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Voices From the Edge: Closing 2025 and Stepping Into 2026 · Magic Thread Media

• 0:00
  Amy Lynn Durham: Hey everyone. It's Amy here, as we close out 2025 I wanted to pause for a moment and really take in what this year has been about on create magic at work. This episode is a collection of voices from across the year, different guests, different perspectives, different moments, all reflecting the deeper shifts happening and how we lead, how we relate and how we move forward as we step into 2026 Take a listen to voices from the edge 2025
• 0:34
  Hey, it's Amy. Welcome to Create Magic at Work, where we cast visions for a future of work, where business decisions ripple outward to our teams, our communities, the planet and humanity as a whole. If you're ready to edge, walk instead of sleep, walk through your leadership, you're in the right place. So let's start making magic at work.
• 0:55
  Paul Haas: So at the very basic level, yes, it's a grounding. There's a grounding practice that I that I started out with whenever I teach people, but that then it's, it's, it's really just training your mind to be still as you feel right. And so basically, if you can, if you can put your hand on your heart right and and if you can feel what that flesh is feeling that you're touching not your hand, but the flesh of the heart, if you can feel that, and if you can dismiss thoughts as they come up, judgmental thoughts, or, you know, thinking about yesterday or tomorrow or whatever it is we think about, if you can just really feel then that's the beginnings of this practice, right? And there are many energy centers. But what it does is it teaches us to feel without any sort of judgment or thinking or distraction. It's surprising how amazing it feels, right? And so let me just take into another sphere, if you're eating, if you're eating dinner with a group of people, and you're talking and you're eating, and the food is delicious, but you're you're probably thinking about one thing or another. Oh, what did I do yesterday that I'm ashamed of? What do I have tomorrow that I'm afraid of? Or you're talking or you're listening, you're distracted, and so you're not actually tasting right? And so if you can taste without intermediary, thought or distraction, it's about 10,000 times more delicious, like the Apple is out of this world, right? And so if you're listening to a singer, and if you're not thinking, if you're entirely invested in the listening. You can feel her soul as she sings. It's, it's mind bendingly beautiful. And so that's, that's the real lesson for me. Out of all this, is as we come to a place where we are no longer distracted, or when we can understand that we are distracted and lose it for a while, right? And go into pure feeling, pure sensation, pure sensory experience, then life begins to be magical. There's nothing that can prepare
• 3:14
  you for how beautiful this is.
• 3:16
  Amy Lynn Durham: That was, yeah, that sounds like an amazing space to be in.
• 3:25
  Josh Plaskoff: I think some are, I think it's still considered fringe, and it doesn't fit the current models that are very kind of limited in terms of their thinking. So it takes, it takes some a little bit of rebelliousness to do it. But I think there are some that are I know I'm teaching it in my leadership classes to students, and the one thing that I tried to focus on is what I call the two sibling model, because it's based on my two my two sons who are basic opposites of each other, and I have to parent them and in the same household, and I can't throw out one son for The other. I have to keep them both together, because I love both of them and and I've got to parent them both. And if you think of an organization, it's almost the same thing. There's there are two children that don't get along with each other. One I like to call the machine, and that's the part of the organization that keeps us going. That's sort of the what we look at traditionally in business schools, is, you know, how do we keep growth going and be efficient and effective, and how do we measure things, and how do we set goals for it, and planning and strategizing and all that? And the other child is the community, which is, how do we care about each other? How do we create a sense of community and feeling and emotions? And how do we deal with our humanity in the workplace as well? And in most cases, we've thrown out the community piece because it's not measurable and it's sort of touchy feely, wishy washy sort of stuff, and we've been taught more to focus on measurement and quantification and objectification and all that kind of stuff. Unfortunately, the. Way I've seen it is that the engine for the the organization, is really the community. It's not the machine. And this is why people are struggling with motivation and with engagement. And you know, all these, these wonderful things. Well, the organization, the way we look at it, is basically pushing all that out and saying, you
• 5:17
  know, unless you do it in a mechanical way, you're not really touching, what makes us collaborative and what makes us motivated, which is the humanness that's within us. And so those two have to reside together. And so that's a major, major polarity that I've been teaching, and actually that, I think that's one that's kind of threaded through, you know, the history of organizations and and theories. If you look at like Frederick Taylor, who was very much about the machine in the 1920s but you also look at Mary Parker Follett, who was a social theorist in the 20s, who basically said the purpose of leaders is to make more leaders. So she was way ahead of her time, and was talking about that human aspect. And really it's both. It's a both, and it's how do you have them both? How do you row the boat and build it same time?
• 6:04
  Amy Lynn Durham: What can you sense but not yet?
• 6:07
  Josh Plaskoff: See, I sense a significant I don't want to use the word revolution, because that could be misconstrued in a lot of ways, but I sense an extreme transformation that the the workplace will need to, out of necessity, transform. And it may be painful because it's it may be completely against what we've been used to, but I sense that it will almost be a necessity to survive, in some sense, not only survive in terms of the workplace, but survive in terms of being human beings, that there will be a point where we say this just can't work the way it's working anymore, and we need to find out new ways of thinking and new ways of operating that will, that will really affect almost every aspect of the organizational world. I feel that in the in the offing, I don't know when. I don't know in to what capacity, but that's kind of what I sense.
• 7:02
  Amy Lynn Durham: Yeah, I got the chills when you were saying that.
• 7:09
  Tracy Clark: I came across the playfulness a little bit, let's say by accident. And I started to notice that when like clients were showing up, as you mentioned, visionary founders, really challenging the status quo and really aware that dynamics are changing out there. So they'd often come on stressed, and I'd see them have these huge challenges that they want to resolve, and I could see the intensity in them. And I found that, as if by magic, there were two words that I kept saying, and they would shift the energy between them and me just get them to relax, and it would get them to open up, and it would almost create a safe space where they were able to explore with safety. And those two words were, let's play. Those are the words that encouraged me to look into playfulness. Because I was like, Tracy, you're using those words a lot, so what's going on there? And so I was looking to my experience and really seeing that they had an impact. So if you're feeling stressed, say, let's play let's be curious. What else is possible. Let's challenge assumptions. We live in a society where we've inherited beliefs, and there are assumptions about how quickly you can get into markets. What's possible all of that, and do we actually challenge them, or do we tend to accept them? And I have one client who he and I really bonded over challenging assumptions. He's very, very much looking into your spiritual your skew. He's very high on that. And he'd say to me, you know, we'd say, right, if there's a challenge, what we need to do is we need to think about all the challenges, all the assumptions that you're making about yourself, about the market and about the team. And it was a practice we got into. So when he opened up yet another business, he was going into an area that he was told would take him seven years to get into and he was like, Tracy, I'm not having that. That's ridiculous. I've thought about it, and I've come back, and I know we can do it in four months.
• 9:31
  That's what they did, because it took him standing back, being curious, rethinking the approach, about how he could do it. So it just shows when you go into the Let's Play. Doors open up. You create the magic that you talk about.
• 9:53
  Doy Charnsupharindr: One of the key points that we talked about yesterday was the importance of the role of the coach of the. Sitting in the unknown space with someone. That space when the person says, I don't know what to do. I'm not sure what's the way out, and that is a very lonely and scary place. And to be able to sit in that space with someone not to make it go away. Not to say, Oh, I have all the answers for you, but to simply say that I got you, and I'll be in this space with you until we figure it out. Angeles Arian, our teacher, who we refer to, often used to say, then be the unknowable, until the unknowable becomes knowable, being in that space until the unknowable becomes knowable. And I really kept that close to my heart every time the person I'm coaching is stuck in that unknown, all I got to do right now is to be there with them, and I don't think we do that enough for one another in the workplace and even the lone wolves think that it's not okay to have someone just be in the unknowable with them, but I'm encouraging all of us today to practice that
• 11:27
  Amy Lynn Durham: if you could wave a magic wand and change one dynamic between women in the workplace overnight, what would it
• 11:36
  Marcy Moriconi: be stop talking about other women in negative ways.
• 11:39
  Amy Lynn Durham: Yeah, you just hit us right between the eyes with that one. Yeah, we
• 11:44
  Marcy Moriconi: all do it. We're all responsible for this. And the way that we we judge ourselves because we're our worst critic, and then we judge others. The second thing I would say, if I may, is we need to be really clear about what the path to promotion is. So for women who want to move up in their careers or thrive in the job that they have get as much clarity as we can for ourselves and for the people around us, around what we need to do to move forward.
• 12:23
  Amy Lynn Durham: What can we say? What can you say to the men, the leaders that are men that are listening to this episode? How can they be a part of this?
• 12:36
  Marcy Moriconi: What a great question. Amy, I have had men read my book and say, Well, this is true for us too, and and really embrace it. I think that for men, just keep showing up and partnering with your female colleagues and building teams and listening to one another,
• 12:54
  Amy Lynn Durham: and don't call us a bitch if we're being assertive and leading. Just throwing that out there.
• 13:04
  Dr. Mark Rittenberg: Sometimes it's important to go into the danger zone. So in other words, we're in our comfort zone. We experiment a bit with the stretch zone. Let me, you know, try to get out there and and make a business passion speech or like the beautiful scene you did from Little Foxes, Louis helmans Little Foxes. But then there's the danger zone. I'm going to now have a conversation about what's working and what needs work, what's working and what needs work. And I grew up in a time that the power of dialog was absolutely the Berkeley gold standard, meaning we all disagreed with each other. It could be the war effort, it could be Cesar Chavez, it could be Angela Davis, the free speech movement, but nobody got canceled. We sat there all night, if we had to, till five in the morning, working it through. And that the power of dialog is very difficult, but very worthwhile, because there's learning for everybody. Everybody gains through the power of dialog, I understand you more you understand me. I'm not here to convert you. I'm not here to bring you over to my point of view, but I I can understand where you're coming from. And what, of course, we do in Berkeley executive coach Institute, the power of storytelling is such an incredible part of the program, and what we want our coaches to do with their coachees. Because everybody has a story. Everybody has probably 50 stories. And the writer Gertrude Stein put it very well when she said, the human story is never boring. The human story is never boring. Because real people are never boring, and so very often, when you share your story, I come to know you, and I come to understand where you're coming from, and my empathy grit just shoots up at that point. Wow, look what she's been through. Look at all the things that she's overcome. Another great teacher of mine, she just was great about being older, because I have these great teachers. You know, I went to Berkeley. I graduated in 1975 God, I
• 15:32
  couldn't even get into Berkeley now, but in those days, but the man named Carl Rogers, famous sociologist Carl Rogers, and he said, If you've One Life to Live, live it with unconditional positive regard, unconditional positive regard. We said, Dr Rogers, what does that mean? He said, giving to others without any expectation of reciprocity, do good deeds for others, create acts of kindness for others, and you'll need nothing in return. And that's what I believe in. In other words, in the wonderful movie about Leonard Bernstein, Maestro, when his wife was in her final days, her daughter said, Mommy, what do you need? Anything? Mommy, what do you need? And she said, All I need is kindness. Kindness. So I say one thing that we can do that doesn't cost a penny, is to be kind, and whether it's received or not, that's another matter. But I do believe that kindness is universal. I heard it in Singapore. I've heard it in Abu Dhabi. I've heard it everywhere. I just want to be kind. I want to receive acts of kindness, and I want to feel like my life is worth living and not this terrible struggle.
• 17:18
  JC Carr: No, I mean, I completely understand it's difficult. Graduating school, leaving your friends, your friends, I will say, though, take advantage of every second and opportunity that you get, because as things are changing, you're one conversation away from a completely different life, especially now.
• 17:35
  Amy Lynn Durham: I love that. Just look at every everything is like a stepping stone, like you're on a journey.
• 17:40
  JC Carr: Yeah, and you're right there. You're one conversation away from changing your life. I heard that a couple of years ago, and it's been told me a lot.
• 17:48
  Amy Lynn Durham: So JC, if you were going to give all of us your advice, how can we seek mentorship, all of us, no matter the age, what are some what's some advice? Like you just said, you're one conversation away from a completely different life. So how can we be encouraged to seek out those conversations, or seek out that mentor? What's something we can do to take a step towards that?
• 18:18
  JC Carr: I'll use myself, for example, every single time I go out, if it's a Friday or Saturday night, they go to dinner with my friends, or I go to a bar, I may get a point to talk to at least five different people, any age, any gender, and connect with them. I've made more connections and sold more cars from talking to people going to car shows. That's just because it's the space. But going to a restaurant and talking to people going to a high end gym the airport, like sitting in a lounge, sitting and waiting for something, being able to connect with people, because you'll either make a connection for yourself, a connection for one of your friends, and in turn, that'll come back to you 1000 times.
• 18:54
  Amy Lynn Durham: Yeah, I love that. I love that last piece is like making the connections, not just for yourself, but because maybe you're going to connect a task or an idea to someone you know, to them as well.
• 19:07
  Jenn Ayala: Just be your genuine self. You know being that genuine self is going to allow others to feel more trust in you. And I think when people trust you, they're going to speak to you a little differently. And I think it allows you to help people a little better, and you don't have to put on a front just because you're the leader at work. And I watch so many people do this all the time, like I've got to put the work hat on, and this is who I'm going to function in this way. And I really tell people all the time to just be you. So then when you're having conversations, they're authentic conversations, and somebody doesn't think they're getting some other version of you, because then when you are able to give advice and to give guidance, like they're gonna take it and they're gonna, you know, probably do something with it. But if they feel like, Oh, she's got her HR workout on, it's kind of like goes in one ear and out the other. And I think people just need to learn to slow down. A second and again, just be kind. Just remember you're dealing with a human being in front of you. These are not machines. And I think if people stop to think about how they would want to be treated, and then they turn around and treat others like how they would want to be treated,
• 20:19
  Brian Gorman: may you lead with courage when the path is unclear, may you listen for what wants to emerge, even in the quiet, may you remember that the wisdom you seek is already within you and also among you. May your leadership be an act of love, your presence a source of grounding and your vision, a light for the path ahead. Lead not to control but to liberate. Lead, not to be followed, but to walk together. This is the work. This is the way. This is leadership in the age of wisdom, if we take intelligence as the Encyclopedia of all the knowledge that we have, and even encyclopedia is an ancient term these days, maybe the Wikipedia you and I, if we know how to Write the prompts if we have access to the databases, our IQ doesn't matter anymore, because we have all of the intelligence of big data at our fingertips. What does matter is what we do with it, and what we do with that is driven by wisdom. I'll give you a very basic example, and then we can dive into more detail. One of my clients explained it this way to me not too long ago. He said my father gave me the intelligence to know that tomato is a fruit. He also shared with me the wisdom to not put it in fruit salad. Wisdom is the discernment, the judgment, the ethical decisions, all of those things about what we do with the beta. What we do with that information? Nobody is smarter than everybody. If there are two people in the room, one is smarter than the other, yes, but collectively, they are smarter than either of them alone. Collectively, they have more wisdom than either of them alone. And we are programmed almost from birth. You can get in the best preschool, the best school, the best university, and when you get in the room with somebody else, they may be smarter, and if they're not, the two of you together are smarter, they may be wiser, and if not, the two of you together are wiser. And the complexity of the world today, the complexity of the challenges, the opportunities, says nobody
• 23:13
  can figure it all out on their own,
• 23:18
  Dr. Shonna Waters: AI, is creating a lot of disequilibrium and a lot of change in the system. And so it's a catalyst, and it can be, you know, a way to scale existing dysfunction faster and broader than ever before, or it can be a tool to really say, Let's fundamentally rethink what we're trying to achieve, and like the world we want to create, and how to get there. And so I think of us as like, standing at this, like, fork in the road between, you know, pro topia and dystopia. And so I think one of the things that leaders are getting wrong is is that it's It feels very black or white. It's like people are taking one of those views without seeing that, like there's so much choice and design that we're each making every day. And I think a lot of people are in this place where, where they think, like, great, AI is going to do all the work for us. I'm not going to need the people, and they're kind of messy and inconvenient and expensive. So I'm going to put this technology into place. And, like, I may go through some short term pain, but eventually the technology is going to keep getting better, and so it's going to be fine, and I don't need those people anymore. And I think that's wrong, both, because for most of us, I don't think that's really the world we want to live in or the world we want to create. But in addition, like there is a human at the beginning, and. Of any value chain, even if you don't care about the employees, you need customers. And we don't have a great like how to get from A to B yet, on how to not have any employees, but to still have customers. So I think, I think leaders are just, are kind of like optimizing for the short term balance sheets and things like that, without really thinking through what that means for for society, for our own children, and honestly, for our businesses, like in the in the midterm we are asking people to take the biggest risk that they will in their professional lives, in terms of adopting AI, because it
• 25:49
  fundamentally threatens all three of those needs, and is really, you know, asking us to reimagine what is work. Where does it get done, who or what is it done by, when, where, you know all of those things, and we have so much identity wrapped up into those things, for better or worse, to your point. And so you know, for people to take that kind of risk, they have to believe that there is a better possible future, and that's the place where I think, you know, a lot of leaders are not providing the vision for what that future looks like, and I think there's a hesitancy to do so, because it's changing so fast, and anyone who says they know is lying, but, but you have to be willing to say, like, well, what, what do we know? What can we commit to? Where do our values take us and like, what are the first principles that we're using to make those decisions as things change and emerge? And and to your point, like, I think that's probably underutilized and we all could stand to, you know, be a little more edge Walker ish,
• 27:13
  Sandra Bargman: originating from the Latin compati Compassion means to see the suffering of others and take action to stop it. While this is a noble pursuit, it leaves much room for interpretation. The choosing and taking of actions can also be filtered through ego control and judgment. My highest spiritual understanding of compassion is this allow everyone without judgment or hatred to make their own choices on their own path. Think about the profound and life altering generosity in that ferocious compassion requires that I find the courage to speak my truth, to find the courage to be disliked, to find the courage to turn and face confrontation. Ferocious compassion guides me to choose authenticity over approval. Ferocious compassion allows me to make my decisions for my own highest good and not for anyone else's comfort. It allows me the freedom to assert myself, to be vulnerable, to express, not suppress my true emotions and intentions, for my own heart to stay open. I can no longer pretend to make nice and try to understand the numerous assaults to my intelligence and my integrity. I can no longer befriend people who vote against my reproductive or equity rights. I can no longer tolerate cruelty anti intelligence and belligerent racism, the thing
• 29:00
  Amy Lynn Durham: I keep telling myself that I learned from your writing, the courage to be disliked, the courage to be disliked, that is something that rings through me throughout the day. It has just really stuck with me. How do I have the courage to be disliked?
• 29:19
  Sandra Bargman: I think for women, it's really difficult. We are socialized to want to be liked, and that if I'm liked, I belong. Meanwhile, I'm I'm self betraying myself, and this self betrayal is another part of ferocious compassion. I have to have compassion for myself. First and foremost, I cannot betray myself to make other people comfortable. And I think, in a nutshell, this this decentering of making nice. I'm always going to be kind. I'm always going to meet people where they are. As I said, the highest version of compassion is to allow people to make the the. Decisions for themselves that are in their highest interest. I might disagree with them, but Have at it, but I then will meet you where you are, and I will have I will make a decision about what is right for me, and I will not work to make nice with you to make you comfortable with decisions that that go against something that that is hopeful and supportive of me, I
• 30:34
  Amy Lynn Durham: want to thank each and every one of you for being here as we explore what it really means to create magic at work, if this conversation resonated with you, or if someone came to mind while you were listening, share the episode with them. Help others who are looking for these types of conversations find us and don't forget to follow, subscribe, rate and review, so you're notified when the next episode airs until next time, keep edge walking, keep challenging the way things have always been done, and keep making magic at work. You.