Related aphorisms&#x2F;folk concepts include: no use crying over spilled milk; the serenity prayer; you&#x27;re only as good as the last thing you did, and no one gives a shit about the last thing you did. It&#x27;s not a crazy unique or new thought, but it&#x27;s a good one to be reminded of from time to time.<p>Fundamentally you have an objective (win games, get more clients, raise money, whatever) and the things you can control to get that objective.<p>Once something moves out of the set of things you can control[0], no one cares about that thing even if they care about you reaching your objective. If a meeting with a client goes way south and they&#x27;ll never talk to us again, that client is no longer in the set of things we control. It might suck, but the path to our goal of more revenue no longer includes them, so focus on getting the next client right.<p>I think you can apply this on an individual level. Sometimes it can be easy to get slowed down or even paralyzed by loss, regret, anxiety, etc. Our brains are wired such that it&#x27;s easy to mistake wallowing in those feelings as doing something but it&#x27;s really not. Energy is better spent on deciding what to do going forward instead of torturing yourself re-litigating the past.<p>[0] Really meaning controlling its impact on you. The fact that you can&#x27;t control the weather does not mean that no one cares that you decided to send a boat out in a storm it&#x27;s not suited to handle. No one cares that it&#x27;s stormy, they care that you make the right decision not to send out a boat.