Runway, Not Retirement: The Creator Capitalist’s Path To Financial Freedom

Retirement is a trap. What you really need is a runway.

In Runway, Not Retirement, Category Pirates—Christopher Lochhead, Eddie Yoon, and Katrina Kirsch—flip the script on traditional financial advice. Instead of grinding for 40 years to (maybe) retire someday, this mini-book introduces a bold new framework: build a financial runway that gives you the freedom to create a life and career on your own terms—sooner, not someday. Featuring real-life stories like Katie Gatti Tassin’s leap from corporate cubicle to 7-figure creator, and Pirate Eddie’s decades-long journey from consultant to category creator, this guide walks you through how to calculate your runway, build the four forms of Creator Capital, and pass the two critical financial freedom tests that unlock radical agency.

In this “mini-book” you will learn:

• How to calculate your “pay for the party” costs and design a personal financial runway
• Why runway—not retirement—is the modern creator’s secret to designing work worth doing
• The difference between saving to quit vs. saving to create—and how that mindset shift changes everything
• How to pass the Marshmallow Test (for younger creators) and the Greed Test (for seasoned ones)
• What it looks like to build Reputation, Relationship, Intellectual, and Financial Capital as a long-term flywheel

Practical, provocative, and packed with stories and tools, this “mini-book” helps you reframe freedom—not as the absence of work, but as the presence of purpose, autonomy, and creative momentum. This isn’t about escaping the grind. It’s about designing a life you don’t want to retire from.