The Branding Laboratory

About The Branding Laboratory

Are you a CEO, entrepreneur, or solopreneur with a drive to build a distinctive brand that resonates with your audience? Are you an industry influencer who understands the importance of authenticity and compelling storytelling in shaping your digital footprint? The Business Branding Laboratory is the podcast for you! Every episode of The Branding Laboratory offers a blend of theory and practice, making complex branding strategies accessible and actionable. We delve into the essence of innovative leadership—unpacking how successful leaders integrate their personal values with their professional objectives to create compelling, authentic brands. Our discussions center around the vital role of creativity in leadership and the transformative power of genuine human connections. Think you'd be a great guest on the show? Apply at https://thebrandstoryteller.com/podcast-applyhere/

Publisher

Deevo Tindall

Category

business · business · business

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

27 Jun 2024

Latest episode

28 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

1 of 111 episodes have a transcript.

1. 

   28 Oct 2026

   Why Talented Leadership Teams Still Fail | Phillip Curran

   Great strategy, talented leaders, and the business still isn't firing on all cylinders. Leadership system architect Philip C. Curran joins Deevo Tindall to explain leadership drift, the Drift Tax it puts on a company, and the eight promises from his book The Hidden Emotional Contract. If you lead a team of any size, this is the conversation to have before your next leadership meeting. What we explore Why leadership works on two levels: the interpersonal and the enterprise The Hidden Emotional Contract and the eight promises leaders either honor or break Leadership drift and its three most common causes How one company's 12 executives gave 8 different answers about their own strategy The Drift Tax, and what leadership misalignment actually costs Why culture is the lived experience of employees interacting with their leaders About Philip C. Curran Philip C. Curran is the founder of Rinnovare, a senior advisory firm that works with CEOs, CHROs, and private equity partners on leadership and human capital systems. He calls himself a leadership system architect. Phil created the RQ™ System and the Hidden Emotional Contract framework, and he is the author of The Hidden Emotional Contract: The Eight Promises That Build Trust, Culture, and Performance. His career spans nearly 40 years in consulting, including 13 years at Mercer, leading the HR consulting practice for the western U.S. at PricewaterhouseCoopers, and serving as a chief human resources officer, including in a health system. Guest Links (verified) Rinnovare: https://www.rinnovarehr.com Book a call with Phil: https://calendly.com/pcurran-rinnovarehr/30min Email: pcurran@rinnovarehr.com Rinnovare Insights (Phil's articles): https://blog.rinnovarehr.com The Drift Tax™ Explained in Under 3 Minutes: https://blog.rinnovarehr.com (June 30, 2026 post) Philip C. Curran Advisory: https://pccadvisory.com The Hidden Emotional Contract (print): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H9P29X9X The Hidden Emotional Contract (Kindle): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H9Z6JY1X LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philipcurran/ Resources mentioned The Hidden Emotional Contract by Philip C. Curran Peter Drucker's work on management and leadership Good to Great by Jim Collins Simon Sinek's work on leadership Chapters 00:00 Cold open 00:44 The thread: how leadership lives in your people 01:16 Deevo on the many kinds of leadership 02:06 Leadership is a relationship 02:23 Two levels: interpersonal and enterprise 03:00 The explicit contract and the unwritten one 03:43 The Hidden Emotional Contract 04:23 Leadership as an operating system 05:05 When success depends on heroes 06:07 The human dynamics underneath 07:21 What good leadership looks like 07:46 What leaders are too close to see 08:45 "Great strategy, talented team, something is off" 09:16 Fire the coaches? 10:03 Leadership drift 11:21 What drift costs 12:04 Deevo's thesis: unconscious leadership 12:42 The three causes of leadership drift 13:21 Employees feel the relationship 14:10 Teams that dislike each other can still work 14:51 Operating rhythm and decision rights 15:31 Role clarity, turf wars, and orphaned issues 16:41 What teams learn when leaders duck issues 17:25 Leaders model expected behavior 18:15 Phil's journey 18:34 40 years in consulting 19:24 Mercer, a CHRO role, and PwC 21:01 Pulled into leadership work 21:38 The man in the mirror 22:36 "I don't want this guy raising my children" 23:16 His teachers: Drucker, Collins, Sinek 24:52 His father's advice on managers and leaders 26:11 Leadership system architect 27:23 Five domains, 20 sub-dimensions 28:04 The RQ score 28:48 The Drift Tax 29:25 90-day and 12-month corrections 29:36 Learned or intuitive leadership? 30:29 The eight promises 33:18 Deevo: is leadership systems or emotion? 34:07 The short answer is both 35:58 The emotional application layer 37:19 What Phil was missing at 31 38:35 Where is consistency? 39:11 Deevo's own consistency check 41:00 Boiling it down to eight 41:58 The hidden cost of bad leadership 42:04 Stop relitigating decisions 43:04 12 executives, 8 answers 44:50 The results six months later 46:13 Why healthcare 46:47 Decision fatigue in the CEO's chair 48:58 Deevo's hospital client 49:38 Everybody agrees culture matters 50:11 Culture is the lived experience of employees 50:43 Deevo's takeaway 51:14 Where to find Phil 51:54 Outro About The Branding Laboratory The Branding Laboratory is where founders and leaders bring the business, decision, or tension they are actually wrestling with and put it on the table. Deevo Tindall, Founder Business Architect and Strategic Advisor, follows the thread underneath the obvious problem to explore how identity, leadership, operations, positioning, relationships, and strategy shape what happens next.

2. 

   21 Oct 2026

   When the life you built stops fitting

   A lot of successful men can keep the job, the family, and the calendar running long after their life has stopped fitting them. Divorce coach Mark Aylward joins Deevo Tindall to talk about what happens when that illusion breaks, the choice between getting bitter and getting better, and how a man learns to lead himself first. Two men, two divorces, and an honest conversation about rebuilding. What we explore • Why many high-achieving men function inside misalignment until something breaks • The choice that keeps coming back: get bitter, or get better • Why vulnerability is a strength, and why so many men have nowhere to take it • Kind candor, and the difference between being nice and being kind • Masculinity as responsibility, and why showing up every day matters • What "no one is coming" really means, and why it sets you free About Mark Aylward Mark Aylward is a divorce coach and mentor for high-achieving men, including founders and C-suite executives, and the creator of the R.E.A.L. Framework: Reflect, Evaluate, Activate, Lead. He spent more than 30 years in IT recruiting and staffing and built and sold two companies. After a ten-year legal battle in which he represented himself in family court, he won sole custody of his three children. He is now writing his first book, No One Is Coming. Guest Links: • Website: https://markaylward.com • Free 5-minute R.E.A.L. Assessment: https://therealassessment.com/ • Book a free strategy session: https://calendar.markaylward.com/book • Blog: https://markaylward.com/blog • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aylwardmark/ • YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@maylward Chapters 00:00 Cold open 00:20 The thread: when the life a man built stops fitting 00:49 Meet Mark Aylward 01:39 35 years of career conversations 02:47 Ten years in a family courtroom 03:33 Why he chose founders and executives 03:52 What raising daughters taught him 04:14 Deevo on raising two daughters 05:45 Deevo's divorce 13 years ago 06:43 Mark's story and the stages of grief 07:43 So few resources for men 08:10 The night everything changed 09:16 "That's not sustainable": a series of choices 09:47 Fortify your body and your mind 10:51 Representing himself in court 11:33 We always choose how we respond 12:32 How men were raised then and now 15:37 Bitter or better 16:09 Who Mark is, and who he isn't 16:56 Has the world changed too much? 19:25 The biggest change: how we take in information 20:12 What men are taught to hide 20:23 Vulnerability and caring leadership 21:21 Getting men to have the conversation 21:59 Where shame comes from 22:49 Using guilt as a gauge 23:34 The Flywheel of Life 24:42 Alignment to what? Your values 25:24 Listen to what people say, watch what they do 26:04 Everything is information 26:26 High achievers function inside misalignment 27:16 Running on half a tank 28:42 Who is ready to do the work 29:07 Kind candor 30:03 We need to be reminded more than taught 30:28 Deevo: "I'm fine, I'm great" 31:51 Why pity never helped 32:11 Ten years without dating 33:02 Self-reflection is where the juice is 33:34 Deevo's sauna conversations 35:13 Men do want to talk about this 35:29 Trust and objectivity 36:37 Vulnerability opens the floodgates 37:38 When vulnerability gets punished 38:57 The day in court 40:22 Walking out and collapsing 41:34 Masculinity as performance or responsibility 43:08 The art of communication 43:53 Masculinity includes kindness 44:44 Deevo's definition of masculinity 45:17 The move from boy to man 46:01 Show up every day 46:43 Why accountability partners work 47:15 Deevo: communication is the through line 48:20 Communication in his relationship 49:28 Do you want me to listen or help? 50:08 What can I do for you? 50:24 What fatherhood teaches 52:01 Fatherhood is leadership 53:12 Pause before you open the door 54:02 Deevo on a friend out of alignment 55:20 No One Is Coming 56:22 Finishing the book 57:38 Where to find Mark 58:29 Personal and professional are connected 58:50 You don't have to isolate 59:47 Mark's close: don't do it alone 1:01:08 Deevo's takeaway: lead yourself first 1:02:24 Deevo's close 1:03:33 Outro About The Branding Laboratory The Branding Laboratory is where founders and leaders bring the business, decision, or tension they are actually wrestling with and put it on the table. Deevo Tindall, Founder Business Architect and Strategic Advisor, follows the thread underneath the obvious problem to explore how identity, leadership, operations, positioning, relationships, and strategy shape what happens next.

3. 

   14 Oct 2026

   How To Build a Personal Brand That Sets You Apart | Laura Bull

   There are thousands of people who do what you do, with the same skills and the same promises. Laura Bull, former Sony Music executive and author of From Individual to Empire, joins Deevo Tindall to break down what a personal brand actually is and why it is the thing that separates you when everything else is equal. If you have ever felt like you sound like everyone else in your industry, start here. What we explore Why personal branding works differently from product branding, and what that means for founders Finding the "swoosh" inside a person, and why your red is different from my red Shared values as the only real driver of brand loyalty and word of mouth The trust deficit, AI-written content, and why so much of LinkedIn sounds the same Brand pillars: the Venn diagram of image, narrative, and product that makes you recognizable Marketing is what you say for 20 days, branding is what you say for 20 years About Laura Bull Laura Bull is the founder and CEO of The Brand Management Co. and the author of From Individual to Empire: A Guide to Building an Authentic and Powerful Brand. She spent ten years at Sony Music Entertainment, where she became one of the company's youngest executives and led marketing and artist development. She holds a BBA from Belmont University's Mike Curb School of Music Business and a master's from SMU, where she also taught as an adjunct at the Temerlin Advertising Institute. Today she helps entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and public figures turn who they are into competitive, sustainable business brands. Guest Links (verified) Website: https://www.thebrandmgmt.com Free brand checklist: https://www.thebrandmgmt.com/brand-checklist Brand Equity Quiz: https://www.thebrandmgmt.com/quiz Free chapter and the book: https://www.thebrandmgmt.com/the-book From Individual to Empire on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1632992612 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurabullbranding/ Instagram (Laura): https://www.instagram.com/thelaurabull/ Instagram (company): https://www.instagram.com/thebrandmgmtco Resources mentioned From Individual to Empire by Laura Bull The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor Grit by Angela Duckworth Raving Fans by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles The Hour Between Dog and Wolf by John Coates [CONFIRM this is the book Deevo meant] Hemingway Editor Chapters 00:00 Cold open 00:28 The thread: why a personal brand separates you 00:50 Meet Laura Bull 01:19 Personal branding versus product branding 03:01 Finding the swoosh inside a person 03:50 The perfume analogy 04:16 Identity work comes first 05:56 Your red is different from my red 06:37 Shared values create brand loyalty 09:11 Deevo's first pair of Jordans 11:44 Branding is about an emotional response 12:24 You are not for everybody 12:47 What a buyer is really asking 13:59 Social proof and followers 14:48 Marketing brain and branding brain 15:10 Go deep before you go wide 16:25 The level playing field 17:53 How many touches it takes now 19:04 Is know, like, trust dead? 20:20 The trust deficit and AI content 21:34 Why everyone on LinkedIn sounds the same 22:03 Laura's path from Belmont to Sony 24:06 Working at Sony while still in school 24:32 Leaving Sony: nobody knew marketing from branding 25:25 Marketing is 20 days, branding is 20 years 26:10 Writing the book at SMU 27:32 Would she do it all again? 28:27 Social media is marketing, how you show up is brand 29:40 The psychology of color 30:56 Your zone of genius meets your customer 31:42 No response is a response 32:08 AI, LinkedIn, and thought leadership 33:49 The Venn diagram: image, narrative, product 35:08 Brand pillars work as a group 37:19 Consistency is key 38:15 Brand pillars elevate, content pillars change 38:41 Talent is never enough 40:32 Superstars who turn down $10 million deals 41:48 There is no such thing as an it factor 42:38 Skill versus story 44:16 The market needs a reason to choose you 45:36 Where to start: introspection 46:13 Positive psychology and the What's Next sections 47:02 "If you think I want a sentence, I want a paragraph" 48:07 Your ego brain and your business brain 49:58 Identity work and shadow work 50:48 Running a SWOT analysis on yourself 51:43 From the face of a business to a real business 53:15 Get the first product right before you extend 53:59 Laura's three brand pillars 55:49 Deevo's pillars, and Laura's correction 57:17 The hide-the-name test 58:12 Where to find Laura 58:49 The business case for personal branding 1:00:37 Why you, why this, why now 1:01:19 Closing thoughts 1:01:41 Deevo's close: everyone else is already taken 1:03:17 Outro About The Branding Laboratory The Branding Laboratory is where founders and leaders bring the business, decision, or tension they are actually wrestling with and put it on the table. Deevo Tindall, Founder Business Architect and Strategic Advisor, follows the thread underneath the obvious problem to explore how identity, leadership, operations, positioning, relationships, and strategy shape what happens next.

Inside a recent episode

48 - Love Means Business: Building Unbreakable Bonds in Your Brand Journey with Emily Green

Published 5 Jun 2025 · Transcript excerpt

[…] Would you agree in terms of this always forward concept? I think you don't want to take that so literally that when I say always forward, you're not acknowledging things you learn from your past. I know that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is to not be worried. Don't be so worried about everyone around you comparison is the thief of joy. Whatever you've heard that, I'm sure that's really the essence of that statement for me. It's not being so blind that you can't learn from your past because if we if you and I did that, we were blind to our past. We wouldn't be where we are today, but I think that the concept of at least for me, I feel like a lot of people I see that are unhappy that are not as successful maybe as they want to be. […]

Who has been a guest on The Branding Laboratory

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Gregory Vetter
• Hilary Porta
• Dr Michael Neal
• Leonard Scheiner
• Emily Green

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Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

10 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

6 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 32 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

44

Social presence

0

YouTube

0

Engagement

51

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