Cynthia FortlageCEO, The FORTLAGE Collective · I help senior leadership teams turn difference, disagreement and complexity into stronger leadership & measurable business performance | Founder, 4P Leadership Accelerator | Author & Board Advisor

90% of things you can't control #substack #shorts

12 Nov 2025 · 2 min

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This content was created by Cynthia Fortlage. This content was uploaded by Cynthia Fortlage. This is a YouTube short titled "90% of things you can't control #substack #shorts" (uploaded 2025-11-12). The excerpt is a spoken monologue by a single speaker (SPEAKER A) recounting a conversation with "John" about control and responsibility, and describing a leadership decision in a tech context—re-engineering a $3M acquisition budget to move purchasing authority closer to the person impacted (the help desk lead). The content focuses on delegation, decision-making, and perceptions of responsibility.

Chapters

I went to visit him and I said, you know, John, this is, you know, like, what have you learned from this experience? Like, you're going to have to take it easy. He goes, well, what I've learned is 90% of things I can't control anyway. And I go, good, good. And I go, what about the other 10%? Goes, doesn't matter. And that whole idea was like, yeah, like We have this perception that comes with a title that all of a sudden has responsibility. But one of the things that I know that I did that I believe kind of speaks to what you're doing is I re-engineered a $3 million acquisition budget and I moved the point of decision closer to the person that was actually impacted. So, I mean, it was in tech. So for instance, the person who most was impacted by having to buy PCs and replace desktop equipment was the help desk lead. So, we gave them that authority.