Top o’ the Mornin’ to Ya!
TLDR:
I gave up television when I realized it was filling my awareness with things outside my circle of influence – protect your territory by eliminating distractions.
What?
Years ago when I was a ski racing coach, I’d come home after long days of fitness training and mountain biking with the team to this great condo provided by one of the families. They had the big cable package, and I’d sit there flipping through channels – flip, flip, flip, flip, flip. We had this comic strip in college showing a guy flipping through hundreds of channels, and his wife says “Oh, there was a pretty good one a few hundred back,” so they go back, back, back, back… and it’s over. That comic rang so true for me. I was wasting hours flipping through channels, watching commercials that weren’t doing me any good, consuming news about things completely outside my circle of influence. So I just quit watching TV entirely.
Why?
This connects directly to the second pillar of the Kingdom Family Leader path – expanding your territory. I realized that most of what I was consuming through television was expanding my awareness in useless directions. Sure, there might be pieces of news that relate to my circle of influence, but 99% of it was just noise. Commercials trying to make me want things I don’t need. News about events I can’t impact. Drama that stirs up concern about things I’ll never touch. All that screen time was expanding what I knew about and sometimes what I cared about, but none of it expanded what I could actually influence. It was making my circles bigger in all the wrong ways, diluting my focus and energy.
Lesson:
Your territory – your kingdom of influence – exists only where three circles overlap: what you know about, what you care about, and what you can actually do something about. Television, social media, and news often expand the first two circles (awareness and concern) without expanding the third (influence). This creates frustration, anxiety, and wasted energy. You end up knowing about and caring about countless things you can’t change, which pulls focus from the area where you can make a real difference. The key is to be intentional about what you allow into your awareness. Every input either strengthens your territory or weakens it. Sometimes expanding your territory means learning new skills or gaining new knowledge – that’s moving your circles in the right direction. But often it means eliminating inputs that create awareness and concern without influence. You can modify your circles deliberately by choosing what you consume. While you’re adjusting these circles, don’t get stuck trying to perfect them. Sometimes you need to move forward to the third pillar – serving God’s kingdom – even while you’re still refining your territory. Action clarifies purpose. Serve where your circles currently overlap while continuing to optimize them.
Apply:
Audit your inputs this week. List the top 5 things consuming your time and attention (TV, social media, news, podcasts, etc.). For each one, ask: Does this expand my knowledge in areas where I have influence? Does it help me care about things I can actually impact? If not, eliminate or reduce it immediately.
You be blessed!
