Your CEO Superpowers and Why You Should Tap Into Them Relentlessly to Scale

Speaker 1: 0:00

It's your rules. Your business your as long as the work's getting done and it's people are. You are delivering on your promises. The work is getting done, everyone is relatively happy, like things are great. You can you get to start to make the rule. You get to start to make this work for you. I know that this is easier said than done. However, this is why you build a team.

Speaker 1: 0:19

Welcome to the Scaling Lounge, a podcast for established service-based business owners who believe in working smarter, resting often, playing always and dreaming bigger. I'm your host, adrienne Gallia, and I want to help you create time, financial and lifestyle freedom by scaling with systems, strategy and the support of a team, so that your business is able to grow, with or without you. Let's get to it. I want to make a really big statement, and that is that if you want to scale a business to high six figures, or especially to seven or eight figures, you have to let everything go. That isn't one of your superpowers. That's the big statement. The more resistance that you have around letting those things go, the more likely you are to either hold yourself back from actually being able to do the thing that's going to allow you to grow, or it's going to require more force than is really necessary, so it becomes a lot more possible for business owners to experience burnout. So let's get to this. So, if you know that my background is in the arts and I had a studio where I so half of it was we taught voice, piano and acting, and the other half of it was a professional theater company One of the things that I had to get over that I learned real quick was well, I didn't learn it.

Speaker 1: 1:42

That's actually I didn't learn it real quick. I didn't, and that was my problem, but I had to learn it eventually that I had this mentality of I can do it better, faster and more efficiently than anyone else and that was not helpful. That was not helpful at all, and a lot of what I want to talk about today goes back to that, because I think that it's. You know, a lot of people who become business owners have some perfectionist tendencies, particularly people who not just have the inclination become a business owner, but who actually do become a successful business owner, where they're starting to make money and they grow and they get to the point of like, yeah, I want to, I want to really grow this, I want to scale it Like. We tend to have a lot of perfectionist tendencies, and that can be helpful in a way, but it can be detrimental in a way also, and part of the way that it can be detrimental is because it handicaps us around our ego. The biggest lie that we're told, that's bought and sold to us by our ego, is that we need to be the one doing anything, and that's not true. And so this concept of like tapping into your superpowers and why you should do that and then and then use them relentlessly as you go to scale, is comes back to like it's your ego that gets in the way of everything else. So let's actually get into what I want to talk about with this.

Speaker 1: 2:57

So your CEO superpowers are essentially your zones of genius. I don't really like that term because it's a little stuffy. I'm not, I don't consider myself to be a stuffy person, but it's just a little stuffy for me. I've never resonated with like, oh, tap into your zone of genius. That sounds a little snobbish to me. Not that if you use it, that doesn't mean that I think you're a snobbish person. To be clear, I just don't. I've never liked it. I'm not. I'm not a fan of using the zone of genius. I like superpowers, superpowers, fun, so, but essentially the same thing. It's just semantics at that point.

Speaker 1: 3:27

So if you his name is Gay Hendricks, I think, is the person who came up with the concept of zone of genius and all the other zones so let's talk about these real quick, real quick, and then why you want to actually let go of anything that is not a zone of genius, skill. So you've got your zone of incompetence, which is something that you probably don't really enjoy. You may or may not be good at it, doesn't really matter if you're not, if you are good at it because you don't enjoy it and, more than that, you don't care about it. So if you're just flat out not good at it, then yeah, it's zone of incompetence. But also, you might be good at it, but you don't enjoy it and you just don't really care about doing it. That is zone of incompetence For me. You know it falls directly in this, in this category, it's copywriting, and I'm I would say I'm truly excellent at copywriting, truly excellent at copywriting, and I would put it as zone of incompetence, not because I'm not good at it, because I hate it, I hate doing it and I don't really care enough about it. I care about teaching it. That's fun to me. I'll teach you how to do it, but I want nothing to do with it. I hate copywriting. I don't like writing in general. Certain aspects of writing I don't mind, but like that's about as good as it gets, I don't mind, I don't mind doing that. So that's zone of incompetence.

Speaker 1: 4:36

These are relatively easy to recognize. Why you do these are the things that you want to take off your plate relatively early on. Now here's the tricky part is, if they're making you money and they're working well for you, I don't encourage you getting rid of these things necessarily right away. I would get away. I would get rid of them eventually, but keep them for now. You need to, you need to be doing them and you can move them off your well, we'll get into, we'll get into that.

Speaker 1: 4:59

Then there's zone of competence. So your zone of competence is where you enjoy it enough, you're fine at it, but you're really not passionate about it. It's not something that you're like, oh, this, this lights me up to do and you're like you're just fine at it, whatever. It's just sort of whatever zone of competence, it's fine. Your zone of excellence is where things get tricky, tricky, tricky because you genuinely love doing these things and you're probably really good at it. You're probably great at it, but it's not something that you would want to do day in, day out, every day, forever, or necessarily something that you want to become known for, and that's the key here. So for me, this would definitely be like web design.

Speaker 1: 5:36

I say I've said a lot that web design is going to be the last thing that I give up, because I truly love it. Like, if I'm stressed out about something, just like, give me something to design, please. Let me just go mess around on a website. Just it takes my brain off things and I'm really good at it and I like doing it and whatever, whatever, no one's going to touch my websites until, like, I truly just have no business doing it anymore, and that's probably sooner rather than later. I don't know, I don't know what that looks like, but I love doing it and I don't think I'll ever fully.

Speaker 1: 6:06

If there ever comes a time where I'm like well, my website has been updated by someone that's not me for like the last year straight, I don't know. I almost feel like that would be sad. I don't know. I don't know how I'll feel about that, but that's where things can start to get tricky. Where you're like I'm great at it and I truly love doing it, but like it's not the thing that I want to be known for, it's not the thing that I want to wake up. I don't want to be a web designer I know that for sure, and so that's tricky thing for me, but I know that at some point, at a certain point, I'm going to have to let go of it if I want to truly be able to scale, and I want to be able to do it without completely burning myself out.

Speaker 1: 6:38

So that takes me to zone of genius. These are your superpowers. This is where you genuinely love something, you are actually great at it and you would love doing it every day, every day, every day for the most part. Thinking about doing anything every day kind of is terrible to me, so we'll take that with sort of a grain of salt, but more or less you want to do it every day, at least for now, and probably you have a unique way of doing it that you either could be or that you are already known for, and the thing that holds the majority of people back when they're trying to grow their business is when you are putting effort into keeping things on your plate that are not in your zone of genius.

Speaker 1: 7:16

So there are three primary things that I see come into play around this. Number one it's that there are a lot of excuses of why you should keep the thing that's not in your zone of genius, and this is the biggest lie bought and sold to you by your ego. I need to be the one doing it. If I don't do my own sales calls like, why would people want to buy? No one's going to want to buy the thing for me if I'm not the one on the sales call with them. That's a lie. You don't need to be doing it. There are people who buy things every day that are not. Do you think people who buy Tony Robbins coaching speak to Tony Robbins on the sales call? No, now, your business is like. You are not Tony Robbins. I understand that, but there are lots of other business owners.

Speaker 1: 7:54

The first program that I ever bought that was like 10 grand. I didn't speak to the business owner on the Discovery call and I knew that going in and I wasn't like I'm offended, I don't get to speak to the business owner, I don't get to speak to the person, I don't get to speak to the coach. Like I just knew that for me it wasn't a weird thought because I had a business previously. Like, if someone called the studio to like, sign their kit up for a music lesson, they weren't talking to me. They weren't like, well, I'm not going to do this unless I speak with Adrienne. They probably didn't even know who I was, it didn't matter. So I knew that. Okay, well, there are other people who are going to. They know about the product. They're going to be able to answer my questions. I wasn't thinking about it, like I didn't care.

Speaker 1: 8:28

And for some reason, when people say to me, like I need to be the one doing the sales calls, I'm like that doesn't make any sense to me. Who cares? But there are a lot of other things. I need to be the one doing the sales calls. I'm a coach, so I need to be the one doing the coaching. Ooh, why? Someone else probably could do it for you.

Speaker 1: 8:42

Now, there's a time and a place and a reason and we don't want to affect delivery and we want to make sure that we're delivering on what we, what the outcomes actually are that we promised. And we, you know we want to be intentional around the way that we're doing things, but you don't have to be the one doing all the coaching. I would argue you don't have to be the one doing all the coaching. There's just nothing at some point that you have to be doing in your business. There is always a reason that you are wanting to do the things that you do, but you don't have to be the one or the only one doing anything. Or the excuse could be but that's the thing that makes my business money. I would actually argue if that's the thing that makes your business money, that makes a lot of sense to give it away, because then you are giving away revenue generating tasks and your team are literally earning their keep. They're making you money. So if it makes you money, I think that makes a lot of sense to give it away personally. So that's the excuse piece of things.

Speaker 1: 9:32

Then there's this other side of things, where there's fear of judgment. This can be tricky for us perfectionists and those of us who you know we were raised to believe that hard work matters. We don't want to be seen as someone who's not pulling our weight. Well, you know what are people going to think if I'm the one who's not doing the sales calls? Like, are they going to think that, you know, they're going to think that I'm too big for my, too big for my britches, or something like you know what I mean. Like, what's the judgment that's going to come around my not doing the thing from other people or from or from yourself? But what this comes back to is the third thing, and that's usually conditioning, and that's because we have been conditioned to believe X, y or Z. We've been conditioned to believe that hard work equals success. That's not true. I mean it can be true. There are lots of. There are lots of very successful people who do work hard, but there are lots of very successful people who don't work hard at all. There are lots of people who have a lot of money who have never done quote unquote hard work, which is completely subjective. What does hard work even mean? That they've never done a hard day's work in their life?

Speaker 1: 10:31

I would argue, like my sister works on the line for Jeep, she builds grand Cherokees, I think is what she does. She works, for sure, harder than I do. For sure she works harder than I do in terms of physical labor, and like the amount of hours that she works in the week and the type of work that she does, I would say she works harder than me. Does she make more money than I do? I don't. I don't actually know. I have no idea how much money she makes, but I know that my business makes more money than I would. I would be completely confident in saying my business makes more money than she makes in a year, and I don't. I guess I could be wrong about that. I don't actually have any idea, but like I know that at some point my business has the capacity this one I can say for certain. I know that my business has the capacity and that I, as the business owner, have the capacity to make more, considerably more than what someone who works on the line for a car company makes in a year. I have actually no idea what that number is, so it could already be that way. It might not be, I don't know.

Speaker 1: 11:23

I'm not trying to pass judgment on that, but like I know that somebody who works like that my dad that pans down has to be one of the hardest, has to be the hardest working person I've ever known in my life. Like does has side hustles, has this going on and that going on. And like literally also does hard labor. Like builds things with his hand. Like knows how to build. He could build a home from scratch, like from the ground up, the foundation, to the studs, to the and he literally like that's how my studio got built. Like he came in and built my studio for, literally built my studio for me. He doesn't he's on a millionaire, I don't think. Maybe he's a secret millionaire, I don't know, but I don't think he's a millionaire. He should be. Like it's like hard work I'm going on a tangent now.

Speaker 1: 12:03

Hard work does not mean money. So there's so many things that we have that we are conditioned to believe that simply aren't true. So there's a lot around like, oh, we don't want to appear lazy. This comes back to that sense of judgment and conditioning are really tied together. I don't want to appear lazy, I don't want to appear as being the person who's not, who's not doing the thing.

Speaker 1: 12:24

I know that personally, this comes into play for me a lot because for me, like, one of my zones of genius is like starting things. I want to start everything. I don't necessarily want to finish them, and that is always something that I have to work toward, and so I have to make intentional effort to finish projects, and so a lot of times, I can just start things and not finish them. Like, I start podcasts, I'm not the one who finishes them, I'm not the one who edits them, I'm not the one who writes the show notes. I'm usually like, in the last the 80 episodes that I've published, I've been the one to hit the publish button on I don't know maybe five of them, 10 at most. Like, I'm not the one who publishes them. I start them, I don't finish them.

Speaker 1: 13:03

That's what works best for me, but I don't want to appear lazy, and I had to get over that, because just because you're someone who likes to start things and not finish them doesn't make you lazy. It just means that you understand, like, where your skill lies. I think so that's just something we have to get over, and we were made wrong for these things when we were younger. Like you can't get away with saying, well, I want to start the paper, but I don't want to have to finish it. Like, I'm going to write you an outline and it's going to be the best, it's going to be the best idea for a paper you've ever read in your life. But I don't actually want to write the paper Like you would just get a zero on that assignment if you didn't hand it in to your teacher. Right, like you would be made wrong for believing that that was okay.

Speaker 1: 13:39

But when you're older and you've got an especially when you're a business owner, like you can. It's your rules, your business, your as long as the work's getting done and it's people are, you are delivering on your promises. The work is getting done. Everyone is relatively happy. Like things are great. You can. You get to start to make the rule. You get to start to make this work for you. I know that this is easier said than done. However, this is why you build a team to do these things. So you, you and this is also why you do the mindset work, because mindset work is really crucial in being able to get your body to start to feel safe and making these changes. So, as you, you build a team to do the things that like are outside of your zones of genius. So I would say, when you're in the early stages, you're just gonna have to do it all. Probably you're gonna have to do it all.

Speaker 1: 14:21

I see a lot of people who are like you know, I've got money to invest, so I'm going to like, even though I'm not making any money yet, like I'm just gonna go ahead and hire a VA to do some of the things. Like you can do that, but I think most the time it's kind of a waste of money. To be completely honest, I would just like that's fine. I think you're just spinning your wheels Like I'm not making any money yet, but like I've got the money to just hire a social media manager, so I don't have to do it. Well, unless you're hiring a social media strategist and someone who also understands messaging and who can craft copy properly, and like you were literally just throwing money down the drain. Because, I mean, unless you just want a social media presence, because that person might be okay at like just keeping you present, like people are still thinking about they might be good at growing an audience, I don't know, but it's like not necessarily going to make you money.

Speaker 1: 15:04

So when you're in the early stages, like you just it's, it's on you, like you just got to figure out how to do it. You've got to figure out how to actually make money in your business and then from there, when you're in the building stages, if you don't love it but it makes you money and it works, let it go. Start to let things go that you don't love but it's making you money and it's working well for you. Get rid of it. Take it off your plate. If you get really good at social media and you hate it and it's bringing you money in, let it go. How can you start to off? How can you start to off? Offload this to someone else and give them the exact criteria that they need to use to be able to make this work in the way that you were able to make it work so they continue to make you money?

Speaker 1: 15:39

That's when you're building, when you're in a growth stage. Now, even if you're good at it, but it makes you money in it and it works, let it go. Get, get good at it. You know you've gotten good at something. Let it go.

Speaker 1: 15:48

And then, when you're truly scaling, you might hold on to your zone of excellent stuff. If you, if you want, if you're obstinate like me around, I'm going to keep doing web design forever, not like if it's just going to make you happy, like, okay, hold on to it if you want for a while, but eventually you're going to. Eventually you're going to want to let that stuff go, let go of the zone of excellent stuff and move only into zone of genius tasks, and it's stuff that's in your superpowers. Like I said, I know that this is a lot easier said than done because the fear and the conditioning are very real things, but it will mitigate risk of your burning out and it sets you up to get to that seven figure mark. If that's something that you want for yourself, you don't have to want to get there.

Speaker 1: 16:24

But if you want to get into even I would say even like the mid, mid, six figure range, and if you want to completely get, if you, if you really want to mitigate burnout, even, if you want to get anywhere near the six figure range, like, let go of the stuff that you don't need to be doing. You don't need to be doing stuff that you're just like okay at and that you're, if it makes you money and it's working for you, figure out how to let it go and just focus on the stuff that, like, you're really really, truly, truly, truly in love with doing every day, every day, every day, and it's going to be more fulfilling and fun that way. So this is one of the things that I help with in sustainable growth lab. I would love to speak with you more about how we can do this in your business. We move everything off your plate.

Speaker 1: 17:03

That is not one of your superpowers, that's not in your zone of genius how to do this effectively, efficiently, with a team. We're going to earn time back. You're going to get your time. You're going to get your time back. You're going to have a business that can grow with or without you. There's all kinds of other amazing things that come from getting things off of your plate that you just don't need to be doing anymore. There's a link in the show notes. I'm not going to say the URL, because we're in the process of changing over some links to things we're changing or in the process of changing over the URLs to different things. So I'll just say it's linked in the show notes. You can check it out there, book a call to have a chat, see if it would work with you, work for you, and I hope that if you have questions about this, feel free to ask me on social media. Let me know what your biggest takeaways are, and I'll catch you in the next one.