Goldie Chan: When Being Yourself is the Boldest Move

Content Warning: cancer treatment and journey

About This Episode 

Boldness doesn't have to be big and loud. It can also look like choosing to keep showing up, even when life feels uncertain. In this episode, keynote speaker and author Goldie Chan shares how she built a recognizable brand while navigating cancer treatment and creating an 800-day streak of original LinkedIn videos rooted in cadence, craft, and credibility. She unpacks her Five Cs of personal branding (Community, Confidence, Competency, Consistency, and Clarity) plus a sixth: Conversation. Through small, steady actions and intentional engagement, Goldie shows how to grow trust, energy, and visibility without burnout. You will leave with practical steps to invest just one hour a week to build your presence, connect with purpose, and remember that even 10 percent on a hard day still counts and grows into your next bold move.

About Goldie Chan

Goldie Chan is a creative, keynote speaker, author, and cancer survivor. She was named the “Oprah of LinkedIn” by Huffington Post and her creative video channel won LinkedIn Top Voice for Social Media. Goldie founded Warm Robots in 2018, an award-winning social media strategy and creative agency based in Los Angeles with global clients. Previously, she wrote an internationally recognized column for Forbes, which received nearly 10M views, and was named Journalist of the Year in 2024. Goldie writes for Archie Comics and has been featured as a fresh voice in The New York Times, CNN, Fast Company, and many other outlets. Goldie is based in sunny Los Angeles.

Additional Resources

Website: goldiechan.com

Instagram: @goldiecylon

LinkedIn: @GoldieChan

Transcript

Meet Goldie Chan And Her Work

SPEAKER_00 0:07

Welcome to the Bold Lounge Podcast. My name is Lee Burgess, and I will be your host. If you're anything like me, you love hearing inspiring stories of people who have gone on bold journeys and made a positive impact in the world. This podcast is all about those kinds of stories. Every week we'll hear from someone who has taken the lead or embarked on an extraordinary journey. In addition to hearing their stories, we'll also learn about their bold growth mindset that they use to make things happen. Whether they faced challenges or doubts along the way, they persisted, and ultimately achieved their goals. These impactful stories will leave you feeling motivated and inspired to pursue your own bold journey. I believe everyone has a bold story waiting to be free. Tune in, get ready to be inspired. Welcome to the Bold Lounge. Today we have Goldie Chan. Goldie is a creative, a keynote speaker, author, cancer survivor. She was named the Oprah of LinkedIn by Huffington Post, and her creative video channel won LinkedIn top voice for social media. Goldie founded Warm Robots in 2018, an award-winning social media strategy and creative agency based in Los Angeles with global clients. Previously, she wrote an internationally recognized column for Forbes, which received nearly 10 million views and was named Journalist of the Year in 2024. Goldie writes for Archie Comics and has been featured as a fresh voice in the New York Times, CNN, Fast Company, and many other outlets. Goldie is based in Sunny, LA, and she has an incredible book called Personal Branding for Introverts. Welcome to the Bold Lounge.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to talk about bold ideas and bold journeys. Yeah, let's go.

Defining Boldness And Embracing Uncertainty

SPEAKER_00 1:53

And you definitely have a bold journey. But let's first start with how do you define the word bold in your world? What's it look like?

SPEAKER_01 2:00

So to me, I think I define the word bold as any action that is unexpected and hopefully forward-moving, because I know that we can do really bold things in our lives, but they don't always pay off. But we always hope that they do, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:17

We hope that it works, but we don't have any guarantee, right? You know, I have a lot of people saying, I just want a guarantee. And I'm like, well, there is none, unfortunately. But my hope is when anyone makes a bold move, but especially me, that I learned something, right? Oh, that didn't work, or that did, or whoo, I met this person somewhere along the way. So I love that. It's unexpected forward movement potentially, and there's no guarantee.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

No guarantee.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Yeah. So can you think of a life we have like tons of bold moments in our lives where we sometimes don't even know they're bold moments when they're happening? What's the time in your life that you live aligned to that definition where something, you know, unexpected in the sense of what was going to happen or what the results would be, and it was forward moving. Oh gosh.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

So there was the original idea that I was going to come to this podcast with, which I was going to talk about leaving my nine to five role and creating content on LinkedIn and becoming the Oprah of LinkedIn. But instead, because of what we talked about right before we tried to do that. We were in the green room for about an hour. We were in the green room having such a lovely, lovely chat. And I want to I want to throw that out and do a bold move of completely changing what I prepared. And instead, I want to talk about going through my cancer journey, which is something we very briefly talked about. But going through my cancer journey, and then ironically, because we're talking about my book, the genesis of this book, which was I signed, and it went through two different publishers, but I signed with my first publisher right before I started going through chemotherapy. And I remember coming out of surgery, I think it was for my port, which is a place where they inject the chemicals and things like that. But I came out of the surgery, and whenever you come out of major surgery with anesthesia, they tell you you can't sign contracts, you can't sign a legal document. That's part of the paperwork that you sign, which is good advice. Yeah. And I remember I got my book deal the day I came out of that first major surgery. And I I remember looking at the words, and the words kind of floating on the page a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

You were doing what you were told not to do.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

I was doing what I was told not to do. And I remember talking to my lawyer and saying, I just cannot process any of these words. Take a look and give me the distilled version. Tell me what you think, because you're going to be my brain right now.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

And I remember going through this process of really difficult time of going through chemotherapy and going through all this treatment and really stopping all of my other work. But one thing that I did do, which I consider my bold move at the time, was I worked on this book. I worked on developing and growing this book. Now, what would have made more sense would be maybe a memoir or a book that was on strategies for going through and coping with a big change. But I did personal branding for introverts because this had been a book idea that I had been sitting on for so many years at that point. And I was really excited to express and share my journey as an introvert by going through all of these different big career moves. And so I would say that that was my big bold move is at a time when I was mostly resting and when I should have been maybe 100% resting, I was working on very slowly and carefully developing this book.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Yeah. That is definitely a bold move because I I definitely know what it takes to write a book. The ups, the downs, the stress, the setbacks, the setups, all the things and anything in between. And it's a time of I wanted to say unrest. Yes. It's not like mentally you're like, yeah, like you're like fully feeling that, you know, night's rest, and you're like, you know, don't have anything else going on, and you're sitting, you know, I had this idea of what it was like to write a book, and it was like sitting at the window with my cat and a cup of tea and writing the book. Like it is not that, people. So you're talking about fighting cancer and going through chemotherapy, which I had shared in the green room, that I don't know it from the patient perspective, but I know it from the other side of it, from the clinical trial and working for physicians and the healthcare perspective, because that's what I did. But it's a it's an incredibly stressful time. And you you also feel pretty bad and beyond bad on some days, I'm assuming. So, what's in your genes in the sense of like keeping it going, moving forward, to have the resilience to write and to deal with some of the stuff that's the unknown, even around writing the book? Was it just like maybe that was your solid thing that you knew was not going to change during the process?

SPEAKER_01 7:06

Yeah, I want to say that it was a nice thorough line. I really at the beginning of treatment, I messaged all my clients, which I never thought I would do in my life. And I messaged all my clients, all my brand partners, all the folks that I've been working with. I said, I starting, you know, on X date, I will no longer be working, period. So every project, everything we need to wrap up, I will give you referrals if you need them, but I will simply not be working during that period when I have to go through chemotherapy. And for the book, I thought this could be something, and you know, this is something I talked with my first publisher about, which they were really great about, which I said, listen, I'm quite literally going through cancer treatment. How old were you? Because you're so young. Yeah. So I count as AYA, which is adolescence and young adult, which is you have been diagnosed under 40.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

So anyone diagnosed under 40 is AYA, and I'm I'm AYA. And that's the technical term for it. But yes, I also no one looked like me in the cancer ward, which was fascinating. And I will say this the first time that I went to go get treatment, it's a variety of people at different stages in their health life in the infusion center, which is the place where you get the things infused into your body. And I saw people who just like had all these tubes coming out of them and they're on their laptops typing away with like a cup of coffee next to them. And for the type of treatment I got, I was just out because they gave me a lot of Benadryl, which was lovely. I just was asleep for 90% of this stuff. But I just saw that and I thought, look at these folks who are being so brave and they're being so uh they're trying so hard by continuing to work even through these various treatments that they're there for. And I don't know their medical history, I don't know what they're there for. But to me, it was an early sign that it was possible to do at least a little. And that's the only thing that I taxed myself with during this time was I wanted to do a little, which the rest of my life, and you and I talked about this before in the green room as well. I want to do a lot. Most of the time, I want to do 110%. I want to do the best job possible. And during that time, I wanted to do 10%, which was still more than my 10% at the time was probably 110% now.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

Right. Yeah. I always say, like, my halfway of doing something is like someone else's 110. But I always get disappointed if I have to do something halfway, right? But then I also realize it's good enough. You know, it's good enough. And I love that you said I wanted to do something small. I wanted to take a step. I wanted to do something. And I think when I hear people tell me what I'll call excuses, like, oh, I can't because here's all the 10 reasons I can't write a book, here's the five reasons I can't, you know, go on that trip, or here's the 15 reasons I can't talk about my relationship, or whatever. I just want to call it out because I think what you're doing is you're limiting yourself. But what you were doing is saying, like, a little is possible, and I'm going to work on it. So I think anyone out there is saying I can't start writing my book. I mean, Goldie is an example of she's going through chemotherapy and she's writing her book. And and not every day was a good day, you know, while you were doing right.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

And there was a lot of rewriting that had to happen because a lot of the writing wasn't great writing, but it was writing and it was writing from me.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

And I'm sure you also know this as a person who has two books. Congratulations. And I probably rewrote my book at least three times. So I switched at least three times. When I switched from publishers, what the publishers wanted between one publisher to the next publisher was also different, which is totally understandable. So the book that I was really working on during that time, the ideas, you know, a lot of the big, bold ideas stayed the same, but the the physical words needed to be moved around and changed heavily.

Energy, Community, And Introvert Strategies

SPEAKER_00 11:08

Yeah. Or like I I think it's better here versus there. Right. You know, I think in a sense of like it's always this iterative process. And sometimes you're like, well, we're only reviewing it three times. Like I thought we were gonna do it five times, you know. Like, I know there's some of that too that comes up for me, and they're just like, no, three is good enough. And I was like, okay, I don't know, but I'll trust you on that one. Was there ever a time you wanted to quit? Yes, of course.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

I think it would be wild. Okay, you're human. I think it would be wild to not want to quit when you're doing something. I mean, just the book writing process uh in isolation is so hard. It's lonely and you it's coming out of your brain, it's coming out of your heart, your soul, your experiences. So it is so tough when you have to say turn in 10 pages, or I mean, more realistically, for one of my timelines, like turn in 50 pages at a time, where I would be just sitting in a corner of my sofa and just cranking out as many of these pages as possible to the point where I'm just like, okay, a version needs to be out in the universe because that's better than not having anything. And there are so many times where I thought, is this even worth it? But I'm extremely stubborn. And so because of that stubbornness, I never seriously thought about giving up. I only had that thought, you know, fly through like a little butterfly through my brain.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

Yeah. Certain moments are like, oh, I just can't cope. Like I had those moments in my life where I was like, I can't cope anymore. I'm like, okay, the world's still spinning. I need to keep coping, or I can just take action. I think, you know, I always say antidote for anxiety around what we're doing and how we're, you know, what we're trying to figure out, or maybe the next step is action. It doesn't mean it works out or perfect or anything like that, but it's it's something that I think for me decreases the anxiety of like, well, I took action, I tried, or I reached out, or I wrote 10 pages. I know it's not 50, but I got 10. And 50 pages is a lot of pages, folks. So like that is a lot to write. And your writing rhythm is something that I do think is personal and it can't be prescriptive. Yes. And so that was hard for me in my first book, because I had a you need to write this amount, this, and I'm like also um on purpose at this point, because I just accept who I am. Like I am someone who waits to the last minute. So, and that's just how I roll with getting stuff done. It's not always optimal in the sense of mental stress, but it's just how I roll. So, like, there are things that I would do to address it. Did you come up with a certain way to work or a rule or a boundary you put in place, especially being an introvert versus in an extroverted industry when you're doing that?

SPEAKER_01 13:50

Yes. So as an introvert, I realized it what was helpful is one of the things that I love is actually to be near people, but not interacting with people when I work. So I like to have I like that, right? I like having, and that's such an introvert trait is to be supported by your community, but maybe not always uh directly interacting with your community, if that makes sense. Yeah. So a lot of times when I worked on the book, I would have a friend or my partner or someone just nearby writing, and it was that emotional and moral support that I as an introvert found to be so, so helpful. And I think the other thing is, you know, I just leaning on your community is so incredibly helpful, whether you're an introvert or an extrovert. But the way I leaned on my community is yes, that presence of another person, quite literally physically there with me, but not interacting while I was writing the book was so helpful in my personal writing journey.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

Yeah. I love that. I think introverts get a bad rap. Like I'm an introvert, but no one would ever believe I was in that sense. And for me, like being an introvert means I really power up in smaller groups. Yes. I don't really want to be like I can speak to people in large groups. I think that's the one thing that people think is that, you know, being an introvert means you can't speak in front of people or you can't walk up to people or anything like that. What it truly means is, you know, it's defined by the person, right? You know, and there are things that come along with that, like anxiety and just, you know, you're really pushing yourself at times to do some of those things. So it depletes your energy. Right. What gives you energy back? Where do you get your energy source from?

Finding Meaning In Small Milestones

SPEAKER_01 15:36

Yeah. So I, you know, in the book, I actually talk about making sure that you replenish your energy, that as an introvert, you have a battery, and that battery can drain quickly. And different introverts, of course, just like extroverts, have different things that drain them. But a lot of times for introverts, what drains us is being, say, in large social situations or being at conferences or being at certain places that are so tiring. And one of the ways to replenish your energy, there's a couple of different ways to also think about this: either replenishing your energy daily or replenishing your energy in one big go. And I think it's, of course, always healthier to think about small ways to replenish your energy every single day. And here's a couple of things that I do myself that I recommend in the book. And it's as simple as going outside and taking a walk around the block, right? So whether you work in a corporate office or you work at home or wherever you work, taking that outside step, going outside, doing that loop around the block, or taking some quiet time, putting your headphones, listening to your favorite music, whether that's pop or hard rock or heavy metal, I don't know what it is. But whatever that your favorite, favorite music is, sitting quietly by yourself. And if you don't have the space to do this, right, even sitting in a bathroom stall for five minutes and just taking that time and just listening to music for five minutes and just really letting your brain turn off for a little bit is so, so helpful and such a good way to also replenish your energy.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

Yeah. I always say, like most of the day I'm on boil, meaning it's going. I just need a simmer time. And so even just standing outside with the sun on my face for five minutes in between meetings is a simmer time and does your your brain really, your serotonin levels, everything just simmers. You cannot go like to total calm, but you can do those micro little moments too throughout the day. And you know, do your quarterly go to the beach or you know, whatever you want to do, which you know, making sure those are on the calendar, I highly recommend. Did you have anything that you were working towards? Like one of the things that I know about people who have gone through this process of really kicking cancer's ass and coming back, and then you know, or gone through disease is that they look forward to a moment. Was there anything that you had was like, I know I have to go? We had a U2 concert, for example. Like we were going, we're going to that U2 concert in October. I know it's April, but we're getting tickets and we're going and you're gonna be fine. You know, did you have like a moment like that for you?

SPEAKER_01 18:08

So for me, I especially during the really intense part of chemotherapy, I didn't have necessarily that particular moment. However, when I started tapering off and I got into the parts where my immune system was stronger so I could start going out again. Yeah, I remembered my partner took me on just like a very simple, very cheesy thing. We went on a Christmas walk. You know, there's a bunch of lights, and it was there was something about being able to walk, you know, and this is so small, but if you work with cancer patients, you know that this is big. Being able to walk on my own two feet for several blocks, even though it was extremely exhausting, was so huge. Seeing the Christmas lights being at the tail end of a really intense physical treatment. I remember that just being like the simplest thing, but the most meaningful thing that I could be doing at that time. And it was such a beautiful thing to have. And every year now, like I look forward to that as a memorial to being strong enough to do certain things. So I think that there was quite a few of those moments that I, especially towards the tail end of my treatment, I looked forward to because it meant that I was strong enough, physically strong enough to do it. And and I will say I'm a big weirdo in that, you know, and who doesn't love a good weirdo? I'm a big weirdo. I'm a weirdo, I'm an ecalob. Yeah, I I would say that emotionally, because I have a great therapist, I saw my therapist the entire time during treatment. Emotionally, I was mostly fine. And I don't know if that was me being delirious or delusional or any of those other D-words, but physically, I was not fine. But emotionally, for most of it, I was a pretty happy camper. I was just like, you know what? I'm just living my life. I have a beautiful support network, a beautiful community around me. I had so many people offering to help all the time in a way that really touched my heart. I just took every time somebody said any kind of comment to me, you know, there's there's a lot of comments that I think people thought would be really triggering. And I just took everything with the intention that people wanted to wish me well. Yeah. And then once you filter things through that intention, everything becomes just so beautiful and wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

Yeah, everything's positive. Everything is positive. Well, maybe that helped them get that out. Or like maybe they meant this in a good way, you know?

SPEAKER_01 20:37

Maybe that helped them in a good way, you know, meant that in a good way. And and sometimes even with people that said really negative things to me during that time, they came, they would come back a day later and they would say, you know what? Sorry, that was just me. You know, things are very triggering, or or whatever. And I'd just be like, you know what, it's totally fine. And they were like, Wow, thank you so much, right?

SPEAKER_00 20:55

Yeah. So you have a lot of grace for others too, it sounds like, in the sense of how you operate. Yeah. That's the way that you operate, you know, we've just met, but I think in the sense of like, you know, people are coming hopefully from the kindest spot that they can. And some people don't have the same level of ability to understand or even to understand what's right or wrong to say at what time, you know, because it you know sometimes people don't know what to say. But I think the strength, and again, you go back, I think, you know, to your example of the moment that you you remember the Christmas lights and walking, is it's the tiny moments, just like the tiny steps or doing something small. You know, it truly is about those small things that lead up to being, you know, what whether it's you know something that you want to achieve, or you know, writing the book or getting in the race or whatever it may be, like it's those tiny steps that matter the most. And I think sometimes we see on social media all these big things and all these like things that you know, people it seems like overnight, but there's like a million gazillion tiny steps behind it, right? Yeah, like how do you become the Oprah of LinkedIn? And why aren't you just like you? Like, why do you have to be Oprah? You know, no offense to Oprah, but right, like that didn't happen overnight either.

SPEAKER_01 22:06

No, right? No, and I think it's so funny to go to the Oprah, which is originally what I was going to talk about. The Oprah of LinkedIn is such a hilarious title. And if I took that too seriously, I don't think I'd be a very fun person to be around. And so right, and so I don't take it too seriously, but it is such a fun blurb to put on my box. Of course I do.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

I think you should reach out to her and you know, you should like be on her podcast.

Consistency And The LinkedIn Video Run

SPEAKER_01 22:32

I know I would I would love to be on her podcast. Um so I was creating videos on LinkedIn and I was doing daily consecutive videos. Now, these were videos I made myself. I edited myself. I didn't have a giant team behind me, and they weren't perfect videos because I was editing them myself. And over the course of I want to say 800 daily consecutive videos. So if you think about how many days that is, that was over two years. Yeah. I didn't sleep a lot in those two years. During that time, that's when I started getting called the Oprah of LinkedIn. I started getting called like the queen of LinkedIn, which is absolutely not true, but very funny. And I got all those titles because I was simply consistently online and consistently put out one piece of content every single day that was original. And there were people who tried to copy me at the time that were less successful, I think, because instead of doing original content, what they would do is they would repurpose other people's content. They would run, say, news stories, they would do other things, but it was just me on camera, honestly, every almost every single day. Yeah. And sometimes it would just be my journey, it would be the video instead. But it was always made by me and put on LinkedIn by myself. It wasn't a giant team doing it for 800 consecutive days. And because of that consistency, I got a really fascinating title. And today the press still use that to describe me.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

And internally, some folks still use that to describe a thousand times, yeah, with your book coming out.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

Which is just so interesting. And I think that leads us to which I'm sure you understand. And I know that you with your work, you see this happen with your work, which is consistency, right? Taking those small steps, being very consistent with those small steps yields those big results over time.

SPEAKER_00 24:28

Right. And I think it's about the middle. Like I do think it's about the becoming, it's about the growing is what's life's all about. Like we have goals, we have, you know, we have milestones that we hit, but right, I just want people to know it's not like, oh, like at the end of the milestone, like, no, like there's more to do and there's more to learn and there's more to evolve into. So, like, one, enjoying it as much as you can throughout the process. Trying not to let the little stuff like hold you down is super important. But realize that what you see on social media, like you have over a hundred thousand followers, you know, that doesn't happen overnight either. So, like for people to just to realize, like, you got to put in the work, right? And you can't just use AI and it's a great tool, but it can't be the only thing that you use when you create and you put it out there, like you were creating original videos, which videos are much harder for a lot, including me, to do because it just feels weird. Like it just feels so weird and all also again vulnerable. So, as an introvert, how did you put out so many videos? Was that hard for you to do, or what's the hack for that?

From Viral Recognition To Forbes Column

SPEAKER_01 25:31

I guess I thought about it in this way. So, starting out with doing videos on LinkedIn, I got into the video beta very early on. So, I think I was maybe part of the first for sure the first hundred, probably first 20 people on just LinkedIn video in general. And to me, I thought I would just do three videos. You know, I shot two and I did a third, and I was like, So with your iPhone, yeah, just with my iPhone, and I was like, I'm just gonna do these three videos. So three videos is not a scary amount of videos, right? Three videos is a lot, and I just kept going. So video one became video two, became video three, became video 15, became video 30, which at 30 days I was like, I was really proud of myself at day 30. I was like, that is an insane number of videos to do consecutively. And I kept waiting to get my next nine to five job. I had originally left this uh head of marketing position at a startup, and I was waiting to get my next head of marketing position at the next startup or next place I was going to work at. And I remember thinking at day 15, I was like, okay, well, this is a fun experiment. We're gonna wrap it up soon. And then at day 30, things started happening. Things started, doors started opening. I was featured internally in a talk that the at the time the vice president of LinkedIn was talking about. I actually wonder what his title was at the time, but now he's the president of LinkedIn. But he featured me and eight other creators and was just like, here's what's interesting that's happening on the platform. And one of my friends who was internally, I think, editing or working on it, was just like, Gooley, did you know you're mentioned internally at LinkedIn? And I was like, Well, no, because I'm not internally on LinkedIn, so I don't know that. Um, but good to know. And I was like, oh, that was my first hint that maybe something, maybe something was happening there. And I thought there's something here, you know. And I will say this one really hilarious thing that happened is the Halloween, the first year that I started creating LinkedIn content, a bunch, I was sick. My bunch of my friends started texting me. They said, Goldie, you need to get on LinkedIn right now. And I said, you know, I'm gonna put the video on soon. Like, I'm gonna do my daily video, like, don't bother me, chill. And they're like, Oh, that's not it. That's not it. And I was like, okay, they're just like, just go online because you need to see this. And the at the time the head of video, he put on a green wig, so just like a bright green wig, and he made a cardboard cutout that looked like the LinkedIn post frame. And he just said, Thank you to Goldie Chan and all the other LinkedIn creators for you know creating on the platform. And I was the only person he tagged slash called out. He dressed up as me for Halloween. It was, I love that. It was wild. It was, it was such an incredible moment that and that was my, I suppose, second time I thought, oh, this is something, right? This is something real. And I suppose I'm slow on the uptake. You just don't believe it, right? Yeah, I just don't believe it. You know, and and I forget if this moment was before or after that, but I think the third moment that really solidified that for me was when Forbes reached out and Forbes was just like, Hey, would you like to write a column on personal branding and storytelling in the digital age? We'd love you to do that. You know, first they were like, We'd love you to be a mentor. And I said, Absolutely, I I love mentorship. So I was very happy to be a Forbes mentor. And then, you know, once they had buttered me up, they're like, Would you like to write do a column with us? And I, you know, and I got all the way up to a senior contributor and I left last year, but I'm very thankful to Forbes as being such a cool door opener and such a great place to be a contributor and to be a writer and to really hone my writing skills before working on a book. But yes, those three points, and there's so many other points in that journey that were moments when I thought, oh, maybe this is something maybe I can change my career to being whatever this is.

SPEAKER_00 29:27

Yeah. And in your book, you talk about the five C's of personal branding, which is community, confidence, competency, consistency, which we've been talking about, and clarity. Is there any advice that you think people get about personal branding that's a total waste of time? And that you can just tell us that right now, so we stop doing it.

SPEAKER_01 29:45

That's such a great question. I think, you know, not a total waste of time, but just not relevant to everyone. Because let's be honest, I wrote a book on introverts. So I have to talk to my beautiful introverts out there they're listening. They're listening, and I have to say. That the biggest piece of advice that everyone always told me that I don't think is helpful and I don't think is useful for everyone is being just shouting on social media. So constantly being loud, specifically on social media and being that person that is constantly just yelling without being in conversation. I think, you know, if I had to add on a six C of if I was updating my book right now, I would also do conversation because I think conversation, being in conversation, like you and I are in conversation right now, and it's so wonderful and powerful. And I think being in conversation is such a better way to build your personal brand than yelling into the void, which I think is not a very helpful way of building a personal brand. And it works for some people, but I will say that those people that it works for oftentimes you'll see in their early days of building their personal brand, they were in conversation.

SPEAKER_00 31:00

Why do you think people see personal brand as important today versus you know 10 years ago? I don't even know if we were talking about it, you know. And so we were certainly there are brands you've had we've had a personal brand our whole life, but I don't think we realized we had it. So why is it so important today that we hone in on those five C's plus one and also make sure whether we're an introvert or an extrovert that we're paying attention to it?

The Five Cs Of Personal Branding

SPEAKER_01 31:28

So I think that it's so important to focus on personal branding now because we have such a strong digital and social footprint. So for most of us, we are online, we are social creatures. For a lot of us, we have jobs that require us to have some sort of social media presence or that we have just naturally developed one over time. We started Instagram, we are on Facebook, we're on TikTok, or we're on Pinterest. I don't know. We're on one of these platforms now. And every time you join one of these social platforms, you begin to have a footprint for your personal brand. And I think it's so helpful to then think a personal brand is the story that you tell outside, is the story that you tell to other people about who you are and who you want to be perceived as. And I will say that I filter, especially my book, personal brand through the filter of your career, through your work. So a personal brand is so helpful and so important now because you already are online. If you already are online, you should be to the best of your ability steering that conversation about you. And you can't control what other people necessarily say about you, but you can control what you say about yourself.

SPEAKER_00 32:48

Oh, let's say that again for the people in the back. So, like, because there are people out there who won't be supportive, could have a comment here or there, but you control the narrative about you. I think how I've said that throughout my life is the truth is the truth. So if it's not true, ultimately, you're gonna know. And I don't really spend my energy trying to knock down what's not true, I just stay aligned to who I am. So it's really, really important to hear what you just said. So as we're coming to close, and we could talk for another hour for sure. Yes, if someone has just because I hear a lot of people say, I don't have time, I can't do it. And there's so many great tools on LinkedIn of timing and posting and all the things. And I think one thing I tell people is just be consistent and be you. Don't try to be anybody else, don't try to chase, don't try to replicate, be you because you will find your people, right? So, but if someone just has one hour a week, a week and a whole week to work on their personal brand, what should they do? Where should they start?

SPEAKER_01 33:48

So if they have one hour a week, you can do so much in an hour. I would take that one hour, right? And but instead of saying, okay, you have one hour, here's 10 minutes to do this, here's 10 minutes to do that. So the way my brain works, I don't switch between tasks in five minute, 10 minute bullet points, right? Yeah. But what I think is helpful is every week, maybe you dedicate that to something different. So once a week, for example, the first week of the month, maybe that's the one hour that you use to make five social posts, right? So about whatever you are hoping to promote or talk about, maybe you're speaking at a conference, maybe you have a book coming out, maybe you will be hosting an internal event and you want to promote that on your LinkedIn or your socials, or maybe you want to recap something cool that happened last month, taking that one hour the first week of the month and creating those social posts to be used for the rest of the month and really giving yourself a reasonable number. So maybe you're going to make five social posts, maybe you're going to make 10 social posts, whatever that reasonable number is for you, do that. And maybe the second week then you take that, and that's the time that you say cold outreach to people you want to talk to, whether that's finding new clients for your business or doing informational interviews with people you find interesting, or for me, I do a LinkedIn newsletter where I like to interview folks. Maybe I spend that one hour reaching out to new interview subjects for my newsletter. Really spending one hour just doing just outreach because we've all been in the email inbox and it can be so overwhelming. So spending that one hour not cleaning out the inbox, but adding to it, I suppose.

SPEAKER_00 35:27

Or just DMing someone on LinkedIn. Or DMing someone right on LinkedIn. It can just be, hey, checking in with you. I saw that post and it seems like you know, you're doing X, Y, or Z. Lould love to, you know, connect or go girl, or you know, you did it, or you know, just be positive. Give somebody else a shout out. It's not also always about something for you, which I think that's really, really important for people to hear because you know, we we do, and I know you get it too, of like someone connects with you or you know, approaches you, and the first thing they're doing is selling you something. And you need to add value before you ask anything.

SPEAKER_01 36:02

That is such a great way of saying it. You definitely need to add value. So value before the ask. Yeah. Value greater than the ask. Always. I think that's so, so important. But yes, it's definitely there's so many things that you could do with that hour. You could also be doing really brainstorms around how to better collaborate with your existing connections. I think so many people are so busy out there thinking, I need my network to be 10x, I need to grow it to a million people.

SPEAKER_00 36:30

Yeah.

Why Personal Brand Matters Now

SPEAKER_01 36:30

But you should think about who do you already know? Who's already in your network? Who already wants to support you? And this is one thing that I learned through my cancer journey is I just don't like, you know, I I don't like to be a bother. So I just assume that most people are bothered by, say, when I ask for things, but so many people out there, especially in your direct network, they want to help. They have a vested interest in helping you because they like you and they want to be your connection, your colleague, etc. So they want to help.

SPEAKER_00 37:03

Yeah, you don't get what you don't ask for. So I think that's another thing people should realize. And when in doubt, ask. You might get two no's and five yeses, but if you don't ask, you'll you'll never know. Right. Well, we have just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to all the things that Goldie uh can do for you. Her book, Personal Brandy for Introts. Order it now. This is more to come, and I'm ready for your second book, you know, right after that. But let's get this first one out there. And I cannot wait to hear more about it and learn more about you. And you can learn more about Goldie in the episode notes and how to pre-order her book. Thank you so much for being on the Bold Lounge. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for listening to the Bold Lounge Podcast. Through the continuum of bold stories, vulnerability to taking the leap, you will meet more extraordinary people making a positive impact for others through their unique and important story. By highlighting these stories, we hope to inspire others and share the journey of those with a bold mindset. We hope you've enjoyed this podcast and look forward to sharing the next bold journey with you.