Incompetency is a Blessing

While it may seem counter intuitive, I can attest that being highly capable at figuring things out can be problematic. In fact, being incompetent can be an amazing blessing in your life and business for 3 primary reasons.

1. Ego

It’s nice to hear compliments when you’re good at something and as it feeds your ego, it’s harder and harder to overcome. Sometimes this breeds a false sense of security that you can do it all and we end up behaving like toddlers screaming “I can do it mySELF!”

When something comes along that you cannot do, whether that be graphics, scheduling, fixing a tech bug or just doing all the things without support, the first inclination is to fight. We all love bootstrappers, the stories of people who made something out of nothing and figured it all out along the way. But remember, success does not happen in silos – everyone gets support. Which leads me to point #2.

2. Community

Even when I’m able to “do it myself” it’s rarely an individual endeavor. Thanks to the internet and the Google, I have an entire support community to help me figure stuff out. So why are we so reluctant to turn to each other for help or – worse – hire someone? It’s ego again. When you find yourself incompetent you have the choice to stubbornly push forward or create a community that can support you.

For entrepreneurs there’s another reason why we need to be open to accepting and hiring help: it’s exactly what we ask our own clients to do! Sure our customers could do their own branding, web development, billing, create their own fitness plan but as experts we are selling our experience. So when there’s incompetency, see it as an opportunity to hire another expert who loves to do what you can’t and build a community around your business.

3. Leverage

The entrepreneur who is doing everything herself is not fully leveraged. The start up phase is the time when you’ve got to wear all the hats and keep everything moving forward, but that cannot be sustained long term if you’re going to grow. Instead of looking for ways to learn something yourself (that you’re not good at in the first place), remember that setting your ego aside and hiring a support community will enable you to spend more time on your genius.

You’ve probably heard of the “zone of genius” and those are the things that you do best. No one else can replicate the magic you create. So stop spending time on your “zone of suckage” and “zone of kinda good” and move fully into your genius.

So when you’re looking at the week and day ahead and there’s that task which you are procrastinating on finishing, dreading starting or just plain hate to do: embrace the incompetence. Find a way to outsource and build your support community and spend that time growing your business, serving more clients and sharing your message. Embrace your weaknesses and use them as a leverage point to take your business to the next level.