The ONE Thing Blocking You From Your Zone of Genius
24 Apr 2025 · 15 min
Lori Harder explains how distraction keeps you from your zone of genius, the work that energizes you and yields outsized returns. Pick 2-3 needle-moving tasks daily, audit your time weekly, and remove your phone. Delegate logistical work so you're not the bottleneck.
Chapters
What you're doing right now is you're trying to outsource the gift of your business. You're trying to outsource the genius in your business because you're doing all the shit that isn't really moving the needle and it's just keeping you busy. And what that's doing is it's stopping everything good from coming into your business because you need to be doing the things that you're great at and stop getting distracted. Hey, everyone, welcome back to the podcast. It's time for another quickie because there's always time to fit in inspiration. Guys, we have such exciting things coming down the pipeline for glossy and if you have not tried it yet, you need to go to getglosi.com and use code happy for 25 off. Summer is coming. I am not kidding you. If you want incredible skin, if you want to feel lighter, if you want to feel less bloated, this is is going to be the thing that you need all summer long. It is beauty hydration with the most amazing, essential skin and gut nutrients that you don't want to miss out on. So go and check it out. I promise you, you need to replace your hydration stick. What are you even doing? This is so much better and such a better value. I promise you. I was neurotic about the ingredients. Okay, so we're going to talk today about your zone of genius and also distraction. And everything around you is literally trying to buy your attention. We spend billions of dollars on advertising, Facebook advertising, Instagram advertising, TikTok advertising, advertising on billboards, magazines, you name it, all to try to rob your attention away to something else. Now, some of these things are great. Many of them are not. Many of them are just pulling you away from your purpose. And at the end of the day, man, you feel it when your head hits the pillow, when you feel disappointed in yourself. And that is not a way to live. You're not going to look back at the end of your life and say, my gosh, I wish I would have spent more time distracting myself and avoiding all of the hobbies and all of my purpose and all of the things that I really dreamt of creating. I wish I would have just gone for it, not given an absolute care in the world what people thought. Do you even remember the people that you are most afraid of in middle school or in high school? Sure, maybe it's a slight memory, but there's no emotion attached to it. And that's exactly what it's like when you move forward with your biggest goals. And dreams. Like, I know that I had a lot of people, you know, saying stuff about me in the beginning. I even remember the group of women who were absolutely horrendous to me. I won't say their names, but I'm really tempted, and it is like, there's no emotion attached to it. I'm like, did I really let that rock me as bad as it did you guys? It freaking rocked my world for a solid almost two years. Like, I was so hurt. I was not only hurt. It, like, really shook me. I was like, should I do this? Should I just stop doing this? Because it's not. I don't know if it's worth it now.
I'm like, are you kidding me?
That stuff doesn't even stop me. Like, I see it, and I'm like, okay, I see you. I know you're in pain. I know that you just don't like watching other people go for it or it makes you feel better to say X, y, and Z about people, and that's totally fine. Like, it's. It's cute to me. Now I'm like, oh, my gosh. I want to get you some help because I know that you're just in pain and you're stuck. So let's connect you to someone. Like, I don't know. Let's get some therapy. Let's get some. Some core friends around you. Let's figure this out. So talking about not getting distracted. I know that there is a world where you are in your zone of genius, and you are loving life. Like, you're moving from thing to thing, and you're feeling fricking amazing. And so we want to get you into that zone of genius. We're going to talk about what that is. So I believe that you're not stuck. You're just scattered. Most people dabble in good instead of doubling down on their genius. So every successful person I know is radically focused. They know their lane, and they typically stay right in it. So for me, I know that this year is all about getting organized. I'm getting neurotic about it, and I'm still getting distracted, you guys. It's so easy for me to get distracted. I watch myself. Like, I'll be doing something in my hand. Will literally want to go to my phone. I'm like, what am I doing? Why do I need to check that? I absolutely don't need to keep on checking things for them to be moving or I don't need to know those things right now. I need to be creating so I can get very, very stuck, very scattered. I can chase many opportunities unless I clearly define what my goals are every single week for that particular week. And that's one of the big ways that I stay in my zone of genius. If you don't know what your zone of genius is, this was coined by Gay Hendricks in the Big Leap. This is one of my top five books of all times. I love it. When I feel stuck, I tend to read it. I actually recently moved and couldn't find it, so I ordered a new one and just got it a few weeks ago. And your zone of genius is the thing that you do effortlessly that energizes you and brings, like, 10 times the returns. And it often feels too easy. It feels easy for you to do it. So people undervalue it. And even you, most of all, undervalue it. So let's use the example that you love talking in storytelling, but you haven't thought that this could be a podcast that absolutely is something you can get paid on, you know, three to five to seven years down the road, like I am now. And so I did a whole lot of talking for free because it just felt easy for me.
I was like, I don't know.
I would be doing this anyway. I love going in this room, believe it or not. Sometimes I hate it, but for the most part, I would be doing this every day anyway. And so what is that thing that you would do anyway that you lose track of time? You love it. You love learning for that reason, right? You love to do that thing. It's like, I love learning so I can share it on the podcast. That is your zone of genius. What do people often ask you to do? Right? How do you find yours? What do people always come to you for? What's your biggest question in your comments and your dms? What could you talk about or do endlessly, even unpaid? That's the key. What feels energizing, even if it looks exhausting for others? I have friends who always say, oh, my God, how do you do four podcasts a week? I'm like, I don't know. I know it's a lot, but it also feels pretty easy for me. So how do we apply this to our business? You want to build your business around your genius, not around what other people are doing or what's trending. Of course we want to look at that and see what's working out there and see if it can be applied. But when things start feeling really, really hard for you, that's when you know this is not where you're supposed to be. You might have to be in certain things for a while. Like I have to be in a lot of the, you know, logistics and a lot of the technical things right now in my business, which I am trying to get out of because I know the longer I stay here, the more I. I become a bottleneck for this business. So how can you start getting back into your zone of genius in the business? And how can you create a business around that? How can you create offers, content and partnerships that keep you in that lane, in that zone of genius and everything else? I mean, the ideal goal. People say this shit all the time, like, get in your zone of genius. But you can't the beginning, okay? And when things change, it's like you have to figure that out sometimes. Mama doesn't have the cash flow to stay out of it all the time. Right? It's like you have to literally be in it sometimes. But you do want to quickly figure out how to do that as quick as possible. And if you catch yourself like in the places where you're in it way too long and you are just stopping money from coming in because of it, that's when you know you're in it too long. You have to start figuring things out. Even if you're trading things out, you really need to figure it out. Even if you're on Fiverr all the.
Time, even if you are getting a.
Bunch of virtual assistants. Like, you have to figure your out and you have to get organized or you will be the bottleneck. So how to stay in it and stop getting distracted. Your to do list is a giant distraction. Mine is a massive distraction. Like I can't even. The thought of my to do list right now is actually distracting me during this podcast. Like, we want to keep things on our to do list on a day to day. Like, yes, I get it. I have to brain dump everything. So keep a brain dump page, but don't go back to that page more than like three times a week. Like make sure you're on top of everything. But what you want to do is create a to do list for your day that's like three things long. You really don't want more than that. You want three needle moving things that if you got those done that day, it would be an amazing freaking day. So you want to kind of just do a weekly audit of how much time did I spend in my zone of genius and how many days do I feel like I got done what I needed to get done. Right? You want to apply a nice amount of pressure to yourself to kind of stay in that zone of genius and check off those two to three things. That's it. That's it. The two to three things for what you have to do tomorrow.
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So when you live in your zone of genius, you make space for momentum, you make space for creating. You make space for the magic. So what you're doing right now is you're trying to outsource the gift of your business. You're trying to outsource the genius in your business because you're doing all the shit that's not. That is like hard and isn't really moving the needle. And it's just keeping you busy. And what that's doing is it's stopping everything good from coming into your business because you need to be doing the things that you're great at and stop getting distracted. So whether that is turn your phone off, put in a drawer, put it in a different room, keep that list of those three things that you need to get done that are needle movers for you. You guys, distraction is going to keep you from, like your absolute dream life. Distraction is keeping you from your dream life. It's keeping you from all of the money that's waiting to come in. And all you have to do is literally figure out those three needle movers a day. What do I have to do? And let everything fall to the wayside. Because let me tell you, in business, there's always like 15 fires going on, right? There's always things burning. What can you let burn? And what is most press to get done and most pressing is bring that money into the business. So whatever that looks like. If you're someone who is really good at social media and marketing, man, you want to stay in that zone of genius because there isn't a whole lot in business that eyeballs can't solve. There isn't a whole lot in business that audience and sales cannot solve, right? So that's where we want to be, is staying in those zones of genius. All right, you guys, I'm sending you so much love and with that again, I'd love for you guys to go check out Glossy because I swear to you, you're going to feel a game changing difference. I do not go a day without it. I will not go a day without it ever again. I have it two to three times a day. If you want to sleep better, if you want to poop better, if you want to feel better, if you want to wake up and feel leaner and lighter, I'm telling you, replace your hydration stick now. This replaces a ton of supplements in your cabinet. It's one easy thing. If you just do one thing a day. Do this for yourself. Okay? You can go to getglossy.com and use code happy.
And you guys, until next time, earn your happy.
Bye everyone.
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