Toward the end of her long tenure at Indianapolis agency Young & Laramore, Carolyn Hadlock found a new passion—podcasting.

It was actually an old passion packaged in a new format. In her everyday life at the agency, she would talk creativity with colleagues and clients all day long. The podcast took things a step further. She chatted with people who had achieved great things in marketing and beyond in order to unearth learnings that could help the agency, and the industry, better understand how to unlock the kind of creativity that leads to great work.

Initially called Eunoia, a word that means “beautiful thinking” (and which happens to be the shortest word in English containing all five vowels), the podcast attracted top marketers and strategists from the beginning. Early guests included Pete Johnson, former global head of creation at Lego; Sophie Kelly, senior VP of North American whiskeys portfolio, and Baileys at Diageo; and Rebekah Moses, impact strategy lead at Impossible Foods. As the first few seasons came together, Hadlock knew she was onto something.

“It just started getting momentum,” she told Ad Age. “It was like, ‘Who do I want to talk to?’ I love what Patagonia is doing. New Balance is really interesting. White Castle’s cool, but they’re not getting credit. I just started reaching out and talking to the leaders of these brands.”

Later, she would branch out beyond marketers to interview a glassblower, a ballerina and a former NFL player, among others. And she soon realized the variety of voices, from all different points of view, was magical.

“I’ve been really interested in this idea of horizontal creativity and going across departments,” Hadlock said. “Whether it’s glassblowing and how to make an Impossible Burger, or supply chain and customer service, or marketing and product design, the intersection of disciplines is where an interesting thing happens.” 

In this melding of perspectives, Hadlock saw value for marketers but also for herself. It felt like an opportunity to take skills she’d honed for decades at the agency—where the outcome of any exercise like this was typically a campaign—and move into brand work that could be a mix of content and consulting.

She changed the podcast’s esoteric name to a version of its literal meaning and it became “The Beautiful Thinkers Project.” And as her 30th anniversary at Y&L arrived, Hadlock decided to go all in. She stepped down as executive creative director at the agency to focus all her energy on the project.

“I’d put all my successors in place, and their successors in place,” she said. “[The podcast] gave me all these learnings to apply to our clients—learnings that are invaluable. As I started digging into it, I just thought, ‘This is how I want to spend my time.’”

No guts, no glory

Having made five seasons of the show already, Hadlock has been constructing a vision for where to take “Beautiful Thinkers” next. 

Her dream scenario is to create an entire season around a single brand—by doing a residency within the company and helping to excavate the brand’s story. Such a process, she believes, would open up new ideas and spaces for the brand to grow, provide a through-line for a brand’s ethos and also help with staff retention, particularly for the level of management below the C-suite.

For now, Hadlock is planning a more traditional new season of the show, which will feature a mix of brand, scientific, artistic, academic and cultural leaders. The theme of season 6 is “Gut(s)”—with topics that will include how her guests followed their gut, and also had the guts to take risks.

“We all have a gut,” Hadlock said in describing the theme. “The thing that gives you butterflies in your stomach when you’re out of your comfort zone, the inner voice that gives you pause when you feel like you should do something that makes you uncomfortable, the thing that stores all of your memories and life events. ... The question is: Do you have guts? Do you rise to the occasion—big or small? Do you step out and step up? Or do you ignore that feeling in your gut and hope it goes away?”

Hadlock is recruiting guests from global and domestic brands, including a few who have been on the show before. She’s also connecting the season to an in-person event this September at the Crested Butte Film Festival, where she plans to host a dinner party for a mix of Season 6 guests and other invitees. The group will also experience the festival's events together.

“There is a core set of issues that the best brands and filmmakers are expressing in different formats—from social consciousness to the environment and mental health that impact the human condition,” Hadlock said. “The context of the festival allows the deepening of that connection and conversation.”

Yeti is a sponsor of the festival, and Bill Neff, the company’s VP of marketing for Europe, Middle East and Africa, will be a guest of Hadlock’s both on the podcast and at the event. Other confirmed guests for the Season 6 podcast include Alex Matisse, co-founder of East Fork Pottery; David Schriber, CMO of bike maker Specialized; and Tom Szaky, founder and CEO of TerraCycle.

“You can imagine the relationships that could bloom from this,” Hadlock said of the in-person event. “I chose Crested Butte because it is known as the ‘filmmakers’ festival. The backdrop and spirit of the terrain bring an intimacy in a wide open space, and the executive director [Louise Henderson] and artistic director each enjoy a stellar reputation of programming and events planning.” 

In addition, Hadlock will also be teaching a “Beautiful Thinkers” course this fall at The Media School at Indiana University Bloomington. The class will be tasked with creating and promoting their own separate stand-alone season of the podcast. 

Teaching students brings the project full circle, as Hadlock has always seen “Beautiful Thinkers” as her own personal classroom for learning. “I just became a student and dove in and talked to people doing work I was really inspired by,” she said. 

However the project evolves, Hadlock is a firm believer that beautiful thinking can transform companies—if they can just take a step back and see the connections. One of her favorite definitions of “beautiful thinking” came from Diageo's Kelly, who said it’s the moment, amid the chaos of multiples perspectives, when the essence of a solution distills—and wouldn’t have been possible without those discussions. Hadlock believes her podcast, in whatever form it takes, can facilitate something similar. 

“It really is about bringing multiple perspectives together to have a fully formed solution,” she said. “This project could be seen as fluff or a luxury or a nice-to-have. But I also know, in my 30 years of building brands, that this is the time when this kind of thinking is so important. I’m here to help amplify and support people that are getting put in triage mode every single day.”