#19 The Clarity Sessions Podcast — Move Out Of The Zone Of Incompetence

It's time to move you out of your zone of incompetence.

Recently I went through the book, The Big Leap, by Gary Hendricks, for probably the fourth time. It's an amazing book that talks about the upper limit challenge and the four zones when it comes to your work and your life. You've probably heard the concept of your zone of genius. That specifically comes from that book.

What I want to address is that big leap, gap, and decision to go from your lowest level zone, which is your zone of incompetence, to that second zone, which is your zone of competence. The third zone is excellence and the fourth zone is genius. But what I found from my amplified coaching students and my clarity coaching clients is that they don't really think they have a genius. They feel stuck doing something they don't like doing.

This article is specifically for you if...

1. You have been struggling to update your website.
2. You have been spending hours and hours trying to learn that video editing program and, yet, you still can't get your video edited.
3. You are just completely stuck trying to get your book proposal written and not knowing how to move forward.

This article is for you because each of those examples is you living in your zone of incompetence, and what Gay Hendricks talks about in his book is the idea that there are some things that you're just not very good at, and that's okay! There's actually a lot of things that I'm terrible at. I'm not very good at many, many things, and the question is, "Should Brian be doing the things that he's not good at?" The obvious answer is no, of course he shouldn't, but it's very interesting that many of my coaching clients are stuck working on something that they're not good at. The answer is not: "Go get good at that thing." The answer is give it to somebody else who already knows what they're doing.

And what happens is when you give it to somebody else, they can live in their zone of genius. So they're providing excellent quality work, usually for a reasonable price, very timely, usually very quickly, way quicker than it would have taken you to complete that work. But also it frees you up to focus on your zone of genius. And if you're not ready for the zone of genius or the zone of excellence, at least your zone of competence can move you forward in serving your people and growing your business.

Here are a couple of examples:

You're stuck on your website. It's been updated using WordPress, and there's this new header you can't figure out at the top of the website. And you've tried and failed, you've struggled, you've Googled and you've YouTubed and you still can't figure it out. It's time to take your work and put it up. And what I mean by that is you take that project and you go to upwork.com. There you say, "Hey, I'm stuck fixing the header on my website. I need somebody to fix the header on my website. Here's what my website looks like right now. Here's an example header of another website that I want mine to look kind of similar to. Will you help me?"

What will happen is there will be people from all over the world who will bid on the opportunity to work with you. There'll be people who will bid everywhere from $10 to fix it to $1,000 to fix it. You then read through those proposals, you can look at their ratings, reviews, previous work, and their personal message to you. Did they take the time to look at your website? You then make a decision to part with $20 in order to get the header on your website fixed. Once you do that, then you're free. You're free to move forward and work on the things that you're really good at!

What I love about Upwork is you don't pay people right away. Let's say you agree to $20. You don't send them $20 and hope they work. You actually upload the money, and you transfer the money into an escrow account. This means they can't touch the money until you release it.

Here is the process:

1. You agree to the payment and service.
2. The money leaves your account.
3. The money goes into the Upwork account.
4. The freelancer does the job.
5. You approve the job.
6. They then get the money.

It's pretty powerful. So it's time for you to move out of your zone of incompetence, the things you should never be doing because you're just not very good at them. Get someone else to do what you're terrible at.

"But Brian, I don't have any money. I don't have $20, I can't hire anybody on Upwork."

That sounds more like a limiting belief than financial resources. However, let's say it's true... you absolutely have $0. You have to do it for free. Then just post on your Facebook profile, "Hey, I'm trying to figure this thing out. Does anybody have 10 minutes of their time to help me figure this thing out?" And you'll be surprised who shows up and says, "I'm happy to help you." I highly recommend people get paid for their work, but if there's absolutely no money there, then at least ask if somebody can help instead of trying to figure it out yourself.

Click here for the full episode.

If you're ready to go from being stuck to finally moving forward in your life, you might need a coach and I would love to work with you as your clarity coach. It's time to make a difference today. Click here.