Boundless Podcast: Ben Dubow On State Department Rejection To Propaganda-Fighting Startup Founder (Episode 10)

[01:00] Guest 1: Welcome to The Boundless Podcast. I'm Paul Millerd, and I created this podcast because I'm passionate about making sense of the future of work and having conversations with the innovators, creators, and thought leaders who are carving their path in today's fast-changing world. You can check out the podcast and more on boundlesspod.com.

[01:25] Guest 2: Are you doing work that really matters to you? Are you still trying to figure that out? And that's perfectly okay. Today's guest, Paul Millerd, wants to help you figure that out if that's something you still haven't captured yet for yourself. He spends a ton of time thinking about this, working on it, and helping people like you figure out what you really care about, and how you can do more of it. He recently launched Boundless.

It's a suite of services to help people and organizations navigate their future of work opportunities, including consulting, coaching, and courses. He also has a blog and a podcast of the same name. You can check them out at think-boundless.com. There are a load of great lessons jam-packed into this episode, including Instead of asking people, what do you do? Try asking them, what energizes you? You might even ask yourself that question.

How to evaluate all your different skills and how they can be mashed up in different ways to find new work opportunities. How you can create your own definition of success and how Paul defines his. Redefining risk to think more about the consequences of not doing what you know you need to do. And how you can think about sacrificing money or career opportunities in favor of spending more time with family and friends and building deeper relationships. And we'll also talk about the gift economy and what it's all about. Quick programming note, this is a recording of a Facebook Live conversation that we had, first one that I did.

Thinking about doing more of these, so you might notice that the audio sounds a little bit different, and that is the reason why. If you'd like me to do more of these, I'd love to hear that. Let me know if I should. You can email me at itspossible@lifeskillsmatter.com or post a message on our Facebook page. You can find us at Life Skills That Matter.

[03:14] Paul: All right.

[03:14] Guest 2: If you are getting ready to begin your transition into self-employment, you can learn the first 5 actions to take at lifeskillsthatmatter.com/getstarted. A few life skills that mattered in this episode include building community, telling your story, managing your energy, and practicing self-awareness.

[03:31] Guest 3: Hello, Paul.

[03:32] Paul: How are you? We did it, man. Thank you for making this more complicated than it has to be. So, uh, we're going to do a little experiment here today for anybody that's watching. I thought it'd be fun to start maybe redoing live recordings on my podcast, and Paul Millerd has been nice enough to be the guinea pig in that endeavor. So we're going to see how this all works out.

So if you have any questions, uh, during this podcast, feel free to ask, and, uh, hopefully one of us can come up with a smart response. Uh, and if you're listening to the recorded version of this podcast and you'd like to participate in future recordings, definitely follow us on Facebook. Just look for Life Skills That Matter. So Paul, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to talk to you about what it is that you do. You have a lot of very interesting insights on the future of work.

[04:18] Guest 3: I hope so, or at least I think a lot about it. So I'm excited to talk to you about it as well.

[04:24] Paul: Yeah, I'm not sure if there's any other person that I have met, particularly in the last year, who thinks about this as much as I do. Like, I always joke around, I feel like you're inside my head sometimes. It's kind of scary.

[04:34] Guest 3: Agreed. Brother from another mother.

[04:36] Paul: Yeah, it's so true. So as I always like to kick things off, when people ask you what it is that you do for work, what the heck do you tell them?

[04:44] Guest 3: Um, yeah, that's a good question. I, I've been thinking a lot about this. I've actually shifted in the past couple of months to really double down on some of the work that I'm most excited about, which right now I'm putting the tagline as helping people navigate the future of work. What does that mean? How do we do things that matter to us?

[05:02] Paul: Nice.

[05:04] Guest 3: So I think I also take a step back and say, I'm trying to live a good life and fit in what I'm good at and where I can add value to people inside of that. So what I'm good at is going deep on issues, reading a lot, making sense of it, writing it, and helping others understand it. Also, so for me, it's creating, one, coaching, two, is like working with people, helping them understand these things, and then three is like building community around this, helping engage people, connect with people like you, and telling other people's stories.

[05:38] Paul: I love that because I know, I know a lot more about you than the folks listening to us right now or watching. But what I love about that answer is I always tell people, when you're telling your story, don't tell people what you think that they want to hear or what's comfortable. Tell them what you want to do or where you see yourself going. And that's exactly how you answered it. 'Cause you're in my same boat. We're early days on figuring this all out.

[06:00] Guest 3: Yeah. Well, I actually started experimenting with this a few years ago. I started telling, so I was so, I moved to New York and I was kind of sick of the answer of what do you do? Like people love that question, especially in New York. And I was like, I don't know. I do a lot of stuff.

I spend time with my family. I read, I take naps. It's like, so I started changing my question.

[06:24] Paul: But there's only one.

[06:25] Guest 3: What do you do?

[06:25] Paul: They're sizing you up. They're looking for the status symbol. That's what it is.

[06:29] Guest 3: Yeah. And so I started testing two things. One, I started asking people, what energizes you instead of what do you do? Which is a really great question when you're meeting people. But I started answering with the question like, what I'm excited about right now is making the working world a better place. And it was shocking to see what happened.

All of a sudden, like, and if you say that and you're convinced, like, I really care about this, what would happen is that people would say, oh my God, that's amazing. I need to connect you with Johnny, or you need to meet this person. One person just was like, we need to hire you. We need this kind of person. So it was kind of funny how changing the frame and saying like what inspires you or the mission you're on can create opportunities.

[07:20] Paul: Well, yeah, and it's because that's the thing that you're most excited about. And then, then people, it's kind of like a filter. Then you're going to know if they're really excited about it or not. So that could be another person that you could help them, they could help you, or at least they know how to recommend you. But if you're like, I, I consult with organizations and strategies, that sort of thing, and people kind of, kind of hear the lack of enthusiasm, like that's the stuff that maybe is paying the bills, which is also happens to be paying your bills right now, but there's not the level of excitement that you have is when you talk about the future of work.

[07:51] Guest 3: Right. Yeah. I, I work with a lot of college students and I'll try to get them to say, okay, not what is your major? Because that's the question that college students get is like, why do you care about that major and what are you going to do with it? And for a lot of, a bunch of students really get excited around this because they have a lot to offer. I was talking to an accountant who's like, yeah, I'm an accountant.

I'm a junior at UConn. Really, what he— why he was an accountant is because his parents were running a business. He was a first-gen college student and he wanted to make sense of things, help his parents be more successful in the business. I was like, tell that story. That is so cool.

[08:30] Paul: Yeah, you're right. It's almost like we have to get permission to— I always say it's like, tell people what you really feel like. What is it that you tell yourself? And I wonder, like, why do you feel— why do people resist that? Why do people not say what they really want to say?

[08:46] Guest 3: I think part of it is we're just trying to fit in. I think deep down, a lot of us don't really know what we wanna do. I think for me, I don't really know what I wanna do. I'm still figuring it out, but we're trying to fit into a script, right? We're trying to say, okay, here's a job or a career or somebody in the future I wanna fit into. How do I conform myself to fit into that?

And it might make sense actually early in your career in college to like get into that first job. Or your second job, but that runs out pretty quickly. And I think that's what I'm passionate about is like getting people to switch that frame as early as possible in their career and lives.

[09:25] Paul: Yeah, I think it's also thinking back when I was early on in my career, so say in college, there's just that craving of like, you wanna prove, I understand why we do it. There's that, there's a double whammy of like, there's that adult development stage of I want to, prove, uh, myself. I want to let people know that I'm going to be okay, I'm going to be an adult. But then there's this added, uh, I think, layer of how our entire education— our educational system was designed to support an old economy, which was really, right, this idea that you have to follow these certain tracks. You know, it's— we know we came up— we're coming out of economy where you're required to fit in to, to get value. And, you know, and now I see we're moving into economy.

Yeah. The most valuable thing you can do is to, I know it sounds corny, to be yourself.

[10:14] Guest 3: Yeah, it's, and I think some of those notions are mistaken. I think if we look at the data, 63% of people who are eligible for employment are actually working. 80, I looked up these numbers yesterday, 82% of those are full-time employment. That hasn't increased in 12 years. Full-time employment is flat. Everything that's been increasing, the labor force has been increasing, is those alternate work arrangements.

People like you and I, but also people who are contractors and stuff. And I think a lot of our mindsets about, okay, these paths exist, they're mostly for people like with the right credentials, right background, right education. So we almost reinforce these because we think they are we think they're the only paths and the people writing about them are the ones with the credentials and the right experience.

[11:09] Paul: Hey, I just wanted to welcome somebody watching us, Paul McNeill, who is a super awesome guy. I gotta connect you to Paul, you know, because he is also really into the future of work. More Pauls. He's a cryptocurrency expert, really amazing guy, super connector. I mean, he's introduced me to so many awesome people. So thanks for joining, Paul.

If you wanna jump in, let us know. So this, it's really interesting then how, so there's people maybe who are going to end up listening to us and if we're not supposed to do what we're supposed to do, like how do you know what you want to do? How do you commit to that? Especially if people don't really understand it or it's not really acceptable yet, or people aren't familiar with it. I think that's tough.

[11:50] Guest 3: Yeah. So I, I wrote an article about this recently. We can link up to it, but, um, How do you— I actually think the question, what do you want to do, is a terrible question. It sets the frame in the wrong perspective. I think one is starting with your skills, like what are you good at? What do people come to you for?

And I actually break that down into a few things. You almost have like these foundational skills, which are human skills, and people don't think of them as skills. They can be things like listening, compassion, How you help people, like really simple things like that, that people don't think about skills. Then you move to like technical skills, right? So this can be things that are relevant now. These can be coding, these can be figuring out how to do Facebook Live.

And then what you wanna do is like— Figure it out today. The multiplier effect is like, Taking those two things and adding them to a curiosity. So you can be curious about anything. Like there are so many micro niches available to like explore in today's world. Like you can be an expert on how to post videos to LinkedIn and be super obsessed with that and only do that. Right.

[13:08] Paul: I interviewed this woman and I posted it last week. She started a mermaid swimming school. And I think I'm going to end up citing that one example over and over again. If you have a crazy idea, Go for it. You could turn a business. Look at what this woman did.

And then she was buying so many mermaid swimming fins that the person— the— I think there was a company in China that was making them. She— they couldn't keep up with her demand, so she started her own side business of making the swimming fins. So she has two businesses. It's crazy.

[13:38] Guest 3: I love it. Um, yeah. And, uh, so two other ones, I'll touch them quickly. I think the second one is change your definition of success. So corporate America has a definition of success. It is money, status, and power.

However, nobody is actually deciding that, right? That is just an emergent order of success that we default to. Nobody is actually sitting in a corner office and saying, well, here, here's how I'm judging these people. We're just accepting that. However, like creating your own definition of success is actually very hard. It takes constant reflection, it evolves, and it can be really confusing.

[14:20] Paul: How do you, how do you define your success?

[14:24] Guest 3: Yeah, so I start with my priorities. I think my priorities start, one is health. I went through a major health crisis 5 or 6 years ago, and that, like, if you don't have that, you don't really even have the stability to like look forward to the future and work on things. So it's that, it's my relationships, it's then like fun and creativity to like stay engaged and energized. And then fourth is really work. And that's kind of evolved for me.

That's like almost merging into the fun because I'm deprioritizing the idea of work. But yeah, so it's starting with those priorities. And then two is I'm just thinking about my energy all the time. So if I'm doing things that are draining me, I need to get away from those things.

[15:13] Paul: Including people, right?

[15:15] Guest 3: Right, yeah. And the funny thing is when you get rid of the things that disengage you, you often create space and opportunity for things that excite you to kind of come into your life. And it's hard though, because that's a leap of faith and it's almost like trusting some sort of karmic magic that exists in the world.

[15:37] Paul: Well, I've done this. I always advise unconventional advice where people are like, I don't know what I want to do. I'm not sure what's going on. I tell people to do a purge of their life, you know, just as an experiment, just for 30 days. Get rid of your stuff, things that don't energize you, obligations, relationships, digital stuff, and see what's left behind. It's almost like the ocean going back out and seeing like what's left behind is the stuff that does matter to you, that does energize you.

And there's clues in there. Like, I really believe there's parts of your brain that already knows what it wants to do.

[16:05] Guest 3: Yeah, agreed. But it's like, yeah, it's like removing the blocks, I think. When I finally took the leap to working on my own, it took about 4 to 6 weeks to just like clear my brain. It was like—

[16:21] Paul: What were you doing? Just to give context.

[16:24] Guest 3: Yeah, so I was, I had worked in strategy consulting for about 9 years and had started to make sense of these like priorities, different definition of success. And it was just a huge mismatch for the corporate world. and so I was actually doing work that was pretty cool. I was helping assess, uh, CEOs and senior executives, um, talent development stuff, working with boards, CEOs. I actually loved the work. It was a— I was able to put my skills to use, but it was a lot of the other stuff.

Like, I didn't really care about moving up or making more money or trying to kind of jockey for position in an organization. Um, so I basically had a moment where I was just like, I gotta make a move and, um, decided to quit, started transitioning. And then when I left, I didn't really have much set up. It was really a leap of faith. I was like, something will work out.

[17:22] Paul: And how many years ago was this?

[17:24] Guest 3: This was in 2017.

[17:26] Paul: Okay.

[17:26] Guest 3: So it was the World Class Gym. Yeah. So made the decision towards the end of 2016 that I was gonna make this move. And then, uh, kind of transitioned at the beginning of 2017. And you have a whole year under your belt being liberated.

[17:40] Paul: Congratulations.

[17:42] Guest 3: It's great.

[17:43] Paul: How would you describe this last year of your life? How would you— could you describe it in a sentence?

[17:48] Guest 3: Um, I'm just like cracking up because I'm having so much fun.

[17:55] Paul: I know. Hopefully there's like eventually people watch us that are sitting in their cubes or at their lunch, they're like, gosh darn it, I gotta get out of this cube. Yes, you can. I think that's the funny thing like you and I share so much is that We— I think even at times in my life, I didn't think I had as many options as I do. And even from getting laid off 17 years ago, there's just so many more options. I mean, really, how we think of sustaining ourselves, work, if you will, there's just so many more options than ever before, and in ways that, you know, the previous generation just can't imagine.

And sometimes I think that mentality is so deep-seated in our society, it holds us all back.

[18:32] Guest 3: Well, I think we need to stop holding— like, we have this idea that we should work for work's sake, right? And that actually leads to some really destructive things. And I'm not just worried about the people with the right skills and the right education. Like, they're making good money. I'm really worried about— like, we have this term working poor. That is insane.

We literally have people who have jobs, are working their butt off, and we call them working poor. And I think a lot of our mindsets around this reinforce that because we say, okay, you have a job, good job, right? Why don't we ask people like, what is energizing you? Are you doing the things that matter to you? And of course, like, I mean, there's a lot of policy and societal things that we need to change, but I think just changing our mindset. In the short term can be a really effective way to move the needle.

[19:31] Paul: I know I took you on a lot of tangents. I think you had 3 points that you want to make in terms of knowing your skills. Skills. It's really important to understand what you're good at, what you like. I even say your tendency. Sometimes check back into childhood to see what you gravitated to.

Point number 2, remind me, it's escaping me right now.

[19:48] Guest 3: Define your definition of success.

[19:50] Paul: Define success. So what's point number 3?

[19:53] Guest 3: Redefined risk. So thinking— so I've actually— so I started a podcast a couple of months ago, and it's funny, all the guests I've interviewed so far have talked about some imaginary future which they dread, right? So risk is I do not want to become this at age 60, right? It is what I seek to avoid rather than losing what I have now. Right? It's, it's the risk of making a move, which can seem scary, versus the risk of not having done what you know you need to do.

So kind of changing the frame around that. And one thing I do with my coaching clients is have them brainstorm, okay, what steps— like, let's say you lose your job and you're homeless. What steps would you need to take to get back to where you are in your full-time job? And most people would just say, well, I think my boss would probably just rehire me.

[20:52] Paul: Yeah. I mean, I love it. The idea of just coming up with sometimes just giving yourself that exercise, that permission to be like, if you take this action and this worst-case scenario comes true, how are you going to react? What's your backup plan? And then sometimes just even thinking about that, even writing it down, talking about it with somebody else, and it really diffuses or shrinks that fear, makes it a lot less powerful because, okay, if this happens now, I know what I'm going to do. It's just that we never take that small step.

It just takes minutes to really figure out, like, what would I do if this didn't work out?

[21:22] Guest 3: Yeah. And I mean, these things are scary because when we do something that is not what we've done in the past, people question you. Like, people will talk to me and say, oh wow, you've got it all figured out. But at every step in the road in my journey, people have been like, are you sure you know what you're doing? Are you sure you should be doing this? And in the same breath, then they'll be like, well, I know you'll figure it out, but like, are you sure?

[21:46] Paul: And I always tell people, because a lot— that holds a lot of people back, especially with loved ones like parents or spouse. If you're going to do something that's less conventional and people aren't aware of it, have never heard it before, it's— I always tell it's just their natural brain's reaction to be like, it's uncertainty. So the first thing your brain is going to be like, no, run away, don't do it. And, and I always tell people, you just got to give patience. You have to keep explaining. They're kind of your first investors, if you will, and they're actually going to help you be stronger by answering.

Like, they're going to be some of your toughest critics even. And if you can answer them, then they're going to make you that much better for all the other people that you talk about. Cause that's what you have to do. That's what I've done for 17 years. My parents still are struggling to understand what it is that I do.

[22:28] Guest 3: Yeah. And these things are a leap of faith because you can't give people the, what are you working on? Like, what are you going to be doing? I might be staffed at, like, I'm talking about a consulting project I might be staffed on next week. I don't know who's gonna emerge from out there to work with me a couple months from now. So it is hard, but it does make you more resilient to kind of earn certainty in navigating different paths.

[22:58] Paul: I just wanted to add to that risk another way to look at it, 'cause everybody's, you're right, it's always afraid of what I'm gonna lose in the short term. But it's really like the way I see work is changing, and I guess I saw this as a microcosm in broadcasting. It's the same feeling. Like I saw 10 years out, where broadcasters really need to start focusing on digital revenue. And this is coming, this is happening. Work is fundamentally going to change radically in a way that it hasn't since the Industrial Revolution in the next 10 to 20 years.

And it's going to affect all occupations. So what I'm always saying to people is you're going to have to change. That's the risk. You're going to eventually change. So do you want that change made for you by somebody else and you get kicked to the curb and they have to spend a few years, oh my God, that's really happened. Paul, that guy Paul and Steven were right.

Or do you want to be stressed out for the next couple of years on your terms and start figuring this out, at least on the side as a side hustle, as a side business? That's what I tell people, like, choose your stress.

[23:56] Guest 3: Yeah. And I've, so I've been working with some senior leaders in organizations. There's this new mindset of saying like, how can, and I'm not comfortable with how they're thinking about this. Um, but they're saying, how do we variabilize our full-time cost structure.

[24:14] Paul: What does that mean?

[24:16] Guest 3: Right, it's jargon, but it's saying, how do we turn full-time employees into a variable cost? So what that means is they're thinking about how can we use more people like you and I as freelance consultants, people to solve the right problem at the right time. And people are gonna have to be job hopping more. Um, the security—

[24:38] Paul: that makes sense to me just for the way I see the economy. It's going even— right, yes, there's corporations have done plenty of bad things that I have lots of issues with. However, just in the nature of things are changing so quickly, it's making less and less sense for them to have this fixed workforce year after year to say, I hired this one person and I, I hope they stay with us for 10 years. Cause I, I just, you know, they don't know how things are going to change 2 years out, 5 years out. That doesn't make sense anymore.

[25:05] Guest 3: Well, it's, it's also, uh, things are moving faster. So come, There's research from, I think, Yale that says companies are going out of business in the Fortune 500 faster than they ever had.

[25:18] Paul: I think I've seen that too. It's really amazing where people always give the example of the video stores, how they rose and fall within less than 20 years.

[25:30] Guest 3: Right. Yeah. Apparently, there's still Blockbusters in Alaska.

[25:35] Paul: I saw that. So I think Sunday Morning did a show on that. That was kind of cool. A little nostalgia. Um, actually I just saw a piece this morning about how the greeting card industry is trying to reinvent itself and getting millennials to buy more expensive cards. But I digress.

Um, I always tell people, I mean, I'd like to hear your feeling on this. If I had to explain to people like in a word and how to prepare and how to respond to how you're going to make a living is going to change in the next 20 years. I tell people you're going to have to manage yourself more than ever before. How do you, how would you describe how work is changing?

[26:12] Guest 3: Hmm. So I'm actually working on developing a tool to help people think about these. I don't know if I can do it in one sentence, but, um, the framework for how I'm thinking about it is how you create, how you grow, meaning like, what, what do you do and where do you, what do you work on next and how you evolve, right? So I think the best way to think about this is the shift from thinking about work-life balance, which starts from the assumption that we have work and we have to fix a life around it if we have any freedom at all, to designing a life, which is this mindset from two Stanford professors that wrote a really cool book that says, How do we design the life that matters to us and then how do we fit work around that? Totally agree. Yeah.

I'm working on this tool that's helping people assess where is my mindset right now, how ready am I for this, and then trying to put together some tools and actions to help people develop some of these skills. Launching in the next couple of weeks, Paul.

[27:25] Paul: It is so needed.

[27:28] Guest 3: Yeah.

[27:28] Paul: Hey, I can—

[27:29] Guest 3: here, I'll show you on the screen. This is the framework. It's like how you create, how you grow, how you evolve.

[27:43] Paul: Can we get a PDF of that so I could share it in the show notes?

[27:46] Guest 3: Yeah.

[27:47] Paul: Or maybe by the time this— I published the recorded version of this on the podcast. Uh, you'll have it.

[27:54] Guest 3: Yeah, we should have it. Yeah, that's awesome.

[27:58] Paul: Uh, hey, I'd love to ask you a bunch of quick questions. This is how you think about work. I think we're all getting some glimmers here how you work personally, because I'm always— as you are, I think— inspiring people to realize you could design your life now. Like, it's not about picking a career path and then owning it, but it's really about getting into your core. It's about building your life from inside out, not outside in. Right.

What time do you wake up every day?

[28:22] Guest 3: When my body wakes up, to be honest.

[28:25] Paul: This is why we are— we're brothers from another mother. Yeah. It's getting brighter in the morning now, so I'm waking up earlier. I love it.

[28:32] Guest 3: Yeah. So if I have something in the morning, I'll wake up. But health is more of a priority than work for me. So I try to get those 8 hours because without that, nothing else is going to work out.

[28:49] Paul: We've already discussed how you define success, but when you lose focus, what gets you back on track?

[28:56] Guest 3: Um, pretty much like disconnecting and like, I don't think of it in terms of focus. So I think we're, we're so strung up on we have to be productive. Like, I think productive is one of the worst words we've created in the past couple hundred years. So if I'm not focusing, like maybe it's because I'm working too much, right? So it's like more spending more time with family, friends, disconnecting, doing things that just kind of like wandering, going for walks, different things like that. But I have a pretty easy time staying focused because I try to avoid doing things that I'm not incredibly excited about.

[29:39] Paul: Okay. Well, you're just super self-aware. I mean, that's like such— that's why I really enjoy talking to you because I mean, you are this other level of self-awareness that I don't get to like connect with all that often. And it's like, I think sometimes maybe you and I also experience things even on an even more sensitive way because we've really tapped into ourselves or had practice doing it. It never ends. You know, you're always learning more and more about yourself.

[30:03] Guest 3: I also am trying to live a very simple life. So when people say money doesn't matter to them, but I think most people are lying. Money really doesn't matter to me. So my good life that I calculated was pretty cheap. And if I'm not doing anything or working on anything, I'm just reading books for a week, it's fine. There's no lack of focus that needs to be solved for because my goal was never to be rich or powerful or important.

[30:40] Paul: Yeah, I know. I love— you are unbelievably humble. And it's like, I really— when lots of people might say stuff like that, but when you say it, and the first time you said it to me, I'm like, I totally believe this guy. You know what I mean? You're the real deal.

[30:56] Guest 3: Uh, I guess, I guess I still have work to do in humility.

[31:01] Paul: Oh, we all do. We never end. I mean, that's the thing. It's always like this. You never stop learning. I think that's another kind of thing that we have to break in immortality.

It never ends. Or, or as I always say, the most important subject that's never been taught to is how to learn about yourself. That never ends too. Uh, so I'm not going to ask you for your favorite productivity tool, but I will ask you for a book That—

[31:23] Guest 3: well, I have one good productivity tool.

[31:26] Paul: All right, go for it.

[31:28] Guest 3: It's called don't read the news.

[31:32] Paul: I love it.

[31:33] Guest 3: Being informed is a delusion. All we are watching is like balls and strikes and crazy people yelling about each other.

[31:44] Paul: Yeah, as somebody who came out of television news, I can tell you a lot of lovely people thinking they're doing well-intended things, but at the end of the day, it's just a design. It's designed to capture your attention. And so it's going to always appeal to your basic human instincts of scaring you and making you not feel good about yourself or making you not— or realizing other people are doing worse than you are. So you feel better about yourself. I mean, that's the game of media and it's really unhealthy, right? I totally believe in unplugging.

Uh, so what's your goal for the next 90 days for your business, for yourself, whatever?

[32:16] Guest 3: Just live a good life. So, so for me, for me, it starts with like health, relationships, right? So I'm— a week ago, I decided I was going to come out to Arizona. I'm in Arizona right now. Later today, I'm having lunch with my aunt who's also visiting and then going to play bingo with my 88-year-old grandmother. Hopefully win, but those older women are vicious.

So I can report back.

[32:44] Paul: You know what I love? This is not the typical weekday life of somebody, of a guy in his early 30s. I love this. I also love about you too, because you and I have also geeked out on this too, is like this idea of like, we want to spend time with our family. Why should I ask for permission? Why does it have to count against me in the form of 6 days of personal vacation to go spend time with the people that I really want to spend time with?

[33:06] Guest 3: Right. Yeah. And I definitely sacrificed maybe some career progress or like, money, but I have really spent a lot of time with family. A lot of my family live around a lake in the summer. And last summer I probably spent 30 to 45 days there because what was important for me, I realized, is doing that and showing up and being around the people that matter to me. And it's also a hack because you feel amazing when you're around people that love you and you love them.

So, it's— maybe that's the biggest productivity hack.

[33:45] Paul: And I think the other thing is like you have your loved ones, but then I would say the last 6 months, meeting people like you, Paul, who's watching us, you're so awesome. I love Paul Millerd. Just people are super interested in like really rethinking things and challenging and having really deep, awesome conversations. Like, that is so awesome. There's such a light that comes alive inside of you or me personally of when you find other people who are just as interested in it and not necessarily holding the exact same beliefs, but at least interested in being part of that same conversation. And, and that's why I think you made that point earlier.

There's just so many different niches now, and it's not about just hanging out with people who only think like you, but it's about having a general interest. And hopefully if you do things right, you're challenging each other to be better.

[34:28] Guest 3: Right. Yeah. It's, it's an exciting time. And I think I also just want to add like, I think I'm lucky, right? I do have a certain more freedom, right? I don't have a significant other right now.

I don't have kids, which is why I think this is even more urgent, right? Which is why I think this stuff is more urgent. Like, I want to get people to change their mindsets earlier. Like, a lot of what has driven me is like envisioning that future. Maybe I do have kids And I want to have the flexibility. I want to have the freedom.

I want to have the energy and passion to be somebody that can be valuable to the people in my life. So, it's playing the long game and setting it up now. So, maybe I'm sacrificing comfort, money, status, but I don't know. I'm just betting that doing things a different way and throwing yourself into different experiments is going to pay off in the long term.

[35:26] Paul: Absolutely. I totally agree with that. You're learning, you know, you're not just staying mush in the same status quo, you know, it just, I mean, that's how we're designed. We're designed to keep learning. That's how our brains evolved. Hey, just want to close out with some coaching advice, uh, for somebody, cause I just had this question again.

I was just coaching somebody before we jumped on. I'm like, how much money do you need to make every month to live the life that you want? And they're like, 6 figures. I get that answer all the time. And I'm like, where did you get that number from? So many people who are unfamiliar with understanding about how much money they really need to live, what advice do you have to them of how they can really start figuring that out?

So, it kind of makes the whole idea of making more and more money that owner's task less powerful.

[36:09] Guest 3: I don't know. I've encountered this in the past few months in talking to people about this. Money is like a deep, deep issue for people. I don't think I realized it.

[36:22] Paul: It's an issue for me. I admit it. I'm constantly still getting embarrassed.

[36:29] Guest 3: I think it's funny. I hear people talking about like, "Oh my God, you need so much money to have a kid these days. I don't know if I can afford it." And this will come from people who are making a couple hundred thousand dollars.

[36:42] Paul: Just don't send them to college.

[36:45] Guest 3: Right. Well, no, what they're saying is that they want to raise a premier, like, high-priced child, right? Which is like, I want the best credentials, best— like, you're buying a luxury life.

[37:01] Paul: I want to raise a good human.

[37:04] Guest 3: Right. Yeah. So putting that back on yourself is saying, okay, reflect back to when you're in college. Most of us were pretty broke, but we were like having the time time of our life. We had fun. We didn't have many things.

Like, how do you play that out? Like, and, and this is hard, right?

[37:26] Paul: We have the basics. We're taking the basics, we're taking care of us though, right?

[37:31] Guest 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, so I have a spreadsheet that's like, what are my basic needs right now? It's rent, $850 a month, healthcare, $250 a month, Food is like $500 a month. And then everything else is negotiable, right? I have space at a coworking space. But if, if push comes to shove, like, I'll just opt out of that, right?

I don't actually need that. If I do travel, like, I don't actually need that. And I think we should almost shift our mindset to saying, if we had nothing, who would take care of us? And I think most people have, like, if you run out of money, food, and shelter, like, come, come over, Stephen. Like, I'll, I'll take you in. But I want to go to that nice lake in Connecticut.

[38:21] Paul: Sounds very nice.

[38:23] Guest 3: No, you should come up. We'd love to have you. But most people have like 50 people in their lives who would feed them, give them shelter, and like help them. Right. So we're not as uncertain.

[38:38] Paul: And if we don't, I mean, that's the society I want to create of like, how do we constantly be helping each other and giving each other, you know what I mean? And that instead of always just looking, how do I squeeze a dollar out of everybody possible? Or that's why I think it's a more natural way of interacting with each other when we are working with each other rather than for a centralized organization, which it seems very inhuman in a way. Yeah.

[39:04] Guest 3: So, I stopped taking money for my coaching work this year and I'm shifting to this approach of the gift economy, which says, "If you want to gift to support my life and meet my basic needs, you can do that. But, what I'm gifting to you is I actually love doing this coaching work." And, I'm trying to role model that change around helping people do do things that matter to them. So I don't know, maybe I do have some savings to experiment with this. I don't know where it will take me, but I want to do this to kind of see if it works for me and kind of role model this change I believe in.

[39:44] Paul: Yeah, I love Scott Catan, who's the basic income guy who does this. And between him and you, you're in my head about this. I mean, it's something I'm— it's in the back of my head. I'm not ready to pull the trigger on doing something like that just yet. But I like it because I think a big part of my personal money issues is why I always said I like to help people calculate what's the cost of your lifestyle so you know the upper limit of your number. Because just saying, "I just want more and more and more," sometimes it's a lot less than you need.

And that, to me, kind of reduces a lot of stress to be like, "Wow, I have enough." You know, and I think sometimes we don't have enough of a conversation in our society about that because more always seems better.

[40:31] Guest 3: Right. Well, money— I mean, psychologically, we know this. The more, the more we have, the more scared we are of losing it. So money works like that.

[40:41] Paul: And it drains more of your energy because you got to worry about it more.

[40:44] Guest 3: Yeah. As a percentage of income, the poor give about twice to charities and people in need than the rich. And I don't think the rich are nefarious. It's just that having more puts you in a state of more fear of losing it. Yeah.

[41:03] Paul: On that uplifting note, I'm going to ask you, where can we send folks to learn more about everything that you work on? You're doing a lot of awesome stuff. You're a great writer.

[41:11] Guest 3: Yeah. So I am putting my stuff on what I'm calling Boundless, which is kind of an idea and a platform for me. The idea is that we're capable of more than we Weave and the platform is for me to connect with as many people as possible so I can do the work that matters to me, which is coaching, consulting, and my podcast. Podcast is Boundless as well. If you search Boundless Future of Work, you should find it or go to boundlesspod.com. That will also send you to my website, think-boundless.com.

And my mission right now is to help as many people as possible make sense and navigate the future of work to do things that matter to them.