Something shifts when joy stops being a side effect of success and becomes a conscious way of living and leading. In this episode, Amy explores the idea of Exponential Joy with Kristin Joy Ekkens, founder of Exponential Joy™ movement, and how choosing joy on purpose can transform the way we work, communicate, and show up in our lives. Together, they unpack how joy is not about bypassing difficulty, but about developing the awareness, presence, and courage to meet life honestly without losing yourself in the process. Kristin shares how exponential joy grows through small, intentional choices that reconnect you to your voice, your body, and your truth, even in high-pressure environments. This conversation invites you to rethink productivity, success, and leadership through a more human lens, where joy becomes a renewable resource that deepens connection, expands impact, and creates work that feels aligned instead of draining.

Key Takeaways:

1. Why Exponential Joy Is a Practice, Not a Personality Trait – Understand how joy grows through intentional choices rather than circumstances or temperament.
2. How Joy Changes the Way You Show Up at Work – Learn how choosing joy affects presence, communication, and how others experience you.
3. The Difference Between Performing and Living in Joy – See how chasing approval or productivity blocks joy and creates quiet exhaustion.
4. How Awareness Creates Space for Joy Under Pressure – Discover why noticing your internal state is the doorway to sustainable joy, even in demanding environments.
5. Why Joy Expands Impact Instead of Diminishing It – Learn how grounded joy strengthens leadership, trust, and influence rather than making work feel less serious.
6. Returning to Your Natural State of Joy – Understand how reconnecting to your voice, body, and truth allows joy to grow exponentially over time.

About the Guest:

Kristin Joy Ekkens is the visionary founder of the Exponential Joy™ movement and creator of the Joy Operating System (JOYOS™)—a blueprint for conscious leadership, wellbeing, and human flourishing. A TEDx speaker, executive coach, and social entrepreneur, she blends emotional and connectional intelligence, well-tech, and ancient wisdom to help leaders and creators upgrade their inner operating systems. After overcoming severe burnout and autoimmune illness, Kristin developed the EPIC Joy Codes™—Energy, Purpose, Intention, and Connection—to help others transform stress into vitality and purpose into joy. Her mission: to rewire humanity for exponential joy.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/kristinjoyekkens

https://exj.global/joyos-accelerator/

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...

This episode is a collective pause at the edge of 2025, gathering voices from across the year to name what is quietly changing in how we lead, work, and relate to one another. Through reflections on presence, play, courage, compassion, wisdom, and humanity, the conversation invites a different way of moving forward. One that values being grounded over being rushed, connection over control, and truth over performance. As these voices come together, a deeper invitation emerges to lead with awareness, to stay human in the face of uncertainty and technology, and to step into 2026 willing to challenge old patterns while creating work that feels more alive, meaningful, and whole.

Key Takeaways:

00:55 – Paul Haas – Rediscovering presence as the doorway to meaning, aliveness, and everyday magic

03:25 – Dr. Josh Plaskoff – Healing the split between systems and soul in how organizations are built

07:09 – Tracy Clark – Using play to unlock creativity, challenge assumptions, and open new possibilities

09:53 – Doy Charnsupharindr – The quiet power of staying with someone in uncertainty instead of rushing to answers

11:36 – Marcy Moriconi – Rewriting how women relate to one another at work and what it really takes to rise

13:04 – Dr. Mark Rittenberg – Leading bravely through dialogue, storytelling, and radical kindness

17:18 – JC Carr – How simple conversations can become turning points for growth and mentorship

19:07 – Jenn Ayala – Leading as a real human being, not a role, and why trust starts there

20:19 – Brian Gorman – Moving from intelligence to wisdom in leadership and collective decision-making

23:18 – Dr. Shonna Waters – Standing at the crossroads of AI and humanity and choosing the future we’re creating

27:13 – Sandra Bargman – Ferocious compassion, self-truth, and the courage to stop betraying yourself to belong

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!

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In a world that often rewards silence over truth, this conversation invites us into the radical possibility that courage can be compassionate and compassion can be ferocious. Sandra Bargman joins Amy to explore how choosing authenticity over approval transforms the way we lead, speak up and refuse the quiet self-betrayal that so many of us have normalized. Together they peel back the layers of social conditioning, especially for women and leaders, and show how the simple act of pausing, breathing and telling the truth becomes a liberating spiritual practice. This episode reminds us that real compassion begins with ourselves and that the courage to be disliked is sometimes the most loving choice we can make.

Key Takeaways:

• The Paradox of Ferocious Compassion - Learn how strength and tenderness can coexist and why true compassion sometimes requires uncomfortable honesty.
• Why Self-Betrayal Happens in Leadership - See how people pleasing, approval seeking and silence accumulate and undermine your integrity and confidence.
• The Courage to Be Disliked - Discover why speaking your truth is an act of self respect and how developing this muscle changes every room you walk into.
• Reclaiming Your Voice in Moments That Catch You Off Guard - Find approaches for pausing, breathing and responding instead of freezing, laughing it off or internalizing harm.
• Confrontation as Presence, Not Conflict - Understand how facing a moment directly, without attack or avoidance, becomes a deep expression of integrity.
• Practicing Boundaries With Compassion - Explore ways to assess your safety, values and intentions so you can decide when to stay, when to speak and when to walk away.

About the Guest:

Sandra Bargman helps leaders unlock truthful presence with a blend of vocal mastery, storytelling skill, and deep emotional intelligence. Drawing from decades as an actor, singer, director, and life counselor, she teaches people to express themselves with clarity, authenticity, and intention. Her holistic B.I.G. Approach brings together breath and body work, vocal strength, diction, silence, mindfulness, and story craft, giving clients the tools to communicate with confidence and purpose. Whether she’s coaching one-on-one or leading groups, Sandra guides people of all ages and professions to access their inner truth, sharpen their message, and step into bolder, more grounded communication.

https://www.sandrabargman.com

https://www.sandrabargman.com/podcast

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: