Can You Make Money Doing What You Love? | Kim Slade

PROFITABLE TALKS...

On this episode of The Profitable Creative, host Christian Brim sits down with Kim Slade, founder of Unlost, to explore the tension every creative entrepreneur faces: making money vs. doing what you love.

Kim shares his journey from building a mobile video training business that generated consistent income to creating immersive, nature-based experiences designed to reconnect people with clarity, creativity, and awe. Along the way, he opens up about the financial struggles, creative pull, and mindset shifts that shaped his path.

Together, they unpack:

•  The difference between being self-employed and building a true business 
•  Why passion alone won’t sustain you—but why it still matters 
•  The concept of “awe” and how it fuels creativity and clarity 
•  How to balance cash flow with creative fulfillment 
•  What it really takes to build something meaningful (and profitable) 

This conversation is a must-listen for creatives trying to navigate the messy middle between art and income, vision and reality, freedom and stability.

PROFITABLE TAKEAWAYS...

•  A job depends on you; a business works without you 
•  Creative entrepreneurs face a three-part challenge: demand, profit, and passion 
•  Financial success without passion leads to burnout 
•  Passion without structure leads to instability 
•  “Awe” is a powerful emotional driver that enhances creativity and perspective 
•  Real fulfillment often comes from creating something meaningful—not just profitable

Join our community of creative entrepreneurs and get a free copy of our No-BS Guide To Making Your Creative Business Actually Profitable delivered straight to your inbox. We’ll share smart, simple tips to help you keep more of what you earn—no boring accountant talk, we promise.  
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Transcript

Christian Brim (00:03.276)
Welcome to another episode of the Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you will learn how to turn your passion into profit. I am your host, Christian Brim. Special shout out to our one listener in Loganville, Georgia. No idea where that is, but thank you for listening. Joining me today, Kim Slade of Unlost. Kim, welcome to the show.

Kim (00:27.361)
How doing Christian? Thanks for having me on.

Christian Brim (00:29.832)
Absolutely. I can tell by your peculiar accent that you might not live in the United States. So where do you hail?

Kim (00:41.901)
I am in Brighton, England at the moment and I'm just about on the coast, about an hour south of London for those who don't know where Brighton is.

Christian Brim (00:54.878)
And are you from England? Like born and raised.

Kim (00:58.495)
I am, yeah, I'm originally from a smaller town called Bogna Regis, with a funny name, and it's got bit of a reputation. Bogna Regis has got a bit of a reputation in England as being a bit of a dump, let's say.

Christian Brim (01:06.306)
great name.

Christian Brim (01:15.01)
Was that your experience?

Kim (01:17.933)
Yes, yeah, I moved out quite soon. I can confirm it's one of those seaside towns that used to be home to amazing venues where Rolling Stones would play and the Beatles and they're happening in the 60s and 70s and then it didn't get a new lick of paint since then so it's just crumbled and like you know there's a bunch of these seaside towns in the UK which have ended up kind of deteriorating and being a bit of a...

Christian Brim (01:21.184)
You can confirm, you can confirm.

Kim (01:47.371)
Yeah, being a bit of a shame really, but lovely people, but just not much investment in stuff, shall we say.

Christian Brim (01:55.34)
Well, if Trump can turn Palestine into a resort, then surely he can do something with the UK resorts.

Kim (02:04.392)
Yeah, I mean, I mean, that's whole different ball game, I guess. It's not, it's not, I mean, thankfully it's not as bad as some of the places in the Middle East right now, but I mean, maybe that conversation is a different podcast.

Christian Brim (02:20.685)
So what, okay, that is, I've never been, I've only been to London and the suburbs, so never been to the ocean in England. It strikes me as cold, yes. I mean, the water.

Kim (02:34.572)
Yeah, I guess... the water, yeah, for sure. It doesn't heat up too much. And I mean, it gets alright in the summer, I suppose. It's kind of like... I've been to Boston and I've been to New York and I've been to... I've been to quite a lot of places in the States and I think it's on the same kind of... It's almost like... It's almost like...

Christian Brim (02:40.544)
Okay.

Kim (02:59.434)
Boston but doesn't have as extreme weather, know, it's not so hot and it's not so cold, it doesn't snow so much and it doesn't get like super hot. No, no unfortunately not, the sea's fairly brown and cloudy rather than clear and crystal-y. Although we do have some days that are like, you know, you could be fooled sometimes in some spots. But yeah, Devon and Cornwall's pretty nice but down where I am it's pretty...

Christian Brim (03:03.413)
Yeah. So we're not talking the Mediterranean or the Caribbean here. No.

Christian Brim (03:20.438)
Well, the English...

Kim (03:26.028)
pretty choppy and yeah, soupy.

Christian Brim (03:27.465)
The English would, I mean, it seems like they deal with everything with that proverbial stoicism and stiff upper lip and it's like, you know, the water's fine. It's fine. We'll just go in and freeze. All right, so tell me about Unlost. That is a curious name.

Kim (03:51.511)
So, Unlost actually started as unknown epic and the idea was that we took people on adventures where they didn't know where they were going. They knew it was gonna be epic but they didn't know where they were going. So the location and itinerary was a secret. And this came from having adventures ourselves, me and my previous co-founder, and finding how transformational it was to spend like three days in nature, no tech, no people, just hiking.

Christian Brim (04:00.864)
Hmm.

Kim (04:20.434)
and seeing amazing landscapes. And so we created a company called Unknown Epic and then long story short, few years down the line, didn't quite work out with my co-founder and I ended up going it alone and I was at a place where things hadn't gone so well in life and a few tragedies had happened, some shocking things and I felt a little kind of lost.

Christian Brim (04:39.595)
Mm.

Kim (04:45.566)
and I was like, really still wanna do the adventures, I still wanna create experiences for people and I know that that's what my calling is. And so I had to rename it because it fell out of a co-founder and like, you he didn't want me to use the name and yeah, I came up with Unlost because it was kind of like the idea is that, okay, we don't take people to secret locations anymore, a little bit, but that's not the premise. But it was really just more of a...

of a mentality behind it to be like in knowing that when you go into nature, when you go on the combination of nature and what I see as a real genuine adventure, so that has the parts of adventure that I believe make up an adventure and also the evoke a sense of awe, the emotion of awe and wonder. When you combine those things together, it can bring like

Christian Brim (05:25.985)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (05:35.501)
Mmm.

Kim (05:41.62)
an incredible sense of clarity for people and essentially like get them un-lost I guess. So it kind of had a double meaning for me, the name. For me being un-lost and also helping other people get un-lost.

Christian Brim (05:43.798)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (05:54.346)
I love that. now when we were talking in the green room, you have a, a video, touch video academy that I'm assuming is older. how, how, how have you straddled the fence between those two of, of having multiple endeavors and

you know, where you put your energy, where you put your money.

Kim (06:25.933)
I've straddled difficultly, challengingly. Touch Video Academy

Christian Brim (06:29.013)
Yes.

Kim (06:33.421)
came about where I'd actually been practicing my video skills whilst on adventures and actually I made a conscious decision to make my adventures be, or to only use a phone to record video, right? Because at the time I didn't want to carry loads of kit with me and the iPhone 3 had just come out and I was able to have iMovie and edit on the way home and the picture quality wasn't too bad.

So I decided to just commit to just only using a phone to make the video. And I actually made a short film whilst on an adventure using just the phone alone with like no accessories, no tribals, no anything, just the iPhone 3 and it got selected by the Apple store to go and speak to their staff about how to get more creative with the iPhone. And so all of a sudden, did, touched Video Academy wasn't a thing at the time, but I had my first, you know, in air quotes, client.

Which was Apple Store as well. That's a thing. That's a thing. So So then I and then when when unknown epic took a dip and had some troubles I thought well I still need to earn some money and I know how to teach people I know how to make video and I'm good with people so I put on a I literally gave myself two hours to create a business Literally put the timer on friends office. I was like, I've got this idea

Christian Brim (07:29.399)
That's a significant client. Yes.

Kim (07:53.934)
I'm going to teach people how to use these phones to make videos because I think phone video is going to be the future. think it's going to be a thing. And so I put an event bright up of a workshop, messaged everybody I knew, created a name, created a logo all in two hours, sold like four places at the workshop. And I've still got the same name, same branding, same logo, same name. 10 years later with Touch Video Academy. it went on to be, it went on to kind of because of the timing and because of what I was doing.

it went on to like find some level of financial success that bring me stability over otherwise very difficult time. So I held that there to make the money and then I, and it was quite creative as well, right? I'm teaching people video, it was pretty fun. But I always had the love for adventure and I always kept the experience design and the adventure alive on the side.

Christian Brim (08:47.373)
Well, actually that sounds like a brilliant idea and, and, structure. You said you straddled the difficulty. What's difficult about it.

Kim (08:57.281)
Well the difficulty was that I really, you know, I found out pretty quick that teaching companies and teams how to make social media content, wasn't really, it's not really my, it doesn't really feel like my main thing. My main thing has always been creating experiences in real life for people. And so I've done that a lot and that's always been the thing that I've wanted to be doing more than the video training.

Christian Brim (09:15.149)
Okay.

Kim (09:26.775)
but the video training always seemed to deliver more cash flow easier. And so I've been drawn, you know, I've had to keep it going during, you know, times where I really wanted to just go all in on the adventures and all in on the creative events. And so yeah, it's been difficult just sort of mentally to hang in there with a business that makes money, but I don't necessarily have much passion in it.

It doesn't feel like a creative outlet as much as the thing that I want to be creative with and be the artist. So I'm battling between the artist and the entrepreneur. I'm like one foot in being the entrepreneur, just doing what makes the money and that's needed. then the profit in the other side has never been as consistent, so hard to fully switch over. So that's where the difficulties come really.

Christian Brim (10:25.217)
Yes, and what you're describing is what I talk about in Profit First for creatives, the three prong decision that creative entrepreneurs have to wrestle with because all entrepreneurs have this dual problem they're trying to solve, which is can I meet a demand in the marketplace and can I do it at a profit?

So that's the normal business paradigm. But then the creative entrepreneur has this third very important leg, which is, I care about it? Is it interesting? Does it fuel my passion? Does it get me up in the morning? Am I excited about it? And yeah, that struggle is real.

I don't really know that there is a solution to it in the sense of like, this is, this is how you approach it. And this is how you handle it. because it's, it's not, doesn't fit neatly into a paradigm. It's just the, the, filter that we have to make decisions through where, whereas an, not so creative entrepreneur doesn't really care about the passion piece. They're just like, well,

There's there's some need in the market and I can make money at it. Let's go do it

Kim (11:54.668)
Yeah, yeah, and that's what I've kind of toyed with is like sometimes I see these ideas and I think that would that's like a killer idea, know, that would make money and that would be great and then but the trouble is with that the it doesn't last long, you know that kind of motivation doesn't

Christian Brim (12:11.885)
Yeah, all right.

Kim (12:12.129)
For me personally, I'm so motivated by creativity. It's like the cabin I'm sitting in here. I built this cabin with my hands, right? Because I just had such a strong... Financially, at the time, was like, this is a silly idea. But I had such a strong creative vision. could see, like where I'm sitting now, I could see this in my mind. And it was like this strong draw to like, I have to build this. And I'm gonna pretend to myself that it will make money just so I can kind of...

Christian Brim (12:32.397)
Mmm.

Christian Brim (12:36.875)
Mm-hmm.

Kim (12:41.783)
excuse the fact that I've gotta do it. And actually it's not done so bad, and the cabins is the kind of next stage of Unlost as well actually, but that come from a pure creative, like needing to satisfy the creative urge over, and actually it's put a lot of trouble, financial strain on us actually, to go this route with Unlost and these cabins. So my personal motivation is,

I'm not that motivated logically with finances. I'm more motivated by just having a, like once I get a creative vision of like seeing that come to life.

Christian Brim (13:18.189)
So I mean, when you're describing that having a clear vision and like you, you could see it and the compulsion to do it at any point in the beginning, did you contemplate how can I make money off this? Or was that just something that wasn't on your radar?

Kim (13:41.923)
Sorry, was just talking of cabins and tractors just coming back and forwards past so if it's a bit of an ambient noise I'm sorry about that. This is a really badly timed. There's never anyone around and for some reason right now they're just driving right past my window. Going round and round in circles. Anyway, so yeah, there was an image of a financial model, right? So the idea was that...

Christian Brim (14:04.609)
Okay.

Kim (14:08.344)
The idea was that people need, what I found especially creatives, when I went into nature, I was much more creative. Like I said, I found clarity. And so many people advocate for going for a walk to get clear and to get creative. And there's so much science back in the idea that people are more creative whilst in nature for various reasons. But we go on these walks, we get creative, get great ideas, and then we're miles away from actually

Christian Brim (14:24.535)
Sure.

Kim (14:37.422)
executing on those ideas and I'd always dreamed of like having a cabin in nature as my place to write, my place to create and so many people said oh yeah I'd love that too like what a dream that's just the ultimate dream and so I thought well if other people want it need it and there's you know the rise of co-working and the rise of you know remote working there's a market here for a cabin that's close enough to home

So it feels like it's in nature, like we've got a beautiful view, but you can get to in 20 minutes and you can go to just for the day, go to work, you get clear. And so the model was to create a membership where people would feel like they have a sense of ownership over this cabin, but they'd only come once a month or once a week, depending on the membership. And it'd be kind of like a timeshare in a very small, beautiful office cabin. And then that was also the idea that that could be scalable, right? If I nail one that works and have a model and then...

you know every town with a certain amount of people could have a cabin just on the outskirts that people can go to and use as a creative space which includes like podcasting kit and wood burning stove and all that stuff so I did I didn't just go right I've just got the vision for the cabin I was like this could be a good business as well this ticks all the boxes but obviously it was a new thing a new market and so I didn't have any proof that it'll work I just had a hunch and and really when I was

Christian Brim (15:59.223)
Right.

Kim (16:02.584)
freezing my fingers off, cutting my nails, cutting my knuckles in like a frozen open barn whilst converting building this. It's on some wheels, it's on a trailer. The thing that drove me through those moments of like effing and blinding, know, where it wasn't like, this is gonna make me a million. It was like, this is gonna look sick. This is gonna be so good. Like this is gonna be amazing when it's finished and I just can't wait to be sat in it.

And since I finished, there's been times when I've been a bit down financially, maybe, and I've come here, I've lit the fire, I've looked out at the view, I've looked around at what I've built and gone, yeah, I'm so glad I built it, despite what the bank balance says, this is amazing. And so many, everyone who's come here has felt that sense of it too.

Christian Brim (16:36.909)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (16:52.447)
I absolutely love that story because I don't, you're right. If money, making money is your motivation, I find you said it perfectly. It only takes you so far. The thing that drives you through is the passion. When I was writing the book, I interviewed Todd Henry, another author.

And He he enlightened me that the word passion and Greek Pericles I think I don't remember the Greek word, but he said that the literal translation is suffering and His his statement is was you know it you have to be willing to suffer for your passion like that's Not that you

have to suffer, but you have to be willing to suffer.

Kim (17:54.019)
more like like what you can it's like how much suffering can you put up with in order to achieve something and the more suffering you can put up with in order to achieve it then probably in like it directly correlates with how passionate you are about that thing

Christian Brim (18:02.347)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (18:11.189)
Yeah. And, and that's a hard line that we're not because you know, passion is, from the heart, not the head. And, you know, it's, it's really hard sometimes to know where, where to draw that line. I have a colleague that's been working on a product that I think will be transformational in the, music space.

Essentially, he's created a platform for artists to control their content and connect with their fans outside of big tech. You know, so not YouTube, not Spotify, none of these where they control, you know, they can sell merch through the platform. And it's just a revenue share model where he gets a small cut off the top, but they control everything, right?

Kim (18:54.616)
Yeah, nice.

Christian Brim (19:11.949)
And he was probably too soon to the market. He had a clear vision. Like he, he saw it and he said, this is where it's going to go. And, and seven years on and tens of millions of dollars, both his own and investors. There was a point where.

You know a lot of his colleagues I wasn't one of them, but some of our friends were like, you know Man, when are you gonna give this up? Like how much is enough? And he he he reached some dark points like started to doubt himself and You know the first quarter of 2026 where we are now they've actually

launched with with multiple artists and you know, the the future is not written don't know if it'll be the success that he envisions but that struggle is real when when you when you believe in something and you're driven by your heart but your brain is like this is stupid. Like, what are you doing?

Kim (20:28.856)
little yeah no I get I get that it's like there's a sunken cost fallacy right once you once you like put so much in and there was points in building this where I was like what am I doing here like this is I put a lot into this you know but then it's it's it's it's actually going alright it's it's you know it's it's not you know I've not got to a point yet where I'm ready to like scale it there's still just one I had a bit of a rough ride with the second cabin which I

Christian Brim (20:34.893)
Sure.

Kim (20:59.47)
which I went into and I didn't build myself, I got someone else to build it based on my prototype and it didn't go so well and that was a big drain on energy, stress, money. But I've learned an incredible amount. It's not an easy thing putting an off-grid cabin in nature, no connection, it's got WiFi, it's got everything you need here. There's a lot of physical challenges. And also in convincing people that it's a good idea to like...

You know have to drive 20 minutes and then walk five minutes across the money field to get to a cabin just to go to work like that You know, it's not for everyone but the people who've come here like over 50 % of people who've booked have come back so, you know in terms of like You know product market fit It's got good signals right where like people who come here they get it and they go. Ah, this was amazing I need to come back. I'm gonna write my book here or it and so you know for all the

Christian Brim (21:40.246)
Mmm.

Kim (21:57.68)
I think for all the effort and the sunken cost, it's starting to see hope that it's really gonna pay off and like, and the next stage is to actually start thinking about what does it look like to scale it, and that would then be obviously a proper profitable business, not just an experiment, a crazy experiment. But it kind of aligns with the adventure side, because we've lost.

Christian Brim (22:12.397)
Mm-hmm.

Kim (22:24.675)
The idea was to always take people on adventures and create experiences. And then we had COVID and then we had, I had kids and then, you know, all of these things stopped me going on as many adventures, but I still had the, I still wanted essentially that the goal was the same, to get people into nature, experiencing the emotion of awe, which then helps them to be more clear and more creative. And you know, so whether that's on a...

hiking the Alps or sitting in a cabin in Sussex people do feel that when they sit here and they see the weather roll over and you can see all the hills you've got the fire going you know you feel next to nature you feel in nature and so you get those benefits and people have reported that they definitely have got those benefits

Christian Brim (23:13.439)
No, I think it's brilliant. mean, I've my experience and having discussions with others. The power of being in creation is it makes you creative. You feel in touch with your creator and you under you said the word on and I think that's the right word. Like, you know, not to be too philosophical, but

We live in a world of our own construct. We control the variables and that's where we spend most of our days in climate controlled environments and everything is convenient and on demand. understanding that not that that's false. mean, it's obviously real, but

But recognizing what we don't have control over gives us that awe. Like you mentioned the weather. Like when you sit there and look at the ocean and you see a weather pattern roll in, you're like, okay, I'm not really in control. I just think I'm in control.

Kim (24:32.697)
Well, it's a really, there's a newer definition of the emotion of awe after they've done a lot more scientific studies on it because it was one of the last sort of emotions that got, that they were able to do experiments that were deemed scientific, because it's kind of always different for lot of people, right? It's kind of quite subjective. But they have a new definition that is now in a few books, but it's the...

Christian Brim (24:53.249)
Mm.

Kim (25:01.621)
Or is the sense of being connected to something both vast and mysterious at the same time? So something that feels vast, whether that's vast in time, vast in size, vast in many different ways, and something mysterious. So we just don't quite grasp, our brains can't quite grasp how. know, like the Creator, like nature, and there's different sources of awe. There's different like thing, there's different typical sources where...

Christian Brim (25:17.569)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kim (25:28.783)
people get awe triggered inside them from these different sources. And it's just super interesting. And I found that like, actually when I started reading about awe as an emotion and what it means and its history and all these different things and how fundamental it is to our human being and our human like makeup, I literally stumbled upon what felt like such a lightning bolt for me, which was like, this is what I really do.

because I'd always struggled with feeling like I do too many different things and I'm too scattered and I've got this over here, video over here, adventures over here, cabins, robots and all these different things that I do. And it was just like, I'm never gonna make, none of these are ever gonna grow as big as I'd like them because I do too many things. And then I discovered...

I didn't discover awe but I started learning about the emotion of awe and I was like bingo I don't do all these different things all I've ever done the common thread throughout them is

it's always been I help connect people to the feeling of awe. So whether that's through video and spotting the beautiful glistening of light on a drip coming off of a flower or whatever the moment is that you have to be like eagle-eyed when making video or whether it's through the design of this cabin where you've got 180 degree view so you can see the whole of the hills so you feel that sense of awe in nature or whether it's creating a character for, you know,

Christian Brim (26:43.606)
Hmm

Kim (27:08.079)
a robot which people go, is there someone inside of that? How is that happening? Like this is amazing, it connects you to a child like wonder. So no matter what kind of medium or thing that I'm doing, it's always been driven by this sense of like, I love that moment when someone feels awe. Because it's so powerful and it connects us to like, yeah, like who we really are as humans. And it's just amazing for the mind and the body. although I do all these different things,

Christian Brim (27:24.811)
Mm.

Kim (27:39.023)
or is the thing that goes through all of them. And so once I found that out, I felt almost at peace that I was actually doing in the right direction, even though I was in many directions.

Christian Brim (27:51.37)
Yeah, I think that's a brilliant insight and I love it I think for me the the powerful part about all is Its effect on my ego And and

Not as you would think in a diminutive way, like, you know, who am I in all of creation and look at this vastness and I'm such a small piece. True, it also, you said it gave you this piece, to me it's the same thing. It's the calming of my fears that awe gives me, right?

all of this is happening without me. Like, I don't have anything to do with it and everything's working just fine, right? And so, you know, being able to say, well, you know what, maybe I don't need to be worrying about as much as I do.

Kim (29:00.132)
Yeah, it's definitely a humbler. Especially when you're like, as you said, like looking out at ocean or when you feel this connectedness to something vast and mysterious, you're like, well, you know, there's a lot more than what's going on in here. It's just like, yeah.

Christian Brim (29:03.062)
Yeah, yes.

Christian Brim (29:15.841)
Yeah, exactly.

In the green room, I'm going to pivot in the in the green room. You mentioned that this conversation came at a you didn't use the word fortuitous unusual. I don't remember what word you used, but interesting time. I don't know what words you used, but tell me more about that.

Kim (29:21.988)
Yeah, that works.

Kim (29:37.553)
Yeah, well I suppose so I've always kind of gone through all the things that I've done as I said just you know driven by the creative side and then There was a pot there was a moment there was a moment about maybe 15 years ago where we'd been traveling and I would been on this amazing adventure to this unknown island and

I sat with my wife on the beach and I turned to my wife and I said, I'm never getting a job again. And she was like, what I said, I said, I decided like, I'm just, I'd have to do something myself. Like I have to be my own person and I have to figure out, figure it out alone and create a business or something. And for years I was just kind of like in that mindset of being alone range. was

Christian Brim (30:18.665)
Mm-hmm.

Kim (30:34.424)
I thought I was creating a business but what I was just doing was just being a freelancer or creating my own job. And so although I had had a job for a long time and I thought I'd create a business, it wasn't really a business. It was just me doing stuff for people. And so wasn't like I could leave it and make money without me and feel like a real business. Until a couple of years ago and it was aligned with this cabin as well where I was like, so I could...

Christian Brim (30:38.765)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Christian Brim (30:49.949)
Mm. Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (30:55.639)
right.

Kim (31:04.112)
create something and that thing could keep making money whilst I didn't have to do it again, I could go create something else. And that for me was like, that would be good. You know, that seems like a better idea. And I always kick myself like, how am I only, you know, nearly 40 years old and realizing now what an actual business is. I wasn't brought up around any sort of entrepreneurship. I didn't know anyone who had a business. didn't know none of my friends, none of my family. Like I said, Bogner.

Christian Brim (31:15.86)
Mm-hmm.

Kim (31:33.681)
wasn't very entrepreneurial. So I didn't just have that exposure to real businesses. And then I had this kind of brainwave, which was like, and when I built this cabin and we went away and I had some members, we went away on holiday and my phone pinged, oh, you know, another membership paid. And I'm like, we're on holiday and the money's coming in whilst we're on the holiday. I was like, oh wow, okay, here we are.

Christian Brim (31:58.446)
Mmm. Mm-hmm.

Kim (32:02.405)
This is what we, this is actually a business. This is what it's about. And so over the last couple of years, in knowing that it's been great to go like, I see what I have to do now. But it's also been a learning journey because I've realised like, I'm quite late to the game here. Not too late, obviously, I'm still young, but I'm quite late to the game in realising what a real business is. And so...

Christian Brim (32:05.985)
Right.

Kim (32:29.922)
making a profitable business in my mind is now different to what it used to be. And in the last sort of year or so, I've been really trying to head that direction and only accept that as a thing that I'm doing rather than the old framework in my mind, which was me just doing stuff that I'm good at for money.

Christian Brim (32:51.125)
I there's there's so much in there that I want to to highlight for listeners. The first is the distinction between being self-employed and having a business and nothing that there's nothing wrong with being self-employed. But but understanding that a business is something that persists without your continued efforts. It is not.

Kim (33:11.173)
No.

Christian Brim (33:20.985)
A, an output of your, your continuous efforts, right? That's a job you may not build by the hour, but if it requires you to show up and do the work, it's a job. And, that transition most people don't make, because there's, there's a lot, I think there's a variety of reasons, but,

Most people don't make that. And the second thing I would point out, you said you're late. I had a conversation just yesterday with a local woman. She came in and we had a conversation. She's 68. She's been in the marketing and promotion space all her career. And she had along the way developed some

very fascinating intellectual property. And we were talking about it and I'm like, where is this on like your priorities? Like what, do you think? And she was like, well, pretty low. And I'm like, yet you came here to talk to me about it. So like, why? And she's like, well, I have this, I have this real passion about this. I, and I'm like, okay. So

What it boiled down to over the course of this two hour conversation and us talking and hearing her story is that she had delivered this intellectual property in a, in a, teaching format, a coaching format. And she didn't want to go back and do that. Right. Because she felt like she'd been there and done that and, she could make more money doing other stuff. And.

I we talked about like, but what if you created this intellectual property, you took it and you licensed it to others. And the point being she had a passion for getting that IP out there because she felt very passionate about its impact on people, but she didn't want to do it herself. And it was like at 68 it's like, it's okay. You don't

Christian Brim (35:47.086)
have to do it yourself that you can let others do it on your behalf. mean you credential them, you license them, you ensure that they know their stuff, but why is it that you have to deliver it? And so I say that she was 68. You said you're nearly 40. I'm 55 and still figuring shit out all the time.

I think that all of the journeys are unique and you get there when you're supposed to get there. I've beat myself up many times about like, why did it take me so long to learn that lesson? Why do I keep making the same mistake? And I don't think that serves us. I don't think it serves us to say that we're late to the party or that we should have learned this earlier, we should have figured this out earlier.

Kim (36:44.293)
I think that definitely comes from comparison though, And I think part of my, again, one of those struggles of being straddling the video versus the adventures and events is that I would rather be spending my time with people, building things, creating things in a physical space than in a digital space.

Christian Brim (36:50.09)
A hundred percent.

Kim (37:13.667)
And so when I'm doing the video training, it's like I've got a really amazing IP when I train people with a video. really good at, I coach people on how to be confident on camera. I've got an amazing method for that which works really well. And I've got an amazing method for creating video and breaking down all these things. But it forces me to be more on social media because that's where it's at. Like I have to be up to date with that stuff. And we all know how much of a...

Christian Brim (37:13.772)
Mm-hmm.

Kim (37:42.32)
How many rabbit holes and how much detriment that can be to ourselves being in that space rather than being in the physical space. I think part of the resentment, I guess resentment is maybe the right word, towards the doing the video training stuff is that like, is there that I have to be in that space where I'd much prefer to be out in the woods or building something with my hands or at festival building a stage and creating an experience, right? So there's...

Christian Brim (37:50.445)
Mm-hmm.

Kim (38:11.887)
That it comes from comparison because you see you know you look online and every every 20 year olds currently making millions with open claw and AI or what not right? You know we all know that's True, but it can be can feel like that pretty quick when you when you're in a social when you were in a space with a lot of social media So yeah, it's like Yeah But I guess that I don't feel I'm glad that you picked up on that and I'm glad that you made that point because you know it's easy to slip into that

Christian Brim (38:30.756)
yeah.

Kim (38:41.423)
be like I feel like I'm late and I guess I guess I need to have a bit more acceptance around like I'm just I am where I am and it for a reason you know it's all unfolding for a reason rather than having to like battle for it

Christian Brim (38:51.358)
It's.

It is, it is, and it's an adventure. mean, it, you know, if you think about the great stories, they're not linear, you know, and, and, and the hero always encounters challenges. And it reminds me of this author who was a naval aviator wrote this book called debriefing to win. But, but my, my favorite line from listening to him speak was

Kim (39:04.176)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (39:21.345)
He said, every time we'd go on a mission and something would fail, like it didn't go as planned. Our response was the story just got better. And I'm like, what do you mean? He goes, well, after we're successful in our mission and we come back and we're debriefing and we're talking about it, it's going to be look at what we overcame. The story just got better. And I'm like, yeah, yeah.

Kim (39:46.117)
Yeah, I love that.

Yeah, it's a great way to frame it and actually like, you know the adventure analogy it's not even an analogy. It's a reality right but it's it's like so when we take we've taken people on adventures out into the wilderness there's You know there has to be a chat an adventure isn't an isn't an adventure without challenge Can't just be smith. Otherwise, there's a holiday, which is lovely brilliant. I'd love all I'd actually really like a holiday right now, but

Christian Brim (39:55.114)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (40:10.934)
Absolutely.

Yes.

Christian Brim (40:17.847)
Just 30 minutes south, you can go to the beach.

Kim (40:19.845)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, go to the soup. But you know, an adventure is an adventure without a challenge. There's actually a framework for adventure that I present when I'm speaking about adventure. And it kind of combines what I believe is, and like you said, adventure is the basis of a story. And there's a connecting pattern.

Christian Brim (40:36.022)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (40:45.581)
Mm-hmm.

Kim (40:48.581)
between what I teach with video and what I do with adventures. And it's both around this idea of storytelling and essentially, know, an adventure is you're creating a story, you're living a story, whereas the video, you're telling a story. And I have this framework called the fairy tale framework. And it's essentially like a story archetype, which many people have heard of, hero's journey and all that stuff, but simplified for like short form video.

Christian Brim (40:53.645)
Mmm.

Kim (41:16.443)
but also it relates across to adventure. it's once upon a time, suddenly, luckily, happily ever after. And so any story can very loosely fit into once upon a time, here's the setting and the scenario. The suddenly is the challenge, the luckily is the overcoming of the challenge, and the happily ever after is like, what's the vision of the future? Where does it go next? Where are people want to next? And so I teach people that in short form storytelling, when they're trying to take a topic and...

Christian Brim (41:16.941)
Mmm.

Kim (41:45.414)
like a complex topic and say like a one minute video, how do you like say that video, how do you speak on camera without waffling on, without rambling, when you put it into a story framework and you say, once upon a time, like in your mind you say the once upon a time was a hook, whatever the, you say whatever's gonna be in the video, the challenge is whatever the pain, the problem that you're gonna solve with this information, the luckily is the information that solves the problem and the happily ever after is like the call to action, what should people do next, watch the podcast, whatever.

But when it takes it over, when I take that same, you know, that same pattern occurs in adventure, because you are living a story, right? But I say the four parts that have to be in it, the four parts of an adventure that make it an adventure is a mystery. So some sense of mystery, like when you start, you don't quite know what's gonna happen. A challenge, as we said, there's some sort of adversity, there's some problem we've gotta solve, there's some mountain we've gotta climb.

And then there's joy, which can be from the overcoming of the challenge or just found along the way.

Christian Brim (42:51.341)
Unexpected. Unexpected.

Kim (42:56.697)
Yeah, exactly. And then the happily ever after is some sense of change. what's happened because of what we just lived, it's created some sort of change in our viewpoint, in our personality, in our being, it's created a change. So mystery, I'll recap them now and forget, even though I've just explained it. So yeah, it's mystery, challenge, joy and change.

And if you have all of those on any endeavor, whether it's a walk in the park or whether it's a climb in the mountains, it's an adventure.

Christian Brim (43:37.518)
Yeah. And, and, you know, sometimes the challenge is not what you think it is. You know, you think it's, uh, uh, what's his name? Bayou off, not Bayou off. is the, the Grindle you think is a Grindle, but really it was Grindle's mother. It wasn't, it wasn't Grindle. It was Grindle's mother. Uh, so, you know, sometimes the, the adventure.

The challenge is not what you think it is. And that's part of the journey is, is, realizing, I thought I was fighting this, but it really wasn't.

Kim (44:16.785)
That's the mystery, right? It's a mystery. So you don't quite know what the challenge is gonna be, you know what the joy is gonna be, you don't know what the change is gonna be. It starts with the mystery.

Christian Brim (44:18.169)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (44:26.559)
I love it. How do people find out more about Unlost or Touch Video Academy if they want to learn more,

Kim (44:35.076)
So, Unlost is actually Unlost Co. Because I couldn't get the domain Unlost, really annoying. But it's UnlostCo.com. And people can find that on Instagram as well. UnlostCo. So, U-N-L-O-S-T-E-C-O. And Touch Video Academy is TouchVideoAcademy.com. Pretty simple. And to be honest, I spend most of my...

Most of the content I share and things I talk about, it's often on LinkedIn, and I'm just Kim Slade.

Christian Brim (45:08.877)
Perfect. Listeners will have those links in the show notes. If you like what you've heard, please rate the podcast, share the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. If you don't like what you've heard, and I don't know why you wouldn't, shoot us a message, hit that envelope below and tell us what you'd like to hear and I'll get rid of Kim. Until next time, ta ta for now.

Kim (45:28.177)
You