The people closest to Keren Eldad thought her content was so embarrassing they offered her a loan, a place to live, and her old job back.

Keren Eldad, better known online as Coach Keren, is a coach, author, and speaker who built a business around mindset, identity, and behavior change.

In this episode, we get into why Keren started calling herself “Coach Keren” before the business even existed, why claiming an identity before you feel ready matters, and the exact reason most people stay trapped in the cringe phase of building a personal brand. She explains why consistency is the only metric that matters in the beginning, why self-doubt is built on a false narrative, and how to stop waiting until you’re “qualified enough” to start sharing what you know.

We also get into what she calls “Purgatory” the place where people have 400 post drafts, multiple coaches, endless strategies, and still haven’t hit publish. Keren shares the mindset shift that’s helped thousands of clients finally take action, her “assume everybody likes you” rule, and why most fears around personal branding are just scarcity stories wearing different outfits.

Oh, we get into speaking. She breaks down how she landed two TEDx talks, why most aspiring speakers should stop waiting for invitations and start creating their own opportunities, and the outreach strategy she’d use if she wanted another TEDx talk tomorrow.

Plus: books, comparison, criticism, trolls, and the one thing she believes every ambitious person owes themselves.
If you’ve been waiting until you feel ready to put yourself out there, this conversation is your wake-up call.

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My new book Career Cheat Codes is now available to order. It’s a practical guide to building career leverage, growing your visibility, and turning your expertise into real opportunities.
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03:53 Why she started calling herself “Coach Keren” before she had clients
04:45 The imposter syndrome that came with claiming the identity first
09:13 Her boss asked if she needed her old job back
11:27 Cringe is just self-doubt wearing a costume
22:09 The danger of having 400 drafts and posting none of them
24:15 Taylor Swift’s approach to trolls.
34:23 The books she considers non-negotiable reading
36:19 How speaking became her career
42:47 The TEDx application strategy she’d use today
57:05 The real reason she wrote GILDED and GILT FREE

About Keren Eldad
A thought leader in the coaching world, Keren Eldad ("Coach Keren") specializes in taking high achievers out of the futility of constant pursuit and into the greatest levels of success and fulfillment. Her coaching clients include Olympic athletes, politicians, Hollywood stars, supermodels, Special Forces operatives and serial entrepreneurs, as well as renowned global organizations such as Estée Lauder, J.P. Morgan, and Nike.Recognized as a Top Ten Executive Coach by the International Coaching Federation (ICF), Real Leaders Magazine, & Goop, Keren maintains gold-standard coaching credentials on top of her advanced academic degrees from The London School of Economics and the University of Jerusalem. She is also a former C-suite executive, who has lived and worked in 17 countries and on four continents, and now coaches leaders all around the globe in four languages: English, Spanish, Hebrew and French. With half a million views on her TEDx talks, and speaking engagements all over the world, Keren's message seems to transcend borders. She hopes it resonates with you.

Connect with Keren
👍 Instagram: @coachkeren
💼 LinkedIn: Keren Eldad
🌐 Website: kereneldad.com

Stay connected with me
📧 Contact: courtney@smoothmedia.co
👍 Instagram: @builtinpublicpod
👍 Instagram: @courtlynnjohnson
💼 LinkedIn: Courtney Johnson
🎶 TikTok: @courtney..johnson

VCs laughed Ruffin Mitchener out of interview rooms for posting on TikTok. Four years later, she's the angel investor writing the checks.
Now she’s built a six-figure creator business, landed recurring deals with brands like TurboTax and LinkedIn, and built one of the fastest-growing investing communities for women in startups and VC.
Ruffin started in accounting at Deloitte, moved into fintech startups, got her MBA at UCLA during COVID, and realized early that founder content was going to become mandatory. She was one of the FIRST WOMEN in venture capital and startup investing actually building publicly online while everyone else thought it was cringe!!
In this episode, we get into why personal branding matters before you need it, why founders should start creating content years before fundraising, and how Ruffin used TikTok and LinkedIn to build real leverage in venture capital. She also breaks down the exact cold outreach strategy she used to land brand deals, how she pitched hundreds of companies herself before hiring management, and why niche B2B creators are making more money than creators with 10x the audience size😲.
Oh, she even tells us how she is using Claude as a social media strategist and why cohort-based live courses are replacing recorded programs.
Plus: pregnancy as an entrepreneur, creator management contracts, and the one thing every creator is keeping secret right now... good short-form editors 😭
If you’re waiting until you feel qualified enough to start posting, this episode is your sign to stop waiting.
📘 Career Cheat Codes — IT’S OUT!!!
My new book Career Cheat Codes is now available to order. It’s a practical guide to building career leverage, growing your visibility, and turning your expertise into real opportunities.
Order yours → penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807588/career-cheat-codes-by-courtney-johnson/
00:00 Pregnancy as an entrepreneur is a wild ride
03:54 The moment Ruffin realized content was the future of business
07:03 Your digital footprint is the new resume
08:53 The UCLA MBA post that changed everything for her content
10:13 People are done buying recorded courses
11:20 Ruffin’s full creator tech stack: CapCut, Descript, Claude
11:45 The relationship-building strategy founders ignore before fundraising
16:24 The biggest mistake Ruffin made building her brand
18:57 How she landed brand deals before having management
20:24 Why niche B2B creators make more money than giant influencer
About Ruffin Mitchener
Ruffin Mitchener is the creator and founder of Brydge Club, a media and investing community empowering 200K+ women to understand and navigate the world of angel investing and entrepreneurship. Less than 2% of VC funding goes to all-female founded teams - and less than 15% of venture capital decision-makers are women.
Ruffin has personally angel invested and led syndicate opportunities for Brydge Club angels into companies like POCA, Alinea Invest, Offe Market, GOB, Bumo, and Hey Jane. Investing alongside firms like Offline, True Ventures, and Baukunst. Prior to Brydge Club, Ruffin worked as an operator at an Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) consumer fintech startup, which brings hands-on operational experience to everything she backs today.
Connect with Ruffin
👍 Instagram: @ruffinmitchener
💼 LinkedIn: Ruffin Mitchener
🎶 TikTok: @ruffinmitchener
🌐 Website: brydgeclub.com
Stay connected with me
📧 Contact: courtney@smoothmedia.co
👍 Instagram: @builtinpublicpod
👍 Instagram: @courtlynnjohnson
💼 LinkedIn: Courtney Johnson
🎶 TikTok: @courtney..johnson

40 million LinkedIn views a month. Two to three videos a day. And she built it after returning venture capital money because she realized she hated the company she was building 😲
In this week's episode, I sat down with Avni Barman, founder of Gen She, creator, speaker, and one of the smartest people I know when it comes to audience building and career leverage. She started with a two-minute cold outreach habit in college and turned it into a network, a business, a media brand, and a global community for women in tech and entrepreneurship.
We get into the exact outreach system that helped her land opportunities before she had experience, why most people overcomplicate networking, and how she grew LinkedIn into a platform driving 40 million monthly views. She explains why virality is overrated if it’s not converting into real community, why she stopped chasing a million followers, and how she thinks about building content that actually gets people to care.
If you’ve been waiting to feel qualified before you start posting, networking, pitching, or building something, this is your wake-up call!
📘 Career Cheat Codes — IT’S OUT!!!
My new book Career Cheat Codes is now available to order. It’s a practical guide to building career leverage, growing your visibility, and turning your expertise into real opportunities.
Order yours → penguinrandomhouse.com/books/807588/career-cheat-codes-by-courtney-johnson/
03:01 The survival strategy that turned into her networking system
04:22 The two-minute cold outreach routine that changed her career
09:24 Speaking at Harvard Business School changed her perspective on entrepreneurship
10:17 She ran a 16,000-person paid virtual conference during the pandemic
17:28 She flew to India without sponsors or an event plan, and Microsoft joined the day before
28:14 How she hit 40 million LinkedIn views a month with video
29:17 “I’d literally rather die than get a job”
About Avni Barman
Founder & CEO of Gen She, a media platform and fund shaping the next generation of female founders. With 1M+ community, 400M+ views, and a 150K+ subscriber base, she has built one of the fastest-growing platforms for the next generation and is a leading voice on personal branding, virality, and building in the modern digital economy.
Connect with Avni
👍 Instagram: @avnibarman_
💼 LinkedIn: Avni Barman
🎙️YouTube: @avnibarman
🌐 Website: generationshe.co
Stay connected with me
📧 Contact: courtney@smoothmedia.co
👍 Instagram: @builtinpublicpod
👍 Instagram: @courtlynnjohnson
💼 LinkedIn: Courtney Johnson
🎶 TikTok: @courtney..johnson