TED Talks Daily 5 practical ways to take control of your life | Jim VandeHei
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Apr 1, 2026 
Jim VandeHei, journalist and Axios co-founder, shares how he went from an unremarkable start to interviewing presidents and building major media companies. He talks about focusing on what you can control. Daily habits, reactions in hard moments, media inputs, personal presence, and defining your own North Star all take center stage.
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How Copying Better Habits Changed Jim VandeHei
- Jim VandeHei says he went from a 1.491 GPA, heavy smoking, and pizza delivery in Oshkosh to interviewing presidents within a decade.
- He credits studying sharper, healthier people and copying their reading, vocabulary, and habits piece by piece.
Control Today Through Tiny Repeated Choices
- Control today by making better tiny choices from morning to night instead of surrendering to autopilot.
- Jim VandeHei contrasts doom scrolling with meditating, Lucky Charms with breakfast, snapping back with grace, and getting hammered with sleeping.
Do The Next Right Thing In Bad Moments
- Do the next right thing when life gets messy instead of trying to solve your whole character at once.
- Leaving Politico, Jim VandeHei repeated that rule to avoid saying emotional things that would later hurt or haunt him.
