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

I took a month from posting to really sit with myself and think about what I wanted for 2026. Here’s why….

I spent a lot of the last year in survival mode. 
After a divorce with 3 small kids I was always proving. Pushing. Needing to provide for my family. 

But now I’m on stable ground and yet my nervous system hasn’t caught up. I still feel like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

That I need to prove I’m worthy. 
That I need to prove I’m smart. 
That I need to prove why I’m here. 

So this year my word is ENOUGH. 

And I’m going to spend the year learning what enough looks like. 

To be enough. 
To earn enough. 
To do enough. 

I love my new CMO role. 
I have a new exciting writing project this year. 
I’m hosting season 2 of the Girlboss podcast. 
And my weekly newsletter is a constant creative outlet. 

That’s enough. 

More isn’t always better. 

So if you are also planning to drive the speed limit in 2026 - follow along here as I’ll be sharing what I’m doing and learning along th way.

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

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I’ve been struggling with 2 things lately:

1) it’s clear that when I spend less time on social media, my mind is clearer and I can write from a place of curiosity and purpose. 

But then when I contribute to social media I feel like I’m feeding the beast that is stealing our curiousity and clarity. 

2) The loss of social from the media. 

The closer I got to big creators, the more I found out about the “teams” behind their posts and replies. I can also clearly tell when someone is using AI to reply to posts. 

So what are we actually doing here? 

The point is to connect and inspire. To evoke thoughts and inject nuance into conversations. To drive awareness to things that people may not see from their seat in this world. 

Anyway….if I’ve been a little MIA on here it’s because of these thoughts. 

I deeply crave meaningful conversations and I am trying to find the right medium to having them.

Another great episode of Ambition 2.0 with @girlboss and Malissa Clark 

Check it out anywhere you get your podcasts!

🗣️ Repeat after us: You can love your job and still be a workaholic.

In this episode of Ambition 2.0, Amanda Goetz sits down with Malissa Clark, a professor at the University of Georgia, Director of the Healthy Work Lab, and author of Never Not Working: Why the Always-On Culture Is Bad for Business—and How to Fix It, to break down what workaholism can look like in real life (spoiler: it’s not just about working long hours). 

They get into the sneaky “working light” tasks that we tell ourselves don’t count as work (like sending emails while watching TV or checking Slack between errands), how leaders accidentally create always-on teams, and so much more. 

🎧 Listen to the full episode here: https://lnkd.in/eKd9rtCv 

💻 Or watch the episode on YouTube: https://lnkd.in/eRqNjSN6

Continuing on my journey of “enough” - it’s important you plan your work around your life. Not the other way around. 

I approach my yearly planning the same way I approach building a marketing calendar as a CMO. 

I slice the calendar in 4 ways:

- Annual tentpoles & events
- Quarterly launches
- Monthly beats
- Weekly non-negotiables

Reminder: Use this link to get your 🧩 Life's a Game Planning calendar. ⬇️⬇️

Open article: 🧩 Life's a Game: Your 2026 Game Plan by amandagoetz.kit.com

Today’s newsletter has already gotten more replies than I normally get. I think this topic resonates…

Check it out and let me know. ⬇️

https://lnkd.in/eHCRCS4b

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Loved this convo with Alexa von Tobel - check it out and let me know what you think!

In this episode of Ambition 2.0, host Amanda Goetz sits down with Alexa von Tobel—the founder of LearnVest (where she raised $75M and successfully sold it to Northwestern Mutual) and current founder and managing partner of Inspired Capital—to unpack the resilient mindset that has shaped her successful career, from founder to venture-capital veteran.

Alexa dropped out of Harvard Business School and poured her life savings into LearnVest, a multimillion-dollar business idea—despite warnings from nearly everyone around her that she was making a big mistake. She did it in the middle of the 2008 economic recession, no less.

🎧 Watch or listen to the full episode, now live on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts! 

https://lnkd.in/eq-wEGjd

Open video: From Harvard Dropout to VC Powerhouse: How to Bet on Yourself with Alexa von Tobel | Ambition 2.0 on youtu.be

From Harvard Dropout to VC Powerhouse: How to Bet on Yourself with Alexa von Tobel | Ambition 2.0

Will Leatherman

Marketing Director

Build a Self Generating Content Funnel That Drives Revenue | Web3 & AI Growth & GTM Marketer | Fractional CMO

Catalyst is a content engine that empowers global marketing teams to drive thought leadership and revenue growth. We create expert-driven, AI-assisted content across multiple channels, including web, social media, and newsletters. 

Our services encompass strategy development, content creation, distribution, and performance tracking. We leverage your team's expertise to produce high-quality content that resonates with your target audience, while our suite of conversion optimization tools helps turn readers into qualified leads. With Catalyst, you can significantly increase your content output, save time, and achieve a higher return on your content investment, all while maintaining the flexibility to scale your content efforts as your business needs change.

Before launching VooDoo, I was the CMO and head of creative at Parcl, a blockchain-based real estate platform that allows users to invest in a digital square foot of physical estate in the most lucrative neighborhoods around the U.S. There, I led the brand strategy, content strategy, digital marketing, partner agency management, and media partnerships, resulting in a 300% increase in user acquisition and retention. I also have a background in working with various brands across different sectors, such as Primark, Campari Group, Kate Spade, Dirty Lemon, NARS, Armani Exchange, Pandora, Lab Series, WeWork, PepsiCo, and BMW. 

My mission is to help businesses grow their online presence and reach their target audiences through innovative and effective marketing solutions.

Chief Marketing Officer, Head of Creative

Your content is the only signal that matters for outbound.

with modern GTM executive led content is the only thing that reliably warms cold buyers into real conversations.

Cold outreach faces near zero reply rates and long compliance cycles.
(Total friction)

Weekly executive posts that tackle compliance and ROI upfront give your SDRs a warm door.

You lift reply rates and cut weeks off cycles.
(Pure leverage)

Running cold motion without this infrastructure burns capital.

Commit to a 4 week executive content sprint tied to outbound.

Watch reply rates and cycle time improve before you spend another dollar on ads.

Building content engines for GTM teams. // Content is the best way to warm up your buyers

"I don't know what to post about on LinkedIn."

every founder has daily experiences worth sharing

Here are 11 rules for turning your founder experiences into high impact posts:

1. Write about conversations that changed your perspective
2. Share mistakes before they're comfortable to admit
3. Break down problems you're actively solving
4. Share revenue insights (numbers get attention)
5. Write about operational changes you're testing
6. Discuss tools or processes you've adopted
7. Talk about what's keeping you up at night
8. Explain why you said "no" to something
9. Document decisions you made today
10. Capture lessons from customer calls
11. Post about hiring wins and misses

Your daily founder life is full of content gold.

You just need to:

→ Extract the lesson or insight
→ Share it in simple language
→ Pay attention to what's happening

Stop waiting for the "perfect" story to tell.

Your real experiences - the messy, unfiltered ones - are what people actually want to read.

So are you going to keep saying you have nothing to post?

Or are you going to start mining your daily work for content?

The near term onchain trade is private credit

you see teams chasing retail flows while a multi trillion dollar private credit stack sits offline (illiquid and opaque).

> tokenized funds already top 8 billion dollars
>money market vehicles doubled in a year
> addressable US liquidity exceeds 30 trillion dollars.
> secondary trading sits at near zero

so much opportunity.

the constraint is institutional adoption and liquidity design

Tokenized private credit becomes the liquidity operating system for real world assets (faster settlement and cleaner price discovery)

aim your wedge at private credit.

build secondary trading and compliance into the core product and ride existing institutional rails instead of trying to invent your own.

Is your roadmap positioned to capture the 30 trillion dollar liquidity opportunity?

everyone’s back and the energy is actually electric. 

we’re gonna cook this year

Building content engines for GTM teams. // Founder led content is the best way to warm up your buyers

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what to expect for impressions on Linkedin in Jan 2026

it feels like reach is down for everyone 

But maybe it’s not as bad as you think. 

andreas jonsson 🛠 sharing monthly benchmark data on what to expect when posting

Don’t get discouraged 

But remember the more you post, the more views you get

Most founders treat LinkedIn like a brand awareness channel. They post, get likes and comments, feel good about the engagement, and then... nothing happens.

Your impressions go up. Your follower count ticks higher. But your calendar stays empty.

I've spent the last two years obsessing over one question: how do you turn LinkedIn attention into actual pipeline? The answer is simple. Give people an obvious, valuable next step. That's where lead magnets come in.

But here's the thing. Most lead magnets suck. They're fluffy PDFs that overpromise in the post and underdeliver when you download them. People feel tricked, and you lose trust.

This guide shows you how to build lead magnets that people actually want, how to promote them on LinkedIn, and how to turn those opt-ins into sales conversations. Let's get into it.

Most founders treat LinkedIn like a brand awareness channel. They post, get likes and comments, feel good about the engagement, and then... nothing ha

Open article: LinkedIn lead magnets that actually convert by Will Leatherman • 7 min read

LinkedIn lead magnets that actually convert

I used to spend 3 hours a week writing LinkedIn posts. Now I spend 30 minutes. The difference? AI agents do the research while I sleep.

Most founders spend 2-3 hours a week staring at blank pages. I'll show you how to automate the research and ideation so you wake up to content ideas in Slack – ready to use.

You'll learn:

1. Set up an agent that monitors top creators and extracts ideas
2. Turn sales calls into post suggestions automatically
3. Get the tools, prompts, and templates to deploy this week

Wednesday, January 28th | 9:00 AM PST / 12:00 PM EST

No theory. Just the working system.

Most founders I work with spend 2-3 hours every week staring at blank pages trying to figure out what to post on LinkedIn. Here's what I've been build

Open article: Build an AI Agent That Writes Linkedin Content for You by Will Leatherman • 1 min read

Build an AI Agent That Writes Linkedin Content for You

Happy Thursday!

If you're reading this, hopefully you're wrapping up the week with some wins under your belt. Maybe you've actually thought through your LinkedIn strategy (or finally realized you need one). Either way, you're in the right place.

I need to tell you something that might sting a bit. Your LinkedIn content probably isn't working because of what you're doing wrong with hooks or formats or posting times. Those things matter, but they're not the problem.

The real problem runs deeper than tactics. And until you fix these three foundational issues, no amount of "growth hacks" will save you.

Let's get into it.

Happy Thursday! If you're reading this, hopefully you're wrapping up the week with some wins under your belt. Maybe you've actually thought through yo

Open article: Why your LinkedIn content isn't working by Will Leatherman • 6 min read

I am hosting a live session today with Jacob Bank to fix your broken linkedin system

This is the number 1 trending marketing session on Maven

It is a high signal operator workshop for b2b founders who treat LinkedIn as a serious growth lever.

You will learn to:
> Build a repeatable ideation framework

> Deploy AI workflows to ship faster

> Write hooks that stop the scroll 

> Convert executive posts into qualified conversations

Jacob Bank and I treat founder content as the primary outbound channel.

Basic marketing posts → zero pipeline.

We go live today @ 3:30PM (est)

rsvp for my chat with on building AI Linkedin workflows today @ 12pm ET👇

Cold outbound is a symptom of invisible executives

GTM markets are saturated. Buyers ignore generic outreach. 

Reply rates are crashing.

Content serves as your primary outbound lever. It builds trust before the sales team reaches out.

Execute this protocol to warm up your pipeline.

1// Define the executive POV
Identify the beliefs and deal stories that prove competence. Focus on 1 or 2 key leaders.
(Signal)

2// Map assets to buyer pain
Create 3 to 5 pieces that address specific hurdles. Use POV posts, teardown threads, and regulatory explainers.
(Relevance)

3// Build the distribution loop
Publish on LinkedIn and X then feed those assets directly into an outbound sequence. Track meetings booked and reply quality to measure the lift.
(Velocity)

Redesign one outbound sequence this week around a founder POV asset and compare meeting rates.

Most LinkedIn lead magnets attract freebie-seekers, not buyers.

The fix? Better format, delivery, and follow-up.

Join me + ruzgar zere 🌀  Zere (LeadShark founder, 1M+ DMs delivered) for a free 45-minute workshop on February 3rd at 12 PM EST.

What you'll get:

→ The 5 lead magnet formats that actually convert—and when to use each → Comment CTAs that pre-qualify leads and filter out tire-kickers

 → The complete automation: comment → DM → capture → qualification → close → What to automate vs. keep human (without triggering LinkedIn's spam radar) → Metrics that matter + conversion benchmarks you should hit

Live teardowns. Real examples. A 3-step action plan you can use this week.

P.S. Live Q&A at the end—bring your lead magnet ideas.

Most LinkedIn lead magnets fail because they're slow, generic, or buried in friction. But when you nail the format, delivery, and follow-up? Comments 

Open article: How to Build a LinkedIn Lead Magnet Machine by Will Leatherman • 1 min read

How to Build a LinkedIn Lead Magnet Machine

rsvp for my chat with ruzgar zere 🌀 on lead magnets next week @ 12pm ET👇

Frank Sondors 🥓, ruzgar zere 🌀 and 1 other connection attending

View event: How to Build a LinkedIn Lead Magnet Machine

This week's lineup:

Free workshop on LinkedIn lead magnets tomorrow at noon with me and ruzgar zere (Tuesday 12pm EST), plus 3 case studies you can steal from:

→ How to build an AI agent that writes proposals in 15 minutes
→ How Valley books 300 demos/month with AI + LinkedIn DMs
→ Building brand moats as a founder in the AI era

Also: Founder-Led Content cohort kicks off February 11 if you're ready to build a content engine that actually drives pipeline.

Everything's in this week's newsletter.

Happy Monday! New week, new opportunities to turn your LinkedIn presence into actual pipeline. Before I get into this week's resources, quick reminder

Open article: This week: Build a LinkedIn lead magnet machine + 3 new resources by Will Leatherman • 3 min read

This week: Build a LinkedIn lead magnet machine + 3 new resources

I've spent years testing LinkedIn outreach strategies.

And one pattern keeps showing up in the data:

Warm lists absolutely destroy cold outreach.

Here's what I mean:

→ Warm list connection acceptance: 34.82%
→ Cold outreach acceptance: 16.29%

That's a 2.1x difference.

But here's what surprised me - 

The advantage shows up at the connection stage, not in replies to your first message.

Once someone accepts your connection request, reply rates are fairly similar whether they came from warm or cold outreach.

So what does this tell us?

→ The real barrier isn't your messaging quality
→ It's whether people recognize you in the first place
→ Getting past that initial acceptance is where warm lists win

And this has major implications for how you should build your pipeline:

If you're only doing cold outreach, you're working 2x harder for the same number of connections.

But if you're investing in:

→ Building your network proactively
→ Engaging with your target market's content
→ Creating visibility before you reach out

You're stacking the deck in your favor before you ever hit "send."

The ROI difference between warm and cold is bigger than most people think - 

Make sure your strategy reflects that.

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The Battle

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Will Leatherman

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The Battle

Amanda Goetz

Will Leatherman

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Posts

Engagements

Likes

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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Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreAmanda Goetz's LinkedIn Performance