How to Be More Agentic
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Summary
Summarized wtih ChatGPT
It’s never too late to control your own fate
Highlights from Article
Over the years, as I’ve aged and made smarter friends, I’ve gradually grown dumber relative to my peers. I’ve compensated by dialing up my agency, which I think of as “manifest determination to make things happen.”
- Use agency to brute force in
In my way of thinking, radical agency involves finding real edges: things you are willing to do that others aren’t, often because they’re annoying, unpleasant, or obscured in a cloud of aversion.
- Agency means you work hard - harder than other people. It’s a grind.
All of my agency hacks are kind of like this—seeking out big, glaring edges that most people might rather ignore. Here are some of the ones I’ve noticed and started seeking out.
- What do you know or think that other people don’t?
Jobs are a great example: Especially if you’re early in your career, you should aim to get rejected from most things you apply for.
- Aim high. Otherwise you’ll never miss but you’ll hit crappy targets.
By casting a wide net, I learned that I have very little ability to predict how useful a call will be in advance.
- Speak to a lot of people. YOu never know what will be useful.
Increase your surface area for luck
Burnout is the ultimate agency-killer. This is so true that I’ve learned to identify a reduction in agency as one of the first signs of burnout, one that shows up even before I consciously realize what’s happening. A switch flips and I start looking for ways to rule out ideas and actions, to conclude they won’t work or aren’t necessary, rather than chasing better versions.
My rule is to never take instructions on how hard I should work from someone who hasn’t burned out before. Very few people take this seriously enough.
- Make sure you don’t burn out.
All material owns to the authors, of course. If I’m highlighting or writing notes on this, I mostly likely recommend reading the original article, of course.
See other recent things I’ve read here.