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DISRUPT YOU Workbook July 2015 PDF
DISRUPT YOU Workbook July 2015 PDF
Workbook
Jay Samit
DISRUPT
YOU!
Workbook
FLATIRON
BOOKS
NEW YORK
DISRUPT YOU! WORKBOOK
D isrupt You! is written to empower you to transform your life, seize new
opportunities, and thrive in this era of endless innovation. You have al-
ready achieved the first stage of your journey by reading the book and
committing to self-disruption. The Disrupt You! Workbook is one more
tool to help you achieve your potential and realize your goals. To change
who you are, you must first change who you think you are. The more ef-
fort and energy you put into completing the exercises in this workbook,
the more you will get out of your career and your life.
Before you begin, here are some tips to organizing your self-disruption
journey and maximizing your results. Start each day with a few minutes
of visualization. As discussed in the book, visualization puts you in a
positive frame of mind and opens you up to new possibilities. By visual-
izing what you hope to achieve, you can develop a step-by-step plan for
realizing your goals. When you get in the habit of setting daily attainable
goals, you will be amazed what you can achieve during a week, a month,
and then a year. Be consistent and persistent in your pursuit. As you
read each chapter in Disrupt You!, you’ll learn new lessons for disruption,
then reflect on how these principles can be applied to your life, your jour-
ney, and your goals. Lastly, when there are setbacks and you have to pivot,
go back to the examples in the book for inspiration and ideas of how to
proceed. Remember, if it were easy, everyone would do it.
4 JAY SAMIT
Chapter One
In Defense of Disruption
3. What is the one thing you would hope to change about yourself?
What personal traits do you believe are holding you back from attain-
ing success? How do your co-workers and bosses perceive you? What
shortcomings do others say you have? What have employers noted on your
performance reviews in the past?
4. Is there anything holding you back from making a change in your life?
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5. What do you risk losing if you try to disrupt your life?
6. Who is telling you that you can’t have success? Did they give up on
their dreams and is that why they want you to give up on yours?
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2. Why do most people set limits when none actually exist? List one
achievement that would change how you feel about your limitations. For
example, if you are afraid of public speaking, the achievement to list would
be giving a speech. If you aren’t knowledgeable about a certain business, it
would be taking a course or reading a book on the subject. Choose some-
thing just outside of your comfort zone.
By completing the previous exercises, you proved that there isn’t anything
in your life that cannot be changed. Chapter 3 is all about being specific
with your goals. Don’t let your dreams stay dreams. Write them down in
an honest and organized manner. These exercises are your opportunity
to turn your dreams into a disruptor’s map. Life is short. Now make the
most of it.
1. Write a list of the things you would like out of life. This list can include
personal as well as material goals. Be honest and complete. Keep this list in
a journal or on your computer and refer back to it in coming days, months,
and years. Feel free to update and revise your list as your desires change.
This list is your first step at gaining control over your life’s journey.
3. You now have destination points of your Disruptor’s Map. Hang this
list on the wall by your desk or on your bathroom mirror. Study it and revise
it. Look at it often. You will be amazed how much you can accomplish once
you focus your priorities.
5. Look at the list of necessary resources that you just came up with.
Think of those resources as a To Do List. Write up an action plan of how
and when you are going to do each of the items on this list.
6. Lastly, congratulate yourself. You have taken the important first step
in controlling the outcome of your life; you have made a plan and you have
outlined the steps needed to achieve it. The plan will be altered by time and
circumstance, but you now possess a powerful Disruptor’s Map for staying
on course. Your life now has a purpose and your journey a destination.
For many readers getting that perfect job is the first step towards achieving
personal transformation. Chapter 4 discussed the importance of language
in defining who you are and how perspective employers perceive you.
Recruiters and prospective employers will only take a minute to eyeball
your resume. These exercises will help you make every second count.
2. Take out a copy of your existing resume and list all of the verbs you use.
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3. Make a list of five people you would like to emulate in your career.
These people can be senior executives in your company or notables in your
field. Go to LinkedIn and review profiles of other people who have held
similar positions to yours that you would like to emulate. Notice the words
they use to describe the positions they’ve held and the accomplishments
they’ve made. Pay special attention to their use of active verbs (designing,
deciding, creating). Which profiles jump out at you? What skills do they list?
Which candidates would you want to hire? What image does their profile
convey?
4. Circle those skills that you possess, but might not have articulated in
your own resume. Also note what training, certification, or other credentials
these individuals list in their own profiles. You may need to develop in order
to achieve industry success.
5. Now look at the chart you’ve made and compare it to your resume.
Replace any of the past tense or passive verbs on your resume with active
verbs found in the Transferable Skills Chart in Chapter 4 of Disrupt You!. Try
not to repeat the same verbs for multiple jobs or experiences.
6. Now print out a fresh copy of your resume and circle all of the adjec-
tives. Replace any duplicates with synonyms that give your resume more
depth.
Not everyone can go out and start his or her own business. As discussed
in chapter 5, many people benefit from learning to be an intrapreneur
and disrupting from inside a company can be the best path to achieving
your life goals. These exercises are designed to get you to look at your
current employer through the eyes of a disruptor.
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4. What would be the one thing your company could do differently that
would most positively impact its future? This doesn’t have to be something
in your area of the company, or even something that involves you. The
goal is to look for where value is captured through disruption. Does your
company need to move into an adjacent market or does it need to change
its value chain?
5. Who in your company would gain the most from implementing your
ideas for disruption?
Every entrepreneur wants to discover the one big idea that will change
his or her fortunes. As detailed in Chapter 6, the search for the Zombie
Idea—the idea that can’t be killed—is a methodical process. The first step
is to find obstacles that can be turned into opportunities by a disruptor.
These exercises will help you find your Zombie Idea.
1. Start looking for problems. Over the course of one month, write down
three things that can be improved in your world every day. They can be big
or small; personal or global.
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2. Review your ninety problems. Which are you most passionate about?
Which problems do you believe bother the most people? Which problems
have the least viable available solution?
3. Select the three problems for which you would most like to find a
solution. Brainstorm ways of solving three of your problems. Come up with
three Big Ideas.
4. Find ten strangers (friends want you to succeed and won’t be honest
enough with their feedback) who share the same problem and tell them
about your Big Idea. Do they feel it will it help them? What would they pay
for a solution? Ask them to try and kill your Big Idea. (Tip: Phrase your
questions in an open ended manner so as not to lead them into artificially
supporting your idea. “How would you use this product?” is a more useful
survey question than “Do you like this product?”)
5. Modify your idea with the feedback received and test the new-im-
proved Big Idea on ten new potential customers. Test and repeat until your
Zombie Idea can’t be killed. Revel in having created a Zombie idea and yell
“It’s alive!”
The lesson of Chapter Seven is recognizing that failure is not the op-
posite of success; it is part of success. Virtually all businesses must pivot
at one point or another. These exercises are designed to help you turn
setbacks into opportunities. The following is an exercise I do at least
once a month with every company I advise. These are tough questions
that require open, honest and complete answers. They can be assigned
to everyone on your management team individually or shared as a group.
Remind your team that this isn’t personal. It is the only way to know
when to push ahead or when to move in another direction. All too often,
disruptors are too busy working in their business to be working on their
business. Here are the ten key Disrupt You! questions for pivoting your
energies:
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3. What would it take to achieve the original plan?
7. What are your actual customers telling you? How does the data differ
from your initial assumptions?
9. If you broke down the value chain of what you have created, what
better business opportunity could you pursue with your current assets?
10. Is it time to pivot? If the answer is yes, congratulate yourself for be-
ing honest and facing the tough fact that it is time to move forward in a new
direction. You are in control of your future and nothing feels better than that.
If the answer is no, then focus your efforts on fixing the issues identified by
your team. Either way, you tacked your ship across stormy seas and you
are headed for success once again.
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Chapter 8
Unlocking the Value Chain
3. Analyze the cost versus profit potential of each link in the chain.
5. Which link generates the most value and which link captures
the most value?
7. Will you be able to capture the value you are creating, or will your
business be disruptive without generating value for your new company?
8. How will you defend your new value chain from future disruptors?
(This may require you to take another set of cards and map out the value
chain of your new company.)
9. Select the card of the link you are going to disrupt and congratulate
yourself on decoding your industry. You are now in a position to be a
disruptor.
24 JAY SAMIT
Chapter 9
Research & Development:
Unlocking the Value of Waste
Not all disruption requires you to invent something new. As the exam-
ples in Chapter 9 illustrate, you only need to find an existing idea and
apply it to a new industry or in a novel way. Local, state, and national
resources are available to you for discovering intellectual property that is
waiting to be discovered and put to use. The following exercises will help
you source your Big Idea.
4. Involve a lawyer in this process to make sure that the entity granting
you the license has the authority to do so and to protect your rights going
forward. Ask if your new use enables you to file for additional patents in
your name.
Brand extensions are a powerful way to take your unknown product and
make it instantly familiar to the public. Chapter 10 shares a wide range
of examples of how branding can be used to disrupt existing markets
and save on marketing dollars. Leveraging an existing brand can catapult
your Big Idea to success. The following exercises will help you determine
if this approach is right for your new product.
3. Armed with your data, reach out to the brand manager of the
established company to see on what terms you can license the brand. Even
if you don’t have the capital to execute the license, get the contract in hand.
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Chapter 11
Production: Reuse, Repurpose, Re-create
1. If your Big Idea is a physical product, how and where are you
planning to manufacturer it?
3. Are their suppliers online that can rapidly prototype your product for you?
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Chapter 12
Marketing and Sales:
Finding the Problem to Fit Your Solution
1. What is the business model for your Big Idea? How does this com-
pare to similar products in your industry?
2. Are there other revenue streams or other sales approaches that could
be applied to your new business?
4. What marketing channels already exist for your target audience? Can
you leverage someone else’s sales channel or sales force?
5. Could branded content get the word out for you more effectively?
6. Have any of your competitors tried a different business model in the past?
7. Does your business model capture the most value from your product?
Building a solid financial model for your new company will help you
raise the capital you require to launch your company. If you don’t have
Excel skills, hire someone to help you with your modeling.
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Chapter 13
Distribution: Unlocking Unattainted Value
and the Challenge of Unlimited Shelf Space
1. How will your startup disrupt digital distribution? Will you work with
existing providers or create your own sales channel?
2. What is the best business model for pricing and consuming your
service offering? Is your target audience best suited for subscription, rental,
sales, or an ad supported model?
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Chapter 14
Capital Revisited: Other People’s Money
Other People’s Money (OPM) is a concept where you can leverage the
budget of major corporations that benefit from your new offering and
therefore aren’t required to pay them back for the capital they spend as-
sisting your efforts. Chapter 14 gives specific examples of how OPM can
be used in a wide range of industries and markets. These exercises are
designed to help you identify potential sources of OPM for your disrup-
tive idea.
4. Craft an email as to how your company can help them better market
their client’s product. Remember, you are helping them do their job – not
asking for a favor.
5. Take the user profile from step 1 and list which charities are also
targeting the same audience. Come up with a way for your team to work
with a charity on a cause marketing campaign.
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Chapter 15
Disruption in the Era of the Crowd
The power of the crowd is the power to fund any solution. Chapter 15
is an introduction to crowdfunding and crowdsourcing as new ways to
build a startup in the 21st century. The following exercises are designed to
help you determine how you can put the crowd to work for you.
2. Make a list of the terms and rewards offered to funders. How can
your project meet or beat these existing market expectations?
3. Study the amount of money raised in each prior project. Try to deter-
mine the sweet spot for fundraising. (Remember you can always raise more
capital than the minimum amount you requested.)
4. Check with an attorney to see what restrictions there are under the
JOBS Act for selling equity in your new venture.
5. Make a list of friends and family that would likely participate in your
crowdfunding. Send a test email to see how many would be interested in
supporting your campaign.
The principles of Disrupt You! apply far beyond the world of business.
Ideas are worthless unless you get them out of your head and into action.
Chapter 16 shows examples of how disruption can be applied to govern-
mental and social institutions. For those of you who dream big and really
want to change the world, nothing is stopping you. You have disrupted
yourself and your career, now follow these exercises to disrupt the world.
1. Just as you did in Chapter 6, look at the world around you and write
down three major problems every day for a month. These are not the small
business solutions, but the macro issues. (I’ll give you your first three:
climate change, clean energy, and potable water.)
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86.
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2. Review your list of ninety problems and pick the one you are most
passionate about solving.
3. Using the tools outlined in this book, write your Disruptor’s Map for
arriving at your solution. Are there organizations that can help? Is there a
cause-marketing angle that can get big businesses involved?
5. How can you leverage the crowd to fund and source your solution?
—Jay Samit
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