A Spark Of Awareness

Sophie Vo

A Spark Of Awareness is a weekly 15-minute reflection practice for conscious leaders to practice self-awareness. Your time to pause, and sit with yourself. No distraction, just self-listening. Every week, Sophie Vo will offer a human prompt — drawn from real transformation work with tech and gaming founders, executives, and leaders — to help you step out of old scripts, reconnect with your truth, and lead from integrity, presence, and self-mastery. Sophie is a leadership guide for high-achieving and conscious leaders. With 17 years of leadership experience in the tech and gaming industry, Sophie has built and led 30+ global teams across the U.S., Europe, and Asia, and has mentored over 200 executives across VC-backed startups and public companies. A four-time founder, her most recent venture scaled to six figures in its first year and evolved into ORIN — a curated global network redefining leadership for women. riseandplay.substack.com

  1. JAN 27

    Self Sabotage #3: Leading With Fears

    In this weekly reflection of ‘A Spark of Awareness,’ Sophie Vo presents the third self-sabotage pattern in leadership: fear-based decision-making. Drawing from her own experience and the hundreds of founders she has worked with, Sophie outlines how fear influences leaders’ decisions, leading to detrimental outcomes for teams and organizations, and eventually business growth. You will get actionable insights on recognizing fear-driven behaviors, differentiating rational and irrational fears, and how to bring them to light so they have less power over you. This reflection is a reminder of the importance of making decisions from a place of integrity rather than fear, advocating for conscious leadership. Listeners are encouraged to slow down, connect with their bodies, and reflect on their fears to lead more effectively. Reflection points: * Recognizing Fear in Decision Making * Evolutionary Perspective on Fear And Why Most Of Our Fears Are Not Real * Good vs. Bad Fears * Managing Fear: Techniques and Coaching Exercises * Transgenerational Fears and Their Origins * Closing Meditation and Reflection Extra resources recommended: * Fear Settings Journaling (by Tim Ferriss): * It Didn’t Start With You (by Marc Wollyn) Enjoy this Self-Awareness practice 👁️ Thanks for tuning in to a Spark of Awareness. Subscribe for free to receive your weekly dose of consciousness.. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit riseandplay.substack.com

    19 min
  2. JAN 5

    Introducing A Spark Of Awareness

    Dear listeners, I am evolving The Rise and Play Podcast. Time has come. Over the past four years, your support, feedback, and presence have meant very much to me and through this work, we’ve explored the leadership lessons of more than 150 founders, CEOs and leaders in the gaming industry, and the podcast reflected the journey. I was living myself as a gaming executive and leader, learning alongside my peers, and now I am evolving, and so is this podcast. Last year, if you have followed my journey, I fully crossed a threshold in my own life and identity, and I stepped away from the role and the structure of gaming leadership and into my full path as an entrepreneur and conscious leadership guide where I support leaders as we cross their own threshold from confinement, old scripts, duty identity into self-mastery, freedom, and truth. From this work. I have also founded ORIN, a sisterhood of conscious women leaders who are crossing the threshold and are doing this in group and in beautiful awareness. And I also now accompany many CEOs and leaders in one-on-one through that deep transformation. So the podcast will now become a reflection of this path and of the evolution I am witnessing in the leaders I work with. To reflect this transition, the podcast is shifting into a new format. And let me be clear here. I wanna respect your time and mine and offer something that is meaningful, grounded, and truly valuable of this time. There’s already so much content competing for our attention. And I don’t wanna add more noise, distraction, or information to consumer. And instead, this podcast will become a practice, a weekly discipline. A pause, a moment to step back, reconnect, and ask yourself the right questions. The same questions I work , with the founders and leaders I coach. And each episode will be between 10 and 15 minutes, what I call a “human prompt”, where I share what is alive in my work with leaders, the patterns I’m observing, because they are repeating over and over again across hundreds of leaders I’ve worked with. In the end, it is about being human and its human patterns, and you will get the wisdom that emerges from real journey of transformation. Maybe you are in yourself and need support, so this content will not be preplanned. And it’s definitely not an AI prompt. It is a human to human conversation and drawn from everything that I’m learning with my clients and with my own experience as an entrepreneur. It’s an invitation to cross your own bridge. From a legacy expectation, maybe a legacy of company or your story to more agency and your inner freedom and truth. And the first series I will open next week is about self-sabotage, patterns in leadership. The patterns I’ve identified across more than 200 leaders I’ve worked with. It’s so funny because they appear again and again, and I thought it is time that I actually reveal them because it’s going to make my work easier as we can start from the same basis, and you can also benefit from them without having to go through this yourself, which will help develop your self-awareness, which is the first step of transformation. So the first pattern. We will explore in my first episode is a disconnection from intuition because many leaders are externalizing the wisdom, living primarily in the intellectual mind and losing more and more of a connection to their inner voice. I hear every week. I would say even every day, people who are outsourcing the authority to chat GPT, they can’t even think for themselves. They don’t even know how to listen to themselves. And they’re, I would say, letting that muscle die by outsourcing it more and more to a machine or to others. And when intuition is discarded, distrusted businesses and the leaders as one with in them become flat. And we see businesses that are built from trends comparison. Imitation instead of authenticity. Conviction, something that is true and original. And this is what is going to emerge in an era where everything is mostly likely produced by an ai. And in this era, people will not seek for more information, but they will seek for what is real. They’ll seek truth. So in each episode, I will share concrete experiences from my work with clients from my own journey and other reflections and practices you can use to transform your patterns at your own pace into self-mastery. The main thing I’m asking from you is discipline. You don’t need more knowledge. You need commitment and discipline, and that’s the work I do in my coaching. This is my invitation. So if you feel you’re standing at the edge of a threshold, something needs to change. You are entering a new chapter of your life, asking yourself whether the way you are living, leading, and spending your time still true to you. The space is for you and you are not alone. If you here to continue to consume content, , without accountability, this podcast is evolving to a place that, it’s not going to be aligned. It is for leaders who are willing to do the work. This is my 15-minute coaching practice for free if you really wanna do the work, but maybe are not in a place yet to work with a coach. So I’m very excited to introduce this new evolution, this next chapter of this podcast. This is: A Spark of Awareness. I look forward to being with you there. See you next week. Sophie Thanks for tuning in to a Spark of Awareness. Subscribe for free to receive your weekly dose of consciousness. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit riseandplay.substack.com

    9 min
  3. 11/25/2025

    The Fear of Becoming You: Why Some Leaders Change, and Others Never Will

    In this new coaching episode host Sophie Vo and co-host Maria Gillies are tackling the “Fear of Becoming You,” uncovering the profound themes surrounding leadership, self-awareness, and personal transformation. These themes have resonated particularly for women leaders navigating the complexities of authenticity and growth. Changing: The Paradoxes of Growth In our discussion, we delved into the paradoxical nature of personal growth. Many leaders express a desire to rise and transform while simultaneously fearing what that transformation might entail. The fear of “becoming someone you do not want to be” often mirrors a deeper apprehension of losing integral parts of oneself in the pursuit of growth. Identify When You Are Sabotaging Yourself Change starts with awareness. Recognizing where you feel stuck or conflicted—such as the fear of becoming your own Villain—can unveil deeper self-limiting beliefs. Trust that acknowledging these feelings is the first step toward overcoming them. Recalibrate Relationships: In and Out As you grow, you may need to reassess your relationships, including the one you have with yourself. Growth often requires reevaluation and sometimes letting go of connections that no longer serve your true self. This requires courage, and is part of the process of change. Practice Daily Self-Awareness True self-awareness involves daily practices of introspection. Writing down and honoring your boundaries can guard your authenticity and prevent self-abandonment. 3 Signs You Are Not Aligned Leadership isn’t merely about external success; it’s about fulfilling your role while staying true to yourself. When shadows loom in leadership, signals manifest physically and emotionally, disrupting our well-being. Watch out for these: * Physical Symptoms: Stress or burnout symptoms such as anxiety, panic attacks, and physical exhaustion suggest misalignment in your path and priorities. * Emotional Up and Downs: Feelings of loneliness or disconnection, even when surrounded by people, are strong indicators that introspective work is needed. * Constant Misalignments: Recurring conflicts or dissatisfaction in professional and personal settings often highlight deep-seated issues begging for resolution. ✍️ Coaching Tools For leaders seeking to address these shadows, fostering a conscious, self-aware mindset is crucial. Here are some practical options: * Daily Journaling: Spend time each day reflecting on your thoughts and feelings. Focus on areas that are out of alignment and use journaling to explore their roots. * Boundary Setting: Identify what is yours, what is not yours? Establish boundaries that protect your time and energy. Practice saying no. * Weekly Calibration: Regularly pause to assess your emotional state and recent interactions. Are they nourishing or depleting? Consciously decide who and what fills your environment. Change it. * Journey with a group: Join communities or circles where you can share experiences and gain diverse perspectives. These spaces offer opportunities for learning, healing, and collective growth. Don’t be afraid to explore those uncomfortable questions: “What am I afraid of losing in the process of becoming who I truly want to be?” “When did I last ignore my instincts, and what was the outcome?” “What relationships in my life truly support my growth, and which ones do I maintain out of fear?” Remember that personal growth is not linear. On December 20th, I’ll host online a free masterclass to go deeper on the themes to realign your life and purpose, overcoming the fears of becoming You. Thanks for reading Rise and Play! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit riseandplay.substack.com

    28 min

Ratings & Reviews

5
out of 5
3 Ratings

About

A Spark Of Awareness is a weekly 15-minute reflection practice for conscious leaders to practice self-awareness. Your time to pause, and sit with yourself. No distraction, just self-listening. Every week, Sophie Vo will offer a human prompt — drawn from real transformation work with tech and gaming founders, executives, and leaders — to help you step out of old scripts, reconnect with your truth, and lead from integrity, presence, and self-mastery. Sophie is a leadership guide for high-achieving and conscious leaders. With 17 years of leadership experience in the tech and gaming industry, Sophie has built and led 30+ global teams across the U.S., Europe, and Asia, and has mentored over 200 executives across VC-backed startups and public companies. A four-time founder, her most recent venture scaled to six figures in its first year and evolved into ORIN — a curated global network redefining leadership for women. riseandplay.substack.com