In this episode, Derek talks with Scott Rochelle, President & CEO of the National Basketball Retired Player's Association, about life after basketball for NBA and WNBA players. Discussion includes the importance of community to avoid isolation, life after basketball, and how players are finding new careers, including as investors and entrepreneurs. 

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

Derek Champagne talks with Alden Mills about his inspiring personal journey to overcoming obstacles, his impressive professional career, and building and leading unstoppable Teams.

Alden began taking control of his life at age twelve, when his doctor told him to learn chess because his asthma would keep him from playing sports. His first goal was to conquer the asthma, and he went on to achieve extraordinary things in sports, academics, military service, business, and philanthropy.

Alden became a nationally ranked rower, a gold medalist in the Olympic Festival, and captain of the freshman and varsity teams at the U.S. Naval Academy. As a Navy SEAL he led his platoon through multiple missions.

After discharge from the military, he founded Perfect Fitness and led it to growth of over 12,000% annual sales of $90 million, and Inc. magazine recognition as the fastest-growing consumer products in America in just three years. He developed over 40 patents, including the Perfect Pushup, Perfect Pullup, Perfect Sit-up and Perfect Ab Carver.

Alden’s books include Be Unstoppable: The 8 Essential Actions to Succeed at Anything and Unstoppable Teams: The Four Essential Actions of High-Performance Leadership. He has been featured on ABC’s Nightline, CBS This Morning,The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch, and more. He serves on boards of a number of non-profits.

For tools and resources to help you become unstoppable, visit Alden-Mills.com.

Derek talks with Ishveen Jolly, CEO + Founder at OpenSponsorship. Ishveen shares her entrepreneurial journey, key leadership principles, and how she built the category leader.

The startup was born out of her experience as a successful sports agent in India and the UK. OpenSponsorship now has over 5,500 athletes, teams and events being managed to brands globally looking for sports marketing opportunities. Ishveen was included in the Forbes 30under30 sports list in 2015 and OpenSponsorship was named a finalist in the 2015 Sports Technology Awards, category of best technology facilitating commercial returns. She graduated from Oxford University.

OpenSponsorship is a two-sided marketplace for sports sponsorship that makes sponsorship accessible, efficient and data-driven. Brands can save time and energy sifting through opportunities by using the easy but comprehensive search, then connect with the relevant partnerships which are listed directly by the teams, athletes, federation, events or their agencies.

Learn more at http://opensponsorship.com/

Kent Hance is a lawyer, a former U.S. Congressman, a university chancellor, and most notably, a native Texan. With the launch of his new podcast, Kent Hance: The Best Storyteller in Texas, Hance shares stories from his legendary life on themes relating to leadership, politics and great friendships with some real characters.

Hance received his B.B.A. from Texas Tech University in 1965 and his law degree from the University of Texas in 1968. He served in the Texas state senate from 1975 - 1979. In 1978, after defeating George W. Bush, Hance was elected to the United States House of Representatives for Texas’ 19th Congressional District, where he served until 1985.

Following six years as a U.S. Congressman, Hance served on the Texas Railroad Commission from 1987-1991 (Chairman 1989-1990), the Governor’s Energy Council, Governor’s Oil Spill Advisory Committee, Texas High Speed Rail Commission, Interstate Oil Compact Commission, and the Texas Mining Council.

In 2006, Hance was selected to serve as Chancellor to Texas Tech University. After his retirement as Chancellor in 2014, he was named Chancellor Emeritus and continues to teach a popular seminar class on leadership at Texas Tech.

Subscribe and listen here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-best-storyteller-in-texas-podcast/id1558310539

Sanyin Siang is Derek's amazing featured guest this week! Sanyin shares highlights from her journey, and how to accept positive affirmations and constructive criticism as data points in your life, importance of being generous, and how to be vulnerable.


Sanyin helps leaders launch and create value by focusing on mindset, behavioral change, and team and culture building. Sanyin is a CEO Coach, Advisor, Author,the Executive Director of Duke University’s Fuqua/Coach K Center on Leadership & Ethics (COLE) and a Professor with its Pratt School of Engineering.

The COLE center is a leadership laboratory that engages all of Duke’s Daytime MBA students and convenes high-level think tank gatherings to explore today’s complex leadership opportunities and challenges.

Sanyin coaches C-suite executives and is in the original cohort of Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches. She is an advisor for GV (former Google Ventures), Duke Corporate Education, and the Sports Innovation Lab. Her thought leadership has appeared in Forbes, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, and CNN. She has more than 1 million LinkedIn followers. She is a LinkedIn 2017 & 2018 Top 10 Influencer and a 2018 Thinkers50 On the Radar.

Sanyin’s board service has included those of The Emily K Center, The Museum of Life & Science, Duke Children’s Hospital & Health Center. She is a Sr. Advisor with Dan Ariely’s Center for Advanced Hindsight and a faculty with StoryLab at Duke. She has spoken to audiences from the White House to Global Sports Management and Owners Summits.

Prior to Duke, Sanyin worked at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest federation of scientific and engineering societies, and publisher of Science. Her initiatives explored the ethical, social, and legal implications of technological advances before they became reality.

Her book The Launch Book: Motivational Stories for Launching Your Idea, Business, or Next Career, uses behavioral science principles to help readers build the mindset for addressing major change.

Sanyin received a BSE in Biomedical Engineering and an MBA from Duke University.

Order "The Launch Book": https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B074JC5L9V/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0

Derek Champagne talks with pro athlete entrepreneur Rennie Curran about how to (Rennie's phrase) "operate at the level of your vision". As a former NFL player, Rennie shares his experience in transitioning to an entrepreneur and the valuable leadership lessons he's learned along the way.


Rennie is the CEO of Game Changer Coaching whose mission is to help business professionals and elite athletes reach their fullest potential through personal development workshops and one-on-one coaching in order to improve leadership and career performance. Key areas of expertise include leadership effectiveness, building effective teams, strategic planning, mental toughness, conflict resolution, overcoming adversity, diversity and inclusion, and personal branding.

Rennie is the author of Free Agent: Intangible Assets For Overcoming Adversity and Times of Transition and What Does It Take To Be A Star?, which he co-authored with his daughter.

Learn more at https://renniecurran.com/

In this episode Derek interviews Seth Buechley.

Seth is a serial entrepreneur with a unique background. He grew up in a commune in the woods of southern Oregon, married his high school sweetheart, skipped college, and still managed to build and sell several
companies resulting in multi-million-dollar exits.

He enjoys connecting high-potential leaders with the ideas and resources to grow their business or organization while achieving lasting leadership impact.

Seth is also the author of the popular new book Ambition: Leading with Gratitude.

Learn more at www.sethbuechley.com

From our interview vault:  Derek Champagne's discussion with Eric Partaker.  Eric has been "CEO of the Year", Top 30 Entrepreneur, and High Performance Expert. He helps ambitious entrepreneurs, leaders, and coaches reach the top of their game.

Eric shares his personal story of success in business and then having a near heart attack while flying back to London. This is a must listen to episode for learning how to be successful in life AND business!

Eric has been named one of the "Top 30 Entrepreneurs in the UK", 35 and under, by Startups Magazine, and among "Britain's 27 Most Disruptive Entrepreneurs" by The Telegraph. His work has featured on over 7 major TV stations, as well as in the Wall Street Journal and The Economist. He has appeared as a guest judge with Lord Alan Sugar on the The Apprentice and cooked together with Tana Ramsay on UKTV's Market Kitchen.

Eric has worked with and led high-performing teams at McKinsey & Company, Skype, and Chilango. He is one of 300 people worldwide certified as a High Performance Coach, by the High Performance Institute. Over the last 20 years he has studied and modeled the traits and habits of the world's most successful people, in order to help his teams and clients break through their barriers and reach their highest potential, in both their work and life.

As co-founder and CEO of Chilango, Eric oversees overall company strategy, operations, and marketing as well as product, brand, and culture development. Chilango has been voted "London's Best Burritos" by Zagat, Harden's, Time Out, and The Evening Standard. It has been described by Elite Business Magazine as "arguably the most exciting fast food company of the decade" and profiled as one of the "Best Chain Restaurants Around the World" by Conde Naste Traveler. Chilango is also the most successfully crowdfunded restaurant chain in the world.

Prior to Chilango Eric helped build Skype's multi-billion dollar success story, served as the Managing Director of a Norwegian non-profit focused on stimulating entrepreneurship, and started his career as a consultant with McKinsey & Company.

Learn more at: www.ericpartaker.com

Interview vault from Derek Champagne's discussion with international business woman Arlene Battishill. Arlene is the co-founder of the International brand GoGo Gear, a Shark Tank veteran, consultant, and best-selling author of the book Retail Therapy: A Prescription For What Ails Your Online Sales. Shark Tank Star, Daymond John, has called Arlene book, Retail Shock Therapy as "a MUST READ for businesses selling online."

Arlene talks with Derek about building her brand, testing her product, shifting with the marketplace, her experience on Shark Tank, and tips for building effective communication that resonates with your target audience.

We pulled one of our favorite interviews from the BLS interview archives where Derek Champagne interviews Michael Levin. This was a powerful interview and Michael overdelivered as our guest! As one of the most established writers in the nation, New York Times best-selling author Michael Levin has written or co-written more than 100 books, of which eleven are national best sellers.

He appeared on ABC’s Shark Tank on January 20th, 2012. In the past, Michael has published with Simon & Schuster, Random House, St. Martin’s Press, Putnam/Berkley, and many other houses. His works have been optioned for film and TV by Steven Soderbergh/Paramount, HBO, Disney, ABC, and others. One of his own novels became Model Behavior, an ABC Sunday night Disney movie of the week. He has also made contributions to the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Forbes.com, Politico, the Los Angeles Times, the Boston Globe, the Jerusalem Post, Writers Digest, CBS News. Michael has had the experience to teach writing classes at the University of California – Los Angeles and New York University. As an Amherst College and Columbia Law School graduate, Michael served for many years as a member of the prestigious Authors Guild Council and as Treasurer of the Authors Guild Foundation.

Michael currently resides with his wife and four children in Boston, Massachusetts. Learn more about Michael at www.businessghost.com