Ilana Golan knows what it means to start over. After losing her job, startup, and investment all at once, she faced uncertainty head-on. Instead of settling for what she was merely good at, she uncovered her ‘zone of genius’ and focused on what she truly excelled at. Through this journey, she rebuilt her career and created a system to help others do the same. In this episode, Ilana shares how to identify your strengths, stand out, and take control of your reputation. Ilana Golan is an entrepreneur, board director, and investor in over 100 companies. As the founder of Leap Academy, she helps professionals navigate career transitions, leadership, and personal branding. In this episode, Ilana will discuss: (00:00) Introduction (00:34) Identifying Your Unique Value (01:15) The Four Categories of Skills (03:27) How to Discover Your Strengths (04:38) Leveraging Feedback to Find Your Genius (05:44) Creating a 'Brag Bank' to Build Authority (06:34) How Challenges Reveal Your True Strengths (07:10) Using Your Strengths to Build Your Brand Ilana Golan is an entrepreneur, board director, and investor in over 100 companies. As the founder of Leap Academy, she helps professionals navigate career transitions, leadership, and personal branding. She has been recognized as a Silicon Valley Woman of Influence, a Top 40 Woman to Watch, and a CEO World Award winner. Ilana is also a sought-after keynote speaker and has been featured on Yahoo Finance, Fox, NBC, and more. Connect with Ilana: Ilana’s Website: ilanagolan.com Ilana’s LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/ilanagolan Resources Mentioned: Free Training: https://training.leapacademy.com/pass Leap Academy: Ready to make the LEAP in your career? There is a NEW way for professionals to Advance Their Careers & Make 5-6 figures of EXTRA INCOME in Record Time. Check out our free training today at leapacademy.com/training
Chapter 1: What do you want to be known for in your career?
What do you want to be known for? I don't want you to think too far away when you think about what you want to be known for. I really want you to think about a year or two because our life changes and our priorities changes. And I talk a lot about this in my keynotes. But here, I just want to give you a little bit about the reason why I want you to focus only about these specific weeks.
is because you have value that you can give today. And the question is, what is it, right? So maybe it's businesses and you know how to operate in lean situations, or you know how to entertain kids remote, or you can help adults with the lower stress meditation, building their reputation, right? Whatever it is.
So what is it that you can help today that will give value immediately in the coming weeks and build that reputation while you do it? And when you do that, you're going to do two things. One, figure out if you love it. and also start building that trust that you can be known for this. Now, I want to talk about what do you want to be known for, right?
Chapter 2: What are the four categories of skills according to Gay Hendricks?
How do we figure out what you want to be known for? So Gay Hendricks actually creates a really interesting pyramid in which he divides our skills into four categories. One is incompetence. So incompetence, basically, you're not really good at this. When we were kids, we were taught to focus on the skills that we're not great at.
But here as adults, I will tell you, stay away because you're always going to learn new things. You're always going to have gaps. But if you're focusing on an area that you're never going to get better, then you're really focusing on the wrong place. Okay. So for me, it's probably me in the kitchen. Nobody wants me there for too long. But the good news is that I married well.
So at least I got that, right? But that's my zone of incompetence. Then there's zone of competence. Competence is basically, you're okay. You're doing pretty okay. But honestly, others will do it better. This is probably me in coding. Yes, I was a good coder, but honestly... The minute I started working with customers, that's when I realized that's my zone of genius. Not the coding.
There are better coders. There are people that love to do it 9, 10, 12 hours a day. That was not me. So figure out what are those skills. And then there's zone of excellence. Zone of excellence is actually a tricky one because you can actually have a really good job for the rest of your life, paid well, and you're going to be at that zone of excellence.
Chapter 3: How can you identify your zone of genius?
But the problem is with going zone of excellence is that it's not your zone of genius. So you're going to be good, but you're not going to be uniquely, extremely amazing, or it's not going to make you as happy. Okay.
So there's definitely some things that I can probably put in that zone of excellence, but I can probably assure you that I'm not as happy as I am now because now I'm operating at my zone of genius and I love it. Okay. So Figure out what that is for you, because if you can focus on that, you're still going to have gaps. You're still going to learn a lot.
You're still going to have things that won't work well, and you're still going to fail all the time. We're going to talk about it in other videos, but you're still going to focus on that zone of genius, and that's what's going to make you remarkable and really successful and happy, shining, okay? Proud of yourself. So this is what we want, okay? We want to find that zone of genius. Now,
Chapter 4: What strategies can help you focus on your strengths?
In Career Leap, in the actual program, we dive super deep into this and analyzing your skills and everything. But here, I was just going to give you a few tips, okay? So first of all, focus on your strengths. Literally write those down. So take a piece of paper, shut down any social media, and write down what are those strengths? What are you great at? And really think from childhood.
What did you do as a child that was amazing and let everybody look at you and like, wow, like... She did that? Like, that's amazing. Okay. So really look back at what people were amazed by you. And write down those skills. What is that? Where do you think you're actually at the excellence and genius mode? And then write down what is interesting for you, because that's not necessarily the same.
So I can assure you that in my previous startup, I was focusing on cloud data centers, IT. I was pretty remarkable at it. That was probably my zone of excellence. But guess what? I'm not as interested in it now. So yes, I can help startups from time to time. They're in this space. I can help companies in this space. And that's what I've been doing now.
But that's not where I want to be all the time, right? I want to focus on what's more interesting for me, which is growing people, growing teams. So really focus on what is interesting for you. And the other thing that is a big tip for me is figure out What other people are intrigued by you? Okay, so you, my friend, are already an authority. People already come to you for something.
What are those things? What are they intrigued by you? Why are they impressed by you? Why do they come to you with questions? What is it? So literally list those down. Now, sometimes it's really good to go back to like Messenger and see what people message do.
I looked at my LinkedIn recommendations and I was pretty impressed by some of the things that they wrote because it wasn't even in my line of thought. Like I didn't even think that that was something I'm unique at it or as people see it in a different light. So look at everything that people think about you. Or if you don't have enough, just ask. People will love to tell you good things.
You're asking for a good thing, right? So ask people, hey, what do you think of me? What are the things that you're impressed by me? What are the things that you liked about me? What did you like to work with me, et cetera? So ask and you're going to love what you're going to see. The other thing is really list down those wins and accomplishments.
And when you really had milestones that were kind of above and beyond and A, list them in CareerLeap, we actually create what I call a brag bank. And it's actually a great document because from that, you can literally copy paste things to your resume, to your LinkedIn and to email it. create a little brag bag for yourself and literally write down those wins and accomplishments.
But also think about in what scenarios are you operating above and beyond, right? In what scenarios, like is that stressful moment? Is that places where you need emotional intelligence? Is this times when you need to problem solve things? Like try to really figure out what is that that made you above and beyond? What was the scenario? Because that might be a hint about that zone of genius.
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