The Skill AI Can’t Replace — Reading the Room (Bonnie Hammer)

For decades, Bonnie Hammer has shaped the media industry. She led some of television's biggest networks and guided the next generation of leaders, leaving a lasting mark on how we watch, work and think. In this conversation, Bonnie opens up. She shares the lessons that built her career, why having challenging mentors is the key to real growth, and how embracing change can turn uncertainty into opportunity. This isn't about fancy titles or long resumes. It's about how to stay relevant in a world that's always changing, how to build skills that last, and how to lead with confidence and humility if you want to learn what it really takes to thrive, not just survive, in your career. This episode with Bonnie Hammer is where it starts.

At this stage in life, I think I am stronger, more physically fit than I've ever been in my life, because five days a week, I. I'm either doing Pilates, I'm going to boxing, I'm doing bar classes. So I get out of the house almost every single morning to do something physical, which. It's good for the mind, it's good for the body, and it just gives me some peace. So I've created a little bit of a schedule for myself, but I'm. And I'm also just reading everything from pure craft detective novels to Barry Diller's who Knew? And everything in between. So it's. It's an. It's interesting for me because it's a. It's the first time I've really had to get my arms around change that I have created and. Or has been created by, you know, for me, just based on, in a sense, an ageism in our world, and partly just trying to understand what free time is. And you're all. At my age, you're also at a point where others around you aren't doing as well, aren't physically healthy at this stage. So the other side of it is I just feel lucky, blessed, whatever the word is you would use in your own vocabulary, that, hey, I'm still kicking here. And I, you know, I just see, you know, my. I'm. I have this weird thing in the back of my head. I am my father's daughter in a whole lot of ways. And the women in my father's family all lived actively, healthily, till months of a hundred.

Wow.

In my mind, I just see this Runway, which I hope turns out to be true, but it is so deeply seated because in so many other ways, I am my dad. The man didn't do so well in his family, but the women, they were like, yeah, yeah, that's That's.

That's really refreshing to see how much you've been able to learn about yourself in this new chapter of life, too, because I think it's important to understand who you are and also accept who you are. Because it's not a bad thing to want to run on a schedule. It can be bad if you say no. The right thing to do is for me to just stay idle completely. I feel like that I would lose it.

I could not imagine you doing that, having listened to you on various podcasts and also coming to terms with your own self and your own confidence at a young age. But nevertheless, you're still not 90. It is interesting for the first time to have to redefine yourself outside of the definition that your work identity created for you so long. It was my work identity that was seen way before anybody knew who the hell I was for real. It was just the conceit, the image, the perception was out there before I ever entered a room. Now I'm just Bonnie. But.

No, let's talk about that Bonnie, because you're a legend in the industry. You've done incredible things, accomplished a lot of things. And also it is an. That generates a lot of. A lot of attention, has a lot of eyes on it, and imagery is a big part of it. And it's. It's almost. Sometimes it's easier to hide behind your Bonnie the icon than it is to just say, hey, this is who I am as an individual. And let's talk about that. Those different identities and how it's shifted over the years for you. How. How have you managed that balance between authenticity and being who you want to be and then being seen as somebody who has accomplished so much?

Well, I think. I mean, there are a lot of different pieces of it that I think all come together. When I first started out in the business, I was. I kind of tripped into it. And I think it was my attitude of willing to do anything, any grunt work. Literally, my first real job at the end of. In the industry was picking up dog crap. Happily, I like dogs, but literally, I was. I was in charge of a cast member that was a dog because I was the youngest, most junior production assistant. So that's what I got. But I think. And I survived because of attitude. I. I was smiling. I always said, yes, I had no confidence whatsoever in the business because I'd never done television, but it was attitudinal. And then what I learned was surrounding myself by really good people and creating even before I understood what it was to hire or create a team. I was very sensitive about bringing in people around me who had similar positive attitudes, more collaborative than singularity. And I've learned with time that my way of dealing with the industry was caring more about my team. The people around me, the individuals who worked with alongside, under. I had no control of the ones above me. But creating an environment or a culture around me that was healthy and sound and grounded that in my day to day stuff, everybody knew who I was, I knew who everybody else was. It was collaborative. We all trusted one another. There was a huge amount of loyalty. It was very unusual. So the perception of the outside world was a little less important to me. But I also knew resonated pretty well because every time I talked it was about our team, my team, the team. And I think that's been when my hindsight of my success has all to do or so much to do with a team spirit, a collaboration and never putting me out there as I did. It was we did or the team did or the success was theirs. Ultimately it always comes back to the one who's leading it anyway. So I never needed to grab for it. But I learned that in hindsight as opposed to was consciously doing that along the way. And when I really go back and think about where that came from. I was at summer camp in a very, very, very early age. My mom had a heart attack. My father didn't know what to do with me. So they knew the owners of this small summer camp up in the Borscht Belt, McCatskills. So the summer before I turned six, I was away at summer camp. The youngest kids were called Mohawks. I was called a schmohawk. And so I learned very young how to live with others, play, you know, sports. What did I know? At 5 or 6, I couldn't play anything. But I got the notion of what living with other kids and playing different games with other kids was all about. I don't think they'd ever left me.

Hmm. This is, I. I love this because you've been able to track the origin of your ability to collaborate effectively and then also a bit of that humility as well. Because in your story you've highlighted what I think are the two sides of humility. There's the, the character side of it. Like, okay, this is just a good pro social way of navigating the world. But then also we have the strategic side of it too, because being humble is truly endearing and counterintuitively you can use it authentically in a way that helps you to still do well in your career in advance without putting other people down in the process. And it shows how important it is to have people around you who actually. Who you're willing to kind of let that guard down with, who you can be. You as a leader, you can still hold them accountable, but they also hold you accountable to your performance and your standards as well.

Yeah, but. And you learn how to hire that way. I mean, for me, of course, excuse me, but of course you're going to look at skill set. If somebody is coming in, in a marketing position or in a finance, whatever, whatever it is, you're going to look at their resume, you're going to look at their skill set and say, oh, fine. But that was secondary to me, you know, in terms of the conversation I would have, it's how much did they speak versus ask questions? How much did they give credit to other people on former jobs as opposed to talk about how fabulous they were? So my hiring process also brought in, at least in the beginning, and more so than less actually work, where I would surround myself with people who had that humility within themselves that they were able to say, you know, I worked with Kwame before and you know, he was so good about blah, blah, blah, as opposed to, yeah, I helped create him. You know, they very different way, especially in my industry where ego were wanting to take credit for a show that, you know, was a top 10 show that is no one's show. It takes, you know, thousands of people to create an episode of a show. And yet there are people who say, oh, that was my show I did that I was in charge of, you know, excuse me, I don't think so.

Yes. Oh, that's so good. And this is a perfect segue for us to talk about your industry, because in so many ways, when it comes to media, all the different types of media, they. They shape so much of society. When you think about just culturally, obviously there's a really strong cultural component, but we can even track back to times where it has shifted politics, policies, and things like that. It's incredibly powerful. So let's talk about your time in media and talk about your perspective of the role that the media plays in society.

You know, it plays a huge role. I must admit, I was lucky that in a lot of ways, my world was about fiction. Yeah, we also had reality shows like the Real Housewives and crazy stuff like that. But it was creating stories about a world for the most part. Usa, Sci fi, the stuff that I was responsible for created worlds with values and storylines and characters that were fictional representations of our world. But we created a brand that was referred to as Blue Skies. And that was my way of. Of creating a brand that I felt was important when so much around us was getting more bleak, darker, complicated, almost brutal at times, that we created likable characters, we created relationships. Yes, there were complications, and there was interaction, and there was some ugliness within, but the Blue Skies always won out. And I think we created that. We started that brand started in 2005 when we brought Tony Shalhoub and created Monk on our air. And then we had Psych and Burn Notice, but they were all shows that had, you know, not Cinderella characters, but flawed but likable characters. And so that was our way of kind of counteracting some of the darker stuff and darker networks that were kind of, kind of bleeding into both the cable world and even some of broadcast. And we were also giant steps away from news that it was at that time, too, kind of the beginning of the conflict of news that was extremely right going against news that was extremely left. And anything in the middle, nobody wanted to talk about. You know, centrists were not a good thing. You had to be right or you had to be left. And it was an interesting time to try to figure out how can we succeed both having a lot of viewers, a huge audience, and. And also make money. And our way was this kind of Blue Skies. It wasn't happy talk because we still had complicated characters, but it was a place that got resolved. So we left people smiling rather than haunted or crying.

That is such a novel perspective now, right? Because I feel like so many shows that exist are. Are purely are because of the negativity and toxicity that it provides. And I remember one time a few years back, I was trying to pitch a show to a few different networks, and I made it far with one of them. And we did some recording and things like that for a reality TV show. And one of the pieces of feedback was they said, hey, listen, love Kwame on camera. I think he's very charismatic, but we don't think he's going to hold the tension long enough with our audience. And essentially the concern was I would solve the conflicts too soon, and the drama would not be sufficient to get the ROI that they're looking for.

See, I don't know you from a hole in the head. I'm just watching you in a tiny little image on my big screen. You would make a great television personality. I mean, your smile, the image of it, seriously, who's not going to Take you seriously. And yet your warmth, your smile, you have this interesting combination of strength and body type that's, oh, my God. And then you have a smile that's like, oh, I want to hug him.

Thank you. This is great, Vani. This is the whole reason I had you on the show. I just wanted you to say nice things about me.

Check comes, I'll make sure to deposit it quickly.

I appreciate it. And I still haven't given up on that dream. I think there are a couple ideas I have, but I don't know, I.

Think my whole thing, it's very hard right now. What you should understand too, for just your own being. The industry right now is under such pressure because the way people are watching. If you think about what existed during my heyday, we were incredibly lucky. There was broadcast. Cable was this baby that was growing up and nobody thought, literally. A former boss of mine said, why are you going to cable? There's no future there. You know, obviously, years later, we, the industry proved him wrong. But it was at a height where cable was growing incredibly fast. Broadcast was still, you know, cable was a stepchild. Broadcast was the real thing. And then now we have streaming, we have all these other entities. So everybody is trying to readjust to what does this mean with cable kind of going away, but not totally going away. Broadcast diminished because most people are watching streaming, but streaming is going to have to get bundled just like cable did. No one's going to pay 20 subscription fees. Somehow they'll all be under a few umbrellas. You pay for one umbrella and you get all these. Netflix, Amazon, everything else under one. But because of that, right now everyone is restructuring. People are under such a budget crunches right now that it's very hard to say yes to new talent, to new productions. So where we could experiment and do 15, 20 a year, I would say now the studios from my past are maybe down to seven. So you can take it personally at this point because it's in that transition. And thank you, the administration right now too. You know what's been going on with cbs, you know, what Disney paid, et cetera. They're rethinking how to evaluate who they are, what to be, where to put the money. So give it a little time because things will settle down because the. There's no replacement for content. No matter what the distribution is. You always need content. So don't shy away, just keep going for it.

I appreciate it. That means a lot. Because my motto for 2025 is big swings only. Just try to swing for the Fences on everything. And I think that could be. And it makes me wonder too, because like you said, the industry just media in general is shifting. I remember seeing an interview or something where it was, I believe it was Netflix was saying that, yeah, it's not just Hulu and Amazon prime that we consider our competitors and it's YouTube, but it's also we're competing for attention. TikTok and Instagram, those are competing as well. And I think about some nights where Whitney and I, we just don't know exactly what to watch. And so we'll just sit next to each other and scroll on Instagram together. And that's not something that we did before. And so when you think about the years that you have in the industry and how in the know you are in the next five or 10 years, what are some shifts you're expecting to see?

You know, I already know I'm out of the know because I was brought up in a very traditional media world where you had films, you had broadcast, you had cable, there were where you created content and how they were distributed was a relatively relative to now simple process because there are only certain forms of distribution. You got graded every day when you saw the ratings for your show the next morning after at night, and you knew how well it was doing or it wasn't doing. Now all of the influencers are changing what people watch, how they're watching it. You know, when I watch people literally watching whole shows on an iPhone, I'm like outraged because to me, I want the screens to get bigger and bigger. And now kids are completely satisfied watching an image that's this big. I also think I have been so disconnected from the Instas and all of the online sites that are creating their own content at this point that giving people advice about how to go about working through the influencer versions of creating content is pretty fresh to me. And I do think it has a lot of power, but I don't think it's ever going to totally replace the big screen. And I do believe that swinging for the fences is the right way to go to get whether it's a Netflix or the Amazons or the Paramounts or the Peacocks or whatever it is. Getting a show placed in a little bit more traditional way gives you literally a ginormous Runway to then do anything you want to on the influenza fronts of any of the sites that are out there. But it shocks me to what degree people are creating content and having it embraced right now on these tiny online formats.

It's gotta be a Major paradigm shift. And just like a record scratching moment too. Because I think for me it's not just the size of the screen and the, the detail, it's also the attention to detail that the creators have put into everything that we see that's going to be missed on these small screens. And I, I'm realizing the way that we consume is changing. People are kind of content with zoning in and out of some of the like it's a one minute video, you can't even hold their attention for that amount of time. But I remember just being wrapped with attention for these longer shows. Trying to like being so frustrated that I missed a little detail. And I remember back when we couldn't rewind, I'm like, I might never see this again. That detail is gone forever.

Right? It was interesting. Somebody I did a podcast with a little over a year ago did a time and this was a came from radio, pretty decent, decent sized name, recognizable, etc. Was playing with online videos to see how to break into the media world. That was unfamiliar with him for him. And I remember after the fact he sent me a small little video he did that was very sci fi ish. It was really good. And I'm hoping that some of the connections that were given actually got him to a resource that would turn it into an Amazon or Netflix limited series. It was that good. But the only way he felt he could try it out was playing with it in an influencer way, doing it online and seeing what the reaction was smart.

I've seen a few shows break through because of that. They get a little bit of exposure online on YouTube or whatever it is, making the show themselves and then taking it to the next level. Like Issa Rae, I remember she had this YouTube series that she did that was really good and now she's getting real opportunities and I, I would be really interested to hear your perspective on this one, Bonnie, because we, I, this is our first time talking, but I have a feeling that you like humans. I like humans as well. And now we're in a world where humans and digitally created images and avatars are becoming indistinguishable with artificial intelligence. And now we're having to wrestle with questions about the what is consciousness, what is legitimate creation as well. Because now we are probably less than a year away before we have our full feature length movie created entirely by AI. When you look at artificial intelligence and the impact it'll have on the movie media, what are your, your major thoughts and feelings around it?

You know, I, I'm very I'm very conflicted about it. I think new technologies over the years have provided so many runways for success for me and stuff I've done and for life in general. I think that any form of intelligence that can make the world better is vital. But AI scares the hell out of me for a couple of reasons. One, it will replace too many jobs that I do think are vital towards creation and creativity and real emotion. And it. It just worries me that if we take away the humanness in everything we create, whether it's dialogue or it's wardrobing or whether it's actual writing, we will remove some of the humanity from any and everything we do. So I worry about it for a variety of reasons. I also think when you think about where AI is right now, it is information that gets to us based on a common denominator. It's kind of a mush of information that's collated and what you get back is kind of a consensus rather than opinionated or differing points of view that you can then use and think for yourself about where you want to go or what a line of copy should be or what a political situation should be. It is a consensus driving entity. And that makes me a little crazy too. But to say that there are no positives about IA is naive. But I do think that artificial intelligence, artificial intelligence versus emotional intelligence makes me very wary. I'm still more of an EQ EI person than an AI AQ person.

Yes.

And I think we have to be very protective of those areas, at least in my world and the media world that will be overtaken by it. And I do worry that too many, too much of AI will be replacing writers and writing writers rooms. It worries me that actors, you know, can be replaced by, you know, full animations, if you will. I'm an old school believer in real people doing real things, showing real emotion, writing real scripts themselves from their brains and their heart.

Yes, I'm with you. It's the best of times and the worst of times because, I mean, Hollywood's done a great job of capturing the potential concerns of AI and they did it 20, 30 years ago, right? And here we are careening off of this edge with very few guardrails. And it's almost like one of the most fascinating, largest experiments of game theory and Prisoner's Dilemma. Because the people who are developing it, they can say, okay, I can see these concerns. And also at the same time, I don't want to risk losing the advantage. And so company to company, they're like, we have to move fast. Because if we don't, the other side will. Country to country, we're saying we have to move fast.

Right. And what he said before was right, was exactly on the money. Where are the guardrails? Who is creating, who will create, who will police, who will do whatever to ensure that those guardrails don't destroy so much that's good about what we do in so many different professions. I'm not seeing the guardrails right now.

No, no, I mean, they don't exist for the, for the large part, I think it's the platforms themselves that are taking stands. So for instance, YouTube, I believe, said, hey, anything that is created by AI will not be monetized. So they're not saying, okay, platform ban, you can't use it. It's. If you can, you can't monetize it. So I think that's, that is, that's a good step. But it's going to be interesting because. Exactly. Because right now it makes sense to do it. And the culture, the majority of humans are saying, okay, we, we don't like this in this case when it comes to AI generated content. But that's one of those things that they could very sneakily pull back when we're distracted by something else.

When you think about all of the, if you think about the way we may have entered the work world, some of those lower level jobs are now being completely taken over by AI. How do people get experience? How do people get exposed? If you think about how people who are hiring right now, the resumes, when they get sent in to larger institutions, the first going over is AI. It is not a human being looking at a resume. And these resume. AI is basically looking for certain words that have become the buzzwords for that industry that they're checking out before it gets to a person. And then when it gets to a person, it's this, it's not walking into an office, presenting yourself, you know, making your presence important enough so you're remembered. So how do these young kids get started? Think about how we started, started. And I, I mean when I started everything was archaic, so everything was physical in an office. You know, phones that were on a desk, there was nothing portable remotely at that point. And I think that's going to be hard for society that these kids are not going to have the same kind of capability, comfort, confidence, understanding about one on one relationships because so much of it is being pushed away, pushed aside.

I agree. And I think, at least the hypothesis I hope is true is that the people who take the time to hone their human centric skills. Empathy, listening, the ability to articulate yourself and communicate. They're going to have an outsized advantage. Because when you are able to flex those skills, your peers oftentimes will be living lives where those skills just over time become eroded. Because with the younger generation, we're at a point where this, this is the first generation where they would choose to connect digitally with somebody instead of connecting in person. So it's. If we are. If I think about it with my son now, he's. I know he's so annoyed, but sometimes I would walk into the room and he's playing video games. And I said, hey, what are you doing playing video games? With who? With my friend from down the street from, from two houses. Down, boy, get out of my house. Go be frolic with humans.

And.

And he would, he would say, dad, why do you always make me do this? And I said, kai, because I don't want you to be weird. I do not want you to be weird. You need to be able to communicate with people, and those are becoming lost. It's becoming a lost art. People are outsourcing every piece of thought or crafting every communication with precision, utilizing AI. But then when it's gone and you have to interact as a person, you don't have those skills.

Yeah. My line to kids these days who are choosing to work remotely or take the interview remotely is how can you expect to be in the room if you're not in the room? And it's. To me, it says it all.

Yeah, I agree. And now I'm interested. I'm interested. Now, let's see. If you had a magic wand and you control not just media in general as we know it, but like social media in total too, what changes would you make in order to put society in a better direction?

Oh, that's a toughie. I think to me, it again, it goes back to learning how to interact with people. It is making sure. I think it goes across all fields, all boards. Right now. I think we, at least in our country, have grown to extremes in everything we do. A.I. yes. A.I. no. Democrat, Republican, purple, orange. Everything is so extreme that the conceit of diffusing points of views and being able to listen to one another is somehow creating media online, offline film, you know, influencers who can talk to or have conversations where you bring people together rather than accentuate separation and points of view where what has happened. I think in our culture we have lost the ability to listen and to hear, which doesn't mean you have to agree, but if you can understand people, the world, a point of view, a different aspect on media, liking or hating, AI, whatever it is, our world, our society, will benefit tremendously. So there's something about being able to diffuse information in a way that people can start hearing, listening and understanding rather than choosing a position when they're probably pretty damn ignorant of what the conversation's actually about. So that's the thing. It's about listening, hearing, diffusing.

I agree. And it's a challenging problem because that's something that I've thought about a lot. How do we unring this bell? And I think a lot of the things that have made America incredible are some of the things that can hold us back in this way, because there was no way for the founders to have foreseen what was coming down the pike. When we talk about freedom of speech, that has been fantastic, especially as we're breaking free from Britain. But now when we see freedom of speech, how does that apply to social media? How does that apply to misinformation or damaging information? How does it apply to the algorithms that are really weaponizing our. The, the collective amygdala of the nation, where we're just force pushing people down deeper into their own belief systems, you weaponizing their own emotionality against them? You know, because the algorithms are largely agnostic, but they are designed to give you more of the thing that will keep you hooked onto the platform. And a lot of times that's the negativity and all of that emotionality that doesn't make us feel good or make us not just feel good, but make us mentally well. But it does make us addicted to the content source.

You said something in a podcast relatively recently. I don't remember if it was yours. I don't think it was yours. I think it was a conversation you had with Mel Robbins where you're talking about. It was negotiating, but being able to say your opinion, give an opinion or question something and not worry whether you needed or wanted to be liked anymore.

Yes.

And I think our world has gone to a point where you're so afraid to disagree for all the wrong reasons, because we haven't been taught how to properly disagree and have an opinion, be able to say that opinion without the fear of everything, as little as not being loved or liked at that moment to catastrophic. All of a sudden you're banned from society or whatever.

Yeah, yeah. And to take this point a lot further, Bonnie, because you're spot on here, it's even worse than the fact that we haven't been taught how to do this. It's also that the media, the, like social media and the, the trajectory of the, the change in media has made it so that we are learning bad habits. Right. So we're not watching Psycho or Monk. We're watching Real Housewives. And we're watching people who are, you know, who are in their position because of their dysfunction. And so when we do actually disagree with somebody.

Touch that one. Because we're pretty high up.

Yes, exactly. And so to that point, it's, we're realizing that, all right, these are the things that actually help you to get ahead in society. I remember back when it was like skills and hard work and relationships and having a good reputation, but now it's like the worst reputation you have. You will have more attention and then you can leverage that attention into, to money and fame because of the negativity. It's, it's such a fascinating shift.

Yes, yes. And it's a damaging one.

Yes.

Yeah, it's a damaging one. And that scares me for the younger kids growing up right now.

Yeah, yeah, that is, that is for sure. Because I, I'm thinking about it for my young boys too, being very mindful of the media that they consume. It's, it's ubiquitous. It's everywhere. Four and nine.

Yeah, you're getting to that stage of. My grandchild's children are 8 and 11 and it's the 11 year old now. We're like, oof. You know, so far she still doesn't have her own phone. She has an iWatch that you can only do certain things, but there's only so long that Kime, her mom, can keep her protected.

Yeah, it's important and it's, it's getting harder every day because you have, it's like an arms race. You can come come up with your own way to kind of lock down phones and everything like that. They're savvy enough to figure out a way around it. And then also, if you do a good job making sure that you can protect your kids, it doesn't mean that their friends, parents are doing the same job. You know, it's a, it is a constant battle.

Yep. Correct.

Yeah. Well, well, let's land, let's land on a nicer note, Bonnie. They're not all doom and gloom. So let's, we, we had your summer of, of discovery and scheduled fitness and other activities and things like that. And I, I, I know your type. I know you're not gonna, there's, there's Something. There's gotta be something. So what do you think the next chapter looks like? Like.

Well, I mean, I'm lucky enough that I'm on some boards. One of the boards which is. I enjoy. It's a bit of a hoot. As well as Barry Diller's board. And that's always alive and well and, you know, controversial in its own way. My. One of my desires is to get back to still photography. That's how I started. And I am. We were in Africa for. For about three weeks and I just finished a big picture book that I put together happily with a friend of mine that worked at NBC. He was able to digitize it because, of course, I'm an old form analog person. And I used to like real film, like, you know, Kodachrome and Fuji, and now it's all digital. So it's getting back somehow into photography in a way that I can continue to tell stories. And I'm not big in photo editing. I was taught at a very, you know, early college how to. Photography is about seeing an image. It's not about creating it after the fact. And again, with all our tech tools, you can take an awful picture, enhance it, change it, colorize it, do whatever you're going to do. And lo and behold, somebody thinks you took a great shot. And in fact it is a manufactured shot. I believe in the purity. I'm like a Cartier Bresson person. It's the decisive moment is seeing an image, catching that image, and that tells the story. So my hope is I want a better education in digital photography. I mean, I have digital cameras and I shoot, shoot. But I really need to understand more the nuance of how to get what I want in a digital world, but by seeing it, not creating it after the fact. So that's one of my September goals from the creative and the other is getting back into paying it forward. What is the best route for me, based on my experience being a woman in the industry, being with female, period, who's had some decent accomplishments over her life, how do I help other women pay the, you know, how do I pay it forward to help other women to figure out how to navigate the world? Now, granted, the world is very different. I think I had a pretty easy time considering my timing of stuff. I think it's so much harder for people, period, no less females right now, to navigate that world. I think we've gone backwards a little bit in terms of women navigating the word that.

Hold on. That's a very interesting point because I think A lot of times people, especially the folks who have the privilege of not having to live that life and understand those barriers that you're referring to, they might not know what you're talking about. So I don't want to just gloss over that because it is very important. So when you talk about things getting tougher, what are some of the things that are coming to mind for you?

Well, I think, and this is what my book was pretty much about, which was 15 lies women are told at work. And the truth we need to succeed is understanding and learning the uncommon sense it is to navigate the world. Now, whether it's a belief you could have it all, well, you can only have it all in hindsight. It's about choices, having the agency of choices. And how do you make that choice? Because your all and my all are very different. See other conceit of fake it till you make it. That will destroy you. In the work world right now it's face it till you make it learn. You know, make others understand that you want to learn. Go under somebody else's wing, let them help you get where you want. It's about presence again in this world right now. You know, walking in places looking completely disheveled because nobody thinks it makes a difference. And you know, if you think presence is important, you know, you were brought up 90 years ago, that it's, it's letting people, letting women understand that a first impression, some say seven seconds. Princeton says it's made in one second. And the attitude about it, if you're disheveled in how you look, that's how your work's gonna be. So there are so many different cliches and different things. Women have been brought up to believe that if they do believe this misinformation, it will really hurt them in the work world. It's, it's a dangerous manual for sabots that will self sabotage them.

That's so important, so important because I, I think a lot of times we, there's almost been like an overcorrection too. I, I think the, the advice, the well meaning advice on being authentic can be as good as it can be bad. Because sometimes you say, well, this is how I am, just raw and unfiltered. And if you don't accept it, it's your problem. Well, it's like, excuse me, sir, you're wearing pajama pants and slippers in a work meeting. How are we supposed to take you seriously? I know that's how you feel comfortable. We're not comfortable with this display. And when when you think about presence and because you've been in high level meetings that are, that are shaping society with the, the media decisions that are being made. When you think about the people, the actors, the professionals who have presence, who have gravitas, what are the attributes that, that come to mind for you?

Well, I think the thing that's misjudged the most is we've talked about it earlier, was learning how to listen, sitting a room, hearing, understanding what somebody is asking of you or you are asking of them. So it's the ability to listen. There's this other ridiculous adage of talk is cheap. I think it's the most valuable commodity we have is learning how to read a room and then addressing the room and the language that that person or group of people will understand, how you say something, how you ask for something, how you make your demands. It's understanding what that room room is. Whether it's asking in your world, negotiating, it's how do you ask for what you need or what you want in a way that gets people to say yes. It's understanding somebody else's agenda. If, whether it be an actor or producer or director comes in and you're trying to figure out what's going on, it's trying to understand what's their agenda, what are they really trying to get at and how can you give them what they need so they can in turn deliver what you need. It's really the art of reading a room in so many different ways from, you know, physical vocabulary to emotional vocabulary to get what you or your show or your team needs.

I love this response, Bonnie, because this is a great way to put a bow on the episode because it goes back to being human, doubling down, tripling down on these human centric skills. Because I know that there are some people who are out there who are listening and hoping that you would describe some kind of surface level things you should sit and steeple steepling, you know, whatever little thing it happens to be where you could just check that box and then you've made it. But what you've talked about when it comes to reading the room, listening, deeply, understanding people's agenda, that takes work and it will never not be work. So you could do it in one meeting and not do it in another meeting, and then you don't have it right. So you have to make sure that you're constantly focusing on the other person, focusing on these people skills. Because even at the highest level, people get to that highest level because they understand people correct.

The other thing that we started the conversation, which we probably should have gone to this point then, is being able to embrace change with everything that is happening right now. Everything we've talked about, from analog to digital, from cable to broadcast to streaming to podcasts to influencer content, is not fearing change, but figuring out a way to embrace it. Because it's going to come at you regardless of your age, your stage, your wage. So fighting it, refusing to say, to figure out your way of embracing it is useless. It's just a waste of energy, it's a waste of time, and you can't avoid it. So the only thing you can do is get. Figure out how to get your arms around it so you can understand it and see how you fit in to the change. And again, that takes reading the room, because you have to figure out, all right, everything has changed here. The boss has changed, the money has changed, the environment's change, the culture has changed. How do I fit into it? They're not going to change. I'm going to have to figure out how to negotiate my way in and then embrace my skills in a way that they can understand. The new management, the new school, the new whatever it is, it happens everywhere, at every stage of life. And I think people still fear it too much.

I agree. And I think we, just like you said, we have to come to terms that the only constant is change. But things are changing faster than ever. Maybe there was a time where if somebody could essentially have more or less the same role and retire in that role after decades of doing more or less the same thing. I'm struggling to think of an industry or occupation that gives that kind of luxury now. Everything changes so quickly with society, with culture, with technology especially. So we have to learn how to.

Embrace that, the other piece of it. That is something I give advice to almost everybody now, especially the younger kids entering the workforce. We were brought up that there's a ladder. I mean, I was very lucky. I started at the lowest job possible, cleaning up dog crap and making it up to chair. But when I look at how I did it, I really didn't climb the ladder. I zigzagged. I gained skills in areas when a project was done. In the old days, you weren't a staff person. You were hired from for a project. Once the project was over, you were laid off until the next project happened, or you found something within the company that was not necessarily a wheelhouse, but you were willing to take another job that could be below you, could be the side, up, down, left, right of it, but it Gave you or gave me a skill set that, oh, I really don't like that. But at least I need to understand budgets. So when they made me unit manager, I hate numbers. I hated the job, but it was a stepping stone. When they gave me responsibility over a whole division, I needed to understand finance. So that silly job I took seven years earlier gave me a vocabulary and a knowledge which helped me get something else in a whole different lane later on. So my advice to people, forget about the latter. Create a spiderweb. Go right, go left, go up, go down. Create this really vast web of experience so that when the industry goes away because of AI or your. Your job gets restructured out, or when the companies merge, you have so many different paths you can take because you weren't on that ladder that Ghana got pushed out because that job doesn't exist anymore. AI took it over.

Yes. That's so good. Okay, Bonnie, before you go, I want to bring in Simone. He always listens in and has really great insights and great questions to ask. I want to see Simone. You got anything for us? I like the title of your book, 15 lies women are Told. So.

And you came guys too? It's really for guys too, but Simon and Schuster wanted to me to make it marketable for women.

Okay, which one do you think is the biggest lie that women are taught at work?

Oh, there are some. You're. You're asking me to choose from some of my favorite children. So try and choose one is hard. I think for me, the most important one is the belief that you have friends in high places. I am a big believer that you need mentors in all places. And for me, the worst piece of advice that I think people at large are given is to have supportive mentors. People who are going to pat you on the back, people who are going to tell you, oh, you're great, you're wonderful, you can do anything you want to do. When the reality for me is to find challenging mentors, find truth tellers, find, you know, sparring partners, find somebody who puts the tough and tough love because they're the person that going to help you grow. And because of everything that's going on in the world, HR departments who no longer like managers, telling somebody they're not doing something, you know, good enough that they get beaten up if they give, in a sense, tough love, because you're not supposed to not be nice to people on the job. It's hurting people and it's changing the trajectory of people growing in business because nobody is telling them the truth. Openly and directly. And it can be very nice in how it's given. But you can grow unless people help you grow. And the only way you can grow is if people tell you the truth about how you're performing, what you need to do, how you need to grow, what you need to do better. So I'm a big believer in challenging mentors. And I think, in truth, if it wasn't for Barry Diller kicking my butt when I was younger, I would have never gone to the level I've got to. In my mind, if I survive Barry, I can survive anybody in the industry or in the world, to the point that at the time when he was my boss, I literally was into kickboxing. And I had Diller written on my kickboxing bag because every weekend I just had to kick the hell out of him because he made me so crazy. But he also taught me how to think. And so I'm a big believer in finding challenging mentors rather than people in high places or supportive people around you. Wow.

Thank you. That's great. And I feel like it's harder than ever to find those challenging mentors, too. There's a. There's a significant deficiency in the willingness to do hard things or resilience in conversations or in general, too. So people are becoming more sensitive to feedback, which is making them less resilient and makes it harder for them to advance. And because of that, people are afraid, and people are walking on eggshells in these conversations, too. So that's.

I think it was, you know, I think one of the downsides of our overly woke world that just fed into being honest truth tellers to all people. And I'm a. I. I just think it's hurt a lot of people, a lot of women, a lot of guys in the industry, because no one is really telling them how to navigate the world through honest feedback.

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