Dan, thank you so much for joining us today, and we'd love to dive into your book. Control, Influence, Accept, for now. I suppose for a long time I've been fascinated by the concept of energy and personal energy in particular. And so if we take any of our energy and we put it into something we can't really influence at all, nor control, then we're taking it away from things that we can.
So the notion of CIA is understanding that with this finite amount of energy, if I can just identify some things that even though they're worrying me, they're bothering me, I'd like to do something about them, but I just can't at the moment, put those on the shelf, just lay them aside. And that's the notion of the FN, the for now part of the CIA. Doesn't mean I'm going to ignore it forever, but for now I'm going to ignore it and put my focus on what can I control and what can I influence.
These are the things that I think are really breakthrough concepts for people. We've all got to do lists, we've all got things that are, are concerning to us, but if we focus on the things that we can actually personally control, or indirectly control, which means we can influence, then the things that we just need to accept forever, maybe we don't have to accept them forever. . Most of the changes, in fact, in society that made society better.
It'd been because somebody identified it, but they didn't try to tackle the problem directly . They said, develop the skills, the expertise, the teamwork to then influence and affect that problem for the better. So that's the whole notion of it. How do you think leaders can really leverage that influence that they have to create a positive impact within their team? I think that the best thing for a leader to do is to make this concept very explicit to the team.
There was, if a team takes on board the idea of CIA they're faced with a challenge, they get together to brainstorm it, they could actually pull out a white board or piece of paper , just mentally saying , which parts of this within our control, which parts of this, the things we can influence, which parts of things we just need to accept for now, it helps the team focus their energy as well as the individual focus their energy.
By the same token, the leader who's got to get some results done needs to understand that part of the job is to get results, but it's also to keep their team engaged, involved, and with it. What are one or two things that you can really draw upon that has shaped your leadership philosophy, if you wouldn't mind sharing a bit of insight around that? So as part of the direct selling association for many years, I was invited to join a conference involving some industry executives of various types.
One of the people that I had a chance to sit down with one on one was two levels below Warren Buffett in a big, big conglomerate, called Berkshire Hathaway. This was Scott Fetzer company. This gentleman ran a couple of very large companies and he was talking about what do you do when you have a troubled business? First thing you do is make a list of all the problems, figure out which ones you can tackle and go tackle them. He completely shocked me.
He said, when I'm dealing with a troubled business, the first thing we do is take a list of all of the assets. What are the things that are going right with that business? And I was completely shocked because he's going at it so differently. And I said, well, John, why do you do it that way? He said, well, anybody can make a list of problems, but if we can look at things that are going right, it's almost like a seedling in the spring.
That one little green shoot can really develop into something great if we can make it happen. But if all we look at is a charred landscape and they're burned out, everything else is not going to ever grow. So first thing to do is make a list of the assets . Then we say, which of those can we invest, employ and make even better? That was a huge wake up call for me. Most of us like to be problem solvers.
So we look for problems, but the solution to many problems lies right there within the organisation. It may be the problem is the bottleneck is, is leadership and underneath the leadership is somebody terrifically great that just needs to have an opportunity to really make some things happen. Self talk is one of the things that's probably most misunderstood in terms of this internal motivational game we all play. And early in the pandemic, I was interviewing Terri Rickard.
I said, Terri, in the travel business, I mean, you guys were rolling along and then all of a sudden these things hit. What did you end up doing? We had to refund all kinds of money, had to cancel all kinds of things. How did you manage your head? She said, I just said to myself, okay, Terri, what's the next right thing to do? I'm gonna go do that next thing. Now, what's the next right thing to do? We're going to do that next thing. That was a great example of constructive self talk.
Because when chaos is all around us, the easiest thing in the world to do is, it's all around us, chaos, it's, ah, screaming and yelling, never solved anything. At the same time saying, it's all wonderful, when clearly it's not wonderful, doesn't help at all. Constructive moves us forward, it moves us in a good direction. Sometimes it might even sound a bit negative. I want people to feel encouraged that their life is, it may not be perfect at the moment, but nobody's is.
And the people that we think have a perfect life have all kinds of problems they keep well hidden from everybody else. But understand that it is my life. It's my one, one life that I've got. I'm going to do the best I can with it. I'm going to get some encouragement. I'm going to work on the things I can control, the things I can influence. And I'm going to turn things around in a good way. That's the whole purpose of the book and thanks for asking about it.
For more insights, make sure you subscribe. Until next time, keep up that forward thinking mindset. Goodbye.