Most of us spend the better part of our week fighting battles that don’t actually exist anywhere except in our own heads.
We play back conversations from three hours ago, trying to figure out why a colleague sounded dismissive. We lose sleep over a client’s bad mood. We exhaust ourselves trying to “fix” the way other people perceive us. It’s a massive leak of mental energy, and it’s the fastest way to hit a wall of total burnout.
The reality is actually quite simple: Control is a finite resource. Clarity, on the other hand, is not. Once you stop trying to manage the wind, you can actually start steering the boat.
The Control Trap We’ve been conditioned to believe that if we just find the right words, work an extra hour, or provide one more explanation, we can somehow “hack” the way other people think or behave.
It’s an illusion. You can’t.
You don’t own how someone interprets your email. You don’t own their emotional baggage, their morning mood, or their decision-making process. Pushing harder against these things doesn’t get you results, it just creates friction. This is where leaders lose their edge and where talented people start to feel stuck. You’re trying to manage variables that aren’t yours to touch.
Defining Your Real “Jurisdiction” Real power, the kind that actually moves the needle, comes from a brutal audit of where your influence actually begins and ends.
In any given situation, your jurisdiction is limited to four things:
- Your words.
- Your perspective.
- Your behavior.
- Your reactions.
That’s it. It sounds simple, almost too simple, but look at the impact: Your words determine clarity. Your perspective dictates your resilience. Your behavior sets the standard for everyone else in the room. And your reactions? They determine whether a crisis escalates into a disaster or dissolves into a solution.
This isn’t about being passive or “checked out.” It’s about being incredibly deliberate with the only tools you actually have.
Leadership is Emotional Management (Your Own) If you’re a leader, here’s a reality check: Your team isn’t actually listening to what you say as much as they are watching how you respond when things go sideways.
When a leader is constantly chasing validation or trying to force agreement, they become reactive. They’re like a weather vane, spinning with every shift in the office atmosphere. But when a leader anchors themselves solely in what they control, they become the anchor for the whole team. Reactive leaders create noise; steady leaders build trust.
The Shift to Personal Authority The moment you stop asking, “Why are they acting like this?” and start asking, “How am I choosing to show up right now?” everything changes.
You move from a place of frustration to a place of authority. Not the kind of authority that comes from a title on a door, but personal authority. This is where confidence stops being loud and starts being quiet. This is where boundaries get clear because you aren’t waiting for someone else to respect them, you’re enforcing them through your own actions.
A Personal Realization Looking back, every “plateau” in my own career was caused by the same weight: I was carrying things that weren’t mine to carry. I was trying to manage the emotions of my bosses, the opinions of my peers, and the outcomes of things outside my reach.
The second I dropped that weight, my focus sharpened. Decisions got easier. Conversations became cleaner. The “energy leak” stopped. The people around me didn’t necessarily change, but because I shifted my focus to my own “four things,” the environment changed anyway.
The Bottom Line Control isn’t about force; it’s about the discipline to stay in your lane.
It takes discipline to pause before you snap back at a frustrating comment. It takes discipline to choose a productive perspective when you’d rather just complain. This isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s the ultimate sign of leadership maturity.
You don’t need to control the world to move forward. You just need to master the space you’re standing in.