Mark: The worst career advice you've ever received might be the one you hear most often: "Follow your passion." Today, we're exploring a radical idea from two Stanford designers: that passion isn't something you find, it's something you design and build. Michelle: Hold on, are you telling me every graduation card I've ever signed is based on a lie? That feels like a pretty big claim. "Follow your passion" is the bedrock of every inspirational speech ever given. Mark: It’s a beautiful sentiment, but it can be paralyzing advice. And that’s the central argument in the book we’re diving into today, Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. Michelle: And these aren't just any authors. They run the Design Program at Stanford, and this whole book grew out of one of the most popular courses on campus. They've literally applied the same thinking that went into designing the first Apple mouse to the problem of figuring out what to do with your life. Mark: Exactly. They argue that most of us are operating with a faulty toolkit, filled with what they call 'dysfunctional beliefs.' These are the myths that keep us stuck, and the 'passion' myth is the biggest one of all. Michelle: I’m intrigued. Because the idea of just waiting for a lightning bolt of passion to strike has always felt a little... passive. So what’s the alternative? Mark: The alternative is to think like a designer. And the first step for a designer is to identify the real problem. In this case, the problem isn't that you haven't found your passion; it's that you believe you're supposed to have one to begin with.

Mark: The book kicks off by dismantling these common beliefs. Let's start with one that trips up so many young people: the idea that your college degree determines your career. Michelle: Oh, I know that feeling. The immense pressure to pick the 'right' major because you think it locks you in for the next forty years. Mark: Right. But the data shows that's just not true. The book points out that only about 27% of college graduates end up in a career directly related to their major. Three-quarters of them do something else entirely. Michelle: Wow, only 27 percent. That single statistic could probably lower the collective anxiety of every college campus by half. Mark: It really could. And they tell this great story about a student named Ellen. She majored in geology because she liked rocks. A perfectly fine reason. But after two years, she realized she didn't want to be a geologist. She finished the degree, graduated, and ended up back at her parents' house, totally lost, babysitting and walking dogs. Her parents were confused—they thought she was supposed to be a geologist. She was stuck. Michelle: That story is painfully relatable. She followed a flicker of interest, and it led her to a dead end. But what about the people who do everything 'right'? They pick a prestigious path, they succeed, they make a ton of money... and they're still miserable. That feels even more terrifying. Mark: That’s the next, and perhaps more insidious, dysfunctional belief: "If you are successful, you will be happy." The book shares this absolutely heartbreaking story of a woman named Janine. She was a high-powered lawyer in Silicon Valley. Top schools, prestigious firm, beautiful house, great marriage—she had checked every single box society tells you to check. Michelle: The dream life, on paper. Mark: Exactly. But she was profoundly unhappy. She would stand on her deck at night and just cry, feeling this immense emptiness, because she had achieved everything she thought she wanted, and it brought her no joy. She had successfully climbed a ladder that was leaning against the wrong wall. Michelle: That gives me chills. Janine's story is a cautionary tale. It shows that success is not the same as fulfillment. So, if your degree doesn't define you, and success doesn't guarantee happiness, what on earth are you supposed to aim for? How do you find the 'right' wall to lean your ladder against? Mark: That is the million-dollar question, and it's where the authors pivot from identifying the problems to introducing the designer's mindset. They have a fantastic quote: "Designers don’t think their way forward. Designers build their way forward." Michelle: Build their way forward. What does that actually look like? It sounds active, which I like, but also a bit abstract. Mark: It means you stop trying to have it all figured out in your head and start running small, low-stakes experiments in the real world. You start gathering data on yourself. And the first tool for that is something they call 'Wayfinding.'

Michelle: Wayfinding. It sounds like something you'd do with a compass in the woods. How does it apply to a career crisis? Mark: The compass is you! And the tool is deceptively simple: it's called the Good Time Journal. Michelle: A journal? Okay, Mark, that sounds a little... quaint. Is this just writing "dear diary, today was a good day"? Mark: Not at all. Think of it less like a diary and more like a data log for your own life. For a few weeks, you jot down your main activities each day. Then you rate each one on two simple scales: Engagement—how absorbed were you?—and Energy—did the activity energize you or drain you? Michelle: Ah, I see. So it's like Marie Kondo for your schedule. You're not asking what you're 'supposed' to do; you're asking what actually sparks joy, or in this case, engagement and energy. Mark: Precisely. You're looking for patterns. You're trying to identify the moments you enter a state of 'flow,' where you're so absorbed that time seems to disappear. The book tells the story of Michael, a civil engineer who was bored and miserable in his job. He did the Good Time Journal and a surprising pattern emerged. Michelle: What did he find? Mark: He realized he absolutely loved the complex, nitty-gritty engineering problems. That’s when he was in flow. But he hated the administrative side of his job—the paperwork, the client meetings, the bureaucracy. That stuff drained all his energy. The data was clear. Michelle: So what did he do with that data? He couldn't just tell his boss he was only going to do the fun parts of his job. Mark: No, but the insight gave him a new direction. He realized he wanted to be a pure problem-solver. So, he went back to school, got a Ph.D. in structural engineering, and now he works as a high-level consultant on incredibly complex projects. He used the data from his journal to design a job that maximized his energy and engagement. He built his way forward. Michelle: Okay, I love that. It's concrete and data-driven. But that's one path. What if you're like Ellen and have no idea what you want? What if your journal just says you hate everything about your current job? Mark: An excellent question. That's where the next, more radical tool comes in: Prototyping your future with 'Odyssey Plans.' Michelle: Odyssey Plans. That sounds epic. Mark: It is! The exercise is to brainstorm and map out three completely different five-year plans for your life. Three alternative versions of you. Michelle: Three? That sounds incredibly overwhelming. What's the point of creating two plans you know you're not going to follow? Mark: It’s a creativity tool designed to get you unstuck. The authors say we often fixate on one idea and try to force it to work. Having to invent three paths shatters that fixation. Plan One is your current idea, the life you're already building. Plan Two is what you would do if Plan One suddenly vanished—say, your entire industry disappeared overnight. Michelle: Okay, a backup plan. That makes sense. Mark: But Plan Three is the wild card. It’s the life you would live if money and what other people think were completely irrelevant. What would you do if you didn't have to worry about practicality or prestige? Michelle: Ah, that’s where the magic is. That’s the one where you admit you'd rather be a potter in New Mexico or a surf instructor in Costa Rica. Mark: Exactly! And by putting all three on paper, you start to see that you aren't a one-trick pony. You contain multitudes. You might notice common threads across all three plans. Maybe 'teaching' shows up in all of them, just in different forms. It’s not about picking one of the three plans and executing it perfectly. It's about generating options and realizing your life is not a single point on a map, but a vast territory to explore.

Michelle: Okay, so you do the exercises. You have your three Odyssey Plans. You've got options. But now you have a new problem: which one to choose? I can just feel the analysis paralysis setting in. How do you pick? Mark: This is one of my favorite parts of the book, because their answer is so counterintuitive and backed by fascinating research. They talk about the 'paradox of choice.' They cite a famous study that was done in a grocery store... with jam. Michelle: Jam? How does jam explain life choices? Mark: The researchers set up a tasting booth. On one day, they offered 24 different kinds of specialty jams. On another day, they offered only six. The results were stunning. The table with 24 jams attracted more people—60% of shoppers stopped. But only 3% of them actually bought a jar. Michelle: And the table with six jams? Mark: It attracted fewer people, only 40% stopped. But of those who stopped, 30% bought a jar. The bottom line: more options got more attention, but fewer options led to more action and satisfaction. Michelle: So having too many options actually makes it harder to choose and be happy with your choice. That completely upends the idea that freedom is about having infinite possibilities. Mark: It does. And the authors use this to make a profound point. The secret to happiness is not making the 'right' choice. The secret is learning to 'choose well.' And choosing well means gathering and creating options, narrowing them down, making a discerning choice, and then—this is the crucial part—letting go of the options you didn't pick and moving on. Committing to your choice is what makes you happy with it. Michelle: That feels like a superpower. To just choose and not be haunted by the 'what ifs.' But what if you choose and it's a disaster? What if you fail? That's the fear that keeps people from choosing in the first place. Mark: And that brings us to the final, and maybe most important, designer mindset: Failure Immunity. Michelle: Failure Immunity. I want that. Sign me up. How does it work? Because failure, in my experience, feels pretty awful. Mark: It’s the ultimate reframe. The book has this incredible quote: "Failure is just the raw material of success." Designers don't see failure as an endpoint; they see it as data. When you build a prototype, you're not expecting it to be perfect. You're expecting it to teach you something. A failed prototype is incredibly valuable. Michelle: So a 'failed' career path is just a prototype that gave you some really useful data about what doesn't work for you. Mark: Exactly! You're not a failure; you just ran a great experiment. This connects to a bigger idea: life is a process, not an outcome. We get so caught up in judging our lives by the results—the job title, the bank account, the diploma. But a designer knows that life is an ongoing project of building your way forward. It's not a finite game with a winner and a loser. It's an infinite game, where the only goal is to keep playing, to keep learning, and to keep designing.

Michelle: So, if I'm hearing this right, the entire philosophy is to stop searching for the one perfect, pre-existing answer for your life, as if it's a treasure you have to find. Instead, you act like a designer: you get curious, you talk to people, you try stuff, and you pay close attention to what actually energizes you. Mark: That's the perfect summary. It's a fundamental shift from planning to designing. Planning is about having a fixed map to a known destination. Designing is for when you don't know the destination, so you have to invent the tools and the map as you go. Michelle: And what I find so hopeful about this is that it's never too late. The book is filled with stories of people in their 30s, 40s, 50s completely reinventing themselves. It’s not just for 22-year-olds. It’s for anyone who feels that their ladder is on the wrong wall. Mark: Absolutely. The ultimate goal is to build a life that is coherent. That's a word they come back to again and again. A coherent life is one where who you are, what you believe, and what you do all line up together. When those three things are in sync, that's where you find meaning and joy. Michelle: I love that. It feels so much more achievable and less pressure-filled than 'finding your one true calling.' So, for our listeners, maybe the first small prototype they can run this week is just that Good Time Journal. No big decisions, no life changes. Just for a few days, log your energy and engagement. See what the data tells you. Mark: A perfect first step. The moment you do that, you're no longer just living your life. You're designing it. Michelle: This is Aibrary, signing off.