Where's My Circle?

Currently, I’m reading “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, by Stephen Covey. I’m impressed with the book as a whole (in fact I've heard the 8th habbit is reading his book), however I've especially focused on implementing the first habbit which is entitled “Be Proactive”. Covey explains here that everyone has a range of concerns in their lives: relationships, family, finances or where to go out for dinner. He dubs this the "circle of concern". Within this circle, though, we find a much smaller circle where we actually have influence over our concerns, thus called our "circle of influence". Successful people don't dwell on or attempt to influence areas beyond their control; rather, they focus the majority of their efforts and energy on their area of influence. This concept has really resonated with me and the way I think about all areas of life, especially at work.

One simple example where this mindset has helped me is my handling of the broken ice machine. Not running out of ice has become a major "concern" for me. My natural reaction would probably be to focus on getting the new ice machine in . Unfortunately the amount of time I could spend thinking and worrying about the arrival of the new ice machine will not, in any way shape or form, influence how fast it will get here. It would be wasted energy. It would be easy for me to resign myself to the fact that I’d have to let my accountant and business consultant know that I’ve had to purchase hundreds of dollars worth of ice over the next few weeks to keep us afloat. However, within my circle of influence I realized I had other options... (imagine a light bulb turning on over my head)... other Chick-fil-A’s have ice... I could borrow... maybe even for free. For the past week we've been transporting hundreds of pounds of ice in sanitized food safe coolers to our store multiple times a day. It's not easy, but it's a much better option than purchasing bags of ice at $2.58 a pop. I can’t influence when our ice machine gets here, but I can influence how we handle the situation here at the store. This is just one example of many about how it pays to stay focused on my circle of influence. (Let's just hope getting the new ice machine here is in the circle of influence for the guys at the ice machine company!)