Designing the rest of your life | Dave Evans | TEDxSanFranciscoSalon

I'm Dave Evans and I help with this guy named bill Burnett my partner in crime bill can't be here today but the bill be staying there and ten years ago we founded this thing called the Stanford Life design lab so what do we do at the Stanford Life design level of course we teach classes we teach classes to a whole bunch of people just designing your life two juniors and seniors we teach designing your Stanford to freshmen and sophomores we teach designing the professional to master's and PhD students and postdocs we teach everybody we teach about 15 20 % of all the students at Stanford now these are smart people what do they need to take this class work ethic you figure this thing out well let's see what they have to say about that what do students actually think about this question so we asked some we went to a career fair you know why are they taking this stuff so we asked them the question what are you gonna do with your life after you graduate kind of curious what they would think about that interesting answers to that question sounds like this interesting I was gonna go to med school but some grades change that I think I'm gonna go to law school my personal favorite right there I have no idea okay what's going on here now we did not wait all day along for these seven clueless Stanford students to make them look bad okay this is very easy material together don't forget they were at a career fair seriously hello in fact you know my name's and I'm desperately unemployed please save me you know that's you know that's what's going on and these are the answers we're getting well smart does not mean clear well educated it does not mean focused or well-intentioned so we've got this question so again we form the life design mission a life design lab on our mission is to apply the innovation principles of design thinking to the wicked problem of designing your life at and after college now the colored words if we click on them and give you a white paper is very educational stuff pedagogically deep material you know and so that's very interesting but kind of jargony answered a what do you really mean well what we really mean is this we mean we're the guys who teach the classes to help you figure out what you want to be when you grow up and everybody goes ooh can I take the class everybody says never let just everybody says that we've been hearing there for like ten years thousands of people say can I take the class so that's why we wrote the book that's how why we're here today cuz everybody has this question now by the way even the way we frame it here is kind of allows you where to say it because I don't know about you guys but I personally have no intention of ever being done growing up how many of you want to be done growing up how many I want to keep growing okay that's a trick question right so maybe we should reframe this a little bit maybe one of the guys to teach classes to help you keep figuring out what you want to be next that's a better way to put it but even so the question still remains an important question why why are so many people asking this question why is this such a hard thing to do well there are a lot of reasons but one of them is people are stuck people shocked is there in a bad place hard to get out of there what are you gonna do you know unless another friendly cow comes along and one of the big causes of this is what we call dysfunctional beliefs dysfunctional believes which are very popular ideas but they're not particularly true they're certainly not helpful and is marked my father they're not generative a couple of examples for instance a very very common very popular question I bet you've even heard it recently hey what's your passion properly friends what's your passion what is your best are you following up how do you know you're passionate who knows your passion are you doing your passion are you are you are you here's the problem why is the dysfunctional babe well because it turns does according to the resource some of our colleagues at Stanford bill Damon has discovered about eight out of ten people answer the question what's your passion with either I don't know or which one did you want to hear about first either of those answers means what your passion is not a good organizing principle for figuring out what the rest of your life is all about let's not start with a question that leaves eight out of ten people in a remedial case when all they're being is normal dysfunctional bleep bad idea let's try another one very common idea hey are you being the best version of you are you are you really being the best you are you sure this life you're living is this really it are you sure is this it and was it that you're not missing it oh my god you're not settling are you are you settling I mean we're in San Francisco we don't saddle here here's the problem if there's an old business fridge you know the good is the enemy of the better and the better is the enemy of the best are you peeing your best or are you are you being our best it was great halftime talk but here's the problem what we have noticed is everybody contains more aliveness than one lifetime permits them to live ie there's more than one of you in there now I'm on my fifth career but I'm old I'm 64 I've got four point seven grandchildren one doing November and you know I've been lots of different things and how do you compare his best hey best something means a singular exclusive optimization that you know beyond a shadow of a doubt is better than all the alternatives to pull that off only one set of criteria can you be used to fairly judge all the different possibilities does that really work with your life no it doesn't work I miss my grandfather self better than my author self it's my other self better than my start up self or my educator self it's a dumb question you can't compare them they're entirely different so the rest of that soliloquy ought to be and the false best is the enemy of available better here's the problem have you signed up for this idea you've decided you have to be your best self and there isn't one best you you just decided to be unhappy for the rest of your life don't go there let's don't go there it's a bad idea let me demonstrate how this actually works because what I want to do is actually ask your question would find out now who do this all the time how many lives are you perhaps Nations explain the question we're gonna do a little experiment now it's called a Gedanken experiment that's the technical name for a thought experiment and in German and sometimes you do them in your head because you can't do them anywhere else you have to do them imagine aliso let's imagine that in fact we've now proven indeed it's a multiverse there are infinite parallel universes out there in the cosmos angstroms apart in the nineteenth dimension if we but knew how to measure it but they're out there trust me thing too we've figured out that we can do concurrent consciousness by deploying wormholes and string theory so there are infinite universes and you're present and all of them and you can be consciously aware of all of you at the same time how cool is that but there's one really strange thing about the multiverse you have to reserve a place in advance it's kind of like open table you know we got a call ahead so to get into the multiverse we just need to know how many of you you'd like you can have as many as you want all the different versions of you and isn't that like Wolverine who gets older and everybody dies the autumn we have to start over over and again note everybody's there it's all fine you're healthy everything you need is there you can even repeat the thing else had the life they're in now you love you do it again if you could find you can have as many do-overs this you want first time we took her to Disneyland my lovely daughter Lisa decided a good way to spend an entire day was to ride Dumbo 42 times after 38 honey want to do it again yes okay so let's keep doing w under 42 Dumbo's you got that but I want you now to think of all the different lives you could possibly have and one more you'd finally say I just don't know what I'd do with that one so pick a number in your head how many lives might you be in the multiverse I'm gonna go one two three one what I said four shout your number you break out a number your head participative experience here here we go 1 2 3 very 10 7 and 18 ok median 12.2 which means look the numbers bigger than 1 right there's more than one of you and we all know this so the reframe is really simple look there are lots of great use you know and so in fact they're the center fees exercise we do in our courses in our book we call the Odyssey plan the odyssey plan is three different versions of the next 5 years of you'll have completely different versions you know because of course there's more than one of you can't have an idea about your future have to have some ideas about your future because there's so many of you and it's never too late is it really never too late is it really never too late yes it is really never too late by the way because we're doing this stuff and we did the book and the Stanford sent us to 16 cities and all this stuff people suddenly say well gosh you guys hang out with young people a lot you you talk to college students on a lot of Millennials you know don't you really find this is a young prisons question that what's really true is you know there's a certain point fence which this is not the question anymore let me reframe what you just asked me Dave you and Bill been on the road a lot have you noticed there's an age passed which most people really don't care anymore and they're just waiting to die and there's no we have not noticed that and the first big meeting we had 40 people in New York come out to talk about stuff just like we're talking here right in the middle in the center from the class of 1953 there's our Stanford alumni you know is Connie and Connie is 87 years old and we do this exercise we do this exercise in the room with the three versions of your future and of course immediately I can see she's stuck well she's 87 you know how come dear can I can I help you oh yes could you please I just have so many ideas I don't know where to start oh oh that's the problem you got you really want to be Connie when you grow up trust me when I do that little exercise we just did my anecdotal observation is the older the median age of a crowd the higher the number you're not just getting older you're not even just getting better you're getting bigger over time you realize how capacious and huge you actually are now why the world really is this thing just gets better and worse at the same time all right so that's Connie now is it really never too late I just got an email from a woman who said thank you very much I just wanted you to know you're really able to help people because I have a dear husband whose parents convinced him when he was a child that he really wasn't worth anything and he unfortunately believed them and for the 38 years of our marriage I've been trying to encourage him and he's really been stuck and hasn't really been able to get anywhere but some of your ideas have helped him and he's actually moving he's finally moving that's not because we wrote an amazing book books aren't gonna just fundamentally change you he's an amazing person we're all amazing persons it's just you might have some stuff in your head that's got you stuck that you don't need anymore is it really true it's never too late yes it really is so build your way for by designing your life now what does that mean the secret sauce is this design thinking so very briefly Design Thinking is one of a number of ways of thinking with engineering thinking sharing thinking solves problems way well understand that's great good way to build a bridge build if today it works build it tomorrow it works fine you know that's a great solution we got business thinking in business you never write you never done you'd ever have enough profitability or enough customer satisfaction but you can optimize your gonna have figures of marriage you can learn how to think in an optimization sort of wake in to research like we do at the University start with hypothesis dependent independent variables a whole series of steps to get down to the critical question it's a wonderful analytic approach so I can solve my way for it I can optimize my way for I can analyze my way for it but all those tame problem solutions well bounded well interested problem solutions don't solve wicked problems when you don't know what you're looking for until you find it kind of like your own life and that's when you have to build your way forward in design thinking as a way to build your way forward and solve a wicked problem it does too has two descriptions a process and a set of mindsets the process has five steps you can start with everything really understand what's going on then define your point of view then have some ideas try them out and go test them before you hit the world and before you do any of that don't forget to accept the reality the way it is because trust me it goes through a place that looks just like today no matter where you are you're starting the right place the mind sets the way a designer kind of look two things are pretty simple you know we start with curiosity ooh that's interesting which is gonna cause us to go talk to a whole bunch of people the radical collaboration doesn't mean radical ideas that means radically talk to everybody and in so doing I'm probably gonna get a new point if I'm going to reframe the way I think about some things I'm gonna keep the process steps in mind so I get neither head up nor behind myself and eventually when in doubt do something quit thinking and analyzing go do stuff we build and we do to think so what is this designing a life what do you guys actually talk about well it's a whole bunch of stuff it's all that that's way too much I mean okay so could you could you simplify that if you're not thinking down well yeah there's three things get curious talk to people try stuff that's really it ah no let's take these one at time victorious curate your curiosity by pursuing layton wonderful us you know it looks like if you've curated your curiosity curating curiosity means you live - the kind of life like my friend Stu did when he was well into his nineties and he was dying he was homeland hospice care and he was fidgeting a little bit and he looked like he might have been been in some pain in his and his daughter said dad do you want me to hit the morphine button he says no no no only good to do this once I don't miss it that's serious curiosity I wonder what my death is going to be like that's going to be so interesting that's a guy this curators curiosity but now to make this thing accessible you know that's not the at the end of a guy that already knows have how do you build this well lets you use a story we use a story a particularly life will illustrate this too in the book a caller Clara in life we call her Claudia I happen to know this story right there well because she just happens to be my wife okay um nepotism notwithstanding it's a great illustration how to do this thing right so in in curiosity by the way she starts out by being curious about the fact that what do I do now because she did exactly two things for thirty years raised her kids and made the money single mom kids graduate move toward retirement haven't got a single idea what to do with myself haven't got a single passion haven't got a plan B have got nothing so what do I do I decide the world is full of interesting things and I'm gonna start being aware of what I not didn't used to notice and open the way the only thing I could remember is I used to be a feminist and I still am actually and I think that's really important of it that women thing is important to me so she just starts noticing and looking and she bumps into a thing called the California Women's Foundation and she talks to some of these people she is sitting at the coffee I were at church and somebody announces there's a mediation clash it was it was that's interesting what is mediation anyway and off she goes and those curiosities begin to cure it and turn into talking to people now when you talk to me what do you do get the story there's not about getting the job it's not about getting the money it's not about getting the transaction it's just about get the story when you talk to people you're just getting the story so she does this she gets the story from the mediator and finds that really interesting and gets invited to maybe take a class and come observe and she she goes to the Women's Foundation you know meets with the president sits in on a meeting gets invited to come you know she just follows her know he's pursuing layton wonderful and she doesn't even know what she's looking for yet she'll know it when she finds it now you say maybe I'm you know like Amy I'm an insurer I don't want to do all that talking how does that work what's the secret to get people to talk you it's really simple interested is interesting interested is interested curiosity really does work if you've decided who a coin therapy I didn't even know horses had depression no no we use horses to help people with depression you know and so the equity is like a real safe you can actually do a quite fit okay and so you go find an equi interest now how many of you probably think you know what how do you think your life is interesting to you yeah about that most people do so if it turns out I've done the research and hey you know Aloise your neckline therapist I think what you do is fascinating and you think what you do is fascinating we share the fact that we both think you are so cool so we could have a conversation that interesting interested is really interesting and if you curate a true curiosity it's a power pill inside you that will move you through but I don't know how to do this which finally get you to try stuff when it comes to try stuff they mean set the bar low and clear it I just had a cup of coffee she says and then I went to I sat in on a meeting you know and observed a class and then I'm going to take the class she just took the class that didn't sign up it isn't certified eventually she's doing mediation on the side you know and what you want to do then is repeat until engaged there's no deadline so Claudia kept going on these things and it turned out the one that she noticed herself continuing to come back to over and over again was on homelessness one of the philanthropists in town said hey I hear you're looking for stuff to do follow me come take a tour of the homeless service center in Santa Cruz she can't be here with me today because she's flying back from DC having just been a week in the National homelessness conference because she's on the way to becoming a national thought leader on solving this problem after seven years of being the president of the homeless Center in Santa Cruz where we live so repeat until engaged and that's what it means to design your life what are really saying is we're designing our aliveness the whole point is to by getting curious curating that curiosity proactively the same way stood in the same way eventually Claudia they're very accessible way and then talk to a bunch of people it's all about the people you're hearing social connectedness from all of us and then try stuff and keep trying stuff until you notice oh I'm actually doing stuff and that's the way you can design a long and joyful life okay I'm just about out of time in fact I get eleven point two seconds so wrapping this thing up why does this work what's this all about what's really about this human centered design thing design thinking was called human centered design when it was conceived in the 60s it's all about what works for people so applying a human process to the human life real thing real tools for real people that's what it's all about so does any life we're just trying to do this a little more humanely and the feedback we're getting is that that more human approach is leaving people more hopeful and a little bit or helped so as we ask the question about longevity what kind of life we trying to help people experience we're probably coming up but things like happen we want be able to be more passionate and balanced and super powered and connected and kale loving and innovative and just plain dazzling you know let's have long dazzling lives you know that's great but can we not lose our focus on being a little more human and if we pursued that that would be a worthy thing Thanks [Applause]

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 421,123

Rating: 4.813128 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxTalks, English, United States, Design, Behavior, Change, Creativity, Happiness, Life Development

Id: fkvIwq7oxzM

Length: 19min 0sec (1140 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 14 2017