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Sahil Bloom

@SahilBloom

Oct 30, 2021 • 24 tweets • 7 min read • Read on X

How to find (and operate in) your Zone of Genius:

https://twitter.com/SahilBloom/status/1449339851124445185

A few weeks ago, I shared a thread—How to Win (without talent or luck)—that got a lot of attention.

One of the most popular insights I shared was the idea of operating in your Zone of Genius.

But I got a lot of questions about how to practically achieve that...

https://twitter.com/SahilBloom/status/1449339851124445185

Your Zone of Genius is where your interests, passions and skills align.

Operating in it means you stop playing *their* games and start playing *yours*.

This thread shares my framework—built through personal struggle—for finding and operating in your Zone of Genius:

First, let's get one thing straight.

Everyone has a Zone of Genius.

"Genius" here is a relative term, not an absolute.

It's not about being top 1% at something—it's about the unique space where your relative strengths are accentuated (and relative weaknesses masked).

Furthermore, everyone’s Zone of Genius is different and unique to them as an individual.

The goal of a founder, startup, or organization, therefore, is to build a team with complementary—not conflicting—Zones of Genius.

This is where 1+1=3!

Sounds great—but how do you identify your Zone of Genius and operate more frequently in it?

My framework is effectively 4 steps:

(1) Experiment & Collect
(2) Build Your Matrix
(3) Identify Your Zones
(4) Execute

Let's walk through each one...

Experiment & Collect

The notion that you should know what you want to do with your life by the time you graduate college is one of the greatest lies you've been told.

Don't buy a car without a test drive.

Experiment and collect data in order to make informed decisions.

Experiment wildly. Try different things. Test out different working styles.

This doesn't mean skipping from job to job—you can experiment on nights, on weekends, etc.

The goal is to build a wide base of experiences from which you can assess your competencies and passions.

The data collection should be both internal (your own perspectives) and external (the perspectives of others).

To collect data from those around you, ask about their experiences working with you:

What are you great at? What are you bad at? When do they perceive you as in flow?

Build Your Matrix

The next step is to take all of the data collected from your experiments and build a skill map.

Imagine a sheet listing every possible skill and capability.

For every single one, there is a spectrum from 0 (min competency) to 1 (max competency).

You can theoretically place yourself somewhere on that spectrum for each.

This is your skill map—it tells you your competency level across a range of skills.

But competency is just one critical plane—passion is the other.

To visualize this, I like to think of it as a matrix:

With this matrix as a guide, you can place each skill in one of the four quadrants.

• High Competency, High Passion
• High Competency, Low Passion
• Low Competency, High Passion
• Low Competency, Low Passion

The matrix is a powerful visual tool to bring this to life.

Identify Your Zones

The 4 key zones to identify on your matrix:

(1) Zone of Incompetence: you are bad at these things; outsource to others who are good at them.

(2) Zone of Neutrality: you are ok at these things; outsource to others who are as good or better at them.

(3) Zone of Excellence: you are excellent at these things, but you don’t love them

(This is the "danger zone”: you will be asked—and tempted—to work here given your competency, but it can be a trap)

(4) Zone of Genius: you are excellent at these things and you love to do them

Execute

Ok, so you've identified your Zone of Genius. Now what?

By placing the various skills and capabilities within each zone, you've developed a clearer picture of where and how you should aim to spend your time.

But that's just part of the battle...

You have to execute.

It’s an extreme luxury to have the opportunity to operate in your Zone of Genius 100% of the time.

Few will ever be lucky enough to do this.

For most of us—myself included—the goal should be to maximize time spent in your Zone of Genius (and minimize time spent in the others).

If you work in a company, the best approach is to have a clear, candid conversation with your teams and managers about your zones.

Better yet, encourage the full team to conduct a similar exercise—with everyone mapped, it becomes easier to piece the puzzle together.

If you're running into a wall—with a company or manager who fails to recognize your perspectives—it may be time for a change.

Let the market determine which companies survive by allowing for the free flow of talent to the places that allow employees to thrive.

If you work on your own, be honest with yourself about what daily activities fall in what zones.

Be ruthless in outsourcing to maximize the time you spend in your Zone of Genius.

Your results and performance will improve in line with your ability to execute.

To summarize, my framework for finding and operating in your Zone of Genius:

(1) Experiment & Collect
(2) Build Your Matrix
(3) Identify Your Zones
(4) Execute

I will be expanding on this in a newsletter piece soon. Subscribe so you don't miss it: sahilbloom.substack.com

@SahilBloom

Follow me @SahilBloom for weekly threads on business, finance, and growth.

If you are a job seeker looking to make a change to operate in your Zone of Genius, I have a job board with a bunch of roles where that will be possible.

Check it out below! sahil.pallet.xyz/jobs

@sachin_ramje

Another week, another beautiful thread visualization by @sachin_ramje. Might have to hire this guy!

A brilliant quote that encapsulates this thread:

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” — Unknown

@drex_jpg

Newsletter deep-dive on the Zone of Genius will go out tomorrow to subscribers, including visuals (thanks @drex_jpg!) and audio.

Join the 42,000+ and subscribe so you don’t miss it! sahilbloom.substack.com

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More from @SahilBloom

Sahil Bloom

@SahilBloom

Apr 23

I can't stop thinking about this idea...

The 3 Types of Friends:

(everyone should read this)

The idea originates from Tyler Perry (portraying his wise Madea alter ego).

It's a brilliant framing for thinking about your relationships.

There are three types of people in your life:

1. Leaves
2. Branches
3. Roots

Here's what they look like...

LEAVES

These are the people that are only around from time to time when the weather is good.

They blow around as the winds change.

They provide shade during the summer, but as soon as winter comes, they fall off the tree and disappear.

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The secret to success that no one tells you about...

Avoiding the Compound Mistake:

(thread)

Let's begin by referencing the image made famous by Atomic Habits.

While most of the dialogue focuses on the 1% better every day, which results in a ~38x improvement, the 1% worse every day is just as important:

It effectively zeroes you out—it knocks you out of the game...

When I was playing baseball at Stanford, the coaches had a metric they liked to track for pitchers called the Compound Mistake.

The idea was simple:

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Sahil Bloom

@SahilBloom

Apr 17

I challenged myself to cold plunge every morning for 100 straight days.

- Three different continents
- Several frozen rivers and lakes
- Dozens of hotel bathtubs
- One icy shower at 40,000 feet

10 lessons learned from 100 days in the cold:

(a video thread)

Lesson 1: Discipline is about what you do on the days when you feel like crap.

It's easy to be disciplined and consistent when you feel great.

It's hard when you feel like crap.

Those are the days when you remind yourself that you are a winner.

Lesson 2: Stop overthinking, just start.

"No plan survives first contact with the enemy."

Too many get their dopamine from the planning. Too few get their dopamine from the doing.

Plan a bit, then make first contact with "your enemy" and start improving fast.

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Sahil Bloom

@SahilBloom

Apr 16

This idea changed my life (and may change yours)...

The Law of Reversed Effort:

In a Zen parable that I love, a martial arts student approaches his teacher and asks, "How long will it take me to master this craft?"

The teacher replies, "10 years."

The student, looking impatient, responds, "I want to master it faster than that. I will work harder than anyone else. I will push myself to practice for many hours every single day. How long will it take then?"

The teacher considers this new information and answers, "20 years."

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Sahil Bloom

@SahilBloom

Apr 14

Advice from a mentor that changed my life:

There’s no such thing as a perfect moment. There are just moments—and you decide what you make of them.

Waiting for the “perfect moment” is just a convenient, socially-acceptable excuse to hide from the thing that scares you.

Trust me, I’ve lived it.

A good sign that you're on the right path:

A lot of moments will seem perfect in hindsight, when they felt terrifying at the time.

Imperfect moments made perfect through action.

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Sahil Bloom

@SahilBloom

Mar 3

My entire life changed because of a leap of faith.

There are a lot of people out there who feel stuck, but trust me, you don't have to stay that way.

If you want to take a leap, here's exactly how I'd do it:

The change you want to make in life scary because of two asymmetries:

1. Information Asymmetry: You know exactly what this path looks like, but very little about what the other path looks like.

2. Evidence Asymmetry: You have abundant evidence that you can make it on this path, but very little evidence that you can make it on the other path.

To break through the fear and take the leap:

Step 1: Gather Information

The first step is to solve the information asymmetry.

The questions you should be asking (and answering):

What does the new path look like? Visualize it in detail.

How reversible is a decision to take this new path?

Note: Most people underestimate the reversibility of a big decision. You assume that if you leave your consulting firm, you'll never be able to get another job in consulting. That is usually patently false. Most of these career decisions are reversible.

What case studies exist on successful (or unsuccessful) execution?

What perspectives can you learn from people with real, earned experience on the new path?

Are there any examples of people who have made a similar shift to what you are considering? What can you learn from them?

If you use a thoughtful process to gather information, you'll balance the information asymmetry and shorten the gap considerably.

Step 2: Create Evidence

The second step is to solve the evidence asymmetry.

While still on your current path, you need to create tangible proof that you can build a life on the other side.

What proof points can you generate of your ability to execute?

• Find one customer for your prospective new venture.
• Make $100 selling something on the internet.
• Generate a few client leads to your new coaching practice.

The tiny wins build momentum and help solve the evidence asymmetry.

Step 3: Confront the Fear

Gathering information and creating evidence should get you most of the way there.

But the fear still exists.

Here's how to address it:

1. Reframe the fear as a good thing: It means you care, it means this is something that matters.

2. Deconstruct the downside of action: What is the worst that could happen? How bad is it, really?

3. Deconstruct the upside of action: What is the best that could happen? How great is it?

4. Deconstruct the regret: How much would you regret inaction when you're 90-years-old? Could you live with that regret?

As Seneca famously wrote, "We suffer more in imagination than in reality."

These steps get the fear out of your imagination and force it into reality.

Your Player's Guide to the Leap of Faith

There's never going to be a perfect moment to make a dramatic change.

The leap of faith isn't for everyone, but if you follow this general process, you'll be well-positioned if you decide to jump.

1. Gather information
2. Create evidence
3. Confront the fear

I hope this helps a few people out there take that leap they've been too afraid to face.

A new life is on the other side...

The most important piece here:

Recognizing the fear as a byproduct of the information/evidence asymmetry.

It turns something abstract into a solvable problem.