Need and Should vs I Did = Agency

Need and Should vs I Did .= Agency The distance between "They should" and "I'll do it" is where value is created.

The Two Most Dangerous Words in a Meeting
After twenty years of running companies, I banned two words from the conference room: need and should.
"We need a better website." "We should hire another person." "They should answer the phones faster."
Sounds productive. It isn't. After hearing a few thousand of these, I noticed they were all saying the same thing: I see a problem, and I'm assigning it to someone else.
So I started asking one question back: "Great who owns it?"
Crickets.

That's the difference between observers and doers. Observers identify problems. Doers assume responsibility. The people who actually move things say "I'll take the first step." That's agency the belief that your life is shaped more by your choices than your excuses. It doesn't mean you control everything. It means you always control your next move.

Mowing lawns taught me that before any business school could have. Nobody was coming. If I wanted money, I had to create value. If I wanted customers, I had to knock on doors. If I wanted a better future, I had to build it.
That's the lesson I want every kid to learn not that they can control the world, but that they can control themselves.
Replace "they should" with "what can I do?" That's where leadership starts.
What can I build? What can I fix? What can I own?

Value begins where excuses end and ownership begins. You don't have to wait for someone else to change your life. You can start creating value today, with what you have, where you are.

I wasn't handed agency. I found it mowing lawns, fixing transmissions, knocking on office doors, building companies, failing, rebuilding, and continuing anyway.