Some Things Aren’t Your Problem

I have a client who is doing something I genuinely admire. For purposes of this story I’ll call him Sam.

Sam is building a business inside a larger business. No guaranteed runway. No formal authority. A product that hasn’t proven itself yet. And a room full of people he has to win over — people who aren’t required to help him, and some who aren’t sure they want to.

Most people in that situation spend a lot of energy worrying about what those people think of them.

Sam doesn’t.

Instead, he puts that energy directly into the relationships themselves.

He pays attention when people speak. He asks thoughtful questions. He finds what matters to them and shows genuine interest in it.

And one by one, he’s winning them over.

Through influence, Not through politics or pressure.

I’ve been thinking about why that works so well, and I keep coming back to something simple.

Worrying about what someone thinks of you is energy spent on something you can’t control. Showing up curious and genuinely interested is energy spent on something you can.

Same situation. Completely different place to put the effort.

The Circles Worth Knowing

I wrote about this a while back through the lens of Stephen Covey’s framework — [you can read Issue #9 here] — but the short version is this:

A limited amount of things are really in your control. There is likely much more you can influence. And some things are simply beyond your reach no matter how much energy you give them.

The trap isn’t ignoring that third category. The trap is letting it live rent free in your head while ignoring the first two.

Right now that trap is everywhere.

What will AI do to the job market? Rising fuel prices. Interest rates. Will tariffs return?

And the closer-in stuff too. The team member who might not be working out, the client relationship that feels uncertain, the revenue month that came in soft.

None of it responds to your worry. All of it wants your energy anyway.

Sam is aware of all of it. He’s not naive about his situation.

He just refuses to let what he can’t control drain the energy he needs for what he can.

When something is outside his reach, he names it and lets it go. When something is in front of him that he can actually move, like a conversation, a proposal, or a relationship, he gives it everything.

And it’s why he keeps winning in conditions that would exhaust most people.

💡Where The Choice Lives

Sam doesn’t fight the uncertainty. He looks for the opening: a conversation he can have, a relationship he can invest in, a move he can make. Then he puts his energy there.

There’s a reason this works.

There’s a space between what happens to you and what you do next. That’s where the real power lives. It’s not in controlling the situation, but in choosing your response to it.

Sam lives in that space. You can too.

To letting go of what isn’t yours,

Laurie