The comfort zone is often perceived as a brake on progression, a space of inaction that should be flee to succeed. What if, on the contrary, it was a precious resource to work with more efficiency and serenity? This is the approach defended by Laure Dodier in her book “Operates your comfort zone ” (Ed. Eyrolles). Through this interview, she explains to us how to take advantage of our natural talents, preserve our energy and build a powerful business without sacrificing our well-being.
You revisit the concept of comfort zone by presenting it as a resource rather than a brake. How can this approach transform our way of working and undertaking?
Laure Dodier: Today the comfort zone is especially perceived as an inaction area, a soft area incompatible with effective work. It is accepted as a means of possibly recharging, but in work it is above all to be flee. So, we don’t think about wondering what’s in it. And this is where we miss something!
However, there is a lot of talk about genius zone which is part of the comfort zone. And I encourage entrepreneurs to dig further. Because chronic stress is omnipresent among the self -employed and managers; And that exploiting your comfort zone is a path that allows quality work while preserving yourself. In the period of uncertainty that we are going through, it is a real help to pass the difficulties with more clarity and serenity.
You explain that the comfort zone is based on four essential pillars (health, natural talents, financial security and fluidity). Can you tell us more about their role in the success of a business?
Laure Dodier: Health, physical and mental, is a fundamental human right. In absolute terms, one should be able to prioritize our health without it being linked to business objectives behind. But it is a fact: we work better when we are in good health and we have a level of low stress. We do not always master what happens to our body. But listening to it and prioritizing it makes a big difference in professional daily life.
What concerns our talents and respect for our natural mode of operation, this is what many call the genius area. We were used to associating what requires an effort with what has value. And therefore to find too easy, without added value, which is simple for us. By creating a business whose daily tasks are based on our talents, and by selecting our working methods while respecting how our brain is “wired”, to avoid permanent suradaptation, it really changes the situation. We are more effective, we progress faster, we more easily reach levels of excellence without sacrificing our well-being.
Financial security, or rather its absence, is one of the largest sources of stress among entrepreneurs. However, it is common to see people not paying themselves in the early days, or undergoing themselves to remain accessible, when it is not a lack of self-confidence (or in the value of your talents!). To secure financially means that it does not necessarily mean wanting to earn millions. But it comes out of the sacrificial dimension of entrepreneurship that is wreaking havoc.
Finally daily fluidity, it concerns our working relationships, the workload and how much we have to adapt to make our business coexist with our reality of life. We normalize the fact of not being able to choose your customers at the start, having to work a lot to achieve your goals, and prioritize work. It mainly gives overloaded schedules, chaos, and exhaustion by dint of contorting. By building the business around our reality, our limits and our comfort zone, and going to seek the meeting point with those of our customers, it changes everything.
How can work in your comfort zone lead to better performance and not to stagnation, as we often believe?
Laure Dodier: There is a very anchored false belief that performance arrives when there is a minimum of stress. It is a very misinterpretation of a scientific study that I detail in my book. In reality, in humans, for all complex cognitive tasks (creativity, reflection, strategy, human relationships, analysis, etc.), performance decreases as stress increases. In addition, we are already undergoing stress and frequent comfort zones by our personal life. Or because we live an anxiety -provoking era.
So even if we rely on bad scientific interpretations saying that there is an ideal stress zone to reach a peak of performance, most entrepreneurs have already exceeded this CAP.
To bring back performance, the key is to lower the level of stress. We do not master everything at this level. But in the little things you control, exploiting your comfort zone allows you to cut a lot at the source.
How would you advise a woman entrepreneur to identify and capitalize on her natural talents?
Laure Dodier: There are two questions that I like to ask my customers to put my finger on it:
- What do they do easily and with pleasure, to the point of not understanding why it can be complicated or unpleasant for others?
- And what are the things they do visibly with quality, since they are told, but which seems so simple to them that they have scruples to get paid for that?
This is generally where the nuggets are found, it is simply that the little effort that it requires, because of our beliefs integrated from school, make us blind at their real value.
You insist on the importance of preserving your energy and listening to your needs. What are your recommendations to avoid exhaustion as a entrepreneur?
Laure Dodier: At first, to understand that our body and its alerts are not against us. We are not too fragile, it is the system in which we evolve, with its requirements and injunctions, which is increasingly unsuitable for our capacities, and very elitist. The body is a compass, a goalkeeper. When he speaks, if we listen to him to understand where our discomfort comes from, our stress, we can act and readjust things as you go.
I also think that the fear of peer judgment, and the frequent comparison with stories of fairly sacrificial success do not help. Surrounding themselves with people who do not require us to sacrifice our health for our box, and who think that mounting a business should not be done at the expense of our health, it helps a lot. We find solutions when we refuse this fatality.
What would your message be to women who feel guilty of not always trying to push their limits?
Laure Dodier: I believe that our limits, we already push them every day, in spite of ourselves, to give us a place in entrepreneurship. However, we really have nothing to prove, neither our ability to undertake, nor our strength.
This injunction has always more surpassing oneself, performance, exit from permanent comfort zone, it is also a patriarchal heritage, often internalized. To have the same power as men, women should prove that they are also able to surpass themselves continuously. In reality, this injunction already damages men. And the result for women is that we are more prone to burn out.
What also often goes under the radar is how our stress impacts our relationships with others. It is much more difficult to be available, empathetic, adaptable, listening, when you are in chronic stress. Behind many cases of mistreatment at work, there are leaders and suffering managers. This is important I think to wonder which leader we want to be. Because these situations are far from being exempt from guilt.
If you were to sum up in one sentence the philosophy of Operate your comfort zonewhat would it be?
Laure Dodier: It is when you free yourself from the obligation to have to suffer to succeed that you give yourself the space to find out how to do otherwise. And my book is the practical guide for that!
© Géraldine Bramonte
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