Ironically, excellence is the biggest threat to your growth and to the future of the valuation profession.
Smart, safe and stalled.
In The Big Leap, Gay Hendricks introduces the idea of:
1. Zone of Incompetence – tasks you’re not good at.
2. Zone of Competence – tasks you’re okay at, but others can do just as well.
3. Zone of Excellence – tasks you’re great at, often rewarded for, but that don’t light you up.
4. Zone of Genius – the work that feels effortless, energizing and uniquely yours.
The Zone of Excellence is seductive.
It rewards you externally while draining you internally.
That’s where most appraisers spend their careers.
Hendricks also describes the Upper Limit Problem.
How we unconsciously self-sabotage when things start going too well.
We’re singularly focused on writing, reviewing and managing appraisals.
But it doesn’t move us. And it doesn’t transform the industry.
Those in the Zone of Excellence, get caught in a loop: you’re dependable, respected, efficient… but also stuck.
Excellence becomes the reason you never reach beyond it. That’s the invisible ceiling.
The real breakthrough? Living in your Zone of Genius.
That’s where your insight and strategic thinking collide.
If we see ourselves as compliance, we’ll act like it.
“The way we see the problem is the problem.” Stephen Covey
But if we choose to see ourselves as strategic, we’ll speak up. We’ll lead. We’ll change the game.
The valuation industry won’t evolve by repeating a 1990s playbook.
It’ll evolve when we stop waiting for permission and start showing up in our genius.
So here’s the challenge:
Stop asking, “What’s expected of me?”
Start asking, “What’s possible through me?”
Because this industry doesn’t just need more appraisers.
It needs more leaders.
