Innovation + Resiliency with Donnie Rust (part 2)

Ever found yourself at a crossroads, where the only way forward is to adapt and innovate? Meet Donnie Rust, the inventive mind behind The Lost Executive, who navigated the turbulent waters of the pandemic with resilience and creative flair. From battling the economic shockwaves that struck the travel industry to embracing the rise of digital nomads and remote work, Donnie's journey is a testament to the power of strategic pivots. Listen in as he shares how offering pro bono content became a lifeline for struggling businesses, keeping them visible in an uncertain world.

Picture this: the cobblestone streets of Prague, where every corner holds a story waiting to be told. With Donnie as our guide, we're whisked away to this enchanting city, where his adventures meld with the ambitious evolution of The Lost Executive's storytelling platforms. Discover the vision behind relaunching their magazine, the exciting prospects of podcasts and YouTube channels, and a fresh initiative to uplift self-published authors sharing their digital nomad tales. It's a world where the medium matters as much as the message, and Donnie is on a mission to captivate both today's leaders and tomorrow's trailblazers.

Finally, we embark on a rollercoaster ride through Donnie's entrepreneurial escapades. From a teenage bicycle repair venture in South Africa to his eccentric stint as the Naked Busker in Britain, Donnie's stories brim with humor and hard-earned wisdom. Whether it's a failed reality TV project or the lessons from his myriad of creative endeavors, Donnie's narrative underscores the importance of resilience and passion. Join us and connect with our Reignite Resilience community, where your shared insights and aha moments contribute to a collective journey of growth and empowerment.

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Chapters

• 0:06 Resilience and Adaptation in Changing Times
• 10:56 Navigating New Horizons in Business
• 23:51 Lessons Learned From Failed Ventures
• 33:40 Igniting Passion for Resilience

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

All of us reach a point in time where we are depleted and need to somehow find a way to reignite the fire within. But how do we spark that flame? Welcome to Reignite Resilience, where we will venture into the heart of the human spirit. Resilience where we will venture into the heart of the human spirit. We'll discuss the art of reigniting our passion and strategies to stoke our enthusiasm. And now here are your hosts, natalie Davis and Pamela Cass.

Speaker 2: 0:41

Welcome back to part two of our two-part conversation with Donnie Rust, the founder and creator of the Lost Executive. We are so excited to dive right back into the conversation with Donnie so that we can learn more about his journey that he's had in creating a fabulous business that all started on a wild hair and a risk we hope you enjoy. I want to come back to your experience, especially with the pandemic. I feel like the pandemic is really kind of a marker for the entire world. We were able to. Unfortunately, we experienced it all at the same time.

Speaker 2: 1:14

But coming out of the pandemic, you mentioned that it was hard for the business, but then I feel like it created this whole new era of nomadic individuals, nomadic workers, nomadic travelers, whatever you want to call it that really didn't exist two years prior to that. There was this discovery of individuals that knew that they wanted to travel the world and have that nomadic lifestyle. So on one end, it might have been a hard hit for your business, but on another, I would imagine that it uncovered a whole new, just group of individuals that weren't there as potential clients.

Speaker 3: 1:48

Yeah Well, I mean, our clients are predominantly the businesses involved in travel industry. So in terms like the revenue side of things, the magazine and the platform because we do more than just the magazine but the platform in general was hit very hard because travel and hospitality just died. Our clients had no money Plus, what is worse is because they took such a heavy whack from it, the invoices and the bills that we had weren't paid either. There's no way that we could chase them up because they're like we don't have any money, which kind of sucks. Plus, at the start of it as well, things had gone very well and I'd managed to kind of save, because I'm a big believer in saving. I managed to save quite a bit of cash, and then I put all of it into protecting our team at the start of the pandemic, because we were told by the government that the lockdown was only going to be six weeks. So we kind of calculated okay, fine, Loyalty was quite important to me, so fine, I'll just make sure everyone's paid, that's fine, no worries, no worries.

Speaker 3: 2:42

And then, once that was gone, it was still literally another year and a half, two years, before things opened up again. So we had to pivot and we had to make things happen. So that was one of the low parts that I meant when you're working out what you have to do in a day just to keep a business alive. But yeah, so COVID did hit us very hard and it was a pain we had to kind of we didn't shelve the project, but it did go down to much lower capacity. We tried to relaunch the magazine several times. We tried in 21 and that didn't work out again because people were like yeah, we want to be involved.

Speaker 3: 3:15

We can't pay.

Speaker 3: 3:17

I was like hey, yes, Because we were writing content for businesses to make sure that they had fresh content to attract new clients. We were writing content for businesses to make sure that they had fresh content to attract new clients. We were writing articles on the hospitality industry and hotels pro bono, because these businesses just needed the exposure. Everyone was fighting for the attention of the very few people who had the confidence to travel. This is when things kind of opened up, because, while there was this massive rush of people wanting to travel everywhere, different sectors didn't open up as fast as others could. You had the big hotels that are like oh yeah, we can open our doors. Now we open up because they've got the insurance policies. They had the money back in them. Well, some of them had the money back in them.

Speaker 3: 4:01

Covid certainly did reveal that not every business is basically always working on the margins, because companies are like we employ 3,000 people but we can't pay anyone. So it was a bit of an eye-opener for all of that and I think the fragility of industry was really kind of revealed. And so when things opened up, you had the smaller businesses. You had these family businesses, these B&Bs and these smaller homes, these smaller hotels and the campsites and the glamping sites. These are all individuals who decided to build up these small businesses, hoping to build something grand, and they were just swamped by it, and so we did a focus in terms of, like the glamping sites, for example, we did quite a heavy focus on them, just highlighting the origin stories of these businesses, highlighting their stories, what they've gone through, how they've pulled things up, what measures they've taken to make sure travelers are safe locations, kind of building up all that. And we played our part in terms of helping the industry recover. I think we certainly did that, which I'm very proud of, and today things are. They've kind of turned around because, like you said, there are more people now who are interested in traveling and working at the same time.

Speaker 3: 5:05

The remote industry has never been working. Remote has never been more popular. Digital nomads have never been more popular. But that is also kind of causing some issues in other areas as well for the businesses that are our clients, because not every employee, not every person is suited to working remotely, because when you don't have someone looking over your shoulder making sure you're doing the job, there are a lot of people who are like, oh, I just won't do it, yeah, yeah, or they just go find I'll just find that really low standard that I can do, just so I don't lose the job, which is, you know, I use that to cover myself when I was building up the business, but other days I was working, you know, 20 hour days. Some people are just like, no, I'll just do the bare minimum, I'll just coast while they're traveling. So they're getting the best of both worlds, but the company suffers.

Speaker 3: 5:54

Yes, like you say, it's a fresh thing. There's lots of stuff happening. It's a bit of a chaotic storm. I don't know. Know how things are going to go. How is that kind of thing working in the US? Are more and more people working remotely, and has digital nomads become more and more popular across on your side of the ocean?

Speaker 4: 6:11

There was a huge shift right when the pandemic happened, and then a lot of companies closed down offices and were able to work. They're like nope, you're going to work remote because they found it was more cost effective not to have the building, the bricks and mortar. But then, same thing, the efficiency wasn't there. And so then there were companies that were like, nope, everybody has to come back.

Speaker 4: 6:31

And we'd already had people that are like sweet, I don't have to go to the office, let's go move to another state or let's move to the mountains and now they have to go back to work and so there's been a lot of shift, I think the biggest thing that we've seen in our industry, cause we're both in real estate. I was one of those agents that I was at the office every day. I never go to the office. I'm there maybe once in, once a month actually won an award for my company this year and it was catch me, if you can, which is hilarious. From that, yeah, I will come in and I'll be like, okay, and then I'm like, all right, bye, I'll see you in a month. So, yeah, so it's getting people back in, but I know how powerful it is for that connection. You know that in-person connection, that energy transfer that you get from being with a person, but not everybody's suited for working from home. I'm comfortable working from home, but not everybody is.

Speaker 3: 7:28

I do find that I think the creative industry especially is the creative side of things that is tied into. Like, for example, publishing has a very strong creative element to it, even with the growth of artificial intelligence and things like chat, gpt and whatnot. There's this kind of fear in my industry that when chat GPT came out, people were like that's it. Writers are done, no one's ever going to write again. Content creators are done. And I was like there was a time when dock workers rioted and went on strike on the docks because people were bringing in forklifts a hundred years ago and it's like it's just a new tool. And you know, a hundred years ago. And it's like it's just a new tool and if you don't use it, if you don't know how to use it, you're going to be left behind. But it is just a new tool. And I was like there was a time when people, when you didn't even have spell check on things, so you had to check your own spell check. You know now everyone uses that, you just adapt the technology to work with. But I do think that in the creative industries, not having someone with you to bounce off of can be a problem.

Speaker 3: 8:27

As a journalist myself.

Speaker 3: 8:28

I find I actually, wherever I go because at the moment I'm kind of stuck in one location I've got a family I'm raising, but prior to that, when I was traveling, I always used to make sure that I'd rent out a desk somewhere in a co-working space, in an office, wherever I was, whether it be a Regis or a co-working or a Hive, whatever the case was because just having someone around you does bring out the best in terms of creativity and work ethic, because if you're working hard and you're working straight forward and you take a break and you see someone else working as well, you go.

Speaker 3: 8:59

Okay, fine, I'll get back into it. It cuts away distractions. So I do think that the office, working in an office environment, can be useful. But on the same note as well, I like traveling, I like traveling. So it kind of goes without it. Some people are just fine not working in an office, they're fine working by themselves. But I find I do need a balance between it, or else I just get so wrapped up in my own head I'll get nothing done.

Speaker 4: 9:21

Yeah, we do a think week every year. We're doing a three-day retreat this week and that's kind of what we do. It's when we decided to do a podcast and that's yeah.

Speaker 2: 9:31

Came out of one of those think weeks. Yes, exactly.

Speaker 4: 9:35

Yeah, having those people that you can bounce ideas off of and collaborate with, and also something, and it'll spur something from Natalie and vice versa, and so, yeah, it's such a great idea.

Speaker 3: 9:46

Yeah, I think that the social aspects of creativity is very important. Again, if you look at any kind of any of the stories that we watch on television or we read the really popular stories, wherever there's that that one creative genius, you know whether it be Sherlock Holmes or whether it be, you know any kind of fictional writing on, like Leonardo da Vinci or Michelangelo or Doctor who or whatever it is. They always have a companion that they can bounce off of and the moment that social aspect is gone, the moment they don't have an audience, they can bounce on the soundboard, they can bounce off ideas from, they just spiral and they just lose themselves. I think if you're not working at office, definitely having someone that you can have creative discussions with is vital to keeping things fresh or else you just fall apart. It's one of the reasons why I love doing podcasts.

Speaker 3: 10:32

I love getting involved in other people's podcasts because it gives you the opportunity to talk about stuff. I do tend to talk a lot and I get quite involved. I'm like ugh. So you can imagine if I'm by myself.

Speaker 2: 10:44

I'm just like ugh, and there's only so much of yourself that you can listen to. Right, you can say it, but what else will you say to you?

Speaker 3: 10:53

Yeah, I remember I was in Prague. Oh Prague, I love Prague. If I hadn't ended up in Edinburgh during lockdown, I would have loved to have been in Prague. Have you ever visited the city? No, it's the home of Bohemia. It's like it's got that culture, it's got that vibe. It's just European, the heart of Europe. It's just gorgeous.

Speaker 3: 11:12

And I was there during the winter time as well, so snowing as well, and the trams. I was just so spectacular. But I remember I got there like two AM in the morning and I'd been traveling quite a bit. I was I'd been on a bus for 48 hours and I hadn't slept and I was basically just riding on like six packs of monster and Red Bull was very unhealthy and I hadn't realized. But I was just talking to myself while I was just kind of getting ready, I was getting quite animated and I got a knock on the door from this lovely old guy. He didn't speak a word of English and he gradually just kind of made it clear like listen, it's like 3.30 in the morning and you're making a lot of noise.

Speaker 3: 11:50

I was in an Airbnb so he was like he basically just made it. He just like he wrote me a note in Czechoslovakian so I had to go into Google Translate and Google it. He basically just said have you moved in? So I was like no, he goes good. And he just leaves.

Speaker 2: 12:09

As long as this is temporary, we're good.

Speaker 3: 12:11

Yeah. He was like have you moved in? I was like no, he goes. Oh, that's good, that's good. And off he went, happy as pie. I was like all right, I felt very unwelcome. I think having someone that you can bounce off of and have a laugh with is important, Especially for myself. I'm a storyteller, so if I don't have someone to tell stories to, I don't do well, Great dad, exactly. Yeah, my two-week-old daughter is my strongest critic already.

Speaker 4: 12:36

Of course she is. She will continue to be.

Speaker 3: 12:40

I've got a stepson with my partner, a 10-year-old. He can be a brutal critic, sometimes A brutal critic. Yeah, sometimes you're just like ha.

Speaker 2: 12:50

Yeah, I found it to be the best, though, it's like you know, I would have never said it to myself. But now that you've said it to me, I'll at least take it into consideration.

Speaker 3: 13:00

Yeah, he found a clip of some of the old comedy I did when I was in my twenties, when I was one of the other projects I was I was involved in I was the naked busker. And he found a clip on the YouTube and he just went that sucks. I was like cheers. I was like, yeah, that's what he goes. You know what do you? How do you phrase it? He goes yeah, that sucks, I can see why you're not a comedian anymore. I was like, yeah, little shit. Oh, sorry, I don't know if I'm allowed to use that language.

Speaker 2: 13:34

The kids, exactly. They're fabulous, they're fabulous. Well, donnie, tell us what is in store with the Lost Executive. You now have various mediums in terms of the content that you're sharing and how that's going out. Tell us what's on the horizon, what's going on.

Speaker 3: 14:44

Sure. So we've relaunched the magazine. We did a slight revamp of the mag which was much needed, so we relaunched that middle of last year. So that's going well. After many false starts, we're looking at setting up a podcast. We tried to get a YouTube channel up and running and thinking that we'd be able to convert the. We got just under 130,000 regular subscribers to the magazine and we made the ignorant idea. We had the ignorant idea that it would just convert onto YouTube presence, which was not the case at all. It's easy to get blood out of stone and get some people just to change the media that they work on.

Speaker 3: 15:25

I was like all right, but we tried it. We tested stuff out, we see what works. We did the research, we invested into educating ourselves about what worked, what doesn't work. So the route that we decided to go to because we do need to have, in any kind of business that involves telling stories need to have multiple mediums to tell that story. You can't just do it via the magazine or the website, because fewer people are reading stuff nowadays. I'd say that the important people, the decision makers on our side at least, the decision makers, the business owners they read the articles, but we need to find another way to reach out to new people who may be the business leaders of the future, and so we're looking to set up a podcast. We have no idea how it's going to be formatted, but we're just kind of doing the research on that. We're very excited about that. That's going to be definitely something we're going to be looking at as well, as we're interested in setting up a publishing house for books for self-published authors.

Speaker 3: 16:22

I've been fortunate enough that I've had a few books published. I've written fiction, I've written fiction, I've got a few books published and I've managed to self-publish a couple of my own books. I say a little bit of flourish, which means nothing. That's the other thing about publishing. People are like, oh, you're a published author. I'm like, yes, I am Brilliant. Do I know you? Probably not. So we're setting something up based on that. We're finding the raw talent that we can use to help promote the books kind of people with the experience that we can work with and collaborate with. We have quite a long list of potential authors who are both writing books and are finishing up their manuscripts. Something fun Lots of them are digital nomads, you know, writing about their travels.

Speaker 3: 17:07

And where a lot of writers fall short, I think, is that once you've poured years of work and your heart and soul into creating something and you finish it, then you think, okay, what am I going to do now? Publishers can be horrible. They're only interested in what's definitely going to make them money. The days of old-fashioned publishers taking a gamble and taking a risk on something they think is good. It's going to make them money. The days of old-fashioned publishers taking a gamble and taking a risk on something they think is good. It's just dead now.

Speaker 3: 17:33

But then self-publishing has always been a prominent thing. A lot of the books that we read today that are considered classics were all self-published. The idea of a publishing firm is actually fairly recent. It's actually a fairly new thing. Peter Rabbit's was self-published. The Curious Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, that was self-published. Most of the great poets, that is the norm. Again, I think it's useful to have a publishing house set up specifically for that, to kind of give these authors a bit of a push. So that's something we're looking to. If not set up this year, it'll definitely be next year. We're kind of managing a few things around events that are taking place this year and obviously, as a driving force, I do have other priorities at the moment. I won't lie, in terms of business I'm the worst thing because I'm just completely distracted by my family. I can't work from home. That's the other reason I can't work from home, because the second they come into the room there's nothing else that's taking place.

Speaker 2: 18:28

Which is a beautiful thing and also not a productive thing, but it's beautiful.

Speaker 3: 18:32

It's beautiful until you have to pay bills, that's exactly that. Yes, she comes in and she's like well, what about your bottom line standard? I was like I got my daughter. What are you talking? About she's sleeping.

Speaker 4: 18:47

Look at this moment, exactly.

Speaker 2: 18:48

Go away, go away. She's sleeping. Look at this moment.

Speaker 3: 18:50

Exactly. Go away, go away, she's, she's sleeping. Oh, that's great I love that you got to work. You have a meeting Go away.

Speaker 2: 19:01

Go away. That's right. You go back to the basics of what you said. Like the phone and the internet, if you can make the call that you're good to go you can't do that when you're you've got a sleeping baby.

Speaker 3: 19:16

Yeah, I think there's probably. There's probably a different kind of key tools that you need if you have a family.

Speaker 3: 19:18

You know, phone, internet, get an office somewhere or that's it you know, do your one door, yeah, yeah, just you know, I mean I don't regret it, though I don't I don't regret it, I think it's. I think being a father is great. I'm really enjoying it. I mean that that's that's kind of that's kind of my thing. For a long time I didn't think I could have kids, so it was a it was a bit of a surprise and everything was a bit of a rush. Not a bit of a rush. We moved at our own pace, but everyone else seems to think it's quite fast. I, I don't have any middle gears, so I tend to it's on or off.

Speaker 3: 19:52

Yeah, yeah, I mean in February. Our daughter will be just over a month old, maybe a month, maybe six weeks old, in middle of February and we will celebrate our one year anniversary of being together.

Speaker 2: 20:04

Oh, congratulations.

Speaker 4: 20:06

Exactly, it's exciting.

Speaker 3: 20:08

Yeah, it is, it's exciting, it's quite fast. I mean lucky, I think is the word I'd say.

Speaker 3: 20:14

It's quite lucky. It could definitely have been the case that we would be like, well, this was not the right decision to make, but it's one of those weird things. I've always had the consideration that I've always considered myself to be quite lucky. Yeah, because I'll be like oh, oh, yeah, no, I'm lucky, I'm lucky, I'm in business, I'm lucky, I've got this business that I'm running. That's quite nice. And people are like, yeah, but what have you done for it? I'm like, ah, and then I think back. I'm like, yeah, I've just done a lot of blind jumping, just blind, having a bit of faith that things will work out if I just keep leaning forward and changed everything. That was quite lovely actually.

Speaker 2: 20:47

I think that's what faith is right. It has to be blind, otherwise you're kind of just dipping a toe in.

Speaker 3: 20:53

Yeah yeah, you can't have faith if you're certain. If you're certain in something, then faith has no place in it.

Speaker 2: 20:58

Exactly.

Speaker 3: 21:00

Yeah, I'm not religious in any way, but I do think that believing in something, even if it's just a case that believe in luck, If you just believe that you're lucky, often that will just hold you out. Luck will always hold you out. If your nerve can stand it, If you can hold your nerve for long enough, pure blind luck will just leave you in the right way. The universe conspires to get you what you want. And yeah, it's been a hectic year for the magazine, for the life, for the family and for the business, but I wouldn't change it for the world Beautiful.

Speaker 4: 21:31

Mushy. See your next chapter in love.

Speaker 2: 21:35

Exactly. I'm excited for it, amazing.

Speaker 3: 21:38

Yeah, my kids are never going to be allowed on the internet. I'm not going to allow them on the internet because there's a lot of stuff from the last 30 years that I'll be doing being an idiot on the internet. So it's like, yeah, they're like Daddy, why can't we go on Google? No, no.

Speaker 4: 21:52

I don't know who that guy is.

Speaker 3: 21:54

Yeah.

Speaker 4: 21:54

Some of your comedy sets like not nothing.

Speaker 3: 21:57

They'll be coming and say, Daddy, I found something on the internet. And then, like the next day, they'll be like Daddy, why did you burn all the computers?

Speaker 4: 22:06

That's me. I don't know who that was.

Speaker 2: 22:09

You know, and here's like, the curious side of me is just like well, now I've got to go down the rabbit hole. There's limited information out there on you. I just didn't prep for this recording, but now I'm curious.

Speaker 3: 22:25

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 22:25

Oh goodness, it's fine, it's great.

Speaker 3: 22:31

Donnie, you're safe with us. Oh no, like I said, I don't mind talking about it. I don't mind talking about it Like they will one day ask you know, daddy, why are we living in a hut on a mountaintop, like everything you? Know With no internet, people start talking about old stuff that they found on the internet, but so we had just had to go live out in the Bundu.

Speaker 2: 22:51

That's the safe place, it's just.

Speaker 3: 22:56

I do. When I get an idea in my head, I'm just like, oh, brilliant, this is it. This is what's going to work, this is what's going to make me, this is it the life changer. I've got to do it and everything thing about it is the most important thing. So I'm like I've absolutely got to do this. If I don't do this, I'll regret it. And sometimes I'm like brilliant and that formulates into like an idea, a creative idea. I'm like excellent, there's no way that this could fail. And granted, the ones that succeed, they do pretty well, but there's at least nine out of 10 of them that just fall flat in their face, and not just the case of oh, the business could then quite work out. It's like everyone's like yeah, we told you that wasn't going to work.

Speaker 2: 23:31

This is not it anyway, I mean, what?

Speaker 3: 23:33

what were some of the crazy? I could give you a short list of some of the dumbest things I've done. Some of the dumbest ideas If, if you have any reader, any listeners who are like interested in to find out how someone can basically just fail their way into success.

Speaker 2: 23:46

I think that's important Absolutely. What are, yeah, what are a handful of those? Yes, all right.

Speaker 3: 23:51

So when I was I was 13, I set up a business with a mate of mine called Bradley, made her in South Africa, called Fix and Shine and our whole thing was that we were going to fix bicycles and then shine them up for money. It was easy. Yeah, we were riding our bicycles in the suburbs in South Africa, which is fantastic, very violent, lots of crime. We were just riding about on our bicycles. It was a different time and we set up the business. We got flyers before, like emails and stuff. So we had little flyers we put up everywhere and we got lots of people saying, yes, please come fix our bicycles and we were like, oh, this is so exciting. And we got there and realized that we had no idea, we didn't even know. So like we rocked up. I think I rocked up at our first kind of client. I had a. I had a wrench from my that I nicked from my dad's garage and it was a wrench for a blooming car.

Speaker 3: 24:40

It had nothing to do with a bike at all. And, bless her heart, our first, our first customer, was a girl named Ruth Purdom who was like she just like stood there, here's my bike and Edward being wrecked and we're like, can we just shine it? She's like, yeah, no, okay, she's okay, fair enough, you can fix it. You don't know what you're doing, so just give it a shine. We're like brilliant, can we borrow some polish please? Yeah, we literally just it was terrible, so that was not the best start. That's it.

Speaker 3: 25:12

Yeah, then, like I said, I was a stand-up comedian for a bit, called the Naked Busker. That was in my 20s, my mid-20s, a little bit of a big deal. I was big enough that I was traveling around Britain doing gigs and I would just get up and play the guitar in a pair of boots and a funny hat and nothing else, and that was successful enough, except I was playing the guitar and I didn't know how to sing. I was a really bad singer, so, and also I didn't know how to learn anyone else's song, so I learned so I made up my own songs to play on the guitar badly and sing yeah.

Speaker 3: 25:46

That went okay for a bit and then I was like, yeah, this is exhausting.

Speaker 3: 25:50

I'm really exhausting because I was traveling around and like I had to be fit all the time. So I had to like kind of make sure I was at the gym and kind of stay in shape and I was like, especially in wintertime, I was just walking around in like, at most, a little bit of almost like a little bit of a bikini kind of thing and boots. So I was like freezing cold all the time and people would say, oh, play us a song. I'm like it's minus two, I'm not playing a song. I'm not playing a song. I look like a Ken doll. And they're like, oh, you must be really cold. I'm like, yes, yes, that chattering you hear isn't gunfire, it's my tea.

Speaker 4: 26:27

You're going to have to live in a mountain shack with your family. That's it, hence.

Speaker 3: 26:35

Yeah, there's a few things on like, a few people have come up to me and this is one of the reasons why I think I have to keep building businesses, because no one's going to employ me, cause they're like, yeah, we did a bit of a background search and you're like, really, yeah, we just Googled you. We Googled Donnie rust. Yeah, I spent some time on there. It's just like there's a lot of pages. I'm like, yeah, there is, there's a lot of stuff out there. That's it. Oh, wow. I briefly wanted to. I briefly set up a bunch of cameras in my apartment, thinking that what I was going to do is create a reality show where people could just watch me live my life, and I called it fly on the wall cams. Now it's dead. That died very quickly, because what I realized is that my social life perished. Oh, yeah, because again.

Speaker 4: 27:20

I was like this is brilliant.

Speaker 3: 27:22

Everyone's going to want to do it. So I got a website set up. I spent a fortune on getting these really fancy cameras which are put up in my apartment all over the place, and then I was like, got set up and I got people checking it out on on the website. This is fantastic. But then, like no one all my friends didn't want to come over. No one wanted to come over for drinks. I hang out. I was like what's wrong with you? Don't worry, it's fine, Just come on in. I need you to sign this disclaimer.

Speaker 4: 27:45

Exactly, let's have a beer.

Speaker 3: 27:48

And also I kind of realized the kind of people who watch that sort of thing and I was like, yeah, these people are scary, power down, yes, yeah, that was. I made the mistake of telling everyone that, and I also think I left the job because I thought that was going to be like I was working for a magazine.

Speaker 4: 28:08

That was going to be a million dollar idea.

Speaker 3: 28:09

I thought I was going to be a millionaire in like a weekend. I thought you know I'd set up on Friday. By the Monday I'd be a millionaire, I would never have to work again. So I left the job and I like, very kind of like pulling down all the cameras and full of the holes it just kind of like just never speaking to anyone about it ever again.

Speaker 4: 28:26

Like at all. Yes, it was dead.

Speaker 3: 28:30

Oh yeah, yeah. And there's just, you know, my brain just kind of races Like oh, I can't tell you that one.

Speaker 2: 28:38

I can't tell you that one.

Speaker 3: 28:39

I can't tell you that one.

Speaker 2: 28:41

Creativity. I have to say that, with the businesses that you've already shared, like these three, I'm thinking gosh, there's not a lack of creativity there, for sure.

Speaker 3: 28:50

Yeah. The thing is, though, is that I think people have actually done that very well, and also, the cameras were before the invent of OnlyFans and whatnot, which has taken off, which I do kind of. There's a part of me that's like, yeah, fine, so I had all these wacky ideas Brilliant, you were ahead of it. Yeah, none of them worked. And I'm like, yeah, none of them worked. For a long time, I was a struggling writer, and then you get some. I had a friend. I say a friend. I was able to interview her, and she left her job working at a bank, a Tesco bank. She was earning a fortune because she went on OnlyFans, and all that she does is she bores herself some really nice lingerie and she makes Lego, lego things you know with, like Star Wars, lego and Jurassic World and stuff, and she does that on camera and she makes a fortune. I'm like you're kidding me. I'm like you're kidding me. That's so unfair.

Speaker 2: 29:38

Donnie, you were just ahead of your time, that's all.

Speaker 3: 29:42

I'm a 40-year-old man, I'm too old for OnlyFans. I don't want to be on OnlyFans. I mean, I and I don't know, I got big hands. I can't do that.

Speaker 4: 29:53

You might not want to do the lingerie and the Legos.

Speaker 3: 29:58

You might have to come up with something different. Could you imagine if I did that? Then I went in for a job interview in the future and they're like yes, we did a little bit of research on you no, yes, this is your kids. It's like daddy. Why didn't we leave earth? Why are we?

Speaker 4: 30:12

living in space. Leave the planet.

Speaker 3: 30:16

I'm like don't talk you're, you're steam up your your helmet, stop talking.

Speaker 4: 30:20

That's awesome that is awesome.

Speaker 2: 30:23

I love that well for our aspiring entrepreneurs out there. I guess this is just to say there are no bad ideas. You you may fail your way through them, but there are no bad ideas.

Speaker 3: 30:35

Yeah, I think it's important that you learn from stuff.

Speaker 2: 30:38

That's it, the lessons learned.

Speaker 3: 30:40

If you never try something, you'll never know what works, and you won't learn what doesn't work. There's an old saying, the Hagakure, which is the book that was written for the samurai in Japan. It's a very famous book. You can buy it anywhere. It's like you know, a lot of people do martial arts and whatnot, and the pretentious storyteller is like yes, yes, and the Hagakure says this, but basically it says that in any kind of war council, you should always listen to the old samurai that has failed a few times, because you learn more when you fail than you do when you succeed.

Speaker 3: 31:07

If you succeed at everything, you're never going to learn lessons. It's very difficult to look back on a success and go okay, what did I do right and what did I do wrong? The success creates a very firm line from start to finish. You think, okay, well, this is everything I did right. But if you fail, you go okay, well, this is where I kind of went wrong and where I went to skew and I'm lucky I've got to skew quite often. Yeah, I think I just say that I've just invested very heavily in a very hardcore education.

Speaker 2: 31:37

Well, it's definitely paying rewards now. So kudos to you on that.

Speaker 3: 31:40

Yes, yeah, I mean it is at the moment. It is at the moment. Like anything. A business is a fluid entity. So currently things are going well. We're able to employ a lot of free agents, a lot of digital nomads, a lot of freelancers who are kind of tapped into this gig economy. We're able to provide a lot of free agents, a lot of digital nomads, a lot of freelancers here kind of tapped into this gig economy. We're able to provide them with regular work. Writers again, a lot of exposure thanks to us, which is great. People are very interested in talking with us, which is always nice. I like that. So, yeah, I think it's going well. We have a good reputation. At the moment, things are quite happy and this year has gone very well for me. I'm very, very pleased with how things have turned out.

Speaker 4: 32:18

This has been incredible, oh my gosh. We'll have to get on with you again and try to solve some other world problems.

Speaker 2: 32:30

Listen, I feel that there's a committee that we can volunteer for International Mastermind Group.

Speaker 4: 32:35

I love this with international issues.

Speaker 3: 32:38

Donnie does this.

Speaker 4: 32:40

Exactly yes, it's your next business.

Speaker 3: 32:44

That's it. Please don't make me responsible for other people.

Speaker 4: 32:47

Without the cameras, without the guitar, no singing, and we keep our clothes on.

Speaker 3: 32:54

If I start getting hate mail from you know three or four million people saying, listen, they've just started tearing up all of our bloody roads to get to the water pipes.

Speaker 4: 33:01

Apparently it's your fault. We'll say here's his number, here's his number exactly.

Speaker 2: 33:06

Oh, also, he's never lived here, it's okay.

Speaker 4: 33:08

It's fine.

Speaker 2: 33:08

He gets it. Oh my goodness. No, it has been an absolute pleasure, Donnie, Thank you. Thank you for being a guest on the show today. We will make sure that we include all of your contact. We I mean we really will put your contact information and the Lost Executive contact information in the show notes so that our listeners can reach out to you and check out your website and your publication if they are so inclined. It has been an absolute pleasure, Thank you.

Speaker 3: 33:38

Thank you for joining us. No, thank you, it's been. It's been wonderful. I've had a great time.

Speaker 2: 33:40

Thanks so much for having me on your show. You bet Absolutely, and for our listeners, yes, if you know the deal. If you want to learn about what's happening in the world of Reignite Resilience, head on over to reigniteresiliencecom or find us on Facebook or Instagram at reigniteresiliencepodcast. Until next time, we will see you all soon.

Speaker 1: 33:59

Thank you for joining us today on the Reignite Resilience Podcast. We hope you had some aha moments and learned a few new real life ideas. To fuel the flames of passion, please subscribe on your favorite streaming platform, like or download your favorite episodes and, of course, share with your friends and family. We look forward to seeing you again next time on reignite resilience.