Disruption Lab

Most disruptions don’t come out of nowhere. They whisper before they shout. In this episode of the Disruption Lab, Columbia Business School professor Rita McGrath, author of Seeing Around Corners and The End of Competitive Advantage , explains how to spot inflection points before they’re obvious to everyone else. She also shows how to turn those shifts into progress for yourself, your team, and yo...

Fear is the most expensive thing in business, and in life. It kills ideas before they’re spoken, stalls careers, and keeps entire companies playing it safe while competitors pass them by. Ryan Berman has made it his mission to disrupt it. Ryan started out writing ad jingles in New York, co-founded a creative agency in San Diego, and then made the boldest move of his career: he fired himself. He sp...

For over a century, business has been built around the hero at the top. Bruce Poon Tip is tearing that model down. At 22, Bruce maxed out two credit cards to launch G Adventures after no bank would back him. He went on to grow it 40% a year for two decades, turned down a $100 million offer, and pioneered community tourism worldwide. Then, in 2020, revenue dropped to zero and operations shut down i...

We're drowning in noise: headlines, hot takes, endless feeds. But buried in every purchase, review, and complaint is a signal, and Tsvetta Kaleynska has built a career cutting through the chaos to hear it. Disruption isn't new to Tsvetta. She grew up in post-communist Bulgaria as an entire economy was being torn down and rebuilt, taught herself English, and earned a scholarship to college in Brook...

Most people who write about high-performing teams have studied them. Jennifer Colosimo ran them, with a number attached. As Enterprise President at FranklinCovey she owned strategy, consulting and coaching services, and the commercial organization across the US, six international direct offices, and 60 global licensees. Before that she led global operations, learning and development, change manage...

Almost nobody has a shortage of ambition. Walk into any organization and you'll find big dreams, real desire, people who genuinely want to do something that matters. So why does so little of it get done? Because desire isn't the constraint. Discipline is. Definition is. Process is. Most goals never move because they were never defined sharply enough to act on, and there was never a process to carr...

Most of us learned to lead in one place. One organization, one country, one set of unwritten rules about how people are supposed to talk to each other, disagree, and get things done. Then somebody puts us in a different room — and half of what we knew stops working. Victoria Roos Olsson has spent her entire career in those rooms. In this episode, Patrick sits down with Victoria, his coauthor on th...

Ron Johnson has lived on both sides of the scoreboard. At Apple, he was the Senior Vice President of Retail Operations who worked shoulder-to-shoulder with Steve Jobs to build the Apple Store from a blank sheet of paper — inventing the Genius Bar along the way and creating what became the most profitable retail square footage on earth. Before that, he was the merchandising leader at Target who bro...

Doug Faber started his career on a loading dock at eighteen. He finished it in the CEO's office. In this episode, Patrick sits down with Doug — his friend, colleague, and coauthor — to walk that climb, and to unpack what those years in operations taught him about leading real people under real pressure. Doug shares what changed in him between the dock and the corner office, what he got wrong along...

Consider the position: you run the company that teaches everyone else how to communicate, and then the ground shifts so fast that nobody knows what to say anymore. Not your customers. Not the executives paying your customers to find the words. Not you. That's roughly the seat Diane Schwartz took in 2019 as the new leader of Ragan Communications. What followed was a pandemic, an industry rewrite, a...

Chris Whitney doesn’t believe America has a food shortage. As he puts it, it’s a logistics problem, not a supply problem — and he’s spent the last decade proving it. In this episode of Disruption Lab, Patrick Leddin sits down with Chris Whitney, founder and CEO of One Generation Away. After spending six months in a food line himself, Chris started rescuing surplus food from grocers, farms, and res...

We all have setbacks. Times when we fall short, lose our footing, or watch the plan we built come apart. Those moments are inevitable. What you do next isn't. This week on the Disruption Lab, Patrick is joined by professional golfer Celina Sattelkau, a former Vanderbilt All-American who went from being unable to hold a golf club to winning two professional tournaments in ten days. Celina grew up i...

Content Warning: Discussion of depression and suicide ideation Owen Fitzpatrick has studied propaganda where it does its worst work. North Korea. Afghanistan. Rwanda. Iran. More than 100 countries in all. And after all of it, he landed on an uncomfortable conclusion: the most effective propagandist in your life isn't a government, a company, or an algorithm. It's the voice in your own head. But th...

In 1972, a company called Atari did something almost no one does: it created an industry from nothing. Pong, the 2600, the joystick in your hand — Atari didn't just join the video game business, it invented the culture around it. But this episode of The Disruption Lab isn't really about video games. It's about what happens after you win. How do you keep a legendary brand relevant across five decad...

Thank you for your support! We will see you next month for season three of Disruption Lab.

Who decided the rules you live by are actually the rules? Patrick sits down with Cate Hall, author of the forthcoming book You Can Just Do Things: How High-Agency People Get What They Want Out of Life, for a conversation about agency, reinvention, resilience, and challenging invisible limits. Cate’s story is anything but conventional. She went from attorney to world-class poker player to battling...

What if the life you want isn't built through hustle, but through intentional design? In this episode of Disrupt Everything, Patrick sits down with entrepreneur, bestselling author, and performance coach Craig Ballantyne to explore why discipline isn't about restriction. It's about freedom. Known by many as "The World's Most Disciplined Man," Craig has helped hundreds of business leaders and entre...

What would happen if you stopped waiting for permission and simply started tackling big problems? Patrick talks with Tommy Pennington, a Vanderbilt graduate and rising innovator, about what it means to think boldly at any age. Tommy has explored everything from fusion-powered technology to traffic flow systems to helping nonprofits gain access to large-scale donated goods through his work at SIMPL...

What happens when you step away from the spotlight and choose to lead in an entirely new way? Patrick sits down with internationally acclaimed opera performer Keri Alkema to discuss reinvention, leadership, creativity, and the future of the arts. After a celebrated career performing on some of the world’s biggest stages, Keri is stepping into a new role as the future director of the Nashville Oper...

How do you find your voice and stay steady when the world feels chaotic? Patrick sits down with Lydia Hu, attorney turned journalist and familiar face on Fox Business, for a conversation about career pivots, high-pressure moments, and navigating disruption in real time. The two first connected while appearing together on Varney & Company during the height of Patrick and James Patterson’s media...

Most people see waste, excess, or leftover materials as a problem. David Mendelson sees opportunity. Patrick talks with David Mendelson, leader of multi-generation family-owned company DONCO, about creativity, problem solving, and operating in a world where every phone call brings a new challenge. David and his team help organizations rethink industrial byproducts, excess inventory, and unused mat...

What does it take to reinvent yourself in a world shaped by layoffs, AI, uncertainty, and constant change? In this episode, Patrick sits down with career and leadership expert Kathy Caprino, Forbes columnist, executive coach, educator, and host of the Finding Brave podcast. The two first met at the World Business Forum in New York City, where Kathy’s thoughtful questions and genuine care for peopl...

What does it really mean to find your voice?  In this episode of Disruption Lab, Patrick sits down with Megan Piphus to explore how voice is not just something you have. It is something you develop, refine, and sometimes fight to uncover.  Megan’s journey is anything but typical. She started as a self-taught ventriloquist at a young age, went on to appear on America's Got Talent, built a career th...

What if success doesn’t follow a single path?  In this episode of Disruption Lab, Patrick sits down with Colleen Brown and her son Pierce Brown for a conversation that highlights two very different journeys, both pursued with clarity and intention.  Colleen has led at the highest levels as a CEO and board member. Pierce has built a global following as the author of the Red Rising series. Their car...

What if the stress you’re feeling isn’t something to manage but something to rethink entirely?  In this episode of Disruption Lab, Patrick sits down with Amy Leneker to explore how our relationship with stress shapes the way we show up at work and in life. Too often, we treat stress as the enemy and joy as something we will get to later. Amy challenges that thinking and offers a more practical app...