Unlocking Your Zone of Genius with Delegate & Elevate

Are you spending your best energy on the right things—or are you buried in tasks that drain you?

In this solo episode, Kristyn Drennen breaks down the Delegate & Elevate strategy, a simple yet transformative exercise that helps leaders reclaim their time, focus on their zone of genius, and unlock capacity for what truly matters.

Kristyn walks through the five steps of the framework:

• Find your 100% — define the hours you’re willing to work and still feel balanced
• List everything you do — get it all out of your head and onto paper
• List everything you should do — surface the strategic work that keeps getting pushed aside
• Evaluate your list — use the four quadrants to see where your time really belongs
• Delegate and elevate — free yourself from tasks that don’t serve your genius

You’ll learn how to spot what belongs on your plate, what your team can take on, and how to elevate yourself back into the leadership role your business truly needs.

Why it matters:
When leaders make these shifts, they don’t just lighten their workload—they rediscover their energy, strengthen their teams, and fall back in love with their business.

Resources & Links

• Download the Delegate & Elevate Worksheet
• Learn more about how TransformCXO helps leaders elevate at transformcxo.com
• Schedule a Discovery Call with Kristyn's preferred VA Company: SphereRocket

Stay Connected

If this episode resonates, share it with a fellow leader who needs to hear it. And if you’re ready to unlock your capacity and lead from your zone of genius, book a conversation with Kristyn and the TCXO team.

🎧  👉 Subscribe to Unlocked with Kristyn Drennen on Spotify, Apple, or YouTube — and share this episode with a visionary leader who needs to hear it.

Learn more about TransformCXO: https://transformcxo.com

Connect with Kristyn Drennen on LinkedIn: Kristyn’s LinkedIn 

Follow Kristyn on Instagram: @kristyndrennencxo 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Hey everyone, I had a really great coaching call this morning with 30 incredible people that I get to work with and coach in the executive coaching space. And we had this awesome conversation about a tool that I think is really underutilized. And so I'm feeling compelled to share with you today a really practical approach to something that we've all heard before, but maybe we don't have a really good formula for actually putting it into practice. And I love sharing stuff like this. I don't know if you've ever noticed this. So when I go to conferences, different events, right? And you sit in the room and you're laser focused on the keynote speaker, the person running the breakout session. Well, I actually like to, yes, consume that content and, you know, get a lot out of it. I also like to watch the people in the room. And I, you know what I always notice? Those moments in the presentation where people are getting their phones out and taking the pictures of the screen. And it's always the same thing. It's either alarming statistics. And I can, I know that like that thought of, oh my gosh, look at that stat. Like, that's good data. I'm gonna bring that back to my team to like prove out something we've been talking about or to kind of back up, you know, where I think we need to go here, whatever the case may be. So I think statistics are one of the big ones. But the other thing, honestly, the thing that most people are getting their phone out for, anything that looks like just practical application, something that I can actually take back to my team or back to my life. I want to remember it, I want to give it a try. And this is one of those things. So I'm gonna give you a really good formula today that I share with my clients. And I hope you find it useful. And what we're gonna talk about is how to truly delegate and elevate. So if you look at your calendar right now, a lot of it is filled with just stuff. And if you were to compartmentalize it and say, how much of this is stuff that really lights me up and how much of it is just tasks that that drain my soul, like the vampire stuff, right? That just sucks the life out of me. The conversation we had this morning was pretty cool because she was saying how it's not that she can't do certain things. So as high performers and you know, even meta-performers, we say, well, there's nothing that I can't do. Um, there's things I do better than others. There's maybe things that are not my highest and best use of my talent, right? And my skill. And those are things that, you know, I should be more sobering about and really look at in more detail. But most of the time, you know, we're spending 70, sometimes 80% of our week in the wrong places. So it's no wonder we're feeling stuck. So today let's walk through a tool that um I think can really help you change how you're leading, how you're growing your business. And quite frankly, this might actually show up in how you're living. So I'm gonna challenge you to think about that. And um, maybe there's something resourceful there for you too to think about. So when we think about delegating and elevating, sounds pretty simple, right? Look at what you're doing, take the stuff that you don't like or you're not good at, give it to somebody else. Well, there's a little bit more thoughtfulness, and I'm gonna actually unlock for you today something really simple that is game-changing inside of this process of delegate and elevate. Uh, what we're gonna talk about today is largely from the entrepreneurial operating system tool set. So, this is a tool that I was trained on from an EOS implementer, and um I have continued to just expand on how I use it in various client environments over time. And again, this is largely for companies that do have operating systems in place because it's part of that toolbox, but you've all heard of versions of this, so it's certainly not exclusive to companies that have operating systems. That said, it works really nicely when you do have one of those in place. And of course, that's something that we we talk about a lot here, and we're always happy to talk to you about in more detail if you are operating system curious. So the first step here, and I'm going to include this um, this guide in our show notes because uh, and I don't I don't charge for this stuff. I just want you to have it, frankly. So the first thing, you are going to find your 100%. And in the book, The EOS Life, Gino Wickman calls this the work container. Your 100% is your maximum hours that you're willing to work during the week and still feel balanced. Now, listen, for some people, it could be 30 hours a week. For some, it could be 60. I'm not judging you. The number doesn't matter as much as you having clarity around the number really matters. So without this anchor point, it's really easy for everything else just to creep into that bucket of hours until you know you feel like you're drowning again. So get clear on that and really challenge your thinking there. This isn't about uh working less, it's working the right amount for you. So once you have that work container, now we've got, you know, a bucket that we're working with. The next step is where you're gonna list everything that you do. You're just gonna brain dump everything that you do from your seat. And I also acknowledge many of you are sitting in multiple seats. So you could be wearing a lot of different hats, doing a lot of different things. That's okay. Where do you go to look for this stuff? I like to look at to-do lists, my calendar. I kind of go between the ears and think about that mental list that I'm constantly carrying around with me, the things maybe that should be written down that aren't. Notebooks, you know, other things. If you use like an online system like Trello or Asana, if you use a system like 90, that's another good place to look for information. So just I want you to just be kind of like ruthless here. Write it all down. I know this is for most people the most tedious step here. Some people like to do it, you know, they they just they brain dump over the course of 30 minutes everything that they can think of and they they call it good enough. Some people like to take this step for two to four weeks and really be exhaustive. We're looking for themes, recurring activities, buckets of things that are consistently showing up on our calendars and our to-do lists. Now, you've probably got a pretty good list going at this point. That's awesome. Here's the next step. And this is actually the step that I would say 95% of people skip when they're doing this activity. So this is this is one of those big idea moments. I want you to add to the list everything that you should be doing that you don't have time for. So I'll say that again. What is on that list of stuff that is like in the back of your mind? You know you should be doing it, you know you should be carving out time for it, and you just aren't. So these could be things like strategic initiatives, leadership conversations, culture building work, the things that you know are important, but they keep getting bumped by the urgent in-your-face stuff. Now, the cool part is when you're writing this stuff down, this could be where like your true genius sits. This could be the future that you haven't made space for quite yet. So have a little fun with all of this adding of the things that you should do and want to be doing more of, frankly. Okay, so now you've got a really big list. And the next thing you're going to do, if you have the visual document pulled up, great. If not, this is going to be something I'm sure you've seen before. So we're looking at now step four, we're going to evaluate your list and we are going to sort everything into four quadrants. And so imagine, if you will, a two by two chart or table, the top left quadrant, things you love, things you're great at. So it's going to say love slash great at the top left quadrant. You're going to title it that way. Your top right quadrant, you're going to write like slash good, things that you like to do, things that you're pretty good at by and large. All the stuff that you're really wired for is going to fall into these quadrants in many ways. Now, in your bottom left quadrant, you're going to title that one, don't like slash good. I call this the danger zone. Everyone just had a Kenny Loggin song jump into their heads. I know you did. This is absolutely the danger zone. These are the hardest things to let go of. Um, we'll talk a little bit more about that. And then in the bottom right quadrant, we have things that we don't like, that we are not good at, but we're absolutely doing them out of necessity. So what you'll have, you'll take all of those tasks that you identified in steps two and four or three and four, pardon me, and you're going to sort them into categories. And if you're not sure, best guess is totally fine here. Now you're looking at some sort of breakdown of where those tasks are falling in these quadrants. And also make sure you add in all of the stuff in step four that you want to do that you don't have time for. That stuff should all go in here too. Now, in a perfect amazing world, we would see that you're spending 80% of your time, 80% of your tasks are what we set what we call above the bar, right? Things that are above that midpoint line on this table. They fall into things that you love and like doing and are great and pretty good at. So I know that that's pretty idealistic. I acknowledge that. And the goal here is to find something resourceful that will prompt action. So now that you're here, this is where we start to free things up. And I would have you start by looking at everything below the line in the don't like, not good or good at, and look around your business. Look at your external resources. Can you automate it? Can you delegate it or can you delete it completely? Sometimes we end up doing stuff. And if we were to really get down to the root level, we'd go, do I really need to do that? Is that really necessary for the business? Or am I doing that out of habit or some sort of perceived ob perceived obligation? So this is a really cool space to challenge your thinking on what's really serving you and your business well. So as you start moving things off of those bottom two quadrants, I also acknowledge you you may not have a staff. Perhaps you need to consider VA support. I'm also going to put a link in our show notes for an opportunity for you to be directly introduced to a company that I work with, that our VA team is actually staffed by a company that we've had a ton of success with. They have an incredible process and some really nice guarantees that make it easy to say yes and also make it extremely cost effective to meet you where you are in your business. So I'm going to include that in the show notes. That is a great company that we highly recommend. As far as, you know, having these conversations, that's where we have to start kind of opening this up. And you might be feeling like, there is so much below the line that I don't want to be doing that I have to do. And I just want to encourage you to start looking for small pieces. Sometimes we look at something like this and we start overthinking it and we just get overwhelmed. So just notice what your like visceral reaction is to this. Scan your body. Are you feeling stress or butterflies or anxiousness because of this activity? And sometimes we just need to take that first step forward. So if you're feeling overwhelmed, look for two things that are below the bar that you could automate, delegate, or delete completely. And just begin there. Try it out. See what kind of time you get back from eliminating those one or two items. Notice that. And then choose one or two more. And little by little, a little becomes a lot when it comes to delegate and elevate. And I understand there are resource uh restrictions and timing challenges that can make this really tricky. Where are you overthinking it? Where could it actually be maybe simpler than you're giving it credit for, where you could actually play with delegating something? The other thing that I often hear is, well, I can't delegate that because no one can do it as well as I can. So for that, I'll give you the 80% rule, which is something that we use a lot in different uh elements of building out our business operating systems for the companies that we work with. If you can find someone who can perform a task 80% as well as you can, delegate it. That 80% mark is often good enough. And yeah, I'm not talking about like heart surgery. You can't, you don't want 80%, you know, when we're talking about like high stakes, life uh, you know, changing things. I mean, if you're talking about preparing a report, sending something to a client, creating a, you know, a graphic design piece, really think about in the scope of things. Am I hanging on to things for some other reason than the fact that I'm the only one that can do it? Anytime you catch yourself saying that, just take a moment to challenge it. Is it true? And it might be, and that's okay. So here's my challenge for you this week. Carve out an hour, grab this delegate and elevate worksheet that you can find in the show notes here, and actually do the exercise. Don't overthink it, don't make it pretty, just get the truth on paper and then take that one step to delegate a task that really doesn't belong on your plate. And that's how momentum starts. So I hope you enjoyed today's little just like time out of uh free moments from Kristen, free fun insights, whatever you want to call it. If you want help working through this with your leadership team, or if you're ready to free yourself from the weeds and really fall back in love with your business, uh, this is the type of work that we do at Transform CXO. It's the type of work that I do in executive coaching with powerful, high-performing, meta-performing individuals like you. You'll find a link in the show notes if you want to book a conversation with our team or with me. Until then, keep elevating and keep unlocking that next level. This has been Unlocked with Kristen Drennan, a production of Transform DXL. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I enjoyed co-creating it for you. If you're curious about meta-performance executive coaching and what it might look like to have a fractional executive supporting your business, you can check us out at transformcx.com. You can also follow us on your favorite social media platform. We have all of that information in the show notes. I would encourage you to come find me on LinkedIn and also on Instagram at KristenDrenan CXO. Love to connect with our listeners there. If you enjoyed Unlocked, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. And if you got value from this episode, consider sharing it with someone else who might need to hear the same thing. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next time.