Stanford Open Office Hours: Dave Evans and Bill Burnett

[MUSIC].

Stanford University.

[MUSIC].

>> Hi.

[COUGH].

>> Let me introduce my colleague, Dave Evans.

Dave Evans is the Co-Director of the D Life Lab here at Stanford.

He's been teaching.

Designing a life with me for seven years.

>> And this is my colleague Bill Burnett,

the executive director of the design program at Stanford.

He's been here 25 years teaching people how to do design

and we're joining forces today to do open office hours with you.

And probably the questions we hear the most

often is, I don't know what my passion is

you know, can you help me find my passion so then I know what to do next.

And the answer is, we don't think it's a great question.

>> Yeah the research says that maybe only two or three out of

ten people actually have a passion that

they've identified that they can work into.

We believe that actually passion turns out to be what

you develop after you find the things that you enjoy doing.

So, if you start with a passion question, seven out

of ten people are going to just have nowhere to go.

So we don't like that question.

>> If you've got one, that's great.

If you've got a passion, that's great, but, you

know, most people don't, and it's not a prerequisite.

>> Right.

The other question we get asked a

lot, particularly here on campus, someone says, hey

I'm going to major in English, or I'm

going to major in Comparative, you know, Religious Studies.

And the next thing they hear typically from a parent or

an adult is, so what are you going to do with that?

As if your major decided who you would be for the rest of your lives.

So these are two what we call dysfunctional beliefs.

And once you get rid of both of those that your

major's link to your job and that your passion is some [UNKNOWN].

An innate, you know, quality.

Once you, once you realize that neither of those things are actually true.

You're really free to use designed thinking

to start designing the life you want to have.

So Dave, we have a question for Julia who wants

to know if we have any advice for an aspiring generalist.

>> Advice we need, probably, first of all, there's the issue of advice.

Do we give advice or do we give counsel.

We make a distinction there, by the way,

which is, you know every counsel is when we

help you figure out what you're thinking, and

advice is when we tell you what we think.

And they're very different.

>> Right.

>> She's asked for advice, we'll try to be helpful.

We prefer counsel, by the way, but since we, Julie's not

here, we'll try to pick up some things that might be helpful.

general, if someone says, I'm an aspiring generalist, I

hear two things there, and they might be pretty different.

I really want to be a, I want to be doing

lots of things at the same time, I want to live a life.

That's not particularly rooted in one narrow lane.

>> Right.

>> That's one version.

>> Right.

>> Or, there's a person who has lots

of interests and really doesn't know where to start.

They're willing to focus in on something,

but it, [SOUND] it's not presenting itself yet.

Which of these varieties of ways.

>> Yeah, yeah.

>> Should I go and I'm kind of stuck.

>> Right.

>> Those are different problems.

Let's take the second one because that comes up a lot.

>> Yeah.

If you're in the situation where there's lots and lots of things you're excited and

interested about, but you can't pick one our

advice again, is to start where you're at.

There will be one or two things that maybe

have a slightly different emotional energy in them than.

>> Than the other ones.

>> The other ones.

So you go find somebody who does something like that.

You look at the future you.

>> Right.

>> Someone whose already living the you you might become.

>> Right.

>> And you go talk to them.

>> This is a place again where the design thinking really, really impacts reality.

We kind of go with prototype iteration, try stuff, see what works.

>> Bias to action.

>> Bias to action.

And here are all these ideas I have.

I'm interested in marketing, I'm interested in social

innovation, I'm interested in working on an organic farm.

>> Mm-hm.

>> Really different things.

>> Mm-hm.

>> And I really, gosh, gosh, know Dave and Bill.

I really don't have an emotional preference.

>> Mm-hm.

>> I'm truly stuck.

>> Right.

>> Well, wait a minute.

You're assuming the priority is, I need to really like one more than the other.

>> Right.

>> There are lots of other starting places.

What's more accessible?

What's in the geography?

I find, is interesting.

Where's where one of my friends might be.

>> Right.

>> So you could just go with availability.

Who do I know?

Or I happen to know somebody working on an organic farm.

Fine, go talk to them.

>> Yeah, start there.

>> Start there.

Start were you have access to, it really doesn't matter.

But get going into the conversation.

>> Yeah.

>> And things will start happening.

>> So there's two things we just talked,

we just did in, in the design thinking framework.

One is, bias to action.

>> Right.

>> Don't try to decide your way forward, just do something.

And then.

>> Right, design your way forward.

>> Design your way forward.

And the second is reframe.

Reframe the problem from gee, I can't figure out

which one of these is my, my most favorite.

>> Mm-hm.

Right.

>> To.

All of these are good.

I'm going to, I'm just going to start doing them.

>> Right, so if I'm a generalist with equal

interest I'm in a much more powerful position because

I have lots of available starting places to begin

to understand what it is I really want to do.

>> Yeah.

>> As opposed to, I can't possibly choose.

You're not choosing yet, you're just starting.

>> Yeah, which is a really powerful reframe.

In the old position, since I can't choose, I can't start.

>> Right.

>> I have no power, in the reframed

position, I'm in a better situation than a specialist.

>> Which is the design point of view, you know you

don't know the answer, many people in this vocational way finding

as we call it, think you have to know the answer

at the beginning and then you implement it, and you're screwed.

>> Right.

>> It's the technical term.

[LAUGH].

>> But, what it really means is.

I just know what I know, take the next step, it will be revealed as you go.

>> April was a chemistry major thinking of

maybe doing a, a pre-veterinarian track but just decided.

>> So she's clear she on path.

>> Well, she's changed her mind and she's

decided that she wants to go maybe into marketing.

She's also a vegan.

So how does a chemistry major who's a vegan get a job in marketing Dave?

>> It isn't too late to change, yeah [CROSSTALK] is it too late to change?

No it's not too late to change, first of all you know you

can redirect your intention of, there's no reason to drop the chemistry major.

I mean a chemistry major can absolutely have a marketing career.

>> Yeah.

>> I have a bachelors in mechanical engineering and a

masters in thermosciences, which I spent about five minutes using.

And 35 years doing marketing, so, trust me, you can do it.

But how would she get there so the short answer's yes.

Then, the real issue is, how do I start down this other path.

>> Right.

>> So how do I do that?

>> Well you start with accept, I've changed my

mind, I'm no longer going to go to med school.

And often times we find that actually making that decision is a very freeing.

Point in this process.

And the next thing you do is you go start having, what we call

informational interviews, with people who are marketing

products in organizations you might want to work in.

>> Right, so let's say I'm a, I'm a, I'm a vegan, where do I even begin?

Well, begin with what's interesting.

Everybody is interested in something.

>> Right.

>> So you think of what are the products

you think are kind of interesting in the world.

What companies are making those sort of things.

And find your way to get.

To people in those organizations and say, gee,

how did you guys come up with these products?

What are you doing, what's on your mind?

You get conversations, again information interviews.

Not looking for a job, you're just looking for the story,

and everybody's got a story, so that conversation is easy to get.

>> Right.

The jobs are hard to get.

You don't want to look like, I'm looking for a job.

I don't need a job, I just need your story.

And what's it like working in

this, you know, animal-friendly cosmetics product company?

>> Right.

Right.

>> So we had a question from Daniel who asks, what should I be when I grow up?

actually, the cheap answer is older.

[LAUGH].

>> You know, and, but older and Daniel.

So but we have some thoughts on it.

>> You know, and, and this isn't just the, this is a college question.

We hear this from 30 somethings, from 40 somethings.

>> Yeah.

>> From 50 somethings.

When we did a talk to the Parent's Advisory Council, they all said.

>> Yeah.

>> Oh, I'm still trying to figure out, you know, who I want to be when I grow up.

>> Yeah, our short answer what do you guys do for a living, we

teach classes on helping people figure out what they want to be when they grow up.

And everybody, including the dean of the school

of engineering said oh, can I take the class.

>> Yeah.

>> So everybody's got Daniel's question.

>> Yeah, it's a, it's a pretty common question.

And it's, again, it's one of those things where we'd like

to sort of reframe the answer because you can't know, ultimately.

Who you will become when you quote, grow up.

>> Right.

>> But you can know.

>> By the way, that's the good news.

>> Yeah.

>> Do you, do you really want to be able to

know at 22 who your 60 year old self should be?

I mean do you really want this 22 year old running the next 50 years of your life?

We hope to find out things we couldn't possibly have imagined.

>> Yeah.

>> I don't want to be able to know that answer, do I?

>> No, it's just the design perspective is when I'm starting a new

design I don't actually know the answer,

I'm going to design into that possible future.

So we reframe the question not as what do you want to be when I grow up.

It's like where am I right now and what is the next

step I can take to move towards the best possible version of me?

>> Right.

>> Right.

>> We frame that with language so, the, the way the question's

usually posed, it assumes you could navigate to where you should be.

>> Right, do you know the end point.

>> And navigations [CROSSTALK].

>> And how to get to Fresno so I just GPS myself to Fresno.

>> Yeah.

But we can't, because I don't know where I'm going so

what I, I can't navigate, so I have to way find.

What's way finder?

>> It's, it's moving from where you are to the

next available place, that you can make a decision about.

It's the same thing as the generalist deciding, hey what's available to me.

>> Right, so the, the real answer to Daniel's question is

what's the next best step for me to take, that will

have a more likely outcome that in the long run I

will say I grew into the Daniel I wanted to be.

>> Right.

>> That's the better question.

And, and, and that first step is.

Leaning into the invitation in front of you, that

looks most life giving, that looks most interesting and

energizing and by the way is available in real

time and in real space, and, and is accessible.

>> And as you're moving towards that best

possible Daniel, you're increasing what we call coherence, right?

>> Right.

>> Talk about coherence.

>> So by coherence we mean you know, who am I?

What do I believe and what am I doing?

If, if I understand what those things are, what do, what do I think about life

and who I am, you know what I'm actually doing and where I'm trying to go.

If I can describe those things articulately.

>> Mm-hm.

>> And interconnect the dots, not that they're perfect

but even understanding where the compromises are, I'm living coherently.

I mean, who I am, what I'm doing all lines up for me.

>> Right, right.

>> That's the coherent life and

even positive psychology research demonstrates pretty clearly.

If I can articulate what those things are, who I am,

what I believe and what I'm doing, and I can understand

the interrelationship between them, my chance of feeling good about my

life, and, and that it's a meaningful experience is much higher.

>> Right.

>> So, Sylvan [SOUND] asked us the question

I can't remember, 57 year old, you know,

working musician currently studying psychology, got any tips

for the next 25 years of my life?

>> Well you know, we, we do a thing in, in our

class where we talk to college students, and all the college students

we talked to, when they got in to college, people said to

them, oh, Dave, this, the college will going to be the best years.

>> Best years of your life.

>> Best years of your life, so that implies

that at 57 he's already had his best years.

>> Yeah, you're 30 years past this.

>> Yeah.

>> By the time you're 22, you're on the

downhill slide, which is a terrifying with that idea.

>> Right.

So what you think about that?

>> Well, I think the whole idea is that it does want to move onward and upward.

And first of all, kudos to Sylvan for even asking

the questions, ideas about the next 25 years of my life.

So, he's not just trying to get

through, he's trying to keep thriving and flourishing.

>> Right.

>> And so thing one is to stay curious and interested, he's doing that well.

>> He's about my age and I'm, I tell you I would never go back to be 21 or 22 again.

>> No, and I finally remember being 57 a couple years ago

>> Yeah.

But so, Sylvan's interest in psychology, okay,

what, what door might that open for me?

>> Well, you know music is about creating emotional responses in people.

Psychology is about studying the emotional responses in people.

So I think you just keep leaning into that curiosity.

What is it about people that he finds interesting?

>> Right.

>> You know, again, because you study psychology doesn't

necessarily mean you've become a psychologist or a counselor.

>> Oh, gotta go be a therapist, yep, that's [CROSSTALK]

>> No, no, not at all.

You could use that, plus the in, your interest

in music, to discover new ways of teaching creativity.

To discover new ways of engaging people in creative acts.

The act of reading music is, is probably one

of the most creative things I could imagine doing.

>> One of the things you could do is when you got a new idea, and you

are looking for a change and you don't

know where to look, you start where you are.

>> Mm-hm.

>> So if I've been a musician, I've been creating music, I've

been playing, I've been performing, I know that aspect of the business.

And now I'm becoming more psychologically articulate and being clear

about people's experience of their emotions and what have you.

If I go back through the music industry

that I know pretty well, gee where are roles?

Where are activities that people are involved in, where that kind

of insight, that kind of informed empathy about the human experience.

Actually becomes part and partial of the work they do.

People who are in, you know, maybe music distribution

or marketing are people who are doing event management

and putting on music of, I mean, where, go

meet those people, talk to them a little bit.

>> Yeah.

>> Who knows where that's going to lead but if you

just start leaning in to the new question you've got.

To the closest community of people around you that are involved in the world.

Accessing the stuff that's now on your mind and see where it takes you.

>> Yeah, well we've also met a lot of

people around you know, of a certain age, around this

age who are sort of moving from, from a

first career to what people now call an encore career.

>> Right.

>> They're moving from the money making part of

their life to what they call the meaning making part.

So if, if.

>> The problem for Daniel as a musician, unless

he's a superstar he's skill [UNKNOWN] gotta make a living.

>> Yeah, but if, if, if if that's the direction that you're going then

you really want to pay attention to what

is, makes your life more meaningful, more coherent.

>> Right.

>> And those are the kinds of questions you can go out and talk to people about.

>> It turns out on this [UNKNOWN], we actually talked to both

our students and these midlife people we encounter on a frequent basis,

that if you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that you're

going to have not just a lot of jobs, but even multiple careers.

>> Right.

>> Like totally different, and I'm on

my fourth career, you're on your third career.

>> Mm-hm.

>> Does that affect the way you're thinking today.

And the truth is, certainly for young people today, they, I mean

they're going to live to be 100, they're going to work for 80 years.

You know you're going to have multiple careers I mean it's

ok, you're going to have more than one shot at this thing.

And for people in middle, you know, a bunch of

boomers are reinventing themselves right now, and usually the best

place to start is, what did you notice that you're

already doing that you could grow into a new thing.

Or.

Who's that person you used to be that you left behind

and do you want to bring her back out of the freezer?

>> Yeah.

>> And give her another shot.

may, maybe there was, maybe there was that latent entrepreneur, that business guy.

>> Mm-hm.

>> That Daniel left behind to, to feed his artistic self.

>> Right.

>> So Some Jen, Some Jen asked us the question, you know, should I, should I got

out and get started as a mechanical engineer, or

should I, should I stay and get a masters?

>> Right.

You know there's an old expression in the in education.

In the undergraduate years we teach you to answer hard questions.

In your graduate years we teach you to ask them.

>> Right.

>> I don't think you can ask good questions

as a graduate student until you've worked a little bit.

So I have a strong bias I, I advise all of my students.

>> Mm-hm.

>> Go out in the world.

That's where, that's where your practice of your, of your.

Education will occur and that's where you'll

discover what resonates with you, you know?

>> Right.

>> When you start working, you not only work, by

the way in that thing you got hired to do.

Right.

>> You work with people who are doing marketing and sales and business and all

these other things, you get to see how all the roles in an enterprise interact.

>> Right.

>> And often that's just tremendous amount of data for you to then figure

out okay, for graduate school I want to go back and learn more about this.

And, it's often not the same thing that you did in undergraduate school.

>> Right.

>> So, I highly advise.

>> Yeah.

>> Getting out in the world and having some experience before you decide.

>> To come back to graduate school.

>> What do I want to learn.

>> Yeah and what I want to learn.

>> Yeah.

Now you gotta know, we have a strong bias here.

And again, it, when, when you're getting advice, when we're giving

advice, you gotta know the bias of the people you're talking to.

Between us we got, what 65 years

of, of practical marketing and business experience.

I mean, we're practical guys.

And so, almost anytime we hear somebody on the fence about

should I go do it or study it, we go with.

>> Do it.

Do it.

>> Yeah.

>> You know and very few of the people we gave that

advise to came back and told us that was a bad idea.

So we, we like our advice, we think that it's true, but I do want to

point out this thing by grad studies in general and two points I want to make.

What's a graduate degree for and the difference between a masters degree and a

PhD because my p, I see a lot of PhD students who don't get it.

So a thing when, what's graduate study for?

I think it's four things you get out of a graduate degree.

You get expertise, stuff you didn't know.

>> Mm-hm.

>> You get a network.

You meet a bunch of people in your field.

You get a pivot.

I used to be a teacher, now I'm a marketing person.

You know, particularly people who go back to grad school.

And I get a sticker.

I have a masters degree, I have an MBA, I have a PhD.

You know, so those are very valuable things.

>> Yeah.

>> And the portfolio of worth to you is quite different.

And most people talk about graduate degrees like it's all about the expertise.

>> Mm-hm.

>> Let's be honest, the MBA is 80% about the network and the brand.

So know what you're buying.

My first council is, if you're going to

buy a graduate degree, know what you're buying.

Is it worth the time and money?

>> Yeah.

>> You know and most, a lot of graduate students, it, what it's really

about is a delaying action, because I'm scared to death of the next thing.

Well, they offered me a masters degree and

that's better, it's better to be a masters student.

I'll get $10,000 more when I start.

Look your just ducking it okay, get out there, get going.

If they're going to get, give it go you for

free and it's only a one year program well maybe.

PhD?

Totally the negative.

Clear thing is bachelor's degree, master's degree.

PhD it's a totally different animal.

>> Yeah.

>> It's not a bachelor's degree on steroids, it's

a completely different thing, I won't try to explain

it here, if you're not quite sure the PhD

is, please go talk to some before you sign up.

So, Siddhartha asks the question, well gee, what about artificial intelligence?

Is that a good field?

Should I go into artificial intelligence?

>> You know, we don't have any predictive abilities to tell you

what's a, you know, a great career is for you as an individual.

But, there are things that are growing.

>> Right.

>> And fields that are emerging and evolving and.

Look like they're going to be exciting.

>> Right.

>> You know, I'm a professor in mechanical engineering, but I tell

my students don't do mechanical engineering

because it's kind of a dead field.

>> Right.

>> But where mechanics and biology intersect, where mechanics

and artificial intelligence intersect, and robotics and things like that.

Those will be things that ten or 15 or 20 years out will be awesome careers.

Hey at 15 years ago, you had said, I think

there's something going on with the internet and social networks.

And you'd specialize in that.

>> I didn't know what you're talking about.

>> Right, you could have been, you could have.

>> Yeah.

>> You know, you could be at Facebook today.

>> Where change is occurring.

>> Yeah.

Where growth is occurring, what's interesting about that is

your in organizations are in places where things are happening.

>> Yeah.

And they're happening brand new, which means

there is no such thing as the expert.

There's no such thing as the perfect person.

>> Right.

>> What you want to do is get into those

places, and then go hey we need somebody to do.

Oh hey Bill you're here.

You did a good thing on that last project.

Would you go figure out what our social media?

>> Right, right.

>> Go figure that out for us.

In a growing place there's much more of that going on than a static place.

[CROSSTALK]

>> Right and as the enterprise is growing there's more

managers being created, more vice

presidents being created, more opportunities.

>> Yeah, yeah.

>> All over the place.

>> These are not good or bad or, or right or wrong but there,

there is more happening in big data than there is in print journalism right now.

So if you love print journalism okay, but you know you're in a shrinking zone.

And there are consequences related to this so just know what you're doing.

>> So Allan asked the question, you know I'm so deep into my career at this point.

You know my mid 40s almost 50.

Is it too late to change and, and embedded in this question is, I really hate my job.

>> Yeah.

You know, almost like, the world won't let.

I, I've been so good at this thing they won't let me go.

>> Right.

Right.

>> You know well we have [UNKNOWN].

You know, [UNKNOWN] a wonderful woman who is at

Stanford for 14 years because she was an unhappy lawyer.

>> Right.

>> And she was in the law being very

successful but the fact that she kind of hated

it, and she was too good at it, in

some very important firms doing some very big, visible stuff.

And she was driving down El Camino Real, passing Stanford.

You know, and just, and just looked up and saw the buildings as I

recall the story, and said I was so much happier when I was there.

>> Right

>> And then she, the, the key thing

was she confessed to herself that she was unhappy.

She remembered the time when she'd been happier and said I

don't know what it is, but I want to find some way

to get from where I am in this law practice, back

on that campus in, in, at Stanford in, in higher education.

>> Right.

>> And Allan I think it took her eight years.

>> Yeah.

>> It took her years.

>> But step one you gotta accept the truth about yourself.

>> Yeah.

>> So, we have all of our students write two things, a work view and a world view.

>> Right.

>> What do you think work is for?

And how does that connect to why you're here?

And it takes a lot of courage not to sell out those two,

two ideas about yourself and what happened with Jean Julie was she realized she

was deeply unhappy, highly competent, and deeply unhappy at one profession that she

had invested a lot of time and energy.>> Right>> In at becoming excellent at.

But she had the courage to say, I'm not going to do that any more.

>> RIght.

>> Accept that there was something else she needed.

Follow her, follow, the only clue she had,

which was this makes me happy, that doesn't.

>> Right.

>> But she had no definition of what this was yet.

>> Right, so she start, of course she knows

some people from Stanford you know, she lives nearby.

And so, she starts talking to everybody she knows at Stanford, what do you do.

>> Information [CROSSTALK].

>> What's it like, what's going on.

She didn't even know she didn't know how the academy was organized.

That took quite some time.

And then she inadvertently followed a piece of advice that another one

of our colleagues, Tina Sileg, who's in the [UNKNOWN] department and also does

a lot of work at The D School, and Tina's idea, who has

a PhD in neuroscience, so of

course she's the entrepreneurship creativity teacher here.

Her idea is, just get in the door.

And in all these conversations Julie was

having with Stanford, she bumped against, because

she's talking to law school people she's

a lawyer, and someone went on maternity leave.

I think an, an administrative, entry level administrative role.

>> Uh-huh.

>> In the law school, and she said, I'll cover for her.

And she'd made a good enough friend out of somebody in the law

school who would put up with the fact that she was massively overqualified.

>> And said, well, okay.

I mean, I don't know where this, there's only

a nine month job, it's only a one year job.

You know, then we have to let you go.

And she says don't worry about it.

Don't worry about it.

So in, take the first step, and then she did that.

>> Mm-hm.

>> And do you remember how the story goes then? [LAUGH]

>> Well I, I do as a matter.

>> No.

>> As it turns out I do.

[LAUGH].

>> Sure.

And, and what happened was see, she did this job, she, you know, and, and

she loved just being here, to really affirmed

being on the, the task was interesting enough.

And in the process, you know, she heard about another role that

was opening up just about the time the one she was in ended.

Working as a staffer in the president's office.

>> Right.

>> And if she did that, and, and if

she worked in that role in the President's office during

which time she identified a problem the university had,

which was somebody's [SOUND] gotta be watching out for freshmen.

>> Right.

>> Solely, and she invented the role of Dean of freshmen.

>> Right.

>> Which is now a regular job here that she occupied as

the first person ever, and got to do it for 14 years.

So what, so what does Julie's story tell us?

>> I think there's three design principles in her story.

One is accept.

This notion we keep going back to.

You know, it was very difficult to accept that maybe.

>> Yeah.

>> All this investment in, in law school and law, and

becoming, you know, partner in a firm wasn't going to make her happy.

Takes a lot of courage [CROSSTALK].

>> Yeah, and, you, you really can't solve a problem you're not willing to have.

>> Right.

>> It's really easy to go oh man, if I give up my law practice.

You know, you'll just be in that agony for years.

>> Yeah.

>> As was expecting [SOUND].

Is, I don't know how to do this, but I gotta get out of the law.

>> Right.

Thenare bias to action, right.

>> Yeah.

>> Get, get involved in something that gets me

closer to the, the ultimate goal of what I want.

And while I'm doing that, be really really aware and discerning.

>> Right.

>> Curious about what is going on around me.

And then, the notion that [UNKNOWN] jobs are never listed.

>> They're not there.

>> The job of Dean of freshmen didn't exist.

>> Didn't exist.

>> She invented it.

>> Yep.

>> And we find over and over and over again that people who do end

up in a position where they say, I am actually passionate about the work I do.

>> Right.

>> Invented the job that they have.

And that's a design process.

That's not applying through the internet, you know, with a resume.

>> Right.

>> Look, it's been great to talk to

you guys, and, and what we're really pleased by,

is if you're showing up at this thing

and hanging out, that means you're asking the question.

You're taking some responsibility.

You're looking for ideas and answers, and you know, trust yourself.

You're, you're the expert on you, [SOUND] your life is really worthwhile.

Do not take no for an answer.

Don't take settling for a result.

You know if you don't like what we have to

say, go find somebody who's got a better idea [SOUND].

But whatever you do, go for it.

[MUSIC]

>> Stanford University.