Outside Insights

Send us Fan Mail Most people have a few, or a dozen, financial mistakes they look back on and really regret. For many,  becoming financial savvy is learned through trial and error and living with a few regrets from your younger years is all part of the process.  Isn’t it ridiculous credit card companies send applications to 18 year old kids before they even graduate high school? With predatory pra...

Send us Fan Mail We’re going to start this one with a question: How was success defined for you when you were 18?  For many, the definition of success was likely narrowly defined as “study hard and make it into a great university”.  Many of us today can agree that this definition is limiting. Thankfully, in recent years more and more job descriptions are shifting their degree requirements and inst...

Send us Fan Mail I’m blessed to have many people in my circle that inspire me and push me to become a better version of myself every day just through their example. Some of these people are close to me, like my wife or my father.  Others, I’ve met throughout the seasons of life and am honored to have them in my network - cheering one another on as we reach new milestones. One of these people is Dr...

Send us Fan Mail Get ready to join Chris Burkhard as he hosts a conversation with Steven Pivnik, a total boss in both business and endurance sports. They dive into Steven's journey, where his love for adventure, hustling, and being financially independent all come together. Steven's background as an endurance athlete paved the way for his entrepreneurial pursuits. Prepare to uncover the...

Send us Fan Mail Servant leader Rob Eppes said he believes that an entrepreneurial soul is something most business owners are born with; Outside Insights Podcast Host Chris Burkhard laughed and agreed during this week’s episode. An upbringing that “points to the horizon,” looks to “what can be” and asks, “How can we make it better?” nurtures an entrepreneurial spirit. These are some of the pillars...

Send us Fan Mail Entrepreneurs solve the right problem. What is the right problem? It’s a problem that leads to building a method to make money. Gain clarity on lessons of entrepreneurship by listening to this week’s podcast featuring University of Delaware’s Senior Instructor of Entrepreneurship Vince DiFelice . When he and Placers President Chris Burkhard exchanged humbling stories of lessons le...

Send us Fan Mail Have fun listening to Dave Raymond, the original Phillie Phanatic mascot and author of  “ The Power of Fun, ” and Placers President Chris Burkhard as they remove the stigma from fun in the workplace.  Sharing positivity in life and in the workplace “turns off negative brain biases,” explained Dave during this hour-long podcast that takes a deep dive into powerful and positive mind...

Send us Fan Mail On the perpetual journey to entrepreneurial leadership and growth, the ability to be nimble is key. Success doesn’t come overnight, but keep the grind going and take the licks. That’s entrepreneurship.  On this week’s podcast, Rob Herrera , architect, real estate developer, entrepreneur, and founder of The Mill , and Placers President Chris Burkhard, warn that entrepreneurs should...

Send us Fan Mail There is a balance shift between employers who are used to being in control of the workplace dynamic and employees who gained control of it during the pandemic. It’s headlining news and it’s the through-line of this week’s episode of Outside Insights between Placers’ President Chris Burkhard and Placers’ Founder and seriel entrepreneur Alan Burkhard. Traditionally, employers set t...

Send us Fan Mail Is your company culture by chance or is it by design? The BEST companies in the world understand just how important their culture is and how much impact it has. They don’t leave culture to chance. Instead, they’re purposeful, intentional, and systematic in the creation and development of their culture. Culture: chance or design? It’s the resounding through-line of this Outside Ins...

Send us Fan Mail You’ll glean valuable information and smile too when listening to lifelong friends, colleagues, and authors Eric Herrenkohl and Chris Burkhard during this week's episode of Outside Insights Podcast as they discuss: staying in front of workplace challenges finding “A Players” developing personally and professionally gaining congruence between personal and professional “self” b...

Send us Fan Mail Culture driven is the philosophy of a planned way of thinking that guides your professional and personal life, according to Alan and Chris Burkhard, authors of “Opposite The Crowd.” In their new book, the Burkhards deep dive into creating the culture-driven life you want, with no limitations, where risk is rewarded and where the results are game changing. Living a culture-driven l...

Send us Fan Mail In present, professional networking spaces, “careful, cautious, methodical relationship building” is the through-line of purposeful networking, said Megan Roudebush, founder, keepwith , an enterprise platform that helps the world network and build relationships better. In this week’s Outside Insights Podcast, Megan explained that sustainable networking requires reciprocity. She of...

Send us Fan Mail Author Ed Wallace, in this week's Outside Insights Podcast , shares a personal, family story that illustrates it's not always formal training and education that shifts career-changing moments to meaningful work. Worthy intentions with a conscience create profound thought leadership strategies that facilitate workplace processes. Ed Wallace's book, " The Relatio...

Send us Fan Mail Great leaders will allow their team to fail—or at least risk failure. Now that I have your attention, let me explain. Instead of determining the paths of others, perhaps the best thing to do is let people make their own choices. This empowering philosophy is tough, but giving choices to those in more junior roles that creates critical development opportunities.  This is a topic th...

Send us Fan Mail Hello,  This next Outside Insights podcast is one that I am very excited for our community to listen and learn from. For this episode, I sat down with Todd Bavol, CEO of Integrity Staffing, a firm that has won Clearly Rated’s Best of Staffing Award for five consecutive years. I am proud to call Todd a friend. Todd is someone who has quite literally pulled himself up by the bootstr...

Send us Fan Mail A culturally driven work environment starts with a mindset that bonds life thinking with career thinking. This is a concept that serial entrepreneur and Outside Insights regular, Alan Burkhard, discussed during our latest podcast chat - the last in his 12-part leadership series. I summarize our discussion on culture-driven mindsets below. Be sure to click the graphic to listen and...

Send us Fan Mail Let’s face it, the general concept of “selling” has developed a bad rap over the years. We all hate to be sold to. If I asked you to picture a salesperson right now, what image would come to mind? Most people likely have the same exaggerated caricature of a person pop up. In recent years, the selling landscape has significantly changed as customer expectations mount in a globally...

Send us Fan Mail Greg Star is part of a dynamic team and co-founder of Carvertise , a nine-year young advertising business that offers a unique channel: ads on cars. Greg, along with his partner Mac, have been a shining example of hard work, trial and error, sheer will and grit. Greg and Mac simply get stuff done. They experiment, learn fast, scale and then fail, learn and grow some more. They wen...

Send us Fan Mail Welcome to the latest episode of Outside Insights Podcast # 17.   I recently interviewed a mentor, a friend, a customer and an exceptional leader, Fran DiNuzzo. Fran is an executive who has built his career around growing people and companies.  I was honored that Fran took a break between is CEO responsibilities and Board of Advisor work to share his story and his ideas with the O...

Send us Fan Mail Yes, there is a “right way” to think…that “right way” just depends on the individual. In Outside Insights, we often talk about defining your guiding values and understanding what your personal culture is. Society has guidelines for how we should act, the workplace has rules that we abide by to get paid, etc. But your personal values – those are ever-present in everything that you...

Send us Fan Mail When asked about Apple’s “overnight success”, Steve Jobs explained that it was 18 years in the making. Sometimes we make success look too easy and the real gold is in the lessons learned and the many mistakes we make on our way to reaching success.  A decade and a half ago Rob Gilfillan and I found ourselves in a peer advisory group with many other early stage business founders. A...

Send us Fan Mail There is one truth for all entrepreneurs – success depends on who you have in your corner. There are the well-known characters: your co-pilots in business, dedicated team, and cheerleaders at home who make up your personal army. Then, there are the characters who get less fanfare but whose role isn’t any less critical: the vendors that you partner with. In this week’s Outside Insi...

Send us Fan Mail Change agents have learned to embrace change, to plan for uncertainties and to recognize opportunities within challenges. They prefer to make something happen rather than to react when something happens to them. While we’re working towards this level of adaptability, most of us can’t say that we’re change agents - yet.   In my humble opinion, the greatest skill gap I see in the wo...

Send us Fan Mail Athletes, singers and actors/actresses have them. Performers spend all of their time honing their skills and perfecting their craft while someone else helps guide their career. They go to their career agent for advice, counsel, opportunities because they lack the know-how or the time to do it themselves.  What about us mere mortals? Today's workforce and workplace realities a...