We are launching our own podcast in June 2024. Really, this was a way for us to begin cataloguing the wisdom of amazing people in our orbit who are building companies, creating impact, leading and managing transformative change.
After spending what feels like several lifetimes in the startup trenches (well, just over a decade, but startup years are like dog years), I've seen things. Glorious successes, spectacular failures, and enough pivot-induced whiplash to keep a chiropractor in business.
Through all of this, I keep finding myself surrounded by these peculiar creatures called entrepreneurs. You know the type – they're the ones who hear "that's impossible" and think "hold my kombucha." They're my people, and I've figured out why.
We were entertaining the idea of becoming a media company — because anyone in business in 2024 must also de facto be a media company — and it hit me. All these founders and leaders I've worked with share some incredible traits: curiosity, creativity, resilience — and insane levels of willpower. And these aren't traits in entrepreneurs alone, but that's where I've found them most common. C-suite executives, enterprise leaders, all sorts of people who are making things happen seem to thrive because of obstacles, not despite them.
Then I remembered this brilliant bit from a Tim Ferriss podcast where Eric Weinstein dropped this term "high agency" in passing. When Tim pressed him on it, Eric basically described it as,
When you’re told that something is impossible, is that the end of the conversation, or does that start a second dialogue in your mind, how to get around whoever it is that’s just told you that you can’t do something? So, how am I going to get past this bouncer who told me that I can’t come into this nightclub? How am I going to start a business when my credit is terrible and I have no experience?
My dad, in his infinite wisdom, used to quote George Bernard Shaw in Punjabi (peak immigrant parent flex). Eventually I became curious about this author myself and found all sorts of writings that resonated with me. The following especially (excuse the gendered nature of the quote):
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
So here we are, launching the High Agency Podcast, where we're gathering all these beautifully unreasonable humans who wake up every day choosing chaos (the productive kind). We're talking to people who look at the status quo and think, "We can do better than that."
For now, we're keeping it old school – in-person conversations recorded at Skyrocket Digital in Vancouver. Sure, we might eventually entertain some remote conversations, but there's something magical about the connection and vulnerability that comes from having actual face-to-face conversations. Remember those?
Think you know someone who's just the right kind of unreasonable for our show? Or maybe you're that person who turns "no" into "watch me"? Hit us up at highagencypodcast.com. We're available wherever fine podcasts are served – Apple, Spotify, YouTube, you name it.
Fair warning: side effects of listening may include an uncontrollable urge to start a company, question everything, or at minimum, reorganize your garage with unnecessarily complex systems.
Our first episode launches on June 19, 2024.
Proceed with obsessive commitment. This is High Agency.
