Dr. Roland Steele: You've built a career, a life, you've followed the rules... and yet, you find yourself asking, 'Is this really it? What's next?' For millions, this question feels like a crisis. But what if it's actually a design opportunity?

test0917: That's a powerful reframe right there, Roland. Turning a moment of anxiety into a moment of creation.

Dr. Roland Steele: Exactly. And that's the radical idea behind the book we're diving into today, "Designing Your Life" by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. It takes principles from the Stanford design lab and applies them to life's 'wicked problems'—the messy, un-optimizable ones. I’m Dr. Roland Steele, and with me is test0917, who is actively exploring this very terrain of personal innovation and self-discovery.

test0917: It's a fascinating landscape to explore. I think many of us get to a certain point and realize the old maps don't work anymore. We need new tools.

Dr. Roland Steele: Well, today we're going to unpack two of the most powerful tools from this book. Today we'll dive deep into this from two powerful perspectives. First, we'll explore how to build your personal 'compass' to define what truly matters. Then, we'll discuss how to become a life innovator, using prototyping to explore different versions of your future without fear.

Dr. Roland Steele: So, test0917, before we can design anything, the book argues we need a blueprint, or rather, a compass. Let's start there. The authors say you need to articulate two things: your Workview and your Lifeview. Your Workview is your philosophy of work—what it's for, why you do it. Your Lifeview is your personal take on the big questions: What gives life meaning? What's the point?

test0917: So it’s about defining your personal 'why' for both work and life.

Dr. Roland Steele: Precisely. The goal is to find between them. The book tells this incredible story of a woman named Janine. She was the picture of success—a high-powered lawyer in a top Silicon Valley firm, beautiful house, perfect family. She had meticulously planned and executed her life. But she was profoundly unhappy. She'd find herself standing on her deck at night, just crying, with this deep sense of emptiness.

test0917: That story about Janine is powerful. It's a classic 'success disaster.' She optimized for the wrong metrics—the external ones, the ones society hands you. She achieved the goal but missed the prize.

Dr. Roland Steele: A success disaster, I like that. She had no coherency. Who she was, what she believed, and what she was doing every day were completely out of sync. The 'compass' is the tool to prevent that. It's about defining your metrics for a well-lived life.

test0917: And that feels like a profound act of self-care, doesn't it? It's what builds real, durable self-confidence. It's not just a logical framework; it's about giving yourself permission to listen to your own emotional and intuitive data. It requires empathy for yourself, to actually hear that quiet voice that Janine was ignoring for so long.

Dr. Roland Steele: Yes! The authors say a well-designed life is one where you can connect the dots between who you are, what you believe, and what you do. For Janine, those dots were on different pages. Building a compass is about getting them to form a clear picture.

test0917: It makes you think about the historical figures I admire, like Lincoln or Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Their lives had this incredible coherency, even through immense struggle. Their actions were so clearly driven by a deeply held Lifeview. They weren't just reacting; they were operating from an internal compass.

Dr. Roland Steele: That's a fantastic connection. They had a True North. And once you have that compass, the book says, you don't just follow one predetermined path. This is where the real innovation begins. The book argues against finding the 'one right answer,' which leads us to our second, and perhaps most creative, idea: prototyping your lives.

test0917: I'm intrigued. As someone interested in creativity and innovation, the idea of applying it to life itself is compelling. How do you prototype a life?

Dr. Roland Steele: Well, you start by throwing out the idea that you need one perfect plan. Instead, the book introduces the 'Odyssey Plan' exercise. You create three completely different five-year plans.

test0917: Three? Not just a plan B?

Dr. Roland Steele: Three. And they're very specific. Plan One is 'That Thing You Do'—your current life, evolved forward. Plan Two is 'That Thing You'd Do if Thing One Were Gone'—if your industry vanished tomorrow, what would you pivot to? And Plan Three... that's the wild one. It's 'The Thing You'd Do if Money or Image Were No Object.'

test0917: I love this. This is pure creativity. It's not about choosing, it's about. It immediately lowers the stakes and removes the fear of getting it wrong. You're just brainstorming possibilities.

Dr. Roland Steele: Exactly. It's about generating options. The authors tell a story about an MBA student who was convinced he only had one path: management consulting. When they pushed him with these hypotheticals, he suddenly came up with two other lives he was genuinely excited about: working inside a big media company, and his 'wild idea,' starting a wine distribution business. He had these other lives inside him all along; he just hadn't given himself permission to see them.

test0917: That's so common. We get anchored to one idea of who we're supposed to be. This exercise seems designed to break that anchor. So once you have these three wild plans, what's next? You don't just pick one and leap, do you?

Dr. Roland Steele: Absolutely not. That would be risky and inefficient. You prototype. You treat each plan as a hypothesis and run small, low-cost experiments to gather data. For the wine business idea, you don't quit your job and buy a vineyard. You just have a conversation. The book calls it a 'Life Design Interview.' You find someone in the wine business and just ask them to tell you their story.

test0917: So you're not asking for a job, you're just asking for directions. You're gathering intelligence. That is so much less intimidating than 'networking.' It's driven by curiosity.

Dr. Roland Steele: It's an economist's dream! You're gathering data on potential futures with minimal investment. You're de-risking a major life change. You're testing your assumptions. You might find out that running a wine business is 90% spreadsheets and you hate spreadsheets. That's a successful prototype! You learned something valuable and saved yourself a decade of misery.

test0917: And this is a way to combat those 'anchor problems' the book mentions, right? Like the story of Melanie, the professor who was stuck because she thought she needed fifteen million dollars to start her social innovation institute. That was her anchor. By prototyping—just talking to people on campus—she found a completely different, more creative, and immediate solution. She reframed the problem itself.

Dr. Roland Steele: You've nailed it. She stopped trying to solve the 'funding problem' and started solving the 'impact problem.' Prototyping gets you out of your head and into the world, where the real solutions are.

Dr. Roland Steele: So, when you put it all together, it's a surprisingly simple and elegant system. It's a two-part process: First, build the compass to know your direction, to define your own version of a meaningful life.

test0917: And second, use that compass to explore, not just execute. You become a life innovator by designing and prototyping multiple futures, gathering real-world data on what truly engages and energizes you.

Dr. Roland Steele: It's a shift from 'thinking your way forward' to 'building your way forward.' So, for our listeners who are feeling that 'what's next?' question, what's the first small step?

test0917: I think the book's most powerful first step isn't some grand gesture. It's simple awareness. The authors suggest starting a 'Good Time Journal.' For just one week, you log your daily activities and, more importantly, you note how they make you feel—your level of engagement and your energy.

Dr. Roland Steele: So you're creating a personal dashboard.

test0917: Exactly. It's your first personal dataset. It's a small, curious, and deeply empathetic act. It’s not about judgment; it’s about observation. And that simple log is the beginning of designing a life that truly, authentically fits you. It's your first prototype.

Dr. Roland Steele: A perfect, actionable prototype. It embodies the whole philosophy. test0917, thank you for these wonderful insights. This has been a masterclass in applying design to life.

test0917: Thank you, Roland. It's a conversation that gives you a lot of hope, and a lot of creative energy.