Focus on things you can control
This simple message from Stoic philosophy applies as much to Startups as it does to life in general.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… this was the book I enjoyed the most in 2018. One short Stoic quote per day for each and every day of the year.
Whilst skimming back to the beginning of the book to start a new year in 2019, there were two extracts that really struck a cord with me. The first was as follows…
Jan 1st: Control And Choice
“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own…”
(Epictetus, Discourses)
Now re-read and replace the word ‘life’ with ‘a startup’.
This is one of those lessons that is so painfully obvious it’s difficult to understand why anyone would bother to teach it. If we truly can’t change something then why would we ever spend any time on it? And yet, if you’re human like me, you know all too well that we spend a disproportionate amount of time thinking and acting on things that are fundamentally outside of our control. Startups are built by people and this element of human nature can have distracting and damaging consequences.
In the book ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’, Stephen Covey articulates this same point by distinguishing between our Circle of Concern (things we care about but can’t control) and Circle of Influence:
The Stoics would rightly say that there’s no point wasting time and energy on the things we can’t control. For example, worrying about our competitors recent funding round or big-hitting new hire. This is easy in theory but more difficult in practice. Covey’s approach might offer some guidance on how to apply this knowledge in the real World.
Covey would agree with the Stoics but would also go a stage further. He states that a positive and proactive focus on the things we can control will actually have a secondary effect of increasing our Circle of Influence (the left-hand circle above). For example, by successfully focusing on the things we can directly control within our own business (e.g. product, marketing and hiring), we can indirectly have an impact on our competitors ability to raise their next funding round or make their next senior hire.
In contrast, by spending too much time focused on the things we can’t control in our business we may actually reduce our influence on the things we should be able to control directly. Using the same example above, it’s not difficult to imagine a scenario where an unhealthy concern for our competitor leads us to make a reactive decision (e.g. shipping a new product feature before its ready) which then backfires and reduces our ability to manoeuvre later.
How about starting 2019 by re-focusing our efforts on the things we can directly control? At the very least we will waste less (emotional) energy on the things we can’t control and if Covey is right, we may also increase our Circle of Influence.
