The Wise Why

Kirsty van den Bulk
Hello and welcome to The Wise Why. This morning I am joined by Andy Lambert, who I got the pleasure of seeing speak as a coach. He helps people speak with confidence. I got to see his presentation where it went. There’s no text and the way Andy handled it blew my mind because it was just professional. It didn’t throw him. And for that reason I reached out and. Had had to say well done, and since then we’ve built this friendship through LinkedIn and he I am honoured to say that I’ve been able to look at the Adobe Express before it went live, so enough about me because the show is not about me. It’s over to Andy. Andy please introduce. Yeah.

Andy Lambert
Well, thank you very much for a lovely intro, Kirsty. Lovely to be here and yes, well inside whilst I was trying to give that presentation and nothing appeared on the screen. One speaks to having a bit of time to prep beforehand and knowing your stuff does help. And also inside I was panicking. Like mad but just managed to not portray it. But anyway, thank you again for for the invite. I’m Andy and. Yeah, currently work in product for Adobe working on a product called Adobe Express, but possibly more interestingly, seven years ago, eight years ago was part of the founding team of a company called Content Cal, which became one of the UK’s biggest ever acquisitions. So, so we built the business over eight years and got acquired by Adobe at the end of December 21. And yeah, it still feels like a fairy tale to be honest because. Yeah, that was what we set out to do to, to build a, you know, venture scale business with the the idea to be acquired at some point and yeah, that that dream came true. So yeah, feeling still very grateful. Two years down the line. But yeah, still working for Adobe, which is quite an incredible place to be as well. So yeah, enjoying. What I describe as the path list path right now I’m not too sure what happens next, but kind of interested to figure out. Where it go?

Kirsty van den Bulk
I love a pathless path. I do it all the time. I. If I hadn’t sat on the pathless path, I wouldn’t actually be doing what I’m doing now. And I sat on it for about three years, not knowing which road to take. So enjoy the process of the path of the path. Try and say that in the morning, well, that’s a good one. Can you explain a bit more about what? Content Cal is because. I know, but a lot of people don’t.

Andy Lambert
Yeah. So as as the name might suggest, very innovatively named like because we built a content calendar. So we call it content call the vast majority of people try and plan content in a spreadsheet by trying to have some consistency and some structure to a, to a content plan. Most people structure that in, usually like a spreadsheet or Google sheet. Or maybe Trello or something like that and people try their best to maintain some like consistent structure and consistency behind content publishing. Obviously you know. This through through your work and people set out with great intentions like, yeah, I want to build a brand. I want to build my personal brand, build my reputation, be known for something, and they try and build a strategy and think. Like, well, how am I gonna have a posting frequency? So I maybe need to map it out in a spreadsheet and build a content plan? With pillars and. Themes and all that kind of stuff we can talk about content strategy later. And and content strategy and growth business growth, the intersection of that has fascinated me forever, right? The intersection between like how we build our own personal brands and how we build a business at the same time, that area fascinates me. So we built a product to to address that by creating a platform that allowed people to build their content strategies to visualise it in front of them to, you know, organise it around like themes and topics. So there’s a good balanced mix across the kind of things that you want to. Create and then have that automatically published to all of the social channels, whichever ones you you want to build a brand on. And then of course bring back all of the analytics best times to post the insights. The things that performed well, that kind of thing, so that you can understand how your content strategy is performing, make tweaks and optimization, and ultimately. You know, have some consistency and rigour behind it, rather than being like, hey, I’m really gonna get into it. Go to hell for leather and trying to do it for a month and then and then stopping. You know, consistency is everything on social as in like just showing up regularly and being consistent with the type of things that you’re trying to achieve and and the audience that you’re trying to appeal to. All this stuff you well know, Kirsty. So yeah, little product to to systemize that. And yeah, it became the fastest growing social media technology there was at the time. So. So naturally we we captured quite a lot of market interest got used in about 110 countries and then. Cool.

Kirsty van den Bulk
It’s, it’s phenomenal and I think what you just said that was really important because there’s a couple of things I’ve seen from you posting on socials that there is a difference between personal branding posts or your personal page posts and a business post and a couple of things here, business posting is really, really different and can be quite challenging. But I really like the fact that you talk about. Consistency there, because everyone seems to think we’ll get caught up on this thing about consistency being about the time you post. But it’s not just that, is it?

Andy Lambert
No, it’s definitely not and and it’s, I would rather people post once a week and just do that over a longer period of time, then try and do 1A day burn out and it just being super painful and just becoming such a burden. And it is like, you know, not like you. I’ve been content creating for many, many years, right? And and it is difficult to always find the momentum and the motivation. It’s about trying to find a balance that feels right for you. I can post every day and I tried to for many times and it’s just like. It becomes a burden and I don’t enjoy it anymore and I just end up stopping because I need a break. That’s that’s not what we wouldn’t do when we’re trying to build our personal brands or build a business, right, we’re. Not looking. For to go viral tomorrow, you know, might might feel like that’s the goal, but it never is. It’s about consistent growth. So that might well be like, you know, publishing three times a week or once a week. But that’s only. One element of consistency, the more important element of consistency is consistency of message, right? What you stand for your personal brand.

Andy Lambert
All of that is the actual important consistency. Bit right? Not ohh, I publish every day at 8:00 AM or whatever. That’s a component of it. And that’s your cadence. But really what what you’re looking for is like here is what I want to be known for. Here are my goals and here’s who I want to appeal to. Now there’s a Venn and a Venn diagram. An overlap that sits right in the middle of that are like. What I’m good at, what my audience want to hear and want to learn, and that is the middle of the bullseye that you want to go for. And that’s what you need to be absolutely resolutely consistent towards.

Kirsty van den Bulk
And you I love and and something I’ve got to say to you, I love you. Videos your videos where you do your social media rundown. Ohh my go to every week. You know I I get really busy and yes, I get all the the the news coming into my inbox. But very rarely particularly recently have I had a chance to actually follow it up but your little snippets 30 seconds, a minute of that update of what’s going on is absolutely it’s, it’s one of my. Quickly things so can I just from a personal point of. View when I’m busy. Juggling things, I can click it on. There can be two multi-tasking over here, but I know what’s going on because I know that Andy is gonna deliver it. So thank you for that bit of consistency. It’s working.

Andy Lambert
It’s good. It’s it’s nice to point out that like that is, I’ve been doing that every single week for eight years, haven’t missed a single week in eight years and and, and it makes a difference and people are like, oh, how how did you do this? And I had had 50 people in a room last last Wednesday to do a social media meeting. And I was like, ohh, I know you from the videos and, you know people. How how did you how do you do this? It’s just like, just do it like it was awful the first time I did it. And now, you know, I can do it very quickly now because you just just in a rhythm. So. And it’s like, like anything like social media, content creation, personal brand building is just habit. It’s just habit. So, they’re very hard to form, easy to break. So I just have a non-moving calendar invite that recurs every Tuesday, like record and post your round-up. Like you have to do it and I will feel like a failure if I don’t. It’s written on my weekly goals list. Behind it has been for the last eight years. And it’s that is exactly what consistency means. Yeah, you just show up, show up again and again when you know that it’s the right kind of thing. And it’s the right kind of thing because it works, it works. It works, it works and it’s and it targets the audience that I want to appeal to, which is people like you, Kirsty, to be honest.

Kirsty van den Bulk
But it The thing is, it’s not and I I really wanna touch this before I ask you some other questions. But I wanna touch on the fact that it’s it helps. So it apps. And it serves so it shows exactly what you do. It educates and I think that’s really key cause everyone goes out there shouting about ohh social media needs to be entertaining. Well, yeah, great. Off you go to TikTok. But actually on someone like LinkedIn I want education. I don’t actually want to be entertained watching a dog flying, catching a Frisbee and that doesn’t mean I don’t like those videos. I do. I really don’t. But it doesn’t mean that I’ve got time when I’m trying to structure my day’s work. I want educational content, and that’s where you absolutely I’m gonna say because I can’t help to help it. But that’s where you got your your online presence, so I couldn’t miss that one.

Andy Lambert
Well, I’d appreciate it as a as a former professional musician and wannabe rock star, I’ll, I’ll take it, I’ll.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Take it. So that’s what I wanna touch on. Is your journey before Content Cal. So let’s, let’s explore that. Let’s hear about this musician.

Andy Lambert
So I I probably found I found music, so I’ll try and keep this as short as possible. Found music at about 13 years of age and I was desperate to be in a band purely because the people that were in bands got all the girls and I was like, I don’t have a girlfriend. I really. You want one. So I’m gonna learn how to play music, so take from that what you will. But yeah, thing. I’m not sure if ever expressed that on camera before, but never mind. There you go. New thing. So. So I was like, OK, well, that seems like a great motivation to to learn music so. I thought the drummers were. Always the coolest ones in the band. Every Friday I would go to the. To the local and the youth club and watch the watch the music. And I was always into like. Rock music. So I was like, I want to be a drummer. So I worked for my dad painting things for for the next 8 weeks until I learned enough pocket money to to get myself a drum kit, much to my parents to stay there like it would just be a it would just be a, you know, a little phase. He’ll sell it in a couple of weeks, 20 years later, 22 years later, I’m still playing every single day, but. And yes, I know, I just, I was lucky enough to find the thing that, like, even talking about music makes my hair stand on end. Because you know, when you’re lucky enough to find the thing that. Like gives you. Unlimited energy. I could do it for. Ever. And I was like, I was so into it. It just overwhelmed my life. Everything like, you know, I nothing would compare to to playing and writing music. And then I joined a band which ended up going quite well. We got signed, got a record deal albums and then shots got #24 in the UK rock charts was on TV. And I was like, this is mad, like, 18, 19 years old, went into HMV when it kind of when you used to buy CD’s, band was called Pitch Blend looking through like Pink Floyd and then Pitchblend next to it in the rack. I was like, I am next to pink. Floyd’s like the best day of my life and obviously bought the only copy of the of our record that was in HMV still got that somewhere in my drawer here. But anyway, amazing. But the the thing that we learned, this is where it connects the story is that we got very arrogant about our musical abilities. We would do no marketing at all. We’d like we’d trust our label to to look after it all about the music. We don’t need to market it because. We are so into what we did and and we’re all about our product and not about our market. And we’re wondering as as we’re going through this kind of five year journey. And wondering why there’s fewer. And fewer people turning up to our gigs. And even though we’re like the headline act, the. Bands that were supporting us like had reams of crowds. They had like buses full of crowds coming to these shows and they would all depart when they left. Ohh, there’s less people watching us now, so over time, you know, then they kind of. It all fizzled. Out. Which is a massive shame, but you don’t get paid very much at all, even when you like. Think that it’s going looks on the outside like it’s going. Quite well. You know you you run out of time because you really need to get paid to get a decent salary as a musician. Super, super hard. So we didn’t really cross that, that cousin to to make it sustainable as a as a lifestyle as only so much debt you can tolerate as a as a 20 year old. So I think so at that point I was like it just dawned on me that. We really didn’t understand marketing at all and at that point I was like well. I’m gonna need to actually do something proper to to earn some money, but I have no skills other than the fact that I’m quite good at playing drums. So what do I do? I was also quite into cars at that point, so I started buying and selling cars and made a little car business and got a lot better at marketing and being able to to position and write the copy about the cars I. Had for sale, which is, you know, all sounds a little. Bit. Rough and ready. But there you go. And and I started to really appreciate the value of. Like what good marketing looks like cause I look at all these car sales ads. They were. They were terribly written poor pictures and I was like, it’s just easier. Like you start to really realise that it’s not about the product of the marketing is the thing that really attracts people the same with like the music, right? We might have had the best product, but we didn’t engage an audience in the way that we. Should have done. So all of that just became. Interesting learning and then as I started to mature and then, you know, finally got there girlfriend my dreams that became my wife etcetera. And I had to grow up and, you know, and do all that kind of stuff. So then I started thinking right, well, I need to understand a little bit more around business because my car sales business. You know, kind of plateaued. Really. It was good experience. But I was like, I’m gonna need it. And like my how my mum would describe guess a proper job. So yeah. I then worked in fortunately my first proper job was in a software business. And from that moment I was, I was hooked. So that taught me a lot of the kind of fundamentals. Was in sales taught me the fundamentals of of good business, etcetera. And then after seven years of doing that quite well, I was like, I think I’m ready to do this myself. I had a very young child at the time. I wasn’t ready to to take the leap into just saying like, I’m going to found my. Own. Business. So I was, I was lucky enough to to be introduced in like a Dragon’s den type of scenario to someone that was doing like a pitch day that was looking to raise money. It was the the guy who came up with the. Idea for Content Cal, I I approached him after he did his pitch and I was like, I don’t have any money to invest, but I would love to join you in the journey because. The idea I get it because it’s the perfect intersection, it’s software and it’s all about marketing. And I think I think I get this marketing thing so. Joined him in 2016 and yeah, you know the story from from that moment forth there you go. Sorry, very long story. Apologies.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Not at all. I love it because and. And the reason I love it is there’s some symbioses between you and me. So I wasn’t. Yes, I can play an instrument where I’m I’m very rusty now, but I was a performer, you know, I was an actor. Singer. And dancer. Not great dancer, but a good enough that I can get into a 42nd straight. So good. Yeah. So I have moved on in around the world. Yeah, well, around the UK. So it’s it’s interesting because as an actor, you have to market yourself. And then I grew up because like you, you have to be working all the time to make money from being an actor. You don’t make any money when you’re not working. And what you do do is you take on filling. Jobs and the filling jobs were all marketing based. In the end, they were either selling makeup in Harrods, Selfridges and the, you know, the top West End stores or they were running events for people like I’m gonna name drop here. Nintendo and I was an event manager or I was working for Intel and I was talking about sales training. And so along the way. Suddenly, when I met my beautiful, wonderful Dennis, beautiful husband, I wanted to buy a house with him and it was like I need to grow up now and I ended up funny enough in sales and marketing roles. Not surprising because that symbiosis. But it’s that. Early, failing of and it’s not a failing, it’s a. It’s a magical mistake and magical learning. That you know, as an actor, you already have to market yourself, and I was always too loud. No. And two unapologetic and in in, you know, 30 years ago when I was in my 20s, it was a very different industry to where we are now. And your role as a a woman in the business, you know. I was pretty. But I wouldn’t keep my mouth shut. It’s opinionated as a 50 year old woman. I can get away with being an opinionated old bag, but in your 20s you can’t or you couldn’t. Then you could now, but you couldn’t then to a different world. But it’s just interesting that journey and how you, how we’ve learned from that. So you’re in a band. You’ve learned the the drums, which is incredible. You’re still playing today. Who’s inspired you?

Andy Lambert
This will sound incredibly. Incredibly cheap there’s there’s there’s really three people. So obviously one, like everything I do is, is for the love of my life has been my wife for many, many years now. So all of my life choices are based around like doing the best thing. I have. My family sound incredibly like. Trite, but it really is. And then I was fortunate, and this is possibly the bit where I got luckiest in my life. And so I I met a guy called Colin Smith and I met him on on that kind of journey that I just described just before I met Alex. Actually, he was the one that introduced me to Alex, who was The Who came up with the idea for for Contact Cal. And he very quickly, I was like, I like it. Sounds kind of weird. I feel strange asking like I want like, I want you to be my mentor because I met him. He’s he was a 56 year old guy when I met him. I’d found a a few businesses, but like just the nicest, most genuine individual. Like, it’s so easy to to think that super successful people are trying to not swear here are not very nice people and and tend to be incredibly self involved, selfish and it. Tends to be like I will tread on other people to get where I want to and and and a lot of entrepreneurs have that have that mindset and it’s what’s made them incredibly successful. That’s the bit, that’s all. Ways made me feel wrong about business and entrepreneurship. Like you don’t have to be a horrible human being cause I’ve I’ve tried to pride myself on being a good person. And you know, when you feel like something just in the pit, your stomach, something doesn’t feel right you. Know and. And I love the idea of, like, building venture scale businesses and doing, you know, following the journey that we’ve been on. But I want to do it the right way and leave the right impact and lasting impression as best as best we can. And Colin absolutely has that mindset and. And he’s just been like my spirit guide for want of a better word of, like, helping me be and find my potential because I have some very limiting beliefs. Typically. So I’ve had to work with therapists to to help that too, because, you know, I’m incredibly. Competitive and have a. Lot of desire, very hard on myself like most people that end up doing, doing some cool things very hard myself. Never enough, you know. Always driving for next 1. So it’s very it’s amazing when you’ve got someone that has a similar mindset but it’s kind of like seeing the other side of it and has the the benefit of perspective because they’ve got, you know, 30 years on you or whatever. And yeah, he’s my work dad and he is like the thing that. Has helped me through and made basically made me who I am over the last eight years or so, so finding a mentor, quite frankly, is the most important thing that’s ever happened to me and I, you know, whenever I I think you do a lot of work in schools, I think, yeah, I I do some some. Similar I think some similar stuff. But like my mom always told me this, but you don’t listen when you’re a kid like you are who you spend your time with. So choose very, very carefully. And I’ve been very lucky to actually start as my careers progress, spend time with people that have helped me, like evolve to who I want to become. So yeah, finding that person in your life. They’re very, very blessed thing.

Kirsty van den Bulk
That’s beautiful. And and I totally agree with you. And I have people and and I’m hard on myself. I just did. That’s Jenny Gordon, who’s been on the I don’t, you know, Doctor Jenny, but she’s absolutely brilliant. She’s a brilliant coach and she’s just put up a new personality test. And I did it last week. So it’s your animal spirit. You know, who you who you are. And I was really shocked by my my by my results. I expect there to be an Ant, you know, creativity. But I got a lion, not surprisingly. Anyone who went?

Kirsty van den Bulk
Really. Well, yeah. Yeah, that’s right. Then we got the cat, which was I thought was interesting because it means that and I am cynical. I will be. I I do question everything which is I haven’t realised just how much I am actually quite cynical. And then I’m the cheater. And I do exhaust. Everybody. So I totally get that. But there were some. Things in there that made me uncomfortable because it was like. Ohh I’m I. Really like that. I know I can be. A little bit imposing and I can scare people, but it was a really interesting test and I will. I’ll drop this into the comments because it’s definitely worthwhile doing it because as you’re talking, I’m like yeah, I I recognise that. But also the entrepreneur spirit means that you have to have some of these elements. It does however, mean that you can be really tough on yourself because you’re constantly driving. And me with the tutor. And I’m always looking for the next best thing, right?

Andy Lambert
Yeah, yeah, I can. I can identify definitely.

Kirsty van den Bulk
So I think I think it’s important. I love the fact that you do everything for your family. OK, that is. I mean, that’s the whole reason I set up the business. So I could be at my daughters school to collect. You know, I wanted to be there for her. I wanted to be consistent. And ultimately I want to leave for something that she can take over if she wants to. If she doesn’t want to, she can, like, sell it and I’ll be dead. So it. Won’t matter, right?

Andy Lambert
A lovely sentiment for Friday morning.

Kirsty van den Bulk
I know. I love that so. Along the way, you’ve had. Lots of pivots you have pivoted and pivoted. I’m just wondering. How many times you may have just gone and and had one of those aha moments. You’ve obviously had it with your mental, but other ones along the way where you went uhhh. And for me they tend to be about a year later I go ah. So I’m just wondering if you’ve had any or aha moments.

Andy Lambert
I think, yeah, we think about this, but. One thing that’s that’s helped me in everything looks like makes sense in hindsight. You can easily tell. I can, I can tell a really good story about the my past because it all makes sense in the same way like makes sense from your your acting career and how you’ve evolved to where. You’re at now. And and there’s a really good book on this, which is called like the squiggly career. And the fact is like, it just doesn’t go like it’s we all think it’s a linear path, linear path, continual progression just just doesn’t happen. And and the way even now when I kind of tell the story like I have in hindsight it makes it seem like, oh, that’s just a logical journey. Like it’s it’s not really because you know, after succeeding in sales, you could just stay on that path. And to be honest, my wife would have preferred that I had to be honest because, you know, you can earn really good money and everything’s going well and everything’s wonderful and. Because I’m an idiot, I’m like, I think I can do this myself. And so. But I guess, like I wasn’t, I wasn’t completely open to doing huge amounts of risk. That’s why I wanted to join join someone in. Doing it but you take a huge drop in in salary and that is that moment where you know leap into the unknown. Where I I’ve I’ve always been quite OK with doing things that I just don’t know how to do. You know, just like a very much screw it. Let’s do it type of attitude. Which does get me into hot water sometimes if I’m honest. Because I’m yeah, I I have an action bias or bias towards action. I’ll just, like, pass on it. We’ll make it up. We’ll figure it out. Just. Yeah, I just feel like when you’re thrown into the unknown, you just get those there. There’s like another gear that you trigger that you just can’t engage or for me personally, I can’t engage that second gear when I’m cognitively thinking about it, like going back to the first story of, like, thrown in the. On a presentation dies as you’re giving a talk, you’re just like you. You don’t prepare for that stuff. It’s just like. You know it’s fight or flight. You just your inner instincts just take over and I think probably the only aha moment I had was like, just how comfortable I was in just ambiguity, you just go, oh, well, I mean something. I don’t really know how to build a business from scratch, but. Let’s let’s just figure it out. And for some reason it’s just never. It never felt scary. It was just like, ah, well, I’m only doing this because I think I can. And I it wasn’t in my mind that this would be like failure. I wouldn’t see it as a failure because I’m just exploring, you know, this is a a way of personal development because that’s the thing that’s really driven me. It’s like. How can I be? The the best version of of myself and and I was never that way at school to be honest, cause I was never. I was very middling. Not really that. Interested in doing anything particularly remarkable? It’s just over time. I’ve just got really interested in you. Like my own capacity to do new things and. And when you’re kind of thinking about it from that perspective rather than like ohh how how am I gonna be perceived in my career? Or am I gonna earn more money or whatever when you’re thinking? Well, this is just about a personal journey that I’m on of trying to explore new limits of what I’m good at, what I’m not. So good at. I think that’s probably the the best way I can contextualise it. No aha moment, just over time. Just just constant attempt to evolve I capabilities.

Kirsty van den Bulk
I think it’s brilliant because I think there’s a lot of people that relate that I know I do. So we’ve had some lovely comments cause I always go to the comments at some point. So Joanne Baker from Emerald Training has joined us. Yes, I’m so looking. Forward to this. She really was. She’s celebrating her first year in business, which is really cool, so congratulations.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Gill Gayk, who I was sitting next to actually when you did your presentations, joined us so, so true that randomness of our life journeys provides qualifications through experience and Mark Adams has totally agreed. And then Padma Knowles has joined us, said amazing urke. Here’s his supporting sweetly careers. So you’ve touched some people this morning. This is where the tables turn. And This is why I’m moving in my chair, because I always get slightly uncomfortable at this point and you get throw a question at me.

Andy Lambert
So I’m going to pick on something that we were talking about just before camera before we went on camera. So you’re you’re doing. A lot of well laying the foundations for your kind of next stage of what you’re doing and scaling your business, etcetera, but. Where’s the motivation come from for that? What does the the future look like? What does the end state?

Kirsty van den Bulk
Look like. So I’ve got a real big plan of launching a social enterprise, and I’ve talked about it before and it’s because I have been homeless. I I spent nearly a year living in a tent when I realised I needed to get a job. I looked at what I could do and I could do a kick or change and a pair and I could sing a song from the West End. And I could act a bit and I could throw lovely live live, you know, different accents. I do. Liverpool or Glasgow. I could do American. You know, it’s great. But in real life on a tangible level of how was I employable? It wasn’t necessary. Great. And I was very lucky that from being homeless, I eventually made a life changing decision and that life changing decision eventually took me back to my parents. And I was lucky. I was really lucky that my parents were there and they took me back in in my mid 30s and I put myself through university and. It was. It was really challenging because. I’d I’d absolutely broken at this point and I wasn’t the person I am today. You know, it was huge life changing decision because you don’t suddenly find yourself homeless you. It’s it’s a couple of steps you do. But it’s three or four steps and then you’re homeless and there’s no there’s a point. You’ve gotta find your way out. And. And I would like to be able to help people. By setting up some kind of social enterprise for the people who don’t have parents who can’t go back home, who can’t necessarily eat the frog, which is what they generally had to do because I’d forgotten how to be a daughter and my parents could easily said no, because I’ve been that vile. So I’d like to set up a social enterprise which will help people. You don’t have the full back to get back on their feet and so I’ve got to scale KVDB so that I’ve got a working business so that when I go for funding for the social enterprise, people will seem as viable. So that’s why I’m scaling. That’s why I’m launching the three mini. Houses and why I do everything I do because I want my daughter to be really, really proud. Because when I tell her the story of how I found myself living six months in a tent and and then moving into it, I moving, I got a home. I’m a friend that took us in Helen and then we converted a a VW transporter van. And I had lived in that for another six months. I can see your face here. You’re like, really well, if this happened. So yeah, I’d like to be able to my daughter to be able to look. Back and when she’s really facing really tough times because she’s got some coming, I want her to know that Mummy did it and Mummy can tell I’m getting quite emotional here. Mummy did it, and Mummy’s helping other people to get out of this hole because it’s really black and it’s really horrible. So my driving force is to get cavb. To where it is and then I will go and get this social enterprise and help other people to turn their lives around because it ain’t easy.

Andy Lambert
Wow, I think that. I didn’t expect an answer quite like that, Kirsty. So yeah, my hair standing on line for that, something that is quite something.
No.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Sorry, yes. It was. I’m not gonna. Gonna hide it. So from 2000 through to. 2004, 2005, my life was not the life I have now. I look. I pinch myself every single day. I have a beautiful husband, an amazing daughter, and I live in an A massive and and it’s not massive. It’s massive to me because, you know, I was in a tent and there was snow on the ground. Helen Gosling came and brought me tea and went in. Enough. You’re coming to live in our spare room. Yeah, it it was. It wasn’t good. And it wasn’t easy. And pride put me there. Ultimately pride and not being able to ask for help. So I’d like to be able to help people ask for help. So, yeah. There you go.

Andy Lambert
Wow, ugly. Well, yeah, you certainly have a few supporters on this call and certainly you can count them. A supporter of me, that is for sure.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Thank you. I I would just love to be able to empower other people to get that helping hand because it’s really lonely. So let’s talk about something really nice before we finish off even.

Andy Lambert
Yeah.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Though it means. We’re overrun. You mentioned you’ve got. You’ve got children.

Andy Lambert
Two sons.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Two sons, Wow. How old are they? Nine and five. Ohh wow, very close to the age of mine. So I’m gonna now. Thank you. I just did not want to leave it on that. No.

Andy Lambert
Now, yeah, I mean it’s it’s quite a story, but like ultimately that’s that’s a proper purpose though. And yeah, I I have, yeah, a huge admiration for you and I think it’s a I think it’s an important and powerful thing because that’s that really is I mean it sums what you’re all about up perfectly and that’s. Those nicely full circle to personal branding, it’s like the only way you can do this is by having a super clear why? Because the journey will look like that. The journey will sun will suck, sometimes will be have moments of elation, but that overarching purpose is the thing that that becomes a fundamental. Five and yeah. And I think that’s for something like that. It’s super, super powerful. And like I said, like when I’m like when I mentioned I was on the kind of path this path because I don’t really know, but I’ve achieved. The. Thing that I really wanted to, so I’m at the point where I’m like, OK, this is fine you. Know First World problems and all. And but like. Like what is is that is that refinding of that overarching purpose again, what what we’re what we’re trying to do next. So yeah. So I think there’s. Life life goes like this. It goes in seasons, so sometimes it’s like you’ve got complete clarity and then next moment you’re like, hmm, where we going next? And I think it’s OK.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Yeah, I I I totally agree. I can’t thank you enough for one asking me that question and two for giving your time this morning. I know we’ve got lots of comments saying, you know how socials work. I’m gonna tell you go answer them. And make sure you drop any links you want to in the comments and people can find you because and that we haven’t touched on it, but the Adobe Express really is great. I’ve had some really good fun playing in there and I’m loving testing it and enjoying working with it. So yeah, everyone if you haven’t. Checked it out, there was a link in my newsletter. So if you’re not signed up. To my newsletter. You should be because I was pushing. It in the newsletter this week.

Andy Lambert
Amazing. Amazing. Yeah, well, that is what we’re focusing on making that the best possible product it can be for both content creation and and marketing too. So and it’s mostly free for for everyone. So yeah. And that’s the wonderful thing about working for a massive, incredible company like Adobe is that you can make everything super accessible. Which. Yeah, I do.

Kirsty van den Bulk
Awesome. Well, thank you so much. Absolutely.

Andy Lambert
Absolute pleasure. Thank you, Kirsty.