Training
Nine “Schools” of Work: Where Our Modern Work Scripts Come From
If you dig deep enough, everyone has a working story of the “why” behind their work. Our modern stories of why we work come from a long but rather recent history of work beliefs. Some of these are rooted in religion and others are founded on a more secular view of the world. I’ve identified ... Read more
The Future Of The Prestige Economy: Who Gets Status?
There is accepted wisdom within the corporate and professional realms that one should be willing to sacrifice in the short-term for long term career success. This can take the form of many things: Unpaid internships to get experience Going into debt for credentials to get access to certain jobs or industries Opening up your network ... Read more
Revisiting Bertrand Russell’s “In Praise Of Idleness”
“I think that there is far too much work done in the world…” At sixty years old, the British philosopher, mathematician, writer, and eventual Nobel Laureate is reflecting on his life. While he has spent much of his life “ working hard down to the present moment” he has had a change of views. He believes ... Read more
Are You Dreaming Big Enough?
About a year ago, I had booked a trip to Asia for a month. I did this five months ahead of time not knowing what I’d be doing in terms of work or life, but had wanted to visit a friend living in Taipei and attend a friend’s wedding in Malaysia. I also realized that ... Read more
Paul’s Totally Biased Bali Recommendations
Context: I’ve been to Bali twice. One for a week in “vacation” mode and second to live for almost two months. The first time I stayed in Seminyak for 5 days, Uluwatu for 2 days and Ubud for 2 days. Overall Bali is a place that can be both incredibly cheap and insanely expensive. It ... Read more
Recovering from “Lifestyle Creep”: How I cut my cost of living by 75%
In 2016, I decided to see if I could go an entire year without buying any new clothes. I told myself I was trying to trim back on spending, but I was hardly making a dent. While I made it through the year without buying any new clothes, I was already the type of person ... Read more
March 2019 Self-Employed Financial Statement
Every month I detail my financials. For a month-by-month view, you can see the full spreadsheet here. Here is my self-employed life financial statement for March 2019: Income: $963 I started to see a bit more traction with my new side business continuing to sell some consulting template packs on StrategyU and also starting to ... Read more
Are our expectations of work making us miserable?
Earlier this year I talked to two separate people within a week who were working at amazing companies (based on the ‘best companies to work for’ lists) that had attended internal trainings for junior employees. These companies had revamped their training in the past few year to focus more on employee well-being, work-life balance and ... Read more
Work Isn’t Broken: How To Reframe Your Relationship With Work To Improve Your Life
In “Workism Is Making Americans Miserable,” Derek Thompson has correctly identified some of the fundamental problems and symptoms of the modern state of work in America (and increasingly many global cities). However, in this article, Thompson still seems stuck in a systemic view of work and the symptoms of that system. By doing this, he ... Read more
February 2019 Self-Employed Financial Statement
Every month I detail my financials. For a month-by-month view, you can see the full spreadsheet here. Here is my self-employed life financial statement for February 2019: Income: $345 This month I started to see a bit of traction on a number of different digital products, including selling my first two consulting template packs after ... Read more