Design Thinking: How to Build, Scale, and Upgrade Your Life Like a Product | Steve Davis Jr. | E13

So what did competing in Big Ten football build in you that you now use in business every day?

You know, being in the Big Ten, you know, competing on the highest level, um, you know-

Mm-hmm

... getting the opportunity to have that platform and also play against, um, the, the, the best of the best, um, really boosted my confidence knowing that I was able to maintain, um, a good level of stature there, a good level of respect there.

Um, being able to adjust and be in high pressure environments really, like, prepared me for whatever I was gonna do in my life and in my career.

Um, it gave me the confidence to move in different spaces knowing that I belong, or I can find my way through it, um, and climb that ladder to, you know, make a, make an impact, um, because I did that at the Big Ten.

I did that in football.

Um, I also felt like what really stood out to me as m-my highlight of my career was be-being named captain my senior year, um, unanimously by my teammates.

And to me, that really, you know, steered me in the direction that, you know, I can be a leader, and people can follow me, and I can influence the environment.

And that's something that I always look at when I go into rooms is, like, I wanna know everybody.

I wanna, uh, understand everybody's role and eventually, you know, showcase my leadership abilities.

Yeah.

No, that's great.

So you're a certified Designing Your Life coach using the methodology developed at Stanford.

For the entrepreneurs listening who've never heard of design thinking, what is it, and why should they care?

Yeah.

So design thinking was something that I stumbled on, uh, in my time at the University of Minnesota Alumni Association.

Um, you know, I was still, you know, finding ways of helping people and connecting them to resources, and we had brought some, um, practitioners along that would do workshops.

And they started talking about designing your life.

And as I paid attention to it, I was like, wow, this is actually something that I really resonate with because I felt like I was already doing it in my life.

Mm-hmm.

And for those who don't understand what that means is so design thinking and life design is really this focus of looking at your life like a product designer looks at a product.

You put something together, and that product is not a finished product at the beginning.

It has to go through beta testing.

So it goes out into the market.