Are you doing work that matters to you or are you still trying to figure that out? Paul Millerd spends a lot of time thinking about and helping people like you find work that matters to you.
He recently launched, Boundless, a suite of services to help people and organizations navigate their future of work including consulting, coaching and courses. He also has a blog and podcast of the same name.
There are a load of great lessons jam pack in this episode including:
- Instead of asking people “What do you do?” try asking “What energizes you?”
- How to evaluate all of your different skills and how they can be mashed into different ways to find new opportunities.
- How to create your own definition of success and how Paul defines his.
- Redefining risk to think more about the consequences of not doing what you know you need to do.
- Sacrificing money or career opportunities to spend time with family and building relationships.
- And what the gift economy is all about.
Life Skills That Matter In This Episode
- Build community
- Tell your story
- Manage your energy
- Practice self-awareness
How Paul Works and Thinks
- Wake up time: When his body wakes up.
- Superpower: Digging into topics very deeply and synthesize that information for others.
- Definition of success: Being able to focus on his health. his family, and doing work that energizes him.
- Regains focus by: Disconnecting from work to spend more time with family and friends or just generally doing other things.
- Book recommendation: Anything You Want by Derek Sivers, Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, and Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi.
- Favorite productivity tool: Not watching the news.
- 90-day goal: Live a good life by focusing on health and relationships.
- Where he likes to think: Walking out in the world, with good views and no plan.
Inspirational Quotes
“What I’m excited about, right now, is making the working world a better place.”
“You can be curious about anything. There are so many micro-niches available to explore in today’s world.”
“There’s no lack of focus that needs to be solved for because my goal is never to be rich, or powerful, or important.”
“I think the word ‘productive’ is one of the worst words ever created.”
“Being informed is an illusion.”
Coaching Advice
If you’re starting to look into working for yourself and want to dig into how much money you actually need to earn, Paul suggested the following steps:
1) Reflect back to times like college when you may have lived on a lot less money and still enjoyed your life.
2) Create a spreadsheet to list basic needs as a way to quantify a baseline.
Resources + Bonus Materials
Paul’s Future of Work Preparedness Quiz
Article Paul wrote about finding what you want to do
Related Episodes
Super Connector Entrepreneur Paul McNeal
Get Business Ideas From What You Enjoy Says Marielle Chartier Hénault
Connect With Paul