Create Magic At Work®

Today’s reflection explores how meaningful partnerships are strengthened through support, trust, and reciprocity. When we become intentional about the relationships surrounding our work, we can create greater harmony while finding a healthier balance between giving and receiving.
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 job everyone assumes is becoming obsolete is actually where some of the most human work is happening?
Middle managers live between pressure and people. They translate expectations from above, absorb problems before senior leaders ever see them, and help teams move through conflict, uncertainty, and burnout. Much of that work is invisible until it stops happening.
Amy and Doug Barna explore what leadership looks like as AI becomes increasingly capable of handling coordination, reporting, and other technical tasks that once defined management. Doug argues that this shift does not make human leadership less important. It exposes the part of leadership technology cannot simply automate: understanding what motivates a particular person, noticing emotion, listening closely, building trust, and staying present when a conversation becomes uncomfortable.
The discussion also reframes the skills we often call “soft.” Active listening, social awareness, empathy, and relationship management are not decorative additions to leadership. They are the capacities that allow someone to lead people rather than simply manage information.
As technology becomes better at organizing the work, the question becomes more human, not less. Who can still read the room, recognize the person inside the performance, and help people stay connected when pressure pulls them apart?
Moments That Create Momentum:
The Invisible Work Between the Layers – Explore why middle managers often carry the human side of leadership that others do not see.
When AI Removes the Administrative Work – Discover why empathy, trust, and relationship skills may matter even more as technology takes on more technical tasks.
People Tell You What Motivates Them – Learn how listening closely to concerns and frustrations can reveal what someone actually needs from their leader.
Presence Changes Difficult Conversations – Understand how shifting attention away from your own discomfort can help create more trust and connection.
The Skills We Carry Beyond Work – See how stronger listening, awareness, and compassion can influence not only teams, but relationships and communities too.

About the Guest:
Doug Barna is a Team Building and Leadership Coach with Acclaimed Summit, LLC. With over 20 years of experience as a project leader and people manager, Doug has dedicated over a decade to studying psychology and organizational behavior, honing the soft skills that are crucial for effective leadership. Doug’s not just another coach; he’s the compassionate mentor he wished he had so many years ago, bridging the gap between a scientific mind and an empathetic approach. In this quest for clarity and connection, Doug developed strategies that cut through superficial tactics and dive into the foundational elements that work.
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dougbarna/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dougbarna
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

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Today’s Edgewalker card explores how self-awareness deepens when we become intentional about where we seek inspiration and guidance. By tuning into something beyond ourselves, we create space to better understand our thoughts, values, and the way we move through the world.
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 life you keep working toward is already asking to be noticed?
For high achievers, happiness can become conditional. The next promotion. The next revenue goal. The end of the chaotic month. Peace is always waiting somewhere beyond the next finish line, while the finish line keeps moving.
Amy Lynn Durham and Michele Phillips explore the emotional cost of conditional happiness, high achiever burnout, and a culture that has normalized running on adrenaline instead of alignment. Michele does not ask ambitious people to stop wanting more. She asks a more uncomfortable question: can you still feel satisfaction with where you are while remaining open to what comes next?
Their conversation moves through happiness habits, personal energy, comparison, daily rituals, and the small resets that help leaders return to center when pressure takes over. It also examines the difference between appearing happy and being honest with yourself about what you actually feel.
Inner peace is not a permanent destination. Neither is happiness. Both require a relationship with attention, values, and the stories we repeatedly tell ourselves.
Maybe the goal is not to stop achieving. Maybe it is to stop requiring the next achievement to prove that this life is finally enough.
Moments That Create Momentum:
When Happiness Keeps Moving With the Finish Line – Explore how tying fulfillment to the next achievement can leave high performers constantly striving without ever fully arriving.
Running on Adrenaline Instead of Alignment – Discover why urgency and pressure can feel productive while quietly disconnecting leaders from their body, values, and internal sense of direction.
The Difference Between Looking Fine and Feeling Aligned – Understand why performing happiness for others is different from ignoring your own emotions and disconnecting from what is actually happening inside.
A Full Life Is Not a Full Calendar – See how constant activity can become proof of success, while slowing down reveals whether those experiences actually reflect what matters to you.
The Story You Repeat Becomes the Outcome You Expect – Hear how changing the language you use about yourself can shift attention from old limitations toward more conscious possibilities.

About the Guest:
Michele Phillips is a celebrated leadership coach, keynote speaker, and author of two books, the award-winning Happiness is a Habit - Simple Daily Rituals that Increase Energy, Improve Wellbeing and Add Joy to Every Day, and her brand new book, Energize Your Happiness - Tap into Your Personal Energy and Shape Your Destiny. This transformative new book blends neuroscience, behavioral psychology, and spiritual wisdom to help people elevate their energy and shape their destiny.
With more than 25 years of experience working with Fortune 500 companies, Michele has inspired thousands to create motivating beliefs, powerful habits, and lives filled with purpose.
She is the founder of Key Performance, a sought-after consultant known for her “Write Your Outcome” methodology, and host of the podcast by the same name. Michele has a Master's degree from Fordham University in Organizational Development, and is a certified practitioner of Positive Psychology and emotional intelligence.
She wrote Energize Your Happiness to help people build the energy for change.
She hosts Write Your Outcome podcast to help people raise their consciousness.
She works with organizations to create more conscious leaders and individual contributors.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michele-phillips-9409707
https://www.instagram.com
https://www.facebook.com/Happinessisahabitaway

Today’s reflection explores how financial success can grow from intentional decisions, thoughtful leadership, and clearly defined goals. By considering where we direct our support and attention, we create space for greater confidence and possibility around our finances.
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