After 250 episodes of the Balancing Act podcast, the host becomes the guest. Producer Nick Temte steps out from behind the glass to interview his dad — and usual host — Andy Temte, in a milestone conversation about where the show started, what 250 episodes have taught him, and where it’s all going.
Dr. Andrew (Andy) Temte, CFA, is an author, musician, and the former CEO of Kaplan Professional Education. He’s the author of Balancing Act: Teach, Coach, Mentor, Inspire and The Balanced Business, with two more books on the way — The Modern Golden Rule and Stop Standing Still. He founded the Balancing Act in 2019 as a way to have authentic, non-salesy conversations with business leaders, and he closes every episode with the same three words: grace, dignity, and compassion.
Andy traces his own career rocket booster to a sunny August day in 1989, when — rejected by every other Big Ten PhD program — he climbed to the sixth floor of Phillips Hall at the University of Iowa to meet finance department chair Carl Schweser. A scheduled 30-minute interview became a two-hour conversation, and a lifelong mentorship that shaped everything that followed. From there, Nick and Andy retrace the origins of the show, the 2008 Great Recession story behind “grace, dignity, and compassion,” and the home studio where their father-son partnership — and their music — began.