Episode 243: Tap Into Your Zone of Genius with Emily Perron

243 Emily Perron

Intro: Welcome to Eat Blog Talk, where food bloggers come to get their fill of the latest tips, tricks, and insights into the world of food blogging. If you feel that hunger for information, we’ll provide you with the tools you need to add value to your blog. We’ll also ensure you’re taking care of yourself, because food blogging is a demanding job. Now, please welcome your host, Megan Porta.

Megan: Hey, food bloggers. Do you ever get caught up in the confusion about how in the world you were going to make money? Take the free quiz I’ve put together for you that is going to help you get to the bottom of this problem. Go to eatblogtalk.com/quiz to find out which stream of revenue is the next perfect one for you. Your results will be personalized based on your answers, and they will provide you with action steps, and resources that will help you launch into monetizing your blogging business in a new way. There are truly so many ways to make money as a food blogger. So don’t waste another second. Again, go to eatblogtalk.com/quiz and get started on your next revenue stream today.

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What’s up, food bloggers. Welcome to another episode of Eat Blog Talk. Thank you so much for tuning in today. I have with me today, Emily Perron from Emilyperron.com. This is her third time being on Eat Blog Talk. So happy to have her here again. We’re going to talk today about tapping into your zone of genius in order to avoid burnout.

Emily helps bloggers and online entrepreneurs expand and improve their teams with talented freelancers. Her number one goal is to align the right person with the right role, so business owners and freelancers alike feel empowered to work within their individual skill sets and strengths. Her expertise lies in hiring and managing in your zone of genius. Emily, thank you so much for joining me three times on Eat Blog Talk. So happy to have another chat with you today. 

Emily: Hi, Megan. I’m so excited to be with you. Thanks for having me back. 

Megan: Yeah, this’ll be fun. So the zone of genius, this concept is something that you’ve adopted and implemented into your own business and you help other people who run businesses themselves, to find out really what it means and how we can implement this strategy in order to avoid burnout and really maximize our productivity and our efficiency and all of the good things. I know that you just feel really passionately about this topic, which I love. It’s always fun to talk to people who are super passionate about what they’re talking about. So I am excited to talk to you about the study, and I know that it’s going to benefit food bloggers as well. So would you start just by talking through what the four zones are? 

Emily: Yeah, of course. So the zone of genius isn’t something I made up. It comes from the book, The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks. In that book, he has a couple pages, that’s it, on the four zones of work. It’s this model or a framework of how we can think about our work and I became obsessed with it because he doesn’t give a lot of information. So that’s why I really got so super curious about it and became more passionate over time as I’ve been understanding it.

So I like to think about the zones. These zones, four zones as a pyramid. At the bottom of the pyramid, so the widest part, is incompetence. So this is everything you’re not good at doing, and it can be really easy to figure out what you’re not good at. For me, like anything website technical, I just don’t know how to do that stuff.

Okay. Then the second level up from incompetence is competence. This is everything you can do. I know for a lot of food bloggers in particular and entrepreneurs in general, we can do a lot of things. That’s part of the problem with competence, is that there is so much we can do. So this can be a hard area to get help, to get support in our business. Because we just think, I can do that, so then we do. 

Megan: It’s so true. You have helped me talk through this very issue. There are things in my business and I feel like I have a very multifaceted business. I have a lot going on, a lot of different moving parts and you helped me talk through just because you can do something, Megan, doesn’t necessarily mean that you should be doing it. So what do you not like to do? Yeah, I think it’s really clear what falls into those categories of incompetence and competence. But when it comes to excellence and genius, I feel like it’s really hard to distinguish what is actually a genius task. So how do we do that? How do we distinguish between those top two things?

Emily: Yeah. Yeah. Let’s dig into that a little more. So with excellence, that’s the third layer level of the pyramid. With excellence, this is everything you are really good at. You are better than most, and yet you find it draining. You don’t get excited to do these things. There’s usually also a sign of excellence that you should do it. I’m so good at that. I should do it. So that’s between competence and excellence, sometimes it can be a little murky too and that’s one of the areas that I look at. Then that’s also with genius and excellence. If it’s draining, it’s not genius. Because genius, when you are at the top of the pyramid, you are coming alive, you just, you feel amazing. You’re lit up, you’re alive. You’re energized. You love doing the work. Yes, you might be tired at the end of the day, just from putting the work in, but it’s not that same kind of drained, depleted, burnout way of being from the work. 

Megan: I love that. What you just said, if it’s draining, it’s not genius. So it’s so simple. If we move through our days and we’re just evaluating our tasks that we do day to day, that is the greatest way to apply this whole concept to our tasks. If we’re drained by it, then we’re not in that genius zone. It’s yes or no, because either it’s draining you or it’s not right.

Emily: Yeah. I think that’s one of the, you mentioned, tracking tasks. I think that’s the best way to figure out what goes in each of these zones. Then through that, it becomes so much easier to outsource because you know where it’s lying for you. You’re more aware. Awareness really is that first step with all of this; without the awareness really nothing can change. 

Megan: So do you recommend if somebody is listening and thinking, oh, I want to figure out what tasks lie in each of those four categories. Do you recommend that they just start writing down absolutely everything that they do throughout the course of a week, or where do they start with that?

Emily: Yeah, I would give it a week. That’s what I have done. That’s what I’ve seen recommended by other experts as well when you’re trying to figure out what you want to keep and what you want to outsource. A basic time tracker. Even just 15 minutes, do it for a week. Every 15 minutes or so, just noticing what you’re doing. I think we can do this in our homes as well. This is not just business. I’ve been applying it in my home as well; noticing which activities I like in my personal life and which ones I don’t, which ones I can get help with. I think it goes both ways. Because sometimes, that might be the side of your life that you need more support with. It might be more of the personal side, so that you can give more to your business. 

Megan: I liked that you touched on that, that it doesn’t all have to be about business. You can do this with your life. Basically, track everything that you do for an entire week. I do think that you probably need to do it more than just a few days because I went through this process with you, Emily, recently, where we met once and we talked about all the stuff that I do in my business. Then I was like, oh wait, I kept remembering things. I’m sure that’s pretty common. You just forget about those little details. If you give it a little bit more time, they pop into your head. You’re like, oh, that’s right. I do that too. So you do need a couple, at least a couple of days to go through this process. 

Emily: Yes. I remember you emailing me after our first meeting, for the organizational strategy. I remember you emailing me like a list of more things that came up that you forgot. I think that’s exactly it. That’s why I think it can also be helpful if you do it maybe a couple times. Do it a couple months apart. Just depends how committed you are to it. For myself, I had a lot of resistance to it, when I first tried it a few years ago. I think I’m really glad I pushed through that and gave it a chance because it’s really helped. Now I’m at this place, I feel like I’ve achieved it in terms of working mostly in my zone of genius, because when we think about that pyramid, I like to flip it. So the zone of genius at the top of the pyramid is where you should be spending the most amount of your time. So if you think about an upside down triangle, where the zone of genius is the biggest part of the pyramid, then you should be spending obviously the least amount of time in incompetence. There’s always stuff that comes up that we have to deal with. I don’t think it has to be a hundred percent, but if you can shoot for about 80% in your zone of genius, It’s amazing. It is amazing. I can really testify to it now, too. Because for a while it was like, I thought it would be true, but I wasn’t a hundred percent. Because I hadn’t really experienced it. This year, this was my year to really outsource that way. 

Megan: I love that. I love that. You’re truly experiencing it so that when you talk about it, like you are now, you are coming from a really authentic place. You’re like, yes, this is really cool and awesome to be in this spot. So 80%? I think a lot of people would hear that number and be like, oh my gosh, Emily, I’m nowhere near that. So what do you have to say to them? Any encouragement for them? 

I think it’s that outsourcing is not a quick fix for anything. There’s no flash in the pan solution. It is going to be a journey to get it right. There might be some false starts. There could be a bad fit, but I think with all risk, it’s worth it. It’s just that balance of risk and benefit. So that is my encouraging piece. Just to take it one step at a time and try different things. I think it’s the only way. I think the only way to learn and grow in our businesses is to try something and learn from it. 

Yeah, experimentation is huge. You helped me go through an organizational strategy. Is that what you call it? Organizational charting? It was so helpful. Since we talked, I remember telling you in our meeting that there are these few little tasks that I just don’t like doing. I don’t know, they just drain me. They bring me down every time they come up. Since then, we’ve experienced family distress in the medical realm. My husband had this crazy thing happen on vacation. Because of that, I just started dropping those things off. I was like, I wonder what would happen if I just didn’t do these things anymore? So there are a handful of them that I just stopped doing. Guess what? The world kept turning. I am no longer feeling drained and I found out weeks later now that I didn’t even really need to do those tasks. So I’ve started replacing those draining tasks with things that actually are fulfilling and social media is my example that I’m thinking about right now. So I had these two posts that I did every week on my podcast side. Every time I went to schedule them it was just so hard for me. I stopped doing those and now I’m replacing them with inspiration that kind of comes to me on any given week. I’m not putting pressure on myself. You have to have something up on Tuesday and Friday. It’s not like that anymore. Those inspiring posts, I really enjoy doing, and they’re creating much more engagement. They’re more sincere. They’re coming from an authentic place. So it’s amazing what can happen and what can fill the space when you just experiment and stop doing those things that you’re like, Ugh about. 

Emily: Yes. I love that too. I love that it doesn’t have to be all outsourced. It can be you just don’t, we can delete things.

Megan: Because I think we do fall into that trap of thinking this job has to continue and I don’t want to do it. So the only other solution is to outsource it. But how about experimenting with just not doing it unless it’s a vital piece of your business, obviously. Just not doing it and seeing what happens and that’s what I did. I am so glad I did that because it was not worth the energy that I was spending and all of that time dreading it. Then it would take me much longer to do it because I wasn’t enjoying it. I didn’t want to outsource it because probably deep down, I knew that it wasn’t actually needed. I don’t know. It was just like this crazy cycle that I got into. 

Emily: Yeah. I just think that is so brilliant. I love that example. 

Megan: Actually not super brilliant on my end. I just was like, I need to get this off my plate. 

Emily: It’s too bad it was forced upon you to make the change, but at the same time, I feel like you can bring that forward with you now. You get to bring that lesson forward with you forever more. You’re going to remember that one. What other things can you remove? Like you said, experiment with, that could also change. 

Megan: That will help me in the future to not be afraid of that, because I’ve seen, not only was it great to get rid of it, but I replaced it with something that was beneficial for me and my audience. So I have that in my mind now. So now I’m like, Ooh, what else can I drop off my list and replace with something else, something better? I know you have some misconceptions with all of this, what are those? Can you talk us through those? 

Emily: So I’m so excited to talk about these misconceptions because they are things that I fell into as traps. I think the first one is that your zone of genius is one thing. I think this comes from the phrase zone of genius because it’s a zone. We think one thing, but I think it’s more multifaceted than that. You think about your home life or your professional life. You’re going to have different zones of genius within that, but even within your business. If you’re thinking like food blogging is my zone of genius, I think that’s being too, it’s being too broad. Because even though you love food blogging and that’s what you’re into and that is your zone of genius on a level, it’s part of it. But then you have to like, get more specific and think about all the things that food blogging involves, like we’ve been talking about, even with the podcast, Megan.

You’re not going to have a zone of genius in all things podcasting or all things food blogging. So I think, again, that’s where we think it’s one thing. I even used to think that my zone of genius was hiring. And I used to say that, and it is true. That is part of it, but I’m not in the zone of genius in all elements of everything about hiring. 

Megan: So it’s more like breaking it down and taking those broad jobs and breaking them down into really small tasks, like you do when you go through your week. If you log everything you do in food blogging for a week, you’re going to have Oh, my gosh, a list of probably a hundred things. So that’s what you’re talking about. 

Emily: Yeah. And when I think about hiring for me and outsourcing, if I only considered that my zone of genius, I’d be missing out on the fact how much I love speaking, how much I love creating presentations, things like that. There are other things that are still in my professional realm, but they aren’t directly the actual hiring process, recruiting, creating organizational strategies, stuff like that. For example, like I don’t love scheduling meetings. I don’t need to read every email that comes in. So that’s where there’s going to be elements in anything. 

Megan: Are there any other misconceptions that you wanted to address? 

Emily: Yeah. The other one that comes to mind is that it never changes. I think this goes back to there’s a psychologist that I can’t, her name is escaping me right now, but she talks about growth versus fixed mindset. A fixed mindset never changes. You are who you are and that’s it. But really, I think the zone of genius is much more flexible than that. I think it grows with us. This is where I think writing versus speaking for me is a great example of this. So 10 years ago, I could never have pictured being interviewed right now. Or, showing up and delivering a conference presentation. I was terrified. I was in the corporate world then. I was terrified to speak in meetings. For me to make this change and be like speaking is in my zone of genius, is such a huge shift to me because at that time, writing has always, I think when I look back, it’s always been an excellence, but I think sometimes I thought it was more genius, but it’s always been a draining task for me. That’s where I’m a really good writer. I get a lot of recognition for my writing. But it doesn’t light me up the way speaking does, the way of making a presentation, answering questions, that kind of stuff, just makes me come alive in a different way. So I think the same is true with food blogging as well. Whichever the business focus is, it can evolve over time. What you love, what’s draining? Maybe photography was really fun when you were learning it, but now it’s boring and it doesn’t feel like it doesn’t make you come alive anymore. So it’s time to get more help with that. That’s an example of how it can change over time and food blogging as well. 

Megan: I think it’s very common for it to evolve. I think it would be more on the uncommon side for it not to evolve because there are so many different pieces of food blogging. I think just naturally you get into maybe one piece and you really like it. Then move on to another. That has totally happened to me. I used to love photography. I honestly do not care about photography at all anymore. Speaking with me, I love speaking and talking to people. I was like, you Emily, back in the corporate days of my life. I avoided it at all costs. I hated it. Now to think of that, I’m like, whoa, that’s so weird. I come alive when I do it now. So it is interesting. How often do you recommend that we reevaluate that? Do we do that yearly or less, or what?

Emily: Yeah, I’d say yearly. Every one to two years I think it’s good to check back in on those things, checking back in on your values. Because things just change over time. So yeah, I’d say about every one to two years. 

Megan: Okay. That makes sense to me. So we talked about this a little bit earlier about how to distinguish between excellence and genius, but do you have any other ways to really nail what our genius zones are? 

Emily: Yeah, I have come up with a model. Do you remember Venn diagrams? 

Megan: Totally. Yeah. 

Emily: High school math class where it’s the two circles that overlap. So I think of it as three circles that overlap and in the middle of those three circles, that is most likely where your zone of genius is coming out. I have a few quizzes that I recommend that we can walk through. Okay, so circle number one is your personality and your strengths. What I love about this area is that it’s pretty stable over time. Psychology research indicates that these things can change a little bit, but you’re not likely to switch from one personality spectrum to the completely other side over the course of your life. You’re pretty stable in these two dimensions. The other thing I love about strengths. The one I recommend for strengths is Clifton StrengthsFinder. They do charge a bit of a fee to take their test, but the results are so good. Their research is saying that we should stop trying to improve our weaknesses and build upon our strengths. Then I’m saying, build your team so that you can compliment each other in that. But you have to be aware of these things so that you can apply them. I think it helps us discover our zone of genius as well. Oh, I love that. 

Megan: What you just said about, stop improving on your weaknesses and instead focus on your strengths. That kind of goes with parenting and how to just manage relationships in general. You focus on what’s being done right instead of what’s being done wrong. So I love that concept as a parent who has some sometimes difficult, parental situations. It’s very tempting to be like, why are you doing that? That’s wrong and having to reframe that in my mind and turn it into, oh, you did this really well. Nice work. It’s that same concept. So I love that. Okay. So what are the other circles? 

Emily: Yeah. So the second circle is your skills and experience. So this was what I was talking about while speaking. Where 10 years ago, I wouldn’t have put speaking in my skill and experience, but now I have so much experience speaking that it’s definitely part of that. I think about this in two dimensions. One is the level of the skill and then also the level of the joy. So when you’re looking at your time tracking activity, if you’re not sure where one falls, it can be helpful to think about these two dimensions, because it can help you discern where it lies. So if you are getting a lot of joy and you have a lot of experience in something, that’s a more likely zone of genius. 

Megan: I love just visual things like this, where I can write out circles on my piece of paper and write my strengths and skills in. What falls into that third circle?

Emily: Okay. So the third one is passions and interests. This is one of my favorites. It’s one of my favorites, I think, because I think actually this is the area that in, of the three circles, I think it is the most variable. Interests. They can fluctuate, weekly, monthly, yearly as well. I think there’s more variety to the passion and the interest piece. But I also think they’re honed over time too.

Megan: I think you’re right on that. Can you give us some examples? What are you feeling really passionate about with your job? 

Emily: Okay. Job postings. I am crazy passionate about job postings because there are so many bad job postings. I hate using the word bad, but they’re vague. They’re expecting way too much from one person. So I am on a renewed mission. I feel like in the last few weeks, the last few months have really improved the job postings in the industry. I’m not just talking about food blogging either. I’m talking like all digital businesses. When you go on Upwork, the freelancers are so frustrated because there’s just garbage posted out there. But then when they see my job posting, they know. Like they know, I know what I’m doing, they know this client, whether I’m recruiting for someone else or myself, they know my client has it together because they’re using my job posting formula. I know we’ve talked about the job posting stuff in previous episodes, but I think that’s definitely one to go listen to, the last couple we touched on it in both of them. I can’t get enough of it. I can’t stop talking. What are the things you can’t stop learning about? You can’t stop telling people about it?

Megan: I love it. I think that’s so important to really dig into that. It might be something really clear, like yours. Job postings are very specific. Very clear. So thinking about what are the things, when people ask you about your business or Hey, how’s work going? What are those things you go to that you just can’t stop talking about? You’re like, oh, I’m sorry, I’ve been speaking for 15 minutes straight. It’s those things. 

Emily: Recently I thought, am I crazy for not starting a food blog? I love food, but then I realized I have no passion around it, the way I do around job postings. I just don’t feel the way about food that I do other things in my life. So I was like, no, you’re not crazy for not having a food blog, Emily. Just keep supporting the people who are doing amazing work out there. I get to use the recipes instead. 

Megan: So we have these three circles. So we evaluate our personality and strengths, our skills and experience, and then our passions and interests. Then where they meet in the middle, there is common ground. Then we take those things and we pull those out as our zones of genius.

Emily: Yes. Exactly.

Megan: Then everything else we can categorize in other ways. So how do we take all of that information and start outsourcing?

Emily: Yeah. So I think the first thing is to start looking for some commonalities among the responsibilities. Because freelancers are specialists and they tend to have more highly specialized skills. So for example, I had a writer recently I was speaking with and she was talking about how she had a client who was having her schedule her blog posts. I kept thinking that does not really seem to go together with me. You are a really good blog writer, but you don’t necessarily have good WordPress skills. So I think it’s starting to pull out. This is the work we really did in that organizational strategy session is, we looked at all those things and I was able to help you craft each of the roles and look at who’s doing what and what roles you needed to add in order to get these things that you wanted to outsource the most off of your plate.

Megan: I will tell you that was the most relieving session I’ve ever had with someone, because it was like, we were able to clump this job, basically. We created this job that doesn’t currently exist and put all of the tasks that I don’t love doing, in one job. It was like, oh my gosh. Someone else can completely do this for me. So it is a huge relief to evaluate this and just take steps toward getting to this point that Emily’s talking about and figuring out what your zones are. So it is totally 100% worthwhile to go through this. It was so great to do that. Thank you, Emily. 

Emily: It was such a joy too. I find it with every client that goes through the organizational strategy process. It gives me so much joy because I feel like I’m taking such a heavy weight off of them. Then for me, it’s like at the gym, like to me, it’s a five pound weight. What feels like 50 pounds to my client, feels like nothing to me. It’s fun and easy. It gives me so much joy and fulfillment to be able to do that for other food bloggers.

Megan: Yeah. This is why we appreciate and love you because you find passion in these areas where we truly need your help. So we just thank you. I’m so grateful for you. You fill this gap in this space of ours that is just perfect. I feel like I talk about you all the time. Oh, Emily Perron could help you. She has a passion for this. You come up all the time. So just thank you, Emily. You’re amazing. 

Emily: Thank you so much. I think the other thing that I loved about your session too, is that with the org strategy, you don’t have to have me recruit for you. We didn’t. You felt like you could take it from there. That’s really my intention with that is that the client is able to go implement now. You have the roles identified and the job posting mostly done. So it’s just taking it from there and finding the right person. 

Megan: There’s this trap that we fall into, I feel like, with the competence realm, because, oh, like you said earlier, I could do this. That line could apply to a million different things in my business. I can do it. I hear this a lot with food bloggers. They say, I need to start outsourcing, but I’m not because I can do it. I can keep doing this. But just because you could or can keep doing it, doesn’t necessarily mean you should be doing it. So talk to us about that trap. 

Emily: Yeah. I think of it as a trap. Exactly. It is a trap because it really takes a mindset shift to get out of it and believing that you’re worth it, believing that you are worth the support. Believing that you’re ready to take on new things. I think that’s one of the things that hold us back is we forget that we can do other things with that time that are more valuable to our blogs, to our businesses. So it just takes some time. I think there’s that piece where you just have to get to that point where you’re willing to let go of some of the control. And noticing. When you notice yourself, I can do it. Those are the things you should be jotting down. So that when we meet, I can take that information and start to craft the roles or you can, like it doesn’t have to be me. But those are those flags. It’s any time you’re like, I can do this. That is something to get written down. That’s competence. 

Megan: Awareness. So just be aware of that line, if it’s going through your head, use that as your signal. Oh, wait a second. Emily told me that this is a sign. So just be aware of that and see where that could lead you. 

Emily: I continue to document things even today. I have a good awareness of, what’s next? What would I want to outsource next? Because then when you are ready, you have it. You have this list that you can go through and pull out the things that go together that could be a virtual assistant or a writer or a social media manager, that they could do. 

Megan: I love that idea of just having a document, maybe the potential outsource document that you just can go into at any time. It’s not a big deal. It takes two seconds. Hop over, write a few words, and then it’s jotted down. I have to point this out. If you are thinking of outsourcing and you’re resisting it. Just want to say this because I think it’s so relevant here, that if you can just start small and outsource some of those things that lie in your incompetence or your competent zones, you, by doing that, you are creating space for good things. So remember my example earlier, where I held on to those social media posts for a really long time, I did them forever, knowing that I hated them. But then I was forced to give them up. When I did that, good things came in, like better things and that wouldn’t have happened if I would’ve kept holding onto them. So that whole concept of opening up space by getting rid of things is actually allowing good things to come in.

Emily: Yes, exactly. Yes. I love that. I love that point. 

Megan: This has been amazing. I know you’re so passionate about this topic, Emily, and I can feel it. I know food bloggers are like, yes, Emily. Thank you for all of this, just encouragement and motivation with this to get going on figuring out what our zones of genius are. Are there any parting words to talk about before we start saying goodbye?

Emily: I think it’s just remembering that this is a long game with outsourcing and with hiring, with getting help in your business. There’s no quick fixes with it. So I think keeping that perspective in mind and that no one is doing it perfectly, everyone’s making mistakes. My goal is I want to help food bloggers make fewer mistakes in this space because I have run into so many myself and also by specializing in working with food bloggers, I can see the commonalities there as well. So you’re not alone if you feel like you’re messing up or you’re too afraid to hand it off. It’s that piece. 

Megan: We’ll put together some shownotes for you, Emily. If anyone wants to go look at those, you can find them at eatblogtalk.com/zoneofgenius. So why don’t you remind everyone, Emily, where they can find you online?

Emily: Yeah. So my website is emilyperron.com. I have a blog full of resources over there, and there’s a mini course. Also ways to work with me as well. It’s all at the top of the page. Then I’m also on Instagram at Emily.Perron. I love taking questions so if you have a followup question to this episode, definitely send me a DM and I will do my best to answer it.

Megan: Thank you again so much for being here, Emily. Thank you for listening today, food bloggers. I will see you next time. 

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