9/14/2023 0 Comments Tao the pathless path![]() The First Steps: Learning how to prototype a life shift, opening up to possibility and wonder, finding the others, taming my fears and deepest insecuritiesĮmbracing a different kind of journey, one focused on coming alive, embracing uncertainty, experimenting, and being open to possibilityħ. Breaking Free: Quitting my job and taking the dealing with the loss of an important identityĦ. ![]() Awakening: The start of a slow but steady drift towards a breaking point while I discover an inner creative and experimental energy that needs to be expressedĥ. Work, Work, Work: An exploration into the history of work and trying to make sense of our current relationship to work around the world and some of the fundamental flawsĤ. Getting Ahead: My journey of learning how to become a "hoop-jumper," breaking into strategy consulting, going to business school, and then how dealing with the loss of my health and someone important changes what I valueģ. Introduction: An exploration of the default path of success, what the pathless path really is about, and why it mattersĢ. Overview of the Book Part 1: The Default PathĮxploring the history of work through my own aggressive pursuit of a prestigious and impressive careerġ. People who have things they wish to express in the world that don't quite fit neatly in a job-focused package.People who want to dream bigger about different ways of living their life.People who feel that their relationship with work is "off" and can't put their finger on why.People who are curious about the future of work and what it means for careers and our lives.Solopreneurs and creators who are grappling with the strange tension of being an illegible person in a reality designed around work.People who enjoy the writing on my newsletter or blog.Those people keep telling me "please keep going." Over the last five years, I've met hundreds of people in-person and online who have resonated with what I've written and it's changed my life. Making friends can be difficult in big cities but this seemed like a secret weapon. What would my colleagues say? Would my boss tell me I shouldn't be sharing my opinions in public?Įventually, my writing attracted people curious about the same things. It was terrifying to hit that publish button. In 2015 I challenged a friend to post an article publicly on LinkedIn. This book is a culmination of those reflections. During this time I discovered the idea of the "pathless path" which helped me to navigate the uncertainty and weirdness of following a path of self-employment. In 2017 I built up the courage to leave my job and have been trying to experiment with different ways of working and living life. After a health crisis at the age of 27, I started to realize that I didn't have any sort of identity beyond achievement-driven worker. It seemed as if work was the most important thing in everyone's life and for a while, I played along. Yet the whole time everything seemed off. I spent almost ten years in the industry including a short break for an MBA and generally liked the work. In college I became captivated by the prestigious world of strategy consulting and spent more than two years trying to break in, not knowing the codes or norms of this weird, elite world. I grew up in a small town in rural Connecticut surrounded by a big family. Surprisingly, I start to find some simple but powerful answers from history, philosophy, and my own experience, ones that offer a dramatically different story about our modern relationship to work. Over the next few years, I attempt to answer these questions and to do so, I find myself drawn to living abroad, experimenting with non-work, unleashing my curiosity, and grappling with my insecurities and fears. What happens when you don't orient your life around work?.How do you handle not knowing what the future looks like?.Who was I if I didn't have a clearly legible title or path in life?.I started contemplating hard questions, the ones I had kept safely buried beneath the surface. A few months into the journey, I felt pulled by a deep feeling that I needed to experiment much more with my life. I had quit my job with the idea that I would become a freelance consultant, working a bit less and having a little more flexibility. The surprising answer? There was., but it meant rejecting much of what I thought was true growing up and also what most of the people around me believed. This is the question that sent me on a five year journey to figure out if there was a better way to build a relationship to work. ![]() ![]() How did work become the center of our lives? ![]()
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