How to stay focused on your “Core Genius”

I believe we all have inside of us a “core genius”... some one thing that you love to do, and do so well, that you hardly feel like doing anything else. It’s effortless and a whole lot of fun. And if you could make money doing it, you’d make it your lifetime’s work.

In most cases, your Core Genius is directly tied to passions and life purpose.

That's why you see successful people put their core genius first. They focus on it—and delegate everything else to other people on their team.

Jack Canfield, a mentor and friend, shared these thoughts with me.  He said that for him, his core genius lies in the area of teaching, training, coaching and motivating. Another core genius is writing and compiling books. Over Jack’s 35-year career, he has written, co-authored, compiled and edited more than 150 books – and he loves to do it! He does it well, and people get great value from it.

Compare that to the other people in the world who go through life doing everything, even those tasks they’re bad at or that could be done cheaper, better, and faster by someone else.  They simply can’t find the time to focus on their core genius because they fail to delegate even the most menial of tasks. When you delegate the things you hate doing or those tasks that are so painful you end up putting them off—you get to concentrate on what you love to do. You free up your time so that you can be more productive. And you get to enjoy life more.

So why is delegating routine tasks and unwanted projects so difficult for most people?

Surprisingly, most people are afraid of looking wasteful or being judged as being above everyone else. They are afraid to give up control or reluctant to spend the money to pay for help. Deep down, most people simply don't want to let go.  Others (potentially any of us) have simply fallen into the habit of doing everything themselves. "It's too time-consuming to explain it to someone," you say. "I can do it more quickly and better myself anyway." But can you?

Here’s more of what Jack Canfield, shared with me:

Delegate Completely!

If you’re a professional earning $75 per hour and you pay a neighborhood kid $10 an hour to cut the grass, you save the effort of doing it yourself on the weekend and gain one extra hour when you could profit by $65.  Of course, while one hour does’t seem like much, multiply that by 52 weekends a year and you discover you’Ave gained 52 hours a year at $65 per hour —or an extra $3,380 in potential earnings.

Similarly, if you’re a real estate agent, you need to list houses, gather information for the multiple listings, attend open houses, do showings, put keys in lock boxes, write offers and make appointments.  And, if you’re lucky, you eventually get to close a deal. 

But let’s say that you’re the best closer in the area. 

Why would you want to waste your time writing listings, doing lead generation, placing lock boxes, and making videos of the property when you could have a staff of colleagues and assistants doing all that,  thus freeing you up to do more closing?  Instead of doing just one deal a week, you could be doing three deals because you had delegated what you’re less good at.

One of the strategies I use and teach is complete delegation. It simply means that you delegate a task once and completely - rather than delegating it each time it needs to be done.

Most entrepreneurs spend less than 30% of their time focusing on their core genius and unique abilities.

In fact, by the time they've launched a business, it often seems entrepreneurs are doing everything but the one thing they went into business for in the first place.

Many salespeople, for example, spend more time on account administration than they do on the phone or in the field making sales, when they could hire a part-time administrator (or share the cost with another salesperson) to do this time-consuming detail work. In most cases, in a fraction of the time it would take them and at a fraction of the cost.

Most female executives spend too much time running their household, when they could easily and inexpensively delegate this task to a cleaning service or part-time mother's helper, freeing them to focus on their career or spend more quality time with their family.

Don't let this be your fate!

Identify your core genius, then delegate completely to free up more time to focus on what you love to do.

I believe that you can trade, barter, pay for and find volunteer help to do almost everything you don't want to do, leaving you to do what you are best at - and which will ultimately make you the most money and bring you the most happiness.