Circle of influence
Hello members and subscribers! It’s time for our fifth Moonshots Master episode, and here we are breaking down the CIRCLE OF INFLUENCE.
Opening up our minds to the concept, we get inspired by a series of motivational speakers, telling us to focus on you every day. We re-visit the very well-regarded Admiral William H. McRaven, who reminds us to start singing when we’re up to our necks in mud. We then hear from Robin Sharma, who reminds us to simply embrace confidence every day.
Now we’re all inspired, the next section helps us learn about the Circle of Influence, and who’s better to teach us than Stephen Covey himself. Mr Covey breaks down the Inner circle for proactive people (circle of influence), as well as the Outer circle for reactive people (circle of concern).
Now we understand the influence and mindset towards our circles, let’s work on how to make this reflection a part of our habit every day. We listen to Janis from Time Management, who has some actionable tips to stay focused. We also learn from Fearless Soul, and how we are responsible for who we agree to spend time with. Closing out the show, we hear again from Stephen Covey, who has some powerful mindset tips for us, encouraging us to remember that we can choose to carry your weather with us.
Master Series: circle of influence
TRANSCRIPT
Hello and welcome to the moonshots master series. It's episode number five. I'm your co-host Mike Parsons. And as always, I'm joined by Mark Pearson Freeland. Good morning, mark. Good morning, Mike. It is a sunny it's somewhat sunny day in springtime Sydney. And it's the perfect day for you and I, our members and our subscribers to dig into a brand new topic.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. And this one, mark, I may be guilty of this. I always say, oh, this one is so moonshot, but mark, I'm going to say this one. It's pretty moonshots. Isn't it? Yeah. As we'll find out, as we go through today's show full of lessons, tips, tricks, and hacks, it's really spot on with a lot of the lessons that you and I, as well as our listeners and members are learning from these individuals out in the world.
So as a quick reminder, Mike, where have we been so far on the master series? We've covered motivation. That was a big show covered [00:01:00] first principles. We covered collaboration and teamwork. And last time we dug into habits and how those small little things have huge, big results for you and I. And today we're digging into something that kind of encompasses a lot of our lives.
And it's all about the circle of influence. And this is authored by none other than a Stephen Covey, who is by far one of the most popular superstars that we cover on moonshots. He is at timeless classics. Author, he just he's worked, just keeps on working and it is such a delight to dig into this circle of influence, which many other authors and experts and moon shutters have expanded upon.
So we have a bevy of ideas, not only to inspire you, but to get into the science of how this circle of influence works, but also how you can make it part of your daily routine. That's all ahead of you on today's moonshot [00:02:00] master series and my. I'm thinking that this idea of circle of influence is so powerful because it's really simply said, it's all about focusing on what you control and stop worrying about stuff that you don't control.
Such a common mantra, such good advice, such worldly wisdom yet. I think that it is more relevant now than ever. This idea of circle of influence will help anybody. Who's trying to be the best version then. By routing their energy by diverting their energy towards where they're going to get the greatest return.
And that's always going to be what you control. And I think this idea is super powerful. We have Stephen Covey to thank for framing this in a motoring context. I think you might find there's some ancient philosophers that touched upon the same topic as well. But my we've got so much ahead of us for this show.
We do. And as we're going to dig into, it's all about, like you say, [00:03:00] control of those reactions, your mindset, your emotions, your distractions, ultimately, and understanding how we can rethink our reaction to those sorts of things and therefore frame and work upon the things that we do control in order to be.
Healthier, happier, more productive, more efficient. There's so much benefit to being able to really fully control and grasp this concept of the circle of influence. But at the same time, it is a bit of a challenge. Isn't it, Mike, because it's so easy for all of us to somewhat be distracted by things that ultimately we can't control.
Exactly. And what you're going to hear later in the show is not only the science behind how to understand this, these circles of influence, but we're also going to get into how you can make it part of your daily routine, how you can adopt this as a habit, because it's super powerful. [00:04:00] And it's really about this idea of diverting and focusing your energy on things that will give you the greatest return.
That'll help you be the best version of yourself for you to go out and have impact in your family. In your work in your community, wherever you are really focused, this idea of circle of influence is incredibly powerful. I think my, before we jump into part one, we should remind all of our listeners that, Hey, this is a master class, so we're going to go for 90 minutes, three big chapters at any time.
You should pause go back because this is big. This is really going to be a complete body of work. The next suggestion, I think mark is we definitely recommend using the transcript. So you can actually make notes. We actually got a note from a listener just this week who said how much they love using the transcripts as a [00:05:00] way of almost notating and marking up certain topics that we talk about.
What else would you recommend for anybody who's listening to this show, knowing that it's a masterclass, how should they get the most out of it? How do they get the most juice out of this? Over@moonshots.io, not only do we have access to all of our weekly shows, as well as transcripts for all 144 episode, 154, I should say, Mike, you just discounted as four 10 shows.
Can I know we've got all those show notes for our master series. We have reading recommendations. We have frameworks most importantly. So as you're sitting there, you're listening to us talk and learn together. You can hit pause. You can reflect and look at the frameworks that Mike and I will be digging into on not only today's.
But all of our master series episodes, you can download them. You can make them your screensaver or your background. And most importantly, you can [00:06:00] refer to them when you need. So we have a bevy, a library, a plethora of information and resources over a moonshots.io that you can go and access it anytime of the day and really maximize the hour and a half that you give to each of these masters series episodes in order to learn and in order to adopt and understand, and also be inspired by each of these topics that we dig in.
Sounds great. And before we launch into the first clip, this show is obviously for our members, you can become a member@moonshots.io, click on the members section mark. Why don't we do a quick shout out to all of our members who support us to make this show possible. That's right. Drum roll for all of our members over at Patrion, we have modular Yaniv, Halena and mark Byron, Tom DMR, Ken modular, Lynn and Sandy Nile [00:07:00] and Brady Terry, John kneels, and Bob guys.
Welcome once again and thank you for your continued support, attention and involvement, not only in the master series, but also in the moonshots. Sounds great. And with no further ado, mark, we should jump into the first part of our deep dive into the circle of influence. Where do you want us to begin?
That's right. We're going to start the show with really getting you and I and our listeners and our members inspired around the circle of influence and the benefits that can have before my view. And I do a deep dive into fully understanding and grasping it. So what better way to kick off the show today and really fist pumping, get ourselves out of our seat.
If anybody's listening to this, as they run, I hope this gives you an extra speed in your step. We're going to hear from a mixed collection of individuals, really inspiring us about controlling our life. And [00:08:00] this first clip helps you and I and our listeners remember to get the losers out of that.
It's really hard to be truly happy when you're not being yourself. And most of us have no clue and we are, we all have situations that don't look like they're going to work out. We don't see how we can get well, how we can accomplish a dream, how our family will be restored. All the circumstances say it's not going to happen.
How much of life do you feel like you control? How much does life control you? You tend to control more what's going on or events controlling it. If you focus on what you can't control, if you focus on the past, if you focus on what's missing from your life, constantly, that pattern of focus will make you frustrated, overwhelmed, depressed.
You won't even matter if you're taking antidepressants. If you keep focusing on what you can't control, what's missing from your life. You're going to feel depressed. You can take as many hundred residents as you want. Focus equals power [00:09:00] complaining, crying, whining, griping, a Bible word called murmuring.
See that at ACE, your future spend five minutes complaining and you have wasted and you may have begun. What's known as economic cancer. Surely they were soon as you often do a financial desert and there let you choke on the dust of your own.
And not only is it important for you to know it's possible for you to choose your future, but it's necessary that you work on yourself, that you develop yourself. It's necessary that you get the energy drainers out of your life. People who don't want anything, people are not striving. People are not challenging themselves.
People who are growing people have stopped dreaming. It's necessary that you align yourself with people and attract people into your business to a hundred people [00:10:00] who are unstoppable and unreasonable people who are refusing to leave life just as it is and who want more. My mother used to say, birds of a feather flock together.
If you run around with losers, you will end up a loser. It's necessary that you'll get the losers out of your life. If you want to live your green. Mark, I don't think we could bring any more adrenaline to this master class, hopefully that will sustain us for the next 90 minutes. Love hearing Anthony Robbins, Martin Luther king and all the other recognizable voices there.
I think the point here is something that if we want to talk about circle of influence, not only was that inspiring, but it's insanely practical, this idea of getting loses out of your life. There's this common saying that you are the sum of the five people you spend the most time. That's right.
We've dug into that. Possibly when we were doing the breakdown into the Stephen Covey, [00:11:00] seven habits of highly effective people (buy on amazon), which members you can go and listen to on moonshot.io, as well as your podcasting app of choice. Those were episodes 121 and 122, Mike, we actually had to break down Stephen Covey's seven habits of highly effective people because it was so full of good stuff.
Wasn't it? Yeah. And so we also big tip of the hat to him as circle of influence is one of the chapters in his book. The other thing here is mark, just to get a little tangent or this idea of getting loses out of your life, which sort of sets the context for circle of influence. We see this also practically in life, where there was a great saying that you can tell a man by his life.
That's really why, what you are, what you read you are, what you think. So what's so beautiful about all of this thinking is there is a big story of empowerment here. You can choose to read the books you want to read. You can choose to watch the shows that you want to show on [00:12:00] a watch. You can, these are all your choices and these are all beautifully within your circle of influence.
So what a great way to start the show, but I think I need just an extra pump up and I tell you what my there's a guy that can give that his name is William H McRaven (buy on Amazon). He. He celebrated, he employed us to make our bed and to start the day. Which you and I, we both kind of love that one. Don't we? Yeah, that's right.
This next clip, as we've really focused in that initial clip on understanding the focus is power and control is something that we will have reaction as well as influence over. What do you make from a graven episode 87 that we dug into with make your bed. You can go and listen to that again on your favorite podcast, app of choice or moonshots.io.
This next clip, Mike, again, it's totally connected to this idea of control and it's building upon that first clip by reminding you and I and our listeners about controlling [00:13:00] our reactions. So here's William H McRaven reminding us to start singing. When you're up to the neck in mud, the ninth week of training is referred to as hell week.
It is six days of no sleep, constant physical and mental harassment, and one special day at the mud flats. The mud flats are an area between San Diego and Tijuana, where the water runs off and creates the Tijuana slews, a swampy patch of terrain, where the mud will engulf you. It is on Wednesday of hell week, but your paddle down in the mud flats and spend the next 15 hours trying to survive this freezing cold, the howling wind and the incessant pressure to quit from the instructors.
As the sun began to set that Wednesday evening, my training class, having committed some egregious infraction of the rules was ordered into the mud. The mud consumed each man till there was nothing visible, but our heads, the instructors told us we could leave the mud. If only five men would [00:14:00] quit only five men, just five men.
And we could get out of the oppressive cold looking around the mud flat. It was apparent that some students were about to give up. It was still over eight hours till the sun came up. Eight more hours. Bone chilling, cold chattering teeth and shivering moans of the trainees were so loud. It was hard to hear anything.
And then one voice began to echo through the night. One voice raised in song. The song was terribly out of tune, but song with great enthusiasm. One voice became two and two became three. And before long, everyone in the class was singing. The instructors threatened us with more time in the mud if we kept up the singing, but the singing persisted and somehow the mud seemed a little warmer and the wind, a little Tamer and the Dawn not so far away.
If I have learned anything in my time, traveling the world, it is the power of hope. The [00:15:00] power of one person, a Washington, a Lincoln king Mandela, and even a young girl from Pakistan Malala. One person can change the world. By giving people hope. So if you want to change the world, start singing, when you're up to your neck and mud, he is so good at getting you in the right mindset.
And my it's so true when you're in the greatest adversity is when you need to really seeing when you're in that mud, but men, it's not always easy. Yeah. It's not always easy. I can't necessarily say that I've spent 15 hours up to my neck and freezing cold mud, but there are times when I'll feel as though I'm going through something that's very challenging.
Something that I'll question whether I can succeed something that I'll question, whether I can actually get through it and come out of the other side. And what I love about that clip, not only is he a [00:16:00] fantastic lecturer and speaker in that that particular moment, but he reminds me Mike, that I can control how I'm going to react.
I can instill hope into myself and therefore influence not only those other people around you as will you make to the Raven was saying that there's other team members and friends of his who were in those mud in the squad. But for me as an individual, I can try and take from that lesson. The reminder that I can start singing your I'm down, maybe not physically, because nobody wants to hear me singing, but I can do that emotion.
I can keep up a positive outlook and most importantly, And therefore my reactions will be influenced by that mindset. Ultimately that's where this idea of controlling your reactions really comes from isn't it. If I can control how I'm going to react or [00:17:00] respond to a given situation, whether it's in my neck and mud or whether it's a tricky email or whatever it is, it's something that I can take control over.
And that's really what we're going to be delving into for the rest of the show. Isn't it? I think the you're absolutely right. And I think the word that comes to my mind, it's a choice. You can be stuck in the mud and doing pull me, or you can be imagining and ruminating in the dark clouds of more door fried.
Or you can say stuff. It I'm going to sing, even though I'm in the mud. And I think whether you've had this experience yourself, Where you're really on the edge of do hi. Do I cry or do I sing in the mud? It really just comes down to a choice and what we see this circle of influence, it's not just [00:18:00] about reducing the scope of what you concern yourself with and what you focus on.
But it's also, I think, fundamentally this is something that came out of Stephen Covey's work is that it's a choice to be positive rather than negative. It is so easy to fall into being a victim. And I think we have a lot of social. Trends where people indulge the identity of victim being a victim.
And the danger here is it is such a negative place to go. And I think what we can celebrate in circle of influence is not only focusing on the things that we really have control over, like our attitudes, our beliefs, our actions, but we can also choose for a positive life. And this next clip is really.
Going right into that, how we can train ourselves for the right [00:19:00] mindset. So let's have a listen now to Robin Sharma, as he shares his ideas about how we can embrace confidence. I don't know if you'd agree with me on this, but in many ways, one of the key factors to legendary success, isn't your natural ability.
It's not whether you have the right product. It's not whether you're in the right field. It's not whether you've had a blessed background. It's not whether you have the right IQ. I want you to really think about and deconstruct and play with maybe later tonight in your journal. I want you to deconstruct this idea of confidence and it seems like a very simple word, but just think about it in your own life.
When you have confidence or we could even call it fire. When you have that fire within you, that constant. Interior bravery. You almost have this power to do whatever it [00:20:00] takes to get your brave vision. In this world, it's not about in many ways, your strategy in your business or your ability in your life.
It's about this thing called confidence. And we've all had these times in our lives when we are full of confidence and what other people see as a problem, we simply do see as an opportunity. Other people see it as a stumbling block or a wall, and we see it as a stepping stone or this solution. And so confidence is simply something that you really want to wire in confidence is something you really want to develop.
Confidence is a practice. Confidence is a muscle and like any muscle, the more you focus on it and practice it and train it the stronger your confidence is going to grow. And I just have to say that. When you are at a place in your life, when there is an ongoing steady stream of confidence, moving through your mindset, moving through your heart, [00:21:00] set, you do the heroic in your business and you achieve the remarkable in your life.
Wow. Confidence, the fire within it's all about bravery and the power to do whatever it takes. Again, Mike, it's something that I think we can control. Isn't it like Robin, Sharma's calling out there. It's something you can practice a muscle where you can train. But the reminder here from Robin is you have the power to do it.
Nobody else does. Yeah. Yeah. So it's a double edged sword. Isn't it? This confidence and positive mindset in order to focus on what you control, which is. Great news. You can, you control a bunch of stuff, right? So what do you control? Let's think about how you think the words that you write and use your actions, your behaviors, and how you choose to feel about things that happen in your life.
These things you have complete control over. So here's the [00:22:00] interesting thing. The catch 22 is if your in a negative head space, whose fault is that it's going to be, it's not the circumstances, is it because it's you, it was your choice to react that way. Similar the McRaven lesson that we just heard if you're in a dire situation, much like being up to your neck and mud, you can ultimately choose to really feel like you're suffering.
And feel as though you're the worst one in that situation. Nobody else is feeling it like I am, it's so cold for me. It's very unpleasant. But again, if you can create that opportunity and that benefit of seeing a challenge as something to learn from, to grow from, to be inspired by again, that's your control, isn't it, that's something you can understand and have [00:23:00] ownership over.
And Mike, this seems like something that keeps on coming up in the moonshots explorations that we're doing. Doesn't it feels as though this idea of confidence and I want to say ownership is really coming through in a lot of the lessons that we're learning. Yeah, it does. It does. And I think this takes me back to our motivation series and our resilience series.
And I think it's really important to remember. That we can be very tempted to embrace the poor me, the victim, a mindset. And I know that's obviously tempting when you can cheat, oh, this is so unfair. Why me? Blah, blah, blah. But I think there's a couple of things that come to mind here. The first of which is let's remember that there's a ton of people that faced enormous challenge and overcame Einstein wasn't able to speak until he was four years old, which is very unusual.
[00:24:00] Jordan got cut from the high school basketball team. Disney check. This one out was criticized and five from a newspaper in his career of all things and lacking imagination. Things happen. And sometimes they're out of our control. And I think part of what this circle of influence is teaching us is not only to focus on what we do control, but know that when challenges come your way, they are nothing but an opportunity.
It can be tempting to become a victim. But I think those people that I mentioned, imagine if they had not focused on their circle of control, imagine if they had chosen to indulge being a victim. No Einstein, no Jordan, a Disney oh my gosh, that's huge. So I think part of what happens.
We forget that success [00:25:00] fulfillment of others has been a road of challenge adversity. And it was the fact that they didn't give up. It was the fact that they focused on their circle of influence and it was affected. They chose to be positive and to continue and not fall victim. That's the case I'm making for circle of influence.
What do you think Mo? Yeah, I think it's clear to me that without those challenges regardless of whether a challenge happens or not, I think what's really important is that no matter what you face, what you run into, if you can pick yourself up, dust yourself off practice, this adherence to, okay what's in my control.
What's out of my control. Therefore influence your confidence when maybe something else comes along or. Your ability to just pick yourself up and say I am Michael Jordan. I've been cut from that high school basketball team, but it doesn't matter. I'm going to still pick myself up tomorrow and continue and [00:26:00] learn and build that that muscle.
Really Mike, what I think where we're coming to the conclusion of here is the circle of influence. Not only impacts your ability of putting up with being up to your neck and MARAD building confidence in what you do. It's really about resilience. Isn't it's practicing resilience in the way that you conduct yourself, not only with projects, but also how you put up with those challenges in order to not affect those around you.
Yes. So let's kind of frame what we've established here. I think that there's this enormously big opportunity in what sounds like a little bit of a small idea, circle of influence, but you can choose to surround yourselves with the people in the books that you want.
When you're in those tough moments, you have a choice of how you want to [00:27:00] respond. And if you prime yourself with positivity, you can really focus on the things that you directly control things such as how you think, the words you use, your actions, your behaviors, your feelings, these are all totally at your discretion.
But the challenge here is it can be a bit tempting to go down that in a little victim round ball me and worked so hard and everybody else has it. Easy truth is nobody has it easy. Nobody does. So it's our capacity to be resilient. To remain confident and positive in the face of challenge. Otherwise we wouldn't have an Einstein Jordan Disney.
Those were all people that showed that they could push through onto the other side. I think mark, this just says to me, let's go deep into this. Let's go to the work of Stephen Covey and let's go like next level deeper. But before we do that, mark, we've got a few books that we can. We can put on the reading list, the reading this, by the way, [00:28:00] it's all in the show notes@moonshots.io, just head over to the members section and you'll get like the complete rundown.
What were some of the books that we'd recommend if this is really starting to light your fire, as Robin Sharma said, what books do you think we can recommend to our wonderful. Not only would I encourage people to pop over to moonshots.io, to check out our shows on, for example, Stephen Covey.
I'd also recommend all of our members to go and actually purchase the circle of influence as well as the seven habits of highly effective people. By Stephen Covey. I'd also call out a particularly good article online from the Franklin Covey, and there's a brew gray breakdown, like of the circle of influence, which we'll really dig into in the next part of the show.
We've also got a great book from Robin Sharma. So the man, the confident man himself, who actually we dug into on the last master series episode as well. So he's becoming a bit of a firm favorite his book, the everyday [00:29:00] hero we have. Breakdown all in the near future as well, but also I'd reference Tim Ferriss the four hour work week, as well as a number of our other individuals that we broken down on the moonshot show.
Because Mike, like you say, without Einstein, without Michael Jordan, without Steve jobs struggling in the in the world and becoming resilient, I mean our moon shot show would be a little bit lighter. It would be a little bit shorter. Wouldn't it? If they hadn't practiced that circle of influence would be lacking a little bit of inspiration, which thank goodness we have more than enough.
So that gets us to the start of the second part of the show where we're going to go deeper marks. So I think it's important to set the scene as we're about to go deep into a world of soap. That's right. So listeners and members, obviously today is all around the circle of influence. As Mike mentioned earlier, if you want to deep [00:30:00] dive into confidence, motivation, you can go and listen to our first episode of the master series, which is all about motivation.
Today. We're diving into the depths of the circle of influence in order to become more resilient, to have more confidence and most importantly, to control and understand the things that are in our influence. Because it's a creation of Mr. Stephen Covey, I think it's only right Mike for you and I to really delve into the work of the man himself.
So this next clip we're going to dig into tell you and our members really understand the differences between these circles and the outer rings of the circle of influence. It's going to be Mr. Covey breaking down for us the first piece, which is the inner circle. Think on it this way, two circles, the larger outer circle, you call the circle of concern things.
You're concerned about things you're worried about, but [00:31:00] then there is an inner circle. It's very small that are concerns you have influence over where do proactive people focus their energies. We circle the inner circle, where do reactive people focus their energies, the outer circle. Why? Because they're victimized look up.
This person I have to live with. My boss is dead. Ended my career. She says she has an open mind, but she has a closed mind. Look at these kids. It's driving me crazy. Why do you choose to go crazy? What else could you do?
I don't know. Think, I don't know. Think what other alternatives do you have other than going crazy?[00:32:00]
I don't know. Think hard.
I guess I could maybe try to rebuild the relationship to a point that we can come up with some discipline agreements. What's your choice.
You have the car, always treat people as if they're proactive, the more irresponsible they are, the more you teach them about their response ability.
Always work on the interstate. It is a marvelous thing. It is inevitable. Inevitable. If you work on the inner circle, it'll get larger. Always Y the energy there is positive, you're doing something at the outside edge of that inner circle that wins more confidence with other people, the way you treat them, the way you make and keep promises the way you apologize.
When you make mistakes, the way you gather feedback, the [00:33:00] way you give feedback, the way you're trying to play God in someone's life, the way you seek to understand what's important to the other, so that your presentations are made in terms of their frame of reference their language, their value system.
You're constantly making deposits into the emotional bank account. So good. What he calls out there, mark, I believe truly is at the essence do not be a victim. Victimizer nation is super dangerous. Victimization is a short path to a pretty bad vibe. And it has like a downward spiral situation to me.
This is such a, an empowering thought that you can choose to be empowered. You can choose to be positive, or you can dwell in the pool may affect to me [00:34:00] by just being a. Totally focused on your thoughts, your behaviors, your actions, and doing the very best you can do within your framework, within the things that you control makes it much more easier to accept the outcome.
Good or bad, right? Yeah, that's right. I think what is really helpful for me as I'm framing. These two different circles, circle of influence and circle of concern. It's the positive versus negative effect as well as positive and negative mindset that can very quickly become a bit all encompassing content.
And so positivity breeds. And enthusiasm, productivity, happiness, whereas negativity, and the poor me syndrome can breed feelings of inadequacy, anxiety, a [00:35:00] displeasure with your situation. And I think what's really interesting as I reflect on the circle of influence, as well as our shows on Stephen Covey, the seven habits of highly effective people was this idea that I can be proactive by being positive, or I can be reactive and therefore detrimental to myself if I'm negative.
And if I'm dwelling in that negativity, all it's going to do is breed more negativity. Yeah. And I think that the, it feels like if you focus on the things that you control and you focus on being. Really positive and confident. It can feel a little bit like the temptation is to think how naive you're being there's all this crappy stuff, bad stuff, negative stuff happening around you.
And the temptation is ah, like I, I can't really be [00:36:00] positive. There's all this bad stuff. And it's you feel a bit silly. I think that's what stops us from focusing on the inner circle and being positive. What do you think stops us from this attention to the inner circle? I think for me, And probably a lot of our members.
I think it's distractions. I think distractions are pretty regular occurrences that can get in the way of any part of our lives. So distractions will get in the way of us exercising. Distractions will get in the way of us doing a project correctly, or distractions will stop us being able to relax on the weekend because you're being distracted by other things that perhaps don't need that level of attention.
Distractions being maybe what other people are thinking, for example. And I think what is tempting to do, particularly for me, my circle of concern. So as a reminder for our [00:37:00] members, the circle of concern is when you're reacting negatively to things and you're not focusing on what you can control.
So circle of concern is what's out of your control. I will fall into that passing quite easily when I'm stimulated by things that are around me all the time. That fundamentally I forget are not part of my circle of influence. There are things that I can't control. So the distractions being things that I have no impact over whatsoever actually ended up ruling my positivity and my outlook and my reaction to the rest of things in my life.
So I think it's also we're going to deal with the ADIs SoCal, which is like a nasty piece of work, but let's focus on let's focus on the inner circle for a moment. I think that what we are scared to admit is that the inner circle is where you take ultimate accountability for yourself. [00:38:00] And so I think there's, it's also a bit confronting because if you say all I'm going to focus on my thoughts, my actions.
I'm going to focus on how I choose to feel how I'm going to react to the world in a certain way. That's quite confronting isn't it, mark, because it's almost like you, if you follow this through negative thoughts, Are your choice and that's on you, nobody else. And maybe that's why we sometimes avoid our circle of influence or our circle of control because it's the ultimate accountability.
It's just a hundred percent on us. Isn't it? It's very tempting. Maybe I'd even go so far as to say addictive to point the finger, almost turn a cold shoulder on your own influence. Like you say, it's pretty easy to it's a good excuse if I can say, oh, it's out of my [00:39:00] control. So it's not my fault.
It's not my fault that something's happened. Or it's not my fault that I'm feeling. Oh, that I'm feeling a bit down about something because it's something else something way out there. And what ends up happening is I can quite easily be tempted to turn my back on the things that I can influence and the things that are within my control.
I E my thoughts, my feelings, my reactions. And I think it's because it is, like I say, quite addictive to not really turn that mirror upon yourself and instead ignore that internal reflection time, as we know, it's so important as we'll dig into, but those things that you can control within that inner circle are quite easily forgotten in my experience because you.
You aren't taking the time to really think about what you can control and what you can't, if that makes sense. [00:40:00] Yeah. So I love this and obviously check out the show notes because we have a list of all the things that you do control and you don't control and are linked to the different models.
I think the crux of this inner circle is that you have control of how you think, how you react, how you feel in your life. And it's not easy to take on board, but that's really the truth. What you certainly don't control as a bunch of other stuff, which is this outer circle, this circle of concern.
And we're going to talk about that in a second, but really this inner circle. This circle of influence is as a call to arms. There are many things that you control that have enormous impact on your wellbeing, your thoughts, your actions, and your feelings are just a few of those. And what's really important is to maximize the time that we [00:41:00] spend thinking about the stuff that we do control and minimize the attention that we give to things that we don't control.
I think that's the core thing. So what we'll do later in the show is we're going to talk about techniques that you can use to do this. But I would say if this is really resonating for you, I would say there's a couple of quick actions that you can take. Number one, write down right now, pause the podcast, write down 10 things you're really grateful for in your life.
That can be. Your basic health. I can see, I can hear this is a thought that you have control of it and that you have the choice to be grateful for that. You have the choice to write a journal, to get the things that are concerning you in your head out of your head, write them down so you can enjoy a sense of relief and calm.
You have the choice that when [00:42:00] something comes your way, that is a challenge you can choose to pause. You can count to 10. Maybe you save that email as a draft before sending that fiery email. These are all things that you control. These are ways that you can react, behave, and to be in the life at work with colleagues, with friends and family, these are all things that are totally within your control.
And I think what we have seen and what we will continue to present in this show is these have an enormous effect on your sentence. Satisfaction fulfillment or impact in the world. Maybe even just a dash of happiness. Mark, I would say the more you spend the equation is a lot of attention on things you control.
Don't worry so much about the things you don't just accept them. Just accept them. What do you think might, before we go into the outer settle, before we go into the dark and stormy [00:43:00] place, do you think we've framed the specificity of what these things are and why you should focus on. I think we have. And like you say, Mike, we're going to be digging into more tips and tricks and ways of positively and practically expanding that circle of influence later in the show.
And I think you're right. There's mentions that you just said around journaling and reflecting are so important because they do culminate and cultivate that more positive outlook. And I think the truth is then like some of us might be tempted to, to not bother doing those things and what I've experienced even over the moonshot show and the action of journaling every day.
It really does have a combination of fact. Day-by-day, doesn't it again, going back to the work of Adam Grant as well as James clear. We all have the [00:44:00] ability to create new habits. And I think where I can see the circle of influence, having a really proactive benefit for somebody like myself is when you follow through, like we heard from Robin Sharma, you cultivate a kind of like a muscle.
You build more confidence, you build more ownership over those things that you can control. And actually exactly as Stephen Covey said in the clip, we just heard about the inner circle. It will grow. It will grow. If you take the time to reflect, to think about those things that are inside your circle of influence, when you reflect on it, when you know what you can do and what you can't do.
That circle of influence will grow because it's unavoidable because then you understand the benefits, you understand the differences. And I think that's a really key lesson that I think we can take away [00:45:00] from just that first clip of the inner circle. Yeah. You mentioned it. Yeah. This is a really good point, mark.
That actually, if you practice a focus on the things that you do actually control and influence, and you get super focused on that and positive towards that, you actually grow it so more and more things in your life feel good, more and more things are working out and there's some momentum and there's a buzz, there's a skip and a hop in your step and you're not walking around.
Like a total grump, because the reality is like you think about it. If you are spending way too much time being a victim and blaming everybody else in the world, except yourself, the reality is most people that do that. They're not like that much fun to hang out with all that. They're not much fun to hang out with.
Not only is it a bit of a drag for you as an [00:46:00] individual if you're feeling down in the dumps, it's not much fun, but yeah the truth is you end up living that on the outside. So if you feel, if you're in a circle is very small and we're here about the outer circle in a second, if it's very small and therefore you're breeding a lot of kind of displeasure anxiety, it ends up negatively impacting those around you as well.
Doesn't it? Let me ask this. If mark, if I were sitting in the office being. Frustrated angry and blaming anybody else. And you knew that I was like, reeking of all of this. Would you want to even come up to me and say, Hey, want to grab a coffee together? You'd probably be like I'm going to leave him alone.
Yeah. Give him some space. I don't want to, I don't want to be a victim of whatever's going on in his mind because will invariably happen? Is one might be tempted to take it out on the other person, even though they've got nothing to do [00:47:00] easiest situation. Exactly. And how many times do people pick up on bad vibes and think, oh, what did I do wrong?
And they find out afterwards they had done nothing wrong. It's just the person that was having a bad day. But that's how dangerous this victimization thinking is blaming others for your situation, reacting in a negative way. So this is the perfect setup. So we've discussed that in the end, you have fundamental control of your thoughts, your words, your actions, your behaviors, and your feelings.
Now we're going to cross the Rubicon. Mark, where are you going to go and listen to Stephen Covey talking about the other side of this deal. So we've just done inner circle. Let's now listen to Steve. Stephen Covey talking about an outer circle. I focused on the outer circle. You're taking withdrawals.
You're judging. You're criticizing. You. Don't seek to understand. You're not consistent all in the name of their inconsistency. You overreact in the name of their [00:48:00] overreaction. You bad mouth them behind their back, unaware that the people you're talking to as you do the bad mouthy, no, you're going to do the same thing about them.
When there's a strain on that relationship. If you want to retain those who are present, my friends always be loyal to those who are absent. They know you're centered. They know you're in this not sucking up to the social value system that you're a person of integrity have standards. You will not participate in the negative energy exchanges or do anything that in any way would create a feeling of disrespect toward another person because they know that would attach to them.
And sometime under another situation, that's why you would never confide with one child about another or make comparisons or. Quips and judgments and labels because you create a culture, but they know you're doing the same thing about them. When the situation changes. [00:49:00] Now, there's a steadiness about ya.
That is based on principles that never change, not based upon moods that are volatile and material that are always going up and down. So by working on the inner circle, it gets larger and larger. And eventually you begin to do with some of those concerns that you have that today you couldn't even begin to touch.
The inconsistency with overreacting breeding, more overreaction, I think is a really key moment there isn't it's like a virus, isn't it? It's yeah, that's actually a great way of thinking about it. Isn't it? Negativity breeds negativity. And if you create a culture of volatile moods and reactions to things that are outside of your control, or you're creating is more reactions, more negative impressions and emphasis.
And if you emphasize too much on [00:50:00] that outer circle, so those things that reactive people will gravitate towards a negativity will throw out. Again, there's things that are completely out of your control. You reduce that inner circle and you reduce your ability to really be positive and productive and efficient.
And instead you fall into that trap. And I think it is a trap, actually, a trap of being in that outer circle. Then you get spun out as they say, and you're stuck. So let's name the enemy. Let's name it to team it. Let's talk about things that we totally don't control that are out of our circle of influence that we shouldn't worry about now, the weather sometimes that can like affect us.
I'll tell you one thing that I think affects a lot of people that they have no control over. How many times have you been infuriated by traffic and you have no control over it. Yeah. [00:51:00] And when you see this sort of, really aggressive kind of road rage, now I understand that's perhaps like they got other stuff going on, but the allow I almost think about it allowing the traffic to get to you.
It's like a test, like I've tried to use this model and one of the things that I've done. When I first started driving is I'd never leave enough time. And so the traffic would always be an issue. So now I I don't drive so much, but when I do drive, I always like heaps time. And another thing being old and definitely with my fair share of gray hair these days, I've seen good times and bad times in the economy.
Okay. Here comes like a recession or he comes uncertainty. I have this vivid memory of when I was working in London we had a really [00:52:00] large team. It was like about 125 people and I had to stand in front of everyone and go, okay, Hey Lehman brothers just crashed. And all the clients calling to either pause or cancel or reduce their budgets with us.
And everyone was just freaking out. And then I saw 18, 24 months later, we were pumping and on fire again. And so you see things come and go. So learning not to freak out and remind ourselves like with COVID, there was the Spanish flu and as bad as COVID has been the Spanish flu, if I get my math, I think a third of the world's population died from Spanish flu. So we're not quite there with COVID. So there's a chance for you to put things in a different light and not overreact, not to allow these things to, to get to you. This is just the start of the list is. Yeah, that's right. Another one similar to [00:53:00] traffic and the economy is news.
It's the news that we can read about every morning or any part of our day, 24 7. You turn on TV when you load up your smartphone or your laptop. And again, my that's such an easy way of impacting our mood. Isn't it? When you're reading about these tragedies or the stresses of the world, so to speak, it's very easy for that to then impact your own positivity out things.
And again, you can't control it. No. That's the crazy thing. If I get out the homepage of CNN right now what's crazy about it is it's information, but what we have to remember is bad news sells, right? If it bleeds, it leads, right? So let me look here on CNN. I see things about.
The climate summit. Okay. Totally out of my control. I see things that there's a [00:54:00] crisis in Poland and Belarus, and this sounds really bad, but the reality is I'm over 15,000 kilometers away from Poland. So I can be compassionate and empathetic, but I can't control this adult. It is very far is so far out of my circle of control.
What I can do is use things like that to maybe reevaluate and make sure that I'm doing things that I feel are good that give back to the people around me. That's certainly some way I can use it, but I think that these things create a lot of noise. The, our access to this information and this constant notification of things that happen in the world, which has tends to be dramatic.
It tends to be things that are scandalous or negative. So we have to realize that we get exposed to these things. And one thing that I do mark, is I never watch broadcast news. [00:55:00] Like I would have if you go back pre-internet again, I'm showing my age here is I remember watching the six o'clock news was a big deal.
That was like your 30 minutes of what we get on the internet, 24 7, you would watch the news to find out what's happening in sport politics and the local local area. And I just don't watch broadcast news because it is so negative. I just don't want to in my life, I can't remember the last time I watched a full 30 minute news broadcast from a major broadcaster.
I think it may have been more than two years ago. Particularly during COVID I just turned it off. I just did not want to hear it. That's a way we can take things into our control. There might be negative things happening in the world. You can acknowledge that they're there, but you can also reduce your exposure to them and focus on doing good things in your world.
What do you think Margaret, when we [00:56:00] talk about this sort of oversupply of information, that's stealing our attention often with salacious headlines, what do you think is a good way to deal with these things that you can't control? This sort of exposure to bad news around. I think it's controlling how regularly you are reading or consuming that information.
So choosing how often you're checking maybe it's social media, maybe it's Twitter, maybe it's news websites, as well as how far down that rabbit hole you tend to go and where that rabbit hole is. What are the news sites? What are the platforms that you're consuming from? I think those all have an impact on how to control the external let's call them global situations that are frankly, out of the majority, the vast majority of all of our hands, what I would say as well, Mike though, is we can't forget some of the other, let's say closer to home [00:57:00] elements that are within that circle of concern, that again are outside of our control.
And some of those things that aren't necessarily coming from news sites or Twitter and so on. It's what other people think. It's what other people are saying and how you are interpreting it. So it was very how many times in your career, maybe in fact, in the situation that you just described with the Goldman Sachs Lehman brothers crash and reacting, and having to tell the team, were there moments when you were giving that talk that perhaps you were worried about what those individuals in the crowd were thinking about you as the leader?
Is he managing this correctly? Is he telling us the truth? Where those concerns in your mind when you were doing it? Yeah. And the drum or of this situation was such in 2008. The only thing I could do is say, Hey, I don't have all the [00:58:00] answers because I hadn't seen anything like this before.
And I remember speaking to Volkswagen UK, and they said to us for one of our particular models, we only sold one model, one unit, one car in their range. It was the Tiguan. They sold one Tiguan for the entire month, across a population of 60 million people. They started one unit of the Tiguan and I was like, Oh, this thing, not particularly good situation.
So all I could do is say, Hey crazy. Stuff's happening. Don't have all the answers. We're going to talk like this every single day. And we did that for a couple of weeks before we where things come down a bit [00:59:00] and just gradually filled in the blanks and just said, Hey, we're just working through it, just like you.
But the the important thing that I do when I think about. Trying to put the things I don't control, particularly in the social context. I think there's, I think it's fair to say mark, that the news stuff, that's a big deal and exposure to a lot of things, macroeconomic, big things that you don't control that.
So that's one thing I think the other thing is a bit closer to home. As you said, the people around you, what they think, what they feel about you, their attitudes towards you, but then there's also just their general actions and behaviors. I think this is perhaps. Even a bigger issue on average. I think this is the, one of the hardest, this is the fine line between yourself and the things that you control and things that you don't when you say this one's the trickiest.
Would that be? I personally believe it is. Yeah. I think there were [01:00:00] times over the last couple of years when I had friends who were really spending too much time online with new sites and COVID statistics and so on. And that was a big stress, but I think what's more common as we come out of the back of that.
And we returned to whether it's remote working or in the office when you're interacting with people more regularly, I think this is much more of a common challenge for people. How do they not, how do we not react unnecessarily to those other individuals and what they might be thinking? The key word there is.
What might that person be thinking of me? I can't control that. What are they saying behind my back? I can't control that. How are they feeling? I can't control that. So it's a real challenge. And I've certainly fallen into this trap of obsessing over what another individual is thinking. And the truth is [01:01:00] I could have a piece that by taking ownership of my influence and maybe picking up the.
I can pick up the phone and say, Hey, how are you? How are you feeling? Or I can choose, Hey, I'm not going to worry. I'm going to do the best work that I can. And I won't let it distract me that person's obviously got some stresses on their plate as well. That's okay. We all have lots of stuff going on. I choose to instead focus on the things that I am doing.
And I think this is a really big challenge, actually, that bridges all the way from Einstein all the way through to modern times. Isn't it worrying about what those things are that you cannot control really does have a negative impact on how you are looking out a life and being that best version of yourself.
Yeah it's big. Isn't it? And The best approach that I have found is to continuously challenge yourself, [01:02:00] to do the right thing by others, to support others, to help others. Sometimes you need to communicate what you're doing is to help them. But at a certain point, if you can say, I really did my best to help them and support them or to do something for them.
And they were unable to appreciate that. Then you just have to accept that you did your best. You tried to do the right thing. They might, you might feel like you really did the right thing. And then you could just accept that they did not perceive that. And then you have to find the capability to truly accept that you did your best.
And I think in. That makes it easier to say so therefore I'm not going to worry or stress about how they think or feel towards me because I've done everything I [01:03:00] can. So there's no more energy that's gonna help this situation. In fact, it's just going to make it harder upon me. So I think that's the key thing is challenging making yourself accountable okay, have I actually done the right thing by them?
So sharing the situation with someone else for counsel and advice is very good there. Sometimes I get, Hey, you could have done that. And you're like, good idea, but then let's assume you've got to a point where you've done your best effort. Then you just need to let it go. And I think this is big because I think a lot of people worry about what other people think about them because they didn't make their best effort.
And that's something that you control that's in your inner circle, right? Yeah. I think it's really reinforcing what Covey was telling us in those two clips. If you can work on the things you can control. So in that instance, as you were just breaking down, I'm going to help that individual. I'm going to give them [01:04:00] my attention.
I'm going to do my best to help them in that situation, your circle of influence and what you can control increases, which then allows the circle of concern on the outer circle to decrease. So actually what ends up happening? You have that confidence, you have that positivity in your own mindset that you've done everything.
Okay. It's now up to them to maybe give me feedback or maybe change their attitude. I've done everything I can. So my circle of influence is now larger in my mind, and therefore I'm feeling more comfortable and I'm feeling. Positive about how I've handled this situation. And I think that's something that, again, a lot of us don't put enough time into and we'll focus too much on I tried, but it didn't work.
Oh my goodness, whoa. This is a disaster. And suddenly you're focusing again too much on that outer circle and it's far too tempting. Isn't a to fall into that outer ring. Yeah. So I think here, like in, in short to [01:05:00] summarize the atta circle really limit and filter and manage your attention towards news and negative news and information that distracts you.
And secondly, mark, I think the summary of the things a bit closer to home, those sort of social interpersonal moments go out of your way to be humble and to serve others, do your best. And then as they say, in the Sopranos or in the godfather, fuck out about it, do your best. Make your intention as clear as you can Hey, I'm trying to help.
I am trying to do the right thing and then let it go. Because if you spin around in in the wiring of what others are thinking about you, that drags you out of things, you have no control. Like I've had situations in work where I've gone out of my way, but others could not see that. And it can cost you a lot.
If you worry about that too much, [01:06:00] it's not easy. I'm not saying it's easy at all, but I'm just saying as a reflection, nothing good. Came of worrying about what others think about you. If you've done your best, then that's all you can give. And frankly, if I have been a little concerned with the opinions of others embarrassed or whatever, it's invariably, because I didn't put in enough effort, right?
That's the real truth. And that gets me back into my inner circle. I can focus on my attitude, my hard work. That's what I can. That's it, you can focus on the things that you can control as well as the understanding of that inner circle. Mike as a reminder, we're in part two of the show about understanding the circle of influence, and I want to call out some additional books that we've been delving into as we prepared today's show on the circle of influence, as well as reflecting on some of the individuals we've covered on the moonshot show as well.
Again, I want to call out Adam Grant in his book. Think again, the latest in his [01:07:00] library of books that he's putting out. I want to call it out James Claire's atomic habits. We're going to get into some tips and tricks on how to cultivate. Proving and increasing our circle of influence later in the show and our next part, but habit formation getting 1% better every day is a huge one, as well.
As we heard in that first part of the show in our inspiration piece, we make sure much Ravens make your bed. There's small things really do have that big impact in your life. And as we've learned in this part of the show, if we can cultivate a pattern of reflection, a pattern of positivity, a pattern of trying our best to work on ourselves and help others, I think we can all get better every single day and therefore increase that inner circle and our circle of influence.
I would agree, and I think this creates a nice moment for us to bring home this world of circle of influence. And it would be just [01:08:00] totally moonshots for our our, to ask ourselves, how do we make this a daily thing? And a practice. And I think there's a couple of themes here. It's it seems to me mark, like you've got things like focus, positivity.
It seems like this sort of always look on the bright side moment. How do we bring this into our day, mark, where do we start? As we've now really broken down the circles. We it's really time to fit this into our practice. So where do we start? I'm suitably inspired and I really grasp and understand how I can cultivate a better circle of influence and therefore improve the way that I conduct myself around others, as well as create a positive mindset.
So let's now hear from some individuals on some real tips that you and I and our members can learn from today. Mike, as you say, so this first place that we're going to kick off. Part three of the show is from Janice. From the time management and productivity [01:09:00] channel on YouTube who breaks down some really fundamental, important and essential tips on how you and I and our members can stay focused.
Your circle of influence means doing things you can do and not complaining or. About things you can't influence understanding this baseline concept is fundamentally important. I will try to give you some tips that has helped me along the way to stay focused on myself. And that eventually helped me to stay in my circle of influence.
Number one, stop worrying about other people. I know I mentioned this in my video earlier, but this is the most important thing that has helped me to stay in my circle of influence. I just accept other people and their actions as they are. Same as you have your circle of influence. Other people have their own.
And that's the reason why they did something. Didn't do something or said something. [01:10:00] Number two, stop worrying about something that has happened or will happen. And can't be changed. For example, you're responsible about product sales in Europe's market. And in the first month of product launch, you had to sell 100,000 units, but you didn't achieve the plan product sales performance, and you only sold 40,000 units, which is 40% of the plan perform.
The actual figures and others might have a rough idea about your performance. And you have to participate in a monthly meeting at two o'clock to report the data. The fact is that your performance is very poor and it isn't going to go smoothly and there's not much you can do about it during the day.
You will report the data from last month. It is correct to expect that in the meeting, you'll be asked why it happened. And probably you will be told off as well. If you don't know why, but worrying about it, doesn't help you at all. Most of the people get [01:11:00] paralyzed in, probably would spend this particular day in their circle of concern.
You have to take it in accepted as fact and concentrate on doing other things like analyzing data to understand what went wrong in Europe, smarter. It is not easy because you know what will be happening or what happened last month during a similar situation, but more you practice it the better you will get it, absorbing these feelings and staying focused on some productive stuff within your circle of influence.
Number three, plan your things. As we discussed in an earlier video, it is important to be organized and do a bit of the planning. This will help you to avoid situations where you could end up in a circle of concern. The real power of circle of influence is when you decide to act in your circle of influence and things work out for you.
And I have to say in most of the cases, it will work out because you're working in your [01:12:00] circle of influence. You will also slowly realize that the more you rely on yourself, the more you will get done, you'll change from the person who used to say, I didn't prepare my report because Bob didn't send me the data to the person who encourages everyone to get things done.
And this will create momentum, the feeling of inner power and sense of progress. Mark. There is so much in this clip. Oh my gosh. This was like a great articulation of how to bring this into your daily practice. Where do you want to start in breaking this one? As an extension of what we were uncovering at the backend of the last part of the show, where we were touching upon social triggers and the impact of others, what we're hearing from that particular clip, then it was opening up and reminding us to stop worrying about other people and instead, and it was a great word that I want to [01:13:00] reiterate that accept others and their reactions, because once you understand your own circle of influence, so one of the things that I can control it's my reactions, my thoughts, my behaviors, what are the things I can't control?
It's the economy, it's the traffic. Maybe it's something in another person's life. Then you're able to empathize with another industry. So rather than pointing the finger and say, oh, this guy, this person hasn't done their job and it's all their fault because they weren't paying attention. They might be distracted by their own circle of concern.
They might not have as much ownership over their circle of influence. And therefore that might be negatively impacting a certain situation. So rather than blaming that other person really stopping and thinking, okay that's okay. They've got their own stuff to deal with. I can control how I'm going to react to the situation.
Maybe I just need to work a little bit harder or maybe I need to pick up some of the slack and help them that I think [01:14:00] is a really key tip and recommendation that we're finding from that clip, which is just accept those around. And their situation because that might be impacting negatively on how they're reacting to things that they're experiencing.
It's really interesting, isn't it? It's it's really about bringing yourself very much into a Headspace of focus on what you control and take responsibility for how you think, how you feel it is essential to do this. And what's really good about this next clip. Is it really sets up the idea of.
The mindset in order to do this is the mindset to really focus on your circle of influence to take that ownership. So let's have a listen to a new content provided to the show. Feel a soul from YouTube. Let's have a listen now to their thoughts on how might. Really matters. How you see the world is how you live in the [01:15:00] world.
If you believe people are mostly good, you will see mostly good people. If you think about all the negative things around and the bad people in the world, that is what you will attract. The meaning you give to everything in your life becomes your life. If you believe in miracles, you might attract one. If you don't, you have no hope.
If you believe your best is yet to come, your best is on its way. It does not take a lot of common sense to understand that positive people live better and happier lives than negative people. People who believe in a funded said, expect the abundance, enjoy more of it than those who speak of lack. So sharpen your mind, practice positive affirmations, work on yourself every day.
You are in control of your mind and beliefs and shifts. This can change everything. Choose to see the [01:16:00] magic in the mess. Choose to see the power you developed from your pain. Choose to see the strength you gain from your struggles. They did make you stronger. Choose. This is one of the fundamentals, Mike, isn't it.
Around this inner circle, you can choose how you see things, choose how you react to things. And again, it's reinforcing that idea of positivity, breeds, positivity, negativity, breeds, negativity. One connection I'd quite like to make is to the second clip we heard in the the tips to say focus just now I put the first clip of this part was when you stop worrying about the past and therefore you are not too caught up in how.
Constantly referring back to negative moments, perhaps challenges. And instead, as we're hearing in that clip, we're looking at things positively. We're [01:17:00] seeing struggles and challenges as opportunities for growth, for improvement. You can see how different that mindset shift is. Can't you, if you look at something that perhaps was negative and you see it as an opportunity, suddenly it's far more positive and you understand, and therefore embrace the struggle and it becomes something that you maybe you don't enjoy necessarily, but at least you can look back at with some gratitude because you didn't realize that did help me along the journey.
Yeah. And I think it's about identifying things that worry you. So if I think about a practice to do, to deliver on this if things are concerning and worrying you, I think write them out, but then too, then. The second step is to shift your focus towards what you control. And then when you look at those things, say to yourself, okay what, which of those matter the most to me?
And then what action can I take now? Because you might [01:18:00] not solve everything today, but knowing that you made some progress towards your goals, to things that matter to things that are within your control, these are the steps to take. So I think it's really important to have that intention, to have the list of things that matter to you.
For example, a good night's sleep matters to me, eating well and healthy, mostly vegetables, mostly raw foods. For me, it's all about cutting out salt, sugar, and refined foods. For me, it's about journaling in the morning, exercising in the morning. These are all within my control and they already set me up for a great day and really managing my time and by priorities, clearly, these really matter to me.
These are things that I can do for myself. This is how I process it. How do you process this mark in order to focus on your [01:19:00] circle of influence? Recently, as Micah had a little bit of a spill while I was riding my road bike and I'm sitting here in the in the home studio with an arm in a sling and that could've completely influenced.
How I was going to react and conduct myself in my moments of recovery. So something happened, it was out of my control. I could have been very frustrated, maybe even very angry, but I've intentionally chosen to not allow the situation to negatively impact me. And what I've actually found is through.
Noticing the gratitude that I have that maybe the things it, wasn't worse than it could have been noticing the support that I've received from colleagues from family, from friends, from my wife and it's helped me maintain a bit of a positive attitude through this slight recovery and from a practice perspective.
Yeah. [01:20:00] Again, it's really helped with noting down particular mantras thinking about things from a realistic perspective, rather than allowing my mind to wander off and exacerbate and balloon into something that I can control. It's really just been around staying grounded. Through the use of writing down mantras into my to-do list from journaling, admittedly, one handed.
So it's a little bit scrappier than it ever was, but just maintaining that positive outlook and also embracing the ability of being able to pick up the phone rather than having to rely on emails. All of these little things that I've started doing because of the situation have actually had a really positive impact in the end, because it's allowed me to perhaps get closer to those individuals around me who took time to, to try and help.
Yeah. That's really good way to do it. So I think it's daily. It's about setting intentions. [01:21:00] It's about always going to some of those models. So go over to dementia.io and look at those frameworks where they have the lists, things that you control, things that you don't control, stay focused on your thoughts, your feeling, your actions.
These are things you have total control over. This sounds to me like this is the real start of a daily practice. And I think it would only be fitting mark. If we wrapped up from them, the author himself, the man himself, Stephen Covey. And he's going to really bring this home. He's really going to set us up to understand we've got our circle of influence our circle of control, but let's hear from him on how we should think, how we should feel and how we can get the most out of his idea, the circle of influence.
Monday morning, and it's raining a gray melancholy day on a day like this. Maybe we can be excused for feeling gray and melancholy [01:22:00] ourselves. We get into a mode and the whole day seems to go badly. Don't you feel better when the weather outside is great, but what if you could carry your own weather within you?
When you carry your weather with you, you can choose to be consistent regardless of how people treat you. That's what it means to be proactive. Being reactive is the opposite of being proactive, not taking responsibility for our own life. You always see yourself as a victim of the weather of your mood.
Of someone who has it in for you. We have the power and the freedom to choose, to create our own weather each day.
Stephen Covey bringing us home, might the man who popularized and really pointed [01:23:00] out the circle of influence again, a wonderful visualization that I think we've all probably experienced, whether it's a Monday or otherwise allowing. In that case or the weather, something completely out of your control to influence your mood.
I've certainly been victim of that. Mike having lived in the UK for 30 plus years. What I really am taking from that clip though is again, the reiteration of choice. And what I loved from Stephen Covey, there was a particular quote he said, choose to be consistent. Consistent being the best version of yourself.
It doesn't necessarily need to be a happy jumping off the walls and laughing all the time, but consistent in the sense that you aren't influenced randomly by something that is completely out of your control. Like we heard the news, the track, others, what other people are thinking that for me is a really big tip that I can take away from today's show choose.
It's [01:24:00] a choice system. It's a choice, right? Like he's just saying in the end, it is the hardest thing to hear is like your state of mind is your choice totally up to me to influence. And yeah, like we learned in today's show. Yeah. That can be a bit challenging. But with these tips, with these ways of breaking it down and as well as just understanding the situation, it's going to be a holiday.
Totally or Mac. I'm glad. The choice thing really stood out for you because this mindset of choose to focus on your circle of influence, choose to be positive. Choose to be proactive is a great way of summing up the work of not only Stephen Covey in this idea of circle of influence, but more importantly larger still it's the idea of focusing on things that you control that are within your direct means and spend a whole lot of time, a lot of less time worrying about things that you don't have control over, be it the world news or what other people think of you [01:25:00] coming, get the job done, be the best version of yourself.
So there you have it, mark. It has been so good for us to dive for 90 minutes. Into the world of circle of influence. Is this something that's going to come back day after day for you, but do you think, yeah, 100% actually it really is the combination of having delved so much into all of our shows on the member series, as well as the master series, as well as our weekly shows.
It's really something that we can all have impact over. Isn't it. And it's something for me that I'm going to challenge myself. I'm going to reflect on whatever happens and ask myself the question. Is this something that I can control? And. Why is it worrying me so much, exactly.
Exactly. Mark, thank you to you and thank you to you. Our listeners, our members, in this case, we really enjoy learning out loud together. We love [01:26:00] going on this journey to make ourselves just 1% better every day. And today we did that with episode five of the master series, and it was all about the circle of influence.
And when the circle of influence, it started about getting out the bad things in your life, get the loses out of your life. And to know that when the tough moments come, you should be singing when you're up to your neck in mud, and you have the choice as Robin Sharma put it, you can embrace confidence.
And then we went deep into the science of the circle of influence. Stephen Covey showed us the way with both the inner and the outer side. You control your inner circle, your thoughts and your feelings, what you don't control is what other people think of you, the weather, the traffic. So how do you enjoy the benefits of feeling better by focusing on the circle of influence?
You stay focused. You remind yourself that mindset matters, and most importantly, you carry your weather with you. So bring that positivity and [01:27:00] proactivity, it's all a choice. It's a choice to focus on your circle of influence. Okay. That's it for the moonshots podcast. That's a wrap.