Thriving Scholar — Executive Coaching & Leadership

How to Find and Stay in Your Zone of Genius

Jaineel Mistry

“`You know deep inside of you that you will never feel fully satisfied until you have anchored yourself in your zone of genius.”

That one sentence hit me hard when I first read it in Gay Hendrick’s book The Big Leap. I felt the truth in it whilst I was on a flight from London to Boston for work in 2017.

In today’s newsletter, I am going to share:

◆The concept of the Upper limit problem

◆Four hidden subconscious barriers that keeps us out of our zone of genius

◆How you can find and stay in your zone of genius

So many of us yearn to feel internally alive. To do work we love. To experience culture and travel. To be in the best shape of our lives. To wake up in the morning feeling energised and excited. To thrive in our relationships. No one has ever dreamed of a life of the opposite.

Our zone of genius is when we are expressing our natural most authentic gifts. It’s when you know you are drawing upon your greatest innate strengths focusing on activities that give you energy and make you feel alive.

What holds us back from being in this zone?

1. Our Upper Limit Problem (UPL)

As we move toward greater success, expansion, love, abundance we all will encounter the UPL.

In short, Henrick’s defines our UPL as our internal thermostat setting that holds us back from enjoying all the love, financial abundance, and creativity that’s rightfully ours.

“The Upper Limit Problem is our universal human tendency to sabotage ourselves when we have exceeded the artificial upper limit we have placed on ourselves.”

This thermostat gets set early in our lives at a time we couldn’t think for ourselves. It remains in our subconscious. Unless we solve our UPL, we keep on finding ways to bring ourselves back down when we’ve blown past our old setting.

Brianna Weist, in her book The Mountain Is You, shares a nice summary of this “we are programmed to seek what we’ve known. Even though we think we’re after happiness, we’re actually trying to find what we’re most used to.”

Examples of this in our lives:

◆You want to change careers but keep on coming back to what you’ve always done for work

◆You try to change your financial habits but end up in the same financial place even once you’ve upgraded your income because you’ve now also upgraded your lifestyle lifestyle

◆You try to change your diet but return back to the same place 6 weeks later and blame the fitness program

2. Four hidden subconscious barriers that keep us out of our zone of genius

Hendricks shares four barriers that keeps us out of this zone:

◆Feeling fundamentally flawed – we carry this feeling deep within us. You might notice yourself making mistakes or messing things up to confirm your own bias. Imposter syndrome is part of this. We sabotage ourselves because we think we are bad. And good things can’t happen to bad people.This barrier also brings with it a fear of “if I did make a full commitment to live in my zone of genius, that might fail as well.” i.e. believing your zone of genius is also flawed and if you expressed it fully, you still wouldn’t be good enough.

◆Disloyalty and abandonment – a false belief that by succeeding, we are being disloyal to and leaving people behind in our past.

‘I cannot expand to my full success because it would cause me to end up all alone, be disloyal to my roots and leave behind people from my past.”

Deep down we fear being different to others in our family or circle of friends. We fear we are being disloyal and abandoning our roots. It keeps us stuck in the past when you could actually lead others along with you.

◆Belief that we are a burden in the world – we keep ourselves small so we don’t be a bigger burden in this world and to people around us. “I can’t expand to my highest potential because I’d be an even bigger burden than I am now.”

◆A belief that we hold ourselves back so we don’t outshine others. This might come up as I can’t expand into my full success as if it did, I would outshine ________ and make them feel bad. But the truth is you shining your light brightly does not restrict others from doing so whatsoever.

3. The journey of finding and staying in your Zone of Genius

So the question now is, how do you find your zone of genius and stay in it ?

Hendricks shares four questions that could help you reflect on this:

◆What do I most love to do? You love it so much I can do it for a long stretch of time without getting tired.

◆What work do I do that doesn’t seem like work? I.e “work” that GIVES you energy.

◆In my work, what produces the highest ratio of abundance and satisfaction to the amount of time spent?

◆What’s my unique ability? A skill I’m gifted with and when I put it to work, it provides enormous value to me and people I work with.

For me at a high level, it’s writing, coaching, and speaking. Within that there are specifics about what and how I write, who I like to coach, and where and in what manner I like to speak.

Many wise men and women have shared one fundamental listen over the last thousand years: Joy is the path.

Hendricks shares a mantra in this book which I love: I expand in abundance, success, and love every day as I inspire those around me to do the same.

It’s a journey…

The truth is, this isn’t one off work. Finding and particularly staying in your zone of genius is a moment to moment practice.

We catch ourselves complaining and start an argument with our partner after an incredible date night. We become aware that we are upper limiting, and we allow that thought to pass by breathing it out and reconnecting with the love and joy we are experiencing.

Allowing ourselves to experience this.Opening up more space to receive more love and success. And we are back to feeling good.

These “small” moments of “big leaps” compound over time for us to experience exponential success in areas of life important to us.

Ultimately, it’s a journey of ALLOWING ourselves to feel good.

Reflection:

◆What’s keeping me out of my zone of genius and what’s one thing I can do to allow myself to experience more love, joy, and abundance in my life?

Begin

When you are ready,
this is where to begin

If you feel aligned with this work and would like to explore whether it is the right fit, you are welcome to reach out. Every enquiry is read personally. If there is alignment, we will take the next step together.

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