If you are struggling to find the pros of working in a high performance position, consider this article from Paul Millerd. Intense hard work within a great culture can be one of the greatest things in the world. It’s also damn hard to find. I’ve experienced three stretches of working in such environments, one of which was my entire two years at McKinsey when I was 23. This experience was the greatest thing for my own skill development but also…

In this interview with Lawrence Yeo, Paul Millerd explores visual storytelling, creativity, and the concept of the practical creator. Being an undeclared major till his senior year of college, Lawrence didn’t really know what he wanted to do. After looking up which jobs make the most money, he decided to declare as an economics major, leading him to explore Investment Banking. While he didn’t end up working in investment banking, he was still pulled by the power of prestige, something…

In this article, Paul Millerd explains why working at McKinsey changed how he thought about organizations, culture, values and the idea of “high performance”. Driving to work that day I was filled with excitement. It was not a feeling I had associated with work in the past.As I drove into the parking garage, I still had that rush of excitement. I found myself walking faster than usual from the parking garage into the office building. As I climbed the stairs…

Paul Millerd shares an article of encouragement and advice for all professionals and creatives who want to take a step into freelance life. 27 months ago, I wrote to you from a small apartment in Barcelona. I remember sitting down to write and looking out to a small but densely packed street alive with energy. I was writing issue #100 and it felt like a good excuse to be a bit bolder. In that issue, I made a call for…

Paul Millerd shares an insightful perspective on how he makes sense of his path without the traditional measures of corporate success. I received the following question from a reader of my internet thoughts and thought it might be worth re-posting my answer here: Question: “I understand navigating our own path, but I think people need to aspire to things to contextualize their journey. People especially love rituals and rites of passage. To this end, have you heard of any ideas…

Paul Millerd takes a look forward to 2025 and writes about what winning organizations will look like. I have studied organizations, people and motivation and am fascinated by the changes that have unfolded in my relatively short career. I’ll defer to Neils Bohr to qualify this entire piece: Prediction is very difficult, especially if it’s about the future — Neils Bohr Since I can’t predict the future, I promise this will contain ideas that are not fully baked. I hope you can…

Paul Millerd shares a thought-provoking article on the current culture that drives a myopic view of life, work, and the all-encompassing career path. Modern work critics blame Frederick Taylor for the hyper-optimization of the modern workplace. The accepted narrative is that Taylor kicked off a movement that looked at work as something that could be optimized and managed and that his efforts kick-started a 100+ year movement of steadily increasing optimization. Sounds good but it’s not true. Today’s hyper-optimized workplace…

Paul Millerd recently self-published a book, and in this article, he shares the process and the practical details that will be useful for anyone considering self-publishing. “#1 There is a big gap between publishing blog posts and “writing a book” I decided to write a book with the mindset of I will throw together some blog posts, edit them, smooth the rough edges and hit publish. I estimated this would take me about three months. I was wrong. Quickly, I…

Paul Millerd shares eleven timeless insights on the value of life and work options. #1 Valuation & Options On The Pathless Path When I listen to my own podcasts, I am often surprised at how I don’t fully remember everything from the conversation. This can be embarrassing until you realize that this happens in many conversations. We remember how we feel during rather than the words being spoken. I recorded an episode about a month ago with a friend, Kris…

Paul Millerd shares an article that identifies the roads freelancers would be advised to avoid. Starting your own business is a secret dream of many and with the emergence of more clear paths to make money online, many knowledge workers are deciding to test the waters of self-employment and entrepreneurship.  In making such a leap many people hope to increase the amount of freedom and fulfilment they have with their work.  However, because of how little we think about the…

Paul Millerd offers a new view on Maslow’s Pyramid and offers a different and more interesting lens on life. ‘The biggest losers, we suggest, have been management students’ This was the takeaway of three researchers who dug into the history of the invention of Maslow’s pyramid. We’ll get to that story but first let’s take a look at what has become one of the most sacred ideas in the management world, Maslow’s pyramid:  The conventional way of thinking about the…

Paul Millerd shares an evergreen post on the challenges and benefits of following a self-employed path. Over the past two and half years I’ve been navigating unknown territory, grappling with the deep philosophical questions of how to live life and wondering how my parents’ generation, the boomers, lived life as if they had a map. For most of my life, I pretended I had a map. It seemed that was what you were supposed to do as an adult. In…