The world has been completely disrupted over the last few months.

And that presents us with unprecedented opportunities…

But first, we need to disrupt ourselves.

To find out how, I invited the expert on disruption theory onto this LinkedIn Live episode.

But you probably already know Whitney Johnson, C-Suite Advisor at WLJ Advisors, considering she has 1.8 million followers on LinkedIn.

Whitney has authored two of my favorite books, Disrupt Yourself and Build an A-Team, and both are incredibly valuable in the current crisis.

Disrupt yourself

Whitney: In the early 2000s, I had an “aha” moment: Disruption wasn’t just about products and services, companies or even countries like Singapore.

It’s also about people.

I realized in order to do whatI was meant to do, I needed to disrupt myself — leave Wall Street and become an entrepreneur.

That was the kernel of this idea that this framework could also be applied not just to companies, but to people.

The framework — especially fitting from the high-level perspective of what we’re going through right now — is that we’re willing to say I was made not to be acted upon, but to act.

“The only way for us to manage the upheaval and chaos when everything is being disrupted around us is to disrupt ourselves.”

Disruption creates opportunity.

Specifically: market opportunity.

Taking the right risks

Whitney: We know from the theory of disruption, that the odds of success are six times higher when we are willing to go through the uncertainty involved with market risk.

That’s the first step of disruption.

What does it mean for us right now?

It basically means that there’s fear in our brain competing for shelf space and we instead say: No, I’m going to create.

I’m going to think what the future will look like. I’m hopeful for the future.

As you say those words, it sounds kind of silly, but there’s so much power in our words.

And we know that from the research — it’s ingesting these ideas that will allow you to feel hopeful and create.

“Amateurs compete. Professionals create.”

Think about compete vs. create in your career.

Compete is when you take a role inside of a company and there’s someone else who always already thinks it’s their job to do whatever it is you were hired to do.

Now you’ve just taken on competitive risk. And there’s a winner and there’s going to be a loser and it’s probably the incumbent who wins. You don’t want to take that job.

That’s competitive for us.

So what you want when you’re looking at taking a job is to say, Is there anybody here who thinks it’s their job to do the job that I was just hired to do?

If there isn’t, then you’re taking on market risk.

You’ve got an opportunity — a shot to make it work really well.

What are we giving space to in fear is the competitive. We’re all going after these scraps because there’s a lot fewer resources — or it feels like there are fewer today than there were yesterday.

That’s fear.

Or are we going to go with hope? What are we going to create?

Yes, this is a really hard time, but history has proven what can happen after this is going to be magnificent if we’re in that place where we can create.

That’s where we want our heads to be.

Take the right risks.

Guardrails today; accelerators tomorrow

Whitney: The first thing that I ask people is: What are you doing?

And how are you managing the stress? (Just so that people are aware that it will be there.)

And the other thing that I bet a lot of people who are listening have noticed is that people are dropping balls that don’t usually drop the balls that they’re dropping.

You’ve got a meeting set up and all of the technology goes wrong, and yet the technology never goes wrong when you’re dealing with this person.

Those are there these cracks in the system that are taking place because there’s a lot of there are a lot of stressors out there.

The second one is, so what’s your biggest challenge right now?

That is helping them be aware of what’s happening and not just power through it and pretend like there’s nothing wrong — because there is something wrong.

It’s getting people to attend to the present and what’s happening today.

But as I said before, disruption creates opportunity.

So you need to think about the future to find that opportunity.

Guardrails for today and accelerants for tomorrow.

It’s time to create

We all want to survive and thrive through this crisis.

And Whitney said it best: Professionals create.

So, ask yourself:

What am I creating?