Reading Time: < 1 minute
I recently read a fantastic article called “High Agency in 30 Minutes“, which was a pretty deep dive into the idea of agency in humans.
They lay out the idea that people with high agency have three distinct skills, and all three are required. They are:
- Clear Thinking: High agency people will think through all options, rather than just running with their first idea.
- Bias to Action: Once the idea is solid, they move forward rather than tinkering or creating more theories.
- Disagreeability: Being told that something is impossible is irrelevant, as long as it’s within the laws of physics.
The article unpacks each of them more deeply, and makes a strong argument that Wilbur Wright was the highest-agency person to have ever lived.
- He got his face smashed just before starting college, causing years of medical problems and losing his chance to attend Yale.
- He was also tending to his mother as she slowly died.
- He became obsessed with birds and wanted to figure out human flight.
- He was told it was impossible, and that man wouldn’t fly “for a million years”.
- If him and Orville wanted to build a plane, they lived in the wrong part of the country and didn’t have nearly enough money to make it happen.
- They did it anyhow. That’s a high agency human.
It’s a great article and I encourage you to give it a read. Don’t think of it as a super long article, but just as a 30-minute book. Perfect!
