Hey Reader—

For a long time, I thought there were a finite number of ways to build a high profit, successful, impressive business.

That you had to follow the models of those who came before you.

And so, that's what I did.

It's why, as an early entrepreneur, I started building an agency. I had been doing freelance marketing and everyone told me, an agency was the only way to grow — to earn more money, have more freedom, and make more impact.

But guess what?

I f*cking hated it. And I wasn't good at it either.

Now, I know that there are an infinite number of business models out there. Because you really can mix and match a million revenue streams, styles of service, and modes of impact to craft a business that is beautifully, uniquely yours.

I just re-read a classic, The Big Leap: Conquer Your Fear and Take Life to the Next Level by Gay Hendricks and I've been geeking out on his concept Zone of Genius.

I think it might just be the secret to helping you design a business that lights you up, instead of dims your shine, so I'm incorporating it into the module about Offer Design + Productizing Your Brilliance.

But let me give you a little taste here....

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Finding Your Zone of Genius

First, let me explain the four zones of activity, according to Hendricks.

1. Your Zone of Incompetence
2. Your Zone of Competence
3. Your Zone of Excellence
4. Your Zone of Genius

The first two are pretty self-explanatory. These are the things you're just plain not good at, and the things at which you're passable.

Your Zone of Excellence

This is the trickiest area. This, in my view, is where, most of us, especially when we're further in our career, spend most of our time.

This is the area where we are excellent. We can real massive value, make good money, and feel validated for our work.

But work in our zone of excellence takes a toll on us.

It can feel exhausting because it is focused on what others want from us and not on what we want for ourselves or how we most enjoy spending our time.

For me, this my consulting work, especially because consulting requires a mix of my zone of excellence and my zone of competence.

I'm damn good at the strategy side of my consulting work, and I can make great money doing it, but it always requires activities that I loathe.

• Writing reports
• Producing deliverables
• Conducting the follow-ups
• The necessary attention to detail

What about your Zone of Genius?

Your zone of genius is where you truly shine. It is the work where you can deliver massive value, but with minimal effort. This is where the ratio of Insight + Impact to Energy and Effort is as big as possible.

For me, this is where I can use my intuition and well honed skills of empathy to see what makes someone (or a company) uniquely powerful.

I have been redesigning my business and business model to ensure I spend more time maximizing my zone of genius, and less time in my other zones. And it feels freaking awesome.

Conducting a Zone Audit

Hendricks' first recommendation is to sit down and reflect on all of the regular activities you're doing in your life and work and start to put them into each of the four categories:

• Zone of Incompetence
• Zone of Competence
• Zone of Excellence
• Zone of Genius

If you're anything like me, you'll quickly see you are spending way too much time on work that, frankly, you're just not that good at.

This exercise was a big reason why I finally pulled the trigger on hiring a house cleaner...turns out I am just straight up incompetence at that one.

But also, why I have started finding help in both Power Your Platform and A Better Jones to offload some of the tasks where I struggle. And this is a big part of why I was so thrilled to have Dr. Monica join the PYP team.

Now, you don't necessarily need to hire someone to take things of your plate, but you can try to find tools or systems to help you automate certain actions or streamline your process to reduce the load on you.

Questions to find Your Zone of Genius

I recommend journaling about your answers to each one of these. When I went through these the first time, I really had to sit with them before I started to uncover the deeper, truer answers.

• What do you most love to do?
• What work do you do that doesn't seem like work?
• In your work, what produces the highest ration of insight, reward, and satisfaction to time and effort?
• What is your unique ability? What is that specific thing you're doing when you are at your best, doing what you love, and delivering massive value?

Once you begin to have a better sense of what you're doing when you're in your zone of genius, how can you restructure your business to provide more opportunity for you to do THAT?

• What changes would you need to make?
• How would that change your energy level throughout the day?
• Who would be better served by these changes?

You don't need to make huge sweeping changes to start to feel major improvement in your energy levels and your impact.

If you put some of this into action, I would LOVE to hear how it goes for you. Or if you want me to go deeper into how to adjust your business model to fit with your zone of genius, let me know!

In love and growth,
Kasey

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Want to go deeper?

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