Dallas Burnett: Hey everybody.
We're talking to Patrick Ledon today.
What an amazing guy He is a leadership expert, wall Street Journal bestselling
author former Army Ranger Vanderbilt professor and co-author with James
Patterson of Disrupt Everything and Win.
He has some incredible stories from jumping out of airplanes
to hiking Mount Kilimanjaro.
Building an incredible business with his wife.
You don't want to miss this incredible conversation.
Welcome to the last 10%.
Your host, Dallas Burnett, dives into incredible conversations that
will inspire you to finish well.
And finish strong, strong.
Listen as guests share their journeys and valuable advice on living in the last 10%.
If you are a leader, a coach, a business owner, or someone looking to
level up, you are in the right place.
Remember, you can give 90% effort and make it a long way, but it's finding
out how to unlock the last 10%.
That makes all the difference in your life, your relationships, and your work.
Now here's Dallas.
Welcome, welcome, welcome.
I am Dallas Burnett, sitting in my 1905 Koch brothers
barber chair in Thrive Studios.
But more importantly, today we have an amazing guest.
Patrick Ledon is a guy who's lived an amazing life from leading
paratroopers in the army to building successful businesses, teaching at
Vanderbilt now he's co-authoring books with legend James Patterson
on turning disruption into success.
I'm so excited about this conversation today.
Welcome to the show, Patrick.
Patrick Leddin: Hey Dallas.
Thanks so much for having me.
Hello everybody.
So glad to be here with you today.
Dallas Burnett: Now Patrick, you hail out of Nashville, which is obviously
one of my favorite, favorite towns, and you have been there for quite some
time because of Vanderbilt and stuff.
But I would love for you to share with our listeners kind of a
backdrop of your story, just kind of your journey through your career.
Patrick Leddin: So you wanna know my origin
Dallas Burnett: Origin story, baby.
That's right.
Patrick Leddin: Yeah, man, I'll just lay it all out there for you.
So, um, I'm probably one of the least likely persons to have a
professorship at Vanderbilt University.
I grew up on the south side of Chicago actually.
The area that I grew up in has had a little bit of a claim to fame
recently because I went to the same Catholic church growing up as the Pope.
Dallas Burnett: my goodness.
Patrick Leddin: church.
Dallas Burnett: Wow.
Patrick Leddin: on the south side of Chicago.
His house was probably like three blocks from mine.
I mean, I could ride my bike
Dallas Burnett: Oh my goodness.
Patrick Leddin: in the seventies.
I didn't know him.
my oldest brother actually went K through eight with him, so he knew him.
I did know his mom, 'cause his mom was pretty big in our church.
and as a growing up as a Catholic family, I was an altar boy and
he was an altar boy and all that.
So I like to jokingly say that, probably when I was baptized,
the pope was like my altar boy.
I dunno.
So anyway,
Dallas Burnett: That's awesome.
Patrick Leddin: the youngest of five.
My dad, worked for the phone
Dallas Burnett: Okay.
Patrick Leddin: and, attended bar and did a couple other
things to kinda make ends meet.
I came out of, high school, not really sure what I was gonna do.
I went to community college first and, quickly Didn't do well, put it that
way, and decided I better join the army.
So
Dallas Burnett: Hmm.
Patrick Leddin: the Army and I started to get my life on track a bit.
I was pretty decent at the army.
I don't know, they just told me, turn right.
I turned right.
They told me turn left.
I turned left, told me, shut up, I'd shut up.
And there they like rewarded you for that.
So I just kept going.
So.
I ended up going through my undergraduate using a scholarship
from the Army and, went to infantry school, airborne School, ranger School.
Ended up going to a unit called the 82nd Airborne
Dallas Burnett: Wow.
Wow.
Patrick Leddin: married pretty early, got married right outta
college to my wife Jamie.
so we've been married 34 years now.
Dallas Burnett: Congratulations.
Patrick Leddin: yeah.
Yeah.
And I have two grandkids.
so the time in the military was mostly spent at Fort Benning and Fort Bragg.
got to jump outta planes and lead soldiers in the 82nd Airborne Division.
My last job was a company commander in the 82nd Airborne Division,
and then I went, I made a 180.
I decided, okay, I wanna do something different.
Dallas Burnett: Hmm.
Patrick Leddin: I got out and I went into consulting and I went into KPMG
consulting, which was literally at the time I jokingly said it was going from.
Bdu, battle dress uniforms to Brooks Brothers because it was
like a complete different setting.
And the reason I went there, a buddy of mine said, what are you gonna do?
I said, I'm not exactly sure.
He is like, well, come join us at KPMG.
I'm like, what do you do?
He is like, we build slides and make spreadsheets.
I'm like.
Okay, that sounds okay.
He's like, get to wear a suit.
I'm like, okay.
So I got there and I just, I hit it at the right time on the project that I was on.
when I first showed up, there were two people from KPOG on this
project, and I was the second person.
Dallas Burnett: Wow,
Patrick Leddin: we reported to another company that was the
primary contractor on this project.
fast forward three years later and I'm in charge of the project, the subcontract,
the other contracting company's gone, and I've got 38 people reporting to me in a
Dallas Burnett: good
Patrick Leddin: project.
Dallas Burnett: gracious.
Patrick Leddin: from zero to 12 million in, in a few years.
And I actually decided at that point I'm gonna start my own gig.
So I
Dallas Burnett: Wow.
Patrick Leddin: Started that and my wife and I did it together.
I started as a, what we would now call a side hustle Dallas, but we
didn't have side hustles back then.
It was a side hustle and I was moonlighting
Dallas Burnett: All right.
Patrick Leddin: bi business and suddenly it was like taking off.
So I decided to leave KPMG.
I started working in a human, created a human capital consulting firm.
got to work with a lot of great partners like Franklin Covey,
and a ton of great clients.
And we sold that in when, 12 years later.
Dallas Burnett: 12
Patrick Leddin: a few offices, we
Dallas Burnett: years later.
Patrick Leddin: 12 years later, somebody came along and made
us an offer we couldn't refuse.
We sold it and along the way the army kept paying for school, like
the GI Bill and all that stuff.
So I
Dallas Burnett: Yeah,
Patrick Leddin: keep going to school.
Dallas Burnett: sure.
Patrick Leddin: I got my doctorate along the way from the University
of Kentucky Then after we sold the business, I'm like, okay, I
guess I'll, I'm gonna try teaching.
So I like, where do I want to go?
And I said, Vanderbilt's a great school.
I wanna live in Nashville, see if I can get in there.
Dallas Burnett: That's awesome.
Patrick Leddin: as my then 80 some year old, aunt told me, she goes, get your
foot in that door and just keep pushing.
So I said I did, I got in, I started for a summer.
I got offered a full-time contract.
And, then I became the director of the program of the largest program at
the university undergraduate business.
Dallas Burnett: Wow.
Patrick Leddin: there for 12 years.
And that's where I met James Patterson.
And I decided once we started launching this, research project that the university
sponsored on disruption that I ran for a few years, once the book came out,
I'm like, okay, twenties, were running around the woods in the army, thirties
to forties, building a business into my fifties teaching college students
and now I'm gonna change the world.
Dallas Burnett: You gonna change the world, it's time to change the world.
I love it, man.
That's so cool.
Patrick Leddin: the world needs a little changing.
So.
Dallas Burnett: Oh, listen.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Patrick Leddin: those are all the highlights, man.
There's plenty of screw up mistakes,
Dallas Burnett: no.
Patrick Leddin: balls, you name it.
We could dig into all those too.
Dallas Burnett: No, it's really good because I feel like that, and
we were talking before the show and you were telling me something
about your experience and stuff.
It just, you just had a variety.
I love, I love guests that, that have this breadth of experience because
you have such perspective on different things and going from the military
to consulting, then to education.
You've got this breadth of experience that, that you, have.
Amassed.
And I just think that's really fun.
I wanna talk to you a little bit about resilience.
We're coming into the end of the year and, people are, you know, kind of
gearing up for the holiday season, but man, they're probably, some people are
probably like, woo, I need a break.
'cause they've been grinding hard this fall and resilience is
something that's so important.
And, we do a lot of work around burnout and resilience as well.
Battling, battling burnout and finding out how to be more resilient.
We were talking before and parachuting out of the jumping out of planes,
like something like 69 times, which is, oh my gosh, this is incredible.
But one of those times you actually injured yourself, in your back.
what is it about that would you say about that experience that really kind of taught
you some things about resilience that you carried through the rest of your career?
Patrick Leddin: Well that incident that you're talking about, so yeah, I did jump.
I was, I jumped 69 times.
I kinda wish I'd done one more.
70 seems like a nice, even number was really great.
And it's funny jumping in the military, especially in conventional.
I'm not, I wasn't in the special forces unit, so they tend to get up
in helicopters and jump out pretty quick, maybe do a few in a day.
The conventional forces, when you're just dealing with a lot of soldiers, it
just takes a lot of time for every jump.
so you're gonna jump onto the plane at two o'clock in the
morning, which is a normal time.
you're gonna be reporting at about noon, like 14 hours ahead of
Dallas Burnett: Oh my
Patrick Leddin: because there's lots of inspections and making
sure everybody's in the right order and the manifest is correct.
And there's all that type of stuff.
if you have hundreds or thousands of soldiers are all lined up in a field and
then you have to get on buses or they call 'em camel cars, like you would literally.
Put cattle in, stick everybody in there, drive them down and you gotta go through.
Then you gotta get your para, you gotta rehearse everything.
Then you have to put your parachutes on.
Then it has to be inspected, and it's just a big, it's a big long process.
And then of course, when you fly in the airplane, the Air
Force is getting training too.
So it's not like you just get in the plane, they drive you over,
fly you over and you jump out.
They fly around for two hours or something like that.
Dallas Burnett: Oh my
Patrick Leddin: So
Dallas Burnett: goodness.
Patrick Leddin: pro.
My point is a long process.
for 69 jumps I probably tried to jump 120 times with weather
and this, that, and the other.
All
Dallas Burnett: Oh
Patrick Leddin: that
Dallas Burnett: wow.
Patrick Leddin: yeah.
So this one particular jump.
there's a thing that can happen.
There's lots of things that can happen that can go sideways, right?
Your parachute might not open,
Dallas Burnett: Hmm.
Patrick Leddin: great.
these are static line jumps.
So you jump out of the plane and the plane, maintains your static line.
It deploys your parachute for you, only jumping from 800 feet.
So if you jump out of the plane and you have four seconds for your parachute
to open, if it doesn't open in four seconds, you have three seconds basically
to react before you hit the ground.
So seven seconds to fall, about 800
Dallas Burnett: Good.
Patrick Leddin: it's, it's,
Dallas Burnett: Right.
Patrick Leddin: different than like 10,000 or 20,000 foot jumps.
when I jumped, you would jumped pri, primarily two airplanes and one held
64 people, and the other one held 120.
In either case.
In both of those instances, a plane would fly over the drop
zone, and in one minute's time everybody would be in the air.
So 120 people dump out of a plane in one minute.
Theoretically.
Theoretically, the idea Dallas, is that they open up the two back doors on the
plane, the side doors, and you obviously you have half the plane going out, one
door, half plane going out the other door.
Everybody extends their arms, so they are separated by about one second,
and in theory, the first jumper goes out and then the next jumper goes out.
And then theoretically, you imagine everybody's staggered all the way down.
So we have spac.
But sometimes that doesn't happen.
And what you're referring to, it didn't happen.
So I jump out of the plane that night and I go, I count 1000, 2000, 3000, 4,000.
That's when you check for your parachute and you could feel it tugging.
so I was like 1000, 2000, 3000, ugh.
Because I got hit in the back of my neck by somebody else's boot.
we just hit underneath the airplane then, that's not the desired thing to happen,
but there's drills so you know what to do.
And I was a jump master, so that meant I put people on airplanes too.
So, um, like in, in the Army, not to go too deep into this, but there's three
different levels of parachute, wings.
So you have the basic wings, which means you've jumped five times
and you went to airborne school.
You have the senior wings, which puts a star over the top of them.
That means you're a jump master, you've done certain things, and you've
jumped, I think 30 times is the number.
And then, the next and so many years on jump status, and then
the next level or the high.
S level is Aretha around it, which is a jump master, a master para I should say.
And that's what I was, so I jumped a lot of times and all that and
put a lot of people on airplanes, so I knew the drills really well.
In this particular case, when you're hit, when you're a tangled parachute, that's
called a high altitude entanglement.
opposed to low altitude, you might steer into each other.
This is higher altitude.
It just happens.
So I look up and the, what you don't wanna see is you don't wanna see what they call
a cigarette roll, which is basically your parachute just rolled up into itself.
Dallas Burnett: Hmm.
Patrick Leddin: you have no parachute.
But I looked up, but we didn't have that.
We actually had two full canopies, which is the best case scenario.
the second best case scenario is you have one full parachute.
You can still make it with two people, but two is great.
So the problem is you can't control how you land or anything like that.
we came down the whole way the, I remember the jumper above me the whole time.
He was above me.
I was below him and I was talking to him in the air.
I was just telling him, okay, don't worry, we have two full canopies,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
We'll be safe.
Just hang in there.
Don't pull.
Do not pull your reserve, parachute.
'cause that can complicate things, you know?
Just stay with what we got.
And we came all the way down to the ground.
It was funny.
I was calm all the way down to the ground.
I was calm.
And then we hit the ground pretty hard 'cause.
you're not controlling for wind or anything.
You're just hitting the ground.
And I hit the ground and this old army sergeant major came running up.
I didn't know he was a sergeant major at first.
It was dark.
He just saw us, he saw that we were tied together in, in the air as we came down.
So he ran over to see if we were okay.
he said, are you okay?
And I stood up and I said yes.
And then I was like, holy crap, what just happened?
That's when it like hit me.
I was like, oh my gosh.
Dallas Burnett: oh
Patrick Leddin: So anyway, that,
Dallas Burnett: my gosh.
Patrick Leddin: the story of that particular situation.
I could, it does extend because I had a bad habit.
that my would frustrate my wife.
So you go on these, you go on these parachute jumps or late time, late
night operations or whatever, and you might get home at three or four in the
morning and your face is camouflage, you're covered in camouflage paint, and
you're just, you're tired, exhausted.
So I would do like the world's worst shower, you know, kind of shower off.
And I'd usually get in trouble for, leaving camouflage on the pillows
or whatever, and not getting it all off by my ears or whatever.
And and I remember that particular morning she woke me up and she's like.
What happened to you?
I'm like, what are you talking about?
She goes, you have a boot mark on the back of your neck.
Dallas Burnett: Oh
Patrick Leddin: that's,
Dallas Burnett: my
Patrick Leddin: I actually had a boot
Dallas Burnett: goodness.
Patrick Leddin: the,
Dallas Burnett: Gracious day.
Patrick Leddin: see the outline of this bruise.
Dallas Burnett: Good
Patrick Leddin: yeah, that still
Dallas Burnett: gracious.
Patrick Leddin: me a little bit of hassle.
Right now I'm dealing with, three bulging discs in my neck
Dallas Burnett: Oh
Patrick Leddin: and it's been, you know, 25 years.
But
Dallas Burnett: man.
Patrick Leddin: it turns out the guy who I was tangled up
with was one of my soldiers.
Which I didn't know because
Dallas Burnett: Oh.
Patrick Leddin: you're all mixed in these planes and stuff.
so yeah, it was Corporal Davidson was his name at the time.
Yeah.
so anyway, what that taught me is, a couple things like, you can't prepare
for every crisis or every disruption.
that's one of the biggest challenges we deal with right now is that.
Tomorrow, the world can be different and there's no playbook.
Dallas Burnett: Hmm.
Patrick Leddin: in that particular case, there was a playbook.
I knew the process to follow, and I trusted what I'd been taught to do.
I tried to keep myself as calm as possible.
It wasn't the first time I'd ever jumped out of a plane.
So you talk about resilience.
Resilience in my opinion, isn't built by like, get in the room for two hours.
We're gonna teach about resilience.
You're gonna come out, you're gonna be
Dallas Burnett: No.
No.
Patrick Leddin: you build up resilience by getting lots of reps. And getting knocked
down and getting back up again and again.
And you start to learn okay, I survived that.
I learned something, I can get better.
So if it had been my very first jump, I don't know if it would've got me back
in an airplane, but because it was like, probably like my 40th at that point,
I was like, yeah, I keep doing it.
The only time I was ever like, nervous jumping outta a plane,
honestly was probably my last jump because, it's your last
Dallas Burnett: Oh, right.
Patrick Leddin: you know, something could go bad type of
Dallas Burnett: Yeah.
Patrick Leddin: but somebody asked me one time like.
She went to ranger school.
What was it like to go to ranger school?
And I'm like, well, I didn't get up outta bed one day as a teenager.
I'm like, I'm gonna go to ranger school.
you work your way toward it.
And that's what we do in life,
Dallas Burnett: Right.
Patrick Leddin: People listening to this podcast, if they look at where
they're at right now, even if they see lots of great things they want to
achieve going forward, which is awesome,
Dallas Burnett: sometimes
Patrick Leddin: you can get a little down on yourself
just like, look at your resume.
And not to print it out.
Beautiful one, just like go through your experiences, chart it out and
you realize, man, I've had lots of ups and downs and I figured that
out and I can figure this out too.
Dallas Burnett: Yeah.
Patrick Leddin: that's what makes, life exciting
Dallas Burnett: Yeah.
Patrick Leddin: to try to figure these things out.
Dallas Burnett: What's amazing to me is that you got a boot mark on your neck
at like the 40th jump, and you're like, yeah, I got another, 20 or 30 left in me.
that's incredible, man.
That's, that is resilient.
I mean.
Patrick Leddin: know, I, it had to be something like that because it happened
around 1995 and I didn't stop jumping until almost the end of 97, so, yeah.
Dallas Burnett: Wow.
Patrick Leddin: it
Dallas Burnett: Just moving, just keeping moving.
that's awesome.
Well, you know, I think this, that's a great story about moving through
that and just dealing with it.
But, and I love how you talk about resilience is that resilience is not
something you necessarily get in a class and it's more action oriented.
it's like, I love how you said it, it's getting the reps. And it's getting knocked
down and getting, and getting back up.
'cause I think that's exactly right.
when we, have some type of failure.
I love, uh, I was, we had a speaker one time that was a Navy Seal and
he said that he had a company.
And it, and bless their heart, I know whoever was coming into
the company, they had no idea what they were about to get into.
They walk in and they're in this interview and they push their resume across
the table and he just like crumples it up and throws it in the trash.
And he is like, I don't care about this.
This is your glossy whatever resume.
He goes,
Patrick Leddin: Oh,
Dallas Burnett: I wanna see your reverse resume.
And then he slides his reverse resume across the table, which is,
you know, all the failures and the, the things that didn't go your way
and all the things that, you know.
Patrick Leddin: That that's a great
Dallas Burnett: Yeah.
Patrick Leddin: I call it the white space, but it's the same type of thing I have.
I've had students, especially students, 18 to 22-year-old, you're
trying to figure out like, what do you wanna do in your career, in
life, and, I think I'm like, I'm 57.
I'm
Dallas Burnett: Yeah.
Patrick Leddin: all that
Dallas Burnett: Good luck.
That's right.
Patrick Leddin: you're trying to figure this out and then you come across
and some of them were like, attracted to what I've done or what, whatever.
And they might look at my resume on LinkedIn and they'll say, can we grab
a coffee and talk about like, how did you do this, that, and the other.
I'm like, guys, that's.
Dallas Burnett: Yeah.
Yeah.
Patrick Leddin: all the lessons are learned in the white I didn't dare to
Dallas Burnett: yeah,
Patrick Leddin: of thing,
Dallas Burnett: exactly.
Patrick Leddin: world might, yeah, it, maybe I should put 'em all out there.
I love that idea.
The reverse
Dallas Burnett: Yeah.
Patrick Leddin: I said, the white space, that's where all the lessons are
Dallas Burnett: That's it.
Yeah.
Patrick Leddin: this award or achieved this thing or whatever it might be.
Yeah.
I didn't do it like out the gate.
In fact, I screwed up five times.
and then I figured I was the last person that would ever be
recognized for whatever, and then it
Dallas Burnett: Yes,
Patrick Leddin: which is great too.
Dallas Burnett: I.
Patrick Leddin: Yeah, that's, I mean, I, I told you, I started off saying
I, I dropped outta community college.
I mean, that's, that's not the best, that's not the best, you know, but, but
the funny thing was, I didn't talk about that for, I didn't talk about it for 20
Dallas Burnett: Yes.
Right.
Patrick Leddin: wife didn't know about it
Dallas Burnett: Yeah.
Patrick Leddin: years,
Dallas Burnett: Oh, wow.
Patrick Leddin: she's like, what?
I'm like, well, you know, I like the pool hall a
Dallas Burnett: Right.
Patrick Leddin: was fun.
That's not, that is true.
The.
Dallas Burnett: Well, I think that's so true though.
I think the resilient, there's a, you know, there's a saying that you either
win or you learn, there's no losing.
You just win or learn.
And I think that would be something that would be akin to what you're saying
because when we quote unquote, lose.
If we learn, then it's not real loss.
And that's really what keeps you moving.
That's a resilient person.
Because if I lose, yeah, okay.
I lost, but I took this nugget with me and that helps me next time.
And then next time a little better.
it's that kind of curiosity and improvement and all of
that kind of rolled into one.
So I love that.
Patrick Leddin: Although I do, although you know that people say sometimes oh,
there's no such thing as a problem.
They're all opportunities.
Sometimes there's problems sometimes I don't wanna learn, I don't wanna grow,
I don't wanna develop, I just wanna take care of this thing and never see
Dallas Burnett: Yeah.
Patrick Leddin: And, and I'm okay with that.
Dallas Burnett: Yeah.
Patrick Leddin: Like fixing something around my house.
I don't look to be a handyman.
I'll pull out the YouTube video.
I'll figure this thing out, and I'll hopefully
Dallas Burnett: Never have to do it again.
Agreed.
Agreed a hundred percent.
Well, I wanna talk a little bit about your work because I think that, I was
just listening to this clip the other day and, it was very interesting and
they were talking about the national debt and they were essentially like,
this is a problem that's so bad that it ultimately, it's gonna be very difficult
to solve because it just, because of what would be necessary to do it.
Unless we have this massive innovation and, you know, robotics and AI essentially
increase the productivity of our economy so much that we can essentially outrun.
the debt and the interest in pay it all off.
And I was like, wow.
I don't know if that's like, I, I was sitting there like, man, I don't know
if I'm encouraged that there is a way or if that is the way and that's
just terrifying the way that there, the way that they would position it.
Patrick Leddin: we'll grow our way out of
Dallas Burnett: Yes, yes.
Yeah.
And and they weren't saying that we couldn't cut spending.
It was just saying that the likelihood that you can do that in
this democracy is, would be tough because of all the political stuff.
but I was looking at that and I was like, you know, we're having
these conversations right now.
Literal conversations that when I was a kid was like, science fiction,
we're creating, like, I don't know that, the Star Trek with that guy,
that was a robot data, you know, I mean, like we're talking about, we're
talking about that actually being real
Patrick Leddin: talking Star Trek, the next
Dallas Burnett: The next Gen.
It's not even the first, it's not even the first Star Trek.
It's the second Star Trek.
So
Patrick Leddin: Yeah.
Dallas Burnett: that's coming.
There's so many things coming to reality right now, and I think that
the speed of these things that people, especially in the workforce leaders that
they're trying to manage through and lead through the speed of change it.
We thought it accelerated in the last 20 years, but it's, it feels like it's
picking up and getting even faster.
And there's even more disruptions with this AI technology and
robotics coming out, even quantum, computing and all these things.
It's on the horizon that's not that far off that, that are actually
Patrick Leddin: Yep.
Dallas Burnett: very quickly.
So I thought this was a fantastic, your work on in disruption, was so important
and so relevant and timely because.
It is exactly what a lot of leaders are facing right now
in their work and at home.
and I think there's a lot of fear that goes along with that, right?
So people are.
Wondering if the, if my job is, you know, I think this, this last month a Amazon
laid off a lot of workers and I'm, I mean, I think that a lot of that has to do with
some of them being able to be, replaced by either robotics or AI or whatever.
And so it's like people looking around, kinda looking over their shoulder
like, what am I supposed to do here?
And yet this is an incredible opportunity that we are on the cusp of, so I
would love to just hear your thoughts.
First of all, what inspired you to write the book?
Patrick Leddin: Oh, thanks.
Yeah.
So, um, when COVID hit, I imagine most people on this have heard of that.
When COVID hit at the, where I was at the university and the chancellor
sent out through his office a note.
asking professors, if anybody's willing to teach a class online up
to a hundred students, let us know.
And just to put that in perspective, Vanderbilt wasn't teaching anything
really online, and classes really weren't a hundred people, right?
So
Dallas Burnett: Wow.
Patrick Leddin: it.
You go to Vanderbilt and you're gonna sit in a class with 25 people and you're
gonna be taught by a professor, not a ta.
It's a very, you know, kind of experience.
And, so I thought, this is an interesting opportunity.
I'd like to teach a class on leading business through crisis.
It was something I was interested in.
I'd done some work in, I wanted to do that class.
It seemed like a topic that was relevant, certainly based upon going into COVID.
So they approved it and I started teaching it.
then COVID, ended petered out.
We came back, whatever you wanna say.
Yeah.
With COVID, nobody wants to say
Dallas Burnett: Yeah, yeah,
Patrick Leddin: show up
Dallas Burnett: yeah.
Patrick Leddin: but we got back in the classroom and the class kept going.
Well, unbeknownst to me, a gentleman named Michael Ainsley who had.
Michael Ainsley was the former CEO of Sotheby's, the auction house.
Dallas Burnett: Yes.
Patrick Leddin: a Vanderbilt alum.
He had a crazy ride because he was on the board of Lehman Brothers
when Lehman Brothers collapsed.
Dallas Burnett: Oh my
Patrick Leddin: having to deal with that.
Dallas Burnett: goodness.
Patrick Leddin: he's a Vanderbilt alum who was asked by someone else to go
speak at a class at Brown University.
And Michael went up and spoke at Brown University.
It was a class about dealing with adversity.
And when that, when he was done with that, he came back and he said to
the Chancellor at Vanderbilt, we should have this class at Vanderbilt.
These guest speakers.
And then have you ever seen that Plinko game on, on prices?
Dallas Burnett: Yes.
Patrick Leddin: if people aren't familiar with it, you're in these,
you, I guess you guess on prizes and you get the price right?
And you get these chips kind of, um, you know, these discs and you climb
up to the top of this board and you drop the disc in and it kind of bing,
bing, bing binging, pops through the pegs on the board and lands in a slot.
And sometimes you get money and sometimes you get no money or whatever it might be.
It's
Dallas Burnett: Right.
Patrick Leddin: kind of a random thing.
I felt like it was a little game of Plinko that happened because here I
am, a professor running a program.
Tom, the bottom, I'm at the bottom.
The board and the chancellor drops this Plinko chip in and it bing,
bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing.
And it lands on me because they said, oh my gosh, you wanna do class on adversity?
This guy does a class on disruption.
Why partner you two together?
partnered with Michael Ansley and the idea was we'll do one section every
semester where we have guest speakers come in for the entire session.
So.
It was, it was really interesting.
So one example I would give is we would have Doug Parker come in,
who was the chairman at the time of, CEO of American Airlines.
come in with Sarah, Nelson, who was the, president of the
Flight Attendants Association.
So you got labor and management coming in, in front of 25 students to talk
about how they dealt with crisis.
Just really interesting conversations.
Right?
And one gentleman who joined us one class session was James Patterson, the author.
Dallas Burnett: Wow.
Patrick Leddin: James Patterson started out by telling his story.
He said to the students, he said, first of all, he said, are you living a good
life or do you feel like you're on one treadmill just to get another treadmill?
Just to get another treadmill just to.
it up, you know what's going, you know how you see your life.
And he said, I'm, he said, I'm living a good life.
And here's how I went about doing it.
And he talked about how
Dallas Burnett: Wow.
Patrick Leddin: people don't typically know this, but he was the CEO at one
point of Jay Walter Thompson, which is the largest, advertising agency at the time.
He was the CEO of that at 38 years old.
Dallas Burnett: Oh my
Patrick Leddin: creative
Dallas Burnett: goodness
Patrick Leddin: or something like that.
Dallas Burnett: I did not know that.
Wow.
Patrick Leddin: Yeah, getting the job.
He said, I disrupted their whole process because you had to bring a
portfolio of ads that you make up in and drop the portfolio off, and
they review it and they see if they like it or not for an interview.
He brought in one, one week, then he made up a whole different one and brought
it the second week and then a whole different one and brought the third week.
He's like, thankfully they hired me on the fourth week, but he disrupted
their whole hiring process He took over as CEO and he kinda had the itch.
He wasn't fulfilled by it.
He had been writing something on the side and he decided, you know what?
I'm gonna, I'm gonna quit the role of CEO of this company,
which he'd been very successful.
I mean, James Patterson wrote the line, I'm a toys us kid,
Dallas Burnett: Oh my
Patrick Leddin: he's like
Dallas Burnett: gosh.
Oh
Patrick Leddin: at advertising,
Dallas Burnett: my gosh.
Patrick Leddin: writing.
Yeah.
So he jumped out of the, advertising world and went all in on writing,
and then he just disrupted writing.
He got in there and he said, why do we only write one, book a year?
Why?
Why is that the rule?
Why can't we do several?
Why do we have to only write in one genre?
Why can't I write in several?
Why is it wrong to write with different authors?
Why can't I write with lots of partners?
And he just did all, and now he's, I mean, his numbers are staggering.
Over 425 million books sold.
Dallas Burnett: I had no idea.
Patrick Leddin: you say nobody gets wealthy writing books?
Well, there's one, him and JK Rowling, he, writes with multiple authors.
He, writes in multiple genres.
I think he put out nine books this year.
Dallas Burnett: What.
Patrick Leddin: from working with him, yeah, with working with him,
he's very engaged in all nine books.
It's pretty wild.
So anyway, he went through this whole thing in the presentation.
He called it the Power of Disruption.
And when it was over, I was like.
That's really interesting.
I would love to dig more into how do people take a curve ball thrown at them
approach it, at least from a positive perspective instead of saying, oh
gosh, this is gonna destroy everything.
Dallas Burnett: Mm.
Patrick Leddin: of that, they look at it and go, is this fertile ground?
Dallas Burnett: Mm
Patrick Leddin: cool that could happen
Dallas Burnett: mm.
Patrick Leddin: So I approach them and.
Note to everyone.
Don't do what I do.
I did.
So I sent him a note that basically said, I like you, you like me?
Let's write a book together.
He did.
he didn't answer that note.
10, 10 days, 10 days later, I gave it a second shot.
And this time I was a little bit more like, here's why I
think it would make sense.
And when I started my business years ago, um, I, like I mentioned Franklin Covey,
I got really close to them very early on.
They were, I did a lot of contract work with them.
They were a client of mine.
I had a chance to work with Steven Covey, who wrote Seven
Habits, highly Effective People,
Dallas Burnett: Wow.
Patrick Leddin: get a little close to him.
So I saw how it worked and I was able to explain like, here's what
could happen if we did a book in this space and did it well.
It could impact a lot of people, et cetera, et cetera.
And he said, okay, let's do it.
then it was a little bit like, okay, let's do it.
What does that mean?
And trying to figure out the dance for the partner is always
Dallas Burnett: Wow.
Patrick Leddin: And us about 10 months to get the, the outline where we felt
Dallas Burnett: Mm-hmm.
Patrick Leddin: and.
About eight months into working on that, I, I approached, I went back
to the Chancellor at Vanderbilt and I, this is kind of crazy.
this is crazy.
So I went to the Chancellor at Vanderbilt, which I built a little bit of rapport
with him, but in general, you kind of avoid the chancellor, I mean, right.
You don't, you don't go, you don't go there.
You don't go there unless you need to.
But I thought, I think I've got this interesting opportunity.
So I went to the Chancellor, and this is exactly what I said.
I said, chancellor, dear Meyer, I have a 15%, one 5% chance of writing a book
with the world's bestselling author.
If you give me what I want, it'll be a 50% chance, and if I do what I promise you
I'm going to do every month, the chance of that happening will go up two to 3%.
He's what do you need?
I said, I need some funding for a research team.
And he said, you got it.
So tech, I guess at that moment, I walked out the door with 50%, now I promised to
him that I was gonna do two to 3% work every month and move it toward a hundred.
If you take two to 3% and average those out, that's obviously
two point a half percent.
If you had two and a half percent every month to that 50% the month it hit 100%.
We sold the book.
Dallas Burnett: Good gracious day.
Hey, hey, that's
Patrick Leddin: you know, there's a
Dallas Burnett: a heck of estimator right there.
Patrick Leddin: in, there's a lot of value in spreadsheets.
There's also a lot of value in the back of the
Dallas Burnett: Yeah,
Patrick Leddin: and just lead it to your experience.
yeah.
So that was kind of crazy.
obviously I made an appointment with him and said, Hey, here's the math a
hundred percent we just sold the book.
Dallas Burnett: that's ins.
Patrick Leddin: yeah.
Dallas Burnett: That's incredible.
Oh my gosh.
Patrick Leddin: that project we worked on, it took about two and a half years,
two and a half, three years of research where we went out and we interviewed, 350
people and you do long form interviews.
You know
Dallas Burnett: Mm-hmm.
Patrick Leddin: it takes to 350 people,
Dallas Burnett: oh,
Patrick Leddin: took a
Dallas Burnett: that's a long time.
Patrick Leddin: and doing them, and then.
Going through the transcripts and coding it and trying to figure it out.
We're trying to figure out, obviously when you're going through these people, you're
looking for people who do certain things.
People who've had certain experiences who have dealt with adversity or challenges.
And then we went through those and we started to realize what's the pattern?
What did they tend to do
Dallas Burnett: Hmm.
Patrick Leddin: and what strengths did they have?
Are there consistent strengths?
And so that's what the book is really about.
It's a book of their, ended up being a book of 32 of those 350 stories.
But it's not just a book of story.
I mean, books of
Dallas Burnett: Wow.
Patrick Leddin: great.
but each story advances a, an idea.
like the first story in the book is all about understanding the fire inside you
or in your team or in your organization, like understanding kinda your purpose.
Dallas Burnett: hmm.
Patrick Leddin: And we used a story there about a young lady who, became the
first black, puppeteer, on Sesame Street.
how she got a message during COVID and said, Hey, are you
still interested in doing this?
And she's like, oh my gosh, yes.
And how she, with two young kids who still figured out how do I do this?
During COVID with my two kids, trained to be a puppeteer.
And I actually had dinner with her.
I saw her this past Saturday, and I said, Hey, I'm gonna be
in New York on x, y, Z day.
And she said, we're gonna be there too.
She said, you should come by and visit Sesame Street.
So I might get to go see
Dallas Burnett: Oh, that's so cool.
Oh, that, I would love to do that.
that's a great visit right there, man.
Patrick Leddin: So there's lots, and every story kind of builds on the idea.
It introduces the mindsets and the roles you could take on,
the behaviors you could take on.
And some of the stories are, really well-known people that we interviewed.
There's a few of them in there where people are like, oh,
I kind of know that person.
But a lot of them are people you've never heard of before.
So I say it's like household names to un unsung heroes.
'cause there's a lot of people, it's like, I didn't know that
person, but that's really
Dallas Burnett: I think that's really good though, because
that makes it relatable, right?
So if you're only reading about CEOs and Hollywood actors and the person that maybe
doesn't see themselves or put themselves in that category may just disconnect.
But if you have that mix of this is people that's just from every
day to, to famous or, influential.
I mean, I think that just makes it more, It just makes it more tangible
for everybody, for all the readers, and it's very interesting too.
Patrick Leddin: mi you want a couple ones that are like really aspir,
like they're all aspirational in a way, but some of they're like,
wow, that is, I'd be reaching for the stars if I was that person.
And then some of them are like, I can relate to that.
Dallas Burnett: Yeah.
Patrick Leddin: situation.
You wanna mix them in there.
And that's where the research team is really great at helping me think
through Which one will work here and then run it by Jim and see what he
think Patterson, see what he thinks.
And and just really trying to figure out, 'cause the other side
of the coin is like, gosh, you still have, 318 really great stories out
Dallas Burnett: Oh wow.
Patrick Leddin: all of them informed the book in various ways, but just
all of 'em couldn't make it in,
Dallas Burnett: So
Patrick Leddin: unfortunately.
Dallas Burnett: ask you a bit, 'cause whenever I interview,
especially in this format, I'm always, there's always surprises.
Like in these conversations, you just, you come away and you're like, ha.
I did not know that that was An unexpected, surprise.
So what was something out of those interviews that would you say in going
through this process and looking at all the transcripts and reviewing
all this, was there anything that jumps out in your mind that was the
biggest surprise out of this project?
Patrick Leddin: Yeah, there's a few things.
kind of more macro thing is when we were going through the process of trying to
figure out the behaviors, so what are the behaviors that these people exhibit?
We didn't find a tight list of three.
Dallas Burnett: Mm.
Patrick Leddin: didn't find if you do these three things, you're gonna
be a great positive disruptor in the
Dallas Burnett: Mm
Patrick Leddin: What we found is about 16, we not about, we found 16
behaviors that we kept showing up.
They kind of rose to the
Dallas Burnett: mm.
Patrick Leddin: What's interesting is no one was killing on all of them.
some people were good at like one, seven and nine, and some people
were good, good at two, 10 and
Dallas Burnett: Wow.
Patrick Leddin: and there was no magic combination.
If you had this one, you were guaranteed to nail it.
what I took away from that really was that.
All of us have some positive disruptor strengths.
And these are things like a vision.
looking at the brutal reality of where you stand.
That's one thing to like cast a vision.
It's another thing to go, okay, I wanna be a basketball player
in the NBA, but you know, I'm 57
Dallas Burnett: Yeah.
Patrick Leddin: five eight.
That's not gonna happen.
Right?
But some people are good at one, some people are good at others,
some people are good at both.
another behavior would be something like, they stand firm in the face of doubters.
When people tell them they can't do it, they're like holding from
yeah, I can make this happen.
Other people had really good instincts.
They could trust their guts.
Other, some people you would not wanna go to Vegas with, they don't
Dallas Burnett: Yeah.
Patrick Leddin: good instincts at all.
Right?
So, so the neat thing about it is we all, I would argue that everybody,
'cause I've talked to a lot of audiences, not go through the behaviors
with them and they'll raise their hands at the ones they think they're
strong at and they all show up.
Different people have different things.
So I think that's one of the beauties of this.
and it isn't like a situation where it's like, oh, if you violate one of
these, you blow up the whole thing.
It's like, no, some of these people violated some of these things too,
but they leaned into their strengths.
So I think that at the macro level, kinda really stuck with me.
more specifically.
There was one instance that really stuck with me and actually.
I mentioned Franklin Covey.
Patterson and I sold a license to build a course on the book that Franklin Covey's
launching November 17th of this year.
Dallas Burnett: Wow.
Patrick Leddin: And, yeah, it's about innovation and they found one of
the stories as compelling as I did.
They went down to Florida and filmed this story.
But it's a story about a guy named Tom Diri.
and very quickly for the audience, Tom lives in South Florida.
was in school 22 years old, getting outta college, planned to go to Manhattan
and work in consulting, but at the same time, he was concerned about his.
Brother Andrew, who was 20 at the time and was aging out of
the school system in Florida and Andrew's on the autism spectrum.
And Tom was kinda like, I'm gonna do this.
I could have this great consulting career, but what was my brother going to do?
Tom, that was a disruptive moment.
what's he going to do?
fast forward to today, Tom is currently the, owner and operator
of three car washes in Florida called Rising Tide Car Wash.
And of their 100 employees, 90 of them are in the autism spectrum.
Dallas Burnett: Oh
Patrick Leddin: it's just an amazing story.
If you're
Dallas Burnett: Oh wow.
Patrick Leddin: go to the car wash.
Right?
And by the way, they're more productive and more profitable
Dallas Burnett: Oh,
Patrick Leddin: other car
Dallas Burnett: a hundred percent.
Patrick Leddin: the
Dallas Burnett: A hundred percent.
Yeah.
Patrick Leddin: it isn't because it isn't just because of the
goodness of the cause, right?
I mean, people might be like, oh, I really care about this, cause
I'm gonna take my car there.
People will do that, but if their car's not getting clean, they're
not gonna keep coming back.
Tom had to learn how to kinda work his way through.
it's a great story.
It's an amazing story, of a positive disruptor that's an unsung hero that
most of us never heard about, that people will start going, who's Tom Dei?
And I love to be able to tell that story, but what really, what, for me
personally, what kind of hit me was.
I went down and interviewed him.
We got a chance to, I got a chance to tour the place and this is like when the
book was still on a hope and a prayer.
Dallas Burnett: Hmm.
Patrick Leddin: sit down in the break room slash office of the car wash.
I'd never been folks, I'd never been in the break room, supply
room, office of a car wash.
I'd always been in the other room adjacent to it where you get the stale
Dallas Burnett: Yeah.
Right.
Patrick Leddin: in this room.
I'm in this room with Tom, and we're talking for about an hour and a half.
And as we were finishing up.
put it in perspective, the room is crowded and congested.
It has like supplies in there for cleaning.
It has supplies in there for the vending machines.
It has a couple desks and people's clothing, and it's just, it's compact.
Tom's wearing a red polo shirt, and as I'm walking, as I'm walking out, I just turn
around and there's really a lot of value.
I know you do a lot of coaching work and there's a lot of value,
but asking just one more question.
I had one question hit me as I was walking out the door and I turned around and I
said, Tom, just one more question for you.
What would your 22-year-old self say?
What would 22-year-old Tom Diri say if he saw a 30 5-year-old Tom Diri sitting
in a red polo shirt at a car wash?
And what would the kids say?
He was wanting to go to Manhattan, say, when he saw you in today,
and Tom responded, he would say, I'm in the exact right spot.
Dallas Burnett: Wow.
Wow,
Patrick Leddin: let that hit you for a second, right?
I'm in the exact right
Dallas Burnett: man.
Patrick Leddin: first of all, for Tom to know it and know it
like that I'm in the right spot.
I wish that for all of
Dallas Burnett: Oh yeah.
Patrick Leddin: because one of the things we talk about in the research in the
book is there's these four fundamental facts about disruption that we all
just have to wrap our heads around.
first one is, the status quo is a deceptive little devil.
If you like things the way they are, they're not gonna stay that way.
So you know, prepare for tomorrow.
But also if you don't like things the way they are, if you're going
through a really tough time, it's not gonna stay that It's gonna change.
there's a lot of good in that.
Dallas Burnett: Yeah.
Patrick Leddin: second fundamental fact is it's okay that things are going to change
because you're wired to deal with this.
Are we have big brains
Dallas Burnett: Yes.
Patrick Leddin: That can think of amazing things.
we can, do that last 10% really strong.
We can make that choice, right?
Dallas Burnett: Yeah.
Patrick Leddin: We can lean in, we can pull back, we can make, we
can regulate our, how we use our time and a lot of different things.
We also have really great experiences.
We talked about that reverse
resume or that white space We can look at our experience and
go, okay, I got through that.
I can get through this.
And then lastly, we have resources.
We have people around us.
We have technology that our ancestors never had that can do amazing
things, so you're wired to disrupt.
So again, first one
disrupt status quo is a deceptive little devil.
Second one, you're wired to disrupt.
Third one is relationships in life provide headwinds and tailwinds.
They pick you up or they hold you back, and it's really good to surround
yourself with people who lift you up.
And if people are holding you back, it's really good to kind of disrupt that
relationship and have a conversation.
You know, you're going into the holiday period.
Dallas Burnett: Yes.
Patrick Leddin: of people are gonna be going around the dinner table
with people who they feel like have historically held them back.
Now might be the time to disrupt that relationship a bit.
It doesn't mean storming out of the room, it doesn't mean ending it and saying,
I'm never gonna talk to you again.
It might mean putting some new boundaries in
Dallas Burnett: Mm-hmm.
Patrick Leddin: Or it might be like saying, Hey, I'm not
that 15-year-old kid anymore.
Here's who I am today.
Dallas Burnett: Yes.
Patrick Leddin: Right?
And at the same time, you might realize that there's some people around the table
that you're actually holding them back.
Dallas Burnett: Right.
Patrick Leddin: do I do about that?
And
Dallas Burnett: Yeah.
Patrick Leddin: fundamental fact is, the one I wanted to get to on this
thing is that, your time here is finite.
Make it count in ways that matter.
Dallas Burnett: Hmm.
Patrick Leddin: That's what Tom Dey was really showing us that day.
I'm in the exact right place.
I could have went embedded a consultant in Manhattan and maybe
had a really great life, but for me, I would not have had the best life.
I think that's really cool.
I would say at a macro level, we all have strengths.
And at the micro level, gosh, that idea that Tom said just really hit me powerful.
Dallas Burnett: Man, I love how you started and ended with that same idea
of purpose, because when you said that first story, there was so much purpose
in that, in understanding and finding and living and working in that purpose.
And I think that's really encouraging.
Whether you have disruption.
Pushed on you by something external that you weren't expecting that catches
you off guard, or you are the disruptor and you're required to disrupt.
and you know that is what's,
Patrick Leddin: that's, well, that's the thing.
That's the thing man, is Dallas, is that we are all, we are all the disrupted.
are all the disrupted.
We are all being impacted by ai.
We're all being impacted by the economy.
We're all being impacted by the next dinner conversation that somebody might
say something at dinner table at home, if you even have one of those anymore.
I mean, we're all the disrupted.
Some of us choose to be the disruptor.
Dallas Burnett: Yes.
Patrick Leddin: a positive, what we call a positive disruptor.
That's a really key word, positive,
Dallas Burnett: Yes,
Patrick Leddin: when you're a positive disruptor, you're
coming from a source of purpose.
You're saying I'm doing this because our purpose of our team is that
I'm not doing it to be a curmudgeon or difficult or just blow up the
meeting to be blow up the meeting.
I'm doing it and asking a challenging question we wanna get
Dallas Burnett: because we wanna get better.
Patrick Leddin: and what we found is that you would almost think that, oh,
the opposite of a positive disruptor is a negative disruptor, and it's
really not the opposite of the thing.
The thing that keeps all of us from being positive disruptors is
a relentless pursuit of the status
Dallas Burnett: Of the status quo.
Patrick Leddin: a relentless pursuit of comfort.
Dallas Burnett: Complacency, yeah.
Patrick Leddin: that's what gets us.
So the ability to say, you know what, and see it in ourselves.
And Challenge ourselves or have people in our lives who can challenge us.
I think all of us need to have, this isn't in the book, but just a random thought.
I think all of us need to have three voices in our lives.
We need to have the voice that challenges
us the voice that tells us the truth and the voice that encourages us.
And sometimes that can be the same person.
Oftentimes it's not.
Dallas Burnett: mm.
Patrick Leddin: um, you know, my mom passed away about, 14 years ago
in December, and my mom was always a good voice of encouragement.
Dallas Burnett: Mm.
Patrick Leddin: So, you know, luckily I've had other people feel that my
wife is a great voice of encouragement.
So you need to have those people.
wife is also a great, voice of truth to me
Dallas Burnett: Mm-hmm.
Patrick Leddin: and so the, and you know when you get it 'cause somebody hits
that truth button, you're like, oof.
Dallas Burnett: Ooh.
Yeah.
Patrick Leddin: Right.
And then also a voice of challenge saying, you, you could do more.
I see it in you.
Dallas Burnett: Yes, yes.
Patrick Leddin: think we need those things.
Dallas Burnett: Yeah.
I love that.
I, I mean, man, that is spot on.
I know that if you're listening to last 10%, if you're coaching
a team, you just got a huge value bomb, and he just dropped on that.
I love that.
I would love to, just as we close the show, because this is, we could
talk for three hours for real.
I just enjoyed this.
This has been a great conversation, but as we move to the close, I would like to
ask, what would you say to the listeners.
Who may be a little bit concerned about the transformation that we're seeing with
AI and robotics and things like that.
How, what would you speak to them in this, in at this time if you had something
to say based on your work in this book?
Patrick Leddin: Well, I, I would first say that, you know,
whatever you're feeling about it.
That's all right.
Right.
Some people are anxious, some people are fearful, some people are hiding from it
and acting like, you know, I can wait this thing out, or I can retire, or
whatever it might be, and it won't hit my industry in the next 10 years or whatever.
process your way through those things.
but then.
just look at it for what it's, sometimes the pendulum and sometimes
in our lives will swing from anxiety and fear to just ignoring it.
But ne neither of those perspectives are actually very helpful.
What's most helpful of oftentimes is hit it face on and think let
yourself think about the demo rollercoaster, but then say, okay,
let's get real about this thing.
I would say a couple things.
I've heard it said that.
When it comes to technology, we often overestimate what it's gonna do in
the short term and underestimate what it's gonna do in the long term.
we overestimate it in the short term over underestimate it in the long term.
So is AI gonna transform our world?
Yes.
Is it gonna transform your world today?
Some of you.
Dallas Burnett: Yeah.
Patrick Leddin: All of us over time.
Dallas Burnett: Mm-hmm.
Patrick Leddin: Um, I also know when you look at companies when they're looking
right now, there's a lot of conversation about the ROI of the AI investments, and
they're not seeing it, they're not seeing the return on their investments right now.
there's some reasons behind it.
sometimes they'll, because CEOs of companies are a
little bit concerned about.
I wanna use, I wanna figure out AI better.
I wanna use technology better.
I can see the benefits for it, but I'm not gonna put it on this main project
that could actually mess up our strategy.
I'll put it on these other side projects.
Dallas Burnett: Right.
Patrick Leddin: So.
If they're not pointing the bat at the main thing, they're not
necessarily gonna get the big ROI.
So that might be one of the reasons too.
So I would say that organizations are trying to figure this thing out.
Do I think that, it's going to impact leaders?
Absolutely.
I think that you're going to have work being done by, you know, carbon based
life forms, and you're gonna have work being done by silicone, things.
I think that, your span of control is going to
Dallas Burnett: Mm-hmm.
Patrick Leddin: I remember growing up you'd have like five
to eight people reporting to you.
It as kind of the typical span of control of a leader.
We're seeing flattening of organizations.
We're seeing span of control changing because they're saying, well, technology
can help with this, that, and the other.
but ultimately I think that when you, if you spend your time, no matter
what the topic is, and I'm not a futurist, I'm a humanist, I'm a human.
Behavioralist, I should say.
I, what I can tell you is it's.
Technology's gonna keep coming.
there's a lot of things that are gonna happen out there that you
can be concerned about, did you not to be able to do anything about,
spending a lot of time thinking about that is probably wasted time.
a picture like you're on the airplane and everybody else is worried about ai.
So they're, this is kinda silly example, but you're on the airplane
and everybody else is playing games, watching TV or sleeping.
You're the one saying, those are all good things, but I'm gonna focus on getting
something done right now, type of thing.
So kinda expand that like everybody else when they think about AI as
they're playing games, they're sleeping, they're concerned, they're whatever.
Dallas Burnett: Yeah,
Patrick Leddin: in your hand?
what's in your hands?
What can you do right now?
Dallas Burnett: I love it.
Patrick Leddin: that's where I think we can put our best energy.
So I was talking to somebody not that long ago who's concerned about ai very,
this is like very specific, but he said to me, he was explaining like why
he thought AI was gonna take his job.
He had a fair argument.
He said, AI, chat pt, these tools like this, you give 'em a prompt.
They can write some really great stuff.
It's not always but it's like 70 or 80% right, and then you
can play with it from there.
This guy's job was to write a lot of copy and a lot of speeches in his
organizations that the ceo EO would give.
He's like, I'm writing speeches for the CEO.
The CEO just used a speech that was written by chat, GPT.
I'm gonna lose my job.
Dallas Burnett: Hmm.
Patrick Leddin: What I said to him in that moment was, you might lose your job.
Let me ask you this.
Do you see
Dallas Burnett: I.
Patrick Leddin: a world AI existing that you can actually be more valuable to
the company, not less valuable, do you see with the existence of ai, you could
still make yourself more valuable here.
And he thought about that for a moment.
And basically what I was saying is, do you see the disruption as AI as being
nothing but destruction you see it as fertile ground for something different?
He thought about it for a moment, he said, yeah, I think I, I could, I said, okay.
In the book, we talk about five roles you can take on, and each of them,
because we talk about the fire inside, each role has a fire idea to it.
So there's a trailblazer, a Pathfinder, a Tinder gatherer,
a firefighter and a fire chief.
Those are the five
Dallas Burnett: Yeah.
Patrick Leddin: said, which of these five roles would you take on?
And he's like, I think I would take on the, the trailblazer role, which is you're
like, you're moving toward the change and you're leading out independently.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna go out and learn as much as I can about this right now.
I'll become the guy at the company that knows ai and then I'll spread it.
I'll take out a torch bearer role and spread it kind of as a movement.
Okay, let's look at your strengths.
What of these 16 strengths, which ones do you have?
And he looked through 'em.
We talked about it for release.
I got a couple of these things who could help you, you know?
So basically by the time the conversation was over, I mean,
might AI still take his job?
Maybe.
at least he's doing what I hope most of us will do.
He's putting himself in the driver's
Dallas Burnett: Oh yeah,
Patrick Leddin: you know,
Dallas Burnett: yeah.
Patrick Leddin: it's gonna take me, I'm gonna give this thing a fight and
I'm gonna learn a lot in the process.
And, not a fight to like destroy ai, a fight to leverage AI,
Dallas Burnett: Yeah.
Patrick Leddin: my thought partner,
Dallas Burnett: Well, and that's the thing is that what you gave him was
empowerment man, and encouragement and truth all at the same time.
Because what you said was, Hey look, it may take your current role.
But it, that doesn't mean it has to get rid, that doesn't mean the
company's gonna get rid of you because what you just empowered him to do
is go in and create and add value in either it's better the way that he's
doing it with AI or just using AI and being that guy in the organization.
So it's just a different role.
So he's just transitioning to a new role that doesn't exist.
Patrick Leddin: Let's say that the company does get rid of
him like six months from now.
He gives it a valiant
Dallas Burnett: Hmm.
Patrick Leddin: says, yeah, it's not a good utilization of our resources.
Dallas Burnett: Yeah.
Patrick Leddin: what has he done in the last six months?
Has he worried?
Is he worried?
Probably some, but not as much as he would've if he just thought about it.
I'm waiting for it to marched down the hallway
Dallas Burnett: Yeah.
Patrick Leddin: me.
It's just more like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do something.
So, in the book really the first chapter is all about purpose.
Basically, we don't spend much time.
Other than that, we don't really spend much time other than that,
talking about purpose because there's a lot of great books and tools
out there to help you think about
Dallas Burnett: Mm-hmm.
Patrick Leddin: what the rest of the book is saying, okay, while
you're trying to live out that purpose, life is gonna throw stuff
Dallas Burnett: Yep.
Patrick Leddin: Let's talk through how you deal with that
Dallas Burnett: Man.
That's awesome.
Patrick Leddin: the rest of the book is exactly like.
It's really all about the power of
Dallas Burnett: That's wonderful.
So let's close the show by saying this, number one, when does the book come out?
And how can people find you and connect with you and buy the book?
Patrick Leddin: Yeah, thanks for asking.
It's actually
Dallas Burnett: Okay.
Patrick Leddin: and it hit the New York Times bestseller list,
Dallas Burnett: Oh, congratulations.
That's awesome.
Congratulations.
Patrick Leddin: doesn't, this copy doesn't have, but right at the
top now it says New York Times
Dallas Burnett: Nice.
Patrick Leddin: yeah, and, it, so it's out.
People could find more about me.
My name's Patrick Ledon and got in the show notes if you want.
It's just Patrick led in.com,
Dallas Burnett: Okay.
Patrick Leddin: easy.
Dallas Burnett: Patrick ledon.com.
All right.
Now we always ask the guest on the show who they would like to
see as a guest on the last 10%.
Patrick Leddin: A young lady named Lucy Westlake.
Who I interviewed, I interviewed her.
I actually wrote a book a few years ago.
it hit the Wall Street Journal bestseller list.
Dallas Burnett: Oh, nice.
Patrick Leddin: up.
See?
Dallas Burnett: Yeah,
Patrick Leddin: yeah, I went from self-published to
published by a big house.
It was published by another big house to writing with Patterson.
That's talk about resilience,
Dallas Burnett: that's the order.
Patrick Leddin: She's in this book and she's the youngest, female North
American female to climb Mount Everest.
And just a great story about a young lady who, with her dad, they, they
started hiking it when she was a little girl, like seven years old.
And then over the course of time, they ended up going to High Point in
every, every state including, Denali
Dallas Burnett: Oh wow.
Patrick Leddin: And and then she climbed Kilimanjaro and she climbed
Aconcagua and she was able to climb the high point in, Russia.
and she's a really gifted athlete.
She ran track at, university of, Southern California, and, decided she, and then
she decided she was going to, Really lean.
She did triathlons someone, she was a little girl.
She recently decided, I'm gonna get back into triathlons and
qualified for the wor fe women's world triathlons in New Zealand.
she's, but more
Dallas Burnett: Wow.
Patrick Leddin: prowess, right?
'cause it's great that she has all this athletic skill.
Somebody might be like, but I'm Patrick.
I don't have all the athletic skill.
it's just her heart and her energy.
and her.
She's really interested in, some really interesting topics around,
How do we make sure these mountains stay clean and available for
the next generation and beyond?
And I just love a 22-year-old thinker like
Dallas Burnett: That's great.
Patrick Leddin: so many ways.
Dallas Burnett: Wonderful.
Well, we'll have to reach out to her and, see if we can get her on the show.
That would be an amazing episode.
So I appreciate that recommendation.
Patrick, thank you for your time today.
Thank you for sharing all your wisdom on the last 10%.
I know our listeners really enjoyed having you on the show.
Patrick Leddin: Thanks so much, man.