The following are the notes from Mr. Higgins’ charge at the 2026 ECS Graduation.
Good evening to our candidates for graduation, to their parents and families, to the Headmaster and school board and faculty, and welcome guests. To those of you on stage, you have made it to the end of your time at ECS, and ECS has made it to our tenth graduation ceremony.
My charge tonight can be summarized in two words. They are only slightly more difficult to remember than Bob Newhart’s counsel to “Stop it!” As you commence into life after high school, for the glory of God, I charge you to do everything with yielded hustle.
There’s a lot of talk in certain circles these days about high agency. I read an article just a little over a year ago titled, “High Agency in 30 Minutes.” It continues to edify me, it has added some critical lines of code in my mental operating system. I’ve shared the link with I don’t know how many people.
The article opens with the hypothetical: if you woke up in a 3rd world jail cell, who would you call? Most likely the person you’re thinking of has high agency. You probably don’t know someone with expertise or experience in this scenario; I searched for a top ten list of tips but there isn’t one. You might know a person who has a habit of figuring out what he does’t know, who is known for not quitting just because he came to a closed door, and who has the reputation of not giving up until he reaches the goal. He will get you out.
This isn’t about being an extrovert, or having the mind of an entrepreneur. It’s a person who is more cause than effect. They care enough to get off the couch. They have a kind of conviction, and confidence, to get curious, and continue working until the job is complete.
There are three traits that belong with high agency people.
- They have clear thinking. They know what they want. Clarity doesn’t requiring having all the info, but it does require a match of love to the truth you do have.
- They are disagreeable, not in the sense that they can’t be pleased, but that they won’t be conformed to the world of pessimists. When everyone else says that they can’t, they don’t lose heart.
- They have a bias to action. They take steps, no matter how small, with spoude/zeal.
For this kind of person, “if your problem doesn’t defy the law of physics, it’s not an unsolvable problem.”
This does not mean you need a lot of money, or that you have to invent a new product or start a business. It has nothing to do with being loud. And at any given snapshot it may look unsuccessful as you figure out the 1000 ways not to make a lightbulb. But you aren’t waiting for AI to tell you what to want, or expecting someone else to come along and fix all your problems.
High agency is a great category. You have been educated and equipped. Who better than you would know the kind of problems the world needs solved? Your imaginations have been tested and trained and expanded. You’ve exercised your mind, you’ve sacrificed your default preference for comfort in order to complete assignments, and you’ve tasted the confidence that comes from doing hard things.
As much as high agency does good work, yielded hustle goes higher. Yielded hustle is high agency par excellence. This is your charge.
YIELDED
This is a one word summary of your Christian confession that Jesus is Lord. It captures coram Deo, that all of life is lived before the face of God. It belongs with Deo volente, if the Lord wills, we will do this or that. It aligns every morning, each of your projects and tasks, all your time and habits, in the fear of the Lord. We might coin it, deditus impetus (devoted energy).
This is good because the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10). Yielding your will to the Lord’s will is wise. You could have all the high agency in the world in your little toe, but be running down the wrong road. “In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths” (Proverbs 3:6).
Such a yielded life includes high agency humility. God declares that He resists the proud but exalts the humble. The problem for the tower builders in Babel wasn’t a lack of bias to action, it was a lack of submission to God. They wanted to make a name for themselves, and the Lord let them have it, just not how they meant it.
Such a yielded life also means it’s possible to be pleasing the Lord in every moment. You can enjoy the process, not just be always waiting for joy until the risks are gone.
HUSTLE
I don’t mean a side hustle, trying to make a little extra money from a hobby, though that’s fine. I don’t mean tricking others into thinking that you’re incompetent before running the table. I mean, in the words of one of our modern day warrior-poets: Get after it.
Wisdom does not end, “In all your ways acknowledge Him and then feel free to sit around until lightning strikes.” Let the Lord steer you as you are in motion. God gives growth, and like a farmer, you have to be sowing, watering, weeding, not being a sluggard all summer expecting a big harvest.
Hustle. Have a bias to action. Most of the time in life you don’t need permission, or even encouragement, just a tendency to try. When you hit a problem—and you will, that doesn’t mean you’re finished, it’s feedback to try another angle. What else do you think risus est bellum is good for?
We are Christians. We know as those who believe in the sovereignty of God that at best we are just secondary causes. Good! And so try to be the most hustling secondary cause you can.
Pure high agency makes a man think he is a primary cause, he’s self-empowered. Yielded hustle connects to the Primary Cause, to God’s sovereign power and purposes and promises. Self-will is bad, laziness is bad. In fact, laziness is self-willed. Not hustling is not yielded. And if you are properly yielded, God will always be spreading grace through your clay pot.
I’ve read that “You can measure the impact of a person’s life by the size of the problem he or she solves.” You have the education, do you have the courage? We live in a world full of live problems, endless problems, seemingly impossible problems, unfavorable conditions. You must do more than comment on or complain about how dumb everything is, and actually “commit your work to the LORD” so that “your plans will be established” (Proverbs 16:3).
This is not just do more. It’s absolutely not working your way into salvation. But you are to work out your salvation in fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12). This is yielded hustle.
Many of you have traveled to the UK and to the East Coast. You’ve not just read in two-dimensions, you’ve seen and tasted the fruit that have come from generations who sacrificed to carry and advance Christ-honoring culture. The baton is yours. Run with it into the art you make, the music you play, the law you study, the medicine you practice, the homes and families the Lord blesses you with.
To the ECS class of 2026, trust in the LORD with all your heart, and be the kind of persons that a friend stuck in a 3rd world cell would call.