Breakthrough with David Pfister - Emerge. Rise. Progress.

In this new series, we ask our people to define what 'Breakthrough' means to them, both from a career standpoint and a personal note.

This issue features David Pfister, Director of Content Strategy at EssenceMediacom.

What does ‘breakthrough’ mean to you?

A breakthrough is the meaningful (the signal) rising above the mundane (the noise). It’s the explosion after enough activation energy is accumulated. It’s geometric vs arithmetic progression. It’s the actual emerging fully from the potential.

What’s been the most inspiring personal breakthrough in your life?

The most inspiring personal breakthrough in my life occurred when I first understood in my gut that life is not fair, and the universe owes you nothing. This may sound dramatic and angsty, but it’s counterintuitively liberating and empowering.

What was the breakthrough moment in your career?

I’m still waiting for it.

Tell us about a piece of work you were involved with that you would define as a breakthrough.

As part of the SEO practice, the organic search content offer we built for JP Morgan Chase was a breakthrough. The results we generated across multiple quantitative and qualitative criteria shattered anything any reasonable person would have anticipated, myself included.

What breakthrough in this industry - achieved by someone else - do you really admire? What do you admire about it?

Even though it’s an ad-free model (the enemy), I’m intrigued by the rise of Substack, which has created a space in the market as a mix of, Medium, Patreon and Apple Podcasts. It has the energy of Spotify from 10 years ago. The business model even seems to work for creators. It makes me wonder how the service will evolve with sponsored content, for example.