#347 Olivia Kruimel – Transcript

Jess Brady
Hello, wonderful XY community. Before we get into today’s podcast, I want to tell you a little story as to why I got today’s expert on many months ago, I was actually introduced to a friend of a friend at a party, a real life party. And as soon as she found out she that I was an advisor. She grabbed me and looked very concerned and said I think I’ve done something wrong. And I said okay, what have you done? She said, I’ve used my dad’s financial advisor, and I think he may not be legit. And I said, Why do you think he might not be legit. And she said to me, because I can’t see him online. His website doesn’t have much on about him. He doesn’t have a very big LinkedIn profile. I can’t find anything about him. And I’m not sure that I’ve done the right thing. And it got me thinking about the next generation of clients who get advice, and what they need to have from us to trust us. We talk a lot about becoming a profession and what it means for the journey to become professionals. And the next generation are demanding that we don’t just become professionals that in fact, we become experts, experts that have an online presence experts that aren’t afraid to share their voice in their opinion about topics that matter to them, experts that build trust and credibility through all of the online mediums. Thus, this week, I decided it would make sense to interview someone who specializes in just this. Enter Olivia Kruimel. Now, Olivia has been a media comms and marketing professional for over 15 years, she has worked both in Australia and internationally. And one of the things that she did that really piqued my interest was worked with a really successful wolf law firm overseas to get their partners to be known amongst the community. And for their specialization. It was quite a journey. And I’m sure you can imagine some did it better than others. But I wanted to pick her brains about what does it take to be good at PR, but genuinely good at PR? How do you stand out amongst the crowd? And how much time strategy and tactical practice do you actually need to put in before you can expect return on investment? So please enjoy this week’s recording. Hi, Olivia.

Olivia Kruimel
Hi Jess.

Jess Brady
Thank you so much for being here today.

Olivia Kruimel
My pleasure.

Jess Brady
We’re going to cover all things, Media Communications, and I guess a little bit about marketing and how marketing wraps into all of that, because this is your expertise.

Olivia Kruimel
Yes, this is my area of expertise.

Jess Brady
Okay, let’s jump straight in. Because I have so many questions for you. I feel that we’re going to run out of time knowing how much you and I’d like to talk about these things. I want to start with a really broad and general question around PR for us simple folk live. Can you tell us very generally, what falls under the umbrella to be considered a PR?

Olivia Kruimel
Well, PR or public relations, as it was initially known, is a very broad term and over the years has evolved quite a bit. So initially, it was the old school, PR people were would approach media professionals on behalf of organizations or individuals, and they would manage the media. But that was back when media was a far more mysterious space than what it is now. And so there were you know, professionals engaged particularly to do that. So PR agencies, PR professionals or internally PR comms people were hired to manage those really internships with media. But as media has evolved, so has the PR landscape. So it’s now a much more varied profession. And obviously, people who do it can come from many different avenues.

Jess Brady
So why do you think it’s important for us being within professional services to care about PR?

Olivia Kruimel
Well, anyone who cares about their reputation should care about PR, basically. And in professional services, your reputation is your livelihood. So that’s why it’s so important. And also, because in professional services, unlike goods marketing, or product marketing, your your marketing, your expertise, your marketing, your knowledge, your your intelligence, essentially. And the best way to do that is to talk about issues and to talk about your industry in an informed way. And then that’s where the PR side of things comes in, because then you’re talking to media, who, obviously covering those topics. So it’s sort of a symbiotic relationship in that respect.

Jess Brady
We’ve talked about this in the past, and I hope we can talk about it today, you actually explained to me, which makes so much sense, there’s almost two sides to this, in that there’s sort of the reactive side, if a company or a senior executive needs to, I guess, get on the front foot and work with media to, I don’t know, do a press release, or do something about something that’s happened in the company. But then there’s also the thought leadership piece, I’d imagine they’re quite different in terms of how you approach them.

Olivia Kruimel
They I mean, some people are trying to avoid the media and others are trying to get in front of the media, it depends, I guess, on what your organization or you as an individual are dealing with at that time, obviously, if something’s gone wrong, it’s normally the media are chasing you, and you’re trying to avoid them. But the thought leadership side of it is where you as either a professional, you’re as an organization and trying to get in front of the media, because that builds profile that builds brand, that builds reputation, etc. So it just depends on where you’re at, and what’s happened and what’s transpired. And also what’s happening in the broader economy, for instance, and where your organizational where you as a professional fit in.

Jess Brady
So with social media, the best fit is social media, I’m keen to understand what’s been the impact to PR, given that social media is so prevalent, and I want to say so easy. But you know that I say that with clear sarcasm, because I don’t think it’s that easy. But But how has social media changed?

Olivia Kruimel
PR is changing in a couple of different ways. One is because journalists are now a lot more approachable via their social media channels. Secondly, individuals now can build their own profile via social media, so they’re not as reliant on mainstream media. So that was the other side of it. And then I guess, as well, the overlap between the two. So we saw earlier in March, it was last year, the Facebook mainstream media standoff, and so the two have become much more intertwined. So mainstream media relies on social media and social media, to some degree relies on mainstream media. So those those combined factors plus individuals own accounts within social media platforms, giving both journalists their own audience as standalone as journalists, their own audience, ie via Twitter is a very popular one for journalists. And then also for professionals getting their own audience via LinkedIn, for instance, or Twitter or whatever channel they choose to use.

Jess Brady
And so for financial advisors, or I guess, just thinking more broadly, people in the professional services world, can you build a reputable PR brand without social media? Or do you think in this day and age, it’s a proof point for journos and clients want to be part of your social media journey?

Olivia Kruimel
It is very much, it will definitely help you if you do already have your own social media channel and followers via that channel. It’ll help validate why a journalist will interview for instance, it’ll help validate with clients in terms of why you’re the go to person for that area of expertise. So again, it depends on the profession, because some professions lend themselves better to social media channels than others. And obviously, you’re in highly regulated industries and professions, then then there’s very little or you’re limited in what you can do via those channels in terms of giving advice or giving insight. So it does really depend on the sector you’re in. But yeah, definitely, there’s lots of professionals who have built followings for different reasons, YouTube’s another one that, you know, people can get on there and build their own audience in their area of expertise. So it just depends on on what the professional is trying to do and also what profession they’re in in terms of their audience and how receptive they are to those social media channels.

Jess Brady
It is something that you know, strikes me as needing thought and regard like if you’re going to have a social media account, your strategy I say this, knowing full well live that my strategy is somewhat lacking. But the idea that actually being quite specific about any goals that you wanted to target from a PR media landscape, and then really critically assessing, how often am I going to show up? What am I going to do? How can I be authentic? It does take a lot of work, right?

Olivia Kruimel
It does. And you just said their strategy. And I’d say strategy is one element of it. But consistency is probably the biggest one. When it comes to social media, and having consistency in terms of your delivering of content on that social media platform. So in order to really build audience, that’s the main thing is being consistent, saying something originals, doing something different, obviously helps as well. But then the real sticking point is consistency. So people know that if they’re going to commit to following you or, you know, putting adding you on in terms of their social media, that they’re going to get something for

Jess Brady
it. Yeah. And to watch a little bit more more about this concept of content marketing. What does that actually mean?

Olivia Kruimel
It’s a pretty broad term. But in a nutshell, content marketing is marketing, around thought leadership and around content for your audience. So I’m giving you information, content, entertainment, whatever it might be. And in exchange, you’re learning about my brand, or my business or my product. So instead of just the old school above the line marketing advertising, which is we sell X, and here’s an ad telling you about X, I’m going to tell you about all of these things around a particular service or a particular sector. And in exchange, you’re gonna learn about my business. And that’s a reciprocal kind of agreement, then like you get information or entertainment, but at the same time, you’re also finding about out about my service, or my brand or my product,

Jess Brady
and is that through sort of weaving that into the city yet. So how does that work? Because Am I wrong in thinking like, people don’t want to come across as very salesy. So how, when you’re talking content marketing, you’re trying to add value and give people insights and an information, but you’re also trying to share what you do. I mean, how do the best people do that

Olivia Kruimel
the best organizations, and professionals do it by showing their expertise, or by showing their insight. So it’s giving the audience something on top of this has happened, it’s giving them what this means for them. And then as a byproduct of that the audience is like, wow, this organization, or this individual really knows what they’re talking about, or who’s really on their game in terms of being ahead of the curve, and, and keeping an eye on what the trends are or what the issues are. So that’s where that comes into play. As in, I’m not just telling you about me and how wonderful I am, I’m telling you about, these are the things you need to look out for, as a company X or an individual why. And as a byproduct of that, I’m telling you about it, therefore, I’m your expert, when you see this issue pop up in the future, you’re going to remember me as the organization or me as the professional that alerted you to it.

Jess Brady
And do you think expertise is or or niching, when it comes to content marketing is important.

Olivia Kruimel
It can be a particularly, you really need to start with your audience, like who are you trying to target and then that will then dictate how and what you’re going to talk about. And I think what I’ve seen in professional services is sometimes they try and be everything to everyone. And what’s then they just get some, it gets complicated because then they’re trying to dip their fingers in too many pies. So what’s much better is if you just pick one, two at most three topics, and really hone in on them, and become known for them, as opposed to covering everything under the sun that relates to your industry or your profession.

Jess Brady
And that can be a little bit overwhelming in our world to really distill down sort of what are the three pain points that I want to be known as an expert in but I have learned having done this, there are people who exists live, there are people who exist and their sole job is actually to help people understand all of this, like what is your audience? What is your message? How are you going to deliver it? Where are you going to deliver it? Like I think sometimes we live in a fast paced world and we forget that there is an entire other worlds out there of professionals who do this. I have recently engaged someone to help me with some work that I’m doing. And like some of the questions that they asked me are really simple, but also extremely thought provoking, and have gotten me to an answer that I’m not sure I would have simply been able to get to a loan despite the fact that I’ve done quite a lot of work on my own personal niche. We just need to ask for the help.

Olivia Kruimel
Indeed. And sometimes it’s you only know what you don’t know. It is very much and there are professionals. There’s agencies, there’s internally in large organizations, there are teams who are focused on this and it is about you know, helping you understand, Okay, well what’s the outcome you’re trying to achieve? Then what’s the best channel? Where is the audience? What is the content? What’s the content delivery format, all of those sorts of things. So even before you get down to what are you going to talk about? There’s a whole range of questions you need to answer in terms of where how, you know, the style, etc. So it can be quite overwhelming. And that’s why there are professionals and teams and agencies, etc, that specializes in it.

Jess Brady
It’s fast, actually, when you get stuck into it, it’s completely fast. I’ve just had to write avatars, a big long sort of informations about avatars, content pillars, like, it’s, it’s interesting, and it is quite a big investment in time, I think. But it does set you up. So when those market events occur, you’re really clear on exactly how you want to approach it, because you’ve done the pre work. Yeah, so for those people who are doing social media, or they’re trialing PR, but they don’t have a niche yet, or they haven’t really distill down who they’re talking to, I think wasting their time.

Olivia Kruimel
Definitely not it’s, you know, even a little bit helps, I think, and, you know, you might get one person coming to you down the track who says, Oh, I saw that, you know, comment, or I saw you in an interview about X, or I saw that piece you wrote on the website about why and even if you only get one person out of it, that’s, that’s, you know, a good investment then. And, obviously, the return on investment can vary depending on how much time and effort and money you’re putting into it. But, but I think it even if it’s, if you just get one person coming to you and saying, I saw this that you did, or I read your whatever it might be, or I heard your you on a podcast and talking about that topic, then I think that’s a good investment. And it’s also good for you as an individual to remember that your brand is part of it as well. So it’s good practice for you to be constantly thinking about, you know, what’s happening in the broader industry, or what, what’s important to my, to my peers, or to my clients or to my colleagues, etc.

Jess Brady
And so if, and obviously, just to sort of expand on that, if people are able to niche it down and get a bit more strategic with it, you would imagine that the return on

Olivia Kruimel
investment would go up. Yeah, definitely. And that’s why there’s so much attention on public relations from a professional services perspective, in particular, it’s because they rely on it. So word of mouth is so important in that industry and relationships and client relationships. And I think as well, as we’ve seen in recent years, with social media and the professional channels for social media, that it’s also become almost a ticking a box for some organizations in terms of if you’ve got a LinkedIn account that’s got loads of activity, you’ve got loads of connections that validates you as a professional. And it’s the same for boards when it comes to choosing professional service providers that what’s their media profile? is the head of their organization in the media being you know, touted as an expert in the field, or do they have senior experts internally who are touted in the media as experts. So like, those also help at a board level as much as it is at a personal client level.

Jess Brady
So you’re actually saying that, that people’s or the business’s media presence or lack thereof, can is something that that sort of different areas are looking at?

Olivia Kruimel
Definitely. And in particularly, because in this era, unfortunately, we’re in litigation, for example, if if at some point down the track, something goes wrong. And the board’s ask, Well, why did you use this professional to give you this advice on this, you can say, well, they’ve you know, they were interviewed by this publication on this topic, they were, you know, the CEO spoke at this conference about this topic. So again, it’s just validating them as a service provider,

Jess Brady
when people are trialing PR, because we’re busy. Often, you know, most of us run busy, small businesses, and there’s like a million different hats that we’re wearing and, and plates are spinning. Sometimes they fall and we pick them back up, and we move on with our lives. But what did what did most of us get wrong when we try PR for the first time,

Olivia Kruimel
probably just what I said earlier about trying to do too much and not being nice enough and not being focused enough. Because if you try and cover too many topic areas, or too many things, it’s gonna get diluted. And so you don’t get known for anything is the jack of all trades, essentially. So I’d say that’s the first thing. And then secondly, is the, again, the expectation return on investment is that consistency is really important. You can’t just do one offs, you know, once every four or six months and expect it to get a great return on investment in terms of interactions or likes or chatter amongst your peers or, or interest from clients. If it takes a lot to build that momentum. And you need to have a really good consistent approach to it.

Jess Brady
Do you recommendations on how regularly you should be doing

Olivia Kruimel
it? Again, it kind of comes down to the industry and also your audience because some audiences will expect it and some like client sectors etc, will expect it far more regularly than others. So regulatory changes for instance, As in some industries is so frequent that they expect their professional service providers to be really on the ball in keeping them up to date with that thought leadership about those changes on a daily weekly basis. Whereas other industries, you know, they might have a regulatory change every four or five years. So they’re not really looking for that same intensity. So it just depends. And again, some sectors are having a lot of structural changes at the moment. So they would be expecting their service providers to be giving them more updates and information and thought leadership on those changes and what it means for them than perhaps other industries that are not going through the same structural shifts.

Jess Brady
I’m just coming back to sort of a point you made before around measuring success or measuring return on investment. How do you do that with

Olivia Kruimel
PR? Well, back in the old days, they used to measure the columns, in the newspapers in terms of like, the coverage of whatever it was the person or the organization or the event or whatever it might be. It’s a little more sophisticated these days. But But yeah, it really comes back to again, eyeballs, in terms of, you know, if you’ve got PR, so in a very basic sense, if you’ve got coverage in media outlets, mainstream media outlets, the coverage, the number of organizations, or the number of publications, or the number of outlets that have covered you, or have cited you, or you’ve put out a report, and, you know, X number of publications have covered it, or you’ve done an interview, and X number of publications have have interviewed you on a topic. See, there’s different ways of measuring it. Social media is great in terms of getting real time, audience feedback. So you know, the number of interactions from your audience on those social media channels, if you’re doing it via email marketing, then the number of open rates and number of click through rates. If you’ve got a website or a blog or something like that, then obviously it’s again, it’s you’ve got a lot more real time measurement. But yeah, media coverage. The other thing, again, is like that reputation. So if people have seen, it’s also who’s seen it, not just how many people have seen it. So if you have, you know, a certain target audience of yours has seen in a particular publication or on a particular platform, then that’s obviously more valuable than having 1000 views, but none of them are ever going to be clients or customers.

Jess Brady
And you’re not building that expertise, because they don’t care about you. Exactly. Sadly, yes. Okay, let’s talk about journalists, I say this to you in the nicest possible way, because I know you are general. So you have been a journalist, live journalists can be really scary. So I want to talk about working or approaching a journalist, and try to understand how do you do that? And how do you give them something to work with that helps them

Olivia Kruimel
generalists are extremely time poor and are becoming a very endangered species, predominantly outnumbered by PR professionals in Australia. So if you can give them something that makes their life and job easier, that is the biggest benefit, basically. And it doesn’t have to be a story today, it could be just a heads up about something that’s coming down the pipeline in your industry sector profession, like there’s this change happening, or this, you know, these regulatory changes are coming or these structural changes, or there’s a new entrant or there’s a big deal happening, that’s going to change the face of that sector. If you can even just give them a heads up about that and say, Look, this is happening, just thought you might want to know, and the best way to do that is again, like, depending on the journalism, what what sort of journalists, they are, like, whether their mainstream, you know, newspaper, news journalists, or online news journalists, or whether there are industry specific journalists, or whether they’re a radio or whatever they might be just, I always say like, think about the audience, and then work backwards. So if you know your audience listens to this, or watches this or reads this, participate in that the same as your target audience, and then see, see the journalists like, look up who’s covering what and what they’re covering, and when you know, then go to them. And say here is whatever it might be about the industry, about the sector or about the regulation, etc. Because that’s the best way to go in terms of like to find your audience, find what your audience engages with, then see who the journalists are covering, and then approach them and as I said, it’s easier to do that these days, because most journalists will have social media channels, and you can approach them directly. Otherwise, you know, there’s the old fashioned like, you know, look them up on either you know, their email address or whatever it might be. So that would be my my main piece of advice is just yeah, see how you can make their life easier. It doesn’t have to be a story today, but it could be just a heads up and then down the track when they’re covering that particular issue, change, whatever it might be regulation, they’ll remember you and be like, hey, I need it. comment about this, can you help me out? Or I need I need to speak to someone who works in an organization of this type? Do you? Are you able to help me there?

Jess Brady
Yeah. And they do have quite tight timeframe sometimes on their stories, don’t they? Yeah, I

Olivia Kruimel
mean, in the online world, it’s literally minutes count in terms of getting stories online. So the faster you are responding to them, or if you can even be pre emptive is the best. Like, if you can say, this is happening tomorrow. Therefore, I’m going to contact you today so that you’ve got the heads up about it. And also, I’m going to give you a quote that, you know, email you a quote, as soon as it’s happened, so that you’ve got something to work with straightaway. Those are those are the best in terms of being a journalist. Those are the best contacts to have. And the best sources to have people give quotes the day before sometimes Yeah. I’ve never even occurred to me that that would be a thing particularly well, if it’s to do with regulatory changes, or like a big court case or a big government announcement where they know it’s, it’s going to be one of two things. For instance, I’ll give you a quote for, you know, in the event, it’s a and in the event, it’s B, here are two quotes ready to go.

Jess Brady
And that would be really relevant in our world, for example, when interest rates go up, or

Olivia Kruimel
the 100%. Yeah, yeah, the senior economist will have pre prepared comments, depending on what the RBA does. So I RBAs, put it up, or the kept it steady, they would have quotes ready to go the day before, depending on which way it goes. They can press send as soon as it happens.

Jess Brady
And so developing the relationship with the journalists ahead of time is obviously quite important. I guess hearing what you’re saying around them being time poor. And yes, the ones that I know, I don’t know, if they’re a dying breed, you would know more about that than me. But they are working. Many of them that I know are freelance now. And they work on many different publications, which gives you lots of different opportunity. But you realize how very easy then and spread thin they are. But actually approaching them? I didn’t find as difficult as I thought it was going to be. Is LinkedIn Twitter, like? Do you think that they respond to sort of all social media? Channels?

Olivia Kruimel
Yeah, 100% all social media channels. And as I said, most journalists these days are on multiple, and if you can, you can give them something a heads up or even just, you know, you’re doing a great job covering topic, why that’s, that’s really helpful for them and really beneficial. And is it just a good way of opening dialogue?

Jess Brady
And one of the things we also talked about was having ideas for journalists that have a bit of a different take on a typical story, can you elaborate on what that might mean for advisors who are wanting to contribute, but don’t want to add just more noise of the same stuff that’s already been said before?

Olivia Kruimel
Yeah, because often, we’re all talking about the same big things that are happening in our in our world, whether it’s interest rates, or petrol price or cost of living in general, what I recommend is for particularly for people who are selling a service, if you want to try and get your name out there, it’s it is hot in amongst all that clutter. And it’s good to pick a subset or pick a new angle on an existing issue. So find a particular segment of society or segment of the business community or particular customer segment, that you can then work out what the implications are for them from this mainstream issue, challenge change, and then pitch that in terms of Did you know that this will have a domino effect on this particular segment of the market, or this particular demographic or this particular client? That’s a good way to differentiate yourself. Because, again, generalists will only go to the easiest option in terms of those big challenges and big issues. And you know, RBA interest rates, they’ll go to the main banks who all have senior economists, for example, but then smaller banks or professional services, who want to still be involved in that dialogue around that issue. For them to get their voice heard, they just need to pick a new angle to get in, basically. So just find a new implication from it to then talk to media about

Jess Brady
now live, you’ve actually worked with professional services, businesses overseas to take people from being an expert, not only at their desk, but an expert in the media realm as well. And I’d imagine you would have got different responses from people like, were there partners that you worked with that were gung ho and really excited to do it, and others who worked in the same firm that were absolutely not doing it that needed to sort of be once a drag, but providing more insight on the opportunity and the county navigate that when when you’re let’s say that you’re in a partnership and you’ve got you know, you think you’ve got great opportunities and you want all partners to be involved, but some aren’t as keen. Did you have that problem? How did you navigate that

Olivia Kruimel
100% working in a law firms you have partners who are they want media coverage as much as they can get and unfortunately don’t necessarily have the best practice that translates to media coverage, and then you’ve got others who have practices that wouldn’t be really good for media coverage and just have no interest whatsoever. So it is it definitely is a an art of getting those ones on board and also getting the other ones to have a bit more of a, I guess, realistic expectation when it comes to coverage, depending on on their practice area, that seniority that their client base. But that is the good thing about thought leadership in that it does, I guess, give different opportunities to professionals of different levels, different experiences, different practice areas, the ones who, you know, have the, you know, really interesting juicy practices and big clients and more hesitant. It’s about convincing them about the benefit of the PR and that thought leadership, not just for them, but perhaps for the broader firm and for the broader practice, etc. And I think in law firm terms, you can just say about building your practice and making it even more successful. And for the others, again, it’s about finding those niches into a topic area that they can help them to build their practice so that they they become more successful, and but just making sure that they realize that yeah, Rome wasn’t built in a day. So they need to have realistic expectations. And they might think it’s the most important thing in the world, but media are covering, you know, so many different facets of the economy. So they just need to be a bit realistic there.

Jess Brady
I think that’s very transferable to financial services. I don’t know that you did this in law firms. But I think that niching and the special specialization, dare we say that hesitation, and perhaps some ego, they all exist in our world,

Olivia Kruimel
every professional.

Jess Brady
So I think all of those things remain acutely relevant here. Are there any other tips or tricks you would give to people who are trialing this for the first time maybe managing expectations, like help them understand how long something might take or how how much work or effort it might be?

Olivia Kruimel
That just to being original is probably the main one. And yeah, it can take a lot of effort. And it can seem like you’re, you’re putting in a lot of time and effort into something that doesn’t really have any return on investment. But at the end of the day, every little bit helps. And it’s also just really good practice then so that when in the event that something does go wrong down the line, you’ve got those media contacts, so you understand that media ecosystem, so you’re better prepared to deal with it. So I would say that, no matter if it seems like something really trivial that every little bit helps, but again, it is just about putting in that that effort and realizing that it could take a long time I worked with a partner who he early on saw the implications of Bitcoin on GST law in Australia. And so he got really interested in that and started writing about that and following ATO cases involving that and then, you know, when when a big case then blew up with the ATO he was there ready to go as a known expert on this topic. So it Yeah, it can take a while. But if you get it right, and if the timings right, then the rewards can be very large.

Jess Brady
Thank you. Lots to ponder. And it’s what I’m hearing from today’s conversation. And I also knew it but I’m reminded of it is. This is not a fluffy, superfluous thing. This is tactical and strategic. And it’s work and it should be part of everyone sort of business strategy. It’s, it’s more than just posting a newsletter once every quarter, and hoping for the best you can gain much more in terms of business revenue, but also, I would imagine client stickiness and opportunity for other people within your business as well. So I think a good reminder for all of us to be very considered in what we’re doing on the PR media front.

Olivia Kruimel
Yeah, definitely. It’s both for you, getting new clients or customers, it’s keeping your current clients making sure that they see your face and name or brand in the marketplace so that they remain confident in their decision to engage you. And then also Yeah, as a recruitment tool, for instance, it’s also quite valuable.

Jess Brady
This has been fantastic. Before we finish up today live. Can I ask you a couple of rapid fire questions?

Olivia Kruimel
Of course,

Jess Brady
to okay, I would like to know one thing that you do to look after your mental health.

Olivia Kruimel
I love to run so running is my mental health tool. I love to just go for a run and that’s that’s how I stay sane.

Jess Brady
Do you run in the rain?

Olivia Kruimel
Yes, I do run in the rain. It depends on the temperature outside.

Jess Brady
Good on you. Do you have a piece of advice that you would give your younger self?

Olivia Kruimel
Yeah, um, this is an interesting one. I think it’s okay to expect more and to want more I think as in Australia, like having over ambition or having a lot of ambition can sometimes be frowned upon in workplaces. Whereas what I would tell my younger younger self, my baby journalist self is that it’s okay to do that and to and to want that

Jess Brady
I could on you. And I think that’s a piece of advice that’s given enough,

Olivia Kruimel
huh? Well, tall poppy syndrome in Australia. So that doesn’t surprise me.

Jess Brady
Yeah, yeah, me to get rid of that? Do you have something on your bucket list that you’re yet to tick off yet?

Olivia Kruimel
I do. I would love to sit in a global role overseas. So that would probably be my one thing. I was in a global role in Singapore. But I would love to get in a more senior global role. That would probably be my bucket list.

Jess Brady
Last for you is do you have a book recommendation for me to read as part of my fake book club?

Olivia Kruimel
I do actually, I have the pleasure of knowing a fellow journalist by the name of Georgie dent. And she wrote a book called breaking badly how I worried myself sick. And it’s a story about how, as a young woman and a law student, she was quite unwell, like mental health issues, and it actually took going to a facility and taking time out from her crazy life to get better. And so I think that that so it’s a very honest book about a very real issue in society these days.

Jess Brady
Well, not only in society, we know that in financial services, this is at really, epidemic proportions. And so that sounds like something that we need to put on our list. I haven’t heard of that one. So thank you. I shall be adding that on.

Olivia Kruimel
Yeah. George is a great I think role model for better awareness about mental health issues in Australia. So highly recommend and she’s speaks very openly and candidly about her struggles previously with mental health. Amazing.

Jess Brady
Live. Thank you so much for being today’s guests. The expat community is very grateful for your insights.

Olivia Kruimel
My pleasure.