TL;DR: When you’re in your Zone of Genius, you’re doing $10,000+/hour work. Yet most owners spend 80% of their time on $20-50/hour tasks. Every hour you spend on low-value work doesn’t just cost you $20—it costs you $10,000 in lost opportunity. Learn how in my next free Zone of Genius Webinar.

I see owners who are brilliant at figuring out how to close a big deal or build a valuable client relationship or hack a first class growth system every day. They are awesome.

I also see them paying bills and writing the first draft of a client deliverable.

That’s like LeBron James leaving Game 7 to mop the locker room floor.

The Brutal Math Nobody Calculates

When you’re operating at peak—closing deals, solving critical problems, setting vision—you’re not creating linear value. You’re creating exponential value. That strategic hire, that key partnership, that product insight? Each can add millions to your enterprise value.

That’s your $10,000+ hour.

Here’s the kicker: Every hour you spend on $20 work doesn’t just cost you $20. It costs you $10,000. Because that’s the opportunity you just killed.

Yet most owners spend their time like this:

• 50% on administrative tasks ($20-100/hour work)

• 30% on necessary management ($100-500/hour)

• 15% on high-value activities ($1,000-5,000/hour)

• 5% in their Zone of Genius ($10,000+/hour)

Why We Stay Stuck

The Competence Curse: You’re fast at QuickBooks. It’ll take longer to explain than to just do it yourself. That 10-minute task just cost you $1,667 in opportunity cost.

The Control Illusion: “Nobody does it like I do.” True. Nobody makes your secret sauce pasta like you either. Doesn’t mean you should be cooking for 200 customers a night.

The Comfort Zone: $20 tasks are predictable. Safe. Meanwhile, that $10,000 strategic planning session feels ambiguous and scary. So you hide in your inbox.

The Simple Fix

1. Track one day brutally: Log everything. Ask “What would it cost to hire someone competent to do this?”

2. Create your “Never Again” list: Write down every sub-$100/hour task. Share it with your team. Make it sacred.

3. Block Zone of Genius time FIRST: Treat these blocks like million-dollar meetings. Because they are.

That founder reconciling receipts? I sent him this math. He hired a bookkeeper the next day and used the freed time to start figuring out his expansion plan The bookkeeper costs $400/month. The expansion plan will net $1m.

That’s a 2500x ROI on upgrading his time.

Stop trading diamonds for pennies.

Stay in your zone,

Alan

P.S. Ready to systematically identify your $10,000 hours and build a business that keeps you there? Join my upcoming webinar where we’ll build your personal Zone of Genius blueprint. [Register Here ]

P.S. - That newsletter growth expert charging $2k for their system? Soon they’ll be training AI agents instead of humans. The smart ones are already starting.