Personal Agency
Lessons from Rural Childhoods
Personal agency is the feeling of confidence in one’s ability to control actions and life outcomes. The feeling comes from having the skills and competence to act independently, usually towards a goal. If a high-agency individual doesn’t believe they can do something, they probably at least believe they can learn how. Our culture (I believe rightfully so) admires high-agency individuals as builders and leaders– pilgrims, homesteaders, entrepreneurs.
Although idolized, I wonder about real personal agency in the modern world. Is there a need to have independent, confidence-inspiring skills when much is automated or done for us? Take driving a standard/manual transmission vehicle as an example. Knowing how to use a third pedal and gear lever is a confidence-inspiring skill that, in certain situations, would create major independence. If you get in a pinch and a manual transmission car is the only option to get somewhere, knowing how to drive it is a huge win.
However, only about 1% of vehicles sold in America have manual transmissions. It’s been over twenty years since manual transmissions made up more than 10% of vehicles sold in a given year. The odds of having to drive stick are incredibly low, so knowing how is probably not that important. It seems like driving a manual is a high-agency skill that no longer holds much value. There are numerous skills like it– hunting, using a compass, reading cursive, bread making, sewing, long division, etc.
So, why know how to do them if you never will? Because in 2025, the confidence they provide is far more important than actually being able to do them. One of the most popular episodes of Getting Stronger is entitled “A Healthy Dose of Manual Labor.” In it, I shared how seeing, feeling, and experiencing work creates a deep sense of accomplishment that progress bars cannot provide. I believe a similar effect is true with quasi-obsolete skills and personal agency. Having hard skills that make us independent creates agency– a deep sense of confidence that cannot be achieved by relying on others, even if we never use them.
This train of thought started brewing a few weeks ago when I listened to Ross McKnight share his life story. Ross is the owner and chairman of Interbank, a $4.5 billion bank headquartered in Oklahoma City. He oversees the bank from a 56,000 ranch in his hometown of Throckmorton, Texas. If that were all you knew about Ross, you would guess he’s an old, entitled guy from a rich family who bought a big ranch to show off. You would be very wrong.
Ross McKnight grew up an orphan on a ranch in Throckmorton, a town of less than 1,000 people, after his father passed away and his mother abandoned him. He raised himself with help from the community before going to Oklahoma State University to study animal science. Ross judged livestock and eventually became the student government president. After graduating, he went home to Throckmorton to ranch, then got into the oil and gas business before buying Interbank.
I got to hear Ross’s story because the McKnight Leadership Scholars Program is why I came to OSU. The program was started for out-of-state students from small towns interested in leadership. Ross believes OSU was a critical part of his success, so he started a program that would give rural students similar opportunities. Each year, he invites his scholars into the McKnight Center for the Performing Arts for a meet and greet. His message is this: Never be convinced you can’t do something.
Ross talks about how the “small town mindset” is responsible for his unlikely success. There aren’t enough people in small towns for everyone to specialize in one thing, so people learn to do a variety of skills without prior knowledge, often as they grow up. The thought goes something like, “I haven’t done this before, but somebody else figured it out, so I can too.” Ross says that mindset allowed him to jump from ranching to oil and gas, then oil and gas to banking. He admits that he did not know the first thing about banking, but someone else figured it out, so he could, too.
Ross is undoubtedly a high-agency individual. Buying a bank without knowing anything about banking takes some serious confidence. A strong case could be made that Ross’s sense of agency stems from raising himself– he proved to himself from a young age that he controlled the cards he was dealt. That sense of agency has paid off massively.
I know exactly what Ross means by “small town mindset” and how it inspires personal agency. At age seven, I learned to use a clutch pedal and gear lever when my grandma needed help feeding cows. She, around the same time, taught me how to make my own eggs and bacon. Raising a 4-H steer in the fourth grade gave me a concept of money and how to save enough for another steer the following year. Ten years after learning how to drive a manual transmission, I learned how to drive a 105,000-pound semi truck down the highway. Each skill contributed to a broader feeling of, “If I can learn this, what else can I do?”
That feeling is the important part. It is what helped Ross and, most likely, a ton of other entrepreneurs, explorers, and builders push society forward. It can help everyone excel in their careers, relationships, and health by helping us tackle growth-filled challenges. You don’t have to be from a small town or know how to drive a semi-truck to achieve a feeling of agency. The small town environment is helpful for the “small town mindset,” but not required. The most important components of agency, ones that we can all adopt, involve taking on a challenge and seeing enough success to build confidence.
Psychology Today has a fantastic article breaking down four pillars of personal agency:
Pillar #1 is forethought. You have to decide to take on a challenge. More importantly, you have to want it. Even if you don’t want the specific challenge, you might want something that comes with it. I would have loved it if my parents paid for my 4-H steers, but they weren’t, and I still wanted to show a steer. There has to be a good reason to take on the challenge, or it will never happen.
Pillar #2 is implementation. After deciding to take on a challenge, you have to take action. If you don’t, you’re like Michael Scott yelling, “I declare bankruptcy!” Generating small wins is the best way to build confidence in your actions. Most people overestimate what they can do in a month, but underestimate what they can do in a year. Persist towards success slowly, one small win at a time.
Pillar #3 is self-management. You can’t pour out of an empty cup. The best way to erase any feeling of personal agency is to be sleep deprived, out of shape, and improperly nourished. Creating confidence in your abilities means fueling the mind and body that performs them. Learning how to make breakfast at age 7 could have been the best thing anyone ever taught me.
Pillar #4 is learning and adapting. Breaking goals into small actions does not guarantee each one will be successful, so you have to be able to learn from mistakes, pivot, and try again. This pillar represents the critical growth mindset one must embrace to achieve a feeling of personal agency.
I’ve always thought growth mindset was a wishy-washy term—a more serious-sounding version of “Believe in yourself!” This kind of motivation has always struck me as hollow. A lack of confidence doesn’t come from nowhere. We tend to convince ourselves we are incapable by focusing on our failures over our successes. In the same way that screaming, “The sky is green!” is unlikely to change your beliefs about the sky, screaming “Believe in yourself!” is an unlikely way to change one's beliefs about oneself. This leads us to the final, most important part of personal agency.
Feeling personal agency comes from acting with agency, not the other way around. It seems logical to think, “I’ll do ____ when I feel ready,” but I’m convinced that isn’t how confidence works. The same principle applies to having a growth mindset. Saying “I can learn!” a million times is far less potent than successfully taking the first step towards learning.
To review, if you want a feeling of personal agency, you must act in a way that creates it. The four pillars to doing so are taking on a challenge, taking action, taking care of yourself, and developing a growth mindset through action.