Redefining success, money, and belonging | Paul Millerd (The Pathless Path)

... take three hours during a work day. It has to be during a work day. Block off your schedule, sneak out. People can pull this off. Go for a walk without a destination, or do something from your childhood that you used to do all the time. Did you use to play basketball? Did you use to paint? Did you use to play an instrument? And just pay attention. What is emerging? Do you feel bad for sneaking out of work? Where does that bad feeling come from? What does that mean about y- your definition of work and what work means to you? A lot of people have never really thought about, like, why do you work? People say money. Okay, that's fine. But like, what else? Like, why? Are you trying to be a good person? Do you see a good person as somebody that works every day? Maybe. These are a lot of scripts people grow up with. You're really just creating this space to get in touch with like, "How do I actually feel about work? How do I get to know myself more? Are there things that I've lost touch with that really bring me alive?"

(instrumental music) Today, my guest is Paul Millerd. Paul is the author of The Pathless Path: Imagining a New Story for Work and Life. His book is getting a lot of traction within the tech community, because it explores a different way of living, essentially breaking free of the default path for your work and your life that we all basically start on. What Paul describes in his book is almost exactly the path I took to figure out this very weird and wonderful work that I do now with the newsletter and podcast. And because of that, I think this is an important conversation to have, because it may inspire you to explore a different path in your own life. In our conversation, Paul explains what The Pathless Path is, how to go about exploring your own pathless path, how to address fears we all have around money, and prestige, and safety that keep us on the default path, plus tons of stories and examples and very tactical advice for thinking about exploring a new direction in your own life. With that, I bring you Paul Millerd after a short word from our sponsors. (instrumental music) This episode is brought to you by Sanity. Your website is the heart of your growth engine. For that engine to drive big results, you need to be able to move super fast, ship new content, experiment, learn, and iterate. But most content management systems just aren't built for this. Your content teams wrestle with rigid interfaces as they build new pages. You spend endless time copying and pasting across pages and recreating content for other channels and applications. And their ideas for new experiments are squashed when developers can't build them within the constraints of outdated tech. Forward-thinking companies like Figma, Amplitude, Loom, Riot Games, Linear, and more use Sanity to build content growth engines that scale, drive innovation, and accelerate customer acquisition. With Sanity, your team can dream bigger and move faster. As the most powerful headless CMS on the market, you can tailor editorial workflows to match your business, reuse content seamlessly across any page or channel, and bring your ideas to market without developer friction. Sanity makes life better for your whole team. It's fast for developers to build with, intuitive for content managers, and it integrates seamlessly with the rest of your tech stack. Get started with Sanity's generous free plan, and as a Lenny's Podcast listener, you can get a boosted plan with double the monthly usage. Head over to sanity.io/lenny to get started for free. That's sanity.io/lenny. This episode is brought to you by Maui Nui Venison, a mission-based food company bringing the healthiest red meat on the planet directly to your door. I actually joined Maui Nui Venison earlier this year after hearing their ad on the Tim Ferriss Podcast, and I'm excited to be spreading the message further. Not only does this company provide the most nutrient-dense and protein-dense red meat available, their operation produces the only stress-free 100% wild harvested red meat on the market. That is the only one of its kind in the world. Actively managing Maui's invasive axis deer populations, helping to restore balance to vulnerable ecosystems, food systems, and communities in Hawaii. Also, it is seriously delicious, not at all gamey, and easy to cook. My wife and I made stew and steaks and all kinds of grilled goodies with the meat. We also feel great about it as a protein from an ethical standpoint. I highly recommend trying their all-natural venison jerky sticks for an optimal protein snack, as well as a wide variety of fresh cuts, all available in their online butcher shop. There are limited memberships available, but you can sign up and get 20% off your first order at mauinuivenison.com/lenny. That's mauinuivenison.com/lenny. (instrumental music) Paul, thank you so much for being here. Welcome to the podcast.