The latest issue of BusinessWeek has an cover story on Uber - the new car service that is disrupting the world of taxis.  I don't work with taxi drivers, but each of the clients with whom I work face disruptive forces in their industries.  Here are four examples:

Financial Services

The broker of yesteryear has become the financial advisor or financial planner of today. Transactional business has given way to fee-based services that provide recurring revenue.

The disruption is arising from technology that aids the do-it-yourselfer (DIYer) as well as forces that keep pressuring the fees that are charged to clients.

Education

K-12 public education is rated as poor or failing in many communities.  Colleges and graduate schools are seeing the liberal arts model continuously assaulted.

The K-12 disruption is arising from homeschooling and charter schools, that along with private schools, compete with public schools for students and funding.

Disruption to higher education comes in the form of professionalized training and distance education.  Even on the campuses of "liberal arts colleges" the most popular majors are now business, communications, psychology, education, nursing, and other professional degrees.  Our son attends a university of 19,000, of which just 3,000 are traditional undergraduates on a residential campus.

Churches

Traditional churches are adapting worship styles, venues, and length of services to keep the faith-filled in the pews.

The disruption is arising from parachurch organizations that provide many of the elements of churches without the all-encompassing commitment to community that some find unnecessary and from those who have "outgrown" the church altogether. Donald Miller, author of bestseller Blue Like Jazz, says he does not attend church regularly.  In fact, he writes: "Most of the influential Christian leaders I know (who are not pastors) do not attend church."

Healthcare

Hospitals are going under in some locales and being gobbled up elsewhere as they seek to survive in a world of shrinking reimbursements and increasing expectations.

The disruption is arising from concierge providers built around fee-based services, from smaller niche hospitals, and from larger competitors who must consume or die; all within a world lacking clear direction or sense of what will be.

Four responses to a disruptive world

1) Hope your career comes to a close before the disruption takes root and you go the way of travel agents.

2) Change careers to escape the path of the coming tsunami.  Young people today are expected to have seven careers, but many of us find that prospect wearying rather than invigorating.

3) Change with the disruption either incrementally as required or by getting out in front of the changes and becoming a disrupter.

4) Continue on your current path, believing there will always be a place for some blacksmiths shoeing horses, some people who make travel arrangements for others, some transactional brokers, as well as some traditional churches, hospitals, and schools.

Humanity will always need a way to build and preserve wealth, to educate and train, to impart faith, and to care for the needs of the body.  What each field looks like in 20 years is unknown.  What is certain is that each of those fields will be further disrupted by technology and evolving cultural forces.

Will your job exist in 2015, 2020, and beyond?  Only time will tell.  You must decide how you will respond and then live with the consequences of those decisions.