Focus on what is yours. Let go of what isn’t.
Read on kevferrell.com
Welcome to REWIRE | REBOOT, a weekly newsletter where I share reflections from my ongoing personal growth journey and provide tested ideas, frameworks, tools and practices to help you create the life you want.
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In this issue:
- Rewire - Focus on What You Can Control
- Reboot - Control the Movement
- One Action - Let Go, Then Act
- Recommended - Meditations by Marcus Aurelius’
Rewire - Idea I'm Exploring
Focus on What You Can Control
This week, I asked my son, Tyler what I should write about.
I wanted to see if there was anything I have said to him over the years that has really stuck. Some thought, idea, or piece of advice that he had found practical enough to remember.
His answer was quick:
Focus on what’s in your control.
What a great answer.
And honestly, what a life-changing concept.
It is one of those ideas you can apply almost anywhere. A hard conversation, a stressful deadline, an injury, a business problem, a relationship issue.
Any result you care about, but cannot fully control.
It’s one of the most impactful lessons I have learned from studying Stoic philosophy.
Epictetus opens The Enchiridion with a simple distinction:
“Some things are in our control while others are not.”
What is in our control is our judgment, our choices, our actions, our desires, and our response.
What is not in our control is much of the external world: other people, reputation, outcomes, timing, and circumstances.
The distinction sounds simple, but it’s not always easy to make.
When you can slow yourself down long enough to ask, “What part of this is actually mine to control?” the situation starts to change.
You stop trying to solve everything at once. You stop carrying the past, which cannot be changed. You stop living in the future, which has not happened yet.
You come back to the only place where action is possible.
Right now.
What can I do now?
What is the next right step?
Then you let go of the rest.
For the things outside our control, we still have control over:
- What we think about them or what our opinion is of them. We don't have to have an opinion about everything.
- How we let them affect us. We can choose how we respond.
Going through this mental exercise removes a heavy weight.
It narrows the options.
Reduces the overwhelm.
It gives you a place to put your energy.
I have always liked the Serenity Prayer, which can be summarized simply:
Accept what you cannot change.
Change what you can.
Have the wisdom to know the difference.
I have my own version tattooed on my arm:
Strength.
Courage.
Wisdom.
Strength to keep going.
Courage to act where action is required.
Wisdom to know what is mine to carry, and what is not.
I have used this lesson many times with my son.
When he has been stressed about an exam, the thoughts usually sound familiar:
What if it is hard?
What if I don’t know the answers?
What if I fail?
What if the teacher marks it unfairly?
My advice has always been the same.
What’s in your control?
You can prepare.
Do the work.
Ask questions.
Study properly.
Then when you’ve done that you can relax and focus on getting enough rest to perform your best.
You can walk into the room knowing you did what you could.
You cannot control what questions are on the exam or how the teacher marks it.
So you do what you can before the exam.
Then, when the paper is handed out, do the work in front of you.
That’s it.
A similar lesson carried me through one of the hardest periods of my life.
I was facing a situation that felt overwhelming. Like I had lost my sense of purpose. I felt helpless because there were things happening that I could not fix at the time, made harder by the actions and words of others.
Then someone asked me a question that changed everything:
What if you let go of everything outside your control, and focused only on doing the next right thing?
That question changed how I saw the situation almost immediately.
It did not fix everything or make the outcome certain. It did not make the hard part any easier.
But it gave me clarity on what I needed to do.
Keep showing up.
Taking the right actions
Continue becoming the person I wanted to be.
Let go of trying to force an outcome that was not within my control.
Over time, the outcome eventually moved in the direction I had hoped.
But by then, something more important had happened.
I knew I had done everything I could.
That is the real freedom in this idea.
Not that you stop caring about the outcome.
You stop letting the outcome decide whether your effort mattered.
Focus on the process.
Do the next right thing.
Let the rest unfold.
I wish I had learned this lesson 30 years ago.
And it makes me proud as a father to know that my son is hearing it now.
Because sometimes, when you give your kids advice, it feels like they are not listening. They roll their eyes, brush you off, or seem completely disinterested.
But some of it gets through.
Maybe not the first time. Or the tenth. But eventually, the words land.
So keep saying the things that matter.
To your kids, your partner, your friends, your team.
And to yourself.
Because the right words, repeated at the right moments, can become tools someone carries for life.
Do what you can control.
Let go of what you can’t.
Then take the next step.
Reboot - Health & Longevity
Control the Movement
Control matters in the gym too.
Or on the court, the field, the mat or the rink.
When I was younger, I cared more about moving the weight than correctly performing the movement.
I wanted the heavier lift, the bigger number, the harder set.
I still love explosive training. But what I understand now, and what injuries have taught me over the years, is that even explosive movement has to be done under control.
This is another lesson I am trying to pass on to my son. One I wish I had learned at his age, or at least many years before I did.
Strength is not just what you can move. It is what you can control.
A controlled rep is different.
Gripping the bar with intention.
Bracing your body.
Feeling the weight through the eccentric portion of the movement and not just letting it fall.
Build tension like a spring.
Then you drive the weight back up with power, but still with control.
That is very different from throwing weight around and hoping your joints, tendons, and connective tissue can absorb the chaos.
In resistance training, time under tension is key for driving results.
Muscle growth and strength are influenced by many variables: load, effort, range of motion, consistency, recovery, total volume, and progressive overload.
But slowing down enough to actually control the rep can make the work more deliberate. It can increase the amount of time the muscle is working. It can improve technique. It can help you feel where you are weak, unstable, or compensating.
This becomes even more important as you get older, or when you are rebuilding from injury.
Tendons and connective tissue generally adapt better to progressive, appropriate loading than sudden, uncontrolled stress.
That can include slower eccentrics, isometrics, heavy slow resistance, and carefully progressed ranges of motion.
The point is not to turn every workout into slow-motion lifting.
The point is to stop confusing momentum with strength.
A rep you cannot control is information.
Maybe the weight is too heavy, the tempo is too fast or your ego is taking over.
Control gives you feedback.
And feedback is how you train for the long game.
One Action
Let Go, Then Act
Choose one thing that you've been stressing about, ruminating over, or complaining about.
Examine what part of it is in your control and what is not.
Then let go of what is not and focus on one thing you can do next.
See how it feels to release the weight of what you can't control, narrow the options, and act on the next right thing.
Let me know how it goes. Just reply to this email.
Inspirational Quote
“He suffers more than is necessary, who suffers before it is necessary.”
– Seneca
Worrying about some potential future event that hasn't happened yet is unnecessary stress and anxiety.
Stay present.
Focus on what’s in your control.
Recommended - What I'm Reading
Meditations
If you want to go deeper on this idea and other Stoic lessons, a great place to start is with Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, especially the Gregory Hays translation.
It is one of the cleanest entry points into Stoic thinking because it does not read like a formal philosophy book.
It reads like private notes from someone trying to remind himself how to live, lead, endure, and act well.
Because that is what it was.
Marcus was not writing a book for an audience. He was writing reminders to himself.
That is part of what makes it so powerful.
A good companion resource is Ryan Holiday’s Daily Stoic Digital Guide on “How to Read Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations”. It can make the text easier to approach if you are new to it.
Readers Corner
Ask Me Anything
Have a question about something in this issue? An experience you'd like to share? A topic you'd like me to cover or dive deeper into in a future newsletter or article?
Reply to this email and let me know.
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Until next week,
Kevin
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