Introduction: Life by Design Ellen liked rocks. She liked collecting them, sorting them, and categorizing them according to size and shape, or type and color. After to years at a prestigious uni!ersity, uni!ersity, the time came for Ellen to declare her ma"or. She had no idea hat she anted to do ith her h er life or ho she anted to be hen she gre up, but it as time to choose. ch oose. #eology seemed like the best decision at the time. After all, she really, really liked rocks. Ellen$s mother and father ere proud of o f their daughter, the geology ma"or, a future geologist. %hen Ellen graduated, she mo!ed back home ith her parents. She began babysitting and dog alking to make a little money. &er parents ere confused. 'his is hat she had don e in high school. 'hey had "ust paid for an e(pensi!e e( pensi!e college education. %hen as their daug hter going to turn magically into a geologist) %hen as she going to begin her career) 'his is hat she had studied for. 'his is hat she as supposed to do. 'he thing is*Ellen had realized she didn$t ant to be a geologist. She asn$t all that interested in spending her time studying the earth$s processes, or materials, or h istory istory.. She asn$t interested in fieldork, or in orking for a natural+resource company or an en!ironmental agency. She didn$t like mapping or generating reports. She had chosen geology by default, because she had liked rocks, and no Ellen, diploma dip loma in hand, frustrated parents in her ear, had absolutely no ide a ho to get a "ob and hat she should do ith the rest of her life. If it as true, as e!eryone had told her, that her college years ere the best four years of h er life, Ellen had nohere to go but don. She did not realize that she as hardly alone in not anting to ork in the field in hich she had ma"ored. In fact, in the nited States, only - percent of college grads end up in a career related to their ma"ors. 'he idea that hat you ma"or in is hat you ill do for the rest of your life, and a nd that college represents the best years of your life /before a life of hard ork and boredom0, are to of hat e call dysfunctional beliefs*the myths that pre!ent so many people from designing the life they ant. Dysfunctional Belief: Your degree determines your career. related to their Reframe : Three-quarters of all college grads don’t end up working in a career related majors.
1y her mid+thirties, 2anine as really starting to reap the benefits of decades of dedication. She$d "umped on the fast track early and had managed to stay there. She as a graduate of a top college and a top la school, had "oined a firm that did important and influential ork, and as on her ay to really 3making it.4 5ollege, la school, marriage, career*e!erything in her life had turned out e(actly as she had planned, and her illpoer and hard ork had gi!en her e!erything she anted. She as the picture of success and achie!ement.
1ut 2anine had a secret. Some nights, after dri!ing home from the la firm that b ore one of the most recognizable names in Silicon 6alley, 6alley, she ould sit out on the deck as the lights of the !alley came on, and cry. She had e!erything she thought she should ha!e, e!erything that she thought she anted, but she as profoundly unhappy. She kne she should be ecstatic ith the life life she had created, but she asn$t. 7ot e!en close. 2anine imagined that there as something rong ith her. %ho %ho akes up e!ery morning the picture of success, and goes to bed e!ery night ith a knot in her stomach, feeling as if there$s something missing, something that got lost along the ay) %here do you turn hen you ha!e e!erything and nothing all at the same time) Like Ellen, 2anine held a dysfunctional belief. She belie!ed that if she rode all the merry+go+rounds and grabbed for all the brass rings she she ould find happiness. 2anine is also not alone. In America, to+thirds of orkers are unhappy ith their "obs. And And 89 percent actually hate their ork. successful, you will be happy. Dysfunctional Belief: If you are successful, True ue happiness comes from designing a life that works for you. Reframe: Tr Donald had made his money. mone y. &e had orked for more than thirty years at the same "ob. &is home as almost paid off. &is children had all graduated from college. &is retirement funds had been carefully in!ested. &e had a solid career and a solid life. #et up, go to ork, pay the bills, go home, go to bed. b ed. %ake %ake up the ne(t day and do it all again. Lather. inse. epeat. ;or years Donald had been asking the same
It’ss too late. Dysfunctional Belief: It’ It’ss neer too late to design a life you loe. Reframe: It’ Three people. Three big problems.
Designers Love Problems
Look around you. Look at your office or home, the chair you are sitting on, the tablet or smartphone you may be holding. E!erything that surrounds us as designed by someone. And e!ery design started ith a problem. 'he problem of not being able to listen to a lot of music ithout carrying around a suitcase of 5Ds is the reason hy you can listen to three thousand songs on a one+inch sroblems are hy you ha!e running ater and insulation in your home. >lumbing as created because of a problem. 'oothbrushes 'oothbrushes ere in!ented because of a problem. 5hairs ere created because someone, somehere, anted to sol!e a big problem: sitting on rocks causes sore bottoms. 'here$s a difference beteen design problems and engineering problems. %e both ha!e engineering degrees, and engineering is a good approach to sol!ing a problem hen you can get a great deal of data and you$re sure there is one best solution. 1ill orked on the problem of engineering the hinges on Apple$s first first laptops, and the solution he and his team came up ith made those laptops some of the most reliable on o n the market. 'he solution re
laptops e!er since.8 Aesthetics, or the ay things look, is another ob!ious e(ample of a problem ith no one right solution that designers ork on. ;or instance, there are a lot of high+performance sports cars in the orld, and they all e!oke e! oke a sense of speed, but bu t a >orsche doesn$t look anything like a ;errari. 1oth are e(pertly engineered, both contain almost identical parts, but each has a completely different aesthetic appeal. 'he designers at each company take e(orsche a fast, e(acting #erman sensibility. Designers study aesthetics for years in order to make these industrial products the e
How Do We Know?
It all started ith a lunch. Actually, it it all started hen e ere both undergrads at Stanford ni!ersity in the 8C=s /Da!e a little earlier in the decade than 1ill0. 1ill disco!ered the produ ct+design ma"or and an e(citing career tra"ectory to go ith it. As a child, he used to dra cars and airplanes hile sitting under his grandmother$s seing machine, and hen he ma"ored in product design, it as because he had disco!ered /much to his surprise0 that there ere p eople in the orld ho did this kind of thing e!ery day, and they ere called designers. As the e(ecuti!e director of the Design >rogram at Stanford, 1ill is still draing and building things /he$s come out from under the seing machine0, directing the undergraduate and graduate programs in design, and teaching at the d.school /'he &asso >lattner Institute of Design*a multidisciplinary hub of inno!ation at Stanford here all the classes are based on the design thinking process0. 1ill has also orked in start+ups and ;ortune 8== companies, including se!en years at Apple, designing aard+inning laptops /and those hinges0 and a number nu mber of years in the toy industry, designing Star %ars %ars action figures. 1ill knos ho lucky he as to ha!e disco!ered product design and a nd a "oyful and fulfilling career path so early. In our teaching careers, e$!e both come to see ho rare that is, and "ust ho often it doesn$t ork that ay for students, e!en at Stanford. nlike 1ill, hen Da!e as an undergrad, he had no idea hat he as going to do. &e failed at being a biology ma"or /more on that later0 and graduated in mechanical engineering*frankly, for lack of a better idea. During college, he ne!er found good help ith the rogram in Design, a program Da!e kne ell. It occurred to Da!e that the multidisciplinary demands of being a designer ere likely to put design students under an
unusually hea!y burden: trying to find a ay to concei!e a personally meaningful and authentic, as ell as commercially !iable, career !ision. &e decided to call up 1ill and ha!e lunch and share some of his ideas*"ust to see hat might happen. If it ent ell, maybe they$d ha!e more lunches on the topic, and in perhaps a year or so something might come of it. And that$s hy it all began at lunch. ;i!e minutes into that lunch, it as a done deal. %e decided e ere going to partner to bring a ne course to Stanford, to apply design thinking to designing life after college*first to design students and, if that ent ell, then to all students. 'hat course has gone on to become one of the most popular electi!e classes at Stanford. %hen asked hat e do at Stanford, e ill sometimes respond ith our carefully crafted ele!ator reply: 3%e teach teach courses at Stanford that help any student to apply the inno!ation inno! ation principles of design thinking to the icked problem of designing your life at and after uni!ersity.44 And, of course, they then say, 3#reat %hat$s uni!ersity. %hat$s that mean)4 And e usually say, 3%e 3%e teach ho to use design to figure out hat you ant to be hen you gro up.4 At that point almost e!eryone says, 3?h 5an I take the class)4 ;or years e$!e had to say no to that
Designers Also Love Questions
2ust as Donald faced the mirror e!ery night an d asked himself, 3%hy the hell am I doing this),4 e!eryone struggles ith similar
%e ha!e all been asked, 3%hat 3 %hat do you ant to be b e hen youg ro up)4 'his is the fundamental ad, a complete reframe of hat the portable computing e(perience is about. In life design, e reframe a lot. 'he biggest reframe is that you r life can$t be perfectly planned, that there isn$t "ust one solution to your life, and that that$s a good thing. 'here are many d esigns for your life, all filled ith hope for the kind of creati!e and unfolding reality that makes life orth li!ing into. Bour Bour life is not a thing, it$s an e(perience@ the fun comes from designing and en"oying the e(perience. 'he reframe for the
Welcome to Life Design
Life design is the ay forard. It$s hat ill help Ellen mo!e from her college ma"or to her first "ob. It$s hat ill help 2anine mo!e from the life she should ha!e into the life she ants. It$s It$s hat ill help Donald find the anser to the
can do this in your on life. Bou Bou can imagine a career and a life that don$t e(ist@ you can build that future you, and as a result your life ill change. If your life is pretty perfect as is, life d esign can still help you make it an e!en better !ersion of the life you currently lo!e li!ing. %hen you think like a designer, hen you are illing to ask the
In Stanford$s Design Design >rogram, e ha!e taught taugh t more than a thousand students design thinking and ho to design their li!es. And e$ll let you in on a secret*no one has e!er failed our ou r class. In fact, it$s impossible to flunk. %e ha!e more than si(ty years of combined teaching e(perience, and e ha!e taught this approach to high school students, college students, graduate students, >h.D. students, tenty+somethings, mid+career e(ecuti!es, and retirees anting an 3en core4 career. As teachers, e ha!e alays guaranteed our students 3office hours for life.4 'his means that if you take a class from us e are there for you, fore!er. >eriod. %e$!e %e$!e had students come back to us o!er the years since they$!e graduated, gradua ted, and they$!e told us ho the tools, ideas, and mind+sets that e teach ha!e made a difference for them. %e$re
the big truth: there are many !ersions of you, you , and they are all 3right.4 And life design ill help you li!e into hate!er !ersion of you is no playing at the 5ineple(. emember, there are no rong ansers, and e$re not grading you. %e ill suggest you do some e(ercises in this book, but there are no ansers in the back to tell you ho you did. %e$!e %e$!e added a recap of the e(ercises at the end of each chapter that has them*a 'ry Stuff bo(*because e suggest that you, ell, try stuff. 'hat$s hat designers do. %e$re %e$re not measuring you against anyone, and you shouldn$t measure yourself against anyone, either. %e$re %e$re here to co+create ith you. 'hink of us as part of your on personal design team. In fact, e suggest you go out and get a design team right off the bat*a group of people ho ill read the book ith you and do the e(ercises alongside you, a collaborati!e team in hich you support one another in your pursuit of a ell+designed life. %e$ll talk about this more later in the book, and by all means you should feel free to read it on your on first. Fany people think that designers are lone geniuses, orking in solitude and aiting for a flash of inspiration to sho them the solution to their design problem. 7othing could be further from the truth. 'here may be some problems, such as the design of a stool or a ne n e set of children$s blocks, that are simple enough to be tackled by an indi!idual, but in toda y$s highly technical orld, almost e!ery problem re
!in" Li"e a Designer
1efore you can do life design, de sign, you need to learn to think like a designer. %e$ll %e$ll e(plain a fe simple ays to do this, but first you need to understand one really big point: Designers don$t think their ay forard. Designers build their ay forard. %hat does that mean) It means you are not "ust going to be dreaming up a lot of fun fantasies that ha!e no relationship to the real orld*or the real you. Bou are going to build things /e call them prototypes0, p rototypes0, try stuff, and ha!e a lot of fun in the process. %ant a career change) 'his book %ant bo ok ill help you make that change, but not by b y sitting around trying to decide hat that change is going to be. %e$re %e$re going to help you think like a designer and build your future, prototype by prototype. %e$re %e$re going to help you approach your on life design challenges ith the same kind of curiosity and the same kind of creati!ity that resulted in the in!ention of the printing press, the lightbulb, and the Internet. ?ur focus is mainly on "obs and careers, caree rs, because, let$s face it, e spend most of the hours of our days, and the days da ys of our li!es, at ork. %ork %ork can be a daily source of enormous "oy and meaning, or it can be an endless grind and aste of hours ho urs spent trying to hite+knuckle our ay through the misery of it all until the eekend comes. A ell+designed life is not a life of drudgery. Bou Bou eren$t put on this earth to ork eight hours a day at a "ob you hate until the time comes to die. 'hat may sound a bit melodramatic, but b ut many people tell us that this is a good description of their li!es. And e!en those ho are lucky enough to find a career they lo!e often find that they are frustrated and ha!e a hard ha rd time designing a life that is balanced. It$s time to start thinking differently*about e!erything. Design thinking in!ol!es certain simple mind+sets. 'his book ill teach you those mind+sets and ho to use them to do life design. 'he fi!e mind+sets you are going to learn in order to design your life are curiosity, bias to action, reframing, aareness, and radical collaboration. 'hese are your design tools, and ith them you can build anything, including a life you lo!e. Be #urious$ 5uriosity makes e!erything ne. It in!ites e(ploration. It makes e!erything p lay. Fost of all, curiosity is going to help you 3get good at being lucky. lucky.44 It$s the reason some people see opportunities e!eryhere. !ry %tuff$ %hen you ha!e a bias to action, you are committed to building your ay forard. 'here is no sitting on the bench "ust thinking about hat you are going g oing to do. 'here is only getting in the game. Designers try things. 'hey test things out. 'hey create prototype after prototype, failing often, until they find hat orks and hat sol!es the problem. Sometimes they they find the problem is entirely different from hat they first thought it as. Designers embrace
change. 'hey are not attached to a particular outcome, because they are alays focused on hat ill happen ne(t*not hat the final result ill be. Reframe Problems$ eframing is ho designers get unstuck. eframing also makes sure that e are orking on the right problem. Life design in!ol!es key reframes that allo you to step back, e(amine your biases, and open up ne solution spaces. 'hroughout the book, e ill be reframing dysfunctional beliefs that pre!ent people from finding the careers and the li!es they ant. eframing is essential to finding the right problems and the right solutions. Know &t's a Process$ %e kno that life gets messy. ;or e!ery step forard, it can sometimes seem you are mo!ing to steps back. Fistakes ill be made, prototypes thron aay. An important part of the process is letting go* of your first idea and of a good+but+not+great solution. And sometimes amazing designs can emerge from the mess. 'he Slinky as in!ented this ay. 'eflon 'eflon as created this ay. Super #lue. >lay+Doh. 7on e of these things ould e(ist if a designer somehere hadn$t screed up. %hen you learn to think like a designer you learn to be aare of the process. Life design is a "ourney@ let go of the end goal and focus on the process and see hat happens ne(t. As" for Hel($ 'he last mind+set of design thinking is perhaps the most important, especially hen it comes to designing your life: radical collaboration. %hat this means is simple*you are not alone. 'he best designers kno that great g reat design rehone alone, alon e, indsept beach or not. And your life is more like a great design than a ork of art, so you cannot create it alone, either. Bou Bou do not ha!e to come up ith a brilliant life design by yourself. Design Design is a collaborati!e process, and many of the best ideas are going to come from other people. peop le. Bou Bou "ust need to ask. And kno the right
Anti)Passion &s *ur Passion
Fany people operate under the dysfunctional belief that they "ust need to find out hat they are passionate about. ?nce they kno their passion, e!erything else ill someho magically fall into place. %e hate this idea for one !ery good reason: most people don$t kno their passion. ?ur colleague %illiam Damon, director of the Stanford 5enter on Adolescence, found that only one in fi!e young people beteen tel!e and tenty+si( ha!e a clear !ision of here they ant to go, hat they ant to accomplish in life, and hy.H ?ur e(perience suggests, similarly, that = percent of people of all ages don$t really kno hat they are passionate about. So con!ersations
ith career counselors often go like this: #areer #ounselor: 3%hat are you passionate about)4 +ob %ee"er: 3I don$t kno.4 3%ell, ll, come back hen you figure it out.4 #areer #ounselor: 3%e
Some career counselors ill gi!e people tests to assess people$s interests or strengths, or to sur!ey their skills, but anyone ho has taken such tests knos that the conclusions are often far from conclusi!e. 1esides, finding out that you cou ld be a pilot, an engineer, eng ineer, or an ele!ator repairman isn$t !ery helpful or actionable. So e$re not !er y passionate about finding your passion. %e %e belie!e that people actually need to take time to de!elop a passion. And And the research shos that, for most people, passion comes after they try something, disco!er they like it, and de!elop mastery*not before. 'o put it more succinctly: passion is the result of a good life design, not the cause. Fost people do not ha!e that one thing they are passionate about*that singular moti!ator that dri!es all of their life decisions and infuses e!ery aking moment ith a sense of purpose and meaning. If you$!e found that studying the mating habits and e!olution of o f mollusks from the 5ambrian period until the present day is your purpose for li!ing*e salute you. 5harles Darin spent thirty+nine years studying earthorms@ e salute 5harles Darin. %hat e don$t salute is a method of approaching life design that lea!es out = percent of the population. In truth, most people are passionate about many different things, and the only ay to kno hat they ant to do is to prototype some potential li!es, try them out, and see hat really resonates ith them. %e are serious about this: you don$t need to kno your passion in order to design a life you lo!e. ?nce you kno ho to prototype your ay forard, you are on the path to disco!ering the things you truly lo!e, passion or not.
A Well)Designe, Well)Designe, Life
A ell+designed ell+designed life is a life that makes sense. It$s a life in hich ho you are, hat you belie!e, and hat you do all line up together. %hen you ha!e a ell+designed life and someone asks you, 3&o$s it going),4 you ha!e an anser. Bou Bou can tell that person that your life is going go ing ell, and you can tell ho and hy. A ell+designed ell+designed life is a mar!elous portfolio of e(periences, of ad!entures, of failures that taught you important lessons, of hardships that made you stronger and helped you kno k no yourself better, and of achie!ements ach ie!ements and satisfactions. It$s orth emphasizing that failures and hardships are a part of e!ery e !ery life, e!en the ell+designed ones. %e$re going to help you figure out hat a ell+designed life looks like for you. ?ur students and %e$re clients tell us it$s fun. 'hey also tell us tha t it$s full of surprises. %e %e can assure you that at times it ill take you out of your comfort zone. %e$re %e$re going to ask you to do things that may feel
counterintuiti!e, or at the !ery least different from hat you$!e been taught in the past. #uriosity Bias to action Reframing Awareness Ra,ical collaboration
%hat happens hen you do these things) %hat happens hen you engage in life design) Actually, something something eople > eople you ere interested in meeting "ust happen to be in ton. %hat is happening here) ;or starters, it$s that 3getting good at being lucky4 thing e mentioned earlier, a result of curiosity curiosity and aareness, and a by+product of using the fi!e mind+sets. In addition, the process of disco!ering ho you are and hat you ant has a rather e(traordinary effect on your life. 'here ill be effort and action in!ol!ed, no doubt, but it ill seem, rather surprisingly, surprisingly, as if e!eryone is conspiring to help you. And, And, by being aare of the process, you ill ha!e a lot of fun along the ay. All through the process of life design, e ill be right here ith you. 'o guide you. 'o challenge you. %e$re going to gi!e you the ideas and tools you need for designing your ay through life. %e$re going to help you find your ne(t "ob. Bour ne(t career. Bour ne(t big thing. %e$re going to help you design your life. A life life that you lo!e.
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