Personal Agency

In Andrew Lisi’s book review, Dan Koe’s Purpose & Profit — After 10 Years of Living It, I’d come across a phrase that has stuck with me since. Personal agency.

Andrew talks of and highlights multiple things from Purpose & Profit, putting them in the context of his own journey

Koe’s counterproposal is grounded in personal agency. Purpose is built—not found—by taking action, solving problems, and developing competence in service of others.

The book invites you to stop obsessing over purpose and start designing systems of motion: solve small problems, build in public, ship often, and earn alignment through repetition.

You create for survival or status. But once you taste mastery and contribution, you create to give.

There are two different threads Andrew, and Koe, are weaving here - of personal agency, and iteration. I knew of the power of iteration, it was the personal agency bit that I’d not consciously given into until then.

I can do whatever I want. Really. There are practical constraints stopping me, yes, but they can be overcome iteratively, one by one, slowly, in an utterly deterministic manner. I have personal agency.