Stay in Your Lane: When to Say No to Work Outside Your Expertise

You have a genius zone—even if you haven’t staked off its exact boundaries yet.

It’s that work where you fall into flow—it’s you showing up as your highest best self in service to the people and ideas you care most about.

So how often are you working in your genius zone right now? 5%? 50%? 100%?

If you’re at 90%+ AND happily going about your business, earning what you want, working the way you want, pat yourself on the back and hit DELETE right now.

Otherwise, let’s get real. It’s time to make some new decisions to upgrade the level and market value of your work.

Making new decisions is what will punch you through a revenue plateau AND make your work more fun, more challenging (in good ways) and more impactful.

Here’s a classic example I see all the time: Soloist A is building what looks like a highly successful and profitable business. Generous revenue, solid work (sold heavily by referral), happy clients. But if you scratch the surface, Soloist A isn’t satisfied.

Because they’re still taking on the same types of clients—doing work that feels dull because it just isn’t challenging them anymore.

It isn’t until they decide to experiment (after thoroughly evaluating their risk tolerance and potential upside), that they find new joy and yes, revenue.

Here are a few signs you’re probably ready to turn down work outside your genius zone:

You’re feeling bored with your current workload, clients or buyers, like you could work on auto-pilot.

Your sales conversations are about something you realize could easily be performed by someone with far less experience and expertise than you.

You’ve got enough of a cash cushion that any one “no” isn’t going to break you.

You’re simmering on an idea you want to experiment with—one that has the potential to level up your work, your revenue and your impact (you won’t know if it works if you don’t try it out).

Saying no to non-genius work is the critical first step to turning a good Soloist business into a great one.

Related: The Truth About Your Money: Focus on Wealth, Not Just Revenue