Principle — Focus on what you can change

Stephen R. Covey , in his great book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People introduces a very good metaphor, using the concepts of “Circle of Concern” vs “Circle of Influence”.

Another excellent way to become more self-aware regarding our own degree of proactivity is to look at where we focus our time and energy. We each have a wide range of concerns–our health, our children, problems at work, the national debt, nuclear war. We could separate those from things in which we have no particular mental or emotional involvement by creating a “Circle of Concern”.

As we look at those things within our Circle of Concern, it becomes apparent that there are some things over which we have no real control and others that we can do something about. We could identify those concerns in the latter group by circumscribing them within a smaller “Circle of Influence”.

By determining which of these two circles is the focus of most of our time and energy, we can discover much about the degree of our proactivity.

Seth Godin advices the publishing industry not to fight the internet and the changing market.

Smart businesspeople focus on the things they have the power to change, not whining about the things they don’t.

Existing publishers have the power to change the form of what they do, increase the value, increase the speed, segment the audience, create communities, lead tribes, generate breakthroughs that make us gasp. They don’t have the power to demand that we pay more for the same stuff that others will sell for much less.