Podcast Update! Re-branded as The Pathless Path & LIVE Q&A From Youtube

[01:00] Paul: As you'll notice, I changed the COVID and name of the podcast.

[01:04] LIVE Q: It is no longer Reimagine Work.

[01:06] Paul: It is now The Pathless Path, which, as you probably know, is the same as my book launched in January. With the book, I've been blown away by the response. When I launched, I thought maybe a few hundred people will buy the book. As of now, about 4 months into it, I've sold almost 3,000. Every week I'm receiving messages from people all around the world telling me that they really love the book or that the book inspired them to think differently about their relationship to work. It's really shocking.

It's something I sort of expected might happen, but I didn't give it a high probability. In the past 5 months too, I've been doing a lot of work on the other side of what I work on. Some of my consulting stuff, teaching strategy consulting skills to corporations, and that's been doing really well too. I've been making decent money and supporting my increased cost of living in the US. Despite this, I'm just trying to come back to this feeling I'm feeling and the energy I'm receiving from people that are talking to me about my book and the ideas I'm putting out there, and I'm trying to challenge myself. How do I keep leaning into that even if it doesn't make financial sense?

And one of the things I've decided I'm going to do is just lean back into this podcast. I am going to double down on interviews. I'm going to up the production quality and start putting them on YouTube. I'm going to have a little more fun with it too. And as part of it, I'm also going to seek out sponsors. I've had a number of companies reach out saying they're willing to sponsor my work.

And it's going to make this more sustainable. As I've done more and more work that I actually do like doing over the years, I've had this administrative creep of work that it's kind of this stuff I can do. I know how to do all these things of all the things I do, but I just put it off, like editing audio or doing show notes or things like this for the podcast. So hopefully the sponsor will help me be a little more efficient with this and hire some people to help me. I'm also just wanting to be super thoughtful about introducing sponsors and things like this. So I'd love if you just give me feedback if you notice I'm going down the wrong path or just things don't feel right.

I want to make sure that what I'm putting out there is honest, true, authentic, and I'm not steered by what companies are asking me to do. Anyway, today I want to share a LIVE Curiosity Conversation I had last week. This is something I've started doing. I was doing one-off curiosity conversations and I've done 383 of these over the last 5 years, but I've been getting a little burned out and I felt like I wasn't showing up as my best self and being present in all those calls. So, trying to have fun and do live calls with a larger group once a week. You can find a link to those in the show notes if you want to sign up.

And today's episode will be this conversation from last Wednesday. And we talked about a number of things, non-doing, my thoughts on tacos versus burritos in Austin, taking breaks and disconnecting from work and my writing routine after the book launched, things like that. It's really fun conversation. So, I'm definitely going to keep doing those. Next week's episode will be Lawrence Yeo. He's the creator of More to That, and he's amazing.

His website is a super thoughtful reflection on creative paths, unconventional paths, self-employment, and creating things online. And he combines it with these beautiful visual storytelling images that just bring the site alive with so much energy and warmth. Definitely check this site out. Our conversation was awesome.

[05:06] LIVE Q: So look for that soon.

[05:07] Paul: That will kind of be the official relaunched episode. And we will go into the next 100. This is actually episode 100, which is pretty cool. But yeah, I plan on doing this podcast for a long time in the future. So we'll see where it takes me. And let me know what you think.

If you want to rate the podcast on like Spotify or iTunes, that'd be super helpful.

[05:31] LIVE Q: As well.

[05:32] Paul: Anyway, on to the curiosity conversation I had with the group this past week.

[05:38] LIVE Q: Welcome to The Pathless Path.

[05:39] Paul: I'm Paul Millerd, and in this podcast, we examine the invisible scripts that run our lives and dare to imagine new stories for work and life.

[05:51] LIVE Q: Welcome everyone. It looks like there's— from my end, it looks like there's a handful of people here. Max asked a question: How do you find the balance of doing and non-doing in your life? How do these ways of being relate to each other? Oh, Nick, nice seeing you, Nick. Welcome to the chat.

How do you find a balance of doing and non-doing in your life? I think this is an interesting question because aiming at a state of non-doing is sort of something hard to do. So I think what I tell people is first is realizing, one, a state of non-doing exists. And it's worth finding. I think that's the starting point I would start with. Hey, Aida.

So that's a starting point I'd start with. It exists, it's worth finding. Two is I think it's worth just trying to find it. So the best way I've seen people finding it, at least they report to me and in my experience, is finding some way to shift out of worker mode. So what this means is removing the sort of like scheduled nature of life from your life. So how can you do things at a microscale, like go for a walk without a destination or go a week without having like a schedule of like, I need to be certain places at a certain time, and then give yourself permission to kind of wander.

And then I think the experience is different for everyone in that space that emerges often is the sort of answer. That you need to find. And then I think once you find it, you sort of discover, oh, I can get there by wandering, I can get there by taking a week off, I can get there by taking a month off, and then figuring out how do you inject that into your life in a more pragmatic way. I hope that sort of explains it. It's— yeah, I think I experienced it first time in Asia. And I often suggest when people are taking breaks from this non-work mode to leave their default culture, just so they don't have the baggage and expectations that we wear with us.

When we're anywhere, we're used to morning routine. So a lot of what I do is designed around my energy and health. So I went through a health crisis in 2012 to 2014. And really struggled with— I didn't have energy basically for like 2 years straight. And so part of wanting to recover from that, it was a really bad case of Lyme disease and some other stuff I had going on, was like really learning, like I desperately just wanted to feel energized again. So when I recovered, like everything around my life after that became how do I stay energized?

So really now I start with priorities is like, how do I optimize my health and energy, which is a really long way of saying I don't really have a morning routine. So I wake up every day without an alarm clock, or at least I aim to, and the goal there is just to sleep as much as possible, as as possible and rest as much as possible. I still have like off days, off weeks sometimes, and if I sleep long, that usually means I'm not doing as well. So I design a lot of my day and days and weeks around always being able to sort of not have to do anything. Morning routine at the simplest level is really just wake up, make coffee, and kind of sit around for a bit, and then just see what my energy is and then determine what I'm going to do around that. I try not to schedule anything before 10.

And that's pretty much it. What's your writing practice been like? Not good. So I've, I've been doing a number of different things at once. So came back to the US and I was like, all right, I need to make more money. US is getting expensive.

So I really leaned into some of the the clues I had from my strategy consulting training business last year. I did like these corporate cohort-based courses that did these workshops, I was doing this coaching. And I sort of felt, okay, if I leaned into this, this is something that could emerge. So I started doing some of that while I was finishing up my book. And that led to a lot of stuff I worked on in January, February, March. So I've have not done as much work as I'd like writing some of the like longer, more long-form stuff.

And I've mostly just been like writing my newsletter each week, which typically involves sitting down for a few hours on Friday and then Saturday morning with writing. But yeah, I, I'm really trying to think about how can I optimize, automate some of the things I'm doing such that I can get back to the writing. Let's see. Do you have any suggestions for someone who's in a more traditional job with fewer transferable skills in terms of trying to take The Pathless Path and who also don't want an online presence? So I think without an online presence, it's hard. I think a lot of what I know and what I've tapped into is the power of the internet and the power of the internet to find micro communities that want to support you both personally and professionally.

I think the underlying lesson though, in a lot of what I'm writing about is sort of just be aware of the scripts you're opting into. And I think that is pretty agnostic in which path or role you're in. You just be aware, what, what are my assumptions around work? So a good way to do this, a question I ask people is, What is the story that was told around work or money in your home growing up? Some examples of that are like, we're the kind of people that aren't going to do anything special. We're the kind of people that have to make money.

Money is the most important thing. You need to do something for your community. You got to learn how to suffer in a job. Like, what scripts did you grow up with? And then figure out which ones are you actually assuming on your path, right? And that's really step one of just like realizing what is the container I'm playing in?

Where am I pressing on the walls and seeing what's actually there? What are my actual constraints, things like that. The second part of that is like, get transferable skills. So, I mean, you're sort of framing this question as like, I can't get these skills. One thing I tried to orient even when I was working full-time is like optimize for learning. So I sacrificed obvious like promotions and raises and leave to other companies, cause I just wanted to learn stuff.

I sort of had this hunch that optimizing around learning was a better strategy than like fully maximizing for income or career growth. I think personally I realized that's something that's very, a big motivator for me. So it's been very, a payoff in terms of, oh, that's a sustainable way of making decisions around what I work on now. But I didn't realize it at the time. And you probably have more transferable skills than you think. Speaking, writing, researching, things like this, like just try to do those things and figure out how do you become great at that?

What does it look like to become great at that? Look on YouTube, other people doing these things, and then figure out what is the path? What are the constraints? What are the experiments I can do to level up those skills? Ideal reader for my book. This is an interesting question because I don't know if there is an ideal reader.

I think people map their own meaning onto a book. And so in a sense, once you've published it, it's out of your hands. I think the ideal reader is really just somebody that's curious. That is sort of dissatisfied with just accepting what is like the default scripts or the default assumptions. I talked to people and they'll say, like, some people will say with work, well, you can't just not work. That is not my ideal reader.

My ideal reader says, Well, I am working. A lot of people do seem to assume there's a lot of people working and you have to do this, but are there ways to play with that a little? That curiosity, somebody who has that curiosity is probably my ideal reader. And that's probably the person it's resonated with most. This is good. A lot of questions.

This is fun. Let's see. Just putting the comments up, playing with it. Can an organization explore The Pathless Path or is it inherently personal? I think it's a pretty personal thing, right? Because I think what I write about a lot is really just reflecting The way I describe it is figure out how the world works.

Like, I don't think it's useful to be like naive or too idealistic. It's like the world works like this. Most people work in jobs, right? Okay, now figure out who I am. What do I need? What motivates me?

What energizes me? What excites me? And then, okay, given that, What costs am I willing to pay to exit this like default world in order to get what I think I want? So that's sort of like my individual framing. I think what's interesting is with remote work, we're sort of seeing a fragmentation of the default scripts of how work works for organizations, which is really interesting, which means for an individual, you have more of an opportunity to say, okay, here's what I need, I can actually map into this type of organization. 30 years ago, you had one type of organization, you go to an office and you sit at a desk 40 hours a week, most weeks of the year.

Now, there are many variations. Right. There are, I have this chart I'll pull up. So right here, like this is what organizations are operating around now. In-office 5 days per week on one end, remote only on another end, where you have to live, how they pay, how many meetings they have. Like, I think a big opportunity is like async.

Meaning you don't— the assumption in most companies used to be you have to gather people together to make decisions and work on stuff. Now, some organizations are saying we never meet and we will only write up our stuff and then deliver it to other people. So that's a tremendous opportunity for someone like me that really likes writing, likes being slower, likes having more control over my time. So that's how I think about it. I think if I ever ended up, like, if what I'm doing on either sides of my work ends up growing into something, I will definitely be experimenting with very different ways of organizing work because I think it's worth doing. I've talked to one organization that's thinking about doing 3-month module, like 3-month blocks.

So like an employee there could work 3, 6, 9, or 12 months. That's really interesting. And I think you'll see more experiments like that where people start with the work, how it needs to get done, and then work backwards. NBA Finals, I'm rooting for the Celtics. Always been a diehard Celtics fan. I mean, hope Hopefully they pull it out.

We're going to shift into sports here. But yeah, hopefully Smart and Robert Williams can stay healthy, though the Warriors look very good, but got to get past the Heat. If they can pull it out tonight, I think the Celtics can make it to the finals. That's all I'm thinking about now. Adrian, I'd never considered taking time off work. Now I am working on an exit strategy to take 6 to 12 months, and if I have to quit, it's fine and probably more beneficial.

Cool. Love that. I think taking a non-work sabbatical is one of the most powerful things you can do for your life. Like, the approval ratings of this are near 100%. Like, I think people, when people want stuff, they can sort of make these things happen. I think if you prioritize something like, I want to take a 3-month sabbatical, even that.

As one of the most important things to do. And I think it's actually more valuable late 20s, early 30s, even in your 30s. Um, just 'cause you'll probably have a slower pace of life, more reflection, um, out of the, like, end of your brain development. And, um, yeah, it, it's definitely worth doing. It definitely helped me connect with myself in the world a little bit better. Where should I go on a USA road trip?

So we did this in 2020. We drove from Connecticut to Los Angeles. I would go— I would recommend a couple things. I'd recommend going places that aren't popular, just random locations. We ended up going to a random campground in Kentucky. That was really cool.

And then another random campground in the middle of Kansas that was really cool. The Utah was just epic. Like, for some reason, I don't know why I'd never considered going to Utah, but Utah was just incredible landscape, canyons, drives, the national parks. Yeah, I don't know my recommendations. I'm not a good person to ask on this stuff. Have my wanderings changed since you moved to Austin?

I'm used to walking and exploring in foreign countries. Yeah, it is. The longer you spend in a place, the more it's familiar. Even the longer I spent in Taipei, it was still a foreign country, but it was familiar. I'd say I just went for a bike ride for about half hour around the river in Austin. I tend to go on the same path here.

Probably need to challenge myself. I think interesting things happen when I sort of set out and don't have like, I'm gonna wander or ride a bike for this long. I still mostly when I go out, I don't know where I'm going to go. So I try to just like be in the present and be like, oh, this direction looks interesting, or I feel pulled to go in this direction. And I just go. So I find some value in that.

I also have this very calm, like, Wandering Wednesdays group chat I'm in where we post pictures of where we wander. You can DM me if you want access to that. But yeah, I haven't done a good job of posting in that, but yeah, I try to just have this mindset that like whenever I'm feeling off, I'm disconnected, I need to go wander. But yeah, I think when you go to new places, the ideas are just explosive, especially if it's such a foreign place, people are speaking different languages. It's hard to replicate that. America is still America.

But one cool thing here is people like taking walks as like a social activity. So I can hit up friends for a bike ride or social activity and it's It's a fun thing to do. I will send you the, the link, Max. But Adrian, ever thought about writing the case studies, everyday people who take your advice and how it went, or this end up making a path out of The Pathless Path? Yeah, I'm, I'm open to it. I didn't go into writing a book with like this idea.

I'm an author, like my whole thing is like, don't get caught up in the identity. So people are like, what's your next book? Maybe it could be something like that. I think I tend— like, the reason I'm doing this curiosity conversation like this, and like not charging for coaching or trying to build an offering out of this is like, I think like this information needs to be like free. It's high stakes. It's typically involved with people kind of like blowing up their life.

I don't really want to turn that into like a very formal structured thing. I want to put, here's what I learned, put it out there. CareMinder is trying to create work for me. I don't want more work. Maybe somebody else could do this, but yeah, I sort of do this through the podcast and I'm relaunching the podcast. Should be coming out, probably we'll post an episode this week or next week.

And then I have some sponsors supporting it, so should be able to get more of a rhythm going on publishing. But yeah, but my podcasts are amazing for this because I sort of just reach out to people who have done really interesting stuff and applied their own lessons, maybe some of mine in mine. But yeah, it's early with the book. I have 2,600 people have bought it. Maybe 30% have read it. I don't know how many would actually read it, but I'm guessing we're going to start seeing case studies.

But yeah, cool idea. I'll keep it top of mind. I don't know, a lot, probably in profound ways that we don't realize yet. I think there's a lot of positives and negatives, but don't know yet. We mostly just focus on the negatives, but not totally convinced. Like, I've been able to learn so much more because of the internet and actually make, like, great friends because of the internet.

So I don't know. Very, very early. Not my domain of expertise. I will probably wrap this one up today at 12:30. So 5 more seconds, 5 more minutes for questions. A couple of things I'm working on are just trying to scale up the podcast.

I'm like making money on the consulting skills and training side, but like my heart's still pulling me towards like the writing and people's stories and like just trying to take it serious. Like the question of like, what if I really own the idea that like it matters to help people become alive and find the work that matters to them? So trying to do that. Also, it could also not be a great idea. True. I'm very hesitant on like to-do lists, but I don't think I'd fall in that trap.

Like I wouldn't create like a, here are the 10 steps. I think it's much more important to just like share the stories. Here's how they did it. Here's how they felt. Here's what happened to them. That's actually how people get inspired.

I don't know why there's so many like frameworks and to-do lists. I wrote about Tim Ferriss' 4-Hour Workweek. And he shares a framework in the book, which is— I forget what the framework is. Like, everyone forgets the framework. But for some reason, people think you need a framework. I think this is driven by publishers.

Yeah, the framework is DEAL: definition, automation, definition. Oh, Spelled that wrong. Yeah. But nobody remembers the framework. People remember the story, the questions, the thoughts they had while reading the book, the emotional experience. I made a class called Reinvent.

I offer it as like a self-paced course for like $100. Now, if you really want it, I'll give you access for free. Just send me a message on Twitter or something. I think I'll run that again, probably later this year. Um, that one was pretty awesome. I ran re:Invent in 2019.

Um, that was probably like a very prototype version of my book. Um, so I think it'd be cool to do it again. And a lot of the value in those is just the shared, um, experience of giving each other stories in a vulnerable environment. So I want to be creative and thoughtful about how I do that. I don't want it to become like a huge business, but it's something many people have asked me for. So I sort of feel compelled to deliver upon that.

But I want to do it in a thoughtful way, nothing too pricey, but accessible, interesting, and a great space for people to connect, make friends, dream bigger. Let's see, most meaningful online communities you're a part of. I'd say the biggest lever online is basically sharing your own thoughts. You share your own thoughts and experiences, especially in a vulnerable way, people basically just reach out to you. And say, hey, I'm like you, let's be friends. That's probably been the most meaningful one.

I think others who have online communities have sort of onboarded people onto the internet and led to me engaging with those people either as part of those communities or as a sort of positive externality. I think Anne-Laure's community, Anne-Laure Lecomte's community, Maker Mind, I think has been great. Like, Kehi's Rad Reads community. Kehi's Rad Reads community has probably had the biggest actual impact in my life. He just connected me to so many people and I met people all around the world through him. Dave Perell's Rite of Passage community.

I've met so many people who sort of like started engaging in a different way with the world and the internet because of him and his work. Interintellect, a lot of stuff around that. Met people through like the shared connection of Venkatesh Rao's writing and stuff. And yeah, it's pretty amazing. I think there's just all these communities that make my life better. I told Dave once, I was like, he sort of runs this free service of minting friends for me because he gets people to behave in new ways and engage with the internet in a generous way.

I'm just so lucky to be a part of this. Like when I first quit my job, I did not know people doing these kind of things and my life has gotten so much better in the past few years because of the work other people have been doing and kind of contributing. And that's why I try to like help as many people as possible and be as successful as possible. Tacos every day of the week. Not a burrito guy. But if I want a burrito, I'd probably have like Anna's Taqueria in Boston.

Tuesdays with Paul, 2050, every day with Paul. I like it. Yeah, big plus one. Yeah, I think joining like those courses or communities can sort of be an onboard into these. I think courses like Write of Passage, Kei He's Supercharge Your Productivity, and Laura Lacombe's community and her course, The Interintellect, sort of like create simulated environments to practice engaging with people on the internet in such ways that can make your life better. If you look at it as that, like just find one with people you like or that you're drawn to and then do it and see what happens.

And then once you start contributing, like, that's when all the benefits start showing up even more, I think. And this is why I like, like, the current iteration of, like, the creator economy and the internet is like, it's really— you get status from contributing and you get the rewards of that too, which is pretty cool.

[33:08] Paul: Cool.