Success Made to Last with Entrepreneur Fiona Stevenson from The Idea Suite

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Look talk Canadian success made the last time Rick TOLKIENI
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the show was brought you about Edward Jones' financial advisors,
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and we're so glad to have on our show today
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Fiona Stevenson, who is the president and founding partner of
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the Idea Suite, this wonderful organization in Toronto, Ontario, selected
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as twenty nineteen Canada's Top Growing Companies twenty twenty Startup List.
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Lots of awards, but I'm sure it's all deserved because
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Fiona is a great leader. Fiona, welcome to our program.
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Thank you for having me. I'm thrilled to be here.
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It's nice to speak with a Canadian given the COVID
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nineteen pandemic. So we welcome you and we want to
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know all about the Idea Suite and also about your
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career journey that led up to when you founded the
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Idea Suite.
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Absolutely well, yes, my career journey started. I think I
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thought I would be a lawyer. I think a lot
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of people sort of think, oh, I'll go to law school.
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But Procter and Gamble came to my university, Queen's University
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in Canada, and they were recruiting and I was one
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of those big extracurricular kind of geeks, if you will.
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I was like news editor of the paper and you know,
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leader of a lot of clubs and things. So someone
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told me, oh, that's really the profile that Procter and
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Gamble looks for. So I kind of went through the
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interview process and then ended up getting hired and stayed
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at PNG for over a decade, well over a decade.
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I started in brand management in Toronto, and then a
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couple of years in I said, oh, I'd really love
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to go international if the chance ever comes up, and
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you know, you have to kind of declare what you want,
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because I think it was like two or three weeks
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later that they said, hey, actually the Switzerland office, the
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European headquarters are looking for people sort of at your
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age and stage. Are you willing to move like as
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soon as you know, a couple of months from now.
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And I was like, yes, absolutely, So went to the
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European headquarters and worked on the pet care business, which
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is relevant now. I'm one of the few people who
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did not get a dog through this COVID nineteen lockdown period,
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but I think everyone in my neighborhood did, so glad
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to know something about animals. Yeah, and that's where I
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got my first piece of innovation, which kind of led
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me to the idea. See, I can talk more about that.
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I mean I could go on and on with.
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Me.
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Yeah, keep going.
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Your start at Procter probably made the same difference it
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made on me, which was it imprinted core values, great
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people to work with, imagination running your own business. I
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mean there was something very, very magical and singularly fantastic
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about Procter and Gamble. Tell us a little bit more
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about why now you look in the rearview mirror with
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perhaps greater admiration than ever for P and G.
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Yes, you're absolutely right. I mean I couldn't believe when
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I got there. I think within a couple of weeks arriving,
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I went to you know, the Brand College experience in Cincinnati,
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which is a write of passage, and I was just like,
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these people are amazing. I mean they bring in the
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best leaders in the company to come inspire that young class,
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which feels amazing. And the work I was doing, the
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work I was given to do at such a young age,
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was just incredible. I mean we really were sort of
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mini general managers at that age in brand management. I
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learned a ton. The people were fantastic. They are literally
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some of my favorite people in the world. Still many
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of them have become my clients, whether still at PNG
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or they've gone off to other companies. And you know
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one thing that I can't. I mean, there's so many
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gifts that PNG gave me, but while the writings, you know,
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the clarity of thinking and writing that one page memo.
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I wish, like you know, everyone I ever work with
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that training because it was that discipline of writing is
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just so so useful. I write every day like I
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write a ton.
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It's just not go away, no, And that's something that
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for you young students out there that are considering the ideal
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first job. I know that everybody can't go to work
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for Procter, but what you should be looking for is
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in part what Fiona is talking about, and that's getting
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some of the basics down and to some extent, I
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think a pro they I wouldn't say that it was bootcamp,
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but there was a bring in a clean slate approach
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because I'm going to teach you five step persuasive I'm
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going to teach you how to write a one page memo.
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I'm going to teach you how to run a brand,
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and when you graduate from that, as forty five thousand
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have from the network, Wow, there is this twinkle in
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your eye about what you've accomplished and what you've been through.
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And I would say every single day I'm still a Proctoid.
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Yeah, I think that is fair, and I still I mean,
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it was the worst when I left PNG, because you know,
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I left on amazing terms and you know, almost like
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I could have stayed there forever and ever. But I
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think in the first two years anyone I worked with,
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I couldn't help it saying a Procter and Gamble, we
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did this, or a Procter we used to do this.
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Are oh this time at Proster and I was like,
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oh my gosh, I have to stop. But you're just
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there's so many experiences that you have, right, and you
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learn so so much, and so it's hard. It's hard
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to get that out of you.
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Well, tell me what is the best part of your
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company that reflects some of the great virtues and traits
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that you learned at Procter m I love that question.
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Well, yeah, so my co founder and I when we
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founded the company, I mean, first of all, we were
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looking at that kind of creating a company that was
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built on that combination of you know, business mindedness and creativity.
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So I had the you know business mindedness side from
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PNG and that client side mentality, and then she had
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worked in innovation for a long time and in consulting
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so kind of you know, that agency side, and it
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was bringing those two together. But we also really wanted
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a value serving company because of course the PPP at
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Procter was so huge and such a huge part of
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how we operated. So we really thought a lot about
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what our values were, and then we really wanted to
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be this magnet for you know, great creative talent in Canada.
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So it's kind of like where do great smart, creative
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people who really want to make a difference. How can
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we you know make them choose us and ultimately with
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our clients too, Like we just want to be around
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people who have that sort of like ambition. For you know,
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at PNG, we all just wanted to like do better
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and you want it, like the next program to be
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even better, and you're always challenging yourself, like I talked
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to proctoids still, right, And it's just that that ambition
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and you know type anus whatever it is. So we
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brought a lot of that spirit and energy to the
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company me for sure. And again that's really like discipline, Yeah,
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that discipline, but you know how it was at PG,
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there was like a ton of discipline and structure. But
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then you know, within that, it's kind of we always
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talk about creativity with constraints, like within that, there's tons
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of room for creativity, but there's like, you know, a
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nice structure and process to kind of ground yourself in.
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That's right, Fiona. Let's talk about brand strategy of the future.
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And this will be a fun conversation for the life
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of me. Having worked on brands and some of them
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included at the time, the three billion dollar Doritos brand,
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I look back and then I look forward to how
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brands are operating today and brand guidelines and how they're written,
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and I just it blows my mind that brands are
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not thinking about a sonic identity or a sonic strategy.
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And some of the some of the brands that we
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had at Proctor were driven by great music or mnemonics,
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just like an Intel or a Netflix is or an
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NBC with the GC. Why in the world, in your opinion,
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are brands non including Sonic identity in their brand guidelines.
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Wow, that is so interesting, you know. I mean, that's
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a really really interesting question. It's so funny because I
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was talking to my son a few minutes ago. I
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was like, oh, I'm about to do this podcast and
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I was like, what are some of my favorite commercials?
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What are the ones that I really noticed? And he said,
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and you referenced this tiny little Canadian commercial where it's
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like a lawyer or something and at the end it's like,
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don't put it off, suck enough, like the lowest budget ad.
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And he's like, you.
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Always like that one. You always start singing it. And
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I was like, oh, my gosh, I can't reference that.
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That's like this tiny little ad. But how funny, And like,
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I think your question now is quite hilarious, because yeah,
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that's huge, right, Like that's those mnemonic devices and those
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like you know, those whatever, those things sticking your head
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and all of that. That's really important to me. I
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don't know why. I wonder if it's around. You know,
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there's just so much now, you know, those kinds of
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tastes are so personal and subjective, and you know you
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can't possibly designed for something that you know everyone likes
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and it's about you know, I don't know people making
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grants their own and but I don't have a good
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answer for that. That's a really interesting question. I'd love
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your opinion on it.
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Well, here's my opinion. I my wife and I have
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a travel company called Living Seasonally, and it's about traveling
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through your five senses. And we've studied with neurologists about
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what is the fastest sense and where you remember the most.
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It starts with sound. Sound is the fastest sense. And
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so I sit there, going why why do State Farm?
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Why did they come up with that? State Farm is
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there and like a good night and it was and
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it is stuck. And if you look at all the
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brands that have some sort of sonic identity, they've never
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changed because it's what people remember first. And then I
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think about my experience in working in Cambridge, Ontario and
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having fourteen Tim Hortons around me, and I always wondered,
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why why didn't Tim Hortons have a sound or a
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sonic identity? Why didn't Canadian tire? Why why didn't you
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know the hardware store that's up I can't remember the
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name of your famous hardware store in Canada. It goes
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brand after brand after brand. It's like it is the
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last thing I swear that brand managers think of. Yet
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some of the greatest brands in the world started with
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and have kept their same sonic identity.
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Yeah, there's one in Canada that you may remember, the
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sleep Country Canada. Why buy a countress anywhere else? Still
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it still sticks, you know, with all these like you know,
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very innovative new models for bed purchasing and stuff and
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that one. And still I've probably set that little jingle
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like three or four times in the past months. It
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comes up all the time the conversation with people or
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so it's really interesting. Now I'm going to be on
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the lookout.
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For this, yes, please do, please do. Okay, Well, speaking
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of brands, tell me about if you can, without giving
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away you know, any client information. Tell me about a
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brand that you've worked on or a project in the
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last five years that you are most proud of.
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Oh wow, I mean there are so so many. We
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take a lot of pride in our work. So sometimes
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it's those ones where it's it's kind of like the
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speed of things we worked on a global projects. I
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would say probably about sixty percent of our work is
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with US clients, which as obviously I was, you know,
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saying before this call that I used to be on
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a plane to the US literally every week. And so
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over the past year and a half we've been dealing
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with our US clients and our global clients virtually, which
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has been exciting and exciting pivot and we'll kind of
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see what happens as things open back up and the
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border eventually opens. But you know, sometimes there was one
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last year before just before the pandemic that we did
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where it was a six week innovation journey with six
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different countries and there were two of us essentially kind
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of flying around. So we we in that time between
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some other projects we had going on as well. We
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were in Mexico, Brazil, China, France, the US. I mean
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we were literally like flying all over the world and
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figuring things out kind of you know, along the way
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and looking for what are the regional nuances, but also
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you know what's kind of like the global you know,
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global strategic things that it'll all hang together. So that
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was exciting. It's always nice to do some travel when
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you're working. I think we've done some really really interesting
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work for some clients who are doing some very you know,
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good good work. We've done a lot of work with
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ARP in the US and they just do like such
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innovative stuffs for I mean, nowadays it's for the forty plus,
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So we've done some really fantastic stuff with them. But
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it is hard working in innovation where you have to
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be so secretive about stuff until it actually launches, and
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then it's very very exciting when finally you see stuff launch.
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But you know, the work we do with clients, so
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we're leading them through consumer insight work into creative ideation
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is the concept writing. Stuff eventually goes into you know,
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the classic bases test and then it might take eighteen
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to twenty four months sometimes to launch. So we're just
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seeing a lot of stuff launch in the last little
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while that we worked on quite a long time ago.
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When you work with a client like ARP that membership
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starts at age fifty, is there a tendency to want
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to work on looking at the consumer as they approach
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fifty or the consumer who's already fifty five, sixty five, seventy.
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It really depends on the project it does. We did
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a really interesting project with them when we were talking
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to people just around that fifty mark, and you know,
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it is kind of like this life change point where
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you know, obviously people like the thirties forties, you're often
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quite you know, busy with like the kids at home
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and like a life's a bit of a blur. And
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then around fifty often you know, if you have kids
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at home, they're kind of going off to college or
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and you know a lot. That was such an interesting
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group to talk to because they're sort of looking at, hey,
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wait a second, you know, let me kind of reevaluate
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I have a lot more time than I did, you know,
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do I want to start? So like even a few
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years ago, many people were starting new side hustles. They
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were driving for Uber suddenly, or you know, getting into
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some passions like art or cooking or whatever else, deciding
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to make a radical career shift, or really looking at
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like what drives me, what really makes me happy? You know,
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I really love trouvel, I really love wine, whatever it is,
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and like leaning into their interest. So that was I
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love talking to that age group. It's always fun to
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talk to the consumers a change points where they're sort
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of reevaluating everything you know, from you know, how they
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spend their time, what they buy and then and then
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programs are obviously like targeted much more. Okay, we're really
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looking at you know, an issue with like for the
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seventy plus or whatever it is. But that was the
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most fun. I think that's turin point.
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Yeah. I like that. We're we're talking with Fiona Stevenson
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and this is the halfway point of our show. Fiona,
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how about doing a little commercial for your own company
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and telling everyone where they can contact you.
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Sure? Yeah, So my company is called the Idea Suite,
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so we're at www. Theideasuite dot com and we are
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an innovation agency, so we work with a lot of
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big cpt you know, I didn't straight far from the
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CPD world frud and beverage companies, but I'll like banking
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clients and others sort of large corporates who are looking
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to innovate. So we help them, you know, whether it's
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spot big opportunities like it which might be you know,
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adjacencies or you know, new lines of business they want
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to get into, or you know, new regions they want
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to get into. But most often it's it's really these
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innovation projects where they're saying, Okay, we've got a brand
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or a set of brands. We need to build a
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pipeline for the next two or three years. We want
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to come up with, you know, let's say fifteen or
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twenty commercial ideas kind of go. And then we go
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through a design thinking process really from you know, starting
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with immersing in the consumer and then moving through again
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creative ideation, writing things into concepts, workshopping those with the consumers.
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And then we also do a lot of just insight
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work and strategy work as well with our clients. So
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you know, for many of our clients, we're sort of
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like the first call now and then we'll either say, oh, yeah,
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we'd love to take that work on, or hey, we
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can connect you to you know, this agency or this
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party who might do something that the better like quant
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We don't do quant research for example. So that is us,
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And as I said, we work with a global client base.
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And then we started another second company this year kind
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of on top of the first, which is called Energy
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for Growth, So that's www. Energyfogrowth dot com. And that
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was actually a passion play. So we've been very interested
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in energy for a long time. And when I say energy,
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it's really you know, to make innovation happen it's a
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heavy lift and it takes a lot of actually like
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creative energy and an energized team to make it happen.
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So when we take corporate teams through this you know,
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innovation process, this design thinking process, the process is kind
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of fifty percent of what's responsible for the success, but
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the rest is really behaviors, right, behaviors that builds creative energy.
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So you know, over the years, we've done a lot
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of keynotes and stuff on how to energize teams, how
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to optimize their own energy. And you know, when this
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pandemic happened, and people were i mean first in the
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first few months just like trying to get their bearings
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and dealing with kids at home and pivoting businesses and
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then kind of push through. And you know, now in
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Canada we're still sort of in lockdown and it's been
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a year and a half, so people are burnt out
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and more than ever, and people are disconnected right from
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the teams that they work with. And so we decided, hey,
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why don't we actually start this company. You know, we'll
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start off with really interventions. So we're working with clients.
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We have a twelve week program that we take them
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through to help energize and connect and make their team
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really high performance even in this kind of scattered or
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dispersed world. So we worked with a quant agency to
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develop actually an energy test that you can take, an
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energy index, so you can find out, Okay, what is
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you know, what's my energy score? What is my teams?
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You know, how do I compare to my team? And
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a team leader can look at okay, you know, here's
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where our issues are. Then we kind of go through
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this process and at the end they can measure their
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energy score again and hopefully see a real uplift.
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So that's been.
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Exciting, very fun work.
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Very timely to okay, and so as we thanks for that.
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And so as we go into the second half of
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this show, this is the the more fun, the philosophical stuff.
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So we'll start with this one. I happen to know
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from your background that you're a comedian and that you're
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also into improv So within your lifetime, who has been
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that one or two mentor that you had who's helped
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you develop your own crazy sense of humor?
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Oh, that's interesting, who has been you know, I don't
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know if I've had a comedic mentor. I think it's
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really cool through the network I've gotten you know, Andrew Tarvin.
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I don't know if you've had him on your show before,
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but he's got his whole company around humor, which I
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think is just so fascinating to start a company on,
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you know, humor in the workplace, because I think it's
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so important. I mean, I could not have gone through
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the crises that we dealt with at PNG. Right when
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you're on brand management. It's like this customer is going
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to do lists of thing or you know, this kind
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of went off the rails. It's constantly like crisis and
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issue managed. But you're working with really fun people and
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so you know, we use comedy all the time just
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to kind of help us get through. And certainly the
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impro improv skills I find like as a facilitator too,
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especially in the New World. It's like you're suddenly you know,
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the connects and dies, your child walks in, you know,
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in the middle of like a three hundred person keynote
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you're giving or whatever it is, and just to be
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able to sort of roll with it has been so important.
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So it's something again if I look at you know,
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what recommendation would I make to people starting out and
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started a company like Procter where you can get great
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training or train yourself and then take improv of courses.
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It's like the best possible spent and I think one
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of the most transferable and useful skills you can focus.
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On exactly, especially on podcast on Saturday afternoon. Right, so
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exactly you got to be able to do improv. Okay, Uh.
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The next question is related to success and success I
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think has changed transcended through COVID nineteen. How would you
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define success for you personally and professionally in a post
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COVID nineteen era.
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Yeah, that's a great question. I mean I think success.
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You know, I'm kind of I'm an overachiever. I'm an exprocdoid,
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so you know, I think success for a long time
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was a lot of those stripes, like the top ratings
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and the promotions. And when we started our own agency,
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it was like, oh, you know, we started with one client.
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We had like one client logo, which was Nestley, and
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it was like, how do we get ten client logos?
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You know, twenty and now we're at fifty and then
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you know these lists, right, we wanted to make like
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the ad Week List, which we made, so it was
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all about those stripes, and I kept thinking, like, Okay,
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I don't need to worry about that stuff anymore. But
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it can't help it when you've been hooked on that stuff,
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you know, since you were a kid trying to get
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a's in school. But yes, the pandemic has absolutely shifted that.
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I think, you know, certainly success right now, I mean
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a it looks like being able to do what you
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love every day and I actually really get to do that.
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I feel like I've gotten to do that most of
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my career. But just doing work you love that is
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is such a gift. And then just positive contribution. And
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so you know, I think any piece of work, I mean,
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I take a lot of pride in it because I
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want it to be you know, I want the process
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of working with me to kind of like be helpful
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to others and energizing to them. I want, you know,
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my team to feel good and grow through working on
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a project. And then you just want to put good
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work out into the world. You know, I have this
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like when I have more time, which I need to
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carve out time for, but I want to write books,
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you know, you want to write articles that matter for me.
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Contribution is so so important, and then of course there's
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just so many people in need in the past year
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and always you know, there's endless opportunities to contribute, so
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looking for those.
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Yeah, you speak of quality, and you also speak of
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or imply speed, and why is the right pace and
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the right quality of work more important to you as
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you get older?
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Yeah, I think, I mean, I think we've had experiences
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where you know, it's like, ah, there's a rush, rush, rush,
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like we've got to get this done so quickly, and
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you're trying to kind of like cut corners and you realize,
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you know, a the deadline ended up being false, and
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you know suddenly, oh wait, we can wait three or
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four weeks because someone's going on vacation and you're like,
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oh my gosh. I mean, you know, early on you
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make those mistakes where you even sacrifice your own vacation
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or your own schedule to make a client timeline or
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whatever work, and then you realize, you know what, I
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could have probably pushed back on that I could have
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said though, and the same thing. I mean with our
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we have a six step design thinking process, and sometimes
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it's like, Okay, we don't have much time. A client
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might say, can we just do you know step one,
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four and five, or can we just jump to step
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three and it just doesn't work. You know sometimes shortcutting
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so say it really doesn't work and you end up
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going back and kind of having to rework things. So
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we've gotten brief sometimes where you know, clients did work
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or they did work with someone else and they were like,
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we kind of rushed it, and like now we find
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ourselves here and you know, we don't really know what
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to do, and you have to end up starting at
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the beginning. So I think by by this point you
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have perspective on you do it right the first time,
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and too many lessons of where things were rushed and
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the outcome suffered.
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Oh yeah, sounds like the fable of the tortoise and
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the hair. It's that was that was really well stated.
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I appreciate that. Okay, two more questions for you, and
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this is the this is the one that we're writing
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a book about. So if if I bet you, you're
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going to land in our book or we will ask
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you for your permission. I want you to describe your
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relationship with fear and how you've managed fear in your
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career and in your personal life. Wow.
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That is a good question.
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You know.
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I think fear of failure was probably something that I
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struggled with for you know, a long long time. I
479
00:25:03.480 --> 00:25:05.559
think that drove a lot of my achievement of just
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you know, from everything, even like that Procter interview, like
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I don't want to fail. I want to get this job.
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00:25:11.319 --> 00:25:13.799
So you know, it was like success means you know,
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getting it right every time. And again I probably learned
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this lesson way in life. But now working in innovation,
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00:25:21.599 --> 00:25:25.839
you know, you learn that failure is everything and failure
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is not something to fear. In fact, you know, if
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00:25:28.240 --> 00:25:31.799
you're not getting that feedback that failure teaches you, you
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are not growing. And that's actually like my real fear
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is being stagnant, is not growing. So I want to
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grow every year. I want to improve, you know, every
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day every year, and that means becoming a lot more
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comfortable with failure, a lot more comfortable with risk. And so,
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00:25:48.480 --> 00:25:50.079
you know, those were things I think that was always
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like my opportunity area when I was at Procter, which
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which was kind of risk taking, right, I wanted all
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00:25:55.440 --> 00:25:57.599
the answers before I moved forward, and I would do
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00:25:57.759 --> 00:26:01.839
quickly get those answers so I wasn't necessarily slow. I
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00:26:01.880 --> 00:26:06.119
was probably killing myself, but like you know, realizing, like
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00:26:06.240 --> 00:26:08.880
you it's okay to just like take that leap and
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00:26:09.119 --> 00:26:12.039
you know, my gut and my intuition will probably you know,
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00:26:12.400 --> 00:26:14.039
take me there and take me to the right place.
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00:26:14.759 --> 00:26:16.480
And you know, there are two way door decisions and
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00:26:16.519 --> 00:26:19.240
one way door decisions, and so kind of being more
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00:26:19.240 --> 00:26:21.880
comfortable with that now. As I said, I'm all about
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00:26:21.880 --> 00:26:26.480
gross So failure doesn't scare me, you know, and it's
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00:26:26.519 --> 00:26:29.880
exciting because you know, even through the last year, I
507
00:26:29.920 --> 00:26:33.400
think so many brands had to kind of like try
508
00:26:33.440 --> 00:26:35.400
something note that's not going to work, like pivot, what
509
00:26:35.440 --> 00:26:38.200
about this? What about this? The rules kept changing from
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00:26:38.279 --> 00:26:42.160
you know kind of a standpoint, and so you know
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00:26:42.200 --> 00:26:45.279
that flexibility, although it was pretty horrible for a lot
512
00:26:45.279 --> 00:26:48.079
of companies to live through the past year and a bit,
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00:26:48.119 --> 00:26:50.319
will really set them up well for the future.
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00:26:51.319 --> 00:26:56.319
M Thank you for that. That was so insightful. And
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00:26:56.400 --> 00:27:00.440
I would just add that as a parent of two
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adult daughters that the fun part now is trying to
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00:27:05.759 --> 00:27:10.480
teach them to have a healthy relationship with fear so
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00:27:10.559 --> 00:27:13.640
they can do what you just said, I mean literally
519
00:27:13.720 --> 00:27:18.440
walk the talk. And understand risk and take it and
520
00:27:18.599 --> 00:27:22.119
have no regrets. Yeah.
521
00:27:22.440 --> 00:27:25.799
Yeah, I've definitely learned a lot from You know, if
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00:27:25.839 --> 00:27:28.400
I think about my mentors right now, I'm in an
523
00:27:28.559 --> 00:27:32.839
entrepreneurs group. It's very, very kind of high achieving entrepreneurs.
524
00:27:32.839 --> 00:27:34.599
So you know, the kind of people who they build
525
00:27:34.599 --> 00:27:37.440
a hundred million dollar business and then tell that and
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00:27:37.440 --> 00:27:39.680
and just seeing I mean, first of all, like a
527
00:27:39.680 --> 00:27:42.599
lot of humility despite all the success, but just how
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00:27:42.880 --> 00:27:45.440
they take us and they try things, and they you know,
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00:27:45.480 --> 00:27:47.359
they lean on each other. They're not afraid not to
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00:27:47.400 --> 00:27:49.799
have all the answers either. I mean I love that
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00:27:50.160 --> 00:27:53.519
whole like who not how? So you don't need to
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00:27:53.559 --> 00:27:55.039
look and fear like how am I ever going to
533
00:27:55.079 --> 00:27:56.680
get there? I don't know. You know, I know what
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00:27:56.680 --> 00:27:58.200
my goal is, but I have no idea how to
535
00:27:58.200 --> 00:28:01.480
get there. There are you know, a million people and
536
00:28:01.559 --> 00:28:03.759
probably like hundreds of people at your disposal who could
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00:28:03.759 --> 00:28:06.079
actually help give you the answers to get you there.
538
00:28:06.119 --> 00:28:08.920
So I try not to be paralyzed by the how anymore,
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00:28:08.960 --> 00:28:10.880
you know, the tyranny of the how. I don't let
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00:28:10.920 --> 00:28:13.119
it get me down. We set big goals and then
541
00:28:13.119 --> 00:28:15.000
we just know that we can find the right people
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00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:15.839
to help us get there.
543
00:28:16.799 --> 00:28:19.720
Well, that's beautifully stated. All right. I found a question
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00:28:19.759 --> 00:28:22.880
for you, Fiona, and it's this. You impressed me as
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00:28:22.920 --> 00:28:27.599
a futurist. If you could live another one hundred years,
546
00:28:28.119 --> 00:28:32.640
what would you want to accomplish in that one hundred years?
547
00:28:33.880 --> 00:28:36.480
Wow? Well, I hope I can. I've heard some things
548
00:28:36.519 --> 00:28:39.440
that you know, there may be some exciting advances coming.
549
00:28:40.079 --> 00:28:41.559
We might be able to live a lot longer, but
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00:28:42.599 --> 00:28:45.720
you know, for now, I would say, as you talk
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00:28:45.759 --> 00:28:47.640
about writing a book, like I would love to write
552
00:28:47.640 --> 00:28:50.480
a lot of books. Absolutely. I think if I could
553
00:28:50.799 --> 00:28:53.119
spend you know, the last half of my life really
554
00:28:53.920 --> 00:28:56.680
writing and you know, writing both. There's a lot of
555
00:28:56.720 --> 00:28:59.519
like business books maybe that I can think of it,
556
00:28:59.559 --> 00:29:02.519
books that innovation and books about energizing teams. But I'd
557
00:29:02.519 --> 00:29:05.559
also love to be a little more creative and potentially
558
00:29:05.640 --> 00:29:10.759
you know, try some fiction, try some maybe like a
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00:29:10.839 --> 00:29:13.160
movie or ice screenplayer or something like that. And I think,
560
00:29:13.279 --> 00:29:15.839
just because I'm so fascinated by human beings, I think
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00:29:15.839 --> 00:29:18.000
that started at the beginning of my career. You know,
562
00:29:18.000 --> 00:29:20.319
I've always been focused on consumers and how they behave
563
00:29:20.960 --> 00:29:23.359
and characters and stories. So you know I'd love to
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00:29:23.400 --> 00:29:24.920
spend a lot more time writing.
565
00:29:26.640 --> 00:29:29.519
Beautiful Fiona, thank you so much for being on our
566
00:29:29.559 --> 00:29:32.279
show today. You are welcome back anytime, and as a
567
00:29:32.279 --> 00:29:33.920
matter of fact, it would be fun to talk to
568
00:29:33.960 --> 00:29:36.279
you at least once a year to get an update
569
00:29:36.359 --> 00:29:39.319
on the Idea Suite and also on Energy for Growth.
570
00:29:39.359 --> 00:29:42.160
So thank you so much. We appreciate your time on
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00:29:42.160 --> 00:29:45.920
this Saturday and our best to you and your family.
572
00:29:45.960 --> 00:29:48.920
And thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and
573
00:29:50.160 --> 00:29:53.079
telling us about your great past. And I just want
574
00:29:53.079 --> 00:29:57.160
to remind you to take your work seriously, but never yourself.
575
00:29:58.640 --> 00:30:01.440
Thank you so much. I really appreciate this is fun
576
00:30:01.480 --> 00:30:03.359
and I would love to come back whenever you'll have me.
577
00:30:04.160 --> 00:30:07.119
That would be great. That was Fiona Stevenson. We appreciate
578
00:30:07.160 --> 00:30:10.319
her being on our success made the last show today
579
00:30:11.000 --> 00:30:14.960
and you can go to the Idea Suite dot com
580
00:30:15.000 --> 00:30:18.720
to learn more information and her newest company is Energy
581
00:30:18.799 --> 00:30:22.640
for Growth dot com. What a fascinating idea and timely
582
00:30:22.680 --> 00:30:26.240
I would add. This show is presented by Edward Jones
583
00:30:26.279 --> 00:30:30.000
Financial Advisors. Thanks to our guy or Serban Marasini. You
584
00:30:30.039 --> 00:30:33.240
can contact him for personal advice at SCR B A
585
00:30:33.440 --> 00:30:36.480
N period m a r a c i n e.
586
00:30:37.039 --> 00:30:40.720
At Edward Jones dot com. He'll help you navigate your
587
00:30:40.759 --> 00:30:44.279
crazy financial waters out there and help you set very
588
00:30:44.319 --> 00:30:47.359
specific goals and hopefully set you on the course to
589
00:30:47.440 --> 00:30:51.240
being happy. Thanks for joining us on this show. As
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00:30:51.240 --> 00:30:56.039
we always say, may you move from ordinary to extraordinary.
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00:30:56.119 --> 00:30:56.720
Have great you