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- [00:01]
A
I've got some very exciting news. We've been secretly planning four months and it's finally here. Introducing AI Business World 2026. It's Social Media Examiner's first ever dedicated AI conference. Get trained by top AI marketing practitioners on April 29th and 30th at the Anaheim Convention Center. Learn which tools actually work for your business, master workflows that save you hours daily, and connect with thousands of marketers serious about AI. And here's the best part. It's included at no added cost with your Social Media Marketing World 2026 ticket or get standalone early bird tickets for just $597. But that pricing ends really soon. Head to AI BusinessWorld Live right now to get your tickets. Finally, practical AI marketing training that makes you confident and irreplaceable. Welcome to the Social Media Marketing Podcast, helping you navigate the social media jungle. And now, here is your host, Michael Stelzner. Hello, hello, hello. Thank you so much for joining me for the Social Media Marketing podcast brought to you by Social Media Examiner. I'm your host, Michael Stelzer, and this is the podcast for marketers and business owners who want more exposure, more leads and more sales. Today we're going to talk about personal branding. Yes, Personal branding for marketers and entrepreneurs. If you desire to establish a name for yourself online and or offline in such a way that people know who you are and they want to do business with you, they instinctively are attracted to you and you really don't have to work very hard for opportunities, then today's podcast episode is going to be absolutely fascinating for you. I'm going to be joined by the author of a brand new book, Personal Branding for Introverts, and her name is Goldie Chan. You are absolutely going to love today's interview. And by the way, if you're new to this podcast, be sure you follow this show and whatever episode app you're listening on so you do not miss any of our future content. Let's now transition over to this week's interview with Goldie Chan, helping you to simplify your social safari. Here is this week's expert guide. Today, I'm very excited to be joined by Goldie Chan. If you don't know who Goldie is, she's the author of the new book Personal Branding for Introverts. She's also the founder of Warm Robots, a branding and storytelling agency. She's also a top LinkedIn instructor. Goldie, welcome back to the show. How you doing today?
- [02:47]
B
Hi, Mike. I'm so excited to be back on the show. It was such a long time ago that I was last on the show, but it's so wonderful to be here today. I'm doing great. I'm so excited to jump in.
- [02:58]
A
Awesome. Well, today, Goldie and I are going to explore how marketers and entrepreneurs can build a compelling personal brand. But before we go there, you mentioned it's been a while. Last time you were on the show was 2018, which is like seven years. So tell us a little bit about what's happened in the last seven years with you, the flyovers.
- [03:16]
B
The flyovers, yeah. The quick overview is. Oh, my gosh. So since 2018, I would say that life handed me a plot twist that I wasn't expecting in that I had cancer, and now I'm a cancer survivor. So I'm very thankful, of course, to still be here, to still be working. And I really restarted my career with fresh eyes. And part of that was writing this book, Personal Branding for Introverts, during that period of time. And I hope that it is, of course, a helpful toolkit for folks to be able to use to build their personal brands on whatever platforms they find themselves on.
- [03:54]
A
Well, and you can tell us a little bit more, Emma, about what your brand was before, if you want, and a little bit about what your brand is now.
- [04:00]
B
Yeah. So I think before my brand, it's so funny because my nickname, and Mike knows this, my nickname before was the Oprah of LinkedIn by Huffington Post. And now I think I have a much more holistic brand, as in I'm on a lot more platforms and now I focus beyond simply. Okay, we're going to talk about LinkedIn now. It's really everything in the branding, marketing, storytelling universe.
- [04:26]
A
Perfect. Okay, so there's a lot of people listening right now, and there's a lot of marketers and there's a lot of entrepreneurs listening. Why should they care about personal branding? Said another way, when this is done well, what's the upside?
- [04:40]
B
Upsides, There's a few. So, number one, trust travels farther than ads. I think when you build the right personal brand, that can be so much more effective than, say, dropping a ton of money into ads. So organic marketing always is what has my heart. And I know there's so many amazing ad people out there. So that's probably my hot take on personal branding. Also, it helps you be differentiated in a crowded market. I think now there are so many people, for example, who even do marketing to get meta, and it helps you stand out if you have your own personal brand and your own distinctive Take on a subject that is covered by a ton of other people also, it becomes a magnet for opportunities. I remember when I first started developing my personal brand, there were so many people who discovered me simply because I was standing out from the crowd. And once again, not because I necessarily said the thing that was the diamond idea, the most original idea in the world, but it was because I had a distinctive point of view, and that's what people want. Also built in community and loyalty. So if you are able to build a community around you, build an audience, you have that ability then to market to that audience, and then to ask for support from that audience. And then finally, I like to think about myself and my own journey. But you can have resilience through change. So even if you have changes that happen to you, for me, it was taking off six to eight months just for cancer treatment, and I didn't work at all during that time. But because I have such a strong personal brand, it was really wonderful that when I started back again, when I started with work again, I was able to reach out to folks and say, hey, I'm just starting to work again. Do you have something? And at the very minimum, most people didn't, but they did have a few kind words or they did have, hey, reach out again in six months, because maybe I'll have something that.
- [06:46]
A
Yeah. And I have some more to add to this. I think that I love everything you said.
- [06:50]
B
Yeah.
- [06:51]
A
I also think that when you have established yourself and you're known in a community as someone who stands for something or who is an authority on something, opportunities kind of flock to you. If I think about the way that I believe I found you and some of your other peers, like Michaela, Alexis, I believe you guys were chosen, if I'm not mistaken, to be on a panel at VidCon. And then eventually I met y'. All. And usually, you know, people that get chosen to be part of these kinds of things are people that have established, in the eyes of the event coordinators, some sort of an authority on whatever platforms, and people perceive them as someone worthy of being invited to speak. And as a lot of people know, it's the holy grail sometimes to be able to speak at some of these kinds of events that are very specific about how they do what they do. Sometimes it leads to book deals. And down the road, you know, this, people do business with those whom they know like and they trust, and they can't know you if you haven't developed a brand for yourself. They can't like you if you haven't been someone they've seen consistently over time, and they can't trust you, especially if you just claim you're an expert in this thing. Trust me, that's not how it works. Right. So I feel like it just opens up opportunities and they kind of flock in. Did you find that to be the case when you were really a LinkedIn authority?
- [08:16]
B
Yeah. So I want to clarify, because I think it's so funny, I think because it happened so many years ago, we forget how the origin stories of things. So I remember, remember back when VidCon was just had the very inkling of being interested in LinkedIn and LinkedIn creators, I actually went to VidCon and I said, I want to put together the first ever LinkedIn Creator Summit. How can we make that happen? How can we have a collaboration between LinkedIn and VidCon? I will do all the work behind it. So I put together this amazing panel that had all of these wonderful folks that were doing really great things at the time. And a lot of it was me doing that work of saying, I'm going to work with LinkedIn, I'm going to work with my fellow creators and my colleagues. And I want to say that's part of community. Right. Having community means being able to tap into folks that you know and pull them on stage with you. And I do want to say that being part of that particular event was so wonderful. And I'm sure, Mike, you will agree with this, is when you speak at one event, that begets other speaking opportunities. So because I had spoken at VidCon, because I had put together the first ever LinkedIn Creator Summit and hosted it, that opened up doors so I could speak at Social Media Marketing World, which I was very thankful to speak at. And I wouldn't have necessarily gotten on your radar had I not been a part of that larger LinkedIn creator conference that I helped put together, because I was one of a few speakers too, I think that actually was almost better than if I was the only speaker. So community is very important.
- [09:54]
A
Yeah. And don't discount, like, the power of people in the community. For example, Jim Lauderback, who was the general manager of VidCon, and I have known each other forever. So it makes it so much easier. You just never know who's in the community, who's in the crowd, and that can open up opportunities for all sorts of fascinating things. So thanks for going down memory lane with me a little bit. So let's now talk about where do we actually begin? Because let's say okay, everybody, I'm sold on personal branding. I know I need to do a better job. Some of us are already doing it, but maybe we're not doing it as well as we should. So where do we actually start?
- [10:29]
B
Okay, so let's start with the true foundation of your personal brand. And I'm going to go through a few different words and they're all going to start with C because I love alliteration. So the first word, Mike, is clarity. And clarity truly is the foundation for every single touch point of your personal brand. So it is the one what of your personal brand? It's what do you stand for? What do you want to be known for? You need to have clarity of what is even the emotional takeaway that people should have when they visit and they think of your brand. All of this is tied into your clarity of your brand. So I will give an example of a high powered client that I work with. I work with a lot of directors and C level executives and above on building their personal brands. And this was a high powered real estate executive. And she had a delightful, wonderful offline brand where she had a ton of authority, but she didn't have a ton of online authority simply because she didn't show up online. So where we started with her, and let's be frank, more of her team, we started with what are her brand pillars? So what does she want to be known for? So she wants to be known for luxury real estate. She wants to be known for her fierce negotiation skills. She wants to be known for her deep community ties, both in her local community and then also globally with other luxury real estate markets. So those were the three pillars for her that we focused on when we were developing her brand. And that all comes from, at the end of the day, that comes from that clarity. She knew what her brand wanted to be after we had a discussion and we built everything else around that clarity.
- [12:21]
A
I've got some questions. First of all, yes, I forgot to ask this one. I wanted to ask this one earlier. And we're going to come back to this clarity thing in a second. But do you have to be the entrepreneur or the owner to be able to have a personal brand or can you actually be someone who works for a business? Does that make sense?
- [12:35]
B
No, you can absolutely be someone that works for a business and has your own brand. I'm going to bring up a term that's brand new and that's employee generated content. EGC it's very interesting that now all of these brands and corporations are actually very excited about people who have personal brands. And especially if your personal brand is aligned to the company or the corporation, of course, use. I always have to say this, Use common sense. So if you're building a personal brand that is not at all aligned to the company or corporation that you work for or work within, they're going to be a lot less excited about you having a personal brand. But still within those boundaries, within those guidelines, there's so much that you can do.
- [13:20]
A
And I would imagine, I mean, they might not care if you have a personal brand if it's a hobby. Right. If it's a hobby thing and it's got something nothing to do with the business. If you're into like craft brewery beers and you work in retail, well, that's. There's no necessarily connection there. But. But if you have a craft beer hobby and you work for a brewery or you work for a media company that's all about that industry, well, then that's going to be very valuable. And in some reg, your personal brand can increase your value for your next job opportunity, right?
- [13:47]
B
Yes. I love that you said that, Mike. If I can interrupt you really quickly and say, yeah, go for it, you increase your value. So I like to think that personal brand is something that we have power over and that we can do to increase our value. And oftentimes so many of us are like, well, what's the financial input that I have to do? And this is the power once again over ads. Is that personal brand. So much of it you could do organically, so much of it becomes word of mouth and how much energy you put in. So you can do quite a bit.
- [14:18]
A
Okay, so back to the clarity. So I want to bring clarity to the clarity. So you talked about how the big question we should ask ourselves is what do we stand for and what do we want to be known for? And then you mentioned that there are three pillars. With one of your clients that was a real estate exec, and one of them was fierce negotiation. Another one was active in the community, and I don't remember what the other one was. But how do we come up with these? Like, give us some guidance on how to come up with these pillars. That would be really helpful for people.
- [14:51]
B
Absolutely. So when you're thinking about your brand pillars, I think it comes down to. Let's start one step back with brand keywords. So with brand keywords, we begin there. I call them the three golden keywords. I have to. My name is Goldie. So the three. I know the three keywords that we're thinking of come from two different sets of keywords. One is a soft keyword, and that's an adjective, and one is a hard keyword. Now that's what you do for a living. So for this real estate executive, she is at the end of the day, an executive, right. And her two keywords might be fierce and thoughtful. Right. Are fierce and community oriented. And all of these are her brand keywords. Now, from here, once we have our three keywords that we're focused on for our brand, then we can start to think about our brand pillars. We build upon our keywords. So the brand pillars then become what are the elements that we want to be known for? So I might be known for my writing, but I really want to be known for being the author of this upcoming book. So that is then the brand pillar versus the writing is more of the brand keyword. So we always start with keywords and then we move on to our pillars.
- [16:06]
A
Is the pillar still part of the what?
- [16:07]
B
Yes, absolutely.
- [16:09]
A
So help us understand how you went from like executive fierce and community focused into pillars, just so people can kind of grok that a little bit.
- [16:16]
B
Yeah. So when you're thinking of your what, right? Who you are, that one noun that defines you, or maybe one or two nouns that defines you, then you want to add in an adjective on top of that. So while she is an executive, she's a very specific kind of executive. She's a luxury executive. So she works only in luxury goods. So she's not doing everyday commercial real estate. She only wants to be known for everything that's over, let's say 20 million. And that's not even really luxury.
- [16:49]
A
And that's California. Just for folks that are living outside.
- [16:51]
B
Of California, that's not really luxury. So that's the very. The lowest end of what she would do. But really she's more in the hundred million or above range. But it's really adding on those words on top of those clever nouns that we came up with.
- [17:07]
A
And those pillars serve what purpose? Just so people can wrap their brain around that.
- [17:11]
B
Yeah. So those pillars, then those become the foundation for building our personal brand. Because then we know, okay, when we're thinking about content, which we will discuss later, when we're thinking about content, then we can funnel that content through. Okay, we really want to show that she's a luxury real estate executive. So one thing that we did with her account is that we showed a lot of pieces of luxury real estate, luxury developments that she's working on that she's helped put together. We're also making sure that in the captions it talks about, this was a $2.5 billion deal. Right. So everyone understands that it is a luxury real estate deal. It is not an everyday real estate deal. But you also, you're having, like, beautiful images tied with this. And then we're showing some of honestly, her own luxury lifestyle. So some of how she goes to the Hamptons all the time and all of these other different luxury elements of just even her personal life.
- [18:08]
A
Love it. Thanks for going down the clarity path with me. So I know that's just the beginning. You've got a bunch more Cs here, so let's get to the next letter.
- [18:16]
B
C. So the next letter C is competence. I love it. It's not just a skill set, but it is a strong signal that you know what you're doing. So it's the why, it's the purpose behind your brand. Competence is the quiet power of knowing what you do well and doing it consistently. So you're going to let that excellence, let that knowledge speak for itself. I would say in personal branding, competence is often overlooked. Other people would replace this with charisma or visibility. But I think that competence is the actual meat in the sandwich. Right? Because you can have a sandwich that's just two pieces of bread, and that's maybe not the most pleasant sandwich, but you could have a sandwich that has meat, has lettuce, has tomatoes, has whatever fixings you like, and that is the competence part of your personal brand. So I think of a really wonderful example. His name is Levar Burton, and he has shown up for decades in educational American programming like Reading Rainbow. He shows up with care, precision, and purpose, and he's either reading stories or. Or advocating for literacy. He was also in Star Trek as Geordi La Forge. So he had his nerd moment there.
- [19:33]
A
Okay.
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B
Yeah.
- [19:34]
A
Is he the one that had the glasses, like, where he could have a special.
- [19:37]
B
Yes.
- [19:38]
A
Okay. I didn't realize that was him. Okay.
- [19:40]
B
Yeah, so that's him. So he was not only on this very literacy focus children's show, but he was also on one of the most, I would argue, iconic tv, like dramas or sci fi shows.
- [19:53]
A
Next Generation, right?
- [19:54]
B
Yeah, yeah. Star Trek, tng. So it's people like that. He's so good at his job. Like, he was so good not only at his role in Star Trek, but he was so good at reading books to children that he's actually known independently for those two things because he had competence.
- [20:14]
A
So help me understand, like, how in the world we come up. I mean, you said it's the why or the purpose. So what is Lavar's purpose when it comes to the reading stuff? Maybe you could help us unravel that just so we can wrap our head around this.
- [20:26]
B
Yeah. So his wire purpose is he loves encouraging literacy. So he loves. And this is something he's done even now, years later, is a lot of his focus. He will go into local libraries in Los Angeles because that's where he's based. He'll go and do readings with young people. He'll volunteer for events he is very focused on. He's. I think he just recently wrapped a documentary also on literacy. So his why, his purpose is to make sure that more Americans are reading. And that's seen through all of his work and all of his encouragement of, you know, really pushing forward the next generation of readers and encouraging the next generation. I shouldn't even say the next generation, but yes, I don't know. I said it so naturally, I wasn't even trying to say that. But yes, he's encouraging the next generation of folks who are potentially interested in learning how to read, which is like our youngest generation. That's what he is deeply passionate about. That's his why, that's his purpose, and it really comes through his work.
- [21:31]
A
I want you to read something a business owner told us after Social media Marketing World 2025. She said, quote, the AI teaching was mind blowing. I realized if I hadn't attended, there's a good chance my business would have been obsolete within a year. I'm now so far ahead of my competitors, unquote, said agency owner Melanie Miller. That hit me hard, because that's exactly why AI feels so urgent right now. It's not hype. It's a real competitive advantage. So here's what we did. We created AI Business World 2026, our first dedicated AI conference, an entire conference focused completely on practical AI marketing training. It takes place April 29th and 30th at the Anaheim Convention center in California, walking distance to Disneyland. You get 20 sessions to choose from with AI practitioners who will show you exactly which tools work, how to build workflows that save hours every day, and how to implement AI without losing your authentic voice. You'll leave knowing which AI tools to use for each marketing task. No more guessing, no more tool paralysis, just clarity and confidence. If you have a Social Media Marketing World 2026 ticket, this is included free. Otherwise, early bird standalone Tickets are only $597. Don't get left behind. Get your tickets at AIbusinessworld live Finally, AI training that actually makes you irreplaceable. So then, what tips do you have for those of us that maybe have got the first part? This clarity. We know kind of the what, but maybe we don't have the why completely figured out. Do you have any insights as to how to get to the core of the why?
- [23:14]
B
So I think what's helpful with getting to the core of the why is looking at yourself a little bit more closely. What is it that you're naturally drawn towards? Are you drawn towards, say, volunteering in your community, in after school programs in a very specific way? Are you drawn towards in your work? Maybe you're drawn towards all of the branding and marketing events and you think that that's really cool and all of that is like you will go out of your way to go to every single one of the marketing events that you can find in your area. Or maybe you're very passionate about networking, or maybe you're passionate about cars in a very specific way. So I think it's always helpful to understand, first of all, what do you care about? And then sometimes that passion is of course a hobby, but sometimes that passion is a thorough line that can bring through your personal brand. Because maybe you like cars, but maybe you love volunteering, right? Maybe you love helping others fix their cars. Now that can be something that you bring into your own personal brand, is that you love to help others. So while your day job might be at an oil company, you might still love to help people. So you might join the mentorship program at your company, right? So it's all about what is that driving force behind a lot of what you do and what do you genuinely enjoy? Because a personal brand should be based in reality, should be based in you. That's why we say personal brand.
- [24:46]
A
Well, I love it. And I think if I think about myself, what I would say about me is I like making the complex, simple. I like helping people understand things that are maybe a little bit confusing. I do that through this show. I do it through my other show I explored. It's all about helping people understand how to put AI to work in that particular case. And it's about if I really lift it up, it's about empowering marketers and entrepreneurs to achieve at whatever their mission is in their career, which is typically more leads, more sales, and more exposure. So my why is I'm very passionate about recruiting, curating experts and then asking them the questions that other people wish they could ask them.
- [25:32]
B
Yeah, Mike, I think that you are Such a connector, you know, to. Not to use another C word, but I think that you are definitely a connector of people. I think, you know, I think about. There's this one Marvel movie that came out a few years ago, but I think about you are a connector and a collector of people.
- [25:49]
A
Okay.
- [25:50]
B
I think. And a curator of people. I have so many C words to use, but I'm with you on the curator for sure. Yeah. I think curator is so good. Because I think, Mike, what you excel in, especially with your personal brand, is people know that you handpick these people, especially folks that you pick for to speak on the podcast or at your conference, is that you're curating those people for specific reasons to bring them to your audience because you hope or you know, that they will bring something of value. And I think being a curator is such an amazing competence that not everyone has. So I think, Mike, that, to me, is where you really shine, is you are such a curator, especially in the offline space. And I think absolutely what you said is true about the online space. I think that you're really good at making those bigger, more difficult concepts really simple and unraveling a lot of that for people when it becomes way too. You know, we love our technical terms in marketing and branding, but I think that you do a really great job of making those things very understandable, very accessible.
- [26:57]
A
Thank you. Okay, well, so we started with competence. We went into our second C, which is confidence, which is. Sounds a lot like competence, but it's different. Oh, no, no, I'm sorry, we skipped ahead. No, we started with. What do we start with? We start with.
- [27:11]
B
We started with clarity.
- [27:12]
A
Oh, clarity. Then we went to competence. Now I've given away the next one, confidence. So let's go ahead and talk about confidence.
- [27:20]
B
Okay, so why is confidence so. So important? Well, how does it connect to personal branding? I believe that it is the engine that revs personal branding. It drives forward. It's how you express yourself. Right. It is you showing up. It allows you to own your story. And it was what, at the end of the day, allow you to be remembered. And let's jump into another example of this. And actually, before I jump into the example, I want to say that confidence, and I have to say this because I wrote a book about introverts. Confidence isn't always being the loudest or the most extroverted in the room. It's truly about being anchored in your worth and knowing what you bring to the table. Because confidence is always knowing who you are, are in the room. Versus ego is shouting who you are in the room.
- [28:15]
A
I like that.
- [28:16]
B
I want to start with that, but let's go into a quick example. So I have a friend, her name is Sheena Yap Chan, and she's also another author. And she's built an entire platform around empowering Asian women through confidence. And I think that she does such a beautiful job of addressing cultural conditioning that makes most Asian women want to shrink into the background. She addresses that, and she says that we should reclaim confidence, really, as a radical act of visibility. In fact, she has a whole framework around being literally visible, where every single letter of the visible word, visible, represents something. I don't know it off the top of my head, but she didn't wait for permission even to write her own book, right? Her own two books. She built her brand completely on her mission. I mean, her book is literally called the Tao of Self Confidence. So I pretty sure that she's a very confident person. And everyone that she interviews, she talks about, what was your moment of confidence? How did you find that moment where you stood up for yourself and you really advocated for yourself and you said, this is what I want to be known for. And so it is. It is what I'm known for.
- [29:32]
A
You know, it's interesting because a lot of people deal with imposter syndrome, right? Which is this desire to be known for something, but also knowing that there might be others who are more well known than you are in this thing and this comparison trap, right? Which is, well, I'm not worthy because this person is worthy. Yet maybe to the right community, you're more than worthy. Right. Because so many people, like, for the longest time, people have credited me as a social marketing expert, and that's not true. They've just imputed the wisdom of the people that like you that I brought on my podcast. And I say, no, I don't seek to be that. Instead, I'm the curator of experts.
- [30:09]
B
Yeah, I hope you keep using that curator word because it's so perfect for you, Mike.
- [30:12]
A
I'm so confident that I am a good curator, but I'm not confident that I understand all the things. Right. I simply don't. But I am confident that I can help others understand it by bringing experts on. So how does one figure out how to, like, unravel this confidence thing? Because it's kind of a worthy thing of just dialoging on for a minute.
- [30:31]
B
Yeah. I think that with confidence, everything is. You know, I love another word that I tie to confidence a lot, and that's calm. I Think the best people in the room, the people who are leaders. You know, even if you aren't a founder or entrepreneur, you can be a leader of your team if you just exude that calm confidence. I think we've all been at conventions or conferences where we see that person that is just calm and confident. They seem very sure of themselves without being egotistical. And those are the people that we flock to. Now how you get there in your own life, there's really two tracks I like to think of. One is your personal life and was your professional life. I'm going to start with your professional life. I think in your professional life if you feel more insecure, especially in meetings, especially in live events, et cetera, I think it's helpful to have a script. It's helpful to say, okay, in this one meeting, I want to make sure that I say this one thing out loud. So take notes, write it on your notes app, on your phone, write it on a post it note. It is okay to always have notes. So you can bring that to the table and say I wanted to make sure that I said this and then you read from those notes. Now I think on the opposite side to talk about your personal life, I think that it's always helpful to just know that you are worthy of being in that space. And I, you know, not to get all woo woo on you, but I think that it is helpful that if words of affirmation work with you, it's to have a phrase that you repeat yourself too. Especially if you feel that your self confidence is really low that you say even the simplest phrase like I am worthy of being in this room of and then whoever the room is of, so I'm worthy of being and you just say that three to five times every single day. And our brains are funny where they, you know, they connect. I was a biology major in college, but I think neurons are so amazing and that if we say enough things enough times, right. It starts to connect in our brain. Which is why it's helpful to not say too many of those negative things to ourselves and try to say more of the forward moving things for ourselves.
- [32:44]
A
It's really interesting because I remember when I was younger I had heard some studies about how people who are like basketball players would visualize themselves making the dunk shots or whatever, right. Over and over again. And their brain doesn't quite know the difference between practicing in your mind versus practicing in reality. And there is something about programming your mind. Like I have daily affirmations that my coaches have given Me that I read every day.
- [33:08]
B
Mike, I have to put you on the spot. I'm going to ask you, what is one of them? Or maybe one of the older ones if you don't want to share a new one.
- [33:14]
A
I have so many of them, it's ridiculous.
- [33:17]
B
Like, I would love to hear one, Mike. Okay, please share one with the audience.
- [33:20]
A
I'm going to go ahead and open it up literally right now. But where I'm going with this, it's called my morning manifest. So here we go. Today, I'm a visionary leader, foreseeing industry trends and inspiring my team with a clear purpose. My innovative thinking and adaptive strategies set me apart, allowing us to stay ahead and grow efficiently. That's the opening sentence. Okay, but there's so many more things in here. Like, this is so ridiculously long. My wife and I have the freedom to travel anywhere we choose. That's an example of just reminding me that, like, hey, I can go places, I can do things. I've got a little picture of Yoda in here because I feel like Yoda sometimes, you know? And I've got all these little quotes in here, too, like Reid Hoffman, get busy living or get busy dying. If you're not growing, you're contracting. If you're not moving forward, you're moving backward. So I just read, like, literally these things every single day, and I believe them. And now they're, like, part of who I am. Some of them at the beginning weren't true, but over time they became true. And I feel like that's important.
- [34:20]
B
You have to believe that they're true. I think it's called the law of assumption, is that you assume that these things are true. Because you assume that they're true, your brain starts to rewire in a fascinating way that then makes them become true. So say that you and your wife weren't able to travel all the time, right? Say that it was an earlier part in your life when you were younger and you didn't have all the resources. But if you keep saying that to yourself over time, here's what's magical. If you just say that to yourself all the time, you stay at home, you never work. It's not going to change anything. But if you say that to yourself all the time and you say you meet a new person who's like, oh, I have this great project. It'll take you overseas, and you will think differently about that opportunity because you have been saying this mantra to yourself over and over. You're like, oh, maybe this is the beginning of Being able to travel all the time with my partner. Right. So I think it's also having those mantras are so helpful because it opens the door to your own belief system that you are able to do that and you will be more thoughtful about opportunities that come your way.
- [35:31]
A
What I love about this concept of confidence is it leads to action.
- [35:36]
B
Yes.
- [35:37]
A
And I read the book 10x is easier than 2x. Strongly recommend the book. It's phenomenal. As a result of it, I have ended up starting a software company, which I'm not yet talking about publicly because I'm not ready to. But prior to this, you want to know what I told myself? I told myself the lies that everyone else told me. You can't start a software company. It's too complicated. You can't start a software company because it's too expensive. Well, it turns out, yes, it's complicated and yes, it's expensive, but indeed, I started a software company. And literally this Friday, we're having a little internal celebration because we are now a software company.
- [36:13]
B
Oh, my gosh.
- [36:13]
A
And we have a vision to have a hundred thousand customers by 2027. And every time I meet with my leadership team, I keep reminding them what that vision is. It seemed impossible. I used to tell my team 100,000 felt impossible at first, didn't it? Now it seems highly possible. And it's actually gone from possible to probable and from probable to likely. And that's when you have confidence. When you have confidence, it's. You said it's fuel. It's what revs your personal branding. I feel like this is a massive unlock that a lot of people really haven't talked about.
- [36:44]
B
I think that confidence is so powerful. I think that too many people, though, confuse it with ego. Right. I'm sure, Mike, you've been in the room with these folks, and I'm not going to name names, but I definitely was at a conference once and I sat at this table and this person sat down next to me and she was like. It was funny because she's like, oh, you're Goldie. And I was just like, yes, hi, it's nice to meet you. And she's like, don't you know who I am? And I thought that was like, what a hilarious way to introduce yourself. Because I was like, I looked kind of closely and I was like, I think you might be this person. And that's also me and my Swiss cheese braids. So, like, you know, I apologize that person for not recognizing that at the first. But they were so apparent upset right they had come to the conversation with ego instead of confidence. Because the very confident way that that person would approach me would be like, hi, Goldie, I'm Blah. It's so great to finally meet you. I love to, like, talk more about ways we could work together. Instead, she came to it with like, you're Goldie. You should know who I am. Why don't you know who I am? And then she kept pulling me actually away from a conversation I was having with one of my delightful friends. I will name him on this podcast. Mike Alton.
- [37:49]
A
Oh, yeah, I know Mike.
- [37:50]
B
Yeah, yeah, you know Mike. Of course you know Mike. And so I was having this delightful conversation with Mike, and I just remember, like, I kept wanting to go back into that Mike conversation, but this other person kept pulling me away from it. And I think they came from a place of either ego or insecurity or something or the other. And I just remember if that person had come from a place of just like, confidence, of really knowing who they were, I would have 100% talked to them and been like, yes, let's collaborate. But because they came from such a place of ego or insecurity, and they just were so upset at me by the end of this two second conversation that it felt like a person that maybe we wouldn't have been such a good fit to partner on. So I think that confidence opens doors, and the ego and insecurity that closes the doors.
- [38:37]
A
Love it. And as someone who has had ego, it's hard to let go of ego. Let me just tell you, folks, like, I. I mean, like, some people are going to say, oh, I've met Mike, he has ego. I don't think I have it as much as I used to, but I for sure used to have it. Okay, so we've talked about clarity. Clarity is the what, right? What is it that you stand for? Then we've gotten into the competence, right? What is the why behind what you do? Like the lavar Burton thing about trying to help Americans, especially young Americans, read and improve literacy. Then we talked about confidence. We spent a fair amount of time on confidence. We went down to the gal, Sheena Yap Chan, I think you said was her name, who wrote that book. And now we've got yet another C. So what's the next C? You've hinted to this earlier in the conversation.
- [39:22]
B
Yeah, we've. We've talked about this a little bit. And Mike, you're so familiar with this one. And this is community. So this is the who, the where to create. This is how we Think about where you're broadcasting your personal brand to. So because if you have a personal brand and once again, if you sit at home and you think, I'm going to create an amazing personal brand and you never go online, you never talk to anyone else, you never do anything, you will just not have a personal brand because you will live in a vacuum. But if you are around other people, that's so amazing, a personal brand then becomes not just a solo spotlight, it becomes a campfire that people can gather around. And that is the power of community. So I will give an example of. It's really funny. My partner has an incredibly popular Facebook group. It is for comedians who love cats and specifically in the LA area. So it is niche down.
- [40:21]
A
Cat comedians, like, do they call them cat comedians or are they just like, they happen to love cats?
- [40:27]
B
They happen to love cats and they're also comedians. And now I think it's opened up to broader, simply folks who live in the LA area. But it started really as a group just for comedians who live in LA who also happen to love cats. And this is a highly engaged group. You know, there's, I think sometimes we're part of groups and I certainly have been in Facebook groups where, where you just have no new posts in a week or something like that. This group has now three or four offshoot groups and you have several posts a day. It's incredibly active. People have made business contacts from this group, people have made romantic contacts from this group, people have made friends from this group. They literally all got together and watched the movie Cats together. Very, very well brand, very well branded. And it's funny because my partner is a lifetime Garfield lover. So he loves Garfield, which is also once again on brand for him that he would run a cat Facebook group as a Garfield lover. So in terms of personal brand and community, it's always helpful to think instead of look at me, which is once again a very ego driven or insecurity driven thing. Instead you're saying, sit with me. I love to think once again of that campfire analogy. You're saying, come join me, come join us. Which is what I think of not to be meta, but that's what this podcast is, right? Is is Mike, this is you and me saying, come join us. We're going to talk about personal branding together and we're going to hopefully share some knowledge and share some learnings, et cetera. That is the power of personal branding. Community is that you are sharing beyond just yourself.
- [42:12]
A
Love it. We got another C, folks. What's our Fifth C. Okay.
- [42:17]
B
Our fifth C is consistency. It's the where you're going to share this content. It's also the actual content itself. I already said that other word. And it's both online and offline. Where are you going to show up? And I think it's where your brand lives. It's not only the content that you create, but over time, how often and how frequently you are going to share that content with others and how you show up. It's all of the different platforms that you might be on and all of the moments that your audience that your community remembers you for. So I like to think that this is the moment that builds, we talked about trust. That builds that trust. It's that reputation you want to repeat with integrity. So I will pause right there and I will give an example from myself this time. So on LinkedIn, back around when Mike and I met each other, I was making videos daily on LinkedIn. I called it DailyGoldie. I did over 800 daily consecutive videos on the platform. Over two years of content every single day. I never missed a single day. There was never a 24 hour period that I didn't post a video on LinkedIn that I had basically made myself. So this was essentially me, not a big team. Every single day. I showed up in some days, especially in the beginning because I'm not a video editor, some days those videos were very rough. Some days those videos were very beautiful.
- [43:46]
A
Were they live or were they edited?
- [43:48]
B
They were edited. Okay, they were edited and they. Well, actually, I will say this. The first few videos, the first 30 were not edited. They were. I shot them on my phone and I uploaded them. So I think that that's as close to life as humanly possible. They didn't have any transitions. There were no fancy nothing happening in them. Even in the beginning I didn't necessarily know how to caption. So it wasn't even till later videos I figured out, even just captioning my videos, but they were videos that I showed up for every single day. And then eventually I did. I think I was the second one person ever to do a LinkedIn Live. And one of the first ever LinkedIn Live streams I did was at NASA in Florida. I showed a launch using LinkedIn Live and at the time it was incredibly buggy. So I think halfway through this launch the screen just went completely black. But that's what chat is for, right? So I do, over time I've done so many videos and I like to think this about all kinds of content. And once again, Mike I'm sure you agree with me on this, which is you can put out 100, 200 pieces of content, but everyone will see a fraction of those pieces of things that you put out. So even a podcast that somebody subscribed to, folks are human. They might skip an episode, they might miss an episode. They won't listen to, maybe every single episode. And it's not with intention that they don't listen. It's just people are busy. Lives happen. But what you want is you want to create enough content with enough consistency that when people discover you too, they can go back and listen to your backlog. If you have a podcast or if you have a substack or other newsletter, they can go back and they can read more of your blog or newsletter. Or if you have videos, they can watch more of those videos. It's all about whatever that entry point is. It should expand into an entire universe for them.
- [45:39]
A
And folks, normally when we talk about personal branding, we just focus exclusively on content. What I love about today's interview is we focused on a lot more than that. But I do want to ask you specifically about the offline side of this, because this is the social media marketing podcast. But you all are listening to this. Technically, offline, meaning unless you're watching on YouTube, you have AirPods in probably, and you're like running or you're at the gym, or you're driving your kids to school, or you're on an airplane. Some of you, hey, it's nice flying with you.
- [46:10]
B
It's nice to be in the air with you.
- [46:11]
A
So talk to us a little bit about the offline side of it.
- [46:14]
B
Yeah. So I would love to use an example of something we are both familiar with for offline, which is Social media Marketing World. Such a fun conference. And I've had the joy of speaking out there a couple of different times. Unless I'm totally wrong, I think I have spoken there.
- [46:28]
A
I think you've been there at least twice.
- [46:30]
B
Yeah, at least twice. Yeah, at least twice. And if I've been there a third time, I apologize, Mike, because I don't remember the third time, but I do remember the first two times because it was a massive deal to me to speak at Social Media Marketing World. And this is, I think, where that consistency community, all of actually the Cs roll in together, right? Because you want to show up as someone that's calmly confident in a space like that. You want to show up as somebody who is looking forward to if you don't already have your own community that you are going to build community for me. I had a little bit of online community, right? I had, I think at the time when I first spoke, maybe I had 40,000 followers on LinkedIn. Now I have over 100,000. But at the time, I had enough followers on LinkedIn that people recognize me at social media marketing World. And one of the things that I love to do personally is I give out stickers, I give out little swag things, which I know a lot of other people do. And that's just a nice thing to do for your community. And I also, you know, tried to show up in a way that was very competent. Right? Hopefully. So I was there usually speaking, usually giving pieces of advice. I think the first time I was there, I'm pretty positive I must have been speaking on LinkedIn. There's, there's such, such a zero chance that I wasn't LinkedIn, so that it was LinkedIn 100% chance. So it was so interesting to go there and really embody all of those three Cs at a conference that is so focused on consistency and specifically the content. I think that is where social media marketing world shines is the content and the consistency and then also the community building. Right? Meeting new people. I for sure have met so many people at social media marketing world that I didn't know, or I will say this, people in my community that have only known me online and then I was able to meet them offline, which then further builds your relationship with your community members. Because we're still humans at the end of the day, it's still so powerful to be able to connect with each other as humans, as people, one on one. So I cannot recommend enough to. Even if you are an introvert and, you know, I get it. I feel overwhelmed at conferences to try going to conferences that make sense. And for those of you who are interested more in the marketing business world to, of course, you know, try going to social media marketing world. I think it's in Anaheim in this coming year, right?
- [48:53]
A
Mike, you've done your homework. And by the way, folks who are listening, you do not have to go to an event and speak to be part of the community. Like there are local meetups happening in your community that you can just participate in. Like I'm in a local creator meetup and I just show up. I almost always provide value. I try to provide value. Some people know who I am, others don't. But, like, there's so many different ways that you can show up. And what's great about showing up in person is it takes that random number online and it makes it real. You understand what I mean by that? Like, like you might have X thousands of followers. Well, it's just a number. But when you actually get a chance to actually meet them and, and shake hands and have conversations and maybe go out and get pizza or whatever, like, that's where the actual relationship building deepens and that's where being part of a community consistently, and that can happen online or offline, but just actively participating and showing up is part of what I think is really important. Would you agree with that?
- [49:50]
B
Yes. I think two words here are so important, which is showing up. I think so many of us fear showing up. We don't want to be perceived or we worry how are people going to see us. No, I don't want to mess up. I don't want to do this. I think it's better to show up imperfect, to show up messy, than to not show up at all. Because it will a hundred percent. I guarantee that you will have a bigger network, that you will get further in your career if you keep showing up. And as, as long as you're not a psychopath, you know, and I think there's some people who are of course psychopaths, but as long as you are a regular, honest, you know, cool human being, showing up is the way to grow your community, to grow your network, to have doors open for you. Because you never know in that creator meetup that you were talking about, someone might say, you know, say, Mike, you were, you had a different business and you were looking for clients. They might say, oh, Mike, I have the right client for you. And you would not know that had you not shown up. And person. And this is once again just a human thing. I think we are all so much more willing to open the doors of our network to people we meet in person. Because there's a little bit of a gut check of saying, like, is this person nuts or is this person someone I want to introduce the rest of my network? And when you pass that just by being a normal, regular human being once again, then I think that you get so many opportunities so that, so it's not even about being like, you don't have to be the stellar person in the room, you don't have to be the superstar in the room. You just have to show up as yourself and use a little common sense.
- [51:33]
A
Goldie Chan, author of the new book Personal Branding for Introverts presumably the best platform to connect with you on is still LinkedIn, is that correct?
- [51:41]
B
Absolutely.
- [51:41]
A
And if people want to potentially work with you in any kind of capacity. Where do you want to send them?
- [51:46]
B
They can find me on my website goldiechan.com Goldie, thank you so much for.
- [51:50]
A
Sharing your insights with us today.
- [51:52]
B
Thank you so much for having me, Mike.
- [51:54]
A
By the way, Goldie is going to be doing a workshop at Social media Marketing World 2026 on personal branding. So if you're thinking about coming and you love what you heard from Goldie, she's going to spend 90 minutes with you with your all access ticket. And by the way, if there was anything we mentioned and you missed it, we took all the notes for you over@socialmediaexaminer.com 6 if you're new to the show, be sure to follow us. If you've been a longtime listener, would you give us a review on whatever platform you're on and or share this with your friends? Do check out our other shows, the AI Explored Podcast and the Social Media Marketing Talk Show. This brings us to the end of the Social Media Marketing Podcast. I'm your host. Michael Stelzner will be back with you next week. I hope you make the best out of your day and may your marketing keep evolving. The Social Media Marketing Podcast is a production of Social Media Examiner. Don't miss AI Business World 2026, our first ever dedicated AI conference taking place April 29th and 30th in Anaheim, California. Learn from top AI practitioners about which tools, work and workflows that will literally save you hours daily. It's included free with Social Media Marketing World 2026 tickets or it's only $597 as a standalone ticket. Secure your spot at AIbusinessWorld live before pricing increases.