We live in an age of overwhelming chaos—and it’s taking a toll on all of us. Every day, there’s more to do and less time to do it in. We all make to-do lists in the morning and are lucky if we have three items crossed off by 5:00 p.m. We struggle to keep up with overflowing inboxes or persistent things to do. We’re getting pulled in a million directions by work, social, and family obligations, and it’s all set to the chimes of our iPhones and the drone of upsetting news reports of events taking place thousands of miles from where we sit.

At our core, we know we’ve lost control. We’ve lost our grip on what we really want and who we really want to be.

As the first female F-14 Tomcat Fighter Pilot in the U.S. Navy as well as a mom, wife, business consultant, Wall Street Journal best selling author, and speaker to audiences across the globe, Carey Lohrenz knows that the stress here on land can be just as intense as the stress 40,000 feet up in the air. But she’s got a secret weapon most people don’t: years of training to overcome the specific natures of stress, chaos, burnout, anxiety, and pressure:

Span of Control

You might be familiar with the usage of the term in the corporate world: your span of control is the number of direct reports you can effectively manage at one time. But in the Navy, the idea is a lot broader and a lot bigger. Your span of control is determined by the things you can and should control at any given time and reminds you what to focus on right in the moment, knowing that any other stuff is uncontrollable and shouldn’t take up precious mental space. For Carey, recognizing her span of control kept her focused on what mattered and became a primary tool in taming the distractions and pressures of flying demanding, high-pressure missions.

In order to solve this problem of chaos, and make our goals, dreams, commitments happen, we have to understand that to succeed when the pressure is on we’ve got to know what we can and cannot control.

In Span of Control you’ll learn how to: