Hosted by Jeff Walter, Founder and CEO of LatitudeLearning
Education can provide students with knowledge, credentials, and technical skills, but the transition from the classroom into a meaningful career often requires an entirely different set of capabilities. Knowing how to manage money, build authentic professional relationships, communicate effectively, interview confidently, understand personal strengths, and make thoughtful career decisions can shape a person’s future just as profoundly as anything learned in a traditional academic course.
That gap between education and life after education is at the heart of the Commence Foundation.
In this episode of the Training Impact Podcast, host Jeff Walter speaks with Alex Dripchak, executive director of Commence Foundation, about an approach to career readiness that goes beyond helping students find their first job. Commence Foundation works with students and young adults to develop practical capabilities that can compound throughout their careers and personal lives. Rather than treating these capabilities as secondary “soft skills,” Dripchak sees them as foundational skills that influence how people manage opportunities, relationships, money, performance, and ultimately their futures.
The conversation provides an important perspective for learning and development professionals because the challenges Commence Foundation is addressing do not end when someone graduates. Employers, franchise systems, dealer networks, and other organizations regularly welcome people who possess the technical qualifications for a role but have had relatively little structured development around the broader capabilities required to navigate a career successfully.
Commence Foundation grew from Dripchak’s own experience navigating the corporate world. He describes spending approximately 16 years in corporate roles and becoming the youngest person in each of the positions he held. Along the way, he began documenting the lessons and practices that contributed to his professional development.
A pattern emerged.
Many of the lessons that proved most valuable to him existed outside traditional education.
That observation eventually became Commence, which Dripchak started in 2020 before transitioning the organization into the nonprofit Commence Foundation. The organization brings experienced professionals into educational environments to teach practical skills based on real-world experience. Dripchak describes the model as complementing rather than replacing education. Schools provide structure and commitment, while Commence Foundation brings additional content and credibility from professionals who have actually applied the concepts they teach.
Today, that mission is reflected in ten programs addressing financial well-being, advanced networking, productivity and peak performance, interviewing, presenting and storytelling, emotional intelligence, negotiation and persuasion, career planning, unique value propositions, and business communication.
Together, these subjects address a central question that many students eventually confront: What do I need to know and be able to do to build a successful life once formal education ends?
Of all the Commence Foundation programs, financial well-being has become the largest and most developed. Dripchak’s interest in the subject is personal. He began investing at age 15 and credits that early start with having a profound influence on his life.
The lesson Commence Foundation wants students to understand is not simply how investments work. It is the power of compounding and the behavior required to benefit from it.
Dripchak explains that one of the most important concepts students encounter is delayed gratification. Young people are entering adulthood in an environment built around immediacy, where entertainment, information, products, and services can often be obtained almost instantly. Building financial security requires developing the opposite habit: sacrificing something small today because of the value it can create tomorrow.
That makes financial well-being as much a behavioral lesson as a mathematical one.
Commence Foundation introduces students to concepts including investing, employee benefits, taxes, money management, side income, and financial mindsets. Dripchak also emphasizes the difference between merely saving money and putting money to work through appropriate investments. One of the fundamental principles taught in the program is “pay yourself first,” encouraging students to treat investing in their future as an obligation rather than something they do only if money happens to remain at the end of the month.
The broader objective is to help young people understand financial decisions before years of habits have already been established.
The way Commence Foundation teaches these concepts is particularly relevant for learning and development professionals.
Financial education can easily become abstract. Terms, percentages, investment vehicles, tax concepts, and retirement calculations may be important, but simply presenting information does not guarantee that learners will understand or remember it.
Dripchak therefore looks for ways to connect unfamiliar concepts with things students already understand.
One example discussed during the episode compares investments to players on a sports team. Different investments have different roles. Some provide stability. Others pursue greater returns while accepting greater risk. Cash may serve as a reserve, while other assets are expected to be actively working toward a financial objective.
Instead of asking students to memorize categories, the analogy gives those categories recognizable roles within a larger story.
Dripchak has taken the concept further by experimenting with AI-generated videos that personify money itself. In one example, familiar historical figures represented on American currency are depicted working around an estate, visually reinforcing the idea that money can work for its owner.
Walter connects this directly to instructional design. Corporate learning frequently struggles when complex or important subjects are reduced to collections of facts. Stories, characters, analogies, and familiar situations give learners a framework for understanding information and remembering it later.
For training professionals, the implication extends well beyond financial education. When learners struggle with a complicated concept, the answer may not be more information. It may be finding a better way to connect that information with something the learner already understands.
Financial well-being may be Commence Foundation’s largest program, but advanced networking represents another important component of its approach.
Dripchak makes a distinction between attending networking events and actually knowing how to build a network. The Commence Foundation approach focuses on authentic relationship building, adding value, reciprocity, and developing advocates.
This changes networking from an activity into a capability.
Instead of teaching students to collect contacts or approach every interaction by asking what another person can do for them, the program emphasizes relationships in which people actively look for opportunities to help one another.
That philosophy also appears in Dripchak’s own approach. Near the end of the conversation, he describes maintaining a document identifying ways he can help people personally and professionally without receiving a direct benefit himself. The practice reflects the principle he is teaching: relationships become stronger when value is given rather than continually extracted.
For young adults beginning careers, that distinction can be significant. Someone entering the workforce may have relatively few professional contacts and little understanding of how professional relationships develop. Teaching networking as authentic reciprocity provides a framework for building those relationships over time rather than treating networking as a transactional exercise.
The third major area Dripchak identifies is productivity, peak performance, purpose, energy, and clarity. Other Commence Foundation programs build outward from there into interviewing, storytelling, emotional intelligence, negotiation, persuasion, career planning, personal value propositions, and business communication.
What connects these seemingly different subjects is their ability to compound.
An improved interview can create access to an opportunity. Better communication can strengthen performance once someone receives that opportunity. Networking can expose someone to opportunities they did not know existed. Financial literacy can allow the income created by those opportunities to build long-term security. Productivity and self-awareness can help someone use their abilities more effectively.
The value of each capability therefore extends beyond the immediate lesson.
That is one reason the term “soft skills” becomes problematic during the conversation. Dripchak discusses alternatives such as essential skills, power skills, and compounding skills. Walter frames them as character-building skills.
Regardless of terminology, both return to the same point: these capabilities should not be treated as secondary to technical expertise.
A person can possess tremendous technical knowledge while struggling to communicate, build relationships, manage money, negotiate, or understand where their abilities fit within the larger world. Commence Foundation is designed to address those gaps earlier, while students and young adults are still establishing the habits and perspectives that may shape decades of decisions.
One of the most compelling connections in the conversation involves the difference between training people exclusively for organizational performance and investing in them as individuals.
Traditional corporate training often begins with a reasonable business question: What does this employee need to know to perform this job?
The Commence Foundation philosophy suggests organizations can also ask another question: What can we teach this person that will make their life better?
Those objectives do not necessarily conflict.
Walter shares an example from another Training Impact Podcast conversation involving an organization that combines technical training with substantial development around communication, conflict resolution, relationships, and other character-building capabilities. Employees sometimes respond emotionally because they recognize that the organization is investing not simply in what it can extract from them, but in who they can become.
Dripchak identifies that distinction immediately. When organizations invest in the personal value of an individual, people feel valued.
The business impact can follow naturally. Employees who feel supported may become more engaged. Better communication can improve customer interactions. Stronger interpersonal capabilities can improve teamwork. Development can influence retention.
For L&D leaders, this creates a broader way of thinking about training impact. Training can improve job performance while simultaneously giving people capabilities they carry into their families, communities, future roles, and personal lives.
Commence Foundation currently delivers its programs through several formats. Financial well-being can be taught as an approximately six-hour seminar, although Dripchak believes the content could expand into a semester-long experience with greater hands-on involvement. Networking is generally delivered as a four-hour seminar that can be condensed, while several other programs are offered in sessions of three hours or less.
The organization also uses virtual delivery and has worked with community colleges and other educational institutions.
Scaling, however, remains an important challenge.
Students often participate voluntarily because the programs may not provide academic credit. Schools have responded positively to the programming, according to Dripchak, but institutional budgets and established systems can make adoption difficult. Commence Foundation has therefore increasingly looked toward grants and donors to expand access.
Dripchak reports encouraging early feedback, including a 100 percent recommendation likelihood among surveyed participants and 93 percent reporting significantly more positive feelings toward their school after participating. He also acknowledges that the organization is still developing the volume of data necessary for longer-term measurement.
That willingness to distinguish encouraging early outcomes from mature longitudinal evidence is important. Commence Foundation is attempting to influence behaviors and decisions that may unfold over years or decades. The ultimate impact of learning about investing, networking, communication, career planning, or purpose at a young age may not be completely visible immediately after a seminar.
The final portion of the conversation turns toward Dripchak’s own journey.
For several years, Commence operated alongside his corporate career. More recently, he left the security of a traditional position to devote himself full time to the foundation.
Dripchak describes that decision in deeply personal terms, connecting it with his Christian faith and a growing conviction that the work represented his calling. Rather than portraying the decision as a sudden entrepreneurial leap, he describes a period in which the feeling that he needed to devote more time to the mission became increasingly difficult to ignore.
The transition also provides an unexpected illustration of the very lessons Commence Foundation teaches.
Beginning to invest at 15 created financial flexibility years later. The benefits of compounding gave Dripchak greater freedom to take a professional risk and pursue work he believes can make a larger impact. Financial well-being, purpose, career development, and delayed gratification therefore converge within his own story.
The lesson is not simply that investing can produce a larger retirement account. Developing good habits early can create choices later.
That idea sits at the center of much of Commence Foundation’s work.
Near the conclusion of the episode, Walter introduces the idea of moving down a corridor toward a goal. From the beginning of the hallway, only the destination at the opposite end may be visible. Once someone begins moving forward, however, additional hallways and possibilities appear. A person may eventually arrive somewhere they could not have imagined from the original starting point.
It is an appropriate metaphor for career development.
Young people are frequently asked what they want to become before they have enough experience to understand the range of possibilities available to them. Dripchak points out that many adults ultimately work in industries or professions they did not even know existed when they were in high school or college.
Career readiness therefore cannot only be about preparing someone for a predetermined occupation. It must also develop the capabilities that allow people to recognize, evaluate, and pursue opportunities as they emerge.
That is where the Commence Foundation model becomes especially relevant to training professionals, employers, franchise organizations, and other businesses that provide an early rung on the career ladder. Organizations have an opportunity not merely to teach people how to perform their current jobs, but to help them develop capabilities that can continue creating value throughout their careers.
The conversation between Jeff Walter and Alex Dripchak ultimately makes the case that education and workforce development become more powerful when technical preparation is accompanied by financial understanding, authentic relationship building, communication, self-awareness, discipline, purpose, and other skills that shape how people navigate life.
Commence Foundation is working to bring those lessons to students and young adults before experience forces them to learn everything the hard way. For learning and development professionals, the larger message is equally important: the most impactful training does more than prepare someone to complete a task. It equips people to make better decisions, build stronger relationships, recognize opportunities, and create value for themselves and the organizations and communities around them.
When those capabilities are developed early, their impact has the opportunity to compound for a lifetime.
Connect with Alex Dripchak on LinkedIn
For more from the Training Impact Podcast, follow us on social media: https://t-sml.mtrbio.com/public/smartlink/trainingimpactpodcast
Jeff Walter (00:00)
Hi, I’m Jeff Walter and welcome back to the Training Impact Podcast, where we explore scaling performance through training infrastructure. my guest today is Alex Dripchak.
he is the executive director of the Comments Foundation, an organization dedicated to helping students and young adults explore meaningful career pathways through hands-on experiences and strong partnerships with employers, educators, and communities. And before we say hi, Alex, I just want to say I’m really excited about this because one of the things that I’m personally very
Yeah, it t it touches my heart is how how to help the kids, young adults that are coming out of, you know, high school vocational programs, or struggling to f you know figuring out their way, coming out of college, how to get that leg up, get that first step on the economic ladder. And and you guys are doing a great job. So just wanted to get that in there first, but Alex, welcome to the program.
Alex Dripchak (00:48)
Yeah. I appreciate
that, Jeff. I got I got a compliment already even before I joined. That’s I I really r I really appreciate it. And yeah, Jeff and I had crossed paths not that long ago, told him about the mission and he said, Let’s get you on here. So I really appreciate your support of our mission and and happy to help your audience however I can with sharing some of the insights from the foundation.
Jeff Walter (01:07)
Yeah, and and and and w I think one of the things that’s
Meaningful and and of things that I think, you know, is if we look at our audience members, you know, they’re they’re training a lot of franchisees, they’re training a lot of dealers, and a lot of those organizations are often the first step in the economic ladder for a lot of people starting their careers, whether they’re coming in as salespeople or technicians or staff employees. So really how you get people funneled into into careers, careers that are meaningful, careers that map to the person.
Gifts that they can give, you know, that they can give the community. it’s it’s a beautiful thing. And something that I don’t think our our K-12 education or our our colleges or our vocation, you know, vocational programs a little bit, but usually academia doesn’t really focus on that. And so before I go any further, why why don’t you tell everybody about the Comments Foundation and how did you end up as the executive director there and what was that journey like?
Alex Dripchak (02:01)
Yeah, thank you so much for asking. So I totally agree with you. K through twelve vocational schools, they do okay, but they don’t quite get at the root cause or identifying all the skills and how they map out. So they kind of say, Hey, what do you want to do or what do you have? A short list of ideas and then they help you from there. They don’t actually identify what are the best things
They put the onus on the individuals to figure out what they’re interested in. When there’s a whole big great world out there, right? A lot of people listening, right? You probably are in an industry they didn’t know existed in high school or college, right? So it’s it’s something we need to open up young people’s minds and eye eyes to. So to answer your question, I started the Commence Foundation. It was originally just Commense back in 2020, and switched over to a 501c3 charity as of last year. funny enough, one year.
to the exact date that we are chatting right now. So
Jeff Walter (02:49)
Yeah.
Alex Dripchak (02:49)
so it’s been about a year now. And Yeah, thank you. Thank you.
Jeff Walter (02:51)
so happy anniversary as a as a as a non profit.
Alex Dripchak (02:54)
How apropos. so so yes, so it’s been it’s been about a year. Basically when I took a look at my life, so I was fortunate to be the youngest in each of my roles in the 16 years I I was in the corporate space and I just kind of documented. I’m a big listenerd, big
You know, content nerd, like how to put continuums together. So just something I like to do ever since a young age. So I just started documenting all that and I’m like, most of this, if not all of this, exists outside of education today. Life’s most important lessons, I talk about compounding here a lot. They are not taught in education. So let’s try and fix that. So education is terrific at getting the structure and the commitment, and then we’re just kind of saying, hey, we’re gonna come in for the content.
And we’re gonna come in for that kind of credibility side from professionals. So we are all real-world operators professionals that have done what they’re teaching coming into schools now to let people see it firsthand. and then we focus a lot on those compounding skills of financial well-being, of authentic networking, adding value, reciprocity. So those are our top two courses, the advanced networking and our financial well-being, but we actually have 10 programs in total.
We go out to schools teaching seminars, running small cohort, kind of done with you style learning, competitions.
Jeff Walter (04:09)
And I don’t mean that I don’t mean technology skills. I mean, you know, how to analyze a a a book, you know.
Obviously the STEM stuff, but also in the humanities, more technocratic ways of doing things and not what what is that actually we know, what is that poem saying to you? What does it say about the character of the individuals and and and what is you know, what is you know, go back to like Plato’s Republic, what is the good, right? Wha and you
Alex Dripchak (04:33)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jeff Walter (04:34)
know, kind of things we’ve been talking about for thousands of years as a species. So but so when you say kind do I would go back through those those courses and what is it that the the that you’re trying that you’re trying to keep teach the kids?
Yeah.
Alex Dripchak (04:45)
Sure. All right, so the ten programs, what we’re trying to teach and why is it important? So number one for us would be financial well-being. By an outstretch size and the program depth, how many times we’ve done the program, the impact that it has on individuals. So that’s investing, that’s benefits, that’s tax strategies, money management, principles, mindsets, side hustles, kind of covering all elements of financial well-being. So why what are we trying to get across to students there?
Jeff Walter (05:12)
Yeah.
Alex Dripchak (05:12)
For me, I started investing at 15 years old. It’s the single most impactful thing I did in my life, not only from the perspective of compounding. So 20 years later, you know, looking at things and saying, All right, retirement looks a lot easier when you start at
Jeff Walter (05:23)
Yeah.
Alex Dripchak (05:24)
15, right? So I can share more on a study we did there. For basically, it boils down to, and this is a really interesting one. So if people are listening, tap into this. For every year that you put off investing $100 a month, so about twelve hundred dollars a year.
You have around a hundred thousand dollars less waiting for you at retirement age of sixty-five. So I’ll say that again. For every
Jeff Walter (05:45)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Dripchak (05:45)
year you put you you you prolong the hundred dollars a month, twelve hundred dollars a year, you have roughly a hundred thousand dollars less waiting for you in retirement. So yeah, God.
Jeff Walter (05:55)
Now
how does that resonate with the kids? Because when you you know, you you talk to an eighteen year old and you’re talking about retirement, it’s you know, it’s you know, it’s it’s a lifetime away. Literally is a lifetime away, right? How like how can like I I get you could how d how do they relate to that? You know.
Alex Dripchak (06:11)
Yeah, so there’s there’s a lot of things. We we we live in a very instant gratification society, right? Attention spans are whatever, seven seconds or less. People want something now, Amazon will deliver it to you. Not even next day, now it’s same day, right? You’ve got things
Jeff Walter (06:23)
Yeah.
Alex Dripchak (06:23)
that are same day. So we live in a very instant gratification environment. So trying to teach them on delayed gratification. We bring up the marshmallow experiment, which is for those that aren’t aware of it, is a Stanford experiment that did a longitudinal study over the
course of people’s lives and just said, hey, for little children, I think they’re between three and three and five. You can have one marshmallow now, or if you wait five minutes, you could have two marshmallows. Those are able to wait the t to have the two marshmallows demonstrated more friendships, more wealth, greater health, a lot of different areas across their life. So that’s one thing we bring up to students, showing them kind of what what what life will bring if they
Jeff Walter (07:01)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Dripchak (07:02)
are smart and if they
practice good habits and also just kind of making it simplified. The good thing about today’s day and age, there’s an app called Acorns for one example. You
Jeff Walter (07:11)
Yeah.
Alex Dripchak (07:11)
can set up recurring investments. You can just say, hey, take 10 bucks out every Wednesday and put it towards my fund that’s gonna map against the S P five hundred. Excuse me. So there’s all these different ways that we have made it easy or simple I should say, not easy because it’s hard to get people’s attention on the right thing.
But we we have a number of ways and incentives to get students to say, all right, take advantage of all these simple things for the delayed gratification benefit of the hundred thousand dollars more every year you have that you started earlier. So there’s a lot of different ways. I mean, I could spend literally an hour just talking about how we incentivize, but to answer your question, that’s that’s it in a nutshell is trying to make it simple for people using technology to their benefit, showing them the benefit that’s they’re gonna stand to gain.
Jeff Walter (07:54)
You know, it what’s I mean it it’s it’s so I mean it’s hard that delayed gratification, that’s that’s the key. And I remember reading about the marshmallow experiments and the and the kids that waited five minutes, they they just had richer lives. So it’s not even
Alex Dripchak (08:08)
All around.
Jeff Walter (08:08)
about like having this money in retirement. It’s about it’s it’s it’s it’s about having a richer it y you end up having a richer, more meaningful life. It was just that that experiment was crazy.
Alex Dripchak (08:19)
Yeah.
Jeff Walter (08:20)
And so I’d encourage
Alex Dripchak (08:20)
Yeah.
Jeff Walter (08:21)
anybody to go research it. It was just really the the at that age to have that correlation is just i i is fascinating.
Alex Dripchak (08:27)
It was fascinating. Yeah. It the number of areas
that it had demonstrable impact was was significant or is significant. So that’s what we were trying to teach people in the financial well being course. So that’s that’s the number one course, back to your your first question.
Jeff Walter (08:38)
Yeah. Yeah. Well and I think
I d you know, I think and I think that’s really I I think that’s really important. As as somebody that’s on the closer side to retirement, you know, I I I was kinda like you. you know, I I think I bought my first stock in like high school, right? And
I and and that was before the internet and I’d like go to the school store every day and get the Wall Street Journal and that’s when they used to have the stock prices there and I looked up like, I made three dollars today and you know, all that kind of fun. But at it what blows me away, it’s like I’m a math guy, so I I like but what blows me away personally, like in my heart, is like I’ve been doing this my whole career, right? You know, putting and I’m like I’m like getting closer to the retirement age, I’m like, Holy crap, it works
Alex Dripchak (09:24)
It really does.
I mean
Jeff Walter (09:24)
I’m project
I you know sitting there going like, You gotta be kidding me. Like a anyway, so but
Alex Dripchak (09:29)
I we show those graphs
to people, right? So
Jeff Walter (09:32)
Yeah.
Alex Dripchak (09:33)
you think about just having your how qu how quickly your money doubles, which you tell them about the rule of seventy two, which is another great principle for people to check out. So when you invest in the stock market, it’s about every seven years. So then the difference between f starting at fifteen and starting at twenty two when you graduate is you have half the money that the fifteen year old.
Jeff Walter (09:51)
Yeah. Hey, on a completely separate note, as long as we’re on this, what what do you think about the the new accounts that are out? You know, that I they’re called Trump accounts, but it’s like the four something something B or s I forget the type three six. Yeah.
Alex Dripchak (10:02)
Yeah. I get to personally benefit from that. I have a
son that was born after January twentieth of twenty twenty five. So thank you. Glad he wasn’t
Jeff Walter (10:08)
congratulations. Yeah.
Alex Dripchak (10:10)
a preemie because we were just it was a month after that. So so yeah, so he gets Yeah, right? Yep, we
Jeff Walter (10:15)
so you just hit the cutoff for
Alex Dripchak (10:17)
got it. We we were pretty close to the date. So about a thousand dollars, a thousand dollars you get from the
Jeff Walter (10:21)
Yeah.
Alex Dripchak (10:22)
government at one time. So I I mean I love it, right? Because it’s getting everybody to at least some baseline of taking advantage of compounds.
So
Jeff Walter (10:30)
I I
I I think it’s brilliant. Like at like to your point, like if you can get a ki you know, if you could start even putting like you know, like you said a hundred bucks or even a you know, ten bucks a month or something. Like just like put a latte in there a month, right? Like like just
Alex Dripchak (10:44)
Yeah. Yep.
Jeff Walter (10:46)
by the time the kid’s eighteen, there it’s you know, just anyway, just I just was anyway.
Alex Dripchak (10:51)
I mean obviously
it’s a big proponent of what we’re trying to teach. So
Jeff Walter (10:54)
Yeah.
Alex Dripchak (10:55)
I’m I’m glad, right, that the government’s taking a positive action in that direction, for people to start building wealth and and curing generational issues too, right? It’s not just struggle, struggle, struggle, struggle, pass away, give pro give problems to the next generation, struggle, struggle, struggle,
Jeff Walter (11:08)
Right.
Alex Dripchak (11:08)
struggle, right? You know, if you just get somebody and we teach this to people ’cause we also teach in community colleges where people are twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy years old, and they’re kind of more in the struggle phase, but it’s like
get this set up for your children or your grandchildren to take advantage
Jeff Walter (11:21)
Right.
Alex Dripchak (11:22)
Jeff Walter (11:30)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Alex Dripchak (11:33)
nice that now we have this this option.
Jeff Walter (11:34)
Well and and the other thing that I just that strikes me it’ll be really interesting to see twenty, thirty years from now is it it gives everyone a stake. You know, like y there’s so much s s consternation on. I think there’s a a lot, you know, the last fifteen years have been really difficult economically, especially for younger generation. but to have like a physical stake in the economy, that’s not just a paycheck, right?
Alex Dripchak (11:59)
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Walter (11:59)
I just I I just think it it’ll be really interesting to see twenty, thirty years from now how that changes people’s perceptions of of things. So it’s anyway,
Alex Dripchak (12:06)
Yeah. Thank you.
Jeff Walter (12:08)
not to get onto that. Okay, so we went down that but one other thing I want to say to your point about the the compounding. The best piece of personal financial advice I ever got was when I was in grad school and I I I had a manager professor and we were talking about, you know, entrepreneurship and
He said, Okay, you know, you make a couple of bucks, what what’s the what’s the fr what do you do? And everybody’s like, you know, I mean you get your paycheck, you know, you pay your bills, you do And he goes, No, no, no, no, no. First thing you do is you pay yourself. Pay yourself. And
Alex Dripchak (12:34)
Pay yourself. Yep. Yep. We do the same thing.
Jeff Walter (12:37)
you know, like and that’s put money in savings or or you know four one K or pay yourself. ’cause if you pay yourself last, you’ll just piss it all away. Yeah.
Alex Dripchak (12:45)
Yep, exactly. So we we we teach that pay yourself first. And I do a little, I
call it, you know, what if you want a million dollars? What would you do with it? And it’s kind of a trap trick question. The
Jeff Walter (12:53)
Yeah.
Alex Dripchak (12:54)
people that say, I’m gonna go buy an expensive car, it’s like you failed, right? So this is what you’re supposed to do.
Jeff Walter (12:58)
Yeah.
Alex Dripchak (12:59)
You know, you’re supposed to start with your investments. And funny enough, actually, I mean we do teach it about halfway through the seminar. So I’m glad that people are applying what they learn right away, at least theoretically. But most people do a great job when I tell you know, I say, All right, I just gave you a million bucks, what are you gonna do with it?
Every
once in a while we have the people that want to go celebrate, but most people are starting to understand it. So that pay yourself first mindset is something we’re really trying to teach. The one thing I’ll say, just ’cause it’s such a knee-jerk snap response, is people use the word savings, right? And it’s it’s fine. I understand what you’re getting at, ’cause like we were
Jeff Walter (13:31)
Yeah.
Alex Dripchak (13:31)
just talking about investing. But most models, especially for people that are not financially literate, they just say savings. They don’t even say the word investments, and you can never save your way to financial well being.
You’re just you can’t. You’re not gonna beat inflation in traditional accounts. Maybe high yield savings you can slightly beat, but you’re not gonna start building wealth.
Jeff Walter (13:50)
Yeah,
y you’ll stay pa you’ll stay pace, but you won’t you won’t build, you know.
Alex Dripchak (13:53)
You’re right. Basically. Yeah. Yep.
Jeff Walter (13:55)
Yeah, I mean i it’s it’s I mean not to beat the the the personal finance thing, but you know, my my older daughter, she went to work for the NBA ten years ago when she got out of school. And you know, and I talk her we would talk about a lot of different things. But one thing that really that that I thought was very, very impressive is they had put in place with the players association a program for rookies.
‘Cause a lot of these, you know, and this is especially before NIL, right? Where you know, the these kids were coming out of school making nothing, and now all of a sudden poof, they got multi million dollar contracts. and it was you know, they had all these
advisors set up to help the rookies manage this newfound wealth. So they didn’t go do the let’s go buy a bunch of cars, let’s get a posse and pay everybody a bunch of money. Like it was like and they would kind of hit on the things you’re saying. It’s like pay yourself first.
The average career is X years long. That’s when you you know, you’re you’re only gonna be making money for five, ten years. Like
Alex Dripchak (14:51)
Yep, right.
Jeff Walter (14:52)
and just but but you know, so it applies you know, that it it just applies all over the map. So it’s so how do the
Alex Dripchak (14:57)
They really are.
Jeff Walter (14:58)
kids respond? What what kind of reaction do the kids get when you ’cause it could be it could be very dry and boring, finite finance.
Alex Dripchak (15:03)
Yeah, I mean, so we we try to find ways to make it fun. We have some games that I’ve I’ve kind of created and I use some analogies like players on the field. So we talk about putting your money to work. So actually I for anybody who’s really interested in this stuff, I just created a YouTube channel where I’m using AI to create videos of explaining these things in in clever ways. it’s at Commence Foundation is the name of our
Jeff Walter (15:24)
huh.
Alex Dripchak (15:25)
our our YouTube channel. But basically we’re trying to find really creative ways to to get in touch with people. So when I say, All right, your money.
Is it just sitting on the couch eating potato chips doing nothing? That’s a checking your savings account, right? That’s that’s
Jeff Walter (15:36)
Right.
Alex Dripchak (15:36)
nothing. You know, is it out there, maybe with a part-time job? It’s doing okay, you know, your treasury bills, your bonds, things like that. and then, you know, I start is it’s talking about gainfully employed, very successful. I start talking about exchange traded funds, and we start talking about some mutual funds. We talk about liquidity there and how it’s not liquid. So we get into all the different elements, but then I use these analogies with people and I’m like, all right.
Who are the players on the field that are gonna beat inflation? They’re gonna beat, you know, healthcare costs, education bills, whatever you wanna say. If the defense, and I actually use a visual of an NFL game, so getting back to professional sports, if the
defense
Jeff Walter (16:11)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Dripchak (16:12)
are all these players here, and you know, I’ll say who’s your favorite team and we’ll personify it, and who are you gonna put in? Who’s gonna be your slot receiver? Who’s gonna be your running back? Who’s gonna be your tight end? Who are you gonna put in the game to win?
to actually score a touchdown against all the financial defenders out there. So like that’s one example where we make it societally relevant. But we’re not just talking about terms.
Jeff Walter (16:32)
I like I I I like that.
Alex Dripchak (16:34)
Yeah.
Jeff Walter (16:34)
I like well I like that ’cause you could sit there and take each investment type and you can give it a a persona.
Alex Dripchak (16:41)
Yes.
Jeff Walter (16:41)
Right? Like, you know, th th you know, this is this is my running back and and he he’s he’s just gonna get yard after yard after yard after yard after yard. Just steady Eddie, get me a couple of yards.
Alex Dripchak (16:52)
Just keep feeding
them, you know, very like you said, very steady, right? Whereas like the
Jeff Walter (16:55)
Right.
Alex Dripchak (16:56)
the home run receiver is a very different, you know, kind of situation. So yeah.
Jeff Walter (16:59)
Right. Well they throw they
throw the bomb too and win the g you know and and you know that yeah, that’s me bet you know, betting on a a a stock or a a highly aggressive mutual fund or something. You
Alex Dripchak (17:08)
Yep, yep.
Jeff Walter (17:09)
know, just that’s that’s a really interesting way to think about it. I I never thought about that way. So very interesting. Yeah.
Alex Dripchak (17:13)
Yes, we’re always trying to find creative ways that people already
understand. Now not everybody in the room understands football, but certainly a lot more than people that understand financial well being. So that’s one way. We use other analogies too. So one I personally use is like soldiers on the battlefield. So,
Jeff Walter (17:28)
Uh-huh.
Alex Dripchak (17:28)
you know, going out there to do battle for me, to kind of win the fight. So that’s that’s another one. So whether it’s players on your team going onto the field or soldiers on the battlefield, I think just really making it vivid in your mind that
all your money
Jeff Walter (17:41)
Right.
Alex Dripchak (17:41)
going out there doing something, not sitting on the sidelines. And this isn’t just for students, right? I don’t know of anybody really I could say that has deployed their money perfectly across all categories. So like I have goals and I try to keep less than three percent in cash and, you know, no more than ten percent in things that are particularly aggressive. but you know, I have all these different strategies, but it takes a it takes a little bit of time to make sure you’re doing it right. And it’s not something that anybody’s immune to.
Jeff Walter (18:07)
Well and and I well the th the thing that’s really cool about what you said, and it’s not something I I had I I hadn’t thought about in terms of thinking of putting together a team. Like and your investments being a team. And and the the cool thing about that is if you it and it doesn’t have to be football because any any type of team. It’s
Alex Dripchak (18:23)
It’s always a role. There’s always a role that someone’s playing.
Jeff Walter (18:25)
yeah, and and and and then if you real you’re your general manager putting together a team, and the type of team you put together is really
related to what you you know, who’s that team playing and what what you’re trying to achieve with that team, right? And it’s like so and and who the competition is and and what kind of what kind of players you need to beat the con to win, right? And so
Alex Dripchak (18:47)
Right. Right.
Jeff Walter (18:48)
it’s so th like that’s that’s a you know, and then going into your percentages like, well, you know, I I I I do need I do need some reserve sitting on the couch, right? Like I I you do need that ’cause, you know
Things can happen and and but I do need my guy that’s gonna you know go you know all out and you know you know just get me massive returns if possible or die trying, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Alex Dripchak (19:08)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean for the reserves, I think people in general put too much there. So I’m trying to say
avoid the minimums, right? You don’t want to get penalties for not having enough in your account. But beyond that, you can have your money deployed elsewhere that is still highly liquid that’s going to be
Jeff Walter (19:23)
Yes.
Alex Dripchak (19:23)
getting a return for you. So so it’s less than most people think. So a lot of people use that
Jeff Walter (19:27)
Yeah, well no
Alex Dripchak (19:28)
word savings. Good.
Jeff Walter (19:28)
Yeah, well well no, I love shifting it from savings to investment, but I love thinking of it as assembling a team. And it’s like and every player on the team has
has a role. Some are on your bench just in case, those who reserves. but you want your star players out there making moves and some of them are steady eddies and and and some of them are gonna hit big home runs or strike out a bunch of times. Like, you know, pick your your analogy, but that’s that’s really cool. I never thought about that way. I think that would yeah. That’s yeah. Yeah.
Alex Dripchak (19:56)
I think that’s applicable for th th the audience here too, right? When you’re doing trainings,
how do you find something that’s relatively complex or people don’t have as much knowledge about and put it in the context of something that they do?
Jeff Walter (20:06)
Yeah, yeah, that’s a a a great observation. Well ca and and especially things that are very meaningful but are on the surface can be dry. Right?
Alex Dripchak (20:16)
Yes.
Jeff Walter (20:17)
Like I took enough finance courses my life to know you can get bored and I’m a math guy and you can get bored silly, but it’s but when you start to give a story
And you start to give characters, I’m like, that is freaking brilliant. I love that.
Alex Dripchak (20:29)
You’re gonna love one, Jeff.
There’s one I just did, and I think it’s hysterical, but it’s this AI video. This gentleman walks onto a big estate and he’s like, Wow, you must make a lot of money at your job. And the older
Jeff Walter (20:41)
Right.
Alex Dripchak (20:41)
man starts laughing, and he’s like, No, no, no, no, no. He’s like, Yes, I worked hard, but my money works harder. Let me show you. And he takes him around the estate, and then I actually personified Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, all the different images of the different dol denominations that we have as bills.
Jeff Walter (20:57)
Yeah, yeah.
Alex Dripchak (20:58)
And then it’s kind of like, all right, your Andrew Jackson might be your bonds, but then, you know, your Benjamin Franklin are gonna be your exchange traded funds matching the S P five hundred. Like so there’s all these different types of things and he walks around the estate and his money is actually working on building more wealth for him. So yeah, it’s I thought it’s a visual I
Jeff Walter (21:16)
That’s
Alex Dripchak (21:16)
thought you might enjoy.
Jeff Walter (21:17)
that’s very that’s very cool. I’d love to I’d love to see that. That’d be really cool. You know, so
Alex Dripchak (21:20)
Yeah, yeah. Send it to the after.
Jeff Walter (21:22)
so we talked so that’s your number that’s the number one thing, and I think that’s a great le I mean I think if a person, anybody of any age, if you can get your hands around your finances and live within your means and put enough aside so that it can start generating working for you.
Instead of you working for your money, your money works for you. Like I no matter what level of affluence you’re at, it it it just changes everything. And so I think that’s such an important lesson. So kudos to you, man. Kudos. Yeah.
Alex Dripchak (21:53)
It takes so much of the stress away. So,
I mean, sharing a little bit of a personal story, but I left the corporate world now almost five months ago. and it’s always a little stressful, right? Kind of going out on your own. Your inbox is slower. It’s just all these different things are kind of like, all right, this is an adjustment. And one of those adjustments is all right now I don’t have a every two week paycheck, right? So, but luckily, right, a lot of the passive income streams I have, royalties from books, investments, different things, they certainly help.
and one of those things was making a move, moving my money to Robinhood and SoFi, that one move for Roth IRA, my investing accounts, all that, that took care of my monthly expenses. So there’s so many different little golden nuggets out there that we just need to start curating and and giving out to the world.
Jeff Walter (22:38)
Yeah. So so that’s the that’s so that’s number one. And I think if if any kids can pick up just a couple of lessons from what you’re teaching there, and I love the personification of different investments as different characters. I think that’s brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. And
Alex Dripchak (22:51)
Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.
Jeff Walter (22:53)
I think and I think it’s a good lesson just in general from a learning design standpoint of
It ’cause it’s storytell you know, a lot of corporate learning tends to be very dry, very boring ’cause it’s it’s, you know, like Sergeant Friday, you know, just the facts, ma’am. Like like and and and if you personify it and you and you give it a story, it it sticks. You know, humans we we are we are not rational we we’re not rational beings, we are storytelling. We are narrative beings. We you know
Alex Dripchak (23:20)
There’s a study out there it’s about
twelve times more likely to remember a story than facts.
Jeff Walter (23:25)
I ex because we are yes, because we are evolved to be narration machines. Like we just take in narration and and we tell stories and we consume stories. And that’s how we learn. We are not logical beings, we’re or or narrative beings.
Alex Dripchak (23:41)
No, I mean a
hundred percent. And I mean it’s up to you if you want to share the story, but the first thing I thought of, so I was coming from leading a seminar when Jeff and I were chatting for your audience’s sake, and when I think of Jeff Walter, in addition to all the great things you do with your your training and and learning and everything like that
Jeff Walter (23:58)
thank you.
Alex Dripchak (23:59)
and your platform for franchisees, is just I think it is phenomenal that you shared a story personally about the benefits of compounding and how it translated to
Jeff Walter (24:09)
my
gosh. Yeah. You took
Alex Dripchak (24:10)
You know, the travel stories for your your daughter being like,
my God, I get so many more trips now.
Jeff Walter (24:15)
so the story that we’re talking about was my my in laws gifted my children when they were younger money to travel and
And my late wife and I we put it into investment accounts for the girls and invested in index mutual funds. And then, you know, as they were in college and they wanted to go spring break or this, you know, couple you know, we we funded it out of there. And then when it got out of school, you know, they s they they wanted to, you know, go to Europe. They wanted to do, you know, go up the California coast. Anyway, the funniest thing, and I think this is what you were referring to, Alex, was
My oldest daughter at one point said, Hey Dad, you know, now she’s in her mid-20s. And she’s like, Hey Dad, how much you know, I I’m thinking of taking a trip to Iceland. how much money is in the the travel fund? And I told her, and it was like a couple of hundred bucks less than what my in-laws had done had contributed. And she knew what, you know, we the kids knew how much the kid the in my in-laws had contributed. And she was like, Hold it, it’s the same amount that that nanny and poppy contributed? Like, what what?
And I’m like, yeah, well, it was in it’s been in an index mutual fund and you know it’s been a bunch of years and you know, it’s appreciated. And then it like it it hit her right in her heart. It’s like, so you mean my when I went to Italy, when I did the California coast, when I went up to Maine, when I went to spring break in the Dominic Like she started listing like five or six vacations she’s taken. She’s like, all that was paid for by the returns? And and I said, Yeah, yeah, you basically have what you started with.
Alex Dripchak (25:40)
All of it was free, I think was the word you said to me, right?
Jeff Walter (25:40)
And it just it was free. Yeah,
it was all free. It was like, you know, she still had this the you know, she still had the money that Nanny and Poppy had put in the account in the first place. So it was sh and it just really and ever since then, and both girls just it’s really been a big that that I think was just brilliant. Which is why going back to the other com conversation we had about the accounts, the new accounts, I I think it’s just gonna be brilliant for any
kid or and and any parent that takes advantage of it to just sit there and go, Hey, I you know, you I yeah, I put in five grand, but when you turned eighteen it was worth fifty. Right? Like I mean, or you know, you or you just took the thousand and next thing you you have ten grand in there when you’re turned eighteen. Like just like, you know, but it’s just brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. So
Alex Dripchak (26:22)
Yeah, it really is. Yeah.
Jeff Walter (26:24)
I I gets amazing. It’s and I love that imagery of, you know, Jackson and Washington and Lincoln and Franklin out there hustling for you on your estate. That’s
Alex Dripchak (26:32)
Yeah,
thank you.
Jeff Walter (26:33)
I just
had when you as soon as you said that I just im I just had this image. I just had this you know, it I just saw it, you know, some one’s cutting the lawn and one’s trimming the hedges and you know, it’s just really Yeah.
Alex Dripchak (26:43)
There’s a lot of ways to go with it. But yes, yeah,
it’s it’s a powerful visual. Hopefully hopefully I can sell it over to one of the big financial services firms for a commercial, right? And then they can
Jeff Walter (26:51)
Yeah.
Alex Dripchak (26:52)
just use that money to go towards the don’t the ch the the foundation.
Jeff Walter (26:55)
That’d be that’d be very cool. So okay, so w we we talked a lot about that, but I think that’s really important. That’s your the biggest thing. what are some of the other things you guys teach
the kids?
Alex Dripchak (27:02)
Yeah.
I’ll I’ll hammer them out quick and we can dive in wherever you want. so number two for us would be advanced networking or what I would call network building, connection building, advocate building. Really weighs on how to authentically cold network to someone, add value, reciprocate, teaching that as a skill. So not just networking where you show up as a place to go, but an actual skill. So that’s number two for us in order of magnitude and importance and and take up.
And then number three for us would be productivity, peak performance, purpose, energy, clarity, kind of all things around productivity, which is what my latest book was about, maximize over here over my shoulder. So that’s a good entree into about 85% of what we teach in the program there. And then those are the top three, the next ones, real quick. So we have interview skills or interview excellence is what I call it. And then we have presenting and storytelling. So getting back to the power of stories.
emotional intelligence is a big one. And then we have negotiation and persuasion, which is my background in sales. And then we have other courses around career pathing and planning, where we first started talking about high schools and colleges not really setting you up as much as they should. and then we have unique value proposition being one of our other big courses before getting into business communications. How to write in the business world is very different than the academic world. So how do you make that shift?
Jeff Walter (28:21)
That’s I’m I’m just like as you’re listing them, I’m sitting there going in my head like yes, yes, yes. These are like there’s so many
things there that are that are skills that can lead to just a better life. You know? And yeah.
Alex Dripchak (28:34)
better life and they’re just the big gaps that we don’t cover today. So I just kinda took
it and you know, audit of what are what are we not succeeding on in America here.
Jeff Walter (28:42)
And and so what’s been the what what’s been the response as you you know, so you you you started this six years ago, you went nonprofit a year ago, what kind of feedback are you getting from the schools, from the from the the students? you know and then you’re you know, you’ve been doing for six years, you you know, are you getting any longitudinal feedback from from from people?
Alex Dripchak (29:03)
Mm. It’s a good question. So six years. So the first five years it was a side hustle, so I was still keeping my, you know, sales director rule. So now it’s really been a year where it’s been the charity, but really closer to five months where it’s been full time. So it’s hard to say
Jeff Walter (29:17)
Okay.
Alex Dripchak (29:17)
it’s been six years. but we have been helping students for about six years. so we have some great feedback through some surveys of, you know, kind of before and after situations and would you recommend this? So
a hundred percent recommendation likelihood and ninety-three percent say it increases the positive feelings they have towards their significantly increases the positive feelings they have towards their school. So we have some d good stats around there. It’s still pretty new as far as how many
Jeff Walter (29:41)
Right. Okay.
Alex Dripchak (29:43)
data points we have. answer your question. So students really like it, but they need to opt in, right? They’re not getting any credit for it. So we need to figure out
Jeff Walter (29:51)
Right.
Alex Dripchak (29:51)
a crediting system that works better. So that’s what I’m trying to work on with schools. Is are you gonna give credit for this?
Most of them come back saying no. So that’s a big reason why we shifted to being a nonprofit is getting out to donors that say, Hey,
Jeff Walter (30:03)
Right.
Alex Dripchak (30:03)
I want my money to go further. I don’t want to just to keep funding the same problems that we have in higher education. I want to do something different. How do I do something different?
Jeff Walter (30:10)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Dripchak (30:11)
And we’re like, hey, we recognize the great the great opportunities within higher education, and how we can help it flourish. You can donate to our cause now instead. So to answer your question, schools.
like it when somebody else is paying for it, but then they don’t wanna
Jeff Walter (30:26)
Ha ha ha.
Alex Dripchak (30:26)
they don’t wanna put up the money themselves. So grants and donors are our biggest, you know, way of growth right now.
Jeff Walter (30:33)
Okay.
Alex Dripchak (30:34)
yeah, so but they unfortunately they just are kind of focused on the problems right now of declining enrollment, declining confidence in college, and it’s like, all right, this is the way you get out of that. But they’re they’re very fear and risk averse.
Jeff Walter (30:47)
Well and and when and so these courses, how long how you know, I are how how are they like multiple day, multiple week, f f four hour seminars? Like what do they look like?
Alex Dripchak (30:55)
Yeah. So
that’s that’s fairly flexible. The financial well being one is the one that really is the closest to being like a legitimate course where I could go in and teach that and give a grade for that. I’ve been talking about some different high schools have been looking at that. So that’s right now about six hours we do it as a seminar, but if I did it as long as I wanted, done with you approach every step of the way, that would be almost a full that could be a full semester.
Networking is usually about a four hour seminar, can be broken down into two hours. most of the other programs after that are under three hours seminar. So our top our t it’s basically our top five can kind of flex into a longer series of seminars or a course, and the bottom
Jeff Walter (31:37)
All right.
Alex Dripchak (31:38)
five are kind of an add on that are one time seminars.
Jeff Walter (31:41)
Yeah, that’s okay. I mean that’s so so a couple a a couple of things pop in my mind. Like one thing I was really impressed with, my younger daughter went to Kelly School at the Indiana Indiana University for undergrad. And they had just a in that first year maybe I maybe two two years. but yeah, definitely the first year, a bunch of these one credit courses that were just
They there were hidden things, the type of things you’re talking about. Not not under personal finance, but more on the professional side, right? Like interviewing and and and she would tell me the exercise they were doing. It was ch and it was building those skills, right? It was the interviewing, there was the networking, it was, you know, how do you give your gifts, the personal productivity, all all all those types of things. It’s just it’s yeah, I I I’m just you know my brain is sitting there going like, huh, like like it seemed like there would be an opportunity in the
Like community college or or or for scale, my brain went to like you know, how do you how do you virtualize it? Right. Yeah.
Alex Dripchak (32:38)
Yeah, obviously
there’s a big component there. So we do some virtual. When I was last chatting with you, it was leaving
Jeff Walter (32:44)
Yeah.
Alex Dripchak (32:44)
an in-person seminar at a community college system. So again, that’s where you get the grants. So federal grants will sometimes go towards these things. So that’s been that’s been valuable and helpful. But left to their own devices, schools have been mostly resistant.
Jeff Walter (32:58)
Yeah, well it it’s it’s it’s the it’s the you know aircraft carrier, turning the aircraft carrier, right? It’s yeah, one one of the things that was interesting, I I I I I I heard this several years ago and it kind of goes towards what you’re talking about and the type of things you’re typing to teach was it was the unintended consequence of no child left behind was you know, seemingly gr you know, a great thing. You know, let’s let’s hold schools accountable. But one the but s but basically,
Yo, it was the downfall of vocational education in in high school.
You know, and because they all shifted toward because shifted towards the things they’re getting measured for and no child left behind, which is, you know, prepping kids for college. So it’s all the traditional academic do a lot of work in the automotive industry and there’s just a ginormous collapse of like auto shop classes and shop classes and and and and that within the high school system over the last, you know, twenty something years.
And it’s directly related to no child left behind as they’ve sh as districts have shifted resources. And so it’s really interesting. you
Alex Dripchak (34:00)
Hm, ne realize that.
Jeff Walter (34:01)
and those are important and they’re but they’re technical. The thing that I admire about what you’re doing is it’s it’s it’s those soft skills, it’s that it’s it’s that character building. It’s like
Like like one can look at the finance one and go, it’s a technical thing, right? Like I’m gonna allocate
Alex Dripchak (34:16)
Yeah.
Jeff Walter (34:17)
five percent in the you know, and I’m gonna do this and you know, put it in this type of but it’s also a a a character thing. It’s a it’s a delayed gratification thing, it’s a discipline thing. You know, discipline
Alex Dripchak (34:26)
A hundred percent.
Jeff Walter (34:27)
is is the definition of discipline is delayed gratification, right? I’m gonna delay
Alex Dripchak (34:30)
Yeah, yeah.
Jeff Walter (34:31)
something today for tomorrow. I mean, that’s you know, that you know, that’s why you work that’s why you practice in sports, right? It’s you know, I’m I’m I’m
practicing but it’s a delayed gratification. I’m going to sacrifice something today so I can when I play on Saturday, I can be better. Right? and and so that’s a you know to me character building. The the the the networking, it’s you know it’s yeah.
Alex Dripchak (34:53)
It’s it’s tough because I think you you’re
hitting the nail on the head. It is so important, but unfortunately soft skills, right? Nobody wants to the even the word to be used for it is just terrible. So I’ve So it’s like
Jeff Walter (35:00)
Yeah. Soft and hard skills, yes. Yeah, I was
Alex Dripchak (35:06)
power skills, essential skills, compounding skills. You know, I use all these different terminologies to try to remove soft skills, but then pe when I s talk about it, people are like, you mean life skills or soft skills? And there are two things that have been so overused that they have no value. And then unfortunately
There’s there’s some great people out there that are doing this, but unfortunately a lot of people that have taught it historically are not people that have been domain experts. Right? They’re not something that who’s done really well in that space. Now master class has done a good job virtually, on that,
Jeff Walter (35:33)
yeah.
Alex Dripchak (35:34)
right? But as far as this kind of done with you approach live, there isn’t kind of subject matter experts coming in and teaching this, you know, before our foundation existed. So yeah.
Jeff Walter (35:42)
Yeah, what well
and I I I think of it as character building skills, right? Like like I said, like the financial one, it’s all it all stems on discipline. I mean, that’s a character building thing. Networking, and you use the word auth I think authentic networking. You know, it’s
Alex Dripchak (35:56)
Yeah, reciprocity, authentic networking, yeah.
Jeff Walter (35:58)
it’s about reciprocity. It’s about, you know, being
Alex Dripchak (36:00)
Value. Adding value.
Jeff Walter (36:02)
giving to get, right? You know, it it it’s it’s not about just you know
Checking off as many contacts as you can, but actually establishing relationships with other human beings.
Alex Dripchak (36:13)
A hundred percent. Yep.
Jeff Walter (36:14)
You know, and and and you build that that network of people that care about you because you care about them. You know. And
Alex Dripchak (36:19)
Yeah. One of the things sorry, go ahead.
Jeff Walter (36:22)
Yeah, no, I was gonna say and and and like that’s character building, right? That’s that’s that’s you know, and and and then the the third one, what was the third one you your
Alex Dripchak (36:31)
Productivity, peak performance, purpose.
Jeff Walter (36:33)
Yeah, it’s giving people your gifts.
And like, you know, like you’ve we’ve all got gifts to give, to share with the world, right? Peak performance is like doing that at the optimal, right? Like to me,
Alex Dripchak (36:43)
Yeah, yeah.
Jeff Walter (36:44)
as as you were going down your list, I was like, character building, character building, character building. And
Alex Dripchak (36:47)
Character building, character. Yeah.
Jeff Walter (36:48)
I and I just think of soft skills as character building skills. I think we talked about this a a little bit. I’m sorry to just but I recently I think the inter the I think the episode was recently released with Dan Aldritz over at Christian Brothers Automotive.
And so they’re a franchise of they’re a collision repair franchise. And and and and Christian Brothers being, you know, they’re they’re based on their faith, but but they’re a franchise, you know, you can buy the franchise.
Alex Dripchak (37:10)
Yeah, yeah, I love that. Yeah.
Jeff Walter (37:12)
And Dan runs their training program, their franchisee training program. So you’d figure collision repair, you know, it would all be hard skills training, right?
Alex Dripchak (37:21)
Yeah, right, right.
Jeff Walter (37:22)
Half his curriculum is character building.
Alex Dripchak (37:25)
No, I love that.
Jeff Walter (37:26)
Half of the curriculum that they teach the the front line and I’m not talking about the franchisee, I’m talking about the frontline franchise employee is character building. It’s things like you said, conflict resolution, right? Negotiation, giving
Alex Dripchak (37:38)
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Walter (37:40)
of your giving of your skill, like how to engage with people in a in a in you know, in a in a collaborative way. And
Alex Dripchak (37:48)
Mm-hmm.
Jeff Walter (37:49)
and he’s and he just told me like story after story about like
These guys in their, you know, middle age, older guys that have been in the industry for decades and they’ve they took this training and it had a and they would cry to him, like these tough guys. They would
Alex Dripchak (38:03)
Well yeah, sure, sure.
Jeff Walter (38:05)
tear they would get tears in their eyes of how nobody ever gave them training that made them feel valuable or of worth. It was they gave him technical training, but not not not character training and and and then how it translated into their personal life.
And change their relationship with their dad like like this all this stuff. And you’re like, It’s
Alex Dripchak (38:22)
Hundred percent.
Jeff Walter (38:23)
a training program for collision repair franchisees and their staff, right? Like
Alex Dripchak (38:26)
I love that.
Jeff Walter (38:27)
and you would go, No, I’m telling you how to fix a fender, right? I’m telling you how to, you know, adjust the alignment on your car, unbend a frame. And that’s in there too, don’t get me wrong. But
Alex Dripchak (38:37)
Of course
it has to be, but i I think the big the big repositioning here is they didn’t look at what they could only extract from their employees, right? Getting them leveled up into all the technical skills that are gonna benefit the corporation. They actually invested in the personal value of that individual. So that’s what that’s that’s
Jeff Walter (38:54)
Yes.
Alex Dripchak (38:54)
why they started crying is because they felt valued for the first time. ‘Cause most corporations,
Jeff Walter (38:57)
Ex exactly.
Alex Dripchak (38:58)
most higher ed institutions, they focus on what they can get from you. They don’t focus on giving anything to you.
That they can just help you with. So huge.
Jeff Walter (39:07)
And
now, but here’s the kicker. And it’s a and I th I think it’s a it’s a beautiful thing. I it’s I think it’s an alignment thing. I think it’s a quite frankly, a divine thing. Financially, these franchises
Alex Dripchak (39:20)
It it always benefits you in the end. High point, the
Jeff Walter (39:22)
It’s like
Alex Dripchak (39:23)
Life Skills University, they’re doing well. Northeastern, the big co op university, they’re doing well. They’re growing leaps and bounds. If you do the right thing, they’ll
Jeff Walter (39:30)
Yes.
Alex Dripchak (39:31)
come back to you.
Jeff Walter (39:32)
Yeah. If if you get that alignment with those those values, those those you know those deep values, right? And so like the the the the network is growing as fast as they want to grow. The franchisees
Alex Dripchak (39:44)
Awesome.
Jeff Walter (39:45)
are doing well. The retention rate on their customers is through the roof. Their their turnover rate at the employee franchises is are just
Yeah, they yeah, they have low turnover, like like everything is aligned because of the values are aligned and then they’re helping people with the like you said, with the the skills and that and just it’s just amazing. It’s absolutely amazing. I just find it very fascinating.
Alex Dripchak (40:11)
Well, for anybody that’s
listening and not watching, I’m over here pressing love, celebrate, clap, applause. I feel like there was a T V show. I think it might still be around on ESPN for anybody who watches that, where the guy like awards points and like if he’s as he’s listening, yeah, he just like hits all these buttons, right? As he’s listening. That’s me right now hearing about these folks at the Christian you know, the
Jeff Walter (40:25)
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Alex Dripchak (40:32)
Christian brothers here. So I I love it and definitely
Jeff Walter (40:34)
Yeah.
Alex Dripchak (40:35)
connects to my God given mission too.
Jeff Walter (40:37)
that’s why I when we started talking, I was just like, wow, this is really cool what this guy’s doing. Yeah, what what you’re doing, Alex. Just very, very cool. So
Alex Dripchak (40:41)
Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate it.
Jeff Walter (40:44)
one other question I want to ask you what caused you to make the jump? So you’re d you’re you know, you saw you saw this thing, it was
Yeah, you called it a side hustle, it was something more you were doing, you know, for you know it was a calling. Like if like if you if you’re if you’re doing that, it it’s there’s something there was some call what made you shift from, you know, working corporate full time to, you know, let me do this, let me make this my life’s work?
Alex Dripchak (41:07)
Yeah, so for me that I I’m a very spiritual person, so this gets back to my higher power, God, Jesus Christ. So I’m a Christian, like the folks it sounds like that are running the other program you’re just talking about. But it all
Jeff Walter (41:19)
Yeah, Christian Brothers
is not a bunch of brothers that happen to be last name Christian. As opposed
Alex Dripchak (41:23)
Yeah, right, yeah. I kinda I kinda put that together.
Jeff Walter (41:28)
to Christian Brothers wines. Yeah, that’s a different that’s that’s a bunch of bunch of guys last name Christian.
Alex Dripchak (41:33)
Okay. Good to know.
but yes, so for me it all gets back on my purpose. So fulfilling that calling. so I I’m I can get as I can go in as deep or as little as you want, but the one thing I will say for me, I feel that we are here to fulfill our calling. Like this is a a test, a trial run, whatever you want to call it, for our eternal life with God. And there’s something more important than fulfilling that calling, and this is what I feel that I’ve been called to do and
Trying to make sure I understand all the little things. So every day I look for God and the Holy Spirit and how they’re leading me. and I think that’s that’s an exercise I would really encourage people to try for themselves is finding tapping into that higher power and then looking for that higher power for guidance and direction throughout the day.
Jeff Walter (42:15)
So I I I I I get that. So what was the tipping point in your mind like like I could see this thing, you know, building for years and and you feel this calling within you. And I I’ve talked to a lot of other folks that have started their own thing. Like what was the tipping point for you where you were like, you know what? I’m going to give up the security of a paycheck and I’m gonna do I’m gonna dedicate myself to this.
‘Cause it it’s it is a leap of faith, you know.
Alex Dripchak (42:42)
a hundred percent.
Yep. So there were just a lot of different signs and signals. Like that just the noise got very, very, very loud for me. So one of the things I make a joke with another podcast I was just on, and he’s a Christian gentleman, and I said, You know how you know you’re really tapped in or really focused on serving God is when you feel like you’re schizophrenic. When you just feel like, Am I doing the right thing? Is that what you implemented for me to do? Wait, I thought it was this. Was it this? And like in your head you just have all these things going on back and forth.
And and that just that conversation I had from the end of twenty twenty five through mid February when I made the decision to go full time on it, of just every day I like, You need to do more, you need to do more, you need to do more, you need to do more and I’m like, I’m trying, I’m just trying to balance this with my full time job and I’m I’m trying to do I was at five hours a week, now I’m at ten hours a week, like it’s like you need to do more, you need to do more, you need to do more So it was just relentless. And then things happened that were I was prepared for a month beforehand.
that I would have had no earthly way of knowing, but I was prepared for those things because of my relationship with God. And yeah, so I’ve been preparing preparing this for a long time. Or I’ve been being prepared, I guess you could say. I’ve yeah.
Jeff Walter (43:53)
Yes.
Alex Dripchak (43:54)
So it’s not it’s not me. Right. That’s the that’s what I’m getting at.
Jeff Walter (43:57)
Well, I I I mean c kudos to you for walking through that door. It’s and it’s you know, it’s scary. It’s
Alex Dripchak (44:04)
It is.
Jeff Walter (44:04)
i i is especially you know, y y you you have a young child, you want to provide for them and but it’s it’s amazing work. It’s very, very, very cool. So now that so now that this has your full time attention, from a a work perspective, ’cause your you know, family is always more important.
but but what do you hope to you know what do you hope to do with it that you haven’t been able to do in the past because of the limited time you were able to give it?
Alex Dripchak (44:32)
Yeah.
So I think to shift to the non profit is a big piece. But that was a big thing for me and so finding more avenues for us to serve as opposed to going through the limited resources that we’ve tried in the past. So I think that the big thing for us now is the the donor model. finding that
Jeff Walter (44:48)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Dripchak (44:49)
people that are not happy with the money that they’re given to education and want to do something different with their money and get something in their own name.
So that’s a big focal point for us. looking at internships and apprenticeship programs, helping their three young adults. We had traditionally just thought about colleges and helping there. So it’s it’s focusing on different ways to serve and reach and scale. So and then travel more too. So I can now travel wherever I need to go around the country, provided it’s pretty close to an airport. But I can now travel more to serve more. So that’s a big goal of ours.
Jeff Walter (45:20)
Very cool. Very, very cool. And it sounds like there’s a lot of a lot of good things kind. I it’d be really fascinating to talk to you in a few years and see what you’ve done with this ’cause I I feel like you’re you’re
you you’ve just pulled back on a joystick and just taken off. You know, like you like it’s it’s a beautiful thing. It really is. It it’s just very it it’s very admirable.
Alex Dripchak (45:41)
And it’s just what’s fun is what’s
fun about it, thank you so much. What’s fun about it is, you know, luckily I’ve started at fifteen, right, with my investing. So I did some different analyses and models and I said, All right, this is stressful not having the paycheck to go pay for my bills and it’s coming out of my different stocks and stuff. But like let me just take a a step back and let me take out what if it was a year of runway. And if I took that year runway out and had whatever I had left over
And just left that amount in for thirty more years until I retire at sixty-five. And it’s like, wow, that’s a staggering amount of money. Getting back to
Jeff Walter (46:14)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Dripchak (46:14)
the the compounding, you know, potential, because I started early, because it dominoed and ripple effect into these character building things that you’ve been talking about, Jeff, it’s just affording me this opportunity. So it’s kind of like, People, why should you do this? Well, I’m being crazy, so to speak, by trying to change the country and how we operate.
And I’m gonna be okay. So if you go on a more traditional route, just think about how simple and easy life will be for you.
Jeff Walter (46:39)
Yeah, well y the the thing that’s really cool, and I I I tell this to folks all the time, it’s another one of those things I got from a professor in grad school is the corridor print principle, which is, you know, you you you start at the end of a long corridor or hallway and you think your goal is at the other side of the hallway, right?
And then as you start going down the hallway, you start to see these other hallways, right, that you couldn’t see from where you started. Right. And and then you go and then you you see one, you go, that’s a better goal over there. And so you hang a left and you start going down that goal. And then as you go down that hallway, another
opportunity opens up that you never knew existed from when you started. And next thing you know, you’re someplace you never even you’ve you you’ve gotten to a place that you never even knew existed when you started. because you you took those steps down that that hallway. And so like I I have not a doubt with your energy and and just your tenacity towards you going to open up that w
you you did it couldn’t have been imagined two years ago. You know, just it’s amazing.
Alex Dripchak (47:37)
I really appreciate
that. Thank you so much. And I’ll take that as a blessing too, for for for more doors to open up. But I’m starting to see it, right? There’s certain people, certain
Jeff Walter (47:43)
Yeah.
Alex Dripchak (47:45)
very, very famous people that I never thought I’d be able to reach that are now giving advice, making introductions and it’s like, Okay, this is this is coming to fruition, this is exciting.
Jeff Walter (47:55)
It’s gonna it’s a it’s I I think it’s very necessary work and I think it you know, it’s it’s it’s life changing the for the folks that you touch. Yeah, like truly is. And I and I wish that
And one of the reasons I want to talk to you is I just want to delve into this ’cause it’s that character building that I don’t think we give young people today. You know, i it it’s happening it happens in the home with mom and dad or or whoever your you know is is is in the home, you’re whoever your garden is. But but the formal education, you know, we’ve we’ve gotten towards more of a technocratic type of thing. And you know, I just it
know, I just think we need more character building. It just it it it’s that reciprocity, it’s that trust, it’s that it’s it’s you know, delayed gratification. I mean, those are all the things that build a great society and and allow you to have a great life. Allow you to have a great life.
Alex Dripchak (48:40)
Yeah, and a hundred percent. And I
I always love to practice what I preach. So reciprocity. I think I’ve if I haven’t sent to you already, I have this little document where it’s like fifteen ways I can help you personally, fifteen ways I can help you professionally that do not benefit me. Happy if you see something on that list, let me know, Jeff. Always happy to help. And then out to your audience,
Jeff Walter (48:59)
Okay. Yeah, de definitely.
Alex Dripchak (49:02)
you know, if there are certain things and concepts we’re talking about that you’re trying to figure out how to distill down to your population, reach out to me.
Happy to see how I can help, you know, pass along maybe one of my books or or whatever it might be. Always happy to give out to the world and and see people that are trying to make change for the for the better.
Jeff Walter (49:18)
Yeah, so Alex, you know, as we’re wrapping up here, great segue. What if somebody wanted to reach out to you, somebody a listener to that, what what’s the best way to get a hold of you or your or your foundation?
Alex Dripchak (49:28)
Yeah. LinkedIn’s probably the best place right now to see some of our content. engage with me. I’m on there pretty frequently, most of the day. So it’s just Alex, Drip Jack, and Commence Foundation. So those are both pretty simple. if people want to see some other unique ways of our material, I mentioned Commence Foundation for the YouTube AI videos, which are gonna be fun. already three up there, there’ll be some more coming. And then we have platforms on Instagram, platforms on TikTok, our website, commenceyourcareer.com.
com so there’s a there’s a lot of different places I would say the easiest place to start and then I can try to help direct you wherever what’s most valuable to you is on LinkedIn at Alex Stripcheck.
Jeff Walter (50:04)
Okay, and we’ll we’ll get a a link to your profile in the in the comments and a link to your your website and make it easy for folks to get a hold of ya. Yeah, so
Alex Dripchak (50:10)
Thank you. Appreciate it. Yeah. However I can help. Here to serve.
Jeff Walter (50:16)
be f before any anything else you wanna chat about before we wrap up, Alex?
Alex Dripchak (50:20)
I mean there’s probably a million different things we can talk about, but no, I’m excited that you know,
Jeff Walter (50:22)
Ha ha ha.
Alex Dripchak (50:25)
to join the your your podcast here, Jeff, I think what you’re doing in the LMS space is not only serving a niche, but it’s serving it well, right? A lot of people just kinda cobblestone something together, but I think you’ve you’ve done a nice job here focusing in on on helping people that in a way that they can realistically feel and see all the other people like them benefiting from it.
So I think that’s terrific. So you know, keep up the good work with all the franchises out there. And yeah, happy however I can help, folks. Happy to happy to to follow up. And what I always say to people on podcasts, for those that have listened this long, is if you want a copy of my book, I will send you a a digital copy for free. So let me know which
Jeff Walter (51:05)
Beautiful.
Alex Dripchak (51:06)
how I can help you, but maximize I can send out a copy of the book.
Jeff Walter (51:08)
Fantastic. Well, Alex, thank you so much for for joining me today. It’s it’s I really admire what you’re doing and what you guys are trying to accomplish. It’s a it’s a it’s a beautiful thing. Yeah.
Alex Dripchak (51:15)
Yeah. Thanks for spotlighting our cause. Thank you.
Jeff Walter (51:19)
And to everybody out there, thank you for joining us. We appreciate it and we’ll see you next time. Take care.