Boundless/Unleashed: Paul on the future of work, freelancing and his media diet (Episode 17)

[02:47] Paul: All right. And today is a bit of a co-branded episode. We're gonna publish this on Unleashed, and we're also gonna publish this on your podcast, Aboundless. So listeners of both shows, welcome. Paul, I learned this question from you, and I love this question. You told me that when you're meeting people, instead of saying, what do you do, you say, So what is energizing you recently?

I think I got that right. But so Paul, like what is energizing you right now?

[03:19] Guest 2: Yeah, definitely Will. I mean, everybody's been to the networking party and you say, what do you do? And nobody actually wants to answer that question. So right now what's energizing me is actually, like you said, I recently just launched a podcast and I'm repositioning a lot of the things I've done around a new venture, which I'm calling Boundless. And it's both an idea and a platform. So the idea is that we're capable of more than we believe, and we hold ourselves back because of our environment, expectations, beliefs.

And I also want to use the platform just to make sense of what is happening. I think the workforce is changing. I'm sure you understand this as an independent professional for a while, and help people navigate the future of work. I mean, that's just really exciting to me right now and really looking to sink my teeth into that for 2018.

[04:16] Paul: So beyond the podcast, you say this is a broader platform. What else is going on with Boundless? And this would be for listeners of Unleashed who haven't heard as much about it.

[04:26] Guest 2: Yeah, so spending a lot of time, I kind of stepped back at the end of 2017 and said, okay, what do I really enjoy doing? What does energize me? It came down to 3 things. Content, coaching, and community. So, that first part, creating content, I do a lot of writing. I like to go really deep trying to answer these questions.

What drives us? How do we do work that matters to us? What motivates us? How do you make sense of a career in a working world that ceases to— that increasingly is harder to make sense of? So, really going deep through the writing, podcasting, thinking about doing some video stuff, but really experimenting there. The second thing is really around coaching.

So I've followed a not very default path. I've, I've worked for some great companies. I've been really lucky, but I've, I've taken unconventional routes or different paths, and I've had success making sense of this myself. And I've also done career coaching for at least 3 or 4 years. So it's really about helping people navigate that and figuring out what a career means in today's world. And then the third thing, like I mentioned, is the community.

So I've been really thinking about how do you bring together people around this idea? And one thing I did recently was have a Jeffersonian dinner. Have you heard of this concept?

[05:53] Paul: I have not, and I am hoping to hear about it right now.

[05:57] Guest 2: Yeah, so we actually held it this week in Boston. It was, you have about 8 to 14 people at a table around a topic. And our topic was radical ideas in people operations. And you have a moderator, and the idea is to have one central conversation. So one person at a time, you're really focusing on listening, you go deeper, really try to create those connections and learn from each other and have those connections deeper than you would at just a networking conversation or a typical dinner where you're just having those side conversations. Yeah, that's, those are the things energizing me and I'm pretty excited for all of this.

[06:43] Paul: Now you mentioned content. I have seen some of your writing and I want to get into some particular pieces you've written. I found you on Medium. Is that the main place where you're putting stuff or where can people find your content?

[06:59] Guest 2: Yeah, so definitely writing on Medium and LinkedIn. Also just reposition my stuff. So on my site, it's Think think-boundless.com and put a lot of my writing up there. Also just experimenting with different platforms, but yeah, that's where a lot of the writing is.

[07:16] Paul: So the first place people could go would be think-boundless.com?

[07:22] Guest 2: Correct.

[07:23] Paul: Okay, and that's hyphen or dot? I'm sorry, so think—

[07:27] Guest 2: Hyphen.

[07:27] Paul: Think-boundless.com? Okay, find your writing there and I really liked your Medium piece, and that was one to get into, was your media habits. So Tim Ferriss talked about this, and that was, I think, where I first got into this, or heard the idea of a media diet with his 4-Hour Workweek and eliminating the newspaper. And you kind of had a recent post along similar lines where, well, why don't you tell us a little bit about that?

[07:59] Guest 2: Yeah. So I've always loved learning and reading. And I think when I was in college, I really started to double down on this and found books that really inspired me. I think Freakonomics was one book that just kind of blew up my brain. And I said, "Okay, I love doing this. I need to keep finding books, find people, find articles." So I've naturally always gone after the deeper stuff, the long-form stuff.

But I think in 2016, I, everyone probably got caught up in the election and I found myself more and more paying attention to this day and day, day-to-day news of who said what. Did you find yourself in a similar predicament in 2016?

[08:40] Paul: Despite making strong efforts not to, yes.

[08:46] Guest 2: Yeah. So for me, I really started to take a step back and I, started researching what are we doing? Like, why are we paying so much attention to the news? And I think I stumbled upon some writing Ryan Holiday did. He kind of exposed how the media is basically hacking our brain to keep us addicted to this content. But I also just started thinking back.

So if you think about it, for millions of years, there was no news. There were just the stories people told each other. And for the past 100 years, we really only had news maybe once a day, maybe a couple times a day, or even just once a week. Now, over the past 20 years, it's like 24/7. So we're under this impression that people are doing things faster, but humans can only move so fast. So I don't really think it is that faster and crazier.

So in 2016, I really started to challenge myself, okay, I need to come up with systems to get back to the deeper stuff that I really enjoy doing.

[09:48] Paul: And so how have you been trying to very consciously shape your own reading and media consumption habits? Are there things that you've sort of intentionally avoiding now? And what are you trying to consciously and mindfully put in that place?

[10:05] Guest 2: Yeah, so I sat down and I've been listening to many of your podcasts, Will, and really love it. And you always think in frameworks. So I thought I should try and structure this. So I have 3 steps. It's block, curate, and then for me it's write. And I think the third one can be different for different people.

But first is just block the news. So that's deleting the social apps. You can still check it through a browser. Delete the news apps. Don't watch the news. So I don't watch nightly news.

I don't watch cable news. Also, another— I found tools online like Momentum, which puts up a nice quote Screen Saver on your open tab window and Facebook News Feed Eradicator, which actually just blocks the news feed and helped me really cut down on a lot of that day-to-day news I was checking. The second step was about curating. So I followed a lot of people and I think we're in a actually amazing time. There's so much good content out there, but it's not that easy to find. So A lot of people have started email newsletters.

So I've been following people that I really like. I think you shared some links recently of people I also like. Tyler Cowen has a great blog, Marginal Revolution. I follow Barry Ritholtz on The Big Picture blog. He puts up daily links. I follow Shane Parrish.

He has a great blog on Farnam Street. And just finding these people that also want to read good stuff and kind of filtering that so I can go through and go into the stuff that's more interesting or might stimulate my mind. And then the third thing I did starting in, I think this was 2016, I started writing a weekly post. What are the top 5 Goodreads? I found of the week. Um, my hypothesis was that people don't want to find it.

And, uh, doing this myself would force myself to, uh, basically do the reading and keep me honest and accountable, but actually align my behavior with things I want to do anyway.

[12:22] Paul: And so, and when, where are you posting that?

[12:25] Guest 2: So I post that on Medium now. And also just have a mailing list that goes out every Sunday. I don't ask for anything. I just put it out there and have some followers that keep me honest. It's every Sunday right to your inbox.

[12:43] Paul: So that weekly post, so you're just— is it just purely a list of links or are you giving some of your own commentary? Here's what I found interesting about this article.

[12:52] Guest 2: I've added a little more comments as I've gone with it. I think Also, as I'm getting better as a writer, mostly just here's the article, maybe here's one good quote, or here's why I found it interesting.

[13:03] Paul: You know, it's interesting that you found that a useful vehicle. There's something about committing to a schedule of hitting publish that if you're doing it, I guess I found that it kind of all of a sudden you start becoming more aware and looking for ideas and paying more attention to things because you're saying, okay, I got— in your case, I have my Sunday thing coming up, uh, what am I going to put in it? So during the week you're, you're being more alert to, to things and noticing them more than you might have otherwise.

[13:36] Guest 2: Yeah, totally. And, uh, so I've had a pretty busy week this week and I know I have to write the post on Sunday. It's been at least, I think I'm on the 56th edition, so it's almost, uh, I mean, it's a habit at this point, but I know tomorrow I need to kind of dive in and do the reading, which is Actually great because I'm looking forward to tomorrow morning. It's like, oh yeah, there's some reading time. I get to dive into things.

[14:03] Paul: That's cool. Talk to me a little bit about your— you have a course. So you did a free course on, I think it's Udemy, U-D-E-M-Y. And talk to me about how, how that happened and practically how does one get a course on, on that site?

[14:21] Guest 2: Yeah, great question. So I have always helped people with their resumes, their careers. I think early on in college, I was the person that would just say, let me help you with the resume. Looks like a mess. We gotta, we gotta save this thing. And over time, I just did more and more of that.

I kind of evolved into helping people with COVID letters, interview prep, and probably have worked with hundreds of people at this point. I think I noticed about 5 years ago I was giving the same advice and people were finding it very valuable. But at the same time, I was getting a little tired of doing that. Like, I, I kind of mastered that and wanted to move on to something more. So somebody challenged me to create a course, and a lot of times when people challenged me, that's how I end up taking action. So created a course basically just trying to make sense of what is the approach I teach, and it's really I think the resume, it's a resume course, but it's a vehicle to try and understand what your story is, what your unique strengths are, what your gifts are you're bringing out into the world, and thinking about how you can communicate and sell yourself.

So, I've put it, I put it out there, created the content. It was kind of a really rough draft version. I created a bunch of slides as every former McKinsey consultant loves to communicate in. And just recorded my voiceover on it. The first version wasn't great. I wasn't happy with it.

It was kind of nagging at me. And as I became a freelancer last year, I decided the first thing I would work on is just improving the content, better slides, better voiceovers, better takeaways. But it was a fun process. And the way I look at it as experimenting with new platforms, the goal is not to be rich or important, but just to put it out there and learn. And I've made it free right now. I used to charge, but I found free— I'm getting a lot of random people reaching out saying this is really helpful.

So that's awesome. That's exciting for me.

[16:28] Paul: Yeah. And how does one get a course on Udemy? Can anybody just sort of sign up and put a course there? Is there some quality control in place, or how does that work?

[16:37] Guest 2: I'm pretty sure— I think it's a relatively low bar. The key is differentiating yourself by how you title the course, sell it, the, your intro videos you create. But I think anyone can join that, and I think I would encourage everyone to at least create one Udemy course. So challenge for the readers and fellow members of Bombrex, just because I think teaching forces you to learn better, and it helps you make sense of what you already know.

[17:07] Paul: I saw your course on Udemy. I haven't, haven't like actually watch the whole, watch the thing, is it, do you do a series of short lectures or practically how did, like what do you actually need to create to put something on there? Are there quizzes? Do you have, you know, how does it work?

[17:23] Guest 2: I essentially just wrote down everything I thought about resumes and then I thought about structuring it into different modules. So I've structured it into 4 modules and the course is very geared toward you're probably beyond, um, you've probably passed. You could probably test out of the course. Well, probably don't need it at this point, but, um, it's geared towards college students and young professionals, but geared around 4 modules, which is, okay, what are the basics? 2, how do you think about your strengths? 3, how do you think about crafting your story?

And then 4, how do you bring it all together? It's geared around that. There's a, there's a couple exercises people do. So I essentially created a couple documents where it said, okay, here are your strengths, write down your stories, and walk them through the process of making sense of that and pulling together the different themes. But also include some templates and pretty actionable stuff they can use.

[18:19] Paul: But it's not one of these like Udacity where it's kind of a kind of problem set that you do online, gets graded automatically. It's more like, hey, here's a exercise, do it, and then, you know, go watch the next video. So it's not like a— right, okay.

[18:35] Guest 2: Yeah, I can provide feedback. So on the strengths exercise that I have people do, they submit their strengths, and, uh, some people do this, some people just skip over it because it's a free course. But I can then add feedback, and everyone who does it, I usually just go on, hey, that's, uh, really cool, can you be more specific? Just trying to give feedback around those things.

[18:55] Paul: So this is really interesting, this idea of, you know, kind of creating a course on something that you know, really, number one, helps you kind of think about it and structure your thoughts to learn it better yourself. And it's a nice way to, you know, if you, you know, for any listener who knows about, you know, whatever topic you know about, thinking about putting a course together, you know, on some platform online, if you are like facilitate offsites or do strategy reviews or a budgeting process, you know, put putting something on there that's like a niche topic knowledge. Or maybe, you know, I've heard some other folks who create courses for LinkedIn, which maybe is a little bit higher production value. But thinking about taking what you know and not just giving a speech, but actually kind of creating a mini course around it.

[19:48] Guest 2: Yeah, I would, I would imagine most freelancers, I mean, the freelancers I talked to are energized working on a lot of things. Most have to have at least 10 courses in them, right? I think it's an exciting medium. I think what hangs people up is that perfectionist drive of doing something perfect. And I would encourage people just, just to publish, see what happens. You might not get the best feedback, but you're going to learn a lot and the next one's going to be even better.

I think that's the way we have to operate with a lot of these digital platforms.

[20:19] Paul: Well, listeners of Unleashed know that perfectionism has not held me back. So, but let's, let's talk a little bit about your, your coaching part. So yeah, talk to me about how you, you know, find clients and the type of clients you work with. You know, like what's sort of the the cycle of that? You know, would you work with someone for years and years or more around a transition, helping someone think about their next step? Just talk to me about that business a little bit.

[20:52] Guest 2: Yeah, so I've definitely been experimenting with that. And it goes back— if I go back 4 years ago, I was at a networking meeting and I met a career coach and shared my kind of— I was kind of scared to share this, but said, hey, my dream is to like be a career coach one day. And I talked about all the people I help? And I, at that point, I had helped like a social worker become— move into tech. I had helped a math teacher land a research job at McKinsey. I had helped somebody land a job at the White House.

So I was really excited about like some of the stuff I had done. And she just kind of stopped me cold in my tracks and said, you are a career coach already. You should just think about that and do it. So I After I was challenged, I definitely had to take action and just basically built a website, named it careersofpaul.com. Not— it's not up under that name anymore, but put it up and emailed 100 people I know and said, hey, I am, I'm trying this. I think I have value to offer and found a couple clients through that.

And at first it was helping people early career with career transition. And then like many things I do, I kind of wanted a different challenge. So I worked with a CEO of a startup and helped her make sense of, okay, what am I trying to achieve? What are my personal priorities and where am I focusing in my business? And I think I was able to add a lot of value because of that strategy background. Of saying, how do you, how do you synthesize information?

How do you, how do you think about focus? And also just my understanding of business. So I did that. I developed a mini program where I help people take a step back and think about, okay, what kind of life do I want to live? And then how do I think about a career in that context? And I've really been looking at the coaching as a learning vehicle for my consulting and writing work that I do.

So in every new client I take on, I try to have it be a new type of challenge. So I'm not trying to build a coaching empire. It's a learning vehicle and really a small part of my business that kind of keeps me fresh. But also just realized I want— I love doing it. So I've tried to spend more time just volunteering with college students, which I probably talk to a few students every week and I'm part of a few mentoring programs.

[23:24] Paul: How do you frame and get into that piece around what kind of life you want to live? I mean, that's a pretty big topic. So how would you work with a client on, on broaching that and sort of navigating through that, that question to help the person find, find a set of answers?

[23:42] Guest 2: Yeah. So big takeaway for me was nobody asks a lot of people these questions. Like, what kind of life do you want to live? What matters to you? What are your values? Which I think we should be talking about more with people.

And I often ask people, I think I'm very introverted and like to talk about the deeper stuff. So, sometimes people don't react as positively when I toss those questions out. But I think it starts with reflecting and asking those questions. But for me in coaching, it's really about building that relationship of trust first. So I spent a lot of time just trying to learn about, okay, who are you? Like, what drives you?

And I think I'm very optimistic and I see so much potential in people. So I have a lot of fun. And I think that when people see that somebody is going to believe in you and not really point out your weak spots, that they start opening up, they start talking about these things. And it's really kind of digging deep with a person. It's brainstorming around those questions. I've definitely been influenced by books like Designing Your Life where they give kind of a structured approach to this.

But yeah, I think it really starts with those two things, building that relationship and asking those questions that a lot of people never get asked.

[25:01] Paul: And on that career coach piece, would you typically work with someone kind of through a transition? Like when would they come to you when they're they have a job that they want to leave and, and, or, you know, maybe they've been laid off or something and then you'd work with them through getting their next job and then that's kind of it, end of the assignment, or like, how does it, how does that business work?

[25:25] Guest 2: Yeah. So, so the way I think about it is I want to be fired. I'm not trying to build a big coaching business. So ideally, the quicker I can be fired as a coach, the more successful I am. So every client I work with, I say, if you're not finding value, I want to refund all your money plus extra money, um, just for the inconvenience. So that's kind of the frame I start with.

And I say, let's think about building your skills and capabilities in terms of managing your career and life such that you don't need me. I know a lot of career coaches kind of have ongoing relationships, and I think there's value in that too. Especially throughout your career, just having that person that continually challenges you. But I think the way I've worked, at least so far, has been that. But a lot of my coaching relationships have really turned into kind of personal friendships as well, where I'm rooting for these people and— or they're following up and rooting for me. So it's really been a win-win.

[26:27] Paul: That's great. You said that you also have— I mean, you're also doing some consulting. Talk to me a bit about your practice. Your consulting practice?

[26:35] Guest 2: Yeah, so I am really focused around this idea of the future of work, right? I think that organizations don't do the best job of unleashing our potential. And I think a lot about those questions. So I try to focus on work that's within that domain. I was lucky to work on two really cool projects in 2017. I was working one with a professor at MIT, Zeynep Tan, who is just— someday, I I really look up to, a role model, just a really impressive person.

And she launched a nonprofit called the Good Jobs Institute. And it was almost the perfect project. It was a culmination of me being able to use so many different skills, a random assortment of skills I had collected in my career, able to help them launch a website, develop a bunch of consulting tools, which they give away for free. And their core mission is to help companies thrive by creating good jobs. And they focus on the low-wage, the low-wage sector and kind of dispelling the notion that if you're in a retail setting, you need to pay your frontline workers low wages. And she's proved through operations and kind of taking lean approaches and just operations design that you can actually design things such that you can pay people well and be super profitable.

And she studied companies like Trader Joe's and, uh, America Donna, Quick Trip, who have kind of broken that paradigm. So that, that was a project I was doing, a whole bunch of different stuff. And then also worked on a project to help a company identify their, uh, their cultural values, identify what they're trying to build in terms of their junior teams, the type of people, the type of behaviors, and a really open-minded head of a small search firm. That was a really fun project.

[28:37] Paul: Paul, you seem to me like someone who's very thoughtful about your own professional development. Can you talk to me about some things that you're working on right now and how you structure or plan out your, your own professional development?

[28:52] Guest 2: I'm not the best planner. I think, I think I luck out a little. I mean, I am an engineer. I love learning new skills. I love tinkering. I, I spent a lot of time just doing and not trying to plan it out too much.

So I think as a freelancer, you learn pretty quick that one of the greatest benefits is the projects you do, you often don't have the full skill set, but it raises the bar such that you have to learn new skills and definitely experience that on that Good Jobs in Sedu project. I had to brush up on some web design skills. I taught myself some video editing. I did some graphic design, and that was just super fun. I think for me, I really try to make sure that I'm optimizing around energy. So I often just get very excited about things and then I go do it.

I think like with the Udemy course, I didn't know how to do that, but I was so excited to kind of share what I had created that it raised the bar such that I had to learn new skills. And I think that, that fits for me because I just love learning so much and I've tried to, I've really tried to design my environment around being able to have the time and space to create and just try new things.

[30:12] Paul: How did you kind of get into this whole independent space, Paul? So I know you were at a top-tier consulting firm and then you've had a few other things. How did you, how did you land, you know, in the spot that you're at now? And it sounds like you really have a portfolio of activities that you're in love with.

[30:30] Guest 2: Yeah. So I think for me, when I go back to where this started, it actually doesn't start with a job. It started right after business school and I started feeling really sick. It led to me being chronically ill and basically fighting for my health and really trying to get better over a period of 12 to 18 months. I had a really bad case of Lyme disease, and besides the health stuff, which was really brutal— and I mean, anyone who's dealt with a health thing knows there's so much uncertainty about, am I going to get better? I mean, people will say, oh, you'll, you'll get better, but deep down you just really don't know, and that's tough.

The second thing was I took some time off of work and realized it was so tough for me to lose that connection to career. I defined myself so much by the resume, the companies I worked for, the success I had. I was, I was really, I felt at the start of that like upward trajectory in my career right after business school. And I realized I identified so much with my career and it really didn't matter. I was kind of laying around trying to focus on my health out of work. And I realized I already had a lot of things that mattered to me— friends, freedom, community.

So, I really started thinking deeper around how to design a life around those things. So, as I regained health, which I'm so grateful that I did, I started experimenting, like I said, with the career coaching stuff, started writing. I started not being as afraid to put my passion out there in the world. And I was so surprised. There's so many positive feedback loops. That happen when you do that.

It's so scary to not follow the script, but when you do, it kind of led me on this path. So I'd say my freelance journey started probably 3 years before with the coaching stuff, the experiments, the writing, and enabled me to take that leap to freelancing in a way that felt just, I think, natural and really just loving it.

[32:32] Paul: Paul, one question I like to ask every guest is, Are there 2 or 3 books— what are the 2 or 3 books that you have most gifted most often?

[32:42] Guest 2: Gifted? Yeah, so you sent me this question before and I struggled with it. I have a list of 9 books, but—

[32:50] Paul: Give us the 9.

[32:51] Guest 2: We don't have to cut it down. So let me start with gifted most. I think gifted most is this book called How Will You Measure Your Life by Clayton Christensen. And a lot of the people I know are in the business world, and I just love how he frames living a good life in the context of the business world. One line that really sticks out in that is thinking about being a manager is a really honorable position because you're serving other people. And at the time when I was in the corporate world, that really changed the game for me and made me focus much more on the people around me and people below me to help build their skills.

So, That's, that's definitely the Gifted Most one. Um, I'll kick it to you. So I have 3 categories, happy to go through all 9, but, um, I have What Matters, I have Living a Good Life, and then Thinking.

[33:43] Paul: Let's hit them all.

[33:45] Guest 2: All right, so first with Thinking, uh, I have 3 books. One, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Disagree on Politics and Religion. I think this one everyone should read in today's world. And it really frames how people make their decisions about politics and religion, how that's tied with morality. Second is Nassim Taleb's Antifragile. I think Taleb is just a student of history and pulls out so much wisdom from the past.

That, I mean, that book is just so dense with some deep knowledge and truths that just has existed forever. And the third there is Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin. Big idea from that is just thinking about how do you put yourself in the beginner's mind to start from scratch and assume you know nothing, but also what does it take to perform at a really high level. So love that book.

[34:38] Paul: And Josh Waitzkin was a chess prodigy and I think a national chess champion, right? And then he also became probably one of the very few chess champions that also became— was it judo, right? Yeah, jiu-jitsu, I think.

[34:56] Guest 2: I think he's done jiu-jitsu, but I think it was actually Taiwanese push hands.

[35:00] Paul: There we go, Taiwanese push hands. Yeah.

[35:02] Guest 2: And, uh, I think how he applied what he knew in chess to a physical domain like Taiwanese push hands, and he became a national champion, I believe, uh, was just fascinating and has really inspired me to kind of think think across domains.

[35:16] Paul: Yeah. I mean, there's not many, not many people who have been a chess grandmaster and also Taiwanese push hands, I think, world champion. I think he might have won the world championships one year.

[35:26] Guest 2: Wow. Yeah.

[35:27] Paul: Cool. All right. So that's thinking. 3 books on thinking: Righteous Mind, Antifragile, and Art of Learning. What was the next category?

[35:35] Guest 2: So the next one was living a good life. All right. First one already covered, How Will You Measure Your Life by Clayton Christensen. The second is Designing Your Life by two Stanford D School professors. I think you've read this book as well, but I think anyone who's thinking about following a different path, especially anyone who's going to become a freelancer, I think this is a must-read. Just starts with the question of how do you design your life and thinking about how do you fit work in that context.

The third one is Anything You Want by Derek Sivers. Now, this is a unique one. It's about a 70 to 80 page book and it's on business. And I think it kind of breaks the mold of trying to be that 200 page business book. But it's just so simply written. And so he built a business that was just so authentic to what he really wanted to do rather than following the script.

And I think that's really a must read for anyone in business as well.

[36:33] Paul: And then Derek Sivers sold CD Baby. And donated all or the vast majority of it to a nonprofit for musical education, I think. Really amazing guy.

[36:45] Guest 2: Yeah, he's fascinating.

[36:47] Paul: He has a great blog. I forget the title, but it's D-E-R-E-K and then is it S-E-V-E-R-S? Google it. He has a great blog. What's your third category?

[37:00] Guest 2: So the third one is what matters. For me, I think a lot about, okay, what am I going to care about at the end of my life? Which really could be any time. But I went through seeing my grandfather pass and was there with a lot of my family when he passed and realized nobody he worked with was there. So, I think a lot about family and what matters and read books all death-themed. I think some people are averse to that, but I think there's a lot of wisdom in them is Tuesdays with Morrie.

I think a lot of people have read. Maybe when they're younger, but I think it's worth a reread when you're older. Second is The Last Lecture, which is a Carnegie Mellon professor who knew he's going to die and give this last lecture that really brought to life what he cared about, which was essentially just playing, right? Having fun and thinking about his work in terms of play. It's really a powerful book, another short one. And then the third is Survival in Auschwitz, which I read this past summer by Primo Levi.

And it's just really powerful about somebody's experience who survived Auschwitz, but just putting things in perspective. And one line that really stuck with me is he talks about he got like triple rations one day, and he said for that day he could suffer like the common man, right? So he was suffering so much that we can't even imagine. And he felt privileged that he had enough food to think about suffering like the average man. So definitely a must-read I recommend.

[38:42] Paul: Well, Paul, thank you for those recommendations. Those are awesome. You tripled our ration here of book recommendations, which is great. It's great having you on the show. And listeners of Boundless, Well, nice to meet you as well. It's, uh, thanks so much for the chat.

[39:01] Guest 2: Yeah, Will, and I just want to thank you. I think there's a lot of platforms out there, a lot of companies who are serving independent consultants, but I think a lot of their focus is on building companies or building a big business. And I think you've done something really special with Umbrex around building a community that is really focused on the freelancers who are doing this work out there. So just want to thank you. I think you're doing some awesome stuff, great podcasts, and keep doing what you're doing.