2024-09-27

Selina Holešinsky on reflection


Insta: @selinsky00

Selina is a creative strategist with a knack for words and writing. She stumbled into the Paris TBWA office when she was 17 and knew she wanted to work with brands and culture ever since. In the industry for over 10 years now with stops in Berlin, San Francisco, Hamburg and lately Vienna, she is as eager to learn and develop brands and stories, as she was back then in Paris.

#1 As a director of strategy, what aspects of your work require daily reflection to ensure effective decision-making and creative growth?

One of the key aspects of strategy is framing a problem in which the brand finds itself at a specific moment in time. While then trying to solve the problem, it is crucial to look to the starting point – not only when the task is done, but more importantly throughout the process. It is easy to get carried away with fun solutions that don’t really tackle the needs of the brand and its audiences but make our creative hearts flutter. These are the moments when reflection increases the quality of our work and its effect.

#2 What inspired you to make the leap from creative strategist to novelist, and how did reflection play a role in shaping the story you wanted to tell?

I would always say – and this is true until today – that brands are not at the centre of my heart, but people are. I always had a specific interest in how society changes, what makes it change and why. What questions are we facing as a society and what is the narrative of a generation? These questions tie into my motivation as a strategist, but also as a writer. While commercially there are constraints and certain narratives you can’t tell, you can dive into the cracks of society with great freedom when you’re writing. Other than that, I have always had a thing for words. Using words in a different way can change our thinking and how we see the world.

#3 Reflection often means confronting challenging experiences. Can you share a time when revisiting the past helped you find healing, either personally or in your creative process?

The first weeks of the Russian invasion of Ukraine were especially hard to process and shocking. I remembered the words of my former economics professor 10 years ago at Uni, who said that ‘the risk of war will be minimized due to globalization’. 10 years later the narrative of globalisation completely changed for the worse.

I tried to process these events by writing a meticulous diary of what happened and my perspective on these events. Writing everything down helped me see through it. Part of the diary was published in the fourth edition of mosaik in 2023.

#4 What does your inner voice sound like when you're in the midst of creating, and how does it guide or challenge your process?

In the creative process, your inner voice is not always your best friend. A certain level of discomfort that comes from within is a major force that helps you question what you are doing, iterate what you just wrote or try things differently and ultimately improve your work. But during that process it is important to be introspective and question that inner voice at times to avoid being destructive or losing purpose.

#5 What advice would you offer to creatives who struggle with introspection and find that too much reflection becomes a barrier to their creative flow?

Get outside your head. Leave the work. Get a coffee with someone who does not work in your field. Do sports. Knit. Play the piano. Play Basketball. Whatever you like. But don’t doomscroll. It will get you nowhere. Don’t make yourself suffer. Creative work is hard enough. Don’t give yourself the time to question everything.