WSO Podcast | E63: Mckinsey to BCG to Freelance Lifestyle Design - Paul Millerd's Story
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In this episode, Paul Millerd explains how he went from a non-target school to a research associate position at McKinsey. Listen how he managed to break in even after getting officially rejected and how he ended up at BCG after getting his MBA at MIT. We learn how he has now left the formal strategy consulting positions behind and started a new life where work isn't the number one priority.
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WSO Podcast (Episode 63) Transcript:
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:02] Ho. Hello and welcome, I'm Patrick Curtis, your host and chief monkey, and this is the Wall Street Oasis podcast. Join me! As I talked to some of the community's most successful and inspirational members to gain valuable insight into different career paths and life in general. Let's get to it. In this episode, Paul Millard explains how he went from a non-target school to a research associate position at McKinsey. Listen, how he managed to break in even after getting officially rejected and how he ended up at BCG after getting his MBA at MIT. Learn also how he has now left the formal strategy consulting positions behind and started a new life where work isn't the number one priority. Enjoy. Paul Millard, thank you so much for joining the Wall Street Voices podcast.
Paul Millerd: [00:01:03] Thank you, Patrick.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:05] You'd be great if you could give the listeners just a short summary of your of your background.
Paul Millerd: [00:01:10] Sure. So I think the interesting part of the story starts where I first log on to Wall Street Oasis and this is the summer of my junior year of college, which was 2006. And I think perhaps a lot of people listening now don't really understand how long ago that was in terms of how little technology or information we had about kind of investment banks or consulting firms at the time. But I was basically grasping for straws and Wall Street Oasis. I think it was still name that at the time, right?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:49] A bit. At 06, it might have been a banking oasis. Yeah. Way back in the day,
Paul Millerd: [00:01:55] If it was 06, it was. But I was very much at the like, Oh my gosh, all these prestigious firms I was, I wanted to work for one of them. I think consulting was something that really intrigued me, and there were a couple of forums on consulting and I basically started compiling information from all the firms, all the banks, all the kind of interesting job opportunities I wanted to work in something that was not just like big corporate. So that's kind of where my journey starts. Mm hmm. And just trying to access any resources I could. I'll boil it down and you can dig in wherever you want. Sure. But essentially got rejected from every firm in the country, consulting firm and banking firm coming out of college, I was graduating from University of Connecticut and they just didn't recruit at places. I found some alums to get some interviews, but ultimately ended up getting rejected from over. A hundred firms went to work for G.E. in the PHP program in finance, even though I had done industrial engineering in undergrad and I did a little management. Hmm. And then from there, about six months in, once I hit like that calendar year and I was able to take it on the resume to say, like 2007 2008, I started applying for jobs again and was just finding pretty much whatever I could. Part of my goal is to escape the corporate world that was working in Cincinnati at the time and then Jacksonville, Florida, and I didn't really want to do a rotational program. So I was kind of searching online and I found a McKinsey job for a research analyst doing manufacturing research, basically lean manufacturing and supply chain stuff on Monster.com. And long story short, I ended up applying and landing that job. And that really kind of changed the trajectory of the next 10 years of my life, which was pretty much centered around strategy consulting.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:07] Interesting. So you're basically coming from what people on so would call a non target, but you're graduating in 07. I'm surprised. Had there were there cracks already kind of in the economy by the time you graduated, I assume maybe a little bit surprised you were having trouble getting a job in 07. It's sort of
Paul Millerd: [00:04:26] It's pretty funny. I think there was a lag. There are two things. One, I was at GE and I think in the second, like right after I joined GE, they had missed some notable target, which if you look back, it's very clear what was starting to happen. But they had missed some target and they had to miss the target in a crazy amount of quarters.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:51] But this was this was during an internship. You mean like your junior summer or
Paul Millerd: [00:04:55] Like, No, this is during my full time job.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:57] So this was what I'm saying, all I'm saying going
Paul Millerd: [00:04:59] Back to 2007. Yeah. What about then? But what about through 2008?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:04] What about undergrad, though? Like so you before you even started full time where you basically doing internships between your junior and summer or junior and senior year? And specifically, you said you applied to all these prestigious firms and couldn't get into anywhere in the unit of taking a job at GE? Tell me about that application process. Like why do you think? What do you think was you're looking back now that you have all the knowledge you have? Was there a specific reason you think it didn't work out?
Paul Millerd: [00:05:33] Yeah. Very clear. So I had done two internships at Pratt and Whitney United Technologies in Connecticut, and then I did one at GE, and that was how I was able to land the job at GE, right? But applying the consulting once I was on the other side, I felt like a fool. Looking back because you realize I think my first week of training at McKinsey, I met this guy that became a good friend and he went to. Stanford and he tells me, well, freshman year, I thought I wanted to break into consulting. So I started doing like 25 to 50 practice case interviews a year and he said he like, lined up all these things. I was like, Oh wow, I really had no shot. Junior year when I was just kind of tossing apps in from the ether. Nobody I knew anything about kids interviews, so I was doing them in the mirror with myself. Not super, not super useful for feedback. And then just getting into McKinsey with the research position I found was not as demanding for the case interviews and also just kind of lucked out with a perfect string of like did well on four or five straight case interviews and kind of lucked out
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:55] When you ended up finally getting into McKinsey. Yeah. So tell me a little bit about that specific role. How should people think about that division within McKinsey, within McKinsey? And is it a large division? Is it an opportunity where people could get into a very obviously one of the strongest brands in the world? It's an opportunity for other people, their or their other similar divisions like that?
Paul Millerd: [00:07:19] Yeah. So I think in the last ten years, these firms have dramatically scaled right. I think since I've been there since I was at McKinsey in 08 and also at BCG, which I worked at later. They've been growing at 10 percent plus per year. It's kind of crazy given the what other companies are doing during this time, right, but they've grown exponentially and there's enormous numbers of opportunities, especially in the departments I was in, which was the knowledge network. And I still think these are incredible opportunities and a lot easier than when I was trying to break in because it's just a lot bigger. But I still got all the same training. I was dedicated to the operations practice. I was working with the consultant. You still have it, you still have. The past hours are actually better
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:14] And you still had to pass the case interviews. It wasn't as if you it was for some division that was, you know, didn't require that correct.
Paul Millerd: [00:08:22] Right. So tell me a little looser. They were a little focused, a little different at the time, but now I think the process is pretty similar to consult in recruiting.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:08:32] So tell me a little bit about how you prepped for that and why you think you did well. You said you had a kind of a string of luck in terms of how well you did. I don't really buy that, but tell me how you actually prepped for this. I know it sounds like you got the actual interview just through a resume drop. Is that correct? Through one of these online portals, monster or whatever.
Paul Millerd: [00:08:53] Yeah, so at the time, the knowledge network recruiting was still locally done through the Waltham office at McKinsey, and they had a recruiter that flagged my profile because somebody was leaving the manufacturing research role. And this person was also screening resumes while doing research on Six Sigma program, which I was leading a project doing Six Sigma stuff while I was at GE. So I honestly think it's kind of like the stars aligned there. But I also had a very unique background which put me in an interesting position to get that job because I had industrial engineering. There just weren't engineers applying for research positions at McKinsey, and I had manufacturing experience in undergrad and was now working in finance. So I had this weird mix of skills that really put me in a good position for that, more so than me being, like, incredible in the case interviews. And so do you feel like so? I think I had, yeah, I had a lot to offer. I had more experience than the other people they were hiring, which were right out of college. And yeah, I think it was just a good time because they weren't doing these large scale recruiting efforts.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:12] That's fair. And did you feel like you were? Did you feel like you had targeted McKinsey specifically or were you just blank at applying to like everywhere? I monster seeing what you could come up with?
Paul Millerd: [00:10:25] Well, that's the funny thing. I talk to students now and they'll tell me, Well, I'll only work at BCG, McKinsey or Bain. And for me, like I would have worked, I worked. I would have worked at like Johnson and Douglas Consulting Inc. But I was getting rejected from them, too. So I think it was just the perfect alignment of like the job timing and my background. Sure. But yeah, I would have worked at any firm because I was getting rejected from all the firms again.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:01] Yeah. And at that point, it was just the it was very clear that we were in a recession correct at that stage.
Paul Millerd: [00:11:08] It was still a little early. They're still okay. So I changed jobs to McKinsey in June of 2008, and I basically saw the economy melt down from I remember like the day to day cafeteria and just like walking in and seeing the newspaper headlines every morning right from McKinsey. And then we froze hiring, and then they actually ended up laying off some people. I didn't get cut, but probably wasn't making enough. But yeah,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:11:40] What were you making like? I'm guessing.
Paul Millerd: [00:11:43] And different? Yeah. So I went from I went from GE, where I was making 56 at the like. I think they had bumped salaries up. And I think I went to 50 grand at McKinsey for the research position and they were very concerned. I wasn't going to take the job with a pay cut, but I probably would have taken the job at 20 grand a year or two.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:12:14] And explain why explain why to the audience? Why would you why were you willing to take such a big pay cut?
Paul Millerd: [00:12:20] I mean, I think looking back, it's validated too. It's just it's a learning organization. There aren't many learning organizations where the incentives are aligned around internal business model, the way you operate and the way you do work, the speed of the work and the quality of coaching. And on top of that, just incredible actual like weeklong trainings facilitated by internal experts and people that really care about the development of others. It's they're pretty magical places. I think they might even still be a little underrated for their learning powers. I think. If you had my experience, it's almost like a dream job, like I was still working much less than front line traveling consultants because I was just going to an office every day and working a pretty thick shift. So it's a pretty amazing time, and I don't know if you could replicate that now.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:22] Tell me what the day to day was like for this type of role. So it's like a research role. You're basically trying
Paul Millerd: [00:13:27] To. Yeah. So what does that mean if you haven't worked at a consulting firm? That probably doesn't make much sense, but essentially you're dedicated to a topic. You're either a functional topic focus, so you could be something like operations or marketing or a pricing knowledge expert where you focus on pricing for certain industries and kind of tools and methodologies, or you can be industry focused. So you could be like a health care expert for the U.S.. Got it. And essentially, what you're doing is interfacing with the front line client teams who are staffed on site and they'll submit research requests to like the manufacturing person. So I was getting requests from all around the world and saying, like, what's the latest thinking on topic X? Those are kind of the simplest ones and then the most advanced ones are when you're on the phone with the team. And after you've been there almost six months to a year, you've done a hundred things in one area and suddenly you're working with the team on the ground or not on the ground, but remotely and kind of being like an ad hoc consultant who can like lead analysis or help the team structure a framing of the problem or different things like that.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:50] So that as much as like actually you're actually going in, you're actually going into like they're trying to help them form their thesis, trying to help them form whatever industry analysis slides, whatever they whatever they're kind of attacking for, for a specific client.
Paul Millerd: [00:15:06] Is that correct? Right. So yeah, it was an interesting role to be doing that so early in my career because I probably talked with several hundred teams doing like lean manufacturing work around the globe, which means after 25 to 30 of these conversations or many engagements with teams, I was suddenly having conversations with EMS and junior partners and even partners kind of talking through like, here's how this team over here is approaching it. Have you thought about this? And I developed this skill earlier than you would if you were just a consultant of learning how to thought partner structure and kind of hypothesize and approach a consulting engagement, which is pretty cool.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:54] Do you think that so you know, is this there's this type of role, something you could stay in for a while and build a career out of? Is it something where you saw, was there somebody like your boss or someone that you could you saw yourself being able to emulate? Or was it something where, Hey, I'm going to be here for two to five years and go to business school or kind of take a different pivot? What's the what's the you know, what, what everyone calls it, exit ops? What are the exit ops of this specific role?
Paul Millerd: [00:16:21] Yeah. So I think it's changed a bit now. I think these roles are probably more of a hybrid between research and consulting. So you could really do whatever you wanted, like you would get hit Up work by recruiters from all sorts of companies that recruit consultants. You have to be a little craftier because they kind of don't target directly the research associates as much as they do the bas for associates. But having worked at a firm like that, you still have a lot of options. A lot of people want to hire somebody that worked at McKinsey, no matter what you did inside the firm. Right? So, yeah, a lot of people would go back to business school or grad school after two to five years. Some people switch to the consulting track. Some people became like team leaders where they do a lot of like scoping and leading practice initiatives with practice leaders from the consulting side. Okay. Yeah, really range a lot.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:17:27] But so did you see yourself? What kind of at what point did you kind of look up and say, Hey, I should start applying somewhere else? Or what were what was the thought process behind that?
Paul Millerd: [00:17:38] So I really liked what I was doing there. I ended up getting a manager who did this grad program at MIT, which I had also been curious about was the Combined Systems Engineering and MBA program. So we decided in my second year that I would apply to that. And then if I. It didn't get in there, I would basically just stay at McKinsey. Ok, if I didn't get in, they wanted me to switch to the consulting track. So I don't know what it would have happened if that had happened, but I ended up getting in and going to business school after two years.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:17] Ok, and so what was the thought process when you were talking about that with your, I guess, kind of your internal mentor? Was it? Hey, this is a really interesting degree. What? Why? It sounds like you had a good thing going. You were doing interesting work. You were getting a lot of exposure to senior management or, you know, to to partners and junior partners. And the work was interesting. Why change?
Paul Millerd: [00:18:41] Yeah, a few things looking back, I think one, I was still a bit young and I was getting a little. Frustrated, I think I didn't really know how to take ownership and lead initiatives and kind of carve my own path as much as I could much more easily do now or later in my career. So I think there is little impatience and kind of looking for that next step and not really knowing what to do, except kind of keep doing what I was doing just slightly better. So I've always been somebody that kind of just likes going on new learning adventures. This has ended up in me being self-employed, which is probably where I was inevitably going to be. But it wasn't as clear to me then to learn, and there was also forced Stiller and everything it prove myself. I think,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:34] Yeah, you're forced to unlearn everything if you work for yourself, right?
Paul Millerd: [00:19:39] It's such a degree of learning that I totally didn't expect. So many people will say to me, like, you can do what you did because you work 10 years in consulting and I think maybe a year or two of the consulting help, but I've really had to learn so much from scratch. I mean, I'm sure, you know, building your own thing for a while now.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:00] Yeah, it's uh, it's you know, you got to become dangerous enough in a lot of different things to be able to survive. It's interesting. So you're OK, so you're at McKinsey. You get into this MBA program, you're at MIT. It's a it's a combined engineering systems and strategy and ops MBA. And what do they call that degree in the systems degree?
Paul Millerd: [00:20:26] Yeah. So that's called the Leaders for Global Operations program at MIT.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:30] Cool. Ok, so you do that dual degree program in two years and tell me where you recruiting right out of school? What was the thought process of, OK, now I'm going to go? You were thinking, Hey, I'm going to go become a front line consultant. Was that the thought? Uh, they're going in. I'm going to go be the research associate, I'm going to be the actual business development associate business associate.
Paul Millerd: [00:20:54] Yeah, I think early in my career, looking back, I don't think I really knew what I was doing other than kind of chasing prestige or the next shiny object. I think Paul Graham has a great essay about it called Prestige, a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. And I think if I'm being truly honest, that really is something that was probably overpower me the first five to seven years of my career. I think I got lucky getting into McKinsey and then MIT and never really paused to kind of reflect with like, what the heck am I actually doing with my career? What's the goal here? I think downside to an MBA sometimes is that it almost muddies the water. You go from thinking, you know what you're going to do to suddenly being exposed to 50 more cool ideas of jobs and professions and industries. So I kind of went in thinking, maybe I'd go into health care, do ops and lean manufacturing there. But I think after an intern or a small project I did, I realized that if I worked in health care, I would be personally filled with anxiety and stress all the time because change is so hard in that industry.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:14] Yeah, it's hard to actually push anything through.
Paul Millerd: [00:22:18] Yeah, at least working in like a hospital, which is what I was looking at. So I basically decided to go back into consulting, but I decided this about a month or two before I started recruiting again my second year.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:33] Ok, so did you. You had taken an internship over that first summer during your MBA and then basically that your second year you're still thinking to yourself, Amanda, OK, forget the health care thing and all your other. You know, classmates basically have a pretty full time often lined up, how do you end up actually breaking getting into BCG?
Paul Millerd: [00:22:57] Yeah, so it seems it seems like a tough, tough task. Where the story remains entertaining. Ok. I so I did a six month internship. We do these fellowships and theses with partner companies as part of the degree program I did at MIT. So I was working at Raytheon and I worked in a front line manufacturing role. I also realized that didn't want to go back into manufacturing either, because that was also very personally stressful. But I decided I would just apply to all the consulting firms again. Now I went to business school without sponsorship for McKinsey, and I also didn't really talk to anyone from McKinsey while I was at business school. So I applied to McKinsey again in this weird position as somebody that didn't get sponsorship but decided last minute to go back into it. I think I was a little scared to reach out and talk to people and tell people I was applying. This shows you how kind of young I was, but I applied to McKinsey, Bain, BCG and basically McKinsey decided I didn't really have a story for why I want to come back, so I got rejected from McKinsey again. So I got rejected from McKinsey before and after I worked there. I got rejected from BCG and Bain because they were like, I'm sure they were thinking, Why is this person applying here? If he worked at McKinsey before, why wouldn't you just go back there? Yeah. So I didn't have a good story, and I ended up applying to the small firm, which I actually was way more excited about anyway, called a Kinect, and they were staffing independent consultants on client projects. They're kind of equivalents or business talent group. Ian McCallum. There's a bunch of firms like it. Basically Hourly Nerd or Catalin does the same thing now. Ok? And that was a hybrid role of doing a little talent, recruiting of the independent professionals and also working on consulting projects. So I went and worked there for a year and a half before I ended up going to BCG.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:25:13] So tell me exactly like why that firm? What interested you about that? So you said, I mean, you were basically in your second year, you didn't have a full time offer or you had a full time offer, but it was in a health care or whatever that internship didn't work out. All your classmates are kind of headed towards La McKinsey, the BCG, the Bane's, the investment banks and you're going to this company, which I haven't heard of a connect. Is this is this a well-known company? What's the what was the thought process of just, hey, I'm going to try this out? Did it seem more entrepreneurial?
Paul Millerd: [00:25:47] So it was founded. Yeah, it was a mix of all those things, so it was founded by ex McKenzie, directors from Switzerland and then a U.S. branch. So I think it was a good match because it was combining a few different threads. One was I had the McKinsey experience to was it was in engage in what hadn't been called the future of work yet. But some people were talking about freelancing and kind of self-employment. That was exciting to me. Mm hmm. And it was also just an opportunity to work for a small firm. So the U.S. team had 10 people and I went to the information session. They came to MIT and I was, I think, one of two people and I was the only person that came that was prepared. So the head of the U.S. office was there and three other people. So I basically just talked to them about talent and the future of work for an hour, which became a lot of what I was really interested in and excited about over the next few years. And that led to a job offer, which is pretty cool.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:00] Very awesome. So you're saying people just weren't interested in so you kind of just you basically just like
Paul Millerd: [00:27:07] It also struck out of all the other consulting firms at this point. That's where I was kind of feeling a bit embarrassed. But I'm I think if I had gotten an offer of like McKinsey, Bain, BCG, all these other firms or corporate strategy positions and they connect, I think I still would have taken a connect.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:26] Ok, so you're you go there and you're there for a couple of years. So tell me what was what was that like? And then specifically, what kind of open up the door back to BCG?
Paul Millerd: [00:27:39] Sure. So that that was a cool experience. A few takeaways. Where were you, by the way?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:47] One. Were you still in Boston?
Paul Millerd: [00:27:49] I was in Boston. Yeah, OK. I worked in a couple client projects, but also its focus a lot on the talent side. So building out the pool of independent consultants. And I got to meet a ton of like X strategy consultants who were working in a self-employed manner. And this really piqued my curiosity for why I eventually became self-employed. But these people worked on their own schedule, had more flexibility and were generally very engaged and alive in life, which was something I was not seeing in senior people, in consulting firms. So that really excited me. It's like our mentor. So we're there.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:32] What's that? It's like our mentor program. We have a lot of people kind of either in between going, getting, you know, going to business school or they they've done the consulting route already and they're kind of on their own thing, doing their own, doing their own thing and kind of using the mentor program as like a side supplement income, which is interesting. But yeah, go ahead. It's I got to look up this a connect firm. I'm curious now it sounds like almost a little bit like graphite as well. Have you heard of graphite or what used to be spare higher?
Paul Millerd: [00:29:03] I mean, yeah, yeah, so I've also written pretty extensively about these things, if you search consulting talent platforms. I think I have the number one and two Google search results. So if anyone's super curious about that, you can just read through one of those articles. But happy to share more with you later.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:25] Yeah, for sure. So sorry, go ahead. So you were there for a couple of years and then basically tell me how that was going.
Paul Millerd: [00:29:35] Yeah, so the head of the U.S. left to start a competitor right before I joined and then two thousand twelve when I graduated, there was like a downturn in the economy and the guy that they replaced him, they ended up firing him because the returns weren't as good as they expected. And then there's a third guy who's not my favorite human on Earth. So essentially it was just kind of flailing around but doing some pretty cool stuff and then got recruited by a recruiter at BCG that was looking for somebody that had worked at McKinsey in the Knowledge Network to help them with this organizational transformation practice they were starting to build.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:30:22] Interesting. So tell me about that practice specifically. And then it seems like after a year at BCG, that's when kind of things started kind of being a little bit more entrepreneurial for you. So I'd love to hear a little bit more about that as well.
Paul Millerd: [00:30:39] Yeah, definitely. So you my time it you connect to there's a big life shift that happened for me. I went through a pretty brutal health crisis, OK? Dealing with Lyme disease and some other just health ailments that was undiagnosed for a while and then just pretty brutal treatment and recovery put me out for basically a year and a half. It was working remotely. Flexibly, like my employer was fantastic at the time, but I think coming back from that, I was really filled with much more kind of focus around like, what the heck am I doing with my job? Why am I just going after all these brands? What really matters? What do I want to share with the world? So when I was joining BCG, a lot of these things were starting to kind of unlock for me. It's getting a lot more confidence about what I was energized by. I was stepping up more to get involved more at BCG and the things I was excited by as connecting with people outside of work, basically around future of work stuff, organizational change, more talent stuff. So that was a pretty exciting time for me. And then BCG also being there, having worked at a place like McKinsey and then also having more work experience and age, I was able to really step up and work closely with a few partners during their faculty to lead trainings and workshops and get involved in a lot of cool projects while I was there.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:19] It sounds awesome. So why would you leave a great platform like that? Tell me what was kind of going through your head while you were there?
Paul Millerd: [00:32:26] I don't know. I think so. So I have my own podcast called Reimagine Work, and I interview a lot of entrepreneurs, freelancers, self-employed people. And a comforting thing I've found, perhaps, is that a lot of people who are self-employed always will leave jobs after like a year and a half or two years. And I think one thing I know now is that I love learning and I love the challenge, and I also just love creating my own things. And I think for better, for worse matter, the job you spend six to nine months in many full time jobs, learning at a breakneck pace and then the learning remains, but it morphs into a different kind of learning. It is kind of learning how to be a good citizen of a firm, learning the political ropes, learning like, here's how somebody here succeeds that kind of stuff that just totally drains me, right? And I basically wanted to push myself even further on the consulting side. So this was still a knowledge and research role. Yeah, and I wanted to get like a little more consulting chops because at this time, I was kind of thinking I would tend toward a self-employment path at some point. I was thinking probably much further down the road, the road, but it ended up being after the next job I did, which is where I did learn a ton of front line consulting.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:00] And so tell me about that.
Paul Millerd: [00:34:02] Yeah, so I was recruited again. This was for a CEO and board advisory group at Russell Reynolds, and they're an executive search firm, and they basically have these relationships of boards and CEOs, and they're trying to figure out what are the products or services we can develop for this space. So I came and was able to bring a lot of like process discipline around. How do you deliver? How do you create deliverables? Research run a consulting process because executive search firms are very transactional. It's get a job spec, find candidates and then deliver the candidate. They're not used to this like bottoms up, top down structuring and research process, right? So I was able to really step up and lead that and do it with clients that are pretty incredible. So as working with boards, Fortune 500 companies, global companies, CEOs, I was doing CEO, Succession Projects, CEO transition projects and was able to interact very closely with some pretty senior people in a way that gave me a ton of confidence. I was also training and teaching other people inside the firm like how to do consulting, problem solving and helping build the team as well.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:35:29] Did you feel like again here, you know, it's not. You're there for a few years still. So it sounds like you're at each jump you're making, you're there from like one. Two years, right, and so, like you said, you're kind of the you're learning a ton in the first six to nine months. Was it the same here? We're like, OK, maybe it was closer to a year where you're doing all this new kind of interesting work. Did you feel like it was flattening out again for you by the, you know, by the end? Or do you feel like it was just something else was pulling at you?
Paul Millerd: [00:35:59] Yeah, so this was this is probably the most challenging role I had, but after a year and a half, I think I was starting to reach a. Inflection point in my life and career. Essentially, it's keep doing what I'm doing right, and I was really good at it. By then there was a really good consultant. I could teach others I could execute on projects and do it pretty well. And like in a firm like that, I wasn't working crazy hours. So it was pretty good life,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:36:33] Like making decent money by that. Had the page gone up since your post?
Paul Millerd: [00:36:38] Yeah, so the pay was like very post MBA. I wasn't making crazy money, but probably like what a first or second year associate is making now at a firm like McKinsey or BCG,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:36:49] Like a one 50 ish or so or
Paul Millerd: [00:36:51] 120? Yeah, exactly.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:36:53] Ok, so you're there, you're still kind of. I'll let you tell it, go ahead.
Paul Millerd: [00:37:01] Yes. Yeah, so essentially, the choices are to get promoted. Yeah. And that essentially means you have less control over your over your life because if there's a client meeting that you need to go to in person like that is out of your control because you're in a position to try and move up in the firm and you have to go see the clients. That's kind of a that everyone reaches that point at some time in a consulting firm where your schedule no longer becomes your schedule and you have to enter this like three to five year grind of pretty much serving anyone that wants you to serve them anywhere. You have to fly in the world. And I don't think that was for me. There was some other stuff going on in the firm. I was a little frustrated at. It was it was hard being at an executive search firm that operates at a much slower speed than a consulting firm does. I at that point I had an offer for another firm called L'Wren, which was doing consulting around like, how do you create a future of work organization? And they basically low balled me about 50 grand under what I was making. Yeah. And I had a great conversation with a guy there who has now become a mentor and a friend, but kind of brainstorming during that conversation and was saying to myself, Well, if I'm going to take a pay cut, why not just try to work on my own as a freelancer and work way less instead of taking a pay cut and working the same amount of weeks? So that was kind of the first
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:53] The light bulb moment.
Paul Millerd: [00:38:55] Yeah, this is kind of the it started to appear in my brain is like an idea. And then there's a couple of situations which led to a good breaking point for me deciding to walk away. And it was basically reflecting on some principles I wrote down in business school around like who I wanted to be and like what work should be as part of my life. And I found myself becoming a little rough around the edges and due to a few different situations at work. And I think a lot of it was my fault and just I wasn't aligned for the next steps. In a big firm like that, I wasn't like
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:39:39] There was some conflict. It sounds like there was some conflict, either with bosses or whatnot where there you didn't really kind of know the next step or they didn't know how to guide you or whatnot. And you know, I got fired six months into my first private equity gig. So, you know, there's I don't know if you got fired, but like my point is, sometimes it's just not the right fit, or sometimes you kind of run the natural court. You know, things run their natural course within an organization, and you're just not sure what to do next or you have to figure out what's next. So it sounds like you had some interesting discussions here with this eventual mentor. Tell me what that led to. Tell me what? What was next for you?
Paul Millerd: [00:40:19] Yeah. So I think, as you alluded to, I was having some conflicts with the higher up person, I think, as I've had time to reflect. It was really that I was ready to take this leap like I was so ready to take this leap, but I was a little blind to it. And I think if you asked me two years ago, I would have said like I left because of, I just didn't agree. I didn't get along well with my boss. I think it's pretty obvious now that I was just ready to shift in a new direction and kind of discover a new relationship with what work meant in my life. So, yeah, had this conversation and basically it was like, All right, I'm going to give my bonus and then just leave. I ended up giving back twenty four thousand dollars in signing bonus because I didn't finish out the third year, OK. But at this point, I built up some savings and was basically at the point like, screw it, like if I'm going to go, I need to go now. I'm not going to flail around for another like eight months. Just to get money like that is not the principles I wrote down that matter to me.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:41:35] Right? So tell me. So what was the what was the next step in? Was this? Was this a stage where you're like, Hey, I'm just forget the paycheck. I'm going out on my own?
Paul Millerd: [00:41:46] Yeah. So I told them, and I think my boss kind of knew it was coming, but I still was pretty, pretty crucial role in a number of projects I was leading that were pretty high visibility and we agreed on a three month transition, I think. Yep. And this was basically to like, help recruit replacement, help like build some of the infrastructure and just have a smooth transition. And during that time, I started my LLC. I started coming up with a name, not conception of what my freelance practice might look like. And I also just booked a trip to Europe because I knew after this job I needed like four or five weeks just to wander.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:42:42] So tell me, tell me where you wandered until that, how that was.
Paul Millerd: [00:42:46] Well, tell me
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:42:47] Where you wandered and tell me how that was. So you find, you know, I assume you got that all set up. You found help to get the process set up. And then when you what was that last kind of not that last day, but that first, that first day, not working. What was that like?
Paul Millerd: [00:43:04] I think I think I was carrying a lot of stress and anxiety from the job, still, I had let I let a lot of frustrations get to me, and I don't think I had a lot of clear awareness on where a lot of my discontent and disconnection and frustration was coming from. I think I have a clear view now, but I think it was also working in New York, where people just take work a lot more seriously compared to Boston, where I'd worked seven years prior to that. My friends increasingly working more and more moving away and like I would get out of work and didn't have like a social network to hang out with, people would work long hours kind of just feeling a little stressed with my life, but I honestly don't remember that first day. I think I just kind of wandered around New York, OK with the plan to stay.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:44:06] What was the plan to go back home? That was the plan to go back home to Boston was the what was the immediate plan kind of, OK, you get
Paul Millerd: [00:44:14] Rent planning on staying in New York at that point. I hadn't really thought too deep deeply about this. I basically wandered for five or six days, started reaching out to people like put the notice up on LinkedIn, that it was freelancing and then just went to Europe and kind of wandered for four or five weeks. Went to Spain, Portugal. Where else did I go? Italy, France and did that? It was a good time for me. I wrote a lot. I kind of journals and it was reflecting on like, Where do I want to go? What kind of happened? What did I go through? And just disconnecting. I think it took a good four or five weeks just to like, let myself relax and let go of some of the emotions that I had been carrying with me.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:45:13] So tell me a little bit about when you kind of knew what the next step was going to be or you had started already kind of creating the LLC. Tell me a little bit about that, that business and how is it, you know, in what form is it today? How is it? How is it going? How did you even land your first client? How did you go about even thinking about building the business development function of this or how or building it up and landing actual clients?
Paul Millerd: [00:45:37] Yeah. So I had a lot of connections just from working from the previous 10 years, and I just started reaching out to friends. The first gig I landed was pretty funny. It was I went to the MIT Business School five year reunion before I went in my Europe trip a few days before, and one of my professors said, Hey, we need some freelance help. And I said, Well, I'm going to Europe for four weeks, she said. That's fine. Just email me at the end and we'll try to figure something out. And it's kind of nervous about that. I didn't know if it would come through, and when I came back from Europe ended up reaching out to her and landing a project through that. Basically, at the same time, it was just reaching out to a bunch of people just to have conversations. Hey, I'm freelancing here, so I'm excited and passionate about. I reached out to some small consulting firms in New York, and a lot of them are always looking for additional support. If they ever win a big project, they often can't scale up as well. Right? Yeah. Met with other freelancers just learning from them. I signed up for the talent platforms and then landed the gig with my MIT professor, helping her build out a non-profit she was working on. So that was my first stable gig for about three months. Yeah. And while I was doing that, I ended up landing a couple other gigs in the side and in that first six months basically realized that I could make this work. And I think the first six months to a year of freelancing are really just proving yourself, Can I do this? What does it feel like? What are some of the shifts I'm going through? What does work's role in my life? Can I motivate myself to get up and do work every day?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:47:28] And could you or what was the struggle? Yeah. Was it hard or was it exciting?
Paul Millerd: [00:47:34] I've pretty much found in the last two and a half years that I should have left for self-employment, like after right after McKinsey. I think I think what I've discovered is a new relationship with work. I've been able to prioritize life first and then try to see what work I want to do to design around that. I'm a lot more comfortable not optimizing and escalating earnings every year. I don't need a lot for a good life, so I'm a lot more comfortable I make less than I did previously for the last three years too, so that's been nice. I've also just
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:48:17] You mind me asking around what you're bringing in. On average, the last few years doing this kind of on your own, obviously, you just started it. But you know, as a freelancer, is it is it like a huge 50 percent pay cut? And how are you? How are you keeping your expenses kind of under control?
Paul Millerd: [00:48:35] Well, short answer now is I live in Taiwan and it's pretty cheap to live here. Okay, fair. So when I moved to, I was in New York. When I started freelancing, I did the project for the MIT professor and I quit. Like, I don't know why this didn't occur to me. But basically, if you have location independence, you quickly realize that every day you spend in New York, you're basically lighting money on fire. Both taxes and just like day to day like lunch is like 40 percent more. Yeah. So I decided I would sublet the remaining lease in New York and basically evacuate New York City, move to Boston, get a sublet there. And just by physically being up there, I was saving money because I was spending dramatically less. So I basically cut my cost of living dramatically, and I realized
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:49:29] From what, like three thousand a month, three or four thousand a month to two thousand three thousand a month, something like
Paul Millerd: [00:49:36] That. So I've written about this, I think it was like five hundred a month to thirty two hundred a month.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:49:41] Big difference. It's a huge
Paul Millerd: [00:49:43] Difference. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So the less you spend, the less you have to work to, which is this magic formula of self-employment. Right. That doesn't occur to you as a full time employee.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:49:54] Right. You get addicted to that. Right?
Paul Millerd: [00:49:57] Yeah. And the first six months of freelancing, I think I made like fifty five thousand. And I kind of proved to myself, I can make a lot of money if I need it to write or if I want it to. And then after that, I dedicated a lot more time just to creative projects and kind of saying no to consulting projects unless it was something that was really kind of igniting my energy. Tell me a little bit and
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:50:26] Tell me more about your creative projects.
Paul Millerd: [00:50:29] And then, yeah, and then what was going to give you the money figures first you want?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:50:35] Yeah, sure. Sorry, yes, go ahead.
Paul Millerd: [00:50:39] And then the first year or two. So I look at the first six months separate because then I kind of shifted away from just going all out and consulting. Second year, I think I ended up making like 45 to 50. And then this year it's probably going to be like 45. But the whole nature of how I make money is shifted in the last two years to tell me about, and this all started about two years ago. I basically decided after, I think, one of the months I ended up making like 20 grand one month. And I said after that, or I'm going to take a couple of months off and just create all these ideas floating around in my head. That's when I launched my blog, Boundless, my podcast, which is now called Reimagine Work. I started writing a little more seriously and basically was saying no to projects, and there was this kind of creative energy that was ignited in me that I haven't been able to calm down since. And that's led to a lot of different things. So that's led to me creating this strategy consulting course, which I'm now running. I've experimented with working in different ways, like I do presentation coaching with executives now. That's a new kind of freelancing I'm doing. In the last six months, I've done coaching around people and their relationship with the work, and I've created a whole course around that as well.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:52:17] And working people find the people. Where can people find all these?
Paul Millerd: [00:52:23] So you can find pretty much everything I'm working on and think that's boundless or my strategy consulting has emerged into its own thing around strategy. Yuko.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:52:35] Great. Okay. Sorry. Go ahead. I interrupted you.
Paul Millerd: [00:52:40] Yeah, and I like basically the theme is I just keep experimenting and trying new ways of working and challenging myself and just trying to imagine, like what life be if work is not at the center of your life. So during that time of creating the podcast, I landed a gig after that break of building a consulting skills training program, and I landed this about a week before I was supposed to go to Asia for a month. And I told them, I'll do the work. Twenty five percent of the time from Asia for this hourly rate, which was like a really good hourly rate and they were like, Fine, yeah, you're perfect for this. So I was doing one of the projects from Bali at a surf shack with my buddy paying $20 a night for lodging overlooking the water, working from a cafe. And that's when I decided, All right, I'm going to try and move to Asia now and work and try to design all of my work to be remotely. So I kind of signed up for this adventure. Along the way ended up meeting someone. We are now married. We live together in Taiwan and probably going to go on a further adventure in the next couple of years of permanently kind of being nomadic and trying to figure this all out. Living abroad and working remotely and inventing new kinds of work. So it's a fun journey.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:54:10] Exciting, man. It's it sounds really cool. So you've been, but you've been into Taiwan for more than a year or so now.
Paul Millerd: [00:54:17] Married? Yeah. But a year and a
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:54:19] Half year and a half. Ok, great. And so tell me about tell me about that a little bit. Is it something where you feel like you said you're going to go on another adventures? I assume that's with your wife to different, just more traveling and working.
Paul Millerd: [00:54:31] Yeah. So I think I mean, she's originally from Taiwan, I'm from the U.S. and we both have this mind-set of how do we design work around life? I think one of the goals for us is to be able to live flexibly. When you have families from two different cultures with 12 hours a part time zone, if you're working in a full time job, we're going to be able to visit them maybe two weeks a year. Right? Yeah. So we really want to take the next couple of years to travel. And during that time, kind of meet other entrepreneurs, try to start different businesses and try to make it work so we could live longer term, maybe like three months with our parents in different locations, which would be pretty cool. So that's kind of the vision for sure.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:55:26] For sure. That's awesome, man. It's exciting. It's you definitely hear about this lifestyle design ever since, you know, Tim Ferris came out with his book The Four Hour Work Week, way back in the day, and it sounds like you're kind of following right in his footsteps in that path. You've kind of been able to extract yourself from the nine to five in the office life successfully, and you're really living that, which is super exciting.
Paul Millerd: [00:55:52] And yeah, yeah, you don't see a ton of people do it at this stage I did in my career. I think part of this is because it's almost too easy to make a. Like a ton of money. Yeah. Like it kind of disturbed like my parents, I think because they're just like, how could you walk away from so much money, right? And for me, it's simple because it all comes down to living a meaningful life and spending time in like a way where I can be in a good mind space to really help people and do it in a positive way, right? But you don't see a lot of people like my business school peers stepping away. There are some of us and we all kind of talk to each other. Yeah, and you see some consultants go freelance, but they really figure out quickly, Oh, I can, even making more money than when I was working at a consulting firm.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:56:49] But they just grinding
Paul Millerd: [00:56:51] On a ton of people doing it like exactly the way I'm doing now, which has been pretty interesting.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:56:57] It's really interesting. Listen, I think you'd give yourself any sort of kind of advice. You'd give you younger self. It sounds like you would have told yourself to
Paul Millerd: [00:57:05] Do it earlier. I don't know. I think I think I would have tried to give them give myself some advice to inch towards maybe something like mindfulness or just getting perspectives from outside the bubbles that was in, which is very like corporate success, prestige like. I don't think I had a lot of perspectives of that age, but like the world has changed so much, I don't think today's college students realize how lucky they are. Like so many resources on LinkedIn and or YouTube, I mean, and LinkedIn too, like when I was graduating, we didn't have LinkedIn to reach out to people. Yeah, you can find out about so many more careers. You can travel so much easier. You can start a company so much easier and it almost worries me. Sometimes people just going like headfirst into these same paths I was doing 12 years ago, right? It's almost like I wish they would consider other perspectives, but I think these jobs also could be a great place to start your career as well.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:58:20] Yeah, they're definitely pros and cons. I mean, I look back at my banking days and I think to myself, like what? I do it again. Well, if I'd known what I was getting into, probably not. But was it good for me? Yes. It's just like, you know, was that training was that, you know, those sleepless nights and the sleep deprivation? Probably not good for my health, but good for my career and good for my just overall perspective. I'd say yes. It also makes you appreciate at that time like it makes you appreciate probably the life you have now. You know, when you when you had the struggle. Oh yeah. Or your previous firms and stuff like that. So I think that's you shouldn't underestimate that either. You know, having gone through that. Well, this
Paul Millerd: [00:58:58] Is yeah, this is the thing to figure out to when you're working in these firms is figure out what actually brings you a life. I was pretty lucky, actually, because I really liked consulting like the problem solving process, the iteration I love to making PowerPoint slides. I love teaching and coaching other people. And I was able to do a lot of that within these firms, right? And I think a lot of people are at these firms because they're trying to be successful. I was able to stay in the firms for nine years because I loved the underlying work. I think I would have liked it, less so if I was working 80 hours a week. So I was always lucky to be in these roles where I didn't work crazy hours. So just be to like, focus on what you actually like about these things and how could that factor into a sustainable life or work for the future
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:59:56] That's great. Well, I think we'll end it on that. I think it's great advice. Thank you so much, Paul, for joining the podcast.
Paul Millerd: [01:00:04] Thank you, Patrick,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [01:00:05] And thanks to you, my listeners at Wall Street, Oasis, if you have any suggestions whatsoever, please don't hesitate to send them my way. Patrick at Wall Street Oasis. And till next time.
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