IAM1503 – Producer Dedicates His Work To Bleeding Disorders and Rare Disease Awareness

Patrick James Lynch is a globally- recognized healthcare and rare disease advocate, media professional, filmmaker, and father. He is the co-founder and CEO of Believe Limited, a mission-driven content agency, and production company, and he’s the Founder of BloodStream Media, a rare and chronic disease podcast network. Some of Patrick's producing credits include the films Bombardier Blood (EP: Alex Borstein), Elsewhere (HRIFF: Best Picture), My Beautiful Stutter (EPs: Paul Rudd, Mariska Hargitay), sometimes I Think About Dying (Sundance Film Festival; Academy Award shortlist), and the multi-award winning web series Stop the Bleeding!. Patrick is also the Founder of the 501(c)(3) Entertainment 2 Affect Change (E2AC), a proud graduate of Boston University (BFA, Acting), and a fierce indoor cyclist. Born with severe hemophilia A, Patrick dedicates his work in bleeding disorders and rare diseases to the memory of his late brother, Adam.

• CEO Story: Patrick has a very powerful story behind why he built his production company. Started his mission to use entertainment as a vehicle for engagement, and education that leads to empowerment. Born with hemophilia and his brother was lost to it. He turns himself into a curious, mission-driven individual to help others in need, educational process in preparation for the advocacy.
• Business Service: Entertainment content, bringing awareness to the foundational element that people need to know about the bleeding disorder.
• Secret Sauce: Being the victim and losing a brother with the disease makes Patrick unique, a true living testament.
• CEO Hack: Book mention: Good to Great by Jim Collins – talks about hedgehog concepts, 3 concentric circles, where they overlap is the sweet spot. 1. What are deeply passionate about? 2. What can you be the best ethos in the world at? 3. What is the driver of the economic engine?
• CEO Nugget: Do that thing that no one is telling you to do that is not on the deliverable list.
• CEO Defined: Owning that you as the CEO is the secret sauce. You must be bringing to the table a major component of that secret sauce.

Website: www.believeltd.com

www.bloodstreammedia.com

Headshoot link: https://m.imdb.com/name/nm4019838/mediaviewer/rm2979742720

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Transcription

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00:26 – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkness values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.

00:53 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. At Patrick James Lynch of Believe, Limited and Bloodstream Media. Patrick, super excited to have you on the show.

01:05 – James Lynch

Crash, thanks so much for having me. Happy to be here. Yes, this will definitely be a great conversation.

01:08 – Gresham Harkless

Before we jump into the interview, I want to read a little bit more about Patrick so you can hear about some of the awesome things that he's doing. Patrick is a globally recognized healthcare and rare disease advocate, media professional, filmmaker, and father. He's a co-founder and CEO of Believe Limited, a mission-driven content agency and production company. And he's the founder of Bloodstream Media, a rare and chronic disease podcast network.

Some of Patrick's producing credits include the films Bombardier Blood, Elsewhere, My Beautiful Stutter, Sometimes I Think About Dying, and the multi-award-winning web series Stop the Bleeding. Patrick is also the founder of the 501 C Affect Change. A proud gra and a fierce indoor cycle hemophilia.

A Patrick died from bleeding disorders and in memory of his late brother excited to have you on the show and excited to hear about the awesome things that you are ready to speak to the I AM CEO

02:11 – James Lynch

sir, let's go,

02:12 – Gresham Harkless

let's make and rare disease to the late brother Adam Patrick have you on the why and all you're doing? Are you rea the I'm co community? Yes, make it happen then. So I a little bit when I read your bio, but I wanted to drill down a little bit more, Hale, about what I like to call your CEO story.

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02:21 – James Lynch

Sure, so as you mentioned, I was born with severe hemophilia A, so that's a blood disorder. That means I don't have a protein that helps blood clot or coagulate any time a blood vessel ruptures. And that rupture could be small, you know, you bang your hand on the door as you're leaving a room, ow. Tiny little capillaries will probably burst. This happens to all of us all the time and our systems just heal up. I'm missing a protein that does that. I can survive the banging on the door for a moment there, but the more significant impact without medication, hemophilia is life-threatening.

In fact, most people around the world sadly don't have access to the medication that I take every day and are lucky to live past 20 years old. So it can be extremely critical, as you mentioned in the introduction, sadly, my brother passed away as a result of it. And on the heels of his passing, obviously, that was, I mean, a grief and a loss in my life unlike really any other. But I was also curious. I was curious about what happened to him. I was curious why his story was different than mine.

And what that curiosity led to was recognizing that for all of the medicine and good educational materials and resources that were available for people living with hemophilia, there really wasn't much out there to make that accessible to young people. And I thought, well, that's a huge problem. It's not enough to have expertise if you're not getting that expertise to the people who need it most. So that started me on this mission to use entertainment as a vehicle for engagement, and education, and that leads to empowerment.

We hear a lot about education and advocacy and healthcare advocacy, but I ask the question, what's getting you to the educational process? You know, we all appreciate the adage, the teacher appears when the student is ready. That's true here too. So if we're not making an effort to get that student ready, and I'd argue using entertainment as a vehicle for engagement is a great way to get that prepared, lay the track for that engagement, then you can start with education and then you have an empowered person. So that in short is what started Believe Limited.

04:24 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. Well, obviously, sorry to hear about your brother, but I truly appreciate it, you know, I think so many times in life, things can happen. And we kind of can look for solutions in kind of like the same way. We can say that it's always been done this way.

We can't use this and we can't use that. But I love even more that you take what is definitely a challenge of yours and have been able to kind of run with it, you say, okay, entertainment, content, all these different ways that so many times we allow like content or those foundational elements to be the foundation of what it is that we're doing. You're, it sounds like using that as a way to get the message out there, get awareness out there, let people know about, you know, different things that they need to know about so that at the end of the day, it makes the world a better place.

05:09 – James Lynch

Exactly. So take Stop the Bleeding and mention it in the intro, multi-award winning. We've been doing that now for about a decade, this web series, was set up as a mockumentary like The Office, a fake documentary. But instead of Michael Scott and a dysfunctional paper company, we had me playing the executive director of a patient advocacy organization as inept and incapable as Michael Scott.

But what that allowed us to do was use the scenes in every episode to actually do some good teaching about self-care practices that are important to know how the advocacy structure works, how to make a difference in your local community, how to advocate for yourself to get the individualized educational plan that you need at school, how to help your kid through insurance issues, all through a much more palatable vehicle, a mockumentary like an office tailored for people with bleeding disorders and not simply saying, well, we've made a pamphlet.

The information exists, it's out there. Yeah, that's not enough. That's not what literacy is about. So you're right. We've looked at what these different modes of entertainment and communication mechanisms enable us to do from messaging and community-facing standpoints. And then we throw our creativity all over the place once we're clear about that piece.

06:24 – Gresham Harkless

Nice, I absolutely love that. And you have that secret sauce and anything that you feel kind of sets you apart. Do you feel like, first of all, I want to hear, you know, if there's anything additional that we didn't kind of touch on that, you know, you do to serve your clients, but also do you feel like that's a strong Elisa ingredient within the secret sauce that you feel like sets you and the organization apart and makes it unique?

06:44 – James Lynch

For sure. I mean, the fact that I am a person living with a rare disease, that I lost my brother to it as well, that makes me unique within Believe Limited. And then hemophilia as a rare disease is interesting, because a rare disease in the United States, it's different around the world, the exact guidelines. In the United States, it means a population of 200, 000 people or fewer. And there are, I think, over 7, 000 diagnoses that fit into that category.

So that's a large group of people. Interestingly, there are actually, in total, 1 in 10 people who have a rare disease. Think about that for a moment. In the United States, how many coalitions do you know that are like 34 million people large? That's a big coalition. Now, of course, within the 7, 000, there are a lot of differences in unique needs. But when we think about advocacy and coalitions and how to make sure our needs get met, I always like to point out to people, that rare is a little bit of a misnomer because it makes you think that these are far less common than in totality they actually are.

But amongst them, 95% don't have a single FDA-approved medication. What does that mean? That means we have people with diseases that are not very well understood, and the research has not made a terrible amount of progress. That means we have children who are sick and suffering in a lot of these cases, and unfortunately in many cases don't necessarily see into adulthood.

So huge needs. Hemophilia is different. It's amongst the 5 that have not just 1, but actually several medications available and has continued innovation happening all the time. That has allowed us as a population to experience some life stages and life cycle moments that other rare disease communities haven't yet gotten to.

So it also means that hemophilia within rare diseases has a uniquely valuable playbook to follow and a community to study and appreciate within the content agency and agencies trying to help clients Most of our climates are in the pharmaceutical or major nonprofit space They want to engage with patients and families and more all the time. That feels organic and  tied into the community to amplify real voices and to help unearth them and we have just unique o with these folks to  bring those things to

09:09 – Gresham Harkless

I think that you know, we are obsessed with the, I want accolades rather than the ultimately have. And I do know, what you're talking about I can definitely hear that and see that in all the work that you do as well. So absolutely appreciate that. And I wanted to switch gears a little bit. And I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. You might have already touched on this, but this could be like an Apple book or a habit that you have, what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

09:38 – James Lynch

So I have to say the thing that I really feel as though helped me first formulate my thinking around pursuing Stop the Bleeding, that first project, and has really served throughout. And it's from a book by author Jim Collins. So not the most unknown or, you know, this may be familiar to many out there in the community, but Jim Collins in his book, Good to Great, talks about the hedgehog concept. The hedgehog concept is essentially 3 concentric circles, and where they overlap those 3 circles, that's your sweet spot, that's the hedgehog.

I think it has to do with the way hedgehogs can move very quickly but in one direction. I forget the actual reason he titled it that but the 3 concentric circles are driven by these 3 questions. What are you deeply passionate about? What can you be the best in the world at? And what is the driver of the economic engine that would support such a thing? So I started to think about what had happened to my brother, why I thought it happened, and what we could do to change the outcomes for other people like him with hemophilia, other blood disorders, other rare diseases, other health conditions, and other social challenges. I was like, okay, I'm passionate about this. This is easy, that's an easy 1, check.

Can I be, what can I be the best in the world at? Well, I may not be the best actor director writer, or producer in the world, but I might be able to be the best actor, writer, producer, or creative person professionally dedicated to changing rare disease education. That I actually may have an opportunity for. That's interesting to me. And then what's the driver of the economic engine? Well, it's complicated, but in the United States, the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry exists within our marketplace, and there is a lot of money that swims around the healthcare and pharmaceutical industry.

So I thought if I can figure out how that money is thought of, who controls it, what they spend it on and why, what they look for to measure success, and then, okay, I know what I'm passionate about, I think I know what I can do best in the world at. And I have clearly identified, at least generally, the economic engine. This is my hedgehog. This is my sweet spot. I need to focus on not trying to do a million things and be everything to everyone, but I need to just focus on being the absolute best at this particular thing and then the road will reveal itself from there. That made sense to me when I heard it logically.

12:13 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. So You might have already touched on this as well too, but what do you consider to be what I like to call your CEO nugget? This is a little bit more word of wisdom or a piece of advice. I usually say you might tell your favorite client, or if you happen to be a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

12:28 – James Lynch

It was 1 of those moments where I was like, oh, you know what, you're right about that, Patrick. And then when I'd remind myself of it and be like Patrick, remember what you know to be right about. But the thing that I would tell myself, I would tell other entrepreneurs, I tell anybody who wants to listen and is interested in improving their life, do the thing that no 1 else can tell you to do. We all have the little voices in our head.

Do that thing that no 1 is telling you to do, that isn't on a deliverables list somewhere that no 1 can even know to think about, but your little voice in your head says to you, hey you, this would be good for you. Do this. It might be a little bit uncomfortable. It might take a moment. It might do that thing, do that thing. It is so easy for me. It is so easy for me to just ignore that voice, and brush it aside. I got my plans, I got my schedule, I got my, man, I don't think I've ever regretted when that little voice is something I've listened to.

So do the thing no 1 else can tell you to do. No 1 can ever, ever, ever, ever tell you. But I promise you that if you look at the highest achieving people in the world, there are things that they have thought to themselves, discovered for themselves, and put into practice and no 1 else could have told them that that thing. It's just unique to their life. So do the thing that no 1 else can tell you to do.

13:41 – Gresham Harkless

I love that. And so absolutely appreciate that. And now I want to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. We're all now different quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So Patrick, what does being a CEO mean to you?

13:54 – James Lynch

I think being a CEO means truly owning the degree to which you are the secret sauce because the buck does stop with you for better and for worse. On the better side, that means you must be bringing something to the table as CEO that is a major component of that secret sauce. And if you don't own it, and It took me a long time to get comfortable with like, I need to own the parts of this that are special and unique and that I'm helping bring to the table. It doesn't help anybody if I'm overly modest shy or bashful or too much pointing to other people.

And it's good to be gracious, but that can also be deflection. So I would say it's owning the degree to which you are the secret sauce and really letting that authorship and that ownership and that agency have a thumbprint on your company, on your work. And if you feel as though at some point, hey, this doesn't quite feel right, reevaluate, maybe shift something a little bit, but have the courage to know that you can't be your best self, your best CEO, your company can't be its best self if you are not leaning into the degree to which you are the secret sauce.

14:58 – Gresham Harkless

Patrick truly appreciates that definition and perspective. Of course, I appreciate your time even more. So what I want to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best people can get on view, and find out about all the awesome things that you and the team are working on.

15:14 – James Lynch

I have a show called Bloodstream Podcast, which comes out twice a month. Bloodstream Podcast, you'll find it at all the places that you find. I AM CEO. My buddy, Chris Bombardier, a few years ago traveled the world attempting to become the first person with hemophilia to climb 7 summits, including Mount Everest. That's the highest mountain on each continent. Everest is included as the highest 1 on earth and we followed and made a documentary ab you know, the attempt moment. It's called bomba ARDIER blood. You can see the kinds of places you m or go to Bombardier blood trailers and all that go you go. Maybe some of your listeners and some of the community will find a little bit of entertainment there.

16:00 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And of course, to make it even easier, we're going to have the links and information in the show notes as well too, so that everybody can follow up with you. Be on Phenomenal the rest of the day.

16:07 – James Lynch

Thank you very much, man. I appreciate it. And you do the same.

16:09 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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