Control-vs-Influence Resilience Practice
Stop optimizing for control you don't have and build slack around the influence you do
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 7
- Confidence
- 75%
Klaas argues most anxiety comes from chasing control in a fundamentally uncontrollable world, while missing that influence — the ripple effects of every action — is essentially unlimited. The practice has two moving parts: first, stop over-optimizing systems (schedules, routines, finances) because removing all slack in pursuit of efficiency makes the system fragile, so that one disruption cascades into total collapse; second, deliberately build in experimentation and resilience anchors — relationships, health, activities you can't lose — that hold up regardless of external outcomes. The mental shift from 'did I control this' to 'did I influence this' reframes both wins and losses as partly outside your hands, which lowers anxiety without requiring passivity.
Origin
Klaas developed this after the pandemic forced him to confront how tightly optimized his own calendar had become, using it on the show alongside a personal 'house of cards' story from the host about an Achilles rupture that cascaded through an over-optimized schedule.
Core principles
- 01'We control nothing, but we influence everything' — control is narrow and mostly illusory; influence is broad and real.
- 02Over-optimized systems (schedules, finances, routines) are fragile; a small disruption cascades into total collapse.
- 03Deliberate slack and forced experimentation build the resilience that optimization strips away.
- 04Anchor your sense of self-worth in things that are genuinely within your control (relationships, health habits), not fragile external wins.
How to run it
- 1
Separate the controllable from the merely influenceable
List which outcomes in your life you can actually control (habits, effort, choices) versus which you can only influence (other people's reactions, market outcomes, who you meet).
- 2
Audit your system for zero slack
Look at your calendar, finances, or workflow for places where one disruption would cascade — e.g., back-to-back commitments with no buffer.
Pro tip If missing one deadline breaks three other things, that's a sand-pile warning sign in your own life.
- 3
Cut the last few percent of optimization deliberately
Remove some of the 'efficiency' that leaves no room for error, even though it feels like a loss of productivity.
Watch out The instinct to keep optimizing further is exactly what creates the fragility.
- 4
Schedule forced experimentation
Deliberately choose the non-default path sometimes — a new route instead of the GPS route, a new activity — to build comfort with the uncertainty you can't remove.
Pro tip Use it as a practice, not a one-off; the value compounds.
- 5
Anchor identity in resilient things
Name 2-3 things that remain available to you regardless of career or external setbacks (a daily walk, a relationship, a pet) and treat them as non-negotiable.
- 6
Reattribute outcomes after the fact
When you succeed or fail, explicitly separate the part that was your effort from the part that was circumstance, rather than taking full credit or full blame.
Watch out Full self-credit on wins sets up full self-blame on losses — the same error runs both ways.
- 7
Re-audit periodically
Slack erodes over time as new commitments creep in, so repeat the audit every few months rather than treating it as a one-time fix.
In the wild
After rupturing his Achilles tendon playing cricket, the host describes driving home from the injury via the supermarket to collect a TV, then dropping off flat-pack furniture for tenants moving in days later, because his schedule had zero slack built in.
→ A single physical injury cascaded through an over-optimized personal schedule instead of being absorbed, illustrating exactly the fragility the practice is designed to prevent.
Klaas describes looking at his February 2020 Google Calendar and finding it packed with obligations he didn't actually want to do, pursued for some vague unnamed goal, and says the pandemic forced him to reprioritize toward things he actually enjoys.
→ He deliberately reduced how tightly his schedule was optimized and reports it as the single biggest change in his life since.
Common mistakes
Confusing control with influence
Believing you fully control outcomes like career success or relationships sets up crushing self-blame when things go wrong that were never fully in your hands.
Optimizing until there's no slack left
Chasing the 'last 3% of efficiency' in a schedule or system removes the buffer needed to absorb an ordinary disruption without everything else falling apart.
Treating forecasts as certainties
Interpreting a percentage prediction, like a 55% election forecast, as a guarantee ignores that a single unrepeatable event can never be validated against a long-run frequency.
Is it for you?
Best for
People whose lives or schedules run with zero slack and who feel one disruption away from everything falling apart.
Not ideal for
Situations that genuinely are forecastable and controllable, such as a medical treatment with a known success rate — the practice is for navigating irreducible uncertainty, not replacing good decision-making where real data exists.
From the transcript
“we control nothing but we influence everything”
“over optimized systems are fragile whereas slightly less optimized...systems are able to adapt to new realities”
“my system is so tightly tuned it's spun up so hard that even a tiny little curveball...ruins everything”
From the episode
Chaos Theory: The Hidden Force That Secretly Controls Your Life - Brian Klaas - #806
Brian Klaas