Relentlessly Resourceful

Ten Years of Figuring It Out: What Berley Teaches Us About High Agency

Next month marks Berley’s 10th anniversary at Apptegy. A decade. In startup years, that’s roughly equivalent to three lifetimes and a doctorate in “making things work when they probably shouldn’t.”

Berley embodies something we should all aspire towards daily: high agency.

High agency can be summed up as the “Art of Figuring It Out” or “Being Relentlessly Resourceful.” The literal definition is “action or intervention.”

What I’m Learning from Watching Berley Work

Most people wait for clarity or someone else to step up. Berley takes action and starts exploring. “Let me understand what’s actually happening here.” No permission-seeking. No dependency. Just curiosity and action.

Paul Graham (the godfather of startups) wrote this about high-agency people:

“[They are] not merely determined, but flexible as well. They want to get downfield, but they adapt their plans on the fly.”

Here are five lessons we can all learn from Berley and each other.

1. There is No Unsolvable Problem

Berley approaches obstacles like puzzles. Not “Can this be solved?” but “How does this work?” He enjoys the process of deconstructing a problem, whether it’s a printer or a strategy.

He removes the artificial limitation that some problems are just “too hard” or “not our department.”

What I’m practicing: When I hit a wall, instead of saying “This is impossible,” I’m asking “What would make this possible?” It’s a simple reframe that opens up entirely different solution spaces.

2. No Adults

There’s this idea that someone else knows. Someone who has a bigger title, more experience, or named authority has the answers. The reality is they don’t. And most often when we look for that person or wait to find the answers they have, we waste precious time and effort, and rob ourselves of our own agency.

Over and over I’ve seen Berley act on something not because it was his job, but because it needed doing.

What I’m practicing: Catching myself when I default to “Let me check with…” and instead asking “What would I do if I owned this outcome completely?”

3. Only Now

Berley operates with an urgency I’m learning to embrace. Not frantic energy, but the recognition that this moment is the only one we actually control.

I’ve watched him turn “someday we should…” conversations into “here’s what I’m starting today” action plans. He doesn’t wait for perfect conditions or complete information.

What I’m practicing: Setting 24-hour deadlines for decisions that could drag on indefinitely. Creating artificial urgency to prevent analysis paralysis. (This works with Agile too. Acting now on what was decided and acting now to plan for future work knowing that it will be done when it is committed to.)

4. No Normal

Here’s what I love about Berley’s approach: he doesn’t ask “How do we normally handle this?” He asks “How could this work better?”

Whether it’s reimagining a process or finding an elegant solution to a messy technical problem, he starts from first principles rather than precedent. He gives himself permission to ignore how things “should” be done.

What I’m practicing: Before defaulting to our standard approach, asking “If we were starting fresh, what would we build?” This has always been hard. It’s even more difficult now that we have established processes, full plates, and don’t want to risk what’s working “well enough.”

5. What would great look like?

This question…again. What would great look like is the single best question I’ve come across to reset my mindset. When I practice this, it works. When I forget about it, I often wish I could reverse a decision or conversation because pausing to ask this would have made it much better. What would great look like isn’t being idealistic or wishing for circumstances to be different. Rather, it’s asking how can I/you be great in this moment given the existing conditions and circumstances now.

Berley doesn’t see himself as a passive recipient of circumstances but as an active creator of outcomes.

What I’m practicing: Replacing “Why is this happening to me/us?” with “How will I/we make this happen and make it great?”

Daily High Agency

What strikes me most about Berley’s decade here is marked by being someone who figures out what others can’t—or won’t.

It’s not about being smarter or more experienced. It’s about approaching work as an active creator rather than a passive participant. It’s seeing problems as interesting puzzles rather than circumstances beyond control.

High agency is exhausting to practice. It’s much easier to wait for someone else to make the hard calls or to default to “that’s not how we do things.” But watching Berley for ten years has shown me the compound effect of consistently choosing ownership over dependency.

Questions for self-reflection

• Where are you waiting for permission instead of taking ownership?
• What “impossible” problems might just need a different approach?
• How are you actively creating outcomes rather than responding to circumstances?

Berley’s ten years here aren’t just a celebration of time spent—they’re a masterclass in what happens when someone consistently chooses to be a high agency creator.

Berley, thank you for showing us what “figuring it out” looks like for ten years running. The problems you’ve solved, the paths you’ve created, and the agency you’ve modeled have made all of our work possible.

Here’s to the next “impossible” thing you’ll make look easy.