Bio & Contact Info

Simple

Paul Millerd is an independent writer, freelancer, and digital creator. He is the author of The Pathless Path and Good Work. He has written online for many years and has built a growing audience of curious humans from around the world. He spent several years working in strategy consulting before deciding to walk away and embrace a pathless path. He is fascinated by how our relationship to work is shifting and how more people can live lives where they can thrive

More Formal

Paul Millerd is an independent writer and creator who explores themes of ambition, meaning, and the tension between freedom and security in the modern working world. He is the author of The Pathless Path, a bestselling book translated into multiple languages that dares readers to reimagine success and dream bigger about the possibilities of a life beyond the traditional career track. He also published a second book, Good Work, in 2024 and continues to write and explore his curiosity through his newsletter, podcast, and conversations with fellow curious humans around the world.

Before being self-employed, Paul spent ten years working in strategy consulting, with experience leading organizational change and operations excellence research at McKinsey & Company and Boston Consulting Group, among other firms. Paul has a B.S. in Industrial Engineering and Management from the University of Connecticut and an MBA and M.S. in Systems Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

More Fun

Paul Millerd is a former strategy consultant who gave up a perfectly good career of formatting PowerPoint slides in exchange for a life filled with mini existential crises. He now spends his time writing about not working too hard, recording podcasts with people who also quit their jobs, and convincing strangers on the internet to blow up their lives too. He’s the author of The Pathless Path, a book that somehow sold a ton of copies despite a nonexistent launch effort. Paul was offered $70K from Penguin for The Pathless Path after it started to sell more copies, but turned it down because he was triggered by the corporate buzzwords used in their pitch. Instead, he kept self-publishing, continued pursuing projects that don’t make money, and now runs his own indie publishing lab from random Airbnbs across Asia.

Before choosing the pathless path, Paul worked at firms like McKinsey and BCG, but now prefers long walks, slow mornings, and creative experiments that make absolutely no sense on a resume. He currently lives nomadically with his wife and daughter as they continue their mission to confuse everyone who still asks, “So… what do you do again?”

Headshots & Images

Click the image for full-res file or access them all in this Dropbox folder

Some Fun Facts & Information

• Paul used to order a “hamburger without the brown thing” at McDonalds growing up and somehow didn’t at an actual hamburger until he was 24
• Before quitting his job, he was working in NYC at an executive search firm, helping companies with CEO succession and transition
• Before that, he literally had a job with the title “Knowledge Expert” for the transformation practice at BCG. Despite being one of the most
• Paul quit his job in 2017 without having any income sources lined up
• I moved to Taiwan without a plan at the beginning of 2018. I met my wife a month later, decided to stay in Asia, and we eloped a year later in Taipei. We had a daughter in March 2023.
• I have been writing a newsletter since 2017 and have over 400 back issues archived on my substack.
• While he has made over $300k in royalties from his book The Pathless Path, Paul has made money from many different sources over the years, including freelancing, a consulting skills course, consulting training & workshops, books, sponsorships, affiliate deals, and his community
• I turned down a $200k two-book deal from Portfolio (Penguin) in April 2024
• I openly share all my data on my book sales for The Pathless Path
• Paul has generated over $1M working on his own over eight years. 61% of that comes from his course, Think Like A Strategy Consultant, and training for companies, 22% from book royalties, and 10% from his community, sponsorships, and affiliate deals, and finally, 15% from freelancing (mostly in the first two years).
• Paul and his wife, Angie, have lived in over 50+ apartments for at least a week or more since 2017. This includes locations such as Las Palmas, Tenerife, Barcelona, Taipei, Hualien, Taichung, Chiang Mai, Bali, Oaxaca, Puerto Escondido, Koh Samui, Austin, TX, Connecticut, New York City, and Lisbon.
• While traveling, Paul has been bitten by a dog (Taiwan), gotten a tooth extracted during Covid in Spain, and survived several trips to the emergency room in Mexico while dealing with a parasite
• Paul can communicate in basic Chinese but is currently learning the same words as his toddler daughter, meaning much of his vocab is centered around children’s songs

Notable Press

Podcasts. I’ve been featured on top podcasts like Modern Wisdom, Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal, Lenny’s Podcast, How I Write, The One You Feed, Deviate with Rolf Potts, Abel James Show, Pivot, and more. I’ve compiled a playlist of all these shows here:

Content:

• Mark Manson’s review of The Pathless Path
• Ali Abdaal’s video “This book made me quit my job” (500k+ views)

In terms of additional press, I’ve been covered in:

• “Why The Old Elite Spend So Much Time At Work,” The Atlantic: Mention of my idea of the “boomer blockade” by Derek Thompson)
• “How To Quit Your Corporate Job,” Business Insider, 2024, and “Revenue Streams of Book Author,” Business Insider, 2024

Contact & FAQ

If you’d like to contact me, you can do so at [email protected]. I answer most thoughtful emails, though sometimes after a delay.

How do I pronounce your last name? Millerd with the end being like “herd”

How do I self-publish my own book / sell a lot of books? I’ve written up everything I know here on how to publish a book and a ton here on marketing. I’m not doing calls with people on this unless you pay me a lot of money.

Can I come on your podcast? Probably, especially if you have read my books. Sometimes, I take breaks, though.

Will you blurb my book? Sorry, no. I decided to stop doing that.

Do you do speaking engagements? Yes, I do, please shoot me a message.