I Met Someone With High Agency
When you are told impossible, is that the end of the conversation with you or the beginning of iterations?
What I am writing about is on someone’s attitude on my timeline, whose name I will keep here but expose to him because I want to both celebrate him and also let him understand he has my utmost respect and I will like to work with him on anything anytime.
Let’s call him Victor.
When someone or even an authority tells you “it is impossible” what do you do?
When you reach a roadblock with no way forward what do you do?
When everything seems stacked against you, what do you do?
In all of those scenarios, High Agency individuals prevail. They either find a way or make one.
What is high agency?
High Agency is about finding a way to get what you want, without waiting for conditions to be perfect or otherwise blaming the circumstances. High Agency People either push through in the face of adverse conditions or manage to reverse the adverse conditions to achieve goals
High agency people move with a different mindset from what you know to be normal. They don’t see things and wonder how beautiful they are alone, they see it and wonder about the thought process of making such beauty.
@EricRWeinstein the first person to use the word defined high agency as this:
“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?”
B in that picture is our Victor he has an infesting high agency.
The same wood you are using to seek for help, he is using it to build bridges. And you can guess from the quadrant below that he is either a game changer or go-getter.
Why did I perceive Victor to be a person of high agency?
Victor reconnected with me after more than 4 years just a few months ago. Then we started having a conversation about career, skills and what matters. There and then he said he was interested in Data Science.
I gave him the usual counsel I usually give to everyone that’s has approached me with similar interest. And I bet you they are a lot. I even had to write an article to address that once and for all for the benefits of a lot.
People are still reading the article and I am surprised. But maybe not much surprised. People want answers.
But Victor was largely different from a good number that I’ve had the privilege of advising.
Victor took my word for it without any delay and executed in a way that I’ve not seen anyone done before. Of course, my words to him were not impossible, that wouldn’t have qualified for a high agency.
My words were a possibility and his execution plus aftermath happenings formed my opinion of the high agency.
Victor went above and beyond. Within a week or so, he came back to me with a certificate of completion of a Power BI class on Udemy. He didn’t stop there, he designed a worthy report on Power BI. If he had stopped there it would have been great enough. Not even a lot of people get to that level. But you see high agency people are a high agency for a reason.
Victor went ahead to take/complete another Bootcamp series on Python for Data Science. When he called me to enquire about a problem he faced during the process, I wasn’t happy I couldn’t help him because my Python knowledge isn’t much (yes, Victor has gone beyond what I even know)✓
You will think that will stop him as well. But my friend, Victor called me on another day to tell me his plan. When I enquired about the earlier issues, the man fixed it already. Oh my my, high agency people are rare to come by. Victor I Stan 🙌🏾
I gave a guideline for his plan and today Victor returned to give me feedback about the progress.
I was beyond impressed. You should note that within all these, Victor was going to work and his work is not even related to Data Science at all nor his background anything close. He studied Accounting just like me.
He’s going to revamp the way things are done in his organization (I believe) in the coming months going forward and that my friend is how high agency people behave. They are eternal go-getters or game-changers. They just have it built-in themselves.
Victor is just one of the juniors in his firm but he’s changing narratives at scale already. I am happy to be part of your story Victor.
Do you have high agency?
“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?”
High Agency is about finding a way to get what you want, without waiting for conditions to be perfect or otherwise blaming the circumstances. High Agency People either push through in the face of adverse conditions or manage to reverse the adverse condition
High Agency got me to where I am today as well.
Aut viam inveniam aut faciam
You can build high agency even if you don’t currently have it. That should be the next thing I’m writing about.
Watch out for another piece on “Cultivating High Agency”