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 also shares his perspective on the concept of "Total Work," a phrase first put forth in 1947 by the German Philosopher Josef Pieper, and shares how that phrase became central to his current writing on the topic and conversations he has with business leaders and executives.

We also dive into his dichotomy of the three modes people could think about to make a living:

1. Use what you've got
2. Exchange what's in hand
3. Offer what you can

He reflects on our modern culture's over-reliance on exchanging our time for money while ignoring how we can live off the land and operate within the gift economy. Next, we talk about some of the different modes of living (whether it be a "settler", nomad or somewhere in between) and the implications for the community in society as a whole as well as how has dealt with that with his wife.

Finally, Andrew offers three practical steps people can take to re-engage with life and try to understand what "a life worth living looks like" that does not include the advice to just quit your job.

• Dis-identify with the identity of the worker: Questioning whether you truly only are a worker, a CEO, a marketing manager, an accountant, etc...
• Begin an inquiry into the question "If I am not a worker, then who am I?": What else is worth living for? What practices do I want to have in part of my life? What relationships and conversations nourish me?
• The question whether or not the life you have defined is "sufficient": Are you thinking deeply enough about the question of who you are?

Andrew's Writing & Site:

• Andrew's Newsletter On Total Work
• If Work Dominated Your Every Moment, Would Life Be Worth Living (Aeon)
• Andrew's Writing

Other Writing Mentioned:

• Josef Pieper's Leisure, The Basis Of Culture
• Andre Gorz, Reclaiming Work
• David Graeber, Bullshit Jobs

📘 My 2nd Book Good Work: LIVE! => 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: @p_millerd
• Instagram: @pathlesspaul
• Paul’s Newsletter: Subscribe to Pathless (25k+ People)
• Paul’s YouTube: Subscribe

🙏Further Ways To Support The Podcast:

• Accounting, Taxes, and Payroll for Your S-Corp (Ideal for $60k+ income): Collective
• Looking for alternatives to traditional health insurance in the US? Check out Crowdhealth
• I use Transistor to host this podcast. It rocks. Launch Yours Here
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• I use and love the Readwise reader for notes and highlights: Join Here for a 2 month trial

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 options of "Summer Fridays" and "flexible work," that never seem to make less anxiety or stress-ridden.

In her research, she discovered many examples of Swedish companies embracing 4-day workweeks and also found that when they instituted it, they often helped improve productivity. After bringing the option to her team at The Mix, they decided to do a three-month trial. They didn't even tell their clients.

The funny thing? The clients didn't even notice. Even better, when they shared it with their clients - they weren't offended. They were curious to learn more and impressed that they had prioritized their people. While many quickly reflex to "well that can't work here," Tash and her team went forward anyway and have shown that a 4-day work week can work and it can work in professional services - an industry where many take for granted the fact that you should always be available for your clients.

Beyond improving the lives of the people at the firm, they achieved some incredible results:

• Revenues up 57%
• Absenteeism down 75%
• Productivity stayed the same
• Doubled the number of clients
• Client referrals up 50%

Want to learn how to make this happen at your company? You can download their "4-day week" report which is one of the best reports I've seen on the future of work.

📘 My 2nd Book Good Work: LIVE! => 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: @p_millerd
• Instagram: @pathlesspaul
• Paul’s Newsletter: Subscribe to Pathless (25k+ People)
• Paul’s YouTube: Subscribe

🙏Further Ways To Support The Podcast:

• Accounting, Taxes, and Payroll for Your S-Corp (Ideal for $60k+ income): Collective
• Looking for alternatives to traditional health insurance in the US? Check out Crowdhealth
• I use Transistor to host this podcast. It rocks. Launch Yours Here
• I record high-quality videos using Riverside: Sign Up Here
• I use and love the Readwise reader for notes and highlights: Join Here for a 2 month trial

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 sailing around Central America, which he wrote about in an article titled “What quitting my job to sail around central america taught me about fulfillment.”

In this conversation we talk about:

• Growing up in a small lake community
• His love of sailing growing up
• Why him and his wife change their mind on taking the trip in 2015
• Rethinking convenience and comfort
• What comforts are worth paying for
• Belonging and community
• How his relationship with money has changed
• How him and his wife are structuring their life to work how they want
• The one change that helps people be less addicted to their phones

Links Mentioned:

• Designing Your Life
• Sprint: How To Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas In Just Five Days
• Make Time: How To Focus On What Matters Every Day
• Twitter: @jazer

📘 My 2nd Book Good Work: LIVE! => 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: @p_millerd
• Instagram: @pathlesspaul
• Paul’s Newsletter: Subscribe to Pathless (25k+ People)
• Paul’s YouTube: Subscribe

🙏Further Ways To Support The Podcast:

• Accounting, Taxes, and Payroll for Your S-Corp (Ideal for $60k+ income): Collective
• Looking for alternatives to traditional health insurance in the US? Check out Crowdhealth
• I use Transistor to host this podcast. It rocks. Launch Yours Here
• I record high-quality videos using Riverside: Sign Up Here
• I use and love the Readwise reader for notes and highlights: Join Here for a 2 month trial

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 chat about how the pandemic helped him figure out why that wasn't a good idea and how he's thinking about his solopreneur journey.

The reason I asked him on the podcast is to talk about his recent newsletter on the future of work.  He argues that “Employees will ultimately make the decision” about what work looks like post-pandemic.  I think he is mostly right and we talk about what that might mean for people's lives.

📘 My 2nd Book Good Work: LIVE! => 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: @p_millerd
• Instagram: @pathlesspaul
• Paul’s Newsletter: Subscribe to Pathless (25k+ People)
• Paul’s YouTube: Subscribe

🙏Further Ways To Support The Podcast:

• Accounting, Taxes, and Payroll for Your S-Corp (Ideal for $60k+ income): Collective
• Looking for alternatives to traditional health insurance in the US? Check out Crowdhealth
• I use Transistor to host this podcast. It rocks. Launch Yours Here
• I record high-quality videos using Riverside: Sign Up Here
• I use and love the Readwise reader for notes and highlights: Join Here for a 2 month trial

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 browsing Reddit and he is now the CEO of Castro, the podcast app. Jovian is a magnet for opportunities, which apparently come to him simply because he just assumes that people are nice.

🎥🍿 YOUTUBE: WATCH HERE

Links:

• Castro
• X (Twitter): @jovvvian

⌛TIMESTAMPS

• (00:00) - Podcast intro

📘 My 2nd Book Good Work: LIVE! => 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: @p_millerd
• Instagram: @pathlesspaul
• Paul’s Newsletter: Subscribe to Pathless (25k+ People)
• Paul’s YouTube: Subscribe

🙏Further Ways To Support The Podcast:

• Accounting, Taxes, and Payroll for Your S-Corp (Ideal for $60k+ income): Collective
• Looking for alternatives to traditional health insurance in the US? Check out Crowdhealth
• I use Transistor to host this podcast. It rocks. Launch Yours Here
• I record high-quality videos using Riverside: Sign Up Here
• I use and love the Readwise reader for notes and highlights: Join Here for a 2 month trial

After a month spent in Taiwan and 6 months into parenthood Angie & Paul share their thoughts and take some deep dives into various other topics.

🎥🍿 YOUTUBE: WATCH HERE

⌛TIMESTAMPS

• (00:00) - Podcast intro

📘 My 2nd Book Good Work: LIVE! => 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: @p_millerd
• Instagram: @pathlesspaul
• Paul’s Newsletter: Subscribe to Pathless (25k+ People)
• Paul’s YouTube: Subscribe

🙏Further Ways To Support The Podcast:

• Accounting, Taxes, and Payroll for Your S-Corp (Ideal for $60k+ income): Collective
• Looking for alternatives to traditional health insurance in the US? Check out Crowdhealth
• I use Transistor to host this podcast. It rocks. Launch Yours Here
• I record high-quality videos using Riverside: Sign Up Here
• I use and love the Readwise reader for notes and highlights: Join Here for a 2 month trial

Tom and Paul talk through Tom's challenges at this inflection point in his indie career, a book he's planning on shipping and how to think through indie consultant identity crises

🎥🍿 YOUTUBE: WATCH HERE

Links:

• Tom's Site: https://tomcritchlow.com/
  Strategic Independent: Book Draft

⌛TIMESTAMPS

• (00:00) - Intro

📘 My 2nd Book Good Work: LIVE! => 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: @p_millerd
• Instagram: @pathlesspaul
• Paul’s Newsletter: Subscribe to Pathless (25k+ People)
• Paul’s YouTube: Subscribe

🙏Further Ways To Support The Podcast:

• Accounting, Taxes, and Payroll for Your S-Corp (Ideal for $60k+ income): Collective
• Looking for alternatives to traditional health insurance in the US? Check out Crowdhealth
• I use Transistor to host this podcast. It rocks. Launch Yours Here
• I record high-quality videos using Riverside: Sign Up Here
• I use and love the Readwise reader for notes and highlights: Join Here for a 2 month trial

Erin is a spiritual psychology and meditation teacher, with a background in clinical psychology. She believes in experiencing rather than explaining and because of that she has been drawn to travel to places like India and Israel, which have helped her connect to her roots and to what matters. Erin is passionate about discovering her true self, meditation, snapshot manifestation, and taking aligned action. She is finishing up a new book and is about to have her first child —  a new chapter for which she prepares herself with her partner.  

🎥🍿 YOUTUBE: WATCH HERE

Links:

• The Align Coaching Certification™
• erinracheldoppelt.com
• Instagram: erinrdoppelt
• X (Twitter): @Erinrdoppelt
• Kelly Wilde-Miller
• Michelle Varghese Manifesting Lotion

⌛TIMESTAMPS

• (00:00) - Intro

📘 My 2nd Book Good Work: LIVE! => 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: @p_millerd
• Instagram: @pathlesspaul
• Paul’s Newsletter: Subscribe to Pathless (25k+ People)
• Paul’s YouTube: Subscribe

🙏Further Ways To Support The Podcast:

• Accounting, Taxes, and Payroll for Your S-Corp (Ideal for $60k+ income): Collective
• Looking for alternatives to traditional health insurance in the US? Check out Crowdhealth
• I use Transistor to host this podcast. It rocks. Launch Yours Here
• I record high-quality videos using Riverside: Sign Up Here
• I use and love the Readwise reader for notes and highlights: Join Here for a 2 month trial

Bilal was born in London to a family of Pakistani descent. A curious kid, with an interest in computers, he developed a successful website with over 500 000 readers in his teens. He ended up working at Google in the US. After a while Bilal has left the company to carve his own path. He has founded Creator Lab and discovered a passion for spoken word poetry, which enables him to better connect with his family

🎥🍿 YOUTUBE: WATCH HERE

Links:

• X (Twitter) — @bzaidi
• Creator Lab Website
• Creator Lab Best Episodes
• Not Investment Advice

⌛TIMESTAMPS

📘 My 2nd Book Good Work: LIVE! => 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: @p_millerd
• Instagram: @pathlesspaul
• Paul’s Newsletter: Subscribe to Pathless (25k+ People)
• Paul’s YouTube: Subscribe

🙏Further Ways To Support The Podcast:

• Accounting, Taxes, and Payroll for Your S-Corp (Ideal for $60k+ income): Collective
• Looking for alternatives to traditional health insurance in the US? Check out Crowdhealth
• I use Transistor to host this podcast. It rocks. Launch Yours Here
• I record high-quality videos using Riverside: Sign Up Here
• I use and love the Readwise reader for notes and highlights: Join Here for a 2 month trial

Ben was a professional rugby player with an English literature degree — something not unheard of in the diverse rugby world, but also certainly not usual. After retiring from the sport, he was confronted with the task of redesigning his life. Although it was initially tough, he took the slow approach of focusing on the things he enjoys doing, which proved very beneficial in the long term. Ben has self-published 3 books so far, he is freelancing, running courses and he recently became a rising TikTok creator.

🎥🍿 YOUTUBE: WATCH HERE

Links:

• Twitter — @bcemercer
• Personal page — benmercer.me
• Ben's Newsletter
• Tik Tok — bcemercer
• Instagram — bcemercer

📚 Ben's books:

• Fringes
• Our Race
• Endgame

⌛TIMESTAMPS

• (00:00) - Intro

📘 My 2nd Book Good Work: LIVE! => 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: @p_millerd
• Instagram: @pathlesspaul
• Paul’s Newsletter: Subscribe to Pathless (25k+ People)
• Paul’s YouTube: Subscribe

🙏Further Ways To Support The Podcast:

• Accounting, Taxes, and Payroll for Your S-Corp (Ideal for $60k+ income): Collective
• Looking for alternatives to traditional health insurance in the US? Check out Crowdhealth
• I use Transistor to host this podcast. It rocks. Launch Yours Here
• I record high-quality videos using Riverside: Sign Up Here
• I use and love the Readwise reader for notes and highlights: Join Here for a 2 month trial