FLORENCE – Have you found your zone of genius?
Or are you just struggling in a zone of excellence – good but not great, successful but not satisfied?
Larry Watson of Alexandria helps people find their zone of genius, the point where their passions and their talents meet. A writer, speaker and “transformation coach,” he assists people undergoing a sudden change in life because of an illness, a job loss or the break-up of a relationship in identifying new opportunities with great potential.
“Unexpected change affects your identity in all sorts of ways,” Watson told members of the Florence Rotary Club at their meeting on Monday, March 3. “We all have an identity with a career,” so losing a job can be damaging to one’s self-esteem and sense of purpose, he said.
Watson found his zone of genius in the wake of heart problems that forced him to abandon a successful career as an artist. After earning a bachelor’s degree in industrial technology at Eastern Kentucky University, he worked as a graphic artist in a commercial printing business. He took a pottery class on a whim and it blossomed into a 24-year career in ceramic art filled with art fairs, exhibits and awards.
Then he was diagnosed with lymphoma and developed medical problems, which reduced his heart function to 15 percent at one point. He had to give up art, which initially was devastating.
“For an artist, identity runs deep,” Watson said. “There was suddenly a vacuum in my identity.”
As he searched for new direction and purpose, he began to study transformation coaching and found his passion. He also learned what traps people in the zone of excellence, what prevents them from using their strengths to best advantage.
Watson, an advisor in the Kentucky Peer Advisory Network of the Kentucky Arts Council, offered three tools to help reach people reach their greatest potential. First, become aware of options related to your passions. Second, overcome resistance to change that saps your energy and holds you in place. And, third, accept change as a positive opportunity; don’t just tolerate it as a detriment.
“In the zone of genius, you find out the essence of who you are,” Watson said. “That gives you power and energy, a feeling of success. We box ourselves in by thinking of the limits we have” instead of the potential.
“I am still creative in my business – just in a different business,” he said.
That creative intuition transformed him from an award-winning potter into passionate life coach and consultant.
