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Peter Sorgenfrei uses Epictetus to advise a founder: focus on what you control—your actions and how you relate to your thoughts. Accept what you can't control, like investor decisions, to actually move your business forward.
Peter Sorgenfrei uses Epictetus to advise a founder: focus on what you control—your actions and how you relate to your thoughts. Accept what you can't control, like investor decisions, to actually move your business forward.
Earlier today I was speaking with a founder about the things that we can affect and the things we cannot affect. And as those of you who have been following me for a while know, I'm a big fan of Epictetus the Stoic, who said there are basically 2 things we can affect: our actions and how we relate to our thoughts. Not our actual thoughts, they just come and go, but how we relate to them are the only 2 things we can affect. So he was feeling stressed out. There was a lot of uncertainty in his business, a lot of things that he felt he'd given up control on. And I said to him, well, you have. You've signed over control of your company to your investors. You now have majority shareholders, share owners. Come to terms with that and then start focusing on the things that you can actually affect to make the outcome that you want in your business.
