The Pathless Path with Paul Millerd
by Paul Millerd
The Pathless Path is hosted by Paul Millerd - a writer, creator, and consultant. He has conversations with freelancers, self-employed entrepreneurs, creators, and vagabonds who share their perspectives on their relationship with work, burnout, bootstrapping, indie hacking, remote work, reinvention, creativity, sabbaticals, leisure, self-employment, unconventional living, and digital nomadism. Past guests include Ali Abdaal, Russ Roberts, Kevin Kelly, Khe Hy, David Senra, Derek Sivers, Joe Hudson, Luke Burgis, Ben Hunt, Dan Vassallo, Steph Smith, Alex Pang, Visakan Veerasamy, Michael Ashcroft, Kyla Scalon, Trung Phan, Justin Welch, and more.
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Episodes
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Angie Finished Her Memoir! - Angie and Paul on the creative process, parenting, travel, writing, life challenges, and books
Check out Angie's book in Chinese: mit886.com More about angie: Angiecreates.io Click here to watch a video of this episode. (00:00) - Welcome to the Pathless Path Podcast (01:09) - Life Updates and Creative Challenges (02:10) - The Journey of Writing a Memoir (06:12) - Revisiting Family Stories...
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Michael Ashcroft on Getting Lost and The Joys of Dad Life
I chat with Michael on parenting, getting lost, the pathless path, hustle culture, travel, and more. This is his 4th appearance on the show. Find more about Michael here: https://michaelashcroft.com/ Or explore his writings on expanded awareness: https://expandingawareness.org/ (00:00) -...
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What's After BigLaw & Consulting? - Allie Canton & Paul Millerd On Reinvention, Parenting on The Pathless Path & as Parent
Allie and I discuss our shared experiences of leaving traditional career paths to explore more authentic lives. Allie, a former lawyer, talks about navigating parenthood, part-time work, and her numerous interests while stepping off the default path. We chat about how Allie was inspired by 'The...
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Commit A Career Ending Move - Steven Foster on Permissionless Paychecks, Communal Living & Battling Life's Challenges While Pathless
In this episode, I have a deep conversation with Steven Foster, who opens up about his career journey from Silicon Valley to embracing a pathless life. We dive into his essay 'Commit a Career Ending Move,' reflecting on how modernity has turned careers into a form of religion. Steven shares his...
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The Yoga Of Work - Andrew Taggart
Click here to watch a video of this episode. Mentioned in the episode Andrew Taggart’s websitePathways to the Dao (Andrew’s Substack)Leisure: The Basis of Culture by Josef PieperSecular Monks (article by Andrew Taggart)Why Buddhism is True by Robert WrightPierre Hadot (Philosophy as a Way of...
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AMA Episode 200 - I answer questions on parenting, courage, being a prophet, taking risks, and money
I took questions from people for episode 200. Enjoy! Click here to watch a video of this episode. (00:00) - Introduction and Podcast Background (03:28) - Future of Education and Teaching (05:49) - Thoughts on Being a Prophet (06:29) - Current Pulling Forces and Changes (08:50) - Special Hardcover...
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How To Retire Well: Dennis Owen on Moving Abroad, Building Community, Volunteering, Adapting to New Cultures, Creating Routine, Consulting After Retirement, Managing Money Mindset Shifts, Staying Current with Technology, Health Habits, Navigating Expat Li
In this episode, I talk with Dennis Owen about his journey from a long career in the airline industry to building a purposeful and active retirement in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Dennis shares how he intentionally “retired to” a new life filled with volunteering, consulting, and community involvement,...
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Worldschooling 2.0: Rekha Magon on Location-Independent Schooling, co-founding Boundless Life, Lessons during bed rest, rethinking family in a digital age, travel, freedom, and raising global citizens
In this video, I talk with Rekha about Boundless Life and the idea of location-independent education. We cover her background, what led her to start Boundless Life, and how the program works for families who want a different approach to learning and community. For more: Boundless LifeBoundless...
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The Inner Game of Work: Pranab Sachi on Codependent Origination, Rob Burbea, Quake Books, Attentional Co-Piloting, Michael Taft, and "Non-Success"
In this episode, I interview my friend Pranab Saachi, and we get specific about the ideas and influences that have shaped his thinking. We talk about codependent origination from Buddhist philosophy, the concept of “quake books” that have shifted his worldview, and his own approach to…
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How much money do you need to quit? I debate with Nick Maggiulli (and rabbit holes: wealth > income, why COAST FIRE rocks, and more...)
In this episode, I'm pumped to welcome back Nick Maggiulli to the podcast (https://youtu.be/deMXbaI-Ir4). We dive into various topics about money and financial independence, with a focus on Nick's endorsement of the 'COAST Fire' strategy, something I accidentally embraced after quitting my job....
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Following Your Inner Compass - Lawrence Yeo on his creative journey, sharing ideas, self-publishing, and playing the long game
Lawrence is one of my favorite creators. He shares with passion, vulnerability and care. I chatted with Lawrence Yeo about his new book, 'The Inner Compass,' exploring themes of self-reflection, creativity, and the journey of writing and self-publishing. We discuss the importance of engaging with...
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Hustle & Flow - Jack Moses on dropping out of school, hustle culture, spiritual paths, finding flow, and travel as transformation
In this episode, I have a conversation with my friend Jack Moses. Three years ago, Jack emailed me after reading my book, declaring he was dropping out of college. Over time, I've been amazed by his life's actions, from embracing hustle culture to diving deep into spirituality. Recently, Jack led…
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Paul Q&A Episode - Moving to Asia, Parenting, Preparing for Kids, Pathless Hardcover Art Edition
Personal updates about life, including his recent move back to Asia, reflections on work and career paths, parenting experiences, and insights into education and self-publishing. I share the challenges and joys of parenting, how I think about decisions in regards to kids, and evolving thoughts on...
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Becoming A Writer - Nat Eliason on his upcoming fiction release, traditional publishing vs. self-publishing, AI tools, tinkering, readers, launch plans
Hello! I'm back! Expect a slow ramp, but there are new episodes coming! I talked with Nat Eliason about his journey as a writer, from early experiments with ideas to fully embracing writing as a career. We discussed the challenges and rewards of moving from nonfiction to fiction, the trade-offs...
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"Dirtbag Rich" - Blake Boles & I Talk About Extracting More Freedom From Life
Links: PodcastBlake BolesDirtbag Rich Site: https://www.blakeboles.com/dbr/ 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…
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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...
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Building A Life Around Good Work (Paul Interviewed by Abel James)
You can follow Abel's podcast here: Abel James Show NEW: The Pathless Path Hardcover Premium Edition 📘 My 2nd Book Good Work: Learn More 📕 Buy My First Book, The Pathless Path (65k+ Sold): The Pathless Path 😁 Join 500+ In My Cozy Community: Pathless Path Community 📲Connect + Follow Paul X:...
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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
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#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...
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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 NEW: The Pathless Path Hardcover Premium Edition 📘 My 2nd Book Good Work…
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#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: Personal website LinkedInX...
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#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: Personal websiteSubstack: The Common ReaderX (Twitter):...
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#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...
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#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…
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#169 "2M Subscribers, I love what I do, should I take a break?" — David Pakman on finding good work early, , how money and motivation changed over time, finding a balance in content creation, life after YouTube, his doubts about taking a sabbatical, having a daughter, dealing with public recognition and hateful comments, the lack of role models
David Pakman is a political commentator and the host of The David Pakman Show. He joins the podcast to explore a possible paradigm shift in the way he approaches his work and life after the birth of his daughter. 🎥🍿 YOUTUBE: WATCH HERE Links: The David Pakman ShowX (Twitter): @dpakmanYouTube:...
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#168 Building With "margin for life" — Justin Jackson on lessons from running a skate shop, optimizing for profit, running a "calm company," co-founding Transistor, having kids early, designing margins and how money actually does make him happy
Justin is the co-founder of Transistor, a podcast hosting platform on which The Pathless Path podcast is hosted. Justin is passionate about designing his company so that all the team benefits. He achieves that by making sure that there is always a financial margin as well as a "margin for our...
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#167 Wandering in the Wilderness — Dom Francks on confronting fragility, his love of nature, the disconnect from nature, working as a software engineer, viewing yourself as a piece of poetry, how we're always embedded in nature and being guided by intuition
Dom is the lead guide at the VIVIFY Regerative Leadership Program. He helps leaders develop by taking them on an 8-day backpacking expedition in the Sierra mountains. Dom is passionate about preserving the natural world, staying connected to it and practicing aliveness. 🎥🍿 YOUTUBE: WATCH HERE...
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#166 Breaking Free of the Rules — Rick Lewis on being a child actor, dropping out of college, being a professional juggler, street performing and a clowning, the corporate world as an outsider, breaking rules, parenting and how to reinvent yourself
Rick Lewis could be succinctly described as "a speaker, author & professional consultant", but such technical labelling wouldn't paint a fair picture of who he really is. He describes what he's doing as "intelligent misbehavior". He's public appearances have a much deeper goal than just pure...
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#165 Gardening in the Digital Ecosystem — Kevin Espiritu on his fascination with the early Internet, how Poker broke his brain on money, starting his YouTube channel, Epic Gardening, taking a long term perspective, how to structure a video, transforming his YouTube channel, introducing new people to his audience, the probabilistic mindset and what he learnt from poker that helps him in his life
Kevin is the man behind the Epic Gardening channel. Although he had not read the Pathless Path at the time of the recording of this episode, he seems to be living it with every breath he takes. The only constant thing in his life seems to be that is constatly reinventing himself. From…
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[Repost] My Nervous System Guru & Friend - Jonny Miller on His Own Pathless Path, Grief, Friendship, David Whyte & More
Jonny Miller is a dear friend and I've had the privilege to get to know him closely over the past four years on our own journeys. We've lived in Japan, Indonesia, and Mexico together. When we met we were both single but now are both married in cross-country relationships and have navigated…
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#164 Transformation For High Achievers — Joe Hudson on growing up with an alcoholic father, living around the world, transformation and self-discovery, becoming comfortable with yourself, emotional fluidity, expressing emotions, and the art of parenting
Joe is an executive coach and the founder of the Art of Accomplishment. Having worked as a venture capitalist, a consultant and an international banker, Joe discovered meditation on a trip to Asia and has practiced it since for over 25 years since then. Meditating as well as a deep study of…
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[Replay] Reinventing After Quitting A Top Job At Amazon - Christine Bader
Christine Bader is currently living in Bali, Indonesia, where she is spending time focused on her family and self. She is the author of The Evolution of a Corporate Idealist: When Girl Meets Oil and the former head of CSR for Amazon before leaving in 2017, a journey she details in an amazing…
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[Replay] Taking a "structured sabbatical" & Calm Companies - Jacqueline Jensen
Jacqueline Jensen has been a digital nomad for 3.5 years, living and working globally. It might surprise you to find out then, that she's written a book called "Travel Isn't The Answer." While counter-intuitive, she argues for a return to awe and wonder with what is already around us. She talks...
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[Replay] Starting a "tribe" and living on an island with three kids - Ben Keene
After attending a few corporate recruiting sessions, he didn't take for granted that his path was to enter the corporate world. Twenty years later, he is still carving his own path and has recently returned from Koh Lanta, where he lived with his three children in Thailand for the last six…
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[Replay] How "total work" took over the world - Andrew Taggart
Andrew is a Practical Philosopher who believes that "there may be no greater vexation in our time than the question of how to make a living in a manner that accords with leading a good life." We dive deep into the questions of "what is the good life?" and what he means by "sustaining life." He…
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[Replay] We Adopted a 4-Day Workweek - Tash Walker
Tash Walker is the founder of a firm and spends her Fridays making marmalade. Before instituting a four-day workweek at her firm, The Mix, she barely had time for her relationships. She decided to start doing research about different ways of working. There had to be a better way than the default...
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[Replay] Living On A Boat for 1.5 Years - John Zeratsky
John Zeratsky was a designer in the tech industry has worked with hundreds of startups in his time at Google Ventures. He’s also obsessed with redesigning time and thinking about what matters in life. Earlier this year he just got back from 18 months living on his boat "Pineapple" with his wife...
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[Replay] Packy McCormick on Injecting Fun To Newsletters
Packy says that his differentiation "is that I’m going to be having more fun than most people” I've been a big fan of the energy he's brought to his writing over the past couple of years. But he didn't set out to have a popular newsletter. His real plan was to launch an in-person community. We…
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#163 Luck Maximization — Jovian Gautama on being Indonesian in Taiwan, learning English from MTV and Reddit, graduating from a tourism high school, selling steel, podcasting, learning "tech" online, becoming the CEO of Castro
Jovian is an Indonesian living in Taiwan, who is deeply immersed in the American pop culture through the power of the internet. His background in tourism helps him with problem solving and talking too people, he has learnt English from watching MTV, got one of his first jobs because he was…
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About this show
The Pathless Path is hosted by Paul Millerd - a writer, creator, and consultant. He has conversations with freelancers, self-employed entrepreneurs, creators, and vagabonds who share their perspectives on their relationship with work, burnout, bootstrapping, indie hacking, remote work, reinvention, creativity, sabbaticals, leisure, self-employment, unconventional living, and digital nomadism. Past guests include Ali Abdaal, Russ Roberts, Kevin Kelly, Khe Hy, David Senra, Derek Sivers, Joe Hudson, Luke Burgis, Ben Hunt, Dan Vassallo, Steph Smith, Alex Pang, Visakan Veerasamy, Michael Ashcroft, Kyla Scalon, Trung Phan, Justin Welch, and more.
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