Richard Bierschbach grew up in Wyoming, Michigan. His dad worked at Steelcase. His mom was a preschool teacher. Today he is the 14th president of Wayne State University.

In this episode, Dan talks with President Bierschbach about a career he says he never planned. An engineering student who fell for history. A law student who nearly took a year off. A clerk for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. A law school dean who was asked to step in as interim president and was then chosen to lead the university.

They talk about the weight of a job that turns out heavier than you expected, why Rick stays focused on what only the president can do, and why Wayne State’s commitment to social mobility is personal for him. Dan, who holds three degrees from Wayne State, shares a piece of his own story along the way.

The episode opens with Dan and Michael Patrick Shiels on this week’s lesson learned: when you’re looking for great leaders, look outside your lane.

In this episode

• The family and West Michigan upbringing that shaped his work ethic

• Finding his way at Michigan, from the engineering degree to a history degree

• What Justice O’Connor taught him about relationships and seeing past divides

• Leading as an interim: keeping the university’s priorities moving forward

• His advice for a next chapter: don’t worry if you don’t feel ready

Live from the Next Chapter is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube. Learned Insight, Shared Generously.

Tricia Keith is the third CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan in forty years. She joined the team on Dan Loepp's first day as CEO in 2006, spent eighteen years helping lead nearly every part of the company, and stepped into the role when he retired.

In this conversation she tells him about the family farm where showing up wasn't optional, the job she turned down in 2012, the more than 180 one-on-one conversations she held before her first day, and the letter he left on the desk for her.

The episode opens with Dan and Michael Patrick Shiels on the note Dick Whitmer left for Dan in 2006. Two words.

Live from the Next Chapter. Learned Insight, Shared Generously.

Rick Snyder had never run for office. He was a CPA with three degrees by twenty-three, six years spent scaling Gateway from 600 employees to 13,000, and a venture capital career behind him. Then a dinner conversation with his wife in early 2009 ended somewhere neither of them expected.

He entered the race polling low enough that his early supporters joked he could be a negative number. He still calls them the Margin of Error Club.

In this conversation with Dan Loepp, Michigan's 48th governor walks through what followed. Why he spent his first campaign's Super Bowl money on an ad his own supporters hated. What he kept on his corkboard for all eight years in office. Why he published state performance metrics on day one, and what the Lansing establishment warned him he had just done to himself. The standard he set for his team that sounded, on its face, like permission to fail.

Snyder also names the accomplishment he is proudest of, which is something he says he will never actually see. He reflects on knowing from the start that he was on an eight-year clock, why he stayed quiet after leaving office, and the advice he gives every leader approaching the end of a defining role.

Live from the Next Chapter is hosted by Dan Loepp, former President and CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. Learned Insight, Shared Generously.

Executive coach Anne Ferrier has spent more than thirty years working with CEOs and senior leaders. The pattern she sees most often is also the one leaders are slowest to recognize: the relationship you have with yourself shapes every other relationship in your leadership.

Anne calls it the “inner leader,” the internal awareness that grounds a leader, opens them to the people around them, and creates room for good judgment under pressure. When that connection is strong, leaders bring more clarity, more calm, and more space for the work that matters. When it erodes, the effects show up everywhere: in decision-making, in how teams experience the leader, and in the leader’s own sense of purpose.

In this conversation with Dan Loepp, Anne explains why self-knowledge is a leadership discipline, not a personal luxury. She walks through what it looks like when leaders lose that connection and how they find it again. Dan reflects on what his own leadership transition revealed about the link between knowing yourself and leading well.

Whether you are early in a leadership role, deep into one, or navigating what comes after, this conversation explores why the most strategic investment a leader can make is understanding what is happening inside themselves.

Bankole Thompson has learned from some remarkable mentors. Ambassador George Haley, Sam Logan, and Archbishop Desmond Tutu all shaped how he understands what leadership requires. In this episode, Dan sits down with the Detroit journalist, author, and founding dean and editor-in-chief of the PuLSE Institute to talk about what those relationships taught him: that leadership rests on humility, grace, and the willingness to listen.

Bankole shares stories from a journey that took him from Gambia to Detroit, including encounters with figures like Barack Obama, and what those moments revealed about the qualities that separate good leaders from great ones. He and Dan explore how adversity becomes strength, why mentorship shapes leaders more than titles do, and what it means to measure a career by service rather than recognition.

The episode opens with Dan and Michael Patrick Shiels on a lesson every leader eventually learns: never be the smartest person in the room.

Too many leaders get trapped in black-and-white decision-making, but the real skill, lies in mastering the gray.In this episode, Dan Loepp talks with Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Comcast Spectacor and the Governor of the Philadelphia Flyers, Dan Hilferty about his journey across politics, healthcare, and professional sports. Hilferty shares his passion for building community and culture where varied perspectives thrive.Plus, Loepp talks about the importance of the gray in business with Michael Patrick Shiels.We break down how great leaders treat people fairly yet recognize their unique triggers, and why compromise often produces better results than rigid stance. Dan shares powerful insights from his time working with multiple U.S. presidents on healthcare policy.Whether you’re climbing the corporate ladder or working in public service, this episode offers timeless lessons for refining your decision-making radar and becoming a more impactful leader.

Most leaders spend decades building a career at high speed. The question of what comes after rarely gets serious attention until the transition is already underway.

In this episode, Dan sits down with Anne Ferrier, an executive coach with more than 30 years of experience working with senior leaders navigating some of the most consequential shifts of their careers. Anne explains how the process of rethinking purpose and identity often begins much earlier than leaders recognize: in her experience, women around 38, men closer to 45. She talks about what it takes to build trust with executives who are used to having the answers, why empathy and boundaries can coexist in strong leadership, and how the brain works against us when we try to see clearly.

Dan also shares his own experience working with Anne through his transition from leading Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, including what surprised him about the process and what he wishes he had understood sooner.

Plus, Michael Patrick Shiels joins Dan Loepp for a dialogue on the responsibility of leadership.

Kirk Gibson won a World Series MVP, hit one of the most famous home runs in baseball history, and managed in the big leagues.

In this conversation with Dan, he talks about the mentors who shaped him, from Darryl Rogers telling a football star to go play baseball, to a mind coach who sent him to the grocery store checkout line to learn how to listen. Kirk walks through what those relationships taught him about communication, leadership, and showing up. He also talks about life after a Parkinson’s diagnosis, the Kirk Gibson Center for Parkinson’s Wellness he built in Farmington Hills, and why he wanted every program there to be free.

Dan opens the episode with Michael Patrick Shiels and a reflection on sacrifice, drawn from watching his own father make a 23-year commute without ever calling it that.

Sandy Baruah’s path to leading the Detroit Regional Chamber didn’t begin in Michigan. It began on Capitol Hill, then inside two Bush administrations, then at the U.S. Small Business Administration during one of the most consequential economic periods in American history. When he arrived in Detroit in 2010, he had real credibility. It just wasn’t his own yet.

In this conversation, Dan and Sandy talk through what government service at that scale actually teaches about leadership. They discuss what it took to build influence in a new city after a career defined by the credibility of the people Sandy worked for.

Sandy reflects on managing a serious health challenge quietly, while fully in the chair of a major institution, and what that chapter taught him about resilience as a practice, not a performance. And he offers two pieces of advice for leaders early in their careers: take the risks now, because life will never hand you the perfect moment; and understand there is no single path to leadership. The mosaic of experience is the point.

Dan opens the episode with contributing host Michael Patrick Shiels on the discipline of listening. Jay Powell called it an underrated skill. Dan has long called it a cornerstone of leadership. This episode is built on it.Learned Insight, Shared Generously.

What changes about leadership when you’ve governed through a pandemic, survived an assassination plot, and learned that certainty is overrated? Governor Gretchen Whitmer joins Dan Loepp for a conversation about how eight years as Michigan’s governor reshaped how she thinks, decides, and leads.

She reflects on making decisions that canceled her own daughters’ graduations, working across party lines when it cost her politically, and the discipline of staying focused on the next right thing when criticism comes from every direction. A conversation about what experience teaches that ambition alone cannot.

Plus, Michael Patrick Shiels joins Dan Loepp for a look at what it means to design a path up or a path out, and why the best leadership lessons are earned over time.