Order my USA TODAY Bestselling book: toxicgrit.com TOXIC GRIT: How to have it all and (actually) love what you have. It will help you create a new approach to ambition and find space for all the diverse parts of yourself. Join 75K+ others who read my newsletter 🧩 Life's a Game at amandagoetz.com. It’s full of free tips to play the game of life at a whole new level. In 2018 I found myself at the height of my marketing career with 3 kids under the age of 4 and filing for divorce. In a world telling me to find alignment......I realized that was impossible. The work version of me didn't want to leave early to go be with the kiddos. The mom version of me didn't want to miss a moment with them. I wanted to be fiercely independent and yet also wanted to find love again. Other versions of me didn't want to feel responsible for anything or anyone. This diversity within me led to the creation of my Character Theory Framework. This framework helped me to create space for the 10 characters that make up the movie of your life:  The CEO → wants to pursue big goalsThe Partner → desires companionship  The Soloist → cares about personal growth and development The Caregiver → deep desire to take care of others and show up for themThe Goddess → wants to be desired and pursue pleasure  The Lazy One → loves to couch rot, no goals whatsoever The Socialite → values connection The Creative → desires creation and creativity The Doctor → your inner health &amp; wellness character The Explorer → craves novelty And it helped me. I was able to let go of the idea of balance and give permission for hierarchy, boundaries and the transition sequences necessary to embody these diverse characters. So I put it all in a book and it was an instant best seller!! I'm so excited for you to create space for all parts of you and to see ambition as multi-dimensional. Follow me here for advice as I build a multi-hyphenate life as a CMO, Author, Mom of 3 and getting married again. 

Amanda Goetz

Wrote a letter about life lately and thoughts I've been having during Women's History Month. Would love to know if anyone else is struggling with this....

https://lnkd.in/e7aNp6NB

USA TODAY Bestselling Author of Toxic Grit | 2x Founder (acquired) 5x CMO | Mom x3 | Keynote Speaker | Subscribe ➡️ 🧩 Life’s a Game Newsletter

Currently building Open Forge AI, a platform of AI agents that helps you grow your brand's visibility on AI search engines and outrank the competition. 

We are a command center for GEO and AEO, where you can measure your AI brand visibility, monitor the competition, and create brand-specific content.

Join my newsletter that teaches you how to get seen by AI Search engines: https://aen.beehiiv.com/subscribe

Subscribe to our YouTube channel to get the latest strategies and tips on getting noticed by AI search engines: https://www.youtube.com/@open_forge_ai

I built and sold an edtech company that provides schools and families with personalized college and career guidance using mentorship, AI, and video instruction. 

Also a Brazilian Jiujitsu Brown Belt.

Jason Patel

I know a founder who went $250k into debt, maxed out his credit cards, spent two years trying to earn just $1. And then sold the entire company.

That founder is me.
 
I made every dumb mistake in the book.

In the first two years, I:
 
• Lowballed my own product because I was desperate for revenue
• Paid consultants to raise money for me (lol)
• Built two product iterations before I met a single real customer
• Hired the first applicant because I needed “help” yesterday

Embarrassing decision after embarrassing decision. 

Then I finally got serious.
 
Within a couple of years, we crossed a few million in revenue.

And when we sold, we were one of the highest-rated firms in the world...with zero VC.
 
There are a lot more painful details in this story.
 
Truth is that the journey was more brutal than joyful.
 
But it also taught me something important:
 
I’m not built to coast. I’m built to build.
 
I told the full story (including the ugly parts) on Built to Sell with John Warrillow. 

When I was struggling badly in 2017, I would listen to John's podcast, dreaming that I could one day be a guest. 

Life is wild. 

Link to episode in comments.

---

Also: I’m always happy to help founders avoid the avoidable mistakes.

This stuff is hard.

But some of us are wired to chase hard things anyway.

Co-founder @ Open Forge AI | AI agents that help you rank on AI Search Engines

AI won’t recommend what it can’t verify. That's why I’m breaking down 3rd-party citations for AEO today at 12 ET.

Registration link in comments.
 
🧠 Today 12:00–1:00 PM ET  
🧠 Live on Zoom (recording for all registrants) 
🧠 Live data + Q&A

AI engines recommend brands they can 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘮 through independent sources.
 
That confirmation shows up as third-party citations aka the places models pull from when they generate answers, comparisons, and “best option” lists.
 
This masterclass is the playbook for building verifiable authority beyond your website:
 
• What third-party citations actually are (and what they 𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘯’𝘵)
• The off-site surfaces that matter in 2026 (and the ones that don’t)
• The credibility signals that get you referenced
• How to audit your current citation footprint (gaps, weak spots, quick wins)
• How to track competitors’ citations and steal the pattern, not the guesswork
• What to create + where to place it to increase citation odds
• The citation formats AI pulls most: summaries, comparisons, recommendations
• A practical 30-day execution plan + live walkthroughs of real citation behavior

Registration link in comments.

Google updates used to drop you from #2 to #9. LLM updates crush you entirely.

😰 Distribution risk is nasty. Category Authority is how you survive.

You can build something excellent and still fail because the market never reliably sees it. 

The early 2010s gave us a brutal lesson in distribution fragility. When Google rolled out major algorithm shifts like Panda and Penguin, entire businesses lost the majority of their traffic in days. 

Many did not recover because the product was never the real asset. 

🏆 The asset was rankings.

LLM model updates can be even harsher because the failure mode is different.

‼️ AI search introduces a more extreme outcome: binary visibility. 

That makes over-reliance more lethal than ever. Over-reliance has three classic forms: 

• one traffic source
• one content format
• one trust signal

You can literally disappear overnight. 

So how do you survive and thrive? 

"Category Authority" is the most durable hedge against LLM volatility because it makes your brand a stable, high-confidence entity in the model’s mental map of the category.

Category Authority is the degree to which an AI system treats your brand as a primary entity for a topic, based on consistent, corroborated signals across multiple sources.

The goal is not to rank for a phrase. The goal is to become the entity that a phrase resolves to.
 
Category Authority is built on four pillars:
 
1. Distinct expertise: information gain that is hard to replace.
2. Proof density: verifiable claims per unit of content.
3. Third-party validation: contextual corroboration from niche experts and trusted sources.
4. Distribution redundancy: presence across multiple AI and non-AI discovery surfaces.
   
IMHO, Category dominance is not a campaign. It is an operating system. 

The best long-term workflow looks like Visibility Operations, not just Content Marketing.
 
Here's what a good operation looks like: 
 
• Measure: Track Share of Model, query coverage, and citations across major assistants.
• Diagnose: Identify where competitors are being recommended and why.
• Upgrade: Increase distinct expertise and proof density on priority pages.
• Corroborate: Secure niche expert validation and high-quality mentions.
• Distribute: Repurpose into multiple surfaces to build redundancy.
• Repeat: Update quarterly as models and sources evolve.

LLM volatility is not going away. The AI Wars have only just begun. The models are going to make big changes. 

Expect changes. Adapt. Win.

taplio

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Jason Patel

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The Battle

Amanda Goetz

Jason Patel

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Amanda Goetz's LinkedIn Performance

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