If you've read my article on being mentally athletic as a leader, you know I believe there are six essential muscles that business owners need to develop. While all six are important, my experience with thousands of entrepreneurs has led me to a conclusion that might sound extreme:
Without high agency, your chances of successfully growing a business are effectively zero.
I don't say that lightly. After working with business owners for over two decades, I've seen clear patterns in who succeeds and who doesn't. No matter what other strengths they possess, those without high agency inevitably hit a ceiling they can't break through.
High agency is the deep conviction that you can influence outcomes through your actions. It's the refusal to be defined by circumstances and the belief that you can always find a way forward, even when faced with seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
It seems like a critical life skill to me, and I'm not sure why it hasn't been more clearly defined or taught.
I first encountered the concept through George Mack's work several years ago. While I had observed this quality in successful entrepreneurs throughout my career, George articulated it in a way that crystallized my thinking. He's done extensive research on this topic, and I highly recommend checking out HighAgency.com if you want to explore agency in more depth.
George explains high agency with a powerful thought experiment: "If you were stuck in jail in a third-world country, who would you call?" The person you immediately thought of is high agency. They wouldn't accept "it's impossible" as an answer. They'd make endless calls, try every angle, leverage every connection, and wouldn't rest until you were home safe. They see challenges as problems to be solved rather than permanent barriers.
He also illustrates the concept with a now-famous image comparing two people stranded on a desert island:
The low-agency person thinks: "I'm stranded on a desert island. No one is coming to save me. I'm going to die here."
The high-agency person thinks: "I need to build a raft, catch fish, signal for help, and create a plan. I'm going to find a way off this island."
This simple contrast (popularized by George Mack in his writings on high agency) perfectly captures the mindset difference that determines outcomes in business and life.
In my experience working with business owners, high agency manifests through three essential traits:
Before I knew what to call it, I described people with these traits as "having alligator blood" – they just wouldn't stop, no matter what you threw at them.
Running a business is essentially signing up for a continuous series of problems to solve. Market shifts, cash flow problems, staffing issues, competitive threats, technology disruptions – and they don't arrive in an orderly fashion. They hit simultaneously, often when you're least prepared.
In these moments, your response will be largely determined by your sense of agency:
Low-agency response: "The economy is killing us. Our competitors are undercutting us. There's nothing we can do but try to survive until conditions improve."
High-agency response: "These conditions are challenging everyone. What opportunities might they create? What three actions could we take today to move forward?"
This contrast explains why two businesses in identical circumstances often experience dramatically different outcomes.
I've witnessed it over my entire 20+ year career, seeing entrepreneurs with stellar educational backgrounds, innovative products, and solid funding fail because their agency wasn't strong enough to carry them through inevitable challenges. I've also seen business owners with fewer advantages but abundant agency build thriving companies by refusing to accept limitations.
That was a major driver behind starting Redesigned.Business, because of my familiarity and being able to guide owners along the high agency path.
Here's an example: A professional services firm that lost three major clients in rapid succession due to corporate mergers, wiping out nearly 70% of their revenue overnight.
A low-agency owner might have immediately downsized, complained about bad luck, or even closed up shop.
Instead, this owner:
That's high agency in action – refusing to be a victim of circumstance and instead becoming the architect of your response.
After observing thousands of business owners, there are three prominent traits that I've seen consistently appear in those I would describe as high agency (I think you can say 'highly agentic' if you're really into it. lol):
High-agency entrepreneurs have an almost unreasonable persistence. They try one approach, then another, then another – refusing to accept that a solution doesn't exist. While George Mack might describe this as "disagreeable thinking" or having "a bias to action," I've found that relentlessness captures the unshakeable determination that these business owners bring to every challenge.
When faced with resource limitations, high-agency entrepreneurs create possibilities from what's available. They're masters of leverage, finding creative ways to do more with less. You can't just count on stretching dollars either. You've got to find potential in people, assets, and opportunities that others miss.
Here's a quick story about resourcefulness in action: A client of mine named David was building a business and had gotten it up to around $162,000 annually. The business had plateaued and was consuming all his and his wife's time, leaving little for their young family. Instead of accepting these limitations and just banging his head against the wall, we got resourceful. We shifted his focus to his zone of genius while outsourcing operations, creating recurring revenue streams, and building strategic partnerships. The result was nearly 5X growth while simultaneously reducing his wife's workload by 80%, creating the family time they desperately needed. Read David's story.
The ability to bounce back from setbacks is perhaps the most critical trait. High-agency entrepreneurs process disappointment quickly, extract lessons, and move forward without dwelling on failures. They maintain perspective during crises, recognizing that most business problems, while significant, aren't life-threatening.
This case study about a founder, Brian, gives you a glimpse at his resilience. It was off the charts. When I met him he was talking about being 60-something days from shutting down. Despite his tons of expertise and vision, his business was poorly designed – he was selling one-off products, buried in operations, with deteriorating cash flow and mounting debt. He was completely exhausted trying to do everything himself.
It was... not good, I'll tell you that.
A low-agency entrepreneur probably calls it a day at that point.
But he stayed resilient and flexed his agency muscle 😉
We worked together to shift his focus to leadership and being the face of the brand, added key team members to handle departmental responsibilities, created curriculum from his expertise, and built recurring revenue streams. His business grew 5X, eliminated debt, expanded from 300 to 3,500 customers, and became the largest in his niche worldwide.
More importantly, he escaped the burnout cycle and finally got to live his vision as a business owner.
Like all leadership muscles, agency can be developed through deliberate practice:
Ban phrases like "I can't," "It's not possible," or "There's nothing I can do" from your vocabulary. Replace them with "How could...?" (<- one of the most impactful phrases you can use for yourself and others) or "What would make this possible?" Questions open possibilities where statements close them.
When something goes wrong, make your first response: "What's my role in this situation, and what can I do to improve it?" This builds the reflex of focusing on your sphere of influence rather than external factors.
Choose one small obstacle each day and commit to overcoming it through your own initiative. These "agency workouts" build capacity over time.
Find entrepreneurs who demonstrate high agency and analyze their specific actions when facing obstacles. What questions did they ask? What conventional wisdom did they reject?
Put something meaningful at stake when you commit to action. Public commitments, financial consequences, or partnerships can prevent the drift toward inaction that often follows good intentions.
All six leadership muscles are vital, but I'm a believer that high agency is the biggest amplifier of the others:
That's why I maintain my stance: without high agency, navigating the journey of sustainable business growth is virtually impossible. It's just too much of a storm.
If you're facing challenges in your business – whether a growth plateau, market headwinds, or persistent operational issues – the first question isn't about strategy, marketing, or financing.
It's about agency: Are you behaving like someone who can influence outcomes regardless of circumstances? Or are you waiting for conditions to improve?
The choice between these mindsets is the difference between struggling and scaling.
Every day as a business owner, you face a fundamental decision: Will you be defined by your circumstances, or will you define them?
High-agency entrepreneurs understand that while you can't control everything that happens to your business, you always control your response. And over time, your responses shape your reality far more than your circumstances do.
So I'll leave you with this question: Where in your business right now are you waiting for something to change instead of creating change yourself? Your answer might reveal your most important growth opportunity.
I first shared these leadership muscles concepts in 2019 for Fitness Revolution, and then published an earlier version of this article.
My understanding of agency has been significantly influenced by George Mack's work on the topic, which you can explore at highagency.com. If you're interested in developing your mental athleticism as a leader, I highly recommend his insights along with my framework of the six leadership muscles.
Nick Berry is an accomplished entrepreneur and CEO, whose track record includes founding and leading numerous companies since 2002.
After his most recent exit he started Redesigned.Business to mentor and coach to other entrepreneurs and business owners who are looking for a trusted (and proven) advisor.
Among peers, colleagues, staff, and clients, Nick has been referred to as both 'The Business Guy' as well as 'The Anti-Guru', due to his pragmatic approach and principled leadership.
He shares his insights and lessons learned, along with those of his expert guests,
on his podcast, 'The Business Owner's Journey'.
