Goldie Chan - Founder and Author of Warm Robots & Personal Branding for Introverts | California Leaders

Ready for a real-time rebrand? We sat down with Goldie Chan—Warm Robots founder, LinkedIn Top Voice, creative keynote speaker, and cancer survivor—to pressure test a big shift from Los Angeles Leaders to California Leaders. Goldie unpacks how to expand a niche without losing its soul, why platform-specific strategy beats copy-paste posting, and the simple systems introverts can use to build a confident, visible personal brand.

Goldie’s story is a master class in consistency and service. She helped pioneer LinkedIn video, published 800 consecutive daily posts, and earned the nickname “Oprah of LinkedIn” by elevating other voices. We dig into what makes content durable—evergreen insights, real conversations, and a clear POV—and how common sense can keep you out of the performative trap. Her practical framework covers defining your three core audiences (decision makers, peers, community), matching content to each platform’s native language, and aligning your voice with your company’s values without losing who you are.

This conversation also goes deeper. Goldie shares how surviving cancer reframed her work, stripped away FOMO, and sharpened her leadership lens: listen first, lead second, and help others win. We talk about staying human in an AI world, making your brand “technology proof” with honest presence, and why offline networking remains a competitive edge. Plus, we map a simple path for the rebrand: keep LA segments visible, add statewide chapters, and let architecture and storytelling carry the growth.

If you care about branding, leadership, LinkedIn strategy, or scaling a mission without breaking trust, you’ll leave with practical steps and renewed clarity. Follow Goldie at goldiechan.com and find her agency at warmrobots.com. Enjoy the episode? Subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review to help others discover the show.

Chapters

• 0:00 Opening And Goldie’s Credentials
• 1:40 Should We Rebrand The Show
• 8:33 Origin Of “Oprah Of LinkedIn”
• 17:10 Building A Daily Creator Habit
• 24:50 Personal Branding For Introverts
• 31:05 Common Sense Content Strategy
• 38:40 Aligning Brand And Employer Values
• 47:10 Defining Your Three Audiences
• 55:20 Why LinkedIn Still Wins

Transcript

Narrator 1: 0:00

Welcome to the California Leaders Podcast, where we dive deep into the stories of the visionaries shaping the future of our region. Hosted by Christopher Luna, this podcast brings you conversations with the movers and shakers, driving innovation, leadership, and community impact across California. Whether you are an entrepreneur, a community leader, or simply someone passionate about making the difference. This podcast is your gateway to the insights and inspiration you need to lead and succeed. Get ready to get inspired by the leaders making waves in California and beyond.

Narrator 2: 0:36

In this episode, we welcome Goldie Chan, Warm Robots founder, a creative keynote speaker, author, and cancer survivor. She has nearly half a million followers and was named the Oprah of LinkedIn by Huffington Post and her creative video channel of nearly 100,000 followers won LinkedIn Top Voice. Goldie also founded Warm Robots, an award-winning social media strategy and creative agency based in Los Angeles with global clients, and previously was a senior contributor at Forbes, where her internationally recognized column received nearly 10 million views, and she was named Journalist of the Year in 2024. Her book, Personal Branding for Introverts, through Basic Venture, Pachette Book Group, comes out in October 2025, writes for Archie Comics, and has been featured as a fresh voice in the New York Times, CNN, Fast Company, and more, and is based in sunny Los Angeles. Please welcome Goldie Chan.

Christopher Luna: 1:33

Welcome to California Leaders. Got you. There's a reason why I said that, and you and I will talk a little bit about that right now. But obviously, the show's Los Angeles Leaders. I'm thinking about changing the name, but I wanted to kind of run that idea by you. This this show, this is our second season, and the show's actually been getting a lot of traction, not just in Los Angeles. So I wanted to kind of run by I have someone that's known for branding and uh know better than you, Goldie Chad. So thank you for your time. Um, you have such an impressive background. Thank you for being here today.

Goldie Chan: 2:04

Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to be here. I'm very excited to talk specifically about this branding issue. So we were talking a little bit about it before uh before we started recording. I'd love you to explain to everyone what we're talking about.

Christopher Luna: 2:19

Yeah, I mean, if if anyone visits your your your business pages and and they'll they'll get a little bit about your bio here um before the interview, but you are known for branding. You've been um you advise companies and leaders on their personal brand. And I was we're again, we're talking off camera about this, and I'm like, you you kind of have a different outlook on this. So before I get into that though, um LinkedIn is big, big in my industry, and you're known as the Oprah of LinkedIn. Yes, you have such a massive following. I've you've been on commercials for Microsoft, you've done so much. So tell me a little about that. Like, how did you get that name?

Goldie Chan: 3:00

Yes, so I wasn't always the Oprah of LinkedIn. We all have an origin story, right? Uh, and what's so fascinating is I worked for over a decade and I've only lived in two places, both in California. So I grew up in the Bay Area, went to school in the Bay Area, and then moved to Los Angeles, both places very close to my heart, uh, and currently living in LA and not looking to move anytime soon. So when I started creating content on LinkedIn, and this is such a funny thing to say. So I coined the term LinkedIn creators in around 2017, 2018, there's a group of us who started using this term. And everyone said that's so silly. There are no creators on LinkedIn, there's no one creating original content on LinkedIn because at the time that wasn't really the case. But there was a group of us, a small group of us, who started creating videos. And I myself started doing a lot of videos. In fact, I did over 800 daily consecutive videos. And for anyone out there who's ever recorded a video by yourself or say with your kids or of your business, you know that 800 is quite a lot. And I was primarily editing those myself too. And along the course of creating 800 daily consecutive videos, Huffington Post called me the Oprah of LinkedIn because I was interviewing people and I was uh I was doing so much on the street work, and so people thought that I was reminiscent of Oprah in that way of her early days when she had her first show, which I don't think a lot of people know so much about her first show, but I love her first show, it was fascinating. And so that's how I got the title in the press, The Oprah of LinkedIn. And once that happened, people internally at LinkedIn started using this. And I will share a very funny anecdote that I don't always share, which is on Halloween, during the first year that I started creating videos on LinkedIn, I got all of these texts from my friends and they said, You need to go on LinkedIn right now. And I said, I I'm going to go upload my daily video in a little bit, guys. Okay, can you just take a break? And they're like, No, it's not about that. You have to go on LinkedIn now and see what you're tagged in. And I'm like, What am I tagging? What am I tagged in? So I went on LinkedIn and it was at the time the head of video, he had dressed up as me really for Halloween. He put on a green wig, he made a cardboard frame, wow, like a post frame that had, you know, the likes and the comments on it. And he just said, Thank you to Goldie Chan and all of the other creators on the platform.

Speaker 4: 5:52

Wow.

Goldie Chan: 5:52

So I was the only creator that was shouted out in this capacity. And that's when it hit me because there had been a lot of other things that had happened during that time. Forbes asked me to write on personal branding and storytelling and a lot of opportunities that come up, but it I suppose it wasn't till that moment when I was a Halloween costume by an employee at LinkedIn about LinkedIn, which is incredibly meta, incredibly meta, that I realized, oh, this is something, right? And I'm not sure quite what that is, but that was my personal brand.

Christopher Luna: 6:33

That's how I feel right now, to be honest. Um, when I joined this organization where I work at now, uh, no one, I don't want to say no one, but my intent and my responsibilities is to help amplify our members. Yes.

Goldie Chan: 6:45

And you do such a great job of that.

Christopher Luna: 6:47

I wasn't really big on LinkedIn before, but obviously just the profession that we're in LinkedIn is huge. And even Instagram, I just got Instagram, I don't know, I want to say maybe a year ago, like lit literally recently. Um I I was I was still on Facebook. Like that's just my family thing, right? So so I'm thinking outside the box, and I just you became I became a personal brand because I would post so much. I it wasn't intentional. Um, to me, it was always about amplifying other people's work. So I I I connected with you really well, and I guess I should share that too. So I met you at a video conference uh presented by YouTube. I mean, it was a huge conference in Anaheim, and you're one of the speakers there, and you gave a breakout session too. I took my son with me, you got to meet with the. Right.

Goldie Chan: 7:30

Your son was absolutely adorable and amazing. So I I want to do this. If I if you're watching right now, hi.

Christopher Luna: 7:36

Oh, thank you. He he wanted to come today, and uh I'm like, son, I'm just gonna go real quick and come back. And he he watches these videos anyways. So he, you know, we I connected with you without you even knowing. And I think that's the that's what inspires me to these leaders like you is you're talking to a room full of people, but you don't know how you're connecting to everyone, right? And you never know who's in that room. So I appreciate you again being here because it means a lot. And and like I said, it's there's a there's a connection to me now with you because of this branding issue. And that's where I'm I'm I had a meeting the other day, and I was talking to someone, and they're like, you need to change the name. Los Angeles is too narrow. You're you're expanding, and there's people in the Bay Area, there's people in Sacramento, there's people in Orange County, Riverside, San Diego, and and you need to call like California leaders, right?

Speaker 4: 8:30

Right.

Christopher Luna: 8:30

So I'm like, okay, yeah, that's a great idea. How do I do that? Since I'm known for being such an alley native. I'm this is my home. The goal is to promote Los Angeles. I love the city, um, but I can see how it can expand so easily. So, what what are some of your thoughts on that?

Goldie Chan: 8:47

I think that having it already be branded Los Angeles Leaders is such a strong name already, but I could see how that would be really narrow. That's hyper-focused, and expanding that reach to California leaders, that means then you get the Bay Area, the beautiful Bay Area where I'm from. Um, you get all of those outside regions that are that are neighbors, our friendly neighbors to Los Angeles. So, and you get the, I think you also get, we talked about this too, you get some of the companies that have such a massive and important footprint here in Los Angeles, but maybe are headquartered in a different part of California and maybe are, but would still be interested, of course, in being part of the Los Angeles ecosystem and discussing what they do here in Los Angeles. So I see why you got that advice. I think I'm torn. Quite frankly, I don't even want to say that.

Christopher Luna: 9:44

So we literally took off the microphone things um because of branded Los Angeles leaders, and this is season two.

Goldie Chan: 9:50

I was I was supposed to get a mug and I didn't get my mug.

Christopher Luna: 9:54

Um, yeah, and and that's the thing, is it's I'm like, okay, let's start it fresh. This is season two. We have some really strong names coming onto this episode. I've been actually getting phone calls from um I don't want to the reality uh celebrities actually from TV shows. Um, and the the idea is the audience. To me, this audience is very um special to me because we're learning from each other. Um, and the reason why I came up with this, and I I say show because the first person I interviewed, she's like, this isn't a podcast.

Narrator 1: 10:26

Yes, this is a show.

Christopher Luna: 10:27

This is a show. And you're talking about Oprah, right? But in reality, I I was talking to someone else in media and they're like, this can be picked up in other formats. So be careful on how you speak and how you present it. So and the reason why I'm speaking out loud is because you're in branding. So I'm just thinking out loud as I speak.

Goldie Chan: 10:42

I I think this is such a fun conversation to go down because anytime you think about rebranding, there's always a worry that you will lose your primary audience because you go too broad and then you lose that niche audience, the people who love hearing from Los Angeles leaders. I think on the Converse side, that it's such an interesting idea because then you could potentially segment out. So I have to think about social media because I'm on social media all the time. So I think about things like YouTube. On YouTube, you have playlists. So segmenting out, say, if this podcast will eventually exist on YouTube as different clips and things like that, segmenting it out into here are the literal Los Angeles leaders, here are the greater Bay Area leaders, right? Here are the outside of Southern California or the greater Southern California, I suppose. Maybe that's what we can call it, leaders. And being able to segment out even farther and further into those different demographics on social media would to me be very interesting as another way also to be delivering this wonderful and amazing content to different people who are looking for that. I think California leaders, I could imagine it with the golden poppy, I have to say, or the bear, right? Whatever that the seal, our our California seal is.

Christopher Luna: 12:06

You know what? The more you're saying it though, the more I'm liking it.

Goldie Chan: 12:10

Yes.

Christopher Luna: 12:10

It it's just it's it has to get used to. I'm so used to seeing LA leaders, Los Angeles leaders. I've I've built the channel around that. Um, you know, just all the logos and the branding. And but the more you're saying it, the more it makes sense to me.

Goldie Chan: 12:23

So yes, I would love to see you interview other Chamber of Commerce leaders. How interesting would that be?

Christopher Luna: 12:30

Yeah, no, there's there's a lot of opportunity, but look, before all of your your your followers and the Forbes columns and the Lincoln Fame, who is Goldie Chant? Like, what's your childhood like? What was your upbringing?

Goldie Chan: 12:44

Oh my gosh. So I like I said before, I grew up in the Bay Area, which is a pretty wonderful and amazing place to grow up. I grew up near Oakland, California, uh Lake Merritt, if anyone is familiar with that. It is a wonderful community, very diverse. And so I grew up, I like to say, eating um Chinese fruit around Chinatown, but also having soul food in Oakland. So my diet was a mix of those two things, plus, of course, classic Americana food. I used to think that Sizzler was the fanciest meal that you could have, which now living in Los Angeles, I realize that is not true. There's Olive Garden. No, just kidding. But uh, and I I have to shout out my favorite restaurant here in Los Angeles. Can I do that on this? Which is Enaka, beautiful Japanese restaurant. Um, you have to definitely check it out. But I grew up uh pretty, I would say pretty, you know, I have an immigrant family, grew up uh with a pretty traditional upbringing for a Chinese immigrant family, went eventually through all of those beautiful stages of life that you're going through with your son, and then eventually made it to Stanford. So I went to Stanford for my undergrad, and that was such a beautiful experience. Also did not go far. As you can see, I went all the way from uh Northern uh the north part of Northern California all the way to slightly less north part of California. Uh went to Stanford, and Stanford is a beautiful campus. Stanford is a wonderful place full of a bunch of, I'm gonna say this on your podcast, weirdos who are very interesting and have all very interesting ways of thinking about life. You get so many people like Tiger Woods went there, the folks who founded Google went there, very unique viewpoints for different people who went to that school. And it's a school that definitely encourages people to have unique viewpoints. And so coming out of that, I actually was running a fashion brand for a couple of years and it didn't work out. I was 22, it didn't work out. Not a surprise, right? Uh but at 22, I thought this is the end of the world. Nothing, I nothing's left, right? Because that's what you think at 22 when something doesn't work out. And I had what I like to call a friend intervention where my friend said, You need to get a job. Please get a job. Get any job. So I got any job, and that job happened to be in digital marketing. And because I was the youngest person on the team, they said, You're in charge of the Facebook, you're in charge of all the social media because you're the youngest person on the team. And I learned trial by fire how to run social media accounts for all these startups, all these big brands in-house. And I did that for over a decade. And that was my career doing digital marketing, running communities from scratch. I remember literally, and I feel like you might be doing this too with some of your guests. I remember just sitting there and packaging at least a hundred different care packages just for people who were customers of this particular brand because that physical care is important. And I take that now with me through the different ventures that I work on now. Like my book, I'm working on care packages for some of the people who are important who will be receiving my book. But it was definitely an interesting journey to I think go through that digital marketing, work in-house, be a really faceless, quite frankly, person behind the scenes, and then suddenly be really present. It was very shocking to me. I had worked with people in the context of being behind the scenes, as I'm sure you have too, who are very present on camera or who are who had large social followings. And suddenly when it was me, it was very odd and it was very unlifelike in some ways.

Christopher Luna: 16:48

And that takes us to your book. Yeah. It's funny because before my uh exposure to the community, I was not in social media. Like I said, I was not in Instagram. And even to this day, um, when I post, I'm not really posting about myself. I'm talking about someone else. So there's that that, and your book talks about this. So since you mentioned that, yes. Tell me a little bit about your book.

Goldie Chan: 17:15

Yes. So my book is personal branding for introverts. And it's so funny because I will say this when I pitched this with my agent around two different publishers, one publisher said, I got it. What if we called it personal branding for introverts and extroverts? And I said, So that so that's personal branding for everyone. And that's not the book I'm writing. That book already exists. Uh, and it's there's so many wonderful books out there that exist that are already that book. I want to specifically talk about the introvert struggle. And introverts make up 40% of the entire population, at least in the US. And there are so many introverts out there that want to be successful in their careers, but there are so many outside, I would say, pressure to be an extrovert, to be showy in a way, to be loud in a very specific way. And I think that introverts can have an incredibly successful career, can have a wonderful online presence, and can be incredibly present offline as well, doing things like the way we met at a conference.

Christopher Luna: 18:24

And how do you balance that though? When you're a leader that's working in corporate America and you're trying to expand your personal brand, how do you balance that without looking? Or it's to me, it's all about those optics, right? Like really Absolutely. What do you think? What is my boss gonna think about this? Like what are the people inside the organization or even externally? What are they gonna think about this, right?

Goldie Chan: 18:43

I'm going to give you two words that we don't talk about enough. Common sense. And I think so many of us have lost common sense because social media rewards oftentimes these inflammatory concepts and ideas and titles and and videos. And I think there is still room, though, for common sense. I think there's room for brands that are built on evergreen, helpful information that is built on being a thought leader that is built on your expertise instead of shock. So I think that it is still possible to build an incredibly strong brand based off what you know and what you can share and how you can help, which is what we were talking about before. You started creating content because you wanted to share and you wanted to help, and you became known for that. And I think that is so much more powerful than a brand that is based off yelling into the distance, right? Because it is such a more long-lasting brand because it is built like a spider web off of so many different parts as opposed to a single string, right? To go to that spider web analogy, it's so easy to say, knock down a spider web that is just a single string versus you have that giant web. It's so much harder to remove that. And in a positive light, when you're building your personal brand, when it is built off the connections and the help and the amplification and the support of others, that is for a leader a much stronger and wiser way to build a personal brand than if you are building a personal brand simply off uh crowing about accomplishments.

Christopher Luna: 20:32

And how do you how do you keep that alignment or like let's say obviously a leader of an organization leads the organization with those missions and those that vision, right? Sometimes personally there can be some disconnect.

Speaker 4: 20:49

Yes.

Christopher Luna: 20:49

Um how do you kind of merge that so that way everything's aligned where it makes sense so people on the outside understand like how because a lot of times when you're working for these organizations, you want to believe in what you're doing, right? Right. And sometimes there's some disconnect, but people try to leverage these platforms to have that disconnect where you're not too attached, because sometimes you we are our own people too, of course, yes, right. So just because I I do certain things doesn't mean I'm completely attached to that, right?

unknown: 21:25

Right.

Christopher Luna: 21:25

So how do you how do you work around that?

Goldie Chan: 21:26

How do you balance that? I think that's such a good question, and it's so tough because I will give a generalization, but obviously everyone is different, right? And because we're beautifully human, I'm pretty sure you're not a robot. I'm not sure. We haven't checked anything. It's gonna get that to that point one day and watch our one day or I'm gonna be am I speaking to a robot companion or speaking to human dependent? But when you're thinking about balance as work, especially when you're a leader and you have high visibility in, say, a big brand or a corporation or a project, I think what is helpful to think is first of all, what in that big brand or corporation or project, what are the overarching values? What are the most important two or three values of that particular brand? I spoke at Lego, which is a very interesting place. And since you have kids, I know that you know what Lego is. You probably stepped on one before. Uh and Lego was an interesting place because I spoke to a lot of their women leaders about having a personal brand at a place like Lego, which also has an entirely separate headquarters outside of the US as well. And when we were talking about personal brands with women leaders there, it was so fascinating because so many of them express, I don't know if I feel comfortable even say having colored hair here, right? Or I don't know if I feel comfortable, say, uh, expressing certain opinions. And if your opinion is, of course, diametrically opposite of the overarching belief system of where you're working, I hate to say this and I will be this bad person for saying this, expressing that opinion publicly is not in the best interest of your career, right? And that's an opinion that you can express potentially after you've left that particular role and you've left being in-house. But even then, common sense, right? We're gonna go back to that word cop those two words, sorry, common sense. I think it's helpful to think overall, what do you want and what do you hope for with your own personal brand? And then see how that fits underneath the giant umbrella of the greater corporation and the greater company. And melding those together is really like making uh making a meal. It's like cooking because you could have a delicious meal made with fish, like a I love fish. So a delicious roast salmon, and you can have a delicious set of fresh strawberries, but maybe salmon strawberry isn't salmon mushroom strawberry isn't the most delicious meal, but separately those are. And I think the same thing is true of your personal brand, is being really thoughtful about the ingredients that you use in your personal brand as well as how those meld together.

Christopher Luna: 24:27

Yeah. And and and I hope you're not gonna bill me for this conversation, right? Because I'm assuming these are the type of conversations you have with these leaders, right? Like I'm assuming these are type of questions that you get asked.

Goldie Chan: 24:37

Yes. Yes, these are the questions I get asked. And I've worked with, oh gosh, I've worked with C level executives at the Fortune 500 level where let's be honest, I'm working with their team, but I occasionally work with them as well. And it's fascinating to have these conversations because even leaders who are running these massive organizations, massive teams, they have the same questions as someone running a three-person team, which is how do I do this? Is this appropriate? I I no longer allow my clients to text me after midnight. I didn't realize this is something I had to set as a rule, but is now rule, because I had a CEO once text me at 3 a.m. with a picture of a horsehoof, just a blurry picture of a bottom of horsehoof. And she said, This is my new horse that I have like in the Hamptons or something. She's like, Can I should I post this on social media? And I was like, first of all, please don't text me after midnight, my time again. Thank you so much. Uh but second of all, no. Is this relatable, which is what you want to be? Is this authoritative? No. Is this any of the keywords that we are working on? No. Why do you want to post this? And she's like, I really like this horse. It's my favorite new horse. And I was like, great, not relatable. Uh, thank you. And we will talk about this in the morning. So I think it's helpful to also understand what are your goals? What do you want to be perceived as? And who are you speaking to? Because right now we are speaking to what I assume would be peers, right? A peer level conversation. But maybe you want to speak to instead clients or people who might hire you, or maybe you want to speak to that potential audience or that other demographic. It's helpful to know who you want to speak to out of these, I like to call them three basic tiers to start.

Christopher Luna: 26:28

What are those tiers?

Goldie Chan: 26:29

And those sorry, so let's back up a little bit and we'll go to those tiers. So the top tier is potential clients. And say if you are at that C level executive level, that's your board of directors. Now, if you're not at that level, then that's your CEO. That's other people who are at management level. Then the next level is your peers. That's people who are in your same industry vertical, or maybe not even that, but they are at your levels. They're at the same level as you. Then one level below that is your general audience. So that is, for example, if you're running a podcast or a Substack or something, that's your readership. That's the general public that might consume your content. And understanding which of these three you want to target at least first is so helpful for beginning to narrow down who your audience is.

Christopher Luna: 27:21

Yeah, no, it's it's good to kind of um, I mean, I think that's in any marketing, right? You have to kind of know your audience and know your client. I come from banking, and to us, it's always like know your client, know your know your customer for compliance reasons too, but definitely for compliance reasons.

Goldie Chan: 27:37

I yes, the the hardest clients I've ever had have been in uh finance and healthcare for for regulatory reasons.

Christopher Luna: 27:44

It's it's so funny though, because I I was watching some of your your footage and your media that you have, and you sent me this video about Microsoft, and you're on this commercial and um I did this commercial one time for Intuit.

Goldie Chan: 27:56

Oh, great.

Christopher Luna: 27:57

And Intuit came to to our place of business, and they did like this whole thing. And I was on their website for many years. I don't know. I I doubt I'm still on there, but um well not go onto the Intuit website and see. I should have saved the the commercial though. I never saved it, and it I mean I probably would never want to see it again. But um what got you into it? Like what what gave you that leap of courage to do what you're doing now? Like what triggered this?

Goldie Chan: 28:23

I wish I could say it was deep insight and foretelling that I would have grown a personal brand from scratch. However, that wasn't true. I started creating these videos on LinkedIn because, first of all, I thought it was interesting. So I originally started creating videos on pop culture branding and marketing. So, why do we have trains in America? was one of the videos I did. Why do we have street art, uh, street posters that are pasted up on walls? Why do we have that? It's a very American thing. So I was caught I was going over all of these really interesting pop culture branding and marketing things. And also I like to say I was taking a sabbatical. Now, sabbatical is a beautiful way of saying I was unemployed during that time. So I had about a month where I left a head of marketing job at a at a startup and I was going to get my next job, but I wanted just to take a month off. We're all allowed to take a little break sometimes. So during that month off, I thought, oh, I need to look busy. I need to look like I'm almost gainfully employed. So when I become gainfully employed again, they'll know what I was doing in that gap. So I started creating these videos because I thought I will do this for a month. I will, I will do this as a lark for the month that I'm not gainfully employed. And at the end, I could say, here are my takeaways from doing videos on LinkedIn for a month. We can apply them to whatever brand I end up at. And it was wild because 30 days of doing consecutive videos, I think I got featured in an internal keynote. By the who was at the time the vice president of LinkedIn, who I believe is now the president of LinkedIn, in an internal keynote that just said, here's eight creators who are doing really interesting things on the platform. And I was one of them. And my friend was in an internal editor for this video. And he said, I can't, you know, give this footage to you to share externally, but I just want to know that your name is being mentioned. Wow. And I thought, oh, that was once again, that was the first inkling that maybe this is something. And then doors started to open. So what's funny is before I had my agency, people were asking to hire my agency because people were asking me to do consulting work. And I thought, oh, so I a little bit, I started consulting individually, and then I had to make an agency here in Los Angeles to fill to have a, of course, roof over that consulting work. And I scrambled a little bit and created my agency around that. But it was for me almost a reactive response to all of the wonderful things that were happening because I was so active. And honestly, I was so active. I was so curious. I was so engaged. I was really excited about talking to people. I had at one point an entire contingency of Swedish followers on LinkedIn who would respond to me in Swedish. And they uh and they were very interested in sharing Swedish culture with me. And I thought that was so cool.

Christopher Luna: 31:26

Before you know it, I'm gonna see all these videos in different languages.

Goldie Chan: 31:29

Right, right. And so I thought it was really interesting that that was happening. And I had created a personal brand, not because I was being very forceful about it and I was being very strategic about it. I created it because I was so genuinely interested in the world around me. And I was so genuinely, genuinely interested in the community and what people were saying and what people were creating around me. And I built a personal brand because of that. And then ironically, then Forbes came along and asked me to write. Once again, my life feels very meta in some ways, to write about personal branding because I had such a strong personal brand.

Christopher Luna: 32:16

And and why LinkedIn though? Like because I mean, growing up, I mean, we're we're young, um, everything's Snapchat or right.

Goldie Chan: 32:26

Everything is everything is Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, etc. And I will say this, I did LinkedIn because I thought at the time no one would see those videos. So I thought no one would see those videos. So I thought this is a great place for me to sandbox. This is a great place for me to create this content that almost doesn't matter because no one is going to see it except for my direct network. And I think at the time I had maybe 3,000 followers. Now I have over 100,000. But at the time I thought I have 3,000 followers. These are all ex-colleagues of mine or current potential current colleagues. It doesn't matter as much that they will see these videos. So I'm gonna create in this really amazing sandbox. And then maybe if I feel like it, I'll make that YouTube channel.

Christopher Luna: 33:13

It's funny because right now LinkedIn is so video heavy when before they weren't.

Goldie Chan: 33:18

And they weren't. And they weren't when I started creating it because I was literally in the video beta. I was one, I would think I was the second LinkedIn Live ever. Um, I think one of my first LinkedIn lives, I I was at a NASA launch in Florida and I live streamed it. It went black for a whole like five, 10 minutes because the product was so new at the time. Um, I think it's so fascinating. And now LinkedIn is a proven place to have a brand, and it is a proven place that you can get opportunities. And you know this firsthand, being someone who has developed their brand on LinkedIn, it is a place that you can get opportunities that can open doors, that can have career or client or uh community opportunities that are very, very powerful on that platform because it is decision makers. One of my favorite T-words on the platform, it is people who hold budget. It is all of these wonderful people that are incredibly powerful on that platform. So now LinkedIn, I think, is such an interesting and fascinating place to build a personal brand because they are pushing video and they're pushing content creators and they're pushing in a way that they weren't when I when I initially started. So I think it's a wonderful time to jump in and start thinking about what might a personal brand as a leader look like on that particular platform.

Christopher Luna: 34:44

Any merging leaders. I have a nephew who just got um getting into a career, and that's the first thing I told him like out of college, or they should even before or during college, like get a LinkedIn profile, start building that connection, start building that work network. Yes, because they it it's it's literally your resume online, right? And you never know where that propels you, you never know where that's gonna take you. These connections um are personal, they're they're your connections, they're your network, and it's easy for you to kind of help leverage them in a certain capacity. So it's very important. I mean, when I I have Instagram and I I utilize them differently. Instagram, it's still still business oriented. I I still I once in a while I'll post things about my family because I feel like when you post your personal life too to that audience, there's some type of connection, right? Um, I I I never do that on LinkedIn. Um, but there's a way to kind of help navigate these different platforms. I think every platform's a little different in that sense. How do you how do you do that now with because you are your brand, your personal brand. So how do you separate that or is there a separation?

Goldie Chan: 35:53

So to me, I definitely don't always post what I post on Instagram to LinkedIn. I like to think about every social platform like being its own community with its own language. So if you go to a different country, you will likely speak that the language in that country. I mean, you'll probably still speak English, let's be wrong. But but you might speak a different language. And going to every different platform, Instagram has its own language, and that language is comprised of videos and images. So even if you want to do text, you'll see people do who do those text squares where they write the text and they do it on the white background, or they make text into an image. Versus on LinkedIn, the language there is often, it can be long-form text, it can be articles, it can be videos, it can be a variety of different things. Versus, I'll talk about a platform we haven't talked about, Pinterest. Pinterest is so video and image forward too, but in a very different way than Instagram is and focused on very different subjects. So I like to think about the platforms in terms of who lives on there and what are you trying to say to those different people. So on Pinterest, perhaps I have one of my friends, she's about to get married, and this will not surprise you as a use case for Pinterest. She is currently pinning all of her wedding ideas and her wedding venue ideas and the colors onto Pinterest. She's not doing that on Instagram. On her Instagram, she's not posting literally 200 photos of purple flowers, right? Because that would be a really fast way to turn off her audience. So I think it's helpful to think about each platform has their own customs and their own languages. So each platform is truly like its own country.

Christopher Luna: 37:42

Yeah, Pinterest. I was using that quite a bit when I was remodeling my backyard. I'm like, okay, this is a cool pool idea.

Goldie Chan: 37:48

I will say that uh very, a very hilarious Pinterest board my friend once invited me to is he really wanted a black bathroom. So I got invited to a Pinterest board that was only black bathroom items. So black, black tiles, black sinks, etc.

Christopher Luna: 38:05

Yeah, no, and it's and it's true. I think a lot of times um these leaders, especially when you're in the sea level, they don't have the time to research all these differences. They have their teens, but even their teens, like everyone has different motives or different ways or different visions, right? So I think that's where you come in with your expertise to help define those platforms and help help them understand how they can leverage these platforms. Um, I'm not sure if it's okay if we talk about this, but you went through something very personal. Did you talk about that in your book at all? Or is it okay if we mentioned it?

Speaker 4: 38:37

Absolutely, yes.

Christopher Luna: 38:38

Okay. So I mean, I I won't I I don't want to ask you the wrong question. So feel free to tell me how did that impact you in your life and and and moving forward? Because I have a friend that's going through something right now, and I think that's very uh motivational to see someone like you kind of get through that.

Goldie Chan: 38:54

Thank you. So, what we're talking around right now is is the biggest health thing that you can ever go through, which is cancer. So, I am a cancer survivor. I feel very blessed to be here right now. I feel blessed that I got through it. Uh, shout out to my team at Keck, USC. I had all my care there. Wonderful doctors, wonderful care team. It was so interesting to go through that. And it's such a messy process. It's such a, to me, a community process because I had so many different people taking care of me, offering to help, offering to to literally send me meals and things like that. And when I think about it in the context of my career, so this is terrible timing, but I'll tell you the terrible timing that happened. My book originally got optioned with the first publisher right when I got diagnosed. Uh, and and then the publisher said, Okay, well, we're so excited to sign you. And so when you come out of surgery, if you do any surgery and you you go under, they make you sign documentation that says, I will not sign any contracts. So the day I got my publishing deal, I had just come out of my initial surgery for for, I think it was uh putting in the my port in my chest. And I just got that, I just signed the document for my doctor saying, I will not sign any legal documents. I just got this legal document. I sent it to my lawyer saying, I have no idea what words are right now. Can you look over this for me? And I remember that whole process being quite honestly a lot of that me relying on my team, my lawyer, my agent, um, me relying on people around me to help me. And the front of my book is actually sent to two of my friends who took a lot of care of me during this journey. And I wrote this book while going through this incredible journey of spending most of my time in the hospital, spending most of my time barely being able to sit up. And so many people are going through these secret journeys, these secret difficult things to go through. I went through mine very publicly. And as you said before, I partner with a lot of brands and I hyper-specifically and to this day still do not accept partnerships around cancer and around products around that, and unless I've used them myself, and even then I don't like to do it. And I very specifically do that because I don't want to endorse something that might be harmful for others that I haven't verified. And I just morally cannot do that. Um, but going through that journey was so difficult because I this is dramatic to say, but I saw a death in the face and I didn't know if I was going to make it through. And that's when taking a call about a promotional part of XYZ, you realize what's important at the end of the day. And of course, what's important is always love and the love of your friends, your family and people close to you. Uh, but you also realize then what is important in your career. Do I want to be doing this for the next decade plus of my life? Also, do I have the next decade plus of my life? And that for me very much clarified what I want to be doing right now. And it was such a way to get rid of, you know, there's this term that I think is really funny, FOMO, right? Fear of missing out. And I think prior to getting diagnosed, I had been having this very strong FOMO about I'd been seeing there was somebody else who's in my orbit and they were getting all these speaking gigs, and I wanted those speaking gigs. And I think it's really funny that it removed that FOMO for me because I was simply thankful and happy to be alive. And then after that, all of this, say, speaking opportunities I got, all of the opportunities I got in general, I have been thankful and grateful for every single one of those in a way that I honestly, prior to my cancer journey, I'd been starting to lose that luster. I'd been starting to think, well, I deserve this. And whenever you get into that zone, it is such a bad and dangerous zone to get into because I think it just leads you to feeling jealous and bitter and all those negative things that can come across, they come across in your energy. They come across when you are working and partnering with people. And I think when you become a very confident and calm and joyful person, that also comes across. I think people can sense that in you, that you are not wanting anything from them, that you are you are present, that you are happy to be there. I think that it was such a life changer, obviously, not in not great ways in my health, but in my mental uh ways of thinking about ways and ways that I started to perceive things. It was weirdly very, very helpful for me.

Christopher Luna: 44:12

It's scary. I can't imagine going through something like that. Um none of us have tomorrow guaranteed.

Speaker 4: 44:22

Right, of course.

Christopher Luna: 44:23

We don't have to have a scare like that to think that way, right? We we we honestly we should all be grateful for for what we have and how we live our life, and it and it should be a reminder. And and unfortunately, we should we should kind of think of people like you because we some some of us have some family member or someone that we know are going through hard times, and we have to remember what's important to us, what's important in life. And if you think that way, um that kind of comes off your your your aura, right? You're you're just a an overall better person. Um and it's funny because I went through a scare, not like you, but um, and it's a reminder, and it's I well every time I look at my hands, it's a reminder. I have two small little cuts right here, but I was in a really bad car uh motorcycle accident where um I could have died, basically. Right. And again, everyone has these situations, but these little marks, it's so funny. It's like, why are they on my thumbs?

Goldie Chan: 45:23

Right.

Christopher Luna: 45:23

Why is it here? It's like a constant reminder, like, hey, remember what you're doing. Right. There doesn't always have to be a driver of of your work or or your, you know, I have these these ambitions and goals and things like that, but let's remember why we're here. Why we're here. We have our family and friends that we that we need to be around, so I'm not on motorcycles anymore. But I mean, anything can happen to any one of us, but I think that's where we can't lose sight of that. I mean, we we all have such a beautiful life. Um, and you're you had mentioned the space station. I went, um, I think it was the same one, uh Kennedy, right?

Goldie Chan: 46:03

Uh yeah, I'm gonna get it wrong, so I'm not gonna see it on camera.

Christopher Luna: 46:06

So in Florida. Yeah, the Florida, yes. So and there's this beautiful video, right? And they're talking about the universe and all these, you know, they have so much advanced technology into looking to all these other planets and and and the universe in general, right? Yeah, and and then they kind of zone it back to our earth, yeah, right, and our planet, and they see like, look at how beautiful our planet is. When you look at the sky and you look at the universe, it's a bunch of gases and and and different stars and planets, but there's nothing like our planet. No, there's nothing like a planet, like we have to take care of what we have and what we know because this is what our kids live off of. So we can't we have to always remember who we are and how what we do and and how that affects our generations to come. So um, I don't know how I thought about that now, but I I really like that tangent.

Goldie Chan: 47:01

I'll say one of my friends, Scott, who also lives in Los Angeles and has a beautiful book called Seek Out, is a curiosity expert. And one of the things that he does is he really just goes after things that he finds fascinating. He's a bundle of just ultimate joy. Uh, and he just bought a bus and he's just going to drive around, I think, part of LA, but also part of the US and ask questions, ask why people are doing things from a positive point of view. And I think toxic positivity is obviously very real, but I think that we have room because we live in such what feels like a heavy and stressful time, and technology makes it even more stressful, I think, in some ways. I think it's beautiful to have and understand that there are moments of joy, that we have love around us, that we have all these wonderful things that empower us and to bring it back to leaders that empower us as leaders. That those things make us stronger as leaders because we are more well-rounded, and a more well-rounded and grounded individual is always a better one.

Christopher Luna: 48:10

Leadership is the title of this uh platform. And you you struck something there. What are some characteristics that make those strong leaders? Yes. Um, what are some things that these emergent leaders can learn off of that?

Goldie Chan: 48:26

So I think the first thing that I will talk about is listening. So a great leader listens and then leads. Right. I think a really great leader is someone who is a part of a conversation instead of shouting during that conversation. They're engaging with the conversation either with their team or their customer base or whoever it is that they need to be talking to. They're always listening and they're always trying to do better. This is why we love those TV shows where the CEOs go undercover and right, and they do those jobs for a day, because we we instinctually understand that that is a leader that cares about the lowest denominator and not the least important denominator, but the lowest denominator in the stack that makes up their business. And a great leader is one that listens and then leads. A great leader is also one that is willing to take a step back and not always have their ego at the forefront. And a great leader is one that I would say empowers other people to be successful because a great leader also knows that they are not always the most intelligent or talented or et cetera person in the room.

Christopher Luna: 49:48

And they need a good team, you know, they need to support that and um hire the right people to support the leader.

unknown: 49:56

Yes.

Christopher Luna: 49:57

So I think, I mean, man, I think that's where your agency you you do a lot.

Goldie Chan: 50:01

Yes.

Christopher Luna: 50:02

Um in this your agency is warm robots.

Goldie Chan: 50:06

Yes.

Christopher Luna: 50:06

So how did you get that name?

Goldie Chan: 50:08

It's so funny because everyone, with the advent of AI, everyone thinks my agency is an AI agency, but I named my agency prior to the massive outburst of AI Everything. I named my agency for an incredibly dorky reason, which I will now share on this podcast, which is it was named after Battlestar Galactica, which is a sci-fi show originally made in the 70s and then rebooted in the what's it 90s, early 2000s? Um, and it's about it's about humanoid robots. So it's based off a sci-fi term, basically. But I like to think that we are all warm robots in a way, right? We have we have a functioning system, but we are warm. We have life to us. So I thought that that would be a very fun thing to name my agency, not knowing that we would then have this giant rush of AI technology that happened, but I named it Warm Robots because I think it's helpful to also think about the analytics and think about the data behind why we do things, why we are why we can be successful or how we can be more successful. So that's part of also why I named it Warm Robots, because I think it's important to also think strategically about things.

Christopher Luna: 51:26

Yeah. I mean, I think in marketing, everything's about the ROI and you have you're and so much data. But when you when I thought of Warm Robots, I'm thinking about how do we bring the life to everything that's so technical and so digital. So nowadays, everything is you don't know who's talking to you anymore. Like is this email written by you or has it been written by someone else? And what I love about these platforms or something else. Exactly. What I love about these platforms is we get to see you, they get to see me. My vocabulary isn't the best. I may not be the right the right person to present certain things or say certain things, but they see me how I am as a person. They're not seeing a newsletter or document, which I was writing, which I was trying to do as well, or I'm still still doing, but it's always good to be in front of the camera because they can see your personality shine through. And in a lot of these positions, um, and or a lot of these recruiters or these companies, it's hard to see that through a resume. It's hard to see that. So when you're able to kind of showcase yourself externally, it's easier for them to recruit you or kind of talk to you in that way.

Goldie Chan: 52:36

I think it makes you a little bit more, we talk a lot, or not we, but I'm sure we'll talk about this later. But I've talked a lot about being AI proof, especially in the job market. When I speak to younger people, we talk a lot about this because that is one of their primary concerns, which is completely understandable. I think that having the person in your personal brand makes you a little bit more technology proof. Having little flubs here and there, I'm sure in this entire conversation, I've misspoken, I've said the wrong word, I've maybe not pluralized when I should. My grammar teacher would be very upset with me. But those little pieces here and there make it very human. And even with AI clones that now you see of people who do podcasts with AI clones, those are a little too perfect still. They don't quite flop. And that makes them, I think, a little bit less interesting to consume, and honestly, a lot less interesting to consume and watch because they don't have that truly human aspect to them. They don't have our little mistakes, our little facial ticks, our little things that we do here and there that make us very human. And I think that once again, being an actual person and showing that off on, say, your social platforms or in person, quite literally in person being a person in person is so helpful for your career.

Christopher Luna: 54:03

You talked about that uh during your breakout session at the convention that we that I went to. Um, you talk about networking and how it's still important. I'm big on networking. Actually, one of my first new letters was called newsletters was called Beyond Networking. I think. And and I at first I didn't think anyone was reading it, but I was talking to uh one an executive and she's like, I love this article that you wrote. And I'm like, oh wow, you know, it's little stories like that. I'm like, okay, if you're reading it, then um, but tell me a little bit about uh that breakout session that you talked about, networking in person.

Goldie Chan: 54:30

Yeah, so we we just we dived into so we dove into so many different subjects during that breakout session, but really thinking about networking. So networking is comprised of two parts. I think most things are online and offline these days. So networking offline, people forget about this. I don't know why people forget about offline networking when we're all still human beings. But so many people want, they want the fast fix. They want the what software can I use to immediately get a thousand leads or a thousand friends or et cetera. And I think there's something still so powerful about meeting in person, having a one-on-one human connection where you connect as humans. I can't believe I even have to say that, but people need to hear that still. You connect as humans and you have a real interaction, you have a real, I love a conversation, right? Once again, it's so great to be like we are right now, in conversation. You're not just saying something and I'm saying a can response, right? We're in conversation, we're listening, we're getting feedback, we're responding. And I think that is the best and most powerful way is to have as many conversations as you can when you are out there. So if you attend conventions like the one we were at, as you know, I did something that was very unpopular during this session. I made everyone talk to one other person in the room, and it was incredibly unpopular because it was a room full of introverts and no one liked me for that. And that's totally fine because at the end of the day, everyone in that room met someone new. And I think that is so helpful to have a conversation with someone new. How else are you going to truly expand your network?

Christopher Luna: 56:16

I talk about that all the time. I go to a lot of conferences and even like uh events where you buy a table, for example. Uh, you'll have this organization, they bought a table, they bring their coworkers and they're sitting down and they're at the same table, or they're talking to the same people. I'm like, guys, there's like 500 people or a thousand people in this room. Expand yourself, like divide and conquer, right? What's the point of coming to these events if you're just talking to people you already know?

Speaker 4: 56:40

Right.

Christopher Luna: 56:40

Um, and I love that you went through that process a little bit and my son was there. And actually, the way you present yourself, the way you stand, what you do with your hands, and you went down this whole um process to it. And I love that because not enough people talk about that. And in reality, from what I see just from these emergent leaders, that's what they need help with. They lost sight of that common sense, they lost sight of how to interact. Um, just yesterday I was in an event and I'm and I'm looking around and I'm like, geez, like, okay, someone needs to kind of talk to these individuals.

Goldie Chan: 57:12

And there's like a lot of right this, right? I'm doing my invisible phone right now, but there's a lot of you're just on, you're looking down all the time. You're always on your mobile device, and there's so much less eye contact conversation, sharing stories.

Christopher Luna: 57:28

It's incredible. Um, I can't believe we're at the hour already. It's uh I've learned so much from you. I really do appreciate you coming on this platform and talking about yourself and talking about your book. I can't wait to get a copy and read it. Thank you. Yes. Where can we find you and and how can we get your book?

Goldie Chan: 57:45

Yes. So you can find me at goldiechan.com pretty easy. Uh, you can also get my book at every major retailer, including Amazon, or you can get it off goldiechan.com slash book B-O-O-K.

Christopher Luna: 57:57

Um, and and what about your your agency? Because I know that's a good thing.

Goldie Chan: 58:01

My agency, Warm Robots. Uh, you can find at warmrobots.com. I'm all about getting the simple URLs.

Christopher Luna: 58:07

Um, there's a lot of people that I work with, there's a lot of nonprofits, there's a lot of big companies that need someone like you in their branding. They need help telling their story. Um, there's a lot of organizations out there that do such great work that can help promote that a little bit more. And it and it and you do so much, uh, so much of that. So I really do appreciate that. And I'm I'm I'm uh looking forward to seeing you again. I appreciate your support.

Speaker 4: 58:34

Absolutely.

Christopher Luna: 58:35

So, again, thank you for joining us. I'm gonna call it California Leaders. So I really love the name. Thank you. Thank you to the person that gave me the idea, but I really do believe that this is gonna expand more than just from Los Angeles. There's a lot of great leaders in our state, um, obviously within the United States, but I think in California in general, I we just have a big footprint personally. I know a lot of people in California, and um, I think that there's so much that we can learn from each other.

Goldie Chan: 59:03

We are the golden state for reason. Exactly.

Christopher Luna: 59:06

So thank you for joining us. Uh, I'll see you on the next one.

Narrator 1: 59:09

Thank you for joining us on this episode of the California Leaders Podcast, hosted by Christopher Luna. We hope you find our conversation as inspiring as we did. Don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback helps us bring more of the content you love. And be sure to follow us on social media for updates, behind the scenes content, and to join the conversation. Until next time, keep leading, keep innovating, and keep making a difference.