Your Business or None
There are only two types of business in this world: your business and none of your business. And if it’s none of your business—and you don’t have a solution that makes the situation better—then it’s probably not worth spending the most valuable asset you’ve got: your time.
This isn’t just a catchy saying. It’s a leadership principle.
When I served as a Drill Instructor, I had about nine weeks to unlearn what a young recruit had been practicing—sometimes unknowingly—for 18+ years. Bad habits. Distracting behaviors. Wasted energy. And one of the first barriers I had to break down was this: Minding other people’s business like it was their own.
In that environment, time wasn’t just limited—it was everything. Every second had a purpose. If you were wasting time worrying about things that didn’t move you forward, you were already behind. And that mindset is just as important in life and leadership as it is in the military.
Why Minding Your Own Business is a Leadership Skill
Leaders know how to focus. They don’t spend energy on gossip, distractions, or drama. They don’t try to fix what isn’t theirs to fix. Instead, they concentrate on what they can control, what they can build, and what they’re responsible for.
Wasting time on someone else’s situation when you’re not invested in a solution is like trying to steer a ship you’re not on—it’s not only useless, it keeps you from navigating your own.
Discipline Starts with Boundaries
As a Drill Instructor, part of building discipline in future leaders meant teaching them when to engage and more importantly, when to disengage. It was less about shutting down empathy and more about understanding priorities. If you’re distracted by everyone else’s business, you never build the muscle of personal accountability, time management, or execution.
Leadership isn’t just about helping others. It’s about knowing when to help, how to help, and if helping even makes sense in that moment. If it doesn’t align with your mission or values—let it go.
The Cost of Distraction
Every time you step into business that doesn’t belong to you, you lose time you can’t get back. You lose energy that could’ve been invested into your goals, your growth, your team. And in leadership, that energy matters. Because what you focus on grows—whether it’s progress or problems.
Focused Leadership Backed by Data: Why Minding Your Business Matters More Than Ever
In my recent article, “Your Business or None: The Leadership Discipline of Minding What Matters,” I explored a truth learned during my time as a Drill Instructor—that the greatest waste of time is focusing on what isn’t yours to manage. Now let’s talk about the research and evidence that supports this concept.
Whether you’re in the boardroom or on the battlefield of everyday life, this principle holds: attention is currency, and leadership is how you spend it.
🔍 The Data Behind Distraction
A 2019 study by RescueTime found that the average knowledge worker spends just 2 hours and 48 minutes of productive time each day—largely due to distractions and unnecessary context switching. That means more than 60% of the workday is often spent on things that don’t contribute to actual goals.
Harvard Business Review also revealed that leaders who multitask or engage in low-value interactions (like workplace gossip, unnecessary conflict, or managing situations outside of their domain) not only suffer performance drops, but also negatively impact their teams’ morale and output.
Translation: If it’s not your business, and you’re not actively improving it—you’re paying for it in lost productivity.
📚 What Leadership Experts Say
John C. Maxwell, one of the most cited voices in leadership, consistently reinforces the power of focused leadership. In The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, he states:
“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.”
Not every way—just the one that aligns with your mission.
In Essentialism by Greg McKeown, the core idea is simple yet powerful: do less, but better. The book underscores that focus isn’t just a productivity hack—it’s a discipline of choice, a mindset that separates effective leaders from busy ones.
💡 The Military Connection: Discipline Meets Focus
From my experience training recruits, the lesson was always this: a lack of focus leads to failure. When time is limited and the mission is clear, anything that doesn’t align with the objective is eliminated.
That’s not just a military strategy—it’s a leadership mindset.
🧠 Modern Application: Leadership in the Digital Age
In a time when everyone has access to everyone else’s life, problems, and opinions, leaders must sharpen the skill of boundary setting.
📌 You don’t have to weigh in on every post.
📌 You don’t need to solve every problem.
📌 And you definitely don’t need to sacrifice your purpose to validate someone else’s chaos.
Instead, protect your time like it’s your paycheck—because in leadership, it is.
✅ The Takeaway
Leadership isn’t about being everywhere—it’s about being effective where you are. The research confirms what real-world experience already taught us: minding your own business is not selfish—it’s strategic.
Want to lead better?
Then start by investing your time where it actually returns value—in your vision, your people, your purpose. Everything else?
If it’s not your business… it probably isn’t worth your time.
