Designing Your Life

MAD Prep

Below are optional activities you can pursue in advance of the meeting to enrich your book club experience. These are publicly-available resources that we invite you to explore before we meet:

• Start Where You Are
• What are your top three Values?
• Energy-Engagement Map Worksheet
• Screwup – Weakness – Growth Opportunity. Make a list of your “failures” and indicate whether you would characterize each one as a screwup, weakness, or a growth opportunity. What did you learn?
• Dysfunctional Beliefs and the Reframe – Review the list. Do you have any of these beliefs? What do you think of the authors’ characterization of them as “dysfunctional” and their proposed reframe?

The book

Designing Your Life: How to Build a Well-Lived, Joyful Life by Bill Burnett & Dave Evans, has changed the way people approach and reflect on their careers and lives. Designing your working life is about more than preparing your resume, networking effectively, and negotiating the best compensation package possible. “True happiness comes from designing a life that works for you.”

As part of the discussion, we will look at some of the book’s key themes:

• Starting Where You Are
• Building a Compass
• Getting Unstuck
• Identifying Your Many Possible Lives
• Failure Immunity
• Building a Team

A limited supply of complimentary copies are available from MAD; contact mitmad[a]mit.edu.

Additional Resources

• Related Books
• 5 Steps to Designing the Life You Want – Bill Burnett, TEDxStanford
• The National Public Radio podcast "Design Thinking Could Help Those Who Want To Get Unstuck”
• Designing Your Life website