We spoke to Beau Oyler, Shark Tank Veteran and Entrepreneur recently. Beau talks with Derek about his experience on Shark Tank, building a successful company, and some valuable lessons he has learned along the way.
Having founded Enlisted Design and Urbio, he has created rich product and brand experiences for fortune 500’s and small startups. He pioneered the design cooperative movement and has a unique ability to truly collaborate with his partners. His designs have received every major design award including Red Dot, Spark, IDEA, GOOD Design, TheDieline, Wired Editor’s Choice and Best of Show at Dwell on Design.
Highlights:
San Francisco Business Times “40 Under 40”
Diablo Magazine “40 Under 40” San Francisco Business Times
“Fastest Growing Private Companies in the SF Bay Area”
Led the Honey Can Do acquisition of Urbio
2015 Highlights:
Enlisted named Best Entrepreneurial Companies in America by Entrepreneur Magazine
When not at Enlisted, you’ll find him cycling, surfing, hiking and exploring with his wife and two adventurous kids.
Learn more at www.enlisteddesign.com

In this episode, Derek Champagne interviews Devin Thorpe. As a new-media journalist and founder of the Your Mark on the World Center, Devin has established himself as a champion of social good. Devin was formerly the CFO of one of the top 3 Fortune 500 companies in 2009 before shifting his attention to social entrepreneurship.

As a Forbes contributor, with more than 250 bylines and over one million unique visitors, he has become a recognized name in the social impact arena. His YouTube show, featuring celebrities, CEOs, billionaires and entrepreneurs who are out to change the world, has been viewed over 200,000 times, giving him a recognizable face as well.

Devin is also a noted author with 4 popular books that have raving reviews and over 1,000,000 downloads to date.

Devin calls himself a champion of social good. As an author, speaker and Forbes contributor he focuses on helping those doing good in the world.

www.devinthorpe.com

Derek Champagne, CEO of The Artist Evolution, chats with tv executive and consultant, Jen Grisanti, about being the active hero in your own story.

International speaker Jen Grisanti is an acclaimed Story/Career Consultant at Jen Grisanti Consultancy, Inc. Grisanti is also a Writing Instructor for Writers on the Verge at NBC, a former studio executive, a blogger for The Huffington Post and author of Story Line: Finding Gold In Your Life Story, TV Writing Tool Kit: How To Write a Script That Sells, and her upcoming book, Change Your Story, Change Your Life.

Twenty-Three years ago, Grisanti started her career as an assistant to Aaron Spelling, who served as her mentor for 12 years. She quickly climbed the ranks and eventually ran Current Programs at Spelling Television Inc., covering all of Spelling’s shows including Beverly Hills, 90210, Melrose Place and Charmed. In 2004, Grisanti was promoted to Vice President of Current Programs at CBS/Paramount where she covered numerous shows including Medium, Numbers, NCIS, 4400 and Girlfriends.

In January 2008, Grisanti launched Jen Grisanti Consultancy, Inc., a highly successful consulting firm dedicated to helping talented writers break into the industry. Drawing on her years of experience as a studio executive where she gave daily notes to executive producers/showrunners, Grisanti personally guides writers to shape their material, hone their pitches and focus their careers. Since launching her consulting firm, Grisanti worked with over 800 writers specializing in television, features and novels. Due to her guidance, seventy-five of her clients have staffed as writers on television shows, forty have sold pilots, and five of those pilots have gone to series. Learn more at www.jengrisanti.com

Former pro football player and entrepreneur Derrick Furlow Jr shares his "Get Out of Arkansas" plan and when he learned his higher calling.

Growing up, Derrick saw himself as another kid who wanted a better life and knew sports, in particular, football would serve as a vehicle to a better life. After growing up with much adversity, he began working towards shifting his perspective from a temporary experience of playing on the field to a permanent purpose of serving those who currently and formerly played sports. Today, Derrick travels across the United States sharing his story with the hope of empowering others to never to yield when facing adversity.

Derrick is now the author of "What's Next: How To Transition Like A Champion" and coaches athletes, CEOs, executives, and leaders to grow in transition and adversity.

Learn more at https://derrickfurlow.com/

Derek Champagne, CEO of The Artist Evolution, interviews Shark Tank Veteran John Wise. John has an MBA from Harvard and is the Co Founder and COO of LovePop, a company that scored a deal with Mr. Wonderful on the TV show Shark Tank and is disrupting the greeting card industry.

John talks with Derek about launching their Kickstarter campaign, having transparency and trust with your partners and team, how his network helped them to launch, and his experience before, during, and after Shark Tank.

Derek Champagne sits down for a special conversation with his dear friend, Charles Kochel. Charles is a husband, father, entrepreneur, and author. 

Charles is also the CEO of Infinity Blue, North America, a borderless e-commerce agency helping brands engage with new customers on multiple platforms and continents. 

Charles talks with us about business, life…and cancer. 

Charles new must-read book is More: A Mindful Guide To Intentional Living

In More, Charles Kochel presents a heartfelt exploration of what truly matters in life: spirituality, health, relationships, time, and freedom. This book is not about imparting absolute truths but rather about encouraging readers to embark on their own unique journeys toward fulfillment. 

Through personal stories and valuable lessons, Kochel invites you to reflect on your path, recognize your potential, and embrace the richness of life. With an emphasis on mindfulness and intentionality, More serves as a guide to inspire you to live fully, love deeply, and discover the beauty in every moment. Join Kochel on this transformative journey and empower yourself to do more and be better. 

Order a copy of Charle’s book at https://kochelhill.com/

Derek Champagne interviews former NFL play and entrepreneur, Marques Ogden. Marques, the best-selling author of "Sleepless Nights: The NFL: a Business and Family", talks with Derek about his childhood years, playing in the NFL, his entrepreneurial journey, and leadership lessons along the way.

Growing up in a single-parent home with a father that inspired and demonstrated perseverance and fairness, Marques Ogden learned how to define his values and set goals. Marques attended Howard University from 1998-2002, where he played Division I football. He followed his dream and his brother Jonathan's footsteps and was drafted into the NFL in 2003. At the age of 27, he founded a construction company called Kayden Premier Enterprises, a business that grew rapidly in its first few years, but he lost the business after a bad business endeavor. At his lowest point, the NFL and lessons he learned from his father and coaches, helped him restructure his life.

Learn more at https://www.marquesogden.com

Derek's guest this week is Whitney Johnson: Innovation and disruption theorist, keynote speaker, best-selling author, executive and performance coach.

Whitney shares her unique journey and key concepts about how to motivate your employees from her book "Build an A Team: Play to Their Strengths and Lead Them Up the Learning Curve".

Whitney Johnson was named one of the world's fifty most influential management thinkers by Thinkers50 in 2017.

She is the author of the bestselling Build an A Team (Harvard Business Press, 2018), a Financial Times and CEO Read, Book of the Month, and the critically-acclaimed Disrupt Yourself: Putting the Power of Disruptive Innovation to Work (2015). Publisher's Weekly described it as "savvy...often counter-intuitive...superb" while the Boston Globe called it the "'What Color is Your Parachute?' career guide for the entrepreneurial age."

Through writing, speaking, consulting and coaching, Whitney works with leaders to retain their top talent, to build an A team, and to help them earn the gold star–be a boss people love.

She formerly was the co-founder of the Disruptive Innovation Fund with Harvard's Clayton Christensen, where they invested in and led the $8 million seed round for Korea’s Coupang, currently valued at $5+ billion. She was involved in fund formation, capital raising, and the development of the fund’s strategy. During her tenure, the CAGR of the Fund was 11.98% v. 1.22% for the S&P 500.

She is also formerly an award-winning Wall Street analyst. She was an Institutional Investor-ranked equity research analyst for eight consecutive years, and was rated by Starmine as a superior stock-picker. As an equity analyst, stocks under coverage included America Movil (NYSE: AMX), Televisa (NYSE: TV) and Telmex (NYSE: TMX), which accounted for roughly 40% of Mexico's market capitalization.

Whitney is a frequent contributor for the Harvard Business Review, she has over 1.5 million followers on Linkedin, was named one of LinkedIn's Top Voices in the Influencer category for 2018, and her LinkedIn course The Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship has 1 million+ views.

She is a member of the original cohort of Marshall Goldsmith's #100 coaches.

Learn more at https://whitneyjohnson.com/

Listen to this powerful interview with Dr. David Fajgenbaum who has an incredible new memoir, "Chasing My Cure: A Doctor's Race to Turn Hope into Action". David’s story is truly unique; it’s a tale of learning to live, while dying: a universally relatable story about getting up and fighting back after life knocks you down.

A former Georgetown quarterback nicknamed "The Beast," David Fajgenbaum was also a force in medical school, where he was known for his unmatched mental stamina. But things changed dramatically when he began suffering from inexplicable fatigue. In a matter of weeks, his organs were failing and he was read his last rites. Doctors were baffled over a condition they had yet to even diagnose; floating in and out of consciousness, Fajgenbaum prayed for the equivalent of a game day overtime: a second chance.

Miraculously, Fajgenbaum survived, but only to endure repeated near-death relapses from what would eventually be identified as a form of Castleman disease—an extremely deadly and rare condition that acts like a cross between cancer and an autoimmune disorder. When he relapsed on the only drug in development and realized that the medical community was unlikely to make progress in time to save his life, Fajgenbaum turned his desperate hope for a cure into concrete action: between hospitalizations he studied his own charts and tested his own blood samples, looking for clues that could unlock a new treatment. With the help of family, friends and mentors, he also reached out to other Castleman disease patients and physicians, and eventually came up with an ambitious plan to crowdsource the most promising research questions and recruit world- class researchers to tackle them; instead of waiting for the scientific stars to align, he proposed to align them himself.

More than five years later and now married to his college sweetheart, his hard work has paid off: a treatment that he identified has induced a tentative remission and his novel approach to collaborative scientific inquiry has become a blueprint for advancing rare disease research. His incredible story demonstrates the potency of hope, and what can happen when forces of determination, love, family, faith and serendipity collide.

David Fajgenbaum, MD, MBA, MSc is one of the youngest individuals to be appointed to the faculty at Penn Medicine. Co- founder and executive director of the Castleman Disease Collaborative Network (CDCN) and an NIH-funded physician- scientist, he has dedicated his life to discovering new treatments and cures for deadly disorders like Castleman disease, which he was diagnosed with during medical school. He is in the top 1 percent youngest grant awardees of an R01, one of the most competitive and sought-after grants in all of biomedical research. Dr. Fajgenbaum has been recognized on the Forbes 30 Under 30 healthcare list, as a top healthcare leader by Becker's Hospital Review, and one of the youngest people ever elected as a Fellow of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, the nation's oldest medical society. He was one of three recipients – including Vice President Joe Biden – of a 2016 Atlas Award from the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia. Winner of the RARE Champion of Hope: Science award, Dr. Fajgenbaum has been profiled in a cover story by The New York Times as well as by Reader's Digest, Science, and the Today Show. Dr. Fajgenbaum earned a BS from Georgetown University magna cum laude with honors and distinction, MSc from the University of Oxford, MD from the University of Pennsylvania Medical School, and MBA from The Wharton School. He is a former Division I college quarterback, state-champion weight lifter, and co-founder of a
national grief support network.

Order "Chasing My Cure" at bookstores nationwide or at http://www.chasingmycure.com/

Kyle Maynard is a motivational speaker, bestselling author, entrepreneur, and ESPY award-winning mixed martial arts athlete, known for becoming the first quadruple amputee to reach the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Aconcagua without the aid of prosthetics.

Oprah Winfrey called Kyle “one of the most inspiring young men you will ever hear about.” Arnold Schwarzenegger described him as “the real deal,” “a champion human,” and “one of the most inspiring people” he’s ever met. Even the great Wayne Gretzky has spoken of Kyle’s “greatness.”

Despite being born with a rare condition known as congenital amputation, that has left him with arms that end at the elbows and legs that end near his knees, he learned early on with the support of his family, to live life independently and without prosthetics.

Kyle thrives on physical challenges and following a few rough middle school football seasons; he went on to become a champion wrestler, CrossFit Certified Instructor and gym owner, competitive MMA/Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu fighter, world record-setting weightlifter, and skilled mountaineer. In 2012, Kyle became the first quadruple amputee to climb – actually bear crawl – the 19,340 feet to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro without the aid of prosthetics. His 10-day ascent was widely covered by the press, followed on social media, and raised money and awareness for wounded veterans as well as Tanzanian schoolchildren. Upon his return, Kyle won his second ESPY (Excellence in Sports Performance Yearly) award for Best Male Athlete with a Disability.

Four years later, he reached the summit of Argentina’s breathtakingly beautiful and sometimes deadly Mount Aconcagua – the highest peak in both the Western and Southern Hemispheres, standing at 22,838 feet. Following that epic summit, Nike featured Kyle in the powerful commercial “Unlimited Will,” which debuted globally during the 2016 Olympics, was viewed by millions around the world – and was part of the series that AdWeek named the most memorable of all commercials during the 2016 Olympics.

Kyle has not let his success be defined by anything or anyone but himself. He has lived his life striving to do more, learn more, push harder, go further—and to inspire others to do the same by sharing his story and living by example. Though he tailors his speeches to his audience, his messages are centered on building a life driven by purpose and meaning, the importance of the undying pursuit of dreams, and the belief that no obstacle is too great and nothing in their lives can keep them from accomplishing their goals.

Learn more at https://www.kyle-maynard.com/