The Pathless Path Epub

[Erminia Scharnberg]

ThePathless Path is about finding yourself in the wrong life, and the real work of figuring out how to live. Through painstaking experiments, living in different countries and the goodwill of people from around the world, Paul Millerd pieces together a set of ideas and principles that guide him from unfulfilled and burned out to the good life and all of the existential crises in between.

This book is a personal journey of awakening and is an ideal companion for people considering leaving their jobs, embarking on a new path, dealing with the uncertainty of an unconventional path, or searching for better models for thinking about work in a fast-changing world.

"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."

"If you have questioned your own path, or a nagging lack of intention in your choices you need this book. If you have felt a gradual loss of agency in your direction you need this book. You are in the grip of an invisible script that was not written for you." - Kris Abdelmessih

"The writing is fantastic - Paul's writing is approachably poetic; a quick read that weaves together his own experience moving from a 'default path' overachiever to a 'pathless path' seeker of passion and curiosity, deep research into the history of work and collections of perspectives from years of podcasting, friendship, conferences, and meetings with other 'alternative path' life-livers."

This would have been unimaginable to me five years earlier when I lived in New York City. I was single, spending my time at work, eating out, partying with friends, dating, and constantly plotting ways to work less or escape work altogether. I was working at a consulting firm making nearly $200,000 a year and working on projects for some of the most recognizable CEOs in the world. I was successful, and on my way to being even more successful.

Chasing achievements is what brought me to that New York City job working with CEOs, the final one before I decided to quit. Most mornings I came into the office and sat there struggling to start my day. I watched the people pass my desk and wondered if they felt the same stuckness as I did.

One of the biggest things the pathless path did for me was to help me reimagine my relationship with work. When I left my job, I had a narrow view of work and wanted to escape. On the pathless path, my conception expanded, and I was able to see the truth: that most people, including myself, have a deep desire to work on things that matter to them and bring forth what is inside them. It is only when we cling to the logic of the default path that we fail to see the possibilities for making that happen.

By default path, I mean a series of decisions and accomplishments needed to be seen as a successful adult. These vary by country, but in the United States, we refer to this as the American Dream, which means a life centered around a good job, owning a home, and having a family.

I was testing out a side gig as a career coach when I first met that young professional. He hated his job and wanted to make a change. As he found a new role, working in another company, he lost all motivation to keep working with me and exploring the things that mattered to him.

This disappointed me. I wanted him to see the potential I saw. Yet in my own life, I was doing the same thing. With every new job, I convinced myself I was thriving. But what I was really doing was trying to escape feeling stuck.

I won the childhood lottery. I had two parents that devoted their lives to creating the best life possible for my siblings and me. They did this by figuring out what they were best at and then giving it their complete commitment.

For my mother, it was being an active parent. Right from the start, she had an intuitive sense of my needs. She gave me space to make my own decisions and I learned how to take ownership of my life. She helped remove any obstacles in my way and helped me grow into a confident adult. At every step of my journey, the courage to take the next step was a direct result of her abundant love and compassion.

The best option available for my parents was the default path. This worked remarkably well for them, which is what made leaving it so damn hard. I know how much they sacrificed so that I would have better career opportunities. However, what they really gave me was so much more than the ability to succeed in school and work. It was space to dream, take risks, and be able to explore more possibilities for my life.

Helping people live courageously so that they can thrive is one of the most important things in the world. I want to see people live the lives they are capable of, not just the ones they think they are allowed to live.

Focused on landing good internships or jobs, or getting accepted into graduate schools, his students based their choices on which classes and activities would improve their chances. Many had been playing this game for their entire lives, moving from one elite school to the next, fueled by lofty parental expectations.

Looking back, however, that moment is just one of many throughout my life where writing seems to appear. In high school, I had a ton of fun writing an article about five of my friends and me who drove minivans. I argued that we were victims of our mothers, all of whom had decided to upgrade to cooler crossover SUV vehicles that were emerging. In college, I wrote a satirical essay about my friend Martha and her time as a safety patrol officer in her high school. There was no point to the article other than I thought it would be a ton of fun to write. It was.

I never noticed writing as something important in my life until after I stepped away from my full-time career path. While I wrote more than I had in the past during my first year of self-employment, something was unleashed when I moved to Taiwan in the fall of 2018.

I would make coffee in the morning and wait for the inevitable call to write. This period was absolutely delightful. Through writing, I continued to make sense of my shift from an impressive career towards the pathless path as well as the noticeable gap between this new culture and mine back home.

So I wrote, most days, and for the past three years, writing has become one of the most vital parts of my life. I also tapped into a virtuous cycle: sharing continuing to write and sharing it publicly, it made my life better. Putting writing first helped me realize it was work I liked doing and wanted to keep doing, led to making friends and having meaningful conversations with people from all over the world, and helped cure a residual cynicism that remained from my time in the corporate world. Eventually, it also led to the most meaningful project of my life: writing The Pathless Path.

Sell yourself, and your subject will exert its own appeal. Believe in your own identity and your own opinions. Writing is an act of ego, and you might as well admit it. Use its energy to keep yourself going.

In the four weeks, it took them to respond, however, I realized from reviews that they were not what I was hoping for. They seemed to accept most of the books that were submitted and many people found their sales tactics and later support less than impressive. As my interest was fading, I received an email that I was accepted.

This is when I decided to ask friends for help. I transferred my book from Microsoft Word to Google Docs and asked several people for feedback. The majority of the feedback came from four incredibly generous people:

After this, I worked non-stop for a week or two, editing and rewriting almost eight hours a day. This is also why I think if I were to do this again I would be a lot more intentional about finding professional writing coaching and/or editing help sooner in the process. If you can find people that can identify areas that you can improve that are also aligned with where you see the book going, it is priceless.

I had helped run a 99designs contest for a logo for a company as a consultant a few years back and decided it might be fun to do a contest for my book cover. At a minimum, it would help generate a lot of ideas.

While they were the best of the bunch and some people really liked them, I toiled for a week or so not happy with the outcome of the contest. Eventually, I trusted my gut and decided to consider the contest a failure.

Through talking to people about these ideas, and writing about them in my newsletter I became more confident about them and I started to develop a better understanding of my own personal philosophy on the modern relationship to work.

The process of writing a book is its magnetic force as well. Throughout the year almost everything I consumed seemed to have something relevant to the book. I was constantly taking notes and leaving comments to myself in Apple notes to look at later while writing.

Formatting the text was something I assumed would be easy that was a bit more complicated than I imagined. It turns out that you have almost unlimited options for colors, spacing, formatting, fonts, and so on. Luckily, a friend had recommended Reedsy, which has very limited options (only three fonts). I like to keep things easy so I decided to go with Reedsy. They have a very easy-to-use editor which can turn Word docs into a book-ready form. Here is what their interface looks like:

By a margin of almost 10 to 1, people seemed to love the blocks. Since half my audience was on Twitter, I went with blocks. On Reedsy this meant manually going through the entire book and hitting enter before every paragraph, but I like how it came out. Here is a comparison from my book.

I pre-sold my book on Gumroad. This let me put up a page and allowed people to support me as I shared progress throughout the year. It was also a way to hold myself accountable. The more people that bought it, the more excited I became. When I launched, I had 103 people that had bought the book on Gumroad.

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