Control the Controllables: How High Performers Win in Uncertain Times

Over the past few months, I’ve found myself in a wide range of rooms, from keynote stages to one-on-one coaching conversations with senior leaders, including people operating at the sharp end of government. In all of them, one theme keeps coming up. People are feeling the weight of uncertainty. They may not always use that word, but you can hear it in the questions they ask, the way they talk about the future, and the tension that sits beneath their decision-making. They want to know how to stay focused when the world feels noisy, how to lead well when the ground keeps shifting, and how to keep moving without being thrown off by every headline.

What I’ve learned, both through my own life and through years of working with high performers, is that uncertain times do not create character as much as they reveal it. They expose where we are grounded and where we are fragile. They show us whether we have built our life on principles or just momentum. They reveal whether we are leading ourselves, or simply reacting to the world around us. That is why one of the most important disciplines in a season like this is remarkably simple: control the controllables.

That phrase has become popular for good reason. It works. It brings us back to centre. It forces us to stop wasting precious energy on things that sit outside our reach and return our attention to the few things that are still ours to own. Our mindset. Our preparation. Our standards. Our health. Our choices. Our response. The next conversation. The next hour. The next right move. When people lose themselves in uncertainty, it is often because they are mentally living too far outside their circle of influence. They are trying to solve the economy, fix global politics, predict the market and guarantee outcomes that no one can guarantee. High performers do not play that game for long. They come back to what is theirs to do.

I say that not as someone who has always got this right, but as someone who learned it the hard way. Years ago, from the outside, I looked like I was flying. I was a seven-time world champion in drumming. I had a drumming business that was selling drums around the world, teaching people around the world and taking me around the world to compete. It was exciting, ambitious and full of momentum. A lot of people would have looked at that season and called it high performance. In one sense, they might have been right. I was producing at a very high level in one arena. But I was not leading the rest of my life particularly well. I wasn’t eating the way I should have been eating. I was not training the way I should have been training. I was drinking too much alcohol at times. I wasn’t counterbalancing the pressure and pace with wisdom. Eventually, that catches up with you. It caught up with me in painful ways, including divorce, and it forced me to confront a truth that I now believe deeply: success in one part of life doesn’t automatically equal high performance in life as a whole.

That is why I define high performance differently now. In my book, I write that high performance is about consistently exceeding norms while maintaining healthy relationships and wellbeing. That distinction matters. Winning at work while your health is poor and your relationships are under strain is not a model to aspire to. It may impress people for a season, but it does not hold.
When uncertainty rises, a lot of people think they have a time problem. More often than not, they have a priority problem. They are giving first-class attention to second-class things. They’re consumed by what is urgent rather than what is important. They are busy, but not especially clear. One of the principles I return to often is WMI: What’s Most Important. In the book, I make the point that if you don’t make time for what’s most important, you will make time for what’s most imminent. That is exactly what happens in volatile seasons. The loud starts to beat the important. Other people’s panic becomes your schedule. Your attention gets hijacked by noise.

This is also where my thinking differs a little from the usual conversation around balance. I dont believe in work-life balance. I think that phrase sounds cute, but real life is rarely cute. I believe in work-life counterbalance. There are seasons when work will demand more of you, and seasons when family, health or recovery need to come right to the front. The key is not trying to make every day look perfectly even. The key is making sure that when one area is demanding a lot, you are still staying aware of what the rest of your life needs from you so the whole thing does not tip over. This past month I’ve been working and travelling a lot. However, for all of April I’ll be in Europe with my family: counterbalance.

So one of the simplest tools I give leaders is a monthly WMI check-in. It is not glamorous, but it is effective. I ask people to score themselves honestly across seven pillars: heartset, health, personal growth, relationships, wealth, joy and career. Those seven pillars give you a much more truthful picture of how you are really doing. You may be crushing it in career and wealth while your relationships are underdone and your joy is missing. You may be saying you value health, while your sleep, food and training tell a different story. You may be making strong money but living with a level of mental noise that is costing you more than you realise. The point of the exercise is not perfection. It is awareness. It helps you identify where the wobble is before the wobble becomes a collapse.

What I like about the WMI framework is that it helps people get practical very quickly. If one of your lowest scores is health, perhaps the answer is not a dramatic reinvention of your life. Perhaps it is simply preparing better food three nights a week and getting back to training. If relationships are low, perhaps the answer is to schedule one dinner, one date night or one uninterrupted conversation and actually be present for it. If heartset is under pressure, perhaps the answer is ten minutes of journalling, breathwork or silence in the middle of the day before you carry tension into every room you enter. If joy is low, perhaps you need to stop acting like fun is optional. These are not revolutionary ideas. But common sense is rarely common practice, and simple things done consistently are what start to shift a life.

Another line from the book that feels especially relevant right now is this: diluting your priorities will dilute your results. When everything feels important, nothing really is. High performers are not superhuman; they are just clearer. They know what season they are in, what matters most in that season, and what needs to be ignored for now. That is why they can make strong decisions under pressure. Not because they have all the answers, but because they know what they stand for and what deserves their best energy.

That, to me, is where winning in uncertain times begins. Not with pretending things are fine when they are not, and not with endlessly consuming information in the hope that one more article or one more opinion will finally make the future feel safe. It begins with coming back to centre. It begins with asking, what is actually mine to own here? What matters most now? Where have I drifted? What needs tightening up? What can I control today?

The world may stay noisy for a while yet. I wouldn’t count on it getting calm any time soon. But that does not mean your inner world has to mirror the chaos around you. You can still be clear. You can still be disciplined. You can still take care of your body, protect your relationships, focus on your work and make grounded decisions. In fact, that is precisely what will set you apart.

In uncertain times, average people get pulled around by the noise. High performers come back to centre, control the controllables, and crack on with the work that matters most.