We tend to associate adaptability with freedom: more choices, more resources, more possibilities, and the ability to change direction whenever circumstances demand it. But the Agency Paradox begins with a more complicated observation. In many situations, having fewer options can make us more capable of acting well. Clear constraints can focus attention, sharpen creativity, and give human agency a direction in which to operate.
In this special solo episode of Passion Struck, John R. Miles brings together ideas from his recent conversations with David Epstein, author of Inside the Box, and Dr. Martin Seligman, author of Agency: The Psychological History of Human Progress. Their work comes from different disciplines, yet both point toward a similar conclusion: adaptability is not simply the ability to respond to change. It is the ability to recognize the reality in front of you, determine where your influence actually exists, and use your agency effectively within the boundaries you cannot control.
John explores what happens when unlimited freedom becomes a liability, why breakthrough ideas often emerge from narrow problems, why sophisticated technology can fail when it overlooks the people expected to use it, and how the balance between “I can” and “We can” shapes both achievement and human flourishing.
The Company That Had Everything Except a Constraint
Few stories illustrate the agency paradox more clearly than General Magic. The Silicon Valley company emerged from Apple with extraordinary technical talent, significant financial backing, and a vision that anticipated many elements of the modern smartphone. Its people could imagine an enormous range of possibilities, and they had the resources to pursue them.
Yet that abundance became part of the problem. Without a sharply defined customer problem or sufficiently narrow boundaries, the organization attempted to build too much at once. By the time its product reached the market, it had become extraordinarily complicated without delivering a sufficiently clear answer to the question of what problem it was solving.
John contrasts that experience with the more focused paths taken by people who worked within General Magic. Jeff Hawkins concentrated on a specific mobile need and developed the PalmPilot. Pierre Omidyar created a small side project designed to facilitate commerce between strangers; when the idea was dismissed as too minor, he pursued it independently and eventually built eBay.
The lesson is larger than any single company. When every direction remains available, deciding where to place effort becomes its own problem. Constraints reduce that cognitive burden. They create a field of play in which experimentation becomes more deliberate, and progress becomes easier to recognize.
The same principle appears in the story of Dmitri Mendeleev. Rather than emerging from an entirely unconstrained flash of inspiration, his work on the periodic table was connected to a practical editorial problem: he was working under a publishing deadline and needed to organize a large body of chemical information within limited space. The constraint forced a classification problem, and that classification problem opened the door to a scientific framework of enormous consequence.
The implication is worth carrying into everyday life: a constraint can sometimes function less like a wall and more like a lens. It narrows the field enough for important patterns to become visible.
When the Technology Works But the People Don’t Change
John then turns the idea toward leadership and implementation, drawing from his own experience leading application development at Lowe’s. The Total Closed Loop initiative was ambitious, involving roughly two hundred sub-projects, sophisticated data tools, and substantial investment. The objective was to create a seamless customer experience across stores, call centers, and digital channels.
The technology was impressive. The problem was that the organization had become increasingly focused on building the system rather than continually validating whether the system was still solving the problems people actually faced. By the time parts of the solution were ready, some of the assumptions underneath the project had changed.
John recalls receiving particularly blunt feedback from an executive who observed that the organization had become extremely good at delivering projects that had little value by the time they were completed. It was a difficult assessment, but it exposed an important distinction between execution and effective implementation. Completing a project is not the same thing as creating lasting value.
David Epstein’s discussion of UPS and its ORION routing system provides a related example. The algorithm could calculate highly efficient routes, but drivers initially resisted recommendations that sometimes conflicted with their knowledge of neighborhoods, customers, traffic patterns, and daily operating realities. UPS made progress by bringing those drivers into the process, allowing them to interact with the system and challenge its recommendations.
The change was not simply technical. It was relational.
People are more likely to adopt a system when they can understand it, influence it, and see how their own experience fits within it. This is why sustainable change requires continuity as well as transformation. When a new system treats human beings as obstacles to implementation, resistance is predictable. When it incorporates their knowledge and preserves their sense of agency, adaptation becomes collaborative.
The Invention of “I Can” and “We Can”
Martin Seligman’s work takes the conversation from organizations into the deeper history of human progress. After decades of studying learned helplessness—the tendency to stop trying after repeated experiences of having no meaningful control—Seligman began asking a broader question: how did human beings develop the psychological sense that their actions could change the future?
In Agency, Seligman examines the Axial Age, roughly 1000 BCE to 500 BCE, when several civilizations experienced significant developments in philosophy, law, commerce, medicine, and social organization. His analysis of ancient texts suggests that language expressing individual human capability and choice became more prominent across several traditions during this period.
For John, the significance of this work is not simply historical. It provides a useful way of thinking about agency in contemporary life.
There is an “I can” dimension to agency: the belief that our choices, effort, judgment, and initiative can influence what happens next. Without it, people can become passive, waiting for circumstances or other people to determine their future.
But there is also a “We can” dimension. Human beings rarely sustain meaningful change through isolated effort indefinitely. Trust, belonging, cooperation, and shared responsibility allow individual agency to become part of something larger.
Too much emphasis on “I can” can turn strength into isolation. Too much emphasis on “We can” can suppress initiative and create conformity. Sustainable progress requires the two to reinforce each other.
That balance is especially important in an age that celebrates individual productivity. There is a difference between being capable of carrying everything yourself and building a life in which you do not have to.
When Your Attention Becomes Someone Else’s Property
John brings the agency question into one of the most ordinary struggles of modern life: attention.
During his earlier conversation with Dr. Gloria Mark, John explored research showing how dramatically workplace attention has become fragmented. Frequent task switching leaves what psychologists call attention residue, in which part of our mental processing remains attached to a previous task even after we have moved on.
The consequence is deeper than simply losing a few minutes.
When interruption becomes habitual, the mind can begin to anticipate interruption. A person may sit down with uninterrupted time and still find themselves reaching for another message, another tab, another notification, or another small task. Eventually, the external environment no longer needs to interrupt them. They have learned to do it themselves.
This creates an important connection to the agency paradox. If attention is one of our most finite resources, then deciding where it goes is itself an act of agency. Every unexamined demand competes for that resource, and every open loop makes it harder to direct attention toward work that requires sustained thought.
David Epstein’s use of the Hemingway Principle offers a practical response. At the end of the workday, he identifies the important task he will begin with the following morning. Instead of waking up and immediately allowing email or other urgent demands to determine the day’s priorities, he has already made the decision.
The practice is simple, but its significance is larger: you can protect tomorrow’s agency by making one meaningful decision today.
In this episode, You’ll Learn:
- Why unlimited options and resources can create decision fatigue, diffusion of effort, and paralysis rather than adaptability.
- How General Magic, the PalmPilot, eBay, and Mendeleev’s textbook deadline reveal the creative power of constraints.
- Why successful implementation depends on human agency, frontline knowledge, and trust—not technology alone.
- What Martin Seligman’s work suggests about balancing individual agency (“I can”) with collective agency (“We can”).
- How attention residue and constant task switching undermine our ability to exercise meaningful agency.
- How the Constraint Check, Agency Check, and Hemingway Principle can turn these ideas into practical action.
The Agency Check: Turning Constraints Into Action
The episode ultimately comes back to a practical diagnostic John calls the Agency Check.
The first question is:
What is the single constraint I am running away from that actually contains my focus?
Sometimes the source of overwhelm is not a lack of resources. It is an excess of possibilities. Drawing a boundary around one meaningful objective can transform an abstract problem into something that can actually be acted upon.
The second question is:
Am I trying to solve this entirely through isolated willpower, or am I building the collective trust to carry it forward?
Together, these questions examine two sides of agency. The first asks whether we are using constraints to focus our effort. The second asks whether we are relying exclusively on ourselves when collaboration could make the effort more sustainable.
John’s challenge is straightforward: identify one area where too much freedom is creating friction, define a single deliverable, and create a clear boundary around it. Then identify one place where you have slipped into learned helplessness and determine what action remains within your control. Finally, invite another person into the work so that individual effort can become collective agency.
The deeper lesson of The Agency Paradox is that adaptability does not require us to control everything around us. It requires us to become more precise about what we can influence.
A changing world will always contain circumstances we cannot choose. The question is what we do with the space that remains.
You do not have to know exactly where you are going to take the next step. Sometimes, you just have to be willing to take it.
Three Ways To Put Agency Into Action
Conduct a Constraint Check
Choose an initiative that feels stalled by competing priorities. Narrow its scope, identify one core objective, or establish a firm delivery boundary. Instead of treating the limitation as an administrative inconvenience, treat it as a design parameter that can help determine what deserves your attention.
Apply the Hemingway Principle
Before ending your workday, decide what important task you will begin with the following morning. Writing that decision down reduces the need to negotiate with yourself when the day begins and creates a clearer defense against reactive demands.
Audit Your Agency Balance
Look at an important goal and ask whether you are attempting to carry the entire burden through personal effort. Then ask where collaboration, trust, or shared ownership could make the work more sustainable. Individual determination matters, but so does the environment in which that determination operates.
Enjoy the Show? Listen to Episode 819
If you’ve ever wondered whether you need more willpower or simply need to change your environment, Episode 816 explores The Fit Check and the two questions that can help you know the difference.
Explore The Mattering Effect for a deeper framework on building genuine significance, strengthening connection, and creating environments where people know they matter. The book is available wherever books are sold.
Listen to Episode 819 of Passion Struck with John R. Miles on Spotify, or watch the full episode on our YouTube Channel.
For weekly companion essays, practical toolkits, and interactive reflections, join our community at The Ignited Life on Substack.
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About the Author
John R. Miles is the author of Passion Struck, winner of the Gold Stevie® Award for Best Business Book and a Next Big Idea Club Must-Read, and host of the Passion Struck podcast, with more than 85 million downloads.
A former Fortune 50 executive and U.S. Navy officer, he has spent more than two decades synthesizing insights from psychology, neuroscience, behavioral science, leadership, and human flourishing to understand why so many people quietly lose their sense of significance despite outward success.
His work has been featured in Fortune, Inc., Forbes, ABC, NBC, Fox, and Writer’s Digest, and he has appeared on leading podcasts including 10% Happier with Dan Harris, The Next Big Idea Daily, and FranklinCovey On Leadership.
Why The Most Successful People Put Themselves In BOXES | John R. Miles
Frequently Asked Questions
What is The Agency Paradox?
The Agency Paradox describes the counterintuitive idea that unlimited freedom, options, and resources can create decision fatigue, fragmented effort, and paralysis. Adaptability often improves when people accept meaningful constraints and exercise their agency within the boundaries they cannot control.
Why can constraints improve creativity?
Constraints reduce the number of possible directions and force attention toward essential decisions. By limiting time, scope, resources, or output, they can make it easier to identify the actual problem that needs to be solved. The episode uses Mendeleev’s textbook deadline as an example of how a practical constraint can contribute to systematic innovation.
Why did General Magic fail despite having advanced technology?
General Magic had significant resources and technical talent but lacked sufficiently clear strategic boundaries. The company attempted to create an expansive platform without defining a focused problem for a specific user. More narrowly focused projects associated with people from the same environment addressed individual needs and achieved greater commercial impact.
What is the difference between “I can” and “We can”?
“I can” represents individual agency, determination, and self-directed action. “We can” represents collective capability, trust, cooperation, and mutual support. The episode presents both as necessary: individual agency can drive initiative and achievement, while collective agency helps sustain those efforts and protect against isolation.
What is attention residue?
Attention residue describes the lingering cognitive involvement that can remain after switching away from one task. When people move rapidly between competing demands, part of their mental capacity remains connected to the previous task, making sustained concentration more difficult.
How does the Hemingway Principle improve focus?
The Hemingway Principle involves deciding on the next important task before finishing the current work session. By defining tomorrow’s starting point in advance, you reduce morning decision-making and make it easier to protect meaningful work from the pull of urgent but lower-value demands.
