If You're Just "Getting By," This Episode Is for You | James Patterson & Patrick Leddin

Key Takeaway

When facing disruption, don't just react—discern first. Ask yourself: "What's the opportunity here? What role should I take on?" Then lean into your strengths and take the first step. This simple pause between disruption and action transforms overwhelming change into fertile ground for growth. As one guest put it: "My time here is short. What can I do most beautifully?"

Episode Overview

James Patterson and Patrick Leden discuss their book on positive disruption, sharing how embracing change rather than resisting it can lead to a better life. They introduce the "Positive Disruptor Loop" framework and explore how identifying your fire inside, understanding fundamental facts about change, and taking deliberate steps can help you navigate life's inevitable disruptions with purpose and clarity.

Full Transcript

Transcript of If You're Just "Getting By," This Episode Is for You | James Patterson & Patrick Leddin from 10% Happier. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

James Patterson and Patrick Leden. Welcome to the show. Yeah, thank you. Thanks. Thanks for inviting us. inviting us. inviting us. Yeah, glad to be here. Thanks for having us. us. us. It's a pleasure. Um James, let me start with you. Uh how do we understand the word disruption? word disruption? word disruption? Uh we understand it because this this is an it's kind of an age of disruption. I've never seen anything like it in my life. and and and there obviously two kinds very positive disruptions uh which is the way I've tried to to to live my life positive disruption after one after the other and then negative disruptions which kind of every morning we wake up now and there's a negative disruption something we you know oh my god terrorists oh my god what I don't want to get political on it but just a lot of things that happen every day and and our lives are disrupted by these things so what what what Patrick and I what our book is about with disrupt everything in win is about is is primarily dealing with positive disruptions and making the most of those and and minimizing negative disruptions negative disruptions negative disruptions change big change abrupt changes.

So let me see if I have if I'm understanding this correctly. So we and I I I come at everything from a Buddhist standpoint and in Buddhism um change is the fundamental reality. That's the first step in sort of understanding the world and and you and your inner world and your outer world. So you if I understand correctly what you're saying is change is a non-negotiable fact. We're in an era of increasingly um rapid and destabilizing change. Um, we may not be stabilizing. be stabilizing. be stabilizing.

Could be stabilizing. Um, meaning we can harness this change to benefit our own um stabilization. um stabilization. um stabilization. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, conceivably. Yes. conceivably. Yes. conceivably. Yes. Patrick, how's all this sounding for you? Is that is this on line on track with how you Yeah, and especially with that point you made about change being a constant. I mean, there's a few constants we can kind of count on in life, Dan. change, choice, uh that's another one we have as well. But um change is a constant and we talk about the idea that the status quo can be a very deceptive devil for people.

They think that they get things just the way they want them and they want to keep them that way or they're yearning for what used to be. But those things change. They move on. And what we're saying is that in these moments when disruption or change causes you to to stop in your tracks for a moment, maybe instead of saying like this is blowing up things the way I had them, I had them just the way I wanted to. Maybe you could say this is fertile ground for something new and different.

All right. Well, we're going to talk about the how of that in a moment, but let me just Did you have something, James? James? James? Okay. Sorry. I thought I heard somebody um clear their throat. I'll start that that question again. We're going to talk about the how of of positive disruption in a moment, but let let's just stay on a high level and I I'd be curious to hear from both of you about how disruption has showed up in in each of your lives. James, you referenced that you've you've tried to make disruption a a practice.

And I I think in the book you talk about a moment of clarity you had several decades ago on the New Jersey Turnpike. Do you mind telling us about that? about that? about that? Yeah. Well, my first career I was um in advertising. I rose up at Jay Walter Thompson, which at that point was the largest advertising agency in the world. Um and everything I did there was uh some reaction to disruption. I mean, the way I got in the place was the way I got in the place was the the normal way was you would put together a book of a portfolio of advertise of ads.

And what I did, I didn't know anything about it. I'd never taken any advertising courses or marketing courses. So I put together a portfolio and I brought it into them and a week later I brought in a second portfolio and the week after that I brought in a third portfolio and and that just disrupted the the the process there. They'd never had seen that particular thing before and that impressed them. Uh so that was a disruption. Uh at at one point I I started running. I was still pretty young, but I was running their New York office and uh it wasn't a good they had some good offices.

New York wasn't one of them. Um and and nobody wanted to go work there at that point. And I ran an ad in the New York Times uh uh and the headline was right if you want work. And and then there were eight questions. And and one of them was um here are the ingredients on a can of beans, you know, vinegar, water, whatever, salt. Uh make them sound delicious. Uh they were all uh one of them was sell um uh a telephone service to Trappist monks.

Uh uh uh and what what I was looking for were one people who could write, but but more important people who could solve problems. Uh and from that thing that we put in in New York and I only ran it once, one time uh I I wound up hiring uh almost 50 copywriters over the next three or four years uh just with that test that you could immediately tell whether somebody could write and whether they could solve problems. So that was a disruption. uh you mentioned on the Jersey Turnpike.

I was a CEO of Tom Thompson North America when I was 37 or 38 and uh but I always I writing novels was what I love to do and I and I was writing novels at that point. Uh and um uh there was a it was a Sunday. It was a beautiful day. I was down in Jersey Shore and I had to go into into New York to work at Thompson on Sunday. And I'm driving in and the traffic in that direction was it was like going at 10 miles an hour.

It was just unbelievable. On the other side of the pi the pike about every 10 seconds a car went past. Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. And after about an hour of this, it occurred to me that I was going into this place to work that I didn't want to be at. I loved writing books and I was starting to get successful about it. I was my life was going in the wrong direction. I needed to be on the other side of the highway. I needed to be going in the direction of those cars that were going, you know, at a nice speed and um heading to the to to to the sunshine.

Um, and soon after that I I you know I I told the people at Thompson that yeah I would give them time but but I I was I was leaving that business and and that was a very positive disruption for me. I love all of those stories. Um and and for you Patrick how has has disruption shown up in your life? Well I think most specifically for our conversation today. So Jim shows up in my class James Patterson shows up in my class. I was teaching at Vanderbilt University which I was pretty settled honestly Dan I was been there for 12 years and uh ran the department for the university and I was teaching this class and James came in as a guest speaker and he started off by asking the students the question are you living a good life and then he kind of gave it a a pause let let the beat hit and he said I hope you are here's how I went about living my good life and he told a bit of the story he just told there and as I was listening to him that day I thought this is really an interesting conversation about how do we deal with the curveballs in life and maybe choose to go in a new direction and that caused me to make some choices that I disrupted myself.

I'm no longer teaching at the university. I spent a few years researching it at the university and then we launched this book and off I went. But that was a change I didn't see coming initially. But that disruptive moment of him asking the students that question caused me to do the same thing in my own mind. So and the and the talk that I gave it was called the power of disruption. and I went through the various things in my business life and then and then the disruptions in terms of my publishing career.

Uh uh and and and one of the things I said to the kids that that the morning was that, you know, for some of you, you're you've been on a treadmill to get on another treadmill to get on another treadmill. And maybe you like that. Uh but if you don't, you know, maybe maybe you need to disrupt your life. maybe maybe you shouldn't be here taking these courses and etc. Uh yeah. So the book is really detailed in terms of how to disrupt your life. Um and if I understand it correctly, the the first key step is to identify your fire inside.

Um Patrick, maybe I'll start with you. What what do you mean by that? Well, what what we mean by that is the idea that inside all of us and it could be inside yourself individually, but it could be inside your family or inside your team at work, but there is a fire inside of us. We'll call it your your why. You know, why are you here? What are you trying to achieve? And we we talk about the fire inside because we use a fire analogy, Dan, through the entire book, but ultimately for us, as we articulate it in the book, it's what are you passionate about?

What are you talented at? And where's a gap in the world that you might be able to to help close? What's your inner voice telling you you should do? And when you get clear on those things, then you can start to look at disruptions maybe not as something that's blowing everything up, but as something that might be uh fuel that you can throw on that fire. So, h how do you do that? I mean, I think this is like the fundamental question so many of us deal with and not not only once in our late teens or 20s, you know, what do you want to do when you grow up?

But I think throughout our lives, we wrestle like what what should we be doing with our lives? What's your what are your thoughts about how to run that process? that process? that process? Well, I would say first of all, we don't we don't spend a lot of time in this particular book talking about how to do that. There are other tools that you could use, although we do provide some tools and insight to help you do it. But ultimately, what we're saying is that you have to spend some time kind of getting to know yourself and thinking about the value you bring to the world.

Jim, you say a really nice thing about what can I do most beautifully? And I think that's a really Great question to consider. This isn't my language and I don't know where it comes from, but uh and I think it's more useful for people in their 20s or in college than it is for me at my age. But but the language is my time here is short. What can I do most beautifully? beautifully? beautifully? Which I think is really great in terms of of motiv clarity and focus and mo and motivation.

What can I do most beautifully? And that's going to depend on, you know, person to person. I think that's a great I mean that that can that question can do a lot of work for you. Um and you can do a lot of work with that question. that question. that question. You know another piece of it D this obviously um sounds a little simp simplistic but most of the things that we do that are worthwhile are simplistic. It's that first step uh uh in terms of the how and it's getting people ready to take the first step and then taking the first step and then taking the second step.

And for some people, you know, the changes and disruptions in their lives might not be that complicated. Might be fairly simple. Uh and some some places it's going to be step after going to be it's going to be step after step after step. Um uh Mel Robbins uh uh she heard the first book. She she uh uh she's very famous podcaster and and bookw writer. And um uh she talks about how she and her husband started a business that didn't work and she got very depressed after that and was having trouble getting out of bed and I don't know she was watching a a rocket take off somewhere 10 9 8 7 you know and and she came up with this very simple thing turned it into a book which was 5 43 2 1 get out of bed 5 4321 make the call for the jobs the job interviews 543 3 2 1, you know, whatever.

And and that just be that motivated her to keep taking that first step, which is really important for people people either because they're they're they're caught in a rut uh uh or they're or they're fearful or they don't have confidence in themselves. It's it's a lot of it's very hard for a lot of people to take the first step. I think that's very true. Getting unstuck, overcoming unstuck, overcoming unstuck, overcoming inertia. Unstuck. Yeah, that's a book. You want to do it together? Uh, maybe. Uh, maybe.

Uh, maybe. Um, okay. So, so Patrick, I I'll send it back to you to you that that you you referenced one of these, but another key aspect of the book is is to understand four fundamental facts. Uh, the first of which, and again, this is the one you referenced, the status quo is a deceptive little devil. Can you um talk about that and any of the other four fundamental facts that we really need to understand? understand? understand? Happy to. Yes. So, there's four of them. I mentioned one of them earlier as you said Dan the status quo is a deceptive little devil that things are going to change.

We talked about that a bit earlier. The second one is that it's okay that things are going to change because you're wired to handle this. And what we're talking about here is the you're wired to disrupt. Now it's kind of an interesting thought because we know about our brains is that our brains like consistency and the ability to, you know, um not burn off too many calories. It's kind of a thing that's grown through evolution over time. But we also have these brains that are incredibly creative.

So, we're wired because we can think up new things and we can we can regulate how we use our time. And those are those are really amazing things that no other animal on planet Earth can can do. We're also wired because of our own experiences. We've all had our ups and downs in life and those those down moments are usually followed by up moments. So, we have the ability to say, "Okay, I got through that. I can get through this." And the third thing is that we have resources around us.

We have friends and family and we even have technology at our fingertips as disruptive as that can be sometimes can be a great resource. So we're wired with these things to kind of handle the fact that things are going to change. And the third one is that uh the third fundamental fact is that relationships really matter. Dan they they they're headwinds and tailwinds in our lives. We have some relationships that are like you're out for a jog and they're behind you pushing you along and you have other ones that are blowing right in your face.

And what we say is that you have to really take time to think about the relationships in your life and are is there are they advancing you forward? Are you advancing them forward? Are they holding you back? Are there some relationships that need to be disrupted in in positive ways? And then the fourth one is that your time here is finite. Make it count in ways that matter. So our time on this podcast, our time on this planet are finite. Are we using them in in in really smart and great ways?

Those are the fundamental facts that we tap into. We want people to to recognize they're they're operating with these facts in place, you know, and and starting with the with the first when I went down and and and spoke in Patrick's class and that first question was, are you living a good life? That's what this is about, helping people to lead a better life. Um I I don't need the money. Uh u and and I certainly didn't with the lecture, I wasn't getting paid for that.

Uh but I was interested in in in getting these kids to think about their lives and and and were they satisfied with where they were going, the direction, etc. And then um um you know, I've been through a lot of things and and and and some of these things that that I've been through people might find helpful. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Just getting back to like figuring out your direction, your fire, you know, one of the things you do, I believe, recommend in the book is that is that we all craft a mission statement.

Um, Patrick, I'll throw that to you. Sorry. Um Um, one of the things you recommend is that we all craft a mission statement. Patrick, how could how do we go about doing something like that? Well, we do give some advice in the book and and just to put it in perspective when I say like we don't spend a lot of time on the fire inside as far as helping you define it. Of the of the 30ome chapters in the book, the first chapter is really talking about this fire inside.

The rest of it is talking about the disruptions that going to be coming your way while you're trying to live this out. And and as we and and part of that is because there's a lot of great stuff already written on helping people think through the purpose themselves. Sometimes people will come to the book and be like, "Yeah, I already have this kind of defined. I appreciate you helping me remember to put it back on the front burner so I can look at it. Other people might need a little bit more work and we try to provide them some tools.

But to answer your CLA question specifically, it really falls back to those three areas. So if you really get clear on what are you passionate about? What gets you excited? Secondly is what do people come to you and they say you're really good at this. Dan, you're really great at podcasting or every time we need something we come to you. What do what are you talented at? Not just good at but great at James is great at writing books. And then thirdly, listening to your inner voice or saying what's go needed in the world.

If you get clear on those three things, you can start to craft a statement that says here's why I'm here. Here's my mission, what I'm trying to do in life. And there's a tool in the back that helps people to do that. But ultimately, you know, it's a very introspective very introspective very introspective individual activity. uh for me to do it quite frankly um I had thought a lot about my personal purpose many years ago and it took me months to just kind of craft that and think it through.

Other people might just kind of know it intuitively. intuitively. intuitively. I'm kind of obsessed with with mission statements. I think they're really really useful for any company. Um uh pretty much every It's interesting because almost any industry almost any company you can think of, they need disruptions. You know, I was on CNN uh the other day with with Caitlyn Collins and one I talked about her life and the positive disruption she was making right now where she is the White House correspondent for CNN. She does that all day.

At 6 or 6:30 she gets out of that job and she by 9:00 she's doing the source and and that's an incredible disruption to her life for good or for I don't I hopefully it's working for her for her private life as well. Um uh but you know all of the CNN's and MSNBC's now MSNet now or whatever it is they all need to disrupt drastically all of the you know the the the TV networks now the average age of people watching network television is in the mid60s they need to disrupt disrupt disrupt um the movie studios are all you know having trouble they need to disrupt pretty much any company you can look at they need to disrupt that's why you know we we do something with um uh with Franklin CVY in terms of of you know taking this program out to to to companies and almost any every company they go to they need to disrupt and and and we can help them.

We can help your team at a company dis you know to move forward to uh uh we can help you as an individual the program can uh and and it's hard to think of a company that doesn't need to disrupt does it does it does it and that that's just a period we're going through and and also we try to do it which is it to help people cut the cut the stress in their lives uh which is you know I think also important in terms of you know leading a reasonably good life.

We I would imagine that cutting the stress in your life can allow you to be more creative and disruptive. disruptive. disruptive. Uh yeah, it can do that. It also make you ser you ser you ser uh we need it, right? I you know people drastically need to cut the stress in. There's so much stress out there. My god, when we're out we're out talking never seen anything like it, but it's uh it's it's not a it's a it's a tough period. period. period. Yeah. Jim and I are out talking to audiences sometimes and he'll ask them the question, are I living a good life?

that question and you'll get a lot of things, James, like um I'm getting by. I'm hanging in there. How I mean I don't know, Dan, but how many times hanging in? Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, hanging in. That's not great. That's not That's not the ideal situation. Hanging in. I'm hanging hanging from a thread. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Financial stress can affect us more than we know. As many of you know, I went through a very stressful separation from my co-founders at a meditation app that I'm no longer associated with.

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Sure. Sure. Sure. Yep. Yeah, we're we're close. I got you by a few years, but yeah, we're close on that. And I I feel the same way. Me too. Okay. So, so the central, as I understand it, the central idea in the book, and you'll uh Patrick, I'll start with you on this. You'll push back if I'm if I'm overstating the centrality. Uh but the central idea is this positive disruptor loop, I think, and it it consists of um at least five factors. Disrupt, discern, behave, achieve, and refine.

Am I right about the centrality? And either way, can you just tell us what the loop uh say a little bit more about the loop? Yeah. Yeah. First of all, you're right. It is it is the central model, if you will, Dan, that we we use in the book and what it is is in the process of studying these positive disruptors. So, you come out of the classroom where James talked to my students, then started a research project for a few years at Vanderbilt where we had a chance to interview hundreds of people to get their story.

And I I jokingly say, and it's true really, there are unsung heroes to household names. There's people everybody knows their name when they hear it and there's other people you've never heard of before, but we captured their story because they did some really interesting things. And ultimately, we stepped back then and said, "Okay, what's the pattern? What do they typically do?" And what they tend to do is there's this disruptive moment that happens and it could be something that just stops them in their tracks like a quick conversation or a time on the turnpike in Jersey where the traffic's going the other direction.

It could be a huge new project or an opportunity to move to another city or it could be all sorts of thing. a conversation with your doctor about the results of your test, whatever it might be. But this disruption happens and I think we're all the disrupted, but then some of us choose to be disruptors. Some of us choose to use that as a catalyst. And what we found is the most effective people, the thing they do when the disruption hits is they don't just react, they step back and they discern.

So the first step is to discern and say, "Okay, this thing happened, you know, so what? What could I do? what's the opportunity in here that I might be able to take advantage of or what role should I take on? And we give some roles and examples of that. And then the second step then says, okay, now if you're going to do that, if you're going to take on that role, what strengths do you have? What things do you have that you can bring to the table?

And we had a chance in the interviews to call out 16 positive disruptor behaviors. And and the nice news is we all have some of them. And nobody has all of them nailed. And there's no perfect combination. We all bring stuff to the table. So what do you bring to the table? And the next step then is to achieve. Okay, what what what can you do? And disruption as we talk about in the book, it starts with self first. This is an inside out exercise. We disrupt ourselves.

Jim disrupted himself that day on the Jersey Turnpike and decided to go a new direction. And then from there, you might disrupt relationships. You might disrupt your family. We might disrupt your your team or your organization or your industry or society. And we give different examples of that. And then the ne next step or the last step is refine. And refine is just about after you do something, don't just go on to doing the next thing, but step back first and say, "Okay, what did I learn from this?

What went well? What can we do better?" etc. And we actually interviewed um a couple of fourstar retired four-star generals from the military to ask them, "Why is the military so good at these afteraction reviews, Dan? When they finish a training exercise or a real world exercise, they're kind of brutal, brutally honest about what went well and what could we have done better?" And we were like, "Why do you do that so well?" And the answer seems pretty straightforward. It's like, well, because we have life or limb at risk here.

But remember that fourth fundamental fact, your time here is finite. Make it count in ways that matter. We also have a lot at risk. So, how do we make sure that we make we learn from it and move forward? And our argument would be that if you follow that loop over and over and over, that's how resilience over time is built. It's not built by going into a classroom for two hours and saying, "Okay, you're gonna come out of there more resilient." It's built by learning and trying and testing and leaning into your strengths and gaining results and then getting over an obstacle and then doing it again and again and again and all of a sudden something that knocked you down five years ago to step over that so easily.

You know, and Patrick in there he mentioned family and family is very important in his book and overlooked in in most business books. um that you know h how how does the family deal in that decision making when when when when uh either the the one of the parents has to look for a new job or has to consider working harder or working less or whatever it is and and and how does the family get involved in that or your partner what you know whatever your friends that are very important to you uh and bringing them into the process is uh uh and as I say a lot of most business books don't deal with that but that's an important for thing for most people and becoming more and more important which I think is a good thing.

No, I completely agree with you on that. So let's spend some more time on the on the different aspects of this disruptor loop given its importance uh for your work. So again disrupt, discern, behave, achieve and refine. disrupt I think is um self-explanatory or or we've already explained it which is that the changes are going to happen and you have to um and and and so it it's going to happen. You either are it's happening to you or you're making them happen. Uh, yeah. I mean, to put a fine point on it, Dan, I would just say it can be small, it can be big, it can be unique, it can be ubiquitous, but if it stops you in your tracks and cause you to pause and maybe opens up a door for something new and different, it's probably something worth labeling as disruption at that moment.

Well said. Uh, so the second one is discern. And under discern, you've got these five specific roles. Patrick, you made a a reference to them. Trail uh, but you didn't list them, but I I'll list them. uh trailblazer, fire chief, firefighter, torchbearer, and tinder gatherer. James, maybe you could walk us through um just remind us of what the discern part of the loop is and what these these these No, Patrick has to do all of that kind of talk. He's the he's the trail bra blazer guy and I'm the storyteller and and one of the things in the book is I mean there are for every one of these these things that we talk about there's a story which helps to illustrate it because um we both feel uh me even more that the stories are so essential in terms of of people understanding uh uh paying attention.

we pay attention more when I I I went from being a a poor public speaker to being pretty good when I just started telling stories or just tell one story after another and and and people listen. Uh so and so that really helps and it also makes the book much more readable. A lot of business books are pretty tough to read. This one, you know, we we have a story and the stories are, you know, they're they're I think they're pretty fascinating. Uh Pat, one of Patrick's favorite is the um um the the uh the the the the car wash.

Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That one goes like uh Yeah, that's a great story. I I'll tell the story and then I'll tell you about the five rolls, Dan. So there's one person we interviewed in the process, which was a guy named um Tom Diary. And Tom Deari lives down in southern Florida, just kind of north of Miami. and he tells us this story as we're interviewing him about how when he was 22 years old, he's finishing up college and he kind of thinks he knows what he wants to do in life and he's putting out his resumes to the big consulting firms and plans to live in Manhattan.

But at the same time, he has a younger brother who's 20, so a couple years younger, and he's on the autism spectrum. His name is Andrew. And Tom goes home at the Thanksgiving holiday and he's watching his brother and interacting with his father and talking about his his father expressed some concerns about what's Andrew gonna do in his life. So Tom goes to Andrew's school and after a week of his school seeing what Andrew's learning what he's going to be able to do. Tom's disrupted in that moment he's like, you know what, I'm not going to pursue going to work in consulting.

What's more important to me is family and my brother. I'm going to figure out how to do something with my brother. You fast forward a year or so, they open up a car wash. Tom's like, "I know nothing about car washes. I know nothing about leading people with autism, but we're leaning into hiring people with autism and giving them jobs." You fast forward to today, they have three car washes in South Florida. They have 100 employees. 90 of them are on the autism spectrum. They're more profitable and more productive than other car washes.

And we just lay out how that sound that's a nice easy, you know, kind of button it up perfect story, but it was not easy. It was lots of little steps and equipment breaking and Tom not knowing how to figure them out figure fix the equipment or employees that feeling the car isn't just isn't detailed quite enough yet. They want to keep going at it. Him having to encourage them to stop at that moment. But also just how Tom's brother found a place in the world.

And uh Tom's brother Andrew talks about we we have him on film where he talks about you know this is my name is Andrew Deerry. This is where I work and it's a great place and I have I have lots of friends here. And it's just a a really powerful story about that that moment, that conversation at the dinner table at Thanksgiving that Tom could have said, "Yeah, I'm worried about Andrew, too, and I'm going to go pursue this job anyway in in Manhattan," which could be perfectly fine.

That could have been the choice he made. It's not a judgment of that, but it's a judgment where he says, but in his case, his judgment was that's not fulfilling to me. That's not what I feel like I'm here to do. So, that's a great story. And as as you look at stories stories, there a couple of purposes. want to help people understand better what we're trying to get through to them and and and they also inspire uh which is really important that people go I could I okay I can do that I can do that I can step forward I can do some things I can uh I you know I can be better at at being a dad I can be better at at my job etc.

I'm sorry, Patrick, though. You're good. No, no, no, no, no. You're great. And I will I'm going to go back to what you were just saying there. And and it's not that every story is not going to resonate perfectly with everybody, and that's okay. Um, some stories you might read it and go, "Nah, this one's not clicking with me." Then just keep moving. And, uh, some things you you you got nailed down and just keep moving. And the one thing we Jim says really nicely is that this isn't a one-sizefits-all book from the fact of like you have to do all of these things and you have to do what all these people did.

That's not what we're saying. But you might find something that moves you along. along. along. Yeah. I did a a book earlier which I think is a really valuable book and it's how to be a better dad in one hour and and I can guarantee anybody who reads that book, you will become a better and I think it's really useful. There are a lot of guys out there right now who are kind of lost in space a little bit, not understanding what their role is in the world, not being the best dads they can be.

And and that's another one. not not one one sizefits all and and and what what I tried to do with the book is the reason the one hour it's not I'm not being cynical about it it's just that for a lot of kids they're not going to read the 400page book so what this does is really compress the information and and it just hits so many possible things that that that the people that dads can do to make themselves better and and I've never written a book where I've got more people going that that it helped me so much uh and and and and and and you know, most guys want to be dads, but that thing about helping people to move forward in their lives, not not you know, one size doesn't fit all and and and these things are it's possible.

And you can't read that book uh and not become a better dad. It just you can't, which is cool. And and similarly with with this book with disrupt everything, it it will it will help people. And I think that's um that that's our ultimate goal. And I think that's why it's working so well with Franklin Cubby. So you're asking Dan about the the various roles. various roles. various roles. I'm trying to keep you off of this somehow. somehow. somehow. Go with the Trailblazer guy. Darn. All right.

Yeah. So there there's five roles and uh it's you know coming from the university side it's like it's a perfect 2 by two. So if people envision there's a a 2x two block. So four blocks, four quadrants. And the the quadrants the two at the top are going toward change and the two at the bottom are going toward stability and then the two on the left are going toward individual moving out individually and the two on right are going out collectively. Okay? So we have these four blocks.

So the top left then would be moving toward change individually and we call that person a trailblazer. So this is like the quintessential startup person who gets an idea and goes and starts a business. Um you can see that like they're moving toward change. They quit their job, they move cities, they do whatever, and off they go. And we talk about a person in the book who does just that. A lady named Josie Nator who came from the Philippines back in the 1960s, was the youngest female vice president at any firm on Wall Street in the 70s and quit it to start Nator, which has been around for about 50 years and they make, you know, pajamas and undergarments and things like that.

So, she's a trailblazer. But you don't have to quit your job to be a trailblazer. You might be the employee who decides, hey, I'm going to learn about this AI thing, or I'm going to be the employee who hears customer issues three times, and I decide I'm going to figure out what the problem is there. So, you can lead out and trailblaze. The other more and more companies are they want trailblazers, not troublemakers, trailblazers, people that are bringing positive energy and ideas. Some companies unfortunately do not encourage that, but a lot of companies now more than ever do.

They they want trailblazers. trailblazers. trailblazers. Exactly. And then the other side of the the moving toward change is moving toward change with other people kind of creating a movement and that's a torchbearer. You might start as a trailblazer and then you move over to be a torch bearer and you bring other people along with you once you figure something out or dig into it. So that's moving toward change. The the lower part is moving towards stability. And this kind of throws people for uh a loop when they pick up the book.

They think it's called disrupt everything. Notice it's not called change everything. Change everything would suggest like turn everything over. What we're saying is you need to be open to the disruptions that are going on and then make a choice in that moment. Sometimes you might move toward change. Sometimes you might move towards stability. I might double down on something I'm already doing. And we call those people firefighters and fire chiefs. Individual movement firefighter collective fire in the Midwest a department store chain. Yeah. There was one example.

Um they're not in the book, but they ran our research around it and we were talking to them is uh Dillard's department store was an example. I don't know if you know them, Dan, but your listeners might not, but it's a 80some year old um familyowned business. Department stores kind of compete with the Nordstroms and the Macy's of the world. And just like everybody else, uh being in the retail space during COVID or leading up to CO even with technology started putting their stores online and people were shopping online and there was some degree of cannibalization between people buying stuff in the store and people buying stuff online, but the net was bigger.

So people like that at the business. And then when COVID hit, of course, they brought your goods to your car to keep you safe outside so you didn't have to come into the store. And then maybe they started putting racks in the store where people could come in after they ordered something online and just pick it up and and take it with them. And up until that point, I would say that Dillards was probably moving with the same change the rest of the industry was. But at one point along the way, they said, "Hold on a second.

We see where the industry is going with this and there's a good chance that if we keep going down this path, a sizable part of our intore footprint, our square foot footage is going to be warehouse where people are coming in getting their stuff and leaving. If we keep going down that path, we lose who we are, what makes us special. They realized they weren't competing just against other stores. They were competing against the couch. They had to get people up. So, they said, "We're not going to go that far down in this moment.

We're going to actually seek some stability and create a movement that says internally that says, "You know what? What makes us great is the instore experience." Now, here's the neat part from a business perspective. If you were to invest in Dillards in 2020 and hold on to their stock for 4 years, it went up 1,200%. An 80 plus year old retail store beat out companies like Amazon or Tesla or whomever you were looking at at the time, which is pretty darn incredible. But they did it by going after stability.

And we would argue that in the face of everybody else chasing a change, if you're the person or the family or the business or whatever it might be that says, "Nope, we're not going there. We're going to double down on who we already are or our values," that can be the most disruptive thing you can do. Yeah. I mean, one of the disruptive things for a lot of companies, they spend an incredible amount of time and energy talking about artificial intelligence and doing nothing. Just talking about it.

What is it going to be? what will you know and it's it's it's an incredible for a lot of companies incredible waste unbelievable amount of time and energy and money uh and not accomplishing anything. That's another area. How do you how do how do you intelligently sainly uh uh economically deal with with with questions like that? How how do you deal with it? But, you know, because it really comes down to, you know, what can we do positively right now uh uh to to to take advantage and and then and the other piece of it, how do we protect ourselves?

protect ourselves? protect ourselves? Actually, in the process of um doing some research around it, I was talking to this one guy who was concerned about AI, just individual concerned about AI, and we're not talking organizations or industries. This one guy saying, you know what, I'm really concerned about AI. And I said, why is that? And he said, well, because my job for my company is I'm a writer. I write copy. I write marketing materials. I write stuff sometimes that our CEO reads. And he said, "Our CEO just read something." He's like, "I swear to you, 90% of it was written by Chat GPT." And it was.

And he said, "I feel like I'm just going to lose my job." And in that moment, I just said to him, "Hey, do you see a world where you could be more valuable to your company, not less valuable, with AI existing?" And he said, "Yeah." I said, "Okay." After he thought about it, he said, "Yeah." And I said, "All right, which role would you have to take on?" and that's all I'm asking him to do. And he just thought about he said, 'I think I need to be a trailblazer for a while.

That doesn't mean I'm going to start, you know, quit my job and start an AI company. It just means I'm going to get smart about AI, smarter than like my company expects me to. I'm going to lean into this thing and then maybe down the road I'll move over and be a trailblazer and kind of lead a movement in the organization to help them use how we how we can use it more effectively. So that's what we mean by the roles. And the roles are not a personality thing.

Although you might have tendencies like you might tend to be more of a trailblazer, they're not but they're not personality things. what they are or they're they're roles that you choose to take on. And it's like putting a hat on. You can choose to take that role on. And sometimes you might feel compelled to do something, but then you have to look at context and say, "Okay, my family matters to me. Is that the right role right now? My company matters to me. Is that the right role right now?" And and the fifth rule, just to kind of close the loop on that sits right in the middle.

And we call it a tinder gatherer. And what that is is that's that's gathering firewood just like you would to build a fire. And sometimes you go in this role because your job is to um analyze it more, think about it more, not just make a knee-jerk decision. So you're going to spend some time thinking about which role you want to take on after that. And sometimes some people are just really good at that role. They live in that role and they allow and help other people to do these things.

And actually early on in the research, James said, "Hey, you need to talk to this gentleman who's been my um representative, my was you a publicist, Jim, for a long time, Bob?" A my agent. Your agent for a long time. and you said, you know, you need to talk to to to him. And I did. I was like, oh, he's a he's a trailblazer. I don't know if Jim, if you can tell anything about about Bob, but is really a a quintessential person who helped other people take off in their roles.

Yeah. Was is my agent or lawyer. It's interesting. He he died recently. Wonderful, wonderful guy. Was actually one of the most amazing the memorial for this guy. He handled everybody in law, just about everybody as an agent in terms of their books. and he handled both sides, Republicans and Democrats, and the memorial service for him. I've never seen a more emotional, there were like 800 people there, none of whom needed to be there. And that included uh the Clintons, uh that included the Bidens, that included the head of Fox, that included the head of CNN, uh that included Fouchy, that it was just an amazing amazing thing.

And he had said at one point that if if if you ever put all my clients in the same room given the way it would be World War II because but here they here they were and they didn't need to be there. And I spoke a bit and I said that you know with Bob Bob hated to be called an agent. He just hated that idea and he loved being a lawyer. He thought it was really a respectable thing to do. And I said well I personally I'm not really that keen on agents or lawyers.

So, I called Bob my uh my my uh uh bookman uh or shortened it my bookie. So, Bob was my bookie instead of I want to call him an agent or or a lawyer. I think you're referring to Bob Barnett who was actually my lawyer for a brief period of time as well. Oh, really? Okay. Wonderful. Wonderful. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you can see um when we sat down with the publish with the publisher and we said uh Tinder gather and they said, "Tell us about that role." And we said, "Bob Barnett," they're like, "We get what you're talking about here.

But he was a trailblazer because Oh yeah, definitely. definitely. definitely. Even the way he you know here here was one of the uh when I one of the things I talked about when I when I spoke about Bob at the memorial is that um when I went into his office and we talked about my you know moving there from I was at an agency. He said look Jim let me tell you a story. This took it took about 60 seconds. And he said, "I have I have a a client uh who was with one of the big agencies and um uh I um uh just sold a a book for this person for $12 million.

Had they been with the agency, uh the agency would have taken 10 to 15% of $12 million. million. million. Uh, I just am I just work as a lawyer. My fee is $1,000 an hour. My fee at the end of the year to this person was $47,000 $47,000 $47,000 versus 10 to 15% of 12 million. And I said, "Sign me up." Uh, uh, it was that simple. Uh, uh, but once again, trailblazers because, um, uh, you know, agents don't do that. They want their 10 to 15%, you know.

Okay. So let's go back. Sorry, let me say one thing quickly. No, no argument here about the um amazing uh uh nature of uh the dearly departed uh Bob Barnett. Um so to to to get back to the disruptor loop uh the positive disruptor loop. So we've talked about disrupt um we all get what that means. Discern is to kind of figure out like okay which of these five uh directions do I want to go in? Trailblazer, fire chief, firefighter, torchbearer, uh, torchbearer, tinder gatherer, and then the next step is behave.

Um, so Patrick, why don't you start again on what behave could look like, and then we'll bring in James for it to be the color man. Okay, that sounds good. So behave is a is the second step after discern. So discern and then behave. And behave is really about getting clear on the strengths that you bring to the table. And as we went through the process of of studying this, we started to realize there were certain strengths in people that came up time and time again.

There were 16 of them. And 16 is a big number, right? It's hard to remember 16. And if somebody reads it and goes, "My goodness, I have to have all 16 of these things." A, we try to make it easier for you to digest by organizing it a certain way. And B, nobody had them all. Nobody had them all nailed. So don't rest assured, you don't have to have all of them. And there's no perfect combination. I wish there was. is I wish it was like if you had number 1, 7, and 10, you're you're going to nail it because it didn't exist that way either.

But the beautiful thing is that we all have strengths. So let's figure out what we're good at when it comes to being a positive disruptor. How can we lean into those? And maybe if we need to bring some other people around who can help us out. So the way we organize the 16 is we called it the anatomy of a disruptor. And it's a headtotoe kind of organization with each body part of the eight body parts we pick having two behaviors. So, I'll just say a couple of them really quickly just to give you a feel for them.

So, one example would be brain. We start at brain and and some people the behavior they have is they're really good at looking deeply at something to garner an insight. So, they're paying attention to what's going on around them. They're not just sleepwalking through every situation and occasionally they'll pick up on something, go, "Hey, I wonder why that's that way." And they kind of think about it for a while. They study. They ask questions to try to figure out the insight. And an insight is something that is valuable and few people know.

I mean, if everybody knows it and it's valuable, it's not really an insight. If everybody knows it and it's not valuable, it's not an insight. If you're the only one who knows it and it's not valuable, it's not an insight. It's got to be something few people know and it's valuable. And some people are really good at gathering insights. Some people are really good with um with their eyes of casting a vision. That's another one. Some people are really good with their feet, which is standing firm in the face of doubters.

So, we go through the eight body parts and just lay out these various um uh behaviors. And then for each of them, each of the body parts, we tell a story of someone who has those behaviors pretty well nailed down. If you're going to start a business, which I recommend, it's great although stressful, but if you're going to do it, one thing most businesses need, I'm hardressed to think of a business that doesn't need this, is a great website. You probably should not rush through checking the box on a crappy website, which brings me to one of our sponsors today, Wix.

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The second one is you can actually do a little assessment in the book where you can score yourself and see how well you're doing. You could ask other people to do it as well because sometimes we lie to ourselves whether we know we are or not. but also just to look at the each of the stories because each of the sections where we talk about the body part and we share the behavior, we then have some reflection questions for you to consider and a little challenge.

So those reflection questions are just something that you can cause you to pause for a moment and think about that behavior. Where is that shown up in your life? Have people ever told you you're pretty good at that thing? Whatever it might be. And then a little challenge, nothing massive, just something you might try today to see if it affirms that you're pretty good at that thing or confirms it for you or does it make you say, "Maybe that's not my one." For example, there's a behavior in there that's um trusting your instincts.

your instincts. your instincts. And I remember Jim and I were talking about this early on and I'm like, "Hey, don't you think most people have instincts worth trusting?" He's like, "Absolutely not. No, they don't." And I was talking to this group early on in the research. I I was going out one thing we did and we were doing the research, but we're also going out and testing it in front of audiences just talking about it to see how they react and and I was talking to this one group at a hotel that had a big casino in it and I said, "How many of you think that people have instincts worth trusting?" And like 80% of the room raised their hand and I was like, "Really?

Um, what if you went out to that casino floor at 2 a.m.? Do you think they all have instincts worth trusting?" setting aside the fact that maybe they've already had a few drinks and they're like, "Yeah, these fallacies in life about trust your first impressions and stuff." Our first impressions are wrong so much, man. We we pass up so many people. I one of my best friends. He was one of to me one of the great catchers in New York. Nice guy, interesting, funny, whatever. And he would just freeze up when he would meet a girl and and they would all go, "Oh, I don't know about this guy." You know, blah.

First wrong first impression, man. And we're constantly doing that with first impressions. Uh uh it's, you know, and and the other is just so many just being able to to question what's going on is that I mean our son now, my our son is is 27 and and he's just questioning what's going on there. Is there a better way to do this? Um I'm friendly with Steve Schwarzman, the the Blackstone guy. And you know at a certain point he and Pete Peterson they just said there's a better way to to then they started Blackstone uh they just didn't you know in the book business business business uh when I went in there it was like you do a book a year or every two years and that's the deal and I went why is that I don't you know maybe but what's the what's the rule there that I'm missing and uh I remember there was a meeting and I and I went I'd had I started the Yellow Cross books and they were very successful so they were listening to me a little bit and I said this year I want to do three books and I said I want to do Alice Cross.

He said good, good, good. Then there's another thriller, Summerhouse, that I wanted to do. And I said, "Okay." Oh, that's great, great, great. And then I told him another story, Suzanne Sto for Nicholas, and it was a a love story, tragic love was a it was a a love story, tragic love story. But and when I told it, the head of of Little Brown started crying. And then at the end of it, he said, "Well, we want to do the Alice Cross in the summer, but we don't want to do the love story because it's not your brand." And I said, "Well, I don't really think of myself as a brand, but I think this is a really good story." And I think if there is a brand, it's that when James does a book, it's just going to keep you reading and then you'll self- select whether you want a love story or not.

And they reluctantly did the book Suzanne's Diary. It's now the second biggest selling book I've ever had. Uh uh so it's just like, you know, does that make sense what they're doing in the company? And then, you know, another thing in the publishing world was was doing writing with coowwriters. And they go, well, what's that all about? And I said, well, I don't know. I think I think I I think it would be good because in advertising you work with other people. You generally will work with an art director and a producer.

So you get used to working with a team or Patrick and I obviously were you know we worked as co-writers and and you know and since then I've done I did a book with Dolly novel with Dolly Parton and one with three actually with President Clinton. I have one with Viola Davis coming out this year and then one with Mr. Beast. Do you know who Mr. Beast is? Of course. Yeah. Viral superstar. Mr. Beast and you go like well you know Jim's a little older than Mr.

beast who's 27 and you know but you know it's a great a great it's a great collaboration and really cool but once again we're just breaking the rules not to break rules but just because you just question things and go well that what is that why what does that rule have to do with anything you're not doing it to break the rules per se you just question question I think you know it's interesting that you said a moment ago and I agree with you Jim when you said that um sometimes there's too much of a um an unhelpful cliche around trusting your gut and and it can be true to a certain extent, but but but with you you gut at least the common denominator in many of these stories is that you trusted your gut and have really paid off.

I do trust it, but I tend to question and think it through and and and and also I just had the chancellor from Vanderbilt in here and guy's really really really really smart and he considers in general the college system to to it needs an overhaul and I think they're doing it there at Vanderbilt uh uh like so many other things that need overhauls and they're doing it in a big way and uh but what he does before he makes a move he tries to think it all the way through what are the obstacles what could get in the way?

Where could this thing screw up? Uh uh what's the hard? And sometimes you when you go out that far and you go like we can't I can't figure out how to get past that obstacle. So you don't you don't make that move. And that's what my instincts would be. Uh uh you know, I'll follow something out and I'll go, you know, this is good. This is good. I don't know how to really take it to that final step or the next to the final step and I'll back off of it.

M so I don't consider I I don't think I've ever done anything where I really consider it to be risky which is weird because people think all these things should be so risky and you know I I guess well I don't know I I wonder if Elon Musk thinks he's doing risky stuff in theory yes electric car in theory very risky space pro in theory very risky but apparently he has the ability to think these things through and go nope I I know how to do this and it's doable and you Uh, and and that's the real uh Jimmy Donnelly, Mr.

Beast, he has very good instincts about especially in the arena that he's playing and the the videos and all that. He he he knows he he he knows what the right moves are. So for you, Jim, it's about instinct and then, you know, careful execution. And I wonder uh Patrick, to get back to the disruptor loop, uh we're now at we've gone through discern and behave. We're now at achieve. is is what I just said about instinct plus um proper execution and planning is is is that relevant to the achieve uh factor?

Yeah, it definitely is. Um proper execution and planning is definitely, you know, thinking through the obstacles, what's going to get in our way, what can hold us back, and how can we work around those obstacles or or mitigate them or eliminate them or transfer them to somebody else to deal with. Uh definitely it's huge. It's huge. You know, I'm 280 pounds and I want to be a ballet dancer. Um, I don't know. Let's think this through. You know, I mean, that's another thing in terms of people's dreams.

Some of the dreams are are very reasonable and some of them you want to be a dancer, but you you're probably not going to do it professionally. Maybe. Probably not. Sorry, Pat. Go ahead. No, you're fine. There's there's actually a part around instinct that to me plays out so strongly in this section of the of the book. Um, when we were out talking about it, I remember one time Jim and I were on the phone after I was out talking to an audience. He said, "Okay, what resonated with this group?" And I said, "Well, I think when I was talking about disrupting your family that really resonated because I told a story and um and then people came up and talked to me about it afterwards." And he said, "What was the story?" And I told him it ended up being the only personal story that's in the book um other than Jim's introductory stories.

But I tell a story about my parents and how many years ago I was as I was prompted by somebody who was doing something asking you to think about the roles you fill in your life and pick out the ones that are your key roles right now. So they said, you know, you might fill out you may have 20 or 30 roles in your life that you're filling. Like I'm a I'm a husband and I'm a dog owner and I'm a project manager and I'm whatever, but which ones are really critical right now?

And I I picked out a handful or so and one of them I I decided to pick was sun s o n. And then they said, "Okay, assess yourself. Are you doing an ordinary job, an extraordinary job, a really poor job? What are you doing? And after I looked at the roles, I said, you know, I'm kind of struggling with the sun thing. It's not like I'm a bad son. My parents wouldn't join the podcast right now and say this, let me tell you about this kid.

But it was just not that great. And at this point, I'm around 40 years old. And I started saying like, why is it that it's not that great? So, I guess you could say, I didn't have the language for it, but say that was a disruption for me, just doing that little assessment. So I looked at it and I said, 'Well, when I call my parents, it's usually once a week, frankly, kind of obligation. I call and check in. I was living in Louisville, Kentucky at the time.

They were living in Chicago, which is where I grew up at. I'd call them up and the conversations were almost the same every time. What's the weather? What's the traffic like? What's on your schedule this week? We both would exchange and then we'd hang up. And I kind of checked the block mentally. And after I looked at I said, could I be a little better? Like, could I could I ask them some questions? They raised five kids. I had two kids. Maybe I could ask them some questions.

Guess what? They were pretty smart about kids. Um I would tell them about like when I was traveling, what I was doing or send them a postcard while I was on a business trip. And it just changed the relationship. And I remember a few years later after I started doing this, I got a call from my brother. I He said, "Hey, you need to come home and mom's gotten really ill." And I said, "All right, I'll be home this weekend." And he said, "No, you need to come home now." So I was I was traveling.

So I flew back, grabbed my wife, Jamie. We drove up and we got to my parents house. Listen, if you've ever heard that conversation where someone's the last person to show up, I was the last person to show up. I was the fifth of five kids to show up. Saw my mom. She rallied for a little bit and a couple hours later she passed away. away. away. Then you get into the whole rigomearo of planning a funeral and doing all that. And when it's all over with, I remember sitting back at my dad's house the day of the funeral.

Now it's my dad's house. And I said to my wife, "I'm so glad that I did that. I focused on my role as son." And she said to me, "You're still a son." And across the room's my dad. And my dad's the no guy. My mom's always been the yes. Like, "Mom, can we go here?" "Yes." "Dad, can we go there?" "No, we're fine." You know, that type of personality. And I said, "Oh, yeah. I'm still I'm still a son." So, I walk across the room and I said to my dad, I said, "Hey, Dad.

I I travel a lot for work. Do you want to come with me sometime?" Fully expecting him to say, "Absolutely not." And he said, "Where are you going?" And I grabbed my phone. I'm like, "I'm going to Topeka, Kansas." And my dad goes to Topeka, Kansas with me. And then he goes to Florida with me. And the whole point on that is that that that that if you think about it's just there's I didn't do anything massive to blow up my life. I just did a few things differently and and stuck to it for a while.

And my dad's uh 94 now. He's almost 95. And I see him so much differently than he wasn't the no guy that I thought he was. He was a guy who had five kids and three jobs growing up on the south side of Chicago. That's who he was. He was busy. He was the guy who like Jim talked about didn't always say I love you that much. it just wasn't wired into him. But he's a great guy and our relationship is so much different now. now.

now. I love that story. Is there more to say about the achieve piece before we move on to Refine? I mean, just from a organizational context because Jim mentioned this this book is a a business book. It it shows up in different spots in stores. It's kind of funny. It'll show up in the business part. It'll show up in the self-help. I I don't really care personally where it shows up at as long as people pick it up and check it out. But from the business side, absolutely.

If you can get more people in your organization when they get hit with a disruption, when something changes or a new system gets implemented or customer expectations change or you name it to go, um, all right, what what's my vision for this thing? What could we do? What are the obstacles I can run into? And how could I test this thing? If you could just get them to do those three steps over and over and over in the achieve step, you're going to go a long way because all of a sudden, it's not you as the leader trying to carry the whole company up the mountaintop.

It's a thousand different people running a little experiments um about what they see can happen in the face of this disruption. And that's let me go backwards to Patrick's story about his dad. That's a great achievement. We don't think of it that that in that area. We think achievement well you know uh in business or you know in in in in in your regular life I think it's even more important personally. You know it's funny is that you became a better father, you became a better mom.

uh and it but it's the same tools that are going to get you there. The tools that we're talking about in business. That's why I think the book is it's one of those unusual books that it is a business book and it is a self-help book. book. book. Yeah. And I would just amplify your argument, Jim, by saying that in my experience and in my opinion, frankly, the better your relationships with your family, the better you're going to do at work. work. work. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm.

Yeah. 100%. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. You know, it's funny though is it to me I I spent my 20s in the army. I was an Army Ranger years gone by. So I jump out of planes and run around the woods and do things that people would consider bold or or courageous. But making those phone calls to my dad and mom and sending postcards in some ways took a little bit more different type of courage that wasn't always that bold, but it was it was causing me to change how I saw things.

And I think that was really key. James, I know that Patrick is supposed to do the heavy lifting on on the uh the various lists and all that stuff in the book, but the the the last piece of the disruptor loop is refine and I feel like you're more than qualified to talk about it. You have done you have disrupted in so many ways, but in I think most famously in the the publishing world. um as you launch these various projects to what extent do you come back learn and use those learnings to refine how you move forward?

move forward? move forward? Well, every book what it's about is you for me and not all not all do writers do this but I start out with a long outline. When I started the Alice Cross uh series uh I wanted to make sure I got it right if I could. I wound up writing a 320 page outline page outline page outline and that's where the short chapters came from and but every every book that I do it's about refining when Patrick and I did disruption disrupt everything it was about refining we kept doing it over and over and over again um uh James Clear when he talks about atomic habits he talks about it took him years to write that he kept refining refining refining uh making it better fixing it make you know as I said we added did a lot on families to the book when we realized that that was so important and and and it was and this book is relevant to families extremely relevant to families maybe more important for a lot of people to their families than than the work part of it is is is um uh but yeah no it's always I was during co during co during co uh uh you know stuck in the house a lot obviously and I started I wasn't going to do this in a million years but I started writing an autobiography and I just started writing down story after story after story.

That's all the my auto it's just nothing but stories uh one after the other. And I found that because it was the autobiography and I was so invested in it and my passion was so good. I found that I was paying attention to writing sentences more than I had in a long time. And my writing got better. And my writing in the last couple years, I think, has been the best it's ever been in terms of my ref. Once again, it's that refining. I just I'm paying more attention to the sentences, to the paragraphs, to the page, to the chapter.

Uh you know, refining, refining, refining. refining. refining. Yes. Uh, and at a certain point you just have to say it's biscuits. But meaning it's over now. We can keep writing this forever. But uh, well, we're not going to do that. We're going to move on and do another book. Well, I'm I'm I'm nowhere near as accomplished or prolific a writer as you are, but in my experience, the most important part of writing is rewriting. So, So, So, yeah, sure. For most writers, there are a couple that, for whatever reason, uh, boy, they can spit it out and spit it out.

That first draft is pretty magical, but that's that's rare. Hm. This has been phenomenal to talk to both of you. Let me ask you the let me ask you both the the um the two questions I always ask as we're winding down. Uh one is is there something that you were hoping to get to that we haven't gotten to? Anything that we've we've missed here. Patrick, I'll start with you on that. that. that. No, I don't think so. I think we hit all the high highlights.

The thing I would just want to make sure that people take away from this is the idea that um you don't have to change everything. You can just take that one step to begin moving forward. And that one step might make all the difference over the course of time. I don't want people to read this and think this is the diet book that tells them they have to change everything they do. It's not that. Maybe it's to see what already they're doing well and add a thing or two to it.

Yeah. you know, when I go out uh and I speak, especially because we do a lot of philanthropic stuff and I'll go to groups or you're a big group of librarians or teachers or whatever and and one of the things I always say is we sat here for an hour and we talked a lot. Don't pat yourself on the back because you listen for an hour. We didn't do anything. All we did was talk about stuff. So, all we're doing here is talking about stuff. Uh uh it doesn't mean anything unless you go do it.

So, you know what? Even if you go to the library, go check out the book. I not to sell books per se, but because we haven't done anything yet, but if it's interesting to you, then do something. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. That's what it's all about doing things, you know. Do it do it for yourself. Do it for your your your your work life, do it for your family, do it for your partner, whatever, you know, whatever your situation is, you know, take take another step. Take that first step to to to move forward with your life.

and and and you kind of do now because if you don't keep moving forward, I really think this is going to be the future of people in this country. If you're not moving forward, uh you know, it can there's going to be a lot of pain in people's lives. people's lives. people's lives. James, I'll I'll the I'll I'll start with you on the second closing question, which is can you just remind us of the name of the book and and frankly anything else you've written or put out in the world that you want?

I know you've that's a that's a long list. script everything and win is is that that's the the book that Patrick and I did together. Uh which as I said it is that unusual business and self-help uh and and and and and I love the idea of helping people. The two um things I have coming this year which I think are stunning to me. The book I did with Viola Davis, the novel, uh I I it's the best novel I've ever done and and she's a big piece of it.

She's very um she's great to work with. Um she's um uh she's very tough in a great way. A great way. And she just kept pushing pushing pushing to make sure these characters got stronger and stronger and stronger. And then and then the book with uh with Mr. beast which is going to come out in September which is also pretty amazing because his notion is that every one of us every individual we have the ability to make some change with in the world and and he preaches that to kids and I think that's a really good thing in terms of motivating kids to uh no you can do something you can do something you can you can make things uh better you can make things better for yourself you can make things better for the people around you and it might be a small group or it might be a larger group.

So, so those two projects in particular uh uh you know have me uh passionate and excited which is which is very cool. I I don't I don't work for a living. I play for a living. Amazing. Anything to add, Patrick? Yeah, the as he said the books disrupt everything and win. And my biggest focus these days honestly is going out and talking to audiences about the book and working with executive teams to help them think about the disruptions facing their business and really just trying to create a movement of positive disruptors in the world.

Well, Godspeed. Uh, James Patterson, Patrick Leon, thank you both. Thank you. Pleasure. This was great. Great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Patrick. You're the best. best. best. So are you.