I was a wrestler at a small college in rural Kentucky. The school was small, the town was small, and our schedule between school and practice was packed. But my best friend and I, we desperately wanted a part time job. Just to have a little cash. We couldn't afford to go bowling, get drunk, or go to the movies. Neither of us had a cent to our name. Someone told us a car mirror factory was hiring for night shift-the only time we were available. We applied. They rejected us. A week later, that someone told us its a shame we didn't get hired. They did, and they were headed to an introductory onboarding for new employees. We went too. They asked who we were. We said, "we're uh, the college kids the factory uh, hired to ya know, kinda help out at night." They were puzzled, but miraculously, some sleep deprived assembly line worker overheard and said, "I think I heard Jack talk about them comin' on board." Who knows what they heard, but couldn't have been that. Either way, we were onboarded that day, and spent the next three years working four hours a night building Lexus mirrors. We were the richest kids on the team, making 10 bucks an hour.
Every time I’ve asked a guy I’m attracted to for their number in-person while out in public running errands and/or taking long walks around the neighborhood, they seem to say “yes” unless they’re already in a romantic relationship! Why is that? Because most people don’t ask out people, especially attractive (at least in my opinion, which most people find questionable) people, in-person anymore, because people are too shy to ask people out when they go about their daily business because: 1. They’re glued to their phones 2. They’re afraid of being rejected publicly 3. They assume the dating apps will make it easier to find the right person, which isn’t necessarily true, because the filters can work for or against you! (See point #2 from above!)
This is easy to comprehend, but tough to grasp intuitively. I’m going to see about slapping together a High Agency Flow Chart v2 with this stuff packed in.
Okay… so I tried it, turns out there’s a lot of overlap. However! I have thought of two ‘Mr Shy’ inspired adjustments:
after defining the problem, ask [what am I assuming is true? verify this list] That prevents the issue Scott Adams had. (Though with enough time I’m sure he’d figure it out regardless).
And in the second last box - “10x the agency” *is* on-brand, and I like it, but “10x the courage” is more likely to transmit what Cameron and Jobs were tapping into *for someone following the flow chart*. The ‘just do it’ vibes. Courage hits disagreeableness & bias to action powerfully, but skips clarity. However, on the flow chart, we got clarity *already* from defining the problem simply and listing what to avoid! So the simpler, more parsable, and more powerful “10x the courage” is better here. I’ll admit it’s still great either way, and fair enough if you think the consistency is more important 🤷🏼♂️ love ur work
I liked the vignettes in this. You’re a great writer. If I had one piece of feedback, I’m not sure the Mr Shy analogy landed for me. I knew what you were trying to get at, but it felt a bit clunky to me.
Interestingly, it worked the other way for me. I can recall and understand all four points more easily because the Mr Shy label added personality and a clear hook.
I was creating content for a clients video wall. the wall was vertical, which was a challenge. I'd recently been in Philadelphia, and saw the video wall in the Comcast building. it was breathtaking. So I found the guy who made the content, and he was based in NY. I called him, and he invited me to his studio. And there was sat, him smoking a cigar, as he listened to my problem, and offered advice. it was awesome. Then! I reached out to the company that did all the content at the Dallas Cowboys stadium. biggest HD screen in the world. And same thing; great guys, shared what they knew, were very encouraging. What you laid out in your piece is bang on. People respect genuine curiosity, and they are also deeply invested in their work, and love to talk about it. thanks for writing that.
My Mr. Shy was figuring out what I want to do with my life (vocationally). I found him by being kept from sleeping at night imagining different paths, researching and reading a LOT to expose myself to as many possibilities as possible, relentlessly trying different options, and eventually landing, by trial-and-error, on the one that fit: the marketplace of ideas (in the form of writing, mostly).
Now, my new Mr. Shy is figuring out how the hell I'm going to make a living in this marketplace.
Thank you so much George. I am a 23 years old guy from Pakistan (yes, home to plenty of “3rd world jails”😂) .i read all your articles. You and Naval Ravikant Sir have helped me tremendously in becoming a clear thinker and a high agency person. Will meet you one day after i become successful and beat poverty✊.
I am a medical doctor and when I was in my third year of campus, I picked Richard Dawkins famous book, The Selfish Gene. Not satisfied with the solutions he gave, I picked another - The Blind Watchmaker. This was the second book which convinced me that there were yet unsolved questions in evolution. Since my classmates were more concerned with passing exams and ward rounds, none of them had interesting answers to the questions. So I sought them from books and articles. It turned out, my questions were indeed deep problems. For instance, we focus so much on the survival of the fittest, but why don't we ever ask about the arrival of the fittest? This led me to Andreas Wagner's book, a fantastic piece about his efforts to solve the problem. Still, I wasn't satisfied with the genes having all the answers. I was convinced it wasn't that simple. Could there be alternative ways? Then I landed on the book Evolution in Four Dimensions by Eva Jablonka and Mary Lambert. I wolfed down the book. It verified my suspicions. This has been the sequence of events that led me from book to book and from one article to the next, all the while collecting evidence to support a hypothesis I have been entertaining about the origin of life and its consistency with the second law of thermodynamics. I learned about Jeremy England's work, but felt it left out a crucial part, the one which you took your time to investigate - agency. Theories that try to explain life without agency are incomplete. Natural selection has a passive taste, sidelining the agency of individual organisms. So I developed a hypothesis and it was recently published as a preprint, supporting the idea that life is a means for an organism to amplify the laws of physics, a means to increase entropy's spread in the universe. But recall that my main study in campus was about becoming a doctor. I was not just looking for Mr. Shy; I was shy that nobody would be interested in my exploits to find him. But every time I share the article with any AI platform, it verifies that the framework covers blind spots in Darwin's ideas. The question then becomes - how do you know you have found Mr. Shy?
I have an extremely loud deep voice that just carries. As long as I can remember it's been a thing. If I take a call in a coffee shop, nearly everyone looks up every time I speak. My boss says I'm the only person he can hear through noise cancelling headphones. My wife texts me "Kindly STFU" whenever she gets on a call, etc.
Anyway, one day I was feeling bad about being a vocal menace to society, and the scene in the first Joker movie with Joaquin Phoenix where's he's laughing controllable on a bus and he hands someone a laminated card that explains his condition.
SO I was like... I GOTTA MAKE UP A RARE DISEASE and print biz cards of course, hence:
🎀 VOCAL AMPLITUDE DYSREGULATION SYNDROME (VADS) 🎀
The bearer of this card lives with VADS, a rare neurolaryngeal condition affecting the brain's ability to accurately gauge vocal output levels.
**This is not a choice. There is no cure.**
BACK:
HOW YOU CAN HELP
If volume levels become disruptive, please use the clinically-approved intervention phrase:
The problems I see most people struggle with (maybe myself, also) are not that they can't find Mr Shy, it's that the Mr Shy they did find isn't the right Mr Shy. As in, the bigger people think their problems are, the bigger and more complex they expect their solutions to be. So going back to the fundamentals is ruled out by so many because that seems too easy. "There must be a better solution..."
my contribution: I i've noticed over and over again that good names for things tend to be shy, in the sense that they seldom arise when you're trying to brainstorm them. the best names are often the ones that come up in natural, somewhat pointed conversation
This a maybe/possibly Mr Shy story. In fact it’s quite possibly two Mr Shy stories in one story. And if it’s not it’s still a piece everyone will absolutely love. It’s a piece written by science writer Amanda Gefter called “Finding Peter Putnam” and was my favorite nonfiction essay of 2025. Enjoy.
George - just wanted to say what an excellent article... really enjoyed it. Especially the use of examples you did. So well presented and engaging. I want to be you when i grow up :-). Thank you for this.... it has helped me rethink how to look at the world - and that is not something that happens much anymore. So Thank you!
In 1988, as a new hire in Hewlett-Packard’s twelve month "field sales trainee" program, I spent two weeks in Palo Alto for training. On my final day before flying back to New York, I decided to stop by Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard’s shared executive office. I spotted Dave inside and asked their assistant if I could briefly say hello.
Just as I approached, she leaned into his office and said, "Washington is on the phone, sir." Realizing my chances were slim, I left my card with her anyway. To my amazement, a week later I received a handwritten note from Dave inviting me to stop by the next time I was in town.
Bill and Dave belonged to a unique era. Their reputation for being approachable gave a young trainee like me the confidence to even knock on their door. It makes me wonder: did a 12-year-old Steve Jobs feel that same sense of accessibility when he famously called Bill Hewlett for parts?
I was a wrestler at a small college in rural Kentucky. The school was small, the town was small, and our schedule between school and practice was packed. But my best friend and I, we desperately wanted a part time job. Just to have a little cash. We couldn't afford to go bowling, get drunk, or go to the movies. Neither of us had a cent to our name. Someone told us a car mirror factory was hiring for night shift-the only time we were available. We applied. They rejected us. A week later, that someone told us its a shame we didn't get hired. They did, and they were headed to an introductory onboarding for new employees. We went too. They asked who we were. We said, "we're uh, the college kids the factory uh, hired to ya know, kinda help out at night." They were puzzled, but miraculously, some sleep deprived assembly line worker overheard and said, "I think I heard Jack talk about them comin' on board." Who knows what they heard, but couldn't have been that. Either way, we were onboarded that day, and spent the next three years working four hours a night building Lexus mirrors. We were the richest kids on the team, making 10 bucks an hour.
😂
lol amazing
Every time I’ve asked a guy I’m attracted to for their number in-person while out in public running errands and/or taking long walks around the neighborhood, they seem to say “yes” unless they’re already in a romantic relationship! Why is that? Because most people don’t ask out people, especially attractive (at least in my opinion, which most people find questionable) people, in-person anymore, because people are too shy to ask people out when they go about their daily business because: 1. They’re glued to their phones 2. They’re afraid of being rejected publicly 3. They assume the dating apps will make it easier to find the right person, which isn’t necessarily true, because the filters can work for or against you! (See point #2 from above!)
Beautiful
This is easy to comprehend, but tough to grasp intuitively. I’m going to see about slapping together a High Agency Flow Chart v2 with this stuff packed in.
Artists and their thieving ways, smh
🫣
Okay… so I tried it, turns out there’s a lot of overlap. However! I have thought of two ‘Mr Shy’ inspired adjustments:
after defining the problem, ask [what am I assuming is true? verify this list] That prevents the issue Scott Adams had. (Though with enough time I’m sure he’d figure it out regardless).
And in the second last box - “10x the agency” *is* on-brand, and I like it, but “10x the courage” is more likely to transmit what Cameron and Jobs were tapping into *for someone following the flow chart*. The ‘just do it’ vibes. Courage hits disagreeableness & bias to action powerfully, but skips clarity. However, on the flow chart, we got clarity *already* from defining the problem simply and listing what to avoid! So the simpler, more parsable, and more powerful “10x the courage” is better here. I’ll admit it’s still great either way, and fair enough if you think the consistency is more important 🤷🏼♂️ love ur work
I liked the vignettes in this. You’re a great writer. If I had one piece of feedback, I’m not sure the Mr Shy analogy landed for me. I knew what you were trying to get at, but it felt a bit clunky to me.
Thank you. Would it make more sense if it was just shy solutions?
Ooh. Yes, that immediately resonated better.
Interestingly, it worked the other way for me. I can recall and understand all four points more easily because the Mr Shy label added personality and a clear hook.
I was creating content for a clients video wall. the wall was vertical, which was a challenge. I'd recently been in Philadelphia, and saw the video wall in the Comcast building. it was breathtaking. So I found the guy who made the content, and he was based in NY. I called him, and he invited me to his studio. And there was sat, him smoking a cigar, as he listened to my problem, and offered advice. it was awesome. Then! I reached out to the company that did all the content at the Dallas Cowboys stadium. biggest HD screen in the world. And same thing; great guys, shared what they knew, were very encouraging. What you laid out in your piece is bang on. People respect genuine curiosity, and they are also deeply invested in their work, and love to talk about it. thanks for writing that.
My Mr. Shy was figuring out what I want to do with my life (vocationally). I found him by being kept from sleeping at night imagining different paths, researching and reading a LOT to expose myself to as many possibilities as possible, relentlessly trying different options, and eventually landing, by trial-and-error, on the one that fit: the marketplace of ideas (in the form of writing, mostly).
Now, my new Mr. Shy is figuring out how the hell I'm going to make a living in this marketplace.
Anyone have any clues?
Thank you so much George. I am a 23 years old guy from Pakistan (yes, home to plenty of “3rd world jails”😂) .i read all your articles. You and Naval Ravikant Sir have helped me tremendously in becoming a clear thinker and a high agency person. Will meet you one day after i become successful and beat poverty✊.
I am a medical doctor and when I was in my third year of campus, I picked Richard Dawkins famous book, The Selfish Gene. Not satisfied with the solutions he gave, I picked another - The Blind Watchmaker. This was the second book which convinced me that there were yet unsolved questions in evolution. Since my classmates were more concerned with passing exams and ward rounds, none of them had interesting answers to the questions. So I sought them from books and articles. It turned out, my questions were indeed deep problems. For instance, we focus so much on the survival of the fittest, but why don't we ever ask about the arrival of the fittest? This led me to Andreas Wagner's book, a fantastic piece about his efforts to solve the problem. Still, I wasn't satisfied with the genes having all the answers. I was convinced it wasn't that simple. Could there be alternative ways? Then I landed on the book Evolution in Four Dimensions by Eva Jablonka and Mary Lambert. I wolfed down the book. It verified my suspicions. This has been the sequence of events that led me from book to book and from one article to the next, all the while collecting evidence to support a hypothesis I have been entertaining about the origin of life and its consistency with the second law of thermodynamics. I learned about Jeremy England's work, but felt it left out a crucial part, the one which you took your time to investigate - agency. Theories that try to explain life without agency are incomplete. Natural selection has a passive taste, sidelining the agency of individual organisms. So I developed a hypothesis and it was recently published as a preprint, supporting the idea that life is a means for an organism to amplify the laws of physics, a means to increase entropy's spread in the universe. But recall that my main study in campus was about becoming a doctor. I was not just looking for Mr. Shy; I was shy that nobody would be interested in my exploits to find him. But every time I share the article with any AI platform, it verifies that the framework covers blind spots in Darwin's ideas. The question then becomes - how do you know you have found Mr. Shy?
PS: Here's the preprint if interested - https://ecoevorxiv.org/repository/view/11092/
Super ridiculous:
I have an extremely loud deep voice that just carries. As long as I can remember it's been a thing. If I take a call in a coffee shop, nearly everyone looks up every time I speak. My boss says I'm the only person he can hear through noise cancelling headphones. My wife texts me "Kindly STFU" whenever she gets on a call, etc.
Anyway, one day I was feeling bad about being a vocal menace to society, and the scene in the first Joker movie with Joaquin Phoenix where's he's laughing controllable on a bus and he hands someone a laminated card that explains his condition.
SO I was like... I GOTTA MAKE UP A RARE DISEASE and print biz cards of course, hence:
🎀 VOCAL AMPLITUDE DYSREGULATION SYNDROME (VADS) 🎀
The bearer of this card lives with VADS, a rare neurolaryngeal condition affecting the brain's ability to accurately gauge vocal output levels.
**This is not a choice. There is no cure.**
BACK:
HOW YOU CAN HELP
If volume levels become disruptive, please use the clinically-approved intervention phrase:
MEATLOAF (Modulated External Auditory Tone: Lower Output Activation Formula)
This cue allows the patient to recalibrate without social distress. Thank you.
VADS Awareness Foundation • vadsawareness.org
Still need to vibe code the website but... highly effective and many lolz
As a woman without an indoor voice, I can relate! Plus I am a little deaf in one ear, so terrible at gossiping 🤣🤣🤣
The problems I see most people struggle with (maybe myself, also) are not that they can't find Mr Shy, it's that the Mr Shy they did find isn't the right Mr Shy. As in, the bigger people think their problems are, the bigger and more complex they expect their solutions to be. So going back to the fundamentals is ruled out by so many because that seems too easy. "There must be a better solution..."
this is very clever, well done!!
my contribution: I i've noticed over and over again that good names for things tend to be shy, in the sense that they seldom arise when you're trying to brainstorm them. the best names are often the ones that come up in natural, somewhat pointed conversation
This a maybe/possibly Mr Shy story. In fact it’s quite possibly two Mr Shy stories in one story. And if it’s not it’s still a piece everyone will absolutely love. It’s a piece written by science writer Amanda Gefter called “Finding Peter Putnam” and was my favorite nonfiction essay of 2025. Enjoy.
https://nautil.us/finding-peter-putnam-1218035/
George - just wanted to say what an excellent article... really enjoyed it. Especially the use of examples you did. So well presented and engaging. I want to be you when i grow up :-). Thank you for this.... it has helped me rethink how to look at the world - and that is not something that happens much anymore. So Thank you!
Your writings get me back in the high agency mindset whenever It starts hiding like Mr. Shy. Thank you for what you do George.
Wow, fantastic read. Thank you!
Great piece! Thank you for sharing.
In 1988, as a new hire in Hewlett-Packard’s twelve month "field sales trainee" program, I spent two weeks in Palo Alto for training. On my final day before flying back to New York, I decided to stop by Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard’s shared executive office. I spotted Dave inside and asked their assistant if I could briefly say hello.
Just as I approached, she leaned into his office and said, "Washington is on the phone, sir." Realizing my chances were slim, I left my card with her anyway. To my amazement, a week later I received a handwritten note from Dave inviting me to stop by the next time I was in town.
Bill and Dave belonged to a unique era. Their reputation for being approachable gave a young trainee like me the confidence to even knock on their door. It makes me wonder: did a 12-year-old Steve Jobs feel that same sense of accessibility when he famously called Bill Hewlett for parts?