“Only do what only you can do.”

— Andy Stanley

Create An Extraordinary Life

Warren Buffet, one of the richest people in the world, helped his former pilot create an avoid-at-cost-list.”

One day, Buffet said to his pilot:

“You’ve been working for me for a long time. You should have moved on and found better opportunities. Can I help you to get there?”

The pilot said: “That would be great.”

Buffet asked the pilot to come back to him with a list of the top things he wants to achieve. Once the list was ready, the pilot shows a list of thirty goals to Buffet.

Buffet asks the pilot about the goals that are not in his top five. The pilot replied:

“Those are not my priorities but I will spend time on them when I can.”

Then Buffet stops him right there and said:

“That’s your mistake. Everything that’s not in your top five has become your avoid-at-all-cost list. Focus your time only on the top five.”

With this idea, I have applied it to my life by only focusing on the important tasks while eliminating the non-essentials. Examples may include:

• Using Amazon for grocery home delivery
• Ordering healthy food deliveries
• Utilizing professional home cleaning and laundry services

While there are times when I enjoy buying food from the farmers’ market or cooking meals at home, it’s not the best use of my time. By removing the mundane tasks, I have more time for the following:

• Exercising
• Writing
• Spending time with family, partner, and/or friends
• Engaging in my hobbies

With an entrepreneurial mindset, I let money support me by trading it for time.

On a regular basis, I ask myself:

“How can I create more freedom for myself?”

This can be achieved by outsourcing certain activities to others.

By doing so, I allow myself to do what only I can do – engage in activities that energize me and make me come alive. As a result, I can take my life to the next level by creating and experiencing the most out of life.

Engage in Your Zone of Genius

According to Gay Hendricks’s book, The Big Leap, there are four zones of function.

1. Genius – enter flow-state utilizing your talents to produce your best work
2. Excellence – generate great work
3. Competence – fabricate acceptable work 
4. Incompetence – lacking knowledge and skills to create mediocre work

The challenge is steering away from the zone of competence and excellence and moving into the zone of genius.

Because in the latter, you can be fully immersed in the present moment which allows you to create brilliant work.

In business, this may mean creating meaningful connections that will allow you to grow by bringing in new opportunities and/or talents. It may also translate to creating products and services that best serve your customers.

While there’s value in being a renaissance man and being a jack of all trades. However, if you want to master any craft, then you must dive deep with dedicated effort.

Taking the ecosystem as an example, everything in it has its unique roles. And when they perform their distinctive functions, it contributes to their success as a whole.

Applying this to your life and/or business, you can take it to the next level. This results in you focusing on activities that only you can do which feel effortless and bring you an enormous amount of satisfaction.

To create time for your zone of genius activities, you may be required to delegate and automate other (incompetent, competent, and excellence zones) tasks.

Since your energy is finite, it’s in your best interest to focus on the activities that will produce the highest yield to maximize your efficiency.

Free Up Your Time

Getting the right people to support your lifestyle requires diligence in identifying their unique skillsets and emotional intelligence.

By hiring open-minded/hearted people, you can provide constructive feedback to learn and grow. Additionally, by leading with inspiration, you give them the freedom to develop from their mistakes.

With the tasks that you’re incompetent, competent, or excellent at, you can employ people who are better than you are at them.

And in the rare case when you have a made bad hire, choose to be brutally honest with yourself by doing the following:

1. Give yourself permission to make mistakes
2. Acknowledge the fault
3. Take corrective action

Through learning from your mishaps, you can grow and make better decisions in the future.

Closing Thoughts

Since your time and energy are limited, you can use them wisely by focusing on activities only you can do.

Allowing others to support you by doing less important tasks, you’ll have the freedom to choose engagements that excite and truly serve you.

This may mean you have more time for meaningful relationships, hobbies, or volunteering.

You always have the option to choose how you spend your time and live your life.

By selecting to do more of those things that are aligned with your values and authentic self, you can live an extraordinary life.

I am on a mission to help 1,000,000 people, but I can’t do that without your help. Please share this article with anyone who you may think will find it valuable and helpful. Thank you very much! I greatly appreciate it!

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