Skip to main content

Expand Your Agency in the AI Era

When everything is changing faster than you can understand it, you want to know where you actually have leverage, so you can shape the future instead of just reacting to it.

The world feels overwhelming right now. AI is rewriting the rules. Crypto is tokenizing everything. Traditional institutions are struggling to adapt. You're smart enough to see the patterns, but unsure where you fit in.

Here's the truth: You have more agency than you think. You just need the right questions to uncover it.

This framework helps you identify your leverage points through structured questioning. It's designed for people who want to move from feeling overwhelmed to taking meaningful action.

Choose Your Starting Point​

Where are you right now?

  • "I'm overwhelmed by all the changes" → Foundation Questions (5 essential questions to clarify your current position)
  • "I understand the landscape, need strategy" → Strategic Questions (Planning your next moves)
  • "I'm building something" → Challenge Questions (Overcoming implementation barriers)
  • "I want the complete framework" → Foundation Questions (Work through all 22 questions systematically)
Progress Guide

Recommended path: Start with Foundation Questions regardless of experience level. Each category builds on the previous one. Most people find value in working through them in order: Foundation → First Principles → Challenge → Strategic.

Pro tip: Use matrix thinking to explore connections between your answers across different categories. The patterns you discover often matter more than individual responses.

Foundation Questions​

Start here if you're feeling overwhelmed. These questions help clarify your current position and available resources.

  1. What problems do you have the agency to solve — who else feels the pain?
  2. What force multipliers are transforming the world?
  3. How can you maximize your leverage with these forces to create value?
  4. What's your skin in the game — and what will break you?
  5. Do you really have a choice? What are the alternatives?

First Principles Questions​

Once you're clear on your foundation, these questions help you think from core principles about strategy and opportunity.

  1. What will be the most valuable human capabilities in three years time?
  2. Why now — what makes this possible or urgent?
  3. Is this a preventative solution or a cure?
  4. What makes this 10x better than the next best thing?
  5. What secret protocols do you know that others don't?
  6. What's the business model — and what does each customer really cost?
  7. When everything of value is tokenized and traded directly, what narratives will combine to become the stable representation of value to society?

Challenge Questions​

These questions address implementation barriers and competitive dynamics you'll face while building.

  1. Who's paying — and how fast do they say yes?
  2. What stops someone stronger from copying it tomorrow?
  3. Who do you need on your team? How do you make the sum greater than the parts?
  4. How fast are you learning — and what hard truths have changed your mind?
  5. What's your distribution edge — how do you connect with those that matter at scale?
  6. What are the most valuable physical resources today?

Strategic Questions​

For long-term planning and recognizing when you need to change course.

  1. If it works, what does it transform the world in three years?
  2. Critical Path — how will you recognise signs you are heading in the wrong direction?
  3. Is the risk worth the reward for the expected time and energy to see meaningful results?
  4. What happens to fiat currency when items of real value are tokenized and traded permissionlessly?

What does it mean to live a good life?​

This is the meta-question that guides all others. As you work through each category, consider how your answers contribute to meaningful progress and human flourishing.

Use matrix thinking to explore connections between seemingly unrelated answers. The gaps between your responses often reveal the most valuable insights.

Mantra

Waiho kia patai ana, he kaha ui te kaha.

Evolutionary Patterns​

When intelligent beings face systemic breakdown - where poor management erodes belief in foundational dreams - they tend to stabilize toward several archetypal patterns. These patterns can be identified using systems thinking approaches:

  • Fragmentation and Tribal Reformation Intelligence doesn't disappear; it reorganizes. People break into smaller, more coherent groups around shared micro-visions that feel achievable. These become testing grounds for rebuilding trust in collective capability.
  • Return to First Principles There's often a gravitational pull back to fundamental questions: What actually works? What creates real value? What can we prove rather than just believe? This manifests as a shift from abstract ideology toward empirical validation.
  • Emergence of Alternative Systems New organizing structures arise organically - often starting as informal networks that prove their worth through results rather than promises. These tend to be more modular, adaptive, and failure-tolerant than what they replace.
  • Individual Sovereignty with Selective Cooperation Intelligent actors become more discriminating about where they invest their energy and trust. They maintain independence while forming strategic alliances around specific, measurable objectives.
  • Focus on Infrastructure Over Ideology Energy shifts toward building reliable, composable tools and systems rather than grand narratives. The emphasis becomes creating conditions where good things can emerge rather than trying to control outcomes.

The pattern seems to be: when top-down coherence fails, intelligence stabilizes through bottom-up reconstruction, starting with what can be verified and building outward from there.

Virtuous Cycles​

Harmonize inner and outer feedback loops by seeking connections that improve flow and influencing meaningful progress towards fulfillment of potential.

  • Dreams: Know the right things to desire
    • Put conscious and consistent effort into clarifying intentions
    • Ask why not?
    • Know where
    • Know why
  • Engineering: Know how to create/get the things you desire
    • Practice focusing attention on big picture and small details at the same time
    • Ask how can this job be done better?
    • Know what
    • Know how
    • Know who

Explore boundaries that define the meta of the matter to fill gaps and connect dots.

Mantra

If you can picture it you can BUILD IT

The Inner Loop​

All that we are is time in mind there is no value in choosing Doom over Optimism.

AI has made the world an open university. Blockchain has made trust a programmable element. Together, they've created unprecedented opportunity to build a better platform for future commerce that is open and fair.

Don't waste your time building another app that adds to the noise. Engineer better protocols that add to the platform. Enable people to connect with purpose.

The greatest determinant of happiness is community. Technology should enhance this, not replace it.

Positive Sum Games​

Play Positive Sum Games: There will never be a more important time in human history to experiment with ideas than the next three years. Money is just marketing and credit follows credibility and culture forms liquidity, the games we choose to play are strongest cultural influence.

  • Vertical expertise that solves real problems
  • Distribution channels no middleman controls
  • Access to data no one else has

No marketing strategy beats word-of-mouth from true fans. No sales pitch beats endorsement from trusted connections. The best coach is someone who just solved your problem.

Dream Big, Think Global, Act Local

Collaborative Culture​

People don't want technology. They want happiness. They want connection. They want to matter. Crypto must evolve from being about technology to being about culture. Meeting in real life (IRL) strengthens social currency. This is how the first stock market was created-people connecting over drinks, building trust.

  • Shared purpose that transcends profit
  • Trust mechanisms that reduce uncertainty
  • Incentives that align individual and collective goals
  • Spaces (physical and digital) for meaningful connection

Technology should exist to enable good people to do good things.

What Happens Next?​

Working through these questions is just the beginning. The real value comes from taking action on your insights.

Your Next Steps​

  1. Complete your assessment - Work through the question categories relevant to your situation
  2. Document your insights - Capture the patterns and leverage points you discover
  3. Take one concrete action - Identify the smallest meaningful step you can take today
  4. Connect with others - Find people working on similar challenges through the community

Going Deeper​

The questions above connect to a larger framework for understanding agency, systems, and coordination:

Remember

The goal isn't to answer every question perfectly. The goal is to think more clearly about where you have leverage and what actions will create the most meaningful progress.

Look for patterns in your responses. The connections between seemingly unrelated answers often reveal your most valuable insights and blind spots.