This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 33, the one question that all successful people ask themselves and how you can ask it too.
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Hey, Christy, how are you doing today? Hey, Lindsay, I'm awesome.
How are you doing? Excellent. Thank you for asking.
I am here and I'm excited to chat with you today about a topic that I find so inspiring.
Yeah. Yeah. So the other day we had Laura Garnett on the show and she told us about this concept of the zone of genius.
That's cool. Right? So that was episode 220.
So I've always thought about the concept of intelligence as being so narrow, right?
So conceptual intelligence But what if we define intelligence?
Do you want to tell the audience what conceptual intelligence means?
Oh, that's a good point, right? So your traditional way of thinking about intelligence, right?
Einstein type of intelligence. That, I think, is how we define intelligence.
But intelligence can be looked at so differently, can't it?
Yeah, there's been a wider view of what makes someone smart, like emotional intelligence and creative intelligence.
Exactly. Absolutely. And in episode 220 on Monday, Laura Garnett came on and told us about the zone of genius.
Do you want to know the formula, Christy, for the zone of genius?
Yes, please tell me. Okay. The formula is it's your innate talent plus your greatest passion or purpose.
So it's the way you do what matters to you the most.
Okay. So when we find the convergence point between those two areas, we get our zone of genius.
Yeah. So, Christy, do you have any idea what your zone of genius is or any clues?
That's a good question. I think that I've been really trying to search into that in the past four or five years.
And I think a lot of people in their late 20s can relate to that, trying to understand about themselves, like what do they like to do and what should they do.
I think for me, when I took some time off from running Bumblebee Tennis at tennis school, that's almost what I was focused on, like finding my happy place and figuring out what I really wanted.
Because before I thought, well… If someone asked me, what do you want to do?
I said, I want to start a business. That's all.
And I thought that was, that was my thing.
But I realized that it's like, what kind of business do you want to start?
And in what area? And what do you want? What role do you want to play in that business?
And I realized how much more specific I still needed to be.
Absolutely. I think we can all drill down into this a little bit more.
So you started a tennis business in New York.
And I think that's one of the hardest things to do is start a brick and mortar, a real business.
Well, not an internet business. Internet businesses are real businesses, of course.
But you started a brick and mortar tennis business in New York City.
And what was your kind of special passion inside of that?
Was it tennis or was it helping people get active shape or what was it?
That's a good question. And I have to say that the bumblebee tennis for me was really a learning process.
I learned a lot of what I didn't like to do.
Hey, we have to learn that in life. Yeah.
And when I think I remember before I started bumblebee tennis, we had a garage sale in Hawaii and we were selling stuff.
And when someone bought something for me, that That moment where somehow I was giving them something good enough for them to give me their hard-earned money gave me such a thrill that I think that in its essence was exciting to me to create a business where people actually were willing to buy something from me.
So kind of an exchange of value. Mm-hmm.
So maybe that's your passion or your purpose.
And what's the way that you do it? What's that innate talent?
Is there a special way that you exchange value where we could find your zone of genius here?
Yeah, that's a good question. I thought about it and I think that I'm a big level thinker where I can think of all the different parts and how the customer experiences it, how to make sure the product gets delivered well, how to do the finances.
And so from a bigger level, I think that's helpful because as an entrepreneur, you're kind of ultimately, you are responsible for everything.
Of course. Everything. So that was good.
And then a side story is that I think we can also often get insights about our zone of genius by asking other people.
Yes. Yeah. Do you have any experience of that, Lindsay?
Yeah. So I think one of the things that Laura said in 220 is go out and ask people that you've worked with, guys.
You can do this. Get on the phone. Send an email to your former colleagues and ask them how they experienced you and how they felt as a result of interacting with you.
But for me, I think that my zone of genius might be –
I think teaching is a passion and development, developing, helping people develop themselves and live a better life is my purpose.
And the way I do that is by inspiring. It's not by drilling grammar rules or having people repeat pronunciation.
It's about inspiring them, right? So we find the two, how they come together.
And for me, I think that that is my zone of genius.
Mm-hmm. So we want to encourage our listeners to go out today, guys, and try to see if you can figure out your zone of genius in life and also within learning English.
Yeah, I think that's good. Almost like your zone of genius with communication because everyone has, you know, within a certain area, so maybe communication, there's something you could do really well.
Like maybe there's somebody who doesn't have perfect English, but they make –
The person feel comfortable through their facial expressions.
Ooh, that's a good one, Christy. Communication is more than just words.
It's body language. It's tone of voice. It's your cues of smiling and laughing.
And someone could just totally get what you're saying or totally be attracted to talking to you even without having perfect English.
Oh, I just want to highlight what you just said, Christy, because I think our audience needs to hear that.
Guys, you know that at All Ears English, we are not about connection.
We're not about perfection. We're about connection.
And a big part of connection is what Christy just said.
You know, smiling, tone of voice, facial expressions, supporting the other person.
Mm-hmm. eye contact. So maybe what you do as a genius within English, guys, is that.
It's more the interpersonal side, and maybe that's okay if you don't have perfect grammar.
Maybe you want to focus more on the eye contact, on the facial expressions, on the laughter, and supporting the person you're listening to.
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I mean, if anything, one thing about communication is smiling.
Smiling is like the best thing. And there's people where they've just smiled at me and I haven't even said much to them or they didn't even speak much English, but I like them.
Yeah. I know everyone likes a smile. And I wonder if that's the same across cultures, right?
Sometimes I wonder, you know, I know that here in the US, we love smiles, right?
So the default, if something isn't going well, we can just smile and it works.
And I don't know, what do you think, Christy?
Do you think it's the same across cultures around the world?
Do you think the smile is like the universal sign of peace?
I think it definitely could be. It could be.
And so it's like, I just, I think for, English learners and people learning something difficult, it's probably easy to express maybe you're in an anxiety about how you're speaking.
Um, and maybe you're not smiling or, you know, you're assuming sure.
Um, but instead focus on like when the English partners that you do have focus on the positive things they've told you about your interaction with them so that naturally you can smile and feel good and it can come out in your conversation.
Yeah. Absolutely. And especially if that smiling aspect or that interpersonal aspect is part of your zone of genius, right?
So coming back to this concept, you know, one thing that I mentioned to Laura on Monday was that, you know, ever since we were in school, like we were kids, we've always been told, oh, you're weak in math, so you should improve your math skills.
But this is a whole different idea, isn't it, Christy?
Right. It's not about improving your weakness.
It's about amplifying your strength. And I just find that so freeing.
Yeah, that's true. So if you amplify your strengths and you think about that, naturally, you feel good overall.
And I think you bring up your other maybe weaker points.
And that could be the same for when you speak English.
I mean, I remember this time I... I was in China.
I was learning Chinese. Oh, cool. Yeah, and I got drunk, and they said I spoke the best Chinese ever.
Yeah. I was like, your inhibitions were lowered.
Yeah. It always helps to have a few beers.
Exactly. So I wasn't focusing. I was, oh my God, I said that wrong.
I just let go because I was feeling good.
And if, you know, if I was focusing on maybe my zone of genius for like my language, because there's certain things I was decent at with my language, maybe I would have spoken better.
Yeah. Yeah. I think that's really true.
You know, inhibition is something that we talk about a lot in this show and that really inhibits, you know, holds people back from succeeding in English.
And I just want to highlight, you know, thinking about the most successful people in the world.
This morning, I was thinking about Robin Williams, right?
So he passed away about what, about a month ago, two months ago.
That was really sad. And But, you know, I was thinking about his career.
So if you guys don't know Robin Williams, he was a phenomenal comedian.
An American guy. What movies was he in? Birdcage.
Oh, Birdcage. Mrs. Doubtfire. Oh, that was a good one.
Mrs. Doubtfire. Jumanji. Wait, what's that?
Jumanji. Which, by the way, was filmed in my hometown.
Oh, okay. Thank you very much. So he was phenomenal.
World class. Why? Because he knew what his zone of genius was.
And he acted and he lived inside of his zone of genius.
When he, around the time that he passed away, I saw a lot of interviews with him, you know, just in his element, just throwing jokes constantly, not holding back, not fearing who he really was, but stepping into it, stepping into the zone of genius.
So we're just here today, guys, to encourage you.
We didn't want to pass over this topic so quickly because I think that this is the key to success in English and in life and in business.
Yeah. So we want to encourage you guys to find your zone of genius, not just within how you learn English, but also in life and in business and in your career.
Don't be afraid to do it. Investigate it.
And can I add in, when you search for the zone of genius, for me, what I found is I
I had to put myself in situations where I didn't think I was so good at things and ask myself if I wanted things that people might have told me are impossible and strive for it.
And actually people tell me I was lost and not have validation for a long time because I was searching.
Lots of times your zone of genius is not in your zone of comfortability and Have comfort.
Not a zone of validation, not a zone of familiarity.
And so if you feel afraid when you try to do something, I'm sure you might be on the right track.
And that's the case for me. I'm still figuring it out.
But you have to ask yourself, maybe that could happen.
And then you're going to be, oh, my God, that's so afraid.
Why would I think that? But keep going with it.
Oh, I like that, Christy. I like that. So if you feel afraid, it doesn't mean that you're on the wrong track.
It might mean that you're on the right track.
I like that. That's the perfect point of advice to end on.
So guys, I want to know, we want to know at All Ears English what your zone of genius is.
So I want you to come over to allearsenglish.com slash genius.
That's G-E-N-I-U-S. And let us know. Let's have a conversation.
I'll see you guys over on the blog. And thanks for joining us again today, Christy.
This has been super fun. Thanks, Lindsay.
See you on the blog. Take care. Thank you for listening to Business English, a podcast just for you, the high achieving global professional.
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