What if the reason you are being overlooked is not a lack of talent, but a lack of visible proof?

Katie Briefel believes being chosen starts with being known specifically. In this episode of The Lead, she joins Emily K Thomas to examine how people and brands become memorable, trusted, and easier to choose before everything feels perfectly figured out.

Katie is a brand and community strategist, writer, host, and founder of Love The Question. Her work explores human connection, curiosity, and how we move through uncertainty. In this conversation, she shares how a deeply personal Substack essay revealed the way she thinks, helped a future client recognize her strengths, and led to a long-term opportunity she could never have planned.

You will learn:

- Why specific, honest work creates stronger connection than content designed for everyone

- How to build a distinctive creative voice by collecting references outside your algorithm

- Why making the work is more persuasive than repeatedly explaining what you could do

- How hosting, connecting, and helping people builds trust without transactional networking

- What brands misunderstand about identity, belonging, and what customers are really choosing

- Why curiosity and experimentation are practical advantages in uncertain seasons

- How to keep moving before your next step feels completely clear

The central lesson is simple: make the work you want to be chosen for before anyone gives you permission. Your ideas become more credible when people can see them operating in the world.

Connect with Katie:

- Website: https://www.katiebriefel.com/

- LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/katie-briefel

- Love The Question: https://katiebriefel.substack.com/

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The Lead asks one central question: Why do some people, brands, and ideas get chosen while others get overlooked?

The opportunity usually looks sudden from the outside. The work behind it rarely is.

Austin Null has spent more than 15 years on both sides of the creator economy, first building an audience as a full-time YouTube creator, then leading social and influencer strategy for brands and agencies, and now as Founder and Chief Creator Officer of We Get It.

In this conversation, Austin explains why storytelling is the signal that matters after the metrics clear the threshold, why creators should help shape the brief before it is prescribed, and how years of genuine outreach can quietly compound into inbound opportunity.

You will learn:

• What Austin looks for when choosing a creator
• Why comments can reveal more than follower count
• How creators can improve strategy before content is commissioned
• Why human connection makes collaboration better
• What consistency looks like before anyone is paying attention
• How to protect yourself while building a visible life online

Austin's central reminder is simple: the work nobody sees is often the reason you are ready when the right opportunity arrives.

Connect with Austin:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/austinnull/
We Get It: https://www.wegetit.us/

Follow The Lead with Emily K Thomas for conversations about why certain people, brands, and ideas get chosen while others get overlooked.

Title

How to Get Chosen Before the Opportunity Exists | Austin Null

Description

The opportunity is visible. The years of work that made it possible usually are not.

Austin Null, Founder and Chief Creator Officer of We Get It, has built a career on both sides of the creator economy.

In this episode of The Lead, Austin breaks down the signals that make a creator worth choosing, why authentic community matters more than surface-level engagement, and how consistent human connection becomes long-term opportunity.

You will learn:

• Why storytelling matters more than follower count
• What comments reveal about a creator's real community
• Why creators should enter before the brief is finished
• How relationships become opportunities without forced networking
• Why visible momentum often follows years of invisible work
• How Austin approaches AI, creativity, and human connection

Connect with Austin:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/austinnull/
We Get It: https://www.wegetit.us/

Subscribe to The Lead with Emily K Thomas for practical conversations about how people, brands, and ideas become the ones that get chosen.

What if the most powerful career strategy is not constant visibility, but building a reputation that reaches the next room before you do?

Tracey Brader is Chief Strategy and Innovation Officer at Omnicom Health in the UK and was the 2026 Cannes Lions Pharma Jury President. Her career has been shaped less by formal applications and more by earned trust, consistent judgment, and relationships built through meaningful work.

In this episode of The Lead, Tracey and Emily discuss:

• Why Tracey says yes before she feels completely ready
• How nervousness can become preparation energy
• Why strong leaders create space for collective thinking
• How to hold strong beliefs without becoming rigid
• What separates effective creative work from work that merely looks impressive
• Why constraints can sharpen strategy and originality
• How generosity and repeated behavior build a reputation
• The difference between a visible personal brand and a career people advocate for
• Tracey's simple career standard: be talented and be nice

This conversation is for anyone who wants to create meaningful opportunities without turning their career into a constant performance.

Rob Estreitinho on public thinking, private generosity, deep expertise, and the relationships that create opportunity before anyone asks for it.

On the lead we are always exploring why some people, brands and ideas get chosen. Our guest today is Rob Estreitinho and he has spent sixteen years in communications and social strategy, but his most useful insight is not about gaining attention. It is about understanding influence. In this conversation, Rob explains how redundancy became his version of seed capital, why years of agenda-free conversations led to a Cannes speaking opportunity, and how Salmon Crew creates a high-IQ, low-ego space for strategists. He also makes the case for deep domain expertise in an AI-saturated world and shows why thoughtful introductions, sincere notes, and consistent writing can become real career infrastructure.

This episode examines the difference between visibility and influence.

Rob shares how he turned redundancy into the start of Salmon Labs, why he built Salmon Crew to make independent work less isolating, and how the community became "the strategy department you wish you had."

We discuss:

How years of public thinking can lower the risk of choosing someone

Why influential people often operate privately

How agenda-free relationships create unexpected opportunities

Why high intelligence matters more when it is paired with low ego

How useful introductions create momentum

Why deep domain expertise becomes more valuable as shallow AI output grows

What junior strategists know that experienced professionals often forget

Why parenting gives Rob an analog refuge from screen-based work

The practical lesson is simple: do work that travels, be useful before there is a transaction, and build relationships that can survive without an immediate ask.