The one trait all successful creators have—

The one trait all successful creators have—

Have you ever wondered what really separates the top 1% of achievers from everyone else?

You might assume it’s raw talent, an extraordinary IQ, or just plain luck—but I’ve come to realize it’s something more subtle and much more accessible than you may think.

and that trait is agency: the consistent drive to take action on your biggest dreams, even when success feels impossible.

My own journey took some unexpected turns and agency helped me through.

I pursued a “safe” path by heading to university for biological science, only to discover it wasn’t what I truly wanted.

Dropping out meant risking a normal and safe life, but it also opened the door to new skills that transformed my career.

Along the way, I noticed that people who consistently rise above the rest all share this trait of agency, no matter the field they’re in.

In this newsletter, I want to break down three crucial questions but first,

What Is Agency and Why Do We Lack It?

Agency is the capacity—and the willingness—to take massive action on your goals, especially when there’s no obvious roadmap.

It’s the trait that pushes you to start, endure failures, learn from them, and continue refining your approach until you reach your destination.

People with high agency don’t necessarily begin with the most resources, intelligence, or talent.

Instead, they leverage consistent effort, unshakeable belief, and real-world data learned from their mistakes.

If agency is so powerful, why don’t we all have it?

One major culprit is the way most of us are raised and educated.

From an early age, school systems reward you for ticking the right boxes, avoiding mistakes, and following a predetermined curriculum.

Deviating from the formula or “thinking outside the box” is often discouraged.

Over time, you learn that failing is embarrassing rather than instructive.

By the time you become an adult, fear of failure can be so ingrained that you’d rather not try than risk looking incompetent.

Our egos, too, get in the way—especially when family, friends, and colleagues are watching.

For many people, it’s easier to avoid challenging your identity or stepping outside your comfort zone than to risk stumbling in public.

But here’s the catch: you can’t access your fullest potential without stepping into the unknown.

Without failure, you never gather the real data that helps you adapt and improve.

Agency is the opposite of that paralyzing fear.

It’s about moving forward, failing quickly, learning fast, and carrying on.

Examples of People with High Agency

Elon Musk might be one of the best examples of high agency.

He didn’t just dip his toes into a new field; he leaped headlong into industries people deemed impossible to conquer—like commercial space travel.

Musk started with an outrageous goal: privatize space travel and get to Mars

He tried to buy refurbished rockets from Russia, experimented, failed repeatedly, and nearly ran out of cash before SpaceX finally succeeded in launching rockets and then developing reusable rockets.

Musk didn’t have a neat, step-by-step school curriculum showing him how to commercialize space travel.

He had a vision, a willingness to fail, and the capacity to keep testing ideas until one worked.

I’ve also seen agency at work in my personal life, one example was my path into jiu-jitsu.

When I started, I was tapped out by more experienced grapplers every 30 seconds—no matter how hard I tried.

The initial failures were painful, both physically and mentally.

But jiu-jitsu forces you to confront your weaknesses in real time.

There’s no way to hide or bluff your way through.

Each session taught me one small lesson about posture, grips, or defense.

Over time, those lessons stacked up.

A few months in, I still wasn’t a prodigy, but I could handle myself better than I ever imagined on day one.

This incremental transformation is the essence of agency: you know you’re going to fail a hundred times, but you show up anyway.

Eventually, those setbacks become the stepping stones to mastery.

Whether it’s weightlifting, entrepreneurship, or learning a new language, you can spot high-agency individuals by their approach.

They don’t wait for perfect conditions or guaranteed success.

They jump in, collect the data, and pivot as needed.

They’re the ones who see failure as an inevitable—and crucial—part of the process.

How to Develop Agency

1. Shift Your Mindset

The first step is embracing the possibility of failure as a normal, even necessary, part of growth.

Rather than feeling ashamed when things go wrong, try reframing mistakes as data points.

If something doesn’t work, great—you’ve learned one way not to do it.

Over time, your mental script changes: “Failure isn’t a dead end; it’s a detour.”

2. Give Yourself Permission to Start

The biggest obstacle to building agency is often the fear of starting in the first place.

We convince ourselves we’re not ready or not talented enough.

But the top 1% know that progress isn’t linear.

All you have to see is the first step. Once you take it, the second step becomes clearer, and so on.

The path will rarely be neat, but that’s part of the adventure.

3. Deliberately Seek Challenges

Think about an area in life where you can be a beginner again.

Maybe it’s a new hobby like jiu-jitsu or learning a musical instrument.

Maybe it’s starting a small side project or launching a business on a tiny scale.

The goal is to immerse yourself in something that forces you to fail, adapt, and grow.

This hands-on learning trains your brain to see failure as feedback, not a verdict.

4. Cultivate Self-Belief Through Action

Self-belief isn’t built in your head; it’s built in practice.

Each time you fail and bounce back, you prove to yourself that you’re resilient.

Over time, you accumulate evidence that you can handle challenges—and that evidence fuels even bigger goals.

It becomes a cycle: the more you try, the more you believe in your capacity to succeed.

5. Embrace Ongoing Iteration

High-agency individuals never stop iterating.

Whether they’re learning jiu-jitsu, scaling a startup, or perfecting their creative craft, they operate on a cycle of action → feedback → adjustment.

They may not see the full path at the outset, but they trust that each failure will reveal the next clue.

By adopting this iterative mindset, you free yourself from the pressure of needing all the answers upfront.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, agency is what pushes someone from an average performer into the top 1%.

It’s the willingness to tackle audacious goals, face multiple failures, and keep moving forward.

It’s also the very thing our traditional school system and societal norms don’t emphasize—so it might feel foreign or even reckless at first.

But if you can break through that conditioning, you’ll find that your potential is far greater than you ever imagined.

The journey won’t be smooth.

It will involve moments of self-doubt, setbacks, and a lot of vulnerability.

But with each new challenge, you’ll grow stronger, more adaptable, and closer to realizing those “impossible” goals.

Whether you’re aiming to build a business, master a martial art, or revolutionize an industry, agency is your most powerful ally.

So here’s your call to action: pick one bold objective you’ve been too scared to attempt.

Write it down.

Take one small step toward it today, whether that’s enrolling in a class, sending an email, or brainstorming your first prototype.

Start now, fail forward, and watch how quickly your life transforms when you decide that “impossible” is just another word for “not yet.”

Thanks for reading, Ethan