High Agency is the Game (and Most People Aren't Playing)
5/21/202616 min
I help founders & executives generating more than $10M in revenue find their Easy Mode. Start here: https://ryanhanley.com/subscribe
Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtube.com/ryanmhanley
I was 17 years old. Kitchen table my mom bought at a garage sale. I hand-wrote 17 letters to college baseball coaches with a message no teenager should have the nerve to send: my family is broke, whoever gives me the most money, that's where I'm going.
George Mack calls what happened at that table high agency. Three wheels: clear thinking, bias to action, disagreeability. This episode breaks down why high agency is not a trait you're born with. It's a state you access. And the fastest path to that state is what I call Easy Mode.
I also make the argument that most people are using AI backwards. They're speeding up hard mode. That's the low agency move. The real play is building an AI layer that protects your zone of genius so you can operate at full high agency by default.
Ryan Hanley is the host of Finding Peak, author of the forthcoming book Easy Mode, and founder of the PEAK coaching framework for founders and executives generating $10M+ in revenue.
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- Website: https://ryanhanley.com
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This is the way.
Hanley.
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Transcript preview
First 90 secondsRyan Hanley· Host0:00
I was 17 years old, sitting at a kitchen table my mom bought at a garage sale. No dad in the house, stepfather working 12 hours a day, on the road, construction crew. My mom was busy with my little sister. It was just me. I hand-wrote letters to 17 different college baseball coaches, packaged them up in VHS tapes, me hitting, fielding, whatever I could get at the time, and in every single letter, I said the same thing, that, that most 17-year-olds would never have the nerve to say. I said, "I'm a power hitting, right-handed catcher. I finished 29th out of 325 kids in my class. I wanna study science or engineering. If this is the kinda kid that you want on your team, here's the deal. My family is broke. I cannot pay for college. Whoever reduces that burden the most, essentially whoever gives me the most money, that's where I'm going." No hedge, no performance, no pretending that I had options that I didn't have. 17 letters, 17 years old, 17 VHS tapes. Total clarity about what I needed and what I was offering if they were to offer me a scholarship to go to that school. When the University of Rochester letter arrived, I opened it and immediately, immediately flipped as fast as I possibly could to the acceptance part, and once I saw that, immediately went to financial aid package. 90% covered. I started crying, legitimately crying, right there,