- 4 months ago
What happens when the world’s best-selling author teams up with a leadership expert? You get a playbook for thriving in a changing world. James Patterson, drawing on his experience as a former CEO, master marketer, and publishing icon, teamed up with Dr. Patrick Leddin to write Disrupt Everything—and Win. An awesome mashup of Patterson’s real-world lessons and Leddin’s three-year Vanderbilt study on disruption. They share how to stop fearing change, flip obstacles into opportunities, and why becoming a “positive disruptor” might be the key to success.
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00:00People will look at some of the things I do and go, that was really risky.
00:03I don't remember doing anything where I really thought it was hugely risky.
00:07I feel very comfortable and, you know, yet, no, I'm pretty sure that this is a good idea.
00:16Hey everyone, I'm Dan Bova, writer and editor at entrepreneur.com and welcome to How Success
00:21Happens, the show where I talk to incredible people who do incredible things. Now, unfortunately,
00:27we've got a couple of slackers on the show today. James Patterson is the bestselling author of
00:34everything. He sold about half a billion books worldwide and that is not an exaggeration.
00:42And with him is Dr. Patrick Ledden, Franklin Covey, senior advisor, leadership expert and
00:49bestselling author himself. Together, they've authored Disrupt Everything and Win,
00:55Take Control of Your Future. You might see a copy or two in the background of Patrick right now. I'm
01:01not sure if you could tell. It's a new release that shows how things like AI and workplace upheavals
01:07aren't something to fear and try to survive through, but that we can take control of and thrive in,
01:14which sounds awesome to me because I hate being terrified. So let's find out what the book is all
01:20about. Welcome, James and Patrick. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Glad to be here.
01:26James, great to talk to you again. I spoke to you a little while ago when your memoir came out. So
01:33at my count, that means you've written one, two, a lot of books. But this is your first business book.
01:41So what inspired you to do this? Well, I was in business for quite a while. And,
01:46you know, I've had two careers, both quite successful, actually. And in both cases,
01:52it's been positive disruptions that made it happen for me. Advertising, just one quick example.
01:59I took no advertising courses, no marketing courses. I wanted to get into J. Walter Thompson.
02:05And the normal route is you do a portfolio and you give it to them. What I did is I did a portfolio.
02:11And then the second week, I brought another portfolio. And the third week, I brought a third
02:16portfolio. So I disrupted the process and they hired me in the third week. And it sort of went
02:22that way all the way through Thompson. I became their youngest CEO at 37 or something like that.
02:30And then in publishing, same sort of thing. Publishers Weekly said I changed publishing forever.
02:37But once again, it was just positive disruptions. You know, the notion there was you do a book a
02:43year. This year, I'm doing nine books. And initially, they objected to that. But then they said,
02:51OK, well, this actually makes sense. And what I've always done is question things.
02:56You know, does this really make sense? Why would you only do one book if you could do more?
03:01I mean, one book is fine or one book every two years is fine. But you don't have to be held back.
03:06I'd love to get your thoughts, Patrick, on on the word disruption, because I think from the in the
03:11entrepreneurial world, it signifies like I invented something that changed everything.
03:17What you just described wasn't about inventing stuff is just like doing it in a way that made
03:24sense to you. That was outside of like, that was just that's my path. And this this book is not a
03:30one size fits all. There's a lot of different things in a different way. Some is for entrepreneurs.
03:35Some is, you know, there are a lot of things that happen here. But I'm sorry, Patrick, go ahead.
03:39Yeah, I mean, disruption is a big word, right? And Jim and I, James and I were talking about that.
03:44We're not the first people to write about disruption. But we kind of want to own it.
03:47We've studied it. We've seen what successful people have done in the face of disruption.
03:51And I would say to everybody listening that we're all the disrupted. We're getting hit with things left
03:56and right and curveballs every day. But some of us choose to be disruptors.
04:01Some of us choose to say, OK, in the advent of technology shifts or supply chain problems or
04:07just the upheaval in your own organization, what can I do about it? And as you said, these are some
04:13things that we study people with all walks of life. It was a three year study that I led at Vanderbilt
04:17University. And we interviewed hundreds of people and surveyed thousands more. And some of the
04:22disruptions that they had were small things that stopped them in their tracks, very unique to them,
04:27like a report from a doctor or a conversation in the hallway. And other things are the most
04:33horrific things that you wouldn't want to wish on your worst enemy. But in each of these stories,
04:39the big, the small, the ubiquitous, the unique, each of these stories, we saw how people followed
04:44a process that said, I'm not just going to react. I'm going to think about this and I'm going to put
04:48it in perspective. I'm going to lean into my strengths and I'm going to achieve some really
04:51cool results. And as we looked at that, we started to realize there's this pattern that falls out
04:56the best of the best do. And we want people to be able to apply this no matter what's going on in
05:01their world. Yeah. At every level, at every level. I kind of, I can't imagine that there's any
05:07corporation, any small business, any entrepreneur who will not benefit from this because we're all
05:14going to face with these things. And we cannot, you know, we can't put our heads in the sand and
05:18pretend that it's going to go, it's not going to go away. It's, it's massive. It's, you know,
05:24artificial intelligence is obviously huge. I'm not being political, but the things that
05:29are going on from the government every week, every day, there's, there are things that are
05:33happening, tariffs, et cetera, economic uncertainty, things like the pandemic, things like, you know,
05:40there was, there was a big murder yesterday. I mean, it just changes everything. Everything
05:43seems to change every day now. And I don't think any of these things are accidental. And I think
05:47they're going to keep happening. And this book is about, and that's why this thing is so timely.
05:52Disrupt everything and when, and do it right now. Because if you put your head in the sand,
05:58you're going to get disrupted. You're going to be a disruptor or disruption. And it happens at every
06:02level. It happens. And the book deals with it at every level. Well, our publisher, they have two new
06:07people that came in to run the company. And, and for them to, for their mission to work, it means that
06:14every editor must disrupt the way they've been doing editing. It means that the sales department must
06:20disrupt the way they've been, you know, everybody in that company, the receptionist must disrupt the
06:25way they greet people at the door. And insofar as that happens, the mission works.
06:31So what do you think it is? I mean, to use a broad term, fear, right? Things are changing. I don't
06:39understand it. And rather than try to learn it, I'm scared and I want to run from it. So what do you
06:46think it is that makes us do that? And then in talking to people who are, you know, successful
06:53disruptors, how do you think they approach these changes that's different from the people who are
06:58running? I think that from what we learned in the research as we were talking to folks is one thing
07:02is that there's this fear because you don't know which way to go. You don't know what's going to
07:08happen next. You, you kind of want to cling to the way things are right now. And one of the things that
07:13we talk about in the book is there's this really kind of fundamental thing that we all have to
07:17realize that the status quo is not going to stay the status quo. Things are going to constantly
07:21change. We're organic matter. That's your team at work. That's your organization. That's your family
07:26around the dinner table. If you even have one of those anymore, it's constantly changing. And the
07:31reality is you can't sit on top of the organization. You can't sit on top of your team. You can't sit on top
07:36of your startup. You can't sit on top of your family and dictate everything.
07:39Can you talk a little bit, Patrick, about this disruption project? You know, you said you spoke
07:46to over 300 people to gather this data. What were some of the kind of surprising things you learned
07:55from successful disruptors? And what were some of the commonalities you may have seen?
08:00Well, first of all, the study started because James talked to one of my classes at Vanderbilt
08:05and he came back and he was talking to this class I was leading called leading business through
08:09times of crisis. And he told his story. And actually, you might remember, you called the
08:13presentation that day, the power of disruption. And you went through this presentation where you
08:17talked about your career and your life and you challenged the students to live a good life and
08:21asked them if they were living one. And when you stopped the presentation, when it was over, I was
08:25like, holy cow, that is really powerful. What he just went through that idea of life's going to throw
08:31you curve balls. What are you going to do with them? And that kind of started this journey of
08:35studying disruptors around the world. And I think are you and are you leading a good life?
08:41Are you leading to be with the college students? One of the things I said is, are you are you
08:47getting on a treadmill to get on another treadmill to get on another treadmill to die? Is that what
08:52you're doing? If you're OK with that, then that's fine. But are you OK with it? And are there
08:57options? Are there options? And maybe there are maybe they're really much better options. I'm sorry,
09:02Patrick. Go ahead. No, no, you're fine. And the interesting thing is like you have an end
09:06of one, right? You have James Patterson coming and saying his great good life. But then you
09:10have every student in the room, every person on this planet saying, OK, what's a good life
09:13to mean to me? And they're all different. Yeah. And one of the reasons we want to have
09:16a broad study is we want to get different slices of life experiences to figure out what people
09:21did. You asked me what stood out to me or kind of surprised me in the research. As we went
09:25through all the interviews and kind of culled through them and said, OK, what are the big
09:29things that they're talking about? We found a number of behaviors that they exhibit. James
09:34and I talk about 16 behaviors in the book, but not one person had all of these behaviors.
09:39Some people were more visionary. Some people were more roll up their sleeves. Some people.
09:42So what that starts to teach you is like it doesn't matter where you are. You have some
09:47strengths that you can lean into that can take the curveballs that are thrown at you and
09:51do something big or smaller, whatever you want to do. And we provide you a process to do
09:56it. Right. Yes. You can make big changes or you can make small changes. But the thing
10:01is that they're positive. And it's hard to just stand still right now. If you stand still,
10:06you're probably going to get run over. Well, and if I may, somebody asked me one
10:10time, what's the opposite of a positive disruptor? And you might think, well, it's a negative
10:16disruptor. But that's not what it is. The opposite of being a positive disruptor is a relentless
10:21pursuit of comfort. You keep thinking like, I can get back to the way it was. I want things
10:26to be comfortable. And when you do that pursuit of comfort, you miss so many opportunities.
10:31And then as James says in the beginning of the book, all of a sudden you feel essentially
10:34disenfranchised, cheated, like you missed out on something.
10:38So I usually ask guests on this show for a habit that they're happy to have and one that
10:45they wish they could ditch. And I'd love to hear both of yours. But I'd also love to hear
10:50what are the habits of these positive disruptors that you see over and over again?
10:57Yeah. Patrick?
10:58Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We actually see though. There's a, let me differentiate. There's the behaviors
11:01that are kind of things that they, they, they can do different times. They apply their behaviors,
11:06but then there's also these 27 positive disruptor moves we picked up on. And these are things that
11:11can make it real for you really quickly. So there's things like own the wind, take them. These people
11:17take a moment to celebrate the wind. A lot of people don't. So if you're listening right
11:21now, you know, one thing you can do today is own the wind. You do something good. Team
11:24does something good. Take a moment, celebrate before you just move on. Another one is they
11:28ask for more. And this is an interesting one because sometimes people feel like, well, I'm
11:33just going to ask for more right away. You got to deliver on whatever you were hired to
11:36do. Let me get clear on that. But if you're delivering on stuff or if you're, if you're
11:40making things happen, it's okay to ask for more. Most leaders have more on their plate than
11:44they can handle. So be the person who comes up and helps them out. Another one
11:47is do the scary. Yes. We don't learn a lot when we're comfortable. We talked about comfort
11:52earlier. Yeah. Do the scary. Yes. Boss offers you an opportunity. Take it.
11:57So when we talk about getting out of our comfort zone, you know, it, it is painful sometimes,
12:03you know, I know there's a theory of when you give a kid a new food, they've got to taste
12:09it five times before they'll, they'll like it, or at least know if they like it or not.
12:14Is there any kind of guidance you give on that comfort zone to say you are going to get better
12:21at this? I think that one of the things that the book does really well is it has compelling
12:25stories in it as an overarching kind of lessons that it's putting together. And then it has
12:30tools that you can apply. So as Jim said, it really doesn't matter where you are as you
12:35approach the book. Maybe you're a connoisseur of a particular cuisine and you want to get a
12:39little bit better or your kid that's never tasted this before. There's a space for you
12:43in the book to start applying those things today.
12:46And I think it's pretty pragmatic about helping you to, to deal with, you know, what really are
12:51your skills as opposed to the things that are going to be impossible. You know, if you're 260 pounds and
12:57you want to be a ballet dancer, we're not going to necessarily encourage, maybe, but you know,
13:02that could be a tough one. What, what are some other skills that you have?
13:05You know, you can dance at home, but you might not make it to Lincoln Center. I don't know. Maybe,
13:11maybe, maybe you will, but, but there are other skills and, and, and identifying those skills and
13:16moving and, and, and, and to keep it positive. You know, that's always important. Realistic.
13:22Realism is, is, is really useful. I have never, the things people will look at some of the things I do
13:27and go, that was really risky. I don't remember doing anything where I really thought it was hugely risky.
13:33I feel very comfortable and, you know, yeah, no, I'm, I'm pretty sure that this is a good idea.
13:39Well, what about those moments that, you know, staying on this, uh, outside of our comfort zone,
13:45you know, we, we get scared, we get like panicked. Um, have you learned, uh, from talking to people or
13:52just from yourselves about ways to kind of, we always talk about using that fear, using,
13:57harnessing that energy. Uh, how do you, how do people stay calm in, uh, situations where they're
14:03kind of feel like they're over their skis? Yeah. So we, we talk about this, uh, a fair amount in
14:08the book about having to be uncomfortable at times. And we talk in right now, we know there's a lot of
14:13people talking about things like AI, AI is going to take away my job. AI is going to change everything.
14:18I don't know what to do. And one thing we ask people to do is like, look what's already in your
14:21pants. Look what you can do. I was talking to somebody not that long ago who is struggling
14:26with AI in that he felt like AI is going to take his job. He does a lot of writing at his company.
14:31He realized the CEO just did, gave a speech that chat GPT wrote and he's sitting there going,
14:36I'm going to lose my job. We started talking through the various roles that we share in the
14:40book. There's five different roles you can take on. And I said to him, I said, um, do you see a world
14:46where it's possible, where you could be more valuable to the company, not less valuable to the company,
14:50even in the face of AI. And after he thought about it for a few moments, he said, yeah,
14:55actually I do. Okay. Which of these roles might you take on? And he said, I need to take on that role.
15:02And as we started to look at that, all of a sudden the opportunities opened up. So sometimes we just
15:06get, we close down too quickly. And I've, I've experienced in my life that there's sometimes
15:10where people tell me something's going to be really, really hard and it ends up being a lot easier
15:14than they suggest it would be. And conversely, they might say it's really easy and it can be really tough,
15:18but you have to get in the water yourself and explore it a bit.
15:20So I'm curious how you two came together, James, you've worked with a lot of notable people over
15:26the years, some former presidents. How did you guys come together? And Patrick, what do you think
15:31of James as a collaborator? Everybody likes working with me. I know the collaborations have always been
15:41good with president Clinton. I mean, that turned into a really great friendship, Dolly Parton, another
15:46really great friendship. And I think that, you know, in terms of the books I did with them, I just
15:53finished one with Viola Davis, another terrific partner. And in those cases, I wanted, among other
16:00things, their authenticity. And with Patrick, one of the things here has to do with his role as a
16:06college professor and the studies. The, you know, this thing has been, the research was essential
16:13to this. And by the way, this is a book that we rewrote and rewrote and rewrote and rewrote.
16:18We kept disrupting it because it wasn't, we kept getting it sharper and more useful and more
16:24pragmatic. It doesn't, this doesn't work. And I wouldn't be here and Patrick wouldn't be here if we
16:29didn't know this is going to help people. This is going to help people have better lives very,
16:33very quickly. It's going to help companies to work better. It's going to help teams work better.
16:37And that's, that's important to us. You're out there, you're, you're, you're in front of a fraud
16:43and the other one of us needs that. No, not at all. And I would just put that James has been a great
16:48partner, an excellent partner. I mean, it's been great. He's, he's, he's helped me sharpen my skills.
16:53I think if I was to write this all myself, it would be so academic and kind of sit on a shelf and
16:57nobody would ever read it. And although I have a career in the military for a while and my own business,
17:02the last 11 years I've been at the university and that kind of research shapes your mind
17:07about how you approach writing things. And I think together, you know, the research and the,
17:12the, the, the way that James is able to write something in a way that people want to keep
17:16reading it, like get to the end of one chapter and go to the next one is really powerful. And I just,
17:21you know, I just appreciate the partnership in that regard. He's made me a better writer.
17:25Along the way, he's told me at certain times, like when we're dealing with like a rewrite and a rewrite
17:29and a rewrite, he might say to me, Hey Patrick, do you want to drink from the cup of joy or the cup
17:33of grief right now? And I'm like the cup of joy, you know, you're right. Let's keep going. It's been
17:37a great experience, but ultimately what it comes down to is we're going to put something in people's
17:41hands that if they read it and apply it, whether they apply all of it or a little bit of it, it's
17:47going to make a big difference. And that's what it's all about. That's fantastic. Um, so on the show,
17:52we, uh, ask our listeners to send in questions. Uh, James, we've got a lot of questions about
17:59productivity from you. You're kind of famous for your, uh, for the amount of books that you've put
18:05out over the years. Anthony D asks, do you, uh, block off time for work or do you wait for inspiration
18:13to hit? No, I, I write, uh, you know, as I said earlier, this notion of not working for,
18:20for a living, playing for a living. I, I, I love what I do. I, I, uh, I wake up in the morning.
18:26I want to write, I want to tell a story. I want to, uh, so it, and I do it seven days a week.
18:32Uh, and I have time for other things. You know, my wife and I will play nine holes of golf a lot
18:37of mornings, but we, you know, we play at like six, six 30 in the morning and we're done before eight.
18:42And then, and then I'm, I'm at the typewriter or the computer, you know, no typewriter anymore,
18:46but. Fantastic. And then, uh, we had another question from Dan D who says, Tom Clancy brought,
18:54bought a piece of the Orioles. Have you bought anything like that with your book?
18:58A little bit. Yeah. Uh, we have a little piece of a woman's volleyball team in, in, uh, uh, uh,
19:06and we have, uh, uh, another, a woman's, uh, soccer team. Uh, so we, we have a couple of pieces
19:12like that. I, I, I, I think women's sports, one, I love that it's happening too. I think
19:17a lot of the sports, I think are very, I think women's basketball is really fun to watch.
19:22Uh, WNBA. Yeah. I'm going to interview, uh, Caitlin Clark soon. Uh, uh, and women's volleyball
19:29is really fun to watch on television, not the beach stuff, but that when they're in the gyms,
19:33it's, it's really very exciting. So, so yeah, I mean, in terms of no, I'm not buying the Orioles,
19:38but, uh, yeah, yeah, I suppose I could buy the Orioles, but no thanks. I don't even like the
19:44Orioles. Who's your team? I don't, I, you know, it varies from time to time. It's a funny thing.
19:52When I was out with president Clinton, I grew up in New York and then we, my family moved to
19:56Massachusetts. So I have over the, I've, I've, I've rooted for the Yankees and the Red Sox and
20:02Clinton said, if you can do that, you can make it in politics. Yeah. That is, uh, you know,
20:07here in New York, it's, uh, how can you like the Mets and the Yankees, but the Yankees and
20:13the Red Sox, that's, that's a tough one. Uh, uh, yeah, it's a tough one. Um, great. Well,
20:18okay. Let's move into the speed round of this show. So, um, you can both jump in with your
20:25answers. What's better the book or the movie? Um, the book, except the Godfather. The movie is
20:35better. Okay. And the exorcist, the movie, no, the exorcist, actually both were good. The book
20:41and the movie were good on that one. I don't think, I don't know that disrupt everything. I
20:45don't know. We'll get a movie on this. Who would play you in the movie? Maybe Marvel will, uh,
20:51it would do a disrupt everything where at the end you, you, you're going to, at the end,
20:55it's always the same thing. Two monsters are blowing up some city. Right. Right. Exactly.
20:59On a bridge. Exactly. Exactly. Um, so what is something that you see out there, maybe on social
21:07media advice that you see over and over again, that you're just like, I wish this would go away.
21:14This is terrible advice. I wish people would stop reading this and sharing this.
21:18I think one for me that kind of gets me sometimes is all about your passion, like only following your
21:23passion. We've been talking to book about passions and talents and inner voice. I mean, sometimes you,
21:28if you want to be a starving artist, that's great. But if you could figure out a way to use your
21:31creative skills and actually make a living, that's pretty cool too. So I think sometimes
21:36it's that only follow your passion without any path elsewhere can be really problematic for people
21:41and not always the best of voice. In terms of politics, I wish we could, the reality of it is
21:46there's small government, there's big government. You can believe in the other way. You don't have to
21:51hate the other side. I believe in small government. I believe in big government, make your arguments
21:55and we move forward. It used to be that way at the end of the day in the Senate and they would go out
22:01and have dinner together. It'd be really nice if we could get back to that. You don't have to hate
22:05somebody because they think it should be a small government or a big government. We don't want to
22:09spend all that money in Washington or we do want to spend it. Okay. Argue it out and then go on with
22:15your lives. Is there anything like that just in leadership that you see, maybe that you see leaders
22:22maybe buying into something that maybe isn't the most productive thing or the best thing for
22:27themselves? Leaders need to, one of the things a lot of, not all leaders, a lot of neat leaders need
22:31to buy more into taking care of the people in their company. Walk in their boots, walk in their shoes,
22:38take care of them. If you take care of them, they'll take care of you.
22:41Yeah. Yeah. That's excellent. Um, who would, who's a better typer, uh, James or Patrick?
22:48Patrick.
22:52We got an agreement, quick agreement on that one. And then finally, um, so a lot of us read a James
22:59Patterson thriller to, to chill out and turn our brains off at the end of the day. Uh, what do you do?
23:06I read James Patterson thrillers at the end of the day. Yeah, no, I, I, I, I'm a big reader. I'm a
23:14huge reader. I read James Patterson thrillers. There's one right there. There you go. All right.
23:18I'm reading something now, Buckeye, which is quite good. It's sort of an old fashioned novel,
23:22but quite wonderful. Excellent. Awesome. Well, so how can, uh, you know, the, the book, uh, is coming
23:28out, uh, it's probably out by the time people listen to this, uh, what's the best way to, for them to
23:34follow up with it and to, to follow all things. If you have the opportunity to take the course,
23:40take the course, uh, uh, you know, turn people in, in, in, in, in your company onto the course
23:46in terms of finding out more about it and read the book. I, I, I, as I said, I, I wouldn't have
23:50gotten involved in this, but I didn't think it would help people a lot. Great. Great. All right.
23:55Well, gentlemen, thank you so much. Uh, thank you. This has been a really great talking to you.
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