Episode 2 – Amanda Stevenson [Optikids Fitness]

For Episode 2, we welcome Amanda Stevenson from Optikids fitness a fitness program designed for kids to be active and have fun. Optikids is a unique program that runs before and after school at the Kororoit Creek Primary School, which is situated in the Outer Western Suburbs of Melbourne.

Amanda’s philosophy is to create an atmosphere of fun for the kids, to build up confidence, teamwork, resilience and friendships. She is a highly motivated mother of 4 kids and personal trainer and wife in partnership with Russell her awesome husband. She is also a marathon runner and general fitness geek.

I have known Amanda for a few years through the local running club so it has been awesome seeing how she has changed and transformed her life to where it is now.  She is driven to help her community and the people around her and has a thirst for helping others. Today we talk about her journey and the changes she needed to make in her business for it to continue to survive. She talks to us about what she had to do to adapt and survive…and  with her devoted family she has raised the bar to go outside her comfort zone and go online.

Armed with Google, a tripod, an old iPhone, some sticky tape and a couple of old noticeboards, she converted parts of the house into her film studio. Her family also became her production team.

The Production Centre

The Technical Equipment

Ready to Film

The Production Crew

Cue Cards

High Tech Equipment

Ready to Film

She attributes a lot of her success to applying some of the things she has learnt from her Business Coach, whom she met in a chance meeting a couple of years ago. Through networking and putting herself out there, Amanda has built a reputation for her love of not only her family but the kids that take part in a program. She does it for the pure love of maintaining and living a healthy lifestyle.

She has had to make a lot of changes and she has had to overcome what many in her industry are now going through. Instead of giving up she found a way to continue to serve her community of families who live her and are appreciative of what she is doing for the community. Instead of waiting for the economy to improve, she evolved and took it head on. She truely is an amazing woman.

As a result, she has transformed her whole business to operate online. There are still many unknowns as to when the current world situation will change, but regardless of what happens, I am sure Amanda and her team will change it up and forge ahead to more success in the future.

From the humble beginnings of the upstairs rumpus room she quickly adapted and transitioned her film studio to the garage. She learnt on the go and her production got better every time she went live on air. It goes to show that you don’t need a lot of money to get things started. Just a team of supporters and the ability to find a way to make it happen.

Fancy New Tech

Looking Pro

Ready to Shoot

Lights, Camera, Action

Thank you very Amanda for your time and for sharing us your story. I hope you all enjoy listening to it.

We will of course keep everyone in the loop with Amanda’s progress in the future. Thank you again Amanda for your enthusiasm and you drive. I know your family would constantly be telling you this, but you should be very proud of what you have achieved so far. Thanks also for being part of our project.

Love to you and all your fans.

Luki & Lisa

How Not to Make a Podcast [Journal #1]

Photo by Jonathan Farber on Unsplash

Don’t Wait until you start a University degree, and more importantly, don’t wait until the time is right. When you decide the time is right and it is something that you want to do, just get it done.

Photo by freestocks.org from Pexels

With the wind in our faces and our tongues hanging out our mouths, like excited puppies on a road trip winding through the Great Ocean Road, we definitely were on our way.  There was no turning back. We now actually have a live Podcast Channel and it is available on Spotify and Apple Podcast amongst other platforms available  everywhere!

We are currently well on the way to our 4th interview (at the time of writing this post) and about to drop our 2nd Episode with the amazing Amanda Stevenson. She is a dynamic personal trainer who runs a fitness program and works with young kids at a  local Primary School.

Part of what we want to achieve is to document our journey to show  how easy it can be done to start something like this. It also doesn’t matter if  we stuff up along the way. The good thing is that, it doesn’t really matter.  Who cares right?

One of the challenges that we initially thought we would have was the fact that we both lived in different States in the country. The other thing was, what the heck were going to talk about, and who would listen to what we had to say. Driving through the day, especially in these times, everyone seemed to be advertising a podcast. It seemed that if anyone was going to launch one, it was now. There are now over 100 Million people around the world who listen to podcasts, and the numbers are growing each year.

Here is a listen to a few reasons why we shouldn’t do a podcast:

• We don’t have the equipment to start one.
• We are both busy working and studying already. We don’t have time.
• It must be expensive to launch something like this.
• What are we going to talk about?
• Where do we start?
• Why would anyone listen to us.
• How do we get listeners?
• How do we get onto Apple Podcast and Spotify?
• How do we find people to interview?

The list can go on and on forever right?

All of the reasons above are all reasons why we are doing this. It is a challenge and it is an exciting new frontier for us. Although the industry seems new, Podcasts have been around over a good decade now.

It is also important to keep in mind that before 8 weeks ago, Lisa and I did not even know each other. In fact , we still haven’t officially met. The reason we have connected is because of the existence of this digitally connected world. The good thing about this for our situation was that because it was a pretty major assignment for us. We had to at least follow through to a working product that could be assessed.

We did our research and we assigned tasks evenly and we just got it done.  There are many podcast platforms out there that we could have used:

• Buzzsprout
• Podbean
• Transistor
• Simulcast
• Captivate
• Spreaker
• Blah
• Blah
• Blah

So the point is that there are a ton load of choices to choose from. Our main points of difference that we were looking for was that we just wanted the platform to be:

• Totally Free
• East to use
• Able to be used with gear we already had
• We could record with multiple people involved
• It could get us onto the main listening platforms
• There were available resources to learn how to podcast
• One that had a track record within the industry
• It had to be the easiest and shiniest platform out there (Kidding…..not really!)

The internet is a weird and wonderful place for everything and anything. The one thing to point out with the platforms above that I have pointed out, was that none were free. When you look for stuff on the internet for a while, you kind of find out what is bullshit and what is not out there. There you go, I said it! Shhhhh. What, some of the stuff on here is rubbish! Crazy right!

All the platforms mentioned above may have some free trial period, and a couple have some very basic functionality that is free, but in my eyes, none of them were useable for what we wanted. We actually started to set up our channel on one platform, but it wasn’t very useable or editable from a hosting point of view. There were a handful of templates we could use, but we couldn’t edit most of it. We wanted to create something that was our brand.

The interesting thing I realised on my search for a hosting platform  was that many of the major blogs that spruiked these lists of platforms, were most likely earning affiliate commissions on the links that were on these lists. Therefore, this is why these platforms are all not totally free. They are being pushed to make money for the blogs for people who sign up from their personalised links. (Of course this is what we want to eventually do though right?)

Enter Anchor.fm. We actually set up our details on another platform before I found this one. At the end of the day, this hosting platforms did everything we wanted it to do. I only found it by accident whilst doing some research on another subject I was studying. I found this article on Anchor.fm by one of their founders on Medium, a writing and ideas platform. (More on this later, because this company is mind-blowing).

Side Note – Check out Medium for articles on EVERYTHING! If you are going to search for ideas on where to start or just want some inspiration, do yourself a favour and cruise through their pages.

In a very short amount of time, we just got things going and started. We didn’t use fancy equipment microphones or sound studio. And not long after, we were recording away.

Photo by Jaz King on Unsplash

There you have the beginnings of how we got started on our podcast journey. We still have no idea what we are doing most of the time, but we are having fun doing this.

More on our journey soon. Oh yes, you also don’t need to start a blog. It’s just something we are doing as we can share the love with building this project together. I am also just enjoying writing content at the moment, which is weird for me. Slowly, I am learning and finding my groove. This is one message that I want to continue to put across,

Just find what you love and keep searching for it. Never stop learning and exploring.

Love you all

Luki & Lisa