#174 Agency Is A Skill — Cate Hall on leaving law for poker, developing agency, deterministic vs probabilistic economy, risk, burnout, asking dumb questions, defining ambition, seeking real feedback, and the surface area of luck

Listen to this episode from The Pathless Path with Paul Millerd on Spotify. Cate seemed to be fully entrenched on the default path — she had graduated from Yale and became the Supreme Court advocate on her way to becoming a partner in her law firm. But she didn't want to live the lives of the people around her. She pivoted hard, you could almost hear car brakes squeaking as she made the turn, and over a year she became the number one female poker player in the world. She later started art and perfume companies and led operations at Avlea — a pandemic medicine company. One might think she's simply a superhuman, and what she did is beyond the grasp of mere mortals, but Cate claims that agency is learnable and joins the podcast to tell us how.🎥🍿 YOUTUBE: WATCH HERELinks:X (Twitter): @catehallLinkedInCate's Article — How to be More Agentic⌛TIMESTAMPS(00:00) - Intro (02:07) - The scripts that Cate grew up with (06:32) - Doors-opening credentials? (10:23) - Leaving law for poker (18:37) - Developing agency, learning form the others (23:42) - Deterministic vs probabilistic economy (26:53) - Risk and the diminishing prestige of the traditional paths (31:10) - Burnout (37:20) - Asking dumb questions (41:59) - Defining ambition (43:39) - Seeking actual feedback and how everything is learnable (50:11) - The surface area of luck (57:45) - Closing remarks 📘 My 2nd Book Good Work: LIVE! => Learn More📕 Buy My First Book, The Pathless Path (65k+ Sold): The Pathless Path😁 Join 500+ In My Cozy Community: Pathless Path Community📲Connect + Follow PaulX: @p_millerdInstagram: @pathlesspaulPaul’s Newsletter: Subscribe to Pathless (25k+ People)Paul’s YouTube: Subscribe🙏Further Ways To Support The Podcast:Accounting, Taxes, and Payroll for Your S-Corp (Ideal for $60k+ income): CollectiveLooking for alternatives to traditional health insurance in the US? Check out CrowdhealthI use Transistor to host this podcast. It rocks. Launch Yours HereI record high-quality videos using Riverside: Sign Up HereI use and love the Readwise reader for notes and highlights: Join Here for a 2 month trial