Visionaries Unplugged Featuring Creative Titans Joanna Coles and Jonathan Mildenhall

What happens when creative titans Joanna Coles and Jonathan Mildenhall come together for a special episode of Visionaries Unplugged with the precursor “ask us anything, literally anything”?  

Loads of fun! From sharing the story of how they played undercover creative consultations in Cannes and the community rallying them to write a book together to incredible guidance on how to master your creative spirit–this special episode will have you scribbling notes, laughing, and wanting more. 

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Transcript

Jonathan + Joanna Visionaries Pt 1

[00:00:00] Nadine Dietz: so today is a really special episode. We are so excited.

This is, , what we call Visionaries Unplugged. , we're gonna hear from two incredible creative titans who I'm just absolutely honored to be able to host here today. They're going to share a lot about their journeys and lots of great tips. [00:01:00] So if you have questions along the way, feel free to drop them in the chat window or you can also drop them in the Q and a both of those buttons you'll find at the bottom of your screen.

And, we have a lot to cover. So, , before I bring them on, a big shout out to our partner at the wall street journal, thanking them for all of their support along the way. So, I'm going to ask Joanna and Jonathan to join me here and as they're coming on camera, I'm going to share a little bit about them and then they're going to introduce each other.

So, Jonathan and Joanna, please join me here. 

[00:01:36] Jonathan Mildenhall: Hello, Nadine. Hi, Joanna. Nice to see you guys. Hi, Jonathan. 

[00:01:39] Joanna Cole: Hey, Nadine. Hey. Hey, Nadine. I, I'm dealing with Noah's Flood For those, uh, people online who are in New York, you'll know exactly what we're talking about, but that's why my hair looks so strange. You look, Jonathan doesn't have to worry about these issues.

A lives in LA and B is now[00:02:00] 

[00:02:01] Nadine Dietz: Well, I'm just happy you're okay Joanna, and you were able to join us here today and Jonathan as well. Thank you very much. Both of you and I have so much to talk about with you, but at first I thought, you know, this was your idea to do this together, so I thought it'd be fun if you introduce each other.

So everybody gets a chance to get to know you in your eyes. So, , let's see, who wants to go first? Jonathan, how about you tell us a little bit about Joanna? 

[00:02:28] Jonathan Mildenhall: All right, so I've known of Joanna Coles for about 20 years, , simply because we were actually born in the same part of Northern England. She and I were about 12 miles away from each other.

, and she's always been Local Girl Makes Good. , and she's had such an incredible award winning career, started out as a journalist, worked for fantastic brands like, , The Telegraph and The Guardian. She then was elevated to editor, worked fantastic brands again, like Marie Claire Cosmopolitan, and ultimately she became the chief [00:03:00] content officer of Hearst, which is when I met her back in 2014.

, and it wasn't just a fantastic meeting of souls who are driven by the same values. We actually had the opportunity to work on something incredibly, , disruptive together and we launched the Airbnb travel mag. , later Joanna became CEO of a public company, , Northern Star Special Acquisition, and I joined her and served on her board.

And honestly, she's, you know, one of the three favorite people in business that I have. And that's just based on the fact that we share very similar values. She's insanely authentic. She's insanely courageous. And, , she lives a life of integrity. And all of those values I, , really appreciate. , and she's also driven by her spirit, not her ego.

Uh, and I'm proud of her. Period. But what I'm really, really proud of is the fact that, , over the course of the years, , we've, , built an incredible friendship, , that has [00:04:00] so many facets to it, and she's one of the few people that I can call when things are not going right. She's one of the few people I can call when I need Thank you.

You know, private, and trusted counsel. , and, , what I, what we built between each other is very, very rare, especially in business today. 

[00:04:19] Joanna Cole: Okay, well, I would like to meet Joanna Coles after I heard that introduction. Sounds great. Um, I don't recognize myself at all, but I, I do remember a moment when Jonathan and I were sitting in his kitchen about five years ago.

And he was at the beginning of the journey of 21st century brands and he was having a tough day and I'd had a fairly tough day and the two of us sat there just staring at each other in his kitchen. And I think we, we probably drank a bottle of, or two of, of white wine, but we had a sort of real moment where we were just like, we have to keep pushing on.

Both of us felt exhausted and daunted by the challenge ahead. And of course, the story ends particularly well [00:05:00] for Jonathan because he sold 21st century brands last week. , huge congratulations, Jonathan. You're a true entrepreneur as well as being an excellent executive. And I often describe you as I think the best CMO in the world.

And of course you're much more than that, but I've never come across anybody in the marketing world that has. As much, , ability to marry commerce and creativity into one thing, which is really the skill of a great marketer. And you do it with always putting values first. And I remember you saying to me when you were working at Coke that it was getting harder and harder to sell Coke.

, and when you got to air. Airbnb, you found the perfect fit for you a really mission driven business to allow people to leverage their, their largest asset. And I know that when we first met, and we started talking, I felt this Almost animalistic recognition. And I think it was [00:06:00] because we had grown up in the same place.

You like to say we kissed the same boys when we were growing up. I think that's probably true. , but I knew your reputation. I knew of your reputation before I met you. I knew you'd worked at Mother. I knew you'd been very, very senior at Coca Cola. But when we met at Airbnb, I was just thrilled by your energy.

And for those of you. out there who haven't met Jonathan you need to meet him in person because he is the creator of the Mildon hug, which is an enormous crushing experience, which you may recover. I'm sure Jonathan actually once broke a rib of mine just by, by his sheer hug, but it is a thing of great force and Warmth and beauty and, , there is no one I would rather work on a project with.

He's enormous fun, but he brings great smarts and intelligence and wisdom to it. And also, he's very, very funny about... We both have had the experience of working for extremely smart and [00:07:00] very difficult people, and we're both very drawn to people like that because we love the challenge. , but now I think we can say to each other...

I'm not going to say no. I'm not going to say yes to this person. I'm going to take the call, but I'm not going to say yes. And I'm going to call you back and confirm. I haven't said yes. And we try and hold each other to account. 

[00:07:19] Nadine Dietz: I love that. Awesome. Well, if anybody out there who's tuning in has gotten the Jonathan crushing hug, let us know in the chat window.

Cause it'd be nice to see who's out there. Who knows Jonathan's hug or who wants to hug you can raise your hand. , I think he's passing them out at the end of 

[00:07:33] Joanna Cole: the show. 

[00:07:36] Nadine Dietz: Um, but Jonathan, I have been privy to your, your hugs and I'm just delighted to have you with me here again. I remember the first time we really sat and talked about your journey.

Um, wow. I don't think there was a, Dry eye in the audience because you've really gone through a lot to get to where you are today. Do you want to talk a little bit about that journey? And then Joanna, similar for you. I mean, both of you had enormous barriers to [00:08:00] overcome. So, , Jonathan, let's talk, let's talk about your journey.

Tell us 

[00:08:03] Jonathan Mildenhall: about it. So, you know, I was born in poverty. I was born into a council estate in the north of England. My mom had five boys to three different men by the age of 26. She had an affair with a Nigerian guy in the middle of that. And so I am literally the black sheep of my own family. My two elder brothers are white, my two younger brothers are white.

I was poorly educated, but I worked hard. At education, but I wasn't educated about education and through luck and a bit of hard work. I got into Manchester Polytechnic. Um, and, uh, at the end of my first year, I was failing, um, uh, badly. And I had a careers counselor who said, Jonathan, drop finance, move into marketing.

And that became really the first time that somebody had recognized inside me the potential that I couldn't see myself. Long story short, I became the first ethnic minority to be recruited by, um, uh, McCann Erickson in London. [00:09:00] Uh, I've, uh, a great 15 year career in, in London. Um, but through just sheer kind of personality clash, um, in 2005, I was, um, fired by my boss and the world turned dark on me for the first time because I know still to this day that I didn't do anything to deserve being fired.

, but it was a personality clash. My boss was threatened by my skill set and my energy and my popularity in that particular agency. I aggressively challenged that. , and I did walk away with 250,000 pounds, which in two 20, 2005 was a lot of money. But I invested that, I invested that in my, , professional education.

And so I went to Harvard Business School and on, , graduating from Harvard Business School, I was approached by the Coca-Cola company. And I like to say the rest is history because coke gave me a fantastic platform to really practice what I believe in. And that is, [00:10:00] you know, creatively driven marketing that meets all the commercial objectives but whilst actually kind of elevating society's understanding of what humanity can really do together and coke.

Really helped me understand the power of brands and the power of belief that marketers have to inject into brands. And then because of that work, , Brian Chesky, founder and chief exec of Airbnb found me. , and Brian was the first entrepreneur that I ever had the pleasure of working for and, , Brian, once again, taught me the power of belief because.

When we together came up with the phrase, you know, Airbnb means a world where anyone can belong anywhere. Brian really, really, really believes that and there is no place in his organization unless you can believe that too. So, you know, Coke taught me the power of brands and Airbnb really taught me the power of founders.

Amazing. 

[00:10:57] Nadine Dietz: Thank you for sharing that journey. Jonah, how about you? [00:11:00] 

[00:11:00] Joanna Cole: Well, I didn't have quite Jonathan's journey actually, but what I did have was a very early ambition. So I started writing for my local newspaper, which was the Yorkshire Post. They had a Saturday section and in the Saturday section, they had a thing called the Junior Post, which was aimed for kids.

But I noticed that they did have pieces by kids in it. So I started writing for it, and I realized that, you know, they would send me a cheque for two pounds, which was not quite Jonathan's 250, 000, but this was back, , I guess in the early 70s, and it felt like the riches of Croesus. And so I suddenly thought, wow, I can, I can make some money by writing.

So when I, , and then I won some national, essay awards when I was a teenager, which sort of gave me confidence. So after university, I became a graduate trainee at the Spectator magazine, and I sold advertising, I sold circulation, and I worked on the books pages, and I wrote some features. And it was one of those sort of strange jobs [00:12:00] that actually, It was a little bit for me like having gone to business school in that it gave you a sort of all round sense of how media at that particular time worked.

And I so wish that we'd had tech then because I felt I was a very entrepreneurial person. But if you were to start your own magazine back then, it would have required sort of 20 million pounds, which I just didn't have access to. , now, of course, it's. It's much easier and I'm trying to do much more entrepreneurial things now because the price of entry is so much easier, but my background was through journalism.

And then I moved to New York 25 years ago to be the bureau chief for the Guardian. And when I had my two children in quite quick succession, realized I couldn't travel, which is what the job required, went into magazines. Magazines turned into sort of management roles. I ended up editing Cosmopolitan, which is the biggest.

female media brand in the world, actually, and it had 65 issues across the [00:13:00] world. And then I ended up as chief content officer at Hearst, which was enormous fun. And I had 300 magazines, , across the world. So enormous fun. And in that time, you know, we were frantically trying to drag legacy media onto digital platforms.

So I spent quite a lot of time with. with founders, you know, spent time with Jack Dorsey at Twitter, certainly with Brian at Airbnb. I spent a lot of time with the Facebook team and with Evan Spiegel at Snapchat. , really we needed that digital distribution and they needed the validity or the validation of legacy media brands.

So my career slightly sort of pivoted as, as digital really took off and it's been an extremely interesting and I hope as yet unfinished journey. Amazing. 

[00:13:47] Nadine Dietz: Wow. Okay. I'm feeling pressure between the 2 of you. You're on either side of me and I'm like, Ooh, all these accomplishments. , but Joanna, you said something to me, , yesterday when we were chatting, you said that.[00:14:00] 

You're only as great as your relationships. What did you mean by that? 

[00:14:05] Joanna Cole: Well, I think that especially when you're in a creative field It's very hard to do all the work yourself If you're if you're doing math or you're doing code, you can absolutely do it on your own Engineers are often happier just working on their own But if you're a creative person, there's often a moment where you think is this fabulous or is it hideous?

Am I going mad or is this brilliant? And you need other people around you to sort of tether you to reality And I think that when I look Upon my career to date, the moments where I have been most successful have undoubtedly been about the people I was working with and the teams that I created or I was a part of.

And as I go forward and I always think about the next thing I'm doing, and right now I'm doing a lot of different things. the teams become increasingly important because you need people you can rely on people that you feel safe with. So Jonathan and I were having dinner on Wednesday talking about the people [00:15:00] we'd worked with that made us feel safe where you could explode with ideas and throw out crap because somewhere in the crap is something worthwhile.

Um, and then the people that we've worked with where you didn't feel like that and you just wanted them out of the room or they were an asshole and they were turning the culture toxic and you didn't really want to be a part of that and You know, Jonathan, for me, and what we did with Airbnb Mag, which we literally created, um, out of dust, uh, really was one of the most fun experiences I had, and one of the most challenging experiences, because Brian Chesky is a challenging founder to work with, he's very intense, he's very opinionated, and we had ups and downs in the process of doing it, but we created something that the minute it hit the newsstand and hit people's coffee tables, which was always the vision for it, started winning awards.

I mean, people just loved it. Amazing. 

[00:15:53] Nadine Dietz: Amazing. Well, thank you for sharing that. And I see a lot of things going on in the chat window. So thank you all for acknowledging [00:16:00] the Jonathan hug. Michelle, I see your question. We'll get to that one is for sure. Patrick, thanks for the validation. So feel free to keep dropping in questions in the chat window.

[00:16:10] Joanna Cole: I hope there's some heckling going on. I would be heckling, but I've got to look at my camera over here because I'm on an iPad and the chat thing is going on over here. So it's tricky to watch it. 

[00:16:21] Nadine Dietz: Well, we'll alert you when the heckling really begins right now. Nice. Thank you. 

[00:16:26] Joanna Cole: I'm happy to be heckled. You always learn something from being heckled.

[00:16:31] Nadine Dietz: You're getting a lot of validation in the chat there, Joanna. So I think people are nodding their head, which is awesome. And, and, and Jonathan, yesterday we were talking as well, as you were boarding your flight. And you said something that really, uh, hit me really hard because we were talking about the role of creative and the creatives.

And you said, you know, creative is everywhere. It's the, the best is creatives ever or how those who know how to [00:17:00] apply the creative. And that doesn't mean you're just a creative. You could be a lawyer. You could be a doc. Everybody has creative in them. So tell us a little bit more about 

[00:17:07] Jonathan Mildenhall: that. Yeah, um, I truly, truly get frustrated when people think that the creative responsibility inside a company is for the bunch of men and women who are writing, ideating, um, and coming up with content or design for the company, because I do genuinely believe that some of the most talented CFOs, some of the most talented chief legal officers, Also, some of the most creative people that I've ever had the pleasure of working with.

Um, and in fact, Belinda Johnson, who is the general counsel at Airbnb, without her creativity, Airbnb would be half the size it is today because her and her team used to have to go to each city and use creative. Storytelling, creative policymaking to make sure that Airbnb was legitimate in every single city.

Uh, the first [00:18:00] time I sat down with Belinda Johnson, she was the one that was saying, what if, why not, can we, this idea? And I, I've never met a lawyer like that. And I was like, oh my goodness, if legal counsel is this creative, I've got to raise my game for the marketing team. So. Creativity is everywhere. But when you talk about creative creativity in terms of content and design and advertising and marketing, I do see some in house teams who don't really appreciate that the only reason why they're there is to build commercial value inside the company.

And so I do two things. First of all, creativity is everywhere. Um, but we should all aspire to creative excellence. And then secondly, once we've all got to an understanding, what creative excellence looks like is the application of creative excellence to address the serious problems that any brand, any company is trying to solve.

And so [00:19:00] creativity for creativity's sake inside the company, I have zero tolerance for that, but creative excellence. Applied to specific problems. That's when you can really, really transform the trajectory of a company or a brand. 

[00:19:14] Joanna Cole: Yeah, and I would throw in there that a good idea can come from anybody, and I was actually a little shocked when I got into the American system, um, and discovered how hierarchical it was, and that sort of nonsense that you see, certainly in the magazine world, sort of, uh, immortalized in things like The Devil Wears Prada, there was definitely a legacy of that when I joined Hearst, and that sense of, you know, if you're an intern, you're not allowed to talk to anybody, but the interns often had to Really fresh ideas that have been beaten out of the sort of junior editors who were told never to pitch something about this or someone didn't like that.

And so it could be the chief legal officer, or it could be the junior person that's still finishing off college. What you want is [00:20:00] always to make sure that there is a vehicle for their ideas and that they are heard. And it may not be that they work every single time, but you want to create a channel for ideas from unexpected places.

I mean, Joanna, let's 

[00:20:14] Nadine Dietz: continue on for a minute on that because especially when you were, , running the magazines, you managed a whole team of creatives, uh, that were producing the content that we're creating the, the articles, but you're also managing the business, which was in attracting other brands to come and be part of your platform.

So can you talk about how you balance that when you think about the. Creating an epicenter for creativity and brands. 

[00:20:43] Joanna Cole: Sure. I mean, I always enjoyed working with the publisher and trying to figure out how we could make more revenue from things because it's more fun to make something creative that people want in the marketplace.

And also I'm competitive and we used to sort of say it wasn't enough for us to do well, other magazines must close. I mean, of [00:21:00] course, all magazines have closed now so we were slightly ahead of our time. But, um, But I, I think the other thing that you really need to take into consideration, especially when you're working on a brand is the context of the market.

And I'm always amazed that more people don't do this because you need to think about it, or at least I try and always think about things from the audience point of view or the customer point of view. What else is going on in the audience's life? What else are they watching? What do they have on their screen?

If they're watching television, which I'm, I'm doing a lot of, um. Television producing at the moment, you know, what else is going on in their life while they're supposedly watching your show and if you're doing your show well, hopefully they won't be on Twitter and have four different screens open at the same time.

And I think the fun of working with a commercial partner. Or trying to come up with commercial ideas oneself is that thing that Jonathan is incredibly good at, which is why we've always had fun together, is that sense of how do I make money from this? How do I really create a [00:22:00] strong feeling in someone?

And also Make this commercially viable because, you know, we all have to make a living and there is something really exciting about when you find the commerce and the creativity meeting and there are certain designers that are very good at it. Michael cause was brilliant at it. Mark Jacobs was brilliant at it.

And, you know, of course, they would have their diffusion lines and they had their fragrances, but that sense of. You know, keeping a very high level brand halo up here and then being able to sell off bits of it, selling bits of the dream at different price points I thought was, was a sort of genius idea and I've always tried to sort of bear that in mind, whatever, whenever I've been working on things.

[00:22:47] Nadine Dietz: Amazing. And Jonathan, I'm going to ask you a very specific question about entrepreneurism in just a minute. But just to give you both a heads up, there's a few questions coming in around dealing with being open minded [00:23:00] in your career, how you dealt with setbacks, how you deal with ageism and sexism. So I want to kind of plug that because you both, you You know, talk very well to how you overcome adversity.

Um, so, um, we'll come back to that in just a minute. But Jonathan, tell us a little bit more about this entrepreneurial lane that you've really embraced, um, as a creative as as an entrepreneur as a board member. Like this really just took flight with 21st century brands, right? 

[00:23:28] Jonathan Mildenhall: Yeah. I mean, I mean it when I say that Brian Chesky was really the first, uh, high profile entrepreneur that I ever met.

Uh, I didn't really fully understand what an entrepreneur was until I met Brian. The great thing about being in San Francisco is the ecosystem is incredibly supportive. So even though I was serving Brian and Airbnb. You know, Brian networked me with all of the other founders and, um, uh, Silicon Valley. And then when we started 21st century brand, I was steadfast and focused that I wanted to serve the [00:24:00] men and women who had the courage and conviction to start their own companies.

Um, what was interesting is even though I'd set up a 21st century brand with Neil Barry, uh, my co founder, um, I was very, very reluctant to call myself an entrepreneur. I, because I was working with the Brian Chesky's and you know, uh, the Adam Newman's, I was working with these people who were changing the world with their companies.

And I was like, well, I'm in service of them. I didn't call myself an entrepreneur. Um, uh, and it was a real kind of like imposter syndrome, but. As Joanna mentioned, 21st Century Brand has been acquired by a guy called Anthony Freeman and his holding company, Common Interest Group, and it was only really when somebody else validated the business that Neil and I had built, so much so that they were prepared to write it.

a nice check for the business, uh, for controlling stake that actually said, I am an entrepreneur, but more [00:25:00] the point, I'm actually a successful entrepreneur. And so it took me a long time to get the imposter syndrome off my shoulder about, am I worthy enough to be an entrepreneur? Um, uh, but, but now I, I'm very, very proud of the fact that I am a successful entrepreneur.

So I was a successful corporate executive. I've been a successful CMO. And now I can say that I'm a successful entrepreneur, which is. Which is crazy, really, but it's true. 

[00:25:25] Joanna Cole: It's great. It's great and you deserve it. And you've worked hard and you've been humble on the journey. And I'm sure occasionally you've been an asshole on the journey.

I happily haven't seen that. I'm sure when you were earlier and I definitely know I was at certain points. But so we won't dwell on that. 

[00:25:40] Nadine Dietz: Well, not only are you entrepreneurs, your TV personalities, project runway and, you know, I, I would be remiss if I didn't bring up the, 

the, the 

1st story, but the 2 of you and Ken this past year, uh, we're gonna have to start a whole new show called undercover creative or something.

Do you guys [00:26:00] want to share that story from Canada? Because like, I laugh, I still laugh about that story to this day. 

[00:26:06] Jonathan Mildenhall: Go on, are you talking, which story are you talking about? The way we ambushed? Yeah, yeah. Okay. Um, I'll just start and then Joanna can take over. Uh, so I, um, we, Joanna and I just bump into each other and immediately, Oh God, we've got so much to share.

We need to sit down. And so we went, uh, uh, looking for a seat. And, um, uh, there was this party just about to move out and there was this young woman, we had no idea who she was, still remained, um, uh, seating. And so we said, may we join you? And she said, yes, of course, we will join. And then Joanna asked her, what do you do, Joanna?

[00:26:46] Joanna Cole: Well, and then she showed us this. bottle in a sort of brown, literally in a brown, sort of brown wrapping with a sort of piece of string at the top. Anyway, it was a tequila brand. It was a sort of artisanal tequila that she was doing and she [00:27:00] told us that we were doing it. And then we couldn't stop ourselves.

We immediately launched into a kind of branding masterclass of everything that she'd done wrong with it. And it was. It was very interesting because she'd sort of doubled up on words, she'd put the least important words and the biggest font in the most obvious place, which couldn't have been less interesting to the consumer.

And, um, After about 10 minutes, she, you know, she was frantically taking notes and she was like, Oh my God, this is the most useful thing. You're so much more useful than my agency. Do you know anything about marketing? How are you here? And I was like, literally, you're sitting with the best CMO in the world, in the world.

Anyway, she subsequently followed up with us. And, uh, we, we, I think we owe her a call, actually, Jonathan, because we said we'd get back to her. But, but she really, she had no understanding of who she was sitting with. And Jonathan's analysis of, of what was going on, and my, in fact, we're both very direct. I think it's part of coming from the north of England, which is a bit like the Texas of of America, where you're just super direct.[00:28:00] 

And she, she was slightly reeling, but, um, but her brand would be much better as a result of it. I don't think she would have sold any bottles, um, the way she had it done. I think she stands a chance now.

[00:28:12] Jonathan Mildenhall: It was really like a tank for a young entrepreneur, but Joanna, I have to say there are so many comments in the chat that are suggesting that you and I need to write a book on the power of commercial creativity.

[00:28:23] Joanna Cole: Well, you can write it. I would love to write a book with you. I'd love to do something with you like it would be super fun to do more with you Jonathan that was that we could take control of. 

[00:28:35] Jonathan Mildenhall: Yeah, I totally agree. I totally agree. 

[00:28:38] Nadine Dietz: Well, you have a lot of supporters in the chat who will gladly partake in anything that you guys do together, including me.

Unfortunately, we are out of time, but let's wrap up with something really meaningful here because we have gotten so many questions. Um, I'm going to ask 

[00:28:56] Joanna Cole: you some career questions. Sorry. Yeah, there you go. Sorry. 

[00:28:59] Nadine Dietz: So, [00:29:00] and I'm just gonna say it because I know both of you are very candid. Joanna, you're female.

Uh, that in and of itself is tough in the industry. Jonathan, you're black and gay. So let's talk about how that helped or hurt you in your career and any advice for anyone trying to break through in the industry today. Joanna, let's start with you. And then Jonathan, you can bring us home. I just 

[00:29:23] Joanna Cole: think you have to think about who you're trying to talk to in your, in your customer basis.

And, um, you know, I didn't think, I think at different times being a woman is both her and then, um, helped me slightly depending on where we were in the culture. Um, but I try not to think of it. I think of myself actually as sort of half man, half woman. And, um, I'm, I just think you have to make it about the idea and the work and you have to really want to, to develop the idea and, and shift the idea and, and if you can focus on [00:30:00] that, then.

I think to some extent it takes care of itself. I'm not saying there isn't structural misogyny and structural racism built into, um, a lot of the companies that Jonathan and I have worked for over the years. Um, but I think to make it bearable, you can't really get sucked into it or think about it. You really have to focus on the work and then you get pleasure and satisfaction from the work, and that sort of the momentum of success helps you create more success.

[00:30:31] Jonathan Mildenhall: And I, I want to add that, you know, for me, um, the guiding North Star in the face of prejudice, bigotry and fear, quite frankly, is my mum's message to me when I was five years old. And I really realized that I was different to my brothers and my mother. And I remember saying, I don't want to be black. I, what, what can you do to help me be white?

I just want to look like everybody else in the [00:31:00] family. And my mom sat me down and she said, Jonathan, unfortunately, people are always going to be negative and nasty about, and she used these words, about your packaging, about your skin color. Um, uh, because we just live in a world that doesn't like other, um, then she said the one thing that you have that none of these people who are beating you up and picking on you at school is you have this incredible energy.

Five years old, she said this to me, she said. When you smile the whole house smiles and I remember that and so as I started to get into the workplace and I was the only black person in the room, or it's the only gay person in the room when I after I finally came out. I was like, don't let that chip drag me down.

Actually let my light that I have that when I shine it and I shine it on. Everybody I can get even the most bigoted of people to go. [00:32:00] Actually, I like what that guy is bringing to the table. I'm going to invite that guy back in. And so I really use my character and my energy as a way to shut down all the naysayers and a way to shut down.

Anybody who would like to see me marginalized because I am other 

[00:32:23] Nadine Dietz: and you're both a hell of a lot more successful than many of us. So congratulations. So well, Jonathan, Joanna, I have to steal you for another engagement right now. Um, but I wanted to thank every single person in the audience for all their wonderful comments.

And thank you for being here with us today. Thank you, Joanna. Thank you, Jonathan. Um, and I hope everybody has a fantastic 

[00:32:45] Joanna Cole: weekend. Thank you. 

[00:33:00]