Radical Agency: A Proven Framework For Taking Control Of Your Career, Money, And Financial Freedom
Agency isn’t something you’re handed — it’s something you design.
Arrrrr! 🏴☠️ Welcome to a 🔒 subscriber-only edition 🔒 of Category Pirates. Each week, we share radically different ideas to help you design new and different categories. For more: Dive into an audiobook | Listen to a category design jam session | Enroll in the free Strategy Sprint email course
Dear Friend, Subscriber, and Category Pirate,
Agency is a word that hits different, depending on where you are in life.
For a recent college grad, agency might mean having the freedom to take a job that excites you — not just one that pays the bills.
For a young parent, agency might mean having time to build a business while raising kids.
For someone in the second half of their career, agency might mean cutting back on your hours to travel, spend time with friends and family, or explore your treasure-hunting hobby. (ARRRR!)
At its core, agency means freedom.
The freedom to make your own choices — to act independently and shape your life on your terms. It’s the power to say, “I’m doing this.” And actually doing it.
You do what you want. With who you want. When you want.
Not because someone gave you permission, but because you claimed it.
As Perplexity puts it:
“Having agency means possessing the capacity to act independently and make choices that influence one's life and environment.
It refers to an individual's sense of control over their thoughts, behaviors, and circumstances. Agency empowers a person to initiate actions, set goals, and work towards achieving them, rather than merely reacting to external forces.”
If you’re starting your career or scraping by, you might think this sounds like hopeful, happy horseshit. Because you’re sweating the rent, living paycheck to paycheck, or stuck in a grind that drains your soul. For too many people, agency feels like something reserved for the lucky.
The truth is…
Agency isn’t something you’re handed. It’s something you design.
Take Pirate Katrina. At 23 years old, she decided to leave a good copywriting job at an ed-tech startup to go out on her own as a freelance writer. She turned down a potential job at Google — a decision that meant walking away from an estimated half a million dollars in equity — because agency mattered more.
Almost ten years later, Pirate Katrina has lived in over 24 Airbnbs in dozens of cities and countries. Having agency to travel the world while working remotely on projects she cared about led to:
Spending three years in Switzerland, chasing mountain adventures and helping scale a ghostwriting agency to $2+ million in revenue.
Running the editorial team at a high-growth finance start-up while living out of a van in places like Phoenix, Joshua Tree, Seattle, Golden, Vancouver, and Banff
Fulfilling a lifelong dream of learning to paraglide while growing Category Pirates and helping 50+ entrepreneurs define their category in the Category Design Academy
She did all of this while building a career and life she loves.
(Which she thinks is worth at least $500,000.) 🤑
Agency isn’t a given.
It’s a choice.
🔊 Want to listen to this mini-book instead? Head to the audiobook.
Radical personal agency is built on (your relationship) with money.
Note: We purposely did not say, “Radical personal agency is built on money.” We did say, “Radical personal agency is built on (your relationship) with money.”
More on that soon.
This is important because 63 percent of American adults report money as a top stressor, and 65 percent say work is a significant stressor in their lives.
A healthy relationship with money, plus a well-designed financial runway, lets you stop reacting to the world and start creating your own (different) future. And it’s how you turn agency from an abstract idea into your life.
Agency gives you:
The freedom to say no. You’re no longer shackled to toxic people, soul-sucking jobs, or projects that don’t align with your values. when someone offers you a deal that compromises your integrity or drains your energy, you can walk without worry.
Time to focus on what matters. You gain the luxury of prioritizing long-term goals over survival. whether it’s starting your dream business, mastering a new skill, or spending quality time with your family, you have the bandwidth to invest in what truly matters to you.
The power to take risks. Financial stability lets you make (more) bold moves, like launching a business, moving to a new city, or pivoting to a different industry. Risks aren’t as scary when you build your own safety net.
Ability to invest in yourself. You can afford to spend money on learning, growth, health, and opportunities of your making. A powerful relationship with money (coupled with a well-designed financial runway) gives you the means to level up, whether you take a course, hire a coach, travel to gain new perspectives, or improve your health.
Peace of mind. Agency and a solid financial runway reduce anxiety and stress. Instead of being in survival mode, you’re free to think creatively, solve problems effectively, and pursue joy.
In Silicon Valley and on Wall Street, this is called ‘F.U. money.’ The thinking goes: If you have enough money, you can tell people to F-off.
We prefer to call it “Free You money.” ARRRR!
Building your financial runway doesn’t mean you’ve reached every destination. It means you’re equipped to chart your course (whatever that may be) with confidence, clarity, and choice.
That’s the essence of agency.
If you’re in a tough spot right now. Please. Know. We don’t just empathize — we’ve been there, and we feel you. While we don’t know exactly what you're dealing with, we are not children of wealth or entitlement. We’ve lived through some of the hardest, messiest, most gut-wrenching, poop-your-pants-scared moments in life and business. (More than once.) And while we’ve been blessed with loving family and friends, the three of us didn’t start with much of anything. And we’ve had to walk through serious fire in life. While we can’t know exactly what you’re dealing with, we feel you.
When you have nothing, dream a big dream.
Dreams of a different future are the raw materials of constructing your legendary life.
The legendary Stephen Covey wisely taught us to “begin with the end in mind.” This thinking shifts your focus FROM where you are now, TO where you could be. (What in category design is called a FROTO.) And it gives you a sense of control over your life.
Humans thrive when they have control (a say) in what to make of their lives.
That’s because Control = Freedom. When we take control of our lives (and circumstances), we increase our personal freedom. You could argue that freedom is the ability to control your destiny. (Design a different future.) This applies to every dimension: work, family, friends, community, faith, sports, and activities. And by “control,” we don’t mean wack-a-do, overbearing, micromanaging, obsessive behavior. We’re talking about personal agency. Your power, control, freedom, and authority over your own life, actions, and surroundings.
Pirate Al Ramadan (co-author of Play Bigger with Pirate Christopher) explains to young people that what financial success really does is create more choices in life.
Now, let’s zoom in on what that means.
Does Your Money Own You, Or Do You Own Your Money?
There are two things about money to consider when building agency: