Executive summary: In this personal reflection and advice piece, Cate Hall argues that agency—the determination to make things happen—is not innate but learnable, and shares seven practical strategies she’s used to build it, from courting rejection and feedback to embracing low status and avoiding burnout.
Key points:
Agency is a skill, not a trait: Hall challenges the idea that agency is innate, describing it instead as something anyone can cultivate with practice and mindset shifts.
Exploit ignored edges: Drawing from her poker experience, she highlights that agency often comes from doing things others avoid—not through extra effort but by recognizing and leveraging neglected opportunities.
Court rejection and seek real feedback: Asking boldly and creating channels for anonymous feedback can lead to surprising opportunities and self-improvement, even if it’s uncomfortable.
Maximize luck surface area: Meeting many people—even those who seem irrelevant—can lead to unexpected collaborations; usefulness is often unpredictable.
Assume traits are learnable: Traits like charisma, confidence, and agency itself can be learned with deliberate effort, just like subject knowledge.
Embrace the “moat of low status”: Learning new skills requires enduring a period of visible incompetence; doing so openly accelerates growth.
Avoid overwork to preserve agency: Hall warns that burnout is a major agency-killer and emphasizes rest and boundaries as key to sustaining creativity and drive.
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Executive summary: In this personal reflection and advice piece, Cate Hall argues that agency—the determination to make things happen—is not innate but learnable, and shares seven practical strategies she’s used to build it, from courting rejection and feedback to embracing low status and avoiding burnout.
Key points:
Agency is a skill, not a trait: Hall challenges the idea that agency is innate, describing it instead as something anyone can cultivate with practice and mindset shifts.
Exploit ignored edges: Drawing from her poker experience, she highlights that agency often comes from doing things others avoid—not through extra effort but by recognizing and leveraging neglected opportunities.
Court rejection and seek real feedback: Asking boldly and creating channels for anonymous feedback can lead to surprising opportunities and self-improvement, even if it’s uncomfortable.
Maximize luck surface area: Meeting many people—even those who seem irrelevant—can lead to unexpected collaborations; usefulness is often unpredictable.
Assume traits are learnable: Traits like charisma, confidence, and agency itself can be learned with deliberate effort, just like subject knowledge.
Embrace the “moat of low status”: Learning new skills requires enduring a period of visible incompetence; doing so openly accelerates growth.
Avoid overwork to preserve agency: Hall warns that burnout is a major agency-killer and emphasizes rest and boundaries as key to sustaining creativity and drive.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.