Branding Room Only with Paula T. Edgar

This is the Branding Room Only podcast with Paula T. Edgar where we share career stories, strategies, and lessons learned on how industry leaders and influencers have built their personal brands.

Branding Room Only with Paula T. Edgar is a business podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 0 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 83.

Unknown Host hosts Branding Room Only with Paula T. Edgar, a business show with 0 episodes published.

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  Episode #143

  Make a Scene and Make Your Message Memorable with Mike Ganino

  Oct 6, 20261h 1m

  When people think of you, what stories come to mind? Make a Scene author and keynote director Mike Ganino sees those associations as a central part of your personal brand. In this episode of Branding Room Only , he and Paula talk about how to make your message clear enough for people to remember and connect with it. Mike shares why a list of events or accomplishments isn’t yet a compelling story. Listeners need to understand what an experience meant to you and how it changed the way you show up. He explains how specific details help people recognize themselves in a story, and why a strong presentation starts with the belief you want your audience to reconsider. They also discuss presence: how eye contact and movement can bring an audience into the conversation, and why charisma draws on warmth, competence, and awareness of others. Whether you’re speaking onstage, interviewing for a role, or having a difficult conversation, Mike offers a useful question to ask beforehand: What story will the other person tell about this interaction afterward? 1:31 – How Mike defines personal brand, his favorite motto, and his Ariana Grande hype song 7:10 – Mike’s tricks for getting more response from an audience on stage 9:35 – How Mike’s childhood experiences shaped the work he does today 13:26 – Mike’s professional journey and his experience as a flight attendant on 9/11 19:29 – Empathy and shared humanity in the days after September 11th 22:14 – What separates memorable messages from overlooked ones 24:48 – Why a signature story or message matters 27:23 – Lessons from the stage that can strengthen your presence 33:57 – What makes a speaker’s ideas resonate long after the talk ends 38:31 – The most common storytelling mistake professionals make 44:34 – What persuasive storytelling can teach you beyond asking for money 47:49 – Why charisma isn’t the same as extroversion and what you can strengthen 49:58 – The patterns Mike sees in people with magnetic presence 52:15 – Two ways to strengthen your personal brand and communication this week 54:44 – Mike’s favorite things, brand non-negotiable, and special gift Connect With Mike Ganino Mike Ganino is a keynote director, author, and expert in transformational self-expression who helps leaders, founders, authors, and visible experts build a public presence people can feel. His professional trajectory spans acting, writing, and directing for the stage, a stint as a TEDx executive producer, and years spent as a hospitality executive and corporate trainer. Each one sharpened the same instinct: how to see storytelling and performance from the audience's side. He uses that instinct to help clients build talks and performances that do more than wow a room; they change how the audience thinks. Mike is the author of Make a Scene , where he shares his signature frameworks for storytelling, stage presence, and magnetic communication. Through his coaching, speaking, and programs, he helps professional speakers, best-selling authors, Fortune 500 executives, and other industry leaders align their voice, story, identity, and presence so they become not just respected but unforgettable. Mike Ganino | LinkedIn | Instagram Mentioned In Make a Scene and Make Your Message Memorable with Mike Ganino Jacquette Timmons Make a Scene: Storytelling, Stage Presence, and the Art of Being Unforgettable in Every Spotlight by Mike Ganino Company Culture For Dummies by Mike Ganino Curated Resources from Paula Sign up for Paula’s Upcoming Events Learn More About Paula's Personal Branding Strategy Session Offer Subscribe to The Branding Room Only podcast on YouTube Call to Action Follow & Review: Help others find the podcast. Subscribe and leave a quick review . Want more branding insights? Join Paula’s newsletter for expert tips and exclusive content! Subscribe Here Conferences are an investment—make sure you maximize yours. My Engage Your Hustle™ Conference Playbook gives you the strategies to prepare, stand out, and follow up with impact. Get your copy today . Sponsor for this episode This episode is brought to you by PGE Consulting Group LLC. PGE Consulting Group LLC empowers individuals and organizations to lead with purpose, presence, and impact. Specializing in leadership development and personal branding, we offer keynotes, custom programming, consulting, and strategic advising—all designed to elevate influence and performance at every level. Founded and led by Paula Edgar, our work centers on practical strategies that enhance professional development, strengthen workplace culture, and drive meaningful, measurable change. To learn more about Paula and her services , go to www.paulaedgar.com or contact her at info@paulaedgar.com, and follow Paula Edgar and the PGE Consulting Group LLC on LinkedIn. You connect with me here every week, but did you know that speaking and facilitating programs for organizations is what I do for a living? If something you've heard on this podcast that made you think, my organization needs to hear this, I would love to continue the conversation. Visit paulaedgar.com or email me at info@paulaedgar.com to learn more about bringing me in to speak for your organizatio

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  Episode #142

  How Your Work Shapes Your Personal Brand with Deesha Philyaw

  Sep 29, 202655 min

  What comes to mind when people hear your name? For award-winning author Deesha Philyaw, it’s stories about Black women seeking freedom, told with humor, desire, and honesty. It’s also the way she supports other writers. Deesha sees her personal brand in both the work she chooses to create and how she shows up in her community, while recognizing that she cannot control how everyone receives it. In this episode of Branding Room Only , Deesha shares how the women who raised her in Jacksonville shaped The Secret Lives of Church Ladies and her commitment to writing Black women as complex, fully human people. She also traces the winding path from teaching and freelance work to her award-winning fiction and her debut novel, The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman , a project she has worked on for 20 years. Paula and Deesha talk about rejection, revision, community, and building an online presence through genuine conversation. Deesha’s advice for writers draws on her own experience: do the work, find your people, and stay clear about what you are willing to put your name on. 1:36 – Deesha’s relationship with personal branding, rejection, and how she describes herself 5:16 – How growing up in Jacksonville shaped Deesha’s writing 11:42 – Deesha’s path from college and early careers to becoming a writer 18:22 – The "ancestral honesty" of The Secret Lives of Church Ladies and the church community’s response 24:52 – What rejection and persistence taught Deesha about how she wants to show up 29:48 – Deesha’s experience expanding her work into television 33:37 – How social media helped Deesha build her platform and brand 39:14 – Why The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman took 20 years to write 46:03 – Deesha’s advice for authors building an authentic brand 49:22 – What Deesha does for fun 50:50 – What Deesha will never compromise on in her writing and brand Connect With Deesha Philyaw Deesha Philyaw is an award-winning author and a Kimbilio Fiction Fellow, Baldwin for the Arts Fellow, and United States Artist Fellow. Her debut short story collection, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, won the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the Story Prize, the LA Times Book Prize: The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, and was a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction. Her debut novel, The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman, was released in September 2026 and is published by Mariner Books (an imprint of HarperCollins). Deesha also co-hosts two podcasts: Ursa Short Fiction with Dawnie Walton and Reckon True Stories with Kiese Laymon. She’s currently working on developing TV shows based on her short fiction. Deesha Philyaw The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman and Other Books by Deesha Philyaw Follow Deesha on Threads | Instagram | Bluesky | X/Twitter | Facebook Mentioned In How Your Work Shapes Your Personal Brand with Deesha Philyaw Deesha’s short story “Fuckboy Museum” in the anthology Peach Pit: Sixteen Stories of Unsavory Women (also available on Amazon ) Curated Resources from Paula Sign Up for Paula’s Upcoming Events Learn More About Paula's Personal Branding Strategy Session Offer Subscribe to The Branding Room Only podcast on YouTube Call to Action Follow & Review: Help others find the podcast. Subscribe and leave a quick review . Want more branding insights? Join Paula’s newsletter for expert tips and exclusive content! Subscribe Here Conferences are an investment—make sure you maximize yours. My Engage Your Hustle™ Conference Playbook gives you the strategies to prepare, stand out, and follow up with impact. Get your copy today . Sponsor for this episode This episode is brought to you by PGE Consulting Group LLC. PGE Consulting Group LLC empowers individuals and organizations to lead with purpose, presence, and impact. Specializing in leadership development and personal branding, we offer keynotes, custom programming, consulting, and strategic advising—all designed to elevate influence and performance at every level. Founded and led by Paula Edgar, our work centers on practical strategies that enhance professional development, strengthen workplace culture, and drive meaningful, measurable change. To learn more about Paula and her services , go to www.paulaedgar.com or contact her at info@paulaedgar.com, and follow Paula Edgar and the PGE Consulting Group LLC on LinkedIn. You connect with me here every week, but did you know that speaking and facilitating programs for organizations is what I do for a living? If something you've heard on this podcast that made you think, my organization needs to hear this, I would love to continue the conversation. Visit paulaedgar.com or email me at info@paulaedgar.com to learn more about bringing me in to speak for your organizatio

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  Episode #141

  The Most Personal Talk of My Career and the Personal Side of a Personal Brand

  Sep 22, 202652 min

  I am a big proponent of authenticity, and I describe authenticity as a scale. Vulnerability is different. I can decide whether I’m vulnerable or not, and while I share a lot with people, I don’t think many people get underneath the layers of Paula unless we are close or unless I’m being strategic about it. Giving the most personal talk of my career meant deciding I was going to let people underneath some of those layers. I knew I wanted to do something that was going to stretch me, and this absolutely did. I went about preparing for this talk as if it was not emotional. I knew my points, I knew what I wanted to say, and I was holding myself to the very high standard I always have for how I show up. What truly made this different was the emotion. On the actual day, I had to honor the preparation but also honor the moment and give myself permission not to show up exactly the way I had planned. In this episode of Branding Room Only, my coach, Jacquette M. Timmons, is turning the tables and interviewing me about that experience. We talk about why I decided I was ready to tell this story, how I prepared for a talk that stretched me in a completely different way, what happened when the delivery did not look exactly like I had planned, and what the experience taught me about vulnerability, credibility, and the personal side of personal brand. 1:11 – Paula’s definition of personal brand and how she describes herself 5:03 – Growing up in a Caribbean neighborhood in Brooklyn and how it shaped Paula 7:43 – Why Paula was ready to tell a more personal story about her mother at PDC 16:33 – Letting go of memorizing the speech and embracing what stretched her as a speaker 20:57 – The difference between authenticity and vulnerability and Paula’s high standards for herself 25:11 – Opening the talk without distractions and letting the emotion shape the moment 30:05 – How her mother’s inclusivity became a leadership lesson that resonated with someone in the audience 36:08 – Giving herself permission not to show up exactly as planned 40:53 – How the experience expanded Paula’s thinking about personal brand 42:54 – Weighing the risks and rewards of sharing something vulnerable publicly 47:52 – Paula’s advice for doing the thing you’ve been hesitating to do Mentioned In The Most Personal Talk of My Career and the Personal Side of a Personal Brand What Losing My Mother on September 11 Taught Me About Leadership Remembering Joan Donna Griffith 25 Years After September 11 with Peter L. Griffith A Tribute to My Mother Joan Donna Griffith Professional Development Consortium (PDC) Jacquette M. Timmons Mindful Living with Z Curated Resources from Paula Sign up for Paula’s Upcoming Events Learn More About Paula's Personal Branding Strategy Session Offer Subscribe to The Branding Room Only podcast on YouTube Call to Action Follow & Review: If you enjoyed this episode, leave a 5-star review on your favorite podcast platform ! Want more ways to grow your personal brand? Make sure you’re signed up for my upcoming webinars and workshops . Conferences are an investment—make sure you maximize yours. My Engage Your Hustle™ Conference Playbook gives you the strategies to prepare, stand out, and follow up with impact. Get your copy today . Sponsor for this episode This episode is brought to you by PGE Consulting Group LLC. PGE Consulting Group LLC empowers individuals and organizations to lead with purpose, presence, and impact. Specializing in leadership development and personal branding, we offer keynotes, custom programming, consulting, and strategic advising—all designed to elevate influence and performance at every level. Founded and led by Paula Edgar, our work centers on practical strategies that enhance professional development, strengthen workplace culture, and drive meaningful, measurable change. To learn more about Paula and her services , go to www.paulaedgar.com or contact her at info@paulaedgar.com, and follow Paula Edgar and the PGE Consulting Group LLC on LinkedIn. You connect with me here every week, but did you know that speaking and facilitating programs for organizations is what I do for a living? If something you've heard on this podcast that made you think, my organization needs to hear this, I would love to continue the conversation. Visit paulaedgar.com or email me at info@paulaedgar.com to learn more about bringing me in to speak for your organizatio

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  Episode #140

  What Losing My Mother on September 11 Taught Me About Leadership

  Sep 15, 202622 min

  For 25 years, much of the conversation about my mother, Joan Donna Griffith, has focused on how she died. But the greatest leadership lessons I carry did not come from losing my mother on September 11, 2001. They came from how she lived, what she taught me, and how she prepared me for moments neither of us could have imagined. In this episode of Branding Room Only, I’m sharing one of the most personal talks I have ever given, originally delivered as a PDC Talk at the Professional Development Consortium (PDC) Annual Summer Conference. In this short talk, I reflect on what my mother taught me about preparing for disruption, making decisions grounded in your values, knowing your worth, and creating more leaders through mentorship, sponsorship, advocacy, and love. Leadership begins long before a crisis arrives. It is revealed through how we prepare people, the choices we make when something is at stake, and how we advocate for others when they are not in the room. 2:42 – The leadership philosophy Joan instilled in childhood 5:45 – The vital importance of preparing others for the unexpected 11:28 – Knowing your values and refusing to let fear make your decisions 15:15 – A lifelong reminder about exponential self-worth 18:12 – Love as the hidden meaning of leadership, and a question to ask yourself Mentioned In What Losing My Mother on September 11 Taught Me About Leadership Remembering Joan Donna Griffith 25 Years After September 11 with Peter L. Griffith A Tribute to My Mother Joan Donna Griffith Professional Development Consortium (PDC) Curated Resources from Paula Sign up for Paula’s Upcoming Events Learn More About Paula's Personal Branding Strategy Session Offer Subscribe to The Branding Room Only podcast on YouTube Call to Action Follow & Review: If you enjoyed this episode, leave a 5-star review on your favorite podcast platform ! Want more ways to grow your personal brand? Make sure you’re signed up for my upcoming webinars and workshops . Conferences are an investment—make sure you maximize yours. My Engage Your Hustle™ Conference Playbook gives you the strategies to prepare, stand out, and follow up with impact. Get your copy today . Sponsor for this episode This episode is brought to you by PGE Consulting Group LLC. PGE Consulting Group LLC empowers individuals and organizations to lead with purpose, presence, and impact. Specializing in leadership development and personal branding, we offer keynotes, custom programming, consulting, and strategic advising—all designed to elevate influence and performance at every level. Founded and led by Paula Edgar, our work centers on practical strategies that enhance professional development, strengthen workplace culture, and drive meaningful, measurable change. To learn more about Paula and her services , go to www.paulaedgar.com or contact her at info@paulaedgar.com, and follow Paula Edgar and the PGE Consulting Group LLC on LinkedIn. You connect with me here every week, but did you know that speaking and facilitating programs for organizations is what I do for a living? If something you've heard on this podcast that made you think, my organization needs to hear this, I would love to continue the conversation. Visit paulaedgar.com or email me at info@paulaedgar.com to learn more about bringing me in to speak for your organizatio

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  Episode #139

  How Raymond Sanchez Jr. Honors His Father’s Legacy 25 Years After September 11

  Sep 8, 20261h 38m

  What people say about you when you’re not in the room matters. Raymond Sanchez Jr. has seen that play out throughout a career shaped by relationships, mentorship, and people willing to put his name forward because they trusted how he would show up. It is also a lesson he learned early from his father, Raymond Sanchez Sr., who taught him to have a plan, think ahead, and understand that what you know matters, but so does who you know. Ray was only 22 when his father, a union carpenter working at the World Trade Center, was killed on September 11th. In the aftermath, Ray found himself navigating the legal process to establish his father’s death, an experience that ultimately helped lead him to law school. Twenty-five years later, his father’s example still shows up in the way Ray thinks about service, integrity, and whether he is leaving things better than he found them. He is equally intentional about making sure his father is remembered for who he was, not simply for what happened to him on September 11th. In this episode of Branding Room Only, Paula T. Edgar sits down with Ray to discuss the people and experiences that shaped his career, why doing the right thing when nobody is looking remains central to his personal brand, and how his father continues to influence the choices he makes today. They also reflect on their shared experience of losing a parent on September 11th and why telling their parents’ stories matters if their legacies will be more than names on a wall. 1:13 – What personal brand means to Ray, three words he’d use to describe himself, his two favorite quotes, and his hype music 6:38 – How a childhood in the NYCHA buildings of the Lower East Side forged Ray’s code of ethics 12:47 – The internship that quietly connected Ray to politicians, Broadway royalty, and two decades of career opportunities 19:43 – The exhausting, bureaucratic maze of proving his father's life ever existed, just to get what Ray was legally owed 22:24 – Going to law school and working at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. 28:13 – The one thing to consider before accepting any job offer, and the roles Ray took on doing meaningful work in the Hispanic community 37:53 – A perfect demonstration of how personal branding is about what people say about (whether you’re in or out of the room) 41:00 – Why Ray ran for NYC Council District 7, joined a non-profit six weeks before federal investigators raided it, and became its new executive director 51:49 – Why Ray almost lost his cool with a city bureaucrat over the phone 57:19 – Raymond Sanchez Sr. as a man and a father, and what his son Ray remembers most about him 1:03:39 – The morning of September 11th through Ray’s eyes, and his father's quiet act of heroism that day 1:11:32 – The dehumanization of the 9/11 victim’s compensation fund, and how that experience proved to be a turning point that led Ray to law school 1:18:26 – How losing his dad the way he did turned Ray into who he is now 1:21:31 – Standing up for our communities as legacy, and why the phrase “victims’ families” never told the whole story 1:24:19 – Pushing back against being only defined by 9/11, why it took 15 years for Ray to talk about that day and tell his father’s story 1:28:15 – The joyful, fun parts of Ray today that his dad would recognize and be proud of 1:30:54 – What ethics demands of you when nobody’s watching, and Ray’s special talent to quickly synthesize complexity Connect With Raymond Sanchez Jr. Raymond Sanchez Jr., Esq. has spent two decades building a career at the intersection of law, government, and public advocacy — moving fluidly between City Hall, the private sector, and the nonprofit boardroom in ways that have repeatedly put him in the room where a crisis needed a steady hand. He most recently served as General Counsel to the NYC Mayor's Office of Contract Services, advising the City's Chief Procurement Officer on citywide policy and compliance. Before that, he was appointed CEO of Aguila, Inc., a NYC homeless services nonprofit, where he led the organization through a New York State Attorney General investigation and a pandemic-era transformation of a 200-bed shelter into the city's largest COVID quarantine center. His earlier chapters include Managing Director at Mercury Public Affairs, Principal of his own government relations firm, and seven years as General Counsel and Director of Policy to the Bronx Borough President, where he helped pass NYC's Living Wage Law and secured the conveyance of the Fulton Correctional Facility for a first-of-its-kind reentry housing program. A first-generation Latino leader, Raymond holds a J.D. from Rutgers School of Law and a B.A. in Government from Wesleyan University, and serves on the board of Areté Education and as a special advisor to the La Unidad Latina Foundation. He is a two-time honoree on NYC "40 Under 40" lists and a recipient of the Council of Urban Professionals' Law Catalyst Award. LinkedIn | Instagram Mentioned In How Raymond Sanchez Jr. Honors His Father’s Legacy 25 Years After September 11 Hispanic Federation Latino Justice The Boys Club of New York (BCNY) 9/11 Memorial & Museum Curated Resources from Paula Sign up for Paula’s Upcoming Events Learn More About Paula's Personal Branding Strategy Session Offer Subscribe to The Branding Room Only podcast on YouTube Call to Action Follow & Review: Help others find the podcast. Subscribe and leave a quick review . Want more branding insights? Join Paula’s newsletter for expert tips and exclusive content! Subscribe Here Conferences are an investment—make sure you maximize yours. My Engage Your Hustle™ Conference Playbook gives you the strategies to prepare, stand out, and follow up with impact. Get your copy today . Sponsor for this episode This episode is brought to you by PGE Consulting Group LLC. PGE Consulting Group LLC empowers individuals and organizations to lead with purpose, presence, and impact. Specializing in leadership development and personal branding, we offer keynotes, custom programming, consulting, and strategic advising—all designed to elevate influence and performance at every level. Founded and led by Paula Edgar, our work centers on practical strategies that enhance professional development, strengthen workplace culture, and drive meaningful, measurable change. To learn more about Paula and her services , go to www.paulaedgar.com or contact her at info@paulaedgar.com, and follow Paula Edgar and the PGE Consulting Group LLC on LinkedIn. You connect with me here every week, but did you know that speaking and facilitating programs for organizations is what I do for a living? If something you've heard on this podcast that made you think, my organization needs to hear this, I would love to continue the conversation. Visit paulaedgar.com or email me at info@paulaedgar.com to learn more about bringing me in to speak for your organizatio

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