December 16, 2024 • 40 mins
Curious about how remote work is reshaping the future of young professionals? Join us for an inspiring discussion with Donnie Rust, the creative force behind Lost Executive LTD. A former travel journalist and stand-up comedian, Donnie's rich career journey from South Africa to Scotland offers a captivating backdrop as we uncover the ways technology has opened up new frontiers for work and travel. From cultural contrasts between the United States and Europe to the opportunities within different environments, Donnie shares his profound insights into embracing these changes.
Technology's rapid evolution has undeniably transformed our lives. As we journey from the era of dial-up internet and physical media to the modern age of cloud storage and AI, the shift to remote work is more tangible than ever. We engage in a thoughtful exploration of the societal impact, weighing the benefits of improved work-life balance against the challenges of reduced social interaction. The conversation circles back to our innate need for community and face-to-face communication, emphasizing a crucial balance between technological trends and human connections.
Reminiscing on childhood dreams and career paths, we reflect on how technology has altered the landscape of opportunity. With narratives of personal setbacks and triumphs, we stress the importance of aligning one's passions with career pursuits for genuine fulfillment. Donnie Rust brings additional wisdom on the art of networking and cultivating an online presence, making it easier for listeners to connect with him and others in this digital era. Tune in to foster a sense of connection and perhaps even find inspiration for your career journey.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Thank you for listening to another episode of
On Our Best Behavior.
Today I have a very specialguest.
His name is Donnie Rust.
He is the creative director forthe Lost Executive LTD.
Author, former digital nomadtravel journalist and a long
time ago stand-up comedian.
He is the key writer for traveland business magazine, the
(00:22):
Logbook.
Welcome to the podcast, donnie.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hi Kelly, Thanks so much for having me on here.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
It's very exciting.
All of us American girls arejust going to blush over your
accent.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Out of curiosity, what accent do you think I have?
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Well, you're from Scotland, so Irish.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Scotland Scottish.
I live in Scotland.
I'm actually South African.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Oh, really yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I've got a very odd accent, that's fun.
Yeah, I suppose, but it is abit of a mix, so I was just
curious whether or not you couldpin it down.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
What made you leave South Africa for Scotland?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Oh well, I lived there my whole life with my
family.
We immigrated when I was about19.
I had the opportunity to stayin South Africa, but I thought I
wanted to come and have anadventure.
So we moved over to Norwich inEngland to start with, which is
not a great place for adventureswhen you're used to safaris and
(01:24):
camping outside and all thevarious joys of South Africa.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Well, that's interesting.
And then you know you do a lotwith travel now.
So who would have thought?
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, travel has always been a
big part of everything that I'vedone.
I do I'm one of those peoplewho gets very edgy if I don't
get to travel frequently, if Idon't have a new surroundings
and new areas.
And so, yeah, I've been doing alot of traveling, but that was
actually the first time I'd everleft the, I ever left Southern
Africa when I immigrated over tothe UK and it was a match,
(01:59):
massive culture shock.
You tend to grow up.
When you grow up in countrieslike South Africa, you do have a
certain idea of what anotherland is going to be like.
Like.
We came to UK and we expectedthat everyone in Scotland was
going to sound like Mel Gibsonfrom Braveheart and everyone in
England was going to sound likeShia Khan from the Jungle Book,
(02:23):
and that was not the case.
Have you ever been to UK?
Speaker 1 (02:29):
No, I've really not been out of the country other
than to like Mexico and theCaribbean.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
I mean, the States are huge.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Yeah, I mean, I used to feel like I wanted to see the
whole entire world, but then Irealized, like how much the
United States has to offer thata lot of people that live here
don't even experience, becausewe're we look to the bigger
picture, where you forget what'smaybe just in your backyard.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah, no, I agree with that entirely.
I was when I left South Africa.
It was only when I left that Irealized how much of it I hadn't
explored and discovered.
And also I mean America.
Everyone talks about the UnitedStates as being a single
country and I've never beenthere.
But I have spoken to manypeople you have and from what
(03:19):
they've said, united States isnot a single country.
It is 50 odd differentcountries kind of stuck together
, and I feel like that forEurope.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Right, you guys have all these countries, but that's
kind of laid out like how theUnited States has states.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Yeah, europe is a mixture of many different
countries, but even thosecountries do kind of follow the
suit of America.
Spain, for example.
If you've never been there, youjust think Spain, spanish, one
country.
But I spent a bit of time inSpain and it's like it is a few
(03:57):
different, completely differentcountries crammed in together
underneath one title and theyhave different cultures and
different foods that they like.
The landscape, um, thelandscape is completely
different, which obviously doeshave an effect on the culture
and history of the place.
Um, you just get lost there,because spain is as close to
like being in the setting ofgame of thrones or or like a
(04:19):
high fantasy kind of, um kind ofbackground, because it's just a
beautiful.
Europe is like that, it's justso old and so much history.
It's a wonderful place.
I would definitely recommendthat you visit.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Yeah, definitely want to, for sure, all right.
So, donnie, let's talk aboutwhat you do.
The world has changed so much.
When I was a kid, nobody workedremote.
That was unheard of.
And now the world has changedprofessionally, with such an
increase in remote jobs.
Tell us about that and tell ushow young professionals entering
(04:54):
into this.
It's completely different than,like I said, when we were kids.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
So, yeah, so, like you said, there are two parts to
that.
So the first part is yeah, Ithink the technology available
to do the general office workhas advanced and developed
hugely.
If you think back 10 years ago,15 years ago, if you wanted to
have a reliable computer or areliable work, you had to go
(05:20):
into the office.
So that was the thing you wentto the office and you had your
desk and you did your work fromthere.
I was in publishing in severaldifferent magazines in the past
that were entirely office-based.
We still traveled and we stillwent places, but it was very
much a case of you traveled andthen you returned, and I think
there's a lot of tradition inthat as well.
(05:40):
There have always been digitalnomads, essentially because you
have travel journalists, you hadon-site journalists, so there
was always that opportunity totravel and work, but you needed
to find a company that waswilling to do that and willing
to go through the trouble of theextra, because you'd have to
fax, you'd have to use fax mail.
(06:00):
There was a lot of extra effortto support your employees or
your staff or your freelancersthat were traveling, whereas
today, the same technology thatcompanies use to run payrolls
and HR systems is all online.
It's all on the cloud and thereare people who work for big
companies that do big jobs thatwould never have been considered
(06:21):
as a remote job previously,which now is just as easy to do
at home as is in the office.
Also, covid made a bigdifference to that, because that
made a lot of companies awareof how easy it is to get people
working remotely from home.
Now, lost Executive we launchedourselves in 2017, and our
(06:42):
entire company is entirelystaffed by digital nomads, so
all of the key components of ourbusiness are working remotely
or from wherever.
Some of them are permanenttravelers.
I myself was a digital nomad forabout three years.
I basically just spent my timeAirbnb hopping through Europe
while I was working with amagazine and building up quite
(07:04):
happily.
And then lockdown happened,covid happened and around the
world, people realized well,this is actually quite possible.
And after working from home forsometimes up to a year, year
and a half, people were quitehappy to work from home and were
able to prove and demonstratethat they could do their job
perfectly well from home, andthey had a real legitimate
reason to say well, if I canwork from home, why can't I work
(07:26):
from another location.
Why can't I work from whereverI happen to be?
And that's, I think, is howthings are moving, because it
does give people the opportunityto combine travel with work,
which I think is quite important.
If you, it is an opportunitythat few adults, especially in,
like the older millennials andgeneration gen x and whatnot it
(07:47):
is a foreign concept to thembecause you traveled and then
you worked.
But if you combine the two, youcan travel, be wherever you are
, get your job done and thenyou're in a location so you can
enjoy your life.
So it is a very good balancefor a lifestyle.
It's changed for.
And to get your second point,um, in terms terms of how this
is going to be different foryoungsters, that was the
question, how it's going to bedifferent for the younger
(08:11):
generation in terms of theworkplace when we went into the
workforce, how it's going to bedifferent from them versus what
it was like for us.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Sorry, I chose a, really bad time to take a sip of
my drink there.
Sorry, sorry, I chose a reallybad time to take a sip of my
drink there.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Sorry.
Yeah, I think one of the thingsthat it's definitely going to
be noticing is that peoplecoming into the workforce now
are expecting to get thatbalance of lifestyle.
They're expecting that becausethey don't see a reason why they
can't.
I don't think it's a case ofthem feeling entitled or
privileged or anything.
(08:44):
It's just them seeing what ispossible with the technology,
what is easy with the technology, and it just makes sense If you
think about it.
Working from home means youdon't have to worry about a
daily commute, so you're notgoing to be late.
There are some exceptions,obviously, if you're working in
manufacturing or theconstruction industry.
There's loads of industrieswhich aren't affected by this at
(09:10):
all, but a number of theindustries you can remote in so
you don't have to commute, sothere's no worry about there
being any lateness.
Punctuality is better.
There's also the lack of a car,the lower carbon footprint
because you're not doing thedaily commute.
It's no longer a case of takingpublic transport instead of a
car.
Now it's a case of well, whydon't I just work from home and
just cut that out entirely, andthat opens up the opportunities
(09:34):
of being well.
If I can work from home, whycan't my home be anywhere in the
world.
Now there are some stickingpoints currently with regards to
HR and the legal framework tosupport employees, whether
you're in America or UK orEurope, wherever you happen to
be.
If you're working for a UKcompany, for example, the
(09:55):
employment laws will bedifferent for any of your
employees.
If they decide to move toEurope or to America, then you
have to kind of make extraprovisions for them because
they're leaving the country.
They're not governed by thesame laws and vice versa.
So that's a sticking point atthe moment, but it's one of the
only ones, that kind of the onlyreal sticking point there is.
(10:16):
So youngsters coming into theworkplace are going to be
finding that there arebusinesses already sorting that
problem which is going to beironing that out.
So they're expecting to be ableto travel or at least work from
home and have that homewherever they want to be.
There are some exceptions, likeI said, and also I do think
that there is a balance to befound between working completely
(10:37):
remotely and still having thesocial aspect that you can get
from an office, aspect that youcan get from an office which for
the last decade and a half, twodecades, there have been
businesses that have built uphospitality, businesses that are
entirely focused on justcreating a social environment
for digital nomads to work from,which I think is a great thing
and very useful, and that'sdefinitely going to be seen.
(10:59):
We're going to be seeing moreof that and more usage of that
in the future, I reckon.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Yeah, I mean when I was a kid the internet just came
out when I was in junior highmaybe, and I remember we'd go to
my grandpa's office just so wecould get on.
I guess I don't even know thetimeline, but whatever, A good
(11:32):
20 years for sure Like you hadto use dial up and you had to go
to the library or you had to goto a business to use the
internet, and now you can use itin the car, on the airplane,
anywhere in the world.
That's mind-blowing to me.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yeah, and technology doesn't have to necessarily
develop in terms of the hardware, it's just the usage of the
software that matters.
Like if you think about evenjust 10 years ago.
So it's 2004 now almost 2005,.
Think 2015.
In 2015, you know, people arestill using cds for their games,
(12:07):
people still using dvds.
Um iphones yeah, music was was,uh, you know, ipods and, uh, mp3
players.
I don't know if I don't know ifthat was used that late.
Um, but you know it was a.
It was a day people still knewwhat cassette tapes were and
VHSs, and 10 years is all that'staken for that to completely
(12:29):
change.
If you think about it, if youtake it a step further, consider
the changes that have happenedwith the likes of ChatGPT over
the last year and a half and howmuch of an effect that's had on
things.
And you know, cloud, the factthat we don't use, we don't have
any storage devices anymore.
Thumb drives are.
They're still useful, butthey're not used.
(12:49):
As often CDs are defunct.
Nobody uses CDs anymore.
Cassette tapes, videos, vhs.
I asked my boy the other day.
I was like well, you know, doyou know what a VHS is?
He went no, is that somethingyou catch?
I was like no, no, it's not.
(13:09):
Which led into a very awkwardconversation with my wife, which
was like yeah, okay, never mind.
But the technology continues todevelop, but also the usage of
it, and with that comesdifferent expectations of it.
It's just the world is changingAlso.
The jobs are changing as well.
Artificial intelligence isgoing to change many industries,
(13:31):
and, I think, largely for thebetter, which is going to make
working from home so much easier, and that's going to, once we
get used to it, once it becomesmore common, that will have a
beneficial effect on people'slifestyles, because we'll be
managing you know managing thebalance between hard work and
(13:56):
lifestyle, because you can saveso many hours during the day,
which is more time to spend withyour family and more time to
focus on, you know,self-development.
Not to say that everyone does,but if you have the opportunity.
At least that's something wedidn't have 20 years ago.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
And that work-life balance is huge for mental
health, which is such a bigcrisis right now.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
I do think the mental health crisis I think that's
what I mean.
I think there's a balancebetween it, because there's a
good side and a bad side tobeing able to work remotely that
social aspect that we talkedabout.
Yeah, If you think about duringlockdown and COVID, worldwide
people were able to do theirjobs from home Cool, but they
were lonely and loneliness issomething that will you know.
(14:39):
I think loneliness anddisconnection from that social
aspect of it is so devastatinglybad for you on a not just on a
you know people talk about as ifyou know it's affecting you in
your, in your mind, and as ifthat's some kind of esoteric,
flim, flamsy, cloudy thing thatkind of exists.
But no, it's actually.
It affects the brain.
(14:59):
Um, I don't know what researchit is, I don't know, I don't
know which document, but I didread somewhere that there were
signs that long-term deprivationof social interaction will
actually smooth out the brain.
I don't know much about theactual research paper myself.
(15:20):
I don't even know if it wasdone on animals or on people,
but I just found thatinteresting.
That actually has a physicaleffect on us.
So the social aspect is veryimportant.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Yeah, I think it is too, because when you talk to
other people and you learn abouttheir experiences or how they
did something, that's just howwe learn so much more, don't you
think?
When you spend time withsomebody or you watch, you know
you have mentors in life andpeople that you look up to.
We learn so much from otherpeople.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
And also we learn things from the way we portray
other people and the way we seethem, because the other problem
is that it's not a problem.
But being alone is one thing.
Video calling, that's good, butspeaking to someone
face-to-face is so much betterbecause you pick up on so many
things that are intuitivelyunderstood when you're speaking
(16:13):
to someone face-to-face are theylooking, what are their hands
doing?
You know even things like howthey smell and all these things.
When you're talking to someoneand make an eye contact with
them, it affects us as a personbecause we are pack animals, we
(16:33):
are herd animals.
You know, humans have spent somany thousands of years evolving
to work best as a group.
We're group creatures.
So when we are in a group weget all those good and positive
hormones and chemicals rushingthrough our brains that just
make our lives so much better,and no one wants to be lonely.
And also, being alone doesn'tmean you're lonely, but you
(16:57):
still need that socialinteraction somewhere.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
And you can still be lonely when you're not alone.
That's just kind of how thatworks, a full circle thing.
But even back in the cavemandays the caveman sought a mate
to build a family and to build acommunity.
So that's gone back for agesago.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Yeah, the problem is that today we think that what is
trendy can replace what is whatis.
You know, there's like I don'tknow if it's still the case now,
but there was a period where,like, being a lone wolf was
really especially for men.
Being a lone wolf is what youneed.
You don't need anyone else, andI was like that's going
(17:39):
backwards.
No, Especially from a man'spoint of view, you need to have
a purpose, you need to have, youknow, a social element.
You need someone that you'rewilling to fight for.
You need a family, essentially,and whether that's a family
that you've created yourself oryou found, you need it.
I think that's.
(18:00):
I think it's good that that'skind of coming into the
foreground Again.
People are talking about thatmore as well and kind of get
into the fact that, yeah, ifit's worked for thousands and
thousands of years, at leastparts of it must be valuable, it
must be worthwhile.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
I feel too like like we were talking about the young
kids going into the workforceand how things are different.
I wonder what my life, whatroad I would have taken if I was
in high school now, with thedifferent opportunities that are
available.
I just feel like the kids today.
They just, like you said, likeit's not.
(18:36):
Do you want to do this or this.
It's not so black and white.
There's such a broad spectrumof things that you can do to
earn money and make a livingwealth of human history.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Everything that humanity has ever learned and
ever known, as far as we cantell in history, is all
available to us on our phones,which I think is that's Star
Trek level kind of technology.
That's the kind of stuff thatwhen I was a kid, that was like
if someone said to me yeah,you'll be able to access
everything from a handhelddevice that you can keep in your
phone and charge once a nightand you'll be able to pay for it
(19:14):
affordably each month.
I'd be like BS.
That's not true.
Beam me up, scotty.
No ways.
What else are you going to giveme?
A lightsaber teleportation.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
I remember watching like Pee Wee's Playhouse when I
was a kid and he had like hisown booth where he could see who
he was talking to.
And I remember my friend and Iwere like that wouldn't be so
cool if you could see who youwere talking to?
And now.
Facetime.
It's a thing, and it has beenfor a while Exactly.
I never saw that coming as akid.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
No, not at all, but it is.
You know, the problem that wehave with that is that a kid
growing up today can be Also.
The other thing is that you getso many influencers.
You know, we get so manydifferent people who are telling
you to listen to what they'resaying.
People saying this is what youshould do, and this is what you
(20:02):
should do, and this is what youshould do.
When I was a kid, you had alimited selection of role models
available to you that youactively had to go and find you
had to listen to the radio youhad to watch TV actively had to
go and find you know um, if Ilisten to the radio you had to
watch TV.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
You had to read magazines.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Yeah, if you wanted to go and get a movie you had to
go and select one from the,from the, from the, from
blockbusters and bring it homeand watch it.
So you very much were kind ofin control of what you were
doing to a limited degree thatyou know.
That limitation meant that youcould delve into it quite deeply
.
I was fascinated with martialarts when I was a kid, like it
was everything to me, and so youknow, the movies I watched were
(20:44):
with jean-claude rendam,stephen seagal, you know, uh,
bruce willis, although he didn'tdo martial arts, bruce lee,
jackie chan, all that.
Jet Li, donnie Yen.
I remember when On Buck cameout with Tony Jai, the Muay Thai
guy, and it just blew my mind,but it was so much easier
because you had to go and selectthat.
So you said, okay, I likemartial arts, this is what I'm
(21:06):
going to select and I'll dialinto everything and every aspect
of it.
I will go and find it and findthe kind of role models that I
want.
It's my activity.
I'm pulling that in.
If I'd been interested in rugbyor football or acting, I would
have done the same thing.
But today, on your phone, doomscrolling, every second person
is telling you no, this is theright thing to do, this is the
right thing to do, do this, dothat, don't do this, and you
(21:28):
think, okay.
So I had one or two role modelswhen I was growing up.
Stepsign now has dozens, youknow, or dozens, potentially
hundreds, you know, and ifyou're an impressionable person,
that's it.
You've got so many differentpeople telling you what you need
to be doing, and it can getconfusing, and so that does mean
(21:50):
that you've got thousands ofpotential opportunities that you
could look into, and what youreally need is someone to tell
you listen, you're not going todo that, you're not suited for
that.
You need to focus on this.
This is your talent, this isyour one talent.
Focus on that, hold that,develop that, Ignore everything
else.
I think that could actually bequite useful.
I don't know how we wouldmanage that.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
I almost feel like too, like when kids have
everything at their fingertips,they take it for granted.
So, like you said, I was thesame way when I was younger,
like, oh I you know, there werecertain movies I liked and there
were certain singers that Iliked, and I would want to read
everything about them and findevery picture I could and and
make collages for my wall.
And now, like my, my son,everything's just so easy and
(22:39):
you don't have to really put inthat work and the effort that we
did, and so I feel like that'show it works against the youth.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
It does.
It does, which is one of thethings we have to learn how to
manage, and it's down to theparents, I think, to figure out
how to kind of manage that, totake the high road not the high
road, but almost a hard lineapproach to it, because we do
have the wealth of informationat our fingertips, but in the
(23:09):
90s and in the early thousandswe still did.
We just had to go look for it alittle bit more.
The internet changed a lot ofstuff.
I remember when you know if youwanted to find something you
had to go look for it a littlebit more.
The internet changed a lot ofstuff.
I remember when you know if youwanted to find something you had
to go read the encyclopediayeah which was, you know, that
was always a bit of a okay, this, this is a bit of a task.
I'm going to find this, I'mgoing to find this out now.
Or you had to go to the library, you know you had to understand
the dewey system.
Uh, and now it is all availableon the hands, but there are
(23:35):
still efforts in terms offinding the right information,
because there's a lot of wronginformation out there.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
And people believe whatever they read or see or
want to, and then that's astruggle.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Yeah, they read the titles and then that's what they
assume.
Or they hear a podcaster or aYouTube star or influencer say
something like okay, I like them, and in this ocean of noise I
like them, so I'll listen towhat they have to say.
That's just human nature,whereas I think it's down to
(24:06):
once the adults learn how toproperly navigate the internet.
We can teach those lessons tothe generation that's entering
into it, like my stepson's 10,so he hasn't got a phone yet, he
doesn't have an iPhone yet, andhe's got that.
If he wants to learn something,he has to ask a question, he
(24:27):
has to go and find theinformation.
If we can keep that going, thenhe'll learn.
Okay, I've got the access tothe internet.
How do I find the correctinformation, instead of just
finding the fastest answer,because the fastest?
Speaker 1 (24:41):
answer is not always true.
I don't care how you get theanswer, but get the answer on
your own.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
And if you get it quickly, make sure it's the
correct one.
So maybe what we need to startteaching our kids is you know,
this is how you find a range ofinformation, a range of answers,
but this is how you fact checkthem, this is how you make sure
that they are correct.
Because if you support thewrong, if you support a lie that
makes you involved in the lie,you know if it's fake news, it's
(25:10):
a lie, it's a story, it's nottrue.
So if you're supporting that,it means that you're supporting
that lie, whereas if youactively pursue the truth, that
is always a noble pursuit,whether it means that you win or
lose or whatever the reason is.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Pursuing the truth is always important, always
valuable, and you want to bethat person, because if people
start to realize that you aregiving them false information,
then they're going to lose hopeand belief in you, and you don't
want that.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Yeah, you don't want to be the person.
You know there are differentlevels of it.
Politicians, obviously, youknow, at that kind of level you
have to always have your factscorrect.
Journalists, we have to haveyour facts correct ideally, but
on lower levels it's on a friendto friend basis.
If you're just the person who'salways been taken advantage of
and always fallen into this fakenews, people just don't trust
you anymore.
They're like well, you can'ttell a difference, so why are we
(26:01):
?
We're not going to have theconversations with you.
Yeah, we're not going to havethose conversations with you
where we actually want to debatesomething, because your, your,
your information is rubbish.
You believe it but it's nottrue and I think I think that's
something that we can.
You know, it's a small stepthat we can take in terms of it,
(26:21):
because I do think there's alot of people are not complacent
but they're like oh, what arewe going to do?
No one taught us how tonavigate this or how we're going
to teach our kids.
I said, well, it's time for youto try.
It's just time for you to tryit.
Just start with, like you know,doom scroll and just you know
how about we just take it smallsteps.
Just listen, okay, how longwe've been doom scrolling.
(26:42):
I've been doing scroll for like20 minutes.
Brilliant, stop that now and gooutside yeah you see the green
stuff.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
You see the green stuff yeah, go stand in that
grass today, yeah it's like yeah, I mean I remember like I was.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
I was when I was, when I was uh, when I was 10, we
used to go outside and itwasn't a case that we'd come
home when the uh, when thelights, when the streetlights
went on.
That's the whole thing.
Yeah, we used to go home with astreetlights come Now, we used
to get home when we were toocold and hungry to stay outside
anymore.
You know, kind of rock up herein our pants.
We didn't have mud on ourtrousers, like we'd lost half
(27:17):
the trousers and you know weonly had like one shoe left.
We had another shoe that wepicked up along the way and you
know we had more scars For thoserandom one shoes, you see, yeah
, exactly you think where's theother person, where's that
person?
I don't know, but he lost a shoe.
It's fine.
He probably has mine Off we go.
It's interesting because I dostill think that happens.
(27:39):
I think there is a sorry, I amdoing a lot, I've just been
talking constantly.
No, that's great.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
You're making it easy for me.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
I do think that there is less to worry about than
people sometimes talk about,because there is children.
They do want to go outside andplay.
They want that.
If a child's like playing avideo game, and then you're okay
, listen, I'm going to go to thepark.
You know, especially whenthey're young, they're like, hey
, no, yeah, I'd love to gooutside.
It's, it's an adventure, I'lldo it.
(28:08):
But I think sometimes what isthat they see adults not doing
that themselves?
right and if, if grown-ups arethe ones who are going listen,
I'm going outside or I'm goingfor a walk, do you want to come
with me?
And they're like, yeah, okay,I'll come with you.
And they're like, okay, this isbrilliant and I think, but it
does fall down to the parents.
We don't need to know theanswers.
We don't have to know theanswers, we just have to lead by
(28:30):
example.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Exactly that is my.
I love that.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Just invite them.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Just invite them to join us, and we are their
biggest influencers, right Likeif you're in their life forever,
or since they don't remember,then you're the one showing them
what they want or what theydon't want the one showing them
what they want or what theydon't want.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
I mean, how many times when you were a kid did
you not do something because youwere afraid to ask permission
to do it, even something small,like you want to make yourself a
sandwich or anything, any small, independent thing.
And you think well, I didn'task because I was afraid to ask
permission, because I'd neverseen anyone else do it.
But if you see mom or dad dosomething, you say okay, cool,
can I just do that as well, andif you'll do it, it kind of
(29:11):
opens up the door, and I thinkthat's a lot of it.
You know, the world is so bigand so huge and if it's not your
mom and dad who are opening thedoors for you to kind of lead
you through it, you'll be justopening up doors wherever you
can and then be like I don'tknow which door to go through,
whereas you know I'm still quitenew.
I'm new to podcasts, I'mespecially new to being a parent
(29:33):
, but from what I can see so faris largely and what I saw from
my parents, it's largely aboutjust following their example.
You know, I do think there's alot of hope.
I think there's a few thingsthat we need to get sorted
ourselves, but I don't thinkit's as bad as what people
sometimes make it out to be,which I just realized.
(29:57):
I don't know why I got intothat topic.
I was kind of going a littlebit on the deeper side of things
and we were actually justtalking about career paths.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Well, you know, that's the thing.
It's a deep-rooted thing ofwhere you end up in your career
and how you find that path.
We were talking before westarted recording too.
Like Donnie, what did you wantto be when you grew up and how
did you end up on this path?
Speaker 2 (30:20):
comparatively, yeah, firstly I wanted to be a
paleontologist, like Alan Grantfrom Jurassic Park.
Absolutely yes, absolutely Loveddinosaurs, always have done
Like any red-blooded SouthAfrican loved dinosaurs.
Then I wanted to be a spacecowboy, which I can't really
(30:41):
ride a horse and I'm never goinginto space.
I don't like to fly.
But what I actually alwayswanted to be was a writer.
I've always wanted to be awriter.
I wrote my first book when Iwas nine.
Um, I was 120 pages.
I wrote it on on a computer.
Yeah, just talk about oldtechnology.
I wrote it on dos yeah it wassaved.
It was saved on 17 stiffy discsand so I remember we sent it off
(31:06):
to the editor and they're likeoh, this is brilliant, can you
send us a fresh copy?
Make these few changes, make afresh copy.
And I didn't know what I wasdoing and I think I crashed the
computer and I lost it all.
But I've always wanted to be awriter and I've had different
jobs and whatnot, but I kind ofstumbled into publishing with
working with a magazine in about2008.
(31:29):
And it's just been what I'vedone ever since, and I'm very
pleased to say that I do.
Now.
My job is to write articles.
I write articles on businessesand CEOs.
I get to speak to someincredible people.
I've written several books thathave been published.
Those are not as successful asI'd like them to be, which is
(31:51):
often something that a novelisthas to realize for all your
effort, published as a reallybig accomplishment it is.
It sounds big, but you kind ofget it like brilliant, can I
retire now?
And they're like no chance.
They're like no, no, you do notwant to retire.
Um, but I I got into it becauseI wanted to do it and I've
always.
(32:11):
One thing about me is I'vealways had that get up and go a
bit of an energetic kind of okay, I'll just do it.
And while I do make a littlebit of planning, I don't get
bogged down in the details.
I'm like, okay, this is whatI'm going to do, I do it, I just
do it.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Figure that other stuff out as you go.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Yeah, yeah, which sounds very cool, but it's like
you know, it's kind of likerunning on an open field before
you've kind of checked out wherethe holes are and you kind of
find out, you face plant a fewtimes but as long as you keep
the momentum going yeah you knowyou get to the other side and
you're like, oh God, and youthink there's a road right there
(32:52):
.
Why didn't I just take the road?
If I just walked 20 meters up,there's a road there.
So, like I've always wanted tobe a writer and so I just got
into it and I honestly thinklargely what I do is just that
this that's what I want to do,especially when I was young
Anyone I spoke with am I likewhen I was a teenager, when I
(33:14):
was in my twenties, they're like, what do you want to do?
I was like I really want to.
I want to write, I want towrite articles.
I want to be a journalist, Iwant to.
I want to write novels, writebooks, and that kind of earnest,
earnest honesty and just beingkind of knowing what I want and
being luckily knowing what I'vewent from a young age and moving
(33:34):
that forward has always beenreally it's always paid off for
me, because I think people like,okay, you want to be a writer,
brilliant, and then they'll gooff and they won't think
anything of it and then, bychance, someone somewhere will
be like, actually, that's,that'd be perfect for this guy.
I know this guy.
He's really keen on writing andthey make an introduction or
they say well, why don't youcontact so and so I know so and
(33:55):
so that works for a magazine.
Okay, do that.
With the internet.
Now it can be easier if youknow what you want to do.
If you decide, fine, I want toget into writing in terms of
journalism or blogging orwhatever it is.
All you have to do is withChatGP.
It makes it even easier to findthis thing online.
You just say can you give me alist of a thousand magazines
(34:18):
worldwide that might be lookingfor writers?
You got your list.
You go, okay, cool.
Then you go to Google and youget a mass mail and you go just
send an email to a thousandpeople saying I'm a writer, let
me write for you.
You know I will pay me whateveryou like, I'll just write for
you.
And all I ask is that you put myname on an article in your
magazine or on your website andthen it starts to grow.
(34:42):
And then people like, okay,yeah, great, let's do it, or you
need to improve, you need tochange this, you need to do this
.
Okay, fine, you can adapt andyou can grow when you've got
that interchange, that kind offeedback of it, whether it's
good or bad, you can say, okay,great, this is how I work, this
is how I sharpen my skills, andit's like that.
With anything, absolutelyanything.
(35:03):
If you want to be a I don'tknow an accountant, or you want
to work in technology, you wantto work in engineering, you have
to have that core interest.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
So the best way to find out If you can figure out
what you're passionate about andmake that into a career, you're
going to be a lot happier.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Exactly, and also what you're passionate about can
often be channeled into acertain thing, but if you break
it down, there's often differentareas Like writing.
What I like about writing is Iget to talk to people, I get to
think laterally, I get to lookat things from a different
perspective, I get to researchstuff, have an excuse to really
(35:40):
deep dive and research things,travel and see yeah.
I get an excuse for all thisstuff.
There are different industriesthat I could have been very
satisfied in, and there was abusiness person I wish I could
remember the name because ofsuch a great quote.
It wasn't a quote, but he saidthat you don't need passion to
have a career, you need to havea trade.
(36:02):
You need to know what you'regood at.
And his words were there areloads of accountants who are
multi-millionaires, who arepassionate about painting, but
because they were good withnumbers as well and they were
able to get into that trade,they had the success there and
they built a career on that.
You don't have to follow yourpassions for your career, but
you need to know what you'repassionate about.
(36:23):
So if you're good with numbers,you've got to use that, because
that's an advantage.
If you're good with numbers,you've got to use that, because
that's an advantage.
If you're good with words,you've got to use that.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
I'm good with writing .
It usually comes easy to you.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Exactly so then you're not so stressed out or
have to work with my hands.
Not necessarily, because whatmakes you good with your hands
is more than just your limbs.
(36:57):
It's the way your brain works.
It's a way that you couldvisualize things, conceptualize
things.
You may be very good atarchitecture, you may be very
good at teaching.
You know there's that guidanceagain, how we get guidance from
our elders to say, okay, well,you'd be perfect for these kind
of roles.
These roles are the ones thatare making the money and where
(37:18):
you get the most success from.
If you get more success, themore success you get, the more
encouraged you'll be to dobetter at something and you'll
grow and grow and grow andyou'll develop it.
And then, if you're successful,whatever it may not be the most
glamorous position, but successis power, success is confidence
(37:39):
, success is purpose.
Feeling successful is veryimportant, very important, and I
would rather be a.
I would rather be successful atsomething that's boring that'd
be the best at something that noone appreciates and you know
(38:00):
I'm off by myself A long way,yeah, you know.
And there is again, becausethere's a trendy thing online of
people say, oh, you got tofollow, follow what you're
passionate about and follow thisalmost at the complete
exclusion of absolutelyeverything else.
But I think that is a dangerousthing to teach people because
it's a balance.
Again, it's a balance.
Everyone who I know of who'shad phenomenal success in one
(38:23):
thing built that up while theywere doing something else.
One of my favorite writers,terry pratchett.
Um, he, I don't know if youknow him, he's a british writer,
he's a fantasist.
He's written some incrediblework, um, and he's just loved in
the uk, loved worldwide, but inthe uk he's just.
Everyone knows him and heworked a run of jobs.
(38:44):
He was a pr agent for a nuclearpower plant for many years and
he was working on his books onthe sidelines, you know, and it
was took a long time for him tobuild it up, but he got his
success and he was able to do itfull time.
And it's the same with with meand writing on a much smaller,
on a much smaller scale.
Um, there were times whenwriting was not making the money
(39:07):
I needed to do, and so I justgot any job I possibly could,
and some of those jobs I waspretty good at, and so I was, I
was able to, I got promoted andI got up and I was like, oh,
this is fantastic.
I feel, you know, I've, I'mfeeling that success, I'm going
that.
You know those that dopaminerush.
It's good.
Um, and then that led on to theother passions of writing and
and this is where I found it.
(39:28):
So I think there's a balance tobe said Follow your passions
but, at the same time, make surethat you have something that
you're good at, that you canleverage to make revenue, to
make money, to make something ofyourself, because you need to
have a backup plan.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
Donnie is there anything else that you want to
share?
Speaker 2 (39:48):
I think I've just been speaking so much.
I'm so sorry.
I think I've just kind of likerailroaded you.
I must have had a lot of sugarfor dinner.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
Well, it is six hours later where you are than where
I am, so I just had lunch andyou're already probably getting
ready for bed.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Yeah, I've had far too much caffeine to go to bed
now.
But it has been a lot of fun.
Thank you so much for theopportunity.
I've really enjoyed.
I've really enjoyed the our ourour chance to chat here.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
So where can we find you?
Speaker 2 (40:17):
Okay, so, um, I am online.
I'm on all the major platformsum X, instagram, facebook,
linkedin.
Donnie Rust uh, the LostExecutive, it's Executive.
That's our publishing house.
That can be found atthelostexecutivecom and our
magazine, the Logbook can alsobe found on that website.
And, yeah, it's as simple asthat to get hold of me All right
(40:41):
.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast.
We enjoyed having you and nowwe're best friends.
But now I have a internationalbest friend I love it, kelly.
Thank you so much all right,donnie have a good night you too
, cheers now.
Thank you for listening to another episode of
On Our Best Behavior.
Today I have a very specialguest.
His name is Donnie Rust.
He is the creative director forthe Lost Executive LTD.
Author, former digital nomadtravel journalist and a long
time ago stand-up comedian.
He is the key writer for traveland business magazine, the
(00:22):
Logbook.
Welcome to the podcast, donnie.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hi Kelly, Thanks so much for having me on here.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
It's very exciting.
All of us American girls arejust going to blush over your
accent.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Out of curiosity, what accent do you think I have?
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Well, you're from Scotland, so Irish.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Scotland Scottish.
I live in Scotland.
I'm actually South African.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
Oh, really yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I've got a very odd accent, that's fun.
Yeah, I suppose, but it is abit of a mix, so I was just
curious whether or not you couldpin it down.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
What made you leave South Africa for Scotland?
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Oh well, I lived there my whole life with my
family.
We immigrated when I was about19.
I had the opportunity to stayin South Africa, but I thought I
wanted to come and have anadventure.
So we moved over to Norwich inEngland to start with, which is
not a great place for adventureswhen you're used to safaris and
(01:24):
camping outside and all thevarious joys of South Africa.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Well, that's interesting.
And then you know you do a lotwith travel now.
So who would have thought?
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, travel has always been a
big part of everything that I'vedone.
I do I'm one of those peoplewho gets very edgy if I don't
get to travel frequently, if Idon't have a new surroundings
and new areas.
And so, yeah, I've been doing alot of traveling, but that was
actually the first time I'd everleft the, I ever left Southern
Africa when I immigrated over tothe UK and it was a match,
(01:59):
massive culture shock.
You tend to grow up.
When you grow up in countrieslike South Africa, you do have a
certain idea of what anotherland is going to be like.
Like.
We came to UK and we expectedthat everyone in Scotland was
going to sound like Mel Gibsonfrom Braveheart and everyone in
England was going to sound likeShia Khan from the Jungle Book,
(02:23):
and that was not the case.
Have you ever been to UK?
Speaker 1 (02:29):
No, I've really not been out of the country other
than to like Mexico and theCaribbean.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
I mean, the States are huge.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Yeah, I mean, I used to feel like I wanted to see the
whole entire world, but then Irealized, like how much the
United States has to offer thata lot of people that live here
don't even experience, becausewe're we look to the bigger
picture, where you forget what'smaybe just in your backyard.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Yeah, no, I agree with that entirely.
I was when I left South Africa.
It was only when I left that Irealized how much of it I hadn't
explored and discovered.
And also I mean America.
Everyone talks about the UnitedStates as being a single
country and I've never beenthere.
But I have spoken to manypeople you have and from what
(03:19):
they've said, united States isnot a single country.
It is 50 odd differentcountries kind of stuck together
, and I feel like that forEurope.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Right, you guys have all these countries, but that's
kind of laid out like how theUnited States has states.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
Yeah, europe is a mixture of many different
countries, but even thosecountries do kind of follow the
suit of America.
Spain, for example.
If you've never been there, youjust think Spain, spanish, one
country.
But I spent a bit of time inSpain and it's like it is a few
(03:57):
different, completely differentcountries crammed in together
underneath one title and theyhave different cultures and
different foods that they like.
The landscape, um, thelandscape is completely
different, which obviously doeshave an effect on the culture
and history of the place.
Um, you just get lost there,because spain is as close to
like being in the setting ofgame of thrones or or like a
(04:19):
high fantasy kind of, um kind ofbackground, because it's just a
beautiful.
Europe is like that, it's justso old and so much history.
It's a wonderful place.
I would definitely recommendthat you visit.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Yeah, definitely want to, for sure, all right.
So, donnie, let's talk aboutwhat you do.
The world has changed so much.
When I was a kid, nobody workedremote.
That was unheard of.
And now the world has changedprofessionally, with such an
increase in remote jobs.
Tell us about that and tell ushow young professionals entering
(04:54):
into this.
It's completely different than,like I said, when we were kids.
Speaker 2 (04:59):
So, yeah, so, like you said, there are two parts to
that.
So the first part is yeah, Ithink the technology available
to do the general office workhas advanced and developed
hugely.
If you think back 10 years ago,15 years ago, if you wanted to
have a reliable computer or areliable work, you had to go
(05:20):
into the office.
So that was the thing you wentto the office and you had your
desk and you did your work fromthere.
I was in publishing in severaldifferent magazines in the past
that were entirely office-based.
We still traveled and we stillwent places, but it was very
much a case of you traveled andthen you returned, and I think
there's a lot of tradition inthat as well.
(05:40):
There have always been digitalnomads, essentially because you
have travel journalists, you hadon-site journalists, so there
was always that opportunity totravel and work, but you needed
to find a company that waswilling to do that and willing
to go through the trouble of theextra, because you'd have to
fax, you'd have to use fax mail.
(06:00):
There was a lot of extra effortto support your employees or
your staff or your freelancersthat were traveling, whereas
today, the same technology thatcompanies use to run payrolls
and HR systems is all online.
It's all on the cloud and thereare people who work for big
companies that do big jobs thatwould never have been considered
(06:21):
as a remote job previously,which now is just as easy to do
at home as is in the office.
Also, covid made a bigdifference to that, because that
made a lot of companies awareof how easy it is to get people
working remotely from home.
Now, lost Executive we launchedourselves in 2017, and our
(06:42):
entire company is entirelystaffed by digital nomads, so
all of the key components of ourbusiness are working remotely
or from wherever.
Some of them are permanenttravelers.
I myself was a digital nomad forabout three years.
I basically just spent my timeAirbnb hopping through Europe
while I was working with amagazine and building up quite
(07:04):
happily.
And then lockdown happened,covid happened and around the
world, people realized well,this is actually quite possible.
And after working from home forsometimes up to a year, year
and a half, people were quitehappy to work from home and were
able to prove and demonstratethat they could do their job
perfectly well from home, andthey had a real legitimate
reason to say well, if I canwork from home, why can't I work
(07:26):
from another location.
Why can't I work from whereverI happen to be?
And that's, I think, is howthings are moving, because it
does give people the opportunityto combine travel with work,
which I think is quite important.
If you, it is an opportunitythat few adults, especially in,
like the older millennials andgeneration gen x and whatnot it
(07:47):
is a foreign concept to thembecause you traveled and then
you worked.
But if you combine the two, youcan travel, be wherever you are
, get your job done and thenyou're in a location so you can
enjoy your life.
So it is a very good balancefor a lifestyle.
It's changed for.
And to get your second point,um, in terms terms of how this
is going to be different foryoungsters, that was the
question, how it's going to bedifferent for the younger
(08:11):
generation in terms of theworkplace when we went into the
workforce, how it's going to bedifferent from them versus what
it was like for us.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Sorry, I chose a, really bad time to take a sip of
my drink there.
Sorry, sorry, I chose a reallybad time to take a sip of my
drink there.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Sorry.
Yeah, I think one of the thingsthat it's definitely going to
be noticing is that peoplecoming into the workforce now
are expecting to get thatbalance of lifestyle.
They're expecting that becausethey don't see a reason why they
can't.
I don't think it's a case ofthem feeling entitled or
privileged or anything.
(08:44):
It's just them seeing what ispossible with the technology,
what is easy with the technology, and it just makes sense If you
think about it.
Working from home means youdon't have to worry about a
daily commute, so you're notgoing to be late.
There are some exceptions,obviously, if you're working in
manufacturing or theconstruction industry.
There's loads of industrieswhich aren't affected by this at
(09:10):
all, but a number of theindustries you can remote in so
you don't have to commute, sothere's no worry about there
being any lateness.
Punctuality is better.
There's also the lack of a car,the lower carbon footprint
because you're not doing thedaily commute.
It's no longer a case of takingpublic transport instead of a
car.
Now it's a case of well, whydon't I just work from home and
just cut that out entirely, andthat opens up the opportunities
(09:34):
of being well.
If I can work from home, whycan't my home be anywhere in the
world.
Now there are some stickingpoints currently with regards to
HR and the legal framework tosupport employees, whether
you're in America or UK orEurope, wherever you happen to
be.
If you're working for a UKcompany, for example, the
(09:55):
employment laws will bedifferent for any of your
employees.
If they decide to move toEurope or to America, then you
have to kind of make extraprovisions for them because
they're leaving the country.
They're not governed by thesame laws and vice versa.
So that's a sticking point atthe moment, but it's one of the
only ones, that kind of the onlyreal sticking point there is.
(10:16):
So youngsters coming into theworkplace are going to be
finding that there arebusinesses already sorting that
problem which is going to beironing that out.
So they're expecting to be ableto travel or at least work from
home and have that homewherever they want to be.
There are some exceptions, likeI said, and also I do think
that there is a balance to befound between working completely
(10:37):
remotely and still having thesocial aspect that you can get
from an office, aspect that youcan get from an office which for
the last decade and a half, twodecades, there have been
businesses that have built uphospitality, businesses that are
entirely focused on justcreating a social environment
for digital nomads to work from,which I think is a great thing
and very useful, and that'sdefinitely going to be seen.
(10:59):
We're going to be seeing moreof that and more usage of that
in the future, I reckon.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Yeah, I mean when I was a kid the internet just came
out when I was in junior highmaybe, and I remember we'd go to
my grandpa's office just so wecould get on.
I guess I don't even know thetimeline, but whatever, A good
(11:32):
20 years for sure Like you hadto use dial up and you had to go
to the library or you had to goto a business to use the
internet, and now you can use itin the car, on the airplane,
anywhere in the world.
That's mind-blowing to me.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Yeah, and technology doesn't have to necessarily
develop in terms of the hardware, it's just the usage of the
software that matters.
Like if you think about evenjust 10 years ago.
So it's 2004 now almost 2005,.
Think 2015.
In 2015, you know, people arestill using cds for their games,
(12:07):
people still using dvds.
Um iphones yeah, music was was,uh, you know, ipods and, uh, mp3
players.
I don't know if I don't know ifthat was used that late.
Um, but you know it was a.
It was a day people still knewwhat cassette tapes were and
VHSs, and 10 years is all that'staken for that to completely
(12:29):
change.
If you think about it, if youtake it a step further, consider
the changes that have happenedwith the likes of ChatGPT over
the last year and a half and howmuch of an effect that's had on
things.
And you know, cloud, the factthat we don't use, we don't have
any storage devices anymore.
Thumb drives are.
They're still useful, butthey're not used.
(12:49):
As often CDs are defunct.
Nobody uses CDs anymore.
Cassette tapes, videos, vhs.
I asked my boy the other day.
I was like well, you know, doyou know what a VHS is?
He went no, is that somethingyou catch?
I was like no, no, it's not.
(13:09):
Which led into a very awkwardconversation with my wife, which
was like yeah, okay, never mind.
But the technology continues todevelop, but also the usage of
it, and with that comesdifferent expectations of it.
It's just the world is changingAlso.
The jobs are changing as well.
Artificial intelligence isgoing to change many industries,
(13:31):
and, I think, largely for thebetter, which is going to make
working from home so much easier, and that's going to, once we
get used to it, once it becomesmore common, that will have a
beneficial effect on people'slifestyles, because we'll be
managing you know managing thebalance between hard work and
(13:56):
lifestyle, because you can saveso many hours during the day,
which is more time to spend withyour family and more time to
focus on, you know,self-development.
Not to say that everyone does,but if you have the opportunity.
At least that's something wedidn't have 20 years ago.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
And that work-life balance is huge for mental
health, which is such a bigcrisis right now.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
I do think the mental health crisis I think that's
what I mean.
I think there's a balancebetween it, because there's a
good side and a bad side tobeing able to work remotely that
social aspect that we talkedabout.
Yeah, If you think about duringlockdown and COVID, worldwide
people were able to do theirjobs from home Cool, but they
were lonely and loneliness issomething that will you know.
(14:39):
I think loneliness anddisconnection from that social
aspect of it is so devastatinglybad for you on a not just on a
you know people talk about as ifyou know it's affecting you in
your, in your mind, and as ifthat's some kind of esoteric,
flim, flamsy, cloudy thing thatkind of exists.
But no, it's actually.
It affects the brain.
(14:59):
Um, I don't know what researchit is, I don't know, I don't
know which document, but I didread somewhere that there were
signs that long-term deprivationof social interaction will
actually smooth out the brain.
I don't know much about theactual research paper myself.
(15:20):
I don't even know if it wasdone on animals or on people,
but I just found thatinteresting.
That actually has a physicaleffect on us.
So the social aspect is veryimportant.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
Yeah, I think it is too, because when you talk to
other people and you learn abouttheir experiences or how they
did something, that's just howwe learn so much more, don't you
think?
When you spend time withsomebody or you watch, you know
you have mentors in life andpeople that you look up to.
We learn so much from otherpeople.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
And also we learn things from the way we portray
other people and the way we seethem, because the other problem
is that it's not a problem.
But being alone is one thing.
Video calling, that's good, butspeaking to someone
face-to-face is so much betterbecause you pick up on so many
things that are intuitivelyunderstood when you're speaking
(16:13):
to someone face-to-face are theylooking, what are their hands
doing?
You know even things like howthey smell and all these things.
When you're talking to someoneand make an eye contact with
them, it affects us as a personbecause we are pack animals, we
(16:33):
are herd animals.
You know, humans have spent somany thousands of years evolving
to work best as a group.
We're group creatures.
So when we are in a group weget all those good and positive
hormones and chemicals rushingthrough our brains that just
make our lives so much better,and no one wants to be lonely.
And also, being alone doesn'tmean you're lonely, but you
(16:57):
still need that socialinteraction somewhere.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
And you can still be lonely when you're not alone.
That's just kind of how thatworks, a full circle thing.
But even back in the cavemandays the caveman sought a mate
to build a family and to build acommunity.
So that's gone back for agesago.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Yeah, the problem is that today we think that what is
trendy can replace what is whatis.
You know, there's like I don'tknow if it's still the case now,
but there was a period where,like, being a lone wolf was
really especially for men.
Being a lone wolf is what youneed.
You don't need anyone else, andI was like that's going
(17:39):
backwards.
No, Especially from a man'spoint of view, you need to have
a purpose, you need to have, youknow, a social element.
You need someone that you'rewilling to fight for.
You need a family, essentially,and whether that's a family
that you've created yourself oryou found, you need it.
I think that's.
(18:00):
I think it's good that that'skind of coming into the
foreground Again.
People are talking about thatmore as well and kind of get
into the fact that, yeah, ifit's worked for thousands and
thousands of years, at leastparts of it must be valuable, it
must be worthwhile.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
I feel too like like we were talking about the young
kids going into the workforceand how things are different.
I wonder what my life, whatroad I would have taken if I was
in high school now, with thedifferent opportunities that are
available.
I just feel like the kids today.
They just, like you said, likeit's not.
(18:36):
Do you want to do this or this.
It's not so black and white.
There's such a broad spectrumof things that you can do to
earn money and make a livingwealth of human history.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Everything that humanity has ever learned and
ever known, as far as we cantell in history, is all
available to us on our phones,which I think is that's Star
Trek level kind of technology.
That's the kind of stuff thatwhen I was a kid, that was like
if someone said to me yeah,you'll be able to access
everything from a handhelddevice that you can keep in your
phone and charge once a nightand you'll be able to pay for it
(19:14):
affordably each month.
I'd be like BS.
That's not true.
Beam me up, scotty.
No ways.
What else are you going to giveme?
A lightsaber teleportation.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
I remember watching like Pee Wee's Playhouse when I
was a kid and he had like hisown booth where he could see who
he was talking to.
And I remember my friend and Iwere like that wouldn't be so
cool if you could see who youwere talking to?
And now.
Facetime.
It's a thing, and it has beenfor a while Exactly.
I never saw that coming as akid.
Speaker 2 (19:42):
No, not at all, but it is.
You know, the problem that wehave with that is that a kid
growing up today can be Also.
The other thing is that you getso many influencers.
You know, we get so manydifferent people who are telling
you to listen to what they'resaying.
People saying this is what youshould do, and this is what you
(20:02):
should do, and this is what youshould do.
When I was a kid, you had alimited selection of role models
available to you that youactively had to go and find you
had to listen to the radio youhad to watch TV actively had to
go and find you know um, if Ilisten to the radio you had to
watch TV.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
You had to read magazines.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Yeah, if you wanted to go and get a movie you had to
go and select one from the,from the, from the, from
blockbusters and bring it homeand watch it.
So you very much were kind ofin control of what you were
doing to a limited degree thatyou know.
That limitation meant that youcould delve into it quite deeply
.
I was fascinated with martialarts when I was a kid, like it
was everything to me, and so youknow, the movies I watched were
(20:44):
with jean-claude rendam,stephen seagal, you know, uh,
bruce willis, although he didn'tdo martial arts, bruce lee,
jackie chan, all that.
Jet Li, donnie Yen.
I remember when On Buck cameout with Tony Jai, the Muay Thai
guy, and it just blew my mind,but it was so much easier
because you had to go and selectthat.
So you said, okay, I likemartial arts, this is what I'm
(21:06):
going to select and I'll dialinto everything and every aspect
of it.
I will go and find it and findthe kind of role models that I
want.
It's my activity.
I'm pulling that in.
If I'd been interested in rugbyor football or acting, I would
have done the same thing.
But today, on your phone, doomscrolling, every second person
is telling you no, this is theright thing to do, this is the
right thing to do, do this, dothat, don't do this, and you
(21:28):
think, okay.
So I had one or two role modelswhen I was growing up.
Stepsign now has dozens, youknow, or dozens, potentially
hundreds, you know, and ifyou're an impressionable person,
that's it.
You've got so many differentpeople telling you what you need
to be doing, and it can getconfusing, and so that does mean
(21:50):
that you've got thousands ofpotential opportunities that you
could look into, and what youreally need is someone to tell
you listen, you're not going todo that, you're not suited for
that.
You need to focus on this.
This is your talent, this isyour one talent.
Focus on that, hold that,develop that, Ignore everything
else.
I think that could actually bequite useful.
I don't know how we wouldmanage that.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
I almost feel like too, like when kids have
everything at their fingertips,they take it for granted.
So, like you said, I was thesame way when I was younger,
like, oh I you know, there werecertain movies I liked and there
were certain singers that Iliked, and I would want to read
everything about them and findevery picture I could and and
make collages for my wall.
And now, like my, my son,everything's just so easy and
(22:39):
you don't have to really put inthat work and the effort that we
did, and so I feel like that'show it works against the youth.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
It does.
It does, which is one of thethings we have to learn how to
manage, and it's down to theparents, I think, to figure out
how to kind of manage that, totake the high road not the high
road, but almost a hard lineapproach to it, because we do
have the wealth of informationat our fingertips, but in the
(23:09):
90s and in the early thousandswe still did.
We just had to go look for it alittle bit more.
The internet changed a lot ofstuff.
I remember when you know if youwanted to find something you
had to go look for it a littlebit more.
The internet changed a lot ofstuff.
I remember when you know if youwanted to find something you had
to go read the encyclopediayeah which was, you know, that
was always a bit of a okay, this, this is a bit of a task.
I'm going to find this, I'mgoing to find this out now.
Or you had to go to the library, you know you had to understand
the dewey system.
Uh, and now it is all availableon the hands, but there are
(23:35):
still efforts in terms offinding the right information,
because there's a lot of wronginformation out there.
Speaker 1 (23:42):
And people believe whatever they read or see or
want to, and then that's astruggle.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Yeah, they read the titles and then that's what they
assume.
Or they hear a podcaster or aYouTube star or influencer say
something like okay, I like them, and in this ocean of noise I
like them, so I'll listen towhat they have to say.
That's just human nature,whereas I think it's down to
(24:06):
once the adults learn how toproperly navigate the internet.
We can teach those lessons tothe generation that's entering
into it, like my stepson's 10,so he hasn't got a phone yet, he
doesn't have an iPhone yet, andhe's got that.
If he wants to learn something,he has to ask a question, he
(24:27):
has to go and find theinformation.
If we can keep that going, thenhe'll learn.
Okay, I've got the access tothe internet.
How do I find the correctinformation, instead of just
finding the fastest answer,because the fastest?
Speaker 1 (24:41):
answer is not always true.
I don't care how you get theanswer, but get the answer on
your own.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:47):
And if you get it quickly, make sure it's the
correct one.
So maybe what we need to startteaching our kids is you know,
this is how you find a range ofinformation, a range of answers,
but this is how you fact checkthem, this is how you make sure
that they are correct.
Because if you support thewrong, if you support a lie that
makes you involved in the lie,you know if it's fake news, it's
(25:10):
a lie, it's a story, it's nottrue.
So if you're supporting that,it means that you're supporting
that lie, whereas if youactively pursue the truth, that
is always a noble pursuit,whether it means that you win or
lose or whatever the reason is.
Speaker 1 (25:26):
Pursuing the truth is always important, always
valuable, and you want to bethat person, because if people
start to realize that you aregiving them false information,
then they're going to lose hopeand belief in you, and you don't
want that.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
Yeah, you don't want to be the person.
You know there are differentlevels of it.
Politicians, obviously, youknow, at that kind of level you
have to always have your factscorrect.
Journalists, we have to haveyour facts correct ideally, but
on lower levels it's on a friendto friend basis.
If you're just the person who'salways been taken advantage of
and always fallen into this fakenews, people just don't trust
you anymore.
They're like well, you can'ttell a difference, so why are we
(26:01):
?
We're not going to have theconversations with you.
Yeah, we're not going to havethose conversations with you
where we actually want to debatesomething, because your, your,
your information is rubbish.
You believe it but it's nottrue and I think I think that's
something that we can.
You know, it's a small stepthat we can take in terms of it,
(26:21):
because I do think there's alot of people are not complacent
but they're like oh, what arewe going to do?
No one taught us how tonavigate this or how we're going
to teach our kids.
I said, well, it's time for youto try.
It's just time for you to tryit.
Just start with, like you know,doom scroll and just you know
how about we just take it smallsteps.
Just listen, okay, how longwe've been doom scrolling.
(26:42):
I've been doing scroll for like20 minutes.
Brilliant, stop that now and gooutside yeah you see the green
stuff.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
You see the green stuff yeah, go stand in that
grass today, yeah it's like yeah, I mean I remember like I was.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
I was when I was, when I was uh, when I was 10, we
used to go outside and itwasn't a case that we'd come
home when the uh, when thelights, when the streetlights
went on.
That's the whole thing.
Yeah, we used to go home with astreetlights come Now, we used
to get home when we were toocold and hungry to stay outside
anymore.
You know, kind of rock up herein our pants.
We didn't have mud on ourtrousers, like we'd lost half
(27:17):
the trousers and you know weonly had like one shoe left.
We had another shoe that wepicked up along the way and you
know we had more scars For thoserandom one shoes, you see, yeah
, exactly you think where's theother person, where's that
person?
I don't know, but he lost a shoe.
It's fine.
He probably has mine Off we go.
It's interesting because I dostill think that happens.
(27:39):
I think there is a sorry, I amdoing a lot, I've just been
talking constantly.
No, that's great.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
You're making it easy for me.
Speaker 2 (27:48):
I do think that there is less to worry about than
people sometimes talk about,because there is children.
They do want to go outside andplay.
They want that.
If a child's like playing avideo game, and then you're okay
, listen, I'm going to go to thepark.
You know, especially whenthey're young, they're like, hey
, no, yeah, I'd love to gooutside.
It's, it's an adventure, I'lldo it.
(28:08):
But I think sometimes what isthat they see adults not doing
that themselves?
right and if, if grown-ups arethe ones who are going listen,
I'm going outside or I'm goingfor a walk, do you want to come
with me?
And they're like, yeah, okay,I'll come with you.
And they're like, okay, this isbrilliant and I think, but it
does fall down to the parents.
We don't need to know theanswers.
We don't have to know theanswers, we just have to lead by
(28:30):
example.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Exactly that is my.
I love that.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
Just invite them.
Speaker 1 (28:35):
Just invite them to join us, and we are their
biggest influencers, right Likeif you're in their life forever,
or since they don't remember,then you're the one showing them
what they want or what theydon't want the one showing them
what they want or what theydon't want.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
I mean, how many times when you were a kid did
you not do something because youwere afraid to ask permission
to do it, even something small,like you want to make yourself a
sandwich or anything, any small, independent thing.
And you think well, I didn'task because I was afraid to ask
permission, because I'd neverseen anyone else do it.
But if you see mom or dad dosomething, you say okay, cool,
can I just do that as well, andif you'll do it, it kind of
(29:11):
opens up the door, and I thinkthat's a lot of it.
You know, the world is so bigand so huge and if it's not your
mom and dad who are opening thedoors for you to kind of lead
you through it, you'll be justopening up doors wherever you
can and then be like I don'tknow which door to go through,
whereas you know I'm still quitenew.
I'm new to podcasts, I'mespecially new to being a parent
(29:33):
, but from what I can see so faris largely and what I saw from
my parents, it's largely aboutjust following their example.
You know, I do think there's alot of hope.
I think there's a few thingsthat we need to get sorted
ourselves, but I don't thinkit's as bad as what people
sometimes make it out to be,which I just realized.
(29:57):
I don't know why I got intothat topic.
I was kind of going a littlebit on the deeper side of things
and we were actually justtalking about career paths.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Well, you know, that's the thing.
It's a deep-rooted thing ofwhere you end up in your career
and how you find that path.
We were talking before westarted recording too.
Like Donnie, what did you wantto be when you grew up and how
did you end up on this path?
Speaker 2 (30:20):
comparatively, yeah, firstly I wanted to be a
paleontologist, like Alan Grantfrom Jurassic Park.
Absolutely yes, absolutely Loveddinosaurs, always have done
Like any red-blooded SouthAfrican loved dinosaurs.
Then I wanted to be a spacecowboy, which I can't really
(30:41):
ride a horse and I'm never goinginto space.
I don't like to fly.
But what I actually alwayswanted to be was a writer.
I've always wanted to be awriter.
I wrote my first book when Iwas nine.
Um, I was 120 pages.
I wrote it on on a computer.
Yeah, just talk about oldtechnology.
I wrote it on dos yeah it wassaved.
It was saved on 17 stiffy discsand so I remember we sent it off
(31:06):
to the editor and they're likeoh, this is brilliant, can you
send us a fresh copy?
Make these few changes, make afresh copy.
And I didn't know what I wasdoing and I think I crashed the
computer and I lost it all.
But I've always wanted to be awriter and I've had different
jobs and whatnot, but I kind ofstumbled into publishing with
working with a magazine in about2008.
(31:29):
And it's just been what I'vedone ever since, and I'm very
pleased to say that I do.
Now.
My job is to write articles.
I write articles on businessesand CEOs.
I get to speak to someincredible people.
I've written several books thathave been published.
Those are not as successful asI'd like them to be, which is
(31:51):
often something that a novelisthas to realize for all your
effort, published as a reallybig accomplishment it is.
It sounds big, but you kind ofget it like brilliant, can I
retire now?
And they're like no chance.
They're like no, no, you do notwant to retire.
Um, but I I got into it becauseI wanted to do it and I've
always.
(32:11):
One thing about me is I'vealways had that get up and go a
bit of an energetic kind of okay, I'll just do it.
And while I do make a littlebit of planning, I don't get
bogged down in the details.
I'm like, okay, this is whatI'm going to do, I do it, I just
do it.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Figure that other stuff out as you go.
Speaker 2 (32:31):
Yeah, yeah, which sounds very cool, but it's like
you know, it's kind of likerunning on an open field before
you've kind of checked out wherethe holes are and you kind of
find out, you face plant a fewtimes but as long as you keep
the momentum going yeah you knowyou get to the other side and
you're like, oh God, and youthink there's a road right there
(32:52):
.
Why didn't I just take the road?
If I just walked 20 meters up,there's a road there.
So, like I've always wanted tobe a writer and so I just got
into it and I honestly thinklargely what I do is just that
this that's what I want to do,especially when I was young
Anyone I spoke with am I likewhen I was a teenager, when I
(33:14):
was in my twenties, they're like, what do you want to do?
I was like I really want to.
I want to write, I want towrite articles.
I want to be a journalist, Iwant to.
I want to write novels, writebooks, and that kind of earnest,
earnest honesty and just beingkind of knowing what I want and
being luckily knowing what I'vewent from a young age and moving
(33:34):
that forward has always beenreally it's always paid off for
me, because I think people like,okay, you want to be a writer,
brilliant, and then they'll gooff and they won't think
anything of it and then, bychance, someone somewhere will
be like, actually, that's,that'd be perfect for this guy.
I know this guy.
He's really keen on writing andthey make an introduction or
they say well, why don't youcontact so and so I know so and
(33:55):
so that works for a magazine.
Okay, do that.
With the internet.
Now it can be easier if youknow what you want to do.
If you decide, fine, I want toget into writing in terms of
journalism or blogging orwhatever it is.
All you have to do is withChatGP.
It makes it even easier to findthis thing online.
You just say can you give me alist of a thousand magazines
(34:18):
worldwide that might be lookingfor writers?
You got your list.
You go, okay, cool.
Then you go to Google and youget a mass mail and you go just
send an email to a thousandpeople saying I'm a writer, let
me write for you.
You know I will pay me whateveryou like, I'll just write for
you.
And all I ask is that you put myname on an article in your
magazine or on your website andthen it starts to grow.
(34:42):
And then people like, okay,yeah, great, let's do it, or you
need to improve, you need tochange this, you need to do this
.
Okay, fine, you can adapt andyou can grow when you've got
that interchange, that kind offeedback of it, whether it's
good or bad, you can say, okay,great, this is how I work, this
is how I sharpen my skills, andit's like that.
With anything, absolutelyanything.
(35:03):
If you want to be a I don'tknow an accountant, or you want
to work in technology, you wantto work in engineering, you have
to have that core interest.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
So the best way to find out If you can figure out
what you're passionate about andmake that into a career, you're
going to be a lot happier.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Exactly, and also what you're passionate about can
often be channeled into acertain thing, but if you break
it down, there's often differentareas Like writing.
What I like about writing is Iget to talk to people, I get to
think laterally, I get to lookat things from a different
perspective, I get to researchstuff, have an excuse to really
(35:40):
deep dive and research things,travel and see yeah.
I get an excuse for all thisstuff.
There are different industriesthat I could have been very
satisfied in, and there was abusiness person I wish I could
remember the name because ofsuch a great quote.
It wasn't a quote, but he saidthat you don't need passion to
have a career, you need to havea trade.
(36:02):
You need to know what you'regood at.
And his words were there areloads of accountants who are
multi-millionaires, who arepassionate about painting, but
because they were good withnumbers as well and they were
able to get into that trade,they had the success there and
they built a career on that.
You don't have to follow yourpassions for your career, but
you need to know what you'repassionate about.
(36:23):
So if you're good with numbers,you've got to use that, because
that's an advantage.
If you're good with numbers,you've got to use that, because
that's an advantage.
If you're good with words,you've got to use that.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
I'm good with writing .
It usually comes easy to you.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Exactly so then you're not so stressed out or
have to work with my hands.
Not necessarily, because whatmakes you good with your hands
is more than just your limbs.
(36:57):
It's the way your brain works.
It's a way that you couldvisualize things, conceptualize
things.
You may be very good atarchitecture, you may be very
good at teaching.
You know there's that guidanceagain, how we get guidance from
our elders to say, okay, well,you'd be perfect for these kind
of roles.
These roles are the ones thatare making the money and where
(37:18):
you get the most success from.
If you get more success, themore success you get, the more
encouraged you'll be to dobetter at something and you'll
grow and grow and grow andyou'll develop it.
And then, if you're successful,whatever it may not be the most
glamorous position, but successis power, success is confidence
(37:39):
, success is purpose.
Feeling successful is veryimportant, very important, and I
would rather be a.
I would rather be successful atsomething that's boring that'd
be the best at something that noone appreciates and you know
(38:00):
I'm off by myself A long way,yeah, you know.
And there is again, becausethere's a trendy thing online of
people say, oh, you got tofollow, follow what you're
passionate about and follow thisalmost at the complete
exclusion of absolutelyeverything else.
But I think that is a dangerousthing to teach people because
it's a balance.
Again, it's a balance.
Everyone who I know of who'shad phenomenal success in one
(38:23):
thing built that up while theywere doing something else.
One of my favorite writers,terry pratchett.
Um, he, I don't know if youknow him, he's a british writer,
he's a fantasist.
He's written some incrediblework, um, and he's just loved in
the uk, loved worldwide, but inthe uk he's just.
Everyone knows him and heworked a run of jobs.
(38:44):
He was a pr agent for a nuclearpower plant for many years and
he was working on his books onthe sidelines, you know, and it
was took a long time for him tobuild it up, but he got his
success and he was able to do itfull time.
And it's the same with with meand writing on a much smaller,
on a much smaller scale.
Um, there were times whenwriting was not making the money
(39:07):
I needed to do, and so I justgot any job I possibly could,
and some of those jobs I waspretty good at, and so I was, I
was able to, I got promoted andI got up and I was like, oh,
this is fantastic.
I feel, you know, I've, I'mfeeling that success, I'm going
that.
You know those that dopaminerush.
It's good.
Um, and then that led on to theother passions of writing and
and this is where I found it.
(39:28):
So I think there's a balance tobe said Follow your passions
but, at the same time, make surethat you have something that
you're good at, that you canleverage to make revenue, to
make money, to make something ofyourself, because you need to
have a backup plan.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
Donnie is there anything else that you want to
share?
Speaker 2 (39:48):
I think I've just been speaking so much.
I'm so sorry.
I think I've just kind of likerailroaded you.
I must have had a lot of sugarfor dinner.
Speaker 1 (39:56):
Well, it is six hours later where you are than where
I am, so I just had lunch andyou're already probably getting
ready for bed.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Yeah, I've had far too much caffeine to go to bed
now.
But it has been a lot of fun.
Thank you so much for theopportunity.
I've really enjoyed.
I've really enjoyed the our ourour chance to chat here.
Speaker 1 (40:14):
So where can we find you?
Speaker 2 (40:17):
Okay, so, um, I am online.
I'm on all the major platformsum X, instagram, facebook,
linkedin.
Donnie Rust uh, the LostExecutive, it's Executive.
That's our publishing house.
That can be found atthelostexecutivecom and our
magazine, the Logbook can alsobe found on that website.
And, yeah, it's as simple asthat to get hold of me All right
(40:41):
.
Speaker 1 (40:41):
Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast.
We enjoyed having you and nowwe're best friends.
But now I have a internationalbest friend I love it, kelly.
Thank you so much all right,donnie have a good night you too
, cheers now.
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