whether you are “behind” or “ahead” is a delusion. others should serve as inspiration and a little healthy rivalry to fuel to your fire, but only one competitor can stop you: yourself. everything else is a distraction—a way to attribute your internal agency to something external:
Great thing about starting your own company that you can design the way you want it.
Too many founders or companies fall in this trap following established playbooks or bring processes from other places. People also say that “it doesn’t work” or “it won’t scale”, which my response is well have you tried it? Have you... See more
Agency and self-efficacy are deeply intertwined, like the will to act (agency) and the belief that you can succeed (self-efficacy). They reinforce each other in a feedback loop, but they aren’t the same thing.
How They Influence Each Other
Self-Efficacy Fuels Agency
If you believe you can accomplish something, you're more likely to take action .
Giving kids the agency to follow their own curiosity seems right for a lot of obvious reasons: it will make them happier, intrinsic motivation will fuel them to learn more, it keeps the youthful flame burning instead of extinguishing it with routine...But it’s also important for a less obvious reason, one that will be even more important as things... See more
Frequent lamenting about how bad things are (in politics or relationships or other culture gripes) is mostly a way for people to avoid responsibility for what they can change. If you constantly repeat that everything is bad, it lets your ego off the hook for doing nothing.
Essentially, one does not have to wait for permission to do what they feel called to do—they can just do it, which is more true now than ever with AI agents at their beck and call.
How to spot high agency people:
1. Weird teenage hobbies - Teenage years are the hardest time to go against social pressures. If they can go against the crowd as a teenager, they can go against the crowd as an adult.
2. Energy distortion field - If you meet with them when… Show more