One of our favorite thing to eat is carpaccio and I mean, we like it so much we went all the way to Venice to try it at the original place it was created, Harry's Bar. We spent the evening walking through the cobblestone streets and admiring the fashion and good food all around us. Joe bought me a beautiful chocolate suede Italian designer bag and we loved the Italian hospitality, especially the gondola!
Ok now for the good stuff, I want to talk about the difference between being good at something and being made for something, because they are not the same thing and most of us have been living in the wrong one.
Is there something in your life that when you are done with it, you feel more alive than you did going in, not just satisfied or accomplished, but actually on fire, like somehow have more energy than you started with even though you gave everything?
If something just came to mind, hold onto that. We are going to come back to it.
I want to tell you about a feeling I have only ever felt in one place, and it took me longer than I want to admit to stop running from it. When I finish a talk, my whole body feels like it is on fire in the best way, amplified, alive, like I am on top of the world. I can see it happening in the room too, people leaning in, something shifting in them, breakthroughs happening in real time, possibility moving through them like a current, and there is something that it does to me that nothing else even comes close to.
And yet for years I have been choosing something else.
My brain did exactly what brains are designed to do, it kept me safe. Anything new is a threat to the brain and staying in what you know (even if it does not fully light you up), at least comes with a predictable outcome and that feels a lot safer than starting over.
It was not until I was sitting at lunch at a conference in Austin recently, next to a woman I had just met, that I finally had the language for what I had been doing, and that is the difference between operating in your zone of excellence versus your zone of genius.
Your zone of excellence can actually be a disguise. You are good at it, you can earn a really good living from it and from the outside it looks like everything is working. It's just not in the way that makes you want to jump out of bed in the morning. It is the safe bet and comfortable enough to keep you there for a long time if you let it.
Your zone of genius is a completely different experience and something you feel in your body. In your zone of genius you are not performing, you are simply being, and the work moves through you in a way that even surprises you sometimes.
For example, people who personally know me and have seen me speak come up afterwards and ask how I do it, and the only answer I ever have is that it is the switch that flips on when you are serving at the height of your calling. You feel differently, you say the right things at the right times, and it's like divine timing that of all the places in the Universe, you are there in that exact moment for a reason and you know it.
Now here is the part I hope resonates deeply with you. I wrote it in a different color in my notes because I think it is the thing most people have never quite put into words for themselves.
The clearest way to find your zone of genius is to pay attention to how you feel when you are done. Not while you are in it, not while you are managing and delivering and showing up, but after, when it is quiet and you are alone with how the whole thing felt.
The things that are rewarding but still leave you feeling depleted are probably in your zone of excellence. The things that leave you feeling like you gave everything and somehow have more than you started with, that aliveness, that on fire feeling, that is your genius.
Read that again and think about your own life. Think about the last time you felt that way. Think about where you were and what you were doing and who you were with and how your body felt in that moment. That feeling is not random and it has been trying to tell you something (maybe for a long time).
After every single talk I have ever given I have walked away feeling like that is exactly where I am supposed to be and I am finally listening to it. I think you already know exactly where yours lives too...
The only question is whether you are ready to stop choosing the easier path over the right one. I hope you are. I know I am.
It's all possible.
If you believe it is.
I do.
ps. Venice was a dream! The gondola ride was beautiful and albeit touristy, it was perfect. I drank my morning latte and felt the sun on my face and the wind in my hair. I mean look at this, it felt like a whole new world!
FOR THE LEADERS IN THE ROOM
(Corporate Mindology is my zone of excellence btw, Mindology is my zone of genius…)
The most expensive talent mistakes I see inside organizations is placing excellent people in roles that never touch their genius. Excellence produces consistent output, but genius produces the kind of contribution that changes the trajectory of a team entirely. The energy difference between someone operating from one versus the other is something you can feel in a room before anyone says a word.
The most powerful question you can ask the people you lead right now is not what are you good at, it is when do you feel most alive in your work, because that answer is where their genius lives, and even a small shift toward aligning their role with that answer changes everything about how they show up.