If you’ve spoken with me recently, you’ve probably heard me rave about a new model I’m a little obsessed with, the 6 Types of Working Genius.
It’s a simple but powerful tool to help you understand how you work best: what gives you energy, what drains you, and why certain roles or tasks feel effortless while others leave you feeling exhausted.
This model works so well because it’s linked to the lifecycle of a project and when you think about it, everything in life is a project. Everything we do whether it’s at work or at home starts with an idea and goes all the way through to the finishing details.
The gist is that there are 6 Types of Working Genius, 6 phases of a project, and each of us have:
- 2 Geniuses (things that light us up),
- 2 Competencies (things we do well but don’t energise us), and
- 2 Frustrations (things that drain us).
The 6 Types are defined as:
I’ll give you some examples:
At work, this could be part of your life in a very obvious way, like my background in engineering/project management where the client, let’s say a school, would start by asking how to grow their high school STEM program (Wonder), various ideas would be brainstormed (Invention), the ideas then reviewed and the best bits combined (Discernment), a team is then brought together to bring this vision to life (Galvanising), everyone pitches in to make it happen (Enablement), then come the finishing touches to round this all out and have easy-to-reference documentation for the future (Tenacity).
At home, this could look like a parent organising the household at the start of the school year: they might first ask, “How can we make mornings less stressful?” (Wonder). They brainstorm ideas like a meal plan (Invention), then choose what will actually work for their family (Discernment). They rally everyone to get on board with the new plan (Galvanising), with family members stepping in to support and keep it moving (Enablement). Finally, they make sure the routines stick week to week (Tenacity).
Here’s the issue though: so many of us have certain expectations of ourselves and our performance, and when our geniuses/competencies/frustrations don’t align with our expectations, we make ourselves feel guilty about it, we convince ourselves we’re “failing” when in reality our expectations are misaligned, does that sounds familiar?
- Maybe you feel like you need to be a unicorn and great at all 6 geniuses, striving for the impossible, hello perfectionists & over-achievers.
- Maybe you were taught by your family that certain geniuses are more important than others. Have you ever heard: “Your head is always in the clouds (Wonder), come back to reality and get this done! (Tenacity).”
- Maybe you’re in a role or a team where the day-to-day work is aligned with a certain project stage, so one or two of the working genius’ underpin the work, but they are your frustrations, so you’re draining your energy trying to succeed at something that you were never meant to be good at!
This model helped me realise that I was putting too much pressure on myself in certain areas as I build my business, it’s helped me re-frame how I approach certain tasks to streamline the process and it’s helped me clarify exactly who my first hire will be in the future, exciting, right?
🎧 If this has sparked your interest, I dive so much deeper into this this model and how it’s helped me in this week’s podcast episode:
You can listen to the episode on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
I love this model so much because it ties in with the foundation of my coaching style: Alignment First → Naturally Thrive. Everyone deserves to live a life of fulfilment, and the sooner you stop investing energy in the thoughts and actions that no longer serve you, the sooner you can start investing in what lights you up, what brings you joy and what makes you feel inspired. From there, there is no limit to how much you can succeed!
You can use this model to choose (or create) a role that leverages your strengths and the things you enjoy doing, while giving you more clarity on the things that don’t light you up so you can put systems in place to support you.
So, have a think about it:
- What projects are you currently involved in?
- Are you expecting yourself to be a genius in all 6 areas?
- Where can you let yourself off the hook and systemise/automate/delegate, so you’re not bogged down by your frustrations?
- What’s missing in your team and what are the qualities you need for your next hire?
I hope this model helps you find clarity to reclaim your energy.
– Nat
PS Let me know your answers to the above questions by replying to this email, I’d love to know.
PPS If you want to take the assessment and get a custom report, it’s available here. It’s pretty quick, it takes 10-15 mins to answer the questions and you get your results straight away.
