5 practical ways to take control of your life | Jim VandeHei
TED Talks Daily
TED
4.1 • 12.1K Ratings
🗓️ 1 April 2026
⏱️ 13 minutes
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Summary
You can't control the world — but you can control you. That's the mantra that took Axios CEO Jim VandeHei, a once "unremarkably unremarkable 20-year-old," all the way to launching companies and interviewing presidents. He breaks down a career's worth of observations into five deceptively simple things you can control, and explores why mastering them can change the trajectory of your life.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. |
| 0:09.7 | I'm your host, Elise Hugh. |
| 0:11.5 | As a journalist, businessman, and co-founder of Axios, Jim Vanda High spends a lot of time thinking about world happenings that are beyond his control. |
| 0:22.7 | And yet, he offers us a challenge. What if, for the next 10 minutes, you stopped worrying about everything you truly |
| 0:28.0 | can't control, like AI, politics, or for some, your email inbox, and instead focused entirely |
| 0:35.8 | on you. You control you. |
| 0:39.1 | That became my mantra and that became my map for life. |
| 0:43.9 | You control your reactions. |
| 0:46.3 | The best advice I ever got was five words. |
| 0:49.6 | Do the next right thing. |
| 0:51.8 | In this talk, Jim confronts the idea that we're stuck because of things happening to us in |
| 0:56.5 | life. |
| 0:57.4 | He explains why he thinks we're actually more in charge than we might think. |
| 1:01.8 | Through some personal stories and small, actionable steps, Jim shares why we're all |
| 1:06.4 | capable of rethinking and embodying, you control you. |
| 1:11.7 | That's coming up right after a short break. |
| 1:26.1 | And now our TED Talk of the day. |
| 1:28.3 | I want you to spend the next 10 minutes being absurdly self-indulgent, which is advice I would almost never otherwise give people. |
| 1:38.3 | I want you to not think about the things you can't control. |
| 1:41.3 | AI, politics, your parents, your social media feed, your Tinder alerts. |
| 1:48.1 | By locking in on you for the next 600 seconds, I'm very confident that you're going to walk away |
| 1:54.5 | with what I think is the single best hack for longevity, purpose, and living the type of |
... |
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