“I was in the wrong environment, playing the wrong game . . . so I started self-sabotaging.”
That’s how today’s guest, Paul Millerd, knew it was time to opt out of conventional thinking about his career, and turn slowly but deliberately in a new direction. In this conversation we talk about how important it is to define enough, develop an immunity to what other people are doing, and his mantra, “coming alive over getting ahead.”
Be sure to listen to our Free Time conversation 205: Why Paul Millerd Turned Down a $200K Two-Book Traditional Publishing Deal, and our conversation for Paul’s podcast, Pathless Path on 156: Saying "no" to something good.
More About Paul: Paul Millerd is an independent writer, freelancer, coach, and digital creator. He is the author of The Pathless Path: Imagining a New Story for Work and Life, in which he explores the invisible scripts that constrain our lives. He is also the host of The Pathless Path podcast where he talks with the most interesting people on unconventional paths**.**
🌟 3 Key Takeaways
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Be wary of the achievement narrative: If you don’t define “enough” for yourself, it’s easy to default to more, which makes it impossible to understand when to say no.
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The trap of prestigious career paths: Instead of thinking about what you want to do with your life, you default to the options, norms, and desires most admired by your peers.
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Embracing the pathless path requires grappling with the feeling of being a bad egg
✅ Try This Next
Paul’s process for new ideas: ship, quit, and learn. What small experiments can you set up that you can quit quickly? How can you take action in the next week, and design it for quitting?
🔗 Resources Mentioned
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Paul on the web, IG: @pathlesspaul, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube
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Articles: Paul’s Substack, essays, Ben Hunt’s Epsilon Theory—The Industrially Necessary Egg, Rad Reads—The $645,099 Business Pivot
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Reflections on Saying No to a Book Deal & Betting on Myself #219, Original Twitter thread, and From Blog to Book: How to Self-Publish on Your Own Terms
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Swag: StickerMule (Bubble Envelopes)
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Tools and Templates: Jenny’s Author Toolkit
📚 Books Mentioned
🎧 Related Episodes
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