Achieve Success By Focusing On Your Core Genius

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I’ve got a confession to make…

I absolutely, positively love creating systems. I get a charge by planning out something in my head and seeing this vision come to reality. Perhaps I get this from my dad who is the same way.

You might think it’s kinda weird or geeky, but I have a different viewpoint. I consider this quirk to be my core genius.

Yes, my core genius.

What is Your Core Genius?

Have you ever seen those “Chicken Soup for the Soul” books on display at Borders or Barnes and Noble?

They’ve been around for several years, so most likely you’ve at least heard of them. One of the co-authors of the Chicken Soup books is Jack Canfield. The thing is he also wrote an incredible book on personal development called The Success Principles.

In this book, Canfield says, “I believe you have inside you a core genius… some one thing that you love to do, and do so well, that you hardly feel like doing anything else. It’s effortless for you and a whole lot of fun. And if you could make money doing it, you’d make it your lifetime’s work.

Successful people believe this, too. That’s why they put their core genius first. They focus on it—and delegate everything else to other people on their team.”

Now let me switch gears slightly right now and talk about a related topic…

The Relation Between Core Genius and the 80/20 Rule

A few days back, I wrote about the 80/20 rule. In this article, I mentioned how in 1906, an Italian economist named Vilfredo Pareto made the observation that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population.

A management consultant named Joseph M. Juran used Pareto’s observation to create what he called the Pareto principle, or the 80/20 Principle. Pareto’s Principle was initially used in economics, but nowadays people are able to use it to effectively manage their own actions: in short, 80% of your outcome is based on 20% of your efforts.

Think about it.

When you open your mailbox, 80% of the stuff crammed inside is junk mail that you throw away. You wind up keeping only 20% of the mail, but 80% of your time involved in dealing with mail is spent reading that 20% that you kept – bills, birthday cards, magazines.

You might go to the office from 9 to 5, which makes you think you spend all day working. In reality, you wind up talking to your co-workers, answering unimportant phone calls, taking coffee breaks, and updating your Facebook status (you know you do it!) Most likely only 20% of your day is actually spent doing the “important stuff” that matters to your job, and that “stuff” is what should be 80% of your work day’s activities.

What’s Steve’s Core Genius?

So … back to my love of systems

I’m no Leonardo da Vinci, but I’m pretty good at mapping out what I want to do with my businesses.

I’m not artistic, but I can easily clarify my thoughts in a visual model that makes sense to me. This allows me to take each part of my online business and keep tweaking it till it produces profit.

On the other hand, there are a number of areas where I have little to no skill—Like web design, technical development and even writing. Even if I worked really hard at developing these skills, I would only be average. That’s why I use outsourcing to handle many areas of my online business.

I’ve accepted that my Core Genius isn’t being a cog in the machine. Instead my skill lies in being able to plan out a business and manage the process.

So in short, I stick to what I’m good at and use outsourcing to handle the rest. This is how I apply the 80/20 principle each and every day. If I attempted to build a website myself, I’d spend 80% of the day trying to research code while being frustrated and angry about it all. This would be time wasted that could be spent on an income producing activity.

How Do You Find Your Core Genius?

The goal of this post is to show that you don’t have to be perfect to achieve success. In fact, it’s actually a good thing if you’re only exceptional in one or two areas. That way, you can focus on what you’re good at and let others do the rest.

One of the first steps of self-improvement is realizing your strengths and weaknesses. You don’t have to be great at everything that you try. Just know what you love to do and go from there.

So as I close this article, I want to ask a few simple questions. First: “What is your core genius?” Is there one thing that you do well that makes you stand out from the crowd?

Once you have an answer to that, I have another question: “How are you moving towards your core genius?” The sad fact is the world is full of talented people who do nothing with their abilities. If you’re blessed with a unique skill what are you doing with this ability to achieve success?

After reading this post, I hope you take a few minutes and reflect on how you can bring value to the world. Deep inside all of us is an ability to make a difference. And this difference can be found by focusing on that one skill that makes you stand out from the crowd. This is the skill that’s your core genius.

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Tagged as: Life Purpose, Systems Thinking, Your Core Genius