Saturday Sessions: High Agency

Happy Saturday!

I’m seeing a lot of people talk about high agency.

It’s THE skill to acquire and foster in the world of AI. I agree!

High agency means having the mindset to actually DO something. To get started. Make mistakes. Fuck it up. But keep on going, flexing and adapting, until the job is done.

It means accepting that we come from different starting points. That we have different skills and capacity. But not letting that stop us from getting on with it.

It means running into people who disagree. Who tell us that we are stupid. Or what we are doing is wrong. Being able to take their valid criticism, discard the noise, and continue.

Why is high agency so valuable now?

It always has been. But in the world of AI the barriers to starting are collapsing.

Previously starting a business, a venture, a project would come with barriers: expertise, cost, access…you name it.

AI is across the board tearing those barriers down.

The time from “huh, that’s a cool idea” to reality is shortening. We can now have a spark of imagination in the shower at 8am and by 8pm have a working prototype of our project.

MOST of the world has not realised this. Most have not caught up.

This means that if you combine high agency with the almost limitless potential to get shit done that AI affords us you have an incredibly powerful combination.

Small example: I wanted to build a tool that helps my AI Workshop Kit students get leads. They plug in their location, their industry, how many thousands they want to charge the client per session etc. And the tool spits out specific named people in Learning and Development departments to contact- including their name, email address, position, company size, personal LinkedIn, company website etc. A tool that would give my students 100 people to email with a pitch so they can secure $1000+/hour work very quickly.

That was the idea I had on Wednesday. By Thursday it was built.

Time from idea to completed project ~4 hours of work by a pool. Immediate and extreme value boost to my students. (PS. if you are in the AI Workshop Kit I’ll get you access soon).

That’s ONE small example.

You can (and should be!) looking for similar projects, similar products, similar “cool stuff” you can create and release into the world. Because AI let’s you do just that.

OK…so…this is all well and good. But how do you ACTUALLY become high agency? All well and good for me to yell "Just Do It” at you but not terribly sustainable.

High agency, like most things(!), is a habit you can nurture.

You need to over time replace low agency habits with high agency habits. To practice the muscle and get used to acting in this new way.

This is something I’ll probably do a short course/presentaion on at some point but for now some pointers:

1. catch passivity.

2. experiment

3. break it down

First up - try to actively catch passivity. Ha!

Be mindful of thoughts like:

“I don’t know what to do.”
“No one told me.”
“I’m waiting for them.”
“This is impossible.”
“I don’t have enough time.”

All of these kill action. Let’s convert them instead to

“What information am I missing?”
“Who could I ask?”
“What can I try in the next 30 minutes?”
“What is the smallest version of this I can do?”
“What would I do if no one were coming to help?”

Honestly chatting to ChatGPT or Claude is helpful here. Tell it directly that you are wanting to act more. And have it interview you about your goals and what is stopping you. It can reframe these “problems” for you - it’s a great use of AI as a mini-coach.

Second, experiment.

Choose a project and start it. Specifically as an experiment. It doesn’t have to “succeed”. It doesn’t have to become a business or something you fully integrate into your life. Treat it as an experiment and that’s all.

For example have you wanted to try vibe coding but worry it’s too technical? Just start. Ask AI. Or find a guide. Follow it through. Hit walls. Work through them yourself, by asking people or (you guessed it) with the assistance of AI.

The ultimate “success” is less important than the doing of something new. Something you haven’t done before.

Third, break larger tasks down.

When we are faced with a large task like “start a business” we freeze. It’s TOO much. Where to start? What to do first? What mistakes do we need to avoid? Too many variables, too many pitfalls. So we just…don’t start.

Instead break large tasks up into small actions you can actually get done. Now. Then do the task. Don’t keep planning. Do the first part immediately. Then the next. Then the next. Build momentum through small achievable wins first.

I’ve just moved countries, set up a new business, re-domiciled my tax, built a new home studio, developed a new daily routine and planed a route to residency. In the last 4 weeks.

Not because I’m any more efficacious. But because I took each of these (HUGE) tasks and broke them down into many many (many) small and immediately completable steps. Then…just started doing them! I used Claude to plan and break down everything and now have it daily guide me through the next steps. Every day some forward momentum so all these gigantic tasks become achievable.

Start today. High agency is a skill. Practice it. Build that muscle. The more you act like this the easier it becomes but we all have to start somewhere. This isn’t a “oh yes I need to add this to the to-do list” sort of thing - that’s missing the point.

So: get to! 🙂 

To the task,

Kyle