The 1 Thing Successful People Stop Doing

Do you ever spend time on things that aren’t your genius?

I know I have. A few months ago I was working on my upcoming book, “The Influence Mindset for Sales Acceleration: The 7 EQ Brain Hacks That Get People to Choose You”. (More details on that, and how you can be a part of the inner-circle launch team in a few weeks!)

I had finished the manuscript, and gotten it as ready as I could. Even though the stories were aligned, and the research was on point… I knew it was still missing something.

The grammar and punctuation just didn’t seem right, and it lacked the final polish.

Confession: As you have probably discovered through reading these articles, perfect grammar and perfect punctuation aren’t necessarily my strong points. Sure, may not be egregiously bad. But I’m not… great.

Thinking I could bootstrap and do it ALL BY MYSELF, I tried to edit the grammar and punctuation it all on my own.

And guess what? Not even 20 minutes in, I realized I was out of my depth. What’s more, I HATED doing it.

• Wait… when do you capitalize specific terms?
• Is a colon more appropriate here… or is a semi-colon better?
• Is 7 commas in a sentence too many? Asking for a friend.
• Hang on… do periods go AFTER quotation marks in dialogues or before?

Blegh.

(Photo: Me holding the FIRST printed manuscript in gym clothes!)

I wasn’t even through the introduction and I was doomed. It was drudgery, I KNEW I was making mistakes, and I couldn’t look at my work objectively. This was going to be a miserable experience. And I had 8 chapters, and 50,000 words to go.

What to do?

It was then I realized I needed help. And so I did what I should have done from the start, I bit the bullet, and reached out to a fabulous editor I had worked with previously: Susan Gaigher from the Self Publishing Studio. Yes, it would cost a premium price for her expertise, (she is worht it) but how much more value could I create by freeing up my time and doing other things I am better at?

Thankfully, Susan was available, and in a matter of hours I sent off my manuscript with the same relief of someone who hands over a smelly baby to another person to change the diaper.

Susan got to work, and I decided to use the time I WOULD have spent on tedious editing, on other more productive activities.

I had just realized an important lesson that every person who wants to be successful learns:

Just because you CAN do something… doesn’t mean you SHOULD.

Yes, I could do the editing. But it wasn’t in my zone of genius. And more than that — it drained my energy, ate up my time, and honestly, I wasn’t even good at it.

But when I handed it off? My mind opened up. My creativity sparked. I got back to coaching clients, building trainings, and doing the kind of work that I love and that actually moves the needle. And Susan? She crushed it. She did what I never could’ve done — quickly, thoroughly, and with a cheerful “let me handle this” attitude that felt like a lifeline. She was worth every penny, and then some.

(Photo: Susan helped me with my first book too)

What does this have to do with influence and success?

Too often, we wear the badge of “I can do it all” like it’s a trophy. But in reality, that mindset is a bottleneck.

Influence and success doesn’t come from juggling everything and burning yourself out.

It comes from spending more time in your genius and less time in the weeds. From owning your strengths… and outsourcing your stress.

So here’s a quick self-check:

· What’s draining your time and energy right now?

· What’s not in your genius zone that you’re still trying to power through?

· And what would it look like to trust someone else with it?

Here’s my challenge to you this week:

Find one thing that’s outside your strength — and delegate it.

It could be asking for help, hiring a pro, or even just letting go of the idea that you have to do it all.

How can you outsource your weakness to someone else’s strength?

(Sneak Peak at the cover! Let me know your thoughts!)

Maybe, however, there is something you HAVE to do… and you can’t delegate it to anyone else. If that’s the case, what systems and solutions are out there that can simplify it for you?

Because every minute you spend doing something outside your brilliance… is a minute stolen from the thing you were actually made to do.

And when you double down on your genius? That’s when the real influence begins.

Keep showing up. Keep sharpening and doing what only you can do.

And let someone else handle the semicolons.

– Christian

CHRISTIAN HANSEN has gone behind the scenes in some of the biggest organizations in the world to find out the reasons why some people get chosen and why others don’t. As the #1 bestselling and LinkedIn Top Ten ranked author of “The Influence Mindset: The Art & Science of Getting People to Choose You” Christian helps teams and organizations who want to stand out and be the obvious choice. With degrees from Brigham Young University and The London School of Economics, he’s helped thousands of individuals position and sell themselves. A fan of international communication, history, and choral music, he currently lives in Utah with his wife. Reach him at: TheChristianHansen.com