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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to episode 564 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy. In today's episode, I'm excited to introduce you to Patrick Ledden, co author of Disrupt Everything and Win. Take control of your future. Ready? Let's get started.
- [00:23]
B
You are listening to the Brainy Business Podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now, here's your host, Melina Palmer.
- [00:38]
A
Hello. Hello everyone. My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. Have you ever heard of James Patterson? Even if the name doesn't ring a bell immediately, I'd bet money you've heard of or read some of his work. Along Came a Spider, Kiss, the Girls or the Alex Cross series to name a few. He has sold more than 400 million books worldwide and along with J.K. rowling, is one of only two authors said to have earned over a billion dollars from book sales. But here's what might surprise you. James Patterson didn't become a full time writer until he was in his 50s. Before that, he had a wildly successful advertising career, including serving as the CEO of J. Walter Thompson North America. He disrupted a life most would call peak success to pursue something even bigger. And that's the heart of today's conversation. Disruption isn't just about chaos or change being thrust upon you. Sometimes it's something you choose on purpose to live more in alignment with who you are becoming. My guest today is Patrick Ledden, who co wrote Disrupt Everything and Win with James Patterson. He has also lived a few lives himself and embraced disruption and he's going to be sharing more about that. Great stories from the book Tips about co Authoring one with one of the most prolific authors in history and their 27 positive disruptor moves that can help anyone take control of their future and more. Change is all around us. Sometimes we're disrupted in a way we didn't want. Other times we're needing the confidence to disrupt something good for what could be great. And it turns out that there are some rules to help you disrupt more and create a life you love really quickly. Before we get into the conversation, I want to be sure you know that there are links in the show, notes for my top related past episodes and books, ways to get in touch, and more. It's all within the app you're listening to and at the brainy business.com564 now let's jump right in. Patrick Ledden welcome to the Brainy business podcast.
- [02:48]
B
Melina, thanks so much for having me. Glad to be here.
- [02:50]
A
Oh, yes, I'm super excited to be chatting with you today. We've got a lot of really interesting things to dig in on during the conversation. For everyone who doesn't yet know you though, can you share a little bit about yourself and the work that you do?
- [03:05]
B
Absolutely. So I guess career wise, I would break my career up in a few buckets. I spent my 20s in the army, so I grew up on the south side of Chicago and the army was my way to get to college. So I joined the army and then I was kind of good at it. They told me to be quiet, I was quiet. They told me to turn left, I turned left, told me to turn right, I turned right. So next thing you know, you just kind of keep going up in the military. So I spent my twenties in the army. Jumped out of planes, ran around the woods. And then from 30, 30 ish to mid-40s, I built a business. It was a mostly a human capital consulting type of firm. And I exited that. We had somebody acquire us, which was. We didn't see it coming, but when it came along, we decided to do it. So we exited there and then I decided to put that doctorate I'd earned along the way to use and I went to the university and I became a full time faculty member at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. And I was also director of undergraduate business at the university.
- [04:00]
A
Amazing in the so many times where it's like you really have though lived like three or if you, I guess have the childhood, they're like very distinct lives over time. Right? Lots of change and shifts in things.
- [04:15]
B
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think that's, to me, at least I am a. I don't know, I just felt like each of the opportunities that came along, it was just kind of the right time to move. I didn't expect to sell the business, but it made sense. I didn't expect to leave the university until recently, but it made sense to go on a leave of absence and maybe never look back. We'll see what happens.
- [04:37]
A
Oh, all right. So potentially it's five lives as well.
- [04:41]
B
Yeah, maybe. Yeah.
- [04:43]
A
Well, so leaning in, I guess, in that way as you talk about disruption and disrupting and like your path was disrupted multiple times along the way. And I think, you know, it's a term we hear a lot, you know, these days, but people maybe define it differently or actually don't take time to define buzzwords, you know, sometimes. So how do you think about disruption and Disrupting.
- [05:10]
B
Well, Melina, you're right. I mean, it's a word used everywhere. You can't turn the news on and not hear about some disruption out there. And we can all relate to varying degrees, probably with some of the global disruptions around, even things like Covid that we all experienced in varying levels and degrees in our own lives, to economic shifts, to whatever's happening in the. In the, in the job market in our own country, or wherever someone is at in the world, all the way down to very personal things like you go to the doctor and you get a result on a test that you maybe you didn't see coming that might disrupt you a little bit. So we operationalize it in the research pretty broadly. So we talk about it could be something small, it could be something big. It could be something at face value that appears positive or at face value seems negative. It could be something that's unique to you or ubiquitous, but essentially it's something that stops you in your tracks, might throw you out of your normal routine. And it also opens up an opportunity for something maybe new and different.
- [06:07]
A
How did you get interested in disruption? Just as a like idea enough to write a book about it? Like, at least.
- [06:14]
B
Yeah, I mean, I guess in retrospect I could be like, well, this part of my career was disruptive, but I really wasn't thinking about things that way. So I'm teaching at Vanderbilt, and when Covid happened, the university asked if any professor would be willing to teach a class to 100 students or more online. So we don't typically at Vanderbilt teach classes that large. I mean, some of the sciences classes are that large, but for the most part, classes are more like 30 students or less. And we don't really teach anything online. So it was very different in that regard. And I just saw it as an opportunity to say, you know what? I'd love to teach a class about leading business through crisis. And this was an opportunity to submit that proposal to teach that class. So I started teaching that class. We came back from COVID and came back into the classroom at least, and there was one section we were doing of the class that was very guest speaker focused. So, Molina, imagine you're sitting in a room with 20 or so peers and doors open up in walks Doug Parker, the CEO of American Airlines, and Sarah Nelson, the president of the Flight Attendants Association. The two of them sit down in front of the students and talk for an hour and 15 minutes about how the airline industry would work together labor and management through times of disruption. So it was that type of experience. And one person who was speaking in the class was a gentleman named James Patterson. James Patterson earned his master's degree in English literature at Vanderbilt, and he agreed to speak to the class. And he came in, and it was funny. He started off by looking at the students and saying, hi, I'm Stephen King, which is a funny opening line as James Patterson, and kind of caught them off guard. I think they were like, wait a minute. I thought Professor Leddon said James Patterson was coming here. What's funny in retrospect is James Patterson has sold more books than Stephen King and John Grisham combined. Just phenomenal. And he starts off by asking the students, are you living a good life? He said, or are you on one treadmill only to get on another treadmill, to someday get on another one, and another one and another one, and then that's your life, or that's your career or whatever it might be. He said, I'm living a good life, and I'd love to share with you how I went about doing that. And he talked about after he graduated Vanderbilt, he went to New York City. He came there, he decided he was gonna work in marketing. Never taken an advertising or marketing class in his life, but he could write. And he went through the process of applying for a job. And the standard process there was you would create a portfolio of ads, you know, made up ads, and you'd take them in and you'd leave them behind, and if they like them, they'd call you up and invite you in for an interview. So the first week, he brought in this portfolio of ads, and the second week, he came back with a whole new portfolio of ads. And the third week, a whole new portfolio of ads. And the fourth week, they were like, this guy's something different. We'll hire him. So they hired him, and then he became the youngest creative director. Then he became the CEO of. The company he was working at was called J. Walter Thompson. In fact, James Patterson wrote the tagline, I'm a Toys R Us kid. He was, like, really ingrained in this space, was very successful, but he had a passion for writing, so he started writing a few books on the side that did pretty well in the popular space, popular press space. And from there, he decided to quit and disrupt himself and leave the CEO job to focus on writing. And then, since then, he's literally changed publishing. However you look at it, good, bad, whatever, he has changed publishing. He has sold 475 million book copies. I mean, I know you're a writer. That's a lot of copies.
- [09:38]
A
Yeah.
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B
There's only two people I understand on the planet who've made a billion dollars writing books. J.K. rowling and James Patter. He's written in multiple genres. He's written with multiple co authors. Dolly Parton. I live in Nashville, Tennessee. So Dolly Parton, Bill Clinton. And he's written a few books with Bill Clinton, Mike Lupica and yours. True. Right. Truly. So he went through this process of telling this story, and by the time it was over, I was just really intrigued with this idea of how do people in life take the curve balls that are thrown at them? Because he had some curveballs. Like all of us. You live life, you don't get out unscathed. For example, he was engaged to be married in his 30s, and the woman was diagnosed with brain cancer and she passed away. That's certainly not what anybody was anticipating. That was a massive disruption. But he figured out how to continue moving forward in new and creative ways. So I was really interested in that. So I decided to start studying that with the idea of, you know, a good research begins with a good research question, which for us really was, how do certain people, in the face of disruption, choose to look at it from a positive perspective and move out in ways that will help them live a better life or build a better team or a stronger organization?
- [10:51]
A
Such a fascinating story. Knowing, of course, you talked a lot about James's journey in that I have to ask, so did you pitch him on the book or did he pitch you on the book? And how intimidating or not was it to. What was it like even to write a book with the person who sold, like, the most books ever?
- [11:12]
B
Yeah, that's a great question. Somebody asked me once, like, weren't there. Were there other people that came to class who shared other ideas that were compelling? Yeah, that is just that what he talked about just really kind of spoke to me at a core level. So, yeah, I pitched the book idea to him first. And honestly, it was like the world's worst sales pitch. I sent him a note that was like, I like you, you like me, let's write a book together. And he did not respond to that at all. Then I followed up with Another note about 10 days later, and I was smart enough to not send him another note that basically said, hey, I imagine you missed my first one. Let me put this at the top of your inbox. That letter instead. I thought, he probably didn't miss it. It probably just was a stupid message, terrible sales message. So I sent him a new One. And in the new message, I was much more strategic in thinking through what would matter to him, what would be of interest to him. And I knew he hadn't written in the business space and I had. He hadn't written in the self help space. This kind of straddles both. And I knew that there was an opportunity maybe to do something kind of unique together that might be able to help a lot of people as they think about living their good lives. So I pitched the second one. I pitched to him the second email he responded to. And then he called me up and he said, okay, let's do it. And I was like, well, what do you mean let's do it? What does that even mean? Because you mentioned, like, there's a power dynamic here, right? And what does this look like? And he said, well, we're partners, let's work on an outline together. And I said, okay. He said, can you draft one up and send it to me and then we'll go from there? I'm like, what if you hate it? And he's like, we're partners, we'll figure this out. So it was about nine months to get the outline right. We were back and forth and he's a very outline driven writer, which I've grown to become more and more of. And, and so we went back and forth for about nine months. We finally landed on the outline and that really, really helped us get more focused in the research. Up until then, I was starting to do some of the data gathering, but it was really, once we got the outline figured out, we knew what direction we were trying to go with it. It started to build from there.
- [13:16]
A
Yeah, that's, I mean, good, good lesson in the, you know, tips of book writing. I too, I am. Sounds like you started not being very outline driven with some other books or things you've worked on. I've always been kind of the, like, I know I generally want to talk about this and I'm going to just see how it, how it flows, right?
- [13:34]
B
Yeah, exactly, exactly. I mean, if I'm doing like something that's more academic, I tend to think it through. If other times I'll just, I just kind of like start writing and see where I'm going. I enjoy writing, so a lot of times it's like, where is it going to go? And I've written this is my fifth book and the first couple were definitely like, all right, we're just venturing into water and see what happens. But after that you start realizing, okay, there's a way that I can do this better. So I had to find my own way. But what reason I say outline specifically is because his first book that he wrote, I remember hearing a story that he said that it was. He got to a point where he had a 300 page outline and he was like, I got the book type of thing. So when, when I was thinking like this guy would like an outline, I'm thinking an outline, not just a sketch on a back of a page or something like that, like. So I said like 37 page outline that was not worth 37 pieces of paper it was written on because it didn't go anywhere near what we ended up with. But it was a starting point.
- [14:30]
A
That's good. Well, and good advice for everyone. I know lots of people who listen either already write books or aspire to write them. So good to learn from someone who's written tons and tons, yourself included. Most people don't even write one book, let alone five.
- [14:44]
B
Well, one thing that you taught me that would be helpful to folks, that's really stuck with me. It's the idea that the idea has to be big enough for the book or the idea has to be big enough for the project. The whole idea. He would say that whether you do a project that's a little project with not a lot of value or potentially really high value project, whether it's at work or in writing or whatever craft you do, each of them takes about the same amount of time to work on this thing and resources. Some might go on longer in duration, but they take a lot of your kind of mental space. So if you're going to do it, you've got to do something where the idea is big enough to kind of offset the investment you're making in it. But then beyond that, if you're going to write a 300 page book, the idea has to be big enough to go through 300 pages. And I always noticed in the business space, people write books that have to be 300 pages because that's what the publisher says. But they got about 100 page idea, right? And then they just keep restating it, restating it. So that was part of it. We have to find an idea that's big enough. And after about nine months on the outline and working on it, and he called me up and he said, this is it, we've got it. We know what we're trying to say here. And then he goes, we need to interview a lot of really good people. We'd already started interviewing people on the research team. We ended up interviewing 350 people. In the qualitative side, we. Which is for those who do research, that's a fair amount of interviews. Each one was like an hour and a half long and just scheduling them and doing them and going back through and looking at the transcripts and coding them, doing all that type of stuff. But at first he was like, we need to interview people. And he gave me a list of people, like really well known names and stuff. I'm like, great, who do you know off this list? But he opened a few doors for me. And then most of the people that are written about it in the book or in our research are not. They're unsung heroes. People don't know who these people are. There's a. There's some that are household names, but many that are just unsung heroes. But their stories are just so compelling. Where they got. They got hit with the disruption and what did they do with it?
- [16:42]
A
Yeah, absolutely. And let's transition into some of that. We talked about kind of like what a disruption is. I love that y' all have the lens of being a positive disruptor or, you know, thinking about this in the, like, say, the opportunity that comes with disruption, whether you choose it or it's sort of thrust upon you. And you have five roles. I do love how that good, like solid theming and like metaphors and analogy definitely, like fits through throughout the book more than you see in a lot of of them. But can you share a little bit about those kind of five roles and how that applies for people in life and business?
- [17:19]
B
Yeah, absolutely. So we do use the analogy of a fire throughout the book. And the idea being that all of us have a fire inside of ourselves. You could call it your why, you could call it your purpose, but it's kind of where your passion intersects with your talent, which intersects with your conscience. And within that is kind of the fire inside. And it can burn really brightly or it can kind of be diminished over time. And we say the idea that, you know what, every disruption that comes your way, it could be potential fuel that could be thrown on that fire and it could actually make it grow stronger. But to do that, you have to approach every disruption with the idea that, hey, disruption isn't just destroying things or breaking things. Disruption's fertile ground. There's something in this that could go positively. And as we studied people in the research, we were trying to figure out, is there a pattern or is there something that these people follow that we can all learn from? And the first thing, they tend to do instead of just reacting to the disruption like, I hate this, I love that, or whatever it might be. I mean, they have emotions they need to process through, but ultimately they discern. They sit back and they say, okay, thinking about the fire inside myself, what do I feel compelled to do with this disruption and what might the situation be calling for me to do? Because it might be different things. If I'm working in an organization, I might feel like I want to do something, but I've also been hired to fulfill a job. I have a team, we have a mission, all of those type of things. But they discern those things. So great. 2 by 2 block, right? We love 2 by 2 blocks. So imagine a 2 by 2 block as we're talking where the one axis is change and the other side of it is stability. So I could go toward change or I could go towards stability and the other side is independent or collaborative. So I could go out independently toward change or independently towards stability or collaboratively toward change or collaboratively towards stability. And one thing that I think is kind of maybe insightful for people to think about is that the book is called Disrupt Everything and Win. But that doesn't mean change everything. That just means don't fear disruption at face value. That means to sit back and just discern what you're going to do with it. So I'm not going to bury my head in the sand or I'm not going to freak out. I'm just going to say, okay, where's the opportunity here? And the opportunity might be in the face of disruption to go toward change. You might say, wow, there's a new piece of technology I didn't know that existed. I just learned about it. It stopped me on my tracks. I didn't know a computer could do that, right? That could be something else. I'm going to go toward that. I'm going to change it. I'm going to bring that system into my team or learn IT skills myself or whatever it might be. Or you might say, that's really interesting, but we have a lot going on already and we've already done three computer system integrations in the last couple of years. I don't need to do anymore, my people will lose it. So in that case I'm going to go towards stability. It's a choice thing, right? So I can choose either way and then sometimes I could choose to go out individually and collectively. And then each of those four quadrants has a title to the role. So if I go out toward change independently, I'm a Trailblazer. If I go out toward change collectively with others, I'm a torchbearer kind of leading a path. If I decide to say no to something and go towards stability, I could do it on my own and be a firefighter and put the fire out. I could also lead a movement of people towards stability where we might say, you know what, that'd be interesting if we did that and the rest of the industry's going that way. But if we do that, at some point we're going to forget who we are as an organization or a team. So we're going to lead a movement back toward our purpose, our stability. And then there's a fifth role that kind of sits in the middle. It does sit in the middle, and it's called a tinder gatherer. Like when you're building a fire, you go out and gather wood and other things to start the fire. So a tinder gatherer role might be, I don't know, I need to spend more time thinking about this. And only thing we'd say there is, don't stay there forever. Or you might be a tinder gatherer who actually you choose to take on a role where you help other people do things in these other roles. So those are the five roles. And it really becomes, I have choice here I can make, and I'm going to choose which role I'm going to take on.
- [21:20]
A
That's so great. And it's helpful, you know, the visual that comes with each of those and you kind of get what it means to be a trailblazer versus a torchbearer, tinder gatherer, like you said. And so you have, as you said, you interviewed 350 plus people. There are amazing stories in the book that fit into, you know, these categories and then come into these, like 27 positive disruptor moves you have through the book. Like, so much useful, applicable information. If you were going to pick, you know, a story or two, a point or two, that helps to make this feel real for people, what might you lean into for that?
- [21:59]
B
Well, it's interesting you ask that because when, when we were working on the research for the book, one thing that Jim was pretty, Patterson was pretty adamant about was like, Patrick, you do a lot of speaking, go out and just speak on the topic and just see how people respond to it. So there's two stories that I've noticed that really resonate with audiences and there's so many in the book that are, I think, really speak well. Maybe I just say these well, so they resonate with folks, but one of them is a guy named Tom Diery, who Tom was when he was 22 years old, he was graduating college and he was planning to go to like Manhattan and get a job in consulting. That was what he saw for he could kind of envision in his mind the path he was going to go in life. But at the same time, 22 year old Tom had a 20 year old at the time, brother named Andrew. And Andrew was on the autism spectrum. And Tom was thinking to himself, okay, I know where I'm gonna go, but what's my brother gonna do? What's gonna happen in my brother's life? And Tom was talking to his father about it. And then Tom went to Andrew's school to see what was Andrew learning and just trying. And it was really disruptive to Tom to the point where Tom's like, you know what? I'm not going to go do the job in New York. I'm going to work with my brother. And then they looked at options of what they could do and they decided. He decided to open up a car wash. So fast forward to today. They have three car washes in the southern part of Florida. They have 100 employees. 90 of them are on the autism spectrum. And I had a chance to go down. I interviewed him in person down in Florida. And I remember sitting in the room and just talking to him about his choices and how challenging it was because it was not easy to start a car wash. He didn't know anything about that. He wasn't necessarily that mechanically inclined, I guess. And he had to deal with broken equipment and frustrated customers and upset employees and all sorts of things like that. And he said he would go to bed at night and say to himself, I just got to make it through the day, get my head back on the pillow tomorrow. That was his whole mindset. It's got to survive tomorrow. And then when I was laying in bed and he said, well, you know, I could close the car wash down. Cause this isn't working out that well. But then I still have my brother and I still want to work with my brother and help my brother along the way. And I see meaning in doing this. So we'll open a deli. But then you'd say, but I'll end up in the same place. I'll end up with frustrated customers again and upset employees again. So there was a, like a little switch that threw in his mind between how do I get through the day and put my head on the pillow to what are they going to throw at me tomorrow. And he said when he threw that switch, everything started to change. All of a sudden it was like, I'll get up tomorrow and see what's going to happen. And he started to realize, you know, the problem isn't with my team members, it's with me as a leader. I have to figure out how to lead them as a team leader. And when I was finishing up the interview with him, there's something beautiful, you know, when you have a script of questions you're trying to go through in interviews, but then one just kind of pops in your mind. And I was walking out of the room and Melina, I look back and it's not a very big room at the car wash. It's kind of their office storage space. So it has desks, probably more furniture than that room deserved. It was pretty full. And there was also was like supply equipment in there for cleaning things and stuff for the vending machines on one side. Just a lot going on in that room. And I turned around, I looked back at him, he was just kind of looking up at me. He was sitting there in a red polo shirt that said Rising Tide Car Wash on it. And I said, tom, one last question. What would your 22 year old self say, the one who was going to Manhattan? What would he say if he saw your 35 year old now self sitting at a car wash wearing a polo shirt? And he said he would say, I'm in the exact right spot. And when I heard that, I just like, that is just such a powerful thing. Like if you want to live a good life, you have to realize you have to define what that is and then you have to live it out in the face of disruptions, the equipment breaking, the customers getting frustrated. I mean, customers that came there, a lot of them cared about the cause of what they were doing. But at the end of the day, they were spending good money and wanted their car washed. You know, so understanding, like you're going to deal with these things and how do you work your way through them? And I just love that story because I think that speaks so well to this idea of living your good life. And Tom, that's what Tom was doing. And that doesn't mean going to New York City and being a consultant's a bad thing. It can be a great thing. It just wasn't for him. So I think that's the story. You know, that's one story from the book that I think really kind of sticks with people.
- [26:12]
A
Oh yeah, I definitely remember that one from the book as well, and like you said, there's so many great ones. So which of the categories is he then? The firefighter versus trailblazer versus, like, where's he?
- [26:27]
B
Okay, so I love that question. So the thing about the roles is they're not personalities.
- [26:33]
A
Static, right? Or yeah, right.
- [26:35]
B
They're not static, they're dynamic. And you can choose which one to go into. It doesn't mean you don't have a tendency toward one. And I think it's important to think about what you have a tendency to do. Some people are more trailblazerish and some people are more firefightish. Some people love to go toward change and some people love stability. We may have, but the question becomes, what's the situation calling for you to do so? I would say early on he was trailblazing. He was trying to figure out what would be the business opportunity, what could they open up. He was asking other people questions and trying to figure out, like, what a vision of what was possible. But I think over time, really, when he became a more successful leader in that role, he was taking on more the torch bearer role where he was leading a group of people toward a change. And one thing he said is he want. He wants the people who come and work with him. Some will come in, they'll stay forever, maybe, who knows? Others will come and they'll show the community what people with autism can do and they'll go on to other jobs or do other things in their life. So in that way, he's leading more of a movement, showing people, here's what's possible if you just give someone a shot. And so I would say that he went from one role to the other. And that's the key thing to do, is for us to recognize in that moment of discernment, okay, what role do I feel like I should take on right now? What's the situation calling for me to do? How do I kind of resolve those two things in my head and then what role might I move into over the course of time as things change? So some people are quintessential trailblazers. They have it in their DNA. They want to start up businesses and do certain things. But over time, sometimes those startup businesses become bigger than just them and they need to move into other roles as well. So I think you move around.
- [28:11]
A
Absolutely. Wonderful. So. And in that case, he. He chose the change, right? He chose that disruption to his life path. And so many times where we get in the. Except the career that you've been in for a long time or the vision that you had, like, the reason you went to college was to go work in New York or whatever it was you were thinking you were going to do. And in, you know, his case is kind of looking around and saying, is this still what I want to do or should I do something else?
- [28:39]
B
So I look at it this like, we're all the disrupted. We are all the disrupted, yes. Especially if we define it as broadly as, like, when you're stopped in your tracks or there's a new path. Right. So that happens all the time. So he was disrupted. He looked at his brother's schooling and what his brother was doing, and he said, as much as he was concerned about his brother, his dad was tenfold concerned. So, you know, sitting around that Thanksgiving table that year for him, he was disrupted. But then he chose to become a disruptor, which not all of us are the disruptors because we, not because we can't be. It's just we don't choose to be.
- [29:11]
A
Right.
- [29:11]
B
We have to make that choice.
- [29:14]
A
Knowing our brains are wired for predictability and the status quo and the way we've always done things. Familiarity, bias, it's so easy to be in that stability side. Right. But even just of like, well, no, I, I committed that I was gonna do this thing, and so that's not my problem, or I can't deal with this, or I'm kind of stuck with this choice I made four years ago or something. And so like you said, taking that time to pause, you can't do this at every time you get disrupted because, my goodness, you never get anything done.
- [29:45]
B
Never get anything done. Right.
- [29:47]
A
Yeah. But to occasionally stop and look around and say, maybe, like, is this a time to pivot or make a change? Like, do you have advice for someone to know which disruptions to pursue and when to not let it distract you?
- [30:03]
B
Yeah. So I, I, I have some thoughts on that. And you're right, you can't. You, you'd be constantly stopping and discerning, and there's value in the ability to run on autopilot. Her brain's like that. It maintains a lot of, you know, preserves a lot of calories, if nothing else. But, but one thing we wanted people to realize. And I'll get back to the other part of your question, assuming I don't forget. But one thing we wanted people to realize, we called them the four fundamental facts that we just need to kind of wrap our minds around. So one of them is that the status quo is a deceptive little devil.
- [30:34]
A
I loved that.
- [30:35]
B
If you like things the Way they are, hang in there, enjoy the moment. They're not going to stay that way. If you don't like things the way they are, hang in there. They're probably going to change, too. If you try to cling on to things just the way they are and keep them that way, like, I just got everything just the way I wanted it. It won't stay that way. So that's kind of like a fundamental fact, and we want people to realize that. The second one is that it's okay that things change because you're wired to disrupt. Now, we chose that language specifically to be a bit provocative because a lot of times we think about we're wired for consistency, but we would make an argument that we're also wired to do new things, to change. We have big brains. I mean, that can do things that no other animal on planet Earth can go. And I'm not a neuroscientist. We did talk to some. We don't go into huge depth around this. We spent a little bit of time just talking about our brains and how they operate and our ability to envision a different future and begin to manifest it and to manage our time to regulate certain things. That's really cool that we can do that. We also have. We're also wired because we have experiences, and those experiences have knocked us down and we've gotten back up and we've learned what we're capable of through that process. And we get this to the point where, like, I dealt with that. I could deal with this. I could figure this out. And thirdly, we're wired through our resources. We have connections. And now, Molina, you're in my. You're in my circle now, so, like, I might come to you and say, hey, help me think this through. But we have people around us. We also have technology, which, as disruptive as it is, we have at our fingertips what nobody else in human history has had. So we are wired. And that's the second one. We're wired. We can figure these things out. The third one is that relationships are headwinds and tailwinds in life. Some relationships lift us up, Some relationships hold us back. Some relationships that you still lift us up, hold us back. And we might be doing the same thing to others. In fact, one of the most disruptive things you might do is disrupt another relationship in your life. And that doesn't mean blow it up. It just means care enough to invest in it, to say, I feel like things aren't right right now. Can we talk about that? And then the fourth fundamental fact is your time here is finite. Make it count in ways that matter. Your time on planet Earth, your time on your team, your time in your current family configuration or personal life configuration. Our time listening to this podcast or being on this podcast. They're finite. So those are the four things. So as far as, like, which disruptions are the ones that we really should invest more time in kind of discerning, and which ones should we not? I would have told you, I think, if I just was working this on my own, like, oh, they need to be the big ones, the ones that really, like, throw you for the loop. But then I'll go out and talk to people. And some of them are such small things that you're like, really? That's what sets you down this path. So the chapter around your Wired to Disrupt. We interviewed Marlon Wayans, the actor. And folks may or may not know him, but really nice guy. He. He grew up. He's the youngest of 10 kids from New York City. Five of them work in Hollywood in the entertainment field these days, and they have for their entire careers. When he was 16 years old, his older brother started a show called In Living Color. Yeah, I don't know if you know that show, but Living Color was real popular back in, quote, unquote, the day. Then he was on the Wayans Brothers show with one of his brothers. And then all of a sudden, at 21, the phone kind of stopped ringing. And he said to his older brother, Keenan Ivory Wayans, he said, hey, they're not calling me anymore. What do I do? And he said to him, you better learn to do more than act. You better be able to write, produce, and direct. Now, that was. You could just be like, that's a throwaway little conversation with his brother. But to him, it really was something he decided was like, I need to focus on this. So I would say that there's some things in life that at face value, we're like, I'll be like, yeah, you need to, like, pay attention to that one. There's a gentleman we talked about in the book who lost his hands and his feet and a best friend climbing the mountains in the Alps. That would stop any of us in our tracks. But there's other things where it's very small things. So I would say that the answer to me, isn't a specific type of disruption. My answer would be, it depends. But the point being is you should have your radar up and you should be paying attention to it. So if you hear it multiple times or from a community of people around you or it really stops you to the core. Those are the ones you probably need to pay attention to.
- [34:46]
A
Yeah, well, and it feels like the core question there of are you living a good life can be a lens of sorts, right? To be able to, to use. But if you don't take the time to understand what a good life means to you, of course that's, I'm guessing, intentionally vague in the space of, you know, what good is to me is not good to you and you, you know, all of that. But if you don't do that work to understand what it would mean to you to be living a good life, then you can't use it as, you know, that lens or filter for when you're going to lean into something or when you're going to, you know, go to change versus stability or whatever that happens to be.
- [35:25]
B
You're right. And it's funny because you can get into a lot of value based conversations around this. I mean, Jim and I did a lot as we were talking about this. How do we define what a positive disruption is as opposed to not? I mean, two very well intended people could completely disagree about something and one person might consider what you're doing extremely negative and vice versa. So we decided not to get into putting our thumb on the scale as far as what is positive and what is not positive. We said if it's in alignment with the fire inside yourself and you're moving up from that perspective. And we didn't get really into this idea of negative disruption other than to say that we all know negative disruptors. We all know people who are the curmudgeons, who are difficult, who, if you show up at the meeting, whether it's in person and you see them in the room or virtually you see them on screen, you're like, I didn't know they were going to be here. If I knew they were going to be here, I would have skipped this one. Right, because you just know it's going to be. The lift is just going to be really harder for everybody. That's really not what keeps most of us from being positive disruptors. In other words, we don't go, I'd be a positive disruptor, but I'm so much enjoying being a negative one. That's not what happens. What tends to happen is we have this relentless pursuit of comfort, this relentless pursuit of the status quo, this fear of taking action because it could cause us to lose what we already have, even though what we already have is not that great. Sometimes that's what holds us back from being a positive disruptor? We just want to be, I guess, another voice in the world that encourages people to realize, like, you can live a good life, you can build a great team. We'll give you some ideas and thoughts and insights to help you on that journey.
- [37:03]
A
Yeah, thank you. I appreciate the digging in on that a little bit. And I think for people too, as they are maybe figuring out like in that. Where do I even start on this? Of course the book has really great stories and I appreciate, I love a short chapter, like a short punchy chapter. And you have a lot of those where you get that bit and keep on like ready for the next one.
- [37:25]
B
I gotta give credit to my thriller writer co author. Right?
- [37:28]
A
Yeah. So that carrying through is fantastic. But you also have then so. And they all end well, not all, but many of them have that like kind of little bit of how you might use this, how this applies to you. A little kind of disruptor moment. I think that positive disruptor moments at the end of those chapters. And you also have what I always love, lots of worksheets at the end of the book that someone could do.
- [37:53]
B
Yeah, I think there's gotta be. There's gotta be 50 pages of worksheets in the back of that book. I mean, there's a lot of worksheets in that book. We decided early as we were writing it, we decided. I think Jim's really good about this. He wrote a book called the Number One Dad Book, which I think is a cute title for it. And he's basically. The idea of the book, basically was you can be a better dad in an hour was his argument. And you can read this book in an hour. He believed that a lot of guys aren't going to sit down and read a really long book. You can read a book in an hour. If you read a chapter and you're like, I already got this, or this doesn't apply to me. Just skip it and keep moving. And we have a little bit of that in this book as well. In that, you know, if you're reading one particular story and it just doesn't connect with you, don't get wrapped around the axle about the story. Go back past it and maybe just read about some of the ideas or just move on to the next chapter. And that's how you make it really work for you, the tools or design. Because for me at least, I, if I, if I tell you have to live a, you know, live a good life. Some people have done a lot of homework and thought about why are they on planet Earth and other people just haven't as much. We don't want to leave the people who haven't completely hanging or out out there. So we give them a tool at the back to help think about it. Or if you're like thinking about relationships, headwinds and tailwinds, there's a tool at the back where you can kind of assess your relationships. Some people need to spend some time doing that, others don't. I'm not going to force everybody into the same mold, but I want to give you the tools to help you do it if it's helpful to you.
- [39:17]
A
Absolutely. I love that. And it does help. Like everybody has something that they haven't thought about yet that's going to be in the book guaranteed. Right.
- [39:25]
B
So, yeah, for me, most everything. Yeah.
- [39:28]
A
Yep. So having some opportunity to ask a different question, to think about it in a little bit different way and just take the time to stop and write it out. Because what it was when you thought about it 10 years ago, it's potentially not the case anymore. Right. So there's something else you can do now.
- [39:45]
B
Yeah, 100%.
- [39:47]
A
So I'm debating now as I'm looking at my notes and looking at the time of which path to choose in the question that I'm going to ask here. So I'm going to put this. So if we think about updating so how we're going to improve performance resilience results at work, let's think about this in that business context. Right. What advice would would you have for people as they're thinking about applying this to their work, whatever that might be?
- [40:16]
B
Yeah, So I think it has tremendous applicability at work. Actually there's a company called Franklin Covey. Some people know him because Stephen Covey wrote Seven Habits, Highly Effective People back in 1989. They actually came along and partnered with us. They built a course based upon the book called Innovate for Impact that's available for organizations and teams as well. So there's a lot of applicability there at work. We actually have some chapters in the book that speaks specifically talk about teams, organizations, industries. We had a chance to go out and interview people in each of those spaces that disrupted their team or disrupted their industry. We interviewed the two gentlemen who founded Harry Shave, for example, and that started with one of them, Andy Katz Mayfield, walking into a convenience store looking for some razor blades and realizing like, A, they're really expensive, B, the brand new doesn't really speak to them, and C, you have to find an employee to open up this locked cabinet. Cause it's like Fort Knox to get to these razor blades. And he's like, there has to be a better experience. So that's a very little, like, consumer experience that led to a $2 billion business that literally caused some companies to rethink about how they price razor blades and how they approach the market. So you can disrupt lots of things. So each of those chapters, we try to give people ideas, like, through the stories like that. But then it would be like, okay, that's how they disrupted their industry. Where's the opportunity in your industry? Where's the opportunity within your organization? And we give specific things to think about, about how you might pick up on an opportunity or leverage an opportunity or see something that you haven't seen before. So we try to help them realize that as well. And then I would say there's a section in the book, in the research, as we were going through it, we uncovered 16 strengths. These 16 positive. We call them 16 positive disruptor strengths. And this was a little bit frustrating from a research perspective, but it completely makes sense. You know, whenever you're doing research, sometime you're trying to find, like, what's the one thing? If I can find the one thing that'll change everything, boy, oh boy, that'll be great. And as you might imagine, you know, it's human behavior. There is no one thing. And in fact, we found 16 things that came up time and time again with these people that were ways that they behaved, certain strengths that they had. But, Melinda, there was no combination that we could find where it's like, if you have number 1, 7, and 12, you got it made, right? Some people had 1, 7 and 12, like, really strong. I can't even tell you what 1, 7, and 12 are. They had them really strong, and other people didn't have them at all.
- [42:40]
A
Right?
- [42:40]
B
So it's kind of like, okay, that's not it. So here's what it is. For organizations or teams. I have been talking to audience. I probably talked to 50,000 plus people in person alone in the last year and a half on this topic. And as I go through the behaviors with people and I ask them to think about which ones do they. Kind of quick self assessment. How well are you? Which ones do you seem to be strong at? And then maybe a show of hands, we talk about, I've never been in a room with five people or more where every behavior doesn't show up somewhere. Okay. So when you think about that with your team or your Organization. This means you have positive disruptor strengths. Because I've never had somebody go, I don't have any of these. You have positive disruptor strengths. Like, you might be really good at casting a vision. You might be really good at listening to understand other people. You might be good at picking up on what people aren't saying. You might be really good at standing firm when people tell you you can't do something. And then there might be other things you're not that good at. Maybe your instincts aren't that great sometimes. So surround yourself with people who do. So a great team is interdependent, where my weaknesses become irrelevant because of your strengths. So how about if instead of saying, like, something's changing in our customers or an industry or our boss wants to go us in a new direction, it's really disrupting the way we were doing things. We had everything just the way we wanted to. So instead of standing out in the hallway and kind of complaining about it, what about we all get together and say we can do some cool stuff? What's our vision for what can happen and how do we leverage our strength to make that happen? So I think that's. I think that's one thing a team and organization can do is just get really clear on, like, what does everybody bring to the table? And let's. How do we configure ourselves in ways that can leverage those strengths?
- [44:24]
A
Yeah. And I really love that for these 16 items, I would say it does. You did do a really good job. The, you know, team of breaking this down to where it doesn't feel like 16 because of the way you were able to then like, layer it in with the aspects of the body. Right. So being able to say, like, the brain has, you know, deeply un. Think deeply to uncover insights and believe that better is possible. And then you get into eyes that has. That have a vision and seeing brutal reality. Ears that you listen to, understand and hear what's not said. And going through each of these to heart and gut and what have you. Right. And so that makes it to where it's like, oh, I. I get it. There's something like tactile sense, body behavior. Like, I can group them. And the behavioral scientists in me love that.
- [45:11]
B
Yeah. So I. We organized them around. We call it the anatomy of a disruptor. Anatomy of a positive disruptor. And you're right. The idea is like, you could do a quick head to toe assessment. Like brains, eyes, ears, mouth, heart, guts, hands, feet, that type of thing. Each has two. And which ones are you strong at. So to me, it helps me remember them too. And, and I just think that. And it isn't all about just memorize all these things and try to be all these things because that, that kind of behavior modification doesn't really work all that well. But instead of saying here's 16 things and you've got some of these. But yeah, they're organized in the anatomy of a positive disruptor. Because I got a simple brain, sometimes I got to remember these things.
- [45:50]
A
You know, I mean none of us are really perfectly remembering that sort of 16 item plus the 27 of the other. And you've got your five Cs that we, you know, didn't even have time to get into like so many amazing. Oh, and then the five different types of the fire stuff. So world, I promise it all flows in a way that it totally makes sense. Even though maybe it feels like there's a whole bunch of different. Of like we said, 27, 16, 5 and all of those. But it's very applicable, useful book, a fun read. And even though it's robust, it's got those short chapters that keep you going and you got worksheets and apparently another course you can do to really dive in. So.
- [46:32]
B
Well, you know, I've had a lot of friends who say that and colleagues who have said like, gosh, I read through that thing so quickly because I mean it isn't. It's a few hundred page book, but it's not a dense kind of cumbersome book. No, it moves pretty quick. And then they'll be like. But then I kept thinking about it and that's really what we wanted people to do. Kind of keep ruminating on it and then maybe keep it around as a little bit of a reference to help you out.
- [46:54]
A
Definitely, yeah. And if you need some inspiration, you know, if you're thinking like, oh man, I really do need to be, you know, if I was going to be a trailblazer in this moment, what might that look like? And you can go read a couple stories about it and then move on.
- [47:06]
B
Yeah, exactly. And one thing we're looking to build is it's actually going to be on my website. Patrickleddon.com website is a place where people can share their stories.
- [47:14]
A
Yay.
- [47:15]
B
So that you can share your, you know, whether it's written form or video, you can just upload it. And the idea is, can we start a community? Can we create a community in a world where we have a lot of division? Can we create a community where people are just meet doing More disruption for good.
- [47:28]
A
Oh yes, please, let's make that happen for sure. And that actually is a perfect tie in to kind of closing question. Here is for everyone who's so excited to follow you and learn more and connect and get the book and share their stories. You know, what's the best path or what are the best paths for them to do?
- [47:46]
B
So yeah, it's pretty, pretty easy. So I'm Patrick Ledden is my name and it's just patrickleden.com it's nice to have a unique name name patrickleddon.com you can go there. I have a podcast on disruption. I have newsletter comes out every week. People who sign up for that, they can share their stories and get a book or other books I've written, they can get some free tools or whatever it might be. Ultimately I just want to help them live good lives.
- [48:09]
A
Awesome. Well, we will definitely have links in the show notes to make it easy for everyone so they can start to disrupt everything and win and you know, everything else that that kind of exists here. So thank you again, Patrick for joining me on the show. It was really delightful to chat with you today.
- [48:25]
B
My pleasure and thanks to all your listeners. Hope they have a great day.
- [48:29]
A
Thank you again to Patrick Ledden for joining me on the show today. So what got your brain buzzing as you listened to our conversation today? While I think it was clear I got excited about a lot of things from the book and conversation, one thing I keep circling back to is that core question. Are you living a good life? I like how this is something anyone can ask themselves at any time and recenter and that it isn't about being perfect or doing what everyone else does or even continuing to do what you thought you would want to do, but a life that actually feels good and true and aligned for you, whatever that means. It's deceptively simple, but that doesn't make it easy. When you really invest the time and are willing to sit with it, it's. That's kind of uncomfortable. But when you do, the opportunity to shift can help make it easier to feel more prepared when disruption inevitably comes into your life. Or it can give you the confidence to disrupt everything, even when all those things are objectively good or even great. I also really appreciated the breakdown of those five positive disruptor roles and the consistent fire metaphor. Remember, you aren't a specific type in every situation. It's not a personality type, more like a way to think about how you can leverage disruption by embracing the right role. Whether it's the firefighter torchbearer, trailblazer, fire chief, or tinder gatherer and have them help you to live that good life. And as Patrick said, remember that disruption doesn't have to be dramatic to be effective. Sometimes it's small or quiet, but the right disruption at the right time can change everything. As we close out the episode, I I invite you to consider this. What does a good life look for you? And when you know that what's one small disruption you can choose today that will move you closer to living it, whatever it is. Come share it with me on social media. I'd love to hear what stood out for you. You'll find the brainy biz pretty much everywhere and I'm Melina Palmer on LinkedIn. There are links in the show notes to make it easy, including for my top related past episodes and books, including Disrupt Everything and Win and more. It's all waiting for you in the app you're listening to and@the brainybusiness.com 564 and thank you again to Patrick Ledden for joining me on the show today. It was a delight to chat with and learn from you. Join me next time for another brainy episode of the Brainy Business Podcast. It's going to be a lot of fun. You don't want to miss it. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me and remember to be thoughtful.
- [51:14]
B
Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business Podcast. Melina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.