May 5, 2026 • 42 mins
From corporate boardrooms to shoveling donkey poop in Gucci, Ron King shares his incredible journey from a high-flying magazine executive at Time Inc. to founding Oscar’s Place, a sanctuary for rescued donkeys. After losing everything at 50 and facing personal lows, Ron King discovers the difference between enjoyment and true joy. Hear how a viral TikTok video and a persistent friend led him to a life of unexpected purpose, heartbreak, and happiness—and how he’s bringing donkey rescue to national TV with his new ABC show, Donkey King. If you’ve ever wondered if reinvention is possible at any age, don’t miss this moving conversation about hitting rock bottom, finding meaning, and helping those most overlooked.
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Why Ron King Inspires
00:50 When Not to Follow Your Passion
01:43 A Glance at Corporate Success
02:31 Ron King’s Path to Magazines
04:27 Recovery, Addiction, and Redemption
07:28 Falling into New Chapters
09:44 The Persistence that Paid Off
11:16 Lessons from Hitting Bottom
13:31 Defining and Finding Real Joy
14:35 How Donkeys Changed Everything
20:18 Building a Donkey Sanctuary
26:48 Why Donkeys (and Not Horses)?
30:00 Oscar’s Place on ABC’s Donkey King
35:36 Balancing Joy and Heavy Work
37:42 Ron King’s Advice: Hold On
40:22 How to Support Oscar’s Place
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I was homeless and.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Doing really shady things to have somewhere warm to sleep.
I think that there's a difference between joy and enjoyment,
but I could say, if you could hear me, it
would be just hold on for people to just hold on.
And sometimes even when you've been uber successful and you've
(00:24):
made a big tent in people's lives and you've lived
what you think is a good life, and your whole
life falls apart, you've just got a hold on.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Welcome to if you can hear me, a space where
culture meets the soul. I'm Ben Higgins. You may know
me from The Bachelor, and you may know some of
my guests from culture and headlines, but this podcast is
about going beyond the surface into something deeper. Today's guest
is Ron King, whose journey spans from the corporate world
at time Ink to a life centered on healing and restoration.
(00:54):
As co founder of Oscar's Place, he's helped create a
sanctuary we're working with donkeys becomes a pathway for people
to process trauma, slow down, and reconnect with themselves in
a deeper way. I invite you to lean in and
enjoy this conversation.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
Ron King is the guest. Yes, Ron, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Thank you for having me. I am very grateful to
be here, and I'm appreciative of your time. We can
get into this a little bit later if you want,
but now that I'm five years in, I do caution
people about doing this.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
This is really hard work. But we'll get there.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
You know, we're going to educate everybody. I actually am
inspired by you two. I see a lot of kind
of the path that I chose outside of this world
in what you're doing. I didn't know about your story
until recently, but I am I'm encouraged by reading your
(01:55):
story because I feel less alone. So I run a
coffee company that donates a undred percent of our profits
to nonprofits. So I will never make any money on it,
but I work on it like it's a full time job.
That's one of the reasons that we're sitting here today.
This is how I, you know, put food on the table.
I would tell I would not tell anybody to do it.
I would say, stay far away from that model. This
(02:17):
was this was a decision I made. I've gotten myself
into this. I love it, but I don't know if
it's for everybody. Again, this will make more sense ron
you if we were have talked a few years ago.
You had a very successful career in corporate America. You
were working for Time Inc. Moving up the ladder. Can
(02:43):
you flash back to that period of time to give
you know, the listeners a little perspective on what you're doing,
what you're trying to accomplish, where you're trying to go.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Sure, then yes, yes. So I have had.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
A very random life full of chapters that I felt
very lucky to have been blessed with, but none of
them actually happened because I was wise or strategic or graceful.
I just fell into situations and figured out how to
make the best of it. So many many years ago,
I accidentally got a job at a magazine called Southern
(03:19):
Living in Atlanta, Georgia, And it just so happened that
I was entering the magazine world at the same time
as the web was, and so the world was sort
of in turmoil. I had no history. I was entering
the mad Men era, but I didn't know how things
used to be, and I sort of approached my job
with common sense, which stood up like a sore thumb
(03:42):
at timeeek at the time, and it worked really well
for me, and I was promoted maybe eight or nine
times over my first seven years at time Meek and
in the end I was running seven magazines, in Style
being the biggest fashion magazine, also People, Style, Watch, so
Coastal Living and Sunset where my Shelter portfolio, and then
(04:04):
Essence the Essence Music Festival and People in Espanol were
my multi multicultural. So I had seven titles that I
ran and it was quite a life. I mean, I
grew up with nothing, and you know, I've been in
recovery for a long time and there were definitely times
in my life where I thought I was never gonna
amount to anything, and here I amounted it quite a bit,
(04:28):
and it was all new to me. I worked really hard.
I was very successful, but I also really enjoyed it.
I was there for the ride. And so you know,
when you go to fashion shows in Milan and you
represent in Style, people think you're really important and they
usher you in and they sit you next to Don
Telli Versace or Anna Winto, and they usher you out
(04:48):
and you change clothing a sprinter van and you go.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Into the next show.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
And it was really really fun and I really enjoyed
it and then.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Yeah, I mean we can stop down. Yeah. I had
a big life.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
I was successful, I was all new money, and it
was a really fun, unexpected ride from me.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
Did I hear you right? You said you were in recovery?
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Can you leave?
Speaker 2 (05:16):
I got sober? No, I don't mind. So when I
was twenty six years old, I got sober. I was
an alcoholic and a drug addict.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
And I was in a lot of trouble in my life.
I was homeless and.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Doing really shady things to have somewhere warm to sleep
at night, and it was a really dark place. And
I was a waiter at the hard Rock Cafe at
the time, and there was a woman there who I
knew used to drink, who seemed really happy.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
She's older.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
To me, I thought she's older, she's probably younger than
I am now, but at the time, she's an old lady.
And I went to her and I said, Mary Anne, I.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
I tried to kill myself.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
And I'm in a lot of trouble and I need help,
and I think you know how to help me. And
she said, meet me here on Friday and I'll take
you to an AA meeting. And I don't remember anything
from that Tuesday to Friday, but that Friday matter, and
she took me to an AA meeting. That was March first,
nineteen ninety six, and I've been sober ever since. And yeah,
it's been quite a journey and quite an experience. And
(06:27):
I also broke my neck in two thousand, so I've
gone through a couple of things in my life that,
you know, I like to say that I think there
are people who are and from what I know about you, Ben,
which is limited, but I've looked into you a little bit,
and you seem like a really incredible human with a
really big heart. I think there are people who are
born with grace and gratitude and perspective and humility, and
(06:54):
then there are those of us that need to be
shaken to our very core. And unfortunately I was the latter.
And so, you know, from drug addiction and homelessness to
a broken neck to skin cancer at the age of thirty,
I've just gone through enough things where I've just been
kicked in the head enough to be like, all right,
what lessons are here for me to learn? And I'm
(07:15):
really grateful for all of them, to be honest, Yeah,
it's been quite a journey, and then after all of
that happened, I stumbled into Southern living and I ended
up being So it's really interesting perspective to think, well,
that's why he was like sort of feeling like he
was playing grown up sitting next to Don Teli VERSACEI
at a fashion show Milan, because all of that was
a gift to me.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
I mean, let's stay in that season for a bit,
because I think your story is I think everybody's story
is brilliantly interesting. I think the twists and turns of
yours just is relatable to so many. I also think
it's a story that so many may listen to and say, Okay,
I'm in the season of addiction or I'm in the
(07:58):
season of severe pain, and I don't know if there's
a path out of this. I'm starting to feel like
there's not. Stay in this for a second. You know,
as you became more and more successful, I mean, you
use the phrase that you kind of fell into working
for a magazine. I would love if you could elaborate
(08:20):
on what you mean by just falling into I mean
it sounds like you fell into it and then all
of a sudden became wildly successful. In it, So how
did you just fall into it?
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Which is interesting, And for a variety of reasons, I've
been very I also flunked out of college, and so
I'm not very book smart, and so lots of times
I use the wrong words or I mispronounced words.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
I mean, it's just kind of who I am. I
don't really mind.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
But I've been very I think the word is introspective,
and you realize as you get older that you start
to see certain patterns. But I've fallen into lots of things.
I mean, I adopted a kid when he was twelve
he's now thirty. So I fell into parenthood. I fell
into success, I fell in to farming. I've fallen into
all of this random stuff and done the very best
I can to make the best of it. With the
(09:06):
magazine industry in particular. At that point, I had been
sober about five or six or seven years, and I
was working at a media agency in Atlanta, and people
kept telling me I'd be really great at AD sales.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
And I didn't know what ad sales was. I didn't
know what that meant.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
I didn't know what people saw on me that made
them think i'd be good at that I was thirty
one at the time, and so I reached out to
a couple of people and said, I understand you run
ad sales teams, and I've been told I'd be good
at it.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Should we talk?
Speaker 2 (09:43):
And I ended up in a conversation with the publisher
of Southern Living at the time, and he said, look,
I think you're great. I don't have any spots for
you like ad sales. Southern Living in Atlanta, Georgia is
a pretty premium job, and I don't how many openings,
but let's stay in touch and then for a year,
and so keep in mind, keep in mind of all
new money. I remember going to Old Navy and buying
(10:04):
a red flannel shirt, and that was my dress shirt
for these interviews Sudden Living, because I don't even know
what corporate I never sat foot in the corporate office.
And when I look back now at you know, my
Gucci closets and think I was in a five dollars
Old Navy flannel shirt, reminded of the Living interview. I
don't know how I did it, but I wanted to
stay in touch with him. I just thought, well, this
(10:26):
sounds good to me, and so every sixty days I
would do something.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
I would bake.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Cookies and I would hand deliver them to his office.
Or once I bought this little office voodoo kit and
wrote a note saying, hopefully this will help you find
space on your team. A year later he called me
and hired me. And I remember I had my own
office at a in an office building in Atlanta, Georgia,
and I remember calling my partner at the time, and
(10:50):
there was a Sudden Living magazine sitting on the desk, saying,
I don't know what my job is. Like I have
a magazine in front of me, and I think I'm
selling the pages, but I'm selling the actual pages of
the matter. And am I selling this to subscriber? Like
I had no idea what my child bost and then
I ended up being third in line at the company.
So that's that's story. It sounds very sloppy when I
(11:13):
tell it, but that's the story.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
I mean.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
It's do stories like that still exist today?
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Do you know?
Speaker 1 (11:21):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
And I think I don't know how long we're going
to talk, and I have a feeling because of who
you are, we could talk for hours.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
So I want to try to stay focused with you.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
But the level of fall apart in this that I
had when I was twenty six years old happened to
me again when I was fifty. No drugs or alcohol related,
but like my life fell apart, and I had no
idea how I was going to make it through. And
to the point of, like there are people in those chapters,
(11:54):
it's really important to me that people know, you know,
I have to have the answers and that literally, sometimes
all you can do is put one foot in front
of the other. This is an old AA slogan, and
I never understood what it meant, honestly until I was fifty.
In my life fell apart, and I was in a
situation at fifty where I was so full of despair
(12:17):
that I thought, I can stand up, and I can
put one foot in front of the other and make
it to the bathroom. And I can go to the bathroom,
and then I can use that same process to your
back in bed.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
And that is all I can do today.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
And the fact that that's where I was six years ago,
and that today I'm the happiest that I've ever been,
the most full of joy and the most full of
purpose that I've ever been, to me, that's astonishing and
something that I feel as a gift to share with people,
because whether those types of stories happen anymore or not,
(12:54):
it's possible that type of pain happens, and it is possible,
you know. I think one of the the great tragedies
in life is that we have to learn our own lessons.
I wish I could tell all kinds of people, all
kinds of horrible things that I've been through and painful
lessons that I've learned, and they could skip that. It's
just not the way life works.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
God knows. I've tried.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
But I think by sharing these stories, then at least
somebody feels some connection when they're in that space learning
those lessons for themselves. It's you said this ten minutes ago,
that you feel not so alone, And I think maybe
that's the purpose of selling our stories, right, or telling
our stories, not that people will avoid their own pain, unfortunately,
(13:39):
but that when they go through it, they don't feel alone.
You made me cry at ten forty six in the morning,
and that's not a very easy.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
I recorded this time most weeks and there's usually tears
on my end too, So you're good.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
We're just in it together.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Ron I buried the lead. Obviously, you're I did not
want to skip past the brilliance of your life up
until fifty because yes, it wasn't easy, and yes there
are our spots that you can say cause deep pain,
but all those were lessons learned, and those are beautiful
(14:17):
moments for us to now look back on, and I
think it helps us make sense of where you are today.
You said you're the happiest you've ever been at fifty six,
six years later, which is amazing, Which is an amazing statement.
And there's obviously a big reason for this, and I
would love for you to tell the story of kind
of where you're sitting today. You know what, more uniqueness
(14:40):
have been brought to your life? How it happened. Just
dive in for it, because I think people are going
to be I think it's going to make them pull
their car over. Go let me rewind that, Like, what.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
What did he say?
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Every time I tell it, and I've told it a
lot lately, because now I have a show on ABC,
I've told it. I've told the story a lot, and
every time I tell it, I'm like, it doesn't it's
not believable. It's so far fetched, but so time Ink
imploded because people started reading magazines and was eventually bought
(15:16):
by another company, and as part of that purchase, I
took a package. Now I've shared with you that I'm
new money and new corporate, and then I funked out
of college. I didn't even know what take a package means.
I don't even think I could define the word severance
when I got it, but it was a year and
a half of really good pay. I was shocked. I
don't remember cigning the contract. I was like, holy shit,
this is amazing. So I took the package. I left
(15:39):
time Ink, and then I took some time off and
just sort of played did but I you know, I'm
a little bit of a I don't know if I'm
a workholic, but I worked very hard. So I enjoyed
the time. I learned what what bingewashing meant. And then
I started looking for work again and I couldn't find it,
and I realized a couple of things.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
One is that I had aged out.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
So I get quite a bit of work done on
my face and lots of botox, and I dye my
hair and I die my beard, and so I sort
of forget myself. How old I am, but I had
aged out of media. Nobody wants to hire a magazine guy,
and I had made my name in magazines, and I
couldn't get a job. And I was really good at
(16:24):
what I did before, and everyone who worked for me,
and everyone who I worked for and myself included, everyone
knew I was going to have the job of my dreams,
and to me, I had identified that I'm very passionate
about the multicultural space and trying to be as helpful
as I can. So I wanted to work at Complex
(16:46):
or Vice. I wanted to do something that I thought,
this like oring the corporate work I do, will make
a difference.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
And I interviewed with both of them.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Neither one or them wanted to have anything to do
with me, and nobody would hire me, even for junior jobs.
I wasn't getting hired, so I started to panic. On
top of that, I made some bad decisions. I spent
a lot of money I shouldn't have spent, invested in
things that I shouldn't have invested in, and I spent
my retirement. I was living beyond my means. I got
(17:15):
a really unfortunate health diagnosis and I had to move
out of my apartment and return my leaset Mercedes.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
So here I was at.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Fifty, having lived all of this life. I've helped a
lot of people. I've been a really good person. I've
been a really good boss. I've been very successful with
no savings, no operating budget of my own, and now
no apartment and no car in a ridiculous health issue.
(17:50):
So I was very confused how this happened to me?
Like I've made the best decisions I could. I worked
really hard. How am I back where I was at
twenty six foot without the drugs and alcohol? And I
went to a really really dark place and I didn't
know what my future was going to look like. So
(18:13):
so that I was stayed in someone's house, a gentleman
named Phil Selway, who said, come stay in my spare
bedroom while you get your feet under you. And during
that process, Phil said to me, I bought a property
in northern California that I was going to turn into
a farm animal sanctuary. The person that I put there
(18:34):
to do it misspent a bunch of funds, and that
relationship has ended, and that person who's moved to Mexico.
I need to abandon that dream and unload this house.
Will you go up there and oversee that for me?
Because despite the fact that I'd made a lot of
bad life choices and nobody wanted to hire me, I
still have a skill set that is beneficial and so
(18:55):
it was only because of COVID that I agreed to come.
So nobody was going out for sushi, no one who's
going to the movie, no one who's doing anything. Just
a gorgeous house and gorgeous piece of property. And I
was like, well, there are worst places you could be
quarantines than Hopland, California, So sure I'll go. So I
came out here, uh and it was just sort of
(19:15):
hitdling around. I started to meet with some real estate agents,
a couple of people had looked at it. What happened
at the same time is that I have a friend
named Evil and Webster who is one of my best friends,
and she had been saying to me, Ron, please figure
out what brings you joy, And I was like, will
you please stop harassing me about that? Like I flied
(19:38):
first class everywhere I go. I sit next to Donna
Tella Versace. I drive I drove before I turned it
in a Mercedes AMG. I have more Gucci suits than
most people have, like I am full of joy, evil
and stop asking me. And I know it sounded like
I was being a jerk, but I really didn't mean it.
(19:58):
I really did think, why does she keep asking me that?
Like most people want my life, I'm full of joy?
But when I was here was no distractions in the
country or it was quiet. I remember going on a
walk and I remember at the time on that walk
thinking evil and gets on my nerves. How she keeps
asking me about joy? And I sat down on the
(20:20):
side of this hill and I was like, you know what,
I think that there's a difference between joy and enjoyment.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
I think that.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
All of those things that I list are things that
I enjoy. I enjoy wearing Gucci and driving a Mercedes,
But they don't give me joy, do they. So am
I here to learn at the age of at the
time now, I was fifty one, at the age of
fifty one, that joy and enjoyment are two different words
with two different meanings. And that thought changed everything for me.
(20:55):
Realizing that there's the difference between things that I enjoy
and things that bring me joy helped me completely refame
my life. At the age of fifty one. So then
I thought, wow, I've really had this all wrong. So
when have I What does joy mean to me? And
so I thought, when have I been joyful? And I
thought back in my life at times that I actually,
(21:17):
in my heart felt joy and looked at the common denominators,
and the common denominator was that I was having an
impact on something other than me. I was helping somebody,
I was doing something to make the world a better place.
And I was like, oh, so for me, joy means impact.
Now I'm kind of tired of humans. I'd really rather
(21:39):
not keep helping humans, if I'm being honest. But that's
a gift to have identified for me what joy means.
So now I just have to lean into that and
figure out what that means. Three or days later or
four days later, I'm laying out by the swimming pool
in a Gucci swimsuit, scrolling TikTok, and I see a
video of a woman at a livestock auction saving donkeys
(22:03):
that are destined to slaughter, that are gonna load on
this truck and be shipped to a slaughter facility. And
I was like, what, first of all, remind me of
what a donkey is second of all, why are people
slaughtering donkeys? Now? The brilliance or the higher power or
the serendipity of this is why on Earth I was
(22:24):
showing that video. So these algorithms are really smart, and
I'm gonna be very honest with you. My TikTok algorithm
is shirtless men and scare prank videos. Those two things
I watch all the time, right, so I can watch
scare prank videos all day long. They make me laugh
so hard. So TikTok knows my algorithm. Why did it
(22:45):
show me an animal slaughter video that makes no sense
to me?
Speaker 1 (22:48):
It doesn't fit either.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
It doesn't fit. And I wasn't even really an animal guy.
And every time I say that, people kind of look
down on me. And I don't mean that I disliked animals.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
I just mean an animal guy. I wasn't like watching
dog videos.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
On my phone, so I was like, So I googled
why are people starting donkeys? I read an article on
The Guardian. I read an article on NPR. What stuck
out to me was that nobody's helping donkeys, that donkeys
are sort of a beast of burden, that donkeys don't
serve any monetary value to humans. Now that we have tractors,
(23:23):
we don't really need them. That there are thousands of
people rescuing horses, and that there's a billion dollar industry
behind cattle and goats and sheets, and that I kept
searching and kept searching, and there are some people, but
there are very few people helping donkeys. And I think
I related to this idea of helping somebody that people
weren't really helping.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
And so I was like, well, I think that's it.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Here. I am on a property that my friend wanted
to be an animal rescue. I've just identified that for me,
joy means impact, and I've just learned that donkeys are
in So I wrote a business plan. I did a
bunch of research what does it take to operate a nonprofit?
(24:09):
Phil who owns the property, came up to see me.
We went to breakfast at the Bluebird Diner in Hopland, California,
and I said, so, I have a proposition for you.
If you take this place off the market, I'm going
to rescue donkeys and I'm going to turn this into
a donkey ranch. I'm going to make you a vision
of animal welfare come true. Just donkey specific and like
(24:31):
I used to get manicures and foot massages in my
office every Tuesday. Like this is not something that would
come out of run King's mouth. And if you were
an interview Phil today, Phil would tell you that he
was so shocked at what was probably questioned in my sobriety.
If I'm being honest, he was so shocked at what
I was saying that he kind of nodded his head
out of disbelief. And I took that as a yes,
(24:52):
and I went off and running and I opened a
donkey sanctuary. And then I was like, oh, I've never
met a donkey. What if I don't like them? So
I got three donkeys. I fell madly in love. We
just celebrated our fifth anniversary. I have saved four hundred
and eighty, four hundred and eighty five donkeys. I have
(25:12):
two hundred and twenty here on this property behind me.
And I've never been more tired. I've never worked harder,
I've never dealt with more heartbreak. So it's not easy,
but I am completely full of joy and I know
I am so clear how much I matter. And five
(25:33):
years ago I did an interview on CBS, and I
started crying on CBS because I was like, I just
want to matter. I matter, really clear on that, and
I'm busting it. That seems the joy and I want
to stop talking for a moment. But this conversation that
you and I are having right now is such a
perfect example to me of these sort of unintended benefits.
(25:55):
So I launched Oskar's Place to help donkeys and to
find my own personal joy. And I have learned through
the last five years how helpful that process and the
sharing of this story has been to other people. How
many people at the age of fifty have aged out,
how many people at the age of fifty have lost
everything and had nothing to look forward to, how many
(26:17):
people are just in pain. And so I didn't do
any of this to help people, but I'm so grateful
that the sharing of this story is helpful.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
I mean, I think there's as you said, we could
see here for hours and hours. But the title of
this show is if you can hear me, And the
meaning of that title comes from a place of if
you could cry out to God one prayer, like if
there was like this, like if you could find it
in yourself at put words to whatever that deep feeling
in your heart is to scream it out loud and
(26:53):
something divine can hear you and make you know that
you're not alone?
Speaker 1 (26:57):
What would that be?
Speaker 4 (26:58):
And for me, I just heard you say the question
of you just want to know the matter? I guess
the part that is interesting the me and the point
is why have donkeys made you feel like you matter?
I mean they have, You're making an impact. I've watched
your videos, I know the stories coming out of this place.
But for the listener who has not maybe done the
(27:20):
deep dive on ron king and the sincture that you're running,
how has this helped fill that gap? How has this
been for a lot of people if we put language
to it.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
The answer to prayer, Yeah, I'm gonna talk to you
for a moment about donkeys. And then I didn't quite
understand the framing of if you can hear me? I
absolutely love it and want to share some of my
thoughts on that as well. So donkeys. I knew nothing
about donkeys. In fact, most people don't know anything about donkeys.
(27:53):
I've learned this over the last five years. But the
part of the brain that processes emotion is called the
limbic system. Them and a donkey's olympic system is the
same size as the humans, so with their capacity for
emotion is far greater than that of a.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Horse and on par with that as a human.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
So I believe donkeys behave way more like dogs than
like horses. So my donkeys come to me when I
call them, They follow me around, they nudge me for love.
There's if you watch my videos, you've seen donkeys hug
me and they smile when I'm hugging them, and you
feel a real heart connection to these creatures. And it's
(28:33):
just it's it's an unbelievable feeling, a feeling I've never
felt my life. My best friend is a donkey named Vah.
He's gorgeous and killed and h sweet. And you know,
I make Sophie's choice and life and death decisions every week.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
It's the hardest part of my job and I hate it.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
And I used to do sort of those decisions by committee,
and then I realized I was the one that raised
my hand for this job. This is my responsibility to carry,
not the people who work for me. So when donkeys
live and die, and who lives and who dies and
how long they live and all of.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
That is on me.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
And when I need to heal or when I just
need to be, I head out to the passion. I
find ye hoole and I sit by a tree with
him and he hangs out with me. Yeah, he's my
best friend. And I've talked to many reporters. Reporters have
come out to meet v a hole and they have said, Oh,
I don't think I would admit to anybody that my
best friend is a donkey, And I'm like, I don't know.
(29:35):
I don't find it embarrassing. I think it's really cool.
So donkeys are very emotional, they're very in tune with people.
Their heart sinks with yours very quickly. It's just his
idea of like I imagine all creatures have this capacity
in some form, but it's it's just a connection and
(29:56):
and it's a connection with the with the animal that
happens to be extremely emotional.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
So they're really awesome animals.
Speaker 4 (30:05):
I don't find it embarrassing because it's true, and I
think the truth. If we hide from the truth and
we can't communicate what's actually happening in our lives and
the things that we're feeling, then we're living by a facade.
And I'm sure if I made this statement because I
have done it. So much of my life is I've
lived underneath the mask that has ended up pushing me
(30:28):
into the worst seasons of my life. But when I
live by the truth, and I believe the truth can
set you free, then I don't know if things get easier,
but at least they're easier to bear, they're easier to
walk through. That's right, You're five years in and you
mentioned a show on ABC. Yes, you said, I have
(30:50):
a show on ABC. What is that? How did this
come about?
Speaker 2 (30:56):
So in the beginning when I launched, I think I
got quite a bit of press, and I think they
were making fun of me if I'm telling the truth,
because I don't know that anybody thought it would last,
and like it made no sense that I was shoveling
poop and I was shoveling poop in McQueen because that's
all I owned. I didn't have any Carhart or Dickey's.
(31:17):
I have lots of it now, but I didn't have it.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
At the time.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
So there are lots of photo shoots of me shoveling
donkey poop and McQueen that exists on the internet. So
got lots of press. David begnog from CBS Mornings came
out and did a piece on Oscar's Place and Me
that aired on CBS Mornings. It was an eight minute segment.
I raised two hundred thousand dollars in eight minutes. So
I'm a non profit and I rely on donations, and
(31:42):
two hundred thousand dollars in eight minutes had never happened
at Oscar's Place. And to this day, that now three
and a half, almost four years later, it's our single
biggest source of discovery. So I still have people every
single week saying I saw you on CBS Mornings to
David Begnock. So that really showed me the power of TV,
at least for my demographic, and so I said, I
(32:04):
want a TV program. I'm gonna instead of So when
you work in animal welfare, you buy a list of
people who you say I want everyone who makes seventy
five thousand plus and has two tasks at home. Whatever
you buy, and they give you that data and then
you bombard them with direct mail. That's what everyone does.
And so if you're on that list, you have stats
(32:26):
of mail every day asking you for money. And I
don't want to do that, not only because I think
it's old school and boring, but also because everyone else
is doing it. So I've decided to let donors find
me as opposed to me find donors. I'm gonna tell
my story, tell my work, tell people about donkeys, and
if that speaks to you, then let's do something together,
(32:49):
as opposed to me begging people. So I call it
the lighthouse approach. You know, one of my biggest donors
sell me on CBS. His grandfather had a name that
had donkeys, and so there's something about my story that
was just nostalgic to him, and he's now one of
my top donors. So like, let me just tell my
story and let people find me. That's my approach. My
(33:09):
timing was terrible. TV Hollywood fell apart right about the
time I decided to do a TV show. Nobody is
buying anything, no one's green lighting anything. The whole model changed.
I did have some people said they would buy it,
including Netflix, as long as we were sleeping together, well loud, fighting,
making fun of each other, and there were tears, and
(33:32):
I was like, yeah, it's not one hundred percent. Would
not rather not be on TV than do that. I
want to be the Ted Lasso of reality television, and
even more that's even more important in twenty twenty six
than it was when I started. When I was watching
Ted Lasso, and I specifically remember thinking, Oh, nothing bad
is gonna happen.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
This is just sweet.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
I got to relax for an hour and just be
with it, and that was a really big deal to me,
and it stuck with me. And so I want to
be the ten Lass. I want to spread the joy
that I have found through television, and that means none
of us are sleeping together, none of us are drunk,
there's no fighting. And it took a long time to
(34:13):
find Monument TV. They completely got it at their production company.
They completely got it. They made a three minute sizzle
reel which perfectly captured what we were doing, and we're
off to the racism they started filming. Took us a
really long time to get a distribution deal. On January
third of twenty twenty six, this year, Donkey King premiered
(34:36):
on ABC Saturday mornings, nine am, seventeen episodes of season one.
We're in the middle of working on season two and
it's been incredible. It's been like hundreds of thousands, I suppose,
but I've heard of thousands of people say I've never
even thought about the donkey. Donkeys are so cool, which
(34:56):
how great is that? And then the number people saying
to me like it's their version of joy of joy
once a week, every week they sit down and they
take in this joy. The fact that it's had the
intent of what I wanted is incredible. I have gotten
a few marriage proposals that wasn't That wasn't one of
my intents. But you know, I'm grateful for all of it.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
So I have a show on ABC. I'm so grateful.
It was not easy. Yeah, it's called Donkey King, and
I'm very.
Speaker 4 (35:31):
Proud of it Saturday mornings if people want to listen.
First off, congratulations, thank you Ron again. I mean it's
it feels a little bit unjust to sit here for
forty minutes and say, okay, let's start at twenty six,
let's lead up to fifty six. But you've done a
(35:55):
tremendous job at you know, and clarifying the twists and
the turns. But really my final question for you is
how often are you able to take a step back
and maybe sit with Viejo and uh, And I don't
(36:20):
want to put a I don't want to put an
emotion on it. But take a step back and just
get a picture of where life has taken you, of
the twists and the turns, and now you sit here
with a show on ABC at a Donkey sanctuary after
years in corporate America, and not just corporate America, in
(36:42):
the world of fashion, And just what is it like
when you do get the moments of peace to just
process all this.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
It's a great question, and it doesn't happen often, I think,
which is why when I do talk about it, I
get so emotional. Because this is a really heavy job.
So for anybody who wants to get into animal welfare
and rescue, it's a full on corporation. I have HR
and accounting and legal, I have workers comp, I have
(37:16):
twenty one employees. It's a full on admin, heavy, really
difficult job. And I'm growing as fast as I can
grow to do as much good as I can do
response financially responsible. So I'm busy and I don't stop
(37:37):
very often. I did realize for my own sort of
mental and emotional health. Right now, I'm trying to work
fifty days and go away for four, So I'm on
for fifty, I'm off for four, I'm on for fifty,
I'm off for four. Because when you live where you work,
it's very hard to get that disconnect. But I don't
(37:58):
sit down often and talk about how far I've come
and how grateful.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
I am and how amazing that I.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
Landed on my feet, and so when I do, it's
a real gift. And so even if we never got
to share this podcast to anybody, this forty five minutes
has been a real gift for me, and I thank
you for that. You know, if you don't mind, I'd
like to go back and visit it if you can
hear me concept, because that really spoke to me when
you explain that, And I think if I could say,
(38:28):
if you could hear me, it would be like, could
we please Skylight Skywright?
Speaker 1 (38:37):
Just hold on?
Speaker 2 (38:39):
Like I think it's so important for people to just
hold on. And sometimes even when you've been uber successful
and you've made a big dent in people's lives and
you've lived what you think is a good life and
your whole life falls apart, you've just got a hold
on these and these next chapters and reinventing yourself in
(39:03):
your fifties. That's all amazing, But like sometimes we have
to get out of our own way. We have to
let go. I was holding on so tight to what
I thought my life was supposed to look like, and
thank God, I let go of that. So just hold on,
get out of your own way, and lean into joy.
But in the concept of if I'm asking God, can
(39:24):
you hear me? I actually don't need or want anything
for myself. But if we can say those three things
to people in pain, just hold on, get out of
your own way, and lean into joy. What a gift
that is. So that's my version of can you hear me?
If you can hear me, let's figure out how to
(39:46):
help people hold on, lean into joy, and get out
of their own way.
Speaker 4 (39:50):
I forget and I apologize at the friend who kept
nagging you to find your joy. Have you ever gone
back there?
Speaker 2 (40:01):
Oh? I see her all the time. I'm going to
see her. I'm flying tonight. I'm flying at New York
to do Kelly Clarkson Show, which I'm super excited about.
I'm gonna see evil when I'm there. Yeah, and we
laugh about it now because you know how stupid was I.
But how grateful am I that I course corrected and
(40:22):
that she kept asking me even though I rolled my
eyes every time she did.
Speaker 4 (40:25):
I also think I hear that, and it's such a
lesson in friendship. She obviously loved you and loved you
enough scare and loved you enough to drive you a
little crazy even when you were pushing her away to
say no, I see something in you, Ron, And uh,
And I'm going to keep leaning into this because I'm
not doing it to drive you crazy. I'm doing it
(40:47):
because I love you, So that's right.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
And I'm not an easy person to be that person too,
So like I'm really grateful that she did it.
Speaker 4 (40:58):
Well, Hey, uh, as we say goodbye, If somebody listens
to this and wants to support the mission that you're doing,
what's the best way to do that?
Speaker 2 (41:07):
You can go to oscarsplace dot org or donkey king
dot com. They've all take you to the same place.
And you know, our capacity to help donkeys has directly
proportionate to the amount of money we raise, and so
you know, becoming a monthly donor at any amount is
an incredibly helpful way to help us continue saving donkeys
and rehabilitating them. But also telling people about it, sharing
(41:31):
it on Facebook, sharing it on Instagram, watching the TV show.
You can support us in a lot of non financial
ways as well, but all of that can be found
at Oscarsplace dot.
Speaker 4 (41:41):
Org, Oscarsplace dot org org ron King the Donkey King,
thanks for joining us today. Thanks for sharing your story.
It's a beautiful one. It's one thank you that encourages
me and inspires me and I appreciate your time and
your ability to lean into joy in the midst of
(42:02):
seasons that feel like, Hey, I don't know where to turn.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
Thanks for coming on, thank you for having me. I'm
really grateful. It's nice to meet you.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
You too.
Speaker 4 (42:11):
Hey, friends, thanks for listening or watching. Would you take
a second, follow, subscribe, and drop a comment. It really
helps
I was homeless and.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
Doing really shady things to have somewhere warm to sleep.
I think that there's a difference between joy and enjoyment,
but I could say, if you could hear me, it
would be just hold on for people to just hold on.
And sometimes even when you've been uber successful and you've
(00:24):
made a big tent in people's lives and you've lived
what you think is a good life, and your whole
life falls apart, you've just got a hold on.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Welcome to if you can hear me, a space where
culture meets the soul. I'm Ben Higgins. You may know
me from The Bachelor, and you may know some of
my guests from culture and headlines, but this podcast is
about going beyond the surface into something deeper. Today's guest
is Ron King, whose journey spans from the corporate world
at time Ink to a life centered on healing and restoration.
(00:54):
As co founder of Oscar's Place, he's helped create a
sanctuary we're working with donkeys becomes a pathway for people
to process trauma, slow down, and reconnect with themselves in
a deeper way. I invite you to lean in and
enjoy this conversation.
Speaker 4 (01:13):
Ron King is the guest. Yes, Ron, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
Thank you for having me. I am very grateful to
be here, and I'm appreciative of your time. We can
get into this a little bit later if you want,
but now that I'm five years in, I do caution
people about doing this.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
This is really hard work. But we'll get there.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
You know, we're going to educate everybody. I actually am
inspired by you two. I see a lot of kind
of the path that I chose outside of this world
in what you're doing. I didn't know about your story
until recently, but I am I'm encouraged by reading your
(01:55):
story because I feel less alone. So I run a
coffee company that donates a undred percent of our profits
to nonprofits. So I will never make any money on it,
but I work on it like it's a full time job.
That's one of the reasons that we're sitting here today.
This is how I, you know, put food on the table.
I would tell I would not tell anybody to do it.
I would say, stay far away from that model. This
(02:17):
was this was a decision I made. I've gotten myself
into this. I love it, but I don't know if
it's for everybody. Again, this will make more sense ron
you if we were have talked a few years ago.
You had a very successful career in corporate America. You
were working for Time Inc. Moving up the ladder. Can
(02:43):
you flash back to that period of time to give
you know, the listeners a little perspective on what you're doing,
what you're trying to accomplish, where you're trying to go.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Sure, then yes, yes. So I have had.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
A very random life full of chapters that I felt
very lucky to have been blessed with, but none of
them actually happened because I was wise or strategic or graceful.
I just fell into situations and figured out how to
make the best of it. So many many years ago,
I accidentally got a job at a magazine called Southern
(03:19):
Living in Atlanta, Georgia, And it just so happened that
I was entering the magazine world at the same time
as the web was, and so the world was sort
of in turmoil. I had no history. I was entering
the mad Men era, but I didn't know how things
used to be, and I sort of approached my job
with common sense, which stood up like a sore thumb
(03:42):
at timeeek at the time, and it worked really well
for me, and I was promoted maybe eight or nine
times over my first seven years at time Meek and
in the end I was running seven magazines, in Style
being the biggest fashion magazine, also People, Style, Watch, so
Coastal Living and Sunset where my Shelter portfolio, and then
(04:04):
Essence the Essence Music Festival and People in Espanol were
my multi multicultural. So I had seven titles that I
ran and it was quite a life. I mean, I
grew up with nothing, and you know, I've been in
recovery for a long time and there were definitely times
in my life where I thought I was never gonna
amount to anything, and here I amounted it quite a bit,
(04:28):
and it was all new to me. I worked really hard.
I was very successful, but I also really enjoyed it.
I was there for the ride. And so you know,
when you go to fashion shows in Milan and you
represent in Style, people think you're really important and they
usher you in and they sit you next to Don
Telli Versace or Anna Winto, and they usher you out
(04:48):
and you change clothing a sprinter van and you go.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Into the next show.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
And it was really really fun and I really enjoyed
it and then.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Yeah, I mean we can stop down. Yeah. I had
a big life.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
I was successful, I was all new money, and it
was a really fun, unexpected ride from me.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
Did I hear you right? You said you were in recovery?
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Can you leave?
Speaker 2 (05:16):
I got sober? No, I don't mind. So when I
was twenty six years old, I got sober. I was
an alcoholic and a drug addict.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
And I was in a lot of trouble in my life.
I was homeless and.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Doing really shady things to have somewhere warm to sleep
at night, and it was a really dark place. And
I was a waiter at the hard Rock Cafe at
the time, and there was a woman there who I
knew used to drink, who seemed really happy.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
She's older.
Speaker 2 (05:51):
To me, I thought she's older, she's probably younger than
I am now, but at the time, she's an old lady.
And I went to her and I said, Mary Anne, I.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
I tried to kill myself.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
And I'm in a lot of trouble and I need help,
and I think you know how to help me. And
she said, meet me here on Friday and I'll take
you to an AA meeting. And I don't remember anything
from that Tuesday to Friday, but that Friday matter, and
she took me to an AA meeting. That was March first,
nineteen ninety six, and I've been sober ever since. And yeah,
it's been quite a journey and quite an experience. And
(06:27):
I also broke my neck in two thousand, so I've
gone through a couple of things in my life that,
you know, I like to say that I think there
are people who are and from what I know about you, Ben,
which is limited, but I've looked into you a little bit,
and you seem like a really incredible human with a
really big heart. I think there are people who are
born with grace and gratitude and perspective and humility, and
(06:54):
then there are those of us that need to be
shaken to our very core. And unfortunately I was the latter.
And so, you know, from drug addiction and homelessness to
a broken neck to skin cancer at the age of thirty,
I've just gone through enough things where I've just been
kicked in the head enough to be like, all right,
what lessons are here for me to learn? And I'm
(07:15):
really grateful for all of them, to be honest, Yeah,
it's been quite a journey, and then after all of
that happened, I stumbled into Southern living and I ended
up being So it's really interesting perspective to think, well,
that's why he was like sort of feeling like he
was playing grown up sitting next to Don Teli VERSACEI
at a fashion show Milan, because all of that was
a gift to me.
Speaker 4 (07:36):
I mean, let's stay in that season for a bit,
because I think your story is I think everybody's story
is brilliantly interesting. I think the twists and turns of
yours just is relatable to so many. I also think
it's a story that so many may listen to and say, Okay,
I'm in the season of addiction or I'm in the
(07:58):
season of severe pain, and I don't know if there's
a path out of this. I'm starting to feel like
there's not. Stay in this for a second. You know,
as you became more and more successful, I mean, you
use the phrase that you kind of fell into working
for a magazine. I would love if you could elaborate
(08:20):
on what you mean by just falling into I mean
it sounds like you fell into it and then all
of a sudden became wildly successful. In it, So how
did you just fall into it?
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Which is interesting, And for a variety of reasons, I've
been very I also flunked out of college, and so
I'm not very book smart, and so lots of times
I use the wrong words or I mispronounced words.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
I mean, it's just kind of who I am. I
don't really mind.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
But I've been very I think the word is introspective,
and you realize as you get older that you start
to see certain patterns. But I've fallen into lots of things.
I mean, I adopted a kid when he was twelve
he's now thirty. So I fell into parenthood. I fell
into success, I fell in to farming. I've fallen into
all of this random stuff and done the very best
I can to make the best of it. With the
(09:06):
magazine industry in particular. At that point, I had been
sober about five or six or seven years, and I
was working at a media agency in Atlanta, and people
kept telling me I'd be really great at AD sales.
Speaker 1 (09:24):
And I didn't know what ad sales was. I didn't
know what that meant.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
I didn't know what people saw on me that made
them think i'd be good at that I was thirty
one at the time, and so I reached out to
a couple of people and said, I understand you run
ad sales teams, and I've been told I'd be good
at it.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Should we talk?
Speaker 2 (09:43):
And I ended up in a conversation with the publisher
of Southern Living at the time, and he said, look,
I think you're great. I don't have any spots for
you like ad sales. Southern Living in Atlanta, Georgia is
a pretty premium job, and I don't how many openings,
but let's stay in touch and then for a year,
and so keep in mind, keep in mind of all
new money. I remember going to Old Navy and buying
(10:04):
a red flannel shirt, and that was my dress shirt
for these interviews Sudden Living, because I don't even know
what corporate I never sat foot in the corporate office.
And when I look back now at you know, my
Gucci closets and think I was in a five dollars
Old Navy flannel shirt, reminded of the Living interview. I
don't know how I did it, but I wanted to
stay in touch with him. I just thought, well, this
(10:26):
sounds good to me, and so every sixty days I
would do something.
Speaker 1 (10:29):
I would bake.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Cookies and I would hand deliver them to his office.
Or once I bought this little office voodoo kit and
wrote a note saying, hopefully this will help you find
space on your team. A year later he called me
and hired me. And I remember I had my own
office at a in an office building in Atlanta, Georgia,
and I remember calling my partner at the time, and
(10:50):
there was a Sudden Living magazine sitting on the desk, saying,
I don't know what my job is. Like I have
a magazine in front of me, and I think I'm
selling the pages, but I'm selling the actual pages of
the matter. And am I selling this to subscriber? Like
I had no idea what my child bost and then
I ended up being third in line at the company.
So that's that's story. It sounds very sloppy when I
(11:13):
tell it, but that's the story.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
I mean.
Speaker 4 (11:14):
It's do stories like that still exist today?
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Do you know?
Speaker 1 (11:21):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
And I think I don't know how long we're going
to talk, and I have a feeling because of who
you are, we could talk for hours.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
So I want to try to stay focused with you.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
But the level of fall apart in this that I
had when I was twenty six years old happened to
me again when I was fifty. No drugs or alcohol related,
but like my life fell apart, and I had no
idea how I was going to make it through. And
to the point of, like there are people in those chapters,
(11:54):
it's really important to me that people know, you know,
I have to have the answers and that literally, sometimes
all you can do is put one foot in front
of the other. This is an old AA slogan, and
I never understood what it meant, honestly until I was fifty.
In my life fell apart, and I was in a
situation at fifty where I was so full of despair
(12:17):
that I thought, I can stand up, and I can
put one foot in front of the other and make
it to the bathroom. And I can go to the bathroom,
and then I can use that same process to your
back in bed.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
And that is all I can do today.
Speaker 2 (12:30):
And the fact that that's where I was six years ago,
and that today I'm the happiest that I've ever been,
the most full of joy and the most full of
purpose that I've ever been, to me, that's astonishing and
something that I feel as a gift to share with people,
because whether those types of stories happen anymore or not,
(12:54):
it's possible that type of pain happens, and it is possible,
you know. I think one of the the great tragedies
in life is that we have to learn our own lessons.
I wish I could tell all kinds of people, all
kinds of horrible things that I've been through and painful
lessons that I've learned, and they could skip that. It's
just not the way life works.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
God knows. I've tried.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
But I think by sharing these stories, then at least
somebody feels some connection when they're in that space learning
those lessons for themselves. It's you said this ten minutes ago,
that you feel not so alone, And I think maybe
that's the purpose of selling our stories, right, or telling
our stories, not that people will avoid their own pain, unfortunately,
(13:39):
but that when they go through it, they don't feel alone.
You made me cry at ten forty six in the morning,
and that's not a very easy.
Speaker 4 (13:49):
I recorded this time most weeks and there's usually tears
on my end too, So you're good.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
We're just in it together.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Ron I buried the lead. Obviously, you're I did not
want to skip past the brilliance of your life up
until fifty because yes, it wasn't easy, and yes there
are our spots that you can say cause deep pain,
but all those were lessons learned, and those are beautiful
(14:17):
moments for us to now look back on, and I
think it helps us make sense of where you are today.
You said you're the happiest you've ever been at fifty six,
six years later, which is amazing, Which is an amazing statement.
And there's obviously a big reason for this, and I
would love for you to tell the story of kind
of where you're sitting today. You know what, more uniqueness
(14:40):
have been brought to your life? How it happened. Just
dive in for it, because I think people are going
to be I think it's going to make them pull
their car over. Go let me rewind that, Like, what.
Speaker 1 (14:53):
What did he say?
Speaker 2 (14:54):
Every time I tell it, and I've told it a
lot lately, because now I have a show on ABC,
I've told it. I've told the story a lot, and
every time I tell it, I'm like, it doesn't it's
not believable. It's so far fetched, but so time Ink
imploded because people started reading magazines and was eventually bought
(15:16):
by another company, and as part of that purchase, I
took a package. Now I've shared with you that I'm
new money and new corporate, and then I funked out
of college. I didn't even know what take a package means.
I don't even think I could define the word severance
when I got it, but it was a year and
a half of really good pay. I was shocked. I
don't remember cigning the contract. I was like, holy shit,
this is amazing. So I took the package. I left
(15:39):
time Ink, and then I took some time off and
just sort of played did but I you know, I'm
a little bit of a I don't know if I'm
a workholic, but I worked very hard. So I enjoyed
the time. I learned what what bingewashing meant. And then
I started looking for work again and I couldn't find it,
and I realized a couple of things.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
One is that I had aged out.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
So I get quite a bit of work done on
my face and lots of botox, and I dye my
hair and I die my beard, and so I sort
of forget myself. How old I am, but I had
aged out of media. Nobody wants to hire a magazine guy,
and I had made my name in magazines, and I
couldn't get a job. And I was really good at
(16:24):
what I did before, and everyone who worked for me,
and everyone who I worked for and myself included, everyone
knew I was going to have the job of my dreams,
and to me, I had identified that I'm very passionate
about the multicultural space and trying to be as helpful
as I can. So I wanted to work at Complex
(16:46):
or Vice. I wanted to do something that I thought,
this like oring the corporate work I do, will make
a difference.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
And I interviewed with both of them.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Neither one or them wanted to have anything to do
with me, and nobody would hire me, even for junior jobs.
I wasn't getting hired, so I started to panic. On
top of that, I made some bad decisions. I spent
a lot of money I shouldn't have spent, invested in
things that I shouldn't have invested in, and I spent
my retirement. I was living beyond my means. I got
(17:15):
a really unfortunate health diagnosis and I had to move
out of my apartment and return my leaset Mercedes.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
So here I was at.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Fifty, having lived all of this life. I've helped a
lot of people. I've been a really good person. I've
been a really good boss. I've been very successful with
no savings, no operating budget of my own, and now
no apartment and no car in a ridiculous health issue.
(17:50):
So I was very confused how this happened to me?
Like I've made the best decisions I could. I worked
really hard. How am I back where I was at
twenty six foot without the drugs and alcohol? And I
went to a really really dark place and I didn't
know what my future was going to look like. So
(18:13):
so that I was stayed in someone's house, a gentleman
named Phil Selway, who said, come stay in my spare
bedroom while you get your feet under you. And during
that process, Phil said to me, I bought a property
in northern California that I was going to turn into
a farm animal sanctuary. The person that I put there
(18:34):
to do it misspent a bunch of funds, and that
relationship has ended, and that person who's moved to Mexico.
I need to abandon that dream and unload this house.
Will you go up there and oversee that for me?
Because despite the fact that I'd made a lot of
bad life choices and nobody wanted to hire me, I
still have a skill set that is beneficial and so
(18:55):
it was only because of COVID that I agreed to come.
So nobody was going out for sushi, no one who's
going to the movie, no one who's doing anything. Just
a gorgeous house and gorgeous piece of property. And I
was like, well, there are worst places you could be
quarantines than Hopland, California, So sure I'll go. So I
came out here, uh and it was just sort of
(19:15):
hitdling around. I started to meet with some real estate agents,
a couple of people had looked at it. What happened
at the same time is that I have a friend
named Evil and Webster who is one of my best friends,
and she had been saying to me, Ron, please figure
out what brings you joy, And I was like, will
you please stop harassing me about that? Like I flied
(19:38):
first class everywhere I go. I sit next to Donna
Tella Versace. I drive I drove before I turned it
in a Mercedes AMG. I have more Gucci suits than
most people have, like I am full of joy, evil
and stop asking me. And I know it sounded like
I was being a jerk, but I really didn't mean it.
(19:58):
I really did think, why does she keep asking me that?
Like most people want my life, I'm full of joy?
But when I was here was no distractions in the
country or it was quiet. I remember going on a
walk and I remember at the time on that walk
thinking evil and gets on my nerves. How she keeps
asking me about joy? And I sat down on the
(20:20):
side of this hill and I was like, you know what,
I think that there's a difference between joy and enjoyment.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
I think that.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
All of those things that I list are things that
I enjoy. I enjoy wearing Gucci and driving a Mercedes,
But they don't give me joy, do they. So am
I here to learn at the age of at the
time now, I was fifty one, at the age of
fifty one, that joy and enjoyment are two different words
with two different meanings. And that thought changed everything for me.
(20:55):
Realizing that there's the difference between things that I enjoy
and things that bring me joy helped me completely refame
my life. At the age of fifty one. So then
I thought, wow, I've really had this all wrong. So
when have I What does joy mean to me? And
so I thought, when have I been joyful? And I
thought back in my life at times that I actually,
(21:17):
in my heart felt joy and looked at the common denominators,
and the common denominator was that I was having an
impact on something other than me. I was helping somebody,
I was doing something to make the world a better place.
And I was like, oh, so for me, joy means impact.
Now I'm kind of tired of humans. I'd really rather
(21:39):
not keep helping humans, if I'm being honest. But that's
a gift to have identified for me what joy means.
So now I just have to lean into that and
figure out what that means. Three or days later or
four days later, I'm laying out by the swimming pool
in a Gucci swimsuit, scrolling TikTok, and I see a
video of a woman at a livestock auction saving donkeys
(22:03):
that are destined to slaughter, that are gonna load on
this truck and be shipped to a slaughter facility. And
I was like, what, first of all, remind me of
what a donkey is second of all, why are people
slaughtering donkeys? Now? The brilliance or the higher power or
the serendipity of this is why on Earth I was
(22:24):
showing that video. So these algorithms are really smart, and
I'm gonna be very honest with you. My TikTok algorithm
is shirtless men and scare prank videos. Those two things
I watch all the time, right, so I can watch
scare prank videos all day long. They make me laugh
so hard. So TikTok knows my algorithm. Why did it
(22:45):
show me an animal slaughter video that makes no sense
to me?
Speaker 1 (22:48):
It doesn't fit either.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
It doesn't fit. And I wasn't even really an animal guy.
And every time I say that, people kind of look
down on me. And I don't mean that I disliked animals.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
I just mean an animal guy. I wasn't like watching
dog videos.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
On my phone, so I was like, So I googled
why are people starting donkeys? I read an article on
The Guardian. I read an article on NPR. What stuck
out to me was that nobody's helping donkeys, that donkeys
are sort of a beast of burden, that donkeys don't
serve any monetary value to humans. Now that we have tractors,
(23:23):
we don't really need them. That there are thousands of
people rescuing horses, and that there's a billion dollar industry
behind cattle and goats and sheets, and that I kept
searching and kept searching, and there are some people, but
there are very few people helping donkeys. And I think
I related to this idea of helping somebody that people
weren't really helping.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
And so I was like, well, I think that's it.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Here. I am on a property that my friend wanted
to be an animal rescue. I've just identified that for me,
joy means impact, and I've just learned that donkeys are
in So I wrote a business plan. I did a
bunch of research what does it take to operate a nonprofit?
(24:09):
Phil who owns the property, came up to see me.
We went to breakfast at the Bluebird Diner in Hopland, California,
and I said, so, I have a proposition for you.
If you take this place off the market, I'm going
to rescue donkeys and I'm going to turn this into
a donkey ranch. I'm going to make you a vision
of animal welfare come true. Just donkey specific and like
(24:31):
I used to get manicures and foot massages in my
office every Tuesday. Like this is not something that would
come out of run King's mouth. And if you were
an interview Phil today, Phil would tell you that he
was so shocked at what was probably questioned in my sobriety.
If I'm being honest, he was so shocked at what
I was saying that he kind of nodded his head
out of disbelief. And I took that as a yes,
(24:52):
and I went off and running and I opened a
donkey sanctuary. And then I was like, oh, I've never
met a donkey. What if I don't like them? So
I got three donkeys. I fell madly in love. We
just celebrated our fifth anniversary. I have saved four hundred
and eighty, four hundred and eighty five donkeys. I have
(25:12):
two hundred and twenty here on this property behind me.
And I've never been more tired. I've never worked harder,
I've never dealt with more heartbreak. So it's not easy,
but I am completely full of joy and I know
I am so clear how much I matter. And five
(25:33):
years ago I did an interview on CBS, and I
started crying on CBS because I was like, I just
want to matter. I matter, really clear on that, and
I'm busting it. That seems the joy and I want
to stop talking for a moment. But this conversation that
you and I are having right now is such a
perfect example to me of these sort of unintended benefits.
(25:55):
So I launched Oskar's Place to help donkeys and to
find my own personal joy. And I have learned through
the last five years how helpful that process and the
sharing of this story has been to other people. How
many people at the age of fifty have aged out,
how many people at the age of fifty have lost
everything and had nothing to look forward to, how many
(26:17):
people are just in pain. And so I didn't do
any of this to help people, but I'm so grateful
that the sharing of this story is helpful.
Speaker 4 (26:30):
I mean, I think there's as you said, we could
see here for hours and hours. But the title of
this show is if you can hear me, And the
meaning of that title comes from a place of if
you could cry out to God one prayer, like if
there was like this, like if you could find it
in yourself at put words to whatever that deep feeling
in your heart is to scream it out loud and
(26:53):
something divine can hear you and make you know that
you're not alone?
Speaker 1 (26:57):
What would that be?
Speaker 4 (26:58):
And for me, I just heard you say the question
of you just want to know the matter? I guess
the part that is interesting the me and the point
is why have donkeys made you feel like you matter?
I mean they have, You're making an impact. I've watched
your videos, I know the stories coming out of this place.
But for the listener who has not maybe done the
(27:20):
deep dive on ron king and the sincture that you're running,
how has this helped fill that gap? How has this
been for a lot of people if we put language
to it.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
The answer to prayer, Yeah, I'm gonna talk to you
for a moment about donkeys. And then I didn't quite
understand the framing of if you can hear me? I
absolutely love it and want to share some of my
thoughts on that as well. So donkeys. I knew nothing
about donkeys. In fact, most people don't know anything about donkeys.
(27:53):
I've learned this over the last five years. But the
part of the brain that processes emotion is called the
limbic system. Them and a donkey's olympic system is the
same size as the humans, so with their capacity for
emotion is far greater than that of a.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Horse and on par with that as a human.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
So I believe donkeys behave way more like dogs than
like horses. So my donkeys come to me when I
call them, They follow me around, they nudge me for love.
There's if you watch my videos, you've seen donkeys hug
me and they smile when I'm hugging them, and you
feel a real heart connection to these creatures. And it's
(28:33):
just it's it's an unbelievable feeling, a feeling I've never
felt my life. My best friend is a donkey named Vah.
He's gorgeous and killed and h sweet. And you know,
I make Sophie's choice and life and death decisions every week.
Speaker 1 (28:52):
It's the hardest part of my job and I hate it.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
And I used to do sort of those decisions by committee,
and then I realized I was the one that raised
my hand for this job. This is my responsibility to carry,
not the people who work for me. So when donkeys
live and die, and who lives and who dies and
how long they live and all of.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
That is on me.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
And when I need to heal or when I just
need to be, I head out to the passion. I
find ye hoole and I sit by a tree with
him and he hangs out with me. Yeah, he's my
best friend. And I've talked to many reporters. Reporters have
come out to meet v a hole and they have said, Oh,
I don't think I would admit to anybody that my
best friend is a donkey, And I'm like, I don't know.
(29:35):
I don't find it embarrassing. I think it's really cool.
So donkeys are very emotional, they're very in tune with people.
Their heart sinks with yours very quickly. It's just his
idea of like I imagine all creatures have this capacity
in some form, but it's it's just a connection and
(29:56):
and it's a connection with the with the animal that
happens to be extremely emotional.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
So they're really awesome animals.
Speaker 4 (30:05):
I don't find it embarrassing because it's true, and I
think the truth. If we hide from the truth and
we can't communicate what's actually happening in our lives and
the things that we're feeling, then we're living by a facade.
And I'm sure if I made this statement because I
have done it. So much of my life is I've
lived underneath the mask that has ended up pushing me
(30:28):
into the worst seasons of my life. But when I
live by the truth, and I believe the truth can
set you free, then I don't know if things get easier,
but at least they're easier to bear, they're easier to
walk through. That's right, You're five years in and you
mentioned a show on ABC. Yes, you said, I have
(30:50):
a show on ABC. What is that? How did this
come about?
Speaker 2 (30:56):
So in the beginning when I launched, I think I
got quite a bit of press, and I think they
were making fun of me if I'm telling the truth,
because I don't know that anybody thought it would last,
and like it made no sense that I was shoveling
poop and I was shoveling poop in McQueen because that's
all I owned. I didn't have any Carhart or Dickey's.
(31:17):
I have lots of it now, but I didn't have it.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
At the time.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
So there are lots of photo shoots of me shoveling
donkey poop and McQueen that exists on the internet. So
got lots of press. David begnog from CBS Mornings came
out and did a piece on Oscar's Place and Me
that aired on CBS Mornings. It was an eight minute segment.
I raised two hundred thousand dollars in eight minutes. So
I'm a non profit and I rely on donations, and
(31:42):
two hundred thousand dollars in eight minutes had never happened
at Oscar's Place. And to this day, that now three
and a half, almost four years later, it's our single
biggest source of discovery. So I still have people every
single week saying I saw you on CBS Mornings to
David Begnock. So that really showed me the power of TV,
at least for my demographic, and so I said, I
(32:04):
want a TV program. I'm gonna instead of So when
you work in animal welfare, you buy a list of
people who you say I want everyone who makes seventy
five thousand plus and has two tasks at home. Whatever
you buy, and they give you that data and then
you bombard them with direct mail. That's what everyone does.
And so if you're on that list, you have stats
(32:26):
of mail every day asking you for money. And I
don't want to do that, not only because I think
it's old school and boring, but also because everyone else
is doing it. So I've decided to let donors find
me as opposed to me find donors. I'm gonna tell
my story, tell my work, tell people about donkeys, and
if that speaks to you, then let's do something together,
(32:49):
as opposed to me begging people. So I call it
the lighthouse approach. You know, one of my biggest donors
sell me on CBS. His grandfather had a name that
had donkeys, and so there's something about my story that
was just nostalgic to him, and he's now one of
my top donors. So like, let me just tell my
story and let people find me. That's my approach. My
(33:09):
timing was terrible. TV Hollywood fell apart right about the
time I decided to do a TV show. Nobody is
buying anything, no one's green lighting anything. The whole model changed.
I did have some people said they would buy it,
including Netflix, as long as we were sleeping together, well loud, fighting,
making fun of each other, and there were tears, and
(33:32):
I was like, yeah, it's not one hundred percent. Would
not rather not be on TV than do that. I
want to be the Ted Lasso of reality television, and
even more that's even more important in twenty twenty six
than it was when I started. When I was watching
Ted Lasso, and I specifically remember thinking, Oh, nothing bad
is gonna happen.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
This is just sweet.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
I got to relax for an hour and just be
with it, and that was a really big deal to me,
and it stuck with me. And so I want to
be the ten Lass. I want to spread the joy
that I have found through television, and that means none
of us are sleeping together, none of us are drunk,
there's no fighting. And it took a long time to
(34:13):
find Monument TV. They completely got it at their production company.
They completely got it. They made a three minute sizzle
reel which perfectly captured what we were doing, and we're
off to the racism they started filming. Took us a
really long time to get a distribution deal. On January
third of twenty twenty six, this year, Donkey King premiered
(34:36):
on ABC Saturday mornings, nine am, seventeen episodes of season one.
We're in the middle of working on season two and
it's been incredible. It's been like hundreds of thousands, I suppose,
but I've heard of thousands of people say I've never
even thought about the donkey. Donkeys are so cool, which
(34:56):
how great is that? And then the number people saying
to me like it's their version of joy of joy
once a week, every week they sit down and they
take in this joy. The fact that it's had the
intent of what I wanted is incredible. I have gotten
a few marriage proposals that wasn't That wasn't one of
my intents. But you know, I'm grateful for all of it.
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
So I have a show on ABC. I'm so grateful.
It was not easy. Yeah, it's called Donkey King, and
I'm very.
Speaker 4 (35:31):
Proud of it Saturday mornings if people want to listen.
First off, congratulations, thank you Ron again. I mean it's
it feels a little bit unjust to sit here for
forty minutes and say, okay, let's start at twenty six,
let's lead up to fifty six. But you've done a
(35:55):
tremendous job at you know, and clarifying the twists and
the turns. But really my final question for you is
how often are you able to take a step back
and maybe sit with Viejo and uh, And I don't
(36:20):
want to put a I don't want to put an
emotion on it. But take a step back and just
get a picture of where life has taken you, of
the twists and the turns, and now you sit here
with a show on ABC at a Donkey sanctuary after
years in corporate America, and not just corporate America, in
(36:42):
the world of fashion, And just what is it like
when you do get the moments of peace to just
process all this.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
It's a great question, and it doesn't happen often, I think,
which is why when I do talk about it, I
get so emotional. Because this is a really heavy job.
So for anybody who wants to get into animal welfare
and rescue, it's a full on corporation. I have HR
and accounting and legal, I have workers comp, I have
(37:16):
twenty one employees. It's a full on admin, heavy, really
difficult job. And I'm growing as fast as I can
grow to do as much good as I can do
response financially responsible. So I'm busy and I don't stop
(37:37):
very often. I did realize for my own sort of
mental and emotional health. Right now, I'm trying to work
fifty days and go away for four, So I'm on
for fifty, I'm off for four, I'm on for fifty,
I'm off for four. Because when you live where you work,
it's very hard to get that disconnect. But I don't
(37:58):
sit down often and talk about how far I've come
and how grateful.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
I am and how amazing that I.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
Landed on my feet, and so when I do, it's
a real gift. And so even if we never got
to share this podcast to anybody, this forty five minutes
has been a real gift for me, and I thank
you for that. You know, if you don't mind, I'd
like to go back and visit it if you can
hear me concept, because that really spoke to me when
you explain that, And I think if I could say,
(38:28):
if you could hear me, it would be like, could
we please Skylight Skywright?
Speaker 1 (38:37):
Just hold on?
Speaker 2 (38:39):
Like I think it's so important for people to just
hold on. And sometimes even when you've been uber successful
and you've made a big dent in people's lives and
you've lived what you think is a good life and
your whole life falls apart, you've just got a hold
on these and these next chapters and reinventing yourself in
(39:03):
your fifties. That's all amazing, But like sometimes we have
to get out of our own way. We have to
let go. I was holding on so tight to what
I thought my life was supposed to look like, and
thank God, I let go of that. So just hold on,
get out of your own way, and lean into joy.
But in the concept of if I'm asking God, can
(39:24):
you hear me? I actually don't need or want anything
for myself. But if we can say those three things
to people in pain, just hold on, get out of
your own way, and lean into joy. What a gift
that is. So that's my version of can you hear me?
If you can hear me, let's figure out how to
(39:46):
help people hold on, lean into joy, and get out
of their own way.
Speaker 4 (39:50):
I forget and I apologize at the friend who kept
nagging you to find your joy. Have you ever gone
back there?
Speaker 2 (40:01):
Oh? I see her all the time. I'm going to
see her. I'm flying tonight. I'm flying at New York
to do Kelly Clarkson Show, which I'm super excited about.
I'm gonna see evil when I'm there. Yeah, and we
laugh about it now because you know how stupid was I.
But how grateful am I that I course corrected and
(40:22):
that she kept asking me even though I rolled my
eyes every time she did.
Speaker 4 (40:25):
I also think I hear that, and it's such a
lesson in friendship. She obviously loved you and loved you
enough scare and loved you enough to drive you a
little crazy even when you were pushing her away to
say no, I see something in you, Ron, And uh,
And I'm going to keep leaning into this because I'm
not doing it to drive you crazy. I'm doing it
(40:47):
because I love you, So that's right.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
And I'm not an easy person to be that person too,
So like I'm really grateful that she did it.
Speaker 4 (40:58):
Well, Hey, uh, as we say goodbye, If somebody listens
to this and wants to support the mission that you're doing,
what's the best way to do that?
Speaker 2 (41:07):
You can go to oscarsplace dot org or donkey king
dot com. They've all take you to the same place.
And you know, our capacity to help donkeys has directly
proportionate to the amount of money we raise, and so
you know, becoming a monthly donor at any amount is
an incredibly helpful way to help us continue saving donkeys
and rehabilitating them. But also telling people about it, sharing
(41:31):
it on Facebook, sharing it on Instagram, watching the TV show.
You can support us in a lot of non financial
ways as well, but all of that can be found
at Oscarsplace dot.
Speaker 4 (41:41):
Org, Oscarsplace dot org org ron King the Donkey King,
thanks for joining us today. Thanks for sharing your story.
It's a beautiful one. It's one thank you that encourages
me and inspires me and I appreciate your time and
your ability to lean into joy in the midst of
(42:02):
seasons that feel like, Hey, I don't know where to turn.
Speaker 1 (42:06):
Thanks for coming on, thank you for having me. I'm
really grateful. It's nice to meet you.
Speaker 2 (42:10):
You too.
Speaker 4 (42:11):
Hey, friends, thanks for listening or watching. Would you take
a second, follow, subscribe, and drop a comment. It really
helps
Popular Podcasts
Hey Jonas!
Hey Jonas! The official Jonas Brothers podcast. Hosted by Kevin, Joe, and Nick Jonas. It’s the Jonas Brothers you know... musicians, actors, and well, yes, brothers. Now, they’re sharing another side of themselves in the playful, intimate, and irreverent way only they can. Spend time with the Jonas Brothers here and stay a little bit longer for deep conversations like never before.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by Audiochuck Media Company.
Betrayal Weekly
Betrayal Weekly is back for a new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. If you would like to share your story, you can reach out to the Betrayal Team by emailing them at betrayalpod@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.