Olivia Perez discusses her curatorial approach to conversations, and it's about to get purposeful

"For me, at the core of it, is making sure that there’s a seat at the table for everybody." In this week's You've Got This, author and podcaster Olivia Perez shares her career journey, approach as a creator, and why strategy should be an integral part of your creative plan. Enjoy her answers below, along with announcing our next guest, Harvard Business School professor and leadership expert Ranjay Gulati.

Victoria: "Can you tell us about your career journey?"

Olivia: "My professional journey has definitely not been a straight line, and that’s something I appreciate in the world that we’re in. The most creative people I’m drawn towards have been through many different crossroads and jobs, and those journeys have allowed them to create their own avenue. I loved moving to New York City when I was 18, attending NYU. While I was there, I realized I wanted to start working right away. I was at Teen Vogue, The Closet, I worked for Hermès in PR, Ryan Seacrest, the biggest mix of things. I felt like my internships in colleges were a game—how many can I apply to? What’s the next level? I wanted to soak in as much as I possibly could. Towards the end of my college experience, I wanted to create a platform of my own, at the peak of the blog days. This was before Instagram boomed. I was posting my outfits or events I was attending on my Instagram, and I had a blog where I was writing about, as a college student, what my New York perspective was like. I had a hard time with the news at the time, which covered only really expensive hotels or restaurants, so I was blogging about mom and pop stores, accessible restaurants and venues. And this was around the peak of these brands like Away and Glossier, all coming together. So I was blogging, and for me the most important part of my site was bringing on all the cool, interesting people I was meeting by way of being a student in college. The focus was on creative people doing cool things. I felt like 'sharing" at that time wasn’t as much of?a word?as we think of it now—to me it was a novel idea, asking how I could tell these people’s stories to a larger audience. I started my podcast in 2019 and that’s my baby now - we are hitting our 100th episode. And that’s been the greatest gift, to meet so many interesting people from so many walks of life. Whether they’re someone with 2 million followers who inspire the fashion community, or someone who isn’t on Instagram but is a local congresswoman trying to make a change in Los Angeles, being able to use my platform to tell those stories has been the most incredible experience as a journalist and as a young person forging their path on their own. It’s been amazing to turn a new lens on what journalism can be in 2021."

Victoria: "What’s inspired your approach with Friend of a Friend?"

Olivia: "For me, at the core of it, is making sure that there’s a seat at the table for everybody. Fashion is what I love, and that’s what a lot of my community knows me for, but I want to make sure you can pull up a seat, go through our podcast page, and find someone that resonates with you. It’s about people from all walks of life, linear or non-linear, a dentist or someone who’s created a job that has never existed before. I always ask myself if there’s a way to make a seat for anybody to be able to listen to the show."

Victoria: "What do you see as the future of content creation and curation?"

Olivia: "It’s something I think about every day. Especially because I’m in it, and so much of my job is being online, paying attention to things going on. What I’m most curious?about is the future of media in general, as a whole. I’m gravitating way more toward unique voices that are writing and telling stories through their lenses. It’s rare I pick up a magazine anymore and read it cover to cover. I’m attracted more to a specific writer within the magazine, just read their story, then follow them on Twitter to see what their daily thoughts are. So curation is going to be core to what journalism and writing can be. Now it’s so much about how do you find someone who resonates with?you, whose voice you really love, that you can trust to write interesting, truthful stories. It’s more personality-based than ever before. So that’s something I’m excited to see grow—these unique personalities who are changing the way we see conventional journalism."

Victoria: "For those who may be considering creating their own thing, what advice would you have?"

Olivia: "I think people always say 'Just do it, go for it.' While I definitely agree we’re our own worst enemies with starting new things, have a plan, but be as malleable as you can be. With any business endeavor you go into something with social media or blogging—people say 'it’s just a photo or a post.' The most successful influencers I know, some of the biggest in the world, have a business plan. So have a business plan in mind, but be flexible to change, because we’re in an industry, an environment, that’s ever-changing. We have new creators, new platforms, new ways to create content. So make sure you’re flexible and excited to jump into those things."

Follow Olivia on LinkedIn.

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Next week's guest:?Ranjay Gulati

Get excited for our next guest, author, speaker and researcher Ranjay Gulati. As?the Paul R. Lawrence MBA Class of 1942 Professor and the former Unit Head of the Organizational Behavior Unit at Harvard Business School, Dr. Gulati focuses on studying resilient organizations and bringing together strategy, organizational design and leadership. With that in mind, here's what I'll be asking Dr. Gulati:

• What inspired you to focus on the areas of organizational management, strategy and growth in your work?
• In your upcoming book Deep Purpose: The Heart and Soul of High-Performance Companies, you outline that purpose can be a powerful driver for organizational success. Can you share with us some of the learnings you uncovered while working on the book?
• What advice do you have for those who want to grow as a leader at any level?

I encourage you to ask your questions for Dr. Gulati below, and thank you for being a part of You've Got This.