i missed yesterday’s post after ten days in a row. the point of these posts is to have something new to share every day, and this was what i kept thinking about yesterday. i’m posting twice today to catch up!

the night before, i went to a dinner and talk with jacob colker, a venture capitalist from the seattle area. during the event, he ran an experiment. he put a $20 bill on an empty table and told the room it was up for grabs.

for a second, nobody moved. i hesitated too at first. then i dashed toward the table as a few people from different parts of the room did the same. i moved with that first group, but i was too far away to reach it before someone closer grabbed it. but what’s really interesting is that most of the room didn’t even try.

afterward, he asked the others why they hadn’t moved. people explained what had held them back. some were too far away, while others had been unsure about what was happening. i wasn’t worried about those things once i started moving, i thought i could get past everyone and grab the money.

the point of the experiment was high agency. the money was right there, and he had told us we could take it. whoever reached the table and grabbed it got to keep it.

i still should have moved sooner. as soon as he said the money was up for grabs, i had everything i needed to go for it. i spent a second hesitating while the opportunity was sitting on the table. in that situation, high agency meant getting up immediately and taking it.

but being among the first to move felt good regardless. while most of the room stayed seated, i was already heading toward the table. i’m glad my instinct was to go for it, even with people closer to the money. seeing how few people tried made me realize that the competition can be much smaller than the room suggests. getting up gave me a chance against a handful of people. now i want to build on that instinct and move sooner. once he said it was up for grabs, i had everything i needed to act.

this experiment, along with a couple of other incidents and conversations i’ll share later, made me choose high agency as my focus for the coming week. i think we can overestimate how hard it is to stand out because we count everyone who could try. many of those people will stay seated. taking action puts you among the few who give themselves a chance to win.