James Patterson Shows Why Comfort Can Be a Trap

Afford Anything

Paula Pant | Cumulus Podcast Network

Investing, Business, Entrepreneurship

4.6 • 3.4K Ratings

🗓️ 12 November 2025

⏱️ 72 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

#659: If you have time, how about this for a very short episode description:Imagine that you’re at the absolute peak of your career. You’re the CEO of a prominent advertising company at the age of 36, but you feel like you’re driving in the wrong lane. It’s wrong.Then you make a hard career pivot and it works out beautifully.My guests today know exactly what that’s like. We’re joined by James Patterson, the author who has sold more than 425 million copies of his books. He has co-authored books with President Clinton, Dolly Parton, and now his latest co-author is Dr. Patrick Leddin, who also joins us to talk about disruption. Timestamps: Note: Timestamps will vary on individual listening devices based on dynamic advertising run times. The provided timestamps are approximate and may be several minutes off due to changing ad lengths. (0:00) Defining disruption versus gradual change (5:20) Positive disruption mindset and overcoming fear (8:12) Process for uncovering personal passions (10:25) Patterson disrupts publishing with six books per year (13:45) Research reveals 16 disruptive behaviors (16:30) Academia embracing different voices and perspectives (21:00) Mountain climber story shows gradual disruption (24:14) Framework for navigating career transitions (28:19) Limiting beliefs and psychological barriers (30:55) Being open to change versus stability (35:00) Taking ownership of disruptive choices (41:00) Mission versus purpose distinction (46:37) Advice for embracing positive disruption Share this episode with a friend, colleagues, and James Patterson book fans: https://affordanything.com/episode659 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Imagine that you're at the absolute peak of your career.
0:03.0	You're the CEO of a prominent advertising company at the age of 36.
0:09.0	But you feel like you're driving in the wrong lane.
0:12.0	It's wrong.
0:14.0	And so you make a hard career pivot and it works out beautifully.
0:18.0	My guest today know exactly what that's like. We're joined by James Patterson,
0:23.2	the author who has sold more than 425 million copies of his books. To put that in perspective,
0:29.9	James Patterson has sold more books than the entire population of the U.S. and Canada combined.
0:36.0	Forbes tracked his income, and over a decade, his total income, not his net worth, by the way,
0:42.8	his total income is estimated at $700 million.
0:47.4	In 2016, alone, according to Forbes, he made $95 million, just in that one year.
0:57.4	He is someone for whom that career pivot worked out well. He is one of the most prolific and successful authors in history. He has co-authored
1:03.2	books with President Clinton, Dolly Parton, and now his latest co-author is Dr. Patrick Lennon,
1:10.0	who also joins us in this interview. So this is a
1:12.4	joint interview with two of them. Dr. Leden is a professor at Vanderbilt University, where he
1:17.7	teaches corporate strategy, negotiation, advanced marketing, and crisis leadership. He himself also
1:23.9	made a big career pivot. He spent his 20s as an army ranger. Then he built and sold a
1:29.4	successful business and then he moved into academia as a professor of Vanderbilt. Both of these guys
1:35.0	had huge success early in life and both of them utterly disrupted their lives in order to
1:42.0	make huge career and life transitions.
1:46.0	And they did so multiple times.
1:48.2	James Patterson was actually a PhD candidate at Vanderbilt before he disrupted that to
	...

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