7th April 2025
I recently read George Mack’s incredible essay, High Agency.
‘High agency’ refers to a mindset and a way of acting characterized by a strong belief in one’s power to shape their own circumstances and take control of their destiny, rather than passively waiting for things to happen.
Imagine you wake up in a foreign prison. You get one phone call, Who do you call to give you the highest chance of getting out of there?
This thought experiment requires you to think about the people in your life who have a unique blend of attributes that collectively comprise ‘High Agency.’
This person you picked has something, A spark. A ‘je ne sais quoi,’ That ‘something’ is high agency.
These are some of the things I’d be considering in this situation:
Bias for Action: I need someone who will get started NOW.
Intellectual Horsepower: I need someone to work with incomplete information and still make thoughtful decisions.
Rebellious Spirit: I need someone to question default authority and have an aversion to being told no.
Self-Permission: I need someone who won’t wait for others to give them permission to get things done.
Extreme Resourcefulness: I need someone scrappy who can work with limited resources and still get it done. I need someone to be able to make the right phone calls to the right people, working their way to a real decision-maker.
Adaptability: I need someone who avoids plan continuation bias and can roll with the punches that will inevitably come.
This thought experiment and the list of attributes it sparks provides an interesting way to summarize the traits we should aim to embody if we want to thrive in our professional and personal endeavors.
In other words: ‘Are you the type of person that you would call if you were stuck in a foreign prison?’
If not, what attributes are you lacking and how can you focus on building those?
High agency is about recognizing and asserting your control over your life.
Be a ‘ High Agency’ person’ – Be the type of person who can get a friend out of a foreign prison & stay blessed forever.