Stoicism 101: Learning to Differentiate Between Things You Can Control and Things Can't

Hi everyone, am Utkarish, the CEO of Network Capital, here to talk to you about the first and principle element of Stoic philosophy. So yesterday on Network Capital, we hosted a clubhouse discussion on what Stoicism meant for our community members who were doing whatever it takes to fight the pandemic for themselves, their community members and people at large. And the elemental Reasoning of Stoicism 101 comes down to learning to differentiate between things we can control and things we can't. Most things we realize are things that are not really in our control. For example, how the weather will turn out to be. If you live in a cold country, what will you know? A macro policy decision that has already been taken. How will it influence your life? You can do some things to change that, but developing this understanding of what you can change can control by individual or collective action and things that are beyond your reach is, I think, the essential component of how we should look at Stoic philosophy and make it work for ourselves. If we. If we are to consider a wide range of possibilities for ourselves, we have to come down to developing a framework where we look at a wide array of activities that we do at work while we're engaging with friends. When we are planning something long term, we have to allow for the possibility that things may not go exactly as we planned, but there will still be a few things that we have direct ownership over. When I was writing my book the Seductive Illusion of Hard Work, I did not know or expect that it would become an Amazon number one bestseller. When I started writing, I did not know that one day I'll get published by Harvard Business Review, World Economic Forum, or Mint or what have you. I simply started writing was in my control. How my writing is going to be received and what I would do or with it long term is not something that I had any ownership over. So by simply focusing on the craft of writing, the art and the science of writing, well, I was able to direct my energy, my enthusiasm, my time into something focused without getting worried about how the reception is going to be like, what will be the number of copies sold, the number of likes and clicks and tweets that I get about it. These are not factors that we can influence too much, at least when we start. However, when it comes to, say, things like marketing the book or doing an outreach for an article that I wrote, sure there are certain things that can be done to augment it, but still, how it's going to turn out, how it's going to be received, these are fairly debilitating thoughts, even if you look at some of the Indian philosophical elements that are definite parallels between what you call stoicism and what we consider in India as, you know, focusing on the input a lot more than output, focusing on, you know, nishkam karma, right, which is essentially the focus of many Indian philosophies. And if there's one thing that I have seen successful in all walks of life do, well is that they're able to keep a tight tab on the way they expend their energy and enthusiasm and time. And the ones that are particularly successful often are people who focus on what's in their locus of control, what is something that they can influence or change, either by individual action or by collective action or community action, and they then channel all their resources and might into making that particular goal possible. In writing the book or in writing and building network capital, I have focused on understanding what drives the internal energy and enthusiasm for people. And it struck me quite clearly that the difference between successful people and unsuccessful people is, of course, that they know what's the difference between urgent and important. But at an even more fundamental level, they know the difference between where to channel their energy. And especially successful ones, the ones that get disproportionate success are the ones who focus a lot more on things they can influence without getting worried about how the outcome is going to turn out to be. So I hope that the essential Stoic philosophy of demarcating what's within and outside your control is useful to you in this pandemic. And outside. I would be very interested in learning about your adventures with the philosophy. And I love to state that these are not things that you should accept without questioning. The essential element of philosophy is that we should question, contextualize, and see if it works for us. So see how you feel, give it a shot. And once you give it a shot, make sure that you're collecting enough data points and not giving up too soon or too late, as that would be an incomplete experiment. And when you conduct an experiment, there isn't anything called failure. You just learn more about yourself, what drives you, and what helps you focus on your locus of control. Once you make yourself antifragile, once you make yourself somebody with a strong understanding of philosophical elements like stoicism, you can help your friends, your community members, your teammates partake of such things. I hope this was useful to you. Studying philosophy, learning more about it, and applying it to my life has been transformational at a personal level and also at a professional level. Take great care and hope to see you soon and discuss more about work and life and everything in between on NetworkCapital TV. Quick reminder, we have a summer school starting for Kids on June 1, and we have the side Hustle Fellowship, which starts on June 5th. I do feel that many of you will benefit from a subscription to NetworkCapital TV, so feel free to check it out and we'll connect shortly. Take care.