Katie Fitzgerald - Global President and CEO of Ronald McDonald House Charities

05/14/25 • 54 min

Picture a weary parent stepping through a hospital door and finding a warm kitchen, a quiet bed, and a team that already knows their child’s name. Katie Fitzgerald, Global President and CEO of Ronald McDonald House Charities, joins Ryan to explain how she is scaling that welcome across sixty-two countries, and sketches a clear plan for doubling the number of families RMHC can house and support worldwide. Katie recalls hard-won lessons from guiding Feeding America through the pandemic’s first shockwaves, and also explains why psychological safety is the starting point for every bold target she sets. From slashing treatment-abandonment rates in Peru to raising seventy-six million dollars in a single four-month sprint, Katie shows how steady progress, not perfection, can change a family’s story forever.

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Patrick Leddin - Co‑author of Disrupt Everything

Some people survive disruption; Patrick Leddin reverse‐engineers it for sport. Now he’s teamed with the world’s best‐selling author, James Patterson, to turn chaos into a step‐by‐step field manual. In this episode of The Courageous Podcast, Patrick explains to Ryan how a college dropout became a Ranger, a CEO, and a Vanderbilt professor. He explains why he quit tenure to write Disrupt Everything with James Patterson, and how hundreds of interviews showed him that disruption is raw material, not bad luck. Patrick shares the four checkpoints that steer any shake‐up toward progress, plus the “game‐on” mindset that swaps anxiety for motion. From family pivots to global crises, Patrick shows how to turn the next jolt into a straighter path to purpose.

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Emily Bond - Author & Breast Cancer Survivor

Emily Bond turns life-quakes into page-turners, turning chemo rooms into writing rooms and everyday crises into bestselling fiction. In her conversation with Ryan, Emily shares how a surprise Stage 2 breast-cancer diagnosis collided with a two-year-old at her feet, and how she finished her “magical realism rom-com” Sort of Seeing Someone between infusions. She explains the mental trick that kept her buzzing her hair with a toddler by her side, and offers blunt advice on talking to friends who are fighting for their lives. From inking a HarperCollins deal to shelving a pandemic-dated manuscript, she shows that humor, strict deadlines, and a touch of woo-woo can turn any detour into a new chapter.