Strategic Coach Resources

Getting back to simplicity.

When we first meet entrepreneurs, they often tell us that they have no time. They hear our concept of Free Day™ — a 24-hour period spent completely away from all work-related thinking or activity — and they think it sounds like a nice idea … for someone else. They’re far too busy for that, far too essential to the operation of their company.

If you have similar complaints, our solution is to delegate everything except genius. This may sound overly simple to you, but sometimes it takes some concentrated, creative work to reach a point of simplicity.

Ruggedness and complexity.

The Ceiling of Complexity™ is that point at which an entrepreneurial business’s growth can suddenly stall, and the entrepreneur can feel overwhelmed at the pressures and complexities of running a larger organization. Compounding this is a tendency for some entrepreneurs to be a Rugged Individualist™. If you’ve ever heard yourself say “I can do it better myself,” you might just be one of these.

Reviewing your activities.

When you reach a point where pressure is mounting and your efforts aren’t returning the results you want, it’s time to review what you’re actually doing when you’re at work.

At The Strategic Coach®, we strongly believe that each person has a Unique Ability® — a personal set of skills they love to use. When people are free to use these natural abilities, their enthusiasm is infectious, their results extraordinary, and their capacity for growth unlimited.

You’re a valuable resource.

Right now, your time might be taken up with things that are miles away from your Unique Ability — working on activities that frustrate you and never turn out like you’d hoped. You’re too expensive and valuable a resource to your company to have your time wasted. This waste eats into your freedom, too, edging out the personal time that contributes so much to your quality of life.

The excellence trap.

You might be doing other activities, ones at which you excel, even though you don’t feel particularly passionate about them. These are trickier to delegate. Ultimately, though, your biggest contribution to your business will come when you do nothing but your Unique Ability. Why? Because this is the one area in your life where you can truly be a genius.

What is genius?

You have an aptitude and an ease for something in life that’s truly unique. For this to become genius, though, you need to give it long-term, concentrated focus.

For instance, take playing the piano, or the game of golf. Most of us could spend an eternity trying to perfect these skills, and at best we’d learn some good technique.

There are some, though, for whom these are a natural outlet for Unique Ability. They sit down and experiment at the keyboard, or go out on the course and swing, and the rest of us can only stand back and wonder. If they practice, they advance at an extraordinary rate, and have fun doing it.

In our experience, it takes ten years of concerted effort to develop an area of Unique Ability to a level of genius.

Yes, everything.

Your life’s work, then, is to discover what your Unique Ability is and to do that, delegate everything else. This will offer you the best opportunity to succeed, and will give your working life a joy that few experience. Our clients who have focused their lives around their Unique Ability often say, “Retire? Why? I love this!”

As you look at the activities you need to delegate, you have the opportunity to find someone for whom that is a Unique Ability. It may seem hard to believe, but someone out there is passionate about those activities you can’t stand. Likewise, the things we love to do may seem irrelevant, boring, or overwhelming to others.

What is genius?

A big challenge when starting to identify genius — both your own and others’ — is that it comes in infinite varieties. We tend to confuse “genius” with “IQ,” which is a test for a very specific kind of intelligence (and has been called into question in recent years for its possible cultural bias). Likewise, we have our own limiting ideas about who’s eligible for the distinction: geniuses are people with wild hair and chalkboards full of formulae; we’re just “normal.”

The reality is that genius isn’t just confined to laboratories. Some people are geniuses at interpersonal relationships. Some have a spatial awareness, like an inventor who visualizes the workings of something that hasn’t been built yet. A ballet dancer or basketball player might have an uncommonly attuned physical awareness. A born musician just knows that a certain chord progression sounds sad. A genius entrepreneur has an ability to see potentially profitable gaps in the marketplace. None of these show up on conventional tests, but those who find application for these skills in the world and develop them to a level of genius can do exceptionally well. Likewise, your area of genius may be very subtle, as might those of the people around you.

Finding genius everywhere.

Unique Ability is a concept that, once you’re aware of it, will color the way you see the world. Suddenly you’ll have an insight into what makes people tick, what drives them, and where they display genius. As you focus on developing the genius within you and all around you, you’ll find a new sense of simplicity, clarity, and ease. When people do what they were born to do, there’s no struggle anymore. And when you put complementary skills together, amazing things are possible.