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Your 'Easy Work' Is Your Most Premium Asset

Two years into running my agency, I was making more money than I'd ever made in my life.

From the outside, everything looked perfect. We had prestigious clients, a growing team, and revenue that kept climbing month after month.

But I felt like a complete fraud.

Every client call filled me with dread. Every team meeting exposed another gap in my capabilities. Every new project revealed how far I was swimming outside my lane.

The irony? I'd started the business doing marketing and demand gen strategy. Work that came naturally to me, work I genuinely loved, work that felt effortless even when it was complex.

What I didn't know then — but understand with complete clarity now — is that this feeling of ease wasn't a sign I was undercharging or underperforming. It was trying to show me exactly where I should have been focusing my entire business.

The work that felt effortless was actually my most valuable offering. I just couldn't see it yet.

Instead, I did exactly what most entrepreneurs do: I ran away from what felt easy and straight into what felt hard.

Somewhere along the way, everyone told me that to be "successful," I needed to build an agency. And building an agency meant I needed to be amazing at operations, project management, team leadership, and executing across dozens of different tactical areas.

The problem? I have ADHD (though I didn’t know it back then). I'm naturally terrible at all of that. I find operational complexity overwhelming and exhausting.

But I thought that's what "real" business owners did. I thought struggling with the hard stuff was what made me valuable.

So I built my entire business around my weaknesses.

And it nearly destroyed me.

The Lie We're All Living

Here's the mind-fuck that took me years to understand:

We've been conditioned to believe that something will only be valuable to others if it's hard for us.

That if we aren't struggling, we aren't growing.

That if work doesn't feel difficult, we're not really "earning" our success.

This programming runs so deep that we systematically undervalue the work that comes naturally to us and overvalue the work that makes us miserable.

Think about your own business right now.

What are you charging premium rates for? I bet it's the work that drains you, stresses you out, and requires you to white-knuckle your way through every project.

And what are you undercharging for—or maybe even giving away for free? I bet it's the work that lights you up, that you could do in your sleep, that feels almost too easy to charge "real" money for.

We've got it completely backwards.

And the cost isn't just financial — it's psychological and physiological.

When we build our lives around doing things that are difficult for us, we are actively choosing our own nervous system dysregulation. And that is a guarantee for burnout.

The Health Cost Nobody Talks About

Building a business around your weaknesses doesn't just destroy your confidence. It destroys your health, too.

For me, the breaking point came when my body shut down completely.

Severe vertigo from a viral ear infection that knocked me flat for weeks. But the virus wasn't the real problem.

The real problem was that my nervous system was so fried from operating in constant stress mode that my body couldn't fight off a simple infection.

I was running on pure adrenaline, trying to manage projects I hated, lead a team in areas where I had no natural instinct, and deliver results in fields where I was fundamentally out of my depth.

The irony? I was making $50K a month in revenue while feeling more incompetent than I had when I was making $5K a month doing work I actually loved.

Your body keeps the score. And when you spend years operating outside your zone of genius, it will eventually force you to stop.

The question is: Will you listen before it gets that severe?

The Imposter Syndrome Factory

This physical and mental toll isn't random. It's the predictable outcome of a system we've built around ourselves. When you build your business around what's hard for you, you create a machine specifically designed to destroy your confidence.

Here's how it works:

Stage 1: The Setup 

You focus on developing skills that don't come naturally because they "feel" more valuable. You think: "If I can master this difficult thing, I'll be unstoppable."

Stage 2: The Trap 

You start attracting clients who need exactly those skills you struggle with. Your business model becomes dependent on you doing more and more of what you're worst at.

Stage 3: The Spiral 

As your business grows, the expectation is that you'll get better at these difficult tasks. But you don't because they're not in your zone of genius.

Your quality starts to suffer and your body starts sending warning signals — right when the stakes are highest.

Stage 4: The Breakdown 

You're working harder than ever, but your work is getting worse. You're making more money, but you feel less competent. You're achieving external success while experiencing internal devastation.

Your nervous system rebels: sleep becomes impossible, brain fog sets in, and your mood swings from anxiety to exhaustion.

Stage 5: The Irony 

At the exact moment when you should feel most confident—when your business is thriving, when clients are paying premium rates — you feel like a complete fraud.

And then, just when you think you can push through it all, your body makes the decision for you — forcing the break you've been desperately avoiding.

Sound familiar?

This is what happened to me with the agency. Every month we grew, I felt less capable. Every new client we landed, I felt more terrified they'd discover I didn't know what I was doing.

Because I didn't. I was operating so far outside my natural competencies that I couldn't trust my own judgment anymore.

The Plot Twist: What Clients Actually Want

Here's what I wish someone had told me earlier:

Clients don't want to pay for your struggle. They want to pay for your ease.

They don't value how hard something is for you. They value how effortless you make it look.

They're not impressed by your ability to suffer through difficult work. They're impressed by your ability to deliver extraordinary results without breaking a sweat.

Think about the last time you hired an expert. Did you choose them because they told you how challenging their work was? Or did you choose them because they made the complex seem simple?

When I hire a contractor to fix my roof, I don't want someone who's going to struggle and stress and make it look difficult. I want someone who's going to show up, assess the situation with confidence, and handle it like it's the easiest thing in the world.

That's what your clients want from you, too.

The work that feels easy to you — that you could do with your eyes closed, that flows out of you naturally — that's exactly what people will pay premium rates for.

Not because it's easy for them to get elsewhere, but because it's rare to find someone who can make the complex look effortless.

The Practical Flip: Finding Your Real Zone of Genius

So, how do you identify what you should actually be building your business around?

Grab a piece of paper or open a new note. Take 5 minutes right now to answer these questions honestly:

Ask yourself these questions:

• What work feels almost unfairly easy for you? The stuff that makes you think, "Wait, other people find this hard? Really?"

• What do people constantly ask for your help with? Not because you're convenient, but because they trust your judgment in this specific area.

• What work energizes you instead of draining you? The projects you finish feeling more alive than when you started.

• What results do you deliver that surprise even you? The outcomes that make clients say, "How did you know exactly what we needed?"

• What would you do for free if money weren't an object? Not because it's charity, but because it's so aligned with who you are that it doesn't feel like work.

These answers point to your real zone of genius — the work you should be productizing, systematizing, and charging premium rates for.

Not because it's hard for you, but because it's impossible for most other people.

The Identity Revolution

Making this shift requires more than just changing your service offerings. It requires a fundamental identity revolution.

You have to stop being someone who proves their worth through struggle and start being someone who creates value through authentic excellence.

You have to give up the story that "easy" work isn't "real" work and embrace the truth that your zone of genius is your greatest asset.

You have to release the need to suffer for your success and accept that you're allowed to love what you do AND charge premium rates for it.

This is the identity work that most business advice completely skips. But it's the most important work you'll ever do.

Because when you build your business around your natural gifts:

Your confidence compounds instead of eroding. Every project reinforces that you know what you're doing because you're operating from competence, not compensation.

Your quality improves as volume increases. Instead of getting worse under pressure, you get better because you're playing your strongest game.

You attract clients who value your natural expertise. Instead of convincing people to hire you for work you struggle with, you become the obvious choice for work you excel at.

Success feels earned, not stolen. You stop feeling like you're getting away with something and start feeling like you're delivering exactly what you're meant to deliver.

The Business Model Revolution

This identity shift isn't just internal work—it requires restructuring your entire business to support your new way of operating. Here's where it gets even more important:

This means saying no to potential revenue that would require you to operate outside your strengths — even when it's tempting.

This means hiring people to handle the things that drain you — even when it feels expensive.

This means designing your offers, your processes, and your entire business around keeping you in flow as much as humanly possible.

I can't tell you how many times people have encouraged me to start a LinkedIn ghostwriting agency. The market is there. The revenue potential is enormous. I still get regular inbound for it. I could probably build it quickly.

But you know what I remember every time I consider it? I hated running an agency. I'm not good at the vast majority of things it would require me to do. And it would mean designing a life that makes me miserable.

I refuse to do that. And you should too.

Your business model should serve your zone of genius, not fight against it.

Your Next Steps

I want you to try something this week:

Look at your current client work and divide it into two categories:

Energy Vampires: The projects that drain you, stress you out, and make you feel incompetent

Energy Amplifiers: The projects that light you up, flow easily, and make you feel unstoppable

Now ask yourself: Which category are you charging more for?

If you're like most experts, you're charging premium rates for the vampire work and undercharging for the amplifier work.

It's time to flip that script.

Start saying no to projects that require you to operate outside your zone of genius, even if they pay well in the short term. Start positioning your natural gifts as your premium offering, even if it feels "too easy" to charge for.

Your confidence, your health, and your bank account will thank you.

The Business You Deserve

The business you deserve isn't built on your ability to suffer through difficult work.

It's built on your ability to deliver extraordinary results through your natural gifts.

It's a business where your expertise feels effortless because you're finally swimming with the current instead of against it.

It's a business where imposter syndrome dissolves because you're not pretending to be someone you're not—you're being exactly who you are, at the highest level.

That business is waiting for you to stop building around your weaknesses and start building around your strengths.

The only question is: Are you ready to stop being a fraud and start being yourself?

In love and growth,
Kasey

P.S. If this resonated with you, I'd love to hear your story. What work feels effortless for you? What "shoulds" are you ready to let go of?

Reply to this email…I'm building something new to help entrepreneurs like us build businesses around our natural genius, and I'd love to include your perspective.

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