The Pathless Path with Paul Millerd

Paul Millerd

The Pathless Path is hosted by Paul Millerd - a writer, creator, and consultant.

  • 1 hour 5 minutes
    "Dirtbag Rich" - Blake Boles & I Talk About Extracting More Freedom From Life

    Links:


    Episode Desription
    Paul Millerd is a 39-year-old writer, ex-consultant, and advocate for ditching the default path in favor of what he calls “the pathless path.” (pmillerd.com / @p_millerd)

    Paul walked away from a promising corporate consulting career—think McKinsey, prestige, and six-figure salaries—to pursue a life of writing, experimenting, and global wandering. He describes how he initially struggled with unlearning his achievement-oriented mindset, why the idea of good work (work that energizes) became his guiding principle, and how his first self-published book, The Pathless Path, briefly and unexpectedly earned six figures.

    We discuss the philosophical basis of work and money, how to avoid the traps of both scarcity and overachievement, and how the value of exercising your freedom is limited by how others exercise their own freedom. (In other words: if you're free to hike on a sunny Wednesday afternoon, and no one's available to go with you, are you really free?)

    Paul and his wife have a young daughter, and they struggle to find and live near other, like-minded families. We talk about how online communities help Paul stay connected while living nomadically between Texas and Taiwan and how online self-education was invaluable to his success. We conclude with a discussion of navigating fear and uncertainty on the pathless path.

    Throughout the conversation, Paul stays refreshingly honest about the tensions between freedom and stability, the allure of easy money, and the ever-present temptation to fall back into old habits of achievement and validation. Energized by this conversation, I ended up talking more than usual about the tricky balance of factors that leads to a Dirtbag Rich existence.


    📘 GOOD WORK: LIVE! => Learn More
    📕 Buy Paul’s Book (50k+ Sold): The Pathless Path
    😁 Join Hundreds On Unconventional Paths: Pathless Path Community


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    17 March 2025, 3:19 pm
  • 51 minutes 38 seconds
    Matt Yao Interviews Me

    This was a fun episode. A friend, Matt Yao, reached out to see if he could interview me about my recent book, Good Work.

    We first connected when he called me in the summer of 2022. He was in the middle of my book and knew he needed to quit his job.

    Over the last few years, he's been on a transformational journey, experimenting with writing, coaching, and several other side quests.

    Hope you enjoy this conversation.

    You can learn more about Matt here: Matt Yao


    📘 GOOD WORK: LIVE! => Learn More
    📕 Buy Paul’s Book (50k+ Sold): The Pathless Path
    😁 Join Hundreds On Unconventional Paths: Pathless Path Community


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    🙏Further Ways To Support The Podcast:

    5 December 2024, 10:49 pm
  • 1 hour 35 minutes
    Building A Life Around Good Work (Paul Interviewed by Abel James)

    You can follow Abel's podcast here: Abel James Show


    📘 GOOD WORK: LIVE! => Learn More
    📕 Buy Paul’s Book (50k+ Sold): The Pathless Path
    😁 Join Hundreds On Unconventional Paths: Pathless Path Community


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    🙏Further Ways To Support The Podcast:

    6 November 2024, 12:53 am
  • 5 minutes 47 seconds
    Good Work is Live! (Audiobook preview)

    Check out and purchase Good Work here: https://pmillerd.com/goodwork

    Or from Amazon directly: https://amzn.to/4gwRSCN

    11 October 2024, 5:12 pm
  • 43 minutes 37 seconds
    #175 20 Families as a "Traveling Village - Nikolaj Astrup on his experiment living in Thailand, Vietnam, and Japan with 20 families from around the world
    26 June 2024, 7:13 pm
  • 1 hour 2 minutes
    #174 Agency Is A Skill — Cate Hall on leaving law for poker, developing agency, deterministic vs probabilistic economy, risk, burnout, asking dumb questions, defining ambition, seeking real feedback, and the surface area of luck

    Cate seemed to be fully entrenched on the default path — she had graduated from Yale and became the Supreme Court advocate on her way to becoming a partner in her law firm. But she didn't want to live the lives of the people around her. She pivoted hard, you could almost hear car brakes squeaking as she made the turn, and over a year she became the number one female poker player in the world. She later started art and perfume companies and led operations at Avlea — a pandemic medicine company. One might think she's simply a superhuman, and what she did is beyond the grasp of mere mortals, but Cate claims that agency is learnable and joins the podcast to tell us how.

    🎥🍿 YOUTUBE: WATCH HERE

    Links:

    ⌛TIMESTAMPS

    (00:00) - Intro (02:07) - The scripts that Cate grew up with (06:32) - Doors-opening credentials? (10:23) - Leaving law for poker (18:37) - Developing agency, learning form the others (23:42) - Deterministic vs probabilistic economy (26:53) - Risk and the diminishing prestige of the traditional paths (31:10) - Burnout (37:20) - Asking dumb questions (41:59) - Defining ambition (43:39) - Seeking actual feedback and how everything is learnable (50:11) - The surface area of luck (57:45) - Closing remarks

    📘 GOOD WORK: LIVE! => Learn More
    📕 Buy Paul’s Book (50k+ Sold): The Pathless Path
    😁 Join Hundreds On Unconventional Paths: Pathless Path Community


    📲Connect + Follow Paul

    🙏Further Ways To Support The Podcast:

    29 May 2024, 1:48 pm
  • 1 hour 24 minutes
    1 Year Dad Reflections - Conversation with Sky King & Nat Eliason

    This is from Sky King's podcast: https://skmp.supercast.com/

    Guest info:
    Nat: https://www.nateliason.com/


    Nat also has an amazing book coming out which I highly recommend, "Crypto Confidential": https://amzn.to/44BJ74I


    📘 GOOD WORK: LIVE! => Learn More
    📕 Buy Paul’s Book (50k+ Sold): The Pathless Path
    😁 Join Hundreds On Unconventional Paths: Pathless Path Community


    📲Connect + Follow Paul

    🙏Further Ways To Support The Podcast:

    13 May 2024, 6:00 am
  • 1 hour 6 minutes
    #173 Solopreneurship After Burnout — Justin Welsh on burnout, taking ownership of his time, struggling with a results oriented mindset, non-monetary success, becoming a top LinkedIn influencer, income goals, The Creator MBA, dealing with fears around money

    Justin is a former startup executive who helped build two startups past valuations of $1B, teams of 150+ people, and raise over $300M in venture capital. Now he’s building his one-person knowledge business toward $5M in annual profit.

    🎥🍿 YOUTUBE: WATCH HERE

    Links:

    ⌛TIMESTAMPS

    (00:00) - Intro (01:34) - The scripts that Justin grew up with (09:59) - Attention and social media (11:43) - Liking your job, the interest curve & having goals (15:55) - Justin's burnout, finding a new path & taking ownership of your time (25:30) - Not starting earlier & struggling with a results oriented mindset (31:46) - Creativity, non-monetary success & business as a creative act (38:09) - Being the nr. 1 LinkedIn influencer (42:30) - Income goals on the solo path (47:09) - The Creator MBA & Brennan Dunn (52:09) - Not making the solo career a job & fears around money (57:47) - Avoiding emotions, confidence (01:02:17) - What's Justin excited about (01:03:58) - Closing remarks

    📘 GOOD WORK: LIVE! => Learn More
    📕 Buy Paul’s Book (50k+ Sold): The Pathless Path
    😁 Join Hundreds On Unconventional Paths: Pathless Path Community


    📲Connect + Follow Paul

    🙏Further Ways To Support The Podcast:

    16 April 2024, 2:42 pm
  • 1 hour 8 minutes
    #172 Success In The Second Half Of Life — Henry Oliver on John Stuart Mill, Samuel Johnson, Penelope Fitzgerald, why we shouldn't dismiss Gladwell, writing, late bloomers, the importance of finding the others, Tyler Cowen's help and the lessons from Audrey Sutherland

    Henry is a writer, speaker and brand consultant. He joins the podcast to discuss his upcoming book — Second Act — in which he analysises the phenomenon of late bloomers and what we can learn from them.

    🎥🍿 YOUTUBE: WATCH HERE

    Links:

    ⌛TIMESTAMPS

    (00:00) - Intro (00:49) - Guest introduction (01:35) - The scripts that Henry grew up with (05:48) - John Stuart Mill (08:19) - Samuel Johnson (15:01) - "The common reader" & Why we shouldn't dismiss Gladwell (18:19) - Writing (22:03) - His book about the late bloomers (28:48) - Penelope Fitzgerald (34:16) - Is it too easy to share your writing? (37:17) - The importance of finding the others (41:20) - Conversations, talking to yourself and writing (43:52) - Getting disappointed early (48:30) - There is no actual average person, the importance of taking variability into account (53:07) - How writing a book changes people (55:48) - Tyler Cowen and the power of the internet (58:25) - What Samuel Johnson would be working on today? (01:00:14) - The lessons from Audrey Sutherland (01:05:31) - Closing remarks

    📘 GOOD WORK: LIVE! => Learn More
    📕 Buy Paul’s Book (50k+ Sold): The Pathless Path
    😁 Join Hundreds On Unconventional Paths: Pathless Path Community


    📲Connect + Follow Paul

    🙏Further Ways To Support The Podcast:

    1 April 2024, 9:33 pm
  • 1 hour 15 minutes
    #171 "All Work Is Noble," Montessori, and Kids & Work — Matt Bateman on starting growing up with the internet, digital and industrial literacy, studying philosophy and learning how to teach, starting the Guidepost school network, how to train teachers, how children learn and work, values in education, agency, and writing his new book

    Matt Bateman has a PhD in philosophy. He has abandoned the academic career, to pursue education in the Montessori system. A dad of three, he is passionate about educating children. Having worked a lot with training the teachers in the Montessori approach, he has now taken a step back to focus on writing his book.

    🎥🍿 YOUTUBE: WATCH HERE

    Links:

    ⌛TIMESTAMPS

    (00:00) - Intro (01:32) - The scripts that Matt grew up with (05:18) - Growing up with the internet (08:20) - Kids and technology, digital and industrial literacy (14:11) - Babysitting, PhD in Philosophy and learning how to teach (17:45) - Getting into Montessori (19:40) - Starting the Guideposts & How to train good teachers (24:28) - The pathological approach to work we learnt and how little children naturally want to help (33:06) - “All work is noble” (41:07) - The role of values in education through history (48:49) - The Montessori system, differences in non-alphabetic writing systems (53:57) - Agency as the aim of education (59:08) - Advice for parents, the pros and cons of college (01:05:48) - Matt’s new book & the hidden bad value system taught in modern schools (01:10:02) - Closing remarks

    📘 GOOD WORK: LIVE! => Learn More
    📕 Buy Paul’s Book (50k+ Sold): The Pathless Path
    😁 Join Hundreds On Unconventional Paths: Pathless Path Community


    📲Connect + Follow Paul

    🙏Further Ways To Support The Podcast:

    25 March 2024, 7:25 pm
  • 1 hour 24 minutes
    #170 Apprenticeships, Sabbaticals & "Good Work" — Steve Schlafman & Matt Yao on slowing down, deprogramming, unlearning, learning from others, deciding to quit, going on a sabbatical, not being jealous anymore, competitiveness and enoughness, finding good work, ambition, the apprenticeship, Downshift, decelerator, marriage, family and reframing money

    Steve is a professional coach and the founder of Downshift — the world's first decelerator. He has left a career in venture, but he remains ambitious, it's just that his ambition is now to have a good, multidimentional life, where he can be a good dad for his kids.
    Matt has left a traditional path early on to write, travel and discover his own path. When he met Steve, he offered him to become his apprentice and joined Downshift.

    🎥🍿 YOUTUBE: WATCH HERE

    Links:

    ⌛TIMESTAMPS

    (00:00) - Intro (02:52) - The scripts that Steve & Matt grew up with (05:38) - Slowing down, deprogramming and unlearning (12:30) - The cocoon stage (14:43) - Deciding to quit (19:03) - Learning from others on the path and having children (25:56) - Trust (29:07) - Matt's sabbatical, finding good work (35:04) - No jealousy, competitiveness vs enoughness (39:14) - Matt's apprenticeship with Steve (48:23) - Putting yourself in a place where it's easy to help you (52:21) - Downshift & Ambition (01:02:52) - Marriage & Family (01:10:40) - Reframing money, skiing and oatmeal (01:17:01) - Launching decelerator (01:21:12) - Closing remarks

    📘 GOOD WORK: LIVE! => Learn More
    📕 Buy Paul’s Book (50k+ Sold): The Pathless Path
    😁 Join Hundreds On Unconventional Paths: Pathless Path Community


    📲Connect + Follow Paul

    🙏Further Ways To Support The Podcast:

    18 March 2024, 7:09 pm
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