Another big miss in the book is that it (like many of its siblings) lacks a broader reflection of the societal shifts and the contingency of those praised as role models. From what I know he publishes a podcast with many stories like him, so he should have enough examples of people that are not career-coaches. people in the broader working-online/freelance industry that are do something that doesn't point back at itself. There is something in this that feels unsustainable, and it would have been a better book for Millerd to focus less on his own life and more on alternative "pathless paths" of developers, artists. Millerd's work is publishing a newsletter, interviewing other motivational speakers, coaches, and creators, and giving career advice. Millerd's story - like many of its siblings - feels weirdly cyclical by advertising a life style that centers on advertising the lifestyle. (A quite dated four-hour-work-weed trope, not suprising as Tim Feriss himself is heavily featured in the book.) Millerd addresses this briefly, mentioning the importance of finding allies and partners, but these ideas still feel more like an afterthought, overshadowed by chlichees à la "working with your laptop sitting at a beach in Bali". First, a main problem of this kind of books is that they focus heavily on the indivdual, often forming a narrative that one alone can overcome one's problem through sheer willpower and courage and that "the solution" lies in total independence. What is more, I think there are some important questions Millerd is missing, important to both him and especially readers who might feel inclined to follow his example. Yet, I think I am not the right person to read this book, being on the path myself for a while. ![]() I think many of his messages of independence and freedom are important and mativational acounts like this might help many people to face the state of uncertainty and overcome it (to quote Millerd) with "wonder". ![]() Even the metaphor resonated, as I often described my experience as hacking my way through the jungle away from the main road. I think these experiences are important, and I personally read this book as someone who treis to find his own path for years, looking for similar experiences. This makes the book mostly a personal testimony, all packed into a broader hero's journey narrative/ of finding himself. He decided to quit his job to becoming a motivational speaker/author/content creator. First working for big corporates (GE, McKinsey), he felt misplaced in the hamster wheel despite a big income, and even struggled with health issues. To make these points, Millerd draws heavily on his own experiences. Millerd argues that these ideas are oversimplified, that they don't do justice to our own values, and that we have to take ownership of making our own decisions about what we value in life, independently from what we assume we ought to do and what we think others expect from us. "The pathless path" is a clever metaphor for the idea that there are certain implicit ideas in society about how our lifes are supposed to go - especially with regard to what success looks like.
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