‍Christine Olivas: Full Episode Transcript‍

Hello, everyone. Welcome to Question Everything, a podcast all about learning from the successes and the failures of those who dared to, well, question everything. This podcast is part interview, part therapy, and part Price Is Right. We have our own game board stacked with questions that'll make even the most successful CMOs sweat. I'm your host, Ashley Walters, CMO and partner at Curiosity. On today's episode, I sit down with Christine Olivas, founder of No Single Individual, an agency that specializes in strategy. Today we learn the three most important things a strategist needs if they are ever stranded on a desert island, what auditioning for American Idol taught her about finding her story, and why you should trash your strategy template. This episode is your ticket to Hollywood. Let's jump in.

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Christine Olivas: Christine Introduction

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Christine Olivas is the CEO and Founder of No Single Individual, an agency specializing in team-lancing strategists and account managers. Prior to founding her own agency, Christine held strategy roles at Gray New York, TPN, and RubiconMD. She's also a stand-up comedian, an American Idol contestant, and a published short story author. We have a lot to talk about. Welcome to the podcast, Christine. Thank you. It's really good to be here. I'm very excited. Yes. So, we got to start this with what is team-lancing? Explain that to us a little bit. Sure. So, I think the best way to describe it to anyone in the marketing and advertising field is what creatives have been doing forever. So, you might go out and say, hey, I really need an executive creative director for this pitch.

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That ECD is going to say, hey, well, I really want my writer and I also want an art director. And they sort of come to the table as a team to ideate. Even if they're freelancers, we've never done that for strategy before. We always assume you just need one person. They're going to be able to do it all from social listening to brand to comms. And we know that's not true. Like, sure, we can all be generalists in some way. But to really be effective, I think, as a strategy discipline, bringing a few minds to the table is the best way to do it. So that's essentially what team-lancing is. It's not freelancing because it's not one person. It's multiple strategists sort of pulled together for an assignment, for an agency, to come together.

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And so that's kind of bringing all those different perspectives. And we're pretty gung-ho about it. We don't, if someone comes to us and says, 'we just want one', we say, 'well, sorry, it's not the best fit'. We only provide teams. And then maybe they move on to someone else. But we pretty much were the first to do this for strategy or account. So we're excited about that. Fascinating. I love that. And I can't wait to dig into your process a little bit, too. So you know how this podcast works. We have 12 super spicy questions. You don't know which question is behind which number. But the power is completely in your hands. So we'll pull up the game board. And you can kind of take it from there.

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Christine Olivas: How “yes, and” can help build a good strategy 

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I'm always curious what the first number everybody picks is. It's easy. Five. It’s my favorite number. It’s your favorite number. Okay. I love this. So I love that you have a comedy background. I share in that. I studied with Second City. I did a big improv study with them for a long time. And stand-up and improv, there's a lot of connection. So the first question here is, a common practice in improv is yes and. Are you familiar with that concept? Yep. Yes. Okay. So talk a little bit about how you use the practice of yes and to build a good strategy. Sure. Yeah. So one of the things that's been interesting running my own business in this space is reacquainting myself with customer experience and client orientation.

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I do think sometimes when you work full-time in agencies, especially if you're an agency, it's really common to talk bad about clients. That's an account's job to deal with them. And I think being on this side for five years and constantly talking to both agency clients and their end clients, it's really reshaped what I think is appropriate in dealing with outside parties and also to open your mind to new perspectives. So I think a lot of times back in the day, people would get a client brief and they'd go, 'oh, this is the same as last year,' or 'this isn't.' It's inspirational and just write it off and want to throw out what the client thought and just start from scratch.

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And I think yes and can be a very effective tool in speaking with the end client. That brief got there for some reason. There are business objectives. They know the business and the products and the brand, the supply chain better than we do. So I've really been encouraging the team, both with the agency who might be giving us the assignment and with the end client, which sometimes we do interact with, to sort of have that yes and mentality. Yes, I see that. You know, driving household penetration is an objective. And what if we also looked at, you know, social media buzz, because we really think that's a way to stand out with the competition. So yeah, I think client orientation and really understanding that folks do come to the table with something for a reason, and they hired you to push them, but not necessarily to write off everything that they bring to the table.

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So it's a big difference between the mentality now and the mentality sometimes when you're in these large agencies for better or for worse, and that's someone else's problem. Yeah. Yeah, that's really good perspective. We talk a lot about yes and here too. We had Kelly Leonard, the author of Yes And, the book on the podcast, and he shared, you know, a lot of just kind of behind-the-scenes of the philosophy and how comedians use it on stage to not like stifle the idea and how to like continue to build on the idea without making people feel like, you know, their contributions weren't worthy. It's just like, you know, there's an old saying, 'If you're on stage, you're live, you got to go.' And so the Yes And kind of builds that momentum.

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And I love the thought of agencies and clients using that phrase and that mentality to just have the incremental ideation, which is really cool. Yeah, and people are so quick. I mean, it was a little bit of a shock to the system. So when I first came to New York, I had been in Arizona previously. So I started my agency journey at a large, several large regional agencies, which is a very different, you know, different level of playing field than really large New York agencies. And when I was at one in particular, we had a thousand plus people in the office. These meetings were 40, 50, 60 people in the room, sometimes another 30 or 40 on the phone.

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And just the competition to kind of get a word in edgewise, I ended up just in most cases opting out completely because I'd rather do that than be misinterpreted or talked over. And even just buying yourself a little bit of time to not just say the first thing that comes top of mind would have been nice for a lot of folks, because you've got a lot of talking over and sort of everyone wants to be the smartest in the room. And I get it-you need to justify your job, especially in a meeting that's that large. But yeah, some sort of 'yes' approach could have also prevented some of the talking over that happened in a lot of those meetings, and getting folks to just-just take that tiny pause and potentially give others the space to contribute, because most of those meetings, about five people did all the talking, let's be honest.

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Yeah, I mean, we've all experienced that, right? That's good advice in those moments too. Great. All right. Let's go back to the game board. All right. I'm going to go with nine next. Number nine. Okay. So from your perspective, what does it take to get to an effective creative brief quickly? So I imagine in your world, you've got these teams of incredible strategists and they're partnering with different agencies, different brands, and especially in a pitch, like there is just no time. So any advice you can give us to helping get to a creative brief that's of quality and substance, but doing it fast? Sure. Yeah. So we've worked at this point with 50 agencies since we started in 2020. So we have seen a lot of frameworks. A lot of processes.

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Christine Olivas: Getting to an effective creative brief quickly

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And that's not including all of the experience that we brought to this, right? So our full-time, our freelancing before. So I don't know, at this point, I've probably seen a hundred creative brief templates, a hundred capabilities, different capabilities decks, not to mention the multiple versions that float around at each agency. I can't even imagine. It's a version control nightmare in a lot of cases. But yeah, I would say, so the first thing is in my mind is how the information is presented back to the client is very different than the creative brief. So I'm actually a big fan of more templated capabilities decks, presentation decks showing, I know there's a lot of debate on LinkedIn these days about methodology and are people over-processing things? Sure.

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But I do think having some distinct way to present that information back when you're one of five is a good idea. It doesn't mean you can't deviate from it, but following the framework sort of helps everybody ensure that they're showing the agency's differentiators. For the creative brief though, not as big of a template, especially when you're moving quickly. A creative brief could, could be as simple as a YouTube clip and one slide with a provocation if you only have a day, right? I've done that before. Some of us have shown, you know, visual objects, maybe a clip from a movie, something on TikTok, a real quick sort of provocation, and then here's what we're making, right? And that's it. So it could really be that simple.

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In other cases, if it's a brand new service offering for a B2B company and a highly regulated industry, like you kind of can't avoid some of the sort of forced, seized type of, where are we? What does this even mean? Half the people in the room might not understand the category or the audience, right? Or how the B2B sales process works. So I really believe in a very tailored creative brief to be effective based on timing, the audience, and honestly, the creative team's familiarity with the topic. We're working on a project for an agency right now where a big US brand is trying to enter another country. Most of the creatives are US-based. They don't understand a lot about that country.

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So we're going to have to do that due diligence, a little bit of the extra slide work up front to familiarize them, to orient them in the space that we're talking about. Then we can get sort of fun and pithy and inspirational. If it's a tactical brief or a brand the creative team already knows, sometimes those decks just make them tune out and go into sort of repetitive creative mentality versus in that case, you might want to break through with something completely unexpected. So yeah, I think it really has to be customized. And I'm a big fan of throwing templates out the window. That's not to say you can't do the little one-page leave behind that a lot of agencies do. But in my experience, the more tailored to the situation, the more effective it is.

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That's kind of mind-blowing. I honestly haven't ever thought of it like that. I've definitely been in the mentality and experience of having a template and you put it all in the template and how you show it might be a little bit different, but there is always a template. So the thought of not having a template can speed you up and give you more freedom is really cool to think about. Because I think we rely on the template because we know how to do it and it's going to make us faster and more efficient. But what if we did take those handcuffs off? What would you instead present or deliver? That's really cool. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I do. And again, the leave behind is important, right? Like people do reference it.

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Maybe some creatives don't, but a lot of creatives really like having that sort of, you know, safety net of saying, 'Oh, let's go back to the brief and make sure that these are the templates that we're going to use.' And I think that's really cool. The channels, right? Or what was that insight? Again, there was one word that I thought was interesting. So having that like, you know, sort of artifact to leave behind, not going to throw that part out the window. But yeah, the briefing process itself. And we've seen a few agencies move this direction saying, 'Hey, we have this leave behind.' But for the brief, like, if it's a bunch of quick TikToks in a row that sort of, you know, immerse the creative team, so be it.

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If it's, I don't know, a TED Talk from the CEO of the company, or it could be some sort of like really interesting content. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Product reviews, just pulling some of those things. And of course, you're always going to need some of the classic elements, the tension, the insight, you know, what you're making. But those can kind of be hidden. It's like that book for kids where you hide the vegetables in the mac and cheese or whatever. I kind of feel like it could be like that. Because sometimes when people see the same labels and things on the screen, it's just a really common, especially when you're busy and you're rushing. I think it's really normal and understandable to tune out.

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Yeah. Yeah. I like to, I imagine it might help you feel like, I don't just have to fill in the boxes, right? Like, I think you can get kind of complacent and, well, I just have to fill in that box. And this gives you a lot more creative freedom, too, on how you present the story, which I love. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. There was a post that got quite a bit of traction on LinkedIn a few weeks ago, basically arguing that creative strategy wasn’t a real discipline. And we’ve added too many strategy titles and et cetera. And I commented on it. And a lot of people, I think it resonated because I was like, no, it’s absolutely a different discipline because your entire job is to inspire creativity.

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And to me, by transitive property, you also need to be somewhat creative if you’re a creative strategist, which is not the same remit than if you’re, you know, an innovation strategist, right? Or if you're a marketing strategist, like you have to bring something to the table that is also creative, not as creative because you're never going to be that, but sort of match that, that energy. So, yeah, I like the idea of creative, strategy being its own discipline. I stand behind my comment on that post. And I think in order to do that, you have to sort of free yourself of some of those, you know, constraints, just like a person would. I'll go back and read it and I will like your post because I am also in agreement with you.

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Thank you. I'll resurface it so you can, you can like it. Cause yeah, I was like, look, I get it. Some titles have gotten out of control, right? This is the, but that's been that way for 15 years. I mean, I've been on LinkedIn since the very beginning. You know, I started my career in the Bay area. So I've been on LinkedIn since the very beginning. People have always said things like evangelist and guru and made-up titles. Like that's, that's been around as long as probably business has been around, you know? But there's something to be said for the specificity. There are different kinds of strategy, you know, and at no single individual, when, when a client comes to us saying, 'Hey, we need strategy for a pitch,' you better believe we're going to probe: is that brand, you know, what is the outcome you're looking for?

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Christine Olivas: Advice for women aspiring to be business owners

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Cause I might give you two totally different sets of people based on what you say. So yeah. I stand behind that. Great. All right. Let's go back to the board. Well, yeah, let's go. Um, six. Number six. So women own less than 1% of agencies. And what would you say your advice is to women who want to be owners someday? So obviously the topic near and dear to my heart, as well as many other folks. Um, you know, we, we sponsored the happy hour and the lounge back at the owner Summit in March precisely because we wanted to like, I, we consider these like the elite view and we wanted to give everybody an experience just for being here. You know what I mean?

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Regardless of whether you do this 10 years from now or not, like we've all achieved something. That's a very small percentage. Um, I also did find out, um, from Carrie Kirpin who, um, I also met at the summit that only 2% of women owned businesses ever make more than a million a year ever in their lifetime. So we did that last year and it was huge because some of the years, you know, that I had, uh, a child and we were super, super proud, but then a few people asked me, well, how did you do that? And I really had to stop and think about it. I'm definitely more of a lead by intuition type of person. I kind of just have ideas.

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I think they're good on some gut level and I just pursue them and that's great. However, that's not sustainable. It's not scalable. And I think one of the biggest things I learned in all the sort of the talk of empowerment and loving yourself and knowing your worth, that's all great, but it doesn't get you to where you want to be. It's past the million-dollar threshold. What has to happen is a level of rigor. And I think sometimes because we're not prioritized by investors or by the media, there's this tendency of like almost like imitative fallacy, like, oh, well, if I'm not like real, then maybe I won't act real. And for me and for us, we had to bring on a head of finance and operations. We have two employees now.

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We consulted with lawyers and accountants and we created a real P&L and looked at our business plan. And we, you know, we came up with a growth strategy. We got a CRM and we did all of these things to say we belong because most businesses have those things to scale past that million-dollar mark. And it was really easy, I think, at the beginning to just be sort of like, I'm kind of like wading my way through this and maybe it'll work, maybe it won't. But that lack of formality was almost driven by like my uncertainty or sort of my imposter syndrome versus being like, no, I belong. And because I belong, I'm going to invest and I'm going to do this. I'm going to be able to do this.

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And I think that's kind of what I've learned in the real business and not just play business, if that makes sense. So, yeah, my advice is that you're not going to do that day one, but there is an inflection point. And my advice would be when you get to that point where you go, 'Holy shit, like this could be something,' invest in the structures and the people and the operations to take it to the next level, because you can't really do it without that formal sort of ecosystem in play. Yeah. And I would add to that, too. I know you're part of the Own It community and I am as well. Like, lean into your own business. I mean, you're part of the Own It community.

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I mean, you're part of the Own It community. I mean, you're part of the Own It community. I imagine you've seen just a tremendous amount of benefit in the connections and the networking like us. One percent, while we might be a small number, we are very strong and very well connected. And so lean into that and connect in because you can get a lot out of it. Yeah, for sure. And it's so easy to be like, 'this is a B2B sales fundamental', but to be like, 'I want to do this thing and I'm going to get something out of it.' Right. Like that's we know that's not how it works. Like this isn't sass, you know, like we are doing complex like services like play and building relationships over time.

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So even though it's a bit of like a financial investment for a bunch of us to be there. Yeah. In March and sponsor all that stuff with no quote direct yield, like the benefits of one, my confidence and sort of feeling like, 'oh, I'm among other people doing this.' I got it. But two, yeah, that network is super invaluable. And I'm not shy, you know, outside of the sort of Own It community. Anyone I've ever worked with, even if only for an hour in a meeting, I will connect with and I will try to provide value. And so, yeah, I really I believe in the power of network. And I think it's always OK to reach out to anyone. They can always say no. That's right. That's right.

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I actually brought my daughter to that conference. Oh, nice. Yeah. She's eight. She was the only little girl there. And it was pretty incredible to see her like shaking hands and networking and leaning in and listening. And, you know, it was a little long for her, I think, by the end of it. But she got a lot of out of it, which I thought was pretty cool. That's awesome. I do remember seeing her in the audience for the the actual like presentation portion. Yeah. Some someday I'd love to do that too. Actually, Alana was there as well, but she was just in a stroller. But she did get to meet a few people at the happy hour. So just a couple of years too young. Yeah. Great. All right. Let's do 11.

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Christine Olivas: The “sprint” vs longer strategic process

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Number 11. Yes. OK. Pros and cons. Do you prefer a short sprint or do you prefer a longer strategic process? Yeah. So I think the first thing is just paying for strategy, which has to come up at some point. I think sometimes a con of a sprint is sometimes a sprint can be code for they didn't pay for strategy. So we have to rush it. Why is it like that? It's so important. So important. And brands talk about how important it is. But we give it such little time and such little investment in a lot of cases. I don't get that. Yeah. And it's like, look, sometimes. So I would say a pro of the sprint would be some of what we talked about before, like unshackling yourself from the process and the templates and the frameworks.

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And I don't know, like the rigid schedules, like weeks one and two discovery, weeks three and four. Like sometimes it's not that linear, right? You're not going to get an insight, just wants to admit this. But sometimes an insight or some provocation or territory pops into your head the moment you sit in the first briefing. But then you sort of have to like backtrack and sort of rework your way into the process. So I think a pro of the sprint is just like allowing strategists to be creative, to be to see an idea and just go with it. And sometimes the first instinct is the best instinct. And many campaigns I've worked on or the team has worked on, I would say the first idea ended up being the last idea.

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I think it does sometimes for longer, a longer process that is a little bit more regimented or sort of broken up into steps, if you will, has benefits for a lot of scenarios, again, where it's complex. I go back to B2B. It's not to say that there aren't cool, anthemic B2B activations or commercials or, you know, online videos, things like that. But there are B2B scenarios that are really complex in the ecosystem of buyers. And I think it does sometimes for longer, a longer process, for example, or health care would be another good situation. You know, I did a rebrand for a huge Blue Cross plan a few years ago. You can't rush that one. You've got to understand Medicare versus Medicaid versus private, like the dynamics of different communities with different languages spoken and different biases for and against the health care, you know, kind of community.

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So or if you're bringing a new product to market. So I don't know. I do feel like it's somewhat situation dependent. I think it's good to have in your skill set. I think it's good to be able to do it really fast and quickly and to take a little bit longer. But forcing one of the others probably not the best approach. Just two tools in your toolbox. You got to be able to do them both. Okay. I dig that. Happily, I'd like a middle ground, I would say. Like I feel like four weeks is like the sweet spot. Like we love, we do get brought into, you know, we go got asked on a Friday to start a pitch on a Monday that happened the next Friday.

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So like there are some really fast and furious things and it can be fun. But I don't, I don't think any strategist wants it all the time. People used to be like that. But then when you see the like 16-week timeline, you're also like. So there is that nice sweet spot that gives you enough time to be intentional, to think, to dig and poke and probe in some of the right places, but also to move quickly enough so that people, you know, you maintain momentum. And honestly, so the creative team also doesn't get un-jazzed because that does happen where there's some moment in week one and then the ideation is not supposed to happen till week six and people people lose steam and that's real.

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Christine Olivas: What CMOs should keep in mind searching for good strategy

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Creatives have to maintain a certain level of energy and excitement, that's totally understandable. Very true. All right. Back to the board, my friend. All righty. I have a good feeling about three. Okay. Let's go three. So in your opinion, you are a strategist in a lot of ways. You work with some incredible strategists as well. What do you say, what makes a good strategy? And then what advice would you give to CMOs who are vetting strategies that agencies are putting in front of them? Sure. This is a great question. So I've never been a CMO, definitely not at that level and at a CPG, but I have been in-house and VP of marketing at four different kind of growing startups and have hired agencies before.

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So I can definitely bring some perspective to the second part of the question. To address the first part though, I think the first thing that popped into my head when you said that, are you familiar with the famous Supreme Court case? A long time ago where they tried to define profanity. I don't know if anyone knows this reference, but basically they got brought something that this case that had gone up in the US sort of system and basically escalated to the Supreme Court. And the ask was what defines obscenity or pornography or anything that's sort of like not okay for general social viewing. And one of the justices, and I cannot remember his name because I don't know. No, but I'll look it up later.

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He basically said something like in his final opinion, which is supposed to be like super like rigorous and like, you know, rooted in the law. And he literally just said, I don't know, but I know it when I see it. And that is literally the first thing that popped into my head when you said that, because I just don't know if a checklist or criteria is always going to be the most useful way. Like strategy in some ways, you know it and you feel it. Like you go through this brief. There are four, it could be four slides, and you just get that little feeling the same way you do when someone tells a really good joke or someone, I don't know, when you walk into a museum and you see this like piece that you've only seen online for that, like there is that like feeling and you feel it, the client feels it and the creatives feel it.

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And that's like a very ephemeral thing. But I do think there's something to be said for you know it when you see it. So true. We had Pete Carter on not too long ago, 40 years at P&G. He's now a consultant and he's famous for the Pete Carter tingle. He gets the cold chills. So he very visibly can feel it when he sees it. So we're always like striving for that. Like how do you give somebody that emotional reaction, whether it's humor or it's, you know, you name the emotion, but you want them to feel something. Yeah. And it's like, it's interesting too, because of course, as you can imagine, this judge got like tons of flack from, you know, legal analysts and from other folks, you know, his peers like, oh, that's so subjective.

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And it's like, but also, yes, when something comes, there are steps in the process to ensure that it's less subjective, whether that's, you know, creative testing or doing a small in-market test or, you know, whatever type of research, you know, you deem appropriate for the scenario and ultimately the performance and like the agency's not going to be off the hook because it doesn't perform. If anything in today's day and age, they're going to be more on the hook, but there's something in that upfront strategy piece that just feels right. Um, that I think is sort of worth holding onto to get a little bit more specific and tactical though. I would say, I think it's really important for me to define what I meant by strategy.

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Um, when I went into each agency kind of engagement and there were agencies that I hired just for strategy. So for example, sales is performing really well with this particular segment, but not this other segment. I gave them a problem. Often, you know, a strategy remit can be a problem to solve along with all the context. If I wanted to launch like a huge activation in a campaign, I would say, Hey, strategy is the strategy in this case is we really want this amazing, effective campaign. And here are some guidelines. So having some clear sense. And I think most CMOs do a good job of this. I do believe that folks sort of know what their ultimate objective is, but I think it is a good idea to sort of come in.

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And even if it's not stated explicitly to have an idea of what you mean when you say strategy of the three, four, five options, you know, that are possible just so that when something comes back, that's not what you asked. You can ask yourself, did I give that direction or has the agency missed the mark? Um, it's a small step. It's sort of like when you go out, I don't know, dating after a long time of not being like on the, you know, in the field and sort of saying to yourself, like, what do I mean by looking for someone to date? And just, it's just that quick sort of check-in. I think a lot of folks do do that, but there are some missteps.

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Christine Olivas: Leadership lessons Christine learned from an American Idol audition 

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I think when it's just like, oh, I trust the agency, give me this campaign or, hey, I have this problem. And then not really actually knowing yourself, what kind of strategy you're looking for or what space that strategy should fit into. Okay. Good advice. All right. Back to the board. I think you should pick number 12. Okay. Okay. Yay. I had enough of my own choices. Okay. So I know that you tried out for American Idol. And so I want all the tea. So, um, tell us about the tryout, the whole process. And then I imagine that the whole process taught me something about leadership ownership. I would just love to know if you've drawn any parallels to your own career and your own success. Yeah.

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So it's, it's really interesting because I've done a lot of creative things in my life, as you mentioned, and a lot of them involve putting yourself out there. So the first time I did a two-minute set at an open mic, for example, which two minutes felt like an eternity. And then of course, later, I'm like, 'I only have two minutes.' I want 20, like, um, or, you know, sending my story to a journal for the first time for submission. Nothing compares though, to like standing in line with like thousands of people. And this was an era, like, this was a, you know, a bit ago. So it was an era where it was sort of like unclear what they were really looking for. Like sometimes it was the talent.

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Sometimes it was the story, right? Like they would let like not so great singers through for the, for the entertainment value. So what year are we talking about? Or like, who are the judges? Like put me in that era. Early, early era. So like my early 20s. Okay. So like Simon Cowell is there. Yep. Yeah. So I think it was maybe season four. Yeah, so like, you know, definitely a bit ago. And it was right around the time, coincidentally or not, that I got my first leadership role at an agency when my amazing, amazing boss left and pushed the owners to have me take her role, even if I was only like 26 or something at the time. So I think it was like four years of experience.

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But going back to like the musical talent versus story thing, like, I think what it taught me is like, the parameters for success are not always going to be clear. And I was very anxious about that. I thought, like, should I play up the fact that I have this unusual childhood and upbringing? Should I play up my voice? Should I be cute? Should I not be cute? Like, it raises, you don't know what they're looking for. And that's way less true now, right? Like reality shows are pretty clear. Like, if you look at Love Is Wild, you're like, I know exactly what they're looking for. It wasn't like that 15, 20 years ago. Like, they kind of kept some of that secret sauce to themselves and let you sort of find out when the show aired.

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And I had a lot, I was very insecure. And I think like, I completely didn't bomb the singing part of the, I went through two rounds. So just before you get to the judges. So clearly the singing was good enough to get me through. But I was so boring. And I just was like, I'm going to go all in with the singing. I just lost my natural extroverted personality. Because I was too concerned with guessing. And that's not to say if I went back, like I would get it or whatever. But I think it was an early lesson. And it's something that I still sometimes struggle with and have to remind myself of, that trying to guess exactly which combination of things you should have to be successful or accepted or, you know, for someone to buy into what you do at any given time isn't going to work.

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You kind of have to develop a firm, movable POV that of course, you know, can iterate with client feedback. You want to be open, but you have to stick to some sort of like core, no matter what. And I think that's part of the reason why this business has been successful. We don't do solo freelancing. We don't do W2 or any sort of 10-99, we're a vendor, and we stick by those things. And we only bend if the situation merits it, like an existing client that we've trusted for three years, for example. So, all of us in our 20s were probably like this. But yeah, I tried to guess more than I tried to be myself.

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And that was a very early learning that when you do that, like you kind of aren't one of you'd rather fail really, really like brilliantly or succeed like, you know, brilliantly. And I was sort of like stuck in the middle. And it's not a space that I've really occupied much since for sure. What a beautiful lesson to learn in your 20s. I think, I mean, I was definitely still finding myself. And my story, probably even into my 30s, I think, I love that idea of just figuring out who you are and your story and sticking to it. And how you've translated that into the business world is really remarkable. Yeah, definitely, you know, definitely a learning curve, like I said, and every new environment that you enter causes new existential questions, right?

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So it's not like it's some like, you know, one-and-done type of thing, like moving from Arizona to a world where, I was pretty much at the top of the agency. What I led strategy for was the top in the state and maybe even the region. And then all of a sudden, you know, you're in New York. And you know, we all know what that means-like you're nobody instead of reworking that story for yourself each time you have a big thing, when you start a business, when the pandemic hits, when you have a kid, right? It's never-ending. But having a clear sense, at least being clear about one thing, which is that you're not going to try to guess what other people want to, you're just going to come up with something and then look for those that align with it.

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It's just, it's a small shift. It's not, it's not going to guarantee that you'll never have uncertainty or insecurity, but it's, it's a very powerful shift for sure. Well, the rest just becomes chapters, right? Chapters of the book. Yeah, 100%. Yes. And yes. And all right, well, this has been incredible. So we have a little super secret question at the end here, though.

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Learn more about No Single Individual 

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Christine Olivas: Closing remarks 

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It's a little this or that, and it's rapid fire. Consider this a strategy sprint. You are going to pick one or the other. Does that sound good? Yep. I'm ready. All right, let's go. All right. Stand up or improv? Stand up for sure. All day. Yes. Easy one. American Idol or The Voice?

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I'm going to have to go with The Voice because it is clear what they're looking for. Do you prefer to write briefs or short stories? Briefs. On the commute, are you listening to a podcast or are you listening to music? Music all the time. 100%. Shocked. Oh my gosh. Your podcast career is like taking off. All right. Would you prefer to own the project or own the agency? Own the agency. Yes. That's great. Strength. Awesome. This has been incredible. What's the best way for our listeners to connect with you? Yeah, absolutely. So I'm pretty active on LinkedIn. I love it. I spend a lot of time. I don't have any other social media notifications enabled on my phone. So you can find me on LinkedIn. It's just C-O-L-I-V-A-S. And then the company also has its own. It's just no single individual. And again, we'll be releasing our own podcast about the art of civil debate in September. So look for that on both of those LinkedIn handles. Awesome. We'll make sure we link to them too to make it easy. Sweet. Thank you. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. This is a lot of fun. I feel energized. Thank you.

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