Andrew here again 👋🏼

My coach James Franklin used to say something before every game that I thought was about football. Turns out, it was about everything.

“Control what you can control.”

Six words. I heard them hundreds of times and mostly tuned them out because they sounded like something you’d read on a motivational poster in a dentist office.

Then I became a dad.

And honestly, now that summer is here and routines are all over the place — camps, travel, late nights, trying to keep kids entertained without losing your mind 😅 — I think about those words almost daily.

Because here’s the truth about parenting, marriage, work, and life in general: you control way less than you think you do.

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You can’t control whether your kid sleeps through the night. You can’t control your spouse having a hard day. You can’t control the economy, the diagnosis, the timeline, or the outcome.

But you can control whether you show up.

You can control your attitude. Your effort. The next right decision in front of you.

I used to think commitment meant guaranteeing results. Making sure everything worked out.

Now I think it’s something much simpler and much harder: showing up fully, then letting go of the outcome.

The athlete controls preparation but releases performance.
The parent controls the environment but releases the outcome.
The spouse controls their own behavior but releases the need to change the other person.

That shift — from controlling outcomes to controlling inputs — changes everything.

Because if you commit to outcomes, you’ll eventually burn out. But if you commit to showing up, you’ll outlast almost everybody.

Shawn and I wrote about this all throughout The Courage to Commit, which is somehow less than a month away now. Still feels surreal typing that honestly!

What’s something in your life you keep trying to control the outcome of, when really you just need to focus on the effort?

Reply and tell me. I guarantee I’ll relate 🙂

Also, quick reminder that Shawn and I are heading out on The Courage to Commit Nights tour in just a couple weeks. Four cities, four nights, and a lot of conversations like this one in real life. We’d seriously love to see you there if you’re nearby.

We seriously can’t wait to see some of you tour!

— Andrew East

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