Are You a Disruptor?

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Are You a Disruptor?

Many people feel the word disruptor used to belong exclusively to Silicon Valley. It described founders who overturned industries, rewrote business models, and rendered legacy systems obsolete, such as Bill Gates with Microsoft Windows, Steve Jobs with the iPhone, Elon Musk with SpaceX and Tesla and others.

What Is a Disruptor, Really?

At its core, disruption is not chaos. It is intentional pattern interruption.

A disruptor identifies an entrenched framework then challenges it.

In business, that might mean replacing physical stores with e-commerce such as what Amazon.com did.

In personal growth, being a disruptormeans replacing inherited beliefs with consciously chosen ones.

Disruption operates in three phases:

1. Recognition – Understanding an entrenched framework.
2. Questioning – Challenging its validity.
3. Replacement – Creating and utilizing a new framework.

There are two types of disruptors:

1. Structural Disruptors

These are innovators (e.g., Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, etc.) who change well know business structures, business systems, industries, or institutions. They alter markets, create new models, and redefine standards.

2. Personal Disruptors

These are individuals who transform their identity, habits, and trajectory. They shift from reaction to intention. They redesign their own internal operating systems, their own life arcs.

Personal Disruptors are uncomfortable with autopilot living.

Personal Disruptors practice principled divergence. You are grounded in a coherent value system and you move away from dominant patterns, group consensus, or inherited frameworks.

Personal Disruptors alter relational dynamics. When you disrupt, you challenge others’ stagnation. When you disrupt, you threaten established hierarchies.

Personal Disruptors accept friction as evidence of forward motion.

Signs You Need to Become a Personal Disruptor

You may be a personal disruptor if:

• You feel persistent friction with “the way things are.”
• You ask “why?” more than “how?”
• You are willing to endure temporary instability for long-term alignment.
• You prioritize principle over approval.
• You redesign your routines instead of merely refining them.

A Practical Framework for Personal Disruption

If you want to operate as a disruptor in your own life, apply this structured approach:

Step 1: Conduct a Belief Audit

List five core beliefs about each of the following:

• Money
• Success
• Relationships
• Health
• Self-worth
• Career

For each belief, ask yourself:

• Where did I get this belief from?
• Is it empirically valid in my life and in my best interest?
• Does it produce the outcomes I want?

Step 2: Identify One Framework to Replace

Choose an existing framework in your life, such as your communication style, your decision-making process, your interactions in your relationships, your daily energy allocation, etc.

To identify an existing framework to replace, ask yourself:

• What does this existing framework cost me cognitively?
• What does this existing framework cost me emotionally?
• What opportunities has this existing framework limited in my life?
• Where this existing framework created internal misalignments?
• What negative characteristics does this existing framework reinforce in me?

Step 3: Design a New Disruptive Framework

Define your new disruptive framework explicitly.

For each new disruptive framework you are creating ask yourself:

• What principles will anchor this new disruptive framework?
• What behaviors will I visibly change with the new disruptive framework?
• What boundaries will I enforce with this new disruptive framework?
• What new skills will be developed and utilized with this new disruptive framework?

Step 4: Install Disruption-Based Alignment Metrics

Instead of measuring outcomes, measure alignment to your new disruptive framework on a daily basis.

Ask yourself:

• Did I act in integrity with my new disruptive framework?
• Did I create value for myself with my new disruptive framework?
• How many decisions this week aligned with my declared principles in my new disruptive framework?
• Where did I compromise in my new disruptive framework?
• Why did I compromise in my new disruptive framework?

Disruption alone creates attention.
Structured disruption creates value.
Principled disruption creates lasting impact.

Creating and using a new disruptive framework will create a significant positive impact in your own life.

Out There on the Edge of Everything®…

Stephen Lesavich, PhD

Copyright © 2026 by Stephen Lesavich, PhD.  All rights reserved.

Certified solution-focused life coach and experienced business coach.

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