Your Zone of Genius, Your Competitive Advantage
How to transform both productivity and professional satisfaction by creating systems that amplify your strengths instead of draining your energy.
Every successful business runs on two engines: a clear vision and systems that actually work.
But here's what most lawyers and business leaders get wrong: they build elaborate systems that fight against how they naturally work best.
Your Zone of Genius
Research indicates that people who spend approximately 70 - 80% of their time on activities that energize them consistently outperform their peers.
Your Zone of Genius sits at the intersection of what you're naturally good at and what energizes you. While most professionals can identify difficult tasks, few know which specific activities energize versus drain them.
Let me share two recent examples to help illustrate:
First, a lawyer who attended our Workflow Mapping Workshop discovered how our AI Process Mapper can help her systematize her processes. Her relief was immediate: "This is going to be crucial for managing the overwhelm and not feeling like I'm just floundering... I'm going to cry!"
Another lawyer wanted to focus on practice growth (his Zone of Genius) while delegating his operations to staff. I've helped this lawyer bring his vision into reality for the past year, sharing the processes and tools that align his practice with his priorities. Today, he's not only increased staff satisfaction but when unexpected medical issues forced him to step back from his practice temporarily, his team operated smoothly in his absence. He's returned energized rather than anxious about his operations.
These examples demonstrate the transformations that happen when we stop forcing ourselves into systems that aren’t aligned with our needs and start building around our natural strengths.
Revealing Your Zone of Genius
One simple way to uncover these patterns is to conduct an Energy Audit (credit to executive coach Matt Mochary who I learned this exercise from):
Grab two highlighters (red and green work best).
Pull up two weeks of your calendar that represent your typical workload.
Review each day hour by hour with one simple question: Did this energize me or drain me?
Highlight accordingly
🟩 Green: Activities that leave you feeling more alive, engaged, and capable. These are activities where you excel without internal friction.
🟥 Red: Activities that deplete your mental or emotional resources. These are activities you should be either systematizing, delegating, or eliminating.
Sustainable success comes from building systems that amplify your strengths, not fighting your natural patterns.
When you align your workflows with your Zone of Genius, you don't just work more efficiently - you work more joyfully.
And that's when both you and your practice truly thrive.