The One Thing That High Growth People Do (and Why They Do It)

This article is part of The Disruption Advisor LinkedIn Newsletter series. Subscribe today and join thousands of leaders who want to become fluent in the language of growth.

Agent of disruption.

It may sound like a spy game involving stealth, high jinks, and heroic escapades. But when we’re the ones being disrupted it can feel like we’re on the losing end of a contest that is not much fun at all. 

One of the best ways to cope with, and even harness the forces of constant disruption so as to grow faster, is to become the agent of your own disruption—to disrupt yourself.

If you can master this one skill - disrupting yourself before you get disrupted - a world of possibility and growth opens up to you. Disruptors, high-growth individuals know this. Here's why they have chosen to take charge of their growth and learning, rather than waiting for the battle to come to them, and why you should become a disruptor too:

1. Yourself.

When you try something new, you’re choosing to focus your energies on who you can become, not who you are. You liberate yourself to move from stuck in the status quo to unstuck, opening doors to new potential. As you progress along a new path, your brain is lubricated by dopamine, a learning-loving neurotransmitter that generates feelings of well-being. Disrupting yourself makes you happy.

Though you may think you crave certainty and the control of a known task to complete, moving into terra incognita feels better. It’s emotionally and physically restorative, as well as intellectually stimulating. A study by Kennon M. Sheldon and colleagues suggests that opportunities for self-expression, i.e. creativity, may increase feelings of agreeableness, conscientious, and openness, leading people to act more responsibly, cooperatively, receptively, and cheerfully. 

2. Your loved ones.

Motivational speaker Jim Rohn once famously said, "You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with." You are impacted by those around you and they are impacted by you. Research suggests our emotions are contagious. As you enjoy the feel-good effects of disruption, others will too.

As you share your disruptive path with these important people, you release the bonding hormone of oxytocin which activates higher levels of trust. Sharing makes other people feel trusted and involved and that makes them feel good, too. (This includes the children in your life too. We dream so they can dream. We disrupt, so our children will believe they can be disruptors too.)

3. Your colleagues.

It’s a human imperative to feel safe. When we feel safe, it gives us the confidence to try something new. When you willingly take a risk, you give others the courage to do so as well.

I know from personal experience that one of the most difficult aspects of jumping to a new learning curve is setting aside my ego. For a time, we may have less expertise and are reliant on others, even those junior to us. It’s ego-bruising to temporarily look dumb.

But as Rebecca Jackson explains beautifully in her essay, "Shedding My Skin," it’s worth it:

"Have you ever let go of something that simultaneously protects and strangles you; something that both defines you, but also suffocates your evolution? Just like a snake shedding its skin, you have to lose something critical to grow, leaving you vulnerable and exposed in the process."

When you shed your constraining skin and disrupt yourself, you encourage others to do so as well.

4. The market.

Disruption breeds innovation—a willingness to play where others are not. Starbucks founder Howard Schultz once said, “Any company that embraces the status quo is on a collision course with time."

Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal, puts it another way: "Doing what we already know how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding something more of the familiar. But every time we create something new, we go from 0 to 1. The act of creation is singular, as is the moment of creation, and the result of something fresh and strange. Unless companies invest in the difficult task of creating new things, they will fail in the future no matter how big their profits are."

But remember, companies don't disrupt, people do. Companies can only act on what individuals envision. Challenge the status quo and others will too.

5. The economy.

Consider this number: $8 billion. That's about how many dollars were earned by developers for Apple's App store from 2008 until around 2015. Or, think about the fact that Apple has created or supported well over a million U.S. jobs. Whether small or large, innovation resulting from personal disruption revitalizes and keeps our economy healthy, and it provides opportunities for others.

Choosing to be an agent of disruption makes you a powerful positive force. When you disrupt yourself, you do more than cope with the forces of disruption; you enable yourself to harness its power and unpredictability to slingshot you forward, to grow even faster—and potentially others around you, too.

*****

If you enjoyed this article, here are two ways to stay in touch.

1. Sign Up for our newsletter–––a weekly dose of personal disruption read by tens of thousands of people across the globe. No spam. Just a newsletter meant to help you grow faster. Here's a sample.

2. Listen to the Disrupt Yourself podcast–––You may want to start with Episodes, 80, 100, 120. Also check out our interviews with Brene Brown, Simon Sinek, Adam Grant and Liz Wiseman.

_______________

Whitney Johnson is the founder and CEO of WLJ Advisors, a boutique consultancy that helps leaders and the people they work with become fluent in the language of growth. Whitney is one of the leading management thinkers in the world, according to Thinkers50, and the author of the bestselling Build an A Team and critically-acclaimed Disrupt Yourself, both published by Harvard Business Press. She is a world-class keynote speaker, frequent lecturer for Harvard Business School's Corporate Learning and an advisor to CEOs. She is a member of the original cohort of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith's 100 Coaches, and was selected as MG100 / Thinkers50 #1 Coach on Talent. Whitney has 1.8 million followers on LinkedIn, where she was selected as a Top Voice in 2018, and her course on Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship has been viewed more than 1 million times.

P.S. Thank you to Robert Glazer for your guidance on launching this newsletter.