The Zone of Genius Ladder

The four-zones exercise from Gay Hendricks' The Big Leap, drawn as an ascending staircase. Sort everything you do in a normal week onto the steps: incompetence (you struggle with it — delegate it), competence (you're fine at it, but so are plenty of others), excellence (the comfortable trap — great at it, rewarded for it, stuck in it), and genius — the solid-gold top step for the work only you can do, that gives energy instead of taking it. Each step carries a fixed move: delegate it, hand it off, schedule less of it on purpose, protect it on the calendar first. Below the stairs, two boxes finish the exercise: your upper-limit tell — the way you self-sabotage when things go better than you're used to — and one concrete, scheduled move that shifts a real hour from excellence into genius. Fill it in, or print it blank and sort by hand.

• Portrait
• 1 page
• Reflection

Best for: Anyone whose calendar is full of work they're merely great at — finding the hours to move up a step.