In this series, we ask Imagination talent all about the experiences that have made them who they are. This month we spoke to Laurel Cook, Strategy Director from our Sydney studio.
A bit about me…
I am really aware of how foundational beliefs have informed my whole life. I was raised to question deeply, travel often, and embrace experiences outside my comfort zone. Curiosity is probably the trait that defines me best. I am endlessly interested in people, what drives us, and how we connect with one another. I love trying things I’ve never done before, whether that means committing to a week of silence, taking a trapeze class, learning to play the handpan, or spending an hour exposed to a new artist. I enjoy the feeling of stretching beyond what is familiar as a way to discover a new lens on the world. The more experiences I accumulate, the greater my capacity to understand others, and that understanding continues to shape my work.
Reading is another constant in my life. My reading list is perpetually overflowing, and I feel strongly that when it comes to ideas and information, more is more. Lately I’ve been intrigued by Princeton professor Sophie Gee’s suggestion that a degree of boredom is a healthy part of reading. At first I bristled at the idea of reading being boring, but now I am mindful of patches of disengagement, the places where something isn’t sharp enough and lets the mind wander. I am thinking about this from an audience’s perspective. How often are we asking too much of participants and how can we decrease that ask?
The creative experience that has influenced me the most…
In a world saturated with content, spectacle, and constant demands for attention, I find myself most affected by experiences that linger, quietly altering the way I think long after they have ended. One of those experiences was dining at Jaan by Kirk Westaway in Singapore.
What struck me most was the level of intention behind every detail. Nothing felt accidental. The weight of the cutlery, the delicate stem of the glassware, the pacing of the meal, the presentation of each dish…Everything had been considered with remarkable care and felt like purposeful elements contributing to a cohesive story.
In a time where most things are optimised for scale, speed, and efficiency, it was so moving to experience relentless craftsmanship. Each dish reflected not only technical mastery, but also an unwavering commitment to excellence. It was clear that Kirk and his team devote countless hours to perfecting details that many guests may never consciously notice, yet those details are precisely what create an unforgettable experience.
The experience reinforced my belief that exceptional work is rarely the result of a single grand idea. More often, it is the accumulation of hundreds of thoughtful decisions, made consistently and with care.
My industry hero is…
I really admire Heather LeFevre and the way she expanded the strategic profession beyond frameworks and methodologies to focus on the people behind the work. Her book Brain Surfing connects a dispersed global network of strategists and blends their professional stories and life philosophies.
I love learning about people’s interior lives and a similar interest led Heather to reach out to strangers and ask to work with them, live alongside them, and document their stories. Walking straight into the world of informants uncovers so many insights and it’s interesting to discover the many different paths that have led people to the work we do.
The piece of work I’m most proud of…
Everything I did during my time at an immersive technology start-up where strategy was not developed in isolation but had to be tested, challenged, and refined in real time.
It was an environment where the learning curve was exceptionally steep. We were simultaneously building the future we imagined and gathering evidence for whether it could exist. Every day involved balancing long-term vision with immediate execution and developing strategy while actively bringing it to life, learning from what worked, and adjusting course when it didn’t. There was no blueprint to follow. Success depended on identifying genuine customer problems, understanding unmet needs, and imagining solutions for use cases that did not yet have an obvious answer.
The piece of work that makes me cringe…
To some extent, every piece of work I’ve done makes me cringe! Not because I believe it’s all poor work, but because the nature of learning, refining and developing professionally means that revisiting something from the past highlights ways I would approach it differently today.
I guess the lesson here is that work is never truly finished, it is completed with the knowledge available at the time.
The experience I wish I had created…
The experience I wish I had created is Conscious Club, a now defunct community event series in Sydney that brought people together through the arts and humanities to inspire positive change in themselves and their local communities. I volunteered with the organisation over a decade ago and was really passionate about the concept and its impact. It was a monthly experience that created the conditions for transformation through personal awareness.
I am drawn to creators who work in this way. Artists like James Turrell have that ability to provoke profound feelings through remarkably restrained interventions. Conscious Club achieved something similar by using ideas, conversation, and shared experiences to help people reflect and feel more connected.
When I speak with audiences at our events, the major themes are the desire for connection, exposure to new ideas, and a community to belong to. Growing global movements like The Offline Club seem to fulfill this need on a grassroots level but there is so much that brands can do in a time when people are searching for belonging and heavily indexing shared experiences.
Advice to my 18-year-old self…
Everyone is figuring it out as they go and you are no different. Don’t wait for certainty; most worthwhile things are built with imperfect information, a little courage, and a willingness to begin before you’re ready.
What’s next?
What’s next is a combination of things I have always found energising: learning and collaborating with talented people.
I often say that work is my team sport. I love solving challenges and developing ideas, alongside others, bringing together different perspectives to create something that would not exist without collective effort.
More broadly, I am excited by the pace of change ahead. We are entering a period that will require all of us to adapt and learn in ways we cannot fully predict. The future demands new ways of thinking and I am looking forward to seeing how we rise to that challenge together.
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