One Take with Tony (Chusy) Jardine

👉 The Scoop – Tony and I met at FCB when he was the creative on Johnson Wax. But Tony is much more than a great and funny guy and an extraordinary creative. Much much more: Tony was the first Venezuelan to win a Sundance Film Festival in dramatic competition, two Emmys, multiple awards, Cannes Lyons, Clio Awards, New York festivals, One Shows, and much more. Tony’s film company “Plan A Films” underscores his philosophy that there is no “Plan B”.

👉 Decisive Moment #1 – Tony moved from Venezuela to LA to study cinematography when the Bolivar crashed, increasing his student debt 28 times. He saw an ad in AdWeek for a bilingual copywriter at FCB, sent them a poem and a painting and Geoff Thompson hired him.  

👉 Decisive Moment #2 – His ex-wife’s mother hugged him all of a sudden at a BBQ and said “I’ve been diagnosed lung cancer. And the irony is I’m 59 and have been waiting my whole life to live”.

👉 Unexpected change or event – Fired from FCB

👉 What did he do? – Tony started “Plan A Films”. 20 years later, he has achieved a ton of success following his “Plan A”: being a film director.

 👉 About older workers – I think that as you get older there's a sin you commit, but it's also a blessing. The sin you commit is to ⁓ to presume that you know anything.

You do know a lot, but the reality is you don't know anything. That is the only way to cultivate a youthful mind. The youthful mind is always hungry. The aged mind is not.

Why should we hire older people? We are resolutely ourselves. We have a point of view that is informed by years and years and years and years of experience, of experimentation, of critical thinking.

It's the critical thinking component. A computer can never tell you the value of that inference.

Being resolutely yourself is a great asset you bring to the story.

Being older allows us to guide all this the these assets, all these skills, and take it to a higher level. And I think that's where we're we have value as older people.