my new book - Agency

Have you ever wondered why someone might only pay five dollars while another will pay hundreds of dollars for the same thing?

This was a question that was always in the back of my mind in a former Tennis business, I was in.

Then, I consistently saw this pop up. How we could take the same video coaching library that was once being charged $15 per month for and by changing a few things, we were able to get people to buy it for $1000. And that was just the upfront fee.

The other part that really got me was reading a book called pattern breakers by Mike Maples.

Everyone always talks about starting with the problem, but Mike says it's not about that. Rather, it's about looking into the future and seeing no obvious insight. That's how you have breakthrough startup ideas.

But, this conflicted with everything I've been told my entire life about entrepreneurship. Start with the problem first they always said!

As I do deeper, I discovered the truth that encapsulated both of these opinions beautifully: the ability to expand what others can do. Whether it is restoring a lost capacity, solving a painful problem, or unlocking new ones, tapping into new possibilities, at the core you're just expanding what others can do.

Next, came my own usage of AI. And I saw how I was able to accelerate the process of creating something meaningful that created value for others and how one goes from a level zero AI amateur to a level 13 fully automated AI master. Instead of seeing AI, as a enemy, I saw it as a co-creator to amplify the value we bring into the world.

So, it's through this ability to assign meeting, to expand what others can do, and to iterate upon that rapidly using AI, that formed the foundation of my book, Agency!

It builds upon my last book, stop looking start seeing, where I show the fundamental levers of action. What holds us back from doing some things and why we do other things as if we were called to do them. Agency applies the concepts of those books as the meaning assigner levers in a business context but takes it further how we use those levers and pricing as a determinant of how much meaning we have assigned something. And then it shows you how to continuously use those levers to turn something from a one time use into a passionate refuse and deeply sustained value of whatever you have built and expanded what they can do.

I have written the book to the fictional story of Tommy, a passionate tennis player and pattern recognize her. He has a startup idea to build a strategy Tennis app that'll help him in his tennis matches and understand more deeply. Why certain players do this or do that how to take advantage of it. He learns about AI and becomes very excited. He begins doing all these features but then has an epic business failure because nobody wants his product. He enters a depressing season but through that, emerges his natural observations that he has been taken in unconsciously while sitting in the daily grind, Maria's coffee shop. These observations spark the next part of his journey start to learn how and why some people get so excited about something, even a simple website or chat bot. As he continuously fails forward, he uncovers more principles and patterns of what's really going on, while accelerating his AI journey.

As a powerful addition to the book, I use Tommy's journey as a way to teach the reader how to exactly go from level zero to level 13 of AI mastery, teaching things subtly like how to become a master at prompt engineering, and understanding the patterns that exist within AI technology so they can understand AI at a deeper level.

Below is chapter 1 of the book. I would highly appreciate if you guys would respond to this email just giving me a note of encouragement or feedback on the book. Maybe you even have some questions! I'd love to explore them :-)

Chapter 1: The Tennis Court and the Coffee Shop

The sun was setting. Long shadows stretched across the old green tennis courts. Tommy wiped sweat from his face with his arm. His chest went up and down quickly from running hard. His old tennis bag sat beside the chain-link fence. It was a familiar and comforting weight. Inside, it was full of his tennis things: a couple of well-loved rackets with worn-out grips, a dented water bottle, a can of tennis balls that didn't bounce very well anymore, and, most important, a spiral-bound notebook. The pages of the notebook were filled with his scribbled ideas. It had drawings that looked like messy spiderwebs and many notes about how to play tennis better.

He’d just played a hard three-set practice match against his friend Mark. It was a very close game. Tommy lost in the last part, a tiebreaker that was super close. But losing wasn’t what bothered Tommy the most. Tommy played tennis just because he loved it. He loved the cool thwack sound when his racket hit the ball just right. He loved thinking like in a chess game to try and beat the other player. What really bugged him, like a little itch he couldn’t quite scratch, was why he lost. Why did Mark suddenly start hitting those amazing winning shots down the line at the end of the game? Did Tommy miss too many of his first serves? He usually tried to get at least six out of ten first serves in. Was there a secret pattern in the game that he didn’t see?

These kinds of questions had bounced around in Tommy’s head for years. He’d tried different coaches, watched endless hours of professional matches online, and even bought a couple of those thick, complicated tennis strategy books that mostly just made his head hurt. Nothing seemed to give him the simple, clear answers he was looking for. Later that evening, after a quick shower, he found himself at his usual corner table at "The Daily Grind," the local coffee shop run by the kind, perpetually busy Maria. The aroma of coffee beans and baked goods was a familiar comfort. He opened his spiral-bound notebook, the one he carried everywhere, its pages already filled with observations and messy diagrams. He dated the top of a fresh page and began to write, the pen scratching against the paper:

“Lost to Mark again. Tiebreaker. He just found a new gear with those down-the-line shots. Why? What changed? My first serve % felt okay, maybe dipped a bit at the end? Need to track that. Is there a pattern to when opponents suddenly 'get hot' or when I make crucial errors? It’s like there’s a whole layer of the game happening just beneath the surface, and I can’t quite see it. If I could just map it out, maybe I could predict it, or at least react better. What if there was a way to see these patterns before the match, or even during it? That would be a game-changer. Literally.” He tapped the pen against the page, then added, “Idea for Strategy Tennis: Opponent tendency mapping? My own error patterns? How to make it simple, not just more data?”

When Tommy thought about Strategy Tennis, he wasn’t thinking about fancy artificial intelligence. That was a word, AI, that he mostly knew from robots in movies. Or he thought it meant super-smart computers used by giant companies. Tommy didn't know much about AI. It wasn't something he thought a regular guy like him would ever use. No, his idea for Strategy Tennis was based on something much simpler. It was something he felt he could almost touch and understand: data. Just plain, easy-to-see facts and numbers about tennis matches.

He dreamed of an app. Not a super hard one to make that would need a whole team of genius computer programmers. He thought he might be able to build it himself. He’d been spending many of his evenings and weekends watching YouTube videos. These videos were about a tool called "Bubble." Bubble was a no-code platform. That meant it promised that people like him—people who weren’t expert coders—could build real apps. The videos showed how you could drag and drop colorful blocks on a computer screen. Then you connected them with lines to make things happen. It felt a bit like building with digital LEGOs. It was often confusing. Sometimes the blocks didn’t snap together the way he wanted them to. Or they did something totally unexpected. But it seemed more possible than trying to learn those strange, complicated coding languages he’d tried to understand before.

His dream for Strategy Tennis was to make a place online. Tennis players could go there to look up information about their next opponent. They could find notes from other players. These notes might say things like, "Sarah always hits short balls to the backhand. So, try to keep your shots deep to her." Or, "John gets really nervous on big points. He might serve wide to the ad court. Be ready for that." This was information from what people remembered. Tommy thought it could be very helpful for planning a match.

But he also dreamed of a way to get facts from matches. Real, hard data. He’d even started drawing ideas for a "match tracker" feature in his notebook. During a match, a player, or maybe a friend watching, could tap buttons on their phone. They could write down important things. Things like where serves landed. What kinds of shots were hit – a forehand, a backhand, or a volley. Who made mistakes. And where on the court these things happened.

"Maybe," Tommy often thought, looking at his messy drawings. "If I could just see all the numbers. If I had the facts clear. I could coach myself better. I could really know what happened in a match. Not just what I felt happened." He believed this data could help players make smarter choices.

He even had an idea for a very simple "coaching" part in the app. It wouldn’t be a real coach, of course. Real coaches at the club cost too much money for him. This would be more like pre-written tips. If the match tracker showed a player missed a lot of forehands into the net, a message would pop up. It might say: "Lots of forehands in the net? Try hitting up on the ball more. Make sure your racket finishes high, over your shoulder!" Or if they served too many double faults (missing both serves): "Too many double faults? Try to serve a bit slower. Just focus on getting the first serve in. Making the serve is key!" He proudly called this "pseudo-AI" in his notes. He mostly used that word because "AI" sounded cool and new. He knew it was really just simple if-then rules. If this happens, then show that message. He was slowly trying to build these rules with the colorful blocks in Bubble. It was hard work and gave him headaches. This "smart" app he dreamed of often didn't feel very smart when he tried to build it.

The truth was, Tommy didn’t know how to write real computer code. He really wished he did. It felt like having a secret power he didn't have. He had tried to learn, a few times. Each time, he started full of hope. He’d sat through hours of online videos about Python. Python was a computer language that people on the internet said was very powerful. But the strange words and signs on the screen made his head feel all fuzzy and mixed up. It was like trying to read a book written in a secret code when you didn't have the key. He also tried to learn JavaScript. JavaScript was another computer language. People said it was needed to build good websites and apps. He bought a thick, serious-looking book called "JavaScript for Beginners." He hoped this time would be different. He hoped he’d finally understand. That try ended with him wanting to throw the heavy book across his small room. The rules and all the little semicolons just wouldn’t make sense to him. He was determined to build Strategy Tennis, though. So, he kept looking for other ways. That’s how he found Bubble. The no-code tool, the one with the colorful blocks you could drag and drop, seemed like a great idea when he first found it. It was a way to build his app without needing to learn all that difficult computer language. It felt like building with digital LEGOs –you snapped the pieces together to make something new and exciting. It wasn't that he was looking for an easy way out; for Tommy, Bubble felt like the only way he could bring his idea to life himself.

His biggest problem right now was the opponent lookup feature. How could he make it easy for players to share their notes and match data? How could he make it easy to search? He wanted it to be useful, not just a messy pile of notes. These were the real problems that filled his mind. He wasn't thinking about smart AI machines.

Later that evening, Tommy went to "The Daily Grind." He had taken a quick shower. The dirt from the tennis court was mostly gone. He ate a microwave dinner that tasted like cardboard. The coffee shop was his safe place, his office, his thinking spot. He sat in his usual armchair in the corner. The chair was old and worn. One front leg wobbled a bit if he moved too much. He knew how to lean just right to keep it steady. A cup of coffee, his third that day, sat next to his open laptop. It was mostly cold now. The coffee shop had a soft hum of people talking. Cups clinked as the staff cleared tables. The rich, comforting smell of coffee beans and toasted bagels filled the air. This was a familiar feeling. It usually helped him focus. Or at least, it made him feel less alone with his app problems.

Maria, the owner, was always there. She was like a whirlwind of friendly energy behind the counter. The evening crowd was smaller now, but she was still busy. She greeted people by name. She remembered their usual orders. Mrs. Henderson always got a decaf latte with oat milk after her yoga class. The writer by the window always got a double espresso and a plain croissant. Tommy was usually lost in his own world of tennis stats and app features. He would give Maria a quick wave or a nod when he came in. But he had been working on Strategy Tennis for many months. He had drunk many cups of her strong coffee. Over time, he had started to notice little things about her busy days. It was like he was collecting data for a match he wasn't even playing.

He saw Maria sigh sometimes. It was a quick, quiet breath when the phone rang for a late delivery order. It usually happened when she was trying to count the day's money and close the shop. He noticed the menu board near the entrance. It was handwritten with colorful chalk. Sometimes, the "Soup of the Day" stayed on the board for two days. Or the price of the blueberry scones was still the old price from last week. This sometimes confused customers. He’d seen her new young helper, Leo. Leo was a friendly kid, always trying his best, but he often looked nervous. Leo struggled with the ancient, clunky cash register. Maria would have to stop wiping down the shiny espresso machine to help Leo fix a wrong order or a jammed receipt. Just yesterday, a customer asked if they had any gluten-free pastries. Maria had to stop, put a finger to her chin, and think hard. Then she had to look through a display case. She clearly wasn't sure what they had or what was in them.

These were just small things Tommy noticed. They were like background details in a long tennis match. Or like the quiet hum of the coffee shop's old refrigerator in the corner, the one that rattled a bit. Tommy didn't think of them as "business problems." He wasn't an entrepreneur. He was a tennis player. He gave a few tennis lessons on the side, but he barely made enough money to pay for his racket strings. He was just trying to build a helpful app for other players like himself. His mind was usually full of thoughts about data, how the app should look, and how to make his simple, rule-based "pseudo-AI" coaching tips a little less clunky and a little more helpful.

Strategy Tennis was supposed to feel smart. It was supposed to change and learn. It was supposed to give real insights. Instead, it often felt like a stubborn, heavy donkey. He had to drag it every single step of the way through the digital mud. The app he dreamed of, the one that could look through data like a super detective and find golden clues of strategy, felt like magic. The app on his screen, the one made of those colorful blocks that often wouldn’t connect right, or did something totally weird when he tried to test it, felt like no magic at all.

He knew, in a fuzzy way, that amazing tools were out there in the world of technology. He had heard fancy words on tech podcasts he sometimes listened to while jogging. Or he’d seen them in articles his friends who were good with computers sometimes shared online. Words like “AI,” “machine learning,” and “neural networks.” They sounded exciting and powerful. They sounded like something from a science fiction movie, where computers could think and talk and solve any problem in just a few seconds. But in his mind, those amazing tools were only for giant companies, like Google or Apple. He pictured their huge, futuristic buildings. He imagined their armies of brilliant scientists in clean white lab coats. He thought of their supercomputers that probably filled whole rooms and cost more money than he could ever dream of having. Those tools weren't for a regular guy like him, sitting in a wobbly armchair in a local coffee shop, just trying to make a simple app to help people play better tennis. He was just a pretty good tennis player who thought about things a lot, maybe too much. And the money he had saved up from giving tennis lessons on weekends and stringing rackets for friends and neighbors at the local club was quickly, quickly disappearing. It felt like sand slipping through his fingers, no matter how tightly he tried to hold on.

He had wanted that money to help him finish Strategy Tennis. He had hoped to make it great. Maybe he could even sell it to other players and make a little bit of money from his passion. Instead, he used a good part of it to pay for the Bubble no-code tool every month. And sometimes, on particularly bad days, when a feature he’d worked on for hours just wouldn’t cooperate, or when the colorful blocks on his screen seemed to be laughing at his struggles, he’d buy a special, fancy chocolate croissant from Maria. It didn’t fix his app. It didn’t make the blocks behave any better. But the rich, buttery pastry, with its layers of flaky dough and the surprise of melted chocolate inside, made him feel a tiny bit better, at least for a few minutes. It was a small comfort in his ongoing battle with the app.

But the strong feeling inside him wouldn’t go away. It was the feeling that had sparked the idea for Strategy Tennis in the first place. It was that deep desire to help other tennis players understand the game he loved so much. He wanted to help them find those hidden patterns and unlock their own true potential. That feeling was always there, a little spark of hope, a persistent itch under his skin. It was there even when he felt like his app was a total disaster and he was just wasting his time and his precious, dwindling savings. He felt like there was a big, empty space, a giant canyon, between his wonderful, exciting dream for Strategy Tennis and what he could actually make with the tools and knowledge he had right now. He just didn’t have the right equipment, or maybe, he thought with a long, slow sigh that seemed to echo some of Maria’s tired sighs from behind the counter, he just didn’t know enough yet to build a strong bridge to get across that canyon to his dream.

For now, Strategy Tennis was like a beautiful, bright star that he could see in the night sky, but it was so far away that he couldn’t actually touch it. It was like a magnificent toy spaceship he was trying to build, piece by piece, with his digital LEGOs. It was a wonderful idea, and he could see it so clearly in his mind, all shiny and powerful and incredibly helpful. But the actual spaceship on his laptop screen, the one made of those stubborn colorful blocks, wasn't finished, not even close. It just sat there on the digital ground, its parts looking more like a pile of mismatched junk than something ready to soar into the sky and explore new worlds. That made him feel quite cross and a little bit sad, a feeling as flat and disappointing as the now-cold coffee in his cup. He looked back at the blinking cursor on his computer screen. It seemed to be patiently, silently, laughing at him. Maybe, just maybe, if he moved those colorful blocks around one more time…