The Pathless Path with Paul Millerd

Latest Episodes:

Beyond Average: Co-Creating A Life & Company (Tanya Zhang & Wesley Kang, NimbleMade.com) Apr 10, 2019

Show notes

Wesley Kang and Tanya Zhang are the co-founders of Nimble Made, an e-commerce clothing brand that makes “actually slim” dress shirts.

Before taking the leap to work full-time on their business, they worked in the corporate world in New York City. As first generation Asian-Americans, they had achieved “success” - good jobs, good salary. They were on their way. However, deep down both wanted something a little more. Some of Tanya’s challenges working as a freelance graphic designer on the side convinced them they should try to think a little deeper about building a brand and a business, instead of just helping other people.

As they found themselves thinking about the business all day at their full-time jobs and coming home ready to work on it, they realized they finally had to go all-in. Over the past year they have worked on the business and are starting to find some traction. As they’ve dealt with the challenges of running a business, they have also had to constantly reflect on how to manage a relationship both as committed partners and co-founders.

Check Out Nimble Made (unsponsored):

Interested in their shirts? Check out more at Nimble Made.
For their past reflections check out Wesley's guest post on entrepreneurship and Tanya's post on how her father inspired her to start the company.

Boundless / Reimagine Work:

Support the podcast on Patreon
Subscribe to the free weekly newsletter on our modern conception of work

Lessons from 13 years of entrepreneurship & living nomadically (Chris Kirkland) Apr 03, 2019

Show notes

Chris Kirkland is a bootstrapped entrepreneur who has been living nomadically since 2006 and is the founder of several web businesses including artweb.com and tokyocheapo.com.

We talk about how he has experimented with money, creativity, health and his lifestyle over the past 13 years. His nomadic journey started when he took a trip to Japan and after two days decided "fuck it," I'm going to stay a bit longer.

We talk about his journey, entrepreneurship and his life experiments

Why entrepreneurs are really risk averse
His learnings from living nomadically and stoic exercises of living minimally
Prioritizing time over money as a bootstrapper
How running an online business was different in 2006 and why he "felt like he was cheating"
His experiments with becoming a "breatharian" and trying polyphasic sleep (do not try these at home)
How he thinks about running an online media business in 2019
His recommendations for cheap eats in Tokyo

More about Chris:

Boundless / Reimagine Work:

Support the podcast on Patreon
Subscribe to the free weekly newsletter on our modern conception of work

Creating Art Filled With Magic (Martha Balaile) Mar 27, 2019

Show notes

Martha Balaile is a fantasy illustrator living in Cape Town, South Africa originally from Tanzania. Her mission is to figure out how magic, mythology and fantasy can have an impact on real life. She’s also the wonderful creator of the new cover art for this podcast.

Martha aspired to create “art that is filled with subtle lessons on living a magical and adventurous life.” Two of the lessons she has found:

Go with the flow
Be aware of fear

We explore these a bit and she shares some examples from fantasy that have inspired her. Check out the show!

We talk about:

What drove her to pursue an art career after growing up in Tanzania
What she wishes she learned in art school
What she looked from working with clients
How she switched from magic “standard” art to art she cared about
How she decided to take the leap to freelancing “early” in her career.
How she structures her day around her work

Her Top 3 Magic Podcasts:

Mythology Studios: Work With Martha

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Boundless / Reimagine Work:

Support the podcast on Patreon
Subscribe to the free weekly newsletter on our modern conception of work

Reimagine Work & A Short Update From Paul Mar 20, 2019

Show notes

A quick little update from Taipei.

A couple links from the podcast:

Would love any feedback - e-mail Paul.

From the basketball court to the yoga mat via the corporate world (Gabi Macra) Mar 13, 2019

Show notes

Gabi Macra was a top Canadian basketball player that never really thought about the "life after basketball" before dealing with a major injury towards the end of her college career.

Instead of following any sort of traditional path, she headed East to Japan where she came to teach English. She loved her experience there and now reflects on the immense value of learning how to teach and coach others helped her in the following years.

Instead of heading back to Canada, she headed to London where she had a successful career and journey as an actuary. She was a leader in her company but reached a point where she was dealing with health challenges and finding that her career was no longer giving her the fulfillment that it once was.

She ended up deciding to take some time off and told her boss that she was leaving. However, she ended up staying another 18 months as she helped the team transition with some other internal changes. Just knowing she was leaving enabled her to approach everything completely different and think about how she could best serve her team while also taking care of her own health.

She finally took the leap in 2018 and after several months of sabbatical, including some time in Bali, she realized that becoming a Yoga Therapist was something she was ready to commit to over the next few years. While preparing for that program, she also created a learning internship for herself in London (stealing this from Lydia Lee's podcast episode!) by taking 8 people interested in Yoga and creating a customized program for them. Her only goals: to learn a ton about how she can serve people and learn what to do next.

What we covered:

Her drive and motivation as a basketball player
Her experience living and working in Japan after university
Starting her actuarial career and what she enjoyed about work
Becoming successful but questioning her role as a successful worker as the center of her life
Her decision to take a sabbatical and leave the company (and how she ended up staying for 18 months but doing so with a completely different mindset)
Her recent creative projects, "learning experiments" and decision to start a long-term Yoga therapist training program

Links

Instagram: Gabi Macra and Real People Do Yoga
Website: Real People Do Yoga

For More Boundless:

Consider supporting the podcast on Patreon
Join The Reimagine Work Course Starting March 24th
Join The Boundless Newsletter - Reimagining Work & Life

Learning To Quit & Life Reinvention (Christine Bader) Mar 06, 2019

Show notes

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 essay titled “The year I learned to quit.”

She talks about leaving the corporate world and shifting her focus from building a career to building a life.

Topics Discussed:

Corporate social responsibility
Taking a sabbatical in Bali
Building a life
The greek concept of Kairos
Working in Asia
Working at Amazon

Recommended Reading

Can a business of any size be good?
The Year I Learned To Quit (New York Times)

Building & Investing In Calm Companies (Tyler Tringas) Feb 13, 2019

Show notes

Tyler Tringas is an entrepreneur and traveler. He's started two companies (one worked!) and now is founding Earnest Capital where he wants to help companies avoid going into $50,000 of credit card debt (like he did) to start technology companies. We talk about how this type of investing vehicle can help transcend some of the pressures to "scale at all costs" in ways that may not be suitable for most companies.

Topics

Digital nomads
Starting a company
Bootstrapping
How to sell a company
The four-hour workweek
Calm companies
Flaws with the VC model
Taking leaps
Transitions
Meaningful work while traveling

Related Links:

------------------------------------------------

For More With Boundless:

Paul on success, storytelling, learning & experiments (UX Gorilla Interview) Feb 07, 2019

Show notes

I joined the amazing Jagriti Pande for a fun conversation around a number of different topics. You can subscribe to her master series on UX designers and other creatives here.

Her amazing editing, way-too-kind-intro and fun clip at the beginning were such an amazing gift.

Let me know what you think!

Launching Uncommonly: One Year Later (Chris Donohoe) Jan 30, 2019

Show notes

"I didn't think I'd be turning down work and choosing not to grow"

I spoke with Chris Donohoe one year ago about his just-announced launch of his consulting firm, Uncommonly. He's more committed to carving his own path than ever and we walk through some of the lessons learned, pivots and his long-term strategy. Chris breaks down what he's learned over the past year, how he has started coaching people one-on-one and how he is thinking about structuring his time and day.

Topics Discussed:

Selling time versus projects
Working a max 40-hour workweek
Taking a coaching program
Things he didn't expect 1 year into building his own firm
Working with an amazing co-founder
His reflections on leadership and his goals

Uncommonly: Website

-------

For More With Boundless:

Guest Episode: Joe Dumars x Adam Grant x Cody Royle Jan 23, 2019

Show notes

This episode is a special treat from friends of Boundless, Cody Royle, who came on the podcast last year to talk about what the business world can learn from sports.

I wanted to share a special episode from his podcast that was just launched featuring the NBA great Joe Dumars and workforce research great Adam Grant. I thought the three of them had a special conversation. If you want to subscribe to Where Others Won't do so here: