Introduction to Personal Branding for Introverts
Announcer: Welcome to episode 579 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy. In today’s episode, I’m excited to introduce you to Goldie Chan, author of Personal Branding for Introverts. Ready? Let’s get started.
Announcer: You are listening to the Brainy Business podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now, here’s your host, Melina Palmer.
Melina Palmer: Hello. Hello everyone. My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business podcast. When you hear the term personal brand, do you get excited or exhausted? It’s a term you’ve heard and maybe you’ve embraced it. But there are lots of people out there who are skeptical about personal branding, to say the least. And maybe they think it just isn’t for them. Especially if you work in an organization. You might think, do I really need a personal brand or is that just for influencers? Whether you like it or not, you have a personal brand, so you better think about it.
Melina Palmer: And the great news is, even if it doesn’t feel like your jam, if you are the most introverted of the introverts and feel like you’d rather do anything other than think about that personal brand, hopefully this episode is going to help open you up to the idea and its value, at least in some part. And if you love personal branding, I bet you’re going to learn something new from my guest today, and that is Goldie Chan. She is a brand strategist and author of Personal Branding for Introverts. She works with major brands like Adobe and Microsoft, helping them build brands that connect community and tell a story.
Melina Palmer: She also built her own personal brand as an introvert herself in a really unique way, creating more than 800 consecutive daily LinkedIn videos before that was the thing people were really doing. And that opened the door to opportunities like writing for Forbes and speaking around the world and so much more. In this conversation we talk about what personal branding really means, how to think about the next version of yourself without getting boxed in by who you’ve been before and why introverts may actually have a powerful advantage in today’s digital world.
Melina Palmer: Goldie’s also going to share a super useful exercise around identifying your three golden keywords, which can help you get more clarity on what you want to be known for and how to consistently show up in alignment with that. So get ready for that insight and more. If you like to take notes, get that pen and paper ready. As you listen, I want you to keep this question in mind: What do you want people’s brains to remember about you and how intentionally are you shaping that and showing up in that way today?
Melina Palmer: Really quickly, before we get into the conversation, I want to be sure you know there are links in the show notes for my top related past episodes and books, ways to get in touch and more. It’s all within the app you’re listening to and at thebrainybusiness.com/579. Now let’s jump right in. Goldie Chan, welcome to the Brainy Business podcast.
Goldie Chan: Thank you so much for having me. I’m so excited to be here.
Melina Palmer: Yes, I’m very excited to have you as well and for the audience to learn from your amazing insights. For everyone who does not yet know you, can you share a little bit about yourself and the work that you do?
Goldie Chan’s Journey from Corporate to Creator
Goldie Chan: Yes. So I am a brand strategist. I’m also an author of Personal Branding for Introverts, which I’m sure we will go into. I also partner and work with a lot of big brands like Adobe, Microsoft, et cetera. Really thinking about how to build brands that connect community and tell a story.
Melina Palmer: We love storytelling here at the Brainy Business. So that is awesome. What’s the background? I know you have a—I’m going to say diverse background. Like you have an interesting, non-linear life and I love that in general. But can you share a bit about the background of the life that is Goldie?
Goldie Chan: Yes, absolutely. So I worked in digital marketing, really behind the scenes for over a decade. And in 2017 I took what I like to call a one-month sabbatical from work, which really was me just not working for a month between roles. And I had just gotten all the way up the corporate ladder to head of marketing. And in that one month I got into LinkedIn and I started creating these LinkedIn videos and I ended up creating over 800 daily consecutive videos from 2017 to 2019-ish.
Goldie Chan: So over two years, never skipped a single day. And from there I grew my brand really from scratch and really consistently over time. And it was so fascinating because all these opportunities and these doors opened for me. So I was able to write for Forbes; I wrote for Forbes for many years, ended up being a senior contributor there writing about personal branding and storytelling in the digital age.
Goldie Chan: So I’m all about the personal branding, I’m all about the storytelling. I’ve been able to work with such great brands, great clients and then travel the world, speaking all over the world, working on so many different projects. And these days, like I said, I am a writer. And one fun fact is I actually write Archie Comics, too.
Melina Palmer: So there you go. Like, the real—I say that is like real, but like published in Archie Comics? Archie Comics? Or like, you know, the fanfic Archie comics?
Goldie Chan: Definitely the real Archie Comics. So I’m a huge fan of Archie and Betty. So whenever I can, I write stories where they end up together or they’re just working on projects together, things like that.
Melina Palmer: So amazing. I just went for my first time to Emerald City Comic Con.
Goldie Chan: Oh, fun. That’s such a good one.
Melina Palmer: Yeah. And I know in the book you talk a little bit about Comic Con. But they had some of the sketching from Archie Comics that was there. And also, like Animaniacs. I mean, so many things that I would say feel so random, I was so amazed by. Actually, in this case, you think about this level of fandom and identity that brands can tap into, where I was just being at a place like Comic Con and seeing people that—not just like, “I really like Batman, so I’m wearing a shirt that has the Batman logo on it,” but like, “I made this costume about this very obscure character. I cared so much to become this.” And this question of how brands tap into that level of psychological identity and what it means for someone to be part of the story. And this is not what we came to talk about, but it has been top of mind.
The Power of Superfans and Community
Goldie Chan: Why not? Let’s talk about it.
Melina Palmer: Like, what are your thoughts on why is that so important when a brand can do it? Why is it hard? Or how can it be easy? Like, what’s going on with people’s brains? Anything you want to jump into on that when it comes to that part of brand storytelling?
Goldie Chan: Absolutely. So, first of all, I think that brands love to tap into cultural zeitgeist and love to create their own cultural zeitgeist. I think Wendy’s is a great example of this on social media, where they are starting their own conversations or, for a brief while, Duolingo.
Melina Palmer: Right.
Goldie Chan: But I think what is a great way for brands to start thinking about how they can start their own conversations in the community, they can start bringing in fandoms. And this is what I sometimes work with brands on, which is identifying the superfans. So superfans are so important for brands, and almost every brand out there—if you have say, an audience of 500 or more, you probably have superfans among the bunch.
Goldie Chan: I remember I worked for a tech company—I’m not going to say which one—but I worked managing their entire online community and part of my job was identifying those superfans and reaching out to them. And I remember that they were so blown away that somebody from the team directly reached out to them. And I would sit on the floor of the startup and I would hand package little things to give to them like little USB drives or little figurines or whatever that were brand swag, pieces of brand swag that I physically mailed out to our top users.
Goldie Chan: It was an interesting time for me at least to be managing that particular community. But I think that when brands really think about what do individual community members want, how can I personalize down? Which of course brings us back to personal branding—the other side of personal branding, right? Which is if you have a really good personal brand, then brands will find you and brands will be like, “Oh, we should work with you, we should partner with you.” At the very least, “We should send you a free poster,” right?
Melina Palmer: Which is the dream. That’s what we’re all in it for—it’s a good free poster.
Goldie Chan: A good free poster moment.
Strategies for Building a Brand from Scratch
Melina Palmer: So I guess on that point, right, so we talked a little bit about those brands finding superfans. But to get a superfan there’s that kind of niching down aspect. You have to be different enough from everything else that’s already out there for people to find and relate to you. So Goldie, as a person, what do you recommend for people as you think about building a personal brand? Like how would one go about it—let’s say we have people that don’t really have much going on personal brand-wise at this moment. They’ve been in a company for a while, they’re kind of realizing like, “Hey, maybe it’s a good time to start doing this personal branding thing.” They’ve always hated the idea, but where do they start?
Goldie Chan: So this is so funny we’re talking about this because I literally yesterday just shot an entire course on EGC which is Employee Generated Content. So we can jump in a little bit into that universe. So if you are at a 9 to 5 or a corporate role right now, there’s a new idea that’s been floating around for the past couple years, which is EGC—Employee Generated Content.
Goldie Chan: Now this is different than UGC (User Generated Content) and different than influencer content. It is created by someone who works inside the company and is really sharing their day-to-day, sharing company beliefs, sharing how they work at a physical workplace. So it is a really interesting and new type of content that if you are thinking about, “Okay, how can I start to build my personal brand at work?” you can start to think about EGC, which is really tying your brand to the overarching company brand.
Goldie Chan: Now I will say this, having literally just shot an entire course on this, EGC isn’t for everyone. Especially, I’m sure there are many people who are listening who are entrepreneurs or maybe they don’t want to tie their brand to the company that they’re currently at. So when you’re thinking about your personal brand, first of all, I think it’s helpful to think: Where am I now? And where would I like to be? Who would I like to be in the next three months, in the next six months?
Goldie Chan: I find that when people try to do “Who would I like to be in the next five years?” that is so tough. And especially in this day and age, how can we even say what will happen in the next five years, right? So I always think it’s helpful to think quarter by quarter, which is really every three months, every six months. Where do you want to be? Longest term, a year from now? But really in a more realistic sense, where do you want to be three months from now? Where do you want to be six months from now? And when we start to isolate down our goals for our personal brand, then we can start to also think, “What is my personal brand?”
The Three Golden Keywords Exercise
Goldie Chan: And I want to bring in a little bit of something fun that I said at South by Southwest last week about AI. So I have an exercise I have people do on personal branding. And part of it is really brainstorming keywords around what your personal brand could be. I call them the Three Golden Keywords. Now, without even going into the exercise, which I can go into a little bit later, one thing that I tell people is to not use AI to do this exercise.
Goldie Chan: And it surprises people the reason why. The reason why I don’t have people use AI is not necessarily even a moral judgment against using AI in that case, but it is a forward-thinking reason. AI can only tell you through all of the different LLMs that it uses previously who you’ve been. Right? Because it only has previous data. It can try to extrapolate who you might want to be, but it will always be a linear line. It will always be data points that make sense.
Goldie Chan: But if you currently are a project manager, but you’d love to become a chef and you never post content or you never share about how you love to be a chef—you never share that publicly in a way that an LLM could scrape that—then it will never know that you wish desperately to become a chef, because only you know that in the back of your brain. So whenever I’m thinking about personal branding, especially from the most core elements of a personal brand, I like to say take some time. Use literally a notebook, use post-it notes—I love post-it notes, I have them even on my desk—use a physical notebook, go very analog, and write down the ideas of what you potentially want to be. And do this without the internet, right? Do it without AI and just see what ideas start to come up for you.
Melina Palmer: And so let’s dig in a little bit on those golden keywords. We’re in it now. I think building on what you were saying there, the other thing is like when we look at giving people a reason to follow you, what AI is going to find is what has worked for other people and what it feels like their brand is now versus how they built some of their following. And if that thing already exists, they don’t need you.
Melina Palmer: There are a lot of people that talk about the same kind of thing and are just carbon copying what someone else is doing. You can build a following that way, but if you have some sort of idea or a thing you want to share—like you said, if you don’t want to be the project manager anymore and you want to be a chef—why? What is it about this that you’re so interested in and what makes you uniquely interesting?
Melina Palmer: Like, “Project management going into being a chef is how to build a better restaurant that has proper planning. So many restaurants go under; I’m going to help use my project management experience to buy the right ingredients at the right time and I’m going to help teach you how to do it.” Like that’s interesting. I bet there are a bunch of people that would want to check that out, but AI is not going to come up with that.
Goldie Chan: And that is exactly what I like—what you just brought up, which is the transferable skills, right? Being able to see the different skill sets that you have from role to role. A talk that I’ve been giving a lot this year is “Future-Proofing Your Personal Brand.” And the reason why people are so interested this year for this talk is that people are pivoting more than ever. People are getting laid off and then having to rethink what is their next role, what is their next job.
Goldie Chan: And so I always think, what is the thorough line in your story? What is that red thread that connects all of the different dots in your story in your career? So while you might think that project manager and chef are two very different career directories—which they are—they may be connected by the way that you are methodical and very thoughtful.
Goldie Chan: So let’s go into that exercise I do a lot with my clients: the Three Golden Keywords. I like to say, what are your soft keywords and what are your hard keywords? Your soft keywords are adjectives, and your hard keywords are nouns. So the soft keywords might be inquisitive, warm, thoughtful. And your hard keywords might be project manager, they might be writer, they might be podcaster. So those are the job roles or the job functions that you want.
Goldie Chan: And maybe they’ll be broader and bigger than that. Maybe it’s “leader,” which I work with a lot of director-level and above people. A lot of times they don’t necessarily want a physical job title; they want to be known as a leader. They want to be known as somebody who is a preeminent expert in their field, which is a very different kind of noun than digging down into the physical job type.
Goldie Chan: So when you do this exercise, you are supposed to do three keywords total. Preferably two from the soft keyword side and one from the hard keyword side. And you start to filter your personal brand through these keywords. I think about Oregon Trail—
Melina Palmer: Yeah, think of Oregon Trail.
Goldie Chan: People often think about dying of dysentery! No, but I often think about a wagon wheel, a wooden wagon wheel, right? Which has a center hub and then has wooden spokes that come out of that center hub. The center—the hub of this wagon wheel—is your personal brand, those three golden keywords. And all of the different spokes that come out of that hub are the different ways that you express that.
Goldie Chan: So perhaps you are a volunteer at your local Little League, but perhaps you are also once again a project manager who hopes to be a chef. But through all of this, perhaps one of the things that people know is that you are very organized. And that part of your personal brand is apparent throughout every single piece of work or volunteer work or life that you go through—that you are a very organized person and everyone knows that about you. And that is the power and the beauty of a personal brand: you can take these ideas of the core version of you and transfer them and bring them along the journey of going through different career ideas and career roles.
Refining Your Core Brand Values
Melina Palmer: So as we think about that—so you pick your words. I’m assuming in the way that this goes down, I don’t just like only write three and then I’m done.
Goldie Chan: Right.
Melina Palmer: But maybe I’m going to write 25 or whatever and then I’m going to filter down to pick my three.
Goldie Chan: Yes. So the number that I give my clients is 50.
Melina Palmer: I always tell people I love doing question storming with people. And it’ll be like, I know you think you’ve got like three questions, I want a hundred, right?
Goldie Chan: Like 100! The reason why you do 50 is just psychologically helpful to dig really deep. So even though a lot of times my clients can’t always get to 50, by the time you get to 35, 40, 45, you’re uncovering some deep truths about yourself. So for when I’m not necessarily working with my clients, but I’m doing a workshop or whatnot, I’ll do 20 or 25 because that is usually a pretty easy number to hit. But yes, when you get to 50, I like to do 50. Because then like I said, you get surprises, you get things that people didn’t think that they wanted to do with their lives, but it suddenly comes out once you get the safe stuff out of the way.
Melina Palmer: The thing was like, “Well, I’m just a project manager,” right? Or the thing I always tell myself that I am, but like, I’ve written that now and so what else am I? And I love the way that you have that separated into the soft and hard terms. Because if I have to put 50 in each category, let’s say, I can’t really hide under the first three to five things that come to mind that are so easy. And then you get into those interesting words also.
Melina Palmer: Things like project manager or leader can be helpful when we’re looking for things like SEO in some ways. Like, what are people searching for? But if everyone in the world is listing themselves as a project manager or leader, we also want to be a little bit differentiated. And so what’s kind of the balance now? So if we’re picking what our words are, how much is based on what I really want to be—algorithm be darned? Forget the algorithm, I just want to be what I want to be and the audience will find me. What advice do you have for the SEO balance there?
Authenticity vs. SEO Optimization
Goldie Chan: Yeah. So I think that especially when we think about SEO—and what’s fascinating about AI now is that people are finding more people through AI search engines. So I think it’s really helpful to think: Who am I now in this moment in time? And who would I like to be in six months? If these two things are drastically different, this is when we have a transition period. But if in six months you want to be really an elevated next-step version of you, then maybe you adopt that idea now and filter your brand through that now.
Goldie Chan: Of course, I have to say, for SEO purposes it is so helpful, especially on a platform like LinkedIn, to be SEO optimized. So it’s helpful to use terms that other people use. I always see terms like “fairy” or “ninja”—great for the whimsy, bad for the SEO, right? And I think that if you are posting and trying to level up your SEO game, it’s really helpful to use terms that other people already use to define yourself by things that other people already understand.
Goldie Chan: But if you want something that’s outside of that box, it’s okay to pull together new terms. A great example of this from my own life: when I started creating on LinkedIn, the term “LinkedIn creator” just didn’t exist. In fact, I think I still own the URL LinkedInCreator that I got in like 2017. And no one thought it was a real term. Even LinkedIn at the time didn’t think it was a real term. And now they use it internally.
Goldie Chan: And it’s fascinating to me because I used that term before anyone else. I was part of a group of about 20 people that used this term very early. People didn’t understand it, nor was it necessarily SEO optimized because no one was searching for that term. But now that term is optimized. Over time, because I have done so much around it, I have become really entrenched in owning that term. It is interesting to also think about what are two or three words that already exist that you can then do a mash together. Like the word “creator” obviously already exists. The word “LinkedIn” already exists. The combo of the two is what did not exist before. You can make up new terms, but what’s helpful is if they are real terms that already exist and are what people are currently searching for.
Melina Palmer: And just to clarify, as people are having to narrow to their three words, would “LinkedIn creator” count as one term, or is that two? If somebody’s saying, “I’m not just leader, I’m a thought leader,” is that one or is that two of our golden words?
Goldie Chan: Yeah, a better way of thinking about it would be three terms. What you don’t want is like 20 words together. But if you have “project manager,” which is different than “product manager,” I consider project manager one term. One word. But if you have a five-word term, then that’s not a term anymore. That’s trying to sneak in as many words as humanly possible!
Melina Palmer: Yes, perfect. I just knew someone was going to have that question.
Goldie Chan: I’m sure someone will.
Personal Branding for Introverts
Melina Palmer: So now as we’re thinking about this and saying, “Well, but I see now all these creators do exist everywhere.” One thing we sort of talked about before we jumped into the recording is that I’ve been creating content for a long time, and I also look at the internet these days and go, “Yikes, even I’m not extroverty enough for what’s out there these days.” And so it feels like there are so many more of us that maybe are saying, “Maybe I am actually a bit of an introvert or the ambivert or something.” What advice is there for people that say, “That’s just not for people like me and I don’t want to be that thing that I keep seeing”?
Goldie Chan: Right. So first of all, I feel like the term maybe that you really are referring to is “performative,” right? I think that so much of the internet these days is performative. I do a little bit of an exercise with the physical copy of my book, Personal Branding for Introverts. Here is the fun physical exercise: When I think about the word “personal,” I think most people think of the word “persona” as being part of personal. And “persona” is the mask that we wear, which to me is really exhausting. We always have to wear a mask.
Goldie Chan: But what I like to think about is the person in personal brand, which is the actual you that you bring to the table. It is the part of you that you should put into your personal brand instead of wearing a mask constantly. Which is to me the performative aspect, the loud aspect of the internet. And I will say this, of course, there are extroverts who are not being personas at all; that’s genuinely them day to day. They are that loud, they’re that excited, they’re that outgoing.
Goldie Chan: But for so many introverts out there, we have to put on a mask in order to show up that way. And I personally believe that introverts do not need to do that, that we can show up because we have so many superpowers and strengths that are not simply the loudness. I also believe in “loud introverts,” but I think that introverts do not need to ever become extroverts or incredibly performative in order to be successful online. One thing that I will bring up is I think the internet is so perfect for introverts because of asynchronous communication. Because introverts do not need to necessarily respond right away in real time to things. They can respond in their own time. And I think that that is very powerful.
Melina Palmer: Absolutely. And there’s so much opportunity now where if you are an introvert that—I mean, any person that’s good at drawing or some version of art and you don’t want to speak on camera—that’s fine. Like all the videos of people just drawing. I love watching those, by the way—frosting cakes and cookies.
Goldie Chan: Yes. I also love ASMR personally. I love watching those videos of people crackling slime that’s covered in wax. Sometimes I like watching the Korean mukbangs, which is like when they’re eating the food and stuff.
Melina Palmer: I’m more in the cleaning things. Like, “This is such a disgusting pool—let’s power wash it!” Or cleaning someone’s yard. There’s a guy—I think his name is Spencer—who goes and finds these overgrown houses and will ask the neighbors, “Does anybody even live here?” and then go clean it. And it just does like a time-lapse of him doing all this work and then you get to see the yard after. And it’s like so nice to see the reveal and not have to actually do the yard work because I don’t want to do any of that.
Melina Palmer: So there are lots of opportunities with the power of the time-lapse. And you know, you can just be putting music in the background and maybe you do a voiceover, but it doesn’t have to be you talking to the camera. And thankfully we don’t all have to yell and scream because, man, I feel like my kids only find and follow YouTubers that love to scream.
Goldie Chan: Yeah, I think that—we don’t even need to start on kids’ content. Kids’ content is a whole different beast. But I think that there is a lot of instant noise out there for kids and for adults because that content tends to grab us and then we’re like, “Oh, what is this?” But because we are in a world now where so much of that exists on a higher frequency, literally a higher decibel level, to me, it’s nice to think about things that are slow and analog.
Recharging and the Importance of Analog Joy
Goldie Chan: And also I will give a very good pro tip for any introverts out there who have to go to conferences this year. One of the things that I personally like to do is, when you are at a conference, to at least take 10 minutes every single day to step outside. Literally physically step outside. Unless you’re in Vegas, which is not always possible to do. But step physically outside, breathe the fresh air, and for two minutes out of these 10 minutes, you’re going to not be on a digital device.
Goldie Chan: You’re not going to turn on music, you’re not going to look at your smartwatch, tablet, phone, or mobile device. You’re going to, for two minutes, be completely unplugged, watch some cars drive by, talk to the person standing next to you. You’re going to not do anything digital for two minutes. And this helps reset and rewire your brain a little bit. I just started a Substack called “Analog Joy” because I think that we need more analog in our life.
Goldie Chan: We need to turn off the digital devices. And I say this as someone whose living comes from working on a digital device. But it’s helpful to turn off, especially when you are in an environment of deep overwhelm. I think it’s helpful to turn that off and have a quiet moment where you once again just let your brain reset a little bit.
Melina Palmer: Absolutely. And I’m a big advocate of that. I’m gonna go check out Analog Joy for sure. I personally also have a resort that I like to go to called Miraval. They do their “Miraval Mode” where it’s a device-free space.
Goldie Chan: And I think we’re going to see more and more of that, especially at company retreats. We’re going to see more and more digital-free time off because it’s so powerful and it’s so good for people to have that time off.
Melina Palmer: Yeah. So we as humans know that we have to kind of be our own advocate to recharge. And yet, the brands we’re creating need to exist out in that digital space kind of more than anything. So you mentioned a bit about loud introverts. I really liked the section on that in the book. And everyone who says like, “But introverts can’t have a big following or be out on the stage,” you give great examples of some very well-known people who are actually introverts. Can you share some of those?
Successful Introverted Figures
Goldie Chan: Absolutely. One of them being Keanu Reeves—he is such a great example of an introvert who is excelling in his field. He is not loud, but when he needs to be, he absolutely is. And he can perform, which is one of the loudest actions you can do. He can show up and be very confident. And I think the beautiful intersection of introverts doing well is when they are confident when they show up. My favorite phrase is “Calm and Confident.”
Goldie Chan: When you are calm and confident, you tend to show up in a way that people find honestly very attractive. I think so many times we confuse confidence and ego. I always think of it as: ego is when you go in the room and you shout who you are, versus confidence is you go in the room and you are who you are. You show up and you are exactly that person.
Melina Palmer: I love that. So we’ve got Keanu Reeves. I know that you also mentioned talking about Taylor Swift, Oprah, and the amazing Goldie Chan also being an introvert with a large following.
Goldie Chan: Yes, yes. But, yeah, actually, we can talk about Taylor Swift a little bit. So Taylor Swift—fascinating introvert. She hasn’t come out herself and said she’s an introvert, but she certainly has all of the introversion traits, including having a very small, close circle of trusted friends and associates that she partners and works with.
Goldie Chan: And this is something that I tell so many people, which is you need to have your close circle of people around you. You should have basically a small council of people that you trust. These are the people that you go to when you have new business ideas, when you’re thinking about a career change. These are the people that will support you and that will talk with you through different life changes. And it’s helpful to have this small group instead of say, hundreds of people that you’re trying to message to. Introverts tend to do better when they have this smaller group of people to rely on.
Melina Palmer: Absolutely. And so they can be loud when they’re needing to be. The character that I was envisioning when you were saying “calm and confident” was Miranda Priestly from The Devil Wears Prada.
Goldie Chan: I think that’s calm and deadly, right?
Melina Palmer: But she’s very confident and calm. There’s that quiet in it.
Goldie Chan: She’s very quiet and she’s very well-spoken for who she is. And there’s a reason why I specifically did not want the word “quiet” in my book title, too, because I think that that is the first word that everyone always wants to associate with introverts. I don’t personally think that that is the defining characteristic of an introvert.
Goldie Chan: I’ll describe a situation to you: You’re at a party and you’re talking to the most interesting stranger at the party. You share all the same interests; they are just fascinating to you. Yet over time, you feel your internal battery go down and it just keeps dropping and dropping. Versus for a true extrovert, your battery will go through the roof. But for an introvert, that battery goes down over time. That to me is the truest definition of an introvert: you can be talking to the most fascinating person you’ve ever met, but because you are an introvert, your internal battery will just keep going down over time.
Melina Palmer: And then there’s the point where you go to recharge, even when it’s like, “This is the only time I get to talk to this most interesting person in person.”
Goldie Chan: Yes. I have definitely been there. One example I give in my book is I was very lucky to be an ambassador for the city of London, an entrepreneurial ambassador. And I got to go to 10 Downing. I remember feeling overwhelmed in the gardens at 10 Downing. Not everyone gets to go there, but as an introvert with social anxiety, I was so overwhelmed. I was there for an entrepreneurial mixer and at one point, I was just done.
Goldie Chan: Unfortunately, you can’t just leave 10 Downing because there’s a very rigorous process involving machine guns and metal detectors and stuff! So you’re there. But I remember being there and feeling so overwhelmed and having to just find a quiet corner that I could then just start to recharge a little bit by myself. It’s not necessarily that I am quiet, but I needed that quietness.
Navigating Conferences as an Ambivert
Melina Palmer: I remember reading Susan Cain’s book Quiet. That was the first time I had heard the term of the “ambivert.” And thinking like, I think I’m in that category because—and I say this to my husband all the time—if I am at a conference like South by Southwest, you come home and it’s just like, “Okay, so that’s done.” I always say, “I just need to exist for a little while.” I can’t talk about things; maybe I want to read or I just need to be for a little while, but I can’t do those things anymore.
Melina Palmer: Having that tip of taking those 10 minutes for yourself or taking the nap in the middle of the day if you need it—you don’t have to go to every session every single time. Show up to the things you need to show up to.
Goldie Chan: I spoke this year at South by Southwest around my book Personal Branding for Introverts. Part of my talk I said, “Who here is going to go and hide in their hotel room at some point during South by Southwest?” and most of the room raised their hand. And I just said, “At some point I am going to go hide in the hotel room. I am not going to be networking during the day; I’m going to be resting and recovering my battery so that I can do what I need to do later on in the day.” South by Southwest really is a marathon.
Melina Palmer: But an amazing one. So many wonderful people who have been on the show have spoken there. I’m sad we didn’t get to meet in person this time, but I know next time it’ll happen for sure.
Goldie Chan: Every South by Southwest is always such a busy and difficult time to meet everyone. Someone said the opportunity cost at South by Southwest is very high, for sure, versus at other conferences where you’ll run into people more easily. You have to make these decisions sometimes that are really, really tough.
Conclusion: Be Better, Not Bitter
Melina Palmer: Yeah, absolutely. And that’s the world we live in increasingly these days. So as we go to close out the conversation, would you have a closing motivational thought for people as they’re considering their own personal brand?
Goldie Chan: Yes. My newest catchphrase: “Be better, not bitter.” And what I mean by that is don’t start from a place of comparison to others, especially others that you would like to emulate, but start from a place of starting from one. Start with one platform, start with one post, start with one idea, and grow better over time.
Melina Palmer: Love it. So important. Well, thank you for sharing that and of course for joining me on the show today. We’ll put links in the show notes for everybody. For everyone who is ready to follow you and learn more, what are some of the best places for them to do that?
Goldie Chan: You can always find me on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/goldie, you can find me on Instagram, and you can find me on my personal website, goldiechan.com.
Melina Palmer: Amazing. Like I said, links in the show notes for everybody. Thanks again, Goldie, for joining. It was wonderful to chat with you.
Goldie Chan: Thank you so much for having me.
Melina Palmer: Thank you again to Goldie Chan for joining me on the show today. What got your brain buzzing in today’s conversation? For me, I always love to see the power that comes from clarity and consistency working together. Creating more than 800 consecutive daily videos is not about luck and it’s not about feeling inspired every day. After nearly eight years and hundreds of episodes of this show, I can tell you there are days when you have a mental block or you just aren’t feeling it. I can’t even imagine daily content. It’s amazing.
Melina Palmer: One thing that makes that clear, consistent messaging possible is knowing what you stand for. You have to have enough clarity on your personal brand so that showing up consistently can even become possible because you don’t have to reinvent yourself every time. When you know what you want to be known for, it makes it easier for other people’s brains to understand you, remember, and connect.
Melina Palmer: Clarity reduces friction, consistency builds memory, and you need both. Whether you’re an introvert, an extrovert, or somewhere in between, there’s space for you to build a thoughtful personal brand. So my question for you is, what would become easier if you were just a little more clear and a little more consistent in how you show up? Come share it with me on social media or share your Three Golden Keywords. You’re going to find me as the Brainy Biz pretty much everywhere and as Melina Palmer on LinkedIn.
Melina Palmer: There are links in the show notes to make it easy to connect with us, as well as links for my top related past episodes and books, including Personal Branding for Introverts. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me. And remember to be thoughtful.
Announcer: Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business podcast. Melina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.
