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<img src="/icons/book_gray.svg" alt="/icons/book_gray.svg" width="40px" /> Source
Most of this document is a direct excerpt from The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership.
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COMMITMENT EIGHT
Excelling in Your Zone of Genius
Above the Line: I commit to expressing my full magnificence and to supporting and inspiring others to fully express their creativity and live in their zone of genius.
Below the Line: I commit to holding myself back and not realizing my full potential by living in areas of incompetence, competence, and excellence.
Keys
- The “Zone of Genius” framework comes from Gay Hendricks, PhD in his book, The Big Leap.
- Note from Andy: I have more detailed notes on this book here (complete with explanatory graphic): The Big Leap, the Zone of Genius, and the Upper Limit Problem
- Zone of Genius: What work do you so love doing that it doesn’t seem like work? Which aspects of your work generate the highest ratio of positive results to time spent?
- Akin to flow (see: Finding Flow). Activities feel like nothing (would have done that anyway). “Can’t everyone do that?”
- Zone of Excellence: What do you consistently get positive feedback about in your work and life? What do you do better than just about anyone else?
- Problem here is that it COSTS you energy. Most successful people get stuck here.
- Zone of Competence: What work do you do that others can do just as well or better? What work do you do well but doesn’t feel totally satisfying?
- Key here is lack of fulfillment. Mowing lawn, paying bills, renting cars, booking flights. Adequate caloric content but no flavor.
- Zone of Incompetence: What do you consistently get negative feedback about in your work? What work do you do that just about everyone can do better?
- Most companies won’t tolerate people working here, but people tolerate it in their personal lives a ton. Key here is, if you enjoy it, do it! If not, don’t!
- Upper Limits: Fear guards the line between EXCELLENCE and GENIUS. We all have a “gauge” with an upper limit that says, “this is too good to be true for me.” And we have a limit for different areas of life. 4 false beliefs:
- Feeling fundamentally flawed: Belief that something is inherently wrong with them.
- Disloyalty and abandonment: Experiencing success would be disloyal to their roots and they’d end up alone (usually people who grew up in humble circumstances).
- More success = bigger burden: Life will demand more.
- Outshining: Esp. for talented & gifted. If they expand to full success, they will outshine someone important to them or make them look bad.
- Integrating: We need to teach our nervous system that “new highs” are normal. So, after a “new high” (closing a big deal, etc.). Suggest doing something grounding, ordinary, soothing, mundane, or repetitive.
- Use the Zone of Genius Email Exercise to learn about your zones.
- Use an Energy Audit where you label 25 activities from the last 2 weeks as either “up,” “down,” or “neutral.” For down activities, can you delegate, dump, or do it differently?