“You can’t study or learn your way into a new identity” – I love this quote from Darren Joe.
He’s been thinking about carving a different path from 2003 to 2004 when he graduated college. This was before Tim Ferriss’ 4-Hour Workweek and before becoming a digital nomad was a thing. I asked him what his inspirations were and he wasn’t quite sure. He just always had a natural drive to be independent and do his own thing.
He recently published a book titled The Fail-Safe Entrepreneur. In it, he argues that almost all solopreneurs strive for three things: Freedom, Adventure, and Meaning. I definitely agree. However, he says many fail to reach these aims because they ignore the shadow side of this path. He details four things – FAIL: Failure, anxiety, instability, loneliness.
We explore many things in this conversation including:
- Grappling with the achiever identity
- Longing for independence and freedom
- Parental approval
- Building Community
- Experiments
- Defining success
You can buy his book the Fail Safe Solopreneur on Amazon
33k+ Sold! (Top 1% Book) The Pathless Path is Paul's book about walking away from a "perfect" job with a promising future and starting over again. Through painstaking experiments, living in different countries, and a deep dive into the history of our work beliefs, Paul pieces together a set of ideas and principles that guide him from unfulfilled and burned out to what he calls "the pathless path" - a new story for thinking about work in our lives. Learn More & Buy The Book Here