Dave Evans

Right.

We're also looking at life design methodologies from Stanford's Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, including their 10 year planning workbook.

And then we are tying all this execution together with goal setting psychology from Halo.

So if we connect this to the bigger picture, we're going to move from the highly abstract to the incredibly structural and then finally to the neurochemical.

You should be drawing multiple maps simultaneously.

This brings us to the methodology of applying design thinking to your life.

And here we are looking at the work of Bill Burnett and Dave Evans.

They are heavyweights at Stanford who created this legendary, initially experimental course for juniors and seniors called Designing Your Life.

James Sexton meets marriages at the end.

Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, Stanford educators behind Designing Your Life, joined Scott for a live taping of conversations and offered a simple test for choosing someone at the beginning.

Well, it just occurred to me there's an old saying that, you know, the best marriages are when each person thinks they got the best deal, right? Certainly, I got the best deal.

My wife Cynthia is amazing.

[laughs] Uh, I wish Tinder would adopt the Netflix feature that says, "Skip intro." Go, go, go.

[upbeat music] What's happening? Today's episode was recorded live at the Odoo Experience in San Francisco with Bill Burnett and Dave Evans, the co-founders of Stanford's Life Design Lab and authors of "How to Live a Meaningful Life." And I actually find some value in what they have to say, as cynical as I am, and I mostly use it for therapy.

I'm a fucking hot mess.

Let's bring this back to me.

I think he realizes I'm freaking out.

Anyways, that is where, uh, I have found purpose the last 18 years, was trying to prepare boys for others, and I worry that I've lost that purpose, and this conversation attempts to address that, and we explore kind of that feeling of emptiness, if you will, and we had some very, I thought, open and honest questions from the audience.

So with that, we hope you enjoy our conversation with Bill Burnett and Dave Evans.

[calm music]

I'm your host Madison Michaels and today we're doing something a little different because I want you to zoom out from the chapter you're working on or the word count you're chasing or whatever writing problem might be sitting in front of you right now and instead I want you to look at the big picture.

We're going to explore what I'm calling your writer's odyssey plan, which is a writing focused adaptation of the odyssey planning exercise that's taught through Stanford's life design work and has been popularized recently by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans through Designing Your Life.

Now, the original idea is about exploring genuinely different possible futures rather than assuming there's one perfect path you're supposed to somehow discover.

It's such a fantastic concept to do in general, but I also love the concept for writers specifically.

It doesn't really work that way.

I, like Dave Evans, co-author of Designing Your Life's Advice, try stuff and notice what gives you energy.

And keep in mind, from Daniel Coyle, from Lisa Miller's research, be willing to go through a few of those yellow doors.

You'll be glad you did.

You know, Bill Burnett, you know, talks about, you know, we were talking today, actually, because he's now my partner, you know, who I took life design.

He's known throughout the world, you know, his whole work on, you know, life design, him and Dave Evans.

You know, but we were talking about how one thing that people seem to respond to is this whole notion of curiosity, right? How do you get more and more curious? I said to him, I think curiosity goes with courage a bit.

Taking the courage to become curious.

But the worst thing that you can do is sit on inaction and say, should I be doing something when it's pretty clear from your letter that you want to be doing something, you want to make a change, you want to make a pivot.

Now, when I'm guiding clients through this process, what I love is this is from Dave Evans and Bill Burnett, they're Stanford researchers, and they have something called the Odyssey plan.

And this is that you make three plans.

And I've spoken about this in my podcast before, but you make three plans.

And I suggest going five years out.

That's what we do in the Designing Your Life process by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans that I coach in, my groups.

But you can do it without that.

And really to say, if they ran into you, for example, or me, five years from now, and we ask, how are things going? And they said, actually, better than imagined, better than I ever dreamed.

Number three, imagine the future you don't want.

I really like this idea because I tend to be focused on imagining the future you do want, and especially in using my coaching program with Dave Evans and Bill Burnett, Design Your Life.

It's future-focused, and that's a good thing.

But I like this dimension of what is it you don't want? Because things are likely to change, and I think it sets you up to be able to deal with reality, and I like her, her point about it may not be the future that you wanted, but it's the future that you have, and you're getting on with it.

Let's update them." So for 15 years, I ran those programs.

And along the way, just entirely by accident, I got together with a friend of mine, Dave Evans, and he, he had been teaching a class over at Berkeley helping kids, you know, kind of figure out their vocational stuff and what they wanted to do when they started work.

And, uh, he said, "Do your students struggle to launch?" I said, "Oh, yeah.

It's, you know, they, they're smart, but they don't really know much about the world, and, you know, and they, they've got their major, but they're not sure how their major turns into a job, and we should help them." And he said, "Yeah, let's do that." And I said, "Yeah, but it's got to be design-based because they're under the design program." Um, and there's-- what's the old expression? When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.