Personal note: This article challenged me. As I wrote it I was reminded of all the times I lacked agency and how it hurt my career, relationships, and health. I experienced my own procrastination, desiring to avoid the topic because of the feelings that it stirred up.
This is why it had to be done. I pray that reading this will be as fruitful as it has been for me to write.
Have you ever met rich successful idiots? I’m sure you have. I certainly have—and it’s disappointing every time.
I used to think intellect guaranteed success, believing that successful people had exceptionally high IQ’s or secret knowledge I hadn’t discovered yet. But time after time, I’ve been let down by the intellect of the wealthy.
In fact, intellect almost seems inversely correlated.
I’m sure a lot of smart kids think intelligence alone is all they need to succeed, but many just end up as mid-level employees.
Now, I’m not talking about the Elon Musks or Warren Buffets of the world. They’ve most definitely got both the intellect and the… agency.
Agency. That’s the word you need to understand.
Have you heard of Gabe West?
When Gabe’s gym closed due to the response to the pandemic, he faced devastating family news and financial uncertainty—yet he chose relentless action over waiting for conditions to improve. His messy, relentless action transformed loss into viral success. Gabe’s journey shows how high agency isn’t given; it’s forged. I’ll tell you how he did it by the end of this article.
There’s good news: You don’t have to be a genius to be a millionaire.
In the age of AI, IQ means less than ever, and your agency is the more imperative trait to develop.
This article will show you how to develop your agency, become more action-oriented, and achieve your entrepreneurial goals faster.
A Simple Definition of High-Agency
High-Agency: the ability to take decisive action action and create results, regardless of the circumstances.
Once you see it, you can’t un-see it. You’ll see it’s application everywhere. You’ll spot levels of agency in yourself and others.
You’re Already Ahead: The Stats on Entrepreneurial Agency
Wondering where your agency stacks up? The fuel that drives and separates the winners from the whiners. Let’s break down the stats so you can see where you’re at on the spectrum.
The Agency Spectrum: Three Levels
Research highlights four key traits of agency: self-efficacy (confidence in your abilities), locus of control (belief in controlling your destiny), proactiveness (taking initiative), and resilience (bouncing back from setbacks). Here’s how these traits play out across three groups:
- Level 1: Employees (Baseline Agency)
- Self-Efficacy: Low confidence in creating independent success.
- Locus of Control: External—outcomes depend on others (bosses, luck).
- Proactiveness: Reactive, following set paths.
- Resilience: Relies on external support in tough times.
- Level 2: Struggling Entrepreneurs (Elevated Agency)
- Self-Efficacy: +15% higher than employees—growing belief in your skills.
- Locus of Control: Shifting to internal—you’re starting to own your path.
- Proactiveness: +15% more likely to act, even if results vary.
- Resilience: Developing adaptability to handle challenges.
- Level 3: Successful Entrepreneurs (High Agency)
- Self-Efficacy + Self-Confidence: +25% higher than employees—strong confidence in seizing opportunities.
- Locus of Control: Strongly internal—you know you shape your future.
- Proactiveness: +33% more likely to innovate and drive growth.
- Resilience: +35% better at thriving through crises.
Sources: Chen et al. (1998), Hansemark (2003), Crant (1996), Bullough et al. (2014)
A Story of High-Agency
In early 2020, Gabe West hit a major turning point. Just six months after opening his own gym on the east side of Washington State, the pandemic shut everything down. While scrambling to pivot online, Gabe got devastating news—a call from his mom letting him know she had stage four cancer. Without hesitation, he closed his gym and moved back to his hometown to support his family.
He adapted quickly, picking up tile and flooring jobs before eventually landing on tugboats. His life became a whirlwind of unpredictable shifts—six days on, three days off, with constant on-call work dictated by the tides, often at all hours of the night. Amid the chaos, Gabe still found moments to grab kettlebells, train hard, and shoot quick, raw videos between shifts.
Seeing friends succeed online sparked a new idea, and Gabe dove headfirst into creating mobility related fitness content on TikTok. Within weeks, he exploded to over 120,000 followers. Yet once he did, he realized mobility wasn’t his true passion, Gabe boldly walked away, shut down the account, and started again from scratch on Instagram. He challenged himself to 30 days of daily reels, and his relentless commitment paid off—three reels went viral at once, generating over $10,000 in just one month.
Gabe’s story embodies true high agency: taking decisive, messy action, rapidly adapting, and persevering despite massive setbacks. He didn’t inherit his success; he forged it one bold step at a time.
Inside the Mind of High-Agency Entrepreneurs
There are those who live in the reality created by others and then there are those who create their own reality.
The people surrounding Steve Jobs said that he had something called a “reality distortion field”. It was really triggering to people around him. Some cited that he was an asshole. He would enter the room and challenge everyone’s assumptions (stories/beliefs) about what was possible.
He was able to create a world we all now benefit from.
Where others saw problems, he saw opportunities. Likely a combination of how he was raised and an intentional effort to develop himself to view the world differently than most.
Locus of Control: Ownership, Not Victimhood:
The majority of the population live in their own reality distortion field. It’s the mainstream version so most people just call it reality, but it’s the most illusory perception you can wear. It’s called “Victim Mentality”.
Doesn’t sound very nice, does it? But the truth is, we all experience it. Some more than others.
And if you’re in the “spiritual community” you likely haven’t escaped this. There’s a good chance you’ve changed the names of the same ideas and tricked yourself into thinking you’ve developed in some way.
You can spot it because it shows up as… drum roll please… COMPLAINT. That’s right. If you’re complaining about something you’re now playing in the realm of victim mentality.
Allow me to introduce to you the Drama Triangle:
You don’t have to be the victim in order to participate in the illusion. You just have to believe there are victims that need to be saved. Placing yourself as the hero, or as the villain. Heroes believe there’s a victim that requires saving. Villain shows up by supporting the pattern through blaming others or taking on “over-responsibility” for circumstances.
Political activists can be some of the most frustrating. They love to place themselves as the hero and blame someone else for the poor circumstances of whatever group of the month the media tells them is marginalized right now.
This holds the illusion in place for those in society.
If you ever see groups being segregated out by identity and there’s a story about how they’re marginalized and need some special attention, the Drama Triangle is in full effect. The spell of illusion is strong.
Once you understand it you’ll see the bullshit everywhere. It’s disgusting.
And if you’ve been participating in it unconsciously, you’ve been a pawn of politicians. WAKE UP!!!
In business, struggling entrepreneurs will blame the market, algorithms, politicians, customers, the competition, or the idea of not having enough hours in the day.
It’s sneaky. Watch your language (internal and external dialogue). Do you catch yourself wishing there was more time?
Some will read this and say “But there are really are victims, see I can show you!!!”. They’ll be very convincing because they truly believe it themselves, but it’s a lie. There’s work to be done in order to put it down.
Transcending the Triangle and Taking Ownership
If you’ve hung out amongst successful entrepreneurs very long you’ll find that many of them have undergone some type of transformation. Participating in retreats, or having experiences with psychedelics that allow them to break through the illusion momentarily to see the patterns they’ve been living in that have created the results of their life up until that point.
Side note: I’ve seen many people benefit from psychedelics, but it’s never the whole solution. It only opens a window for new possibility. Many get lost in a new illusion, and fail to make a new choice. They get stuck in the dopamine hits of “insight without action”. You’ll hear them talk all spiritual and stuff, but they regularly find themselves in crisis and seeking another “enlightening” experience.
Once the veil has been lifted there’s a chance to make a new choice. People make very few real choices over their lives. We’re mostly on auto-pilot.
To be truly free we must become free of the patterns. And that happens through a practice of being present and awake. Our biology fights that. Patterned behavior (being asleep) requires less energy than being awake. And preserving energy is survival to the biological system. The subconscious mind is programmed to keep you alive, and what has been working is believed to be what will keep working.
Working at the level of consciousness is what’s required. And this is why transformational experiences have become more popular amongst high performers.
Making a new choice is high-agency.
We take 100% responsibility for our current life and continue to hold ourselves accountability for all the results in our life moving forward. There’s no room for blaming parents, school, politicians, the market, or customers. Without blaming ourselves we can lovingly witness what is, and make a choice to change our reality.
Responsibility is not shame, guilt, or blame. It’s a gift we give ourselves. When it can be seen as such, that gives the opportunity for true freedom.
This does not mean you cannot call others forward. If you’ve done the work yourself it becomes an imperative to point out the illusion to others as well with love. Learning to deliver the message is a conversation for another blog.
Self-Efficacy and Confidence
Both terms are related to belief in oneself. But if your self-efficacy doesn’t transcend into self-confidence you’ll stay trapped in a pattern of struggle, avoiding new opportunities to learn.
Think of “Self-Efficacy” as the belief in oneself to complete a specific task, or to perform well in specific situations. An increase is mostly attributed to become more competent at something through practice and experience.
With greater self-efficacy you will have a sense of agency over a specific area of your life, but not the generalized self belief that’s necessary to thrive as an entrepreneur. This is why you feel confident in some tasks or conversations and you become shy in others.
Self-Confidence is a much broader sense of belief in oneself. This is built over time by becoming competent at a broad number of tasks or situations. You believe in your ability to learn, figure it out, and value yourself.
If you’ve over specialized and haven’t been introduced to a wide variety of situations your confidence will have no room to develop.
This is why CEOs of companies tend to be intelligent generalists. They know a lot about a lot of things. They also don’t know as much about a specific thing as the specialist. And that’s ok. They believe that whatever it is they can figure it out, no matter the “problem”.
Their confidence is in themselves in general, not in a specific thing.
Most of my one on one clients hire me to help them shift into a CEO mindset. They’ve harnessed a skill that propels them into some level of success but have low confidence as soon as things start to grow past the point of relying on that single skill. It’s time to branch out, learn new things, and have a coach in their corner helping them to throttle their nervous system as they grow their knowledge, skills, and confidence.
Proactive
If you’ve ever had a star employee, this is usually one of the traits you love about them the most. Any employee can spot problems. But a star goes beyond and proactively creates a solution. They best do it automatically and has things happening the background without any direction needed from the boss.
As entrepreneurs our entire job is to solve problems. Your business solves a problem. Whether you made the choice consciously or not, you saw that something can be done better.
When I opened my first business, a CrossFit gym, I was solving the problem that the other gyms didn’t offer the type of fitness I believed was superior.
When I started my first podcast and YouTube channel I sought to solve the problem that athletes, coaches, and gym owners didn’t have enough of the right information to train properly.
When I started a marketing agency for gym owners I solved the problem of CrossFit gyms marketing effectively.
And my current business solves the problem of digital creators spending too much time doing too many of the wrong things in order to grow their business.
If you have a business your job is to solve a problem for you customers. And inside your business, your job is to reduce the bottlenecks to better serve your clients and scale your services to as many customers as possible.
By putting yourself out into the marketplace you’ve already proven a level of proactivity that most will shy away from. The degree of your success will be dictated by how proactive you are in solving for your bottlenecks. This requires holding a vision of the future of your business, and finding every little thing that needs to change in order to get there.
A guy like Elon Musk is moving at breakneck speeds here. He has teams at several companies that are made up of high-agency individuals. He only gets called in to solve the problems they cannot. He sets the vision, puts people in place that solve problems, and only gets involved when they need the most high-agency person in the room.
Resilience
We all experience setbacks from time to time. How we handle those setbacks is dictated by the level of resilience we’ve developed.
Remember Gabe? He experienced several setbacks, placed in less than ideal circumstances, and had the resilience to keep moving forward.
When I look back at my entrepreneurial career I can see just as many years of losses as I had years of gains.
But I never failed. Because failure only occurs when you give up on yourself and your dream.
When things go south I become hyper-vigilant of my self talk. I listen to the thoughts running through my head and sort through them. Many of the thoughts are not pretty. I’ve had suicidal ideation. That is, thoughts arose that said “you can end it here”. Grotesque images running through my mind that I won’t share here.
But I choose to not believe the thoughts. I chose to generate thoughts of optimism. I take a breath. I start asking myself questions to focus on solutions instead of the problem. I remind myself that I am the creator of my reality.
I become present with my emotions but I don’t let them dictate my life.
I can be with dark thoughts and emotions I used to push away. They are not my master. I am. I have authority over my thoughts and feelings.
This is resilience.
Agency is Yours
We all start somewhere. Some of us were gifted with parents with traits that tend toward high-agency. Most of us were not. Either way, your agency is your responsibility.
You choose if you develop it or not. If you’re still reading, you’re ahead of the curve. You already have momentum. You already have the base level necessary to continue to develop yourself. It is never too late.
There is always time to improve. The moment to choose is now.
Do you choose your agency? Or will you keep waiting for something outside of yourself to change?
We are the average of the 5 people we surround ourselves with most.
Join a high-agency community in the One Hour Business. We’re here to master ourselves and our businesses.
Are you in?