While that personality has pushed us to excel, it is a HUGE liability when transferred into our businesses if we want a work/life balance that our families can live with.

Why? Well, those personality traits translate into an inability to let go of those things that we could delegate or outsource.

As a result, we end up spending most of our time working outside of our Creative Genius. Your Creative Genius is that thing you love to do, that you are really great at doing, and that provides the most value to your world. You may have more than one Creative Genius, but very rarely will you have more than a handful of things that meet all three of these criteria.

As a lawyer, there are many, many, many things you can do, but that doesn’t mean you should be doing them. From here on out, I want you to focus your energy on narrowing down a little more every day until eventually you are only doing those things that you identify as your Creative Genius.

I remember a medical malpractice lawyer jokingly said one time, “I can do anything if I read it in a book. I’m pretty confident I can do brain surgery if I had a text book in front of me”.

And while he may very well be smart enough to learn brain surgery from a book-the result would be FAR worse than the medical malpractice cases he sees on a daily basis!

All joking aside, you probably don’t even realize where you are compromising on your Creative Genius-but I promise that if you take the time to identify this and make daily small changes, you will add more hours to the day and far more happiness to your life. When you identify your Creative Genius and work more towards doing only that, you can stop struggling because you’ll be free to focus your energy on those activities that bring the highest return on investment to your business and your life.

So let’s get into the two basic steps for identifying your Creative Genius.

1. Notice What Comes Naturally

Many of us look for things that are challenging and hard to tackle because it makes us feel “more accomplished” or that much smarter. I did this myself by taking tax classes with Martin Ginsburg in law school just because he was known as the toughest professor and I got a charge from the challenge and being good at what was hard. But I didn’t love it. And it was only after joining the tax group at my first job out of law school that I realized what a mistake I had made.

So rather than doing what’s hard, take an inventory of the things in your business that just come naturally to you.

For example, maybe it takes you hours to draft a letter or legal document when you sit down in front of a computer-but you could get up and give a speech with just a few moments notice!

Or maybe you are on the opposite side of the coin.

Everything you want to say to your prospects comes out so much easier on paper than it does from your mouth.

Maybe you are fantastic at managing the business, making tough decisions and running a team– but you just aren’t that great in front of clients. Conversely, perhaps you LOVE meeting with clients, but you hate running your business.

Here’s the great news about all of this … it’s all okay. Whoever you are is perfect.

2. Accept Who You Are and Outsource the Rest

So many of us have a subconscious belief “if it’s easy, it must not be good.” But, this is a lie! It’s a lie that’s keeping us from experiencing the best of what life has to offer. Life can be easy.

Begin to write down everything you love to do, that comes easily to you, that provides value to your business.

The truth is that if you don’t like running your business, you don’t have to. If you don’t love speaking publicly, you don’t have to. If you don’t like engaging clients, you don’t have to. If you don’t like drafting legal documents, you don’t have to.

I can hear you now. You’re thinking “OK, Alexis, how DO you expect me to run my business if I’m not doing these things? Magic?”

Well, kind of! As you focus more and more on your Creative Genius, you can find others to handle everything else.

That’s the power of outsourcing.

3. Let Go and Trust

Now, this is the most difficult part for lawyers. To successfully outsource, you’ve got to let go of some control and trust. If you really want to stop working 15-18 hours a day, you must embrace this step with everything you have. It will be your biggest barrier. But, when you breakthrough it, what you find on the other side is the freedom and peace you want from your business.

Understand, there will be mistakes made. There will be balls dropped. But, these experiences will be learning opportunities for the people you are outsourcing to and as long as you turn them into opportunities to teach and not opportunities for blame, the people who you are outsourcing to will become your saviors.

Pick one thing and get started. Because remember, you can always make more money– but you can’t make more time.

So if you want to go on vacation, take a day off to just play with the kids, or run a business that truly brings you joy, make it a priority operate in your Creative Genius and outsource everything else on your plate!

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