Table of Contents
Introduction
Understanding Personal Branding at Its Core
The Power of Finding the “Right Room”
Why Orientation Matters: Knowing Who You Are
Early Career Lessons from McFadden’s and Borgata
Experience Over Product: What Every Business Should Learn
Teaching, Communicating, and the Importance of Emerging Voices
Passion as a Professional Advantage
Stop Fighting Yourself: Building a Career That Fits
Community as the Future of Content
Turning Inward: Growth Inside Your Existing Network
Balancing Vision and Resources in Entrepreneurship
How to Answer “How’s Business?” With Purpose
The Weight People Carry Behind the Scenes
Conclusion
FAQ
Introduction
Some entrepreneurs spend years searching for their voice, while others seem to be born with one. Cheldin Barlatt Rumer is a rare blend of both. Her voice—energetic, bold, passionate, and unmistakably authentic—was always there, but the clarity, direction, and mission behind it were developed through experience, mistakes, ambition, and endless curiosity.
In this Bricks and Risk episode, Cheldin sits down with Tim and Sean to explore her journey from opening Irish pubs across the country to becoming a global digital media leader and personal branding expert. Her insights go far beyond “marketing”; they touch identity, alignment, confidence, storytelling, and the emotional challenges behind entrepreneurship.
What emerges is a roadmap: how to choose your rooms, find your people, elevate your voice, and build a business rooted in experience—not just product.
This blog breaks down the most powerful ideas from the conversation and frames them in a way that helps readers connect every lesson to their own personal brand and business growth.
Understanding Personal Branding at Its Core
Personal branding, according to Cheldin, is not about followers, virality, or the newest platform. It is defined simply:
Personal branding is what people say and think about you in your absence.
Everything else—your online presence, your portfolio, your social media strategy—is merely the supporting architecture. Cheldin explains that most people struggle not because they lack skill, drive, or ambition, but because they lack words. They don’t know how to answer basic questions about their work, worth, and why it matters.
Many entrepreneurs invest more energy into their craft than into communicating it. They can bake, create, advise, design, or strategize for 80 hours a week—but when someone asks what they do, they freeze, stumble, or undersell.
A powerful personal brand requires three things:
Who you are
What you want
Why you deserve it
These three anchors form a foundation strong enough to support messaging, content strategy, and professional presence.
The Power of Finding the “Right Room”
Early in the episode, Cheldin introduces a concept that reframes how entrepreneurs think about visibility:
Most people are doing the right things in the wrong rooms.
Posting, creating content, attending events, launching initiatives—none of it matters if the audience isn’t aligned. Many entrepreneurs make the mistake of fighting for attention from people who will never buy, never engage, and never understand.
Your message must match your room. And not every room earns the right to your ambition.
This “posting and praying” mentality—publishing content and hoping the right person sees it—is not a strategy. Alignment is.
Her mother’s West African wisdom sums it up perfectly:
Stop going to the same well looking for different water.
Move rooms. Adjust. Align. When your message meets the right audience, everything changes.
Why Orientation Matters: Knowing Who You Are
Cheldin makes a compelling point: every job begins with orientation—except entrepreneurship.
Servers learn menu items. Retail workers learn SKUs. Hospitality workers learn service standards.
But entrepreneurs rarely sit down and do an orientation on themselves.
They don’t review their background, strengths, weaknesses, goals, accomplishments, or differentiators. Yet they’re expected to sell themselves from day one.
Orientation clarifies identity, and identity fuels communication. Without it, personal branding becomes guesswork.
This orientation becomes the blueprint for determining which rooms you belong in—and which ones you should leave behind.
Early Career Lessons from McFadden’s and Borgata
One of the most surprising segments of the episode is Cheldin’s discussion of her early career. Before digital media, before entrepreneurship, she worked with McFadden’s and Borgata, helping open new restaurants, casinos, and entertainment spaces.
That experience shaped her branding philosophy.
Whether serving $3 beers or managing multimillion-dollar casino experiences, she learned the same truth:
People don’t buy products. They buy experiences.
Her job was not to promote wings and beer. It was to create energy, buzz, anticipation, and connection. She traveled from city to city, building atmospheres that made strangers feel like something exciting was happening—and made them want to return.
This foundation later became the basis of her approach: personality leads before product.
Experience Over Product: What Every Business Should Learn
Whether the setting was a pub, casino, insurance agency, or small business, the lesson remained:
Products are abundant. Experiences are rare.
Insurance is insurance. Beer is beer. Fries are fries. Real estate is real estate. The differentiator is the feeling someone has when engaging with you or your brand.
The goal is simple:
Make people remember how you made them feel.
That emotional memory becomes the engine of referrals, loyalty, and long-term success.
Teaching, Communicating, and the Importance of Emerging Voices
Cheldin is also an adjunct professor at Temple and Drexel. Her teaching style—informal, engaging, energetic—reflects her belief that education is more effective when students feel entertained, understood, and encouraged.
Her classrooms emphasize:
Reality over theory
Communication over perfection
Individuality over conformity
In a world where resumes no longer dominate first impressions, she teaches students how to talk about themselves, articulate their goals, and express their value in everyday settings—like family dinners, youth sports games, and informal conversations that often lead to opportunity.
Passion as a Professional Advantage
Passion shows up repeatedly in her journey. It has been both a compass and an accelerator.
She argues that many people fight themselves by forcing careers, roles, or habits that don’t fit. They waste energy trying to be mediocre at something instead of exceptional at something aligned with who they are.
Her advice is simple:
Go where your passion already lives.
Then apply your profession to that passion.
If you love sports, work in sports.
If you love food, work around food.
If you love communication, build a life that requires speaking and storytelling.
This alignment reduces friction and increases fulfillment.
Stop Fighting Yourself: Building a Career That Fits
Many people allow outdated expectations—family traditions, industry norms, societal standards—to pressure them into paths that drain rather than energize.
Cheldin’s family is a perfect example. In a traditional West African household, the only acceptable careers were:
Attorney
Doctor
Engineer
Her siblings followed those paths. She didn’t. She talks into cameras, hosts conversations, throws events, and builds brands—and it works because she embraced her natural gifts.
The takeaway:
The world is large enough for you to win doing what fits you instead of forcing what doesn’t.
Community as the Future of Content
In a digital landscape obsessed with views, followers, and algorithms, Cheldin offers a grounded correction:
The future of content is community.
A million followers don’t guarantee ROI.
A hundred committed followers can change your business.
The shift is from quantity to quality, from vanity metrics to real impact.
This aligns with broader industry data, including findings from Harvard Business Review, which highlights the growing importance of micro-communities and high-trust networks in brand growth (Source: Harvard Business Review ).
Turning Inward: Growth Inside Your Existing Network
One of the most actionable lessons in the episode is Cheldin’s shift from chasing new audiences to nurturing her existing community.
She realized she wasn’t:
Thanking long-time followers
Engaging supporters
Asking her existing network for help
Sharing her business needs openly
Once she turned inward, everything changed.
People naturally want to support those they care about—but they can’t support you if they don’t know what you need.
This philosophy mirrors the sales principle shared in an article from Forbes, which emphasizes the power of deepening current customer relationships before seeking new ones (Source: Forbes).
Balancing Vision and Resources in Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurs often have big dreams but limited resources. Cheldin admits her ambition has sometimes outpaced her systems and processes.
Success requires both:
Passion (the fuel)
Process (the vehicle)
Without financial, operational, and structural support, even the best ideas stall. Building the right team—legal, accounting, insurance, administrative—is essential for scaling without burning out.
How to Answer “How’s Business?” With Purpose
Instead of sharing stress or masking reality, Cheldin suggests answering with honesty and opportunity:
“Life is good, but it could always be better.”
Then follow with a direct statement of what you’re seeking—content creators, clients, referrals, partners, or opportunities.
Short, clear, and effective.
The Weight People Carry Behind the Scenes
Her favorite quote—“Just because I carry it well doesn’t mean it isn’t heavy”—captures the emotional complexity of entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurs often present strength, but silently juggle:
Family
Finances
Pressure
Fear
Anxiety
Responsibilities
Her reminder is to check on your strong friends and ask twice—not once—because honesty usually comes on the second ask.
Conclusion
This conversation with Cheldin Barlatt Rumer is more than an interview; it’s a masterclass on identity, community, and alignment. Through personal stories, hard-earned lessons, and contagious energy, she shows that personal branding isn’t a marketing tactic—it’s a lifestyle rooted in clarity, confidence, and connection.
Her journey proves that with the right room, the right message, and the right community, anyone can amplify their voice, expand their reach, and build a brand that speaks loudly—even in their absence.
FAQ
1. What is the foundation of a strong personal brand?
Knowing who you are, what you want, and why you deserve it. These three factors guide your messaging and help determine where your voice belongs.
2. How do I know if I’m in the “right room”?
The right room is where your message resonates naturally. If you constantly fight to be seen or understood, you’re likely in the wrong room.
3. Why does experience matter more than product?
Products are abundant; experiences are memorable. People buy based on how you make them feel.
4. How can I grow without constantly searching for new customers?
Turn inward. Focus on nurturing your existing network, strengthening relationships, and asking clearly for what you need.
5. What’s the biggest mistake entrepreneurs make with branding?
Trying to be everything to everyone. Instead, align your natural strengths with audiences who value them.
6. How can I answer “How’s business?” effectively?
Use a balanced response: “Life is good, but it could always be better.” Then share what you’re currently looking for.
7. Why do entrepreneurs feel pressure to appear strong?
Because personal branding often projects competence. But behind the scenes, everyone carries their own weight—acknowledging it builds healthier relationships.
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