High Agency Human

Chapter 1

 Adversity Isn’t Running the Show

 The best way out is always through.

 —Robert Frost

Most of us hate the grit and thickness in the air; it’s wildly uncomfortable. The haze of desert heat wraps around the mind like a weighted blanket and a strong headwind batters the body. The pocket of discomfort reminds me of our aliveness.

I glance at the long line of troops queueing to get on the stark gray military aircraft for transport back into Afghanistan. They are engaged in a mixture of laughter, intense discussion, and silence. A technician emerges from the aircraft and walks toward me. With the pained effort of a child being forced to apologize when they believe they’ve done nothing wrong, he announces, “The pilots want me to ask if you’d like to sit in the cockpit with them for the flight.” He waits for my response.

“Yeah, all right then,” I reply.

A few infantry troops behind me scoff.

“You lucky son of a …” my buddy Jones1 says, throwing his hands up in the air. He’s a huge plane enthusiast.

The technician frowns. “Follow me, Master Corporal.” He leads me past the lineup, onto the aircraft, and up to the cockpit, where two pilots look back at me from their seats with the biggest grins.

I buckle into the bench seat behind them and put on a headset. With the troops now all on board, we take flight. We reach altitude with nothing but blue skies, and the pilots’ body language relaxes slightly. I figure this is as good a moment as any to ask a favor.

“Since there are two seats available here, could Jones come up as well?” I ask in my politest, most hopeful voice. “He’s interested in planes and would love it. It would make his day.”

The pilots’ hesitation is immediate. “Well, you know, we’re not really supposed to...” one begins.

“What do I need to do to get you guys to say yes?” I ask.

Without missing a beat, one of the pilots replies, “What do you have to offer?”

As I ponder possible responses, the other pilot calls his waypoint in to air traffic control in whatever country we are over now. We are flying a preselected route, and the pilots call in our location at certain intervals.

“All right, gentlemen, I will call out the next waypoint over the radio in my best late-night TV host voice if you allow Jones to come up here for the rest of the flight.”

Their faces light up. “You’re in. Deal.”

The copilot switches seats with me and goes over the radio call signs and what to say. I repeat the sentence over and over in my head. I work in communications and, while it’s familiar, air force lingo is slightly different from what I am used to in the army. The pilot nods that it is time to transmit.

I take a breath, press the switch, and speak the rehearsed line with an absurd amount of subtext.

As soon as the transmission ends, the pilots whoop with laughter.

“Right, so can you call the technician to get Jones now?” I ask.

“Yeah, of course. That was brilliant.”

The technician fishes Jones from the sea of troops in the back.

“How awesome is this?! And how the hell did you pull it off?” Jones says as he sits beside me on the bench, his eyes as wide as saucers, his smile emitting childlike joy.

I lean back into the seat, pretty darn pleased with myself. We are flying back into austere conditions, rocket attacks, extreme weather, and the deaths of friends. What we are going through—going back into—is what sweetens this moment in the cockpit with Jones. We hold adversity and well-being in the same breath; this is our big life. In these conditions, we radiate aliveness. I’m at the height of my career; doors now open without my even trying, just like today. I am a communications expert, respected leader, skilled freefall parachutist, award recipient, and speaker, and I have multiple deployment experiences. This moment right here, I did this. I created this.

I look out over the pilot’s shoulder into the clear blue sky and a full palette of beige terrain staring back at me through the cockpit window. SEndless possibilities for the future race in my mind like a herd of wild animals roaming free, knowing they can do so forever.

I wonder what those air traffic controllers thought.

My eyes slowly open to clear blue skies, but not from the cockpit of a plane. And oh, dear God, what is that smell? It’s the same offending odor you pick up walking by a teenager’s room when they keep their door shut too often and swear they showered but didn’t. Except I’m not a teenager and this isn’t a room. The stench fogs the car windows. I need to stop passing out in parking lots. I look down at my cheap Walmart watch and 5:16 a.m. blinks back. Do I need to work or go to school today? Both? Definitely both. But more importantly, what’s due today? I can’t remember. Where’s that agenda?

I start rifling through the old army duffel in the backseat. It’s been years since that flight into Afghanistan. While adversity is still ever-present as I try to make it through nursing school and life after the military, well-being has dropped off my radar. This is no longer a big life. My aliveness has dimmed into a distant, foreign memory. One sock, two socks—ah, there it is, deodorant. First win of the day. Glancing out into the parking lot, I make sure no one is around before I quickly change. The paper agenda sits on the front seat, silently mocking my efforts to endure with its many highlights, underlines, and circled words. A sense of overwhelm threatens my ability to remain calm. Sad how there are no line items for me. Shit, shit, shit. I forgot to submit my time sheet for work yesterday, and there’s an essay due today that I haven’t even started yet. It’s fine. I’m fine. Everything is fine.

My cell phone beeps with a new email. No thank you. I throw it on the passenger seat and start the car. If I hustle, I can sneak into the gym showers at work. They will be clean and empty at this hour.

Last night was the second I’ve spent in my car. I’m not homeless, just exhausted. Making the drive back to my little apartment forty minutes from the city isn’t always the safest option after a fourteen- or sixteen-hour day.

I’m pretty sure there are work clothes in this rust bucket somewhere. I can clock a few hours, race to class, call the bank on my break, jump back to work, then return to school and stay until 10:00 p.m.

A third night in the car is a distinct possibility.

I did this. I created this.

A glance down at my phone reveals the screen saver, a photograph of me and Jones in that cockpit. It is a sobering reminder that even in the thick of it, adversity and well-being can coexist. Hell, hard moments can even lead to greater well-being and opportunity.

I learned this lesson at the age of nineteen, after a life-altering event I experienced on my first military contract. It started with a routine task on a sunny day and quickly escalated into a shitstorm that cost me my front teeth.

“Corporal,” barked the troop warrant officer from across the compound. I lifted my head to see him beelining right for me. “You’ll crew-command so the driver can take the bison out for a spin.” (“The bison” was an armored personnel carrier we used as a communications vehicle.)

“But I don’t have a helmet,” I said.

The troop warrant officer rolled his eyes. “It’s just on base, no need.”

“But I don’t know how to crew-command?!”

“Jesus, Lanthier, it’s easy,” he said. “Just say ‘clear right, clear left’ when you get to intersections.” Then he walked away.

My gut churned with the instinct that this would be a whole lot of bad news bears, but I climbed up into the crew commander’s hatch just the same. I mean, it was just a spin on paved roads, so no big deal, right?

First intersection. “Clear left, clear right,” I said into the headset.

The driver responded and we proceeded. This isn’t so bad, I thought. I felt important to be crew-commanding, too, even though I’d never admit that out loud and risk seeming uncool.

We came up to the next intersection, then the next, driving further away from the troop lines. The driver, Brown, decided to swing off the paved roads and into the training area.

“We’re heading back soon, right?” I asked.

“In a minute. Let’s really test it!” Brown replied. He was a regular force soldier and I was a reservist, so I figured he knew better. He started speeding through the training field, which was nothing but dirt, grass, and uneven terrain. With each bump, my heart sank a little more.

We approached “Five Fingers,” a set of dunes used for training and testing vehicles or, if our bosses were feeling spicy, hills from hell that we ran up and down repeatedly for morning fitness drills.

Brown took the vehicle right up the steep dune tracks. I was standing on a cushioned seat with my body half out of the cupola, a hatched opening above the main body of the tank, to crew-command. We reached the top, tilted forward, and then went down far too damn fast, hitting a tank ditch and crashing back onto the ground with a thunderous thump. Dust from the impact engulfed us. I wasn’t wearing a helmet or a seat belt. This is how people die in training accidents.

I took the cupola through the chin, knocking out four whole teeth, fracturing my upper jaw, breaking my nose, and cracking several ribs.

Tapping Brown on the shoulder, I attempted to say, “Hospital.”

Brown turned around to see me covered in red and started driving toward the base hospital while I took off my blood-soaked combat shirt, went back up to retrieve my teeth, started first aid, and pulled out my military and health card. Time moved slowly and with clarity.

When the vehicle stopped, I climbed out of the hatch myself, moving to the front of the tank. Then the shock wore off and I started to cry, mumbling that I couldn’t take the last step down. Brown came over, whisked me into his arms, walked towards the hospital entrance, and kicked open the double doors with his foot. The hallways were empty and eerily quiet.

“Medic!” he yelled, his voice trembling.

A rush of medics, nurses, and doctors flooded the hall. They didn’t hide their looks of shock as orders were given. This was a scene straight out of the movies.

After two days off for surgeries, I showed up for morning physical fitness with black eyes, cotton up my nose with black sutures sticking out like a bull’s ring, and no top front teeth.

It was an obstacle course day. The warrant officer looked at me like I was insane. “What the hell, Lanthier? No way. Go home.”

I pulled out my med chit defiantly. “Nowhere on here does it say I can’t.” Out of all the restrictions the doctors had listed, not one stated that I couldn’t run alongside the rest of the platoon.

“I won’t climb a single obstacle,” I promised.

It would have been understandable if I hadn’t participated in fitness. It would have been understandable if I had taken a few days of rest to recover. It would have been understandable if I had cut the contract and gone home. Any of those options would have been okay.

At that moment, however, a simple question crossed my mind: What’s the most courageous thing I can do right now? If I don’t “make it” here, on my first contract, then I have nowhere to go. I was scared, but I sure as hell wasn’t going back to small-town life. There had to be more. I had to be more.

The warrant officer begrudgingly agreed to let me participate.

After physical training, I dressed in jean overalls and a pale-yellow tee and headed over for breakfast. News of the accident had already spread through the base faster than a church phone tree. My face bruised and stitched, I walked into the mess hall and gave a small nod to the cooks, who passed me a smoothie. The old airborne soldiers already sitting down mid-meal stared at me, mouths agape.

The Nature of Adversity

The decision to join physical training that morning changed the course of my life, a sliding door moment with ripple effects I still feel today. Though it was actually fear-based, my response to adversity was seen as admirable. Because of it, I developed a reputation for working hard and through obstacles, was chosen for military deployments and jobs, and gained respect from the right people. Most importantly, the realization set in that through our responses, we influence our outcomes.

Adversity isn’t running the show. You are.

It’s not the partner, the job, or world events. It’s not the million little cuts riddling our lives. It’s us. We’re running the show.

Life is hard. We are all doing our best and it is still hard. You can be the fittest human on the planet and eat boatloads of greens your whole life only to face disease. Or the most supportive parent who does everything for your family and is still drowning financially. Or the community cheerleader, the one who shows up to every event, yet struggles with loneliness. You can be all the things and adversity will still come knocking.

In this book, “adversity” encompasses acute and chronic hardships. We might use words like struggle, challenge, overwhelm, or even trauma and crisis to describe it. Adversity can include financial setbacks, health challenges, natural disasters or man-made hardships, and the deaths of loved ones.

Sometimes we can’t catch a break, or it seems like we’ve been cursed with a string of bad luck. Our challenges can feel like gut punches or a multitude of little cuts over time. We let them fester and weigh down our lives to our detriment, though. When we take control, we choose which sliding door to walk through. We create an opportunity to thrive.

Some of us try to pretend that everything is fine by keeping up appearances and doubling down on our efforts to maintain the status quo. Others freeze up like fainting goats.

Or, if you’re like me and too proud to admit when you’re in over your head, you deploy gum and duct tape everywhere and just pray that it’ll hold.

Adverse events are part and parcel of living a big life, and we need to learn to live with and move through them. Adversity rules our lives when we can’t see past it, when we passively allow life to happen to us. It’s easy to unconsciously submit to adversity’s chaotic tempo and truck along to the jerky cadence it sets for us. It’s also up to us to see that there is a way through, a path ahead, and a means to prepare for hard times.

It Starts with Agency

I click my phone off again and the picture of my confident past self disappears into blackness. Can I get through this mess I’m in now? Today would indicate otherwise. It’s shit. An overdue bill notice has come in the mail, I got a parking ticket this morning, and I’m not sure what I can afford for lunch. The mental math distracts me from the class I’m in—but then the sense of urgency in the air knocks me out of my worried daydream.

Four students are trying desperately to run a simulation without messing up, a mock emergency in which they attempt to save a dummy’s life as monitors beep incessantly and the fluorescent lighting flickers overhead. The group’s student leader stutters commands and stumbles to maintain control as the fake patient continues to tank. I see the student leader glance down and then over at her peers, including me. Her hesitation feels like an invitation.

I place my hand gently on her shoulder and take over. The sequence runs imperfectly, but in a controlled fashion.

“End scenario. All right, let’s go over what just happened,” the instructor says.

It’s lab day, and instead of practicing giving injections or calculating medications, we are running code drills. The scenarios are a few minutes each, just long enough for us to get a sense of different emergency events.

I stand off to the side again, ready to listen. As the professor starts going over the learning points in the scenario, I’m nudged gently in the ribs.

Matt, a friend and fellow student, leans in and whispers, “This is the first time I’ve seen you smile in the whole damn program.”

He’s right: It’s the first time I’ve felt good in ages. I run my hand over the scar on my chin, a remnant of the tank accident. Once prominent, it is now faded, much like the lessons it originally provided. Why on earth am I sleeping in my car, wearing myself out, and struggling with finances? I don’t need to be here. I am no longer listening to the professor but lost in the realization that I can choose how to face the struggles in front of me. I make a mental note to mull over what needs to change on our next break.

Having high agency means possessing both the belief and the capacity to influence outcomes. It is your intrinsic sense of control and ability to take ownership of your responses, decisions, and actions instead of letting them be dictated solely by external events or forces.

While most accept this broad definition, academics can’t quite agree on the specific components of agency. Some say they are intentionality, forethought, self-reactiveness—motivating and regulating one’s own actions—and self-reflectiveness, core features of agency as developed by psychologist Albert Bandura, while others include confidence, competence, and the desire to achieve. Personal agency is a concept closely linked with free will and self-efficacy. It includes both mindset and action.

Think of personal agency as a spectrum, not an inherent trait we are born with but a mindset that can either atrophy or be cultivated. A low agency mindset tends to be reactive and less questioning. A high agency person tends to be active, resourceful, and biased toward action. They find or create ways to achieve goals. The classic example is that people with a low agency mindset see life as happening to them, while people with a high agency mindset believe that they are happening to life.

There can be areas where or seasons of life when you operate in lower or higher agency. In Afghanistan, I was happening to life and thriving. No matter what was thrown our way, I felt capable and in control of my own outcomes. Experiences became stepping stones to reach the next goal. At university, life happened to me. I was a passive participant who allowed adversity to run the show. In Afghanistan, I exercised high agency; in university, low agency. Thankfully—as you will discover—the spectrum of low to high agency can be influenced.

We’ll move forward with the understanding that high agency is a state where you feel a sense of control over and in life while actively and effectively participating in your own outcomes. The characteristics of High Agency Humans combine powerfully to help them navigate the hardships that adversity brings.

The questions I am asked most often are:

• How did you pivot so fast?

• How can you afford so many vacations?

• How do you have so much free time?

• How are you always ready for (nearly) anything?

This book is a response to those questions, a collection of what I’ve experienced, put into practice, and continue to learn along the way. That said, you don’t have to implement every thought and framework in this book to benefit. By the time you read the final page, you will realize that you can live well no matter what adversity comes your way.

Operating in a high agency state, you can manage what is in front of you and prepare for the next challenge. It’s your mindset that determines your next step, and that step that carves your path. Remember: Adversity isn’t running the show. You are.