The Pathless Path: Imagining a New Story For Work and Life

Product Information

After being unemployed for several months, money was once a consideration was now a very important aspect of life. Paul was experiencing "scarcity mindset". By being starved of a paycheque, Paul did not look into the root cause of his insecurities. Unfortunately no amount of money ever seems to satisfy. The only way to overcome these insecurities is to live a life that is heroic - grapple with your insecurities and seek a life that is uniquely yours. Behind our money fears are existential fears, like the fear of death or the fear of not being loved, respected, and admired. These fears are likely not solvable but we can learn to coexist with them. This is also why financial worries can be infinite and people can chase more and more their entire lives. The flip side of this is that if we can learn to coexist with our financial insecurities, we can turn them into a secondary concern. This opens you up to the real secret: the opportunities of the pathless path are infinite too. Chapter 9 - The Real Work of Your Life

Paul’s story is not one of courage, but of pragmatic and safe experiments, experiences, and questioning over several years. This approach, one of prototyping a change, is not only a better way to think about taking bold leaps but is quite common across many people’s stories. For me, testing out different ways of structuring my life now is a win‑win proposition. I’m lowering the odds that I’ll be unhappy in the future all while crafting a life I’m more and more excited to keep living.” The point here is to keep finding work that you actually enjoy doing. And you should always experiment with different types of work to find out which work you like the best and build your life around the type of work that you enjoy. On the pathless path, the goal is not to find a job, make money, build a business, or achieve any other metric. It’s to actively and consciously search for the work that you want to keep doing.Paul starts trying different jobs - interviewing people about Allbirds, helping a professor launch a non-profit in Boston. Paul moves to Boston to reduce his living expenses as NYC. Paul enjoys the newfound freedom and ownership over his life. Understanding that there is more than one way to live than your current path. You can shift to a place where you can gain more freedom and where your path can become something you choose again every day. If you were born in 1945 or 1950 or 1955, things got better every year for the first 18 years of your life. So continuing on the default path made sense for that generation. But this created accidental meaning for them. The paths that enabled people to thrive were the result of unique economic and historical circumstances, and as millennial’s entered the workforce, these circumstances no longer applied. Write a description of who you don't want to be then brainstorm actions that might create that outcome.

Years of resentment, frustration, and confusion demanded to be released. While working, I always sensed that these feelings were there, but the daily inertia of a life centered around work kept them hidden. Now, without a plan and without anywhere to show up, I had to feel the full force of my emotions.” It’s a rare book in that it is tangentially about careers and being more focused and productive, but unlike almost every other book I have read about these topics, I finished this one and felt better about myself and my career. That’s not to say there are not areas of dissatisfaction or things I would change, but The Pathless Path gave me a new lens with which to view my work and life, rather than similarly marketed books which give a set of principles or a to-do lists which are invariably unattainable. I was physically present but detached. Rather than participating in meetings as a good team member, I observed them as a visiting anthropologist.”At the time I could not imagine any other existence. Where I lived, what I did, how I thought about money, and the people I hung out with were all connected with my work identity.” Paul mentions shifting away from a life built on getting ahead and towards one focused on coming alive. The intent is to shift our focus on realizing our deep desires to work on things that matter and bring forth what is inside them. In this episode I sit down for a conversation with Paul Millerd, a writer, creator, and consultant. A few years ago Paul had everything he thought he wanted from his corporate job at the most prestigious consulting firm in the world. But after realising he was on the wrong path in life, he decided to walk away and figure out how to live a life that actually mattered to him. In the conversation we talk about his book The Pathless Path, the ultimate companion for people struggling to figure out what to do with their lives, which traces his journey from certainty and tradition to uncertainty and fulfilment. So if you’re thinking about leaving your job, taking off on a new adventure or simply wanting to approach work and life with a little more curiosity, this episode is for you. Enjoy :)

In her research, she discovered many examples of Swedish companies embracing 4-day workweeks and also found that when they instituted it, they often helped improve productivity. After bringing the option to her team at The Mix, they decided to do a three-month trial. They didn't even tell their clients. EXPLORE AN OPEN WORLDWith no map to guide you, shape your own path through ancient lands filled with secrets. Traverse lush meadows and snowy tundras, ascend mountaintops and glide over misty forests as you soar to new heights on the wings of your eagle. Discover the dark history of the island as you solve puzzles in ancient ruins and unearth long-forgotten lore. Peer through the veil of reality as you use your spirit sight to uncover the secrets of the past and find your path through this pathless land. Being at the frontier of your current reality is disorienting. Deep down you might have a sense that you should keep going in a certain direction, but you never know why.” We invent the stories we use to guide our lives, and these stories will continue to evolve. Due to many factors, many of our current cultural scripts and stories have calcified over several generations and have stopped working as reliably as they have in the past. This has left large numbers of people around the world confused and frustrated with their relationship to work. Success for the company does not always align with what is best for the person, and over time, a disconnect can emerge. This is what happened to me.”

Table of contents

I had no master plan to quit my job. Even now, several years after doing so, when people ask about my journey, I’m more confused than you might expect. Choosing to leave full‑time work was not a single bold decision but a slow and steady awakening that the path I was on was not my path.” Most people, including myself, have a deep desire to work on things that matter to them and bring forth what is inside them.”