + Emmy crashes the mic</p><p><strong>Links & references</strong></p><p>Ep. 8: Andy Amsler on getting strategically unstuck and authentic communication in politics: <a target="_blank" href="https://m2aspire.substack.com/p/getting-unstuck-with-andy-amsler">https://m2aspire.substack.com/p/getting-unstuck-with-andy-amsler</a></p><p>Milbank Memorial Fund Emerging Leaders Program: <a target="_blank" href="http://milbank.org">milbank.org</a></p><p>Dr. Rich Callahan — leadership consultant and faculty supporting Milbank cohorts: <a target="_blank" href="https://www.usfca.edu/faculty/richard-callahan">https://www.usfca.edu/faculty/richard-callahan</a></p><p>The "showing the receipts" framing: Speaker and Advisor, Amanda Sabreah, @amandasabreah, https://linktr.ee/amandasabreah</p><p>Subscribe to the full conversation: <a target="_blank" href="http://m2aspire.substack.com">m2aspire.substack.com</a></p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://m2aspire.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_1">m2aspire.substack.com</a>

Episode thumbnail for Getting Unstuck with Andy Amsler

March 17, 2026

Getting Unstuck with Andy Amsler

<p>Much has changed since we worked on our first campaigns, particularly in how voters are consuming the media and messages campaigns are putting out. It is this shifting landscape that remains the driver of various “autopsies” that are conducted now after seemingly every election cycle. </p><p>“Here’s what worked, “here’s what didn’t,” and all of the attendant finger pointing. </p><p>Our working theory, however, is that in established systems (political parties and committees for one), there is often a tendency to either learn the wrong lessons, or over-index on “the one big thing” that delivered victory. </p><p>That’s why we’re thrilled to have been able to talk to Andy Amsler on this week’s Expect Chaos Podcast. </p><p>Andy Amsler is a seasoned political strategist and advertising expert with more than 16 years of political and public affairs experience. He has built and led award-winning advertising and digital marketing teams, executed over $140 million in paid advertising for public affairs, elections and issue advocacy campaigns, and become a trusted advisor to some of the biggest brands in politics.</p><p>Andy works regularly with major brands like Intel, IBM, CVS, Visa, T-Mobile and Humana — and the associations that represent them — to engage with D.C. stakeholders and decision makers in state capitols across the country, build brand reputation, and wage influence campaigns that have an impact.</p><p>Andy has also built a name in the nonprofit space, leading audience growth, activation and profile-raising advertising campaigns for some of the nation’s leading nonprofit organizations, including the Gates Foundation, EarthJustice, March for Our Lives and Feeding America.</p><p>And over the last four election cycles, Andy has helped elect hundreds of Democrats up and down the ballot, from the U.S. Senate to the local school board. He has also run paid media programs registering hundreds of thousands of new voters, and he’s raised $150 million online via paid advertising.</p><p>Andy provides a refreshing look at how the best campaigns are approaching communications and media while also diving into what can keep organizations and systems strategically stuck. His insights are not just applicable in the political arena, but also in the boardroom, where flexibility, innovation, and curiosity are equally as important. </p><p>We offer a big thank you to Andy for joining us. If you want to hear more from Andy, you can find him at: </p><p>https://mantramediagroup.com</p><p>https://www.linkedin.com/in/andyamsler/</p><p>And check him out on <a target="_blank" href="https://andyamsler.substack.com">Substack</a> where he’s now writing about his journey in moving with his family from Washington, D.C. to Malta. </p> <br/><br/>This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <a href="https://m2aspire.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&#38;utm_campaign=CTA_1">m2aspire.substack.com</a>

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What is Expect Chaos?

Join Molly Magarik and Matt Krayton on the Expect Chaos Podcast, where they explore life, leadership, and building resiliency through a variety of lenses.

A little more about Molly & Matt:

Molly is an accomplished executive and consultant with proven success across the public, nonprofit, and private sectors. Appointed by Governor John Carney as Cabinet Secretary of Delaware’s Department of Health and Social Services, she led 4,000 employees in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, while transforming service delivery and improving efficiencies.

Drawing on her expertise in change management, leadership development, strategic communications, and budgeting, Molly now empowers leaders to drive meaningful change. A certified immersive meditation facilitator, she also holds a Master’s degree from Dartmouth College.

Matt is co-founder M2Aspire. He founded a national public affairs, strategic communications and political consulting firm, Publitics, 14 years ago. He has provided counsel to campaigns, candidates, elected officials, executives, founders, organizations, and brands for over a decade. He worked with Biden for President in 2020 on special projects including creating collateral for celebrity and influencer endorsements including NBA star Ben Simmons. His work on the campaign was recognized with a Campaigns and Elections Magazine Stanley F. Reed Award.

Matt is an innovator focused on keeping clients on the cutting edge. In 2022, under his leadership, Publitics launched InfluenceIQ™, a suite of tools for identifying and reaching nodes of influence with key messages, testing creative, modeling and building audiences and developing effective messaging. In 2024, he launched InfluenceIQ Labs™, a strategic investment arm of Publitics with a focus on supporting startups in communications, media, and AI, while providing clients with access to the latest technologies.

<br/><br/><a href="https://m2aspire.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast">m2aspire.substack.com</a>

How often does this podcast release new episodes?

This podcast updates daily.

Where can I listen to this podcast?

This podcast is available on 4 platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. You can also use the RSS feed directly.

Does this podcast accept guests?

Yes, this podcast regularly features guests.

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