15 minutes | Leadership | Listening | Integrity

What happens when you stop being heard and start truly listening?

In this episode, Susan Braakman, founder of Listen Consulting, joins Gina Dunn to talk about the moment she walked away from a workplace that no longer reflected her values, and how that choice sparked a life built on empathy and integrity.

When your voice disappears, sometimes it’s the universe asking you to listen.

In this reflective Morning Cup of Brand Spark conversation, Susan Braakman, founder of Listen Consulting, shares how leaving a company that stopped listening became the start of her life’s real work.

She and Gina Dunn talk about:

• Why listening is leadership, not silence

• How fear-based cultures mute empathy

• The difference between hearing and understanding

• The courage it takes to walk away from misalignment

🎧 Listen now

☕ Be a guest → https://www.ginadunn.com/morning-cup-of-brand-spark/

15 minutes | Confidence | Presence | Flow

What if confidence wasn’t about being loud — but about being aligned?

In this Morning Cup of Brand Spark conversation, Sara Deacon, martial artist, emcee, and author of Welcome to the Stage, joins Gina Dunn to talk about the discipline of confidence and the art of energy.

They explore:

• How martial arts teaches presence through repetition and awareness
• The energy exchange between a stage and its audience
• Why real confidence feels grounded, not performed
• How to show up as yourself, without the armor

☕ One cup. One story. One reflection.

🎧 Listen now

🌐 Learn more about Sara’s work → https://saradeacon.com

15 minutes | Reinvention | Identity | Clarity

What happens when the title stops fitting and you realize success was never your own reflection?

In this episode, Shelley McIntyre, founder of Burn the Map Coaching, joins Gina Dunn to talk about leaving corporate life, rediscovering identity, and the quiet rebellion of midlife reinvention.

After decades in corporate strategy and tech, Shelley McIntyre realized her success story wasn’t hers anymore.
Her mirror moment came with the cracks in a mask she’d worn too long — one that demanded she look, act, and lead like someone else.

In this Morning Cup of Brand Spark conversation, Shelley and Gina talk about:

• The offgassing phase after leaving a long career

• Grief and freedom in reinvention

• The “corporate mask” women are told to wear

• Finding your identity beneath ambition

🔗 Learn more about Shelley and Burn the Map Consulting → https://burnthemapcoaching.com
☕ Be a guest → https://www.ginadunn.com/morning-cup-of-brand-spark/

15 minutes | Leadership | Collaboration | Clarity

What happens when “doing it all” stops working?

In this conversation, Sabine Hutchison and Gina Dunn talk about partnership, delegation, and the power of finding your person — the one who helps you see what you can’t alone.

Sabine Hutchison, co-CEO of Seuss+, author of Beyond the Ladder, and founder of The Ripple Network, joins Gina Dunn for a conversation about what it really takes to build something meaningful — with others.

They talk about the myth of independence, the exhaustion of doing it all, and the magic that happens when you finally let the right people in.

From the power squad to the ripple effect, this episode is a reflection on clarity, collaboration, and creative leadership.

🎧 Listen on Spotify / Apple Podcasts / YouTube

☕ Want to be a guest → https://www.ginadunn.com/morning-cup-of-brand-spark/

💫 Connect with Sabine Hutchison on sabinehutchison.com and theripplenetwork.com

15 minutes | Creativity | Reflection | Art

What happens when your childhood refuge disappears, and creativity becomes your way home?

In this reflective Morning Cup of Brand Spark conversation, Patrick Williams joins Gina Dunn to talk about loss, memory, and the moment creativity becomes remembrance.

When artist and educator Patrick Williams was ten, bulldozers destroyed the woods behind his childhood home, his sanctuary of imagination and solitude.

That loss became the start of his lifelong creative journey.

In this Morning Cup of Brand Spark conversation, Patrick shares the story behind his TEDx talk “The Loss of My Woods” and explores how creativity, nature, and memory shape the human spirit.
Together, he and Gina discuss how creativity isn’t something we master - it’s something we remember.

🔗 Find Patrick’s work:

• 🎨 PatrickWilliams.com
• 🌸 CelebrationFlowerPaintings.com
• 💡 PatrickWilliamsStayCreative.com
• 📰 Substack: How to Make a Painting
  

🎥 Watch his TEDx talk: Creativity: Lost and Found

☕ Be a guest → https://bookme.name/ogsolutions/lite/morning-cup-podcast

15 minutes | Branding | Creativity | Reflection

What happens when your work defines you, until your body makes you stop?
In this conversation, T. Christian Helms and Gina Dunn talk about illness, creativity, and rebuilding meaning in both branding and life.

After years designing for brands like Jack Daniel’s, Hershey, and Austin Beerworks, T. Christian Helms was forced to confront the ultimate rebrand — his own. When illness took him out of the game, he learned that creativity isn’t control, it’s connection.

In this reflective Morning Cup of Brand Spark, he and Gina Dunn explore:

• How illness reshapes identity and creative purpose

• Why empathy became his secret design tool

• The link between brand building and life rebuilding

• How slowing down can make your work (and self) stronger

☕ Be a guest → https://bookme.name/ogsolutions/lite/morning-cup-podcast

☕ Learn more about Christian → https://helmsworkshop.com/

15 min | Creativity | AI | Authenticity

Season 2 of Morning Cup of Brand Spark — The Mirror Season — begins here.

When AI starts speaking your language, do you lose it—or take it back?

In this raw opener to Mirror Season, Gina Dunn and Natalie de Groot talk about buzzword burnout, the fear of losing your voice to algorithms, and the power of reclaiming the words that still mean something.

In this first Mirror Conversation, Gina Dunn sits down with creative technologist and AI artist Natalie De Groot, the original “Mirror Sparker.”

What begins as a chat about AI and language theft turns into a deeper reflection on identity, creativity, and rebellion.

They unpack:

• Why our words feel hijacked in the AI era

• The mirror moment that made Natalie question her originality

• How reflection, not resistance, helps us reclaim what’s ours

• Why rebellion is sometimes the most authentic brand strategy

☕ Be a guest → https://bookme.name/ogsolutions/lite/morning-cup-podcast

☕ Connect with Natalie → ⁠https://www.authenticaimarketing.com/

The Morning Cup is back - slower, deeper, truer. ☕

In this short prelude to Season 2 of Morning Cup of Brand Spark, host Gina Dunn shares what’s changing and what’s staying lit.

This season, the daily sparks evolve into Mirror Conversations. These are 15-minute coffee chats with founders, creatives, and leaders about the truths they had to burn for before they could really be seen.

No scripts. Just voice, visibility, and vulnerability - one cup of coffee at a time.

🔹 New Episodes: Every other Friday
🔹 Want to be a guest? → [email protected] hit me up!

Because visibility isn’t performance, it’s reflection.

Most founders wait too long to say the sentence that actually starts the spiral.

This isn’t about storytelling. It’s about anchoring. And today’s Brand Spark will help you find the line that holds your whole message in miniature.

Forget the hero’s journey. The best brand arcs don’t follow a myth. They follow truth.

Today we enter Week 2 of Echoflare and look at the three-phase arc that actually creates resonance. It’s not linear. It’s alive. And your clarity begins at the middle.

Start your arc recalibration here: https://ogsolutions.nl/brand-glow-up-audit/