Control? Not Really.

“Some things are in our control, while others are not. We control our opinion, choice, desire, aversion, and, in a word, everything of our own doing. We don’t control our body, property, reputation, position, and, in a word, everything not of our own doing. Even more, the things in our control are by nature free, unhindered, and unobstructed, while those not in our control are weak, slavish, can be hindered, and are not our own.” ~ Epictetus, Enchiridion

One of the foundational tenets of Stoic philosophy is that there will always be things out of our control and that the only things I can control are my thoughts, actions, feelings. As a leader it’s absolutely crucial to take this to heart. Railing against what we can’t control is at best a waste of energy and at worst incredibly destructive. And, to pile on just a bit you might also consider that the one thing we definitely can’t control is the outcome from any of our behaviors.

The internalization of this Stoic “truth” – that we can control our behaviors but not their outcomes, let alone the outcome of other people’s behaviors, leads one to a calm acceptance of whatever happens knowing that we have done our best given the circumstances.

As a leadership example of this consider Admiral James Stockdale. In 1965 on September 9th (my birthday) he was shot down over North Vietnam during the Vietnam War and spent seven and a half years as a prisoner of war in what was derisively called the Hanoi Hilton. As he was parachuting to a landing near a small village he whispered to himself: “Five years down there at least. I’m leaving the world of technology and entering the world of Epictetus.” For the next 7 ? years he endured torture multiple times, solitary confinement for years at a time and through it all maintained a sense of equanimity. His internalized Epictetus advice to play whatever part Fate had allotted to him to the best of his abilities and kept in mind that he would lose only if he succumbed to two things – loss of self-respect and fear. Fear could on be possible if he thought he had control over the outcomes of his behavior and he knew the only thing he did have control over was his behavior.

When we notice that we are becoming attached to what we think the outcome should be we lose our ground of being and our resourcefulness. We become reactive rather than responsive. Being non-attached doesn’t mean we don’t care. Celebration and disappointment are both appropriate responses to outcomes and the true point of focus needs to be “did I do all I could, where I was, with what I had?” This week have this be your focus.

Excerpted from The Leadership Mindset Weekly by Blaine Bartlett

To master anything, we must first master ourselves—our emotions, our thoughts, our actions. In times of uncertainty and disorder, self-discipline and self-mastery are not just essential but a competitive advantage.

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