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We live in a world driven by transactions—performance, productivity, outcomes, expectations.
But beneath every transaction… something deeper is being formed. Your identity. Your relationships. Your culture.
Your purpose. Beneath the Transaction is a podcast about that deeper work. Hosted by Chris Pineda, PhD and his wife and co-founder of Groundwork, Kenzie Pineda, this podcast brings to life the ideas from Chris’s book, Beneath the Transaction—a framework for understanding what truly drives transformation in our lives and leadership.
Together, Chris and Kenzie explore what it means to build a life that isn’t just productive—but purposeful. Drawing from leadership, organizational psychology, and indigenous wisdom, each episode invites you to slow down and reflect on what’s really shaping you beneath the surface.
Episodes move between two rhythms: Life and Leadership. Because the way you lead at work cannot be separated from how you live at home. You’ll hear conversations with leaders across industries, communities, and families—people doing the deeper work of building trust, creating culture, and living with intention.
This isn’t just a podcast. It’s an invitation. To reflect more deeply.
To lead more honestly.
To live more fully.
To choose relationship over transaction. If you’ve ever felt the gap between who you are and how you’re showing up—this is for you. Because transformation doesn’t happen alone. It takes a Tribe. And it always begins… beneath the transaction.
→ Get the book: https://a.co/d/0iQqy9zQ
→ Work with Chris: beneaththetransaction.com
Episodes
Apr 27, 2026
Apr 27, 2026
48 min
When profit becomes the focus, something deeper starts to break.
In this episode of Beneath the Transaction, I sit down with Brian Belliveau, Chief Growth Officer at Columbia Southern University, to talk about what leaders often miss when they’re trying to grow an organization.
Brian brings over 20 years of experience leading growth at scale—but what stands out most isn’t strategy. It’s how he thinks about purpose.
As a U.S. Navy veteran and former Hospital Corpsman, his leadership is grounded in service, discipline, and people. And in this conversation, he challenges a common pattern in leadership:
We move too fast to solutions…
without ever asking the deeper question—why.
We talk about how profit can quietly become the driving force behind decisions—and how, over time, that disconnects organizations from their purpose, their people, and their impact.
Because the issue usually isn’t what we’re doing.
It’s that we haven’t gone deep enough to understand why we’re doing it.
This is a conversation for leaders who want to build something that lasts—not just something that performs.
Because profit should never outweigh purpose.
And transformation only happens when we’re willing to go deeper.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction and Background of the Podcast
00:57 Chris introduces Brian and the focus on transformation
01:56 Brian's background in higher education and leadership
03:59 The significance of purpose in organizational change
07:04 The analogy of art and understanding the 'why'
14:09 Creating purpose-driven teams and organizations
20:03 Digging deeper: The importance of asking 'why'
29:04 The role of process in reinforcing purpose
37:10 Decision-making guided by purpose
44:01 Staying committed to purpose during challenges
49:45 The deeper 'why' that pulls us forward
55:11 Practical takeaways for leaders and organizations
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