%20(3).jpg)
Fulfilling Work, Meaningful Life with Anthony Craiker
Ever feel like you're just going through the motions of life? Burned out at work? Longing for a new career or a "second act"? Facing a mid-life crisis?
Perhaps your schedule is so packed that you feel like you never have time to focus on the things that truly matter. Or maybe you're missing a sense of purpose, fulfillment, and meaning in your life, and wishing you had practical tools and solutions to help you learn to act—instead of being acted upon by your circumstances.
If so, you've clicked on the right show. Fulfilling Work, Meaningful Life is not your typical personal development podcast. It’s a space for real conversations and practical tools that help you create a life of purpose. Our mission is to help others find and create greater meaning in the most important aspects of life. Through both solo episodes and engaging interviews with thoughtful guests, host Anthony Craiker explores topics such as how to develop a fulfilling career, prioritize family relationships, find peace and joy amidst change, live life with intention, align our values with our actions, and minimize the distractions that pull us away from the things that matter most. His guests include successful entrepreneurs, coaches, authors, academics, and thought leaders who know what it takes to live a meaningful life and have the experience, training, and know-how to help YOU do the same.
So click on the next episode, and let's learn how to navigate this crazy journey called life together, finding and creating meaning in the things that truly matter along the way!
Previous guests have said:
"Anthony is a warm, purpose driven host who creates a safe and engaging space for meaningful conversations. His passion for helping others live better lives shines through, and he offers practical tools with heart. A truly fulfilling experience!"
"I love the insights and energy Anthony brings to his show. He sets a comfortable, conversational tone while still getting to the core of the topic. Great host! Great show!!"
"Listening to Anthony is like having a conversation with an old friend. I really appreciate the diverse line-up of guests he hosts. Lots of practical and inspiring strategies and stories shared."
"Anthony is an extraordinary host. I enjoyed the flow, the questions, conversation, and reflections. He read my book and was ready to discuss about change, challenges, saboteurs and how to sustain change. Thank you, Anthony. It was a pleasure to be his guest."
"I really enjoyed my conversation with Anthony. He asked questions that I know are really relevant to his audience and really got to the core of why making lifestyle changes is so difficult."
"Anthony is a fantastic host and has an amazing podcast. As a guest on his show, he was extremely prepared. I love the questions that he had, and he added great insights from his personal experiences as well. The conversation was very casual and warm. He is clearly passionate about his listeners and wants to ensure they find meaning in their work. I would love to be back on his podcast anytime and I will definitely subscribe to be a listener moving forward."
"Anthony and I had such a great conversation on his show! He asked really thought-provoking questions and kept the conversation going. I really enjoyed joining him and I love the topic of this podcast and the value he brings to his listeners. Highly recommend!"
"Fabulous host. Super professional, great interviewer, and wonderful podcast. Highly recommend."
Fulfilling Work, Meaningful Life with Anthony Craiker
BONUS EPISODE: Our Experience at Podfest Multimedia Expo 2025
In this short bonus episode, Anthony is joined by his wife, Jennifer Craiker, to talk about their experience attending Podfest Multimedia Expo earlier this month. They discuss some of the highlights of the conference, including a keynote presentation from John Lee Dumas and Kate Erickson Dumas from Entrepreneurs on Fire. Jennifer and Anthony also reflect on how sharing the message of Fulfilling Work, Meaningful Life with the world through podcasting brings meaning and fulfillment into their lives.
Show Links:
- Podfest Multimedia Expo
- Check out Alex Sanfilippo's company: PodMatch
- Rita Goodroe
- Check out Courtney Elmer's company: PodLaunch
Social Media:
Website: https://fulfillingworkmeaningfullife.com/
Sign up for our monthly newsletter and get a FREE 14-Day Reflection Journal for Finding or Creating Fulfilling Work.
Welcome everyone to a special bonus edition of fulfilling work meaningful life with anthony Craiker I am here with co founder of fulfilling work meaningful life my Sweetheart, my beautiful wife, Jennifer,
Jennifer:hi everybody.
Anthony:And Jennifer isn't normally going to appear on the podcast, but we thought that for this bonus episode, it might be a good idea to have her on. And the reason for that is we are going to talk about our experience at podfest multimedia expo that we attended the weekend before last, Jennifer takes care of our behind the scenes stuff as we're trying to get the podcast out there and build our audience. So we decided that we would both go to PodFest this year. I went last year, right before I started a podcast with my son, which lasted about 10 weeks or so before he lost interest in it. But I was interested in podcasting and I was kind of hooked. After going to podfest last year in 2024. So I wanted to go again this year because I was getting ready to launch my own podcast, fulfilling work, meaningful life with Anthony Craiker. So I was looking forward to going and then I had the idea, Hey, that it would be great if. Jen went with me
Jennifer:and I think we should mention that we were able to to go to podfest because of some complimentary tickets. I got mine from Morgan James publishing,
Anthony:right?
Jennifer:And I think you said yours was from buzzsprout, right?
Anthony:Right. Yeah.
Jennifer:Thanks to those groups that we were able to go.
Anthony:Absolutely. Shout out to both companies that was very generous and we were able to get. A creator pass, which got us into just about everything for free. So thanks to Morgan James Publishing and Buzzsprout. Buzzsprout hosts our, our podcast and I've had a great experience working with them. And then while we were at Podfest, we attended some sessions put on by Morgan James Publishing about getting a book published and I found those to be pretty helpful because I do have an idea for a book and you have an idea for a book too.
Jennifer:Right. So I think that was kind of the track you started off with at least was the author track and went to a lot of those. And then I went to a few different other things as well.
Anthony:Were there any other highlights for you in any of the sessions that you attended?
Jennifer:Well, since it was my first PodFest, I didn't know quite what to expect. And I will say all the speakers were super engaging. I loved hearing their stories and it was interesting to be among other people that have the same vision of creating a podcast and putting content out that is helpful to others. One of the ones I really enjoyed was by Alex Sanfilippo. He talked about the phases of podcasting and basically I learned we are in phase Zero.
Anthony:Yeah. Yeah. We are at the very beginning learning how to do this. it's been a lot of fun. We've had a blast working on this together and we're looking forward to seeing what we can do over the next year with the podcast and with fulfilling work, meaningful life in general, in a broader sense. One of the reasons I thought this would be a good idea to do this bonus episode is because there are probably some of our listeners who are interested in. Starting their own podcast or starting their own business and maybe they want to promote that business with a podcast. And so we thought we'd share our experience about podfest to help. You are listeners in case any of you out there are interested in learning about how to do this we should mention to podfest is in Orlando, Florida. We happen to live in Orlando, Florida. So that was pretty convenient for us. We didn't have to stay in a hotel or anything. We just drove there every day. But I also noticed on the podfest face. Book group that Rita Goodrow, who was the emcee for Podfest, who is a well known public speaker, put out a post on the podfest Facebook group, asking if anybody had made an episode about their experience at podfest. And so I thought, what a great idea. And so it didn't really fit into our schedule of upcoming episodes that we have planned out. So we decided, Hey, we'll jump on here for a few minutes and just do a bonus episode and talk about podfest. So hopefully. This will be helpful for you guys as we talk about it. And if you're interested in attending PodFest next year you know, you can check it out.
Jennifer:I think that the thing that was the biggest takeaway from PodFest, at least, well, I don't know if we say the biggest takeaway, but. There was so many pieces of information that kind of left us kind of mulling over in our minds and thinking and inspiring us to think big and think beyond maybe what we had already thought of. And really, I think it's given us enough material to think through for the next 365 days until there's another podfest.
Anthony:Yeah, for sure. And one of the things that I. Felt. And I mentioned to you while I was there was it's kind of inspiring just to be around a bunch of people who have big dreams about getting their message out to the world via podcasting. And that was just kind of cool just to be around those people in that environment, and then the sessions that we attended they were all very good. There were a couple of highlights. You mentioned
Jennifer:Alex Sanfilippo,
Anthony:right? Which you, you attended. What was it about his that you liked?
Jennifer:Oh, he just, everything was. Explained so well, and I could really relate to it, and I could see myself in the steps that, that he gave, and you know, the steps that he gave, as far as, like I talked about, he talked about phases, it was really easy to see, okay, well, we're in phase 0, and here's where we need to get to, to get to phase 1, and so just reminding myself, this is, a marathon, not a sprint. And we don't need to try to be at phase six when we're really at zero. And it's okay to be at zero. And we just grow from there. But I know there was some sessions that really inspired you. There was actually one morning I couldn't go and you were there by yourself. So what things inspired you?
Anthony:Yeah, so I'll first mention that we attended a session. with Courtney Elmer about SEO search engine optimization, which is something that we're just barely learning about. And that was when we were both there and we got into her session right as it was about to start and it was standing room only and I heard later that they actually turned people away that we're trying to get in during the session but her presentation was excellent and super helpful for totally
Jennifer:practical. Yeah.
Anthony:Very practical advice about SEO. And I've since been able to connect with her on LinkedIn. And she has a company called pod launch, I think where she helps podcasters get started with their podcasts. But she, she has a lot of great resources out there. So I was really impressed by her presentation, but the highlight for me of the whole thing was the keynote. with John Lee Dumas and Kate Erickson Dumas from entrepreneurs on fire. And I have listened to entrepreneurs on fire off and on over the years, even though I haven't been an entrepreneur up until very, very recently. But I've always loved his show and the interviews that he does. I've found to be really inspiring. So I was, familiar with the podcast and excited to hear from them. And they were excellent. They delivered they shared about their story and building their business and their brand and gave some great advice or as. John would say on his podcast, drop some value bombs. One of the value bombs that he dropped that I kind of took me aback at first, but as, as I processed it, I realized that he is right. He said something along the lines and I hope I'm not misquoting them, but it was something to the effect of perfectionists are cowards. And that's a pretty strong statement, right? But what he means by that is that if you're caught up in perfectionism, trying to get everything right for your podcast, you want to get the content right and the editing, right. And, and you get caught up in this. This perfectionist mentality, you're really finding a way to avoid starting and getting your podcast out there. And so you're afraid of what's going to happen when you do. And so you hide behind this veil of perfectionism. And I think we can all Kind of resonate with that a little bit. Most of us at times have tendencies to be afraid to move forward and do something that we're inspired to do. And we justify not moving forward with it because it's not ready yet. We're not, we're, you know, it's not perfect yet.
Jennifer:Yeah, I mean, I can totally see that. And so I think what we're trying to take from that is let's just start moving and get started. And as we do, we'll learn and we'll improve and, you know, we'll take our audience along with us for that ride.
Anthony:Right. And it's okay to make mistakes. We're going to make mistakes along the way. Right. But that's, that's part of the process. And honestly, to tie this back into broader theme of this show, fulfilling work, meaningful life, that process of doing of acting and being intentional about your goals is a big part of finding meaning in our work in our lives.
Jennifer:That and doing something together with someone you love.
Anthony:That's right. And the last several months as we've been working on getting this ready and creating content and learning how to, how to do podcasting and all that. It's, it's been a blast. It's brought us closer together doing it together, I would say. And it's brought a lot of fulfillment to me. Personally, because this is a message that we really believe in and, and want to share with the world how we can find and create meaning in all aspects of our lives.
Jennifer:Yeah. So I guess our last words on PodFest are, it was awesome. We really appreciated the things that we learned. We appreciated the opportunity to go and you know, we'll go next year.
Anthony:Yeah, for sure. For sure. We'll be there.\ so hopefully you enjoyed this bonus episode and if you're interested in podfest, check that out. We'd love to meet you next year in 2026 at podfest. That's all we've got for today. Anything else you want to add before we sign off?
Jennifer:No, I think that's great.
Anthony:All right. Well, thanks everyone for listening. Hope you enjoyed this episode and let's make it a meaningful week.