Patrick Leddin Wants to Disrupt Everything (Healthcare Included)

Melanie Marcus: As human beings, our superpower is that we can imagine a better future and then act on it to make that future a reality. Today's guest wants us to make good on that superpower. Author Patrick Leddin is an expert on disruption. In fact, he wrote the book on it with bestselling author James Patterson. On today's episode, Patrick opens a window on how to disrupt everything. 

And it's fitting to have him as a guest on the last episode of the season, because as you're about to hear, this episode is a little different. We're talking about healthcare, of course, but not entirely. At heart, we're talking about how we can live a good, healthy life in a world of constant change and disruption. 

Humans are built to disrupt, Patrick says, turning the notion of disruption on its head. The lessons he shares with us apply not only to the work we do for patients and those who care for them, but also to the work we do as human beings when we imagine not only better healthcare, but a better future.  

The big question is: what will you do to have an impact? 

After all, Patrick says, “Our time here is finite, so let's make it count.”  

Let's dive in and disrupt everything.  

Welcome to the podcast, Patrick.  

Patrick: So glad to be here. Thanks so much for having me.  

Melanie: It’s so great to have you with us here today. I should say, it's doubly great to wrap our fourth season of the podcast with a conversation about the power of disruption with a guy who literally wrote the book on it—your book with co-author James Patterson. Yes, that James Patterson. It’s called “Disrupt Everything—and Win: Take Control of Your Future.” I have a copy, and I must say it's a very good read.  

I love the part about how humans are built to disrupt. So, let's start there. I know you take a holistic view of disruption. It's not just about the hot new startup that disrupts the status quo. It's about human beings living in a world of constant change. 

So, can you explain how humans are built to disrupt? What do you mean by that?  

Patrick: Yeah, happy to do so. And you're right, when we take a pretty broad look at disruption, it can be anything from something unique to you individually, like an opportunity at work. It might be a great opportunity, but it disrupts you from your normal flow or a project. You're like, “I don't want to take that thing on.”  

Or it's a healthcare conversation. It's when people go to see their provider, and they get a result on a test that they didn't expect, and it's kind of disruptive in that moment. So, it can be very unique to us. 

It could be ubiquitous like COVID-19, or the economy, or tariffs, or supply chains, or all these different things that touch us all in varying ways. So, we took a pretty broad look at disruption, but as we started to study this idea of disruption, we were asking ourselves, what do some of the best people do with it? 

We had a chance to interview over 350 positive disruptors. One person was a household name, an actor named Marlon Wayans.  

Marlon Wayans became pretty popular back in his teenage years. He grew up in New York City, the youngest of 10 kids. Of those 10 kids, five of them are currently employed in Hollywood or doing something in the entertainment space. 

When he was growing up, he was kind of following along in the footsteps of his older siblings. He was on TV pretty early on in life, and then he said the phone stopped ringing a bit—or at least slowed down. And he asked his older brother, “What should I do?” And his older brother, named Keenan Ivory Wayans, said, “If you want the phone to ring, you better learn to do more things than just act. You need to learn how to direct and produce and write and do all of these things.” And for him, that was a very disruptive moment.  

So, we used that as an example of a disruption, but then what did he do with it? Now, people listening might say, that's interesting what Marlon Wayans did, as I start to spell this out for us, but they're not Marlon Wayans. Neither am I. Neither are you. He's creative, but so are we.  

So, the point we find, these are the fundamental things that tell us we're wired to disrupt. Now, don't get me wrong, I know that our brains like consistency, but we can also thrive when things get mixed up a little bit. 

We have the ability to envision a different future and start to manifest it. People listening to this can be thinking about the work they do in healthcare, and they say, “Well, could it be better?” And then they can start actually taking steps to make that happen.  

The second thing that they're wired to disrupt is their experiences. Whenever you run into something that's a challenge and you're like, what am I gonna do with this disruptive moment? Just think about the things you've dealt with before, and you'll be blown away by the amazing things you've done.  

And then thirdly are our resources. Everything from listening to podcasts like this to picking up books to talking to friends and colleagues to maybe a little bit of money in the budget, and all of those things can be applied.  

I would say that you're wired to disrupt from the perspective of: our brains are amazing. Our experiences are typically pretty vast. And if you don't think so, folks, just spend a few moments writing down things that you've overcome or dealt with, and you'll be impressed with yourself, too. And then thirdly, we have lots of resources we can tap into. 

Melanie: I love that. It makes me think about the periods of my life, and it is pretty interesting to think back.  

So, where did you grow up and go to school, and how did you get interested in leadership and disruption?  

Patrick: As far as where I grew up at, I grew up on the south side of Chicago, about 138th and South State Street. 

Youngest of five kids. My dad worked for the phone company and tended bar on the weekends to bring in some additional money and keep a home going. Right out of high school, I joined the military. It was a route to get to school. Beyond that, I initially enlisted in the National Guard and then after college, went full-time in as an officer in the Army, and I had a pretty good run at it. In my short period of time in the Army, I was an infantry airborne ranger, so I jumped out of planes and ran around the woods for a living.  

Melanie: My goodness 

Patrick: Kind of cut my teeth in leadership right then. You said, where was my interest, probably pretty early on. 

And then after my last job in the military, I was a company commander in a unit called the 82nd Airborne Division, and after I left the Army, I made kind of a 180. 

I went from wearing the battle dress, the BDU uniform, that camouflage uniform, to wearing a Brooks Brothers suit and tie at the time, because I went into consulting. And I went to a firm called KPMG Consulting and learned a lot about building spreadsheets and PowerPoint decks. And then took that experience to start my own consulting firm with my wife. And we ran that for about 12 years. We exited that when we were acquired by another company, which was great. 

And then I thought, well, what do I wanna do next? And for me, as long as the military was willing to pay for my schooling, I just kept going. So, I picked up my master's in business. I then went on and got my Ph.D. And, so, now I had a Ph.D., and I sold a business, I said I really like to teach. So, I got a job at Vanderbilt University as a professor there. And the last 11 years, I've been a professor at Vanderbilt University and ran undergraduate business. And then, I guess this the next phase I'm going into is this particular project around disruption.  

Melanie: You started with a leadership book, right? “The Five Week Leadership Challenge.”  

Patrick: I've written a few books over the years. I've sold some of them. I've held dozens, and the “The Five Week Leadership Challenge” is one that did pretty well.  

So, it's been just like anything else somebody might say, how'd you write a book with James Patterson? Like most things, you don't just start there; you work your way up. 

Melanie: What is it in your background that made you interested in leadership and disruption?  

Patrick: I think leadership specifically, I at an early age, had a few people who mentored me, guided me along, and I just kind of saw how their words influenced my life in positive ways. And then when I got into the Army, of course, it was very much a leadership thing.  

And I don't think I was really clear on what I may have been gifted at until I got into the military, and it started to come easy for me in some ways. Like, if they said, "Turn left," I turned left. And they said, "Turn right," I turned right. And they said, "Shut up," I shut up. And I thought, this is pretty easy.  

But then you start to realize it's not just doing what you're told to do, it's really being adaptive and flexible and understanding mission. And the more I got into leadership roles, the more I gained an appreciation for it, but also saw that I could learn a lot and help other people live their own version of good lives. 

 I was fortunate when I was in the military. I worked for some of the pretty well-known generals at the time or since then, and then just building my own business. I just kind of stayed in that space. And the more I was in it, I think everybody listening can recognize, when you have a really good leader and when you have a leader who's not so great, the difference it can have, the impact it can have. 

I've asked audiences, a lot of times, think about a leader who's impacted you over the course of your career. And some people think of a leader they have right now, or their most recent boss. Other people go back 50, 60 years to when they were in middle school and the coach on their team.  

The tell of great leadership is long. I don't think we're suffering from an epidemic of great leaders. I think there's opportunity here and I just wanna help as best I can along the way.  

And then teaching at the university, I taught leadership courses. Leading through crisis is one of the courses that I taught there that actually turned into this book project. 

Melanie: Right. So, that's where the book project came through, leading through crisis.” Let's talk about the book. It's called “Disrupt Everything,” and you co-authored it with James Patterson, one of the most successful authors in the world.  

Why disruption? How did it come to be?  

Patrick: Years ago, I worked with Stephen Covey from “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.” And Stephen Covey would say that there's three things you can count on in life: change, choice and principles of effectiveness. 

So, it was drilled into me pretty early on that change is a constant. But, I was teaching this class on disruption, and we had one section that we brought in guest speakers., And one person on the list of speakers was James Patterson. Now, James Patterson graduated from Vanderbilt University. He got his master's in English there.  

And he came back. And he started to present, he said to the students, “Are you living a good life?” And he paused for a moment. And my thought as he was pausing is he was basically telling them, hey, this is a simple question, but the answer's not simplistic. He said, “Or do you feel like you're kind of on one treadmill and you're gonna get on another one—and another one?” 

And then he went on and shared with them, he said, “I live a good life and here's how I went about living my good life.” So, by the time he was done with the presentation, I was just committed, that like, I wanna figure out how to write a book or do something with him. We conducted a three-year project studying positive disruptors in the world with surveys and qualitative discussions, as well as sponsored by Vanderbilt University. 

And that turned into the book.  

Melanie: That's great. Well, what was it like to work with him?  

Patrick: It was great. It was a little hard at first, I'll be honest. Actually, when I reached first, there was no answer, right? So, then I came back and I suggested, here’s why it makes sense to write a book. Better sales pitch, obviously. 

And then he said, “Let’s talk about it.” And then once we got the outline and we figured, okay, this is the angle of what we're trying to do, what we wanna study, what's the question we want to answer? Once we figured that out, which it took about nine months to really get that kind of figured out. You’re essentially doing a research project. It takes a little while to define what is it we want to study.  

So, we had a lot of interviews that we conducted, a lot of transcripts to go through, all those types of things. But it was, as far as working with him, it was great. I've just learned so much. He's made me a better writer. He has made me a better thinker. He's made me a better partner, so, yeah, no complaints.  

Melanie: What do you hope readers get from the book?  

Patrick: Well, at one level, I hope they reflect on the question he asked them, are “Are you living a good life?” Because what we talk about in the book is the idea that if you want to live a good life, there's two parts to it. 

And the first part, we spend one chapter on, which is defining it. Because there's lots of things out there that talk to you about how to define your good life, what's your purpose, what are you passionate about, those types of things.  

We spend the rest of the book, the other 32 chapters, talking about the things that are gonna be hard around living that good life, which is doing it in the face of life, in the face of the disruptions, the curveballs, the changes, everything from AI to the phone ringing unexpectedly with some message you weren't expecting. 
 
I think as far as what people get out of it, I hope that they get clearer on what they're trying to achieve in life and why they feel like they're here. And more importantly, they think through how to discern the actions to take, the behaviors to take, how to lean into their strengths, which we talk about behaviors in the book. 

There are 16 of them that came out in the research, and nobody had all of them, and that's okay. Because you don't have to have them all, but, you probably have a couple of them and there are other people around, you have other ones. So, I would say live a good life and then scale that from there.  

Melanie: I appreciated it so much and I wanna bring it to work. 

Here at Surescripts, we're very mission-driven, purpose-driven. And what I appreciated about the take on disruption here is it's personal-mission driven. It's, so personal mission, my personal mission. How does it relate to my life? How does it relate to my work? It was starting at the ground level of personal definition, of what you say is living a good life allows you to disrupt in different places. 

Patrick: We very much did start with the personal side. There's a model in the book, and you may have seen it, but just to quickly describe it to the people listening, it's around achievement and the impact you can have and in the center of the model is you. And then from there, it's the relationships around you. And then it's your family, your team, your organization, your industry, kind of surrounding if you will. And the point is that all disruption starts with you. We’re all the disrupted. All of us are disrupted constantly. We can think of a million things, but we're also disruptors if we choose to be. 

Because disruption provides a choice, but the choice starts with, I have to choose to disrupt myself. People listening to this, you're trying to improve things in healthcare. You see things; some of those might disrupt you. The question is what will you do to have an impact on that?  

Melanie: You talked about the question of living a good life, which is a simple but profound question. 

How does this question put the focus in the right place, and how often should we be asking ourselves this question?  

Patrick: Well, actually, in the book, we call them “positive disruptor moves,” they’re little behaviors you can take on, and one of them is “claim the day.” And claim the day is, hey, before your feet even hit the ground, take a moment to reflect on your purpose and what you're trying to achieve in life. 

So, there's part of me that says, “Hey, you should reflect on it every day.” 

Years ago, I spent some time really thinking about, what’s my purpose in life? And it was a process that took me a little while to define. But once I got it, I was like, okay, I think that's what I'm here for. 

And this was like 10, 15 years ago. I decided my purpose was, after really reflecting on it for a while, was to provide ideas and insights that help people live their own great purpose. And to me, I look at this project, I'm like, “That’s exactly what this is doing.” So, I feel like I'm living my purpose, but still, every day you have to remember it, because time moves so fast. 

So, I think every day—but certainly at certain frequencies—you should pause and really think about, what is my purpose? Where am I going? What am I trying to achieve? What relationships really matter to me? These types of questions are really critical ones.  

Melanie: Well, that'll take a little disruption. It'll disrupt my first instinct of, “Where’s my coffee?” 

Patrick: Yeah, well, you know, your feet haven't hit the ground yet. Right. Just put the coffee pot adjacent to your bed, and you can. Your feet haven't hit the ground one yet. You can do both.  

Melanie: Let’s take this into health care a little bit. It's a slight turn. 

There's another version of a good life. Am I living a healthy life? How does that relate, and what does that mean to you?  

Patrick: One thing about answering the question—am I living a good life— it’s answered at the individual level, because everybody defines it differently. I would encourage people to realize that a very personal level. 

Patterson and I have a partnership with a company called FranklinCovey. And FranklinCovey has this idea of the whole-person paradigm. And it's not unique to them, but the idea that I have a mind, a body, a spirit, I have relationships, I have heart, I have all these different things, and one part of that is our bodies.  

So, the idea of saying to yourself, I'm a steward of my body, health-wise, what am I gonna do? Or am I gonna outsource it to somebody else to someday take care of me? And there may be components of people in the future that'll take care of me, but first it starts with self. I’ve gotta take care of myself. So, some of the disruptions I already hear from people are things associated with, the results of the test weren't great or I'm not mobile enough, or whatever it might be.  

The best day to plant a tree was 20 years ago, but I can do something today. And I'm going to start doing that.  

Melanie: So, here we are providing healthcare in America. And I don't think there's any disagreement that there are challenges and there are things that we need to do to change it, disrupt it.  

How do we identify the need for change and act on it?  

Patrick: I would suggest that one thing we do is, well, it's not in the book, but oftentimes, I'll work with this on clients to think about: okay, what are the disruptions going on in the macro environment? 

So, what are all the various disruptions going on out there? They could be cultural, they could be economic, they could be technologically driven, they could be governance driven, or government driven, legislative driven. All of these things are out there, by the way, impacting your world, right? 

So, all these things, what are they? And let's try to say, okay, all the ones that are out there, which ones do we think are the few big ones we might wanna spend some time thinking about right now? 

Everybody’s talking about AI these days. You might say to yourself, okay, AI is a big disruptive force out there, how do we leverage it to enable things we want to accomplish? So, we take AI, we say, okay, let's think about AI. How is AI shaping the landscape? How is it changing the competition, the current competition that we have out there? How is it changing our relationship with our suppliers and our partners? How are they able to replace what we do with something else? It might be better, or it might be worse. So, you think about the impact that's having in the whole ecosystem, all those different components from competitors to partners, to our patients and so on. And think what expectations are changing because of this and what opportunities are emerging. 

So, in very many ways, when I talk to organizations regardless of industry, I typically say in most degree, my industry's ripe for some disruption. I wanna get out in front of that. So, let's, with my team, sit down and say what's out there on the horizon. What do we think are the ones that might be showing up more quickly, or we might wanna think through a bit more. 

And then let's talk about how's it reshaping the marketplace, the healthcare marketplace, and where might there be opportunities for us to do a little bit more of some things and a little bit less of others?  

Melanie: As you're talking, I'm thinking that the concept of disruption is part and parcel with great strategy and great leadership. 

So, let's go back to healthcare and this time relationships, because you talk about relationships as part of the disruption formula, right?  So, healthcare, in the end, is all about relationships. Just like the relationship between the doctor and the patient, it’s a relationship built on trust. 

And you've said that building trust is one way to turn relationships from headwinds to tailwinds. Can you expand on that? What's the difference between a headwind and a tailwind?  

Patrick: Well, first of all, relationships are really critical. We talk about these four fundamental facts in the book. 

And then the other one that, when you're talking about here, is this idea that relationships provide headwinds and tailwinds. Like it or not, sometimes life is a relationship game. We exist in a sea of relationships and that's what makes life so rich in so many ways. It can be frustrating sometimes, but it's also what makes it rich. 

And what we've found is that one way to think about relationships in your life, or on your team, or in your organization is: we have more headwinds or tailwinds relationships.  

A few months ago, I was in Dublin, and I was out for a jog one morning. I was moving faster than normal because I was moving along pretty good, and then I crossed the river and started going back toward my hotel, and I realized how strong that wind was. 

One way, the wind was pushing me. The other way, the wind is down on my face, and I could barely make it back to the hotel. And relationships are the same thing. Relationships can lift us up and push us towards something better, or they can sometimes hold us back and make everything difficult.  

And the question starts to become, okay, are you creating more tailwind relationships in your life? Are you talking to the ones that maybe once were tailwind relationships, and they became headwinds, because we broke our trust a little bit? And am I visiting it, or I'm just trying to ignore it, or hope it gets better? Because it probably won't. Maybe I need to disrupt that relationship.  

You mentioned in healthcare, it's very much a team approach, in so many things. Whether it's the caregivers, the people who are close to the patients—if they're in a facility, whether it’s a hospital, or some other type of skilled care facility—there are people touching them every day. They're part of that team. So how do we make sure that everybody on the team is lifting each other up and lifting that patient up?  

Family members as well. I'm sure you see family members that come into situations that are, you can just see that person's creating such headwind and anxiety and stress. How do we help them navigate it, too? So, it's a really critical thing to recognize that we don't go through any of this alone.  

Melanie: That’s for sure. Well, I'm thinking about in healthcare, the headwinds in relationships—the ones that we spend a lot of time here thinking about—are actually process related. A process can get in the way of a patient getting a medication on time. And that's a relationship headwind because it creates tension between them. And it's a process.  

So, as we get to the finish line a bit, what can you say about technology and disruption in general? What's unique about technology and the disruption equation?  

Patrick: We live in constant change, and it does feel faster right now. Some of the reasons it feels faster right now is because we're the ones dealing with it. But there's also the technology component that really has accelerated things. In fact, if I was to draw that model I mentioned earlier, about disrupting yourself, and disrupting relationships, and disrupting your team, and your organization and your industry, I think it's the perfect illustration of what technology does for us. 

So, in the past, I would argue that it would've been more like a ripple through water. Where I would disrupt myself, and then I could touch those around me and disrupt them. And I could maybe disrupt my family at the dinner table and my team at work. And then if my team at work maybe worked on this thing around customer service, and we got better at it, or a better process, we could start to influence the organization,  

And then eventually, maybe influence the organization, I get to go to a conference, and I present best practices. Now, it influences the industry, and you can see it almost kind of builds out that way. But technology has upended that because what we can do now is, I can come up with an idea, disrupt myself, sit in my bedroom for three weeks and program something on my computer that changes how the industry does something. That's what Zuckerberg did, right?  

So, the ability to leapfrog over things and move more quickly. I think what the differentiator's gonna be going forward, especially with technology—and recognize, I'm not a futurist in this regard—but I think the opportunity lies for people who have the ability to redefine what extraordinary is faster than everybody else. Technology helps that.  

One of the biggest challenges is—there's an expression around technology that says that we tend to overestimate the impact in the short term and underestimate the impact in the long term.  

And I think what we need to do is keep our eyes on where's this gonna take us over time? And how do we stay out in front of it?  

Melanie: Those are great points. So, now is my favorite time in the podcast. We're looking for inspiration through rose-colored glasses at healthcare. But if you could snap your fingers and have one major issue in healthcare solved, what would it be?  

Patrick: Probably the biggest challenge that I see is probably access-related. 

I'm very fortunate.  My wife went to Denmark when she was 17 years old. She was an exchange student in Denmark. We go back there pretty regularly. And we recently went back to Denmark, and you hear so much about the healthcare system in Denmark, and we went to visit what we consider our Danish father, and he’s in a facility right now. He's had some health problems. He's in his late eighties, 89 years old. And when I went to that particular facility with him, I was like, “Gosh, this darn near feels like a home.” It looks like a home-cooked meal, and he’s got some space that's kind of his. And I just thought, if I live old enough to be his age and I have to deal with some health-related issues, to be treated like that would be wonderful. 

And then I come back to the states, and you see so much variability. But I just think about, as people age, what would it look like if I could wave a wand and everybody gets the best. As opposed to assuming, well, some people get the best and some people don't. And I would just say, why do we have to accept that sometimes we can't make it a little bit better for everybody. I think that if I could wave a wand, I do that. 

There's lots of things that could be hoped across the industry. I mean, everything from processing paperwork and sending stuff to somebody who’s a patient, like myself, or getting something from my insurance company. I can think back 20 or 30 years ago, I’d get something in the mail every day. It seemed redundant, and it was thick, and I couldn't understand any of it. Some people have taken some time to really think about; how does somebody actually interpret and digest this if they're a lay person? People have done a lot to do that so that myself or my 90-year-old dad could read the mail and understand what it's telling them.  

To going into facilities, whether it’s an urgent care facility, or a hospital, or whatever it might be, you just see how it’s so much more customer-or client-or patient-focused it is. I find that to be amazing. I find the conveniences of everything from mail-order medication that'll show up in my home is great, especially when you don't feel well. There are so many things that are great and there are so many great people listening to this podcast, and otherwise, who are trying to do so much to make it better. 

I guess when I say, “wave my magic wand,” it's just for us to keep going and say we don't have to accept it the way it is. And I'm not saying we have to be Denmark. We can be our own selves, but we could do it in ways that are better. And I think we're moving in that direction. Sometimes we just have to get out of our own way. 

Melanie: That's great. This is my last question: how can we ensure that we're living good and healthy lives?  

Patrick: It's funny, on the healthy side of things, since I do a lot with leadership, I'll talk to executive teams, and they like to talk about self-care.  

And even if you just ask them questions, how much you sleeping? What you been eating? What have you learned? Have you figured out that 2000 calories of licorice isn't the same thing as 2000 calories of wild salmon and brown rice? Who are your relationships with? Are you connected to people? And I think, at least in my little piece of the world, just asking people those types of questions about moving and connecting and relaxing.  

Those are such critical things that I think all of us can check in regularly and say, how long have I gone without a heart-to-heart talk? Or what am I putting in my mouth the last five meals? Am I drinking enough water? I mean, some basic things that we know that at the end of the day, you can't pour into anybody else if you're not pouring into yourself first. 

This is something I think we all, including myself at the front of the line, need to keep remembering that at the end of the day, we gotta disrupt ourselves first, and that starts by taking care of ourselves.  

Melanie: Well, it's been great talking with you today, Patrick. We really appreciate the time and perspective and inspiration. 

Patrick: Oh, it’s been an honor and privilege. Thank you so much for having me. And to everybody listening, I just wish you all the best as you step out into the world and disrupt everything. 

Melanie: Good enough is not good enough. That's what first came to mind when Patrick put a spotlight on the relentless pursuit of comfort as the villain in this story. He explains that we evolved to seek comfort. To do what we've always done because it works. It's fine, it's good enough, but disruption is about more than breaking out of your comfort zone.  

It's about cultivating the right mindset. It's about recognizing that disruption is fertile ground, not something to avoid or ignore. It's about understanding that people who are disruptive pay attention, as Patrick says. Because if you don't see disruption for what it is, you'll miss the opportunity. 

Above all, it's about the belief that better is possible and acting to make it happen. So how would Patrick help healthcare heal itself? What would he do with the power to change healthcare for the better? His answer is to believe in ourselves. To believe that we can make healthcare better for everyone. To believe that it's possible, to believe there truly is a better way, and then to act on it. And that's how we'll make healthcare more. And good enough.  

Many thanks to Patrick for joining us on our show, and many thanks to our listeners for taking the time to listen. And with that, we conclude our fourth season of this podcast. 

We hope you enjoyed it.