Whitney Johnson recently wrote an interesting piece for the Harvard Business Review titled, “Disrupt yourself.”

She tells about leaving a seven figure salary on Wall Street to pursue more fulfilling personal goals, and the occasional scary thoughts that dogged her esteem as she grappled with earning far less money.

In her story, she muses,

“Perhaps earlier in your career the metric was money or fame, but now you want more autonomy, flexibility, authority, or to make a positive dent in the world. These require different metrics of success.”

 

She deftly compares upturning one’s life in a productive way to the disruptive technologies that upturn whole industries. She advises her readers to not fear disrupting their old ideals and measurements of success, to step out into a brave new world where others have not gone before you and do something new and progressive.

 

She wrote,

“Perhaps you too are ready to disrupt yourself. Maybe your hand is forced by downsizing, or new technologies are automating you right out of relevance. For most of you, however, I suspect the decision to make a dramatic disruption runs deeper than that. Like me, you may be looking to do more with your life. As you walk away from a future you easily foresee toward a more obscure trajectory, there will be times when you will feel lonely, scared, and even impoverished. But as you face your personal innovator’s dilemma, both the probability and magnitudes of success will improve greatly.”

 

She explains that your chances of success actually improve dramatically when you enter a disruptive mode. If you try to fit into old-world models that are firmly established, your chances for success greatly diminish because you’re fighting entrenched belief systems that limit your aspirations.

“We give a lot of airtime to building disruptive products and services, to buying and/or investing in disruptive companies, and we should. Both are vital engines of economic growth. But, the most overlooked engine of growth is the individual. If you are really looking to move the world forward, begin by innovating on the inside, and disrupt yourself.”

 

As I read the article, I thought in the context of living Christian Science. A Christian Scientist, who truly lives the teachings, is the largest disrupter of all.  His is a major force for disruption in the material world because his ideals go against all that mortal mind teaches and espouses. Like Jesus upturning the moneychangers’ tables in the temple, a spiritually focused idealist is going to be constantly upturning tables of material mindedness wherever he goes. It is expected, and if it is not happening, something is wrong.

I especially valued this quote from social media expert Liz Strauss, who Johnson quotes in her article, “It’s not possible for the world to hold a meeting to decide your value. That decision is all yours.”