It's Time for Disruptive Behavior

A red Corvette. That's the classic version, anyway.

It's what men in midlife are supposed to sacrifice everything else to gain: to prove they've made it, or make up for all they've not been able to do since they gave themselves to work instead of pursuing great adventure. All the movies from the '80s say so.

It's a disruption. A change that's supposed to reset the clock, offer new exploits, and shift the proud new Corvette owner's perspective. A nearly last-ditch effort to breathe life into the perceived stale and boring repetitions of the everyday.

It doesn't work. Not the red Corvette, at least.

It may offer a shot in the arm for a time, but the adrenaline rush eventually wears off, and the reality that nothing really changed sets in with greater force than the original recognition that life was simply not what was once imagined.

But for a small minority, something different happens. When rammed headlong into the midlife itch, they become more introspective, recognize the vanity of so much around them, and priorities shift in light of what is truly important. Ask me how I know.

Failure

One of the greatest triggers of self-analysis coupled with the intestinal fortitude to follow through with necessary change is failure. Failure sucks, and when it inevitably comes, we are more apt to make the obligatory changes to assure we won't face it again.

In her Harvard commencement speech in 2008, J.K. Rowling implored the graduating class to embrace failure, not as a practice but as a tutor:

Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged.

For Rowling, failure was the impetus toward focusing on the thing she desired to accomplish most, which led to her eventual success. She turned failure into a springboard, and she's certainly not alone. Most business leaders out there have lived stories that include some level of failure, and those failures have been agents of change that led to success.

Why Wait?

There are innumerable naturally-occurring and forced moments in life that trigger a reset and force us to reconsider our priorities and decisions. Sickness, death, job loss, children moving away, divorce: most come with negative connotations. And though the outcomes can lead to very positive change, it begs the question: why wait for something so painful to spur our own growth?

Those moments are weighty, often filled with regrets, and we learn things about ourselves we didn't necessarily want to know. So what if we didn't wait? What if we recognized the value of disruption, sought it out, and created disruptive opportunities for our own good?

Change is inevitable, and the disruption it causes often brings both inconvenience and opportunity.

Clayton Christensen laid out a foundational observation in The Innovator's Dilemma: disruptive innovations spur growth. Businesses can either take on entrenched market leaders by doing the same things or by creating a disruption that garners the attention of their customers and creates a new market.

Disruption is a choice. It requires creativity and imagination. It's not easy, but it's what leaders do.

Turn Things Upside Down

Rowling, in the same commencement speech:

Many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to know. Choosing to live in narrow spaces leads to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.

People often ask me why the "A" in my Changegoat logo is upside down. The reasoning is two-fold. The first is this concept of purposely turning things upside down. I see tremendous value in disruption, changing perspectives, turning questions around, and flipping things on their heads in order to move beyond the status quo, chart a new course, and spur personal and business growth. Sustained and dynamic growth doesn't come by sticking to the script.

The second reason: it actually forms a goat's head, which most people don't see until it's pointed out. You just saw it, didn't you?

Instead of avoiding disruptions, leaders embrace them. The question is whether we welcome them, invite them in, or search them out, knowing they're often necessary for our desired outcomes.

A few places to start:

End things. Quit something. Go through your credit card bill and find something to stop doing.

Start things. Try something. Give in to the question, "Why not?" Reach out to someone from your past and reintroduce yourself.

Change things. Travel. Go a different route. Break a habit. Fast. Do something daily for 30 days. Learn a new industry. Read more. Delete an app.

Get bored. Get lost. Get stuck. Get free. Get started. Get going.

Disrupt or be disrupted.