In my last piece, I talked about genius—the unique creative force innate to each of us. Our genius defines our unique essences as individuals and is also perhaps what makes us human. Now, I’d like to explore what it means practically to live in what we might call our zone of genius.
Our journey of change
The Hero’s Journey, or “monomyth,” first proposed and detailed by 20th-century American mythology and folklore writer Joseph Campbell, is a template distilling striking commonalities among ancient hero stories from around the world.
I’ve already written at length about how I think the notion of the hero can do us a disservice. I don’t believe the world actually needs singular heroes, as our myths so often imagine. Rather, I think we need millions of everyday people, each doing our part to create a better world. Often, the pressure and expectation that we be great and extraordinary becomes a source of stress, discouragement, and disappointment and ultimately undermines our change efforts and causes us suffering. We and the world are much better served when each of us focuses on something more humble and attainable.
With that said, Campbell’s work is noteworthy not only in his depiction of the hero, but the transformational journey that that hero embarks upon. Change agents might think of themselves as being on a similar kind of transformational journey, even if they ultimately are not going to save the kingdom by themselves. We are called to action to resolve a crisis, and that action catalyzes profound and often unexpected transformation in ourselves and the world.
Our supernatural aid is our genius
On the hero’s journey, the protagonist begins at home in relative peace and normality. Soon enough, they receive a call—whether from a dream, a community member, a foreign messenger, or otherwise—to set out into the unknown. At first, they refuse the call. Out of a sense of duty, inadequacy, or fear, they resolve to stay home and continue on with their lives as is.
But eventually, something changes their mind. They finally set out on their quest. And as soon as they do, they are astonished to come across a supernatural guide who bestows them with a powerful gift that will prove critical to their journey. Aladdin meets Genie. Cinderella meets her fairy godmother. Luke meets Yoda. As Joseph Campbell puts it in his 1949 book The Hero Of A Thousand Faces, “Having responded to their own call and continuing to follow courageously as the consequences unfold, the hero finds all the forces of the unconscious at their side. Mother Nature herself supports the mighty task.”
We might think of our genius as that supernatural aid. It is the force of our unconscious, the universe, or the divine moving through us that makes us capable of a journey that no one else in the world is capable of. It is our unique creative spark that lights our path.
I like to think that where this creative spark comes from and what it actually is remain largely a mystery. In many ways, trying to create definitions, frameworks, or diagrams to pin it down is a fool’s errand, an attempt to give shape to liquid or words to the ineffable. The genius that can be fully explained, expressed, or captured is not our true genius. Our deepest, fullest genius remains always just a bit beyond our conscious grasp.
And yet, there are still some ways we might at least begin to think about and frame our genius. In doing so, we can better orient ourselves to it so that we might more easily tap into and harness it.
One way in which we might conceptualize the unique genius within each of us is at the confluence of your passions and talents.
Your passions
Passions are the roles, abilities, and activities that generate energy and make us feel our most alive. They are whatever motivates and inspires us, lights our internal fires, and moves us to take action or create.
Everyone’s passions are different. For some, passions are something “creative” in the narrow sense: painting, playing music, writing poetry, etc. But passions can also be activities outside our traditional ideas of creativity or art: competing in sports, playing board games, running marathons, building model trains, reading books, going to the beach, or working in the garden. Hell, formatting Excel spreadsheets can be a passion.
There is no right or wrong when it comes to passion. Our passions are simply whatever sparks our inner fires.
On our journey to change, we might think of passion as our fuel. With it fully engaged, we have the energy and motivation to continue along our path. Without it, we find ourselves depleted and weary, moving ever more slowly or eventually giving up entirely. Oprah Winfrey put it well: “Passion is energy. Feel the power that comes from focusing on what excites you.”
If change agents fail to integrate their passions into their change work, their journey will ultimately fail or, at the very least, lack the vitality and energy needed to be its most transformative. For change agents, engaging our passions is not an indulgence or “nice-to-have” but rather a key discipline vital to our contribution.
Your talents
Today, motivational speakers and self-help books often urge us to follow our passions or our “bliss.” For some, passion is seemingly the one single ingredient to personal fulfillment.
But while passion is absolutely vital, I believe there is more to our genius: talent.
Talent is whatever we naturally excel at. In the 1997 film Good Will Hunting, the exceptionally bright protagonist Will tries to explain to his love interest how he understands organic chemistry and mathematics so easily. He likens his relationship to math and chemistry to how Beethoven might have looked at a piano. When it comes to those fields, he “could always just play.”
This is another way of saying that he has exceptional talent in these fields, just as Beethoven had exceptional talent in playing and composing music on the piano. Math and chemistry seem to just come to him naturally without much effort.
Notice that talent in this sense does not necessarily imply passion. Will is not saying he loves math and chemistry. It does not necessarily light a fire within him. In fact, in the scene, he seems more focused on going to the batting cages.
On our journey of change, if passion is our fuel, talent is more like the vehicle into which we put our fuel. It determines what terrain we can best navigate. If we have a road bike, we can move with great speed on the pavement. If we have a mountain bike, we can go on dirt trails. If we have snowshoes, we can go up through the mountaintops. If we have a canoe, we can float down the river.
Like passions, everyone has innate talents. Everyone has unique abilities at their disposal at which they “could always just play.” Of course, our talents can always be enhanced through practice and training. But our greatest gifts are typically the abilities at which we have a deep intuition and an innate head start.
Make your home in your zone of genius
We all have passions. We all have talents. And fortunately, quite often, they overlap. There are activities that both inspire us and at which we naturally excel. For Beethoven, for example. playing piano was almost certainly at once something that lit his fires and something that he excelled at innately. It’s hard to see how he could dedicate his life to this craft if that were not the case.
This area of overlap is what we might call our zone of genius.
The role of the change agent is, first and foremost, to seek out these areas of overlap. When acting from our zone of genius, we make an outsized, often seemingly effortless impact while also refueling and enlivening ourselves in the process. It’s a win-win. Something almost like magic happens when we allow ourselves to focus here. Our lives gain a level of focus, clarity, and momentum that before might have seemed impossible. Rather than trudge through something that doesn’t bring us alive or at which we struggle to succeed, we allow ourselves to follow our own internal gravity where we naturally propel ourselves forward with ease.
But take a vacation from your zone of genius too
We are well served by focusing ourselves in our zone of genius, where our passions and talents overlap. However, we must also allow ourselves to venture outside of this space.
Quite often, what we truly love most is not something for which we necessarily have special gifts. We may love to dance ballet but not have the coordination needed to excel at it. And often, the areas where we have special gifts may not feel inspiring, fun, or exciting. We might, for example, be math wizards, but we truly love and get energy from watercolors.
In our journey to change, we will certainly need to pursue our passions, whether or not we excel at them. This is essential to our sanity and sense of aliveness. We will also need to harness our greatest talents, whether or not they truly sustain, inspire, or fulfill us. This is essential to our practice of service and contribution. If we have something impactful and meaningful to offer the world, we offer it, whether or not it’s always easy or enjoyable.
We can and perhaps should strive to live in our zone of genius. But we can’t spend all day at home. And we all eventually need to throw it all out the window and take a nice, long vacation.