Agency Is the Keystone: Why Home Care Founders Who Lose It, Lose Everything

Last week, I wrote about Necessary Endings, why letting go of the Breakaway365 program, and so many chapters before it, was not a failure. It was pruning. Strategic, intentional, necessary pruning.

But here is what I did not say directly.

Endings require agency. Without the belief that you have the power to choose, to walk away, to pivot, to rebuild, every ending just feels like loss. And without agency, you're not pruning anything. You're just surviving.

That's the bridge I want to walk you across today.

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The Keystone Law

In my book, EntreThrive, I lay out Eight Laws of entrepreneurial thriving. Law #8, EntreAgency, is the one I call the Keystone Law.

A keystone is the central stone in an arch. Remove it, and the whole structure collapses. That's exactly what happens when an entrepreneur loses their agency. The other seven laws; clarity, grit, faith, connections, all of it, they go dormant. They can't do their work without agency holding them together.

EntreAgency is the belief that you, not fate, not the market, not your caregiver turnover rate, captain your ship.

Free will rules. Not circumstance.

But I haven't always lived that way. And I'm guessing many of you haven't either.

The Years I Gave My Agency Away

Between 2009 and 2015, I was in the trenches building Home Care Pulse. On paper, we were growing. Inside? I was hollowed out.

Every escalation landed on me. Every decision waited for my sign-off. I was the "always on" leader, completely void of the joy exercising my agency could have provided. I had built a business I couldn't leave, and the truth is, I had done it to myself.

What I didn't recognize at the time was that I had quietly adopted a pessimistic mindset. Not the dramatic kind. The kind where every setback feels permanent. Every hard season feels pervasive, like everything is broken, not just one thing. Every struggle feels personal, like it defines who you are as a leader, as a founder, as a person.

That's the Mustang Mind running wild. And I let it run for years.

I didn't have the language for it then. But I do now, thanks to one of the most renowned psychologists of our time.

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What Marty Taught Me

When I enrolled in the Master of Applied Positive Psychology program at the University of Pennsylvania, I had the privilege of studying directly under Dr. Martin Seligman. His students just call him Marty.

Here's what most people don't know about Marty: he's a self-proclaimed pessimist. The man who launched the entire Positive Psychology movement, who has dedicated decades to the science of human flourishing, will tell you openly that optimism doesn't come naturally to him. He had to learn it. He had to choose it.

That's what makes his work so powerful. He's not theorizing from a place of natural brightness. He's been in the dark too.

Marty's recent research on agency has reminded me how critical free thought and intentional choice are to our joy and happiness. He identified three elements that must be present for agency to fully function. When these three are missing, so is your free will.

The Three Elements of Agency

1. Self-Efficacy, "I believe I can accomplish a specific goal."

This is the foundation. Entrepreneurs with self-efficacy believe their actions influence their outcomes. Without it, you start believing your future is something that happens to you rather than something you create. That's when you become a hostage in your own business.

As late psychologist Albert Bandura writes, "Unless people believe they can produce desired effects by their actions, they have little incentive to act." If you believe you can do it, you'll do everything in your power to do it. If you don’t, you won't.

2. Optimism, "I believe I can accomplish this goal far into the future."

Seligman describes optimism and pessimism as explanatory styles, the way we interpret our experiences. Optimists see challenges as temporary, specific, and external. Pessimists see them as permanent, pervasive, and personal.

During those first 6-years at Home Care Pulse, I was leading like a pessimist. A difficult month felt permanent. A team struggle felt pervasive, like proof the whole model was broken. That explanatory style cost me years of joy.

The good news? If pessimism can be learned, and Marty's research proves it can, then so can optimism. You can choose a different explanatory style. Did you realize you had that kind of power? You do.

3. Imagination, "I believe I can accomplish many goals."

This is where your agency truly blossoms. Imagination gives you vision for the unseen and unknown. It allows you to dream about a new version of your business, and a new chapter beyond it. As Einstein said, "Your imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions."

Without imagination, you can't picture the business without you at the center of every decision. You can't envision the exit. You can't see The Good Life waiting on the other side of where you are right now.

Here's the Irony

When you rob yourself of agency, you rob your team of theirs too.

The "always on" leader, the one who must be involved in everything, isn't just burning out. They're quietly suffocating the autonomy of the people around them. And when your people can't own their work, your best ones leave. When your best ones leave, you get pulled back in deeper.

This is exactly why Autonomy sits at the core of the ARCC of Retention, a foundational piece of the KEEP Culture Model. When you build an environment where your team's agency can flourish, yours does too. The business begins to run without you at the center. Buyers notice. Valuations reflect it. And your path to The Good Life becomes real, not a concept, not someday, but real.

Your Agency Is Waiting

Last week was about letting go.

This week is about what you step into after you do.

EntreAgency, self-efficacy, optimism, imagination, is the keystone that makes it all possible. Without it, the other seven laws of EntreThrive go quiet. With it, everything opens.

If you're a home care founder (located in the states of AZ, ID, UT, CO, NM, WY, ND, SD), who's ready to exit on your own terms, with clarity, intention, and a real picture of what comes next, I'd love to connect.

👉 www.rivhc.com/founders

Aaron

P.S. Marty Seligman didn't start out as an optimist. He built the science because he needed it himself. That gives me a lot of hope, and I think it should give you some too. Your agency is one choice away.