Ep.02 / Designing your own fearless path in life with Rebecca Minkoff, Founder Rebecca Minkoff

0:04All right. Today I'm talking to Rebecca Minkoff, the founder of her namesake global fashion brand. looking at her resume is pretty incredible she's the best-selling author of Fearless a book that unlocks creativity courage and success I'll be asking her about the rules she's also the host of her own superwomen podcast she's established the female founder collective which has been created to support and develop and elevate female founded and owned businesses and on top of all of that. She has four kids. I only have two and I barely manage. And she did a season of The Real Housewives of New York just to double down on her cultural cachet.

0:51Rebecca, thank you so much for coming on. And yeah, I'm just so excited to talk to you. I've got way too much to ask you. Oh, ask me anything. And thank you for having me. I thought I'd start kind of at the beginning. You have done so much. I was just wondering what in how you were brought up has kind of shaped your entrepreneurial spirit, your drive. I think that it was truly how my mom and dad chose to raise all of us. They were not people that wanted to follow like society's norms. and so from the very beginning there was definitely this entrepreneurial sort of if you want it how you're going to earn it built in with the exception of if I was going to make something the fabric would be provided to me or the beads would be provided to me but not the actual item itself unless I earned it so those are my two options make it or earn it and I think that teaches you at a very early age that that's how life is going to be and that it you know it prepared me for when I did eventually start my own company that I wasn't shell-shocked or not sure what to do.

2:02I very much was used to that mentality. They also were like, you can go to college if you'd like to figure out how you're going to pay for it. We're not going to do that. And college wasn't this thing that all my friends were like, oh my God, that's my only choice. So it really allowed me to sort of assess what I wanted. I tried college for about six weeks, decided it wasn't for me. And so I think that freedom to explore rather than being like, this is the channel you need to go through prepared me for the eventuality of me having my own business. I mean, that sounds like a pretty good way to bring up kids.

2:38Do you do similar with your children? I'm assuming, you know, you're super established, well off, you know, how do you instill that kind of drive with kids? So this is what I'll say, You know, growing up, we were, I would say, a lower middle class. So even if I wanted half the stuff and, you know, they didn't necessarily even have the means to buy it, whereas in my position, after 20 years in business and being very successful, I do have the means to say yes to 100 % most of the time of the things they want. I choose not to. I say no all the time. Every time I say no, how are you going to earn it?

3:20What chores do you want to do? What jobs do you want to have? Do you want to go to Grandma Sue's house and see what she needs? Do you want to go around the neighborhood and ask? Like I get the same shitty feeling in my gut as when I was told no because you don't want that as a kid. You just want your parents to say yes. But I have to believe that it's doing something and it's honestly the harder option. It's harder to make them make up the list of what I need. It's harder to think of ideas of how they can contribute. You know, it would be very easy for me to say, oh, the cleaning lady is going to clean your room today and do all this stuff.

3:53But I just, I just, I force it in. And obviously they get perks. You know, I spoke last night and someone's like, how do you keep this from being transactional with your kids? And I was like, it is transactional. I'm not making them work for their food. I'm not making them work for their vacations. There are perks to like my success, but, but the, the extra stuff they really have to earn. Yeah. I mean, yeah, that's very, I mean, And personally, it's something that I struggle with so much when I look at my kids, like, how do I stop them being, you know, expecting everything and, you know, still having that drive.

4:31So, yeah. And it's not always perfect. It's not always like I always felt. Yes, for sure. I thought it was super interesting. one of the things as I look at uh what you've what you've accomplished and actually obviously diving into like articles and listening to other podcasts is you managed to find your kind of passion early can you talk about that like what how did you find this passion to make and design um and what's that feel like like as someone that you know still feels like I'm searching for a passion like talk to me about your passion I think that um you know again my mom's saying no I'm not going to buy you the dress you're going to learn how to sew it I always didn't go into that sewing class excited but I'll tell you that afterwards when I put on the dress that looked like the one I saw there was like a fire in me and having been a very painfully thin a gangly teenager who couldn't fit into regular off-the-shelf clothes.

5:40Being able to go to thrift stores or make my own things really gave me a lot of confidence, and that was a feeling I chased, was that feel-good feeling of, I love having an idea in my head and then putting it to paper, and then it becomes real. I think I was always toggling between that and being a dancer, but I started my love of dance far too late in my life for my body to be set up to truly succeed. And I think some crafts you have to start early. And so I really went into like my, my teens with really being passionate about both and then having that hard conversation with myself. I'm just not good enough as a dancer.

6:19Not only am I not good enough, I have a very large chest and I'm very tall. And those three things are working against me in this career that is still very much and rightfully so built upon the body's endowment um and there are exceptions clearly but I said you know what I also love design and so let me pursue that as as also a more a career that has a lot more longevity like I don't want to be a dancer and then at 30 open a dance studio yeah yeah um help yeah so interesting and then you managed so you you moved to New York super young didn't you it must have been a pretty exciting time turning up you were 18 or I was 18 uh it was exciting and scary I was like this is a big city I don't know how to use a subway the clothing that I thought was right for the winter time is definitely like windbreaker material it's not um but I think I had more excitement than I did fear at the time.

7:22Yeah. So you started in your, you're an intern. Talk to me about how you actually created, started your own brand so young. Like what's, what's the secret? How did you do it? I really, as an intern and then as an employee of the company focused on working hard, you know, going over and above so that the CEO would notice the hard work I was putting in every day and was okay with me working on the side on my own line. And I think I hit a crossroads shortly after 9-11 where the t-shirt I had made for this actress before 9-11 appeared on TV on her after 9-11. And then when she said my name, it was like, it went viral, you know, when she had this shirt.

8:09Yeah. So that was Jenna, Jenna Elfman wearing the I love New York t-shirt. Yeah. So she wore the shirt. It was everywhere. And my boss, the CEO, could see my passion and my excitement for my own line in a way that she couldn't see for their line. And so she fired me and I was not ready to be fired because it's not like I was making a lot of money selling this shirt. But she was like, you have two choices. Either you can give us that passion or you can go do this. And I know the answer. Go do it. and so sort of the kick I needed to sort of branch out on my own I was able to pay the bills not from the shirt but from working as a stylist on tv commercials which did pay well and that was sort of paying for my rent and my food and then everything else was gravy there was not much else extra and that sort of was the beginnings of the line and and how I began to grow it I love that you almost when I was looking at I mean obviously it was such a different time you know pre-social media like I'm sure when I talked to my teen just be literally cannot cannot fathom what it must have been like before you know before social media I mean not quite before the internet but you know very very different and when I look at the stuff that you've done it almost it almost looks like a kind of pre-version so like you had a viral product you used influencers you kind of had an interesting playbook for how you grew your brand can you talk more about that and you know and the difference between then and how you do it now yeah I think that because you know we did not have funding we had you know early on our source was my brother's credit card and then his mortgage.

10:02Every penny mattered. And so you had to get creative. And so all of our organic ideas is what the playbook is today. It was talking to our customer when that was shunned. It was meeting her. It was crowdsourcing her ideas. None of those had terms associated with it. It was just like, yes, I can talk to her. Wow, that's a great idea. or I can ask her her opinion. Great idea. I can travel, you know, the United States and go meet her. Let's do it. And so I think for us, it became the eventual, you know, being a direct consumer brand and what's normal, but none of that was normal. There was no playbook for this.

10:43It was purely built out of, we don't have money like these other big brands, but we have speed, agility, the ability to be in touch with her. So like, what does that look like? And so, and we were small enough that we could do crazy stuff, whether it's a scavenger hunt in New York City or, you know, having real people in our fashion shows or live streaming our shows when that was even like, how do you have the technology to live stream? And so for us, it was just about testing and learning. Sometimes these things were great. Sometimes they were terrible. I think building a brand today is very hard.

11:20and I think that some people think money's the answer. I still think that it's not. I think it's creativity. Obviously money helps, but you could have a lot of money spent on terrible, uncreative ideas. Yeah. Yeah, if you were to launch your brand today, what would you do differently? I think what we would do differently is we would focus on profitability above anything else. We were also part of this time period where profitability didn't matter. And once you got investors, it really didn't matter. They were just like, eh, don't worry about that. Just grow. And I think it really does matter. You need to be able to build and maintain your own house and not be on this endless quest for funds.

12:14and people think that raising money and taking that in is the answer. It just means you have new overlords and new tasks that you didn't have before that might even take you and distract you. So build, you know, your hero product, your MVP. Survey the shit out of your consumer or your potential consumer. Bring them along on the journey. And just make, like, assess your lifestyle. No, not everyone gets to be a billionaire or a millionaire. Like what is the lifestyle you want that's realistic for you? And how do you build your business to serve that? And choose time over being a slave for some eventual maybe outcome as the fantasy.

12:59Yeah. You waited quite long to take money, to take investment. Did you regret it? No. I think I regretted a couple things about it. We waited seven years. It was really hard to wait that long. But my brother, and rightfully so, was adamant. Like, if we can just hold on, we'll sell a lot less for a lot more, which was the case. I think at the time, we had an offer shortly after we sold by another VC, actually, that had a vision of the future. They did believe in direct-to-consumer when that was not a term. They did believe in your own e-commerce when that was still new. they had they were like let's do 30 30 30 of how your business should be set up they offered a great amount of money not only to the private equity partners but us and he said I don't want you guys to worry about money I just want you to like be in the business and know that like small things like your college kids schools paid for or you know you can just focus and we didn't take it because we had, wow, if we're getting this now, imagine what we could get.

14:12And, and, and the private equity also felt that way. And at one point I was like, that was the wrong decision. You know, that guy was an innovator and was going to be ahead again of all these curves that are now normal. Um, so that's what I would have done differently. Okay. Interesting. Um, As I mentioned, like I do brand strategy. How does, what do you have like a positioning statement? I always imagine like, I mean, you've, you've kind of grown iteratively, use your gut. Do you use stuff like strategy statements and stuff like that? We have done various and many branding exercises. I think that we've sort of cemented, you know, when you close your eyes for this brand, we are at the intersection of a woman who wants to be a little edgy but still has a feminine side there's always this rock and roll element which is native to the brand and how you know I dress and live my life but it's there's a soft side too and so that should be when you close your eyes that's always the aesthetic we want to give you I think we want our woman and we know this from talking to her to be optimistic we want the clothing and the bags to make her more confident more fearless she's playful so we've definitely gone into who this woman is and we sort of stick by that and I think that that those brand pillars are timeless and then we will slot into different trends whether it's the micro bag or the tote or the hobo but always looking at it through that lens yeah so the the kind of brand north star stays the same whereas obviously in fashion you know there's so many trends and so many things that can take you in different directions um that makes a lot of sense and i think sorry no go ahead i think the thing that we wrestle with is we are in a space and time and that people don't want to listen to a brand they want to hear from a person how personal do we take it from me and where and how much do we say we or brand and so I think that's that's the hard part for us of how much do you show on the brand channel about me personal how how open do I get or not and that's where I think uh it gets tough yeah especially post-sale and thinking about how closely you're tied to the brand moving forward but obviously in this day and age I feel like it really helps to have someone someone authentic yes speaking out um you know a really tiny point but I was talking to my daughter the other day and I said the word rock and roll she literally had no idea what I was talking about so how do you think about who who is your today's uh consumer do they think about rock and roll or have you kind of aged with the consumer that you had we target two different sets we yeah we target our biggest customer growth sets is gen z so the 18 to 25 i doubt she's listening to the rolling stones uh let's hope she's heard of them she's might not even heard of them but that doesn't you know my hope is that she still listens to like jay-z and some of the like original rap icons but I know I know she's listening to SZA and Kendrick Lamar and all kinds of other stuff so when we say rock and roll what we mean by that is there is a non-conformity there is an edginess how is that translated it's through studs and zippers and embellishments on something it's the leather jacket so like when you break it down into what that product is maybe she's never heard of the Rolling Stones, but she wants her studded bag because she's showing off her edge and her, like, it's that difference of I'm wearing a preppy bag and I have my Tory Burch or my Kate Spade or what is Kate Spade, living colorfully.

18:25So I've got my colored bag, but then we're like, no, we're the black girl in terms of color of leather. And, you know, so I think it's a zeitgeist more than I only listen to rock and roll. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, it's so different these days in terms of expression and, you know, even words. You know, talking to a 12-year-old about what is preppy, and I'm like, that's not preppy. That's cowgirl or something. I don't know. Oh, my gosh. Well, when my daughter was like, oh, my God, this is so preppy, I was like, what does that even mean? And to them, it just means cool. And I'm like, my definition of preppy is not cool.

19:02That's like a boring person. person I don't want to be anywhere near. What do you think makes a good brand? I think a good brand listens to their consumers, brings them along on the journey. I think a good brand surprises and delights them and has certain values that doesn't stray. You know, I think we saw a lot of brands in the last five years sort of give in too much to politics or public opinion in either way, left or right. I think just like put your stake in the ground and let the people know what you stand for and you will attract your tribe. Amazing. What are your favorite fashion brands or brands generally?

19:52Fashion brands first, I think. Yeah. So I tend to gravitate towards, I'd say only women owned fashion brands because I think that women are just better designers for our bodies because they have periods and birth people and boobs that fluctuate in size I just think they they inherently go oh yes this works sometimes I feel like male designers are like I'm zipping myself into a corset and I have to conform to a mold I've noticed um so I love Isabelle Marant um I love Rachel Comey um trying to think of who else I love the Frankie shop yeah i think that um those are a couple of the brands i love uh on the jewelry side i love um ivy diamond cole she makes this these necklaces and rings and of my all my kids but it's not like the dainty like scripted stuff it's more like the the edgy um i'm trying to think of who else i really like that's probably a good summary at the moment good they feel like they're uh in the same brand world?

20:57Not all of them. Rachel Comey is definitely on the more artsier, you know, eclectic side of things. I think Isabel Moran is definitely, she's probably more boho than we are as a brand, but definitely has that edgy side. Okay. Interesting. Um, talking about women designers and, you know, um, I was super, I really, I, I'd heard of the female founder Collective and didn't realize that that was yours. What inspired you to start it and what kind of impact have you seen so far? I was really lost trying to find real connections within the fashion industry of other women being willing to support other women.

21:40Fashion is notoriously like, get out of my way. There's only, there can only be one of us. Um, and so I was sort of peering outside of that in 2018 going, is anyone else like lonely? Like, yes, I have my brother who's my co-founder, but he's not a woman. And he like, he's very buttoned up about what's going on business wise. Whereas I'm like, here's everything that's happening. Can someone help me? Um, and so I started connecting with a lot of higher level founders. I had also started my podcast super women then. And so I was so excited to meet all these other founders. And every time someone shared something with me, I was like, oh, you're going through this too.

22:18I thought you had it all figured out. So the goal was to create a community to drive a shoppable and recognizable seal that anyone could support a women-owned business. And also, you know, my co-founder really felt strongly, Allison, about the idea of education for women taught by experts like yourself. to teach these women all the parts of business that they just didn't know when they signed up with a passion. And so our goal is we want to make women successful and wealthy and have a lot of money, and hopefully that will change things as they become more powerful in leadership positions and community positions for the better.

22:58The impact we've had, we've given out probably at this point over$300 ,000 in grants to different businesses. We have a membership of over 25 ,000 women where every week, month, year, there are lots of incredible education opportunities, whether it's in person or not, for these women to really get the unsexy parts of business educated about it. We also have a paid private membership that's obviously way more in depth. um and so the goal is is like hopefully that number changes on women getting investments women making more money women on boards women on boards exactly so that you know today I don't get to sit here and say because of our work we've made one cent more but I have to hope as we reach more women that that it does change yeah from all from all this way I mean it's interesting thinking about what kind of challenges do you think women kind of face more than their male counterparts as they go into business?

24:03You're going, I think, I think depending on what the business is, I think when you're pitching something, if it is in the female world and you're pitching, let's say you're trying to raise money. Sometimes these women are complaining that like the men didn't understand it. And they don't. If a man came to me and said, I'm starting a gaming company for football, I wouldn't have the faintest clue if that were a good idea or not. So you can't always say, oh, it was because I'm a woman. It's like, no, you're solving a problem for a subset. Like they don't know what it's like to get a period. Yeah.

24:39So I think sometimes that strike is against us because you're pitching to majority of people that just don't have the use case that we have or the problems that we have. And then I also think that if you want to be a parent and you want to be an involved parent, you're going to have a slower time of building your career. It's just how it is. And you either have to be okay with it or not. And that's really, really hard to find where you stand on that. And I was just on Instagram last night and I think there's an author talking about like the powerful pause so rather than reframing it as I took a step back in my career because I wanted to be focused in those early years on my kids here's how it gets you power here's why it actually can help you and I think if we can shift that narrative of I'm gonna lose by having a baby and to like no this is how it's gonna make me more powerful I think that that could be a very impactful shift yeah no it's interesting I mean like for me one of the best things about having kids is suddenly I almost didn't worry as much about work like I felt like you know time is precious I'm going to do this faster I'm not going to procrastinate as much I also don't care as much um in a in a weird way it was super helpful um how I I also thought it was interesting what you said about men just don't necessarily know so i had a i'm working with a really interesting uh female founder of an incontinence product at the moment very sexy um but just an amazing product she and she's literally just going through uh funding uh discussions at the moment and she asked super smart she's never done this before doctor she asked that each investor brings their wife to the which I thought was just genius to your point it's not that you're women it's just that you maybe know your audience and understand how to how to best you know communicate and tell your story impactfully I love that and I love that and I I meet women they're like I can't believe I was in this pitch and he like was like let me ask my girlfriend.

27:02I don't think that's a bad thing because I would certainly be going to my husband again and back to this like NFL example. I'd be like, honey, is this a good idea? You play fantasy football. I don't. No, I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing. And I think it's brilliant that she brought the wives. Yeah. Are there any other things where you just feel like women don't necessarily take into account things that will help them kind of progress as founders or as business people, you know? Yeah. I don't know. I can't recall a single time in my education where men got the money talk and we got the like, let's talk about sex and children.

27:41But I definitely know that when I'm with my friends and coworkers or whatever, the default is how cute is my kid? How many times a week are you having sex? Right. But we're never like, what was your plan? Did you do life insurance? Did you do a Roth? Did you invest in stocks? Are you doing Bitcoin? How much did you ask for that project? And it's uncomfortable to even ask your friends and colleagues those things. But men are doing it all day long and there isn't this like creepiness about it. That's what they're talking about on the golf course. So wherever that happens to us and we lose track, I think we need to get more aggressive with how we communicate and bring those subjects up with each other and learn from each other.

28:25I talk about it as the added chapter in my book, like talk about money instead of sex. Yeah. Yeah. Both to friends and partners. Yeah. Well, let's talk about your book. Congratulations. I am in awe of anyone that manages to write a book. So this is Fearless and Rules to Unlock Creativity and Success. um I know you have there are 20 I think there are 21 um now there's 22 22 okay uh we can't go through all of them give me uh I actually have skimmed through I'm a very slow reader so I skim um but give me give me the cliff notes what what is going to make me more fearless as uh you know it's definitely one of my ambitions.

29:19So the goal of the book is that you don't read it and then be like, I'm fearless. It's more like I'm scared and here I go. Here are the 22 things I'm going to grasp onto when I'm making these scary choices. One of the chapters is sometimes you win, sometimes you learn. It's reframing failure. You're going to fail all the time. It's going to happen. You cannot prevent it. And you need to get comfortable with it. And you need to view it as a learning opportunity. So instead of like, I failed, I'm a loser. I can't believe what these people think of me. It's like, wow, what did I learn from this? And how am I going to come back stronger?

29:52And I think the more you do that, it does become a muscle. And you get out of the negative shame spiral of it all. And just, again, figure out how you're going to bounce back. There's a chapter about communication, whether it's to your partner, husband, wife, about Really setting expectations, understanding expectations and needs and wants from both sides. Not everyone can read your mind. There was a big divide between my brother and I when I had my first kid because he, again, talking about male, female, different needs and wants, he was happy to keep working until 9 every night. And I wasn't.

30:28I was like, I'm going home to my baby. And we definitely had to sit down and say, this is how this has changed now that I have a baby. And this is what I need and want and what do you need and want. And so it's like, it's not like you get to have the conversation once inside of the office or with your spouse. You are doing it at least quarterly, you know? Yeah. I think a lot of the rules to me are so interesting because they're kind of like, yeah, they're so practical, you know? And very kind of growth mindset. I don't know if you ever read the Carol Dweck book, but like managing to it just reminds me of the fact that everyone has the ability to make their own path forward.

31:14Like, you know, if you take a failure as a failure of the self, that's what you've done to yourself versus turning it, as you said, into an opportunity. like I feel like a lot of you know your drive and way of thinking about the world is about what can you do to to impact the world but do you think that's true I mean how what's the secret to your success like yeah what are your superpowers um I think there's not one secret I wish there was I think that at the end of the day, you could distill this down to fearless decision making. Again, you're filled with fear, but you do it anyways. I think it's getting back up.

32:00In one of the chapters, I talk about the fact that sometimes I feel like we're just still around because I didn't give up, not because someone helped us or continued. We just said, okay, this sucks and we're going to go out of business, but let's keep trying. And I think sometimes that in itself can be a reason why someone succeeds. Interesting. Do you have mentors? I always worry that I haven't I definitely had people that have been helpful to me but I always worry I kind of missed out on mentors I don't know or maybe they're or maybe it's just in real life you don't label them as mentors I don't know some people do though tell me do you do you have mentors I don't have like a labeled mentor I think that's another word like balance that a woman's like, oh, I'm going to have a mentor and she's going to unlock the secrets of the universe and then I'll be successful.

32:54I think that I have women, many different women who I turn to for different, very specific advice. Again, it's a chapter in my book. Don't ask for help. Ask for what you need. So I'll go to a very specific person for a very specific request. and I think that I just try and surround myself with tons and tons of successful awesome women and I'm watching what they're doing and I think there's a difference of you can watch someone achieve things you want and be jealous or be inspired and so I watch the people that normally other people would label as jealousy and I'm like cool how do I do that and so I'm learning by watching and seeing how they're doing something in a way that allows me to figure it out like what does my path look like?

33:40Because it's not going to be the same as theirs. Yeah. I mean, that's a big part of why I started this, you know, professional jealousy is a little, you know, tongue in cheek, but it's, it's that like, you know, I get to, it's my, you know, attempt to talk to people that, yeah, I can be jealous of, or I can be inspired by and help, you know, be better um you've obviously done a podcast for actually years you're actually one of the ogs in the space almost i think um any advice for me as i try and get through my uh my you know my early podcasts what what should i be doing better i would say well no your questions are great um And it's nice.

34:31You're asking me questions I haven't answered a hundred times with my canned answers at this point. I think that for more at this point, you know, the way that I've seen podcasts grow is by you going on a million other podcasts and talking about the podcast and then really getting your listeners to share. And is there an incentive for them sharing? um what sort of what do you give me an example of that on yours like if they if they write a review um or leave a comment the platform i'm i'm on with spotify you can interact with fans and talk to them and and get them excited and you know we've done giveaways before like download the podcast send me the thing and i'll send you a bag you know so what you know what value can they get outside of it how do you how do you make them like a closer tight-knit community i'm gonna have trouble giving away brand strategies might not be as effective as your bags but it might be though because you're gonna attract right you're gonna attract a lot of women who can't afford your services who are listening to your podcast that now you're like yeah i'll do a one hour zoom with my top 100 you know fans oh my god that's thank you that was that actually i said it so flippantly but you know what you're right oh my god it'd be so valuable like we needed brand work early on and we couldn't afford it like i'd love to be able to sit down with you be like what am i doing wrong with my brand because oh my god such good idea all right well i and in return i will chat with you about anything anything i can do to be helpful please do remind me yeah yeah i would love that and then the only other thing is um you can do cross promotions with like-minded podcasts you'll read an ad for them they'll read an ad for you for your podcast so it's a lot of administrative work but it does help okay amazing thank you I feel like that was a quick a quick just personal you know help session yeah and then sorry lastly I think and I've spoken to a number of people and I think there's some that don't want to admit it you do have to pay for ads and or there is a service that actually only gets paid if the person they target downloads the podcast and I can send that to you after big podcasts use it they're lying if they don't because once apple did the update your phone no longer automatically downloads the next person that you follow like the you have to manually go do it so this is the way to sort of help ensure that your listenership grows all right that sounds good um I also have to release them first so yes yeah all right tell me about your decision to go on the real housewives um of New York um what about it felt right for you um yeah I just loved it I mean it's definitely as someone looking in it's definitely fearless like it looks pretty scary to me I don't know so tell me talk to me about it oh it was a fearless decision um I think if I go back to the time period where I was in with production the story the the pitch was this is a reboot we have eight self-made women or we want to have eight self-made women um showing their lives we wanted this season we want it to be fun and funny with a little bit of drama.

38:07And I very much full warnings. I was like, I'm not going to talk bad about a woman. I'm not going to throw another woman under the bus. I'm not going to gossip about her. I'm not going to fight with another woman. I'm going to communicate with them in a mature way. I said, and if that's not what you need, I get it. I don't need to do this because that's not who I am. And they're like, we don't need that. We have that box checked. And I was like, great. I think I felt by like the first scene I was in, maybe the second, that I was now on a ride I could not get off of and how am I going to navigate this?

38:49And I think at that moment, it was more about, all right, I've signed up to do this. It's not what I ever anticipated being a part of you know how do I how do I get how do I get out alive no yeah and it was hard yeah yeah I mean what was the most exciting and the most uh my rose and my thorn yeah yeah yeah totally I think that the rose was outside of we've always has been first to do many things and to be in touch with our consumer. And so to be able to be, I went into this with a thought, like if I can be in front of my consumer and entertain her and delight her and she can see a different side of me, not that I anticipated they would distill me down to that side of me, but in my rose colored glasses, I was like, if she can see, you know, intimate workings of my company, my family life, like the stuff I do for women, how cool would that be.

39:46She'll get to know me better. And I'll reinforce that connection that she had originally. I also thought being that it's our 20th anniversary, it was going to be like a great time to be on TV in women's homes, you know, celebrating that publicly. I would say the thorn is it became the exact opposite. You know, I was edited down to a mute person who says random things. And that is not what, not who I was and what I shared. And that's the magic of cinematography and editing. And everything that I stood for and everything that I wanted to share was actually cut out. Like what's crazy is it's called reality TV.