Create Magic At Work®

What happens to your communication when someone pushes exactly the right button?

Strategy can disappear quickly when the nervous system feels threatened. We become defensive, rush to prove our point, or get pulled into the emotional energy of the person across from us. The conversation may still be happening, but we are no longer fully present inside it.

Amy and trial lawyer Jennifer Gardner explore what it takes to remain grounded when the stakes are high. Drawing from decades inside intense courtroom situations, Jennifer shares why self-regulation is not separate from effective communication. It is what makes clear thinking, presence, and persuasion possible in the first place.

Their conversation moves from grounding through the body to the deeper work of humanizing the person on the other side. Jennifer also examines the line between ethical persuasion and manipulation, including how likability, empathy, and emotional connection can be used either in service of understanding or as tools for control.

The goal is not to become impossible to trigger.

It is to recognize the moment you are losing yourself, return to what matters, and choose how you want to respond before fear, ego, or defensiveness chooses for you.

Moments That Create Momentum:

1. Don’t Take the Bait – Explore why regulating yourself first can keep conflict from deciding how you communicate.
2. Come Back to the Body – Learn how grounding and breath can help restore clarity when the pressure around you begins to escalate.
3. Humanize Before You Persuade – Discover why understanding another person’s reality can make communication more compelling without abandoning your own position.
4. Notice the Shadow of Persuasion – Recognize how likability and emotional connection can create influence, and when those same tools begin to feel manipulative.
5. Hard Truths Still Need to Be Spoken – See how difficult conversations can create greater inner peace when your actions remain aligned with what you believe.

About the Guest:

Jennifer B. Gardner is a Los Angeles-based trial lawyer, speaker, and persuasion expert who helps high-performing leaders strengthen their executive presence, communication, and influence. She has operated her own litigation firm for more than 30 years and has handled complex business, real estate, and criminal matters through trial.

Jennifer holds executive certifications from the Wharton School in leadership, influence and persuasion, and neuroscience for business. Through The Edge Education, she teaches leaders and lawyers how to communicate more effectively, navigate high-stakes situations, and achieve stronger results with less stress.

https://jenniferbgardner.com/

About Amy:

Amy Lynn Durham, known by her clients as the Corporate Mystic, is the founder of the Executive Coaching Firm, Create Magic At Work®, where they help leaders build workplaces rooted in creativity, collaboration, and fulfillment. A former corporate executive turned Executive Coach, Amy blends practical leadership strategies with spiritual intelligence to unlock human potential at work.

She’s a certified Executive Coach through UC Berkeley & the International Coaching Federation (ICF) In addition, Amy holds coaching certifications in Spiritual Intelligence (SQ21), the Edgewalker Profile, and the Archetypes of Change . In addition to being the host of the Create Magic At Work® podcast, Amy is the author of Create Magic At Work®, Creating Career Magic: A Daily Prompt Journal and the founder of Magic Thread Media™. Through her work, she inspires intentional leadership for thriving workplaces and lives where “magic” becomes reality.

Connect with Amy:

https://createmagicatwork.net/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/create-magic-at-work

https://www.facebook.com/112951637095427

https://www.instagram.com/createmagicatwork

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnEm4h3fUgaq8qgvZpz6dGg

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

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If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

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Today’s Edgewalker card explores how vision can emerge through presence and deep listening. When we slow down enough to notice what others may overlook, we create space to recognize possibilities, patterns, and guidance that can shape what comes next.

Start your own journey of reflection, creativity, and intentional growth with the Create Magic at Work Journal or bring the wisdom of the Edgewalker mindset into your daily life with your own copy of the Edgewalker Card Deck. You can find both at https://magicthreadmedia.com/experience

Today’s reflection explores what can become possible when curiosity takes the place of quick judgment. By asking meaningful questions and being willing to explore the answers, we can discover new perspectives and possibilities within our work.

Start your own journey of reflection, creativity, and intentional growth with the Create Magic at Work Journal or bring the wisdom of the Edgewalker mindset into your daily life with your own copy of the Edgewalker Card Deck. You can find both at https://magicthreadmedia.com/experience

What happens when the qualities that helped you succeed begin getting in the way of the leader you need to become?

High performers are often rewarded for knowing the answer, moving quickly, and getting results. But as responsibility grows, leadership asks for something different. The work becomes less about proving what you can do and more about creating the conditions for other people to do their best work.

Amy and Phyllis Sarkaria explore this transition through Phyllis’s book, Harvest: A Leadership Story, a fable inspired by more than a decade of participating in the olive harvest in Tuscany. Its central character, Emily, discovers that relentless speed can cause her to miss what is happening around her, including the impact she is having on her team.

Their conversation explores the learner’s mindset, leadership self-awareness, rescuing versus developing others, receiving difficult feedback, and why slowing down does not necessarily mean accomplishing less.

Sometimes the pause is what allows us to see the tree differently, notice what we missed, and recognize where our own habits may be limiting the people around us.

Sustainable leadership is not about losing your drive. It is about becoming intentional enough to know when to use it.

Moments That Create Momentum:

1. What Got You Here Can Get in the Way – Explore why the habits that earn a promotion may not be the same ones that help someone lead well.
2. Slow Down to Go Faster – Discover how presence and intentionality can prevent speed from creating more work, mistakes, and disconnection.
3. Stop Rescuing the Team – Understand how constantly stepping in can limit development and keep leaders working below the level they should be leading.
4. Feedback Only Works If You Can Hear It – Learn why receiving someone’s perception without defending yourself is essential to creating greater trust and safety.
5. The Pause Creates Possibility – See how stepping out of constant busyness can create space for perspective, creativity, and a more sustainable way of leading.

About the Guest:

Phyllis Sarkaria is a certified executive coach, facilitator, and trusted adviser who works with leaders on one of the most consequential — and least examined — gaps in leadership: the distance between how leaders see themselves and how they're actually experienced.

Founder of The Sarkaria Group, Phyllis brings more than 30 years of corporate leadership experience to her work, including executive roles in human resources and government affairs. She has led functions as diverse as strategic planning, merger integration, and team effectiveness. Before launching her practice, she served as head of HR and internal coach to C-suite executives at Quidel Corporation, a leading multinational medical diagnostics company. These experiences shaped her deep understanding of organizational dynamics from the inside.

She is the author of Courageous Clarity: Navigating the Way Forward on Your Leadership Journey and Harvest: A Leadership Story. Together, the two books explore what it takes for leaders to close the gap between intention and impact — Courageous Clarity as a practical guide, and Harvest as a story that shows, rather than tells, one leader's journey to greater self-awareness, stronger culture, and more sustainable results.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/phyllis-sarkaria/

Get Phyllis’ book, Harvest: A Leadership Story, here - https://a.co/d/0gFKi0D7

About Amy:

Amy Lynn Durham, known by her clients as the Corporate Mystic, is the founder of the Executive Coaching Firm, Create Magic At Work®, where they help leaders build workplaces rooted in creativity, collaboration, and fulfillment. A former corporate executive turned Executive Coach, Amy blends practical leadership strategies with spiritual intelligence to unlock human potential at work.

She’s a certified Executive Coach through UC Berkeley & the International Coaching Federation (ICF) In addition, Amy holds coaching certifications in Spiritual Intelligence (SQ21), the Edgewalker Profile, and the Archetypes of Change . In addition to being the host of the Create Magic At Work® podcast, Amy is the author of Create Magic At Work®, Creating Career Magic: A Daily Prompt Journal and the founder of Magic Thread Media™. Through her work, she inspires intentional leadership for thriving workplaces and lives where “magic” becomes reality.

Connect with Amy:

https://createmagicatwork.net/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/create-magic-at-work

https://www.facebook.com/112951637095427

https://www.instagram.com/createmagicatwork

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnEm4h3fUgaq8qgvZpz6dGg

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

Subscribe to the podcast

If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Leave us an Apple Podcasts review

Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you are enjoying the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

Today’s Edgewalker card explores how meaningful connection grows when we approach difference with curiosity rather than distance. By valuing the uniqueness of others and remaining open to unfamiliar perspectives, we create opportunities to bring out the best in one another.

Start your own journey of reflection, creativity, and intentional growth with the Create Magic at Work Journal or bring the wisdom of the Edgewalker mindset into your daily life with your own copy of the Edgewalker Card Deck. You can find both at https://magicthreadmedia.com/experience

What if the clutter surrounding you isn’t just taking up space, but also draining your time, attention, money, and ability to grow?

Amy sits down with simplicity expert and longtime professional organizer Miriam Ortiz y Pino to explore the deeper connection between physical clutter, digital overwhelm, financial habits, and the way entrepreneurs run their businesses. Miriam challenges the idea that organization is about buying prettier containers or finding the perfect productivity app. Instead, lasting change comes from understanding what you actually need, building systems around the way you live and work, and aligning your actions with your values.

Their conversation moves from money mindset and financial self-worth to decision fatigue, busy work, digital clutter, sustainable systems, and why doing more is rarely the answer. Miriam also explains why entrepreneurs need to stop waiting for the perfect solution, start paying attention to their numbers, and create businesses that support the lives they actually want.

The shift can start surprisingly small. One drawer. One decision. Ten intentional minutes. Because meaningful change doesn’t require fixing everything at once. It starts by creating enough space to choose what matters next.

Moments That Create Momentum:

1. The Cost of “For Now” – See how postponing small decisions can become physical clutter, digital overload, and unnecessary mental weight.
2. The System Comes Before the Container – Understand why another bin, app, or tool cannot solve a problem until you know what the system needs to do.
3. Money Follows What You Value – Explore how understanding your numbers can bring spending and business decisions closer to the life you actually want.
4. More Capacity Is Not More Freedom – The secret to actually save you more time utilizing technology.
5. Small Wins Build Capability – How making one clear decision can close a mental loop and make positive change feel more possible.

About our Guest:

Miriam Ortiz y Pino is a simplicity expert, Certified Professional Organizer, and Money Breakthrough Business Coach who helps busy, creative entrepreneurs connect organization, productivity, and money mindset. With more than 20 years of experience, she helps clients gain control of their time, space, and finances through flexible, practical systems that support their best work and a more satisfying life.

One of the first Certified Professional Organizers in the world and a NAPO instructor, Miriam’s work is rooted in helping people simplify what feels overwhelming, build wealth more intentionally, and create more room for what they truly want to do.

https://www.morethanorganized.net

https://www.facebook.com/morethanorganized/

https://www.instagram.com/moypmto/

https://www.youtube.com/user/MorethanOrganized

https://www.linkedin.com/in/miriamortizypino/

https://www.pinterest.com/moypmto

https://morethanorganized.substack.com

About Amy:

Amy Lynn Durham, known by her clients as the Corporate Mystic, is the founder of the Executive Coaching Firm, Create Magic At Work®, where they help leaders build workplaces rooted in creativity, collaboration, and fulfillment. A former corporate executive turned Executive Coach, Amy blends practical leadership strategies with spiritual intelligence to unlock human potential at work.

She’s a certified Executive Coach through UC Berkeley & the International Coaching Federation (ICF) In addition, Amy holds coaching certifications in Spiritual Intelligence (SQ21), the Edgewalker Profile, and the Archetypes of Change . In addition to being the host of the Create Magic At Work® podcast, Amy is the author of Create Magic At Work®, Creating Career Magic: A Daily Prompt Journal and the founder of Magic Thread Media™. Through her work, she inspires intentional leadership for thriving workplaces and lives where “magic” becomes reality.

Connect with Amy:

https://createmagicatwork.net/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/create-magic-at-work

https://www.facebook.com/112951637095427

https://www.instagram.com/createmagicatwork

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnEm4h3fUgaq8qgvZpz6dGg

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

Subscribe to the podcast

If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Leave us an Apple Podcasts review

Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you are enjoying the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

Today’s reflection explores how moments of solitude can create the clarity we need to move forward. By making space to go within, we can listen more closely to ourselves and consider the decisions that may bring greater harmony and peace of mind.

Start your own journey of reflection, creativity, and intentional growth with the Create Magic at Work Journal or bring the wisdom of the Edgewalker mindset into your daily life with your own copy of the Edgewalker Card Deck. You can find both at https://magicthreadmedia.com/experience

What if your creativity knows something before you do?

In this month’s episode Rachel Efron’s asks her most provocative question yet: if dreams can reveal truths outside of our conscious understanding, can our creativity do the same? Inspired by an experience teaching dreamers in Delphi, Greece, Rachel explores the intimate relationship between dreaming and creating, and the associative state of mind they share.

Through neuroscience, personal stories, and the strange symbolic conversation between her own songs and dreams, Rachel considers what’s possible when we emphasize the connection between dreaming and creativity. She offers examples of dreams informing creative lives, and suggests that likewise, our creativity can inform our dreaming. She shares examples of her creative work being as prophetic as dreams: songs describing relationships and choices she had not yet experienced.

Rachel then invites listeners into a series of association exercises she created to move us beyond effortful thinking (“convergent thinking”) and toward the looser thinking of dreaming (“divergent thinking”). She teaches listeners how to begin developing a dictionary of symbols available to both your creativity and dreaming.

Sparks of Insight

• Creativity and dreaming share a mental process: divergent thinking.
• Dreaming is creativity practice; creativity is dreaming practice. Anytime we dream or create, we are deepening our relationship to both.
• If prophetic dreams are possible, what about prophetic creativity? A provocative exploration of whether a song, painting, or poem can sense what is still becoming.
• Effort is not always the fastest way forward. Stepping away from a problem and doing an “association journey” can lead us toward the small truths we need to make real progress.
• Rest creates a landing place for ideas. Sometimes what feels like lack of inspiration is really a lack of internal space for your plentiful new ideas.

Ready to discover your unique creative landscape?

Download the Muzi app at http://itunes.apple.com/app/id6739667782 to take the Creativity Assessment, and uncover your Spark profile. Then email your Spark to Rachel at [email protected] for a chance at a Spark Reading, where Rachel will offer personalized insight into what your creativity most needs from you right now.

About Rachel:

Rachel Efron is an Oakland-based songwriter, producer, and creativity coach. She's released four full-length albums of original songs, plus written for such legends as Narada Michael Walden and Journey. Rachel is a premier songwriting coach for songwriters across the world, and has over fifteen years experience helping artists, leaders, and teams find their voice.

In 2022, Rachel turned her methods into a comprehensive framework and groundbreaking app, Muzi, to help everyone —artists and non-artists alike—access greater creativity in their lives.

email: [email protected]

website: https://www.rachelefron.com/creativity

Download the Muzi app at http://itunes.apple.com/app/id6739667782

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

Subscribe to the podcast

If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Leave us an Apple Podcasts review

Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you are enjoying the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.

Today’s Edgewalker card explores how integrity is shaped by the ongoing practice of knowing what we value and choosing to live in alignment with it. When our words, decisions, and behavior reflect those values, accountability becomes part of how we lead and live.\

Start your own journey of reflection, creativity, and intentional growth with the Create Magic at Work Journal or bring the wisdom of the Edgewalker mindset into your daily life with your own copy of the Edgewalker Card Deck. You can find both at https://magicthreadmedia.com/experience

What if getting dressed is less about fashion and more about the relationship you have with yourself?

Our clothes communicate before we ever say a word. They can help us feel visible, confident, creative, and aligned with who we are becoming. They can also keep us connected to an older version of ourselves that no longer quite fits.

Amy and celebrity stylist and image consultant JenniLee explore personal style and confidence, authentic professional style, and why so many people have closets full of clothes while still feeling as though they have nothing to wear. JenniLee shares why the answer is often more styling, not more shopping, and how career changes, body changes, comfort habits, and old beliefs about clothing can shape the way we show up.

They also explore individuality in the workplace, JenniLee’s SPARK Method, the limitations of AI and personal styling, thoughtful travel wardrobes, and the growing possibilities of resale and vintage fashion.

Beneath all of it is a deeper invitation to become curious again. Getting dressed can be practical and professional without becoming another rule to follow. It can also be playful, intentional, kind, and deeply personal.

Sometimes creating magic at work begins before we ever walk out the door.

Take JenniLee’s Style Quiz to help you meet your style archetype and bring more of you into what you wear. https://www.jennileestylist.consulting/quiz

Moments That Create Momentum:

1. Style Is a Language – Explore what your clothes communicate not only to the people around you, but also back to yourself.
2. When Your Closet No Longer Fits Who You Are – Understand why career shifts, body changes, and old habits can make getting dressed feel unexpectedly difficult.
3. More Styling, Less Shopping – Learn how working differently with what you already own can reduce overwhelm and reconnect you with your personal style.
4. Professional Does Not Have to Mean Invisible – Discover how fit, color, and thoughtful details can help you show up credibly without dressing like everyone else.
5. Getting Dressed Can Be a Ritual – See how playfulness, creativity, and kindness can transform an everyday task into a more intentional way of showing up.

About the Guest:

JenniLee is a NYC-based fashion stylist and image consultant with over two decades of experience helping creatives and ambitious professionals dress with confidence, clarity, and intention. Her celebrity and editorial client list includes Scarlett Johansson, Chris Pratt, Lauryn Hill, Elton John, and One Direction, with work featured in Harper's Bazaar, Rolling Stone, InStyle, People, and Real Simple. She also appears regularly on morning shows like Good Morning Atlanta and Fox News Good Day New York as a style expert. JenniLee's philosophy is "More Styling, Less Shopping," and she helps her clients build wardrobes that align with who they're becoming, not just what's in their closet.

https://www.instagram.com/jennileestylist/

About Amy:

Amy Lynn Durham, known by her clients as the Corporate Mystic, is the founder of the Executive Coaching Firm, Create Magic At Work®, where they help leaders build workplaces rooted in creativity, collaboration, and fulfillment. A former corporate executive turned Executive Coach, Amy blends practical leadership strategies with spiritual intelligence to unlock human potential at work.

She’s a certified Executive Coach through UC Berkeley & the International Coaching Federation (ICF) In addition, Amy holds coaching certifications in Spiritual Intelligence (SQ21), the Edgewalker Profile, and the Archetypes of Change . In addition to being the host of the Create Magic At Work® podcast, Amy is the author of Create Magic At Work®, Creating Career Magic: A Daily Prompt Journal and the founder of Magic Thread Media™. Through her work, she inspires intentional leadership for thriving workplaces and lives where “magic” becomes reality.

Connect with Amy:

https://createmagicatwork.net/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/create-magic-at-work

https://www.facebook.com/112951637095427

https://www.instagram.com/createmagicatwork

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnEm4h3fUgaq8qgvZpz6dGg

Thanks for listening!

Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page.

Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!

Subscribe to the podcast

If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can follow the podcast on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app.

Leave us an Apple Podcasts review

Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you are enjoying the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts.