Today we’d like to introduce you to Lindsey Davis.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
After graduating from Bryn Mawr, I went north for college, studying abroad junior year. Over a semester, I traveled with a small group of students and faculty, studying first-hand the people, planning, and politics of cities in India, South Africa, and Brazil.
This experience completely defined my personal and academic trajectory as I became fascinated by spaces and places, learned about gratitude, poverty, planning, governance, and community, and fell in love with the experience of place. I also found my brain worked beautifully when exposed to comparative learning.
I pursued graduate work at UNC-Chapel Hill, acquiring dual master’s degrees in Public Administration and City and Regional Planning. My coursework focused on how design impacts behavior, delving into how we can create places where people feel empowered, joyful, and connected, and leading me to my first career in community development. For several years I worked in very disenfranchised areas, re-framing stories of place and pride. It was during this time I realized the heart of my work fused messaging with experience – I was becoming an expert in narrative.
I moved back to Baltimore in 2010 and went through several employment iterations, landing softly in the world of events and experience. My studies in human behavior, persuasive communication, leadership, and placemaking melded perfectly with my hands-on exposure to cities and communities. I was given opportunities to dream about how we can deliver messaging in new and exciting ways. I was put on projects where I could help clients tell unforgettable stories and evoke audience emotion and response, and on the side I started teaching courses on leadership, communication, and storytelling. My work became play, and every project fueled me more.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Two primary hurdles helped define my current world as an entrepreneur:
1. I was laid off twice and decided I would no longer let anyone hold my professional destiny in their hands. In 2018, I leaped self-employment. While full-time work and the security of a paycheck is so, so appealing, I value controlling my fate. Freelancing is certainly the right place for me right now.
2. While I’ve had some wonderful managers, I’ve also worked under some incredibly poor leadership. A series of bad bosses damaged me emotionally, creating a ton of insecurity and self-doubt.
These workplace interactions encouraged me complement my messaging work with courses designed to train the next generation of leaders. My workshops prioritize self-awareness, helping each participant understand the power they have to impact the well-being of someone else. I tell every session how crucial it is to understand your own projection so you can reach audiences in ways that are effective, kind, and human.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
While my client projects are varied in audience, objective, and outcome, every single project is centered around someone who wants their message to resonate, compel action, and deliver information. I may be coming up with a creative concept for a live production, writing a speech for a college president, on set directing a media piece, collaborating with an artist on a large-scale interactive installation, or teaching a workshop on decision-making.Ultimately, I get to reach people in ways that are new and connected. I love hearing people gasp at the unexpected and I love creating moments for audiences to experience awe.
I’m known for my ability to connect with humans. My understanding of the brain and how we are hardwired to react and respond helps me reach people effectively. This helps substantially when I am coaching talent for the screen or stage, writing scripts or speeches, or designing a large-scale program in accordance with client culture.
I recently designed a three-stage arena show for a higher education institution. For part of the program, the client wanted to highlight the fusion of art and medicine, and I wanted to deliver this in a way that would let the audience feel the words, not just hear them. I persuaded a pair of neurologists to deliver their remarks against a backdrop of cold, sterile lighting, a heart rate graphic running across a wrap-around screen, and an incessant EKG-style beep in the background. As their remarks progressed away from the scientific and into the world of art, soft colors began to wash over the audience and the beeping was replaced by music from a cello, played by a student who had appeared on a side stage. As the remarks concluded, the cellist continued, evolving the classical piece into an audience-loved pop song. It was a beautiful moment, and everyone felt the impact of warmth takeover a cold sterile setting, as they were immersed in color, sound, and surprise.
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk-taking.
I’ve always been a risk-taker in my personal life; I’ve jumped off bridges and hitchhiked around foreign countries, couch-surfed, and gotten lost in the wilderness. But professionally, becoming a freelancer is the scariest thing I’ve ever done.
I thrive on predictability, and self-employment is about as far as you can get from steady work! Ultimately though, I’m usually at peace with my decision. I have panic moments perhaps every four months when I freak out about how “it’s time to get a real job,” but those panics last for perhaps a week and then a new project comes along.
I think ultimately the decision to take this risk is based on my priorities. Right now, I need control over my future more than I need assurance of a steady paycheck and paid vacations. I’m okay to live with the unpredictability right now, but it’s always going to be a trade-off.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.powerthroughthat.com
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindseyjdavis/
Image Credits
Level5 Events, the ExpoGroup IFT FIRST: Annual Event and Expo (July 2023)
