Amanda ‘Panda’ Williams | ProActive Podcast by MeMedia #127

Amanda ‘Panda’ Williams is the guest on this episode of the ProActive Podcast. Watch as she delves into the importance of recognising your purpose, childhood adversity, and what drives her near boundless energy.

Video Transcript:

- [Announcer] Welcome to the ProActive Podcast, brought to you by MeMedia.

- Good day world, Chris Hogan coming to you from MeMedia studio, here at Burleigh Heads for episode 127, of the proactive podcast and I have with me today, Amanda Panda Williams, from yellow Panda PR. Founder and director. How are you, Amanda?

- I'm great, thank you. Thanks for having me.

- Thanks for coming on. So Amanda and I met several years ago at a networking events.

- On a yacht.

- in Brisbane. On a boat. It was a lovely boat. We won't drop too many names or whose boat it was. But since then, we've sort of been following each other's, moves in the marketing space and PR and content marketing are very alike, but also very different. So PR. Some people don't know what that means. Can, you give us the layman's breakdown of what PR is.

- Yes, so most people when they think PR, they think of Samantha Jones from, "Sex and the City" or they think of, I don't know like, famous people and nightclub openings, that sort of thing. But to me and what PR is, and I come from a political background, it's the favourable public image. So, it's how you want the public to basically think of you. It's a reputation management, more or less.

- Sorry I need to put my sunnies on. Put the collar up. I did actually have a funny thing happened to me the other day, I got up on a mic at an event and these are prescription sunnies. And so in order to see the panel, I had to put the sunnies on, wearing exactly what I'm wearing now almost. And of course just the funny little sneakers and the comments afterwards, Chris, "Chris thinks he's a Rock star."

- You got this whole Johnny Depp going on with those. I saw you in those glasses at the last master class we both attended to. And I'm like, he's got this whole Depp thing going on right now. Works all right, it stands out. It makes people talk, it's memorable, you're commanding attention.

- There you go, well, it's, good, yeah. And it's a little bit unintentional, but at the same time, I just love Outland Denim. So shout out to Outland Denim, just one of my favourite brands. And it's just, easy...

- Too all right, which is authentic. You wanna show up as your true, authentic self. So why would you be in anything other than, the brands that you champion and feel comfortable in?

- Yeah, that's right. Not my term, but I have noticed that people were calling me, "the purpose guy". And I guess that fits in with exactly what I am about and becoming well known for. So, actually supporting a brand with purpose and Outland Denim say it, denim on purpose, all created on purpose. It, suits me to a So, sorry enough about me. Back to you.

- Such marketers are so good at talking about themselves, it can be quite a

- Sometimes I could not, it's the furthest thing from things I wanna talk about is definitely myself. But so PR great, favourable image. Now, how did you fall into this? You said you had a political background. So I mean then from there then you went started your own gig. What was sort of the attraction? What would, what got you thinking about PR in the very beginning.

- I think in terms of like the manifestation, it started very young. So when I was in primary school, and we did our year book and we talked about what we wanted to be when we grow up, I want it to be an woman. By the time I did go to university, which is later on, I was 24 when I finally got to University, I had a career in real estate before that. By the time I got to University and studied my Communications degree in Journalism and Public Relations. I remember sitting in a class one day and the lecturer asking, what kind of jobs everyone was hoping to achieve afterwards. And of course I wanted to be a host on Getaway, to combine my things of everything, travel and entertaining and every single girl's hand in that room, went up at that point and I went crap, there is a lot of competition here. If I wanna be doing this job, I'm gonna have a lot of competition. And I remember talking about the journalism side of it, because that did appeal to me more. I'm really inquisitive by nature. I really care about people and I'm very curious. So I thought that would be a great career for me, but I guess the minute we started talking about death knocks and having to go speak to people, once they've lost a loved one and that sort of thing, like I really freaked out about that and thought God, I don't wanna be like, pushing someone for comment when that had happened, because I just didn't think I had the guts to do that. So then I learned about PR and basically that you would make a lot more money in PR too than journalism. Journalism is a bit of a thankless role when you really think about it. Those guys worked so hard for, what they're paid and in this day and age, we're expected to do probably 10 people's jobs at once. And I wasn't quite finished with my degree, when I was offered my first job in the public relations space. And that was, Karen Andrews. Who's our former, our current Home Affairs minister of the federal government. And I met her at the Surf Club at Palm beach, where I'd been a volunteer to the committee, in terms of being a female captain, a training officer. So I was teaching all the families that were coming through, the bronze medallion, the senior first aid, all that sort of thing. Publicity officer as well, which was a gig that I was doing, just to get my experience up, while I was doing my university studies, I was competing and I was also patrolling, probably every second or third weekend as well. So I was very involved in the Surf Club. Like I'm huge about, volunteering at community service and that sort of thing. Fundraising was another thing that I was doing there and I actually won fundraiser of the year, I think it would have been 2011 and Karen Andrews was in the room that night. And she's like, "wow you know, who is this? this young lady doing all of these great things and raising all this great money." Because politicians do need that as well, with their campaigns, I suppose. And she basically offered me an interviews. She said she was looking for, a media and communications officer for her office. So I went in the next week for the interview and landed that job. And that was my first job in federal politics. And I worked for three other politicians, over the course of close to seven years, between the federal and state government, looking after their public image, essentially. So handling all of their media commitments and engagements. So writing all the press releases, that sort of thing, but also looking after their online footprint, with their websites and social media and that sort of thing. So...

- I love, I love that very much. I love that so much. The reason why I love that so much is that, there's a, quote, "do more than what you get paid for and eventually get paid more for what you do." And that was really you, just going out there and doing what you love, the fundraising thing. And because it does make you feel so good, right? Like when you do something that you absolutely love and without pay, yes you're gonna get recognition for it, but that's part of the reason you're doing it. You get that dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin boost. It makes you happy, the happiness trifecta, right?

- Absolutely.

- So, yeah, right on, and then you get offered a gig. That's sick, I love it. So what, where do you think you got these charitable values, from. Could you say it was from a family member? A celebrity or, a superhero.

- Yeah, I guess you could say it came from a family member, but in a very unconventional way and probably not a very positive way. So I had to grow up very quickly. I don't know if you're familiar with the term parentification. It's basically where you parent your parents and you take on the role of parent in your family. So I grew up in a household that had a lot of, well my mum was a prescription drug addict. She passed away a couple of years ago from, that. But I grew up in a household with, I guess, yeah, I was the oldest of three children and that my mum wasn't well. So, my job was to help my dad, raise my brother and sister and look after them. And I always felt good operating from a space of looking after people and helping people. And I had a lot of responsibility on me as a child in that home. I didn't have a normal childhood. And my... the thing I enjoyed doing most was actually going to work. I lied about my age at 13, nine months, to get my first job. And I love the break of getting away from the home and those domestic duties that I had at home, to go and work with other people and have other people to talk to. So I guess like, I kind of the therapy for me in life growing up, my happy place to go to was work. And I built like an insatiable work ethic from that. And that's where I really came alive. That's where I felt really valued and loved, was from serving others and helping others. And it's just continued throughout and I'm becoming more aware of these things as we, work on the inner child and all of the self help and stuff along the way. So, yeah, it comes, from that parentification initially, yeah.

- That's, I mean, and that's great that you've, that you've recognised that, and that those values that, that you built and those behaviours you built from such a young age, while it was really tough then. I bet you it was so tough for you, that you don't have to run away from those. And that, in your case, they've actually helped build who you are. And, then were there any value sets, that I guess, well, of course there was, there always would have been some value sets, in those people that you loved, a bit admired at some point of your life that, really like you just went polar opposite to.

- Again, it's, kind of a bit skew with how it happened, because I was really badly bullied all through school as well, to the point where I'd contemplated taking my own life in my teenage years, because I had no one, I had no friends and I had that situation going on at home. And it just felt like, there wasn't much love or much of anything positive to really look forward to. So again, I guess like what I've done, is I've realised how awful it feels to be alone and isolated and how horrible it is to be like, just to not be kind to someone. So I guess then, all of the charitable work that I do on the volunteering and, how I show up in the world, is to be the complete opposite to that, because I know how horrible that feels and I don't want anyone to go through what I've been through. So it comes from like, you know when people have like, what they don't want lists, a lot of my life has been built around like, what I've seen that I don't want it to be like, as opposed to when people go, oh I saw this mentor and that person, and this person shaped me and that person shaped me. For me it's like all of the negative crap and horrible things that exist in the world and not wanting that to be who I am or where I'm going or what anyone else has to deal with. So it's kind of a bit, yeah.

- Yeah, I agree. I've written about this exact scenario. In a book and I'm also being inspired for, by other authors and, it's very, I think it's very interesting for me, well, it was very interesting for me when I was actually going through a difficult time, not knowing my purpose and having to rediscover myself and then understanding, how that actually applied to marketing. 'Cause I can't stop my brain, I just have to solve the problem, which is also what you're about to, so solving problems which is, I think so you would be, have you done the wealth dynamics profile before?

- Yeah I have, a while a go

- Do you remember who you were? I'd have a guess at who you were 'cause.

- I'm trying to remember this, It was star and something else.

- Supporter?

- Yeah, I think so, yeah.

- I'm also a supporter. So we're actually in the perfect career and position to be a supporter profile, which is just fantastic...

- of those tests.

- Yeah, actually one that will just, totally rock your mind is Jordan Peterson actually has come out with a new one relatively new, not, he's probably promoting it more. It's not his, but he's promoting it more. It's called the Big Five. And he did, he has an online course that you can do to understand, those big five personality types and, I've recently done it and it's just awesome. And I keep going back through it, I just love it so much.

- Yeah, I do all that work with my clients as well, actually like the brand personality quizzes and also the Clifton StrengthsFinder, the top five Clifton strengths. So interesting to see how that one, if that may be an amalgamation of those, several tests into one, which would be cool, 'cause at the moment, I'm getting all these separate tests done and then kind of trying to tie them all together. But it's amazing because, I find that if you do that a few years later, sometimes they change like incrementally, but you can change, like my brand persona from when I started the agency to now, has changed from the creator to the jester. And that's because I have realised that one of my core values of what I do, is that I wanna do things with joy and to enjoy the business and the experience and that being the key driver, not necessarily the commercial side of it, the money side of it. It's like, do we enjoy showing up every day and making a difference? So I swapped into a jester persona from a creator persona, which is crazy. And that's what happens in with the key strengths, like different areas that you develop, will change over time too with that. So it's good to check in on those things and do them every couple of years.

- Absolutely, absolutely. Disc profiling was one that I used for years.

- Yeah, one of the OG tests.

- Yeah it is, it is an OG. And yeah I wasn't a, I was very much a, I think it was a steady cautious kind of, no, I had a high high.

- I was a high high as well, yeah.

- I had a high high. But the day was lower, a lot lower. And as time goes on, being a director of a company that day just naturally had to arise. And, then very interestingly, like other days would actually try to come into work with me and that did not work out. So it was very, that was very interesting. So I didn't, I didn't go into that into mobile, but it did definitely go into the value stuff. That's where I found probably the, the best sort of way or the easiest way for us to actually know almost in a split second conversation. A two minute conversation, whether or not you and I are gonna work.

- If there's gonna be an alignment, right? Yeah, I haven't, I pretty much have those questions now, even in that initial discovery call questionnaire, like one of the questions I always ask too, is if you were set for life and you never had to work another day, how would you spend your time, to see if there's a heart centred approach there? Because some people, if you didn't have to make money and they can go do what they're really passionate about, what is that passion and is it going to advance the human race? Is it something that's gonna give back?

- So that's, almost what I'm talking about too. So, you've gotta have, well I ask, do you have, would there be a group of people, who would rally behind you and your courts?

- Do you have social value more or less?

- Yeah, do you have a tribe. And who is that tribe? And, how, if that tribe is like, what are their values centred on, if they actually can't, if that's not gonna be a long-term value set for them, for example, it's gonna be, "Oh, I just wanna look really good". Versus, yeah You know what, and they'll buy any product whatsoever and then all of a sudden they go, oh, then they have a realisation, "Yeah, that's actually not good for the planet. it's slave labour." All this sort of stuff then they go oh, brand switch. So sorry, we're talking about...

- No, it's so important, it's, that's how you align people with your brand in this day and age and from a PR, and even from a content marketing perspective, you need to be communicating your values. And then obviously the causes that you care about out there to make sure you are attracting the right clientele or building the right tribe.

- Yeah. It basically, it's an undertone for you. It's your tone of voice. So your values and your purpose so, when you creating that content, creating that like you are, for people then essentially, it's just an easy way to check in, like, does, does this actually, fulfil on that value set, therefore, am I being authentic? And that's really a great indicator for people to be actually go, "oh, look this content I'm craning it's just fluff." It's just crap. Like who's getting value out of that? Stuff for the sake of stuff. Mike he'll hate it.

- The value set said, that I was going to be helpful supportive. Yet I'll go and pull these content out. That's not helpful and supportive, for example. So, in terms of the content that you're creating for people, yeah. You mentioned this lot of questions and this a lot of, and there's a strategic approach to,

- Yeah, the feedback from the clients, is they feel peppered with these quizzes and these questions and it's like self-actualization and realisation and all of this stuff that has to come out of them. But I like, "trust the process guys. Like it, it's gotta feel very like intrusive to start with, but the more I can know about them and how they think and how they feel and help them develop. Look, a lot of people don't know their why, they don't know their purpose. They don't even know how to articulate the elevator pitch, to get the best bank for either. So, they know it, it's definitely within them. These guys are incredible, I'm dealing with clients that are running multi-million dollar businesses. They're young, most of them under 40, like they've done incredible things, but they're so in the doing of everything that they don't really take the time to pull back and reflect on like, who am I, what do I care about? What's the long term goal here? Like, how do I wanna be remembered? What's my legacy going to be and I think that's my best value ad is, that I come in and I'm like, "guys, let's sit down." The first session, is normally about three hours, but like, let's sit down and let's draw this out of you. And then let's come up with a plan, of how we get to take that information and put it out there in content and get you in the media, built off those, those pillars. And essentially we, sort of come up with, four key areas that we wanna really push them, topic areas that we wanna push them as sort of the thought leaders of, in that area and just keep it really consistent. So like you're saying before we had this service, like you can write content, put out the fluffier stuff that just doesn't matter and it doesn't create any sort of impact or engagement with people. But when you really carefully execute from a strategic standpoint, where you know what your talking points are, you know, what your key messages are, and they're tying into like a bigger end goal, like a long game approach, great results, to the point where clients have not left, which is a good indication that it's working for them.

- Absolutely.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Yeah, that's great. And it's, the agile, problem that we just don't work. Like we're too busy working in, instead of working on and, can't see the forest for the trees, all of these types of sayings, when we're asked or when to think about these things, it's like, oh, you actually sit back and go. I don't know. I actually don't know, I've never thought about it and that's the response that we get also.

- So crazy, it's actually a much bigger problem than just a marketing problem too. Like you essentially get disconnecting with yourself and then that's like a whole issue in itself, until you actually reconnect with yourself, life is going to be so much harder.

- You're also, you're, essentially not being, you're being inauthentic. And therefore, you're also, potentially having friendships and relationships that, watch out when you do this stuff, those things can start to falter or waiver, they could change. Because once you actually understand yourself and who you are and your value set and your purpose, then it's all like, "Hang on a minute, I don't really, really hang out with those people anymore."

- That's crazy, it all changes. People drop off new people come flying in, like they've been attached to you, by some magnetic force. It's a crazy experience to go through. But, and from someone like me, it's a very humbling experience and always I had sometimes I pinch myself because I'm the kid that had no friends in school, that was bullied, had no girlfriends, no supports, no one wanted to know me or have a piece of me or anything, right? I didn't even get to go to my year 12 formal, cause I had no date to go with nor could I afford to buy a dress or anything. 'Cause I was living out of home and roughing it at the time. But then to end up at this as just this person, who's gone away and worked really hard on her career, which is all I did. I just put all of my effort into my work and then at the end of it, just turn around and said, like all of these people following me and reaching out to me on the daily now, saying how much I inspire them and motivate them to show up in life, the way that I do. And I sit there and go like, and people say like she's popular. I'm like, "I'm popular?" Like I was never popular. I used to look at all the popular kids in school and just think, oh gosh, I wish I could be like that. And it's still to this day, I have a real problem with sort of accepting that and I don't like to see it as popularity, but more so as, they say, "stay in your lane, do your own thing and the right people will show up." For me, it just happened much later in life than I had hoped it would, but probably at a better time. Because you know, with age and time and wisdom, you learn to appreciate things more, when they do arrive and what better time for this to happen, than when I'm at the helm of my own business. So everything happens when it's meant to happen. And they say, "you can have everything you want in life, but just not all at once." So in my case, that's very true. I'm trying to have everything in life, but not all at once.

- I like Warren Buffett's, how he structures goal setting. And he said, "write down the top 20, or maybe it's the top 25 or something, goals and then circle the top five and then just forget about the rest." I don't mind that one.

- Yeah, it's a bit similar to Matthew McConaughey, when he was like, there's a lot of people out there and he himself said he was doing, they're trynna do, five A things and like five B things. And he's like, he's production company, when he shut that down, he realised that was one of the B things. He's like, you can't do the five, A things well, if you're trying to do the B things too, and it's so true, but it's also like a discovery thing, right? Because in the minute... at the beginning, especially an entrepreneurial journey, you do everything for everyone. Just sort of throw mud at walls to see what sticks and then over time you start to realise from the feedback and the impact you're having, where your genius zone is and where you need to just niche down and just sort of like bunk it down and, just go all in. And for me that has been, this personal branding strategy for, the emerging entrepreneurs of tomorrow, the ones so that we've got like a new wave of business leaders out there, who come from that same purpose driven, perspective that you're so passionate about, that other people can look up to. Because right now, if you asked someone, who do you admire in the business world? most people just rattle off the names of business people they've seen on TV, whether it be Shark Tank, The Apprentice, that's it, it's like, oh Mike Boris, and he's great. But like, it's like, well, who else we got out there, there's some other amazing operators out there and that's gonna help get them, up to that same sort of platform.

- And it, takes years for us to recognise those people sometimes, and then go, oh, hang on a minute. These guys are rock stars in their own, run.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, that's really rad. So in terms of, I guess your life purpose and your brand purpose, how different are they or would you say that they're like just pretty much...

- Everything's the same and I talk about this a lot, about how I send the same version of myself to work, to home, to friends, everywhere I go, I'm the same person and my life goal is the same, no matter what type of work I would do, I would wanna be impacting other people in a positive way. And I think given that I've overcome some, some pretty serious obstacles in life to get to where I am now, I can actually demonstrate to younger people, that if you work hard and you stay true to yourself, despite adversity, you can be someone and you can have an impact and you can basically do anything you wanna do. So, yeah, I think that would be the same, whether I was doing PR or any other kind of business, I would still wanna have that same amount impact, yeah.

- That's, that's awesome. I like to break this down and go a little bit deeper. So, I mean, at home, you're a supporter profile. So, I mean, I can almost guarantee that at home, you're also being a supportive type of person as well. So who or what are you supporting at home? Like how do those, how does that, life purpose when you're at home and you're not actually doing client work? What is it?

- So, well, I used to be...

- 'Cause I know you're a fit, I know you love so, would it be, hey, I wanna be this, I wanna be this fit, energetic, healthy, party, animal loving, type of person. And you could almost say like in a day, say it was the... say it's Saturday or Sunday and hopefully not working and you actually having some time out, how many different purposes, could you actually come up with, in a weekend or, or a Saturday?

- Well look, we can just go back to this weekend that's just passed. So on, Saturday, I did have to actually do some work to play catch up. But on Saturday night, I took a client with me to the Gold Coast Charity Ball, which was awesome. There was 700 people there and it was in its 20th year. So you can imagine there was fireworks at the beginning of the night and not the end and they had dodgem cars and I got to race the on the dodgem cars and crash into him and watch him go on a slippery slide. It was so hilarious. It was, really fun. So I had that on Saturday night and then on Sunday I had a commitment to meet a girlfriend at the gym to go and do a workout at 10:00 AM. So got in at midnight, went to bed, woke up, was at the gym at 10:00 AM, after walking the dog of course, and spending some time with the husband, so I went to the gym with my girlfriend and ended up going to Robina for a bit of a shop and, went home had lunch with the husband and then sat at my computer until, nine o'clock last night doing work. So I do tend to try and fit in, I always try to fit in the fitness, sort of quadrant in my life. It's really important for me, from a health perspective, I've got like really bad guts, when it comes to like, irritable bowel syndrome and all this sort of stuff, I go, too far into it, but because of the high intensity of my life and the stress and the constant running around and stuff like my poor guts is that's where it goes. They say that, like I, hold it in there. So I have to make sure, like I exercise and eat pretty clean and, take care of myself to make sure that I'm healthy, first and foremost. So it's as a mental thing as well, as a physical thing with the training. And I like to challenge myself with the training too. So I don't do normal stuff...

- I know, I've seen your workouts.

- I go pretty crazy or decide to go scale a mountain and do an overnight mountain hike. Or, and I got my jet ski, I love my jet ski, I'm out on that quite a bit as well. That was something that I purchased during COVID and I'm like, well, I normally spend some money, doing some international travel. So instead of that, I'll buy the jet ski and then I've got that to go.

- Is that a freedom or an adventure kind of, or a bit of both?

- It's a bit of, it ticks all the boxes for me. Cause I'm a bit of a Daredevil.

- Adrenaline, gimme a bit of that.

- Yeah. But it's like, you get out in the water and you have both hands on that thing, you can't be on a phone. You just, it's my way. It's almost like a meditation for me. It is, no one can reach me, even though people do still reach me out there. When I start to look over my phone, I'm like, crap, there's like 10 notifications there. But for the time that I'm riding that jet ski, like I'm just free and I'm just this is the wind in my face and I have to concentrate on obviously, not running into anything and that sort of thing. So that was like therapy. So that was a great investment to go and do that for myself.

- There you go, there's another purpose. Escape the notifications.

- Yeah. Cause I'm, very much like an explorer at heart. Like I love doing the adventure, explore things, going new places, love getting out into nature. So a lot of people wouldn't know that, I scaled Mount Bonnie a couple of years ago and it's one of the craziest mountains in Southeast Queensland and I had a 15 kilo back pack on, with like my tent and my sleeping bag and the whole lot and my food and my water and climbed this thing like there's like exposed rock face that you have to climb. It's not for the faint hearted and, to do that sort of thing and camp overnight and come back down the next day, people look at the exterior and think, oh, that's a blonde PR girl, Gold Coast, socialite, whatever. But don't realise that yeah, I can also, go out there and really challenge myself and sort of be prepared to sort of, I don't know, I just wanna experience, everything there is in life. I don't, tend to pigeonhole myself into like just one sort of box of like, this is my identity and these are the things that I do. Like I'm always willing to try new experiences and challenge myself by doing crazy things.

- 'Cause there's a reward with that, right?

- Yeah.

- There's a lot of emotional reward. You've, overcome something. You've, conquered a mountain. It's very rewarding. From, not just the exercise of the endorphins, absolutely.

- I have this like almost inbuilt anxiety sometimes, thinking that a lifetime, is never long enough to do, all the things you wanna do. Like, I literally feel that, in my bones, like oh, like I'm not gonna be able to do, everything that I wanna do. No one quit, it's impossible in one lifetime. And sometimes I find that a little bit disheartening and you can almost do it in a bit and be like, oh, this sucks. But then the flip side of that is, like, I literally wake up and people say to me all the time, where do you get all your balance and energy from? Like why are you so energetic? And it's like, I literally will wake up every day and be like, yes, another turn, like another chance another, here's another opportunity. And I don't know what the day is going to bring, but bring it. And it's that optimism and not wanting to waste time, because you know, it's so limited. Yeah.

- Do you think you're also, do you ever just sit in silence and meditate?

- No, that would be, the equivalent of sending me to my room if I was grounded or like putting me in the corner, like making me stay alone with my thoughts. It's a challenge for me. I don't know if I like it.

- Apparently it's really good for you.

- Yeah. I mean, in terms of the creative aspect, 'cause you know how they say, "you have having most creative ideas, like went in the shower or you're like driving a car." So for me, it's listening to a podcast or reading a book. I can't just sit down and listen to a podcast or read a book without having a pen and paper or be able to take notes on my phone, 'cause that stuff just explodes my mind. Every, I'm like oh, that's a good idea. This could, I could do this with this client and that with that client, in my head, my brain just like, it, just blows up. But where I do struggle is that, the personal reflection time, the journaling, that sort of thing. I have no problem with gratitude, I don't need to keep a gratitude journal, I feel that every day, as soon as I put my hands, on my steering wheel of my car every morning, I think how lucky I am, to drive this car to work and to go to work. And like the sky is blue and it's beautiful, you know? Like I'm always like super appreciative of everything around me. Like just the real simple things. But when it comes to like the reflection, and then the journaling, I definitely know I could improve in that area. That's something that I need to. That and yoga. I need to probably start doing yoga.

- Yoga would be really good for you.

- Yes.

- What if you'd be able to get, through a whole yoga class?

- Oh, like I've done.. I've done a couple. I did a charity yoga event last weekend, here I am, like every weekend there's some charity event. But I did a charity yoga event, last weekend at Pacific fair for the serving our people charity. And, it's just such a challenge to me. I'm so not flexible and it's so uncomfortable, but that, that's where you need to go right? Do the uncomfortable stuff and I, I'm preaching that to my clients all the time and they're like, "it's really uncomfortable doing this." I'm like come on, you gotta do it, the breakthrough's on the other side, you can do it. So...

- Why do we do this, it's because it's hard right? And otherwise everybody would do it, yeah, yeah. That's right. Yeah, I think yoga would be sick. I've gotta do more yoga, so yeah. I'm currently just doing cold water immersion therapy. I just love that.

- Yeah, cool.

- But it's actually funny. 'Cause like when you do something for, so long and then the glossiness of it or the difficulty of doing that task, it actually wears and it's all like, okay, I need something else now.

- That's right, I literally just did a year and a half with their 45 and I just got to condition to it. And I sort of thought I need something, I need to mix this up. I need to go do something different and so I've gone back to weight training and I probably will take up the yoga. I'm thinking that'll be the next thing for me. But yeah, I totally get where you're coming from with that.

- Excellent. So, PR for people, where did they start if they, if they going to start building their brand. Where do they start?

- Well, I developed a very clever acronym, for our workflow of how we help people, build a personal brand. The acronym is Panda. Starts.

- Of course that makes perfect sense.

- So the P stands for plan. So every personal brand has to have a strategy. So you need to have, and it's, it's the pillars, it's the foundations. You can't get the bridge without the pillars. So we start with that. The A in Panda stands for audit. So we like to do a big digital audit of looking at the online footprint. So how are you currently showing up, when you are googled and how do you look across, all of your social media platforms, that sort of thing. So we actually developed an audit template, which is quite exhaustive, as you can imagine, we spend several hours going through that and making recommendations on how to, improve each of those key sort of areas, across the whole entire online footprint. N stands for narration. So it's the storytelling, the key messages, what do we wanna say. D stands for distribute? So how are we going to basically, put that out through traditional PR methods and then obviously other self-publishing methods, whether they be, social media, blogging, that sort of thing. Because, you can go to the media, in this day and age, but you also are the media in this day and age. And then the final A, is to analyse. So we're constantly looking at sort of, what's working and what isn't, the clients will generally start, getting a good sense of what content, is really resonating with people, when they start getting hit back, when they get those comments and those inboxes and DMS, from people saying, "wow, like I really relate to this or thank you so much for that." That sort of thing. So, the work we do is so real time and you've gotta be really agile. You've gotta be able to like kind of bend and shape and change that strategy as it goes, depending on where that client is starting to be seen as more of a thought leader than in other areas. So, I mean, just get started, tidy everything up, clean everything up, know your message, put it out there and start analysing the feedback.

- Very good. Well, thank you so much for your time, Amanda, Panda Williams, you got, Panda's the, PR acronym at at Yellow Panda PR. So, and it's really easy for people to remember. I love acronyms. We've got one ourselves. The ProActive marketing methodology, is coming out soon to all of you in my book called, "Building Brands On Purpose. ATI is July, 2021. It will be available on Amazon. So I hope people will be able to get a copy there and God forbid, you'll have to listen to me, talk for hours on end, on an audio version of that too. So, apologies in advance. Thanks again, Amanda. How do people follow you and keep up with what you're doing?

- My two channels of choice are Instagram. amandapandawilliams and LinkedIn amandapandawilliams as well. So I made it nice and easy, to stand out against all the other, Amanda Williams in the world. Just look for Panda.

- Very good. Thanks again for watching guys. The ProActive podcast, is available on Apple, Spotify and you can check out all the episodes on MeMedia's YouTube page, just search for MeMedia, AU. You know, there's a couple others around the world that we wanna get rid of, but you know, we can all be friends too.

- Yeah.

- Thanks guys, see you next time.