Introduction
Honour & Dignity
Modern-Day Hunting
Employment Dulls Your Senses
Agency = Power = Freedom
Success is simply when you are living a life you chose. Not the one handed to you by fear, fatigue, convenience, or social applause, but the one that reflects your actual values, tolerances, limits, and desires. Chosen lives feel different, they have coherence, even when they’re hard, and dignity, even when they’re unfinished. Everything else, like status, money, recognition, validation, becomes decoration. Agency is the substance. — Tamara, Substack
You’ve likely heard of this concept before: agency.
Agency = the belief that all problems are solvable and the ability to make decisions and act on them immediately & independently from outside influence.
From this we can distil the skills that comprise the meta-skill of agency:
We have to understand these sub-skills to get a wholistic understanding of agency and why it’s the missing skill in your tool-belt to achieve your wildest dreams and gain the status of a free man.
And in some peoples eyes, be equated with a lion.
Why is agency important
“When you’re told that something is impossible, is that the end of the conversation, or does that start a second dialogue in your mind? How to get around whoever it is that’s just told you that you can’t do something” – Eric Weinstein on high agency.
Before diving into the sub-skills, a brief explanation as to why agency, particularly having high agency, is such an important trait/skill to posses.
And I say ‘particularly having high agency’ because agency is a spectrum and not binary.
Mental Model
Consider things as a spectrum and not binary. This allows for deeper thinking and more nuanced understanding of topics.
There’s no need to complicate this.
Agency is important for 2 main reasons:
The first one is easily derived from the definition of agency we established earlier.
If you don’t:
I can dissect this, but out of respect for your intelligence I’ll assume this explanation suffices as an argument for point 1.
Point 2 might not have been obvious at first but perhaps the gears are spinning by now.
And I think we can best understand this by understanding what innovation is and how it is inseparably linked to the growth of any organization.
Be that an organization as small as you or as large as a government.
So what even is innovation?
Here’s the Google search result:
Innovation is simply taking a new idea and successfully turning it into something useful. It means finding a better, more efficient way to do things—whether that’s creating a new product, improving a daily process, or offering a new service that makes life easier.
This is an excellent definition as it highlights the ‘new idea’ starting point of innovation.
In other words, innovation is looking at something or someone and finding where it can improved and successfully implementing the change.
Tying this back to our agency, would it be possible to find improvements if you don’t believe that problems are solvable?
Or that it’s possible to successfully implement your new idea if your too afraid to take action or other people’s opinions?
Of course not.
Being low agency,
If you’re anything like me, what you’re after is agency. As men we’re all biologically wired to seek independence and self-reliance. Believe as you wish, but I find there’s great dignity in this.
There’s a beautiful quote that perfectly encapsulates this. It’s the quote I introduced this section with.
Think you disagree?
Allow me to prove otherwise.
Who do you naturally respect more?
A homeless man on the street or a wealthy businessman?
It might be a harsh reality, but you’ll obviously have more respect for the businessman.
Why is that?
Because he has fancy cars or clothes?
No.
It’s because he has agency.
He has went against the grain, dedicated himself, pursued his own whims and desires and managed to seduce reality to give what he seeks out of life.
(Assuming he’s not a trust fund baby, lol.)
And that’s granted him the ability to do as he wishes. Which is respectable.
In other words, he has power.
And that power gives you freedom.
The ability to fight off undesired states of being is what grants you freedom.
- I don’t want my children raised in bad schools and I can send them to private school. That’s respectable.
- I don’t want another
It’s this alignment of personal values and actual circumstances that people respect, because it communicates integrity.
Why do people respect integrity?
Because it’s God’s code in our hearts to live morals lives according to His standards.
Otherwise, we would all be stealing and killing and raping and pillaging each other which would only bring us self-destruct.
Belief in oneself and solvability of problems
Goal setting / having a vision
Not caring what others think
The key to gaining freedom
Why Business? Millionaire fast-lane
Freedom
Creativity
Time freedom
Moral Law
