Quietly Iconic: The Personal Brand Strategy Behind the “Oprah of LinkedIn”

If you’ve ever felt like content creation and personal branding is a performance you didn’t audition for, this one’s for you. We are sitting down with Goldie Chan, a.k.a the “Oprah of LinkedIn” and the author of "Personal Branding For Introverts". We are talking to Goldie about what introverted entrepreneurs actually need to stand out without torching their nervous systems. 

Goldie gets candid about perfectionism, energy management, and what it was really like doing a full book tour for her book "Personal Branding for Introverts", while protecting her peace.

In this episode we are getting into the difference between branding vs. reputation (they are not the same), why tiny repeatable actions beat every “go big” strategy, and how a simple content strategy (evergreen posts, reply banks, boundaries) keeps your online presence sane and sustainable. 

If branding and marketing that fuels long-term business growth is on your 2026 vision board—this episode is your roadmap wrapped in real talk and quiet-power strategy.

Show Notes:

• Checkout Goldie's Book, Personal Branding For Introverts 
• Follow Goldie on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goldiecylon/
• Follow Goldie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/goldie

Want Even More Personal Branding and Marketing Strategies?

📣 Amplify by Not Nice. Clever. is an entrepreneur's shortcut to standing out online. This hands-on, workshop-style program gives helps you and your team grow your business, strengthen your personal brand, and finally make social media work for you.

Find out more www.notniceclever.com

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• Not Nice Clever
• Candice Carcioppolo
• Kat Torre

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Transcript

 So I think that's a common misconception is that you have control over what other people say necessarily about you. You don't have direct control over that, but you can influence that story by controlling the narrative that you set about your own personal brand. Most common misconception is what personal branding actually is.

So I get asked, what's the difference between personal branding versus reputation? Now, reputation is this. Story that people say about you when you're not in the room versus personal branding is the story that you tell when you are in the room. Small, repetitive actions is such a good way to get over perfectionism because you're not thinking, I need this entire thing to be perfect.

You're like, I'm gonna have this teeny, tiny step be. Perfect. Or hopefully good enough. And then we're just gonna repeat over time and is the thing, what are ways that you can step back from thinking, is this perfect? And think about is this good enough? And then number two, what are teeny tiny little steps that we can break down and that we can repeat over time?

Have you ever felt like the universe only rewards people who are bold? Extroverted and constantly on. Today's guest is on a mission to prove that quiet can be iconic. Goldie Chan has been called the Oprah of LinkedIn and one of the top 10 most sought after brand evangelists. She's been featured everywhere from FRAs Company to Forbes, but most importantly, Goldie is an introvert who has built a global brand by leaning into who she.

Actually is a quiet introvert. If you've ever wondered how to stand out without shouting, how to show up consistently without burning out, or how to build a brand when you'd rather recharge in silence, stay right here. This conversation is your permission to build influence in a way that actually fits your nervous system.

Clever crew, we found another one. We found another personal branding expert, author, writer, that's also an introvert, so this is. This is for you guys. This is for the introverts. We're so excited. Goldie, thank you so much for making time in your whirlwind book tour. This is day 14, 15, 16, 15, 16. Who knows at this point?

Yes, we are. We're, we're under day 20. For sure on my book tour. So there we go. There we go. Thanks so much for making time for us. Yeah, I'm so excited to be here. Um, I think one of the things that I know maybe other introverts are familiar with is overloading your plate. Yes. Guilty. Mm-hmm. In fact, let's actually start there because I feel like one of the first questions that popped into my mind, Candace's too, is how, how was your energy management during this, this time?

You know what? 'cause there's seasons of life, seasons of business, but when you're like in it, in it, what has that been like and what are the things you're doing just to. To keep 100 and to not wanna say jk, let's unpublish the book. Wait, can we show the, they need to see the book. They need to know the title of the book.

Let's start there. Yeah. So here's, here's the book, personal branding for introverts. It matches my hair. It's a little bit of a lighter green color. But it's available in most Barnes and Nobles right now across the US If you want to go in person and get a copy, um, so cool. Or through your local bookstore, please shop local.

So I have to, I have to say that. Yes. So, um, yes. Uh. Gosh, so where were we? Oh, we were talking about, I'm see, I'm all over the place right now. We were talking about how I manage my energy and I wanna say I have an entire section of my book that I talk about, introvert battery, and I talk about how as introverts, we just have a finite amount of energy.

Mm-hmm. It's really important to replenish that. That being said, I knew that the last two weeks for me, were going to be a lot of. Talking, a lot of socializing. I called my book tour the No Small Talk book tour, which hopefully both of you like, I think you do. We're allergic to small talk. We're severe allergy like Yes.

Yes. So I already knew the last two weeks were just going to be really tough. And I have another two weeks of kind of wrapping up a lot of the big, um, promo stuff I'm doing and. I think I went in with a mental, with this mindset of, okay, I'm going to push really hard for this month and then next month is my resting.

Really Like, turn off the camera. Turn off the mic. I won't be doing a lot of traveling hopefully that month, so it'll be mm-hmm. My easy month and that's my recharge month. I think it's so important too. Recharge your introvert batteries. In fact, I'll say another term that I used was also introvert hangover.

Oh yeah. Which, if you're familiar with that, where you're just like, oh my gosh, I just feel super exhausted. The same way you feel when maybe you've. Enjoy too many things, you know? You know? Yeah. So, and it's so good to have something like that to look forward to. Right. You know, you've got that on the horizon.

Even when you just said that, I was like, oh, thank God. Goldie's got December. She'll be fine. She'll be good. Like, I'm rooting for you in that recharge month. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, I am. I'm so excited to set aside time. I do this also at conferences, is I set aside just crash time where I can go to my hotel room and sit quietly by myself and not have to talk to other people because it can be so exhausting.

Yeah, absolutely. We, Kat and I have both learned that we need like a day to ease into life after we get back from conferences too, so we're not just running as soon as we get home, like a day on the couch. Mm-hmm. Or a day to take a walk and just relax and recharge before you dive into your inbox. Um, when you get back from a conference.

That's something that we do as well. Yeah. And that's so important to set aside that time. And I think it's funny because I think so many introverts naturally find that that's a good solution because you're so tired. Like I feel like I spend a lot of my time being like, I'm so exhausted or so overwhelmed, and I need time to be a lot less overwhelmed.

Yep. Yeah. So let's, let's get into, because one of the things we love about Not Nice, clever, is us sharing through the lens of being introverts. And when it comes to personal branding and, you know, grabbing the mic and having something to say and showing up. Yes. What, what do you think that most people get wrong about personal branding or like a common misconception that you see?

Well, first of all, I wanna start with the definition then. So. I think the most common misconception is what personal branding actually is. So I get asked, what's the difference between personal branding versus reputation? Now, reputation is the story that people say about you when you're not in the room, versus personal branding is the story that you tell when you are in the room.

And that could be an amazing digital room like. This one. So I think that's a common misconception is that you have control over what other people say necessarily about you. You don't have direct control over that, but you can influence that story by controlling the narrative that you said. About your own personal brand?

When did you discover that for yourself, Goldie? Oh my gosh. I think I actively discovered this. It's so funny because I was running other people's personal brands before my own, so I had over a decade of experience doing marketing and branding and social media, a lot in tech and a little bit in, uh, entertainment.

I lived in the Bay Area, now I live in Los Angeles, so. Those two industries make a lot of sense. And I remember I was working at this, but they do, right. I was working at this very small agency and they were having me at the time do tweets for C-level executives. So I was sitting there and the only directive they gave me was they just need to be tweet.

And there was no other. And these were, these are executives at a Fortune 500 company, like maybe a Fortune 50 company. Wow. Um, and I thought, oh my gosh, this is so off the rails that I can just write anything, whatever, not whatever, but almost anything. Um, and have that be directed. You know, into their social media.

So that was my first experience, was actually ghostwriting for other people, um, personal brand, but for my own personal brand. It was so fascinating. In 2017, I started creating videos on LinkedIn and I ended up doing over 800 daily consecutive videos from 2017 to 2019 ish, 800, 800 daily consecutive videos.

Wow. And most of those I shot myself. I edited my myself and, um, captioned myself. So, uh, because of that, I started building my personal brand. Based off of that. And I didn't start by thinking I'm going to do 800 videos. I started by thinking I'm going to take one month off work, and in that one month I'm going to do like two videos and that's gonna be really impressive when I go interview again for my next job.

Right? People are gonna be so impressed that I did something during that one month off. So that's my, my thought logic in, in my. My form of like really being active in 2017 was like I was gonna make a couple of these videos on. The most uncool platform there is LinkedIn and no one was going to watch this, but it was a good thought exercise to say as your next head of marketing, which is the role I had left as your next head of marketing, here's what I've been experimenting with during my time off, just to show I was really active and it just gained so much traction.

Um, and people started commenting on it. People started discovering my videos very early on. I was featured in a couple of internal keynotes on like, here are some interesting things happening with LinkedIn video. This is not what we predicted, but here's what people were doing. And I was one of those people that internally LinkedIn was talking about.

So it just ended up opening doors and I ended up making a personal brand that was based off what I was interested in. Based off of what my expertise was on, which was branding and marketing, which was what most of the videos I did were on. And then also because my own person, very distinctive looking. I, I think it was a really interesting time for me to start standing out and as an introvert, I'm sure both of you know you want to have a personal brand, but the moment you start standing out, it actually is a little scary.

Yeah, absolutely. It's well because then they're looking to you and they're like, okay, well Goldie, what do you think about this? Or We want your opinion on this, right? And you're like, right, there's gonna be hundreds of people there. There's going to be thousands of people. So, and I will say I'm an introvert with anxiety.

So I remember one of the first major overseas keynotes I gave, I had a literal panic attack on stage. If you asked me what I said during the second half of my keynote, you're like blacked out. I don't know, but I definitely know I did because I, you know, I finished it and I walked off the stage and I remember just like my hands were numb, like that feeling of, of just ultra anxiety.

And I slept for three days after that. I, and it was an international trip, so I'd planned on doing sighting and I just did not. Speak to anyone for three days after that. Um, and I hope for every introvert out there that you build in more time for yourself so you don't crash like that. But I'm sure we've all had moments of crashing like that.

How did you decide to do daily videos after you did your first view and they did well? Like what made you decide how did 800 become a thing? Yeah, so I think what ended up happening is I shot two in a row. So there was one day and I shot two of them and I was like, I'm gonna upload these two videos. Um, and it was funny because the two became 10.

The 10 became 20 and at 20 I'm like, I might as well finish the month. So it very quickly went from two to 31, I'll just say that to start, or 30, whatever, how many days in the month of the first month I ever started on, but it very quickly went from two to 30. Now the next number I thought of once I passed 30, then I thought.

Okay. You know, I've taken my full month off work, but maybe there's something here because people were starting to talk to me about the videos I was creating. So I thought maybe I'll just take one more, more month off of work and I will maybe try to figure out how to consult and do. Two months off of work and do this creative venture.

And it was very interesting because by the third month I had clients and what is really funny is I had to build and reverse. So a lot of people start their agency. Their consultancy and then they say, I want to get these clients. I'm going to get these clients in the door. I got clients and then I had to start my consultancy to house the clients that I had gotten from creating videos, and by the end of three months.

That's around a hundred videos I had. I had all these clients suddenly and I had work and I was working with these major brands and a lot of things had happened for me in three months. Um, and I thought, I'm just gonna keep going and I'm going to keep going for a little bit longer. That's my mentality. I was like, I'm gonna keep doing a few more.

And I really thought I was going to stop at 50 and then 50 became a hundred. And then when you're at a hundred, you kind of have this like beautiful stopping point, right? Um, and I thought at that point I was just so used to it because it was now muscle that I thought. Mm-hmm. Okay. I'm just gonna do a couple more and then a hundred.

Very weirdly became very easily three, like the 365, and I ended up having a party in Dallas, Texas. I remember with some of my followers and people showed up and everybody got green cupcakes and it was, it was so fascinating that all these people also only knew me off of LinkedIn, which at the time. Now I think there's a, there's a pretty heavy push for LinkedIn creators to exist, but at the time, no one knew that that existed or even that there was a video function on LinkedIn.

So it was very interesting meeting people who are either super fans of me or people who are just like, you do what? On what platform? Like, are you a YouTuber then? Is that what you do? And I'm like, no, I don't make videos at all on YouTube or any of the other platforms. It is on exclusively LinkedIn. So.

That's how I got to 800. It was almost, you start at the top of a mountain and you like start like climbing down a little very gently and then all of a sudden you are like, oh my gosh, you start tumbling. And I think that's how I got to that number is all of a sudden I was just tumbling and it just became a thing where I just was making it every single day.

I was just making it. And then really after, after the two years, I was just like. Oh, okay. You know, I feel like this feels like a good stopping point. Um, and also I think then it was, then I was just like, I really want to, I'm sobered out from making so many daily videos. I want to also just reassess where I am.

With my own career. Um, and so I, I very intentionally at that point stopped, right? I was rolling down the hill and I said, okay, I'm gonna grab onto this ledge and I'm going to stop for a moment and I'm gonna really think about what I want to do. And I will say this, having done it for so long, it was a real loss of identity for me when I stopped.

Interesting. Because you became the girl who. Did daily videos. Yes. Hmm. But then, so you do that for so long and you know, one of the, the things that we, um, have read when you were featured in Forbes, you talked about repetition as, as recognition, right? Yes. And that's how you start to become known. But when you stop doing that.

Why, why did you stop and what, like what were some symptoms or like signals you were looking for? Because I feel like it's, it's easy to just keep going. Oh yeah. But to be intentional I think is really important for somebody who's introverted, where, you know, we skew higher tend to on emotional intelligence and just being very self-aware.

So can you speak to that, that transition? Now I wish I could be like, it was a calm, you know, thought process I went through and that it was like this very elevated decision that I made. And I will say at that point I was so burned out. I was just like burned to a little crisp. I was like a little crisp of a human being at that point because I was still making these videos.

And even though I had towards the end, I especially had a team that was working on them, but it felt like so much energy and time that even. The amount of energy that I was putting in, even though it was less than when I started, it still felt like so much. And because my identity was so directly tied to it, I wanted to stop and think about doing something a little bit different just because I didn't want to become stale in who I was or even the kind of content that I created.

So I stopped so I could say, okay, I'm going to stop right here, and from here I'm going to. Really pause and think, do I want to come back to this because I could always come back to it, or do I want to do something? Completely different. And I think it's funny because I paused for really a short amount of time and then 2020 happened.

So if you're familiar with 2020, it just, we are also was such a change in all of our lives and like the way we communicate, the way we were creating content. Um, so it ended up being just also a very. I think the timing was really funny in that way, right? Mm-hmm. So I think if I had continued into 2020, I probably would be maybe even doing those videos now, right?

But it is a relief because I will tell you I did not skip a single day for those two years. I did it. So weekends, right? Weekdays, I literally would be traveling overseas and I would be catching the wifi to upload. And at the time there's no scheduling tool. So this was manually uploading from my desktop.

Wow. Every single time. So I'd have my, I literally have a video of me at some point running down a, like an airplane, you know? The ramp that you get onto the airplane because my original video, which was edited and very thoughtful, wouldn't upload. So I uploaded this tiny video of just blurry me, like running and trying to catch this plane being like it's still within the 24 hour zone.

Wow. And that's the thing I started to realize, these videos were not, not always the caliber that I wanted them to be, but you know, the joy of that was it did help me get over some of my own perfectionism. That I, of course had. So yes, the choice was not necessarily like this beautiful, elevated choice that I had.

I see. But a lot of it was taking care of myself and my own energy and knowing that I was becoming progressively more and more drained. By doing those daily videos, and it wasn't sustainable for me creative creatively or energetically. And this is also, I have to bring this up, you know, regardless of your views on ai, this is pre ai.

So none of these video ideas were coming from ai. None of the editing was AI editing. It was all a hundred percent human. That also bears mentioning Truly, yes. So you mentioned perfectionism. Yes. Which is something that a lot of us struggle with. Can you give a few tips to the clever crew on how they can manage or overcome, if that's even a thing, some perfectionism in their lives?

Yes, so one of my friends has a great book out. It's called The Good Enough Job, and I think good enough is such a beautiful phrase. Um, I, I think it's so healthy for us to do good enough jobs at work. Sometimes good enough jobs with our own personal projects. 'cause I think some of us, we do that in our safe.

We have a nine to five, we'll do that in our nine to five, we'll do good enough. But then in our own personal lives we're like, we're gonna go above and beyond. Or maybe that's reverse. Um, but I think having the idea of good enough in our lives is so. So powerful. I also, I'm reading so many books that have the word tiny in the title, like Tiny Habits, tiny Experiments is another one I'm just started reading.

That's so good. Um, and oh, I just ordered that one. It was, um, did you, it's so good. You need not, not to get very excited, but there's also a companion, um, there's a companion group for Nest Labs, and I just joined them and I'm very much lurking and just saying, I'm, I'm going to speak, I think to their group.

Next month at some point. Okay. But they do such great work in that they're encouraging joy. Mm-hmm. And small, repetitive actions. And I think that's so powerful. Small, repetitive actions is such a good way to get over perfectionism because you're not thinking I need this entire thing to be perfect.

Mm-hmm. You're like, I'm gonna have this teeny, tiny step be. Perfect. Or hopefully good enough. Mm-hmm. And then we're just gonna repeat over time and, and I feel like that for me has helped me so much with perfectionism and hopefully helps others with their perfectionism, is to think what are number one, what are ways that you can.

Step back from thinking, is this perfect? And think about is this good enough? And then number two, what are teeny tiny little steps that we can break down and that we can repeat over time? Can you give an example of like a tiny step that you're taking right now? Yeah. So one of the tiny steps that I am taking right now that I hope is, is helpful is I am trying to be better about.

Um, connecting with a couple of my colleagues', friends. So I'll check in every couple of days and just say, Hey, what do you need help with? And I find it's like such a better way of knowing what they need help with. Instead of what will happen for me is three months later, I'm just being honest, right?

Three months later I will be like, oh my gosh, we should hang out. What have you been up to? Are you still alive? I hope you're still alive. Like, where do you live? Do you still live in my city? Do you live in a different country? Um, what are you up to? Are you at the same job? And I find that when I take the tiny step of reaching out and simply sending a DM or a text message, and it's not the big, like, let's catch up.

Like, what have you been up to? It's just like, oh, like, what are you, what do you need help with today? What do you need help with this week? And making it a tiny ask right? Or a tiny offer of help. I think that's been very helpful for me to stay in touch with people that I care about. Is there anything that you do to help yourself track that at all?

Um, I wish I could tell you yes, and I love the leading question there. Absolutely. I will say I don't track it, but I do try to be very intentional about, I. If it's Wednesday or Thursday and I haven't done it, then I will do that. I also have started. That's a part of like a habit that you've created for yourself.

Yeah. I'm tr I'm creating more habits. I will say one thing that I do also do with one of my, um, friends slash colleagues is now we schedule in once a month that we will check in with each other and it's very asynchronous, but we have it in our calendar and it's not. It's not a Zoom, it's not an actual appointment.

We just text each other on that day of the month and say, have you done a new piece of content for this month? Yeah. And that's all. Yeah, right. Just to make sure that we are hitting our content goals and to see if we need help from each other or if we just need that extra encouragement of like, Hey, have you done it?

Okay. Are you going to be able to do it by the end of the day? Let's try to encourage each other. To do that. So I find having calendar invites is also super helpful. But not even for actual meetings. Just for an actual meeting. Yeah, yeah. No stress to like actually get on Zoom or whatever. Just Yeah, no.

Yeah. And no. Right. Because sometimes introverts, right, we don't necessarily always wanna be on camera or even on voice. I think about, I have so many friends who leave me voice notes that I don't. I love hearing voice notes from some of those folks. I'm that friend that leaves the voice notes. Yeah, I love hearing those voice notes from some folks, especially the friends, but they're strangers who leave me voice notes, and I don't want any of that.

I don't want any of the stranger voice notes. I'm trying to think. Do I send any voice notes to strangers? I mean. Maybe like if somebody hears me on a, a webinar, a training, and they, they say, oh, just saw you on this, this webinar, and then I'll voice note back. No, that's totally different. That's totally different.

They started the conversation. Yeah. Okay. Then I will get people who start the conversation. They'll be like, hi, Goldie, I have something important to tell you. And then it's just a voice. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's them saying, just saw you. Yeah. And as an introvert with anxiety, that's basically like sending me a little too much a breakup message.

Right? That's, no, it's, it's worse than a breakup message. It's like sending you a message. It's like the, we need to talk message. It is the we need. It's like, Hey, Goldie have something's. Super important to tell you. And then it's a voice note and it's really, it's always really long. Yeah. And I get this all the time in my LinkedIn inbox.

It'll be like five minutes long and I'm like, are you mad at number one assumption? Right. Oh no. I do keep mine to, to like a minute to two at most. Like if I see it's over two, I'm like, Candace is gonna hate me for this. I need to shorten it. No, and that's perfect. That's perfect. I'm just saying. Also, I have friends who leave me delightful.

Incredibly long, long, long, long voice notes, and I love those. That's different. Yeah. But voice notes from strangers to an introvert with anxiety. Agreed. Right? No. Mm-hmm. No. Hard pass. Hard pass. So. Goldie, when it comes to starting to become visible and, and, and developing your, your personal brand, being the one that's owning that story when you're in the room, what are some low lift ways?

Because. You pivoted hard from video to writing, right? Yeah. That's the completely different mediums, at least on paper. So, you know, having done the 800 videos and now having written a book and you're active on LinkedIn, what are some low lift ways to create visibility for the introverts in the audience?

Yeah, so I like to think about, oh, I like to think about our, the way we have financial. Banks, we have bank accounts, right? So we have bank accounts and we have that for our money, and we have that for our financial stability. What if we had the same idea but for our content? So I call this an evergreen content bank.

It's where we deposit into. And I will also describe something that we also withdraw from in a minute. But I find that this is so helpful that when I get one or two hours. A month, right. I will sit down and I will try to add to my delightful content bank. And my content bank is all evergreen content. It can be images, it can be text posts, it can be a variety of different things, long form articles.

I have so much content stored in my content bank. The reason being is maybe sometimes what I want to do is I. I want to post, but I don't want to have to draft something original. Having a content bank is a really nice, easy, lower lift way of having so much stored up that I can post honestly at any point in time this month, and I will have something original to share.

Now, I want to also share something else that I call the withdrawal part of that bank account, and that's a reply bank. So if you commonly get questions asked you, for example, they might say, I love the not nice, clever podcast. Can I guest on it? I've never been on a podcast before in my life. You know, maybe there's a templated response for that.

That you want to give, and that's part of your reply bank, is you make a template that of course you can modify and you have a reply bank of the most common questions that you get. And this saves time and energy. So you're not always searching, you're not always saying, well, for us. You know, you have to fill out this form, here's the link to the form, and you're like, where's the link to the form?

I need to find the link to the form. So I think just having, I hate finding links to forms. I hate finding links to forms and links to things. So just having that templated response that you, of course will edit. Based on who it's for. Mm-hmm. Just ready to go. Even if it's on a simple word doc that you share.

That is so much better than having to draft new responses every single time. So two things. An evergreen content bank that you deposit into, and then a reply bank that you are constantly withdrawing out of. Can I ask how you. Store the Evergreen content bank, like is it in a Google Drive or how do you store this?

So I store it in two places. I store it in Google Drive, but I also store it in Dropbox. Um, and it depends on what type of content it is. I tend to store a lot of my videos in Dropbox and then in Google Drive is a lot more of those shared pieces that I need to be readily accessible, especially if. If any of it my editor needs to look at or anything like that.

So I think anything shared and in the cloud is helpful. I will say this, I also. Occasionally when I'm being good back up directly to my desktop, just so if I'm offline, I still have access to at least a portion of that content because I'll be somewhere with no internet and I'll want to work on some of this, but I don't always have access to the cloud.

Right. You don't always have access to the internet. Mm-hmm. So I think it's important to have at least a portion of your content bank. Accessible through, um, offline and through whatever it is you use to edit. So Goldie, one thing we have not talked about yet, which I wonder if our clever crew watching this on, on YouTube, um, is wondering too, the green hair.

It's iconic. It is my thank you. Part of my mental image of you, it the, the high contrast, colorful LinkedIn profile photo with the green hair. Was it? Intentional. Was it accidental? You know, how do you see it now? Does it still fit you? Like. Give us the green hair origin story. Yeah, so I've had different colored hair for so long.

Um, I just love having colored hair. I think it's really fun. It's one of my favorite things. Yeah, and it was funny because in 2017 I happened to have green hair at the time when I blew up on LinkedIn, and thankfully green actually is my favorite color. I love green. Green is the color of growth, right?

Mm-hmm. It's color of money. In US currency, it's the color of, it's just like it's such a delightful and soothing color at the same time. So it's my, mm-hmm. It actually is my favorite color. And so when I started to blow up on LinkedIn, people would start to use different. Emojis to represent me when they replied to me.

And most often it would be the green heart emoji. And that's just so wonderful. And to this day, people will still use that when they talk to me. Um, and I find, and there's actually a green book emoji, which I find really fun. So now I can respond to people with a green heart and a green book. Um, and that's how I landed on my green hair.

And I, I will say there was a period of time. Especially during that period when I was actively daily videoing it up that I thought, oh my gosh, I really want to change my hair color because I'm so frustrated that I have, I have to keep this hair color, and I think the moment. Anything becomes a have to in your life.

It of course becomes really frustrating and less fun and less interesting, um, to do. But one thing that we haven't talked about too is I'm actually a breast cancer survivor. So in 2022, I was diagnosed. I went through chemotherapy, I went through surgery. I actually lost all of my hair, so all of my, all of my iconic green hair, which the great irony was I couldn't dye it also for months because the.

Chemicals not good. The chemicals. Yeah. Um, and so my hair faded to this blue and it was so upsetting. This, like, I think that was actually almost more upsetting than losing all my hair was that my hair had faded to this blue color and I couldn't do anything about it. Um, and then I lost all of my hair because I was going through chemotherapy.

Uh, and when I got my hair back, that was actually an inflection point for me to choose. With my identity. How do I want to move forward with my identity? Do I want to dye my hair again? Do I wanna dye green? Do I not wanna dye it at all? Um, how do I want to handle that? And I think that at the time, and this was really recent for me, um.

I just really grappled with that decision and I thought it became more empowering for me to have green hair because I had hair again, and I had the choice of dying my hair, and that was really wonderful and it made me. It made me actually fall back in love with a few things in my life going through the cancer journey.

Yeah. One was, it made me fall back in love with having the green hair because I just could. Right. Because when something becomes a can't. Yeah. You felt like it was your choice to like get your identity back after something like that. Yeah. After something so traumatizing and so debilitating, so it was so wonderful to do that.

Um, and I also, you know, I had been burned out on LinkedIn for quite some time just because I was burned out. And then I went through a very intense physical journey where I was not posting on LinkedIn during that time. No, um, no. And so. I've started posting again and it's been really interesting and I think fun to come back to a place that I'm very familiar with as a very different person.

And I think also as an introvert, you know, I think introverts are so introspective and we're so thoughtful about who we are in the world, um, which I'm sure both of you Yes. Sometimes too much. Right? Both of you know this feeling of. Of thinking really sometimes critically about who you are and how you show up in the world and who you surround yourself with, and I think that at the time that I started being able to make those choices again, it was almost a comfort to go back to some of the places that I was familiar with as a different person, as a completely different person, as an adult.

You know, I, it was mm-hmm. Almost weird that that became like my rite of passage from feeling like younger person to becoming an adult and going back to those places as an adult. So, uh, that was my journey with my green hair. It was, uh, probably a lot more deep. No, we, well, like we said, we are, we are allergic to small talk, and yes, everybody has a story.

Everyone does, and I don't, I've noticed this too, like. One, one thing that I always keep in mind, uh, now is when I'm going to events to have a signature look or something that people can recognize me for, like Candace has actually helped me like be very intentional about this with the conferences we've been going to the last few years.

And one of them, one of my looks is, uh, a leather jacket with stars. Oh, fun. And, you know, leather jackets are. They were worn by, you know, motorcycle enthusiasts. A motorcycle riders. It was like the symbol of rebellion. Right. And I'm very into astrology, and so I have the stars on there. So it's just like this conversation starter.

Yeah. But it's not just that like I chose a leather jacket. It's like there's, there's always been the rebellion, the rubble in me. And so, you know, something as simple as green hair, there's always a story behind it, I feel. I think that's so clever for branding to think about. Is there also one item that you wear?

Or for some people maybe it's a hair color, right? Um, maybe it's for glasses. Um, it could be something as simple as that, but I think it should always also make you feel empowered. Yeah. And feel good about yourself because if you feel uncomfortable, um, or you feel costumey, that's the funny thing is I have green hair, but I don't feel very costumey.

In my green hair because I don't make it a costume. Right. It's just part of my person. But I think once it becomes costume to me, that's when we kind of enter into the zone where it feels uncomfortable and what you want to be, especially as an introvert existing in this very exhausting time. Is comfortable always on the couch watching Netflix?

Just a wait. Yes. Yes. Or curled up in the corner with the dog or the cat at the party. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Both of them. The dog in 1:00 AM, one arm, and then the cat in the other. Yes. Yes, totally. If you can encourage an introvert to tattoo something on their brain, what is the thing you want them to carry with them?

Be brave. Mm-hmm. I think what introverts excel at is preparation. Let's be real. I'm, I'm sure. You have experienced this, I certainly have experienced this where I've been over prepared, I've been over prepared for something. Um, yeah. And then I don't actually do the thing. I prepare and I prepare and I prepare.

Um. And I'm gonna call this the cliff of opportunity. So we prepare, we prepare, we prepare, we go to the very edge of the cliff of opportunity. We stand and we look over the edge and we're like, I'm good. Then you walk backwards and you're like, and all that preparation, that beautiful preparation that you've done is for not.

But I think it requires a little bravery, and I'm gonna say another word that I think it also requires. A little bit of stupidity. I think it takes you a little bit of being a little stupid to jump off the cliff of opportunity. You need to be a little d Lulu. Everyone knows that. Yeah. You need to be a little d Lulu.

Exactly. I think that so many people are so afraid of looking stupid. Mm-hmm. That we aren't. Actually just a little bit stupid when we need to be, because I will tell you this, when I first started making videos on LinkedIn, which once again is opportunity, that opened so many doors for me for the first three months.

I also cannot tell you how many people said, don't do this. This is the stupidest idea I've ever heard you should be on. And this is really funny to say. Now, in 2017, people were saying, you should be on Facebook video. Or YouTube. And YouTube still makes sense, of course, but Facebook video. Facebook video.

So people were just like, I didn't even know if Facebook video was a thing. Like I, I missed that in the little blip that it was a thing. Exactly, exactly. So. People were offering all sorts of, you know, good advice. And I lost friends during this time. I actually lost colleagues. People stopped talking to me.

They said I was doing something so obnoxious and so weird and so out of left field that they didn't want to talk to me anymore because I was being unreasonable and stupid. And I heard this from so many different people. And it's really funny to me because a hundred percent all of those people are now posting on LinkedIn.

So every single one of them are now, and some of them are posting LinkedIn videos years later. Um, but all that being said is, we'll leave them nameless. But all that being said is I. I had all these years of preparation where I was not on camera, but I just had worked in branding marketing for so long. I had all that preparation and I hit the cliff of opportunity and I looked over the edge and I saw leap in videos for better, worse.

And I, and I thought, I'm gonna make this jump. I'm just gonna see what happens. And I took that leap of faith. I took that leap of stupidity or bravery. Mm-hmm. I was brave and I jumped, and as I jumped. All of these magical opportunities and doors opened for me, that would've never, you know, or, or maybe they would've opened for me, but I would've had to do something else to open those doors because they weren't opening through, quite frankly, me working out a nine to five job.

Very behind the scenes, very quiet, very introverted. So it was a very interesting for me, leap of faith that I took and a little bit of being stupid, but also a little bit of being brave because so many people told me I was wrong at the time. And this is what I've learned from being a little bit of a trailblazer in a space is when people tell you you're wrong as a trailblazer.

Either you are very, very wrong, or you are actually very, very right. And is one of the two. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That's so helpful. Before we hop into today's not nice advice, I wanted to. Tell the clever crew where they can get their hands on your book one more time. Yes. Yeah. Yes. So absolutely. You can buy my books wherever books are sold.

Very specifically, you can get it very easily on Amazon, and if you do leave a review, they very much help. You can also get it at Barnes and Noble in person, and you can get it at so many indie bookstores all over the US and you can go into your local bookstore and request it. So do that. Congratulations on your book launch.

That is incredible. Thank you so much. Yeah, I was gonna say, please request at your local bookstore. I'm such a big fan of, you know, if they can get part of that sale, please give them that sale. It helps. So, yes. Okay, not nice advice. One of our listeners wrote in and they said that they've noticed lately when I need to make a decision.

I always ask multiple people for feedback, but end up with 10 different opinions and zero clarity. Funny how we were just kind of talking about this. Of course, I'm starting to think that getting feedback in quotation marks is holding me back. Am I crowdsourcing my confidence? How much feedback is too much?

This is from Paralyzed by Opinions. Ooh, what a great, I like that. Paralyzed by opinions. So I will say what you are actually crowdsourcing. Are you ready, listener, dear listener, you are crowdsourcing. Fear, not crowdsourcing. Confidence. Mm-hmm. Because if you were crowdsourcing confidence, you would feel sure in what you were choosing.

But you're crowdsourcing fear, and I think fear versus ego. This is one of my favorite definitions too. I have a couple of favorite definitions, but to me, fear is always that voice that goes, you can't do it. Absolutely not. What are you thinking? Who are you to think that? Right? It's so loud. It has a million different voices versus your gut is the one that says.

Oh, I don't wanna work with them. Or your gut is the one that says, Ooh, icky situation ahead. Right? I don't know why I don't like this, but I don't like this. Or your gut says There's something about this that makes me incredibly excited. There's something about this that makes me think, I don't know why, but it's right.

And we've had those feelings before. Our gut is to me, when two Lego blocks just click together, right? It's that perfect click of the Lego blocks versus fear is, fear is if you've ever, and this is, shows you what kind of friends say something like that. If you've ever taken slime and actually thrown it against a wall and it's, it like kind of sticks and it's like, and it's really gross.

That is, to me what fear is. It's this sticky substance that gets into your brain and your thoughts, and you can't get over it because you're focused on all of these things that don't really matter. So when you're crowdsourcing fear, that's not very helpful. But of course it's so helpful to have people around you that you can get opinions and advice on.

But I'll go back to my be brave, be stupid. I think that it's really helpful that when you have something, you have a decision and I want you to just sit, and I know introverts are great at this, so you gonna hundred percent do this. I want you to sit quietly. Almost meditatively, but I'm not saying meditate because some people, busy brains, it's a little hard to meditate, but sit quietly and give yourself a full two minutes.

The worst. I know this is the worst to not be on any digital device. Don't even turn on the wave sound. Right. Don't even turn on the lo-fi track. No digital devices. And you sit there for two minutes and if you can't do two minutes, do one minute, but it has to be at least 60 seconds. Sit there for two minutes, set your alarm and then put it aside.

And you're gonna really just check your gut. You're gonna ask yourself, what do I think? Is the right choice, and you're gonna sit there with the silence of your own thoughts, your own non-AI generated thoughts, and you're going to come up with an answer that might be, I have no idea. Or that answer might be, oh, option a.

There's something about option A that's really enticing to me, and this is the beginning of not crowdsourcing your fear. It's the beginning of self sourcing your confidence That is the title of your next book. Or it's probably a theme throughout your book, I'm sure. Yes, yes. Oh, that's so good. Goldie. I'm just, we need like a virtual mic for like when our guests just, seriously, that's, Ugh.

I hope that helps because I myself know that when I try to crowdsource, especially from too many people, what should I do in a difficult situation? This situation, 99% of the time, becomes more difficult. Yeah. It really does gotta trust your gut. Yeah. I think this is why, you know, I use Taylor Swift as an example in my book.

Oh, love. Okay. Definitely buying the book because she's an introvert. Right. And so I think that Taylor Swift has the smallest of small circles, and I think she has that for, for many reasons because a, a pop star and it's very, I'm sure overwhelming for her. But also I think part of that is if you are crowdsourcing and saying your inner circle is 30 people.

You're gonna get 30 opinions if you're crowdsourcing to your inner circle. And your inner circle is truly three to five people that you absolutely trust with your life that will bury that body out and back with you. Yeah. Right. Um, I know those people, they have the trash bags. Um, those, that's a little bit more manageable to get a few different opinions on, right?

Mm-hmm. And I also think that sometimes though. When we get opinions, it's still helpful to get those opinions one-on-one because I'm sure we have all been in group chats. We have all been in group chats where we start to get the group think too. And then the group think also becomes confusing because one person will say something and then another person in group chat doesn't want to go against that.

So then it becomes a a very much like yes, yes, yes. Party. Such great advice, Goldie, thank you so much for spending this time with us. Thank you. Uh, you, we are so excited for you for the launch of your book. Thank you. We're definitely gonna be grabbing it and we hope the clever crew does too. Thanks for joining us on Not Nice Clever.

Remember to follow, not nice, clever wherever you listen to audio. And if you haven't already, drop that five star review, share your takeaways, tell us your story. We love to hear it signing off, you're not so nice, but so clever besties that mean business. See you soon.