💡 Weekly Thought Exercise: How Tim Ferriss Thinks About His Zone of Genius

This week's thought exercise comes from Tim Ferriss.

Specifically, an Instagram story he posted:

It's dangerously easy to think your weaknesses should be your largest focus.

Why?

Because your brain is naturally wired that way.

Self-determination theory: The relentless drive that keeps founders grinding away at their weak spots, thinking they'll finally feel whole once they've patched up every crack in their armor.

Perfectionism and Fear of Failure: That nagging voice in every CEO's head whispering, "One slip-up and it's game over," turning them into weakness-obsessed productivity machines.

Self-Concept and Identity: The mental gymnastics routine where founders convince themselves that obliterating their flaws is the only path to becoming the founder they dream of being.

Today, we're going to put all the tasks that you have on your to-do list into the Zone of Genius chart.

Gay Hendricks introduced this chart in his New York Times bestselling book The Big Leap.

By the end of the thought exercise you'll understand where to multiply your results (Zone of Genius, Zone of Excellence, and Zone of Competence), and where to ditch the incremental gains (Zone of Incompetence).

So, let's get into it.

• This reflection will take about 15 minutes

• You don't need to add any context - just copy and paste the prompt

• Copy-and-paste your to do list directly into the prompt when the AI asks for your task list

• Let me know how you like the prompt in the poll below

Here's the prompt to copy and paste into Claude.ai:

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