When Getting Results Destroys Your Team, Top C-Suite Advisor Phyllis Sarkaria
Tuesday, October 13, 2026 • Duration 38:21
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:
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.
Slow Down to Go Faster – Discover how presence and intentionality can prevent speed from creating more work, mistakes, and disconnection.
Stop Rescuing the Team – Understand how constantly stepping in can limit development and keep leaders working below the level they should be leading.
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.
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.
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.
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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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.
04: What is the Line Between Love and Self-Abandonment?
Season 1 · Episode 4
Tuesday, October 13, 2026 • Duration 40:22
What happens when accepting the person you love starts requiring you to let go of too much of yourself?
Kristien has spent years imagining a future where she and Stijn would eventually share a sober life. But as Dr. Pavini asks her to look more closely at that dream, a painful tension comes into focus: Kristien loves Stijn deeply, yet some of what she wants most from their relationship may never happen.
When Kristien describes letting go of those hopes in the name of accepting him as he is, Dr. Pavini names something she has not fully seen in herself: self-abandonment. From there, the conversation turns toward the resentment that can grow when we stay attached to someone’s potential, the difference between a boundary and a threat, and the difficult question Kristien has been avoiding: can she imagine a life without Stijn as her partner?
Stijn is also asked to examine his own pattern of taking responsibility for Kristien’s emotions. As they practice staying connected without trying to control, rescue, or fix each other, both begin confronting what it might mean to love without losing themselves.
What Begins to Surface
When acceptance quietly becomes self-abandonment
Grieving the future you imagined with someone you love
The resentment that can grow from loving someone’s potential
The difference between compassion and taking responsibility for your partner’s feelings
Staying emotionally connected without controlling, rescuing, or fixing
This podcast focuses on relationship dynamics and is not intended to provide addiction treatment. If you or someone you love is struggling from the impact of untreated substance abuse, please seek support from qualified professionals who specialize in addiction.
If something major in your relationship needs to shift, Book a Free Clarity Call with Dr. Pavini at https://pavini.as.me/ to find out what's possible. On our call, we'll get clear on:
Connecting (An Edgewalker Message)
Thursday, October 8, 2026 • Duration 01:48
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
Drops of Light: Your October 2026 Vedic Planetary Weather Forecast
Thursday, October 8, 2026 • Duration 06:33
What happens when frustration is rising, but the conditions for reconciliation are there too? In this Drops of Light, Vish looks at the current Vedic astrology forecast and the tension between anger, wisdom, and diplomacy. With Mars stirring emotion and Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury supporting perspective and communication, he reflects on why this may be a meaningful window to revisit strained relationships, listen more carefully, and look for a path back toward harmony.
Vish Chatterji is an executive coach, Vedic Astrology teacher, author, and former business executive who helps people bridge ancient wisdom with modern life. After a career spanning engineering, entrepreneurship, and corporate leadership, he now guides leaders, founders, and seekers toward greater clarity through the traditions of Yoga, Meditation, Ayurveda, Vedic Philosophy, and Jyotish, the ancient science of light.
Through his coaching practice, Head & Heart Insights, Vish combines practical business experience with timeless spiritual teachings, inviting people to lead and live with greater awareness, purpose, and presence. He is the author of The Business Casual Yogi and Astrology Decoded, and serves as a Faculty Coach and Educator with the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute at UC Berkeley.
Your Clutter Is Costing You More Than You Think | Miriam Ortiz y Pino
Tuesday, October 6, 2026 • Duration 34:27
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:
The Cost of “For Now” – See how postponing small decisions can become physical clutter, digital overload, and unnecessary mental weight.
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.
Money Follows What You Value – Explore how understanding your numbers can bring spending and business decisions closer to the life you actually want.
More Capacity Is Not More Freedom – The secret to actually save you more time utilizing technology.
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.
03: The Hidden Cost of Sobriety
Season 1 · Episode 3
Tuesday, October 6, 2026 • Duration 51:02
What if the thing creating distance in your relationship is also protecting you from getting closer?
As Kristien and Stijn return to the conversation about alcohol, Dr. Pavini begins asking a different question: what role is alcohol actually playing between them? For Stijn, drinking has become increasingly compulsive and mentally consuming. For Kristien, watching and worrying about it has become almost impossible to turn off.
Then Kristien shares something that changes the shape of the conversation. When she and Stijn first fell in love, she was using marijuana almost every day. He drank, she smoked, and together they could spend hours talking, laughing, and feeling connected. Her eventual sobriety brought freedom, but it also changed something they once shared.
As the session unfolds, the conversation moves beyond drinking itself into vulnerability, shame, caretaking, and what happens when one partner starts changing while the other is still finding their way. And in one tender exchange, Stijn is invited to consider something he rarely allows himself to see: the healing impact his love has had on Kristien.
What Begins to Surface
When a shared habit becomes part of how a couple bonds
The difference between caring for a partner and caretaking them
What sobriety can change inside a relationship
How shame can make it difficult to receive something good about yourself
The loop between monitoring, hiding, and growing disconnection
This podcast focuses on relationship dynamics and is not intended to provide addiction treatment. If you or someone you love is struggling from the impact of untreated substance abuse, please seek support from qualified professionals who specialize in addiction.
If something major in your relationship needs to shift, Book a Free Clarity Call with Dr. Pavini at https://pavini.as.me/ to find out what's possible. On our call, we'll get clear on:
What's actually happening right now
Good Brown Girls with Author Parul L. Bhandari
Episode 66
Friday, October 2, 2026 • Duration 01:00:03
Between Worlds: Who Gets to Decide Who We Become?
What happens when you grow up with one culture at home and another one outside the front door? Who do you know yourself to be?
Today we are #LiveInTheHive with author and poet Parul L. Bhandari, a first-generation American, raised by Hindi-speaking Indian immigrant parents, and her story lives in that fascinating space between heritage and identity, expectation and possibility, belonging and becoming.
Her newest book is Good Brown Girls, poetry that opens up the intimate, sometimes tender and sometimes uncomfortable spaces where culture, family, womanhood, race, identity, desire, and belonging intersect.
Because what does it mean to be “Indian” when you were raised American? And what happens when the values, traditions, stories, and expectations you inherit from your family don’t always line up with the person you’re becoming?
We talk about what we inherit from our families—and what we choose to keep. We dig into the labels we carry, the identities we construct, and the sometimes uncomfortable process of figuring out which parts of ourselves are genuinely ours.
How do we honor where we come from without allowing it to dictate where we’re going?
Parul brings a perspective shaped by both her Indian heritage and her American upbringing, offering a nuanced look at what it means to navigate multiple cultural worlds—and ultimately, to become more fully yourself.
We talk about:
Growing up “between” Indian and American cultures,
What it means to be a first-generation American?
The tension between cultural expectations and personal identity – how do you hold onto traditions from your culture of origin whilst also embracing the culture and customs of your new home.
The duality of being both “modern” and “traditional,” which she witnessed her own parents grapple with.
The edges of guilt – how is informed her biases.
The preservation vs evolution of traditions.
Interactive Podcast Experiences with Magic Thread Media
Thursday, October 1, 2026 • Duration 01:50
Welcome to the next evolution of your podcast experience with Magic Thread Media.
Audio is just the beginning. We created these interactive experiences so you can connect deeper with your favorite shows, hosts, and personal development tools—taking the connection far beyond your earbuds.
Whether you tune in to Create Magic at Work, Circle's Edges, Finding Treasures in the Trash, Bending the Light, or any other show in our network, you can now engage directly with our host collective:
Candle Lighting Rituals: Light a candle with Aaron on Circle's Edges
Nature & Wellness Retreats: Join Cari for immersive, in-person community retreats in nature
Astrology & Karma Readings: Receive your personalized karmic snapshot reading from Vish
Guided Journaling: Reflect on your personal journey with weekly magic microdose prompts guided by Amy Lynn Durham
Explore Your Experience: Ready to move beyond passive listening and have an amazing, interactive experience?
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
Karma isn’t Punishment: What Vedic Astrology says about Karma, Free Will, and the Patterns We Repeat
Season 1 · Episode 4
Thursday, October 1, 2026 • Duration 41:59
What if karma is not a cosmic punishment system, but a curriculum?
Vedic astrology approaches karma less like a courtroom and more like an accounting system. Every action carries a consequence, every pattern tells us something, and every lifetime presents a particular set of lessons. Vish explores how Jyotish, the Vedic science of illuminating the soul, helps us recognize the karmic terrain we are moving through and distinguish between what must be experienced and what may still be changed.
That distinction matters. Some karma is deeply fixed. Some requires sustained effort. Some can shift through relatively small changes in awareness and action. The Yoga Sutras offer a guiding principle: avoid the suffering that is yet to come. Spiritual practice, meditation, service, conscious choices, and traditional remedies become ways of participating in that process rather than simply enduring it.
The recurring relationship, the difficult family dynamic, the blocked area of life, or even the way we exchange value at work can become information.
Perhaps the deeper invitation of karma is not to ask, “Why is this happening to me?” but to become curious about what life is asking us to understand, metabolize, rebalance, and eventually move beyond.
Points of Light:
Karma Is Accounting, Not Judgment: Vedic wisdom reframes karma as the natural consequence of action rather than a system deciding whether we are good or bad.
Your Repeating Patterns Are Information: When the same relationship, conflict, or challenge continues returning, the unfinished lesson may matter more than the circumstances around it.
Not All Karma Has to Be Experienced the Hard Way: A karmic manager distinguishes between what is fixed, what requires sustained effort, and what may still be consciously modified.
Spiritual Practice Changes the Level Where the Pattern Lives: Meditation reaches beneath ordinary thought into the causal layer where Vish describes karmic conditioning as capable of being refined.
What's actually happening right now
What you're longing for instead
Whether working together is the right fit
One or two things you can start doing differently right now
You'll leave with clarity and a concrete next step.
About the Host:
Dr. Pavini Moray is a somatic coach and Relational Life Therapy practitioner with a PhD in Somatic Psychology. For more than 15 years, Pavini has worked with couples navigating relationship crisis, intimacy challenges, rupture, and repair. Their approach blends Relational Life Therapy, somatic work, and trauma-informed care to help couples understand the deeper patterns shaping how they connect, communicate, and love.
Musical Attribution: Original podcast music composed by Luke Djordjevic
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.
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.
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.
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.
What you're longing for instead
Whether working together is the right fit
One or two things you can start doing differently right now
You'll leave with clarity and a concrete next step.
About the Host:
Dr. Pavini Moray is a somatic coach and Relational Life Therapy practitioner with a PhD in Somatic Psychology. For more than 15 years, Pavini has worked with couples navigating relationship crisis, intimacy challenges, rupture, and repair. Their approach blends Relational Life Therapy, somatic work, and trauma-informed care to help couples understand the deeper patterns shaping how they connect, communicate, and love.
Musical Attribution: Original podcast music composed by Luke Djordjevic
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.
Living from our own values vs carrying the expectations of our ancestors.
I read a couple of her poems – Parul shares her desire to help women to move forward, understanding that it it’s time to break some rules.
What is Diwali? Parul’s Diwali children’s book is Shine a Light on Diwali: An American-Born, Indian-Heritage Family Celebrates the Festival of Lights, illustrated by Ali Cardenas. The story follows 2 brothers as they share how their U.S.-based Indian-American family celebrates Diwali—at home, at school, and in their community. A central idea is that they’ve developed their own family traditions, combining their Indian heritage with their American upbringing
All this and much more.
About Parul L. Bhandari
Parul L. Bhandari is a Chicago-based author, tech entrepreneur, podcast host, and speaker who has never believed in doing just one thing. She is the founder of CustomerXSuccess, a fractional customer success consultancy for B2B SaaS companies, and the author of six books spanning children's literature, poetry, and business — including the Amazon bestselling Good Brown Girls and The Customer Success Talent Playbook.
I help people find and express a more truthful presence through voice, storytelling, and deep listening.
My work draws on decades as a professinal actor, singer, director, coach, and as a spiritual counselor, bringing together vocal technique with emotional intelligence, mindfulness, breath and body awareness, and the transformative power of story.
My signature B.I.G. Approach explores Breath and Body, Intention, and Genuineness—because powerful communication isn't simply about what we say. It's about how fully we inhabit ourselves when we say it.
Whether I'm working one-on-one or with a group, my goal is not to teach people how to sound like someone else.
It's to help them hear themselves more clearly—and have the courage to let that voice be heard.
SandraBargman.com
MagicThreadMedia.com
@SandraBargman
Mentioned in this episode:
This show was brought to you in part by the Magic Thread Media Network. To learn more visit: https://magicthreadmedia.com/
Your Life Is a Curriculum, Not a Courtroom: Challenges become clues to what the soul is here to learn, while free will determines how consciously we respond.
Vish Chatterji is an executive coach, Vedic Astrology teacher, author, and former business executive who helps people bridge ancient wisdom with modern life. After a career spanning engineering, entrepreneurship, and corporate leadership, he now guides leaders, founders, and seekers toward greater clarity through the traditions of Yoga, Meditation, Ayurveda, Vedic Philosophy, and Jyotish, the ancient science of light.
Through his coaching practice, Head & Heart Insights, Vish combines practical business experience with timeless spiritual teachings, inviting people to lead and live with greater awareness, purpose, and presence. He is the author of The Business Casual Yogi and Astrology Decoded, and serves as a Faculty Coach and Educator with the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute at UC Berkeley.
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.
Mentioned in this episode:
This show was brought to you in part by the Magic Thread Media Network. To learn more visit: https://magicthreadmedia.com/
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